them fruitcakes are. Lesbians and pagans, give them a full moon and they start believing all kind of bollocks. '
Diane Campbell glared at him. 'Not very helpful, Constable.'
Delaney stopped himself from smiling as he held his hand up to quell the beginnings of laughter in the room. 'Nothing's discounted. Most likely scenario is that she was taken there, though. Sex attackers don't usually hang around in rainstorms looking for victims.'
Sally Cartwright held up her hand. She looked like she should still be in school, Delaney thought, but was glad she wasn't. She may look like a Girl Guide, but he knew beneath that pretty exterior was what his North American colleagues would have called a tough cookie. He'd had to depend on her more than once and she hadn't let him down. 'Yes, Constable?'
'Is there anything in the database matching the MO?'
'Good question. We're running it through at the moment. Until we get the detailed post it's all rather general. No immediate hits.'
Diane Campbell stepped forward. 'What leads are you pursuing, Jack?'
'A flasher was operating early this morning, near the scene of the crime.'
'You think he was involved?'
'Unlikely. But he may have seen something.'
'You have a good ID on him?'
'Pretty good. This isn't a run-of-the-mill flasher.'
'Go on.'
Delaney produced a couple of A3 sheets of paper. He pinned the first on the wall. It showed an artist's rendition of a wild-haired man in his late twenties, early thirties. 'This is the man we're looking for, and this . . .' He hesitated before putting up the second picture. 'This is his penis.'
There was some wincing, some groaning and some laughter at the second picture that Delaney pinned on the board. An artist's rendition, blown up, from the nurse's description, of the man's scarred penis.
'Is that life-size?' Bob Wilkinson couldn't resist it, and now the laughter rippled round the room like a rumbling sea at high tide.
'All right, children, that's enough.' Diane Campbell's voice barked and the room fell silent. 'Have a look at the picture over there.' She pointed at the dead woman's mutilated body. 'Any one of you find anything funny in that?' She looked pointedly at Bob Wilkinson.
'No, ma'am.'
Delaney's phone chose that moment to ring. He looked at the caller and shrugged apologetically at his boss. 'I've got to take this. I'll be right back.'
Delaney strode quickly from the briefing room before Diane Campbell could stop him and answered the call in the corridor outside. 'What have you got for me, Jimmy?'
On the other end of the phone, DI Jimmy Skinner's voice sounded thin and echoing, the sound of men in the background telling Delaney he was calling from the prison. 'Hi, Jack. I'm at Bayfield.'
'I gathered. Go on.'
'Nobody's talking. I put the hard word on Neil Riley, Norrell's old oppo, and according to him Kevin Norrell was taken down because of the kiddie porn.'
'You believe him?'
'I don't know, Jack. Something feels hinky.'
'You reckon it has anything to do with my wife?'
'Maybe. But you know as well as I do that you can trust Norrell as far as you could throw him one-handed.
