It's about an hour later that I get a call-out. Danny drives the two of us down to the edge of the East River and parks in a patch of wasteland next to the patrol car. Flack waves us over and we grab our cases.

"What've we got?" I ask.

"Male, white, no ID, looks to be in his mid-twenties. Single gunshot wound to the forehead. Nice to see you too, Stella."

"No blood spatter," Danny calls. "Dump job."

"Now aren't you the genius," Flack says. "I don't have one of them fancy science degrees, but even I worked that one out."

I wink at him. "Long shift?"

He sighs. "Don't you know it. I was all ready to head home ten minutes ago, call came in as I was getting up. Thought it was my lucky day when Angell got the body in the park earlier instead of me."

"Well, cheer up." I grab my camera from around my neck and start photographing the surrounding area, while Danny deals with the body. "Not much to go on here. We'll be done soon, I think." There's a drag trail, and I follow it, taking pictures as I go.

"Car was parked here." Flack's wandered off ahead of me. "Tyre treads, but no definition. Drag marks finish here so the guy definitely was dumped from it."

I catch up to him and photograph these marks too. Flack's right, there's nowhere near enough detail to run the treads through the database. "Seems like it's my day for cases with no evidence. Sid had better get something good off the body."

"Yeah, I heard about the stuff with Mac. He ok?"

"He's fine, he and Hawkes are at Angell's scene in the park." I don't really feel like talking about Mac just now. Too close for comfort.

"No leads, huh?"

"Nothing." I think Flack catches my mood from my tone, and he doesn't reply, just nods in understanding. We wander back to Danny. "Got anything?"

"Apart from the hole in his head? Nope. Looks like a straight-forward execution to me. Through-and-through. Any witnesses?"

Flack snorts. "You kidding me Messer? Round here, even in the unlikely event that someone did see anything, they'll have developed a sudden and specific form of memory loss. Patrol car spotted him. They drive round here every now and again, pick up the bodies."

"Well, let's get this body back to Sid, see what he can tell us."

"You do that. I'll stay here, get proper statements from the officers who found him. Maybe I'll swing by the labs later on and see what you've got."

- - - - -

"COD was a single gunshot wound to the head, no surprises there." Sid peers down at my John Doe through his glasses, face creased in concentration. "I suppose you want anything that would point to this not being a straightforward shooting?" he asks.

"Yeah. Got anything?" I ask, without much hope.

He surprises me. "Oh yes. Definitely."

"Really?"

"Yep. Let's start with the wrists." He lifts the right forearm and points. "You see that?" I look closely and can see a faint reddish band. Sid hands me the black light and the band springs into sharp relief. There is a matching band on the other wrist. "Sub-dermal bruising. John Doe here was tied up."

"Any other marks?"

"None from ties, but look at this." He gestures, and I move the light up to his face. "There. Around the gunshot hole."

"Muzzle stamps?"

"Exactly. Look just there too, under his chin."

There are more of them, in the soft triangle of tissue above the larynx. "Interesting. Can you tell when these were done?"

"I'd put them just before time of death, which was at about ten this morning." He unclips his glasses and looks at me. "Someone dumped his body in full daylight, in the middle of the day. That's not exactly usual, is it?"

"No." I shake my head. "Someone obviously wanted something from this guy. Whoever did this tied him up and threatened him with a gun, right before shooting him. I'd say that means that either our vic refused to hand over the information our killer wanted, or else the killer never intended to let this guy go and shot him anyway after he had what he wanted from him."

"Almost my conclusions. But we're not finished here yet."

I study his face again. "Are those more bruises, around the jawline?"

"Yes, very faint but definitely there. A mark for each fingertip, do you see? Like this." He places his hand along the jawbone, thumb on one side of the cheek, fingers on the other, holding the lower half of the face. "The vic's mouth was held in place, either closed or open. It's possible that it was both – the mouth was wrenched open, something forced inside, then closed again. Which brings me to this."

He reattaches his glasses, opens the vic's mouth, and shines a flashlight inside for me to see. "Look. You see those shallow cuts in the tongue and on the roof of the buccal cavity? For comparison, they're about the same depth as paper cuts. They extend all the way to the oesophagus, so either something was forced down his throat, or he was made to swallow something. Personally, I'm leaning towards the latter, as I'd expect to see a lot more damage if was the other option."

"That could explain the muzzle stamps," I suggest. "Instead of wanting information, the killer was forcing John Doe eat something that cut his mouth up."

"Some form of torture, perhaps? It seems odd though, I'd have thought the gun pressed against his face would be torture enough."

I gesture at the body. "I see you haven't opened him up yet."

"I was just waiting for you. Let's find out what his last meal was."

"And there I was thinking that the condemned man got to choose it," I say.

"Evidently not in this case." He picks up a scalpel and makes the Y incision across the chest, cutting through the layers of skin and fat and muscle. He peels the layers back, exposing the ribcage and the soft organs beneath, down to below the diaphragm. Gently, so as not to damage whatever is inside, he slices through the top of the stomach, so that the contents are visible. I take a long look, and blink in astonishment. I'm hardly able to process what I'm seeing.

Sid and I stare at one another. "Well," he says. "I did give my opinion on those cuts in his mouth, but I wasn't expecting to be proved right."

I take a pair of forceps from the tray of surgical implements and extract one of the several round objects from the deflated bag of his stomach. This one was wedged right at the end of the oesophagus; the last to be swallowed. The victim was probably shot before it had quite reached the stomach with the others. I place it on a flat metal tray, Sid takes a second pair of forceps, and together we tease it open. There's a horrible feeling building up in my chest.

Protected from both the moisture in the throat and the acid in the stomach, I can quite clearly see the words in strong black ink inside the now-teased-open but previously screwed-up ball of paper. Half of an oh-so-familiar A4 sheet. My eyes jump to certain phrases. Berrow. West. Robbery. Case closed.

And the signature. Detective Mac Taylor.

A/N: So, do please tell me what you think! You've all been giving me wonderful reviews, particularly Susi07, kaidiii and Maja 16. To those who've told me they're enjoying Stella's thoughts, especially Susi07, I'm not ignoring you, I just had to get the story moving along a little and couldn't squeeze them in. ;-) I'll update again in a couple of days. Blue x