‘I think that’s what ultimately caused his actions, yes. None of his targets was random. In his mind, they had all wronged him one way or another. Maybe, though, the killer had always been inside him, waiting to come out.’

‘Indeed. Some people would say there’s a killer inside us all, somewhere.’

‘That’s basically what he said,’ Dani said. For a few moments she felt slightly derailed as the thoughts about whether she was affected by the same personality defects as her brother whirred in her mind once more.

‘So what was the point again?’ Grant said. ‘Have you said it already?’

‘No. What is it that links all of the known serial killers who’ve been caught? What finally brought them to everyone’s attention?’

‘Evidence?’

‘Exactly. Evidence that links the killer to the deaths of the victims. Deaths. People. Bodies.’

‘Some killers are convicted without bodies being found.’

‘But I’m guessing those cases are few and far between, right?’

Grant nodded. ‘On balance, yes.’

‘So if you’re a killer who doesn’t want to get caught, if you want to fly so far under the radar that no one even connects the dots in the first place to suggest there might be a killer out there, what’s the best way to do it?’

‘I’m sensing you’re about to tell me the answer to that yourself.’

‘I am. The answer is, you don’t leave any evidence. No victim. No body. No killer. In fact, no trace that a murder took place at all.’

Chapter Fifty

‘You’ve been thinking about this a lot,’ Grant said.

‘It’s my job to think about it,’ Dani answered, slightly disappointed by Grant’s tepid reaction to her thinking. ‘There must be some killers out there who fit that mould?’

‘But by your very definition, we wouldn’t know about such killers. It’s a major flaw in my field of science. We only ever get to analyse the killers who get caught. Or, at the very least, the ones whose crimes we know about.’

‘I understand that, but there must be something in what I said that rings true to you? Killers who tried to make their victims disappear completely. No body, no evidence, no crime. Burning. Quick Lime. Acid. Those methods have all been used before, haven’t they?’

Grant raised an eyebrow. ‘You really have been doing your homework, haven’t you?’