Chris Carter - Gallery of the Dead

He finally placed the fifth photo on the desk.

‘But then we’ve got this.’

The new photo Agent Williams placed on Hunter’s desk hadn’t come from Kristine Rivers’ crime scene. It came from her postmortem examination. Her body had been washed clean and moved onto a large stainless-steel autopsy table. It was lying on its front.

‘Looks familiar?’ Though Kennedy’s question was to everyone, his gaze landed on Captain Blake.

‘I’ll be damned,’ she replied.

Carved into Kristine Rivers’ back was what looked to be a carbon copy of the carvings the killer had made on Linda Parker’s back — a seemingly odd combination of letters and symbols, forming four distinct lines, though everyone in that room already knew that those symbols would turn out to be badly drawn letters.

There were six characters in the first line, five in the second, seven in the third, and five again in the fourth and last one. The killer had once again used only straight-line slashes to create his letters, no curves. The markings began approximately two inches below Kristine Rivers’ shoulders and ended about an inch above her buttocks. Just like the ones carved into Linda Parker’s back, each letter was about two to three inches high and about one and a half inches long.

‘The LA victim,’ Agent Williams asked. ‘When was her body discovered?’

‘She was murdered on Monday evening,’ Garcia replied. ‘But her body was only discovered late last night.’

Agent Williams paused. ‘Late last night? What time did you guys get to the crime scene?’

Despite failing to see the relevance of the question, Garcia looked at Hunter for confirmation. ‘About nine thirty, maybe a quarter to ten. Why?’

‘A quarter to ten? The surprise in Agent Williams’ voice was reciprocated on the look Agent Fisher gave the LAPD detectives.

Kennedy, on the other hand, knowing why both agents looked surprised, held back on a smile.

‘OK,’ Agent Williams began. ‘I know you have already figured out that despite these carvings looking like a strange combination of letters and symbols, they are actually just badly drawn letters that when put together correctly will form a sentence... in Latin. And the reason I know that is because someone from this office, at around two o’clock this morning, tried searching the VICAP database for a similar perpetrator signature — a killer who leaves messages, in Latin, carved somewhere on his victim’s body.’

Garcia and Captain Blake both looked at Hunter.

The guilty look on his face was accompanied by a subtle nod.

‘So the mystery is finally solved,’ Captain Blake said.

‘What mystery is that?’ Agent Williams enquired.

‘Well, since our victim’s body was only discovered late last night and we did not request any help from the Bureau, I was wondering how the FBI found out about it so fast. So this was how. You were monitoring the VICAP database.’

‘Correct,’ Agent Williams admitted. ‘Any searches containing certain words or combinations of them, get flagged up and we are notified immediately.’

‘Not only monitoring it,’ Hunter intervened. ‘They were also filtering its responses, because no matter how I phrased my search, I got zero matches.’

‘Correct again,’ Agent Williams agreed. ‘We suppressed the results coming out of VICAP. We didn’t want anyone else knowing that this guy had killed before.’

‘That’s one of the many perks of being with the Bureau, Robert,’ Kennedy cut in. ‘The power to do things that regular police departments cannot.’

Hunter gave him a sideways look.

‘Anyway,’ Agent Williams said, bringing everyone’s attention back to him. ‘So you’re telling me that you guys figured out that these carvings created a sentence in Latin in the space of just three, maybe four hours?’

‘Three or four hours?’ Garcia asked, making sure that the surprise in his voice was noted. ‘It took us about a minute.’ He looked at Hunter. ‘Maybe less. I think you called it at the scene in just a few seconds, didn’t you?’

Hunter didn’t reply.

‘What?’ Agent Fisher asked, turning around and looking at the picture board one more time. ‘At the crime scene? With all this dried-up blood on her back muddling everything up even more? Get real. There’s no way.’

Kennedy bit his bottom lip. The suppressed smile was still there.

‘Why?’ Garcia asked. ‘How long did it take you guys to figure that one out?’

Agent Fisher cleared her throat, but said nothing. Instead, she looked at Agent Williams.

‘About eight hours.’ The reply came from Kennedy.

‘Seven actually, sir,’ Agent Williams corrected the director as if he had made the gravest of errors.

Still, both FBI agents looked a little uncomfortable.

‘Well,’ Garcia said, staring straight at Kennedy. ‘That’s one of the many perks of being with a police department. We think faster.’

‘All right,’ Kennedy said, pinning Garcia down with a stare that could crack a mirror. ‘This kind of childish behavior has got to stop.’

‘Just saying.’

‘Now, Detective Garcia.’

‘Put a fucking lid on it, Carlos,’ Captain Blake said. ‘No more, do you hear me? Another sarcastic comment out of you and I will be transferring you into another unit, which means you’re out of this investigation. Is that clear enough for you?’

He lifted up both hands in surrender.

‘The dog-house keys are hanging just outside the door,’ Agent Fisher said.

‘How about we get back to what really matters here?’ Hunter suggested.

‘You took the words right out of my mouth, Robert,’ Kennedy said, before addressing Captain Blake. ‘So I guess this settles the argument that we are indeed talking about the same perpetrator here.’

The captain agreed with a nod.

From the way Hunter was looking at the photographs, Garcia and Kennedy could tell that in his mind he was already working everything out. As his eyes moved from knife slash to knife slash, Hunter first put the straight-line cuts together to form the missing letters before grouping them into each of the four lines.

PULCHR

ITUDO

INCONIU

NCTIO

‘ Pulchritudo in coniunctio ,’ he read out loud.

There was no disguising Agent Williams and Agent Fisher’s surprise.

As Hunter read the Latin phrase out loud, Garcia and Captain Blake squinted at the photo on his desk, trying to see what he’d seen.

Hunter moved his right index finger over the picture to show them how the lines connected, before linking the words.

‘You frighten me sometimes, Robert, do you know that?’ Captain Blake commented.

‘All right,’ Garcia said with a nod. ‘I see it but I don’t understand it. What does it mean?’

‘Beauty is in the... combination... relationship... connection...’ Hunter replied. ‘It could be any of those. The Latin language has a very limited vocabulary. A single word, when translated into English, could have five, six, seven different meanings. Sometimes more. It all depends on the context.’

‘That’s correct,’ Agent Fisher jumped in. ‘But we believe that in this case the killer meant “relationship” — “Beauty is in the relationship”.’

Garcia scratched his forehead. ‘Well, that sure as hell isn’t the same phrase we got.’ He indicated the board.

Everyone in the room turned to face it.

‘The truth is,’ Kennedy said, ‘we weren’t really expecting it to be. It seems like the killer changes the Latin phrase with each murder.’

Agent Fisher was staring at the pictures of Linda Parker’s back a lot harder than anyone else, clearly trying to make out the phrase the killer had carved into her body, but straight away she encountered one big problem. Hunter hadn’t had time to put up the official autopsy photographs yet. The ones on the board were taken at the crime scene, showing the carvings partially covered by dried blood, which made identifying the cuts, the letters and the words considerably harder. Still, she gave it her best try.