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something to himself. Another police officer was standing a few feet to his right, one hand cupped over his nose, as if protecting himself from a violating smell. There were no CCTV cameras anywhere.
    ‘Robert,’ Garcia said as he spotted his partner walking toward him.
    ‘What time did you get here?’ Hunter said, noticing his partner’s strawberry-pink-rimmed eyes.
    ‘Less than ten minutes ago, but I was awake when I got the call anyway.’
    Hunter’s eyebrows arched.
    ‘I had zero sleep,’ Garcia explained and pointed to his head. ‘It’s like I’ve got a cinema in here. Now, guess which movie has been playing on my screen all night.’
    Hunter said nothing. He was already looking past Garcia’s shoulder to the commotion around the third dumpster.
    ‘It’s our victim,’ Garcia said. ‘No doubt about it.’
    Hunter stepped closer. The three officers nodded ‘good morning’, but no one said a word.
    Mike Brindle, the forensics agent in charge, was kneeling down by the dumpster, collecting something from the ground with a tiny pair of tweezers. He paused and stood up when he saw Hunter.
    ‘Robert,’ he said with a nod. They’d worked together on more cases than they could remember.
    Hunter returned the gesture, but his focus was on the naked male body on the ground. He was lying on his back, between the third and fourth dumpsters. His legs were stretched out. His right arm was by the side of the body, bent at the elbow. The left one was resting casually on his stomach.
    Hunter felt his throat constrict a little as he looked at the man’s face.
    There was none – no nose, no lips, no eyes. Even his teeth seemed to have rotted and corroded away. The eyeballs were still in their sockets, but they looked like punctured, half-full, silicone bags. In fact, the skin around his whole body seemed to have been sandpapered away. But the exposed flesh didn’t look red-raw. It had a pink-gray tone to it. Though shocking, it didn’t surprise Hunter that much. The alkaline bath had, in a way, cooked his flesh.
    Hunter stepped a little closer.
    The body had no fingernails or toenails left.
    Despite the total disfigurement, Hunter had little doubt it was the same man they’d seen yesterday on their computer screens. When the man had finally died, his lifeless head fell forward, submerging his face into the alkaline mixture, but not his entire head. His short brown hair was almost intact.
    ‘He’s been dead for several hours,’ Brindle said. ‘The body is in full rigor mortis.’
    ‘Three twenty-six yesterday afternoon,’ Hunter said.
    Brindle frowned at him.
    ‘He died at three twenty-six yesterday afternoon,’ Hunter repeated.
    ‘Do you know him?’
    ‘Not exactly.’ Hunter looked up. The three police officers nearby had moved back to the crime-scene tape. Hunter quickly gave Brindle a summary of what had happened the day before.
    ‘Jesus,’ Brindle said when Hunter was done. ‘That would explain the grotesque disfigurement to the body, and the odd change of color to his flesh.’ He shook his head, still shocked by what Hunter had just told him. ‘So you were not only made to watch, but he forced you to choose the death method as well?’
    Hunter nodded in silence.
    ‘And you have the whole thing digitally recorded?’
    ‘Yes.’
    With heavy eyes, Brindle looked down at the tortured body again. ‘I don’t understand this city, or the people in it anymore, Robert.’
    ‘I don’t think any of us do,’ Hunter replied.
    ‘How can anyone make sense of something like this?’
    Hunter kneeled down to better examine the body. With the strong forensic light, every detail was visible. The smell was already crossing the line into putrid meat territory. Hunter used his left hand to cover his nose. He noticed little dents on the man’s feet, legs and arms. ‘What are these?’
    ‘Rat bites,’ Brindle said. ‘We had to scare a few off the body when we got here. There’s quite a bit of food in these