Dance With the Dead

by James Nally

  My chest swelled, and not just from stair-based exertion; I’d been welcomed into Spence’s club already.

  She stopped at a door and nodded me through. At the top of the packed conference room, a fey little Scottish man, dapper in red rayon paisley shirt, black waistcoat and cream wale cords, was holding forth about serial killers. A caption shivering on a white projector screen announced him to be Dr Daniel Williams, Criminologist. His quick-fire recital of indisputable criminal facts told me he was taking no lip from the floor.

  My short-term memory filleted the best bits:

  -The average number of people killed by a serial killer each year in the UK is seven.

  -There would appear to be two serial killers operating at any one time.

  -In 1986 alone, seven serial killers were active in the UK – the most ever recorded.

  What a fun parlour game, I thought, naming those. It would certainly complete my family’s Christmas afternoon.

  His next subject: brands of serial killer and their particular foibles. According to the academics Holmes – not Sherlock – and his sidekick De Burgh – not Chris – there are four types of serial killer: visionary; mission; power/control; hedonistic.

  Williams continued to throw out facts: The Visionary is impelled to kill because he has heard voices/seen visions demanding that he murder a particular person or category of people. The client dialling in this homicidal order is usually a demon, or The Big Man Himself.

  The Mission killer has a conscious, self-imposed goal in life to eliminate a certain identifiable group of people, minus any voices or visions.

  The Power/Control killer receives gratification not from sexual acts or violence, but by exerting complete control over their victims.

  The Hedonistic killer does it just for kicks.

  This list chimed uncannily with Tammy’s breakdown of shaggers at the Florentine Gardens. Could it be that our captains of industry share character traits with serial killers? I didn’t doubt it for one second.

  A man in his fifties bolted upright. Lean, steely-eyed, a street fighter, Spence didn’t need any formal introduction.

  ‘Thanks for the criminology lecture, Dr Williams,’ he said in his strangled Glaswegian brogue, ‘but can we please get back to your observations about the killer of Liz Little, specifically what you told me about the signatures.’

  Dr Williams took three steps away from his screen, perched on a stool and adopted the manner of a man about to treat a kids’ camp to a ghost story.

  ‘The correct term is actually personation,’ he almost whispered. ‘That’s when we find unusual behaviour by an offender beyond that necessary to commit the crime. Signature is when the offender demonstrates repeat behaviour from crime to crime …’

  That put Spence back on his arse, his big old head steaming like a boiled potato.

  ‘To the signature killer, his crime is a work of art and he wants to sign it. They want someone or a group of people to know that they’re responsible for their work. They crave status and respect. They want to be considered intelligent, a cut above the norm, brilliant even.

  ‘Our job is to interpret these clues as best as we can to decode the killer’s motive and personality. After all, behaviour reflects personality and, as we say, “why plus how equals who …” The nature of the personation can reveal a lot about the killer’s personality and innermost fantasies.

  ‘Over the years, I’ve read about thousands of cases involving personation and signatures.’

  If his standing at this point had been for dramatic effect, it worked.

  ‘What I’ve never seen, or read about, or heard of – in any other case, anywhere in the world – is for such a multitude of personations to be present at a single crime scene.

  ‘Elizabeth Little died of haemorrhaging caused by blunt force trauma. Almost everything else she suffered had been as a result of her killer’s bespoke and twisted personations. There were so many, I had to make a list …’

  He returned to his lectern and rifled through some papers.

  ‘The sexually provocative positioning of the body. The ligature around her neck – remember she didn’t die from asphyxiation. This ligature would have been used to torture her. The gouge marks to her body, made when she was alive. The way she’d been sliced into two. The battery inserted into her anus. The Joker smile carved into her face.

  ‘Even the place she’d been dumped – a notorious red-light district – carries a clear message. So what can I tell you about her killer?

  ‘Let me get the obvious stuff out of the way first. At least three people had to be involved in this enterprise, probably more. The whole thing had been painstakingly organised, right down to the location where they dumped her body beside a busy road. They were aiming for, and achieved, maximum shock value. But only one man called the shots. You’re looking for a very dangerous, violent, psychopathic man with a propensity for excessive violence.

  ‘The less obvious stuff: he’ll be powerful, wealthy, middle-aged, married with kids and vociferous about the importance of family.

  ‘He’ll be self-made. His greatest source of pride will be how he hauled himself out of the gutter to get to where he is today. He’s clearly one of a new breed of sociopaths honed by the collapse of old values during the 1980s. He believes only in personal prosperity and success and pursues it at all costs. He genuinely possesses zero empathy for anyone outside his immediate family.

  ‘He’s a control freak with a massive ego, overweening pride, almost a God complex.

  ‘He’ll run some sort of an empire, possibly business, more likely criminal or a combination of both. He has lots of people under his control and he’s making an example of Liz Little to them. The message, quite simply is: “Cross me and I’ll fuck you up in ways you can’t even imagine”. Is this man a potential serial killer? I’ve got to stick my neck out here and say he’s already a serial killer. His victims have been anyone he believes may have betrayed him. I say “may” because a man like this acts on basic instinct. If he feels someone’s shafted him, he won’t bother seeking out supporting evidence. He’ll act on it right away.’

  I realised that my jaw had fallen wide-open. Without knowing it, Doc Williams had just provided a chillingly accurate biography of Jimmy Reilly. And he wasn’t finished yet.

  ‘I’ve given a lot of thought to how the victim’s injuries may reflect the reason she was killed. The ‘Joker smile’ used to be administered to people who were talking too much. Who had Liz Little been talking to? I think this is worth exploring.

  ‘The posing of her body in a sexually provocative manner suggests a deeply personal issue between Liz and her killer, and it’s to do with power and anger. He feels that she betrayed him in some fundamental way. Again, what did she know and who was she telling?

  ‘The staging of her body – any staging of a crime scene, in fact – often indicates an offender with a deep-seated hatred for authority. This usually stems from youth offending. This is a man who puts great store in outwitting the police and beating the system which he feels is unfairly stacked against him. Now, any questions?’

  ‘Why do you think he’s gone to such lengths to mimic the Black Dahlia murder? What should we read into that?’

  ‘Glad you asked,’ said Williams. ‘This is another little game where he feels like he’s putting it up to you guys, gloating, taunting, challenging you to catch him. It’s driven by his hatred of authority.

  ‘I’ve been reading a lot about the original Black Dahlia case. I’ve only just found out that police were about to arrest a suspect in 1982 – a criminal called Jack Anderson Wilson – but he died in a house fire before they got to him.

  ‘The evidence against Wilson is strong. They were able to connect him to letters sent to the press and police at the time, taunting them about the case and revealing information that only the killer could have known.

  ‘The thing is – and this is why I’m glad you brought it up – after killing the Black Dahlia
, Wilson went on to murder five more women. My real fear is that this is what the killer of Liz Little is telling us: that he’s lined up five more for the same treatment. So you’d better catch him soon.’

  Post-briefing, Doubtfire grabbed me in the hallway – literally – and didn’t let go until Spence came out several minutes later.

  She shook me in front of him like a rag doll. ‘Sir, this is your ten o’clock. DC Donal Lynch from the Cold Case Squad.’

  He frowned while looking right through me, then re-focussed and squinted into my eyes. ‘Yes, of course,’ he said, blinking hard, ‘I’m looking forward to it, Lynch. We need chapter and verse on that Gillespie murder.’

  ‘I’ll do my best, sir,’ I jabbered.

  He stopped blinking to glare at me in disgusted confusion. ‘I just need you to do your job son,’ he said.

  ‘Take him in to the conference room, Janet,’ he ordered without taking his eyes off me. ‘I’ll be back in five.’

  Great start, Donal, I scolded myself as I got bundled back inside. I broke free and made for a seat near the wall, just to get away from her.

  ‘Get up,’ she demanded.

  ‘Sorry?’ I said, staying put.

  ‘He’ll expect you to be standing when he gets back.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really,’ she said, making a series of violent upwards gestures with her hand.

  I ignored her, then reminded myself of the longer game here and stood sulkily. I needed to impress Spence. He’d just taught me my first vital lesson – don’t bother with well- meaning flannel. I needed to man up, be decisive, confident, bold.

  He strode back in with a mug of tea, bag still in, and a newspaper folded under his arm, open on the sports pages.

  ‘Thanks, Janet,’ he said by way of dismissing her. ‘Sit down,’ he said, by way of letting me know who was boss. I felt certain that his men would call him boss. Or gaffer. Or King Dong. Something red-bloodedly reverential.

  I found myself instantly cowed by those cold, lifeless blue eyes. I couldn’t imagine them showing any emotion other than barely suppressed rage. I pictured homeless people knowing better than to ask him for change, or ferocious Rottweilers reduced to simpering mutts before their unblinking menace. DS Spence scared the shit out of me.

  ‘Right, Lynch,’ he said, ‘I need you to run through the connections between the Little and Gillespie murders for me. And, please, stick to the point.’

  I rattled off the pathological connections first: blunt force trauma, expertly carved up bodies, anally plugged with Grade C batteries.

  ‘And then of course there’s the hair,’ he said. ‘Run me through that.’

  ‘They found a couple of strands of human hair in Liz Little’s right hand. Four months earlier, the pathologist had struggled to identify Valerie Gillespie’s body. She examined her hair as part of that process. As soon as she saw the hair under the microscope again four months later, she recognised it.’

  ‘After four months, the pathologist recognised some hair?’

  ‘I believe so, sir.’

  His glare told me not good enough. I either knew or I didn’t.

  ‘DNA testing has confirmed this hair to be Valerie Gillespie’s. That is indisputable sir.’

  ‘Well, find out precisely how they made that connection, Lynch. This is now a crucial plank of our enquiry. Had the hair found on Liz been cut or pulled?’

  ‘Pulled out at the root, apparently.’

  ‘Apparently?’

  ‘Definitely pulled out at the root.’

  ‘You’re one hundred per cent certain of that, Lynch.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Why did you say apparently?’

  ‘Figure of speech, sir. A poor one.’

  ‘What lines of enquiry are you pursuing next, Lynch?’

  ‘She was last seen on CCTV ten days before her body was found. The pathologist estimated she died four or five days later. The days in between are unaccounted for.’

  ‘What are you doing about that?’

  The ground disintegrated beneath me; time to sprout wings.

  ‘Well, sir, she didn’t have a pimp and that’s what caused her problems at King’s Cross. I’m working on a theory that she re-located to Brownswood. Lots of girls work there without pimps. I’m pulling the local CCTV, see if we can track her down.’

  Of course that’s where she went, I suddenly realised. She was a crackhead and they found her body up the road in Wood Green …

  ‘If they still have the CCTV. How many months ago now?’

  ‘Four, sir.’

  ‘Councils keep it for three.’

  I could actually feel confidence leaking out of every pore.

  ‘I’m also having exhibits re-examined that were recovered next to where Valerie had been dumped. They found a radio and a torch in a bird-watching hut. There’s not much bird watching going on in December, so we’re confident they belonged to the killer,’ I said, hating my voice for shaking.

  ‘What station was it tuned to?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘The transistor radio. What station was it on?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Well, find out. If it was tuned to BBC Radio One, then it belonged to kids. Radio Three or Four, then it’s most likely owned by a twitcher. But if it’s on one of those talk radio stations that attracts right-wing nutters … This is all pretty obvious stuff, Lynch.’

  ‘I’ll be sure to find out, sir. One odd discovery I did make is that Valerie’s body was released from the mortuary two months ago, to her ex.’

  ‘Go see him. Find out how that happened. Maybe he’ll have some ideas about those missing days.’

  I smiled: ‘Maybe he still held a torch for her sir, you know, all the way to the reservoir!’

  He glared at me witheringly. I thought about revealing the Robert Conlon tip from the anonymous Irish Garda, then realised how flaky it sounded so shelved it. Instead, I curdled silently beneath his caustic snarl for what seemed like several minutes.

  ‘Is that it, Lynch?’ he stated, finally.

  ‘That’s as far as I’ve got, sir.’

  ‘So there may be other leads?’

  ‘No sir, that’s it.’

  ‘What about other unsolved cases that might be connected?’

  ‘I’m cross-referencing all the unsolved female murders in London over the last ten years, sir. I’ll report to you as soon as anything crops up.’

  ‘I was led to believe you’d already done this, Lynch.’

  ‘Work in progress, sir.’

  ‘You clearly need help. Get the Valerie Gillespie paperwork over to us ASAP. In fact, why don’t you send us all the unsolved case files with similar offender MO? We can take the load off you.’

  No, no, no, Spence, you can’t do that. This is my big chance to get onto your squad. Why would I just hand it all over to you and sideline myself?

  ‘Sir, I’m very familiar with these unsolved cases. I don’t have to start from scratch like your officers would. If you give me twenty-four hours, I’ll get through the whole file and report back to you.’

  ‘I’ve got more experienced officers than you here, Lynch. And they know facts about the Little case that you don’t …’

  ‘Sir, it would take my unit between twenty-four and forty-eight hours to get all this paperwork over to you. Why don’t you let me go through it today? You can treat it as a preliminary exercise. I’ll then bring it over myself, personally, tomorrow morning.’

  ‘You heard the criminologist, Lynch. There’s a serial killer out there butchering young women. I haven’t got time for a personal ego trip.’

  I should have left it there. Of course I should. But the chewed-up remnants of my pride and machismo wouldn’t let me. How dare he dismiss me as too dumb or inexperienced for this role! I’d invented this fucking role!

  ‘Despite my inexperience sir –’ I heard my voice slightly wobble. ‘– the similarities between these cases don’t s
eem nearly as striking to me as the differences.’

  That got the fucker’s attention.

  ‘Liz had been a high-class hooker who didn’t take drugs; Valerie was a crack whore. Liz had been cut with a knife; Valerie was tortured with an iron. Liz had gouges dug out of her body; Valerie didn’t. Valerie had cigarette burns on her arms and body; Liz didn’t. Liz’s body had been laid out for all to see. We were never supposed to find Valerie’s body.’

  He sat bolt upright, wide-eyed, like a guard dog.

  I charged on: ‘The only tangible links between these murders are the MO with the batteries and that chunk of Valerie’s hair found in Liz’s hand. Everything else is circumstantial. What if that hair had been planted to throw us off the scent?’

  He snorted in contempt. It didn’t even slow me down.

  ‘The criminologist just spent fifteen minutes describing the man who killed Liz Little. Every characteristic matched a person who knew Liz well and who has form for extreme violence.’

  I took a deep breath and told myself there could be no turning back now.

  ‘I think she was murdered by Jimmy Reilly.’

  My lightning strike zinged the air. Spence eyed me warily, a dark stranger telling fantastical tales.

  ‘There isn’t a shred of evidence linking this to Reilly,’ he said carefully, ‘unless you know something I don’t.’

  Time to slay Spence with my crusading sword of truth …

  ‘I went to his club Saturday night, sir, the Florentine Gardens, and got chatting to some of his dancers. There was definitely something going on between him and Liz.’

  He leaned forward. ‘I’ve underestimated you, Lynch. Do go on.’

  ‘Well, sir, Liz’s death hadn’t been made public by then, she’d only been found that morning, so we thought it would be a good time to do some fishing. One of the girls was about to talk … but changed her mind at the last second.’

  ‘When you say we Lynch …’

  ‘My brother Fintan, he’s a reporter. It was his idea.’

  ‘Fintan Lynch is your brother?’ he said, in alarmed disbelief. But I’d hooked him.

  ‘Who was this girl? What did she tell you?’