Alice thrust the bottle of water towards him with a, ‘Hey, doc, you look dapper today, despite what Gus says.’
Again, he smiled, but it was strained, the only creases appearing across his forehead were worry lines. ‘Ah, the delightful Alice. Lovely to see you. Sunday lunch on, well … Sunday?’
Alice looked uncertainly at Gus, who was studying his father, a frown furrowed across his brow. ‘Dad, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Are you feeling OK?’
Waving his hand, Dr McGuire made a concerted effort to straighten himself and wipe the frown from his face. ‘Of course, laddie. Why widnae I be?’
‘You look…’
‘Och away wi ye, Angus. I’m fine. You’ve got quite a crime scene there. Glad you asked me to look at the body in situ. I’ll schedule the PM for later today.’ He stepped aside as two CSIs escorted the body, now concealed in a body bag, out to the waiting mortuary van. Gus, Alice, and Dr McGuire stood in respectful silence as it passed. What a way to leave this world.
Placing a shovel-sized hand on Gus’s shoulder, Dr McGuire stepped round his son and at a brisk pace headed for his BMW. ‘I’ll let you know when the PM’s done. Send Taffy, will you? That laddie loves a guid post-mortem.’
Gus watched as his dad stowed his bag in the boot and hefted his massive frame behind the wheel. With a quick toot toot of his horn, he was gone.
‘What the hell was that all about?’ Gus looked at Alice. ‘Something’s not right with the auld yin and I’m going to get to the bottom of it.’
‘He seemed fine earlier.’
‘Yeah, he did, but there’s no way a crime scene like that would have affected the old bugger like that. He’s seen loads worse.’
What Gus didn’t want to say out loud was that he was concerned with his father’s health – and after his sister’s cancer ordeal the previous year, Gus wasn’t about to allow his parents to keep him out of the loop on that one. ‘Come on. I need a doughnut sugar rush after all of this. Let’s get back to The Fort.’
Chapter 7
Bradford
The man, dressed all in black, a hood pulled over his head, mask on his face, hands gloved, lies across the roof beams in the attic of the house in Princeville Terrace. He has a rucksack and all the tools of his trade open on a loft board beside him. The dark doesn’t bother him; besides, it isn’t pitch-black up here.
How exciting is this? He’s here, quiet as the proverbial mouse, in the dark, listening to them flitting around beneath him, collecting evidence, talking about what sort of killer this is. Their tones hold a mixture of awe and horror and that makes him happy. They have no idea just how clever he is. Stuffing his fist into his mouth to muffle the giggle that almost erupts, he smiles in the darkness. The fact that they have no idea just how close he is, thrills him. If they think to search the attic, everything would be lost – he’d be caught before he’s even really started and that in itself is an intoxicating thought. He considered the risks of remaining on site and in the end decided they were negligible. The assumption would be that his prey had let him in – isn’t that the normal way of things after all?
Of course they’ll keep an eye out for the perpetrator returning to the crime scene, to be part of the action, but little do they know that the guy they’re looking for is only feet away from them. It’s perfect and yet so obscure they’ll have no idea that he can hear every word they say. Every breath they take – hey, is that a song? Again, the giggle rolls up his chest, but he’s too professional, too controlled, to let it burst free.
At first it seems to be just the CSIs. They’re tramping about, fingerprinting, photographing, bagging anything they think might mean something, but they’ve left Miranda ‘in situ’ as they call it. Poor cow. As if it’s not undignified enough to be hanging in the nude, but you’ve to hang in there until the detectives get their rocks off looking at you too.
He’s pleased with how things have unfolded This being the first one in a long time, there’s a concern that he’ll have forgotten a critical detail – but no. It all went off like clockwork.
From the little notch he made in the roof near the hallway light, light seeps in and through the hole he hears everything that’s going on beneath him, secure in the knowledge that no one is aware of his presence. The thought that he is tricking them, getting the better of them makes this entire activity so rewarding. They might focus their attention on a gathering crowd outside in the street, looking for someone who gives the appearance of dodginess, someone who appears a tad too interested in the police activity. Of course, as his work continues, they’ll extend that to include people who are loitering at both crime scenes. But that would be a futile effort, and this amuses him.
He smiles underneath his balaclava. Never in a million years would they expect that their perpetrator is lying just above their heads, listening into their conversations and deliberations, entertained by their perplexed musings and getting valuable insight into how they intend to progress their investigation.
At first it was just the crime scene techs fumbling about, uselessly taking fingerprints from a variety of surfaces, hoping against hope that one of the smudges might belong to him. He flexes his fingers, slightly sweaty in the tight-fitting leather gloves. They’ll ultimately be disappointed, figure out that they’ve been set up, yet they won’t realise
