‘Hi, Kate, good to see you.’ He gave her a cheeky wink.
‘You know me, anything to help the force.’ She smiled. She had known him for more than two years, but somehow the recent shift to calling him Adam still felt odd.
He touched her arm. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes, fine.’
‘Good.’
As his hand slid away, and she watched him walk towards the top table, she told herself to stop acting like a silly schoolgirl.
Gary Egan was the first to speak. ‘Detective Lynch will start with an overview of the current investigation, specifically for those of you who have only just come on board. Mark, you have the floor.’
‘Thanks, Boss.’ Mark looked at the assembled group and cleared his throat. ‘Up until this point, we’ve been dealing with the murder investigation of Rick Shevlin, a mid-forties male, husband and father, and well-known art dealer in the city. The deceased, as some of you know, was found in one of the bedrooms at the Earlbrook Hotel with multiple stab wounds. He was naked, tied to the bed with ropes at two points, hands and one ankle, and had been positioned in a very specific manner, which will become apparent once we review all the visuals. Prior to his death, he had used the services of an escort.’ He gestured to one of the uniformed officers to start the slides. The lights were lowered and the first slide appeared. ‘This is a wide shot of the crime scene. You can see the positioning, as well as the multiple slash and puncture wounds. The deepest sliced wound was to the throat, severing the external jugular vein and the carotid artery. It was the ultimate cause of death. We believe the weapon used was a knife similar in size to a large carving knife.’
Not for the first time since she’d met up with Mark Lynch again, Kate noted that he had certainly come out of his shell. She watched Adam too. His face was giving nothing away. Anyone else in his position might have been thinking that he should have been the one doing the update for the group, the man in charge. She knew, though, that he was also a man who could hide his thoughts well, an attribute that had stood to him in the force, but had been partly responsible for messing up his personal life.
The next slide was a close-up of the victim’s face, his eyes staring out towards the hotel car park. ‘Our killer wasn’t satisfied with simply killing the victim,’ Lynch went on. They had very specific ideas as to how they wanted the crime scene to appear. The victim’s eyes were open, the hands and ankle tied with double overhand knots. We believe the likelihood of the victim knowing the killer is high. The fluid samples taken from the eye and the blood test have eliminated the consumption of either cocaine or heroin, but prior to death, Rick Shevlin had swallowed ketamine, more commonly known as Special K. Some of the potential effects would have been the onset of hallucinations, loss of consciousness and co-ordination and, in certain cases, aggression. There is nothing to indicate any violent behaviour on the part of the victim, but the lack of co-ordination and consciousness certainly reduced his ability to defend himself.’