She needed to think like a homicide detective.

She needed to think in terms of offender profiling.

What could she infer about the characteristics of the offender based upon their crime scene behaviour?

There was obviously one blatant element that linked all of the murders – the victims had all been scalped. And that was really all that she had to go on right now. So that had to be where she started.

She’d assumed that this mutilation had just been a gory way for the gang to strike fear into the inmate population. But if the murders weren’t connected to drugs and power, then it would seem that the scalping formed a reason in and of itself.

But who would do such a thing and for what reason? It made little sense, but whatever the motive, the perpetrator was clearly a very sick and dangerous individual.

There had to be some clue somewhere in this huge dilapidated dump. She lay there on her bunk and thought about everything that she’d seen and experienced over the past few weeks, raking over her memories for any salient details. There had to be something. There had to be.

Chapter 66

The Governor stood by the window in his office and watched the inmates trudging around in the prison yard on their morning exercise. It was at times like this that he was pleasantly reminded that everything he could survey, from horizon to horizon, fell under his domain. Admittedly, the horizon stopped dead at the huge perimeter wall that blocked out the rest of the outside world. But still, it felt good to be the one in charge, the one to whom all here had to defer. He wasn’t just the Governor, he was the Guv’nor and this was his manor. There was just one thing which gnawed away at this feeling of potency and that was the nagging issue of these blasted murders.

Of course they were shocking and tragic occurrences. But it really didn’t do to have these policemen here all the time. Not only was this his turf and he resented their infringement upon it, but they didn’t even seem to be doing their job very well as they still hadn’t caught anyone.

Moreover, his real worry was that this whole situation was in danger of drawing attention to the place. More specifically, he was worried that it would draw attention to him. It would make him look inept. And that wasn’t good for his career. Or for his knighthood. Because that’s what he was angling for – to make it onto the honours list next year. And an OBE wouldn’t cut it. No way. It was a knighthood or nothing as far as he was concerned. And he didn’t see why not. He had spent years running various prisons up and down the country, doing his bit for society. He had quite literally served his time and now he felt that it was only fair that he was rewarded for that.