Detective Inspector Millar examined the scene of crime photos carefully as he pinned them onto the incident board.  It all worried him.  He feared he might have another Yorkshire Ripper on his hands, even though there had been only this one murder.  Belfast had never had a serial killer before, but there was a first time for everything.  It was the way that the killer had arranged her body which caused his alarm bells to ring. 

“Call it a gut reaction if you like, but ordinary killers don’t lay out their victim like that,” he said to the young Constable studying what he was pinning to the board in the Incident Room.

Her clothing had been smoothed out tidily and her pashmina-style scarf had been placed over her legs and tucked around her as though someone were concerned about her modesty.  Her arms had been spread out.  She lay in the shape of a cross with her head tilted to the left, and lowered in some kind of mockery of Christ’s crucifixion.  A cross had been drawn on her forehead, like some form of unholy christening using her own blood, and her eyes had been closed.  On a rough wooden fence nearby, the words “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” had been gouged out using a sharp implement.  Perhaps a pen knife.  The object had not been found at the scene. 

‘Obviously the killer doesn’t see himself as a sinner,’ was Millar’s first thought.  ‘Possibly one of those killers who the profilers call mission killers, those who think they have a legitimate mission in life to wipe out or rid the world of a certain class of people.  In the Ripper’s case it was prostitutes.  Maybe it’s the same here.  Maybe he thinks he’s doing God’s work.  Maybe I’m just letting my imagination run away with me.’  Millar remained tight lipped about his suspicions.  They were only that after all…..Suspicions.  Nothing more.  ‘Maybe I just want it to be the big one…..that case which gets you noticed and makes a name for you.’  He had been a long time in the business.  24 years…..and he was becoming tired of the same old grind.  ‘Maybe I just need a change of scenery.’  Recently, he had been thinking of transferring, maybe starting afresh elsewhere.  He was divorced, had a son off to University in Manchester and not much of a social life because of the anti-social hours he worked.  Women just didn’t like the job always having to come first and all that hanging around waiting for him to turn up.  ‘They need more attention.  How can anyone bond with somebody who isn’t around much?  Maybe I just find women who are too needy or maybe I’m just plain fed up!  Christ!  Maybe the truth of it is I’m just not worth waiting for.  I’m no George Clooney!’