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  She read discourses on the Koran that stated that death by burning was considered by some to be a martyr’s death, with an equal number saying that it was expressly forbidden. News websites also talked of Buddhists who had been known to douse themselves in petrol and set themselves on fire as a form of protest. Older versions of The Old Testament were cited as saying that the sentence for adultery was death and on at least two occasions as death by burning when combined with exacerbating circumstances such as prostitution. So, the murderer could be some sort of religious fanatic, but it was hard to know which particular religion and it seemed it all depended on your interpretation of the various texts on which the beliefs were founded.

  Carrying on with her research, Callie then read about Tristan and Iseult, in which some versions have King Mark sentencing the lovers to death at the stake. Burning at the stake was apparently mentioned as a punishment for sexual immorality in old Irish literature, possibly because it had taken inspiration from the Old Testament. She found that many societies have used death by burning as an execution method, usually for treason, heresy or witchcraft but sometimes also for adultery or other sexual transgressions. It was usual for the condemned to be bound to a wooden stake, sometimes alone and sometimes in groups. She also found a chilling reference that burning alive for murder in England was abolished in 1656, but that burning for adultery and heresy remained a legitimate form of punishment, for a while longer, at least.

  She stopped at that point because it was getting all too horrible. There were even videos of people being burnt to death if she wanted to see them, but she didn’t want to – she didn’t want to see them at all. She had seen the results in real life three times now and that was more than enough.

  She looked through her notes. The first two victims seemed almost certainly to have been committing adultery, the cars were parked up against wooden stakes to stop them escaping, and they were then burnt to death.

  To Callie’s mind, the case was pretty much made, even if she didn’t have all the evidence. The murderer was killing these women for committing adultery, using his own variation of the medieval punishment of burning them at the stake.

  Callie jumped as Kate’s throwaway phone pinged, letting her know she had received a text from one of the men she had given the number to on the website.

  Her hands shook slightly as she opened the message.

  Hey Vicky, thx 4 msg. U look hot. Txt me wot UR doing. Lee xx

  Callie was tempted to text back straight away, and ask how old he really was but controlled herself and texted back:

  Just playing on internet. Waiting for you to contact me. What RU doing?

  She was quite proud of herself for sounding quite flirty, but would Gerry Brown really use textspeak like this, she wondered.

  The phone pinged again.

  Watching porn like U we shd meet do it 4 real. Im nkd, what RU waring? smthg sexy?

  There followed some descriptions of what Lee was currently doing and would like to do to or with Vicky. Callie shuddered. There was no way she could continue this conversation, so she turned the phone off.

  “Can’t believe Gerry would ever use such bad punctuation or spelling anyway,” she told herself before going to bed. At least Lee had taken her mind off the horrific images of women being burnt at the stake. She just hoped they didn’t come back to haunt her in the night.

  Chapter 15

  Callie was incredibly nervous as she approached the police station because she suspected that the only reaction she would get would be laughter. In the damp morning air, she had to admit that it did sound ludicrous. What sort of madman would kill women to punish them for committing adultery? And resurrect a medieval punishment for it, at that? But try as she might, she couldn’t come up with an alternative motive that fit the murders as well as this one did, and she was determined to tell Miller, and anyone else who would listen, even if they discounted it out of hand and laughed at her. She could never forgive herself if she didn’t tell them and she turned out to be right.

  She had been anxious ever since she had decided on this course of action at about four in the morning, having woken after a nightmare. Her rational mind told her it was just indigestion, but as she had tossed and turned she had finally come to the conclusion that she had to tell the police her theory if she was ever going to be able to sleep again, and having made that decision, she promptly fell asleep.

  She was in a rush because she wanted to make good her resolution to tell the police about her theory and she needed to do it before morning surgery as there was a practice meeting at lunchtime. She also needed to do it before she had second thoughts.

  As she parked her car and headed towards the modern office block that housed the main police station, she wished she had a stock of beta blockers she could raid. She had used them before for practical exams and stressful situations as a student to try and help her maintain her cool professional image and stop her getting flustered or flushed, but she didn’t have any left, so she would just have to breathe deeply and hope that Jayne Hales or Nigel were the only ones in at this early hour, or that if Miller was there, Jeffries was not.

  Despite her role as a forensic physician, Callie wasn’t allowed to roam the building freely and had to be escorted, so she waited in the reception area and was surprised when Miller himself came down to fetch her and take her up to the incident room, and even more surprised when he led her into his office, rather than speaking to her in front of everyone else. She had been dismayed to see the room so full at that early hour, but there was no sign of Jeffries, thank goodness.

  As he held the door for her to enter the office and she passed close to him, she could smell a subtle mix of sandalwood and shaving foam for a few moments before she moved into the office where the smells were more redolent of stale food and bodies.

  “Sorry about the mess,” Miller said as he cleared some files off a chair and invited her to sit down. “Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee?”

  “No, thank you.” She sat down and was just formulating what to say in her mind when the door crashed opened again and Jeffries came into the room carrying a chair which he managed to bang against several items of furniture, as well as Callie’s leg.

  “Oops, sorry, Doc. The room’s a bit small,” he said as she rubbed her leg, gratified to see that Miller looked annoyed, but not annoyed enough to ask Jeffries to leave.

  “So.” Miller looked at her. He seemed genuinely interested in what she had come in to say and, like her, slightly anxious about what his sergeant might say in response. She cleared her throat and with an apprehensive look at Jeffries, explained why she was there.

  “I know that my simply telling you the gossip that the second victim had used a dating website was not enough, but I have been thinking about the women who have been targeted, and, I know you haven’t identified the last one yet, have you?” She looked for confirmation from Miller.

  “Not yet.”

  “But it seems likely that at least the first two women were married and on a night out with a lover.” Both Miller and Jeffries nodded.

  “And it’s possible the third one was married as well. We obviously don’t know that yet.” She hesitated. This was the moment of no return. Her last chance to stay quiet about her theory and leave with her dignity intact, albeit with a guilty conscience. “I have been thinking about motive.” Jeffries looked as if he was about to interrupt, but Callie held up her hand to stop him. “Bear with me, Sergeant, I won’t take long to get to the point.”

  He subsided and allowed her to continue.

  “I have been looking at the use of fire as a murder weapon around the world, and discounting arson for monetary gain or to cover up a murder that has already taken place, death by burning is most commonly used as a punishment. A punishment for heresy, treason or adultery.”

  She let that sink in for a moment and was pleased to note that Miller was giving it some serious thought.

  “Come off it, Doc…”


  She might have known Jeffries wasn’t going to be persuaded.

  “…that’s an Asian thing, isn’t it? None of these women are–”

  “That’s very interesting.” Miller interrupted his sergeant before he could say something politically incorrect.

  Callie glared at Jeffries before continuing.

  “It isn’t only Asian cultures that have used it as a punishment. We used to burn women at the stake for adultery in this country, and the car park posts could be interpreted as symbolic stakes.”

  Jeffries snorted with derision.

  “Blimey, if someone is out there killing people as a punishment for committing adultery, why aren’t they killing men rather than women? After all, there’s a lot more men fucking around out there than women. Trust me, I know.”

  Before Callie had time to respond, to tell him, and Miller, that it has traditionally always been the woman that pays, there was a knock at the door and Jayne Hales came in, with a glance of apology at Callie, although she wasn’t sure if Jayne was apologising for interrupting her again or for how she had been treated the day before.

  “Got an ID on the latest victim, Guv,” she said, and both Miller and Jeffries jumped to their feet and headed for the door.

  Callie stood as well, she had said what she wanted to say and if they chose to ignore it, then more fool them, she thought as she followed them out of the office.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Miller said to her as she headed for the incident room door. “That’s a very interesting theory.” But he was already turning to Jayne and listening to her as she gave him the information she had gathered.

  “Teresa Hardwick, aged twenty-seven, freelance hairdresser,” she said as Callie opened the door to leave.

  “Married, no children. Husband didn’t report her missing straight away because she often stayed out overnight, apparently. He said it was for her work, but I’m not sure why a hairdresser would need to work overnight.”

  Callie smiled to herself. So, another married woman, lying about where she was and what she was doing. She knew she was right about the motive for these murders, but it wasn’t any great consolation if Miller wasn’t going to take it seriously.

  * * *

  “Yes, Linda, I do understand, but given the problems we have recruiting locums who are on the approved list, we have no choice but to do everything we can to keep him.”

  Hugh Grantham was digging his heels in about Gerry Brown in face of growing complaints, not just from his medical colleagues and the practice nurses, but from the administrative staff as well. Apparently, over his illness, and with no signs of burns as far as a disappointed Callie could see, he had been rude to one of the receptionists this time, and she had been so upset she had left work early, leaving her colleagues having to cover at short notice.

  “It’s not easy to find good reception staff either.”

  “Of course not, I admit that Dr Brown needs to brush up his social skills and I will remind him to be polite to practice staff at all times.” Hugh looked round the room. He knew the weight of opinion was against him. “But he is a competent GP” – he held up his hand as Callie looked as if she was about to interrupt – “not good, but competent, and I shouldn’t need to remind you that if he leaves, we will all need to pull together and cover his work load.”

  There was a sulky silence. Everyone knew he was right and no one wanted any extra work when they were struggling to cope with what they already had.

  “Perhaps it would be a good idea if we were to at least look at the alternatives out there.” Gauri was again being practical and pragmatic. Agreement to look at the alternatives might appease some people even though they knew there were no alternatives and it had taken them several months to find Gerry.

  “And to have a plan for if he decides to leave us,” Callie chipped in. “I don’t get the impression he likes it here very much, and we all know there are plenty of other locum jobs going.”

  Hugh nodded and looked round at his colleagues in the senior team which consisted of the four full-time partners, Callie as a long-term salaried GP, Linda the practice manager and Sally, the senior practice nurse.

  “Of course.” He turned to Linda. “Can I ask you to ring the agencies again and see if there is anyone available?” Linda made a note of the action allocated to her. “And I will speak to Dr Brown about not upsetting the staff, and I will also draw up an emergency rota and circulate for comment.”

  He checked that there was no other business, the complaint about Dr Brown having been the final item on the agenda, and left, signalling a mass exodus of others from the meeting, leaving just Callie, Gauri and Linda behind.

  “The man has the social skills of a gnat,” Linda complained. “I’m not sure Mo will come back after what he said to her.”

  “What did he say?” Callie asked.

  “He suggested that there was no point in him telling patients to lose weight when she clearly ignored the advice.”

  “Ouch!” Callie said. There was no denying that Mo was morbidly obese, but she was a good worker and the patients loved her.

  “Do we know anything about his personal life?” Callie asked, trying not to sound too interested.

  “He put married as his status on his personal details form,” Linda said with a slight sneer, “but I’m not sure how much that means.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Rumour has it he has a bit on the side. Stays with her every Wednesday and Saturday. That’s why his car’s always left here on those nights.”

  “You wonder what his wife makes of it.”

  “He probably tells her he’s working. Staying in the hospital on call or something. I knew a surgeon who did that.”

  Callie tried not to look as if she knew exactly who Linda was talking about.

  “I have no time for gossiping.” Gauri stood up. “There are some visits I must do.”

  Gauri left and Callie felt a little guilty. Everyone knew that Linda loved to gossip, and Callie encouraged her, so long as it never crossed the line into breaching confidentiality. Her view was that it sometimes paid to know who was sleeping with whom, if only to stop yourself from putting your foot in it.

  “His girlfriend must live in the Old Town then, if he leaves his car here,” Callie remarked to Linda, fishing for further details. “Do you know who she is?”

  “No, I have asked around but got absolutely nowhere, and short of following the man, there’s not much more I can do to find out.” Linda sighed with genuine regret, and Callie felt much the same. If there was one definite person he was having an affair with, and seeing regularly, it would potentially rule him out as the killer.

  * * *

  Callie looked at the picture of Teresa Hardwick, victim number three, that Jayne had printed off from her Facebook page. The photo was clearly a selfie, her chin was tipped up to prevent a double chin, eyebrows slightly raised to make her eyes look larger and the obligatory pout looked forced. The result was unnatural and Callie wondered what possessed people to post pictures like this online.

  She handed the photo back.

  “Is Steve, the DI, okay with you talking to me?”

  They were in a small café just down the road from the surgery, that Callie sometimes used for lunch when she wasn’t able to get home because of pressures of work or because her mother was there. It was after the lunchtime rush, so she and Jayne Hales had the place to themselves apart from the lady behind the counter who also served as a waitress.

  “Of course. Don’t worry, I’m not about to jeopardise my career going behind his back. I’m sure he would talk to you himself but he’s a bit busy at the moment.”

  Callie could imagine he was. With three murders almost certainly committed by the same person or persons, journalists were pouring into the town and the pressure on him to find the serial killer before anyone else died was intense.

  “He wanted you to know that he wasn’t dismissing your theory that this is some kind of punishment fo
r adultery but he’s not sure how to investigate that, although he’s got me checking to see if anyone connected with Mark’s past had a particularly bad divorce and cross checking to see if they have any current contact with him using the TIE process. Unfortunately, that’s still quite a few and I’m only a quarter of the way through the very long list of policemen, firemen, social workers, judges and so on from his past. And that list includes Sergeant Jeffries, by the way.” A fact which seemed to please Jayne Hales.

  Callie knew that TIE stood for trace, interview and eliminate, and she could sympathise with the frustration Jayne was feeling. Too often medicine was like the TIE process – doing investigations to rule out diagnoses one at a time until you hit on the right one.

  “Although,” Jayne continued regretfully, “Bob’s wife divorced him for his adultery not hers, and he knew Mark was in custody, so if he really was the killer trying to frame Mark, he would have known not to leave his fingerprints at the most recent scene.”

  “Another soda can?” Callie asked and Jayne nodded. Callie was surprised to hear that news, it definitely looked like someone was trying to frame Mark, unsuccessfully, and she filed that particular piece of information away.

  “Oh, congratulations on your promotion to sergeant, by the way.” She changed the subject. “And your move out of uniform.”

  “Thanks. Unfortunately, the secondment to CID is only temporary, but I’m hoping that I do well enough on this investigation to make it permanent some time in the future. Although, I don’t think Bob Jeffries would be very happy if I did.”

  Callie nodded sympathetically. Bob Jeffries probably didn’t think Plain Jayne, as she was sometimes called, mostly behind her back, could possibly be a good addition to the team because she wasn’t a) pretty or b) a man.

  “I’m surprised you have time to come and see me.” Callie still wasn’t quite sure why Jayne had contacted her and suggested this meeting.

  “The boss knows it’s not easy for you to come and see him in the incident room.” Jayne gave her a sympathetic look. “What, with Bob and his attitude, but he does value your opinions, says you are sometimes spot on, and also, that if you think we aren’t taking you seriously you might go off and investigate on your own.”