Garcia’s eyes widened. ‘Forty?’

Doctor Hove nodded. ‘Sulfuric acid feels like lukewarm water when compared to sodium hydroxide. What this killer has done was create an alkali bath with the victim in it.’ Her eyes returned to the body on the table. ‘For him, it was like he was being burned alive, but his brain would’ve carried on working for longer . . . a lot longer, so he felt every single burning pain that happened to his body. The solution ate through the two first layers of his skin in absolutely no time.’

‘And then the real pain started,’ Hunter said in a subdued voice.

‘That’s right,’ Doctor Hove agreed.

Garcia looked a little doubtful.

‘The main reason why sodium hydroxide is used in so many industrial cleaning products,’ the doctor explained, ‘is because of its incredible ability to dissolve grease, oils, fats and protein. The third layer of the human skin, the subcutaneous, is made mostly of fat. When that’s gone, you get muscle tissue, which is made mostly of protein. Are you starting to get the picture now?’

Garcia cringed.

‘Add to that the fact that the alkalosis in the solution would’ve kept overexciting the nerves, causing them to become terribly inflamed, and you have every single nerve in his body screaming in agony. The pain causes all the major muscles to spasm, lock and cramp. If he weren’t tied down in a sitting position, he would’ve probably broken his spinal cord from contorting. And his brain was still working, registering everything as his body literally dissolved, layer by layer.’

‘I think I get the picture now, Doc, thanks,’ Garcia said, looking green.

‘Luckily for him,’ the doctor said. ‘His heart gave up the fight early.’

‘Not early enough,’ Hunter said. ‘He was in that alkali bath for eleven minutes before he died.’

Doctor Hove agreed, tilting her head to one side. ‘Still, his heart gave in faster than it should have. Have you identified him yet?’

‘We’re still working on that,’ Hunter said.

‘So this might help.’ She retrieved a document from the counter behind her and handed it to Hunter. ‘The reason his heart failed earlier than a healthier one would have was because he suffered from mitral stenosis, which is a narrowing of the mitral valve in the heart. This forces the heart to work harder to pump blood from the left atrium into the left ventricle. With the immense pain he was put through, his heart would’ve had to speed up to supply his body with more blood. Because of his condition, his heart was fatally overworked sooner.’

‘How much sooner?’ Garcia asked.

‘I’d say about forty to fifty percent.’

‘He could’ve lasted double what he did?’

The doctor nodded. ‘A healthier person like you probably would.’

Garcia shook away the chilling sensation that trickled down the back of his neck.

‘A person with his condition would, most probably, be checking in with a cardiologist every few months just for precaution,’ Doctor Hove said.

‘Thanks, Doc,’ Hunter said. ‘We’ll start checking right away.’

‘Unfortunately the body is a forensics black hole,’ the doctor concluded. ‘If there were anything to be found, the sodium hydroxide ate it away. Not even bacteria would’ve survived.’ She coughed to clear her throat. ‘If you are considering looking at this from a drug angle, I can tell that he wasn’t a drug user, or if he was it was purely recreational and he hasn’t touched anything in at least a week.’

Hunter knew that would be the case, but he sensed a flicker of hesitation in the doctor’s demeanor. ‘Is there something else, Doc?’

‘I’m confused about something,’ she said. ‘Even though the victim went into cardiac arrest quicker than a person with a healthier heart would have, the sodium hydroxide solution should’ve carried on eating away at the tissues and dissolving his body until there was nothing left. It didn’t. It stopped just as it was reaching muscle tissue.’

‘Just as he died,’ Hunter said.

‘I would say so, yes. Which suggests the killer emptied the torture tank and got the victim out of there as soon as he passed away.’

‘That’s probably what he did,’ Hunter agreed.

‘But why? And why dump the body in an alleyway? If the killer had left the victim in the tank it would’ve dissolved the body. Evidence problem solved. Why give the police something to work with?’

‘Because the killer wants to make sure we take him seriously,’ Hunter replied. ‘Without a body, we have no proof that what we saw over the Internet wasn’t just a graphics trick.’

‘Or someone acting it out,’ Garcia added. ‘The water inside the tank went bloody really quick, Doc. All we could see was the victim’s face, nothing else. We assumed he was in tremendous pain, that his body was dissolving, but it could’ve been somebody acting it out, playing a big “you-got-punked” hoax on the LAPD.’

‘The intention was also for the body to be found fast,’ Hunter said. ‘Hence the location where it was dumped – a back alleyway used by several shops. Garbage collection was today, early morning. I’m sure the killer knew that.’

‘So he gives you the body to prove that the whole thing wasn’t staged,’ Doctor Hove said.

‘That’s the idea,’ Hunter confirmed. ‘Because now we know he’s for real.’

Fifteen

Christina Stevenson opened the door to her single-story house in Santa Monica and switched on the lights. The brightness that flooded her living room made her wince, and she quickly used the dimmer to bring the intensity down. Her headache had started in the middle of the afternoon, and after several long hours in front of her computer screen it had now reached torturing phase.

She placed her bag on the floor by the door and rubbed her tired blue eyes for a moment. It felt as if her brain was melting inside her skull. Headache pills had had no effect. What she needed was a long shower, a large glass of wine and a lot of rest.

‘Actually,’ she thought better of it, ‘champagne would be much more appropriate.’ After all, all the effort she’d put into her work in the past few weeks had finally paid off.

In the now dim light of her living room, her eyes found the portrait of her mother on the shiny black console by the window, and she gave a smile full of sadness.

Christina had never met her father, and she never wanted to. She had been conceived in the men’s restroom of a nightclub in West Hollywood. Her mother was drunk. The guy she had sex with was high on drugs. They had met that night. He was good-looking and charming. She was lonely. After they left the restroom, she never saw him again.

When Christina was old enough to understand, her mother told her the whole story. She also told her that she couldn’t even remember his name. But her mother wasn’t a bad person. Against all her friends’ advice, she decided not to have an abortion. She had her baby daughter, and she brought her up on her own, in the best way she could. She saved every spare cent, and when Christina graduated from high school her mother had enough put away in a savings account to send her daughter to university. When, four years later, Christina received her diploma, there was no one prouder in that graduation ceremony than her mother.

That same night, her mother died in her sleep from a brain aneurysm. That had been seven years ago. Christina still missed her like crazy.

Christina walked into her open-plan kitchen and checked the fridge. She had a bottle of Dom Ruinart 1998 she’d been keeping for a special occasion. Well, this sure as hell was one. She pouted her lips, pondering.

‘Should I open it or not?’

It seemed a shame that she had no one to share it with.