A signature is also apparent in the half-drunk bottle of wine in the living room and rinsed glasses in the kitchen. Steele suggests the initial approach was ‘social’ rather than ‘sexual’. (This sits well with Britton, who is regularly described as ‘fastidious’.)
We are looking for one individual. Steele believes both Britton and Atkins would have been suspicious if a ‘visitor’ had turned up with a companion. (Steele does not preclude the possibility that a companion waited outside but points to the fact that none of the neighbours or passers-by saw anything suspicious on the night of the murders.)
The discrepancy between the lack of ‘forced entry’ evidence and the frenzied nature of the attack suggests a manipulative and convincing individual who is easily roused to anger.
Steele posits the theory that the perpetrator was naked or semi-naked during the attack. (No sightings of any individual in bloodstained clothing afterwards.)
Because fingernail scrapings show no evidence of skin contact, and none of the victims has defence wounds, Steele believes all three were immobilized before they were attacked. In the absence of anything specific from the post-mortems and toxicology reports, he suggests a stun gun to the neck or head. (FSS have re-examined Kevin Atkins to this purpose but say there’s too much bruising in both areas to corroborate Steele’s theory.)
Steele cites the lack of evidence at the crime scenes as an indication that we are looking for a ‘high-IQ, forensically aware’ killer. He also suggests that we keep an open mind about the damage to the rectum and the exposure of the buttocks. The illusion of ‘gay sex’ may have been done for amusement and/or as a blind – or double blind – to create confusion about the perpetrator’s sexual orientation.
Steele further advises that we avoid labelling the victims ‘gay’, despite Britton’s declared single-sex status, as it may influence our decisions.
He points to the difference between Britton’s lifestyle and that of the other two victims. He describes Britton as ‘old-fashioned’ and ‘intellectual’, and suggests he may have invited his killer in for ‘companionship’.
Steele believes an army connection may be the means by which the killer wins credibility with his victims and/or gains access to their premises.
He draws particular attention to the victims’ habit of keeping cash on their premises. As a taxi driver,
Harry Peel dealt only in cash; Martin Britton shopped ‘locally’ using cash; as a builder, Kevin Atkins kept cash in a roll to pay casual workers. This habit may have been known to the killer.
Steele’s Recommendations
The perpetrator is likely to be male, aged 18–25. He may be a prostitute/escort and/or current army or ex-army. Drug addiction may be what drives the prostitution and leads to the sudden outbursts of anger. The individual may be known to other men who have employed his services. The most likely motive was money.
The paucity of forensic evidence suggests an average or above-average IQ and a premeditated willingness on the part of the perpetrator to commit a crime. In support of this, Steele cites the fact that weapons must have been brought to the properties by the killer.
In the absence of any real overlaps between the three victims, Steele proposes we go back to the drawing board. He believes the killer knows the area well, probably lives within a three-mile radius of the crime scenes, and is happy to go ‘freelance’ when a suitable punter/victim presents. If so, he will be using the direct approach and arranging the meetings away from the bars and clubs. Steele warns that if we concentrate all our energy on the ‘gay scene’ and/or recognized ‘dating’ agencies we may overlook the obvious – that our killer is free to kill because no one else knows of the arrangement.
He adds, ‘There may be something distinctive about this individual that encourages a sympathetic response. Martin Britton, in particular, would have needed a powerful stimulus to overcome his natural reserve and invite the killer back to his house.’
Steele advises that we concentrate the inquiry on a search for clients who have experienced anger or violence at the hands of a male prostitute but have managed to avoid the fates of Peel, Britton and Atkins. He also advises that we reinterview Mrs Peel, Mrs Atkins and Hugh Britton in an attempt to identify behavioural characteristics that might trigger the killer’s rage at an early stage of the encounter.
With kind regards,
Detective Superintendent Brian Jones
Southwark Echo, Friday, 4 May 2007
72-yr-old attacked for mobile telephone
ABIMBOLA OSHODI, 72, was recovering in hospital last night after being kicked and punched by two assailants when she refused to hand over her mobile telephone. The assault is the latest in a spate of similar violent muggings in the south London area in the last few months.
Police are warning everyone to be aware of the danger of displaying mobiles too obviously. A spokesman said, ‘Carrying a cell phone in your hand is a green light to anyone intent on theft.’
Abimbola’s assailants are described as a young white male, slim, approximately 5' 10" tall, with blond or ginger hair, and a young white female, approximately 5' 4" tall, with dark hair. Both wore hoodies and Doc Martens-style boots.
Eight weeks later
Seven
DR WILLIS HAD BEEN a good reader of minds. When Acland’s request to return to active service was finally denied at the end of June, the last person he wanted to confide in was the psychiatrist. He was convinced, on little justification, that Willis’s first words would be ‘I told you so’. Certainly, most of Willis’s predictions had come true, leaving Acland to brood over his own naivety in believing there was a place for a disabled officer in a modern fighting force.
The medical board’s findings were crushingly negative. Recognition was given to Lieutenant Charles D. B. Acland’s clear desire to return to duty, but his ambition was at odds with the severity of his disabilities. His blind side would make him a liability in action, and his tinnitus and increasingly frequent migraines would reduce his competence to make decisions. As the first duty of the board was to consider the safety of all service personnel, it was the opinion of the members that Lieutenant Acland would pose a risk to others if he were allowed to resume his command in the field.
Even in his own mind, Acland drew a veil over his departure from his regiment. He handled his disappointment badly, rejecting any suggestion of a desk job and freezing out anyone who tried to help him. He persuaded himself he’d become an embarrassment – a hanger-on to a group rather than a member of it – and, when he packed his bags on the day of his departure, he knew he’d never see any of his colleagues again. He exited the barrack gates without ceremony or farewell, a lonely and embittered man with deep-set fears about himself and his future.
After the comments he’d made to Robert Willis about his stay with Susan Campbell – ‘too many people . . . and they all gape like idiots...’ – Acland’s choice to live in London might have seemed a strange one. Yet, despite his distinctive appearance, he knew he could be anonymous in the capital city. Passers-by might stare but he wouldn’t attract the same attention as he would in a smaller community. The gossiping curiosity in his parents’ village would have driven him mad. He craved obscurity. The chance to rethink his life without interference or pressure from outside.
With no dependants, an unspent salary while he’d been in hospital and a deposit account swollen by compensation from the MOD for injuries sustained on the battlefield, Acland had no incentive to find a job. Instead, he took a six-month lease on a ground-floor flat in the Waterloo area and lived like a pauper, eating frugally and only spending money on the rare times he stopped at a pub for a lager.
He spent his days running, telling anyone who tried to strike up a conversation with him that he was in training for the London marathon to raise money for wounded ex-servicemen. He even believed at times that the point of the exercise was a charitable one instead of a way to shut down his brain and keep him apart from the rest of humanity. He became
increasingly reluctant to make eye contact, preferring wary retreat to well-meaning interest about who he was and what he was doing.
He developed a physical revulsion against anyone wearing Arab or Muslim dress. Willis hadn’t prepared him for the hatred he’d feel. Or the fear. His body was shocked with a surge of adrenalin every time he saw a bearded face above a white dishdash, and he crossed roads or turned down side streets to avoid contact. His dislike grew to encompass anyone who wasn’t white. Part of him recognized that this response was irrational, but he made no attempt to control it. He felt better when he could shift the blame for what had happened on to people he didn’t understand, and didn’t want to understand.
Willis had warned him that some of his reactions might surprise him. The psychiatrist had talked in general terms about the consequences of trauma, and how grief, particularly for oneself, could skew perspective. He encouraged Acland not to dwell on the aspects of the tragedy that had been outside his control. Guilt was a powerful and confusing emotion, made worse when all memory of the incident was lost. As ever, Acland had steered him away from discussing the deaths of his men.
‘It’s not guilt I feel,’ he’d said.
‘What do you feel?’
‘Anger. They shouldn’t be dead. They had wives and children.’
‘Are you saying you should have died instead?’
‘No. I’m saying the Iraqis should have died.’
‘I think we should discuss that, Charles.’
‘No need, Doc. You asked for an answer and I gave you one. I’m not planning to wage war on Muslims in the UK just because I wish we’d got to the ragheads before they got to us.’
But he wanted to wage war on someone. He had dreams of pressing a pistol barrel to the side of a head and watching the white cotton keffiah bloom with blood. And other dreams about turning his Minimi LMG on an ululating crowd of women in burkhas and mowing them down at the rate of eight hundred rounds per minute. He would burst out of sleep, drenched in sweat, believing he’d done it, and his heart would pound uncontrollably. But whether from guilt or exultation, he couldn’t tell.
He knew he was in trouble – his migraines grew worse as his dreams grew darker – but, in a perverse way, he welcomed the pain as a form of punishment. It was natural justice that someone should pay. And that someone might as well be him.
*
Acland’s precarious equilibrium flipped spectacularly five weeks after he moved to London. He was minding his own business over a quiet pint at the bar of a Bermondsey pub when a group of sharp-suited City brokers pushed in beside him. They were hyped up about the money they’d made that day, and their voices became louder and more intrusive as the drink started flowing. Two or three times Acland was buffeted by those on the fringes, but he wouldn’t have reacted if one of them hadn’t spoken to him. The man, who could only see Acland’s right profile, tapped him on the shoulder when he didn’t receive an answer.
‘Are you deaf?’ he asked, waving a glass of orange juice under Acland’s nose and jerking his chin towards the empty stool on Acland’s blind side. ‘I asked you if you’d consider moving to give the rest of us some room.’
The accent was singsong, unmistakably Pakistani, and Acland’s reply was immediate and involuntary. He hooked his right arm round the back of the man’s neck and punched him squarely in the face with his left fist. The broker went down with a howl of anguish, knocking against his friends, blood spurting from his nose.
The rest of the group turned alarmed faces towards Acland. ‘Jesus!’ said one. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘I don’t like murderers,’ Acland told them, returning to his lager.
There was a second or two of surprised silence before someone bent over to help the man to his feet. He took a serviette from a dispenser on the bar and held it to his nose, staring angrily at his assailant. Whatever his religion or nationality, he was dressed like a westerner in a dark suit, shirt and tie. Only his fringed beard and choice of drink suggested Islam. ‘You cannot behave like that in this country.’
‘I was born here. I can behave any way I want.’
‘I, too, was born here.’
‘That doesn’t make you English.’
‘Did you hear that?’ the Pakistani demanded excitedly of his friends. ‘This man attacked me on racial grounds. You’re my witnesses.’ He was stockier and heavier than Acland and he fancied his chances with his colleagues to back him up. He wagged his finger in admonishment. ‘You’re a maniac. You should not be allowed out.’
‘Wrong,’ said Acland in a deceptively mild tone. ‘I’m an angry maniac. Even an ignorant Paki should be able to work that out.’
It was like waving a red rag at a bull. Enraged by the insult, the man lowered his head and charged. Had he come at Acland from the left, he’d have stood a better chance but, from the right, it was a no-brainer. He couldn’t compete in strength, speed or fitness – a broker’s life is a sedentary one – and the only way he knew how to fight was to flail his fists in the hope of landing a blow. He wasn’t expecting Acland to move off his stool as fast as he did, nor that Acland would exploit the forward motion of his run to slam him headfirst into the side of the bar before kicking his feet from under him.
Acland could have left it at that, but he didn’t. He was aware of urgency behind the bar and shouts from the Pakistani’s friends, but the suppressed hatred of months had been looking for a target and this loud-mouthed broker had volunteered himself. ‘You should have kept your mouth shut,’ he murmured, dropping to one knee and clamping both hands under the man’s chin, preparing to snap his head back and crush his spinal cord between two vertebrae.
Only the shock of a bucket of melting ice pouring over the back of his neck from the other side of the bar made Acland hesitate.
‘Cut it OUT!’ barked a woman’s voice as a dozen hands hauled him off and tossed him aside. ‘I SAID...cut it OUT!’ she roared as one of the brokers launched a toecap at Acland’s ribs. ‘No one MOVES till the police get here!’ She gave a piercing whistle. ‘JACKSON! HERE, mate! PRONTO!’
Her words fell on deaf ears. Acland absorbed an onslaught of kicks from the other brokers while uninvolved customers scattered hastily to avoid the fight zone. The Pakistani added to the confusion by staggering to his feet and grabbing at anyone or anything that might keep him upright. As he threatened to overturn a table, a huge woman with cropped and streaked dark hair emerged from behind the bar. ‘Easy now,’ she said in a deep, melodious voice that betrayed no excitement at all. ‘You’re bleeding like a stuck pig, my friend. Let’s have you out of harm’s way.’
With a grunt of effort, she hoisted Acland’s victim in her arms and dumped him unceremoniously on the counter. ‘All yours, lover,’ she said, before weighing into the fray. ‘You heard the lady,’ she said, smacking two of the Pakistani’s friends on the back of their heads with meaty hands. ‘Cut it out. This is an orderly house. All breakages have to be paid for.’ She elbowed her way past two more to look down at Acland. ‘You all right?’ she asked him.
He squinted up at her. From the floor she looked like a mountain of white muscle, with calves, thighs, shoulders and neck bulging out of her biker boots, black cycling shorts and sleeveless T-shirt like inflated bladders. He flinched in alarm as one of her booted feet came down like a piledriver. ‘The lady said, don’t move,’ she rumbled in her deep bass, as her heel ground into a soft leather shoe. ‘That includes kicking.’
‘Jesus Christ, Jackson!’ the offender yelped. ‘You’re fucking well hurting me!’
‘I’ll hurt you some more if you don’t back off.’ She tilted her heel to release him. ‘Anyone else want to mess with a three-hundred-pound weightlifter? I eat steak for breakfast, so a few cream puffs won’t faze me.’ When no one offered themselves, she proffered a hand to Acland and pulled him to his feet. ‘Over there,’ she ordered, nodding to a bench seat against the wall. ‘And you lot to that table,’ she told the brokers. ‘We’re going to si
t nice and quiet till the cops come.’ She smiled broadly. ‘And afterwards you can twiddle your thumbs in the nick for several hours until you’re invited to make statements.’
They stared at her mutinously. ‘Give us a break, Jackson,’ said one. ‘We’ve all got homes to go to.’
‘Is that my problem?’
‘We’re good customers, and it wasn’t us who started it.’
‘So? This is my home. I don’t have the luxury of calling a taxi and leaving the mess behind.’ She spread her huge legs and folded her arms across her chest, daring them to challenge her. ‘Daisy and I don’t come to your houses and behave like spoilt children. What gives you the right to do it in ours?’
‘We didn’t. It was that racist bastard over there. For no reason at all, he punched Rashid in the face and called him an ignorant Paki.’
Jackson shifted her gaze to Acland. ‘Is that right?’
Acland ran a finger under his eyepatch and massaged the damaged nerves in his empty socket. ‘Near enough.’
‘How near?’
‘I had a reason.’
She waited for him to go on and, when he didn’t, she said, ‘I hope it was a good one, my friend, because you’re lucky you can still see. If Rashid Mansoor was any kind of fighter, he’d have glassed your other eye and you’d be blind.’
The arrival of the police put an end to the exchange. Still enraged, and mopping his bloody nose, Mansoor gave his name and accused Acland of calling him racist names and trying to kill him. Acland merely gave his name. A migraine was thudding in his head and Jackson wasn’t alone in noticing how pale he was. An officer asked if either man needed medical treatment, but both said no. Mansoor was too intent on holding the floor and Acland too drained to move.
Excitable anger raised the Pakistani’s voice to a high-pitched squeak which was difficult to understand, so the officer in charge cut him short and turned to Jackson for an explanation. She described accurately what she’d seen when she came out but couldn’t say who’d started it because she’d been in the kitchen at the time. Her partner, Daisy, a shapely blonde with a deep cleavage, was no better informed. She’d been serving a customer at the other end of the bar and only realized a fight had broken out when the shouting began. The brokers, glancing surreptitiously at their watches, said the first they knew about it was their friend hitting the floor with blood on his face and Acland saying he didn’t like murderers.
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