The Slaughter Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

Mary’s husband Brad been doing for the last twenty years or so?’ Whitestone said.
    ‘Sports agent,’ I said. ‘Here and in the States. Worked briefly for the father-in-law. That didn’t work out.’
    There were shouts and screams from down in the street and we all turned to look at the window. Four floors below MIR-2, the fury of the traffic was one unbroken howl. Savile Row is a narrow, canyon-like street, a place of bespoke tailors and hard-core Beatles fans looking for the scene of the band’s final gig. And from Conduit Street in the north to Burlington Gardens in the south, right now it was clogged with the world’s media. Banks of paparazzi, large vans with transmitting dishes, milling hordes of reporters were all waiting under the blue lamp of 27 Savile Row.
    ‘The MLO called again, boss,’ Wren said.
    The MLO was our Media Liaison Officer.
    ‘Yes?’ Whitestone said.
    ‘She wants to know when you’re going to brief the press,’ Wren said. ‘That photo of little Bradley is going to be on every front page tomorrow morning. It’s going to be all over the evening news tonight. And it’s on every social network right now. And nothing’s moving down there.’
    ‘Tell the MLO I’ll brief the press when the next of kin have formally identified the bodies,’ Whitestone said impatiently.
    Wren hesitated. ‘And I had a call from the Chief Super’s office.’
    ‘What did they want?’
    ‘They also want to know when you’re going to brief the press.’
    Whitestone nodded grimly. ‘You can tell DCS Swire’s office exactly the same thing: I’m not talking to journalists until the family have seen the bodies.’
    ‘That’s happening now,’ Wren said. ‘Mary Wood’s next of kin has arrived at the Iain West.’
    The Iain West Forensic Suite was the Westminster mortuary, named after the country’s legendary forensic pathologist.
    ‘Who’s over there?’
    ‘Mary Wood’s sister, accompanied by the FLO.’
    The FLO was the Family Liaison Officer. Every police station in the world is acronym central.
    Whitestone nodded, and turned to look at a map of London that reached from floor to ceiling.
    ‘How are we doing with the search, Curtis?
    ‘The major problem for the search teams is that our crime scene is in the greenest part of London,’ DI Curtis Gane said. ‘Lots of undergrowth, ditches, trees. Highgate Cemetery. Waterlow Park. Highgate Woods. Hampstead Heath. A couple of golf courses. It’s like looking for a body in a forest.’
    ‘And there’s a lot of water,’ Whitestone said. ‘The ponds in Highgate and Hampstead. Three reservoirs within – what? – a twenty-minute drive?’
    ‘Yes, boss,’ Gane said. ‘Brent Reservoir to the west. Manor House and Tottenham Hale to the east. We’ve called in Underwater Search and the Dive Team are working their way out. It’s hard going for the search teams, but they’ve got the full kit. Not just sniffer dogs – EVRDs.’
    Enhanced victim recovery dogs are trained to detect human remains.
    We stared at the photograph of the Wood family in silence.
    ‘It doesn’t make sense, does it?’ Whitestone said. ‘Spree killers don’t hit gated communities with a private security guard outside. And contract killers don’t abduct children.’ She paused, pushing her glasses up her nose, struggling to understand. ‘Who kills four people and then steals a child? Why does anyone steal a child?’
    ‘Extortion,’ Gane said. ‘That might fit. Demanding a ransom for the return of the child. These are seriously wealthy people.’
    ‘Trafficking,’ Wren said. ‘Abduction with the intent of sexual abuse, illegal adoption or organ farming.’
    ‘And murder,’ I said.
    ‘Get Dr Joe in here,’ Whitestone said. ‘Let’s have a psychological profile of the kind of creep who can kill a family and then abduct their child.’
    Wren reached for her phone and hit the speed dial for Dr Joe Stephen, a forensic psychologist based at King’s College