‘Project!’ Joel said. The word tickled him, like it softened what they were doing. The project in question was messing with the current setup within Major Crime for Kent. Currently each division had its own Major Crime department covering investigations on their patch. Ma’am Marsden’s latest efficiency proposal was a centralised team based out of Headquarters who could travel where they were needed. Part of her proposal had included a description of Major Crime departments as finding themselves ‘sitting idle waiting for death’. Detectives working in that area of the business would be well used to focusing on the details and Joel could only imagine their reaction to the word ‘idle’.

‘We have a body washed up on a beach down in Dover. Sus circs.’

‘Sus how?’ Joel asked. ‘We get a fair few suicides down there, don’t we?’

‘We do. Not too many with the head missing.’

That caught Joel out a little. ‘And do we have any reported missing? Lost property is recorded separate, sometimes it can be overlooked …’

‘I thought you wanted to get back to your wife and daughter, Joel. Now’s hardly the time to be cracking funnies.’

‘I do. Only I’m getting this feeling that I’m about to be sent to the beach and not in a family-outing-with-an-ice-cream kinda way, more poking a dead thing with a stick.’

‘The local CID are already in attendance; their DS spoke to me from the scene. They called it sus and were looking to hand it over. The east division Major Crime would have to take it on but they weren’t exactly champing at the bit so I got in there and told them not to bother.’

‘Major Crime didn’t want it?’

‘Whether they wanted it or not wouldn’t have mattered; it was coming their way. It’s just not a sexy murder, you know what I mean?’

‘I reckon I do.’ Joel did, in the way only a police officer can possibly understand how a murder can be described as ‘sexy’.

‘Well, it’s not some pretty teenage girl with trophies hacked off and a crucifix burnt into her chest, there’s no media outcry or bawling parents and certainly no commendation or book deal at the end of it. This is why I think it will be perfect for us. By all accounts it’s some sad loser with no real friends and a million potential enemies. The DS will give you a far more detailed brief, of course.’

‘Perfect for me, you mean?’