At half past eight, he rang the college and informed Quentin of the situation, and his need to visit the police station before coming to work.
The principal was sympathetic. “I’ve already been told, and the college is crawling with police officers… again.”
Behind the tolerance there was an unmistakable, heavily suppressed edge of disapproval, well-masked but discernible to a man like Drake, who was accustomed to seeking out the slightest hint of non-verbal communication. If he was right, Quentin was disappointed that the police station and not the college (and he) would be the centre of most media attention.
And he knew the principal well. He would never miss any opportunity for free publicity, no matter how grim the background, and Drake could almost hear him saying to the reporters on site, “One of our senior members of staff has been asked to help the police track down the killer.” Prompted by a few questions, Quentin would readily divulge Drake’s name. As he battled his way through the reporters, Drake was almost certain that a similar, slightly smaller pack of press hounds was crowding the college entrance.
After dealing with Kirsty’s early call, he’d managed another ninety minutes of sleep before his disturbed mind brought him back to full awareness. While dressing after a shower and shave, Becky had asked what the early fuss was about, and as he detailed Kirsty’s information, she too, came wide awake, certain that this time the chief superintendent would call her in as well as other afternoon and night shift officers.
“He’ll want as many bodies on the streets as he can muster.”
Her choice of words left Drake feeling uncomfortable.
He normally studied the morning newspapers over breakfast, but he had no patience for trivia like international politics or the latest headline-grabbing antics of immature celebrities. Instead, he sat with a notepad at his right hand, his thoughts stumbling over the two killings, and making notes as different angles occurred to him.
The drive to town was its usual hassle, and once inside the station, he was rushed upstairs, not to Adamson’s office, but Lumsden’s.
He had visited the place so many times that he was familiar with the internal layout, and the lack of personnel throughout the building was noticeable. The CID room, a usually busy environment with plain clothes officers milling everywhere, was empty, and on the way up to the first floor, he passed only a couple of uniforms, officers he knew to be detailed to administrative duties.
The chief superintendent, already in conference with Kirsty and Adamson, half rose to shake hands. “Wes. Thank you for coming in.”
“No problem, Terry.” Drake was telling the truth. It was not a problem. But it was a mystery. As far as he was concerned, he was here purely to hand over a copy of the latest email.
He sat next to Kirsty, leaving Adamson on the other side of her. He did not yet know what the police wanted, but in his turgid state, he could not trust himself to keep his distance should the chief inspector antagonise him.
Lumsden opened proceedings by asking Kirsty to detail the latest killing, and she gave them a rundown of the early findings. She concluded by saying, “Aside from one of them being male, the other female, the two killings are exactly the same.”
“No sexual molestation?” Adamson asked.
“Ninety-nine percent certain, no. The doc’ll confirm after the post-mortem.”
Drake was already in a state of puzzlement. All eyes turned towards him and Lumsden silently invited him to speak his mind.
“Why didn’t the victims hear him coming up behind them? It’s almost impossible to follow someone in complete silence, and yet he had time to get close up and stab them in the back. How?”
“Shana Kenny was full of booze,” Adamson observed.
Drake yielded the point. “Fair comment. But I’m certain Gary Fellows was on late shift at the college last night, he should have been stone cold sober.”
Kirsty was next to comment. “Maybe the killer rushed them.”
“That’s even more difficult than creeping up on them. To rush someone, no matter how soft you are on your feet, is almost impossible without some kind of noise, and if they heard him, why weren’t they turning in his direction?”
“Maybe they were.”
Once again, the scenario did not sit well with Drake. “According to what you’ve just told us, Kirsty, they were stabbed squarely in the back. If they were even half turning, the knife would have sunk in closer to the shoulder.” He chewed his lip. “There’s something that doesn’t gel about it.”
They had no answers for him, so Lumsden took advantage of the situation to speak directly to Drake. “This… Anagramist – let’s use the name he’s given himself – is telling you everything, but saying nothing to us. We’d appreciate your views on the matter.”
Drake could only shrug. “I have no views. As Kirsty said over the phone this morning, his emails arrive after the events, and they don’t tell me anything your people don’t know or can’t work out very quickly. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Kirsty giving me the victim’s identity, location and the manner of his death, it would have taken me several hours to crack this morning’s anagrams.”
He reached into his pocket, took out the printed sheet and placed it on the corner of Lumsden’s desk. As he did so, he accidentally pulled out his sheet of notes, which dropped to the floor near Kirsty’s feet. She was about to pick it up, but Adamson beat her to it, and read it through.
As he handed it back, he fixed Drake with a determined gleam. “There’s something I don’t understand.”
There was no mistaking the sneer hidden behind the comment. Drake had not forgotten his last encounter with the DCI, and he had two options: rise to it or ignore it. He chose the former. “In my experience, Chief Inspector, there are many things we, as human beings, don’t understand. When confronted with such problems, most of us make an effort, while some jump to arbitrary conclusions involving suspicion and guilt.”
The DCI’s annoyance manifested itself. “Don’t get smart with me.”
“And don’t you hassle me. I’m not some kid hawking crack outside Benny’s.”
Kirsty intervened before Lumsden could. “Guys, guys, we’re supposed to be on the same side. Can we leave the personalities out of it?”
The chief superintendent agreed. “Kirsty is right. We’re confronted with a situation this town has never seen before. I don’t care about the official definition of a serial killer; one who has to kill at least three times. The Anagramist has killed twice, and it’s only a matter of time before he strikes again. He is a serial killer and if we don’t do something, we’ll have a third victim on our hands. We need to work as a team, and I’d like to consider you part of the team, Wes.”
As pep talks went, it was not the most original, but Drake acquiesced. “Fair enough.” He focused on Adamson. “What is it you don’t understand?”
The chief inspector, too, made an effort to modulate his antipathy. “The chief hinted at it. Why does he write to you and not us?”
“A sensible question.”
Drake recalled the number of times he had attended meetings, conferences with businessmen, teachers, politicians, men and women with a high level of responsibility, and the manner in which such people had insisted upon fudging issues instead of admitting to their ineffectiveness in the face of potentially damaging situations. A company charged with false accounting and looking for scapegoats, a junior Minister of State (Drake was acquainted with several) seeking to exculpate himself from a corner in which he or she was trapped. The thought of any college seeking to enhance its annual report with obfuscation brought a thin smile to his lips, which he quickly wiped away.
“The simple truth is, I don’t know.”
As anticipated, Adamson picked up on the admission. “You’re supposed to be a psychologist.”
Drake’s laugh was a short, cynical bark. “Who told you that? Not me, for sure. I’m a specialist in business management and motivation. The college use me as a
counsellor, and it’s true that both disciplines need a basic understanding of human psychology, but I’m not a psychologist, nor a psychiatrist, and what I know about criminology you could write on the back of a postage stamp. You people know more than me.”
He chewed the problem over in his mind. He had been doing so ever since the discovery of the primary message’s links to Shana Kelly’s murder, and he was no nearer an answer.
“We have to make a couple of assumptions. These emails arrived quite quickly after the relevant events. They tell us nothing other than the victim’s identity, location, and cause of death, or methodology, if you prefer. It’s fairly safe to assume that the sender is the killer.”
Kirsty interjected. “According to forensics, there was no trace of anyone else in the vicinity of Shana’s body. Early indications are that Gary’s killer is the same person, so yes, those emails must have come from the killer.”
Drake thanked her with a nod. “In that case, at a very basic level, he’s taking ownership of the crimes.”
They met his announcement with frowns of puzzlement, and Drake wondered whether he could have phrased it better.
“Ownership?”
Drake switched his attention to Lumsden. “He’s admitting to them. He doesn’t want you pulling in some low life and fitting them up with it. For that reason, I think you’re right, Terry. Regardless of the standard definition, he is a serial killer, and he will go on killing until he’s stopped. There’s also an element of boasting. He doesn’t identify himself, and he gives absolutely no clue to his identity. Until he does, you’re more likely to succeed through your forensic work, and the nitty-gritty of witness statements, than anything I can tell you.”
“You still haven’t answered the question. Why write to you and not us?” Adamson’s insistence came across in the harrying tones usually reserved for the interrogation room.
He was saved having to answer immediately by the vibration of his smartphone, set to flight mode, indicating an incoming call. He took it from his pocket and read the menu window. Iris Mullins. He swept his finger to the left and cut it off. Iris would understand and automatically assume he was with a client.
“My apologies. DCC Mullins. I’ll get back to her later.”
He slipped the phone in his pocket, and mentally chastised himself for name-dropping. Kirsty was not as surprised as the other two, and he recalled that she had seen him pull the same stunt in his office two weeks previously.
“Now, why write to me instead of you? Frankly, I don’t have an answer. I can’t read his mind, and we can speculate from now until the cows come home, but it’s no more than intelligent guesswork.”
“Then guess.”
There it was again. Adamson’s harassing insistence, the demand for an answer, normally designed to elicit confessions. Though it got Drake’s back up, he told himself that it was the way of the chief inspector. The man’s social and communication skills were governed by the number of years he had spent questioning suspects.
“All right, I’ll guess. I believe this is a reasonably intelligent man, good with written English, clever with word puzzles. So he sent the emails to me because I have a reputation for proficiency in the same field. If he’d sent them to you, what would you have done?” He went on before anyone could interrupt. “You’d have logged it as a prank or nuisance communication, and forgot about it. Even when the second email arrived today, you’d still have ignored it. You might give it to uniform, let them follow it up, but would anyone in this station have had the wit to check out the anagrams and relate them to Shana Kenny or Gary Fellows? I’m not having a go at your average police officer, but the chances of you linking these emails to the killings are lower than a snake’s balls. Hell, I only made the connection to Shana when Lionel Quentin told me her name, and only then because the email was at the forefront of my mind.” Drake leaned forward in his seat to stress his interpretation. “This man is like an artist. To him, the killings are a work of art, and like any other creative, he’s putting his signature on them, staking his claim; these acts are his property.”
He sat back, giving them time to absorb the shocking analogy. When he was satisfied that they had understood, he relaxed a little.
“Remember, it’s only a guess. I could be completely off the mark.”
After a moment’s silence contemplation, Adamson spoke up. “I’m not looking for an argument, but right now I don’t see what use you are to us.”
“Which is what I’ve been saying since I first arrived, Chief Inspector. I can crack the emails, sure, but right now they’re no use to you. If he sends one giving us advance warning of a killing, that’s a different ballgame but for the time being, I repeat, you’re better off relying on your usual routines and procedures rather than me.” He prepared to leave. “Now, is there anything else I can do for you, Superintendent?”
“You are prepared to help in the event that you receive other emails, or we receive communications from him?”
“Of course. I’ll set up an alert on my phone. All I need is an urgent contact number for you people in case a message does come in.”
“You have mine, Wes.” Kirsty reminded him.
Drake was satisfied. If he had to speak to anyone, he’d prefer Kirsty to Lumsden or Adamson.
Kirsty was not through. “Before you go, there is something else we need to think about.”
To judge from the surprise on the faces of both Adamson and Lumsden, she had not discussed whatever was on her mind with her colleagues. Drake took his seat again and focused on her.
“The victims. They both have links to the college.”
Drake was as surprised as anyone else. For a moment he considered telling them that he had already noticed it, but it would be a lie, and there was little to be gained from it other than puerile one-upmanship.
“I hadn’t consciously realised that, but with hindsight, of course, you’re right.”
“The reason I mentioned it, is significance. Is there any?” Kirsty folded hands in her lap and waited for either her boss or Drake to respond. In the end it was Drake.
“We have no way of knowing. Not yet. In my opinion, you can only establish a pattern when you have three similar elements. For example, if I say to you, one, two, you need to know what comes next before you can establish a pattern. One, two, one, two, would indicate something completely different to one, two, three. You see?”
“And it’s not like I hadn’t thought of that, Wes. I’m asking, is it worth our while to keep an eye on the college staff and students?”
Drake hesitated before answering. “You’re not going to like what I have to say. I’ve just hinted that in order to establish a pattern you need three events. In other words, there will have to be another death. Right now, the pattern, if there is any, is female, male, both with a connection to the college. If we get a female next, and she too, has a connection to the college, then we might reasonably assume his pattern is female, male, female, male, and we’ll probably confirm the college as a connection. But suppose his next victim is male? Suppose the next victim has no connection to the college? I understand what you’re saying, Kirsty, but right now your findings could be nothing more than a coincidence, or a distraction, a deliberate ploy to lead you down the path you’ve suggested following, and I suspect it might be more profitable if you checked into a possible connection between Shana and Fellows.”
“Which we will,” Adamson assured him.
Having shot Kirsty’s idea down, Drake hastened to realign himself with her.
“It might be an idea to forewarn people. Perhaps you, Kirsty, could go to the college and address students and staff alike, stress the need for vigilance until this man is caught, but beyond that I don’t know what you can do. The college deals with three or four hundred students: full-time, part-time, day release, night classes, general education, vocational, leisure. There are, I think, about fifty tutors: full-time, part-time, mornings only, evenings only, and again, educational, vo
cational, leisure. Beyond them you have the ancillary staff: cooks, cleaners, technicians, maintenance. If you’re right, every one of them could be considered a target, or even a perpetrator, and I think you’d have a hell of a job trying to cover them all.”
On the other side of the desk, Lumsden appeared relieved. “I have asked for extra officers and Iris Mullins has promised to draft them in from other areas if we need them, but I have to agree with you, Wes. It would be practically impossible for us to safeguard all these people, especially on such thin evidence.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I was trying to be constructive, proactive.”
Drake applauded Kirsty. “I don’t think there’s any need to apologise for it. You had the right idea, but until we have some hint as to what this man is really about, we’re working in the dark, and as I said earlier, you people should rely on your tried and tested methods.”
Chapter Fourteen
It was getting on for eleven o’clock when Drake came out of the police station, and ignoring the shouted questions of the reporters, climbed into his car. He started the engine, running it to warm up the interior, plugged his smartphone into the car’s system, and immediately dialled Iris Mullins.
“Why is it you only ring me when I’m in conference with some of your underlings?” He asked.
Iris chuckled fatly. “I time it deliberately, just to see if you have the balls to cut me off.”
“As if I wouldn’t.” He, too, laughed. “So, what do you want?”
“Nothing. I had a call from Sam Feyer two hours ago. She’d like to see you, and before you run away with any fancy ideas, it’s definitely as a result of the latest murder in Howley.”
Drake clucked impatiently. “No doubt she got my name from the reporters.”
“Yes, she did. Obviously, she doesn’t want to see you about the killings. Why would she? I shouldn’t think she can throw any light on them. But she caught your name and a photograph of you on the local news just before nine o’clock, and it reminded her of your visit two weeks ago.”
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