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stood for a few moments basking in the admiration of Imogen Goode, and then he winked at her. The detective constable wriggled on her seat, smiled, and then adjusted her dark-framed glasses nervously.
    She was flirting with him, Calladine realised, watching the pair of them. He knew Ruth had been observing these two over the past few weeks. Perhaps she was right, and despite Imogen’s protestations to the contrary, something was going on between them. He could understand it in a way. Julian was a serious, nerdy sort, and Imogen was a complete computer geek, but that was as far as it went, because physically they were ill matched. Poor Julian was tall and gangly with large facial features, whereas Imogen was quite a stunner. Ruth had told him, that in her opinion, this situation was bound to end badly. And she could be right, because as far as Calladine could remember, romances within the team had never worked out well.
    “What would you like, Inspector?” Julian whispered conspiratorially in Calladine’s ear — playing to the room. “What can science add to the mix that plain old detection can’t?”
    Tom didn’t have time for the scientist’s odd sense of humour, or his beliefs that science alone could solve a case. He gave him a look that said so, clearly. Forensic science was important, vital if they were to get the right outcome in court. But if forensic evidence was all they had to go on, then half the cases would have stayed unsolved. Calladine trusted his instincts. He had a sort of sixth sense, or perhaps it was something that had developed over the years with experience. But to date it had never let him down. “Do you have anything else or not?” he demanded tersely, knitting his brows.
    “Well, I have a name.” Julian Batho announced this proudly, and almost took a small bow as a buzz of response flew around the team. “Ian Callum Edwards.”
    “Ice.”
    Calladine’s response was almost immediate.
    The buzz got louder. They all recognised the name, and knew the young man it belonged to. All, that was, except Dodgy.
    “Ice?” He turned to Imogen beside him.
    “A well-known young thug and drug dealer. Ice is his nickname,” she explained. “You see the word written all over the estate — you know, graffiti. It’s written in great big bubble letters and painted blue. It’s his tag.”
    “We got a match on his DNA almost immediately,” Julian told the team. “Once Doctor Hoyle took a closer look, we could also see what the tattoos on his fingers spelled out — his initials.”
    Calladine gestured for the team to be quiet, as Julian continued.
    “Then there was this.” He handed Calladine a photo. “This is an image of what we found on the receipt, and it’s got nothing to do with the supermarket. Our man is leaving us his mark, a tag of his own. His signature.”
    Calladine felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He didn’t like this. Those instincts were at it again. They were warning him that this case would turn out to be something big, and very unpleasant.
    The mark was a miniature imprint of a bloodied hand made by some sort of stamp that had been inked — in this case with bright red ink. A bag of severed fingers, a bloodied hand; the message was plain enough. And it was nothing like anything he’d seen before on the Hobfield.
    Calladine felt his stomach heave and he almost gagged. This wasn’t Fallon; this wasn’t how that particular gangster operated. Fallon wouldn’t leave a mysterious mark to puzzle the police, or anyone else. Fallon’s style was a good kicking, enough to put the boy in hospital for a few days, then tell everyone about it.
    Why the gang graffiti, what did it mean? This was a tag he hadn’t seen before — if that’s what it was. Was this a show by some new thugs on the block? It certainly seemed that way at first. A takeover. Or was that what they were supposed to think? Were they supposed to believe that someone tougher, smarter, had come along,