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murder.
    Murder was a frequent visitor to Blackpool.
    Mostly the deaths were down to drunkenness and street brawls
between youths, unlike yesterday’s carnage in the newsagents. And
unlike the one Henry was en route to now, that Sunday morning just
before noon.
    He slowed and drove off the road, across the tram-tracks and
onto the wide stretch of Inner Promenade opposite the Pleasure
Beach - a huge funfair - in South Shore. Parking in the shadow of
one of the world’s hairiest roller-coaster rides - the Pepsi Max
Big One - he looked up at it and shivered. He’d once been bullied
into riding it by his wife and daughters, and was convinced he was
going to die when the trucks plunged vertically and corkscrewed
impossibly on the tracks at speeds of up to 80 m.p.h.
    The souvenir photograph of them all holding on for dear life
revealed the terror in his face.
    Never again.
    Several police cars and an ambulance were parked on the
Promenade, all unattended. A long black hearse was in amongst them,
with two pasty-looking body-removers on board, eating burgers. A
small crowd had gathered and were peering with interest over the
sea wall, near to the pier.
    He pushed his way rudely through them, ducked under a cordon
tape, nodded to the policewoman standing by it and made his way
down the slipway onto the beach.
    The sand was firm and dry, fortunately. Henry did not want to
spoil his suit nor take the chance of getting his shoes messed up.
Just like a detective.
    The tide had gone out about two hours before and the edge of
the sea seemed a mile away. The beach gave the appearance of being
clean and golden, very much like the town it fronted. The reality
was that it was one of the dirtiest beaches in Europe.
    However, it was a peaceful and pretty winter’s day with a low
sun rising in the sky. One of those days when it felt good to be
inhaling breath.
    Not a day to die.
    A small group of police officers and a couple of paramedics
were gathered around what, at first sight, looked like a bundle of
rags at the foot of one of the pier struts. There was an obvious
pathway in the sand leading to and from the scene.
    Henry tried to psych himself into the right frame of mind to
be the senior detective at a scene. The one who would have to make
the decisions. The one everybody else would look to for a
lead.
    Oh joy, he thought.
     
     
    She couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. It was
difficult to tell for sure. She was five foot five inches tall,
very thin with spidery arms and legs, all bones, no
muscles.
    Henry watched as the deathly-faced undertakers lifted her body
easily from the trolley and onto the mortuary slab, dumping her
there unceremoniously.
    Her drenched outer coat had been removed and searched,
revealing nothing. Now she was lying there in what she had been
wearing underneath: a T-shirt top, a short one which was nothing
more than a piece of cloth covering her breasts, and a micro-skirt
in what had once been stretchy black Lycra and would have only just
covered her lower belly and the top of her thighs. There was no
underwear.
    Henry closed his eyes briefly. Stay detached, he ordered
himself. She’s a piece of meat, nothing else. Then he opened his
eyes and allowed himself to look again.
    But no matter how he tried he could not view her as a carcase.
That was probably the reason why she was here, dead, because some
bastard had thought she was nothing more than meat - something to
be used, abused and discarded.
    A scenes of crime officer videoed the body from all angles,
focusing in on several areas. Then he took a few stills, the flash
giving her pale damp body a sickly glow.
    ‘ Shall I cut her clothes off’?’ a female voice said into
Henry’s ear. It was Jan, a mortuary technician. She smiled brightly
and held up a large pair of scissors, opening and closing them like
a seamstress, indicating her eagerness.
    She was nothing like the stereotypical mortuary attendant. In
her mid-twenties she had ashen, pretty