by Bill Rogers
She saw Orla beginning to retreat back into her protective shell.
‘I wouldn’t dream of trying to tell you how to deal with this,’ Jo said. ‘But please believe me, you need to give yourself permission to grieve for the child you lost, and the way in which the rapist has changed how you look at life and at yourself.’
She retrieved her bag and stood up.
‘Thank you for agreeing to talk to me, Orla,’ she said. ‘And you’re right – we will get him.’
She held out her hand. The student stood up and grasped it. This time her grip was firmer.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I know it’s not what you came here for, but you have helped.’
Jo smiled.
‘I’m glad. And I hope you take the help that’s being offered to you. To do so is not a sign of weakness, Orla, it’s a sign of strength.’
Chapter 18
Jo returned to the Quays, to find the rest of the BSU team assembled in the meeting room. Harry Stone had spent the morning in Warrington at the NCA Regional headquarters, and then hotfooted it over to Salford. She was glad to see him. She would need his influence to stand any chance of obtaining more resources to ramp up the investigation.
‘Jo,’ he said, as she entered the room. ‘Good timing. Come and sit here.’
He relinquished his place and took an empty seat beside Andy.
‘You don’t have to move for me, Boss,’ she said, flustered at being the last to arrive.
‘I know,’ Harry replied, ‘but this is your investigation. It’s only right that you should chair the meeting.’
Jo placed her tablet on the table, then lined up a biro with the top of the pad of tear sheets in front of her. The top sheet was blank. Jo hoped that it meant they had only just started.
‘I’ve asked Dorsey to sit in on the meeting and record the main action points,’ said Stone. ‘It’ll make it easier for the rest of us to think. Especially you, Jo. It’s a bugger trying to chair and contribute both at the same time.’
Jo felt herself visibly relaxing.
‘Can you please read out the agenda we’ve just agreed, Dorsey?’ Stone said. ‘Then Jo can decide if there’s anything she wants to add.’
Dorsey Zephaniah slipped on a pair of tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. Jo had never seen them before, but they gave the administrator an air of gravitas that completely transformed her.
‘Item one,’ she read, ‘behavioural profile issues, Mr Swift. Item two, analyses of potential suspects, Mr Shah. Item three, responses to press appeal and issues arising from latest victim interviews, Senior Investigator Stuart. Item four, availability of Senior Investigator Nailor. And finally, agree next actions.’ She removed her glasses with a flourish.
‘Thank you,’ said Stone. ‘Obviously you can change that order as you see fit, Jo. Over to you.’
‘It looks fine to me as it stands. Except I’d like to leave my feedback to the end if that’s alright.’
This was greeted with nods around the table except for Max, who simply shrugged.
‘So,’ she said, ‘Andy, would you like to kick off?’
‘Unfortunately there’s not a lot to add at this stage,’ said the psychologist. ‘We have no information from any of his victims about his physical characteristics, his speech or his behaviour. I take it that’s still the case after your interview with victim number five, Jo?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘In which case, I’ll just be reiterating what we already know. So I’ll keep it short. Profile number one still stands. Our unsub is likely to be Caucasian or mixed race, well built, average to above average in height, above average intelligence. He’s comfortable in the company of women. He may, or may not, be single.’
He looked around the table. ‘That’s the part that I’m least comfortable with. There are examples of serial killers and rapists managing to juggle a stable relationship with planning and carrying out their attacks without their partner having a clue, but they’re the exception rather than the rule. On the other hand, he may not be working alone, in which case his partner may also be his partner in crime.’
He looked down at his notes to see where he was up to.
‘Employed or self-employed, although I’m tending towards the latter, narcissistic, misogynist, charming, and to all appearances completely normal, whatever that is.’
He tossed his notes down as though disgusted with the lack of progress he had made.
‘Of the four main categories of rapist – eighty-seven per cent commit date rape, thirteen per cent are stranger rapists, ten per cent are local opportunity rapists, and three per cent are hunter-predators – the unsub is a perfect example of the latter. The hunt is an essential and increasingly important aspect of the experience, and therefore of his modus operandi, as is the tattoo. But we’d already established that.’
He opened and closed his hands. A habit that Jo had come to recognise as an expression of his frustration.
‘In the absence of anything concrete from his victims and crime scenes, Jo, the best I can do is take a close look at any potential suspects, providing you come up with some.’
Jo thought he was being a little hard on himself, given that the triage team was already using his initial profile, sketchy as it was, to prioritise that list of suspects.
‘Thanks, Andy,’ she said. ‘That brings us neatly to Ram.’
The intelligence officer sipped some water from his plastic beaker, then cleared his throat. ‘There are two different sets of potential suspects,’ he said. ‘Those that were thrown up by the public appeal that Jo made, and those that I’ve been compiling based on the criteria she gave me.’
‘Those criteria,’ said Stone, ‘remind me.’
‘Males known to travel regularly between different North West Universities.’
‘Known by whom?’
‘By the universities themselves.’
‘That can’t have been easy to establish?’
‘It wasn’t,’ Ram agreed, ‘or should I say it isn’t, because it’s really slow-going. So far I’ve barely scratched the surface. Having said which, I’ve identified the following forty-seven names.’
He pressed the space bar on his laptop and turned to face the far end of the table, where the overhead projector had displayed a list of names on a white screen suspended from the ceiling. There were eight names on each page, with three columns stating the age, occupation and ethnicity according to the 16+1 self-defined codes used by the police.
Ram gave them time to read each page before moving on to the next one. When all eight pages had been displayed, there was a final summary sheet.
‘As you can see,’ he said, ‘of the forty-seven, twenty-eight are white, and nine are of mixed ethnic background. Those are the ones at which I’m going to take a closer look.’
‘How are you going to do that?’ asked Jo.
‘By running background checks and cross-referencing the information against Andy’s behavioural profile. Cross-referencing their visits to individual institutions with the location of the crime scenes we know about. Mapping their home addresses on the geolocation map I drew up.’
‘It sounds like you’re going to have your work cut out,’ said Stone.
‘I’m hoping the rest of you are going to help out,’ said Ram. ‘Dizzy has collated a set of the names for each of you.’
He nodded to Dizzy, who passed the sets around the table one at a time.
‘I’d like you to take a look at these,’ said Ram, ‘and see if anything jumps out at you. Obviously I’m not expecting miracles, but we all know that five minds are better than one.’
‘I’ve had a thought,’ said Jo. ‘Why don’t we ask all of them to volunteer a sample of their DNA?’
Max raised his eyebrows. ‘We’ve nothing to compare them with,’ he pointed out.
‘But they don’t know that,’ she said. ‘If any of them refuse, then Ram can put them under a microscope.’
This would have significa
nt cost implications. They all looked at Stone.
‘I’ll think about it,’ he said. ‘It’ll take some explaining, especially if you’re thinking of doing the same with names thrown up by the appeal.’
‘I’m not,’ said Jo. ‘I had a quick word with Inspector Sarsfield on my way here. The number of responses to the appeal has risen to seventy-five. Three of them involve recent historical allegations of rape. Only forty-two of them included a name. At first glance, none of them appear to have any connection with our unsub. They’re all being followed up, but I won’t propose DNA tests without a clear link to this investigation.’
Jo checked the agenda.
‘That covers items three and four, which brings us to your current status and availability, Max.’
Max had been lounging in his seat, his long legs stretched out under the table. He eased himself into a sitting position.
‘That won’t take long,’ he said. ‘The Manchester Force has become increasingly defensive about the number of males found drowned in the local canals and waterways over the past six years. It hasn’t helped that parallels have been drawn with the Iowa Smiley Face Murders theory. Apparently the fact that the National Crime Agency has been helping them to review some of the cases is felt to be stoking the claims that there’s a serial murderer at large. So I’ve been politely told to get lost.’
‘The official version,’ said Stone, ‘is that with the exception of a few cases where the coroner recorded an open verdict, none of the others have been identified as suspicious. Consequently, the much appreciated services of Mr Nailor are no longer required.’
‘I think I prefer Max’s version,’ quipped Ram.
‘So do I,’ said Stone, ‘but don’t quote me.’
Ram grinned. ‘Smiley Face Murders?’ he said. ‘Sounds intriguing.’
‘Forty-five young males of college age,’ said Andy. ‘Whose bodies were found in a variety of stretches of water across the Midwest back in the 1990s, after they’d been drinking in bars or at parties. All of them had drowned. A couple of former New York policemen came up with this serial killer theory based on smiley faces having been discovered in the general vicinity of some of the drownings.’
‘General vicinity?’ said Ram.
‘In some cases, over a mile away from where the body was found,’ said Max. ‘And they had no idea where most of the bodies had entered the water.’
‘Neither the police nor the FBI give any credence to the theory,’ said Andy. ‘As far as they’re concerned, it has been statistically proven that alcohol and water don’t mix.’
‘Can we get back to Operation Juniper?’ said Jo, who had never understood why it was that male colleagues felt it okay to go off at whatever tangents occurred to them. ‘As far as this investigation is concerned, there’s no doubt whatsoever that we’re dealing with a serial rapist.’
‘Sorry,’ said Ram. ‘My bad.’
‘So, Max,’ Jo continued, ‘does this mean that you’ll be able to concentrate on Juniper?’
Her fellow investigator looked at Stone, who nodded.
‘Looks like it,’ Max confirmed.
‘That’s great,’ said Jo, while secretly wondering how it was going to work, given that he was far more experienced than she. ‘So,’ she continued, ‘that just leaves me.’
She gave them a concise account of the conference session, and her subsequent interview with Orla Lonergan.
‘Just like all the others then,’ observed Max when she had finished. ‘Saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing, at least not until it was all over.’
‘That’s about the size of it,’ she agreed. ‘And the unsub was just as careful to cover his tracks with her as he was with all the others. In her case, not only had she been showered or bathed, but because she’d been lying in the rain, what little if any DNA there might have been was washed away.’
‘It’s pretty remarkable,’ said Max, ‘that there’s not been any trace evidence so far. Presumably he must have shaved himself, worn a condom, had a shower, worn barrier clothing after the event. Even then, there’s always something left behind.’
‘There was,’ said Ram. ‘It’s called a tattoo.’
Max glared at him. ‘You know what I meant. For example, how come they didn’t recover any footprints from the Bradford and Salford deposition sites?’
‘The farmer’s field was so wet that all they had was a series of ill-defined footprints full of muddy water and cow shit,’ Jo told him. ‘And whatever footprints he may have left on the metalled cycle path in Worsley Woods had been ridden over, trampled on, and washed away by the rain long before the crime scene investigators got there.’
There was moment of silence as they pondered the lack of evidence.
‘What I haven’t told you,’ said Jo, keen to move on, ‘is that I’ve asked Ram to run a background check on the reporter Anthony Ginley.’
‘On what grounds?’ asked Stone.
‘She doesn’t need grounds,’ said Ram, ‘he’s a reporter.’
That drew a smile from everyone except for Stone.
‘Because he’s made it his business to try to get close to the victims,’ said Jo. ‘Because he made it clear he’d like to get close to the investigation under the pretext of being helpful. Because as a self-employed freelance investigative reporter, he almost certainly knows his way around the university campuses. And finally, because there was something about his manner that I found disturbing.’
Max leaned forward. ‘Ram has got a point,’ he said. ‘It seems to me that you could say all of those things about most reporters.’
‘What was it about his manner?’ asked Andy.
Jo didn’t need to think about it.
‘He has a veneer of charm, but he made it clear that he’s prepared to fight dirty if he doesn’t get what he wants. He pretends to be concerned about the victims when in reality all he’s interested in is a good story. He’s supremely confident, and I hate the way in which he keeps turning up out of the blue. I don’t think that it was coincidence that he ended up standing right behind me at the conference. And finally, call it a woman’s intuition if you like, but I get the impression that at best he’s a chauvinist.’
‘Believing women to be inferior isn’t the same as hating them,’ said Stone.
‘True,’ Andy acknowledged. ‘But Jo did say “at best”. If he’s the unsub, he’s hardly going to let people see that he’s a misogynist.’
He removed his glasses, and sucked one of the tips. They waited for him to continue.
‘Then there was the question he asked the victim,’ he said. ‘That was really interesting. Not the obvious one you’d expect of a reporter. But it’s exactly the sort of question a serial killer might ask.’
‘Not the answer he’d be hoping to get though,’ said Ram.
Jo shook her head.
‘I’m not sure about that. What Orla Lonergan said, and how she looked close up, weren’t the same at all.’
‘I can understand the unsub turning up at the meeting, and hiding in the crowd,’ said her fellow investigator, ‘but why take the risk of deliberately standing out like that?’
‘Because,’ said Andy, ‘as Jo has already pointed out, he’s supremely confident. We know that’s a characteristic common among serial perpetrators.’
He unscrewed the top of his flask, and poured some water into his beaker.
‘We also know that this particular unsub enjoys taunting us. The tattoo is proof of that.’
‘Even so,’ said Max, drumming his fingers lightly on the table.
Stone looked at his watch. ‘I agree with you, Jo,’ he said. ‘I don’t think we have any option but to check him out.’
‘In which case,’ she said, ‘I hope you’ll feel the same about Sam Malacott.’
They all stopped what they were doing and stared at her. Even Dorsey Zephaniah, whose biro was suspended in mid-air. Jo imagined an embarrassing flush starting on her chest and heading north, which was daft becau
se they were only reacting to the fact that she had taken them by surprise.
‘It’s only just occurred to me,’ she said, ‘but Malacott visits most of the universities. We actually joked about that making him a suspect. He’s now been close to at least one of the victims. And he offered to share his expertise with us if I thought that would be helpful. Plus, he’s confident and charming. How does that make him any different from Ginley?’
‘At least he has some expertise to share,’ said Ram.
‘Do you have the same feelings about him as you do about the reporter?’ asked the psychologist.
Jo had to think about it.
‘I certainly didn’t have him down as a chauvinist,’ she said. ‘Far from it. Most of the charities he’s worked with are women’s charities. He didn’t make me feel at all uncomfortable. And when I told him we had plenty of expertise of our own, he seemed to take that well.’
‘You’re right though,’ said Stone, ‘you have to be consistent in applying the criteria that trigger further scrutiny. And it is only a background check that you’re proposing?’
‘Yes, Boss,’ she said. ‘If that throws up something, or either his or Ginley’s name arises in connection with other aspects of the case, such as vehicle sightings or witness descriptions, then obviously I’ll take it a stage further.’
She looked down at the agenda.
‘Next: Actions.’
Five minutes later, the meeting had broken up and they were back at their desks. All except for Harry Stone. Jo wanted a word with him but couldn’t find him anywhere.
‘Mr Stone has had to rush back to London,’ Dizzy told her. ‘Something personal apparently, not work.’
Ram overheard, waved Jo over, and lowered his voice. ‘Harry’s mum is widowed, in her late eighties,’ he confided. ‘She’s got all her marbles, and is determined to keep her independence. Unfortunately, she’s plagued with arthritis. Harry’s been trying to persuade her to move into a retirement home or a bungalow. She’s not for budging. Doesn’t realise the terrace she bought for under a thousand is worth close to a million.’
‘That must be hard,’ said Jo. ‘Especially with him commuting back and forth.’