Without Conscience

by Michael Kerr

  “So, we’re looking for a head case?” DC Gary Shields said.

  There was a ripple of laughter.

  “In simple terms, yes,” Mark said. “He has an abnormal outlook on life. His psychopathic personality may take the form of a self-serving psychosis. He will be able to blame his actions on an event that has triggered this response from him. Although reasoning, and therefore the need to absolve himself of blame, will not figure.”

  “Do you believe that he will kill again?” Eddie said.

  “Without a doubt. He has the taste for it now. He’ll continue until he’s stopped. Regent’s Park would appear to be a place that he is familiar with, and that he has adopted as his killing ground. I suggest that when he feels safe to venture there again, you’ll be served up with his next victim. This is a creep with a sadistic personality disorder; the type who thrives on violence, employing torture, mutilation and ultimately murder to turn his wheels. Inflicting physical and psychological pain is an obsession. Pattern murderers are, sadly, a part of life in the States. Over here they’re still an exception to the rule. Just be aware that you are trying to find a killing machine; a freak who feeds on what he does and cannot be reasoned with or deterred.”

  “Why the sharpened branches in the vaginas, and the removal of the hearts, Doctor Ross?” Louise said.

  “He hates women. Or to be more precise, hates one particular woman. To plunge a sharpened stake into the very centre of his victim’s femininity is symbolic. He is attacking the object that he covets but is not allowed to possess. As for the hearts, that could also be emblematic. Maybe someone withheld their love, their heart. It broke his, and so he takes theirs, literally, to keep as trophies. You’re looking for one sick puppy.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” Barney said, shaking the tall man’s hand as they left the building and went out into the car park. “If we get anything else, I’ll give you a bell.”

  Mark nodded and walked off towards the Cherokee. He was meeting Amy at a pub in Chelsea, and was relieved to be away from the room full of cops, who he knew thought that profiling was in the main a crock of shit; the stuff that movies are made of. There was not much else he could offer them, yet. But he had been given the precise locations of where the bodies had been found, and planned to visit the crime scenes.

  Barney returned to the incident room, impressed. He had not told the doctor about the latest development in the case. He’d wanted an assessment without the psychologist’s prior knowledge of Caroline Sellars involvement. The Yank had been good. Now, he would bring his team up to speed and concentrate on staking out the park, and doing a full background check on everyone that Caroline had ever met since moving to the city several years previously. He would also visit Mark Ross later, to give him details of Caroline, who was a dead ringer for the two women that had been murdered.

  “I have these Polaroids of the envelopes, and photocopies of the notes,” Barney said, passing them to Mark after Amy had shown him into the study and he had told them about Caroline.

  “You knew all this when I addressed your team, right?” Mark said.

  “Yes. We’d only just got it, but I wanted to hear what your thoughts were on the two murders, without this lead.”

  Mark’s voice was acerbic. “You don’t have much time for profilers, do you?”

  “Not a lot,” Barney said. “The last time a psychologist assisted on a murder inquiry that I was heading up, he sent us in the wrong direction. We solved the case despite him and his half-baked theories. When we looked at everything that he had fed us, it was bullshit; more hindrance than help. He only succeeded in causing us to initially eliminate a suspect who ended up being the killer.”

  “Profiling is an aid. It doesn’t offer a money back guarantee,” Mark said. “All I can say is, that my department got it right more often than wrong. It’s a technique that doesn’t come with the name and address of the offender, but done properly it can narrow the field and save a lot of man hours and shoe leather.”

  “I know that you are better than that,” Barney said. “You’ve narrowed it down to a list of one on many occasions.”

  “That was way back. I had some luck. What you have to remember is that a lot of serial killers never get caught. As you know, your average homicide is committed by someone who knows his victim, or can be linked to that person. Stranger-on-stranger killings don’t offer the same luxury. Law enforcements’ worst enemies are organised serial killers and professional hitmen. They can ply their trade over a long period, and the clever ones can outsmart us.”

  “How do you feel about this one, Doc―?”

  “Make it, Mark. If we’re going to be working together, forget the title. I only use it in the facility, or at seminars.”

  “Fine, I’m Barney.”

  Amy had excused herself to make coffee, and on returning with three mugs on a tray, she could sense the change of atmosphere in the room. The two men had begun to bond and could have been mistaken for old friends. She knew the DCI in passing, from her days on the force. He had the reputation of being a good cop, dependable, and not as starchy or anal retentive as many of his rank.

  “As for this particular unknown subject,” Mark said as Barney stirred two heaped spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee. “I think he’s too cocksure for his own good. He likes to take calculated risks. He could have abducted the women, dealt with them at his leisure, and then dumped them. Instead, he chose to attack in the open. The high-risk factor is part of the thrill for him; an essential ingredient in his overall scheme. I also think that the dates are significant. He’s struck on the first Friday of September and October. I expect the next to be on the first Friday in November.”

  “That could be coincidence,” Barney said.

  “I don’t really believe in coincidence, Barney. I know it exists, but I choose to work on the premise that it doesn’t. These are pattern murders, and the timing is part of the whole enchilada.”

  Mark looked down at the handwriting on the copies of photos and notes. “I take it your Document Section is examining these?”

  “Yes. We have a forensic handwriting expert working on them.”

  “Good. It’s amazing how much those guys can pick up from how someone writes. And if you want to keep Caroline Sellars alive, move her.”

  “She’s already left her flat. She’s staying with her boyfriend.”

  “The killer will know that,” Mark said. “Believe me. He’s a watcher who plans every detail. He will have expected her to run, and he’ll know where she is. You need to put her in a safe house.”

  Barney nodded. He knew that Mark was right. That was why the flat in Russell Square was being staked out around-the-clock by armed officers.

  “If you’re using her as bait, then it’s a dangerous game,” Mark said. “He’ll find a way to reach her.”

  “I hear what you say. I’ll put it up to Pearce. He won’t want to hang his arse out the window by leaving her at risk and maybe losing her.”

  “That’s all I’ve got for now, Barney. I plan on taking a look at the crime scenes in the morning, at the approximate time that the victims were murdered, so warn your undercover boys that we’ll be there. I don’t want them to think that we’re loitering with intent or just ghouls who get off on visiting the spots where the deeds were done.”

  It was pearly bright in the stark, cold glow of the moon as Mark parked up near the now indistinctive patch of ground where the first victim, Elaine Stanton, had been so cruelly mutilated and had leaked her lifeblood on and into the grass-carpeted soil: a location where children had played and would play again; where couples had strolled hand-in-hand, and where no visible sign now remained to denote the spot as being where a scene from hell had been enacted. The anonymous did not merit a memorial to stand as silent witness at the place they had fallen. Had the girl been a celebrity, or perhaps a police officer, then an engraved marker or plaque would in all likelihood have been on display in perpetuity.

  An unseasonable fore
warning of winter’s approach was manifest in a sparkling layer of frost that covered every surface. Mark and Amy wore thick, quilted parkas and woollen gloves. They climbed out of the Cherokee and walked along the edge of the boating lake, passing where the second victim had been murdered.

  “There isn’t much in the way of cover,” Amy said, her warm breath forming streams of vapour as it hit the chill air.

  “He didn’t care,” Mark observed. “He was satisfied that no one else was in sight, and it was still dark when he struck.”

  “But both of the women were out running. They were young and fit. How do you suppose he got close enough to physically attack them?”

  “He blended. Probably adopted the guise of a jogger himself. He could have passed within feet of them, and if he looked the part, they wouldn’t have been alarmed.”

  “That simple, huh?”

  “Yeah. If you know where someone will be, and at what time. If the coast hadn’t been clear, he could have aborted, just carried on running and waited till the next morning, or the next. Also, the path leads through those bushes,” Mark continued, pointing to the dark clumps of rhododendrons that were backed by trees that had already shed most of their leaves. “He could have been crouched in there like a spider in a web, waiting for them to come to him.”

  Amy clasped her arms to her body and looked about her, as if expecting a figure to materialise, jogging through the park towards them.

  “You’re sure he stalked them?”

  “Positive. He selected them for their hair-colour, looks, age and build. He will have chosen them in daylight, then followed them to their homes and spent time familiarising himself with their habits. This is someone with a great deal of patience, who may have tailed dozens of likely candidates before finding suitable women who took early morning runs in the park.”

  “Do you think he’ll be stupid enough to strike here again?”

  “Maybe, but not necessarily. I think he’s fixated on runners, though. They’re soft targets, and he’s found an M.O. that works for him. Any woman who fits the criteria is at risk if she puts herself in an isolated location between dusk and dawn. I have to believe that he’s smart. He’ll probably change the venue now. I would if I was him. He’ll know that the first killing would have been viewed as an isolated incident, so the second wouldn’t have been expected.”

  “Does visiting here help?” Amy said as they walked back to JC, as Mark referred to his Jeep Cherokee.

  “Yes,” he said. “It gives me a proper sense of the surroundings that he feels most comfortable in. He likes open spaces, and the dark.”

  Amy’s brow knitted. “Isn’t it just commonsense to use the cover of darkness and this sort of locale?”

  “No. He could have taken them in their homes and during daylight hours if it had suited him. This is preference. He probably imagines himself a nocturnal predator; a creature of the night.”

  Amy took a vacuum flask from the holdall in the front foot well, filled the plastic cup and lid with piping hot black coffee and handed the cup to Mark before taking a sip of hers.

  “Christ, I need a cigarette,” she said.

  Mark smiled. “It’s all in the mind. Trust me on that, I’m a doctor. You don’t need a cigarette; you just want one.”

  “Need, want, desire. The label doesn’t alter the fact that I’m craving for a nicotine hit. And what do you know? You’re a non-smoker.”

  “I got through two packs of Winston a day, back when I was with the bureau.”

  “You’ve never mentioned it. How did you stop?” Amy said, wondering just how many other facets of Mark’s life were still unknown to her.

  “I just decided to quit. Every time I took the pack out of my pocket, I counted to twenty, chose not to have one, and put it back. After about six months, I dumped the pack and flew without a safety net.”

  “No other help?”

  “Yes, a colleague, Ritchie Weller. He died of lung cancer. That was an added incentive. When I was a rookie, straight out of the academy, I was assigned to Ritchie. He turned me into a half-decent agent. He chain-smoked, and at fifty he started coughing up blood. He was gone in less than a month. It was that quick. It was the day of his funeral that I decided to part company with tobacco. I realised that it was an expensive and ultimately painful way to commit suicide.”

  “You’re a dark horse, Mark Ross,” Amy said before finishing her coffee. “The longer I know you, the more I’m aware that I hardly know you at all.”

  “What you see is what you get, lady,” he said, a mischievous grin forming on his craggy face. “Don’t look for what isn’t there to be found.”

  “Bullshit. At the right time and place, I want to hear all about you, to feel that there are no closed doors between us. Does that bother you?”

  “Not at all. It should be fun. Have you any skeletons in your cupboard?”

  “Maybe the odd one”, she said, then changed the subject. “Now what?”

  Mark shrugged as he drove out of the park and headed back towards Richmond, glad that he was leaving the city as the oncoming traffic became a metal and glass logjam. “I’ll write up a more detailed profile based on what we have so far, and what I instinctively feel about the Unsub”, he said. “And then we cross our fingers and hope that Barney and his team pick the guy up before he kills again.”

  “You think that they will?”

  “Sadly, no.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  This one was absolutely fucking perfect. Her hair was almost the same deep auburn shade. And from a distance – with eyes screwed almost shut to blur the image – her freckled, milk-white skin and even features gave the illusion that she actually was Caroline.

  Six in a row had proved unsuitable. They had all made the grade physically, but only this one had gone jogging in the dark, and alone. Most kept to well-lit streets, and more often than not were accompanied. The killings were promoting a causal effect, and many women were beginning to take precautionary measures.

  The woman now in sight was seated at a pavement table outside an eatery off Curzon Street. She was the one, now flagged for special attention. Her name was Judy Prescott. She lived alone in a second floor flat in Seville Street, and used the tube to commute between Knightsbridge and Green Park, Monday through Friday. Sitting opposite her in the same carriage that morning had been a thrill. Alighting at Green Park, she had crossed over Piccadilly and cut through Bolton Street to her place of work in an insurance office off Berkeley Square. Now, at almost twelve-forty p.m., she was on her lunch break, working her smartphone as she idly picked at a plate of chicken and pasta.

  Judy was a creature of habit, and her early morning runs through Hyde Park had sealed her fate. She always left her flat at six a.m., entered the park, crossed Rotten Row and then picked up Serpentine Road. Her route was fixed. She would pass the pier and boat houses, to then cross the bridge and head back through the park to South Carriage Drive.

  It would have been better if she had taken her exercise at night, but what the hell, beggars can’t be choosers.

  Reviewing the situation while sipping a double latte in Starbucks, keeping the prize in sight, it was amusing to think how inept the police were. They had moved Caroline to a safe house, but the boyfriend was still at the flat, and though unlikely, he might know where she was being stashed. When the time came, if he did have her address, he would talk. Of that there was no doubt. In the meantime, let the beautiful Caroline feel the claustrophobia of a caged bird; warm, safe, looked after, yet a prisoner, unable to spread her wings and fly freely. Her life had already been affected; the quality of it diminished to keep her in a continual state of fear.

  Barney and Mike leafed through copies of the profile that Mark Ross had provided. It was early, and apart from the two of them, the incident room was empty. It would soon be hot, cluttered, noisy, and full of the smells of cheap aftershave lotion, more expensive perfume, and perspiration. Smoking was banned throughout the building, but some copper
s bent rules they thought to be draconian, and the batteries in many of the ceiling-mounted smoke alarms were disconnected in the toilets.

  After thirty minutes, Mike got up, stretched and said, “You want another coffee, boss?”

  Barney nodded, pausing in his deliberation to empty a saucer ‒ which he employed as an ashtray ‒ into the waste bin next to his chair, before lighting up another cigarette, jabbing his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose, and going back to the report. He totally ignored the No Smoking policy. What would Big Brother do, shoot him?

  The ex-FBI man had painted a chilling picture. It was a concise psychological evaluation, laid out in what was obviously a well practised format. Barney knew that the doctor would make out daily reports on patients at the facility where he worked. He also knew, from Clive, that the American had a double major in psychology and criminology, plus the practical experience of having specialised in hunting down ritual murderers for a living. It was difficult to imagine how any man could so fully immerse himself in a world that embraced homicidal insanity, or want to, without losing his own reason. Mark Ross was, or had been, a predator himself, who with an unexplainable understanding could almost see his quarry from just visiting murder scenes and examining the methodology used. It crossed Barney’s mind that the line between hunter and hunted can be almost nonexistent.

  “Do you buy Ross’s line of thought?” Mike said, setting the two mugs of coffee down on the desktop.

  Barney sat back and said, “Let’s just say I wouldn’t argue with it. He made a career out of doing this, and was rated as being among, if not the best.”

  “Gruesome.”

  “Yeah. The guy is like a sewer worker who explores the shit-filled tunnels of the human mind.”

  “Christ, boss, that’s almost poetic in a distasteful sort of way,” Mike said.

  “Bollocks. That’s just how I see it.”