The Sect (The Craig Crime Series) by Catriona King Read Free Book Online Page B

noticed that his earrings had gone as well. He wasn’t sure if it was a sign of maturity or if some fresh piercing hell was on its way. The analyst shook his head.
    “The translation could take a w…while.”
    “Why so?”
    “It looks like Latin but it’s not any Latin I ever learned; one of the words looks like confession but even that could be wrong. I tried all the translation engines but no joy, s…so I got on to the universities and so far all they’ve come back with is that it’s an ancient language.”
    Liam snorted. “I could have told them that.”
    Davy ignored him. “I can tell you that the tatt’s not on the PNC distinguishing marks database, s…so it’s never been found on a UK corpse before. I’m widening the search to Europe.”
    As Craig said ‘OK’ vaguely, his mind searching for what the tattoo meant, he wrote ‘Ancient text?’ on the board and went to move on. His progress was halted by Liam suddenly bursting into song. Craig didn’t know what he was more surprised by, the piece he was singing or Liam’s amazing baritone voice. As the Latin words of Panis Angelicus faded away to a spontaneous round of applause he recovered enough to ask the questions on everyone’s lips.
    “Where did you learn to sing like that? Why now? And how come this is the first time we’ve ever heard you?”
    Liam grinned proudly. “The point is I know a lot of Latin. Choir and altar boy for ten years.” He gave Nicky a wink. “Then I discovered girls and went to hell in a handbasket.”
    Craig smiled, imagining a teenage Liam chucking his sheet music into the air and racing after some girl.
    “Well, if my mum ever hears you you’ll be duetting with her for years.” Mirella had been a concert pianist.
    He tapped the board to focus them back on the case. “So Liam’s our resident Latin scholar but we’ll have to wait for the universities to translate the tattoo. OK, before I hand over to the Docs I need to emphasise that this isn’t a case we can drag our heels on. There have been three deaths in a short period, the last two today, so we have a serial killer on our hands and he’s escalating. If he continues at this rate… well, we all know what that means.”
    He turned to where John, Mike and Des were sitting in a row, like a scientific three monkeys.
    “Fire ahead, John.”
    The pathologist lifted a folder beside his feet and distributed the hand-outs inside. They contained a mixture of words and photographs and as Annette flicked through the pages she gasped. He nodded.
    “Quite. Try not to look at the photographs until we tell you what they are. Turn to page three please.”
    It was a table.
    “That’s the composition of the water found on the girl last week. We’re expecting the others to match.” He turned to the chair beside him where Des was busy stroking his beard. It was getting longer, a fact that Liam decided to point out.
    Des sniffed disdainfully, sucking a strand of hair vertically as he did, then he started to explain the table.
    “You’ll see that there are common chemicals listed: Aluminium, calcium, chlorine. They’re present in all purified water, but it’s the percentages that make the water peculiar to an area. This water definitely came from the Silent Valley. Narrower than that is impossible to say.”
    Carmen interrupted. “How did you know to check it was purified?”
    Des smiled kindly at her. He didn’t know Carmen well so he didn’t realise just how dangerous that was.
    “The absence of diatoms and algae made us look. Then we found the chemicals.”
    Even Craig heard the head-patting tone of his voice so he cut in before she made a caustic retort.
    “So you expect all three victims to match.”
    Des nodded. “We’ll obviously check each one, but yes.”
    “Good. So if all our victims were drowned indoors that means our killers had privacy. It’s also more difficult than you think to drown someone, even if they’re weak. People fight back, so we know