by Luke Delaney
Sean absentmindedly began to walk along the path that cut across the park, noticing that it wound closer to the trees in some places – places where it would have been easier to ambush an unsuspecting victim. He found himself slipping the map of the crime scene from his jacket pocket and examining it, trying to get his bearings and identify the area marked as the crime scene. After using the distant tower blocks on the urban horizon as north, he headed further along the path to the south-west corner of the park, just as the victim would have – pushing her toddler and filling her lungs with air the trees had cleansed, thinking of what she would cook her husband for tea, imagining relaxing with her nightly glass of wine – before he dragged her to hell.
As he approached the place where the victim had first been attacked he noticed the path did indeed pass closer to the surrounding trees here, allowing the predator to close in on his chosen victim before bursting from the woods and seizing her. Sean studied the woods either side of the path, the tall trees shedding gold, red and brown leaves, their branches casting tiger-stripe shadows that would have hidden the maniac stalking his prey. Sean imagined him moving quickly through the trees, periodically stopping, hiding behind the thicker tree-trunks, peering out from the shadows at the attractive young woman walking her sleeping child, watching every step she took in an ever increasing state of excitement and anticipation, the adrenalin and blood a torrent through his body, his longing for her unbearable, until finally she reached the place he’d chosen – the narrowing of the path that brought her so close he could smell her – smell the child. And then he’d burst from the tree-line like a leopard and taken her, threatening to do unimaginable things to her and the child if she resisted – things he did to her anyway, despite her co-operation. But at least the child had been spared.
Sean blinked the images away as he began to walk into the trees, his own heart rate increasing just as the attacker’s had, an uncontrollable sense of understanding sweeping over him as he drew closer to the scene of the final assault – his imagination and dark experiences opening a window to the crime through which he could witness it happening all over again. He could feel the attacker – his uncontrollable, surging power as he raged over the woman. He reached the exact spot where instinct told him the main assault had taken place and after first checking he was alone, he crouched as close as he could to the ground and examined the longish grass that still showed the signs of disturbance, lying flattened in places where the attacker had forced her to lie down, the dagger-style combat knife pressed against her throat as he rutted like a wild boar.
Still crouching, Sean swapped the map in his hand for another piece of paper he’d pulled from his jacket pocket and began to read the notes he’d scribbled about the case before heading to the park. All the victims of the Parkside Rapist so far had been attractive young women, some still little older than girls, and his latest victim was no different. Each had been threatened with a dagger-style knife and seriously sexually assaulted, although none had been severely harmed in any other physical way. Sean looked back through the trees to where the sleeping infant would have remained throughout the ordeal, sparking sudden images of the maniac doing the exact same thing, looking from the woman lying under him to the child and back. Hurriedly he read through his notes again and soon found what he was looking for – the latest victim was not the first to have been with her child when she was attacked. Out of the dozens of attacks to date, at least six other women had been with their young children.
‘Everybody thinks you attacked the women with children in spite of the fact they were with them, but you didn’t, did you?’ he said to himself. ‘You attacked them because of the children, didn’t you, you sick bastard? But why? What do the children give you?’ Sean stood and closed his eyes, waiting for answers to form in the darkness of his mind. ‘Power,’ he suddenly said. ‘Not just the power over them, to do anything you want to them, but the power to take away the most precious thing in their lives – their children. You raped the others without children because you lack control. Once the urges and desires take hold they control you, not you them. You can’t wait for perfection. You can’t wait for one to come along with a child. But when they do …’ He suddenly fell silent again, as if his clear direction of thought had been snared on a barbed hook. ‘But why let them live? You have the knife. You have the anger and the rage. Isn’t killing the absolute show of power – so why don’t you – at least the mother, or maybe the child while you make the mother watch? You’re not making sense,’ he accused the maniac. ‘Why, why, why?’ he whispered to himself as he looked around the trees, breathing deeply through his nose, trying to clear his mind, grateful to be alone so he could think. ‘Because … because … you have – you have killed before. You raped someone and then you killed them – in the past – in, in their home or somewhere else where you could have privacy. And all the women you’ve raped were threatened with a large combat knife, so whoever you killed, you killed with the same knife, didn’t you? You couldn’t have killed them any other way, because the knife’s too personal to you. Nothing else would have satisfied your fantasy. So why haven’t you killed again since? You don’t have the control to suddenly stop. Just raping can’t be enough for you now you’ve killed, so why haven’t you killed any of the women you’ve raped since?’ Sean stood totally still, hoping, praying the answer would reveal itself. ‘Because of the blood,’ he finally answered his own question. ‘Because there would have been too much blood. You had to use the knife, but it would have meant too much blood. You couldn’t be seen running through the park, through the streets covered in blood – the risk of being caught would have been too great, so you let them live, but it killed you to do it. But the time you did kill you were inside – you were inside so you could clean yourself up – wash the blood from your hands and skin, taking your time to clean yourself and maybe even change your clothes. Then you left – you left feeling calm and in control – feeling like you’d never felt before.
So what do you do now, when raping without killing isn’t enough anymore? Will you follow someone to their home where the children sleep – where you can have all the time in the world to live out your dreams and then all the time in the world to get cleaned up – wash the blood off and change your clothes – no fears of having to run through the trees painted red? Yes, yes,’ he hissed. ‘That’s where you’re heading, isn’t it, you sick bastard? That’s exactly where you’re heading, even if you don’t know it yourself yet …’
*
Sean walked into the Parkside Rapist Enquiry Office with a lot more confidence than he’d had earlier the same day, now believing he had information everyone would want to know – information that could seriously move the stagnated case forward – if they’d just listen to him. He saw DS Ray Melody was busy on the phone, his thinned lips and red face warning Sean that the detective sergeant was already not a happy man. He waited for Melody to slam the phone down on whoever had angered him before jumping in, but Melody beat him to it. ‘You’re back early. You were supposed to stay in the park until it closed, which isn’t until it’s dark, and it doesn’t look dark to me – not yet.’
‘I found something,’ Sean told him eagerly. ‘When I was in the park I found something.’
‘A witness?’ Melody asked, allowing his mask of indifference to drop for a second.
‘No,’ Sean answered, ‘nothing like that. Something else.’
‘Go on then, Sherlock – amaze me with your powers of deduction,’ Melody ridiculed him, his mask firmly back in place.
Sean swallowed dryly before saying his piece. ‘I think he selects his victims because they’re with children, not in spite of it.’ He stood straight and waited for the congratulations and appreciation.
‘Is that fucking it?’ Melody asked, his mouth breaking into a huge grin. ‘That’s what you rushed back early to tell me – this … this quite brilliant theory of yours. Did you bang your head on a tree branch in that bloody park or something?’ Se
an could feel other eyes falling on his embarrassment, but instead of playing it smart and keeping his mouth shut he blurted out more of his theory.
‘And I think he’s already killed, but not in the park or anywhere outside. He couldn’t because he’d be covered in blood. He’d never get away with it.’
‘If he’d killed before he’d have killed again by now, at least once or twice. Once these nutters kill they can’t go back,’ Melody told him, still grinning.
‘I understand that,’ Sean continued to argue, ‘and he wants to kill again, he just hasn’t had the chance yet. But he will.’ Everyone in the room was staring at him now, but he stood his ground.
‘Where are you getting all of this from, son?’ Melody asked. ‘Who’ve you been talking to?’
‘No one,’ he answered. ‘I just …’ Sean let his words trail away as he sensed a presence behind him – a presence that had brought everyone else in the room to a sudden stop. He looked over his shoulder in time to see a small, slim man with a bushy blond moustache taking a seat on the edge of a desk. He had no idea who he was, just that he must be someone important. ‘Shit,’ he whispered to himself and waited for the ridicule he felt was sure to come.
‘Don’t let me interrupt you, son,’ the man with the moustache told him. ‘Carry on with what you were saying, how you think our man has killed before.’
‘Like I was saying,’ Sean stuttered, ‘I think he’s killed before, but it had to be inside because …’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ the man hurried him, ‘because of the amount of blood he would have been covered in. But you said he wanted to kill again, yet we know he hasn’t.’
‘Because he hasn’t worked out how to yet,’ Sean told him. ‘He’s comfortable in wooded areas, but they can’t give him the privacy he needs – not in the daylight – which is when he likes to work.’
‘Work?’ the man questioned.
‘A figure of speech,’ Sean explained.
‘Really?’ the man asked, but let it slide. ‘So what’s he going to do about it, this man of ours?’
‘He’ll wait. He’ll wait until he sees an opportunity to attack someone in their own home. Then he can take his time – all the time he wants – and get cleaned up before leaving the scene.’
The man pursed his lips and shook his head as he stood and crossed the room to Sean, holding out a hand as a goodwill gesture. ‘Detective Chief Superintendent Charlie Bannan, but you can call me guv’nor or boss, take your pick.’
Sean felt his stomach tighten with tension as he accepted the hand, the grip much firmer than he was expecting. ‘PC Sean …’
‘Sean Corrigan,’ Bannan finished for him, seeing the confusion in Sean’s eyes. ‘I saw you fight, last night. Very impressive.’ Bannan looked around the room to make sure everyone was listening. ‘This young man won the Lafone Cup last night, yet look at him – not a mark on his face and back to work the next day. Still, seeing as how no one managed to lay a glove on you there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be – is there?’
‘No, sir … sorry, guv’nor,’ Sean answered.
‘Let’s take a walk,’ Bannan told him before spinning on his heels and heading for the door. Sean hesitated for a second before following, finding he had to almost break into a jog to keep up with the older man. ‘How long you been boxing for?’ Bannan asked as they walked the corridors.
‘Since I was a teenager.’
‘You’re good,’ Bannan said. ‘Very good. Ever thought about going professional?’
‘No,’ Sean told him. ‘Amateur’s enough for me.’
‘Shame,’ Bannan declared, looking him up and down out of the corner of his eye. ‘In here, son. My office.’ Sean followed him inside the tiny, cluttered space. ‘Bit of a broom-cupboard, but it’ll have to do for now. Not as palatial as my office back at HQ, but as a temporary home it serves its purpose. Take a seat.’
‘Thanks,’ Sean told him and sat in one of only three scruffy, worn-out chairs in the room, while he watched Bannan rifling through a metal filing cabinet that took up more than its fair share of available space, until finally he pulled a pink folder marked confidential from within and threw it on the desk in front of Sean. ‘Have a butcher’s at that,’ Bannan told him, but the confidential stamp made Sean stall. ‘It’s alright – you have my authority to look inside.’ Sean shrugged and carefully opened the file, the horrific crime-scene photograph that immediately confronted him – its terrible bright colours – making him look away involuntarily.
‘Fuck me,’ he said slowly and quietly before he was able to look again. ‘Jesus Christ. I didn’t know it had been that bad.’
‘Recognise her?’ Bannan asked.
‘Yeah,’ Sean solemnly admitted. ‘Rebecca Fordham. She didn’t deserve this.’
‘Does anyone?’ Bannan asked.
‘Maybe,’ Sean said without thinking.
‘Sorry?’
‘Nothing,’ Sean answered, ‘just thinking out loud.’
‘Rebecca Fordham was murdered in her flat in Putney a little more than a year ago – raped, throat cut and stabbed forty-nine times. No witnesses to speak of.’
‘This is the same man,’ Sean declared, shaking his head in disbelief at what he was seeing. ‘It has to be – a beautiful young woman in daylight – the level of violence – stab wounds made by a large bladed instrument – sexually assaulted and sexually mutilated. This just feels like our man.’
‘She was wasn’t she?’ Bannan suddenly asked, knocking Sean from his train of thought.
‘She was what?’
‘Beautiful,’ Bannan told him, reducing them both to silence as they sat and thought about the smiling, radiant woman the papers and television had shown pictures of almost constantly after her cruel death. She’d been so full of life, yet they had to see her like this – as the maniac had made her look. ‘You said he wants to kill again, but can’t, not until he works out how to. What did you mean?’
‘Like I said, there are certain things that are very important to him – attractive young women, preferably with their children present and daylight and violence. But he can’t use the knife again unless he’s inside.’
‘But there were no children present at the Fordham scene.’
‘I know,’ Sean agreed through his confusion. ‘But maybe there was something else?’
‘Such as?’
‘I don’t know.’
Bannan allowed a few moments of silence before continuing. ‘So why doesn’t he use something else or strangle them?’
‘Maybe he’s not strong enough, or more likely he has some emotional attachment to the knife – he always used a knife in his fantasies and now nothing else will do.’
‘Interesting,’ Bannan told him. ‘Have you studied psychology or criminology?’
‘No,’ Sean answered, ‘not really.’
‘I’m surprised,’ Bannan said before pushing on. ‘So what does he do now – break into some unsuspecting woman’s house and commit murder?’
‘He already has murdered,’ Sean insisted, pressing his index finger into the crime scene photographs.
‘So you say, but I’m more interested in what he’ll do next, then maybe I can stop him.’
‘Well he won’t break in – I know that much.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if he was going to he would have by now. My guess would be he’s not comfortable with locks – doesn’t have the skills to open locked doors and he doesn’t want to break a window because he’s too scared of being heard and disturbed. Maybe he has bad memories of almost being caught trying to break in somewhere, so …’
‘Go on,’ Bannan encouraged him.
‘So he looks and waits for the right opportunity – for someone getting careless and leaving a door open or a window he can fit through.’
‘Then we can assume he’s already looking for that opportunity, right now, as we speak?’
‘Yes,’ Sean told him, ‘but he keeps failing, which is when he goes t
o the parks and woods.’
‘Because something is better than nothing,’ Bannan agreed.
Sean nodded slowly before asking another question. ‘What evidence do you have so far?’
‘From the Parkside rapes – we have his DNA from his semen, but the DNA database is so new there’s almost no one on it yet and our man certainly isn’t. A decent description: male, white, average build and height etc, but nothing that sets him apart.’
‘Then what about fingerprints – fingerprint records go back for years.’
‘No fingerprints.’
‘But he’s reckless at the scenes,’ Sean argued, ‘and he doesn’t wear gloves.’
‘That may be so, but he hasn’t touched anything we could lift a print from.’
‘What about from the Rebecca Fordham investigation? Do we know if he left a print there?’
‘I don’t and they’re not telling even if he did.’
‘They can’t do that!’
‘Yes they can, son and they are. Listen, as far as they’re concerned Rebecca Fordham’s killer is dead and they don’t want anyone rocking the boat. If we link our crimes to her killer then Ian McCaig couldn’t possibly be guilty – he’s been dead while our man’s been running amok.’
‘Then they got the wrong man.’
‘Possibly, but they don’t want to hear that, do they? You know the story – it was all over the papers and telly – McCaig was on remand waiting for his trial, but he couldn’t take it – couldn’t take being locked up, couldn’t take being tortured by the media and hated by the public, so he topped himself. The public and media took it as an admission of his guilt and the investigating team took it as case closed. No one wants to open up old wounds and have an investigation into a miscarriage of justice, particularly one that ended up with a suspect killing himself. That would not be good for business, son.’
‘We need to see everything they’ve got,’ Sean insisted, not interested in maintaining the status quo.