When Darkness Calls

Book 1: The Holly Wakefield Thrillers

by Mark Griffin

Genres: Mystery; Police Procedurals; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

When Darkness Calls is the first in a new crime thriller series starring forensic psychologist Holly Wakefield. For fans of Patricia Cornwell, Val McDermid, Robert Galbraith and the TV crime series Luther and Strike.

Do you dare to look into the eye of a serial killer?

Holly Wakefield works for the NHS as a criminal psychologist specialising in serial killers. She has particular reason to be good at her job - but she keeps that to herself.

When DI Bishop from the Met Police approaches Holly to investigate a recent killing, Holly is horrified by the dismembered bodies and the way they have been theatrically positioned. More shocking still is when the pathologist reveals this is not the first time she has seen these mutilations. It means a serial killer is out there, and they're going to kill again - soon.

Holly is used to chasing serial killers. But this killer has something in common with Holly that she's kept hidden for as long as she can remember. And for the first time since she was a child, Holly is forced to face the darkness of her past....

A gripping thriller set in London, featuring a criminal psychologist who specialises in hunting serial killers and has hidden reasons for being unnervingly good at her job....

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 100000

Sample

Ten Years Ago

The blade made a staccato hammering on the chopping board.

Chicken, carrots, potatoes, a sprinkling of salt, and the baking tray was pushed into the oven and the door closed in one fluid motion. Natasha Sickert checked her watch. Four thirty in the afternoon. No rest for the wicked. She took a packet of ready-made pastry from the fridge and started to roll it out on the counter. Her husband preferred home-made but she just hadn’t had time today. She wiped the perspiration from her brow before lining the tray, and smudged some flour on her forehead. She had wiry arms – thin but strong – and she wasn’t afraid of hard work. She was thirty-seven, with hollow cheeks and watery blue eyes, as if she was about to cry. But Natasha didn’t cry any more. She had stopped crying a long time ago. From another room the phone began to ring. After three rings she turned towards the corridor that joined the kitchen.

‘Richard? Are you going to get that?’

No answer.

She closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment, then wiped her hands on her apron and was about to leave the kitchen and answer it herself when she heard him pick up. Her husband had a deep, stuttering voice and she could hear him talking, but it was muffled, only reaching her after travelling through two walls. She hoped it was someone trying to sell him something. The conversation stopped within a minute and she caught sight of his shadow as he made his way up the stairs. He was a big man, over six feet tall, but he always managed to move quietly when he wanted to.

She filled the pastry with a tin of peaches and sprinkled brown sugar over the top. There was a clunk from upstairs, the familiar sound of the immersion heater turning itself on. Richard was running a bath. She checked her watch again and shook her head. She didn’t think she’d ever understand her husband.

Two hours later Richard left the house, leaving the front door open. His eyes were normally round and dark, like doll’s eyes, but tonight they looked washed out in the street lights. He crossed the front lawn and stood in the middle of the road, content to stand and stare at the neighbours’ houses, seemingly unaffected by the cold despite being completely naked. Then he dropped to his knees as a car approached from around the bend. There was a squeal of brakes as it swerved to avoid him, and in the beam of its headlights the driver saw that Richard’s body was splattered in red. The driver put his hand on the horn. Richard watched the car disappear and his thin lips formed the beginnings of a smile.

Within minutes, neighbours gathered curiously at their front doors as a blue police light strobed across the street. Sergeant Echeos and DI Combs were first on the scene, the call from Richard’s neighbour, seventy-two-year-old William Gardener, having been logged at the station by the duty officer at 18:58. Despite being exhausted from double shifts DI Combs was suddenly very much awake when he saw the state of the man in front of him. Richard was shivering uncontrollably, and Combs placed a blanket over his shoulders.

‘I’m s-so sorry to have caused such a nuisance, Officer.’

‘That’s all right, sir.’ Combs hunkered down next to him. He smiled gently. ‘The neighbours said there was an incident with a car?’

‘Oh no, Officer,’ Richard replied. ‘The incident is in the bath.’

Holly Wakefield stood behind the desk in her classroom at King’s College on the Strand. She was wearing black trousers, a white shirt and a black tailored jacket. Her brown hair was pulled into a ponytail that normally had a life of its own, but at that moment she was motionless, deep in thought, oblivious to the thirty-two students who were sitting in front of her, waiting.

‘Okay, here’s one.’ She looked up. ‘Psychopaths don’t seek therapy willingly.’

The gauntlet had been thrown down. The students stared back at her, mental cogs kicking up dust.

‘Who said it? Come on.’

A girl with blonde hair raised a hand.

‘Seto?’

‘Well done, Abigail. Yes, Michael Seto. Quote: “Rather, they’re pushed into it by a desperate relative or by a court order. To a psychopath, a therapist is just one more person who must be conned, and the psychopath plays the part right until the therapist is convinced of his or her rehabilitation.” End quote.’ She took a second, then:

‘Get this next one and I’ll buy you coffee. “He has acquired a psychiatric hunting licence to kill.” A hunting licence to kill. Love that.’ A sea of blank faces. ‘Do you want a clue?’ She didn’t even wait for them to answer. ‘A sign for Cain.’ Started to pace from side to side behind her desk, her ponytail swaying gently. ‘I’ve gone all biblical on you … ’

A male voice from the back of the class. ‘Luis Hutchins?’

‘No, Ben. Come on. An Exploration of Human Violence.’ Another hand went up.

‘Patrick?’

‘Fredric Wertham?’

‘Thank you, Patrick! Yes. Coffee for you.’

‘White, two sugars, miss.’

‘Thought you might be. Someone find me the quote.’ Pages turned until Sarah took the lead.

‘“A defendant may be declared insane, spend some time in an institution, and then be completely free without any parole or other supervision. If he ever commits another murder, his lawyers can point to his insanity record – and every prosecutor knows that de facto he cannot be convicted of first-degree murder. He has acquired a psychiatric hunting licence to kill.”’

‘Thank you, Sarah. There’s a scary thought for a Monday morning. Here’s another one. Peter Sutcliffe, aka the Yorkshire Ripper, is serving twenty concurrent life sentences for murdering thirteen women and attempting to kill seven more during the ’80s in Yorkshire and the Greater Manchester area. In 2011 he was denied parole after thirty years behind bars, but in October 2015 he was out in public, without handcuffs, being escorted to an NHS eye clinic for a cataract operation. Let loose among us. How does that happen? His psychiatrist and the former clinical director of Broadmoor, Doctor Kevin Murray, stated he posed a “low” risk of reoffending. A low risk. I wouldn’t trust him with a gummy bear. Have any of you read Murray’s psychological analysis of the Ripper?’

There was a universal shaking of heads.

‘Read it by candlelight and you will shit yourselves.’ She glanced at one of the many transcripts on her desk. It was one she knew by heart anyway. ‘Let’s move on to Sutcliffe’s modus operandi. How did he express himself? The marks and wounds he left on the victim’s bodies are like a written signature. Now, the signature of the killer is unique and is carried out purely for emotional satisfaction. It does not necessarily contribute to the death of the victim. Give me an example of a premeditated signature.’

‘Rearranging the victim after they’ve been killed?’

‘You’re on fire today, Ben. It’s called posing the victims. Turning them face down or face up, propping them up as if still alive; it can also be interpreted as a ritualistic trait. Now, this is the important bit: as they adapt to their crimes and environments, and as they become more efficient, a serial killer may change their MO but very rarely will their signature change. Give me one of Sutcliffe’s signatures.’

‘Didn’t he use a screwdriver?’

‘Yes he did, and the more women he killed the more frenzied he became. This can be evidenced by what we term overkill. For example, one woman, Emily Jackson, was stabbed fifty-two times.’

The bell rang, signalling the end of class.

‘Okay – homework. The Yorkshire Ripper’s signature was a deep wound to the stomach of his victims inflicted after hitting them on the head with a hammer. As part of his defence, his three psychiatrists, Doctors Milne, McCulloch and Kay, each diagnosed encapsulated paranoid schizophrenia – he was instructed to kill prostitutes on God’s behalf, ridding the world of such undesirables. His hatred of women, however, especially prostitutes, and the sexual excitement derived from inflicting these types of wounds were more likely the true driving forces. Where did his fetish for deep wounds in the abdomen originate? Give me two thousand words on this.’

She started to put her notes away as chairs scuffed on the floor and the students stood up. ‘I’ll give you a clue,’ she said. ‘According to some, it involved a very creepy Victorian waxwork exhibit in Morecambe. I will see you next Monday. That’s it – get out of here, you schizoids.’

The grey clouds that had blocked the sun all morning were still there. A procession of heavy showers that chased across the city like thick smoke.

The roads through London were always busy at this time. Holly drove along the curve of Embankment and tapped a tune on the steering wheel as rain drummed on the car roof and spattered off her windscreen. She loved her MG. Bright red, 1982 – she liked to think of it as a classic. She opened her window slightly so she could benefit from the air and smell the rain. London rain. Slightly salty from the Thames. Sometimes the great river would be hidden from view by the traffic but then she would come to a gap and see the lights and masts of the boats at her side. November had broken, and in another month the traffic would be bumper to bumper as Christmas revellers and shoppers saturated the city, lured by the promise of bargains.

She checked her watch. Nearly three o’clock so she cut through Westminster, past Belgrave Square Garden and soon found herself on Cromwell Road, all the stores waving the sale flags ubiquitous at Christmas. Within five minutes she was in a quiet residential street with Georgian houses either side, and pulled into the driveway of the Wetherington Hospital. It had a grandeur about it, with fluted columns at the entrance and a façade of white stone, converted in the 1980s when gentrification had been all the rage. Holly navigated the speed bumps and parked in an NHS Staff Only space which had her own name. The footpath was bordered with azaleas and ended in the hospital’s solid metal door. Above it a security light nestled next to a wide-angle camera that captured everything that came along the path and entered the car park.

She swiped her pass card in the door scanner and was rewarded by a heavy thunk as the magnetic connection was broken and the door opened to her touch. Inside it was warm and bright from the overhead fluorescents. She made her way to the security check where she walked through the metal detector and Edyta, the guard, signed her in and rummaged efficiently through her handbag.

‘Afternoon, Holly.’

‘Hi, Edyta. I still can’t work out where the weekend went. How’s Mike’s leg?’

‘The plaster comes off next Saturday. He’s been at it with the knitting needle again. I wouldn’t mind but he unravels my jumper every time.’ She handed back Holly’s bag. ‘Have a good one.’

She passed through to the locker room where she donned her white doctor’s coat and picked up her clipboard. Walked the long corridor, exchanging greetings with other doctors and nurses, on her way to the treatment rooms which were housed in a separate building. Beside the circular reception desk there was one door that led further inside. The ward sister was putting files into little stacks when Holly approached.

‘Hi, Jackie, busy day?’

‘You could say that. There was no hot water in the men’s showers, for starters.’

‘Cold showers in an asylum? What is this, 1869?’ She picked up her checklist and her brow creased. ‘How’s Lee today?’

‘I’m so sorry, sweetie, but Lee had a bit of a turn this morning.’

‘Oh, no. He was doing so much better on the risperidone.’

‘It was pretty bad. He’s been segregated.’

‘Is Max in his office?’

Jackie nodded. ‘He’s expecting you.’

Max Carrington, the hospital administrator, said nothing as Holly walked around in a little circle in front of his desk. Her hands were clasped in front of her so tightly that the knuckles were white.

‘You should have called me, Max. I know him better than anyone.’

‘I’m not disputing that, but—’

‘So what happened?’

Max took off his glasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache coming on. ‘He had a strong delusional episode. He began to self-harm. The alarm was raised and when the orderly opened the cell door Lee attacked him.’ He was squinting at her so he put his glasses back on. They had thick lenses that made it difficult to read his eyes.

‘Is the orderly okay?’

‘It was Alan, one of the new ones. He was a little shaken, that’s all. I’ve spoken to him and he isn’t going to lodge an official complaint.’

‘Good. Thank you, Max. Okay – so I’m here now. Get Lee out and let me talk to him.’

‘You know I can’t do that.’ The glasses came off again. The thumb and forefinger went back to the bridge of his nose. ‘We cannot show preferential treatment. The board would go ballistic.’

‘Max—’

‘No, Holly. Listen, please. Lee is … he’s one of our difficult ones. Three years in Parkhurst now ten years here. He’s segregated until tomorrow. It’s not going to happen.’

‘Don’t take him out then, but how about you let me in?’

‘Jesus Christ, Holly. He’s a killer. You know how dangerous he is.’

‘He listens to me, Max, you know he does.’ She dropped her voice. ‘I will take full responsibility for any outcome. Please.’

Lee Miller was playing solitaire when Holly entered the cell. There were hard lines on his face and it was grey, as if the blood just didn’t want to go there. He had no eyebrows left and only a whisper of ginger hair. He sat behind a trestle table, keeping his eyes down, hidden, turning the cards, seemingly oblivious to her presence, but she knew he was watching her. The silence, apart from the gentle flipping of the cards, was absolute. Then he lifted his head slightly and that small movement seemed to bring the rest of his body to life.

‘Hello, Holly.’

It was an invitation.

‘Hello, Lee.’ She took off her jacket and lowered it on to the back of the chair opposite. Stood for a moment watching him, then eased the chair out and sat down as quietly as she could. ‘How are you today?’

‘Better for seeing you. How were your Monday-morning students?’

‘Good. Some promising ones. They’re starting to quote Seto.’

‘He’s overrated. Newman and Lykken always have me on the edge of my seat. But now class is out and you’re back here for the rest of the week, among the evil.’

‘Evil dwells “not in the spaces we know, but between them”.’

‘Lovecraft.’

‘Well done.’

He still wouldn’t make eye contact. Kept his head down, eyes on the game.

‘What happened, Lee?’

She reached across the table with her hand and let it rest within his reach, well aware of the cameras watching. At that moment he looked up. His glassy eyes were bright blue and cracked with little red veins. Amid the bruises on his face she could see that he had been crying. He laid his own hand on the table, close to Holly’s but not touching.

‘It doesn’t matter. You look tired. Late night?’

‘You could say that.’

‘New boyfriend?’

‘No.’

‘What then?’

‘Work.’

His eyes narrowed a fraction. ‘I can still tell when you’re lying.’

‘I’m not lying. What happened, Lee?’

‘Ah, we’re back to me again, are we?’

‘Yes.’

‘My favourite subject.’ A pause. ‘Apart from you.’

‘Come on, let’s talk.’

‘Do we have to?’

There were a few seconds of stalemate but then he dipped his eyes and she took that as a signal to press on.

‘How bad were the images, Lee? What did you see?’

He pulled his hand away and looked suddenly vulnerable.

‘What I always see. The monster.’

She waited.

‘Not in the empirical sense of the word. But the monster nonetheless. I thought it was going to find me this time. I had to stop it. The only way I could stop it was to give it my blood. So I started to cut.’

‘What with?’

He held up his hands and splayed his fingers. ‘They didn’t clip me very well last time. Naughty.’ He lowered his hands and sighed. ‘How’s the orderly? I hadn’t seen him before. It was a shock to see an unfamiliar face coming through my door. Does he have a grey beard?’

‘No.’

‘Hmm. Someone does. Someone with a grey beard I saw.’

‘What made you stop?’

‘I thought I was going to kill him. I mustn’t be doing that now, must I?’

‘No.’

‘He kept saying my name. “Lee, it’s okay, Lee. It’s okay, Lee. I’m here. I’m here.” I was going to ask him if he really was here in a literal, quantum physics sense, but at that point I felt sorry for him. Anyway, what’s done is done. I’m sure he’ll be fine.’

‘He is.’

‘Requested a transfer?’

‘No.’

‘He’s a keeper then.’ He smiled but not with his eyes. ‘I shall look forward to getting to know him.’

‘I don’t want you hurting any more people, Lee.’

‘That’s not up to me. That’s up to the person who whispers inside.’

‘Tell me about the monster again.’ A pause. ‘Where did you see it?’

‘Home.’

‘Home?’

‘Yes.’ Barely audible. ‘A grey beard … I don’t … ’ He paused. Concentrated. ‘I could see him through the gap in the cupboard doors. Flashes of him. Moving so fast. Silver and red. And the doors I was hiding behind. They wouldn’t shut properly. I was desperately holding the edges with the tips of my fingers. Kept thinking they would slowly open and he would find me … ’ He faltered and seemed to retreat. ‘No, I don’t want to. I don’t want to remember. Not now. I just want to play the cards.’

‘We can play together?’

‘Not today.’

‘I don’t want you to shut down, Lee. You’re doing so well.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes. You’re sleeping better. Your moods have improved, you’ve got your appetite back.’

‘Appetite for destruction. I’m lonelier than ever.’

‘I’m here, Lee.’

‘But you’re not, are you? You’re not here. You’re outside looking in.’

He was starting to get upset.

‘No, I’m inside, Lee. I always will be.’

He stared at her for the longest time and when he eventually tore his eyes away he screwed them up as if in pain. She leaned in closer. ‘Am I lying now?’

‘No.’ Barely a whisper.

The seconds dragged into minutes of tense silence until there was knock at the door. It opened and an orderly stepped inside.

Holly turned. ‘Already?’

The man nodded.

She stood up and put her jacket on. Lee picked up the cards and began to turn them over again as if their conversation had never taken place.

‘Is it cold outside?’

‘Yes.’

‘Stay warm then, Holly.’

‘I’ll try.’

She left the cell. A knot was already forming in her stomach when she heard the heavy echo of the metal door clanking shut behind her.

Holly was exhausted when she finally got home.

It took her nearly twenty minutes to get off the Cromwell Road and another twenty to clear Hammersmith. By the time she reached her own street in Balham, south-west London, all the spaces had been taken and she had to circle back on herself half a dozen times before she finally got lucky and managed to park.

The street was crammed with people; teenagers laughing and smoking and glaze-eyed men and women desperate to get home after a day at the office. The Christmas decorations were already up outside the Bedford pub, a local venue for live music and comedy, and she glanced through the windows as she passed. It was already filled with people, but the lighting was so bad they looked like smudges in the background, shadows against the bar.

She stopped at her local mini-market and grabbed milk and a container of luxury hot chocolate.

‘Pulling an all-nighter?’ Jatinda Gill asked as he packed her items away.

‘It gives me super powers, J.T.’

‘You said that last week,’ he smiled. She paid for everything, picked up her bags and walked back out into the busy street.

A turn on to Northwest Lane and a hundred metres on the left was her block. Flat 17, on the fifth floor. She had saved and saved and bought the flat six years ago and it had turned into a renovation job that had taken three years to complete. She had learned to plaster, plumb and paint and when she had finally finished she couldn’t have been happier. There was nothing she liked more than coming home.

She took the lift up and stood for a few minutes in her doorway, content to stay in the darkness. She moved towards the bay window in the living room and stared down at the traffic five storeys below. The red and white car lights sparkled like blurry gems as the drizzle slanted first one way and then the other. She let herself become mesmerised until a sudden gust of wind rocked the window and she pulled the blue curtains closed.

She was too tired to eat so she poured herself a glass of red wine then lay back on the sofa. Checked her watch. It was almost midnight. Raw-eyed and sleepy, she picked up the post and went through the motions. Free pizza – bin it. Fifty per cent garden centre discount, credit card offers – bin. Bank statement  – put to one side. And then an envelope, handwritten, and she recognised the writing immediately. She opened it and pulled out a reunion invitation from her old school. Blessed Home, a school that she had been sent to when she was ten. She flicked through the pages and was soon lost in memories, smiling when she saw an old black-and-white photo of herself among the other children. So young then, so naïve. She flicked the television on, watched for a minute then closed her eyes. She wasn’t interested in the channels, just a companion while she tried to sleep.

Holly was asleep on the sofa when her mobile rang. She was so groggy she kept her eyes shut as she fumbled it to her ear and cleared her throat.

‘Hello?’

‘Holly Wakefield, please.’

She didn’t recognise the voice. ‘This is Holly.’

‘This is Detective Inspector Bishop from the Met.’

‘I’m sorry, who?’

‘DI Bishop. I’m phoning from the Metropolitan Police.’ She sat up, opened her eyes. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘You’re on our call-out list, Miss Wakefield. I’m sorry about the time but this is important.’

‘Sorry, your what?’

‘Our crime scene call-out list. You teach forensic psychology at King’s College one day a week and are employed by the NHS as a criminal behavioural analyst. You wrote your doctorate on “The Parody of Parole in Modern Society”. We’ve used it as a reference before. You offered your services if we ever needed—’

‘Oh, God, sorry. Yes, now I remember. I volunteered over five years ago.’

‘You did, Miss Wakefield. And tonight’s the night.’

An hour later Holly had showered, dressed and found herself driving through a small village in Surrey. The road was narrow with no street lights but the stars were bright, the moon a blue disc. Gravel crunched under her tyres as she approached a rambling two-storey mansion in the shadow of massive trees. There were no flashing lights or sirens, just an ambulance and half a dozen police cars that sat like sleeping lions in the driveway. She slowed and parked, staring at the pair of floodlights that had been erected at the top of a set of wide stone steps by a heavy oak door where two police officers stood guard. It was all so sudden and surreal, she felt as if she was watching a scene from a movie, but then one of the officers saw her and the spell was broken. He approached and raised a hand in caution as she got out of her car.

‘Can I help you?’

‘My name’s Holly Wakefield. DI Bishop asked me to come over.’

‘I’ll need to see some ID, please?’

She reached back into the car, pulled out her handbag and handed over her NHS medical staff pass. He gave it a cursory glance.

‘Hold on.’ He turned away and pressed a button on his shoulder radio. He spoke so softly she couldn’t hear what he said but within a few seconds he turned and motioned her to follow him. He didn’t say another word as they walked to the house.

At the top of the steps he said, ‘Would you mind waiting here one moment?’ Then he whispered something to the other constable on guard, opened the big wooden door and disappeared inside. Holly got a glimpse past him. Below a carved oak staircase were more spotlights, forensic kits and rolls of police tape. Cameras flashed as police officers and plain-clothes detectives moved among the shadows with silent purpose. She stood aside as a SOCO team exited, smudges of red on their white scrubs. Their faces were strained. Something had rattled them.

‘Miss Wakefield?’

The voice belonged to a man who made his way over from within the circle of light. He was smiling genially although it had obviously been a rough day. Six foot tall with dark brown hair; she guessed he was in his early forties. His face was a little rough, weathered but not beaten, and he had a slight limp. She moved forward when he offered his hand. ‘I’m DI Bishop, senior investigating officer – we spoke on the phone. Apologies again for calling you at this ungodly hour, and thank you for coming over.’ His voice was gravelly and she wondered if he smoked.

‘Anything I can do to help.’

He nodded and passed her a pair of booties and latex gloves. She realised her hands were shaking. Whether he noticed or not was hard to tell.

‘Sam Gordon, our normal profiler, is away, and our back-up, Natalie Wilson, is on maternity leave, not that these names will mean anything to you, but I need someone’s eyes on the scene tonight.’ He paused for a second. ‘I know this is your first call-out so let me tell you what I need. Any ideas, thoughts, first impressions, no matter how crazy they may seem. And it goes without saying, this is strictly confidential. Not a word of what you see gets out.’

‘Of course.’

‘Good.’ He swallowed hard. ‘It’s a bit of a messy one.’ Bishop led her across the hall and through a dining room that was set for dinner. White plates, silver cutlery, white napkins and decanted red wine played host to the nineteenth-century landscapes hanging on the walls. They passed through another door, along a wood-panelled corridor, the only sound their footsteps on the tiled floor and the click and whir of cameras behind them.

Bishop stopped beside a door that stood slightly ajar and turned to her.

‘We’ve got five minutes before pathology takes over.’

He stepped inside. She followed. The room was rectangular and very large. Hundreds of books lined two of the walls and opposite were massive bay windows covered by green velvet curtains. An anatomical skeleton hung on its stand in one corner by a mahogany desk and there were coloured prints from Grey’s Anatomy on the walls. Centre stage, draped across a chair like a ghastly exhibit, was the body of a man. A tan belt had been tightened around his neck and he had been eviscerated – cut down the middle from chest to navel.

‘His name is Doctor Jonathan Wright. The other victim, his wife, is on the sofa by the bookshelves.’

Holly said nothing. She clasped her hands together and her fingers began to flutter like tiny birds. A nervous habit she had picked up when she was, what, ten years old? When she knew she should be doing something with her hands but didn’t know what it was. When she wanted to help but didn’t know how.

‘You okay?’

She nodded. She remembered the only other murder scene she had ever walked into and it all mashed together in an incoherent vision of red. Her chest was tight, and she could feel her heart smacking against her ribs with every beat. She wanted to turn around and walk away, to get out of there as fast as she could, but her legs wouldn’t respond. Then somehow, inexorably, they started to move until she found herself next to the doctor’s body. The smell immediately caught in her throat and she wanted to gag. The acrid taint of death, sweat and excrement.

His twisted face was white. His mouth sagged to one side and his blue eyes were open, but they were glassy and bloodshot, like a dead fish’s eyes. His trousers were pulled down to his ankles and his hands were tied behind his back. The cut in his abdomen was perhaps ten inches long, the exposed internal organs grey, and the dried blood looked cherry red in the light from the chandelier above.

‘Who found them?’

‘Their niece. Alexandra. They were supposed to be having a dinner party at nine. She came over at seven thirty to help and found them like this.’

Holly walked slowly over to the sofa and knelt beside the woman. She looked like a discarded mannequin. Her face was pushed into the blood-soaked cream sofa and a cushion had been placed on the back of her head. Whoever had tied her hands behind her back had dislocated one elbow with the force and it jutted awkwardly towards the ceiling. Around her neck was a belt, this one thin and black, and underneath it the skin was red raw. Her purple blouse was ripped from top to bottom and she was wearing a black skirt that had been cut or torn down the middle and spread open like a bat’s wings.

‘What was her name?’ Holl. . .