Redemption of the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

as they’re concerned the criminologist told them McCaig’s the right man and the top-brass told them to listen to her.’
    ‘Then they should have told her to go fuck herself,’ Sean suggested.
    ‘Yes they should,’ Bannan agreed with a chuckle, ‘but they didn’t and they won’t. And there’s something for you to learn and never forget – don’t ever, ever, let outsiders tell you your business. We’re the police – we decide who is and who isn’t guilty – not some historian looking to make a name for herself, not some politician trying to make himself feel important. We put the guilty before the courts and if they fuck it up that’s not down to us and we move on. The Fordham Investigation team fucked up – they let an outsider
tell them their business and somewhere down the line it’s going to cost them – it’s going to cost them big-time.’
    ‘I hope it does,’ Sean told him. ‘But right now it’s not going to help us, so what are we going to do next?’
    ‘Nothing,’ Bannan admitted.
    ‘Nothing? But there has to be a way of getting them to hand over their evidence, or at least get a look at the lab report about the blood spray pattern. I’m convinced he put the doll on the sofa after he cut the victim’s throat, but before he did the rest. He wanted a fucking audience and he was in a hurry, so much of a hurry he forgot to put his gloves back on. The doll had a plastic face. He could have left us his prints.’
    ‘It’s an interesting theory,’ Bannan told him, but there was no excitement in his voice. Sean noticed it.
    ‘Wait a minute – you’d already thought of it, hadn’t you?’
    ‘I’d considered it,’ he admitted.
    ‘And did you tell anyone?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘It wouldn’t have changed anything. No one would have been interested in my theories. They had McCaig and that was enough.’
    ‘But what about checking the doll for blood spray patterns, to prove he put it there?’ Sean asked.
    ‘It wouldn’t change anything.’
    ‘But it could indicate he’d touched it – left his prints.’
    ‘The doll was dusted,’ Bannan crushed him. ‘There were no prints on it other than the mother’s and the boy’s. If the killer touched it at all he didn’t leave his prints.’
    ‘Something else then,’ Sean insisted. ‘Something else they missed.’
    ‘Forget it, son. There ain’t nothing I can do about it.’
    ‘There has to be,’ Sean insisted. ‘We can’t just let it slide.’
    ‘Yes, we can and yes, we will,’ Bannan told him. ‘This is a big boys’ game. You have to suck it up and move on. It’s what we do. When we catch the Parkside Rapist, and we will, we’ll know we’ve got the man who also killed Rebecca Fordham. Even if we never prove it in a court, at least we’ll know – you and me.’
    ‘That’s not enough.’
    ‘Sure it is. And for what he’s done to the other women he’ll get life anyway, so all things will work out equal.’
    ‘Not if he kills again,’ Sean reminded him, ‘and he will – I know he will.’
    ‘Then we’d better catch him fast, hadn’t we, son?’ Bannan told him. ‘Before he has a chance to.’
    ‘We can’t,’ Sean warned him, ‘not without access to the Fordham evidence. Do you have any friends at the Lab? Someone who owes you a favour?’
    ‘I know what you’re thinking and the answer’s no – I’m not going to sneak up the Lab and have a crafty look at what they may or may not have. You just don’t do that, son – not for anything.’
    ‘Why not? If you know they’re wrong.’
    ‘They’re Old Bill, son – more than that, they’re detectives. We don’t shaft each other – remember that.’
    Sean tried to work the tension out of his neck by rolling his head around his shoulders.
    ‘Relax,’ Bannan told him, ‘we’ll get him and soon. This ain’t no master-criminal we’re after, it’s just another sick-nutter. He’s about due to fuck-up and when he does – we’ll be waiting