INTERNAL MEMO
To: ACC Clifford Golding From: Det Supt Brian Jones Date: 13 April 2007 Subject: Kevin Atkins inquiry
Sir,
In answer to your question re the likelihood of a single perpetrator, the relevant SOCO preliminary findings from Kevin Atkins’s apartment are as follows. In brief:
No forced entry.
Victim found on his side, dressed in a bathrobe.
Bathrobe pulled up to expose the buttocks.
‘Foreign object’ bruising/lacerations to rectum.
No evidence of sexual intercourse.
Opened, half-consumed bottle of wine in the living room – two cleaned glasses on the draining board in the kitchen.
No useful fingerprints – some accounted for, some unknown.
Frenzied attack to the head – similar weapon used (round-headed blunt instrument).
Subsequent damage to walls and property with same weapon.
No apparent resistance from the victim.
No indication of how the victim was immobilized.
Wallet emptied of cash – no credit cards taken.
Mobile telephone stolen.
Despite 7 April being the probable date of death, FSS have yet to deliver a full report on Atkins. I am also waiting on an update to the psychological profile from Britton’s murder. Meanwhile, the focus of the inquiry team continues to concentrate on the army connection, male prostitutes, methods of contact, stranger sightings in the area and people known to the victims.
I will, of course, keep you updated as information comes in.
With kind regards,
Brian
Detective Superintendent Brian Jones
Six
ACLAND’S DECISION TO abandon further surgery in favour of a quick return to the army came as no surprise to Robert Willis. The lieutenant’s fuse had become shorter by the day since his return from London, made worse when a small operation, designed to begin the process of creating a pouch for a glass eye, showed minimal results.
He was left with an empty, misshapen eye socket, irregular migraines, persistent low-level tinnitus and a blade-shaped scar up his cheek, but as no one could guarantee that further operations would produce a significantly better result in an acceptable time-frame, he opted to live with the face he had. He was warned by Mr Galbraith that in an image-conscious world he could expect adverse reactions, but he rejected the surgeon’s advice and chose instead to confront the prejudices of the image-conscious by drawing attention to his disfigurement.
On the day of his departure, at the fag end of April, he buzz-cut his hair to half an inch, donned a black eyepatch and went in search of Robert Willis for a verdict. He found the psychiatrist in his office, deep in concentration in front of his computer.
Willis’s startled expression at the tap on his open door was as much to do with the fact that he hadn’t known anyone was there as with his lack of immediate recognition of the man in his doorway, but the response pleased Acland. Surprise and alarm were preferable to sympathy and disgust. ‘Am I disturbing you, Doc?’
‘Do you mean am I busy . . . or do I find your appearance disturbing?’
‘Both. Either.’
‘You certainly made me jump.’ Willis gestured towards a chair on the other side of the desk. ‘Take a pew while I finish this sentence.’ He shifted his gaze to his monitor and typed a few words before clicking on save. ‘So what are you hoping for?’ he asked. ‘Shock and awe? Or just shock?’
‘It’s better than pity.’
Willis stared at the lean, expressionless face that was staring back at him. Part of him could see that the image Acland had created for himself was magnificent – hard, tough and old beyond his years – but the other part saw only a tragic death of youthful innocence. There was no reconciling this implacable man with the boyish, good-looking one in photographs from before his injury.
‘You’ve nothing to fear from pity, Charles, although I can’t say the same for loneliness. You won’t make many friends looking like that . . . but I presume that’s the intention.’
Acland shrugged. ‘A glass eye won’t help me see any better . . . and the surgery will just delay my return to the army.’
‘You’re placing a lot of faith in this return.’
‘My CO’s supporting me.’
‘That’s good.’
Acland came close to smiling. ‘You might as well say it, Doc. I know you pretty well by now. The medical board won’t be as easily persuaded as my CO.’
‘No,’ said Willis with a sigh. ‘I’m afraid they’ll view your blind side as a liability and offer you a desk job instead. But that’s not what you want, is it?’
‘So I’ll have to prove the board wrong. Other people have done it. Nelson’s the greatest admiral this country ever had and he was one-eyed. If it didn’t stop him, it won’t stop me.’
‘Everything was a lot slower in Nelson’s day, Charles . . . including the ships. He had time to make decisions which isn’t given to commanders in today’s armed forces.’
‘What about Moshe Dayan? He made it to general in the Israeli army.’
Willis avoided another negative reply. ‘True . . . and a lot more contemporary. Are you hoping the eyepatch will prompt some positive memories from the board?’
‘What if I am? Will it work?’
‘I don’t know,’ Willis answered honestly, ‘but I suspect you’ll find the decision is made by computer. You’ll be asked a series of questions and your responses will trigger answers to another block of questions that you won’t be asked.’
‘Like what?’
‘Can you see to your left without turning your head? No? Then the computer will answer every other question relating to vision with a negative. For example, “Are you able to monitor a radar screen?” You’ll say yes – you might even be able to persuade an army doctor to put a tick in that box – but the program will give you an automatic no because you’ve already indicated that you have a blind side.’
‘You don’t need two eyes to watch a screen.’
‘You do if you’re in the middle of action and giving coordinates to a gunner. A fully sighted man can watch two things at the same time, a one-eyed man can only watch one. You won’t know if the gunner’s received the instruction unless you look away from the screen.’
‘I won’t need to. He’ll confirm over his radio.’
‘A doctor might agree with you,’ said Willis gently, ‘but a computer won’t. Written into the software will be an acknowledgement that accidents happen. The intercom might fail . . . the gunner might mishear the coordinates . . . you might mishear his confirmation. But in any case, you won’t be able to stop yourself turning away from the screen. It’s human nature to double-check. Every soldier – right down to the lowliest private – needs visual confirmation that the man next to him knows what he’s doing. It’s a necessary impulse when your life depends on it.’
Acland stared at his hands. ‘Did you design this program, Doc? You seem to know a lot about it.’
Willis shook his head. ‘I don’t even know if it exists, I’m just making an educated guess. The government uses a similar system to assess disability claimants, because doctors are seen to be more sympathetic than computers. The decision-makers work on the principle that if you take the human element out of the equation, it’s harder for a cheat to get benefit.’
‘What if I lie and say yes to the original question?’
‘You can’t. You’re not the one who feeds in the answers. It’s a doctor who does that and he’ll have your medical notes in front of him. Even without the evidence of the eyepatch, he’ll know that you’re unsighted on one side.’
Acland turned towards the window, deliberately presenting his blind side to Willis. ‘So what you’re saying is that I haven’t a hope in hell’s chance of getting back into a Scimitar.’ It was a statement rather than a question, as if he were confirming something he already knew.
‘Not necessarily,’ the psychiatrist answered as
lightly as he could. ‘I’m saying it’s a possibility.’ He watched the young man flick a tear from his good eye with the back of a finger. ‘But you’ll be better able to argue your case if you understand what you’re up against. No decision’s final . . . and your CO’s support will carry weight at any appeal.’
There was a lengthy silence before Acland spoke again. ‘What about yours, Doc? Will your support carry weight?’
‘I hope so. I’ve given you a positive assessment.’
‘Have you mentioned Jen in it?’
‘No.’
‘My parents?’
‘No.’
‘I should be OK, then.’
‘Except it’s not your mental health the board will be assessing, Charles. It’s the physical handicaps of semi-blindness, persistent tinnitus and chronic migraines. Those are what you have to minimize.’ He gave one of his dry smiles. ‘No one on the board is going to be interested in disappointing relationships.’
‘Thanks, Doc.’
‘For what?’
Acland swung back with a twisted smile on his face. ‘Keeping it real . . . managing expectation. At least I won’t make a fool of myself. It doesn’t do to blub in front of retired colonels.’ The smile died abruptly. ‘Still . . . I’m never going to get my sight back so I might as well give it my best shot now. If they chuck me out, I’ll learn to live with it.’ His tone hardened. ‘That’s the one thing I am getting good at . . . learning to live with things.’
Willis opened a drawer and took out a business card. ‘There are two things you can do with this, Charles,’ he said, pushing it across the desk. ‘Bin it or keep it. The number will put you through to an agency who can reach me any time, day or night. I don’t expect to hear from you for several months . . . if at all . . . but I’ll return your call immediately.’
‘What if I phone next week?’
‘I’ll be surprised,’ the psychiatrist said frankly. ‘Whether you stay in the army or not, I’m afraid you’re about to shed friends quicker than you make them. You’ll walk away, closing doors behind you, rather than try to sustain relationships that you think are meaningless.’
Not for the first time, Willis wondered if a female psychiatrist would have been a better choice for this lad. With none of the formal baggage that came between men – the instinctive reluctance to show affection, the necessary distance demanded by alpha males – she could have adopted a softer approach which might have allowed the lieutenant to weep for the person he’d been.
METROPOLITAN
POLICE
INTERNAL MEMO To: ACC Clifford Golding From: Det Supt Brian Jones Date: 1 May 2007 Subject: Peel/Britton/Atkins inquiry
Sir,
Progress to date
As I reported yesterday, there’s been little movement in the P/B/A inquiry since the initial flurry of interest last month when we made public that we believed the murders were linked. The team has interviewed some 2,500 people – friends, relatives, neighbours, employees, taxi drivers, regulars at the different gay clubs and bars – but there are no consistent factors between the three men apart from varying lengths of army service and homosexual leanings.
The wives of the two younger men, Peel and Atkins, describe their husbands as bisexual. Mrs Peel says the estrangement was never supposed to be permanent. ‘We were going through a bad patch and Harry picked up a bloke in his taxi one night. They had sex and it confused Harry. He’d had a couple of encounters when he was in the army which he never forgot. He told me he wanted to try the ‘gay’ scene for a while. We agreed he should rent a bedsit so that he could have his own space, but he used to drop by almost every day. He talked about moving back the last time I saw him.’
For the six months of the estrangement, Peel was a regular on the gay scene. He visited the bars and clubs – either as a punter or in his role as cab driver. He preferred working nights and most of the bouncers knew how to contact him if customers wanted a taxi. In support of his wife’s claim that he was talking about ‘moving back’, several of his friends say he missed her. They had been married for 24 years.
Mrs Atkins cites her own affair as the reason for her divorce. ‘Kevin was very discreet about his gay encounters because he didn’t want to embarrass me or the kids. They started about five years into the marriage. As far as I know they were always one-night stands, so I think he probably did use male prostitutes. It was like an addiction, something he had to do every so often, but he always said it was me he loved. I suppose you can’t help your feelings. I couldn’t help mine when I fell in love with Roger. Kevin blamed himself when I asked for a divorce. He said he’d promise never to go with a man again if I’d stay with him, but it was too late by then.’
Atkins was also known to attend the bars and clubs, although not to the same extent as Peel. We have found one ‘partner’ that he took home for a single night – a 28-yr-old marine who admits to being paid – but Atkins preferred using dating agencies on the net. Most of his encounters seem to have been with soldiers. His wife said he loved his 15 years in the Parachute regiment. ‘He wasn’t a predator. He was only interested in consensual sex.’
Friends of Martin Britton describe him as homosexual. He lived in a committed relationship for 20+ years until 2005, when his partner, John Prentice, died of cancer. There are some indications that Britton had casual relationships afterwards – his brother, Hugh, speaks of seeing younger men at the house from time to time – but he can’t remember their names and gives only vague descriptions. Despite considerable help from the gay community, we have been unable to locate anyone who admits to going to Britton’s house in the last two years other than his established friends.
Britton’s photograph was not recognized by any of the staff or regulars at the bars and clubs in the area, and his friends say he wasn’t the type to trawl for sex. In addition, none of them support his brother’s claims to have seen younger men in the Greenham Road house. The descriptions neighbours have given of his visitors match his friends – older men and women – but everyone agrees that he rarely entertained.
His next-door neighbour, Mrs Rahman, said, ‘When John was alive, he and Martin used to go to the theatre and opera on a regular basis. They both loved classical music and anything to do with the stage. Martin said it wasn’t the same when there was no one to share the experience with, and he stopped going after John died. Most evenings he sat at home and listened to his CD collection alone. It was sad. I think Martin was shy and, without John to keep pushing him to do things, he simply withdrew into himself. I can’t imagine him inviting strangers back for sex. He just wasn’t like that.’
This would suggest that his brother’s evidence is unreliable. However, Hugh Britton was Martin’s only regular visitor. He used to call in once a week to make sure ‘everything was all right’. He said further, ‘There were often people in the house when John was alive, so I didn’t think anything about it. I remember Martin introducing one of the young men as a colleague of John’s. I didn’t stay very long because I was pleased Martin had someone else to talk to. I certainly didn’t get the impression the other man was there for sex.’
John Prentice was employed as PR for a Chinese silk fashion chain, but we can find no work colleague who a) fits the description – male, blond and 30-ish; or b) irrespective of description, paid a visit to Martin Britton when his brother dropped in. Only three say they ever went to Greenham Road, even when John was alive, and they are all women in their late 50s.
Only two of the victims, Martin Britton and Kevin Atkins, had computers. Both hard drives have been examined. Atkins had irregular contact with two gay ‘dating’ sites and rather more frequent visits to gay and straight ‘soft porn’ sites. A list of emails shows how he selected and confirmed prospective partners for one-night stands and all the men interviewed have solid alibis for the night of his murder. There are no overlaps between the partners Harry Peel found at the clubs and the partners Kevin Atkins found via the internet. Martin Britton’s hard dri
ve is ‘clean’ of pornography or ‘dating’ sites, and we can find no emails relating to casual sex.
Cross-referencing army and regimental data has produced nothing. We can find no consistent features or persons between the men, except that Martin Britton, as an MOD employee, had access to Peel’s and Atkins’s archived records. NB We place no significance on that.
Correspondence, diaries, itemized landline bills show no common names, addresses or phone numbers between the three victims. Similarly, itemized mobile accounts for Peel and Atkins. (Britton used a ‘pay as you go’, for which there are no records.) Several numbers (all different) on the Peel and Atkins accounts have been disconnected. No success yet in tracing the previous ‘owners’ of the numbers. NB We have requested Atkins’s server to keep his mobile ‘live’ on the off-chance it’s still active and we can track its movements. Nothing to date.
It remains unclear how any of the victims made contact with their killer or how they ‘found’ the same person.
Conclusion
While there are some similarities in the lives and backgrounds of Peel and Atkins – bisexuality, marriage, known to engage in casual gay sex but reluctant to commit to permanent gay relationships – there is nothing similar in Martin Britton’s background.
At the moment, there’s no evidence that the men Hugh Britton saw with his brother were sexual partners, nor any indication of how Britton ‘found’ them if they were.
Psychological profile
As requested, I attach a full copy of James Steele’s reworked psychological profile. We commissioned it after the Britton murder, but he has refined it to include information from the Atkins crime scene. In brief, Steele’s opinions are as follows:
The murders carry the same signature – method of killing (skull fractures suggest a round-headed club or similarly shaped heavy object, wielded with considerable force), no sexual intercourse, damage to the rectum, the turning of the bodies to expose both buttocks, rage taken out on property . . . etc. (Steele suggests that the handle of the ‘club’ may have caused the rectal injuries. From gel evidence inside the anus, FSS believe the ‘instrument’ was covered by a condom before insertion, probably to assist its introduction.)
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