The Puppet Show (Washington Poe)

‘It is. Staked in the middle of the stone circle, covered in accelerant, then set on fire. His burns were over ninety per cent. What else do you know?’

‘Only what I’ve read. I expect the police were surprised at the location; it’s not as rural as the other two.’

‘Not half as surprised as they were at how he’d successfully managed to evade every bit of surveillance they’d put in place.’

Poe nodded. The Immolation Man had chosen a different stone circle each time he killed. It was how the press had come up with the name. Immolation meant sacrificing by burning and, with no other motive, the press jumped on it. Poe would have expected the police to be watching all the circles. Then again maybe not . . . there were a lot of stone circles in Cumbria. Add the barrows, henges and standing stones and you’d have nearly five hundred to watch. Even if they used minimal surveillance details, they’d need a team numbering close to two thousand cops. Cumbria barely had a thousand badged officers as it was. They’d have no choice but to pick and choose where they put their limited resources.

He passed the photographs back. As gruesome as it all was, it didn’t explain why Flynn had made the long journey north. ‘I still don’t understand what this has to do with me?’

She ignored the question. ‘SCAS were called in after the Immolation Man’s second victim. The SIO wanted a profile.’

It was to be expected. It was the unit’s speciality.

‘Which we did,’ she continued. ‘Came up with nothing useable, the usual stuff about age ranges and ethnicity, that type of thing.’

Poe knew that profiles could add value, but only when they were part of a multi-strand investigation. He doubted they were talking because of a profile.

‘Have you heard of multi-slice computed tomography?’

‘Yes,’ he lied.

‘It’s where a machine photographs the body in very thin slices rather than as a whole. It’s an expensive process but sometimes it identifies ante- and post-mortem injuries that the conventional forensic post-mortem has missed.’

Poe had been very much a ‘need to know what it can do’ rather than a ‘need to know how it works’ kind of guy. If Flynn said it was possible, then it was possible.

‘The post-mortem found nothing, but the MSCT found this.’ Retrieving another set of photographs, she placed them on the table in front of him. They were computerised images of what appeared to be random slashes.

‘These were on the third victim?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘On the torso. Everything he does is designed for maximum impact.’

The Immolation Man was a sadist. Poe didn’t need a fancy profile to tell him that. He studied each page as Flynn turned them over. There were nearly twenty but it was the last one that caused him to gasp.

It was the sum of all the parts. The computer image where all the random slashes came together to form the picture you were meant to see. Poe’s mouth turned to glue. ‘How?’ he croaked.

Flynn shrugged. ‘We were hoping you could tell us.’

They stared at the last photograph.

The Immolation Man had carved two words into the victim’s chest.

‘Washington Poe’.

CHAPTER FOUR

Poe sat down heavily. Blood leached from his face. A vein in his temple began pounding.

He stared at the computerised mock-up of his name. And it wasn’t just his name – above it had been carved the number five.

That wasn’t good . . . That wasn’t good at all.

‘We’re interested in why he felt the need to carve your name into the victim’s chest.’

‘And it’s not something he’s done before? It’s not something that’s been held back from the press?’

‘Nope. We’ve retrospectively put victims one and two through the MSCT and they’re clear.’

‘And the number five?’ There was only one plausible explanation and he knew Flynn agreed. It was why she’d issued the Osman Warning.