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 toward Professor Wilson. âHow do you think it compares with the Leith Walk murder? Are we talking about the same killer here?â
The professor pushed his goggles up on his forehead and pulled his mask down below his beard. âYou know how it is, Fin. Pathologists never give you a straight answer. And Iâm not about to break with tradition.â He sighed. âOn 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 Angelâs killer was agitated to the point of throwing up over his victim. We donât 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, youâll 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 victimâs death and the disembowelling.â
The professor began the process of reassembling the carcass on the table in front of him. âThe 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.â
âBut why would somebody want to do that?â Gunn said. He looked a little less green around the gills now.
âIâm a pathologist, not a psychiatrist.â The professor cast Gunn a withering look, before turning back to Fin. âIâll take skin swabs, and weâll see what, if anything, toxicology turns up. But donât expect much in the way of further illumination.â
III
The Barvas road wound up out of Stornoway, leaving behind spectacular views toward 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 northwest toward the tiny settlement of Barvas on the west coast. It was a brooding landscape that in a moment of sunlight could be unexpectedly transformed. Fin knew the road well, in all seasons, and had never ceased to marvel at how the interminable acres of featureless peatbog could change by the month, the day, or even the minute. The dead straw colour of winter, the carpets of tiny white spring flowers, the dazzling purples of summer. To their right the sky had blackened, and rain was falling somewhere in the hinterland. To their left the sky was almost clear, summer sunlight falling across the land, and they could see in the distance the pale outline of the mountains of Harris. Fin had forgotten how big the sky was here.
Fin and Gunn drove in silence, thoughts filled by the images of clinical post-mortem carnage they had
He turned back toward Professor Wilson. âHow do you think it compares with the Leith Walk murder? Are we talking about the same killer here?â
The professor pushed his goggles up on his forehead and pulled his mask down below his beard. âYou know how it is, Fin. Pathologists never give you a straight answer. And Iâm not about to break with tradition.â He sighed. âOn 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 Angelâs killer was agitated to the point of throwing up over his victim. We donât 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, youâll 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 victimâs death and the disembowelling.â
The professor began the process of reassembling the carcass on the table in front of him. âThe 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.â
âBut why would somebody want to do that?â Gunn said. He looked a little less green around the gills now.
âIâm a pathologist, not a psychiatrist.â The professor cast Gunn a withering look, before turning back to Fin. âIâll take skin swabs, and weâll see what, if anything, toxicology turns up. But donât expect much in the way of further illumination.â
III
The Barvas road wound up out of Stornoway, leaving behind spectacular views toward 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 northwest toward the tiny settlement of Barvas on the west coast. It was a brooding landscape that in a moment of sunlight could be unexpectedly transformed. Fin knew the road well, in all seasons, and had never ceased to marvel at how the interminable acres of featureless peatbog could change by the month, the day, or even the minute. The dead straw colour of winter, the carpets of tiny white spring flowers, the dazzling purples of summer. To their right the sky had blackened, and rain was falling somewhere in the hinterland. To their left the sky was almost clear, summer sunlight falling across the land, and they could see in the distance the pale outline of the mountains of Harris. Fin had forgotten how big the sky was here.
Fin and Gunn drove in silence, thoughts filled by the images of clinical post-mortem carnage they had
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