Bye Bye Baby by Fiona McIntosh Read Free Book Online Page A

just make for the library and you’ll find your new home next door.’
    Bill Marsh gave a low whistle. ‘Bit posher than Victoria Block, eh, Jack?’
    Jack winked at the older man. ‘I do my best for us, Swamp.’ He looked back at the main group. ‘Now, we’ll be moving over to our new premises from this evening, when I’m assuming all our designated phonenumbers and home page on the intranet will be up, so grab one of these photocopied maps if you’re unsure.’
    He looked at PC Patel and PC McGloughlan. ‘If you’re first-timers here, then expect to get lost because the lifts are a bastard to navigate. Incidentally, apart from the amazing views I can promise from Operation Danube, the library is one of the best spots for Yard gossip.’
    Everyone laughed except Sarah Jones, the detective fresh out of Hendon, who nodded rather seriously. Jack made a mental note that he would have to put the young DS at her ease over the next few days.
    He got down to business. ‘You’ve all been given the file notes, so you know what we’re dealing with.’
    ‘Are we treating this officially as a serial killing?’
    It was the obvious question that perhaps most didn’t want to ask, but Detective Inspector Kate Carter was never afraid to ask the difficult questions. It was one of the reasons that Jack liked and trusted her. He’d worked with her twice before, once when she too was just a few years out of Hendon, and again five years later, and she’d impressed him both times. Kate was a terrier who couldn’t let anything go once she’d latched onto it as a potential clue. She was also an instinctive detective, who, like him, tended not to follow the rule book so much as trust her gut. She’d been his first choice when pulling together the team, especially now that she’d made DI.
    Cam Brodie, her counterpart and all too familiar colleague, grunted. ‘What else would you call it, Kate, two in a row?’
    ‘Just checking the official line on it, Cam.’
    ‘Yes,’ Hawksworth said, over their sarcastic glances, ‘we’re treating the murders as a serial killing.’

    ‘Thank you,’ Kate said, but might as well have added, ‘Touché’.
    ‘Okay, I’m going to hand you over briefly to John Tandy from the Forensic Science Service,’ Jack went on. ‘He’s had only the briefest of chances so far to look over all the crime notes and come up with something we can work with. John?’
    People shifted on the hard wooden chairs in an attempt to find slightly more comfortable positions as a man in his late fifties with thick dark hair shot through with silver took the floor.
    ‘This is a very loose picture, folks,’ he began. ‘We’ll improve it in coming weeks.’
    ‘When we get more bodies, you mean?’ Bill Marsh called out.
    ‘Come on, Bill,’ Jack cajoled. ‘Poor taste, eh?’
    Bill Marsh — known as Swamp, a middle-aged man in a rumpled suit — had ten years on Hawksworth, but had never been material for a DCI, even though he’d dreamed of running his own unit. To Bill’s credit, he’d never held it against the young lion roaring up the ladder, nor had he ever voiced what everyone presumably believed: Martin Sharpe had made that ladder a little easier for Hawksworth to climb.
    Tandy cleared his throat and continued. ‘Alright, so far we have a left-handed killer. This is a cold personality — the actual dispatch of both victims was calm, calculated and handled with minimum fuss. Neither killing was done in a state of uncontrollable anger. If rage was present, I believe the killer had his emotions in check.
    ‘Michael Sheriff was drugged and taken to a quietplace, where, presumably, he was quickly dealt with. The same goes for Clive Farrow in Hackney.’
    ‘Why do you describe the killer as cold, John?’ Kate asked.
    ‘No passion,’ Tandy replied, pointing to the images blown up and pinned on the board behind him. ‘No need for a lot of blood, and he didn’t make the victims suffer as much as he