Prologue
Part 1
When Hastings arrived at the meeting room downtown, he saw all the familiar, and partially dreaded, faces already all assembled, Carlyle with this annoyingly eager look on his face, the leader of the investigation, Inspector Geoff Kennedy, the rest of the team and of course Hordichuk, who impatiently was looking at his watch, barking out “Happy you could make it, Hastings.”
Hastings hadn’t even taken a seat, when Hordichuk motioned Kennedy to brief the team. “The victim has been found at 9.30 pm in the back alley of an industrial sector in the northeast, in Westwinds. The vic was found by a security officer, who is making his rounds every hour, so the perp has not had much time to get everything set up and get away without drawing any attention.”
He pointed towards the screen or the projector. “The vic has been put into the position of the Vitruvian Man by Da Vinci, with his arms and legs spread out, obviously only as one of the two positions, complete with the circle drawn in blood around him and his usual ‘signature’, if you want, the word ‘Cain’ written in blood. Samples will be on their way to the lab, but I believe that it is safe to assume that the DNA samples from the vic will not match again.”
“What is this Vesuvian Man you’re talking about?” asked one of the officers, and this was where Hordichuk snapped for the first time: “Vitruvian, man, Vitruvian! Da Vinci’s world famous depiction of a man and the perfect proportions!”
Trying to take away some of the sudden tension, Kennedy quickly continued, “This is a new element and we haven’t had this before, so I am not sure, if the killer is trying to tell us something or if he is changing his MO.”
Visibly trying to regain his calm, Hordichuk continued: “The one thing I definitely want to have ruled out is that we have a copycat killer at our hands that tries to pose as Cain. It is hard enough to explain these cases to the media, we don’t need a second front opened and get even more flak than we already get. This case is getting attention from all over the world by now and this absolutely is not the publicity I want our department, or the whole city for that matter, to get in the eyes of the world. The mayor demands results and I can’t blame him, because this is something that can severely hurt our reputation.
I don’t want any of the new circumstances to get out to the press, it is bad enough that we can’t hide that we have another victim at our hands, I don’t need them to start speculating even more and make this even more of a spectacular than it already is.”
He fidgeted, reaching into the inside of his coat, almost forgetting that he could not flip out a cigarette and light it, like he used to be able to. Damn non-smoking bylaws and the damn role model crap that they as the police had to exercise. “Hastings, Carlyle, get your asses out there and have a look around again to see, if you can find anything or anybody, there has to be something out there...”
He slammed his hand on the desk, stood up and walked out, trying to find his way to a place, where he could freaking light a smoke.
* * * * * *
It was cold and windy, when they arrived at the crime scene, and the air had the sense of rain, making it even worse to be out, trying to find a needle in a haystack the size of Siberia. Hastings flashed his badge at one of the officers guarding the scene and slipped under the tape cordoning off the area, Carlyle following like an eager puppy. The CSIs were just processing the body, taking blood samples from both the word “Cain” and the circles, so he let them finish whatever they had to finish and looked around. In one of the cruisers, an officer was talking to a man in uniform, probably the security guard that had found the body, so he walked over to see, what he had seen and hopefully get Hordichuk off his back rather sooner than later.
On the way there, they passed the CSIs at work and he just could not help but stop and take in the sight: The corpse was naked, with several stab wounds clearly visible and a clean cut along the throat, but no blood, so the killer had cleaned the body well. It was lying on its back, arms and legs carefully arranged into a position resembling the Vitruvian Man and an investigator was just measuring the angle of the arms and legs, probably to check against the original. The body itself was unnaturally white, looking emaciated, as had been the case for each of the other victims, which were left to bleed out or drained before dropping the body, which was obvious, as there were no copious amounts of blood anywhere around, proof of the crime itself having happened somewhere else. The only blood visible was the two circles around the body and the scrawled word “Cain” next to it, the killer’s signature. The glaring light of the neons illuminating only reinforced the ghastly atmosphere of the scene, showing every single detail.
Without a word he continued on to the cruiser, seeing the first camera crews setting up shop just outside of the perimeter. Some officers were trying to obscure the cameras’ vision with tarps, but the gusty wind made it hard for them to stand their ground, they tried their best to keep the nosy journalists in the dark, literally, as much as they could.
“Sergeant Hastings,” the officer next to the car said, “this is Jordan Harrowgate, the security guard that found the body. He works for Syn Security, the company that has the contract for the whole block here.”
Hastings looked into the car and saw a square-jawed man, bulky, but not fat, white as a wall, clearly shaken by the sight that had burnt itself into his memory in a fraction of a second. “Mr. Harrowgate, I am Sergeant Hastings, I am investigating the case and I have a few questions for you.”
The guard looked at him with frightened yes and slowly nodded yes, never taking his eyes off the police officer.
“You found the body at 9.30, was it on a regular round you made?”
With a shaky voice Harrowgate replied, “Yes, I usually make my round every hour on the dot, that way I don’t forget or get confused or anything. An hour before everything was clear, but when I turned the corner...” His voice trailed off and he lowered his eyes. “When I turned the corner, I saw something, somebody, lying on the ground, so I at first thought that it was just a drunk, who passed out, but when I got closer, I saw that something was really wrong. When I saw the wounds and the blood, I called the police right away.”
While Carlyle was scribbling down every word the man was saying, Hastings just calmly continued to ask, “Did you see anybody or anything else, like a car or a person doing this?”
“No, everything was dark, everything was quiet with the exception of the wind. Up here everything is flat, so it goes right through and when you sit in your little cabin, all you hear is the howling, someone could almost fire a shot next to you and you would not be possible to hear it! If there is a car coming through, I can usually see the lights, just like I would see what your guys are doing, but there was nothing, so the killer must have worked in the dark...”
“So you are sure that you did not see anything suspicious before that or after that?”
“One hundred per cent sure.”
With an acknowledging grunt he thanked Harrowgate and turned back to look at the almost surreal crime scene, at the officers struggling with the tarps, at the coroner wheeling away the corpse, which did not take anything away from the creepiness of the circles of blood and the word “Cain” standing out on the light grey asphalt as if it was painted with fluorescent paint. This was not just a drop site, this was a work of art...
Hispinas 2–6 StrayaRoos 
Oberour Ar Moro 1–0 Hispinas 
