[Kitt Hartley 05] - A Witch Hunt in Whitby

by Helen Cox

  ‘Yeah,’ said Evie. ‘That is a bit of a rum thing to do. Don’t killers like this usually pick people they think are easy targets, like the elderly or young women?’

  ‘Yes, that’s true, but there’s no hard and fast rule,’ said Kitt. ‘The main takeaway is that the victims serial killers choose often tell you more about them than any other detail of the case. Most serial killers are not opportunists, they’re selective. They have criteria, and that criteria often reveals something important about them.’

  ‘So, for some reason, the occult is a proper sore point for this chap?’ said Evie.

  ‘You could say that, yes,’ said Kitt, deciding not to pass comment on the sheer magnitude of Evie’s understatement. ‘The most obvious motive is probably extreme religious views, either esoteric or evangelical. For example, Mal was just saying last night that the occult has unsavoury reputations amongst some. If the killer believes the people they are killing are in league with the devil, or some other dark force, they may be operating under the delusion that they’re doing God’s work, or at the very least cleansing society of a malevolent presence.’

  ‘But as far as I can see, the victims weren’t hurting anyone. Do people really still think that way about new-age stuff?’ said Evie. ‘Especially post-Harry Potter.’

  ‘Not everyone tars the occult with the same brush, but then not everyone is a serial killer. We’re talking about a very specific and likely warped mind-set here; someone who believes anyone aligned with the occult is aligned with the devil,’ said Kitt. ‘Certainly, we could look closer at some of the more evangelical organizations in the area. See if any members have been particularly vocal about the killings.’

  ‘It makes sense to investigate the most radical candidates in both directions – the holy and the unholy,’ said Evie. ‘Whichever way you cut it this killer is an extremist of some kind. Even the limited descriptions of the crime scenes I’ve read about online are enough to make your skin crawl. It’s obsessive behaviour and no mistake.’

  ‘We covered deep-rooted obsessions like this as part of my psychology degree,’ said Grace. ‘Obsessions are usually a sign of a deficit somewhere else in that person’s life. For example, an unhealthy obsession with books might betray a deficit in that person’s social life.’

  ‘Watch yourself,’ said Kitt, while Evie giggled at Grace’s jibe.

  Grace laughed along with Evie for a moment but quickly recovered herself. ‘What I’m saying is, this person has time to obsess over those involved with the occult and their practices. He is likely to be quite a lonely, isolated person.’

  ‘He also has time to meticulously plan these murders,’ said Kitt. ‘And if you haven’t got any friends you don’t have to worry about anyone finding the plans you’ve made or equipment you might have secured to carry out the job.’

  ‘Which might rule out the idea of him being a card-carrying member of a satanist or evangelical group,’ said Evie. ‘If he’s a loner, signing up to a collective or organization might not have been job one.’

  ‘True, although the killer must meet the victims somehow,’ said Kitt. ‘It’s easy enough to think he might be able to find the leader of an online forum, or even an author who self-publishes their books, but someone like Ruby, and the first victim Anna Hayes, they’re more difficult to come into contact with organically if you don’t have some place to pluck them from. Perhaps the killer looked up the victims on a membership list for one of these organizations. Or perhaps there’s a deeper pattern here that we don’t yet understand.’

  ‘But if the victims were all part of the same organization, wouldn’t the police in other areas have already looked into that?’ said Grace.

  ‘Probably, but the killer might be targeting more than one organization to ensure there’s no obvious pattern,’ said Kitt. ‘Just as he has with the locations, the profile of the victims and their links to the occult.’

  ‘If the serial killer is himself a satanist or into occult practice and is one cheese cracker short of the tin,’ said Evie, ‘then perhaps he views his victims as ritual sacrifices.’

  ‘Another theory to add to the list,’ said Kitt.

  ‘I’ll make a note,’ said Grace.

  ‘Well, there’s not much to go on but these things are a starting point, anyway. I— Oh, hang on,’ said Kitt, ‘that’s my phone. Mal?’ she said, once she’d answered the call.

  ‘Thought you’d want to know, pet, we’ve identified the mystery man from your photographs. Caught him getting into a vehicle on CCTV and tracked his registration.’

  ‘That was quick.’

  ‘Time is of the essence, and as it happens the guy has a record. Once we had his registration details we were able to find his details on file. His name’s Peter Tremble and he lives in York.’

  ‘What’s he got a record for?’

  ‘Nothing that would indicate a likely serial killing spree. A B&E and a couple of car thefts in his teens. He seems to have cleaned up his act in the last fifteen years or so but, given a piece of intel that’s just landed on my desk, that could be an act.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘We’ve just discovered that our friend Peter happens to run a podcast.’

  ‘What kind of podcast?’

  ‘A podcast dedicated to all things occult,’ Halloran replied.

  Six

  It was the following day before Kitt was able to arrange a meeting with occult podcaster Peter Tremble. He had been taken in for police questioning before that, of course. And Kitt had tried every trick she could think of to get Halloran to let her watch his interview with the suspect from behind the false mirror in the interrogation room at York Police Station the night before. Despite her attempts at persuasion, however, even she had to concede that if Chief Superintendent Ricci caught Kitt in there that would probably be it for Mal’s career. It’s doubtful that Banks would have approved either. She’d done a pretty good job of covering up Mal’s breaches of police procedure in the past but Kitt wasn’t convinced there would be any coming back from that.

  Still, who needed to sit in on a police interview when you could conduct an interview of your own? Mal had given Kitt the suspect’s name, after all, and given that he hosted a podcast, ominously titled The Cloven Cast, it hadn’t taken Grace long to track the guy down online. The fact that Peter had been released from police questioning within the hour didn’t give Kitt much hope that he would be of help in cracking the case. But even if he wasn’t suspect number one, she reasoned that he was still an occult expert and might be able to move the investigation forward in other ways. Certainly, it was worth using her lunch break from her shift at the library to find out if there was any useful information he hadn’t shared with the police.

  ‘I’ve been following this case since it started,’ Peter said, tearing open a little carton of cream and pouring it into his coffee before giving it a quick stir. When Grace had contacted him about a meeting, she’d claimed that she and Kitt were bloggers and fans of the podcast, who wanted to get his take on the case of the Vampire Killer. In return they had offered him a cuppa and a slice of cake at a café not far from his house in Fulford, alongside a number of shameless platitudes about his work. Peter had taken his time responding to the email but ultimately he had, as Kitt predicted he might, succumbed to the flattery.

  As the café was outside the town centre, it wasn’t much like the quaint establishments Kitt was used to, nothing more than a roadside greasy spoon, really. Still, it was the best place that served hot beverages within walking distance of both Peter’s home address and the library. She could put up with the smell of bacon fat hanging in the air for half an hour or so if it brought them closer to catching their killer.

  ‘I’m sure this case has sparked the interest of many people who have an interest in the occult,’ said Kitt.

  ‘Yes, you’ve got it in one, thank you,’ Tremble
said, rapping his knuckles on the metal table. When he relaxed his hands again Kitt couldn’t help but notice that the nails on his thumbs were longer than they were on the other fingers and were filed to a point. ‘That’s a normal person’s reaction to noticing an occult podcaster taking pictures at crime scenes like these. I was just there to report on what had happened. But of course that’s not how the police saw it when they dragged me in for questioning yesterday. The copper who questioned me made it seem like it was case closed when I walked in there, like he’d already decided I was the one going around draining people’s blood. Ruddy bearded oaf.’

  Tremble’s voice had become louder as he remembered the accusatory nature of the police’s questions, and at the mention of draining blood, a couple on a nearby table quickly dabbed their mouths with serviettes and got up to leave.

  Kitt noticed Grace doing all she could not to smirk at Tremble’s description of her boyfriend. From what little Halloran had been willing to tell her about the interview before they went to sleep last night, he hadn’t thought much of Tremble’s entitled attitude. She could tell from Tremble’s tone just how much he would have rubbed Mal up the wrong way and conceded that if he kept talking about the man she loved like that, staying polite with this interviewee was going to be a challenge. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t personal, though I don’t doubt it felt that way,’ Kitt soothed. ‘The police have so little time between the warning and the murder that they’re probably keen to put the pressure on and get to the bottom of any line of enquiry sooner rather than later.’

  ‘Keen to bark up the wrong tree entirely, is more like it. How about doin’ some of your homework, mate?’ said Tremble, digging his fork into the slice of chocolate cake they’d bought for him and at the same time digging himself deeper under Kitt’s skin. It was clear he wasn’t going to stop critiquing Mal’s methods and, considering Halloran wasn’t the only one with a protective streak, Kitt thought it best to move the conversation forward as quickly as possible before Tremble said something she couldn’t let lie.

  ‘Thankfully, in instances like these, you can just provide the police with your alibi and that should be the end of the matter, eh?’

  ‘Ever tried providing an alibi for midnight on three separate evenings a month apart?’ Tremble sneered. He was thin in the face and his features became very mean-looking as he did so. ‘And they wanted to know where I was on all the dates the marks got left on the doors. What do I look like, a walking calendar?’

  ‘You’ve a good point there, like,’ said Grace. ‘Providing alibis for the days the marks got put on the door is probably easy enough if you keep a diary or online calendar. But when it comes to the killings, I suppose it might be difficult to provide alibis for that time of day if you live alone.’

  ‘I live with my parents, but they’re always long asleep by midnight. Get up about five in the morning, you know how folks can get later in life when they’re up at crack of dawn for no reason. How do you prove you were in your room reading if nobody else can vouch for it?’

  ‘So, you weren’t able to provide the police with alibis?’ said Grace, a casual note in her voice. ‘I bet that went down like a lead balloon.’

  ‘I did manage to provide them with enough for them to let me go but it was a right old job. And when I hesitated and had a think about it they were straight on my case. Even though it was obvious I was only there because it’s something the podcast listeners would be interested in. Thankfully, after looking up some details on my phone, I was able to give alibis for the days the markings were painted on the victims’ doors. And I could provide alibis for two of the murders. I happened to be interviewing someone over Zoom for the podcast during the first murder. The guy I was interviewing was based in the US and half eleven GMT was the only time he could do so he can vouch that we talked for more than an hour at the time the first murder took place.’

  ‘Well, that’s something,’ said Kitt. ‘Definitely puts a dent in any argument the police might make that you were involved with this terrible business.’

  ‘Yeah, and during the third murder I was out with some mates having a few drinks. Can’t prove where I was during the middle murder, though, not that I should have to. They won’t find any evidence pointing to me, I can tell you that.’

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ said Kitt, though as she said this she did wonder just for a moment if Tremble believed the police wouldn’t find any evidence because there wasn’t any to find, or because he believed he’d covered his tracks so well the police would never get onto him. He may have had alibis for two of the murders but that wasn’t enough to outright get him off the hook. The murders were intricate enough for the killer to have an accomplice. And who knew how twisted Tremble’s obsession with the occult really was when it came down to it? To spend time recording and editing a monthly podcast about it, his interest certainly had to be more than passing.

  ‘Have any of your listeners got in touch about the case?’ said Grace. ‘With it being so tangled up with the occult, we wondered if perhaps they’ve come up with some theories that we haven’t thought of.’

  Tremble scratched the side of his head, ruffling his greasy mop of brown hair at the same time. ‘Oh aye, quite a few people have been writing in about the Vampire Killer. I’m not sure anything in them would help catch the guy who’s behind it, it is more just people expressing how morbidly fascinated they are by the whole case, while at the same time being scared to death they’ll come home to find a V marked on their door. Most of the people who listen to the show are connected to the occult in some way. I must admit I did think about taking the show off the air until they catch the killer, you know, in case hosting it made me a target. But then, I thought, why should I give up doing something I really enjoy because some looney is going around killing people? Intimidation, that’s what it is. Whoever’s doing this they’re in it to generate fear in people like me. People who are a bit different.’

  ‘Hmm, yes. You’re likely right about that. The killer must thrive on the idea of generating fear to a certain extent. Otherwise they probably wouldn’t bother with the markings. It’s arguably more torturous to contemplate your own death for eleven days than eleven minutes,’ said Kitt. ‘As for you putting the podcast on hiatus, to be honest, for all we know, even if you did stop recording, an individual as twisted as the one we’re dealing with might come after you just because you have broadcast on that subject in the past.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Tremble said, losing a bit of the colour in his face.

  ‘What about you?’ said Grace. ‘If you had to theorize about who the killer was and why they were doing this, what would be your go-to theory? You must have read a lot on the subject.’

  ‘You’re right about that, I have. I spend a lot of time in my room alone, reading, and there’s a couple of things that strike me about this case.’

  Spends a lot of time in his room alone? Wasn’t that exactly how Grace had profiled their killer yesterday morning? That said, if spending time alone in your room so you could read put you on the suspect list, then Kitt would have been suspect number one for every crime going.

  ‘What things?’ asked Grace, when Tremble didn’t immediately continue.

  It struck Kitt that there was something a little odd about Tremble’s conversational skills. He seemed to be waiting deliberately for further prompting before speaking. Was this because he wasn’t a natural at conversation? Or because he was carefully calculating his next sentences for darker reasons?

  ‘Having visited all three crime scenes, I would say there’s a strong chance this bloke has been planning these murders for some time, maybe even a few years.’

  ‘Years?’ said Kitt. ‘I agree with you that the killer is well-prepared – otherwise some forensic evidence might have turned up – but what makes you think it’s taken years for him to act?’

  ‘It’s the intricacy of the murders more than anyt
hing else. Look at the way he works. Draining a person’s blood isn’t a two-second job. Of course, we’re relying on information journalists have picked up from friends and neighbours since the police have kept the finer details to themselves so we don’t know his exact methods, but he drugs his victims. Takes his time. He’s confident he’s not going to be interrupted.’

  ‘That is true,’ said Grace. ‘The killings are quite intricate and sort of . . . laborious.’

  Kitt thought for a moment. After Rebecca’s comment about the amount of blood at the crime scene betraying the perpetrator’s level of medical expertise, she had asked Mal how gruesome the scenes were. His unwillingness to be drawn on the specifics left Kitt in no doubt that she was better off not knowing. The only concrete information he would offer, on the off chance that it became significant, was that the blood drawn had been left in jars that originally contained Kellington’s jam. Given this particular brand’s popularity, Kitt wasn’t convinced this would in any way narrow down the search for the killer. She did, however, decide there and then that she’d never be able to buy another jar of Kellington’s herself.

  ‘The killer doesn’t let any obstacle stop him either,’ Tremble continued, snapping Kitt out of her thoughts. ‘He even found a way around police protection. That’s not easy by anyone’s standards.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ said Kitt. ‘But from that alone you think the killer has been plotting this for years?’

  ‘I just get an overall picture that he has a contingency for every possible hiccup. No forensic evidence. No CCTV footage, and getting past not one but two police officers. If he hasn’t been planning it for some time, then there’s only one other explanation I can think of.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Grace, for yet again Tremble had paused where one might have expected him to naturally continue.

  ‘Well, there’s one sure way of avoiding being caught in the future and that’s to see it before it happens. You’re asking me my opinion and based on all that’s happened I’d have to say that we’re dealing with a clairvoyant killer.’