Extract 9 from Chapter 16
On the road out to the racetrack, Valentine felt the morning sun press itself on the window of the car. He was stiff and tense behind the wheel, gripping the gearstick in his left hand like it was a cudgel.
Outside, the street was weary – a row of houses that had lost all charm since the giant supermarket had relocated just up the road.
The detective rowed the gears back and forth as he passed through the traffic lights. He could see the racetrack on the right but turned away to check the clock on the dash. He tried to keep his mind open, but assumptions about a double murder on his patch pressed themselves again and again like mosquito bites on his mind.
Valentine parked the Vectra outside the track and made his way towards the collection of uniforms. He was ahead of the scene of crime officers, but the site had already been cordoned off by the first on the scene. He roved the surrounding area with his eyes and caught sight of DC McAlister walking towards him. Clouds crossed the sky above and dim sunrays fell like ticker-tape on the stand before slipping towards the track lanes.
“It’s the double of the last one, sir,” said McAlister.
Valentine gave the DC a look, then walked past him and made for the crime scene. When he got behind the cordon his shoulders tensed beneath his coat. He took a few steps closer and then walked around the victim. The man was heavier than James Urquhart, a bigger individual all round; he had a sports top pushed up around his neck, exposing a prominent stomach. The skin was pale, verging on white, and streaked with dark-red blood. Below his abdomen, a wooden stake poked skywards, streaked in blood that covered the genitals and the ground beneath.
Valentine walked towards the uniforms. “What’s the word from the track staff?”
“No idea who he is, sir… groundsman found him just as you see him now.”
The uniform waved a hand over the scene.
The detective beckoned McAlister towards him and stepped away from the uniforms. As he took a few steps further, he hooked his hands below the tails of his sports coat and gripped the edges of the pockets with his thumbs.
“What do you think?”
The DC turned towards the victim. “He’s bigger than Urquhart, but I think it could still be one man that moved him.”
Valentine nodded. “There’s no fence, no wall… no obstacles from here to the car park, so it’s possible.”
“He doesn’t look like a banker.”
“The tattoos and the fingers…”
McAlister thinned his eyes and tilted his head. “Fingers?”
“Yellowed with nicotine. I’d say he was a rollie smoker.”
“I don’t see the number one crop being a good look in the boardroom either.”
Valentine unhooked his thumbs and folded his arms.
“There’s got to be some connection, though. Someone has executed the pair of them in an identical fashion.”
“We might know better when the socos get here… Certainly if we get an ID we can explore links.”
Valentine scratched beneath his chin. He started to shake his head as he spoke. “Why, though? Why put them up on a spike like this?”
“It’s obvious… to give a message.”
“But why draw so much attention to yourself? If you want to kill someone, you hide the body, give yourself a chance of getting away with it… this is insanity.”
“You’re not kidding… We’re obviously dealing with a psycho.”
“Or somebody who wants to get caught.”
“Or somebody who thinks he’s too smart to get caught.”
The DI spotted the first of the socos’ vans to arrive; the fiscal and the pathologist would be next. “Ally, I want you to stay put. Anything crops up, get on the phone.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want the time of death and how long he’s been out in the cold as soon as you get it.” Valentine removed his car keys from his pocket and started to rattle them in his hand. “I want swabs and prints, and if we have him on file I want to know right away.”
“Sir.”
Artefacts of the Dead, by Tony Black, £7.99 paperback, Black & White Publishing.