The Death Sculptor

Ninety-Two

Hunter spent most of the night going over every photograph inside that cardboard box. He found more wedding pictures, old holiday snapshots, several photographs of Nathan Littlewood with other friends and family, and a huge collection of photos of Harry, Littlewood’s only son – his birth, his first ever steps, his first day at school, his graduation, his first prom. Basically, every important occasion in his life until he left home. Littlewood was certainly a proud father.

After hours of image searching, Hunter was sure that Andrew Nashorn appeared in none of those photographs. That was all they had – an out-of-focus arm at the edge of an old picture, identifiable only by the small cluster of birthmarks on his triceps.

Hunter had examined every face in every snapshot with a magnifying glass. He was fairly certain that none of them was Derek Nicholson, but ‘fairly certain’ wasn’t certain enough. He would contact both of Nicholson’s daughters, Olivia and Allison, and check if they had any pictures of their father in his early twenties for comparison. Maybe Nicholson was one of those whose appearance drastically changed as they grew older.

Hunter finally managed to fall asleep just before five in the morning. He woke up at 8:22 a.m. The scar on the back of his neck was itching like crazy. He had a long shower, hoping that the warm water he allowed to drum down on his nape for five solid minutes would soothe some of that itch.

It didn’t work.

When Hunter got to his office an hour later, Garcia was sitting at his desk, shoulders hunched over his keyboard, attentively reading something on his computer screen. He looked up as Hunter placed the box of photographs on his desk.

‘Anything?’ Garcia asked expectantly, nodding at the box.

‘Nope, that was it. I’ve been through every photograph, every face. That picture in the park is all we got. If Nathan Littlewood also knew Derek Nicholson, there’s no evidence of it in this box.’

‘Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t. I’ve got four people on this, digging like demented moles, searching for anything that could link Nicholson to Littlewood, going back twenty-five to thirty years.’

Hunter nodded.

Garcia stood up and walked over to the coffee jug in the corner of the room. ‘Just to be one hundred per cent sure, I asked one of the image technicians to compare the birthmarks from the picture you got in Littlewood’s apartment and the ones on the autopsy photographs. There is no doubt. Dimensions, distance, pattern, everything, it’s all exactly the same. That’s Nashorn’s arm.’

Garcia didn’t need to ask, he could see the lack of sleep in his partner’s face: he poured two cups of black coffee and handed one to Hunter.

‘Guess what,’ Alice said as she stepped through the door, a proud smile on her face.

Hunter and Garcia turned at the same time to face her.

‘They knew each other.’