Maria was twenty-one. They didn’t know the ages of the women they’d found today but Tom expected them to be all of a grouping. Late teens, twenties, maybe early thirties. Una Dolan was twenty-four. Fiona Holland, nineteen.

There was usually a type.

Tomorrow they’d start with the lists of missing women and the process of identifying their victims.

There were five families out there, six if you included Fiona Holland’s, waiting for news of a daughter, a sister, a girlfriend. Each of the victims had been loved by somebody, had been held at some point with the same devotion that Maria felt for Cáit and Tom felt for both of them. When each woman vanished, the loss and anguish felt by their parents and loved ones must have been indescribable.

Now, five families would receive the worst possible news.

Tomorrow, Tom sighed. Tomorrow.

CHAPTER 5

The bodies had been taken to the Mater Hospital in Dublin’s city centre, under the direction of the state pathologist. The Victorian-fronted complex housed a large mortuary and a state-of-the-art forensics laboratory. Moya Chambers had summoned both of her deputies and had been joined by two colleagues from the London Metropolitan Police Service. Several senior laboratory staff members had also been reassigned to supplement her team.

The pathology unit had worked through the night and the Mater was the inspector’s first point of call that Sunday morning.

‘You’ve brought in the real experts, then.’ Tom nodded at the new foreign personnel.

‘They flew in last night. Sure, all I know about serial killings of this nature is what I’ve picked up watching CSI.’

‘Jesus. I was kidding. You look tired.’ He handed the pathologist a coffee offering.

‘Do you want an award for stating the blindingly obvious?’ Moya retorted, lowering her facemask. She winced at the scalding hot styrofoam cup in her hand. ‘Christ. They used to have little cardboard yokes you could put around these things so you wouldn’t burn the hand off yourself. How much do you think the monkeys in accounts saved by getting rid of that luxury? Tight bastards.’

‘I’d have bought everybody a cup but at € 2.50 a pop it seemed a bit over and above.’

Moya waved her hand dismissively at her team.

‘Don’t worry about the minions. I’m letting them go up for breakfast now, anyhow. Rubber sausages and burnt toast that’ll probably cost half a day’s salary. Come on, I’ll talk you through what I’ve found so far.’

The lab cleared out at her command, leaving just the pathologist, the inspector and five cadavers in varying states of fetid decomposition.

‘Our biggest problem,’ Moya said, ‘is that they were buried in damp soil. He wrapped them in plastic sheeting, but that wasn’t enough to keep the little critters out. You can see yourself – the maggots have had a field day with the earliest victims.’