‘Zoe calls his phone at 10.46 p.m. on Friday, twice. He doesn’t pick up. Remember his curfew starts at 9 p.m. so he should be at the hostel. She calls a third time. At 10.47 p.m. This time he does pick up and they talk for forty-five seconds. At 10.57 p.m. she calls him again and they speak for eighteen seconds.’
‘Hold on,’ said Henley. She fast-forwarded the footage. Kennedy re-entered the hostel at 8.02 p.m. ‘There, he’s leaving.’ Henley paused the video at 11.02 p.m. He was wearing a bomber jacket and walked quickly out of the hostel.
‘That’s the last call that she makes. He doesn’t call her back, but he does text her. 11.07 p.m. I’m coming. Stay where you are. I’m getting a cab. She replies back, OK. 11.19 p.m. She texts him again. How long are you going to be? He replies, About 15 mins. I’m coming, babe. He then texts her again at 11.19 p.m. Wait for me in the hospital. I’m coming x. There are no other calls or texts from her or to her after that. Ezra’s right. The phone is still active until Tuesday, but they all go to voicemail. Couple of 0345 and 0800 numbers; 0161 – that’s Manchester. Could be call centres.’
‘Zoe calls him because she’s in some kind of trouble. Something has scared her enough to make him break his bail conditions.’
‘But you found his tag under his bed?’
Henley speeded up the footage and waited. The clock in the corner of the screen went past midnight and then 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m. The doors to the hostel opened again at 3.06 a.m. ‘That’s not him,’ said Henley, pausing on the image of a man wearing a bomber jacket and T-shirt.
‘What do you mean? It’s the same clothing that he was wearing when he left.’
Henley tutted and shook her head. ‘Do you see the green emergency sign on the wall? On the earlier footage, when we first see Kennedy, his head reaches the top of the sign. When he was last arrested the custody record stated that he was six foot three. This guy—’
‘He’s at least three inches shorter.’
‘Exactly. He keeps his head down and he’s wearing a baseball cap. Kennedy wasn’t wearing a hat when he left.’ She stood up and walked over to the window. The sky had darkened, and rain struck the dirty window. A distant rumble of thunder, the first sign that the heatwave was beginning to break.
‘But why bother? Why would this person go through the hassle of putting Kennedy’s tag back in his room? Why not chuck it in a bin somewhere?’ asked Ramouter.
The sky flashed. Henley jumped. ‘I’m going down the road to see Linh. Chase up Forensics and see if we’re any closer to getting Churchyard identified.’
‘This guy…’ Ramouter tapped the screen with his pen. The image of a man wearing a baseball cap, frozen on the screen. ‘Do you think—’
‘Go back over the CCTV. See if anything picks him up leaving the bail hostel. This could be our killer.’ Henley paused, looking again at the frozen image. ‘How tall would you say Chance Blaine is?’
‘Not that much taller than me. About six feet, maybe five eleven.’
‘We need to find out where Blaine was on Friday night. Has he emailed us his diary yet?’
‘No, nothing yet.’
‘Chase him up. Tell him that he’s got two options. Send us his information or we’ll arrest him at his next viewing.’
Chapter 31
It came quickly. A wave of nausea, a pain under her right armpit, then pins and needles in her hand. Henley’s scalp prickled with sweat.
Inhale for three. Exhale for three.
She tried the breathing techniques her therapist had taught her, but her lungs were not co-operating. She hadn’t anticipated the panic would grip her like this. It had only been five days since the first body appeared.
‘Everything OK?’ Linh asked. Henley didn’t respond. ‘No. You’re not OK.’
Henley took a deep breath and tried to get rid of the nausea that was sweeping through her.
‘Come on. Let’s go outside.’
They walked up the stairs and Linh pushed open the fire exit door that led to what she mockingly called the roof garden. The thunderstorm had been brief. The air was still muggy.
Linh pulled out a tissue from her pocket and wiped the seat of one of the chairs.
‘Thanks,’ said Henley as she sat down and opened the bottle of water.
‘Feeling a bit better?’ Linh pulled out a vaporiser from her other pocket. She took a deep drag and exhaled a large cloud of raspberry-flavoured mist.
Henley leaned forward and put her hand under her chin. They were on the first floor, so the view was limited to the court car park next door.
‘I can’t believe that happened,’ Henley said. ‘It’s been so long since I’ve had—’ she stopped. She didn’t want to qualify what had just happened to her in Linh’s office by giving it a name. ‘It’s fine.’
‘But it’s not the first.’
Henley didn’t confirm the truth. Instead she said, ‘It’s fine. I’m fine. I’ve had a lot on and haven’t been eating properly, that’s all. I can’t survive on cups of tea and fast food.’
‘Coffee and cigarettes for me. Well, it used to be. God, I miss cigarettes,’ Linh said. ‘I know that it hasn’t been easy for you. You were off for so long.’
‘I wasn’t off, Linh, I was still working cases. I just wasn’t out here.’
‘Yeah, but it’s a bit different working a paper case than an actual blood-and-guts case, isn’t it? Anyone can—’
‘What have you got for me?’ Henley cut her off.
‘God, you can be a moody cow sometimes.’ Linh took another drag of her vaporiser before opening the folder that had been balancing on her lap.
‘I’m still waiting for the toxicology results for Churchyard. But the toxicology results for both Kennedy and Darego show the presence of Propofol, a general anaesthetic, and Atracurium besilate.’
‘Atracu… What is that?’ Henley asked. She sat up. That feeling in her chest, like a trapped bird in a cage, had subsided and the pins and needles in her right hand were now gone.
‘Atracurium besilate,’ Linh said slowly as though she were teaching spelling to a 5-year-old. Henley did not take offence. ‘It’s a muscle relaxant that they use during surgery. It works by blocking the pathways in the central nervous system and causes paralysis. Depending on the dosage, the effects could last for a minimum of four minutes or as long as an hour. I’ve forwarded the autopsy report for both of them to your secured email, but the injection site was here.’ Linh turned her head and tapped below her left ear. ‘Straight in the jugular vein. From the amounts that were found in their blood, I would guess that paralysis would have lasted thirty to forty minutes.’
‘Would it knock them out or only cause paralysis?’
‘Just paralysis. This isn’t like giving someone a roofie, which is really a sedative and takes about twenty minutes to kick in. This will get to work within three to five minutes of hitting your bloodstream and once it does paralysis is induced; blood pressure lowers and blood flow to the muscles decreases, but you’re still conscious.’
‘Olivier didn’t work like that.’
‘Not from what I remember. He cut their jugular and then cut them up. Your new guy appears to be injecting them with the AB before he cuts them up.’
‘What do you mean before he cuts them up? Is that how they all died?’
‘With the exception of Churchyard, your victims don’t have stab wounds. They either bled out once the femoral artery was cut or once they were decapitated. If you ask me this new one is a bit of a sadist. Darego had more Atracurium besilate in her system than Kennedy. I’m not telling you how to do your job, but I would say that—’
‘Our killer kept Zoe alive for longer.’
Henley walked over to the edge of the roof and looked down to the street. It was nearly rush hour. A police motorbike silently weaved between a queue of cars, its blue lights flashing. It suddenly dawned on her. The copycat was playing by his own rules, new rules. Not Olivier’s.
‘If blood flow is reduced,
then they’re not going to die straight away,’ she said. ‘He wants them to see him cutting off their limbs. He wants them to watch. He wanted Zoe to suffer.’
Henley picked at the prawn crackers as the credits rolled. Emma was asleep on her lap, yellow blanket clutched tightly in her small fist. She should have put Emma to bed but she needed to hold on to her, like a lifeboat.
‘Bottle’s empty.’ Rob eased himself up from the sofa. ‘I’ll grab another.’
Henley groaned as her mobile began to ring from the other side of the room. Rob handed it to her. It was Anthony.
‘Anj, sorry to call you at home. But you know that I wouldn’t bother you if it wasn’t important.’
‘I know. What is it?’
Anthony sighed. He sounded tired. ‘We’ve identified Churchyard.’
‘You have?’
‘Yeah. We had to use dental records which is why it’s taken so long.’
‘Who is he?’
‘His name is Sean Thomas Delaney. Date of birth, 16 May 1978. He was reported missing by his mum on Monday. I’ll email over what we’ve got to you. I have to run. There’s been another stabbing; down in Kennington this time. Another kid.’
‘How old?’
‘Thirteen,’ Anthony said with reluctant acceptance.
Henley opened the report. There was a photo attached. She didn’t notice that Rob had come back into the room.
‘Who’s that?’ Rob asked.
‘That is Sean Delaney.’
‘Hmm. Good-looking man.’ Rob refilled Henley’s wine glass. ‘I take it that he’s something to do with work.’
‘Yes. It’s work.’
‘Come on. Leave it. Let me take Ems up to bed. We’re supposed to be having a boring Friday night in, remember?’
‘You’re right.’ Henley put the phone down and watched Rob gently pick their daughter up. She reached for her glass of wine and tried to focus on the TV, but she couldn’t follow what was happening. Something niggled away at her. The thought that Sean Delaney looked familiar. That she had met him before.
Chapter 32
‘You’re joking, aren’t you? It’s Saturday.’
Rob stood in the bathroom doorway as Henley knelt by the side of the bath, holding on to Emma, who was pretending to swim.
‘It’s only for a couple of hours,’ said Henley.
‘You shouldn’t be going in at all. We have plans.’
‘It’s a children’s party. Simon will understand.’
‘You’re just looking for an excuse to get out of it.’
‘I’m not. It’s my nephew’s birthday. I promise that I will be back in time. I’m not going to miss it.’
‘That’s not the point and you know it. You’re letting this case take over. Exactly like the last one.’
‘I can’t just leave my team to get on with it. I thought that you understood that.’
‘I do understand, but this is shit.’
‘Don’t swear in front of Ems. Pass me her towel.’
Rob moved sullenly from the doorway and handed Henley the pink towel from the rail.
‘Is Stephen going to be there?’
Henley didn’t answer as she lifted Emma out from the bath and wrapped the towel around her.
‘Well, is he?’
‘Stop trying to make this into something that it isn’t,’ Henley replied. ‘Of course he’s going to be there. It’s work. Believe me, no one wants to be at the SCU on a Saturday.’
Henley focused on drying Emma. She wasn’t going to rise to it.
‘Come on, baby,’ she said to Emma. ‘Let’s get you dressed. Mummy has to go to work.’
Rob sighed heavily as he realised that he was fighting a losing battle. ‘Just make sure that you’re back by one,’ Rob said as Henley picked up Emma and walked down the hallway towards their bedroom.
‘The desecration of the body is clearly overkill,’ said Dr Mark Ryan.
‘I thought that chopping up a body into pieces was overkill,’ said Stanford.
Despite the fact that no one in the SCU had been paid for overtime since April the team was all there. Mark looked directly at Stanford, who was sitting on his desk in the incident room, sharing a tube of salt-and-vinegar Pringles with Eastwood. There was no love between Mark and Stanford. Stanford was of the opinion that criminal profilers were overpaid for pointing out the obvious. Mark, who objected to the title profiler and maintained that he was a forensic psychologist, had made it clear that he thought Stanford was arrogant, untrustworthy and insecure.
‘Stanford, behave.’ Henley poured a brown sugar packet into her tea and took a bite of her McDonald’s hash brown. Her diet really had gone to shit.
‘The dismembering of the body wasn’t overkill,’ Mark said sternly. ‘This all about cruelty. People like Olivier have suppressed their pain and rage for years. Their pain usually stems from a trauma in their past.’
‘But what triggered him? You don’t suddenly wake up one morning feeling a bit mardy and decide to go on a killing spree, and why not stop at killing them?’ asked Ramouter. He leaned forward, clearly intrigued. This was what Henley liked about Mark, what made him so good with juries when he was appearing as an expert witness.
‘Because dismemberment is a release. The killing isn’t enough. Olivier is a psychopath. For him, cutting up the bodies and displaying them in public was a reflection of his disrespect, grandiosity and narcissism. He took pride in his work, which is the only emotion that he would feel.’
‘You don’t need a bloody degree to work that out,’ Stanford muttered under his breath.
Henley screwed up the greasy McDonald’s bag and threw it at Stanford’s head. ‘Stop,’ she said. Stanford mouthed sorry and bent down to pick up the screwed-up bag.
‘Our copycat, on the other hand, is different.’ Mark began to pace the room like a college lecturer. As much as he openly expressed his dislike for the Hollywood myth of the criminal profiler, he did enjoy the audience.
‘For copycat killers, it’s all about attention. This person probably has the same psychological issues as Olivier. A loner. Childhood trauma. Psychopathic traits, but the difference is that there is also an inferiority complex. Our copycat isn’t interested in the cat-and-mouse game of you catching him. He wants recognition and even approval from Olivier.’
Stanford snorted as Dr Ryan stopped at his desk, looked straight at him and smirked.
‘The copycat’s ego will always come into play. They will try, in some small way, to make the crime their own.’
‘That would explain the use of the muscle relaxant and the missing parts,’ said Henley.
‘Exactly. There are two types of serial killers. Those who are act-focused and those who are process-focused,’ said Dr Ryan.
‘What’s the difference?’ asked Henley.
‘Olivier is act focused. He kills quickly because it’s all about expressing his rage, but your copycat is process-focused. Incapacitating them so that they can see their limbs being removed, watching them die and then further mutilating their bodies. He kills slowly because he gains enjoyment from the torture. Olivier’s main motivation was revenge. Your copycat is killing because he likes it.’
Dr Ryan stopped walking and the room grew silent. Henley pushed aside her half-eaten bacon and egg McMuffin. She had lost her appetite.
‘I’ve given up Arsenal at home for this,’ said Stanford. ‘Tell us something that we don’t know.’
‘Who should we be looking for?’ Henley jumped in. ‘Is it just an obsessed fan or someone actually connected to Olivier?’
‘If it was just an obsessed fan, I would have expected the selections of the victims to be random, but that’s not the case here,’ said Mark. ‘There are four reasons why people kill. Love, lust, money or pure hate. I suspect that it’s the latter for your copycat. Kennedy and Darego were in a relationship and I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t some connection between them and Delaney. Your copycat hates your victims for something they
did to him collectively.’
‘What do we know about Delaney?’ asked Eastwood.
‘Not much,’ said Ramouter. ‘Other than that he’s forty-one years old, worked as a support worker for the Leopold Drug and Alcohol Centre in Catford. He’s married to Jamie Hawkins-Delaney. I went around to see him first thing, but he was in no state to talk to me. I’m going to try again this evening.’
‘But our copycat knows about the symbols,’ said Eastwood. ‘I’ve been through the court transcripts for Olivier’s trial. They confirmed that the only people present were the judge, jurors, court clerk, usher, the prosecutor and his junior defence barrister and the two officers who were sat in the dock with Olivier.’
‘And at no point was that information in the press?’ asked Mark.
‘Never. We’ve spoken to the twelve jurors and they’re all adamant that they didn’t discuss the case with anyone.’
‘So, our copycat has to be someone who is connected to Olivier?’ asked Henley.
‘Friends. Family,’ suggested Ramouter.
Mark shook his head. ‘Olivier was a loner, but that’s not to say that people wouldn’t want to be his friends. People write to prisoners all the time. He may be a psychopath but he’s personable.’
‘It makes Blaine look like a stronger candidate,’ said Ramouter. ‘He was part of Olivier’s legal team; he’s still visiting him and he has no alibi for Friday night. Even though when I asked him, he said that he was with his girlfriend.’
‘OK, if our copycat is connected to Olivier, why is he moving so quickly?’ asked Eastwood.
It was the question that had been troubling Henley the most.
‘He’s killed three people in a week,’ Eastwood continued. ‘Olivier killed seven people over eight weeks.’
‘I’ll admit,’ said Mark, ‘it’s a concern, but as I said, it’s not about you. Your copycat wants to impress. The one thing that may work in your favour is that he’s more likely to slip up. It’s probable that he’s killed previously, that there were others before Kennedy and Darego, but a lag between victims is not unusual. I don’t know if you remember the case of Futoshi Kobayashi in Japan, about five years ago. He killed nine women in three weeks. It’s quite fascinating—’
The Jigsaw Man Page 14