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  “I understand, Sir. It’s just that before I left, there was speculation we were still in the market for a DCI to replace DCI Harvey.”

  “Things change quickly, Scott. The powers that be…” Meadows pointed to the ceiling, suggesting the chief superintendent who sat on the floor above, “and the CC, are pushing hard to balance the books. The cuts come at the loss of over seven hundred officers, and three hundred other staff. It’s impacting everyone…and…we all know morale in the lower ranks is taking a hit.”

  “So where does that leave us? Are we doing away with the rank at Brighton?”

  Meadows shrugged his shoulders. “Your guess is as good as mine, Scott. We have a better chance of getting another DC for your team than a DCI, because it’s cheaper.”

  Scott nodded and looked away. Any possible chance of taking up an acting DCI role seemed to slip away.

  Sensing Scott’s frustration, Meadows sought to reassure him. “Listen, Scott, I know how you felt about DCI Harvey. That was then, this is now. We’ve got a job to do, budget cuts or no budget cuts. We still do the best we can.” He paused as he studied Scott’s face for any reaction. “Listen…I know we haven’t seen eye to eye in the past, but we’re on the same side and need to work together. Yes, you have a different managerial style. You’re gung-ho, and perhaps I’m more ambitious than you, but between you and me, we can cover the DCI’s responsibilities?”

  Scott was taken aback by the Detective Superintendent’s comments. His nice comments. Scott wasn’t used to that, but then again, he was having a swipe about ambition.

  Scott opened his mouth to defend his career aspirations when Meadows raised a finger at the ringing of his internal phone. Meadows remained impassive during the conversation, offering the occasional “hmm,” before he pointed at Scott, and replaced the handset.

  “Scott your team is on. You need to head over to the Whitehawk. Uniform have just taken a call. A dismembered body has been found by a local resident. It’s the body of a child.”

  2

  Within minutes of the call, the team scrambled. Meadows’s last words were, “Keep me informed as soon as you’ve got control on the ground.” The journey to the Whitehawk estate took less than ten minutes. A heady mix of nerves and excitement, laced with a tinge of sadness, overshadowed the journey.

  The team never looked forward to being called out to a body. Injuries, the stage of decomposition, and the circumstances surrounding a corpse’s condition, often made for uncomfortable viewing. That the early reports suggested a young child, only added to the tension and concern.

  Scott received regular updates over the radio as they weaved in and out of the streets of the estate. Different scenarios turned over in his mind. Was this an abduction and murder? Were there anxious parents waiting for news of their missing child? Or worse, had this been an act of violence on a child inflicted by a parent?

  The two cars were waved through the outer cordon that had been set up some distance away from the crime scene. A fair share of curious onlookers narrowed their eyes at the comings and goings of every police vehicle, to arrive at their own conclusions.

  Scott, Mike, and Abby signed in with the scene guard and donned their paper suits, overshoes, gloves, and face masks. Scott instructed Raj and Helen to speak with the police officers first on the scene and to organise door-to-door enquiries. He then sent Mike and Abby up the hillside towards a white forensic tent that had been erected on the inclined bank. Scott took a moment to survey the scene.

  From where he stood, the outer edge of the housing estate sat to his left, and the grassy bank to his right. He couldn’t see evidence of CCTV on any of the surrounding houses. Without the presence of any shops either, the chances of getting vital information appeared slim.

  Despite the large police presence, a distinct stillness and calmness set the tone of the scene. Officers had the innate ability to just switch into work mode regardless of the heinous nature of the crimes they attended. More than half a dozen police cars were parked in a row, a grey private ambulance marked the presence of the mortuary assistants, two white scientific services vans confirmed the attendance of Matt and his forensic teams, and Cara’s silver Ford Focus sat at the back of the line.

  Scott picked his way up the two small, steep inclines towards the white tent. Several SOCOs combed an area twenty yards around the tent, accompanied by half a dozen police officers in blue overalls and blue baseball caps. He watched them pause as they mapped out a trail of footprints which were nothing more than trodden grass, identifying the direction in which the perp had entered the area. The dry and firm ground made for sharp, brittle grass. Very little rain over the summer had left the ground parched.

  Abby stood outside the tent staring at the ground, her arms wrapped around her chest. She glanced up as Scott approached. He observed her ashen face and red eyes with concern. She shook her head. “It’s fucking grim, Guv.”

  Scott pursed his lips. “What have we got?”

  “A little black boy wrapped in a blanket and plastic sheeting.” Abby paused for a moment as she took a few deep lungfuls of air. “He’s missing his arms and head.”

  Scott took a moment to take in Abby’s words. Part of him wanted to believe he’d misheard, but she didn’t negate the grim revelations. He had heard right and needed to see for himself. He lifted the flap and entered the tent. A large evergreen bush had been cut back to reveal a small clearing in the middle. Large arc lights lit the scene. Cara jotted down her final notes. Brilliant white flashes of light from the SOCO’s camera blinded him.

  He stared down at the small naked body that rested atop of a red blanket which sat on top of some blue plastic sheeting. Without its head and arms, it could have been mistaken for a very large doll still in its final stages of construction. Words failed him, and he sucked in a breath to keep his composure. Even if he saw a dead body every day for the rest of his career, he’d never get used to brutally murdered kids. He needed to focus but his mind kept repeating, What kind of fucking monster does this to a child?

  Scott knelt down to inspect the remains. He prayed that the child had not suffered in what appeared to be a violent death. He glanced over towards Cara who had paused from her writing to stare at the corpse. Washed away in her own thoughts, she muttered, “Welcome back, hey?”

  “Don’t you wish we had never come back?” He sighed. “Time of death?”

  “The body is cold and stiff, so rigor is still present. I would say within the last eight to thirty-six hours max. However, bear in mind there is no evidence of decomposition. I would suggest that time of death was within the last eight to twelve hours. Had the body been warm and stiff, then I would have said three to eight hours. But we also have to take into consideration the external temperature. It wasn’t cold last night, and the body temperature drop was slowed by being wrapped in a blanket and plastic sheeting.”

  “What else can you tell us?”

  Cara let out a huge sigh. “No more than six or seven years old, and no less than five I’d imagine. There’s a tear in both shoulders, not clean amputations as you can see. From first inspections, it looks like the head was severed with a clean cut as opposed to sawn. But I’ll know more when I can get the poor boy back. There’s significant blood loss on the blanket so that would suggest that the injuries were sustained whilst the victim was alive. Left leg, dislocated. The opening of chest cavity was done not long after his other limbs and the head was removed.”

  “Sounds like a frenzied attack?”

  “Possibly, yes. I don’t think he put up much of a fight. There are no defensive marks or lacerations to the rest of his body. Perhaps there was in his arms, but…”

  Scott nodded and gave Cara a reassuring squeeze on her arm. “I’ll see you outside in a bit.” He walked away from the tent to gather his thoughts, finding it hard to control his emotions. A mixture of deep sadness and anger stiffened his body. Anything to do with children struck a chord with him. In his book, they were the worst a
cts of violence that could be committed.

  “I told you it wasn’t pretty.” Abby sniffed as she came alongside him.

  Scott coughed and cleared his throat as he refocused. “It doesn’t get much worse than that. Whoever did this is one sick, twisted fucker. They found the arms or head?” Scott asked as he nodded towards the officers combing the ground.

  “Not yet. They could be anywhere around here or even dumped in another part of town,” Abby replied as she scoped the terrain.

  “Who found the body?”

  “It was an old fella taking his dog for a walk. The dog darted into the bushes. It’s a little Yorkie terrier. Despite trying to call it back, it wouldn’t come out. Poor old sod had to crawl in there on his hands and knees. That’s when he found Dave tearing through the plastic sheeting.”

  “Dave?”

  “His dog.” Abby shrugged as if to suggest that it was a daft name for a dog. “Uniform have taken a statement from him. Raj is going to speak to him as well. The gentleman needed medical attention for the shock.”

  Cara appeared from inside the tent and joined Scott and Abby as Matt Allen the crime scene manager wondered over. They huddled in a circle to discuss their initial findings and the next steps.

  “I think it makes sense to extend the search area for any further evidence and the missing body parts.”

  “That will be a big job, Scott,” Matt replied. “We are talking about a strip of land more than half a mile long, and a third of a mile wide.”

  “Well, an aerial search won’t reveal much. We are not going to pick up any heat sources. But it is worth bringing in the dogs to see if they can pick up a blood trail. Abby, can you organise that for us?”

  Abby nodded her acknowledgement.

  “When can we get the PM done, Cara?”

  Cara blew out her cheeks. “I can do the PM for tomorrow. I’ve just got too much on today, first day back and all that.”

  “I know you’re busy, Cara, but we need some answers on this quickly. It’s a child. It’s someone’s son and even brother?”

  Cara knew Scott’s feelings on child deaths. Knowing how much it would affect him, she knew that Scott would make this a personal crusade to expedite this case and leave no stone unturned. “Okay, okay. We’ll get the mortuary team to take the body now, and I’ll conduct the PM later on this afternoon. How’s that?”

  Scott nodded in appreciation just as Mike joined them. He had followed the bank up to the top of the hill and then tracked along the ridge to identify anything else of interest. On his way back down, he had ventured into the tent, and then came out moments later unfazed.

  “Two hundred yards over the ridge is the outer edge of Brighton racecourse. So, I can’t imagine that the body was brought from there,” he said, poking his thumb over his shoulder from where he had just come. “So it looks as if the road at the bottom of the hill is the likely entry route for whoever dumped the body here.”

  Matt agreed saying, “The trail of compressed grass we’ve identified appears to come from the road. There’s only one track going there and back. We searched the road in the immediate vicinity of the track, and there’s nothing of interest. There’s no blood traces, fabric, tyre tracks, or anything. Our only hope is the blanket in the plastic sheeting, plus anything else that we can lift off the body.”

  “Well, if the current search reveals nothing, then perhaps we need to organise a PolSA and a larger search team. We’re talking about a large geographical area here. Certainly, the dogs would be a good place to start. There’s nothing more for us to do around here, so we’ll go back, and I’ll speak to the guv and see if we should deploy more resources.”

  The teams headed back to the cars. Abby and Scott decided to have a drive around the local area just to see if they could spot anything unusual.

  As Scott hovered by the car door, he overheard some comments amongst the crowd that had gathered. He turned to Abby. “What do you notice with that lot?”

  Abby glanced over to see a fair proportion of what she took to be residents, nudging each other, and nattering away with smiles on their faces. Some youths towards the back had found something amusing as a ripple of laughter spread throughout the crowd.

  “Well, they don’t seem to be that bothered about a body being discovered on their doorstep.”

  Scott agreed. But he had singled out a comment amongst all the chatter. One of the youths had remarked, “That’s one less black fucker.” His words were met with a cackle of laughter as the group creased up. There had been a history of racial tension in the area for many years. Feral youths, continuous antisocial behaviour, high unemployment, and poor social services had led to a heightened state of frustration on the estate.

  The police would often avoid venturing on to the estate single-handed, as kids pelted their cars with stones. Any opportunity to apprehend the troublesome youths would prove fruitless as they darted through the warren of pedestrian walkways that criss-crossed the estate.

  The heightened tension remained as they drove through the surrounding streets. Residents viewed them with suspicion. He sensed the air thickening, as if you could slice a knife through it. Even though the estate was known for it, on this occasion, a chilling atmosphere of malice and hatred clung to the air, stealing all the oxygen from the vicinity.

  Scott screeched to a halt when something hit the side of his car. First, he thought it was a rock or stone.

  “What the fuck was that?” Abby screamed as she glanced over her shoulder to check that all the windows were still intact.

  They both exited the car and walked around its perimeter. On the back-rear quarter panel, the remnants of an egg trickled down the vehicle. Fragments of shell and yoke clung to the paintwork.

  “Did you see where that came from?” Scott asked as he glanced up and down the street. Abby did the same, scrutinising every front door and window for any signs of movement.

  “No, nothing. Just some scrotes with nothing better to do. I don’t think we should hang around, in case the next one isn’t an egg.”

  3

  Scott hovered in the doorway as he waited for the DSupt Meadows to finish his phone call. The first twenty-four hours of any case were the most crucial. With the assumption that the child had been dead less than twelve hours, time wasn’t on Scott’s side. His mind kept flashing back to the hideous scene he had just left.

  A child, that’s all it was. A child that hadn’t begun life yet. His mind raced as he thought about the child’s final moments. Had he been scared? Had he been conscious? Had he suffered pain? How can someone be so sadistic?

  Scott shook his head in disbelief. Having lost Becky, dealing with infant and child deaths always felt too close to home. It clouded his judgement though he didn’t care to admit it. Seeing his own child mowed down by a reckless joyrider caused him to question his values. Would he have been better off going on his own personal vendetta to find the culprit and dish out his own brand of vigilante justice?

  He had tried to stay on the right side of the law and left to his colleagues to investigate the case. When they had drawn a blank, his trust and belief in the system had shattered into a thousand pieces, much in the same way that his life had.

  He was dragged away from his darkest thoughts as he heard his name being called. Meadows waved him in.

  “I’ve seen the body cam footage from Abby. It didn’t look good from where I was sitting. What have we got?”

  Scott shook his head as he agreed with Meadows’s initial assessment. “It’s very grim, Sir. We’re looking at a child between the age of five and seven. The victim has been mutilated. The head has been severed, along with its arms. No evidence of either in the immediate vicinity. They’ve also sliced down the chest, exposing internal organs. Dr Hall didn’t find any other visible injuries apart from those.”

  Meadows grimaced as he took on board Scott’s words. “I hope the poor sod wasn’t alive when he went through that.”

  “I’m afraid he was, Sir
. There’s significant blood loss. That suggests he was alive. Whether he was conscious or not is a different matter.”

  Meadows rolled his eyes. “Just what we need. The local press will have a field day. The fact it’s a child means they’ll be all over this case. And we’ll have panicked parents everywhere.”

  Scott nodded in agreement and shrugged. “Is it worth putting out a press release?”

  “No, not yet. Not until we have a few more facts and an identity.”

  “I’m suggesting that we organise a PolSA and search team, Sir.”

  “It’s a big draw on resources, Scott, what’s your reasoning behind the request?”

  “Because it’s a large search area, and we have the boy’s head and limbs still missing. They could be in the vicinity. Combining a search team with the dogs may help us to cover the area quicker.”

  Meadows agreed and made the call to organise a PolSA team to be made available as soon as a risk assessment had been made. Putting a PolSA team together took uniformed resources away from other jobs. The team comprised a police search adviser trained to plan and manage search activity, and uniform, search-trained officers. They would still report in to the SIO, who had overall control of the case.

  “Anything else?”

  “Other than the old gentleman who found him, eyewitnesses are thin on the ground. We hardly get on with many Whitehawk residents. There’s a reluctance to talk to us. And something didn’t feel right when we were there.”

  Meadows narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips looking for further clarification.

  “What do you mean?”