‘It will be difficult, unless he was very violent and left them damaged internally. Especially with the older cadavers.’

‘Lovely. I’ve got to head back to HQ and conduct a team meeting. When can we expect the DNA and dental results?’

‘Any minute now. What would any of us background team need with food or sleep or any of that lark?’ She smiled, grimly. ‘Don’t worry. Myself and Emmet got calls from a VIP. We’ll go hard on this until we have what you need.’

‘A VIP like Joe Kennedy?’ Tom asked.

Moya raised an eyebrow.

‘Tom, really? Sean McGuinness was on. Trust me, there are very few men I’ll jump for and Joe is not one of them. If ever there was a case of a man being promoted to his level of incompetence … Oh, shit. I nearly forgot. The most important thing.’

Moya crossed the room to a table where five plastic bags had been placed beside numbered cards. She pulled on fresh gloves, handed Tom a pair, then opened up the first bag and withdrew a delicate bracelet.

‘Do you recognise this?’ she quizzed the inspector.

He took the tarnished silver charm bracelet from her, turning it over to examine the little hearts that hung from its clasp.

‘Should I?’ he asked in return.

‘I wouldn’t have thought so. I pulled up Una Dolan’s file early this morning to check her last seen wearing description. There was no mention of a charm bracelet. These are her belongings.’

‘Okay, but maybe her family didn’t know she had it or was wearing it – a boyfriend or friend had given it to her, something like that. It wouldn’t be unusual.’

‘Not at all. But here’s what is.’

Moya made her way along the table, opening each bag and retrieving the same item from each – a silver charm bracelet.

‘Jesus,’ Tom said, when the five bracelets were all laid out on the table.

‘Yep,’ Moya nodded. ‘It looks like he gave them little keepsakes.’

CHAPTER 6

The major incident room they’d been allocated in headquarters was twice the usual size, impressing upon its new residents the magnitude of the job at hand. Desks and IT equipment had been provided for the additional personnel and brand-new glass evidence boards stood at the top of the room. They’d been recently secured by Joe Kennedy to replace the white display boards previously used by the teams in the NBCI. Tom couldn’t get to grips with the see-through effect. He had bemoaned their arrival to Louise one night, sniping that Kennedy had probably got the idea from one of the Swedish detective series he fantasised about starring in.

‘Don’t they always solve their cases in those shows?’ his wife had responded, before retreating behind the pages of her latest Scandinavian thriller.

The boards were being put to use now.