The Murder Mile

by Lesley McEvoy

  ‘The two gold rings that Anne Stenson was wearing when she was murdered,’ he said.

  ‘They were missing when her body was found, weren’t they?’ I looked at them both. ‘We assumed the killer took them as trophies – just as Victorian Jack did with Annie Chapman’s rings.’

  ‘He did,’ Beth said. ‘They were found in the wound to Lizzie’s throat.’

  ‘Jesus…’ I managed.

  Ian cleared his throat. ‘I know. The other end of the string was attached to this…’

  He pushed across another photo. It showed a heavily bloodstained floral gift tag with the words: “Jo, from me to you – Jack. Xx.”

  I could feel a pulse behind my eyes. ‘So after cutting her throat, he…’

  Beth nodded. ‘Pushed those into the wound and left the tag hanging out so we’d find them.’

  I couldn’t speak. I just stared at the pictures and shook my head. Jen discreetly poured everyone more tea.

  ‘We’re waiting for the full post-mortem report,’ Ian was saying. ‘But at first glance, it doesn’t look like Lizzie was killed at the scene.’

  I just looked at him, giving him the silence to continue.

  He was flipping through his notebook.

  ‘The pathologist thinks she was killed elsewhere. He thinks she’d been dead as long as two days, before being dumped behind the Polski Klub. She also doesn’t appear to have been killed like the others. No bruising to the jaw, or signs of strangulation. She had ligature marks on her wrists. She was bound prior to death, unlike any of the others.’ He paused for a moment before adding. ‘She had marks on her body that would suggest she’d been tortured.’

  ‘Tortured?’ I was surprised. ‘He’s deviating from the script. Liz Stride had no marks on her – apart from having her throat cut.’

  I sipped my tea to buy some thinking time.

  ‘Victorian Jack committed the two murders forty-five minutes apart,’ I said. ‘Theory has it, the reason Liz Stride only had her throat cut was because he was disturbed and fled the scene, but was in such a heightened state, he wanted to finish what he’d started and almost stumbled across Catherine Eddowes twelve minutes later. Her attack was more frenzied, with the removal of part of her womb and her left kidney. Difficult to replicate that scenario though, if you’re picking victims randomly. And unlikely he’d get Taylor-Caine to the site at just the right time. More likely he killed her first, somewhere else, then dumped her body that night before killing his second victim.’ I looked at them both. ‘What do you know about the second one?’

  ‘Kate Lawson,’ Beth said, flipping through her notebook. ‘Thirty-five-years-old. A prostitute working the area. Apparently she took punters into the churchyard, which is where she was found. The wounds inflicted on her are identical to those of Catherine Eddowes, including removal of a portion of her womb and her left kidney. Neither of which were found at the scene, so he must have taken them with him. Other girls who usually worked with her had taken recent warnings seriously and most of them were off the streets, so Kate was on her own. No one’s so far come forward to say they saw or heard anything and there’s no CCTV around the churchyard. We’ve got a team looking at footage from the area to see if we can piece together her movements.’

  ‘Mitre Square was the Victorian murder scene,’ I said, thoughtfully. ‘Suppose a Catholic church is a close enough reference.’ I looked across at Ian. ‘That isn’t far from town?’

  He shook his head. ‘Few minutes’ walk.’ He paused before adding. ‘Not far from the university either. Less than a mile.’

  ‘The university is at the heart of this, I’m sure of it. If I’m right, Jack’s profile fits with a lecturer or someone who works in a professional capacity there. It’s central to most of the murder sites. It would give him a bolthole after the murders – to change clothes or dump his trophies so he’s not spotted walking the streets covered in blood. Your techies’ say he’s using proxy servers in universities around the globe to kick over his electronic footprints – it fits.’

  ‘We’re on it,’ Beth said. ‘There are so many lines of enquiry now. HOLMES is generating hundreds of actions, but we’re getting through them. Eventually we will get a breakthrough.’

  8 October

  Kingsberry Farm

  A breakthrough couldn’t come soon enough!

  The media were in meltdown. The murders had sparked the biggest manhunt in UK criminal history and coverage was intense. I constantly had twenty-four-hour news on in the office with the sound muted, but I kept an eye on the ticker tape banner scrolling along the bottom of the screen with the latest updates.

  There were so many lines of enquiry that extra manpower from other forces had been drafted in and the chief constable’s face was all over the media as he appealed for calm and reassured the public that everything possible was being done to keep them safe and track down the killer.

  The fact that one of his last victims had been ‘one of their own’, fed into the horror of the whole narrative and sent the media into a feeding frenzy.

  Jack had killed West Yorkshire Police’s own criminal profiler, giving a defiant two fingers to the police and assuring his infamy as one of the most audacious serial killers in British history.

  This Ripper wasn’t confining his victims to prostitutes. He was everybody’s threat, and with Fordley being swamped with the new intake of students for Fresher’s week, there were protest marches through the city by worried students and parents alike, calling for a curfew on men in the city and demanding more police presence on the streets. For those who had lived through the nightmare years of the Yorkshire Ripper, it was all too familiar.

  I still hadn’t heard anything from Callum and as I pulled on my boots in the porch, I told myself to accept that it marked the end of whatever we’d had going for us.

  The thought left me feeling empty and hollow – and desperately lonely. I’d lost my friend and my confidant, as well as that missing piece my life had potentially finally come to need.

  Harvey stood expectantly by the door, eager to get out and let us both walk off some tension. The air was turning autumnal, with a fresh bite to the breeze and a threat of rain in the darkening sky.

  I raised a wave as George’s Land Rover swept past my gate on the way down to his farmhouse and he waved back through his open window. Harvey chased after him until the bend in the road, then came panting back to me.

  I was using our walks to get some clarity and to try to work through all the threads running through the enquiry.

  I’d never matched any of my patients to Jack’s profile. The only person who came to mind with a motive had been Gail Dobson, and her death eliminated her immediate involvement. But I was certain she had been the therapist Martha’s boyfriend had used in London. She’d been a tenuous link at first, but once I became convinced that my encounter with ‘Jack’ was the result of false memory installation, Dobson was the only one who’d fit. So where did that leave me now?

  I still believed the university was at the heart of it. Maybe someone in the computer science or psychology department.

  Beth told me that they could find no connection between Taylor-Caine and Gail Dobson. Or to anyone at Fordley University. So how did Jack get to her?

  I suspected that he’d abducted and murdered her not long after Astley’s briefing. Then planted her body on the night of the double event. That would fit with her being kept bound somewhere before being killed. But it was circumstantial and I had no proof beyond my glimpses into his monstrous mind.

  Torturing her was a deviation that continued to bother me too. Jack was undoubtedly a psychopath who would enjoy inflicting pain and terror onto a helpless victim. But he was also coldly precise and methodical in his devoted following of Jack the Ripper’s original killings. He must have had a serious reason to deviate from that MO with Lizzie Taylor-Caine.

  As we neared the farm, Jen came to the door, frantically waving the office phone.

  ‘It’s Beth,�
� she said, breathlessly, as I took the phone off her.

  ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Any news?’

  ‘Just wanted to let you know, we’ve had a break.’

  ‘Go on–’

  ‘An anonymous call from a student, saying that someone asked him to take the DNA test for him–’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The IT consultant from Fordley University. The team are going to pick him up now.’

  9 October

  Fordley Police Station

  ‘Paul Harrison,’ Callum said. ‘We’ve got him, Jo. It’s over!’

  Harrison was the techie Marissa had used in London. The one who’d installed all the software on my computer at the farm and taught me how to access the servers remotely and dial into my messages and email.

  I was numb with shock. Part of me simply couldn’t believe that the quiet, patient young man who’d treated me with such politeness, and our modern day Jack the Ripper, could be one and the same.

  I stared at Callum across his desk. He’d sent for me as soon as they’d had confirmation.

  Teams of police had raided Harrison’s office at the university and his address in Fordley simultaneously the previous day. His office had been empty, but what they found at his apartment left little doubt they had their man.

  Callum pushed CSI photographs across the desk.

  ‘The flat looked innocent enough, until they got to the spare bedroom. He used it as an office. Apart from the two large split-screen monitors and laptops on the desk, they found a drawer containing several new pay-as-you-go mobile phones and sim cards. Techies are still going through it all,’ Callum said. ‘But that lot includes a voice digitiser, and this…’ He pushed another photograph across. ‘Was the back wall of his office.’

  I looked at dozens of photographs of myself staring back.

  A whole gallery taken from news articles, magazines and more eerily, surveillance photos obviously taken covertly – presumably by Harrison.

  Me parking my car at the Fordley practice. Entering and leaving the police station. And one even showing me walking into St James’s Park in Newcastle on the day of the speaking engagement.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘His bedroom’s a treasure trove,’ Callum was saying. ‘Forensics are still working the scene, but already there’s evidence Susie Scott – Martha – was there.’

  I looked again at the photo gallery on his wall as Martha’s voice echoed to me.

  ‘Don’t I know you? I’ve seen you before… pictures of you.’

  ‘This was in the fridge.’

  He pushed photos across the desk. They showed Tupperware boxes with their lids opened, revealing their grizzly contents.

  ‘A complete womb in one and a partial in another.’

  ‘What about the kidney taken from Kate Lawson?’ I asked.

  ‘No sign of it, yet.’

  ‘What has Harrison said?’

  ‘Not a lot – he’s dead!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Harrison was a freelancer, employed to look after the university computer system. He repaired the IT infrastructure and rarely spent time in his office, but was mostly in the server rooms that were in the basement. When the team at the university searched down there, that’s where they found him – he’d hanged himself.’

  Callum spoke with his back to me as he poured yet another coffee from the eternal pot in his office.

  ‘Hanged?’ I repeated lamely, as much to make it sink in as to confirm it to myself. As if saying it out loud would make me believe it.

  ‘He wanted to make sure.’ He ran a hand over his eyes before taking a deep mouthful of strong black coffee. ‘So he slit his wrists as well.’

  He looked more exhausted than I’d ever seen him and I found myself wondering how much sleep he’d had in the past months. Probably not much.

  ‘Why? Why would he top himself now?’

  Callum shrugged. ‘Maybe he knew we’d been tipped off about the DNA swab? Maybe he could feel we were getting closer? He wouldn’t be the first serial killer to take that option rather than face justice. Raoul Moat, Fred West.’ He drained his coffee. ‘The ultimate two fingers to the law – the last way to take back control and let their secrets die with them. Deny us the answers, and them the humiliation of a public trial.’

  The ‘Jack’ I’d encountered seemed unlikely to kill himself if the police were closing in. But he was right about the precedent for it. I couldn’t argue that others had done it before.

  ‘The Jack I profiled wouldn’t commit suicide, Cal. It doesn’t feel right.’

  ‘We found the Yamaha bike in a staff bay in the underground car park at the university. He’d covered it with a bike cover, so even though we were circulating its description, a covered bike in a car park where the general public didn’t go – didn’t attract any attention. Out of sight out of mind. Forensics are crawling all over it, but we’re pretty certain it matches the tyre prints at Polly’s café. And now we know what we’re looking for, I’m sure we’ll link him to it through DVLA records.’

  I watched him rub his eyes and stretch out the tense knots in his shoulders, and reflected that he’d probably been living on a diet of junk food and caffeine for weeks.

  ‘You need to get some sleep,’ I stated the obvious.

  ‘Fat chance. Finding him has generated almost more actions that hunting for him did!’ He grimaced as he attempted to un-crick his neck. ‘Techies have seized his computers, but already they know he installed remote links to your office computer at the Fordley practice and the farm. Along with all your unlisted phone numbers.’ He looked at me, his dark eyes unfathomable. ‘It’s him, Jo, no doubt about it.’

  I nodded slowly, taking in all the photographs spilled across his desk. The evidence was overwhelming, that was certain, but the Harrison I’d met and the killer I’d interacted with were such poles apart. I simply couldn’t make the connection in my mind.

  ‘No doubting the evidence,’ I said.

  ‘But?’ He was watching me carefully, in that way he had that seemed to see right into my head.

  ‘Maybe there’s too much evidence? Like you say, it’s overwhelming.’

  ‘You sound like that’s a bad thing. What exactly are you saying, Jo?’

  I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t verbalise it. I couldn’t give logic and rationale to something that was, at this point, just gut feeling. Finally I shook my head.

  ‘Oh I don’t know. It’s just… I’m not arrogant enough to say that my profile’s infallible, Cal…’

  I looked up and let our eyes linger for just a moment – enough to make a deeper connection – to add weight to what I was saying.

  ‘But Paul Harrison is so far away from Jack in every conceivable way.’ I shook my head slowly. ‘Despite all the evidence you’ve found. I can’t make him fit what we’ve been dealing with – he just doesn’t!’

  It was his turn to shrug. ‘I’m just a copper, Jo. I follow the evidence. Forensics will fill in the gaps and we’ll go from there. But given this lot…’ He nodded towards the photos.

  ‘I know,’ I conceded. But it still jarred.

  23 October

  Kingsberry Farm

  Marissa had been as shocked as we were when she’d heard about Paul Harrison. The police released his name a few days after his body had been discovered. We’d spoken on the phone almost daily since the news broke, as each new piece of evidence that nailed the case to him was released and picked up by a voracious media.

  ‘It’s been a nightmare down here,’ she said. ‘I’ve had to abandon the office. I’m camped out at my cousin’s holiday cottage to avoid the bloody media.’

  ‘Know what you mean,’ I sympathised.

  ‘I still can’t believe it.’ I could hear the hurt in her voice. She’d liked him. We both had. ‘The police have been grilling me for days about what I knew of his movements after he left me, but I can’t tell them anything. It was three years ago for God’s sake!’r />
  ‘And you had no idea what he was going to do work-wise?’ I asked. ‘I mean, what about references?’

  ‘There was no need for references.’ Her voice echoed over the loudspeaker as Jen and I listened in my office. ‘He was going freelance.’

  ‘And you never heard from him after that?’

  ‘He said he’d been headhunted by a big firm in the city, on a consultancy basis. I always knew he was too good to stay with me for long, but was pleased for him. Think they offered him the big bucks, so it funded his start-up. I know he’d been offered a contract to look after the computer networks of several universities, but didn’t know where.’

  I stared out of the office window, deep in thought. ‘Did you ever have an inkling about him? About anything that might give us a motive?’

  I could almost hear her shrug. ‘You’re the shrink, Jo, not me. But no, he never struck me as being odd, unhinged, whatever you’d call it. But then not all psycho’s foam at the mouth, do they? I mean, look at Ted Bundy, or Harold Shipman. They were educated, professional. Held down good jobs – who knew?’

  Who knew? Indeed.

  ‘Paul knew about Gail Dobson,’ Jen said, across the loudspeaker. ‘That connects him to her too.’

  ‘The police asked the same thing,’ she said, thoughtfully. ‘I told them he was here when you had all that trouble with her. He tracked all those emails she’d sent and gave the police what he’d found at the time. He helped build the case against her for God’s sake! I can’t imagine she was a big fan of his – can you? They already knew as much anyway – it was all a matter of record. But they were interested to know whether he’d ever met her. I said he hadn’t. Not while he was working for me – not to my knowledge at least.’

  But he had known about her, I thought, as I listened to Jen and Marissa pick over the bones of it.