by Luke Delaney
‘And why would he do that?’ Townsend asked.
‘We didn’t have a lot on,’ Sean told her the partial truth. ‘Nothing the team couldn’t handle without me.’
‘Unlike us, you mean?’ Townsend pushed. ‘You here to spy on us?’ she asked him directly, her honesty making him smile.
‘No,’ he told her. ‘I’m here to help – to help you find whoever’s doing this and to stop him.’
Townsend studied him hard before speaking again. ‘Fair enough,’ was all she said. ‘Then we’d better get you up to running speed.’ She headed off towards the far end of the office where a half dozen whiteboards were lined up next to each other – each covered in numerous pictures of the five victims to date. Sean followed, wishing he could be totally alone in the office with the boards and their photographs – pictures of the women when they were alive, at various stages of their lives, side by side with images of them in death – some from the scenes where they were found and others of the post-mortems. The noise in the office was distracting and disorientating – preventing him from seeing what he needed to see, keeping him steadfastly held in an office full of detectives when he needed to travel in his mind to the times and places of the killings. The photographs were already trying to speak to him, but the noise around him wouldn’t let him hear. ‘What do you know so far?’ Townsend added her voice to the voices already inside his head.
‘Not too much,’ he assured her. ‘Only what I’ve seen on TV and what Superintendent Middleton’s told me. I don’t have any detailed knowledge.’
‘Okay,’ Townsend told him and swept her hand in the direction of the white boards. ‘We have five victims to date, the first victim, Heather Dylan, being killed almost a year ago now. A couple of months after her Lisa Sheeran was killed, then a few weeks later Norah Cardle, then Rebecca Shepard and finally the latest victim – Cantara Roper, whose body was found a little over five weeks ago. The oldest of the victims was thirty-three and the youngest was Norah Cardle, who was only twenty-one. All were low-level prostitutes – street-girls, not your upmarket call-girls, and all appeared to have had addictions of various types, hence their chosen occupation.’
‘And the fact they were still prepared to go out onto the streets, even after they knew someone was stalking and killing prostitutes,’ Sean added.
‘Certainly true of our last three victims,’ Townsend agreed. ‘The first couldn’t have seen it coming and even after her death the most popular theory was she’d pissed off some pimp who wanted to make an example of her. But once we had victim number two … there was little doubt what we were dealing with.’
‘The timings between each murder,’ Sean asked, ‘were they the same length of time?’
‘No,’ Townsend answered. ‘It’s varied between about four weeks and ten weeks.’
‘Then timing’s not part of his pattern,’ Sean mused.
‘So we figured,’ Townsend replied.
‘And locations?’
‘Apparently random,’ Townsend explained. ‘Anywhere you could find prostitutes plying their trade. He seems to have a preference for the areas around central London, although he has been as far out as Brixton and of course Streatham, which is why we inherited the whole shooting match: first victim was ours, so all that follow are too.’
Sean ignored her griping. ‘What were they like,’ he asked, ‘the places he picked them up from?’
‘We can’t be too sure,’ Townsend admitted. ‘Nobody knows where he took them from. Nobody saw them getting into any vehicles. Our man’s careful. Very careful. He’s a ghost.’
‘And CCTV?’ Sean asked.
‘None of the victims being picked up, if that’s what you mean. These girls were prostitutes, all of whom were working the night of their deaths. They’re hardly going to do their business in the glare of CCTV cameras.’
‘And he knew that,’ Sean spoke to himself more than her.
‘Probably,’ Townsend agreed.
‘But you know the areas they were working, right?’ Sean asked. ‘Working girls tend to stick to the same patch, or risk falling foul of someone else’s pimp.’
‘We do,’ Townsend told him and began to walk along the lines of photographs, pointing to each one in turn as she spoke. ‘Heather Dylan, worked Streatham Common. Lisa Sheeran, worked …’
Sean stopped her. ‘Go back,’ he insisted. ‘Tell me where the bodies were found as well.’
Townsend raised her eyebrows slightly. ‘Okay. Heather Dylan was found relatively close by in a wooded area on Tooting Common. Lisa Sheeran worked Shoreditch and was found in Tower Hamlets Cemetery. Norah Cardle worked the back streets of King’s Cross and was found in Caledonian Park in nearby Camden.’ She continued her damning procession along the boards and the images of the dead. ‘Rebecca Shepard worked around Water Lane in Brixton and was found in the woods in Brockwell Park and finally there’s Cantara Roper, who worked around Lisson Grove in Paddington. Her body was found where we believe she was killed – on a building site in Marylebone.’
‘Where you believe she was killed?’ Sean jumped on her use of the word. ‘You don’t know where they were killed?’
‘All the victims were strangled and they all suffered multiple stab and slash wounds. The pathologist believes they were killed by strangulation and the stab wounds were postmortem. Also, there was very little blood at the scenes, although that could also be due the adverse weather. This one likes to strike in the rain.’
‘Why stab someone after you’ve already strangled them to death?’ Sean again accidentally spoke out loud. ‘Doesn’t make any sense.’
‘Does it really make any difference which he did first? He murdered and mutilated them. Isn’t that enough?’
‘It matters,’ Sean reprimanded her. ‘If we want to stop him we need to know what motivates him and to do that we have to think like him.’
Townsend looked at him suspiciously. ‘Is that how you caught Oscar Stokes – by thinking like him?’
Sean ignored the question as he stared at the photographs of the victims. ‘This one’s in a rage. First he rapes them, then he rids himself of them by efficiently and cleanly strangling them, but it’s not enough, so he takes them some place close by, where he can take them from the car and he does this to them. He needs them out of his car because he knows there’s going to be a lot of blood.’ Sean pointed to the horrific wounds on Rebecca Shepard’s naked body.
‘How did you know he rapes them?’ Townsend caught him out. ‘I never told you that.’
Sean realized his mistake. ‘Middleton must have told me.’
‘Of course,’ Townsend played along, ‘only we can’t actually be sure they were raped. All had signs of recent sexual intercourse. There was evidence of vaginal trauma on each of them, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they were raped – given their profession.’
‘Take it from me,’ Sean told her, not concerned how he might sound, ‘they were all raped. DNA? Semen?’
‘All five victims had semen and DNA matching the same man inside them. The chances of it not being from the killer are astronomical.’
‘But his DNA’s not on the National Database?’
‘No,’ Townsend confirmed. ‘We’ve circulated his DNA throughout Europe through Interpol and the FBI have had it too – nothing. But he has to have offended before right? He didn’t just jump straight in with … with this?’
‘Probably,’ Sean agreed, ‘but not absolutely. Maybe we need to get his DNA signature further afield.’
‘Not many countries beyond Europe and the States have DNA databases,’ she reminded him.
‘No,’ Sean conceded. ‘I don’t suppose they do … Before you said there wasn’t much blood at the scenes because of the weather?’
‘I did.’
‘Every scene was affected by the weather?’
‘Rain,’ Townsend stated again. ‘He likes to hunt in the rain.’
‘Then it’s deliberate – he chooses to kill in the rain.’
‘That’s what we believe.’
‘Because he knows rain can damage forensic evidence – such as washing away blood …’ Sean talked out loud, ‘but is it something else as well? Something … emotional to him? A memory?’
‘Rain?’ Townsend asked. ‘How could rain be personal to him?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sean admitted, ‘but I’ll be sure to ask him.’
‘Getting a bit ahead of yourself aren’t you?’
Again he ignored her comment. ‘There’s something else as well,’ he told her, ‘why he needs the rain – something you might not have thought of.’
‘Such as?’ Townsend asked, crossing her arms defensively.
‘They’re street girls, right, so that’s where he’s taking them from, but he needs to be quick – he can’t be seen to be hanging around. Can’t risk attracting attention. The rain gets them in the car quicker,’ Sean continued. ‘Instead of standing on the pavement discussing business through the window, they get in his car – where it’s warm and dry. No doubt he encourages them to, and then he has them.’
‘I suppose that’s possible,’ Townsend admitted.
‘Not possible,’ Sean insisted. ‘Probable. He’s a thinker and a planner and he’s in control of what he’s doing. If the circumstances aren’t exactly what he wants, he’ll drive away. He’ll just walk away and wait for another opportunity.’ He’d just reminded himself of something she’d said. ‘You said the times between the murders varied by as much as a few weeks?’
‘Yes,’ Townsend confirmed. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any particular pattern.’
Sean massaged his right temple with his middle finger and stared at the photographs of the victims for a long while before speaking. ‘Remarkably similar in appearance, aren’t they?’ he finally said.
‘That much, we had noticed,’ Townsend answered, sounding slightly annoyed.
‘Apart from some of the age differences they could be the same person – slightly built, pale skin, straight black hair. What colour were their eyes?’ he suddenly asked without looking away from their faces.
‘Varied,’ Townsend answered. ‘As far as I can remember some had blue eyes, some green, others brown. Why? Is it important?’
‘No,’ Sean answered, although he wasn’t sure of his own answer – not yet. ‘Just an idea. But look at them,’ he told her, waving his hand past the dead faces. ‘For him, only they would do and we know he’s not particularly driven by a time scale, so …’ he paused to allow his thoughts to form into something tangible. ‘So it’s the availability of this particular type of victim that … women that look exactly like these that dictates when and where he strikes.’
‘We assumed he’d selected the victims because they probably reminded him of someone from his life he has a serious grudge against,’ Townsend explained. ‘His mother. An ex-wife. An ex-girlfriend.’
‘You’re right to assume that much,’ Sean agreed, ‘but which is it and why?’ Townsend just shrugged as Sean continued to stare at the photographs in the boards. ‘Can’t be easy finding street girls that look so similar,’ he told Townsend, ‘not as and when he needs them.’
‘Maybe he pre-selects his victims,’ Townsend suggested. ‘DI Ramsay seems to think he could be.’
‘Possibly,’ Sean partially agreed, ‘but people in their line of work are unreliable. Just because they’re there one week doesn’t mean they’ll be there the next. And don’t forget he needs the right weather. He needs the rain.’
‘So you think he cruises for victims rather than pre-selects?’
‘When the need to take another overwhelms him he waits for the rain,’ Sean explained, never looking away from the photographs, ‘then he goes searching – searching for the perfect victim. If he can’t find exactly what he’s looking for he goes home. If it stops raining he goes home. He has control, but it still means he spends a lot of time cruising, which means he’s driving around the streets a lot – and always in the rain. He’s giving us a chance to find him and stop him, and find him and stop him we have to, because this one won’t give it up unless we make him.’
‘I know he won’t,’ Townsend agreed, ‘they never do, but why? Why can’t he stop?’
‘Because whatever it is he’s trying to satisfy can never be satisfied,’ Sean explained. ‘The more he feeds the beast, the hungrier it becomes.’
***
His entire body burnt with pain as he forced himself to complete yet another set of press-ups – the smoke from the dozens of candles and joss-sticks swirling around his body as he pumped his arms over and over again, raising his body from the floor until finally, drained of oxygen, the fibres of his muscles could lift his weight no more and he collapsed on the ornate rug that covered the centre of the living room in his small rented flat.
Exhausted as he was, he still managed to control his breathing – not gulping for air, but breathing in slowly and deeply, everything under control – just as he’d trained himself to do over years and years of practice. The mind must always control the body. After less than a minute he was able to spring into a standing position and walk slowly to a large mirror dominating one entire wall. He glanced at the television that quietly played a sadistic pornographic film, but his interest in it was passing. It was his own reflection that he longed to see. His toned body glimmered with sweat – every sinew defined and visible – but it was the beauty of the colourful creature that wrapped itself around him that transfixed him. The huge head of a mighty serpent, mouth gaping with fangs bared, covered his chest and the thick scaly body trailed over his shoulder and wound down his back before coiling back around his lower torso and then spiraling around his right leg – the tip of the great beast’s tail resting on his foot.
As he flexed his muscles the snake seemed to come alive – moving and writhing, man and beast becoming one. But the serpent needed feeding – needed to be fed the bodies and souls of the whores that plagued the streets of London, just as they had the squalid alleys of where he was raised as a child in a house made of other people’s rubbish. Where he and his mother shared a cockroach-infested cooking area with too many other families of the ghetto. Where there were no sanitation facilities or sewage disposal other than the filthy water that flowed in the streets outside. Where he watched his mother lie with strangers from the nearby city to make enough money to keep them both alive. His mother who beat him when he cried or complained to make him strong enough to survive. His mother who taught him to steal and fight. And how well she taught him as he rose to become one of the most feared faces in the ghetto – a reputation that soon attracted the attention of the local crime boss, who took him from the ghetto and put his particular talents to his own use. But amongst the professional beatings and killings he fed his own desires. He fed the beast that became stronger and stronger until he as a man no longer existed – just the Great Serpent disguised in a man’s body.
He pulled a cigarette from its packet and lit it with the flame from a Zippo lighter, drawing the first taste of the smoke in hard and deep, enjoying the calming effects within his body, before finally blowing a long, thin stream of smoke from his lips into his own reflected face. It had been a while since the Great Serpent had been fed and he was growing impatient, but the rain had failed to fall. He remembered the rain in the ghetto, soaking him when he was a small child peering through the hole in the wall that acted as a window into the near-empty room he shared with his mother as she lay with another man. Always it had seemed to be raining.
He wondered, dared to dream, that the mighty serpent’s next victim could finally be the perfect one. He licked his lips at the thought of finding one from the old country and how sweet it would be to taste that familiar flesh instead of the prey London had so far offered. He exhaled another stream of smoke into the mirror and left his reflection as he crossed the room to the cluttered coffee table where his knife waited, still inside the specially-adapted shoulder holster. He lifted the holster by the straps and slid the k
nife free, dropping the holster back on the table as he examined the blade. It still showed traces of dried blood – blood of the victims that he could still smell when he held it close to his face, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled deeply. The memories of those who’d been sacrificed to the Great Serpent came flooding back, intensifying his need to find another – to feed the beast.
He stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit another one before strolling back to the mirror to admire the body of the Great Snake and to dream of the coming of rain and the sacrifice it would bring.
***
Sean and Townsend walked through the alleyways created by the mish-mash of adjoining buildings that spread across the complex that was Guy’s Hospital, close to London Bridge. They walked past buildings rarely seen and never visited by the public as they headed towards the mortuary.
‘You sure this is entirely necessary?’ Townsend asked. ‘We’ve copies of all the postmortem reports back in the office.’
‘I’d rather speak to the pathologist,’ Sean answered. ‘Face to face.’
‘If you insist,’ Townsend frowned as they walked, ‘but I should warn you that Dr Canning has a reputation for being a bit of a character.’
‘I’m aware of that,’ Sean told her.
‘You know him then?’
‘We’ve met,’ Sean replied as they entered the mortuary and walked along the corridor, passing through the soft plastic, double-swing doors that flapped silently as they pushed them aside.
‘I hate this place,’ was all Townsend answered. ‘Gives me the bloody creeps.’
‘Probably a good idea to try and get used to it,’ he advised, ‘given your chosen profession.’ They pushed through the final set of swing doors and entered a spacious and brightly-lit tiled room with shining vinyl floor and a raised viewing area at one end where visitors could observe Canning doing his work from a safe distance. Sean looked down at the eight stretchers on wheels that lay equally spaced in the auditorium, three of which were occupied – human shapes lying under neat, green sheets. Another cadaver lay on the cold, stainless-steel operating table, only this wasn’t the flat, padded table you would find in a normal operating room, it was more like a giant shallow bath and indeed had running water and a sink hole for the body’s fluids to neatly flow away. The body’s chest and abdomen had already been fully opened as Dr Canning removed each organ for weighing and bagging before returning them to the owner who no longer had any need for them. He looked up from his work as the detectives entered, peering over the top of his spectacles.