A Deadly Compulsion Read Online Free

and Jess found a different path to tread from that day forth, turning left outside his gate to head towards Len Crowther’s farm, instead of right to Milford and the site of his morbid find.
    “That’s north, south, east and west,” Hugh said as they waited for the Scene of Crime Officers to finish up.
    “Uh.  What did you say?” Laura said, taking a long draw on her Superking light, tempted to tear the filter tip from it; not getting a lot of satisfaction from the weaker cigarettes that she was enduring in an attempt to reduce her dependence on nicotine.
    “Compass points.  He’s now left a body at each principal point, all approximately six miles from the city centre.  This guy is precise.”
    “That’s a new one on me,” the SOCO said, easing the seated corpse slightly to one side.
    “What’s new?” Laura said.
    “A driving licence.”
    Laura moved closer in the crowded space that was enclosed by tarpaulin sheets to hide the atrocity from the press and public.  Sure enough, it was a driving licence, still in its transparent plastic wallet, stapled to the right cheek of the dead girl’s bottom.
    “He’s gone out of his way to give us instant identification, again,” Hugh said.
    “Yes, he’s involving us on purpose.  He’s treating us as fellow players; adversaries in his sick game.” Laura stated.
     
    “It’s almost a carbon copy of the last one, Laura,” the pathologist said over the phone the next day.  “He kept this one alive for a longer period, and raped her repeatedly.  The tissue damage is extensive.  She had only been dead for a few hours when she was found.  Rigor hadn’t fully set in.  All other injuries and procedures fit the pattern.  It’s definitely your serial killer.  Sorry.”
    “Thanks, Brian,” Laura said, and rang off.
    Heather’s father came in to identify the body.  He was in uniform, having come straight from Long Hutton; the dispersal prison twelve miles west of the city, where he worked.  He looked the part, fiftyish, about five-eleven, a solid fourteen stone, with crew-cut steel-grey hair and a face all hard planes, from which flinty eyes stared in stony circumspection.  He didn’t speak or even blink when the sheet was pulled back to reveal his late daughter’s face, just reached out slowly and ran a blocky index finger over the punctured lips, then nodded and turned away, his emotions locked behind a granite expression.
    Hugh Parfitt didn’t like the prison officer’s reactions.  Most people broke down when faced with irrefutable proof that someone near and dear to them was dead.  Under such horrific circumstances, Hugh had expected the man to be on the point of collapse, or to at least show some sign of anger or grief.  But this guy was implacable.  The DS had seen the same purposeful resolve before, though not often.  He decided that Ron Cullen was not the type to blithely accept what fate dealt out.  He was a man who would do whatever he deemed necessary to exact rough justice for his daughter’s murder, and not give a toss if his actions were lawful or otherwise.  Hugh made a mental note to ensure that the man was monitored.  His interview with him had also been a negative experience, consisting of monosyllabic answers, grunts, and much head shaking.  The bottom line was, that the screw claimed to have no idea who could or would have committed the callous crime, although Hugh felt that if he had, he would have said nothing; just gone off and dealt with it in the manner that Charles Bronson the late actor, in his role as Paul Kearsey in the Death Wish movies had.
    Laura and Hugh attended the funeral.  They had been present at those of the other girls.  There was also an officer secretly videoing the proceedings from behind the tinted windows of an unmarked Ford Transit van.  It was a fact that some murderers would attend the funeral of their victims, taking perverse pleasure in seeing first hand the aftermath of misery and