by Bill Rogers
‘I know that too. But I’m the one who’s supposed to stop him.’
‘We,’ he said, ‘not just you. There’s the team, the Agency, three different police forces.’
‘That’s not how the press and the public are going to see it,’ she murmured.
‘Sod them!’ he said. ‘What do they know?’
She laughed hesitantly. He seemed to have an unerring knack for knowing how to cheer her up. It was just a shame he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, apply it to himself.
‘What do you want me to do?’ he said. ‘Tomorrow morning?’
‘If it’s okay with you, I’d like you to attend the post-mortem, only it’s Professor Flatman and I’m not sure I can take him right now.’
He laughed.
‘Fingers Flatman? Leave him to me. We have history.’
‘Thank God for that,’ she said. ‘You’ve no idea how much of a relief it is. And Max, there’s something I haven’t told you.’
‘Go on?’
‘The mortuary technician says they have substantial seminal fluid on her clothing.’
‘DNA!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s bloody amazing. It’s what you’ve been hoping for.’
‘Not if she’d already had sex with someone else before he took her.’
‘Playing devil’s advocate doesn’t suit you, Jo,’ he said. ‘You should leave that to me. Mind you, when you said he’d been careless, I didn’t realise it extended to spraying his DNA around.’
‘I know,’ she replied. ‘It doesn’t make sense. He’s been so careful up until now.’
‘They all make mistakes sooner or later,’ he reminded her.
‘Only those we catch,’ she said. ‘Only the ones we catch.’
Chapter 33
Jo managed to contact the coroner about the trace evidence exhibits. He was surprisingly helpful, considering that he was in the middle of a family roast dinner. She had barely replaced the phone on its charger when she took an incoming call. It was Harry Stone. He listened patiently while she brought him up to date.
‘The pressure is going to pile on now that one of them has died,’ he said. ‘I’ll get the NCA Public Relations team to give you a ring. They’ll want to be ready with a statement for the media, particularly since you were spotted at the scene.’
‘I’m sorry, Boss,’ she said.
‘Harry,’ he reminded her. ‘There’s nothing to apologise for. I’ll get them to run your draft statement by me. There’s no reason you should have to handle all the flak.’
‘Thanks, Harry.’
‘And I’ll come up to Manchester in the morning on the milk train.’
‘The milk train?’
‘Old habits die hard,’ he said. ‘Just like old cops.’
No sooner had she ended the call than her phone rang again. It was Gerry Sarsfield.
‘The news from the search team is not good, I’m afraid. It didn’t help that it started raining shortly after you left and before they got started. It’s proved impossible to definitively identify the spot where Susanne Hadrix was dumped. There are plenty of indications on the tracks leading down to the reservoir of vehicles from cars and vans to cycles, and off-road bikes, but most of those have been obscured by farm tractors and the vans used by the water company. There are so many, it’ll take weeks to work through them all.’
‘She didn’t drop anything? Leave anything behind?’
‘Not that we know of. There’s tons of people’s detritus though. Fag packets, tissues, food wrappers, crisp packets, discarded fishing line, and dog shit in and out of plastic bags. It’s a pity the unsub didn’t bring a dog. We could have identified it from its DNA.’
‘We don’t know that he didn’t.’
‘Don’t say that. Whoever is going to have to sort through that lot will love you.’
‘What about the speed camera on the A58?’ she asked.
‘Being checked as I speak. I wouldn’t hold your breath though. He’s too clever to have triggered the camera, even if he did go in that way, which I doubt.’
‘Do we know where she was last night?’ she said.
‘Pretty much. She went out with five mates. Three girls from the college and two of her other friends. They all knew each other. Four of them have already been interviewed, and we’ve corroborated accounts of where they went. They never left the town centre.’
He paused and she could hear him on his computer. When he started again, she could tell that he was reading it out.
‘They kicked off with a meal at Planet Pizza, moved on to Smackwater Jacks for a couple of hours. Then they visited a pub, a wine bar and a club, before heading home around two forty-five am. Two of them went to a taxi rank. Two left early to catch the Manchester Witch Way X43 at twenty-one fifty-four. Susanne Hadrix and her best friend walked home together. They live half a mile from the town centre.’
He corrected himself.
‘Lived half a mile away. Three streets apart among the terraces near Turf Moor.’
‘The football ground?’
‘That’s right.’
‘The friend lives closer to the town centre?’
‘Correct.’
‘So we know, to within two rows of houses, where he must have abducted her?’
‘Correct. Unless she took a detour?’
‘Unlikely.’
‘I agree.’
‘Cameras?’ she said, more in hope than expectation.
‘Don’t know yet. I’ve got people looking now.’
‘Door to door?’
‘We’re on it. Nothing yet. That time of the morning, there won’t have been many people about.’
‘Someone might have heard something. Looked out of their window.’
‘Hopefully.’
He didn’t sound hopeful.
‘If it turns out she was drugged,’ Jo said, ‘how did he know to pick her? How did he know that she and her friend would be the only ones walking home, and that she’d cover the final stretch on her own?’
‘I was wondering the same thing,’ he replied.
Something about his intonation struck her.
‘Was?’ she said.
‘Until I was told that one of the other girls, one that was in the taxi, was also drugged. With GHB.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because she was that bad when she got home that she fell down the stairs and woke up the entire house. She was vomiting and had muscle spasms. Her parents called an ambulance. They checked her bloods. She had close to four thousand milligrams still in her system. That’s two hundred times more gamma-hydroxybutyric acid than occurs naturally in a bottle of red wine. Enough to kill her.’
‘How is she?
‘She’s fine but sedated. That’s why we haven’t been able to question her.’
‘So he didn’t know which of them he’d be able to isolate,’ she said. ‘He tried to cut down the odds by drugging more than one.’
‘Looks like it.’
‘In which case, it became a game of chance. Just like the fact that he leaves them close to roads or water. He’s planning everything except which girl it will be, if any, and the final outcome.’
‘He wouldn’t be the first serial killer or serial rapist to go down that route,’ said Sarsfield.
That was true, but it was also the case that most serial killers also had a vision of the perfect victim in mind. Up until now that seemed to have been the case as far as this unsub was concerned.
‘CCTV footage from all the places they visited?’ she said.
‘On to it. And I’ve arranged for all of the bar staff to be interviewed, along with any punters who turn up tonight who were also there last night.’
‘There’s not a lot more we can do,’ Jo said.
‘I agree,’ he replied. ‘We’ll just have to hope that something turns up.’
‘It already has,’ she reminded him. ‘It’s called DNA.’
Chapter 34
That evening, Jo had her best night’s sl
eep for over two weeks. She awoke at 6am and was on the Quays by seven. A quick check with DI Sarsfield at eight o’clock confirmed that nothing useful had come up so far on the Susanne Hadrix abduction and RTA. At ten to nine, Harry Stone arrived.
He hung up his jacket and balefully regarded the globules of water dripping on to the floor.
‘Bloody global warming,’ he moaned. ‘It hasn’t stopped raining up here since October.’
‘Morning, Boss,’ she said, ‘I wasn’t expecting you this early.’
He grimaced. ‘The six sixteen am from Euston. I was up at five, but at least I had breakfast on the train.’
She scooted her chair back and stood up.
‘You won’t want a cup of tea then?’
He grinned. ‘Make it a bloody great mug and two sugars. I don’t suppose you’ve got any whisky?’
While she was making them both a drink, Andy arrived. The three of them went through to the small meeting room.
Stone blew across the surface of his tea. ‘So, he’s gone for a college student this time. Not one from the universities?’
‘The universities broke up last week,’ Jo said. ‘He had a choice of waiting until they came back after Christmas, or targeting random groups of females in the same age range. I think he went for the latter.’
‘So you believe the fact that she was a student was incidental?’
She shrugged.
‘I’m only surmising. But if I’m right, it means that he’s losing his patience. He’s no longer prepared to wait for the perfect target.’
Andy nodded.
‘It’s a typical escalation pattern,’ he said, ‘whether we’re speaking of serial rapists or serial murderers.’
‘How do you think he’s likely to react to the fact that his latest victim has died?’ Stone asked. ‘Albeit that from his point of view it was unintended. Could he panic? Might he become more violent?’
Andy pursed his lips. ‘There’s no reliable evidence from research on which to base predictions. However, in this case I’d place him somewhere along the power-reassurance power-assertive continuum. The only things these two types share in common are their disdain for women, whom they regard as mere playthings, and their urge to dominate. The former uses minimum force, in this case drugs, and does not intend to harm beyond the effects of the abduction and the rape itself, both of which he’s able to minimise in his own mind. However, his ego is likely to be fragile, and if thwarted he could erupt into unpredictable violence. The latter is more confident, macho and consistently violent.’
Jo was uncomfortable with the assumption that abduction and rape didn’t really classify as violence. She understood that it was relative in the minds of the researchers, but it certainly wasn’t for the victims themselves. Nor had it been for her when she was abducted and almost killed.
‘Our unsub seems closer to the power-reassurance rapist,’ she said.
‘I agree,’ said Andy. ‘In which case, if the drugs were to wear off and his victims’ behaviour spooked him, it’s impossible to rule out him killing them. Equally, if he feels that he needs to kill to evade discovery, he may well do so.’
‘Is there any good news in all of this?’ asked Stone.
The psychologist nodded. ‘There is one thing. Statistically, serial rapists average seven victims before they’re arrested. Susanne Hadrix was his seventh.’
Stone raised his mug.
‘Here’s hoping he’s Mister Average,’ he said.
Jo shook her head.
‘He’s anything but that.’
There was a knock on the door.
‘Come!’ said Stone.
The door opened. It was Dorsey Zephaniah.
‘There’s a call for SI Stuart,’ she said. ‘It’s SI Nailor. He says it’s important.’
‘Go take it, Jo,’ Stone told her.
‘We have a match!’ said Max.
‘That was quick.’
‘Flatman was in a good mood. He was too busy charming DS Hatton to argue with me. He agreed to harvest the samples first, and let one of the registrars run a specimen through the state-of-the-art machine they use to help put a name to unidentified and unidentifiable corpses.’
He enthused like a little boy with a brand-new chemistry set. ‘You should see it, Jo. It’s the size of a small photocopier and . . .’
‘Max – just give me the name,’ she said.
‘Jason Dalmeny,’ he told her. ‘Forty years of age. One previous, for affray. I’ve emailed you the details.’
‘This hasn’t compromised the evidence in any way?’ she asked.
‘Absolutely not. All done under the supervision of DS Hatton’s exhibits officer. Besides, the bulk of that particular sample has been bagged and recorded for separate analysis.’
‘Max Nailor, you’re a star,’ she said.
‘Took you a while to recognise it,’ he said with a smile in his voice, ‘but you got there in the end.’
They huddled around the computer screen as Ram scrolled through the details he had garnered from various sources.
Jason Dalmeny, Jo read. Forty years of age. Address from the electoral register shown as 27 Ashington Road, Morpeth. Self-employed painter and decorator. Married, with two children. His conviction for affray was back in 2010. He was sentenced to one hundred hours of community service.
‘It was a fight in Newcastle city centre, following a Sunderland and Newcastle derby match,’ Ram told them. ‘Reason he got off lightly is that he claimed he and his pals were set upon by a mob of away fans. He had neither provoked the attack, nor willingly engaged with his attackers. CCTV supported his claim. However, it also showed him felling two Sunderland supporters. Hence the reason he got to redecorate a few council properties free, gratis, and for nothing.’
‘Morpeth,’ said Jo. ‘That’s what, a hundred and eighty miles?’
‘One hundred and sixty-three,’ Ram told her. ‘Three hours fifteen minutes by road using the A19.’
Jo shook her head.
‘That’s way outside the locus you constructed for our unsub. He’d have to travel twice that distance to plan his attacks, and the same again to execute them.’
‘It also means he must be away from home for a minimum of twelve hours each time,’ Andy pointed out. ‘A regular pattern like that is going to be hard to explain to his wife.’
‘Unless he tells her he has a contract on the other side of the Pennines,’ said Stone. ‘Maybe he does have one. One that involves the universities.’
‘Would you like to see a photo of him?’ said Ram.
It was such a no-brainer that he had already pulled one up.
‘This is his passport photo,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t do him justice.’
The man stared back at them with a bald head, alert brown eyes, a neatly trimmed ginger moustache and matching beard.
‘How do you know it doesn’t do him justice?’ asked Stone.
Ram replied by bringing up Dalmeny’s Facebook page.
‘You’re right,’ said Jo as Ram scrolled through images of him clowning around with two young girls and a border terrier, bouncing on a trampoline in a garden, sharing a pint with friends. As far as she could judge, he was around five foot eight, twelve stone, with the beginnings of a paunch.
‘Where’s the wife?’ asked Andy.
Ram continued to scroll through random videos shared by friends, photos of friends, the odd party or two, and scores of images related to Newcastle United, with accompanying banter in the comments below each image. It was not until he reached a video of Dalmeny taking the Ice Bucket Challenge for charity that a woman variously described as ‘Mags’, ‘Maureen’, and ‘The Wife’ appeared.
‘That’s over two years ago,’ said Jo. ‘Either they split up shortly after that or she died, and there’s no indication of that on there.’
Stone turned to Andy. ‘What do you make of him?’ he asked. ‘Could he have done it?’
‘If it was as simple as studying a suspect’
s social media pages, it would make my life a lot easier,’ he replied. ‘The truth is these people are like chameleons. Their ability to change persona and even their appearance explains why they’re so difficult to catch. If you were to push me . . .’
‘I am pushing you,’ said Stone.
‘Then I’d say that certain of the behaviours he exhibits on there would be consistent with our perpetrator. He appears charming, sociable and gregarious. The videos he chooses to share, his own posts, and the comments he makes on other people’s posts, indicate a judgemental frame of mind, and at times quite a cold and cynical bent that doesn’t square with some of the photos of himself with his children and friends. However, that could be said of a number of people I know who wouldn’t dream of hurting a fly.’
‘And how many of those would end up with their seminal fluid being found on the body of a girl who’s been drugged, abducted and raped?’ Jo asked.
Andy nodded.
‘Point taken,’ he said.
Chapter 35
It was ten to seven in the evening when they pulled up outside the three-bed semi. The arrest team consisted of Jo and Max. They had brought their own search team. A family liaison officer provided by Northumbria Police and a social worker had joined the convoy at a rendezvous half a mile away.
On the drive stood a silver Fiat Scudo van with twin sliding doors. There was a light on in one of the upstairs windows. A large Christmas tree lit up the downstairs front room.
‘How do you want to do this?’ asked Max. ‘He might be putting the kids to bed.’
‘On Facebook they looked a bit too old to be going to bed just yet,’ Jo replied. ‘Another hour at least I’d have thought.’
‘In which case, just you and me to start with?’ he suggested.
‘I agree,’ she said. ‘No need to scare them. We can call up the others when I’ve explained what’s going on.’
‘Let’s do it,’ he said.
They exited the car. Jo walked over to the other three vehicles in turn and updated the occupants. Then she and Max approached the front door. A dog began to bark. She rang the bell and a man’s voice shouted from inside the house.