Cut Dead by Mark Sennen Read Free Book Online

many last night.’
    Savage couldn’t imagine Collier having too many beers, nor could she see him being seasick. He was ex-military, with a severe haircut to match, discipline his middle name. She cocked her head on one side. Collier held his hands up.
    ‘Alright. It’s my brother-in-law. He’s down for the week and this is better than spending eight hours stuck on a small boat with him.’ Collier shook his head, embarrassed at the lie. ‘Anyway, Radial . The name.’
    ‘ Radial ?’ Savage said. ‘Where did you get that from?’
    ‘Don’t blame me. You know how it is. The computer spits out the name of the operation at random. Mind of its own.’
    ‘You put that up?’ Savage pointed to the countdown.
    ‘Yes. It’s called an incentive. Something to focus the mind.’
    DC Calter raised her head from a nearby desk and glanced over.
    ‘Something to scare us all shitless more like,’ she said.
    ‘That too.’ Collier allowed a hint of a smile to show on his face. ‘But knowing the date when the killer is likely to strike at least means we can organise our resources more effectively. We can also use the fact to lean on external agencies to pull their fingers out. If they don’t we can blame them when things go tits up.’
    ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,’ Savage said. ‘Now explain this to me.’
    Collier had manoeuvred a number of whiteboards into the centre of the room. The middle one had ‘POA’ written in marker pen at the top.
    Plan of Action.
    The office manager began to outline his thinking. Confirming identification, he said, would be the key. Once established beyond doubt the bodies belonged to the missing women, they could proceed on the basis that this was the work of the Candle Cake Killer. Until then they could only assume.
    ‘But we’ll go with the assumption for now,’ Collier said. ‘Because we’ve sod all else.’
    ‘And once we’ve confirmed ID?’ Savage said.
    ‘We move through my plan.’
    Collier indicated a set of bullet points, lines leading away to boxouts where he’d scrawled instructions. Savage picked out an awful lot of uses of the word ‘review’: Review victim case history. Review connections between victims. Review family suspects. Review forensic evidence. She expressed her concerns to Collier. Didn’t the word imply the previous investigation had missed something?
    ‘Yes.’ Collier reached up and scratched the stubble on the top of his head. ‘Of course it does. And they did miss something. Else I’d be out on that bloody pollack boat with my brother-in-law.’
    Collier moved on. Off to one side of the board he’d boxed out another area. Inside the box was the word ‘profiling’. As he pointed the word out a smirk slid across his face.
    ‘Dirty word, hey?’ he said. ‘Round here, anyway.’
    The trek back to the lane for the rendezvous with Enders took Riley forty minutes. The route had to be circuitous to avoid any possibility of being seen and at two points he had to crawl on his hands and knees. By the time he reached Enders’ car he was muddy, soaked and in a foul mood.
    ‘Did you bring my stuff?’ Riley said as the young DC’s smile emerged from behind the steamed-up glass as the window slipped down.
    Enders jerked a thumb towards a holdall sitting on the rear seat. Riley got in the back and as Enders started up he opened the holdall and began to change into the spare kit. The clothing was gym gear Riley used if he fancied running home from the station, but it was better than remaining wet.
    Before long they reached the main road and headed north. Within half an hour they drummed across a cattle grid and onto Dartmoor. They left the jumble of little fields behind and the rugged moorland terrain opened out before them, the road sweeping its way north-west, climbing towards Princetown.
    Riley had expected the weather on the moor to be dank and dreary, what with the earlier mist and rain. However, as they climbed upwards they emerged