7
There was always an odd atmosphere at the first team briefing on a murder case. There was undoubted excitement — big cases like this were the reason most of the officers were in the job. But amongst the fervour was an anxiety. When you reduced it down to its barest bones, the fact was that there was a killer loose in the local area.
Jack Culverhouse watched as the team assembled. Although he would have to lean heavily on forensics experts, profilers and, quite likely, computer technicians, the core of his team consisted of four detectives who he’d worked with closely on a number of cases over the past few years.
His longest-standing colleagues were Detective Sergeants Frank Vine and Steve Wing, two men who were very much of the same old-school style of policing as Jack. Frank had been
