A Body in the Lakes by Graham Smith (great books of all time .TXT) 📕

person who killed them was probably kneeling on their chest or lying along their body. The victims will have craned their heads back as they tried to escape. It was the wrong thing to do as they exposed their throats to the man who killed them. From his position on their body, his hands would have slid up their throats and lodged under their chin, right where the hyoid bone is.’

When Hewson pointed at his own neck to show where the hyoid bone was, Beth lifted a hand and traced her fingertips over the same part of her throat. She couldn’t feel anything she hadn’t felt before and after talking about strangulation, there was no way that she was going to squeeze her throat hard while trying to locate her hyoid bone.

‘What else can you see in the reports?’

Hewson flicked through a few pages and then shook his head. ‘There’s nothing else that you won’t have picked up yourself. I take it that you’ve noticed the traces of adhesive on their wrists?’

‘Yeah I spotted that. Duct tape, the abductors favourite tool along with zip ties. Tell me, Doctor, I saw in Harriet’s report that there was slight tearing to the sides of her mouth and two of her front teeth were described as loose, what could have caused that?’

‘A gag of some kind would be my first guess, quite possibly a ball gag. It would stop her screaming as she was raped. If he was rough putting it in place there’s every chance her mouth would have torn and that some of her teeth were loosened.’

‘You never answered my question about whether it could be the same person who killed Felicia Evans.’

‘I didn’t. I’m a pathologist, you’re the detective, and I’ve told you everything I know.’

As much as Hewson’s words were a brush-off, the spark in his eye told Beth that he was again challenging her to think for herself.

‘Okay. So Felicia Evans wasn’t penetrated by a human being and her hyoid bone wasn’t broken. She was, however, left naked after being murdered and sexually assaulted post-mortem.’ Beth fell silent for a moment as her thoughts took a firmer shape. ‘Perhaps the killer didn’t have penetrative sex with her himself because doing so with the other women hadn’t stimulated him in the way he wanted. Maybe he got himself off in some other way, hence the use of a sex toy.’

‘Interesting. Now, can you explain the intact hyoid?’

‘If he’d planned to use the sex toy in that way, he’d have no need to keep her alive. Therefore he could kill her in her bed while she was lying prone. This would mean she’d be easy to get out of the house and into his van or car. Would I be right in saying that if he’d been standing by her bed when strangling her that his hands would be in a different position?’

‘You would indeed. I wasn’t sure myself, but everything you’ve said makes sense.’

As Beth stood to leave she could feel herself growing even more determined to catch the heinous killer.

It was only when she was back out in the sun that she had an idea. It would need to be checked out against the information Unthank and Thompson were still gathering, but it may lead them towards the killer.

Twenty-Six

When Beth strode back into the FMIT office she could feel a charge in the atmosphere. The air seemed to pulse back and forth with an unseen energy.

The problem was, there was nothing positive about it. Every wave was filled with negativity, as were the faces of her three colleagues. Thompson, in particular, looked abject and defeated.

She didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to work out why. He’d spent the best part of his day finishing up his interviews with the other detectives about the cases they’d failed to solve. No detective likes to have another question their work, and for Thompson to bring to light the fact that two of the teams had missed a serial killer wouldn’t have gone down well. No matter how he had reported it, the news would have been seen as an accusation of incompetence. In a lot of respects his questioning them and their work would make him feel like one of Mannequin’s Professional Standards Department minions. That’s certainly how the detectives he spoke to would view it.

All officers knew the necessity for professionalism, but the Professional Standards Department always seemed to be persecuting good officers for one careless comment or a mistake borne out of too big a caseload. Because of this, the PSD was roundly hated and the subject of many unkind nicknames. Rubber-heelers was Beth’s preferred term as it described the way they crept up on people.

‘What’s the score, Beth?’

The eagerness in O’Dowd’s voice told Beth everything she needed to know about how the others had fared. If one of them had picked up a good lead then the information she had wouldn’t be deemed so important.

‘I have four maybe five potential suspects who have the skills to have put the images on the mayor’s computer, and a possible aggrieved husband. That’s not the best bit though.’

‘Spill it then. This isn’t a fucking reality show where you’re supposed to build tension.’ Thompson’s face had twisted into a gurn as he snapped at her.

It was another indication of the bad day he’d had, and Beth didn’t mind letting it slide. His wife hadn’t recognised him or his daughters for months now due to her Alzheimer’s and as well as having a shell for a wife, Thompson was raising their girls by himself while carrying out a demanding job. If this wasn’t bad enough in itself, there was also the fact that his wife’s physical health was dwindling. She didn’t have a lot of time left.

Since learning of Thompson’s wife’s condition, Beth had taken the time to do some research and while the name early-onset Alzheimer’s implied the early stages of the disease in general, it was actually used to describe