Jack's Back

by Mark Romain

  “Thank you,” Tyler said. “I want to start by reiterating what the boss has already said and add my own thanks for all your hard work to date. We’re dealing with a serial killer who appears to be driven by a pathological hatred of women. We don’t know what has made him like this, or why he has chosen now to start his killing spree. He strikes randomly, but at least his attacks are confined to one division. This is great news if you live in Walthamstow or East Ham but pretty shitty if you happen to live or work in Whitechapel. Results are finally starting to come in. We’re going to talk through what we know about each victim and look at the forensic, CCTV and witness evidence relating to each one. I would normally ask Chris to take the lead on this as OM, but he’s been rushed off his feet for the past few days carrying out some High Priority actions for me, so his deputy, Tim, is going to walk us through the investigation and I’ll do my usual and interrupt as we go along. Over to you, Tim.”

  Tim Barton stood up and took centre stage. He flipped through his briefing notes, aware that everyone was waiting for him to start. Clearing his throat, he began.

  “Okay. Victim number one: Tracey Phillips, a twenty-two-year-old white female, unmarried, with no permanent love interest unless you count her pimp, Claude Winston…”

  “Evil slag,” Dillon growled under his breath.

  “…who is currently recovering in hospital from injuries he received after his face accidentally collided with a platform floor…several times…while he was resisting arrest.”

  This revelation brought laughter, a few cheers, and smiles all around. Dillon sat there quietly, the picture of innocence. Holland raised a finger to his lips and the room quickly quietened down.

  “Unfortunately, while he’s looking at some very serious jail time, we now know he’s not responsible for Tracey’s death.” Barton turned the page before continuing.

  “She leaves behind a five-year-old child and an elderly mother. Tracey was a South London girl, a prostitute, who worked around Commercial Street and lived in a nearby squat. The last confirmed sighting we have of her is at about 01:25 hours in Quaker Street on Sunday 31st October, and that was by her best friend, Sandra Dawson, a fellow prostitute. Dawson popped off to use the loo shortly after, and when she came back approximately fifteen minutes later, Tracey had gone. Her mutilated body was found the following morning at a nearby building site by the watchman. As there are no witnesses, we don’t know if she went there of her own volition or was abducted. In the past week, we’ve conducted door to door enquiries with every shop, pub, business and residential premises in the vicinity of her last sighting and the body deposition site. We’ve done this for all three victims, and nothing useful has come out of any of it. Over the weekend, with the help of the charity workers Steve Bull rustled up from the Sutton Mission, we’ve interviewed every sex worker we could find – forty-two in total. If they can be believed, none of them has a Scooby about what happened to any of our victims. We’ve had PCSOs handing out witness appeal leaflets to the public all week.” He held one up for them to see. “They contain the usual message. You know, requesting information or sightings from anyone who was in the area on the night in question, and naturally, they promise complete confidentiality for anyone coming forward.” He contemptuously screwed the A5 sized leaflet up into a ball and threw it into a wastebasket. “So far, we’ve drawn a complete blank,” he told them with a bittersweet smile. His tone implied the exercise had been a complete waste of time and money.

  “But it’s still early days yet. Someone could be wrestling with their conscience, trying to pluck up the nerve to contact us with information that could lead to a vital breakthrough,” DC Richard Jarvis piped up from the back of the room. Jarvis, fresh-faced and fair-haired, was the youngest member of Jack’s team. He was also the newest. A Cambridge University graduate who only joined the Job four years ago, he spoke with a frightfully posh accent, which sometimes made him the butt of jokes for some of the old sweats. Jarvis took the jibes in his stride, retorting that if he had a pound for every time one of the old farts told him they might not have attended Cambridge but they were graduates of the ‘University of Life’, he would be a rich man.

  “That university education your parents paid for was wasted on you, wasn’t it?” Murray said, eyeing Jarvis with scorn.

  Copeland snorted. “Sounds like something straight out of the detective training manual.”

  “Okay, so we have no witnesses,” Jack said, killing the banter before it could start. “We’ve discussed applying for a reward to be sanctioned, and if we are no further forward by the end of the week DCS Holland will speak to the AC about making it happen. Kelly, what about CCTV?” Kelly had spent the entire weekend assisting Paul Evans, the enquiry’s dedicated CCTV officer, to view the footage. She had sat staring at a screen for so many hours that she was surprised her eyes hadn’t turned square.

  Kelly stood up hesitantly and walked over to the TV-video combination. “Could somebody flick the light switch for me, please,” she asked, switching the TV combo on.

  “I’d like to do more than flick the lights for you, sweetheart,” Murray leered, Les Dawson style, and was rewarded with a slap across the back of the head from Steve Bull.

  Kelly smiled at his chivalry. “Thank you, Steve.”

  “Thank you, Steve,” Murray mimicked, and he had to duck quickly to avoid a second blow. Once the lights were out, she played the tape. It was in black and white and the quality was dubious. The picture flickered briefly and then settled. Flowers gave a commentary to augment the picture.

  “Right, I’ve reviewed the bulk of the footage relating to Tracey and Alice. Paul has been looking at everything relating to Geraldine. Unfortunately, the spot in Quaker Street where Tracey and her mates were plying for trade isn’t covered by CCTV, but there’s a local authority camera further along Commercial Road that provides coverage of the junction, so we can see vehicles turning into or pulling out of Quaker Street. There is also a private wall-mounted CCTV system further along Quaker Street, about a hundred yards past the used car lot, so we’ve effectively got footage of the only two routes she could have taken to get in and out of Quaker Street. We have identified Winston’s BMW turning into Quaker Street at 01:23 hours, and we now know that was how Tracey arrived. Furthermore, we can safely say that Tracey didn’t leave the area on foot, which means she must have gotten into a vehicle, either of her own accord or under duress. The viewing parameters the DI set for the first murder required us to search for any vehicles that appeared to be engaging in kerb-crawling. These were allocated High Priority Trace-Identify-Eliminate actions, and I know that quite a few of you were kept very busy visiting the registered keepers of all these cars over the weekend.”

  “I had a very awkward conversation with one man who vehemently denied being anywhere near the area,” Jarvis said. “At least he did until his wife popped out to make us tea. Then he was practically down on his knees begging me not to say anything in front of her. It was a bit sad really.”

  Murray looked at him as though he were retarded. “You really are in the wrong job, you know that, right?”

  “I know all these seemingly pointless TIE actions have been a royal pain in the arse for some of you,” Dillon said, “but they were important, and they have helped us to eliminate about ninety percent of people who appeared on the CCTV. Kelly, tell these good people – and DC Murray – what we are left with.”

  “As Mr Dillon says, after sorting the wheat from the chaff, we now have a shortlist of five vehicles of interest. They all turn up at Quaker Street several times during the relevant period. Four of these vehicles are cars.” She played a brief section of footage showing four different cars. The date and time stamp on the screen changed along with each of the vehicles. Kelly pressed the pause button as a battered Leyland Sherpa van appeared centre screen. The frozen picture wasn’t good enough to make out the driver’s face and the registration plate was covered with dirt. The only noticeable feature was that one
of the headlights was badly out of alignment. “I want to draw your attention to this van. It’s the fifth vehicle on our shortlist and I think it’s the most likely vehicle for our killer to be using. Why? Because a van like that can be parked inconspicuously almost anywhere, with someone in the back watching his targets through blacked out windows. We do it all the time. It’s quick, simple and can be moved around to suit your needs. It’s also the perfect way to transport a messy victim from ‘A’ to ‘B’ without drawing attention. That’s all the CCTV relating to Tracey, but I’ll talk more about this van a bit later.”

  “Right,” Jack said as Kelly sat down, “talk us through the forensics next, if you would, Tim. George, feel free to join in.”

  Tim Barton had sat down to watch the CCTV, but now he stood up again. “I’ve got Sam Calvin’s crime scene report here. It won’t come as a surprise to any of you to hear that the killer didn’t leave us any fingerprints, shoeprints or DNA at the scene. That would have made our lives far too easy. We didn’t recover any foreign trace fibres from her clothing either.” He allowed himself an ironic smile. “And, as you all know, the DNA hit we got from the flesh beneath her nails turned out to be a red herring.”

  Tim picked up a document with the FSS logo on and started flicking through it. “Blood pattern analysis is interesting. The experts have given us their interpretation of her final moments based on the shape, pattern, and radius of her blood fall. Due to the high arterial spatter pattern they found, they reckon that our man slit her throat from behind, while she was still standing up and had blood pressure, and stood back as she thrashed around like a fish out of water. The blood pattern peaks and dips in line with the heartbeat and spirals down dramatically as she collapses to the floor. They think she was bound when the cut was inflicted, which would account for her severely restricted range of movement.” Barton grimaced as he imagined the killer standing back, just out of range of the blood spray, watching dispassionately as she bled to death. “The autopsy supports our theory that her arms were tied behind her,” he added.

  “Handcuffed, you mean,” George Copeland corrected.

  “Yes, that’s right. Thank you, George,” Barton said, flicking through his papers to find the pathologist’s report. “George, you were at the SPM. It’s probably best if you talk us through that.”

  “Two different types of knife were used,” Copeland said, quoting from memory, “one being a twelve or thirteen-inch serrated hunting knife, which was rammed up her muff – we worked out the blade length from the extent of the damage inflicted. The throat was cut from behind, right to left, indicating that the killer is left-handed. The pathologist reckons the abdominal cuts were surgical in nature, and a scalpel was probably used. Parts of her intestines are missing – they were never recovered at the scene. The obvious conclusion, as distasteful as it is, is that chummy removed them and took them with him.”

  “Perhaps the sick fucker is a cannibal,” Charlie White suggested. Why else would anyone take human flesh with them after a kill?

  “That’s an astute observation, Charlie. We’ll come back to that point a little later,” Tyler said, not wanting to be pulled off topic or jump ahead of the script. “Any sign of infectious disease or STDs?” he asked.

  Tim shook his head. “Nope, according to the pathologist’s report and the preliminary toxicology results, there were no signs of HIV, Hepatitis, or any historical or current Sexually Transmitted Disease.”

  “Can you confirm there was no trace of recent sex?” Jack asked.

  “I can. Firstly, we know she was banged up in a south London nick for eighteen-hours over the weekend for kiting stolen checks. When she was released, she went straight home and called her pimp, who collected her and drove her to Quaker Street. Sandra Dawson confirms she didn’t go off with anyone before she disappeared. Secondly, there was definitely no seamen or traces of spermicide inside her.”

  Traces of semen had been found in the vaginal wall of rape victims up to fourteen days after intercourse, despite the fact that the traumatised women had rinsed themselves raw. It could still be found in the mouth up to thirty-six hours after ejaculation, and no amount of teeth cleaning or gargling could completely obliterate it. A complete absence of any foreign DNA in a career prostitute like Tracey indicated that she practiced safe sex – unusual for a declining junkie. But there were still ways to get a perpetrator’s DNA off of a victim, even after protected sex.

  “Was she combed, swabbed and taped?” Holland asked.

  “She was,” George confirmed. “Tracey’s pubic hair was combed for foreign hair; there were none. Her skin, vagina, and anus were swabbed for alien DNA transmitted via the sweat of a client; nothing was found. As you know, we all constantly shed minuscule flakes of skin. She was tested for any microscopic deposits belonging to the killer, or anyone else. Guess what? Zilch. The pathologist is confident that something would have turned up if she had been out shagging before the killer struck. For it not to have done so, the bloke would have had to have been kitted out in a condom that covered his entire body, not just his dick. Even then, there would probably be traces of the spermicide condoms are coated in, which I believe is most commonly nonoxynol-9. Conclusion: she was done in before she could open shop.”

  “Open her legs, he means,” Murray sniggered in Grier’s ear, earning himself a disapproving glare from Dillon.

  “Interestingly,” Barton said, “there were marks on the body that suggested she had been wearing underwear, but this was never recovered.”

  “So, he’s a trophy taker as well as a cannibal,” White said.

  “We’ll come back to that possibility in a little while,” Tyler said. “At this point, I want to ask Chris Deakin to talk us through the financial enquiries he’s been making for me.”

  Chris Deakin leaned forward in his chair. “For those of you who don’t know, I worked on the fraud squad in a past life so the boss asked me to conduct some enquiries into the money that was found in the deceased’s possession.”

  “Hopefully,” Jack interjected, “you have all had time to read the briefing document that DI Dillon prepared, and are all aware that Tracey Phillips had three brand new ten-pound notes in her purse when her body was found,” This was said for the benefit of the officers who had been seconded to the enquiry over the weekend.

  “When we examined the notes, we immediately saw that they were numbered consecutively,” Deakin continued. “This suggested they were newly printed notes that had been issued together by a bank or building society, most probably through a hole in the wall. To cut a long story short, I made some enquiries with my old banking contacts and confirmed this was the case. Two Production Orders later, I can tell you that the notes were issued from a Nat West ATM in Whitechapel Road. The notes were part of a batch placed in the ATM on the morning of Saturday 30th October. It has taken some doing, but I’ve finally obtained a list of every person who made a withdrawal of thirty-pounds or more between then and 06:00 hours on Monday 1st November. Not only that, but there is a CCTV camera covering the cash point – there have been robberies in the area – and we have now received the digital download of the footage for the relevant period.”

  “We know from Sandra Dawson that Tracey didn’t have a penny on her when she arrived in Quaker Street,” Jack said. “Sandra even purchased two rocks of crack for Tracey because she didn’t have any money to buy them herself, yet when her body was found she suddenly had thirty-pounds in her purse. I think our killer gave Tracey that cash. I think if we identify who made the withdrawal, we identify our killer.”

  “How would we ever be able to prove that?” Murray asked.

  Jack smiled. “George, how do we prove it?”

  “I had the notes treated with ninhydrin at the lab. We recovered two clear sets of fingerprints. One belonged to our victim; the other is not on the system, meaning it belongs to someone who has never been arrested.”

  “We have three brand new notes, fresh from the cash machine,” Jack s
aid, “with two sets of fingerprints on them. One set belongs to the deceased. If the unidentified prints on the notes match the person who made the withdrawal, I think a jury will be persuaded that he is our killer.” He could almost hear the cogs turning as the detectives mulled this over, and he held up a hand to stem the questions that were clearly forming in their minds. “As the meeting goes on, we’re going to be introducing some supporting evidence, so save your questions until the end, when you have the full picture.”

  “I have names and addresses for all the people making withdrawals,” Deakin said. “I’ll pin it up in the MIR straight after the meeting. I would like you all to read through it to see if any names jump out at you. Brian, Dean, Wendy, I’ll issue HP actions for PNC checks and very basic research to be carried out on each one. HP actions will also be issued this morning for every name on the list to be visited. We’ll require statements from all of them to see what they did with the money. We’ll also need elim prints and voluntary DNA samples from everyone on the list to eliminate them from our enquiries.”