Mac had nodded. “Yep. Hudson has state-of-the-art technology. She always runs a thorough and extremely comprehensive analysis. But none of that will be enough if it’s a substance that’s so rare we don’t have a clue what we’re looking for.”

A young PC that Stanton didn’t recognize raised his hand.

“Taylor?”

The officer had stumbled over his words, as if he couldn’t find the right way to frame them.

“Is it—could it be—possible they died from fright?”

A titter slithered around the room. The police constable blushed. One or two colleagues flashed a worried glance at Wildeve. Mac held up a hand to silence the detractors.

“That’s not as daft as it sounds. It’s something we’ve discussed. We haven’t ruled it out, put it that way.”

A spike was drilling its way across Wildeve’s jaw. She gritted her teeth, an instinctive act, even though it worsened the sensation. She forced herself to concentrate on Mac, to focus on him instead of the revolving bursts of pain.

An image of Adam’s pale face appeared on the interactive smart whiteboard. Acid rose at the back of her throat. She put her hand across her mouth. Reached for the wastepaper basket.

Mac zoomed in. In the place where Adam’s eyes should have been, something glinted in the camera flash. He clicked another button and a video began to play. A gloved scenes of crime officer was filmed removing a piece of evidence from his bloodied sockets.

Mac hit PAUSE. Zoomed in again. Lying on the SOCO’s palm was a miniature glass eye, muddy brown in color, with distinctive yellow flecks across the iris.

Although news of the eyes had leaked, the details of their coloring had not. Each glass eye matched the original eye color of its victim. “Highly unlikely to be a copycat,” said Mac. “So anyone got any bright ideas?”

The officers assigned to the case—pooled from the four homicide teams across the county because of the large-scale nature of the investigation—had circled this cul-de-sac a thousand times. They had argued amongst themselves about what—or who—it might mean.

Wildeve glanced down at the notes she had scribbled on this part of the investigation before Adam had died, her stream-of-consciousness musings.

Message from killer? Watching (victims or police or both)?? Blind. Visually impaired.

Who? Access? Ophthalmologist. Toymaker/hobbyist. Factory worker. Taxidermist. eBay? Internet—basically anyone?

Type of glass eye/prosthetic? Human, mammal, bird, mannequin, doll, reptile, teddy bear, fish?

Closed-circuit television cameras had been installed at the entrances to the woods a week before Adam’s death. She wanted to ask Mac what had been the point of that fruitless and costly exercise when they hadn’t been working on Sunday. But if she spoke up, two dozen heads would twist in her direction and she wasn’t ready for such scrutiny.

“Well?”