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quickly from the body as though it might explode at any moment, and almost slipping on Ralf's blood.
    "What? What is it?" Carl almost shouted the words, panic clear in his voice.
    "It’s...our murder weapon. Fucking hell."
    "Huh?" Carl said, moving closer to Michael's position.
    "Where?"
    Michael pointed wordlessly at the priest’s face.
    Carl followed the gesture, squinting, his eyes slowly widening in horror.
    The priest’s mouth was full of blood, and there, stuck in the gaps between his teeth, were strips of torn flesh and matted hair.
    Carl's ongoing battle with his morning muesli finally resolved itself loudly and messily.
    "He tore Ralf's throat out like a fucking dog," Michael said, his voice laced with wonder. "Killed his wife somewhere else, then brought her head here and killed Ralf. With his damn teeth."
    Carl choked, and spat bile onto the floor.
    "Doesn't make any sense," h e moaned miserably. "Father Leary? The guy wouldn't harm a fly. Fuck's sake, the guy would pray for the soul of someone who did harm a fly! How the hell does a man like that behead his own wife and rip out a man's throat? What is it? Drugs? Did he just lose his mind? He christened my neighbour’s baby a week ago! A week! Doesn't make any sense."
    Carl shook his head, eyes squeezed shut, as though trying to shake off a bad dream.
    The voice nagged at the corners of Michael's mind again. The scene was still wrong. It didn't make sense. He turned, and stared again at Ralf's inert body.
    "So Ralf stuck him," Carl said, his expression sour. "Self defence. Too good for the bastard. Too quick."
    "No, I don't think so, " Michael said softly. He was looking intently at Ralf's chubby hands. "Look here. Ralf's hands are clean. No blood. Not even a cut. If you're gripping a piece of that plate hard enough to stab someone, you have to cut yourself at least a little right? You have to get the other guy's blood on your hands don't you?"
    Carl looked at him, my stified.
    "I don't understand," h e said.
    Michael stared at him, eyes glittering. "Someone else was here , mate. The question is: where are they now?"

3
     
     
    The coffee in the little red thermos was stale, but Michael gulped it down anyway, keen to wash the taste of bile from the back of his throat. He glanced at Carl, who was eyeing up the remaining doughnut, probably for the same reason, but obviously thought better of it.
    The older man rubbed absent-mindedly at his recently-evacuated stomach, his expression pained.
    "Ever come across anything like this before , Mike?"
    Carl was a good two decades older than Michael, but the younger man had actually spent a handful of years serving on the Force in Cardiff. On matters relating to actual police work, he deferred to the younger man's experience.
    Michael shook his head, and tipped the dregs of the coffee down his throat.
    They were leaning up against the car, facing the café warily, like a gazelle keeping one eye on a distant dozing lion. Carl had asked Glenda to put through a call for assistance, but, as with most things in South Wales, it would take time to arrive. So they waited. Outside .
    "No, no thing like this, not even close," Michael said. "A few violent-ish crimes I suppose, mostly domestic stuff. But nothing like you'd get in the movies. No bodies ripped apart. No serial killers putting on a show."
    He looked away from the café, gazing into the trees, his vision clouded.
    "Mostly it was just the same things you get here. Drunks. Theft. Just on a bigger scale. Violence? Mostly down to kids getting hold of knives really. Any time that cropped up it was...sad, really. Kind of pathetic. Not like this at all.
    "I don't know what you'd call this."
    Carl nodded morosely.
    Michael thought for a second. There h ad been the one time, of course. The time he didn't like to think about. The event that popped back into his mind like an uninvited guest occasionally, and sometimes refused to leave. He focused his gaze on the gravel at his feet.