‘The body might’ve been interfered with, Robert,’ the captain countered. ‘It was an anonymous phone call that gave us the body’s location, remember?’

Hunter nodded. ‘Yes, and I listened to the 911 recording. It’s a girl’s voice. Not older than sixteen or seventeen, and she sounded hysterical. The reason why she didn’t wanna give us her name is probably because she was going into that room to shoot up.’

‘OK, so the girl didn’t touch the body,’ the captain said, accepting his theory. ‘But maybe you’re reading too much into this message. Maybe the killer didn’t put a great deal of thought into it. So he wrote you instead of her, no big deal.’

It was Garcia’s turn to disagree. ‘That would suggest that the writing on the ceiling was a spur-of-the-moment thing, Captain.’ He rubbed the lump on his nose. ‘We’re talking about someone who put together his own explosive device and probably engineered the trigger mechanism himself. He then placed it all inside the victim in some way that it wouldn’t be triggered until found and extracted. All of that while she was still alive.’ He shook his head and faced the pictures board. ‘Whatever this killer did, Captain, nothing was on the spur of the moment. He thought it all through. And that’s what makes him so dangerous.’

Fourteen

Captain Blake let out a frustrated breath and started pacing the room. Her high heels clicked against the wooden floor.

‘It doesn’t make any sense. If the victim was still alive when she was left in that butcher’s shop, and the message on the ceiling was meant for her, how come she was dead when we found her? Who killed her, the rats?’ She pulled a photograph from the board and studied it for a moment. ‘Independently of whatever happened to the victim, the fact still remains that someone placed a bomb inside her and stitched her shut. The only way of getting that bomb out was to cut through the stitches and pull it out.’ She paused and allowed her eyes to move from one detective to the other. ‘Don’t tell me you think the killer expected the victim to do that by herself?’

No one replied.

Hunter massaged the back of his neck, and for a moment allowed his fingers to rub the rough scar on his nape.

The captain turned towards him. ‘I know you, Robert. If you think the message was left for the victim instead of us, you must have a theory on this. I’m all ears.’

‘I don’t have a proper theory yet, Captain, just too many ifs.’

‘You’ve gotta have something brewing in that brain of yours,’ the captain pushed. ‘Indulge me, because right now I hate what I’m hearing.’

Hunter took a deep breath. ‘Maybe the bomb’s how the killer wanted her to die.’

Captain Blake’s eyes narrowed. ‘You think the bomb was supposed to blow up inside her, while she was still alive?’

Hunter tilted his head to one side, musing over the possibility.

Captain Blake sat down in Hunter’s chair. ‘You’re going to have to develop on that, Robert. If this killer thought everything through so thoroughly as Garcia has suggested, and if the bomb was supposed to blow up inside the victim as you’re suggesting, why didn’t it? What happened? Did the killer make a mistake? How would the trigger mechanism be activated while the bomb was inside her? And if he didn’t kill her, how the hell did she die?’

‘As I said, too many ifs, Captain,’ Hunter replied calmly. ‘And at the moment I don’t have the answers. With everything that’s happened, we don’t have much to go on. I don’t know if the killer made a mistake or not. I don’t know why the bomb didn’t blow up inside her, or how it was supposed to be activated in the first place. Without the autopsy report we’ll probably never know the real cause of death. What we do know is that it’s nothing apparent. She wasn’t shot, stabbed, or strangled. I also don’t believe she was poisoned.’ He paused. ‘But there’s a possibility she suffocated.’

Captain Blake threw Hunter a perplexed look. ‘How’s that?’

Hunter pointed to an enlarged picture of the victim’s face. ‘Suffocation causes the blood vessels around the eyes and behind the delicate skin on the cheeks to burst. See here.’ He indicated on the photo. ‘This sort of old-person’s-skin look is a consequence of burst blood vessels. There’s a good chance she suffocated. I confirmed it with Doctor Hove. But again, without an autopsy we’ll never be certain.’

‘So you’re saying that you think she might’ve suffocated by herself, after the killer left her there?’

Hunter nodded.

‘On what? The foul smell of the place?’

Hunter shrugged. ‘Her own vomit . . . her tongue . . . Who knows? Maybe the victim had a bad heart. But just imagine if she was still alive when she was left in that butcher’s shop – unconscious, but still alive. She wakes up, naked, frightened, in pain, and with parts of her body stitched shut. That’d certainly be enough to trigger a severe panic attack in most people.’

Captain Blake massaged her closed eyelids, considering Hunter’s suggestion. She knew that a panic attack could easily cause someone to vomit, gag or hyperventilate. With the victim’s mouth sewn tightly shut, she’d have no way of drawing in breath and increasing the flow of oxygen to her lungs. That would’ve made the victim’s panic turn into mindless desperation. If she’d puked, the vomit had nowhere to go. Choking and asphyxiating would’ve been just a breath away. And then . . . certain death.

Fifteen

The results of the chemical tests done on the spray paint used on the ceiling of the butcher’s shop came in by 2:00 p.m. and threw up nothing special. The paint came from a can of Montana Tarblack – probably the most popular brand of spray paint in the USA. Every graffiti artist in the country used it. The handwriting analyses confirmed what Hunter already suspected – the killer had used his non-writing hand to spray the words onto the ceiling. Simple, but effective. Hunter had requested that the whole room be dusted again, and this time they should include the ceiling. Every print found was to be run through the National Automated Fingerprint ID System.

Hunter leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and gently ran the tip of his finger up and down the bridge of his nose. His brain kept trying to make sense of such a senseless act.

If there had been no bomb, if the victim had been found simply stitched shut, Hunter would have a steadier psychological path to follow. The stitches to the mouth on their own would have suggested the possibility of a retaliation kill – a lesson being taught. The victim might have said something she shouldn’t have – about the wrong person, to the wrong person, or both. The act could have been performed as a way to symbolize shutting her up.

The stitches to her mouth and lower body together would have upped the stakes to a possible sexual or love betrayal and revenge. If you can’t keep your mouth and legs shut, I’llshut them for you. That would’ve clearly placed a deceived husband, boyfriend or lover right at the top of their list of persons of interest. And that possibility was still pretty much alive in Hunter’s mind. But he still had the bomb to deal with. Why place a bomb inside the victim? Experience also told him that the overwhelming majority of what were considered crimes of passion were spur-of-the-moment acts, generated by irrational anger and an almost total loss of control. Very rarely did it come in the form of a planned, calculated and brutal vengeance act.