by Jennie Finch
Dave nodded, leaning over her shoulder to point. ‘This one first, then here, here, across here to Alison’s place and then last night, er …’ He searched for a moment before locating the bridleway out of North Petherton, ‘There you are.’
‘No,’ said Alex shaking her head. ‘This one,’ she pointed to North Newton. ‘This one is wrong.’
Dave sat opposite her, staring at her earnestly.
‘Are you absolutely sure?’ he asked.
Alex nodded firmly. ‘Oh yes. Look, all the others are to the west or south west of Highpoint. All accessible by footpaths or bridleways too. This one is the wrong side of the motorway. Are there any other differences?’
Dave took a deep breath, aware he was not authorised to say any more. ‘Right, the bloke was dressed, he escaped on foot somehow – at least from the immediate vicinity, he went into the house – first time that’s happened. And he had a weapon.’
Alex nodded. ‘Well, the theory of geographical profiling tells us someone like this will most likely stick to an area he’s familiar with. Somewhere he’s comfortable and he’s been before. Now, your idea of a bike is good because there’s no sign of a car or motorbike but these places are a long way apart for someone on foot. Normally we’d draw a rough circle round the sites, like this,’ she indicated with a finger. ‘He’s most likely inside that area. But this one,’ she stabbed at North Newton again. ‘This is stuck out way beyond.’
Dave peered excitedly at the map.
‘So, he could live at …’ he searched the centre of Alex’s circle. ‘There’s nothing there. Kings Cliff Wood, a couple of quarries and.. Oh. I don’t think he’s there.’ He pointed at the only residential building in the target area. ‘Crows Nest Farm. There’s a small enterprise estate next to the old farmhouse and not much else. No,’ he held up his hand. ‘I’m not going to check out the farmhouse. You know who lives there? My senior Inspector, “Old-Fashioned”. And before you ask, he doesn’t have a son and he’s not a natural blond. Not any more, anyway.’
‘Maybe our Moth Man works there then,’ said Alex, peering intently at the map. ‘This enterprise estate thingy – what sort of businesses are there?’
‘You’re still thinking about the conservatories aren’t you,’ said Dave as he scribbled some notes. ‘One of the victims, let me see, Miss Taylor out at Goathurst, she said he looked a bit sunburned. As if he’d only just started working outdoors. That was …’ He flipped through his notebook, trying to find the dates. ‘March 20th. Friday evening, but quite early on. He’s been getting a bit later each time …’
‘Dusk,’ said Alex who was tracing the roads and tracks between the sites. ‘He comes out at dusk, drawn to the lights. And the four week thing – it’s full moon. No,’ she said looking up at Dave. ‘I don’t mean he’s necessarily feeling the magical aura or some such stuff but Friday seems to be his chosen evening and if he’s out riding these tracks after dark the moon will give him a bit more light. Even so, it would be pretty dangerous …’
‘You’re not a biker, are you?’ Dave asked with a grin.
Alex pulled a face and shook her head.
‘That’s part of the fun apparently; the danger, the thrill of it all. Most of them seem to be adrenalin junkies … Is that why he’s doing it?’
Alex glanced up from the map and shrugged.
‘I don’t know – it could be. Then again, he may be using that sort of bike because it’s the only one he’s got … oh.’
‘Oh?’ said Dave. ‘Oh what? Oh, the theory’s fallen apart or Oh I’ve just had a breakthrough?’
‘Just “Oh”, at the moment,’ said Alex, a thin squirming thread of anxiety twisting in her stomach. Probably just coincidence, she thought. So many young men had those bloody BMX bikes now, it could be any one of them.
Dave was sifting through the contents of his file and pulled out the notes on the pineapple tin. As he did so a thin piece of A4 fluttered to the floor. Bending to retrieve it, he stiffened and let out a sigh.
‘Ah, this came in a couple of days ago. Why didn’t anyone tell me? Damn it …’
Alex interrupted him, ‘You’ve been a bit preoccupied,’ she said. ‘Whatever it is, unless it’s a name – in which case the others would have been after him by now – it can’t be that urgent.’
‘It’s from Interpol,’ said Dave excitedly. ‘I contacted them back in April. Almost forgot about it, to be honest, but look – have you got a calendar or a diary or something?’
Alex pulled open the drawer under the table and extricated a diary, plonking it in front of them. Opening it at the calendar page, Dave began to scan from the telex in his hand to the diary. Alex offered him a pencil.
‘Go ahead,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind and we can destroy the evidence of our collusion later.’
Dave scribbled on the message, ringing dates on the calendar and counting back as he went. He didn’t have to say anything when he’d finished. The pattern was set out clearly in front of them. The previous year showed five similar incidents, all on the Friday of the full moon, then a gap of five months before they resumed with Miss Singleton in Goathurst.
‘Okay,’ said Alex finally. ‘Where was he before we were blessed by his presence?’
‘Holland,’ said Dave. ‘Place called Bergen, north of Amsterdam.’
Alex felt the thread in her middle tighten into a knot. ‘Five month gap,’ she said trying to keep her voice calm. ‘So it could be there are some the police missed, either in Holland or back in the UK.’
‘Might have been in prison,’ said Dave absently. ‘Though, then, he could be one of yours by now.’ He grinned at her mischievously before returning to the telex message.
‘Yeah,’ said Alex softly. ‘Could be one of mine.’ A thought floated across her mind and she grabbed at it, grateful for the distraction. ‘You said there was something in the boots when Brian found them?’
‘Yes, old newspapers he said, packed around the sides. Perhaps to help them keep their shape?’
‘Or what if they were a bit too big and so the paper held them on firmly,’ said Alex. ‘That would be a good piece of misdirection – the boots are your main piece of evidence, the one thing that stands out about his appearance, but they’re the wrong size. If he planned on dumping them sometime it would be hard to use them against him, if the paper lining was gone.’
Dave nodded, ‘The same idea occurred to me. We had a poke around but there’s a lot of rubbish in the hedges and it’s hard to tell which bits of paper came from the damn boots.’
‘I suspect someone capable of planning all this is too careful to use anything that ties him to an incriminating location,’ said Alex.
Dave paused and added, ‘This last one though, he wasn’t as well prepared or something went wrong and he couldn’t get away as cleanly as before. I think he’s unravelling a bit.’
‘Maybe something made him change his plans,’ said Alex and the thread inside tightened another notch. ‘I’m sorry Dave, I’m really tired and I need to go and lie down. Call me later and let me know how it’s going.’
Dave looked disappointed but gathered up the papers, stuffing them into the file before standing up and stretching.
‘You really have been a great help,’ he said as he stepped out of the front door. ‘And I cannot thank you enough for everything you’ve done for Lauren.’
‘She’s my friend,’ said Alex softly, closing the door. As soon as Dave was gone, Alex scrabbled around for her office keys, her heart sinking as she realised she’d given them to Sue. She dare not try to borrow a set from anyone – there would be too many questions asked and as yet she had no definitive answer. Musing on her next move, she checked through her briefcase where several files rested, waiting for their updates. She had been so busy she had not been able to do much more than rudimentary notes and had shoved the top few into her bag, just in case she found time to do some catching up. She breathed a sigh of relief when she read the name on the third folder. P
erhaps she could lay to rest that horrible, burning thread of suspicion after all.
Settling by the telephone, Alex began to add more scribbles to the notes left on the calendar. After about ten minutes she put down her pen and gazed at the results. It was not conclusive but it did make a substantial if superficial case. According to her records, Jake Hollis had the means and opportunity to commit all of the attacks, including those abroad. He had been in the north east for a while before disappearing and there was a handy ferry from Newcastle to Amsterdam. If he had been running from the police it was a good escape route.
The attacks in Bergen stopped when he was in prison prior to his deportation from Holland – for theft, she noted. Nothing to suggest he might be a sex offender though. That put a bit of a dent in her case – a lack of obvious motive. Still, Alex was sure she had something and after a final check she lifted the telephone receiver and dialled the detectives’ room at Taunton. After a brief conversation she hung up and crawled over to the couch where she lay, exhausted, drowsing in the sunshine as it poured through the window.
He spent the first part of Saturday at the jet wash, cleaning his bike. As the mud washed away down the central drain he felt some of the tension in his back and shoulders go with it. By the time he had finished there was nothing left to tie him to the track behind the house in North Petherton and, just to make sure he had covered all the options, he wheeled the wet machine behind the cover of the washing screens where he removed the rear tyre. Replacing it with a new one of a different make, he slung the old, distinctive tyre into the garage’s skip before throwing his leg over the bike and setting off down the road, bunny-hopping on and off the pavement as he went.
It was a fine day and he decided to take a ride across the countryside. Perhaps he should go out to Kingston St Mary, to look over the track by West Deane Way. He would have been there last night if his plans hadn’t been disrupted and now he was regretting the hasty actions that had almost been his undoing. It would have been better to wait and proceed as planned than rush – and now one of his chosen ones was wasted. He should have saved her for next time. She deserved so much more, he thought with a twinge of anger.
The ride was exhilarating and his good mood was soon restored as he pushed his body as hard as he could. The sun was warm on his back and arms, now a golden brown from the work outside and the time spent riding across the hills. The only things still niggling at him were the endless, stupid restrictions placed on him by his court order. He was a grown man, he’d done his time for the petty offences with which he had been charged. It was a ridiculous state of affairs, expecting him to live with a bunch of knuckle-dragging morons in a grubby, smelly hostel.
Ahead of him there was a ridge, a good jumping point with a spectacularly fast and dangerous downhill section. Taking aim at the centre of the crest, he pumped on the pedals with all his might, relishing in the surge of power as it propelled the bike up the hill and over the top, hanging in the air as he flew between two little girls who were pushing their bikes just below the top of the hill. The BMX descended fast and he only just managed to pull to one side, landing awkwardly and ripping his knee open as the bike slid away from under him.
‘You stupid little shit!’ shouted a man who was running up the hill towards him. ‘You could have killed someone.’ Behind him the two little girls burst into tears, more scared than hurt but obviously distressed by the near miss. Ignoring them, he clambered to his feet, grimacing with pain as he limped over to the bike, now lying on its side, one wheel still spinning.
‘Did you hear me,’ yelled the man who was fast approaching. ‘Where do you think you’re going? It’s idiots like you …’
He stopped abruptly as there was a hand around his throat.
‘Fuck off and leave me alone. And take them with you,’ he gestured towards the crying children. ‘Get them out of my sight before I really hurt you.’
The man landed in the dust of the track, choking and struggling for breath as his assailant remounted and set off down the hill at a furious pace his whole leg burning and throbbing. The sun seemed to have gone from his day and after a couple of miles he gave up, turning round and heading back to Highpoint by way of the minor roads.
Unknown to the bike rider his actions had been captured on camera. A local man, who was out with his two dogs, had stopped just below the summit and snapped his canine companions using a shiny new Polaroid camera. When the picture emerged from the front he watched eagerly, only to see the attack by the enraged BMX rider framed nicely in the background. Muttering in disgust, he was about to stuff the picture into his pocket when the victim hurried over, anxious to obtain evidence for his ordeal.
The police at Highpoint took one look at the photograph and identified the culprit immediately.
‘Do you want to make a formal complaint?’ asked Sergeant Willis with poorly disguised eagerness. Only his professionalism stopped him adding, ‘Please do – go on.’
The father looked over at his distraught children and nodded.
‘Would I have to stay here if you do?’ he asked. ‘I’m just visiting from Dorset, see.’
Willis hastened to reassure him. They might need to call him when it went to trial but this would only be for a day. It would be a public service, he said, as well as some justice for the family. After a few minutes’ hesitation it was agreed and the sergeant handed him over to one of the constables to take a statement.
Once the family was safely on the way home Sergeant Willis put a call through to Taunton. At the weekend there was no senior officer in Highpoint and any large operations needed a higher level of authorisation than he could give. To his dismay he was connected to the head of the Special Action Group, known locally as the ‘Saggers’, the heavy-duty end of law enforcement in the county.
‘I’m not sure we need that sort of response,’ he said. The Saggers were known for their rather over-enthusiastic actions and had a habit of turning up at unsociable hours dressed in full riot gear. Wherever possible, Willis, a decent, old-fashioned policeman, liked to talk his suspects into the car rather than hurling them in head-first.
‘I think this is exactly the sort of operation we are supposed to handle,’ came the reply. ‘This is obviously a violent and dangerous criminal who behaves with a reckless disregard for the safety of others. We’ll be in touch later. I’ll pass you over to my co-ordinator to check all the details.’
Sergeant Willis seethed at the arrogance of the man but there was nothing he could do. Glumly he supplied the address and phone contact for the probation hostel and replaced the phone, wondering if they would even see the culprit before he was usurped by Taunton and added to their success rate.
Samuel was resting upstairs in his now empty four-bed room when there came a tremendous banging from the downstairs hallway. Footsteps pounded up the stairs and he sprang to his feet as the door was flung open and three huge figures crowded into the room. Clad in dark blue overalls with black boots and black leather gloves, each carried a short, heavy truncheon. Their heads were protected by blue and black motorcycle-type helmets and each wore a tinted visor down over their faces. For a moment the figures stared at him whilst Samuel fought the urge to run, to escape somehow, even if it meant a fall from the window. Then the lead figure raised one leather-clad finger up in front of his visor, warning him to keep silent, before turning away, gesturing the others to follow.
Samuel let out a long, juddering breath as he sank down on his bed, his heart hammering in his chest. A cold sweat burst out over his body as he listened to the heavy footsteps beating up the corridor before there was the sound of another door being flung open. This time it seemed they had the correct room as a barked order was followed by cries of alarm. Samuel rose from the bed, treading lightly as he crossed the room and peered round the edge of his door.
Flanked on both sides by the blue-clad police, Jake Hollis was hustled down the stairs and out into the waiting van. Despite the fact he was obviously in pain from a
nasty injury to his knee, the officers ignored his protests, dragging him across the floor when he stumbled and almost fell in the hall. There was the hollow, metallic sound of a door being slammed shut and locked and then the roar of the engine as the van took off down the road at high speed.
Samuel closed his door softly, his hands trembling. He was no longer afraid, just shaken by the violence of the arrest. Slowly his heart rate returned to normal and he lay down again, pondering on this strange event. He had been sure they had somehow uncovered his secret, perhaps through the pineapple tin. It would be a very, very lucky copper who stumbled over that but, even so, he decided he had better dispose of it and its contents, just to be on the safe side.
Should he go now, he wondered? He could take advantage of the distraction offered by Jake Hollis’s arrest. No, let attention swing away from the hostel. Just do the same as he did every weekend, he decided. No-one expected him to eat there any more and he could be out on Monday morning whilst all the day trippers and yokels were back at work. He would dress in his running clothes, get to the tin, destroy anything incriminating and be back without raising any questions about his whereabouts. Whatever Hollis had done, he had also unwittingly done him a big favour.
Sue returned to Highpoint leaving Brian with Ada and Pongo, and passed the hostel just as the SAG van cut across the traffic and roared off down the road, blue light flashing and siren blasting. Alarmed at this ominous sight, she turned into the tiny car park at the front and scurried into the office where Bennie was trying to raise the warden, with no success.
‘Bastard,’ she hissed between her teeth. ‘He’s supposed to be on call but there’s no answer from either of the numbers he left. First time I’ve ever needed him …’
Sue made some suitably supportive noises followed by a strong cup of tea and Bennie was only too happy to share her understanding of Jake’s arrest.
‘I think they are looking at assault,’ she said. ‘Possibly threatening behaviour or ABH too. He seems to have left bruises on the man. It’s the kids I’m sorry for. They were really scared apparently and Jake almost crashed that bloody bike down on them. He could have killed them.’