Alexia’s mouth had been stitched shut. The thread was thick and blue and the needlework was untidy, leaving a row of engorged sores either side of her mangled lips. Her ears looked like they had been burnt away, as had great chunks of her hair leaving nothing but two fist-sized crusts on either side of her head that resembled molten rock.

There was more. Her eyes were unidentifiable – the shape of the sockets remained roughly intact but the upper part of her face was a bloody mess; a solidified pulp, red and purple like a grotesque mask. A wedge of hair, her chin and nose were the only human aspects of her head left alone and it was only because of these patches of normality that she was recognisable at all.

‘What do we think did this?’ asked Rowlinson quietly.

‘I’m not completely sure, yet,’ mumbled O’Connell. ‘But best guess at this stage is a blowtorch.’

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

For the first hour of the journey back to London, they drove in silence.

When they eventually joined the motorway, Priest glanced over at Georgie. She was leaning against the passenger door, arms folded, staring gloomily out of the window. By the time they had given their statements and watched as Rowlinson’s SOCO team had carted Alexia’s body away, the sun was hanging low in the sky and their figures cast long, spindly shadows across the driveway.

By the time they left, the putrid smell of death was still in the air at the bottom of the incline.

Priest thought about what words he could use to tell Georgie that everything was going to be OK, but a sentence wouldn’t form properly in his head. Even if it had, he doubted he could deliver it with enough conviction. It would have been an obvious lie.

He finally settled on, ‘How you doing?’

She sat up. ‘Fine. I’m fine. Honest.’ She turned and half smiled, although not with her eyes. Priest nodded in return. In that moment he realised: she would never relent. She would never allow what she was feeling to be bigger than her. It was as if all her emotions were carefully compartmentalised into little boxes that could be kept closed at will.

How he envied her.

‘You want to get something to eat on the way back?’ he suggested. He wasn’t hungry and he doubted she was, but it seemed like something he ought to offer.

‘I don’t mind.’