‘This is a picture taken in around 1940 of a priest in Haiti. As you can see, he has the skull hanging from the cross, and around his neck the shrunken hands.’

  Anna looked up from the book. ‘My God, do you believe that is why the child was mutilated?’

  ‘It’s possible. I would say the markings on his body were done for a sort of show. Whatever madman is behind this, he will be controlling and terrifying people for his own ends.’

  Anna thought of Camorra. She explained the murder of Arthur Murphy and how Eamon Krasiniqe was in a stupor, starving himself to death. Could someone, with a single phone call, make a another person believe he was the walking dead?

  Professor Starling shrugged. ‘Well, the prisoner would have to believe that whoever made the call could have that power. As I said, it’s all in the mind. I have witnessed cases where this zombie ailment had taken over certain people.’

  He closed his eyes again, and quoted softly, ‘“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’”

  Anna hesitated. ‘Milton?’

  ‘Indeed. Paradise Lost.’

  ‘May I borrow this book?’ She could see that he didn’t want her to, but he gave a small nod. ‘Is there any cure for the person suffering from the so-called zombie curse?’

  ‘Yes, but you have to tap into the brain.’ Again Starling returned to the bookcase. ‘I know they found no trace of drugs in the young boy, but there have been various cases in the US; there is a veterinary drug used to demobilize horses if they require treatment. It acts as a total freeze of all muscles in the body, but does not affect the heart. It would, if injected, bring on the exact symptoms of a zombie-like state.’

  Anna made a note of the drug, as the Professor began discussing how, in Ancient Egypt, dead royalty often had their living servants buried alongside them, and how the latter were sedated with various herbs before the tombs were sealed. Anna took a look at her watch, but she remained listening for another ten minutes before she could make her exit. She had to interrupt him, and he was taken aback.

  ‘I really have to leave, Professor Starling. I can’t thank you enough for your time.’

  ‘Oh yes–well, my pleasure.’ He did not shake her hand but gave a small bow, and held his office door open. ‘You know where I am if you need to talk to me again.’

  The entire team was gathered, some still eating their lunch. Anna tried to slide in unnoticed, but Langton turned towards her.

  ‘Cold better, is it, DI Travis?’

  ‘Yes, sir–thank you.’

  Langton turned to everyone. ‘DI Travis did not have a cold; she took the day off to visit Wakefield prison and interview Idris Krasiniqe. Anyone else on my team who decides to take off on their own enquiries will be off the case. Is that understood? We work as a team and our loyalty is to each other; any findings, we pool together. I will not have any officer working with me who thinks they have the right to make any decisions without my approval.’

  Anna flushed as everyone glanced towards her. She felt humiliated, which was obviously his intention, but then it got worse.

  ‘Firstly, DI Travis, would you please inform the team why you decided that you would, without permission from me, or bothering to tell the duty manager, make the journey to Wakefield prison?’

  Anna licked her lips.

  ‘We’re waiting,’ Langton said, staring at her.

  ‘I…erm…felt that the enquiry into the murder of Gail Sickert and her child was becoming bogged down with other cases. We are accumulating so many suspects, and I just felt that I needed time out to really get my head around all the different possibilities. I apologize to you, the duty manager and everyone else if I acted out of line. I will obviously not do so again.’

  ‘Really,’ he said, then stuffed both hands into his pockets. ‘The truth is that DI Travis was concerned about my health. So, I would now like to assure everyone that, contrary to Travis’s concerns, I am, as you can see, perfectly fit–mentally and physically–to head up this enquiry and do not in any way feel that we are becoming bogged down with irrelevant issues. I am certain we are on the right track, just as I am certain that, unbelievable as it may seem, the tentacles that are embracing so many other crimes do link directly back to the death of Gail Sickert and her child.’

  Langton picked up his marker pen.

  ‘I think this man Summers’s murder fits into our investigation as follows. As we know, Joseph Sickert needed a safe place to stay and, with the help of Rashid Burry, Gail was persuaded to take him in. This would have been very shortly after she moved in with Donald Summers. The older children were enrolled in a local school and Summers began work at the bungalow. A relationship then developed between Gail and Joseph Sickert, resulting in the death of Summers. Okay, let’s bring it all up to date. Sickert then cohabits with Gail. DI Travis visits Gail, trying to track down Arthur Murphy for the murder of Irene Phelps.’

  Langton began to link everyone he named with thick red lines.

  ‘In the same halfway house where Murphy is hiding is Rashid Burry, the very man who arranged for Sickert to stay at Gail’s bungalow stroke piggery. In the process of arresting Murphy, DI Travis is seen by Rashid Burry.’ He turned to the team. ‘All still with me?’

  There was a low murmur of assent; some of this, they already knew.

  ‘Okay. Burry visits Sickert to help him out with treatment for his sickle cell, tips off Sickert and goes to ground. Sickert starts to panic. Travis then visits Gail again, to sort out the issue of whether Gail had given her the photo of Murphy and Kramer willingly or not.’

  Langton looked at Anna. ‘Travis is, it seems, constantly acting without back-up! An irate Sickert threatens her. Murphy gets sent down for murder, and is put into Parkhurst prison. Gail Sickert disappears, along with her children.’

  They were now focused on the case they had all been brought in for.

  ‘Now we come back to the mounting coincidences. As we know, Idris Krasiniqe was arrested for the murder of Carly Ann North, the case I was investigating. During the interrogation, Idris gave the names of two accomplices. Lewis, Barolli and I tried to track these two guys down: guess where? A hostel in Brixton, a few streets away from the halfway house where Vernon and Murphy and Burry were living. You all know what happened to me; you all know, too, that Idris Krasiniqe then withdrew his statement and insisted he was acting alone. However, a white Range Rover was seen at the murder site. We have been unable to trace it, but whoever was driving it may have brought Carly Ann’s body to the wasteground and even driven Idris there, although he denied ever seeing the car. Remember, Idris Krasiniqe is an illegal immigrant.’

  Langton was using his marker pen again, as he now drew a line to back to Murphy.

  ‘Arthur Murphy is murdered in Parkhurst by another prisoner, Eamon Krasiniqe. Eamon is also an illegal immigrant: so is Sickert, and so is Rashid Burry, which brings us to our main target. All we can be sure of is his surname: Camorra. He is a known people trafficker and a known voodoo dabbler, who’s already spent time in prison. This man links to all the others involved in the various murders.’

  He turned to Anna, who walked from her desk to stand in front of the incident board. She opened her notebook, feeling very nervous after her dressing-down, but determined not to show just how humiliated she felt.

  ‘Idris Krasiniqe had stated that he had no known relatives in the UK when he was arrested for the murder of Carly Ann North. He had forged papers and passport. We now have confirmation from him that it was his brother, Eamon Krasiniqe, who killed Arthur Murphy in Parkhurst. After the murder, Eamon went into a catatonic state. He seems unable to speak or move and is refusing food. He is terror-stricken and believes that he has a voodoo hex on him, making him what they call the walking dead. Idris himself is afraid to come out of his cell at Wakefield prison, scared that a hex will be put on him too. I gained some reaction from Idris when I mentioned Rashid Burry and Joseph Sickert, but the biggest reaction came from Camorra’s name.’

  Langton watched her closely as Anna talked the team through the rest of her interview with Idris and then her meeting with Professor Starling. She repeated much of what he’d explained about voodoo and the way drugs could be used to immobilize the victim’s muscles. She showed the photograph of the voodoo priest with the skull and dried hands used as a necklace.

  Anna now had the team’s total attention.

  ‘If the body of the small boy in the canal was used by Camorra to put fear and terror into the men around him, I think if it’s in any way possible to remove Eamon Krasiniqe from Parkhurst and get treatment to save him, then I believe we will get the information we need from his brother Idris.’

  Anna sipped some water before she continued. ‘It is hard to believe that after three weeks we still have no sighting of Sickert or the two children. This means either he is dead and the children, God help them, are also dead; or, they are being used by Camorra.’

  Anna paused and checked her notes again. Langton was about to end the briefing, when she raised her hand.

  ‘I think we are missing a link–something we might have overlooked in the murder of Carly Ann North.’

  Langton frowned.

  ‘It still doesn’t add up that her body wasn’t just dumped. Why was Idris attempting to sever her head and hands? Because she could have been identified by her prints from her previous arrests? She was a known prostitute and heroin addict; however, weeks before her death, she was attempting to straighten out her life. Did she know something? Had she seen something? I think we need to go back into that murder enquiry to see if there is any connection.’

  ‘You think we need to go back into the enquiry and see?’ Langton was angry, slapping his desk with the flat of his hand.

  ‘I can’t see why you are so furious.’

  ‘Can’t you? What are you insinuating–that I didn’t oversee that case properly? Not satisfied with trying to make me look like a prick on this one, you are now attacking my previous—’

  She interrupted, going right back at him with as much anger. ‘You were in hospital for the latter part of the enquiry, and you were never able to go to the trial. Did you know that after your attack, Barolli had to take two weeks off because of the trauma of seeing you injured? Mike Lewis was left overseeing the trial and, like Barolli, he must have been traumatized; all I am saying is perhaps something was overlooked. Krasiniqe pleaded guilty, so the murder charges were virtually cut and dried before even going to trial.’

  Langton took deep breaths, calming down.

  ‘I just want to look into her background a bit,’ Anna went on, also calming down. ‘We know she was a prostitute, we know she was brought up in various foster homes. But we also know that before her death she was off drugs and no longer working the streets. What was her relationship with Krasiniqe? Who else did she know, or what else did she know that we’ve never uncovered because the case was closed?’

  Langton sat down behind his desk. ‘Get Mike Lewis in, let me talk to him.’

  Anna nodded and walked out.

  About half an hour later, Mike Lewis came up to her desk.

  ‘What the fuck is going on? I’ve just had him tear a strip off me! Suddenly you want to open up the Carly Ann murder? You put me right in it. I did my job, Anna, and I don’t like any implication that I skipped anything, all right?’

  ‘I am not implying that you did, Mike.’

  ‘Well, bloody Langton is.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry. Barolli was unable to work; that left you carrying the can for the trial.’

  ‘Krasiniqe bloody admitted it, for Chrissakes.’

  ‘Yes, I know–but why chop off her hands, try to decapitate her? It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘No? Listen to me. These fucking illegal immigrants come out of war-torn areas, they cut up anything and anybody that stands in their way. If she refused his advances, if she did anything—’

  ‘But you don’t know why he killed her. He’s twenty-five years old, his brother’s just twenty-two—’

  ‘She was raped,’ Lewis snapped.

  ‘I know that, but what do you know about where she was and who she was seeing before she was killed?’

  Mike Lewis sighed. ‘She’d been on the game since she was a kid, she’d left her foster home years before, she’d lived rough–what more do you need to know about her?’

  ‘Well, did she come into contact with Camorra? Do we know that?’

  ‘No, I don’t bloody know that. Until recently, I’d never even heard of him.’

  ‘Right. The Krasiniqe brothers may have been working for him; maybe Carly Ann also knew him, and when she stopped selling her tricks, stopped pumping herself full of heroin, maybe, just maybe…’

  Lewis turned away. ‘I’ll check into what we have on record for her.’

  It was obvious that Mike Lewis really had it in for her. Anna could see by the covert looks of the rest of the team that they were all ganging up against her too.

  She felt slightly better when Langton called her into his office.

  ‘I’ve got Mike pulling out everything we have on Carly Ann, but I want you to cover for him as well. If you re-interview anyone connected to the case, then you go with him.’

  ‘He won’t like it.’

  ‘Tough shit. Get on with it.’

  ‘Right. We also need to double-check these two guys that Krasiniqe put into the frame before he withdrew his statement. We all know what happened when you went to interview them; what we don’t know is if the names were for real or if there is any connection to Camorra.’

  ‘Both names proved to be bullshit,’ Langton said. ‘They could have been shipped out of the country or Christ knows what, but we could find no record of them from immigration. Krasiniqe may not even have known their real names. Those guys disappeared into thin air.’

  ‘But they were staying close to Rashid Burry.’

  ‘Yes, but we can’t find that bastard either; he’s gone to ground.’ Langton gave a mirthless laugh, raising his hands. ‘It’s bloody mind-blowing. We can’t trace Sickert, the two missing children, we can’t find the guy that ripped me to shreds…’ He opened a file and flipped it round to face her. ‘Here’s the descriptions: one of them had two gold teeth–I see them in my nightmares. Maybe it was Rashid Burry. But how many of these guys have gold-capped teeth? The other, the one with the machete, is a blur. I couldn’t tell you what age, how tall; it happened so fast. One minute I was moving up the stairs, the next…’

  Langton made a gesture of defeat, and Anna asked if she could take the file and work on it. ‘Yeah, take it.’

  She flipped through it there and then. Attached was a picture of Carly Ann that Anna had never seen before; she had only ever seen the brutal photographs taken at the murder site and on the pathologist’s slab.

  Langton’s desk phone rang and he snatched it up, listened for a few moments and then replaced the receiver.

  ‘Mike Lewis is waiting; he’s contacted the woman Carly Ann was staying with.’

  Anna looked up from the file. ‘She was beautiful,’ she murmured.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, she was beautiful.’ Anna stared down at the photograph. Carly Ann had tawny skin, perfect features and wide, slanting blue eyes. She was tall and slender, at least five feet eight, and in the photograph, her lips were parted in a seductive, almost secret smile. Around her neck was a thick gold chain and a cross.

  Mike Lewis was driving, Anna beside him in the unmarked patrol car.

  ‘I didn’t know how beautiful she was,’ Anna said, staring out of the window.

  ‘Didn’t look that way on the table,’ he grunted. ‘Her eyes were bulging and her throat had deep lacerations. I think she’d put up quite a fight to stay alive.’

  ‘When she was found, did she have a thick gold necklace round her neck?’

  ‘No, like I said, it was almost severed. There was a lot of blood.’

  ‘So Krasiniqe made an attempt to run?’

  ‘Yeah, he tried, but the cop held him down; he got some back-up, and they took him into the local nick. We got called in the following morning.’

  ‘Did he confess straight away?’

  ‘Well, he didn’t need to, did he? He had her blood all over his clothes and the blade dripping with it in his hand.’

  ‘Did he appear to be drugged?’

  ‘Dunno. By the time we saw him, he was cowering in his cell at the station. If he was drugged, he didn’t appear that way–unless whatever he’d taken had worn off.’

  Anna removed from the file Krasiniqe’s statement. It was short and stated that he had killed Carly Ann after he had raped her. Anna asked where the rape had taken place.

  ‘He had no known address, and said he had been living rough, which is where he said he knew the victim from.’

  ‘But you don’t know where?’

  Mike Lewis sighed with irritation. ‘Two days later, Langton got cut to shreds, Anna. We had a suspect in custody who admitted the murder.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know. Please, Mike, don’t be so defensive. I am just trying to piece it together myself. If one of these men was Camorra, it’s odd that when Langton was attacked, he didn’t recognize him.’

  ‘It happened so fucking fast none of us had a clear recollection of either of the bastards.’

  Anna nodded, deciding to change the subject. If Langton now recognized Camorra, he was not admitting it to anyone.

  ‘What about this white Range Rover the police officer said he saw at the murder site?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  Anna turned over another page and read on. A witness had seen the vehicle parked close to the murder site: black tinted windows, engine running. ‘When these two other guys with Krasiniqe ran off, did they go to the Range Rover? Drive off in it?’