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Sunday paper in Scotland as well. I wanted to make sure that it was seen by as many people as possible.’
    He sighed, pissed off that she had dragged him along on false pretences but more because she had chosen to shut him out of whatever it was she was up to. Yet his dark itch was also working overtime at the prospect of learning more about what had happened on the island so tantalisingly close across the water.
    ‘Tell me everything.’
    So she did.

CHAPTER 7
    The body had been found half-hidden in undergrowth in the grounds of Inchmahome Priory by two men who had gone over to the island to do maintenance work in time for the spring opening. The little that was left of her had been half-eaten by animals and insects, a bag of bones wrapped up in a red anorak. Her head had been repeatedly struck with a blunt object until the skull shattered, then her face had been smashed until it was unrecognisable. Decay, the freezing winter and the local wildlife did the rest.
    It was thought that the girl was in her late teens. No one local had gone missing; no one local had any idea who she was. Rachel’s father had cops knock on every door in the area but all to no avail. He’d dispatched them wider afield, setting up incident centres everywhere from Callander to Aberfoyle, from Lochearnhead to Stronachlachar. Nothing.
    Vague sketches went nationwide and they’d even bagged a spot on Crimewatch but, other than scaring up the usual nest of nutters, it had earned them nothing. Distinguishing the genuine sightings from the wild-goose chases was a thankless task. Identifying her proved impossible.
    ‘The real problem was the damage to the girl’s skull. According to my dad, it was horrendous: the worst he’d ever seen, and he’d seen plenty in his thirty years. It was smashed to bits. Most of the blows were to the back and side of the head and that was the principal area of attack. But there were also blows to the face, breaking the nose and teeth. In all, they estimated that she was hit twenty-two times in the head and face.’
    ‘Jesus Christ. Twenty-two?’
    ‘That many blows isn’t a lashing-out. It isn’t a flash of anger. It’s deep-seated rage. It’s sadistic. She would have been dead after less than a dozen hits. The rest was either to make recognition even harder or else it was borne out of pure evil.’
    ‘I thought you didn’t believe in evil?’ he asked her, immediately aware it wasn’t the wisest thing to do.
    It was an argument they’d had many times before and one they’d never resolved. Winter was sure true evil existed and he had the photographs to prove it: fatal stabbings, shootings, torture and mutilation. Rachel, however, believed only in the evil that men – and women – did. Her job was to catch them, not psychoanalyse them.
    ‘I don’t,’ she fired back at him. ‘But whatever it is that resides in people that can make them carry out evil things, this was pretty damn near to it. It was a real jigsaw job for the pathologist – fragments all over the scene.’
    ‘So what were they able to establish, evidence-wise?’
    ‘Not much. There was no sign of a murder weapon. There were various tree branches and bits of brick that could have done the job but none with any remnants of her on it. Even after a few months of Scottish winter, they’d still have carried traces. The best guess was he’d thrown it across the ice on the far side of the island, knowing it would soon melt into the lake.’
    ‘You said “he”. Definitely a man then?’
    ‘Not definitely. It was always assumed it was a man from the sheer ferocity of the attack but nothing was ruled in or out.’
    ‘What else?’
    ‘The snow had conserved some lividity, enough to suggest she’d died where she was found. That made sense anyway; it was stretching things to suggest she’d been carried over the ice to the island after she was killed. She’d walked there.’
    ‘So she knew him?’
    ‘Probably. Or else she didn’t walk