killer, or been sufficiently unsuspecting to turn his back on him, allowing the opportunity to attack him from behind. Knocked unconscious by a blow to the back of the head, he had been turned over and strangled. The murderer must have been in a state of high nervous tension, excitable, adrenaline pumping. He had vomited all over his victim.
Undaunted, apparently, he had proceeded to strip Angel of his clothes. That would have taken some time, and been a far from simple task, given the dead weight of a man of around two hundred and fifty pounds. Even more incredibly, he had proceeded to tie a rope around his neck, thread it through a beam in the roof and hoist him upright so that he was eventually hanging with his feet more than six inches clear of the ground. Which told them something about the murderer. This was a powerful man. And in spite of the act of murder making him physically sick, very determined. The longer it took, the greater the risk of being caught. He must have known that the boatshed was a Saturday night haunt for young lovers, and that he might be discovered at any moment. Murder interrupted instead of the more usual coitus interruptus. And yet not content simply with killing him, he had undressed him, hanged him and disembowelled him. Time-consuming and messy. Something in all these thoughts made Fin uneasy.
He turned back towards Professor Wilson. ‘How do you think it compares with the Leith Walk murder? Are we talking about the same killer here?’
The professor pushed his goggles up on his forehead and pulled his mask down below his beard. ‘You know how it is, Fin. Pathologists never give you a straight answer. And I’m not about to break with tradition.’ He sighed. ‘On the face of it, the MO is very similar. Both men attacked from behind, struck on the head, rendered unconscious and strangled. Both men stripped of their clothes and found hanging by the neck. Both men disembowelled. Yes, there are differences in the angle and depth of the wound. And our Angel’s killer was agitated to the point of throwing up over his victim. We don’t know if that happened in Edinburgh. There were no traces of vomitus on the body, and we never found the clothes. What we did find on that body, you’ll recall, were carpet fibres, suggesting that perhaps the victim had been murdered elsewhere and brought to Leith to be strung up for exhibition. There was certainly less blood in Edinburgh, which probably meant that some time had elapsed between the victim’s death and the disembowelling.’
The professor began the process of reassembling the carcass on the table in front of him. ‘The thing is, Fin, the circumstances and the setting are so very different, the detail is bound to be different, too. So the truth is, that without definitive evidence pointing one way or the other, it is impossible to say whether these killings were carried out by the same individual or not. Perhaps the ritualistic nature of the murders might lead you to think that they were, but on the other hand salient features of the Leith Walk murder were carried in some detail by several of the tabloids. So if someone had wanted to replicate the murder they could do so fairly easily.’
‘But why would somebody want to do that?’ Gunn said. He looked a little less green around the gills now.
‘I’m a pathologist, not a psychiatrist.’ The professor cast Gunn a withering look, before turning back to Fin. ‘I’ll take skin swabs, and we’ll see what, if anything, toxicology turns up. But don’t expect much in the way of further illumination.’
III
The Barvas road wound up out of Stornoway, leaving behind spectacular views towards Coll and Loch a Tuath and Point, sunlight coruscating across the bay, torn clouds chasing their own shadows over the deep, blue water. Ahead lay twelve miles of bleak moorland as the road straightened out and took them north-west towards the tiny settlement of Barvas on the west coast. It was a
Undaunted, apparently, he had proceeded to strip Angel of his clothes. That would have taken some time, and been a far from simple task, given the dead weight of a man of around two hundred and fifty pounds. Even more incredibly, he had proceeded to tie a rope around his neck, thread it through a beam in the roof and hoist him upright so that he was eventually hanging with his feet more than six inches clear of the ground. Which told them something about the murderer. This was a powerful man. And in spite of the act of murder making him physically sick, very determined. The longer it took, the greater the risk of being caught. He must have known that the boatshed was a Saturday night haunt for young lovers, and that he might be discovered at any moment. Murder interrupted instead of the more usual coitus interruptus. And yet not content simply with killing him, he had undressed him, hanged him and disembowelled him. Time-consuming and messy. Something in all these thoughts made Fin uneasy.
He turned back towards Professor Wilson. ‘How do you think it compares with the Leith Walk murder? Are we talking about the same killer here?’
The professor pushed his goggles up on his forehead and pulled his mask down below his beard. ‘You know how it is, Fin. Pathologists never give you a straight answer. And I’m not about to break with tradition.’ He sighed. ‘On the face of it, the MO is very similar. Both men attacked from behind, struck on the head, rendered unconscious and strangled. Both men stripped of their clothes and found hanging by the neck. Both men disembowelled. Yes, there are differences in the angle and depth of the wound. And our Angel’s killer was agitated to the point of throwing up over his victim. We don’t know if that happened in Edinburgh. There were no traces of vomitus on the body, and we never found the clothes. What we did find on that body, you’ll recall, were carpet fibres, suggesting that perhaps the victim had been murdered elsewhere and brought to Leith to be strung up for exhibition. There was certainly less blood in Edinburgh, which probably meant that some time had elapsed between the victim’s death and the disembowelling.’
The professor began the process of reassembling the carcass on the table in front of him. ‘The thing is, Fin, the circumstances and the setting are so very different, the detail is bound to be different, too. So the truth is, that without definitive evidence pointing one way or the other, it is impossible to say whether these killings were carried out by the same individual or not. Perhaps the ritualistic nature of the murders might lead you to think that they were, but on the other hand salient features of the Leith Walk murder were carried in some detail by several of the tabloids. So if someone had wanted to replicate the murder they could do so fairly easily.’
‘But why would somebody want to do that?’ Gunn said. He looked a little less green around the gills now.
‘I’m a pathologist, not a psychiatrist.’ The professor cast Gunn a withering look, before turning back to Fin. ‘I’ll take skin swabs, and we’ll see what, if anything, toxicology turns up. But don’t expect much in the way of further illumination.’
III
The Barvas road wound up out of Stornoway, leaving behind spectacular views towards Coll and Loch a Tuath and Point, sunlight coruscating across the bay, torn clouds chasing their own shadows over the deep, blue water. Ahead lay twelve miles of bleak moorland as the road straightened out and took them north-west towards the tiny settlement of Barvas on the west coast. It was a
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