'Oh,no, 'said Inspector Jack Watson from outside 49 Spring Gardens Blackburn where he had just examined the scene of a horrible murder. 'I wouldn't say this is the most horrible murder I've witnessed in a career spanning thirty years, give a year or two here and there.
'The Yorkshire Ripper murders were quite horrible - but probably not the worst I'd experienced in a police career then spanning two months,' he said.
But Inspector Watson said there were even more horrible murders to come, such as the Fred West murders which, horrible as they were, still were not quite the worst he'd experienced in quite a long police career of fifteen years,or thereabouts,of solving murders.
So traumatised was he after all this, Inspector Watson elected to transfer to traffic duty but quickly witnessed a horrible road rage murder - not,though,he says, quite the worst road rage murder he'd witnessed in his short career as a traffic cop spanning two days and five hours.
Now, after Spring Gardens - six dismembered bodies, a decapitated donkey,a microwaved cat and a new-born baby impaled on a toasting fork - Inspector Watson is thinking of retirement.
'I don't quite get it,' confessed Inspector Watson's superior, Chief Inspector John Braine.
'I can't understand why Jack doesn't say Spring Gardens is the most horrible murder he's had to investigate in thirty years - or thereabouts - of police work,' he said. 'That's what you say. I've not come across anything quite like this in all my thirty years -or thereabouts- of fighting crime. It's horrible.'
