The Dead Hand of History by Sally Spencer

– and Monika Paniatowski, on her first day in the job, saw no reason to go anywhere else.
    Paniatowski took a sip of her vodka, then turned to DS Walker, one of the two men at the table.
    â€˜Anything to report?’ she asked.
    Walker shook his head. ‘If you were hoping for any clues from along the river bank, you’re out of luck, ma’am,’ he said. ‘And as for the feller who phoned us – Harper – he saw nobody when he was making his call.’ He grinned. ‘Just to make sure, I put his dog through the third degree, but he wouldn’t admit to having seen anything, either.’
    â€˜How about the door-to-door inquiries?’
    â€˜Nothing, ma’am.’ Walker hesitated for a second, then continued, ‘But I did warn you that would be the case, didn’t I?’
    â€˜It’s far too early in the investigation to give up on that particular line of approach,’ Paniatowski told him.
    And Walker smiled, and replied, ‘If you say so, ma’am.’
    â€˜How are things going back at headquarters, Colin?’ Paniatowski asked Beresford.
    â€˜The team’s in place, and raring to go,’ the inspector said, ‘but until you throw it something it can really get its teeth sunk into, there’s not much for it to do.’
    But I haven’t got anything to throw it yet, Paniatowski thought. I’ve not even got much to chew on myself .
    â€˜What I don’t understand is why the killer changed his modus operandi when it came to disposing of the second hand,’ she said aloud.
    â€˜Why decide to dump it in the centre of town, instead of leaving it in the countryside?’ Beresford asked. ‘It can’t have been that he thought that we’d have all likely sites in the countryside under observation – because even someone who knew virtually nothing about the Force would surely have realized that we don’t have that much manpower available to us.’
    â€˜I’m not talking about where he dumped it,’ Paniatowski said. ‘What’s important is how he chose to announce the fact that he’d done it. He left the woman’s hand by the river bank, and then called up every local reporter he could think of. But when it came to the man’s hand, he sent an anonymous note to just one reporter – the revolting Traynor.’
    â€˜He could have suddenly decided that by using the telephone he was running the risk of someone recognizing his voice,’ Walker suggested.
    â€˜There was nothing sudden about it,’ Paniatowski told him. She took the note Traynor had given her out of her pocket, and laid it flat on the table. ‘Read that, Sergeant.’
    â€˜I’ve already read it.’
    â€˜Then read it again.’
    â€˜If you want a real scoop, here’s one, Mr Traynor,’ Walker read. ‘Go and take a look at the dustbin behind your office. There’s a human hand in it.’ He nodded. ‘Nice touch, using Traynor’s name like that. Makes it sound more authentic, somehow.’
    â€˜And makes it all the more difficult to put the note together,’ Paniatowski said. ‘That’s why I said there was nothing sudden about it. I think this note was pasted together sometime yesterday – and that’s at the latest .’
    â€˜Sorry, ma’am, I don’t think I’m quite following you,’ Sergeant Walker admitted.
    â€˜Searching for the right words, even for a relatively simple note, can take time,’ Paniatowski explained. ‘If, on the other hand, you decide to make life more complicated by using a word like “scoop” – and that’s just what the killer did want to do, because he knew that was just the word to get Traynor excited – you have to allow more time to find it. And if you want to use somebody’s actual name – and the killer wanted to do that, too – you have to be prepared to trawl your