Without turning round, Carlton wafted his hand in Gus’s direction, but didn’t reply. Bloody nuisance. Wouldn’t damn well harm him to let me in on his big discovery. Instead, Carlton stretched onto his tiptoes and called out something to the CSIs who were still working on the upstairs room. Unable to hear Carlton’s words, irritation made Gus exhale loudly. If he hadn’t been at a crime scene, he’d have been tempted to kick the fence, wishing it was Carlton’s head. Despite being well aware of all the other man’s annoyances and having given himself a little pep talk about not reacting to every little grievance before Carlton arrived, Gus couldn’t contain his irritation. He was conscious that Carlton had created a persona for himself – that of the slightly batty, unconventional profiler. If he wasn’t so bloody good at his job, Gus would have given him short shrift. The point was, that despite everything, he came up with the goods, although Gus wished he’d adapt to working more collaboratively. Instead, Carlton often kept his own counsel – leaving Gus in the dark – till he’d worked a problem through and come up with a solution. Even when Gus pointed out that sharing his suspicions with the team might actually be beneficial and could perhaps speed things up, he resolutely kept his own counsel until he felt sure his contribution was sound.
Now what was the man doing? Ready to throw his toys out of the pram and hating himself for feeling so juvenile, Gus watched helplessly as Carlton, his arse obscuring Gus’s field of vision, bent over to study the items beneath the body. He was still sniffing – short little sniff, sniff, sniffs, like a bloody lapdog and Gus began to wonder if it was less to do with some clue or other and more to do with allergies or a summer cold. Sniff, sniff, sniff – it continued and Gus hoped to hell that his profiler wasn’t dripping all over the evidence, which had yet to be tagged and bagged.
After what seemed like ages, but was probably only a minute or two, Carlton straightened, placed his hands near the small of his back and stretched his belly outwards. Even that small action irked Gus. Just get on with it, man. By now, Carlton had taken two backward steps, nearly falling over in the process, and looked up at the woman hanging there. Gus averted his eyes. Somehow, it seemed intrusive to watch the profiler study the woman’s naked body – like he was a voyeur. He’d already studied her with the clinical detachment he adopted as his job, but to watch someone else examine her, seemed just a little too tasteless. He bowed his head and turned to Hissing Sid, who had returned from storing a box of bagged evidence from the garden. ‘Anything useful, Sid?’
Sid farted – long and loud, the reverberations enough to alert the nearby CSIs, who immediately moved away from their boss. Pulling his mask over his nose and mouth, Gus rolled his eyes, but refused to react. Sid wanted him to respond, and beneath his mask Gus grinned as a flash of disappointment flitted over Sid’s features. Even when the fumes reached him, Gus steadfastly focussed on the other man. ‘Well?’
Shrugging, Sid sighed. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. The stuff we picked up from the garden was mainly wrappers that had blown down the alley and landed here – doubt they’ll be useful. We took the contents of her wheelie bin and recycling, so there might be something there. Still processing fingerprints in the living room and kitchen – bagged a few bills and such like. We’ll wait and see what we get from the upstairs rooms and I’m sending a team down to the cellar – just in case our killer went down there.’
He looked up as Professor Carlton came downstairs. ‘There’s a lot to process at the labs, but I’ll get it to you asap. I reckon this one’s not done … am I right, Professor Carlton? This guy’s not going to stick with only one victim?’
‘Oh, Sidney, how lovely to see you. Haven’t seen you for such a long time.’ He pulled down his facemask, his flushed cheeks and sweaty brow glistening in the sun. ‘I need to work on my profile of course and as you know it’s hard to profile with any degree of accurateness with only the one victim.’
Behind his own mask, Gus pursed his lips. Despite Carlton’s contributions to previous investigations, Gus was inclined to believe that the art of forensic profiling was more about instinct than science and that accuracy depended on the skill of the profiler rather than any hard and fast rules. He’d learnt not to get into an argument about this with the professor as he undoubtedly ended up frustrated by the man’s good humoured, but incisive arguments.
Carlton turned to include Gus. ‘But yes, I do suspect this is not going to be a one-kill deal. Now, gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve arranged to meet Compo back at The Fort and I don’t want to be late. Speak later, Gus.’
And before Gus could utter a protest, Carlton had opened the gate and was heading down the alley to the waiting police car.
Chapter 5
Bellbrax Psychiatric Facility, Scotland
It’s been a while – weeks now. I don’t like it. I feel uneasy, but there’s nothing I can do. The things he told me
