Was that the voice of the man who had killed her husband?

Maybe she should call the police.

She reached into her pocket for the card the nurse had given her before she had left her daughter’s bedside, the one the ‘nice police officer’ had asked her to pass over.

‘DI Joel Norris,’ she read aloud. ‘Let’s see if you’ll take me seriously.’

Chapter 41

‘Just so happens I have a body missing one of these.’ Joel rolled the tightly tied bag over with his pen. It came to a rest against the edge of the shower tray in the hotel room still booked in the name of Danny Evans. The movement worsened the smell and caused straw-coloured fluid to run down the inside of the clear plastic bag. The change of position also made it far clearer what the bag contained and Joel could now fix on a set of melancholic eyes that stared out above a jagged neck wound. The stark white of human bone stood out from the dark tones of clotted blood and black hair.

Joel looked up to where DS Rose had taken a step away too. He could hardly blame her. ‘The job just down the road from here, the body on the beach. The superintendent said that was coming to us too.’ She spoke with her hand hovering over her mouth.

‘It already did. And there I was worrying that it might be taking a back seat indefinitely. Looks like I’ll be working on that sooner than I thought, seeing as it appears to be linked.’ Joel straightened up, sniffed at his pen and put it back in his pocket.

‘How though?’ DS Rose said, still speaking through her fingers.

‘Well, the dead man who took the life of our colleague also has a severed head in his hotel room that is very likely to match up with a recently discovered body.’

‘Very good. You know what I mean.’

‘Marcus Olsen is a registered sex offender. Danny Evans had a reason to dislike sex offenders. We will need to do a little more work to strengthen the link but that sounds like a place to start.’ Joel took a moment to run his eyes over the interior of the bathroom. Again, there was nothing to suggest recent use. The room had the feeling of being prepped for the next arrival.

‘What sort of room service cleans up round a rotting head?’ he said.

‘There was a Do Not Disturb hanger outside. We need to check how long that’s been adhered to. Someone has cleaned up.’

‘They have. And it makes no sense for that someone to be Danny Evans.’

‘Not if he planned to kill himself,’ DS Rose said.