Redemption of the Dead Read Online Free PDF

he sexually assaulted the body in almost every way imaginable and then extensively mutilated her, paying particular attention to her breasts and sexual organs.
You hate women, don’t you? You hate them so much it drove you to do this.
    Sean walked deeper into the flat, past the bathroom and the bedroom that the victim used until he reached the lounge – the place where the final scene from hell unfolded. He stood in the middle of the room and used the photographs to put everything back into place in his mind, just as it had been when the victim was discovered – before a single thing had been moved. But the pictures were so vivid and terrible he found it hard to look at them for more than a few seconds at a time. He wondered what it must have been like for the first police at the scene – cops who’d been called by the childminder when the mother wouldn’t open the door, expecting to find her asleep or drunk or at the local shop, but to discover
this.
Surely they’d be haunted by it for the rest of their lives, even if they never admitted it. And what must have it been like for the forensic team, who would have had to work in the scene for hours before the body was removed? How could they have concentrated totally – not been distracted? Not
missed
something?
    Again he flicked through the photographs until he found the one he was looking for – a picture of a doll that had been sitting on the chair opposite the sofa on which the victim had been mutilated and violated – as if it had been
watching
the killer – watching the killer perform
.
Sean looked closer, using the size of the chair for scale, speaking out loud so he could hear his own thoughts – hear if they made any sense. ‘You put the doll there. You put the doll there so it could watch you rage all over her. And you chose the largest doll you could find because it felt more lifelike – as if you were being watched – watched by a child – by her child. You dragged her in here and you cut her throat, but then you left her and went to find the boy, didn’t you? But he wasn’t here, and that made your rage burn all the brighter, until you saw the doll – large and ornate – something an adult might own, but not a young boy, so you knew it was probably the mother’s and not the child’s. And that made it even more real for you. So you brought the doll back in here and placed it where it could see everything. Only, did you forget yourself, for a few moments when you thought you were going to seek out the child, did you forget you’d taken you gloves off? Because you did take them off, once you were inside, didn’t you? You couldn’t bear to have a barrier between you and the victim. You needed to feel her skin and you knew you couldn’t leave your prints on skin, so you took your gloves off. But while your gloves were off, did you touch the doll? Did you touch its plastic face? Did you leave us your prints? Did we miss them – in all the hell you left behind – did we miss them? We did, didn’t we? Fuck,’ he suddenly punctuated his thoughts as he closed the file and slipped it back into the unmarked envelope.
    He walked to an unboarded window, hoping the view of the heath might chase away the images that threatened to lock themselves away in his mind forever. But as he looked out over the common land and dense wood he could think of one thing and one thing only.
This is our man. It has to be. Rebecca Fordham’s killer is the Parkside Rapist, and he’s going to kill again.
As he stared at the heath, all he could see was the dark figure of a faceless man moving quietly and quickly through the trees.
Waiting.
    * * *
    ‘This is bollocks,’ Sean swore as he sat on the opposite side of the desk to Charlie Bannan. ‘It’s wrong, just like McCaig was the wrong man and they know it.’
    ‘It’s politics, son,’ Bannan tried to explain ‘and they don’t know they’ve got the wrong man. They may suspect it, but they don’t know it. As far