The Death of Justice: a heart-stopping crime thriller (DI Bliss Book 5) by Tony J. Forder

Author:Tony J. Forder [Forder, Tony J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloodhound Books
Published: 2019-09-08T16:00:00+00:00

28

The scene at Tim Bluntstone’s place of business looked like something from the set of a Frankenstein movie. Various items of medical equipment, jars and tubes glistened beneath a bank of harsh white LED lights. The undertaker’s pale headless corpse lay on the bloodstained embalming table, triggering a response in Bliss’s gut that was more than mere revulsion. Another cadaver sat on the floor, its back propped up against a wall. Bliss assumed Bluntstone had been working on the body when he was disturbed.

The beheading was a gruesome enough detail to tolerate, but there is something completely nauseating about looking down at a victim of torture. No matter how much of a sickening violation decapitation clearly was, there was some consolation for the team in knowing that the head was severed only after the man was first shot to death. In Bluntstone’s case, imagining the pain and suffering endured by this man in the last minutes of his life was completely overwhelming.

The killer had used a scalpel to slice flesh open on several areas of the body. A reddening around the wounds beneath the blood could be explained by the other aspect to the torture, Bliss thought; that of the tube running into a further gaping wound across the side of the neck, held in place with a pair of gleaming forceps. One end of the transparent plastic tubing had been plunged deep inside the body, while the other fed from a container of what appeared to be embalming solution located close to the pump. The clear bottle now contained only a small amount of fluid, the rest apparently forced into the undertaker’s bloodstream whilst the man was still alive.

Bliss imagined the killer’s initial approach might explain the other cuts, probably going on to pour the fluid into exposed open wounds as the blood bubbled out. Perhaps they had not elicited the required amount of agony, but whatever the impulse, the final flourish left no doubt as to the man’s intentions. Given the devastation wrought upon Bluntstone, the three gunshots doubtless proved unnecessary, yet the shooting had been carried out nonetheless. Part of the ritual, Bliss assumed.

Although grateful to find the extractor fans still switched on, he spent less than thirty minutes with the fresh victim before deciding he had seen enough.

‘Penny and I are having it on our toes,’ he told Warburton. ‘Staring at this poor bugger for another hour is not going to achieve anything.’

The Lincolnshire DCI grunted. ‘It’s bloody grim, isn’t it?’

‘It is. But remember he may yet be a killer himself,’ Bliss reminded her.

‘I know. But did he deserve this?’

‘Does anybody?’

‘It makes my skin crawl thinking about how much he must have suffered.’

Bliss nodded and screwed up his face. ‘Me, too. To be honest, that’s the main reason I’m not sticking around. I take it this horror show was discovered by a member of his family and that they confirmed the decap victim’s identity?’

‘His wife,’ Warburton said. ‘Surgery scar along his shin, and a birthmark. It’s Bluntstone.

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