Jacob's Ladder (Stone & Randall 1)

by Ellis, Tim

  He had less than an hour then he had to go. The doctor’s surgery was along King Street, up Shepherd’s Bush Road, and right into Brook Green, number one hundred and fifty-seven. He could have flagged down a taxi, but he needed the exercise. He’d spent enough time caged up like an animal.

  Three months of telephone calls from Pike’s house phone ran to twelve pages, and the calls from his mobile phone were listed on twenty-seven pages. Pike had three credit cards, and the transactions on two of them were on three pages each, but the third card’s income and expenditure ran to thirty-three pages. He decided to analyse the calls made from Pike’s home phone in the time available. First, he skimmed each line – the date, time, number, destination, duration, and cost – for anything unusual, but he soon realised he had no idea what was unusual. What he needed to know was who was at the other end of each telephone number.

  He dialled RHINO’S number.

  ‘I’m going to change my number.’

  ‘Thanks for the telephone and credit card records, but…’

  ‘Don’t say another word, Mr Randall.’

  ‘Information overload, RHINO. I don’t have the time to analyse them. Will you…?’

  ‘Five hundred pounds. I know someone…’

  ‘Done. You surprise me, RHINO, I didn’t realise you knew normal people.’

  ‘Yeah, very funny, Mr Randall.’

  ‘Do you want…’

  ‘No, I have copies.’

  ‘When…’

  ‘I’ve not spoken to her, but she’ll contact you direct and send you the analyses as and when she does them. She’s quick, methodical, and don’t even ask how she gets her information.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘TANGLE_ICEWIND… Don’t ask.’

  ‘Tell her I want to know who each telephone number belongs to.’

  ‘Did I not say that she was methodical? That she’ll provide you with information that you didn’t even know existed?’

  ‘Well, yes…’

  ‘Anything else, Mr Randall?’

  ‘I don’t…’

  ‘I’ll send you the bill through Google Checkout, make sure you open an account.’

  ‘I’ll wait to hear…’

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Randall.’

  If he didn’t need RHINO he’d probably go round to his hovel and shoot him. He imagined the snotty bastard was probably another one who had the IQ of a genius.

  He checked his watch. It was five to eleven. He logged out of his laptop, locked the door, and headed down the stairs. The smelly moron from upstairs walked through the door, but when he saw Randall coming towards him he backed up and shifted to one side to let him past.

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  After a tortuous journey through the heavy rain on the M4, the slow-moving traffic jam on the anti-clockwise side of the M25, and the deserted lanes of the M3, they arrived at Crowthorne in Berkshire at one forty-five, and drove along a snarl of B roads to reach Broadmoor Hospital. What should have taken an hour and a quarter took them three hours.

  They left at ten o’clock after discussing where they were going with the case. It was agreed that while Molly and Abby were visiting Broadmoor, Frank would direct the others in re-examining all the evidence. They would re-visit the outlets for butcher’s axes and Tarot cards, question witnesses again, and get Perkins to cast another eye over the forensic evidence. If Jacob Hansen turned out to be a dead-end, they would have nothing even resembling a case.

  Molly and Abby had planned to get lunch when they arrived, but due to the length of the journey there was no time to stop anywhere and they were both starving.

  Once they reached Broadmoor Hospital, Abby drove into the imposing Victorian archway up to a wrought-iron gate.

  A squat uniformed security guard with a paunch opened the gate and squeezed through the gap. At the driver’s side he said, ‘Name?’ holding a pen over a blue plastic clipboard.

  ‘Detective Inspector Stone,’ Molly said thrusting her warrant card at the guard. ‘And this is Detective Constable Manchester.’

  Abby showed her warrant card.

  The guard didn’t need to bend down very far to inspect the cards. ‘Ah yes, to see the Chief Psychiatrist, Doctor Maslow?’

  ‘Yes,’ Molly agreed.

  ‘Please drive through the gate, turn left, and park your car. Hand your keys into the security room. You’ll be given visitor badges, which you should wear at all times. We don’t want you being mistaken for patients, do we?’ His lip curled into a grimace. ‘One of the security staff will escort you to see Doctor Maslow.’

  No, Molly thought, I don’t want to be mistaken for a patient. Not yet, anyway.

  The guard signalled to a camera high up on the opposite wall, and the gates swung open. Abby drove slowly through the arched tunnel.

  Molly was surprised by the large expanse of countryside contained within the high walls of the hospital. She wouldn’t have minded a two-week break here herself – in the summer of course – and not as a patient. She had read a brief history of Broadmoor on her laptop earlier, and she now knew that security at the hospital was linked to a network of World War Two sirens that warned the local inhabitants if a dangerous patient escaped. The warning system had been set up in 1953 after an escaped inmate murdered a girl in Crowthorne.

  Driving rain whipped the car as they parked. Even if they’d had umbrellas, they would have been useless in the gusting wind.

  After being searched by a stern-looking female security guard, and handing in anything that could be considered useful or dangerous, they were given name badges. An overweight male guard with a limp led them towards a large oblong three-storey Victorian building some distance away. There was no shelter from the wind and rain, and they arrived at the main reception drenched and dishevelled.

  They entered the building through a heavy oak door. An old man in a checked shirt with grey wiry hair scooped back in a ponytail, droopy eyes, and a heavily lined face approached them. ‘Detective Inspector Stone,’ he said offering his hand with a smile. ‘Doctor Harry Maslow, third generation Polish, Chief Psychiatrist.’ He passed them both hospital towels to dry themselves. ‘Sorry about the walk, we’ve petitioned the board to fund a covered walkway, but no money unfortunately.’

  She opened her mouth to answer and to introduce Abby, but he had already turned and started to move off.

  ‘Please follow me,’ he said over his shoulder. He pressed the ‘five’ ‘nine’ ‘three’ and ‘two’ buttons on a security keypad, and led them through a door with a small eye-level window. Without bothering to hold the door open he bounded down a dimly lit corridor past two doors on the right before he turned into a door to the left, which appeared to be his office. It was a large room with a high curved ceiling, which was separated from the walls by an ornate cornice from which paintings of landscapes hung by wires. A chipboard desk was standing facing the door, and a maroon threadbare rug barely covered the dark parquet floor. The walls had been painted a soothing lilac. He directed them to two easy chairs around a coffee table. Molly took her coat and scarf off and hung it on a hat and coat stand behind the door before sitting down. Abby kept her coat on. The heating appeared to be working, but the hospital must have been operating on a very tight budget because it hardly took the chill from the air.

  ‘This is Detective Constable Abby Manchester,’ she said as they made themselves comfortable.

  ‘Yes, hello,’ he said sitting down opposite them in a high-backed brown leather chair.

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come?’

  A middle-aged woman in a plaid skirt shuffled in with a heavy tray.

  Dr Maslow stood up and helped her put the tray down on the coffee table. ‘Thank you, Marjorie.’

  ‘Hurummph,’ the woman grunted and shuffled out again.

  ‘I thought you could do with refreshments after your long journey,’ he said to them once the door had closed. ‘Shall I be mother?’

  Molly
welcomed the hot tea and wrapped her freezing hands around the cup. Dr Maslow offered her a plate of huge home-made cookies, and she took one.

  ‘Now, I believe you have a search warrant, and you want to talk about Jacob Hansen?’

  He barely acknowledged Abby, and didn’t shake her hand. Molly wondered what that was about. ‘Yes, we do.’ She passed Dr Maslow the warrant, which he threw on his desk without looking at.

  ‘Jacob came to us in 1995 from Lemon Tree Asylum in Newcastle at the age of sixteen, and was released in 2007. I arrived in 2008, so I can only go off what I’ve read in his notes and seen on the interview tapes.’

  ‘Do you have his notes from Lemon Tree Asylum?’ Molly asked.

  ‘Yes, they were transferred with him.’

  ‘Can you tell us why he was committed to a mental asylum at eight years of age, Doctor?’

  He finished his tea, put the cup and saucer down, and, steepling his fingers, sat back in the leather chair. ‘There were three children. Jacob had a younger brother called Gary, and an older sister, with the name of Angel. When Jacob was eight, he murdered his five-year-old brother. That was why he was committed to Lemon Tree, but… you must understand the conditions in which he lived. The father – George – was an alcoholic, a brutal autocrat who physically and sexually abused his wife and children. He was a criminal, and the family lived like gypsies, moving from place to place. Jacob once said that his father had other wives and other children, but we have no record of who they were.’

  ‘What, you mean he was a bigamist?’

  ‘Yes, but under different names, or as you would say, aliases. We have no details of those other families. The mother, Lizzie, was fanatically religious and she took her abuse out on her children. None of the children were shown any affection from the mother or the father, and they quickly became detached from the parents learning to rely only on each other. Jacob, in particular, became unnaturally attached to his older sister. For all intents and purposes, Angel was his mother. When the boys became older, the father used to whip them with a belt, and Jacob had scars on his back from those beatings. The boy quickly learned that he was powerless to prevent the violence and the sexual abuse. It made no difference what he said or did, his father simply wanted to brutalise him. Lizzie couldn’t stop the beatings because she herself was being beaten. Eventually, Lizzie also began to beat her children. And, almost as a logical consequence of what had gone before, Jacob killed his brother, Gary, over a game. Violence begets violence. The boy was committed to Lemon Tree Asylum and the family disappeared. The question, of course, is was Jacob born a psychopath, or was he a normal child turned into one? We have a whole library of interview tapes with Jacob Hansen, from his early interviews at Lemon Tree to his more recent ones here. He has consistently shown no remorse for killing his brother; he is emotionless; manipulates others; lies; is easily frustrated; and is constantly in need of stimulation.’

  Her tea had gone cold, so she put the cup down on the table. ‘I can’t understand why you would release him if he was a psychopath.’

  Doctor Maslow gave a hollow laugh. ‘If we locked up all the psychopaths, Inspector, there would be few people left on the outside.’

  ‘Yes, but not all psychopaths murder members of their family, Doctor.’

  ‘The board of trustees considered that he had been incarcerated for long enough. How long must a person for his crime? Jacob was eight years old when he was committed to Lemon Tree. He was twenty-eight when we released him in 2007. We no longer considered him a danger to society. Although he showed no remorse, he understood that what he did was wrong.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, Doctor, but there have been a number of families murdered in Hammersmith…’

  ‘I’m familiar with the Butcher Murders, Inspector.’

  ‘Well, Dr Maslow, I should tell you that Jacob Hansen appears to be our prime suspect for these murders, and if he is found to be the killer, the board of trustees will have some explaining to do.’

  ‘Why would you think…’

  ‘What I’m about to tell you is confidential. Each murdered family had two children – a boy and a girl. The mother, father and son were dismembered, and their heads lined up on the bathroom windowsill.’

  ‘Good Lord.’

  ‘But the girl is left naked on the stairs except for a Hebrew symbol carved into her forehead, and a butcher’s axe embedded in her back.’

  ‘Yes, I can understand why you would keep these details from the press. But…’

  ‘One thing you haven’t asked us, Doctor, is how we came by Jacob Hansen’s name in connection with these murders. We use a psychological profiler called Dr Marie Grady…’

  ‘I’m familiar with Dr Grady’s work.’

  Molly went to her coat and withdrew her notebook. ‘Dr Grady told us to look for a mental patient that had been released around the time of the first murders. This is what she had to say:

  …Each time he is re-living his fantasy. These were his parents, the boy was his brother, and the girl was his sister. …He was committed to a mental institution between the ages of eight and twelve. …His family went away and left him there. Now, when he kills, he is getting his family back. …The girl is special, she was the one who cared for him when he was young, the one who treated him like a human being, and the one who loved him when no one else would. In return, he loved her back. …He is getting revenge on his family, but the girl is central to his magnum opus. His love for her is obsessive. When she was taken away from him he felt empty inside, he blamed himself, hated himself. He was filled with anger, rage and a desire for revenge against his parents who took her away. He would have tried to commit suicide on a number of occasions. When he’s finished, he will be together with the girl he loves – his sister.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Dr Maslow said. ‘Yes, I’d heard she was good. It’s as if she’s read Jacob Hansen’s notes. When he was at Lemon Tree, Jacob did try to kill himself on a number of occasions.’

  ‘We can find no record of Mr Hansen since his release, Doctor, he seems to have disappeared. Have you any idea where he might have gone?’

  ‘None at all, Inspector. Three years is a long time.’

  ‘You’ve prepared a copy of his notes?’

  ‘Yes, and I can send copies of the interviews as email attachments to Dr Grady should she need them.’

  ‘I think you can take it as read that she needs them. Here is her email address.’ Molly wrote it down on a slip of paper she took from a clear plastic pocket at the back of her notebook, and passed it to him. ‘What about a photograph?’

  ‘There is one in the notes from 2000. He was twenty-one at the time.’ He went to his desk and passed Molly a three-inch thick file. ‘Stapled to the inside cover.’

  ‘Nothing more recent?’

  ‘Sorry, but you might be able to take a still from one of the later interviews.’

  Molly opened the file and Abby craned her neck to look. The picture was of a thin young man wearing a blue and white striped shirt. He had a bush of dark curly hair, a short beard and moustache, and staring eyes. She was immediately reminded of Malachi Pike.

  ‘Christ,’ Abby said. ‘He has eyes like Malachi Pike.’

  ‘Yes,’ Molly said, ‘doesn’t he.’

  ‘Is there anything else I can do for you, Inspector?’

  ‘No, I think we have what we came for.’ Molly stood up. ‘Thank you very much for your help and hospitality.’ She moved to get her coat and scarf.

  ‘I hope you’re wrong about Jacob Hansen, but I’ll make the board of trustees aware of the possibility that he could be a serial killer.’

  Dr Maslow showed them out, and the same guard took them back to the security room to collect their keys and belongings and hand in the visitor badges. It was ten past three.

  Once they were through the metal gates and heading back towards Crowthorne, Abby said, ‘Does that mean Malachi Pike is back on our suspect list, Gov?’

  ‘As far as I was concerned, A
bby he was never off it. Let’s stop somewhere in Crowthorne to eat. I also want to phone Frank.’

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Randall walked to Dr Deepak Sehgal’s surgery on Brook Lane and arrived ten minutes early.

  He booked in with the young mousy clerical assistant called Jenny at reception, and was told to take a seat. When he looked up, he noticed that she was looking in his direction and whispering to an older woman wearing a uniform.

  While he was sitting in the waiting room with a young pregnant mother and her two out-of-control toddlers intent on destroying the play area and making as much noise as possible, three pasty-looking old men, and a middle-aged couple wearing matching anoraks, his phone vibrated.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s TANGLE_ICEWIND.’

  ‘Just a minute.’ He walked outside and leaned against the wall. It had begun to rain again. ‘Okay, what?’

  ‘RHINO gave me your number.’

  ‘Did you ring me up to state the obvious?’

  ‘You’re in a bad mood?’

  ‘RHINO never said you’d be phoning me every five minutes for a cosy chat.’

  She giggled like a teenager.

  Maybe she is a teenager, he thought.

  ‘I like grumpy old men, they make me laugh.’

  ‘Less of the old. Grumpy I can live with, but I’m more distinguished than old.’

  ‘I’ve seen pictures of you on the television, you look like the Ancient Mariner.’

  ‘So, you’ve phoned to insult a paying customer?’

  ‘How much are you paying RHINO?’

  ‘Five hundred.’

  ‘Pounds! That slimy fucking toad, I’m gonna… Do you know he only offered me two hundred? God, he sucks.’

  ‘That’s between you and him. Did you ring me up for a reason, because the nice lady here has my padded cell ready?’