‘Another one?’ said Boyd.

  Sutherland shrugged.

  ‘We’ve stumbled upon two in as many years,’ replied Boyd. He was going to volunteer some pithy remark about Sussex not being some trailer swampland populated by Edmund Kempers and Ted Bundys but settled for something less flippant. ‘Statistically speaking, a third one feels unlikely.’

  ‘Plus,’ cut in Minter, ‘two of the victims look like they were boxed up in road grit at around the same time, sir. With most serial killers being loners… Well, their victims tend to be killed one at a time, out of necessity.’

  ‘And they’re all adult and male,’ added Boyd.

  ‘Another Dennis Nilsen?’ Sutherland suggested. ‘And of course there’s our very own Kristy Clarke…’

  ‘Kristy targeted young and vulnerable teenage boys,’ said Boyd. ‘According to Magnusson, these are mature adult males.’

  ‘Hmmm…’ Sutherland looked a little disappointed. ‘All right, then.’ He eyed Minter. ‘You’ve explained to Minter about –’

  ‘Hatcher coming back?’ Boyd shook his head. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Hatcher’s coming back?’ parroted Minter.

  ‘Yup,’ said Boyd. ‘Everyone’s back to their old seats.’

  Boyd was the only one in the room to be pleased about the news: escaping the role of stand-in-Sutherland and budget wrangling was almost the best news he’d had today.

  The best, of course, had been Knight’s prosecutor telling him – sotto voce – that Warren’s testimony was the back-of-the-net winner.

  ‘All right, then,’ Sutherland said again, managing a wan smile in Boyd’s direction. ‘Your purgatory in my office appears to be over. You’re SIO on this, Boyd.’ And he pushed his chair back to signal that the meeting was over.

  Boyd looked at his assembled team, sitting round the conference table in the Incident Room once more. He was experiencing mixed emotions: a complex trifle of layers. He was relieved to be off paperwork and a little bit excited to be running a case again, but felt a large dollop of guilt that he’d displaced Minter as SIO. The Welshman had a face on him like smacked bearded arse.

  Boyd’s eyes wandered around the table at Okeke, Warren and O’Neal – his usual go-to team – then onto Magnusson, who was taller than anyone, even when she was seated.

  ‘Where the hell’s Sully?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s on annual leave, if you want to know,’ was Magnusson’s curt response. ‘I’m minding the shop in his absence.’

  ‘Ah… right,’ said Boyd. ‘Thanks. Well, let me just start by telling you all that Her Madge is returning to work on Monday, which is why I’m here with you and Sutherland’s in his glass box. So everything’s back to how it was.’ He looked at Minter. ‘Sorry about that, mate.’

  ‘It’s good to have you back, guv,’ said Okeke.

  Boyd acknowledged her with a brief nod; anything more would have felt like rubbing Minter’s nose in it. ‘Minter… do you want to get us all up to speed?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure, boss.’ He had his notebook out on the table in front of him. ‘Three bodies have been discovered in a storage unit out near Little Fritton,’ he began. ‘The storage warehouse owner was holding an auction on a batch of units for which people had defaulted on their rent.’

  ‘Like Storage Wars?’ asked Warren. ‘Is that even a thing over here?’

  ‘Yes, evidently it is,’ Minter replied. ‘The bidders who won, Sid Beckett and Colin Holmes are the ones who discovered the bodies in the unit. The three bodies had been dismembered and sealed in some crates that had been filled to the top with road grit. The grit, essentially unrefined salt, has basically preserved the bodies.’

  ‘The victims are all male,’ added Magnusson, ‘and all mature adults. I’d guess in their thirties or forties.’

  ‘Any identifying marks? Any tattoos?’ asked Boyd.

  Okeke and Magnusson both shook their heads. ‘Nothing that we could see as we pulled the pieces out,’ said Okeke. ‘Mind you, the skin on them is so dark it was hard to tell.’

  ‘Well, I presume Ellessey Forensics will spot anything if there is anything useful there,’ he replied.

  ‘They were dark-skinned?’ asked O’Neal. ‘All of them?’

  Okeke nodded.

  ‘It’s gotta be migrants then,’ said O’Neal. ‘Sounds like people smugglers had some bodies to dispose of.’ He looked around the table. ‘Could have been some truck driver? Maybe he took money to smuggle them through in his container? They died in the back… and he had to find some way to deal with the bodies…’

  Boyd raised a hand to shut him up. He got up from the table, grabbed a whiteboard marker and scribbled ‘storage unit’ and ‘truck driver/smuggler?’ on the board. He also scrawled ‘people traffickers?’ and ‘drug gang?’ below.

  ‘What about the previous renter of the unit?’ Boyd asked.

  Okeke flipped a page in her notebook. ‘Alan Smithee. I looked the name up on LEDS. There’s nothing.’

  ‘There wouldn’t be.’ Boyd smiled. ‘It’s an obvious alias. It’s a pseudonym, actually. A tradition in the film business, Hollywood specifically,’ he continued. ‘If a director wanted their name removed from the credits of a crappy film, the pseudonym Alan Smithee was always used to fill in the blank credit.’

  ‘How do you even know that?’ asked Warren, impressed.

  ‘He’s watched too many crappy films apparently,’ said Minter.

  Okeke stirred. ‘Well, maybe our unit renter is, or was, a bit of a film buff?’

  ‘Not your average trucker, then,’ added Magnusson.

  Boyd scrawled the alias on the whiteboard. ‘It might be helpful. I mean if you’re hiring a unit and giving a false name, you’d go with something random – John Smith or something equally neutral. Unless you’re wanting to make a point.’

  ‘About crappy movies?’ queried Magnusson.

  Boyd turned to Minter. ‘The manager has records, right?’

  ‘Owner,’ Minter corrected. ‘He’s the local farmer – one Gareth Jones, great name. Yeah, he has basic records in a knackered old filing cabinet.’

  ‘Nothing digital?’ said Boyd.

  ‘He has a laptop in his office,’ replied Minter. ‘So there might be some digital records too. I’m not holding my breath, though. The storage business seems to be something of a sideline for him.’

  ‘The name again?’ asked Boyd.

  ‘Gareth Jones.’

  Boyd scribbled it on the board. ‘And the auction winners? Who were they?’

  Minter gave him the names and Boyd wrote those down too.

  He stood back. ‘All right, then – we’ve got some ink on the board. That’s a start.’ He returned to his seat and sat down. ‘Jones, Beckett and Holmes will all need to come in and give a statement. Meanwhile, we’re waiting on Ellessey to look over the bodies.’

  He twisted in his seat to look at the board for inspiration. ‘It might make sense for someone to go back to the unit with Magnusson and give it another once-over. Fingerprints on the crates, possible DNA traces. We’ll need Jones, Holmes and Beckett to give us elimination prints and swabs in case they touched them.’

  ‘Beckett and Holmes certainly did,’ said Okeke.

  ‘Right. Okay then. Jobs. Minter, you’re my second. Action log, please.’

  ‘Righto,’ Minter replied.

  ‘Okeke, you’ll be going over to Ellessey tomorrow. Actually, I may come with you. O’Neal, go back to the unit and give it another look-over with Magnusson. Are you okay with that?’ he asked, looking at Magnusson.

  ‘I’ll have to make sure he doesn’t smear his own DNA all over the place. Might it be better if I do it alone?’ she said.

  ‘It’s just dusting for fingerprints and UV-light blood tracing. It’ll be a useful refresher course for him.’ Boyd looked at O’Neal. ‘Won’t it?’

  ‘Uh, sure. Yeah,’ O’Neal said, nodding.

  Magnusson sighed. ‘Fine.’

  Boyd turned back to Minter. ‘You and Warren can do the interviews. We’ll want prints and swabs from all three men.’

  ‘On it, boss.’

  Boyd planted his hands on the table. ‘Well, that’s it for now. Sorry, Minter,’ he added, ‘but it’s good to be back.’

  9

  Friday was another scorcher. The sky was an unbroken blue and the nettles that covered the verge on either side of the winding country road were beginning to lose their perky green lustre.

  ‘How’s Jay’s new job going?’ asked Boyd.

  ‘It’s only his second day,’ Okeke replied. ‘He started yesterday.’

  ‘Sorry, that’s what I meant. How was his first day?’ Boyd tried again. He could see another hairpin bend approaching up ahead and realised he was distracting her. ‘Maybe slow down a bit, Okeke?’

  She eased her foot off the pedal. ‘Sorry, guv… It’s cos it’s my car, not a pool car.’

  The vehicle manager back at the station had messed up his rolling maintenance schedule and, rather than taking just a couple of CID pool cars out for servicing, he’d had to take out the whole lot. So they were using their own this week.

  She slowed down to a more sensible 30 miles per hour as they rounded the blind bend, still managing to kick up a tail of dust in her wake.

  ‘He’s loving it,’ she replied to his question. ‘They’ve already got him out snooping after people.’

  Boyd shook his head and laughed. ‘I still can’t believe he’s actually a… PI.’

  She shot him an accusatory glance. ‘Why?’

  ‘Sorry, it’s not that I don’t think he’s up to it… It’s just…’

  ‘Just… what?’ she asked.

  He realised he’d dug himself into an awkward hole. ‘It’s just that, well…’

  ‘You don’t think he’s up to it?’ she suggested.

  ‘No, not at all. It’s only that a few months ago he was a bouncer and a carpenter. And now…’

  ‘Well, you’re entirely to blame for it,’ she replied.

  ‘What? How is it my fault?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s so flipping… enamoured with you, guv. He bloody hero-worships you. After all that Russian mafia shit, it was hard enough talking him down from trying to join the police.’

  ‘Why’d you do that? He’d probably make a good beat officer,’ Boyd said, hoping he’d made up for his earlier slip.

  ‘No, he wouldn’t,’ she replied. ‘He’s too hot-headed. He’d fail his probation in a heartbeat.’ She glanced his way. ‘He thought he was Jason Statham even before he decided to take on the Russian mafia. Now he thinks he’s Jason Bourne.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Yeah, ahhh,’ she replied. ‘You’re a bad influence.’

  ‘You sound like his mum,’ Boyd said, laughing again.

  Okeke huffed. ‘Sometimes it feels like I am.’ She sighed. ‘At least he’s working as a private dick,’ she continued. ‘It’s only surveillance and eyeballing rather than, you know, actual hands-on stuff. He’s loving it so far.’ She couldn’t help a small smile as she recalled how excited he’d been when he’d come home yesterday. ‘Hey… change of subject. You caught sight of Her Madge yet?’ she asked, glancing across at Boyd.

  He gripped the dashboard as her speed began to creep up again. ‘Not yet. She’s been in, though. I spotted her car in the reserved spot.’

  ‘All change!’ she cawed in a fair imitation of DSI Hatcher’s voice. ‘Musical seats.’

  Boyd grinned. Well, now’s as good a time as any, he thought. ‘Oh, by the way, DI Fox has put in for a transfer.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Okeke said. ‘He’s been in a constant sulk since Flack dropped him. Where’s he off to?’

  ‘Brighton.’

  ‘That figures. There’s usually plenty of action over there.’

  Boyd nodded. ‘Which means we’ll have a slot to fill. I’ve recommended Minter to Sutherland for promotion to DI.’

  She puffed air out. ‘It’s probably well overdue. You worried he’s going to quit and become a catalogue model full-time?’

  He shrugged. ‘Not after that swimwear gig. He’s still traumatised.’

  ‘So are we.’ She laughed. ‘You really should’ve been there, guv. It was hil–’

  ‘And,’ he cut in, ‘I’ve also recommended you for promotion to DS.’

  Her mouth clapped shut mid-sentence. Then: ‘Seriously? You’re not shitting me?’

  He nodded. She was silent again. For longer this time. He turned to look at her and thought he caught the rare glint of a tear in her eye.

  ‘That’s also overdue,’ he said. ‘Long overdue.’

  ‘Not… Warren? O’Neal?’

  He shook his head. ‘They’re both a little green, still.’

  Warren had done some great detective work over the last eighteen months, O’Neal too, but both, as far as he was concerned, needed a couple more years of experience. Okeke, on the other hand, was the complete package – oven-ready, to quote an idiot ex-PM, who was now making a fortune doing after-dinner speeches around the world.

  ‘It’s time you took a step up, Okeke.’

  She met his gaze. ‘I… I… don’t know what to say. Thanks, guv. I –’

  ‘Eyes on the road, please, Okeke,’ Boyd cut in, ‘or Sutherland will have two more slots to fill.’

  Dr Palmer’s eyes rounded behind her glasses as she watched Boyd and Okeke enter Studio Three. ‘DCI Boyd! What an unexpected and pleasant surprise. I didn’t think I’d see you here this morning!’

  ‘My shackles have finally been released and cast aside,’ he replied, smiling.

  ‘No longer chained to a desk, then?’ Palmer asked him.

  ‘Well, less so than I was yesterday,’ he replied. He looked past her at the examination tables. There were three of them, spread out beneath the glare of the ceiling spotlights. ‘I see you’ve made a start.’

  ‘Yes. It’s a bit of a mix-and-match puzzle… I’ve been having fun linking all the parts together.’ She led them over to the tables. ‘These are three very complete bodies; there’s nothing missing.’

  Boyd let Okeke go first and therefore stand closest to the table. He could see well enough from where he was. He was operating on a belly full of eggy bread” another of Emma’s weird pregnancy-induced culinary compulsions.

  ‘So what have we got?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d say all three were in their mid thirties,’ replied Dr Palmer. ‘If I recall, we covered the subject of the fusing of the diaphysis with the epiphysis what, last year, wasn’t it?’

  Boyd nodded. ‘Thereabouts. The flared end of the tibia bone?’

  ‘Well remembered.’ She smiled approvingly. ‘So that’s our marker for adulthood. Beyond that we can look at the fusion of other bones to place an approximate age. Specifically, the ossification fusion of the manubrium and sternal body, which starts to happen to all of us in our thirties…’

  She pointed to the withered torso on the table, which was turned over onto its front to reveal a pair of dented and misshapen buttocks. They looked, to Boyd, like two oversized dates. She pointed at an incision she’d made beneath the shoulder blades. The leathery skin had been pulled back and clipped in place to reveal the vertebrae.

  ‘So, as I said, this chap was in his mid thirties.’

  Magnusson’s on-site best guess was spot on. Boyd made a note to tell her that.

  ‘I’m going to open up the rest the same way to get a better idea of their ages. While we’re here, I want to point something else out to you.’

  With her gloved hands, she attempted to spread the buttocks. ‘They’re stiff,’ she said, ‘but they give a little… There…’ She pointed to the rectum. ‘There is some tearing, some abrasions.’ She reached for something in a metal tray on the table and held it out towards them.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Okeke. ‘It looks like a pine cone.’

  ‘That’s exactly what it is. Quite a thick and gnarly one. I found it inserted into the rectum.’ She turned and gestured at the other two bodies. ‘I found a pine cone inserted in each of them.’

  ‘Ouch,’ muttered Boyd, involuntarily clenching his buttocks.

  ‘What are we looking at?’ asked Okeke. ‘Some sort of torture?’

  Palmer shook her head. ‘There are no signs of inflammation or blood around the torn flesh. So I’d suggest that this occurred to them all post-mortem. If I was to don a profiler’s hat, I’d say it was a message.’

  ‘Be careful where you sit?’ asked Boyd, wincing.

  The two women turned to look at him. He cleared his throat apologetically and Dr Palmer resumed. ‘Also, I found leaves and twigs had been stuffed inside their mouths. That, I think, was done while they were all still alive.’

  ‘Based on what?’ prompted Okeke.

  ‘One of them – this one, actually – had managed to swallow some of it.’

  ‘So, our CSI reckoned the two darker skinned men were killed around the same time and the paler one much later,’ said Boyd.

  Dr Palmer nodded. ‘That’s fair. This was done over a spread of a few years. The desiccation is noticeably less advanced on that one,’ she said, pointing at the paler torso on the other table. ‘A number of factors affect the rate. Temperature, humidity, method… The amount of moisture and fat in a body varies; gender and age can have an effect. If we assume that all three bodies were processed in the same way and kept in the same location… A storage unit, I read in the report?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Then any minor variation is down to the bodies themselves.’

  ‘Ethnicity?’ said Boyd. ‘Would that have an effect?’

  She shook her head. ‘Don’t be fooled by the variation in skin colour. We’d all turn mahogany if we sat in a bed of salt for long enough.’ She turned to look at the paler cadaver once again. ‘That one was definitely processed a number of years after the other two.’

  ‘How long ago?’ asked Okeke. ‘Roughly.’

  Palmer made an unconscious clucking sound as she evaluated the body before her. ‘It’s a wild guess until I consult one of our comparison charts, but I’d estimate between ten and fifteen years for the darker two. The pale one, less than five.’ She looked at Boyd. ‘And to address the ethnicity issue… they were all white.’