Missing Pieces

Description

He'd taken the man into the bathroom. The woman, still naked, followed. This was the part he didn't really like, but he stayed quiet. Otherwise he might not get his reward. He listened to her instructions, supporting the dead man's weight and holding his arm over the sink. She had a knife and used it to cut away at the skin and sinew at the wrist. Blood dripped into the wash basin and they were careful to make sure it didn't fall anywhere else ... Quickly, all the flesh and muscle was pared away from the carpus joints, revealing the pale bone. She looked at it, making a decision, then told him what to do. Holding the body around the waist with one arm, he was free to wrench the corpse's hand away, joints and bones cracking, the last ligaments stretching and snapping. He let the hand drop into the basin where it lay palm up, the fingers curled slightly, blood still seeping from the raw wound. A terrified secretary finds a severed finger in a lift. Not long after, a hand is found in a lift in another building. Is it the work of a crank? A medical student playing jokes? Then an entire arm is found in a lift, and the rest of the body stuffed in the boot of the victim's car. For Detective John Maiden, suddenly it's a murder case. As Maiden confronts the mounting horror of the crimes, he must also deal with the sinister politics within the police force itself. But then a young woman is kidnapped, her kidnapper boasting that he is responsible for the mutilations. Can Maiden find her before it's too late?