Pauline Rowson - Tide of Death

He collected Cantelli and went to the mortuary. They found Doctor Clayton in her office. She looked tired.

'At first glance it appeared he was strangled,' she said. Her office looked as though a tornado had swept through it: papers were scattered across her desk and files littered the floor. A bookcase crammed with heavy volumes filled the wall to his left and behind her hung a large portrait of a man executed in oils. He was in his fifties and in modern dress; Horton thought he looked vaguely familiar. On her desk, apart from the papers, there was a telephone, flat screen computer and three photographs in frames, facing away from him.

Cantelli asked, 'Do you think he was involved in some kind of sexual game that went wrong?'

'Auto-erotic asphyxia, deliberately restricting oxygen to the brain to enhance an orgasm? The way he was dressed might suggest that but even if he had indulged in such an activity before his death there is no evidence of semen, or that he had sex with anyone immediately prior to his death. The cord was placed around his neck after his death.'

'To make us think that he'd been involved in sex games?'

She shrugged. 'Possibly but he died of asphyxiation like our other victim; this time I would say he's been suffocated with a plastic bag. It was difficult to tell because of the decomposition but I found some evidence of petechial haemorrhages on his shoulder and on the front of the chest, which hadn't been eaten by the wildlife. That's where I would expect to find them if a plastic bag had been placed over his head and held there until he died.'

'No signs of being knocked out, or beaten about the head?' asked Cantelli, chewing and jotting down notes.

'None whatsoever. You're wondering how a grown man, and a fairly fit one, could allow someone to put a plastic bag over him and suffocate him?'

Cantelli nodded. 'Something like that.'

'Which indicates he might already have been unconscious when it was done,' said Horton.

She gave him a rueful smile. 'Yes. I've sent his organs for analysis and a blood sample to histology, so if there is any sign of a drug, I'll let you know.'

'You could try looking for Hypervase. I found a bottle of the tablets on his boat. They'd been prescribed for hypertension. If someone had given him an overdose of those would it have induced a coma?'

'It certainly would.'

'Was he killed in the tower, doctor, or was his body dumped there?' Horton repeated the question he'd asked her at the scene.

'The body had been moved. We're still doing the tests to see if we can pick up any traces of fibre or anything else to indicate where he might have been killed but he wasn't killed in the tower.'

That bore out what Phil Taylor had told him earlier. The undergrowth in and around the tower, and the disturbance of the debris in the tower, had both shown evidence of something being dragged over it and recently. Taylor couldn't say what but the description he had given Horton of the pattern of disturbance sounded remarkably like a tender.

'What about time of death?'

Horton had once been given a lecture in forensic entomology in great detail by an enthusiastic and rather brutal pathologist when he had been a young and very green policeman attending one of his first post mortems. He hoped Gaye Clayton wasn't going to repeat it.

'Difficult to say exactly, but judging from the insect life feeding on the body, and the lifecycle of the maggots when the body was discovered, I would say they were just beginning the second stage of pupation. So, as I said at the scene, about six to seven days, which puts us somewhere near early hours of Saturday morning.' She swung gently in her chair. 'It's a bit different from the other body, isn't it?'

Horton eyed her keenly interpreting her meaning. 'You mean this man was killed, transported and hidden, whereas our body on the beach, Michael Culven, was killed not far from where he was found and in full view.'

She nodded.

Horton continued. 'Which means it could be two killers, or one killer wanting us to think it is two.'

'Huh?' Cantelli enquired.

Horton explained: 'The killing of the first victim had some of the imprints of a disorganised offender: body left in full view and at, or near the death scene; sudden violence in the manner of strangulation; depersonalising the victim by bludgeoning his face. Whereas our second victim was hidden, he was killed elsewhere and moved to the tower — the profile of an organised offender.'

'Maybe the tower has some significance?' Cantelli ventured.

Horton didn't think so. He thought it was just a convenient place to dump a body, especially if done so from the sea, in the dark and fog. 'If it is the same killer then I think this murder was carefully planned and that Culven either saw something that could betray the killer and therefore had to be silenced, or Culven's death was used as a delaying tactic. I keep recalling the way Culven was laid out. There has to be some symbolic reference in that.'

'You mean like on a crucifix?' Dr Clayton said.

'Yes. Almost as if Culven was a sacrifice.' But sacrifice to what? Their second body might have waited in that tower a long time if it hadn't been for those lovers. An idea was beginning to form in Horton's mind, which he didn't much care for, mainly because it didn't fit with his theories on Jarrett being the possible killer.

Dr Clayton said, 'If they are connected then your killer must be a clever and imaginative character.'

Horton agreed. There was no set pattern to this case, no easy profiling. This man was clever enough to conduct two murders that appeared completely different whilst trying to make them look similar by strangulation and the sexual implications.

The door opened and a young man in a white coat entered. 'The images you wanted, Dr Clayton.' He stretched out a folder.

She gave him a smile before handing the folder to Horton. 'You'll find dental images, DNA breakdown and fingerprints in there. That should give you enough to identify him. I'll let you know as soon as I have anything on the organ analysis and from histology. Now I'm going to have to throw you out. I'm whacked and I want to get some sleep.'

Neither of them objected. As soon as they got back to the station Cantelli hurried off to check out the fingerprints with Scientific Services. Horton had barely stepped inside his office when his mobile rang.

'What the devil do you think you're playing at, Andy, coming here and shouting and swearing at the neighbours?'

Christ! Catherine. His heart went into overdrive. He hadn't expected this though he might have known Eric and Daphne would go blabbing about his outburst last night. He kicked his door shut and turned his back on the CID office as he said, 'I didn't swear at-'.

'It's over, Andy. Our marriage is over. Didn't you get the letter from my solicitors?'

He counted to three, his hands gripping the telephone with such intensity that he thought he might break it. 'How's Emma?' he asked, his voice cold as steel.

'Didn't you hear me?'

'I heard you, Catherine. I asked you how my daughter is?'

'What do you care?'

That hurt. He felt as though she had stabbed him as surely as if she had stuck a sheaf of cold steel right through his heart. He hated her for that. He took a deep breath and willed himself to keep his temper in check. He forced himself with every fibre of his being to remain silent. He was rewarded when a few moments later he heard Catherine let out a breath.

'She's fine,' she said tight-lipped.

Still he remained silent. There was nothing to say. He pictured his daughter with this Ed and felt physical pain.

'Andy, are you still there?'

'Yes, Catherine.'

The tone of his voice must have communicated something to her because when she next spoke her voice wasn't quite so sharp.