Gregory's Game by Jane A. Adams

of the pictures, a close-up view of the injuries caused by the monofilament. He stared at it for a moment and then put it down. ‘It brings someone to mind,’ he said. ‘But he’s dead.’
    â€˜You sure?’
    â€˜Yes. Do the police know how long he took to die?’
    â€˜I wouldn’t know. Why?’
    â€˜Because Mason, the man I had in mind, he could keep someone alive for days. This is crude. The weight of the body on the internal organs, with it hanging like that, would have led to shock, organ failure, death, even without the rope round his neck. He would have asphyxiated.’
    â€˜How long?’
    â€˜Hours, maybe. At most, and depending on a lot of factors. Whoever did this was in a hurry, but they were also referencing something, sending a message. There are much simpler ways of killing and very much simpler ways of torturing someone for information; we both know that. This is theatrical, excessive.’ He pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘I also get the feeling—’
    â€˜That they enjoyed it,’ Nathan finished.

FOURTEEN
    T ess’s thoughts drifted to her meeting with Alec as she headed for home. She knew she had been short with him, but hoped he would understand. She was busy, involved, dealing with urgent matters, and a visit from a friend – nice though that might be – was ill timed.
    But it was more than that, Tess acknowledged as she closed her car door and headed inside. It was the suddenness that made her feel so put out. Alec had had many opportunities to get in touch with her and, to be fair, they had exchanged a few texts, especially around the time of her promotion, and they had talked vaguely about getting everyone together for a drink some time. But Tess had never quite summoned the enthusiasm to make the date. Alec was someone she had known, someone she’d actually been pretty fond of at one time, but that time had passed and now … well, now she wasn’t really sure what she felt about him any more. He was an ex-colleague, and probably no more than that.
    But what really peeved her, she realized as she dropped her bag just inside the door and headed for the kitchen, was the obviousness of it. Alec was interested in her latest case, not in her. Tess paused at the entrance to her kitchen and bit her lip in irritation. Now, if she was so unbothered about Alec Friedman, why the hell should that bother her?
    She made coffee, peered into the fridge to see if there was anything worth eating and in the end resorted to ordering a pizza. Her mother was always on at her to eat better, to take care of herself, but Tess was never domesticated and figured it was probably too late to try now.
    She sat back in her favourite chair, enjoying the near silence of her little flat, disturbed only by the faint sounds of the street below and the neighbours above when they slammed their front door, grateful of the respite after a day of noise and disquiet on so many levels. Her mind wandered back to the meeting with Professor Marsh and his strange, attractive companion.
    â€˜So what weren’t you telling me?’ Tess wondered. ‘And who the devil are you, Nathan Crow?’
    Once the pizza arrived, she settled down with her laptop and another coffee and did a simple search: Professor Ian Marsh + Nathan Crow, not really expecting to come up with much. To her surprise, she found an article about the pair. A photograph of Ian Marsh headed a story about a peace mission in Sudan. Ian Marsh had negotiated with local elders to allow a vaccination programme to go ahead in some remote area Tess could not even pronounce. The report was from a medical journal linked to Médecins Sans Frontières, which she had at least heard of. Three medics were listed in the team; one of them was Nathan Crow.
    â€˜A doctor?’ Tess asked herself. ‘He’s a medic?’ How old was he, she wondered. She did a search just for the young man and then