As they turned to look elsewhere, someone said, “Good evening, Superintendent.” Glancing back, Collison realised that it was Peter Collins, immaculately dressed in a double-breasted pinstripe suit and a hat. Beside him Karen was wearing a fifties-style dark suit with a pencil skirt and high heels. She reminded him strongly of a vintage glamour photograph.
“Hello, you two,” he said in surprise. “This is my wife, Caroline. Darling, Peter Collins and Karen Willis.
“I say,” he added, cutting through the mumbled greetings, “you can’t go in there, it’s booked for a private function.”
“I know, we’re going to it,” Peter said apologetically.
“It’s a fifties evening,” Karen added. “That’s why we’re dressed up like this.”
As if on cue, some Latin American dance music struck up inside the restaurant.
“What a lovely idea,” Caroline Collison said. “Simon, we should try something like that.”
“Well, there’s a website you can go to,” Collins explained. “I’m sure Karen could give your husband the link sometime, if you want.”
“Hm,” Collison said noncommittally, “that would be nice. Anyway, come along, dear. We need to find somewhere to eat. Goodnight, folks, enjoy your rumba.”
“Actually, it sounds like a cha-cha-cha,” Collins replied as Karen guided him away.
Caroline stared at her husband in surprise. “I didn’t know you knew anything about dancing.”
“Only a little,” he conceded. “It seemed like a good guess but it turned out to be wrong. Story of my life at the moment, I’m afraid.”
His wife shook her head and took his arm. “Never mind, Simon,” she said quietly. “Let’s try Angelo’s round the corner.”
The next morning’s meeting had a new sense of purpose.
“Right,” said Collison. “We know what we have to do. I want the medical records of every VD clinic in London, going back three years.”
“We’ll need a court order, sir,” Andrews said.
“I know. Get one.”
“Perhaps we should widen the search a little, as well,” Metcalfe suggested. “My guess is that if it’s only a minor infection it can be cleared up by something on prescription.”
“Bloody hell, boss,” Desai groaned. “That means every GP in London.”
“If that’s what it takes, that’s what we’ll do,” Metcalfe maintained doggedly.
“Have you any idea how many doctors’ surgeries there are in London?” Andrews queried. “It would take months to go through their records.”
“And what exactly are we looking for, anyway?” Desai asked. “All men under a certain height? And, if so, what height?”
“And what if at the end of it all we find ourselves with a list of several hundred blokes?” Andrews said. “We just don’t have the manpower to check out that number of people.”
“Maybe we can narrow it down a bit,” Collison said. “I’ve had an idea. Karen, see if Peter can come in again. In the meantime, Ken, get onto the Yard’s lawyers and get a court order organised.”
So it was that an hour later found Peter Collins back at Hampstead police station, this time standing in front of a map of Greater London.
“OK, Peter,” Collison said. “I’ve read that there can be a geographical pattern to serial killings. Can you help us with that here, at all?”
Collins stared at the map. “I see you’ve put pins in each murder location.”
“Yes, and a number showing the sequence in time.”
He nodded silently and turned back to face the expectant team. “I have considered geography and time,” he began. “The reason I didn’t mention anything about it yesterday is that the research studies are far from conclusive, and we actually don’t have that much data to work with. It’s only five observations, after all. This sort of stuff seems to work best with someone like a rapist who may have struck ten or twenty times.”
“We understand all your reservations,” Collison said, “but we’re not relying on this in any evidential way. We don’t want to use it to prove that someone is or isn’t our killer. We just want to find some way of making our task more manageable by starting to look in the most likely places.”
“All right, then,” he said reluctantly, “but with the strongest possible health warning.”
“Noted,” Collison acknowledged.
“I should perhaps explain, for those of you who might not know what we’re talking about,” Collins said, as if addressing a lecture room, “that there is a theory to the effect that serial killers start off quite a long way from home and then gradually, as they grow more confident and/or more desperate, they strike closer and closer to where they live.”
“More desperate?” Metcalfe echoed.
“Yes. Some serial killers, the most disturbed ones, kill simply for the pleasure of it. They get a kick out of the excitement. But that kick is like a drug. You need more and more of it to have the same effect. I think we can disregard that possibility here, though. What happens in such cases is that the interval between successive killings gets shorter and shorter, and I don’t see that in this case.
“Incidentally,” he went on, “that’s another reason why I felt, I still feel, diffident about using this particular technique in this case. I’m not sure that our killer is growing more confident, except that perhaps the last killing was in the most public place so far.”
“Nonetheless…” Collison prompted him.
“Nonetheless, the theory is there if you want to use it. In fact one American academic has even developed a computer programme that claims to be able to place a killer or a rapist within a particular area if you feed in the map coordinates of his crimes in sequence. I’ve tried it with these murders.”
Peter Collins turned back to the map and drew a circle with his finger.
“It would suggest that we’re looking for someone who lives within a radius of about half a mile from Camden Town. It’s possible that his local tube station is either Kentish Town, Chalk Farm, Mornington Crescent or Camden Town itself.”
“Now we’re really getting somewhere,” Metcalfe said in satisfaction.
Desai’s mind was already racing ahead. “We can check Oyster card records for people who start and finish their journeys at those tube stations,” she proffered, “and cross-check them with medical records.”
“And check whether their addresses are within that circle,” Andrew agreed.
“I must stress,” Collins tried to insist through the hubbub, “that this really is very speculative.”
“Don’t worry, Peter,” Collison said, patting him on the shoulder, “it’s only a way of narrowing down the search. We’ll carry on keeping an open mind, I promise.
“And well done, again,” he added. “Thank you.”
In the days to come the team were to realise just how grateful they really should be. First they had to get the court order, which was opposed by the local health authority’s lawyers “because we have to.” Then they had to serve it not just on the health authority, which submitted with a good grace, but on every single GP practice in the area. Then it turned out that the records in question were stored on various different computer systems, none of which were compatible with the police database. Karen was given the job of taking the various printouts, collating them in hard copy and assigning interview responsibilities.
“And just as an added complication, sir,” she reported to Collison, “only the GPs’ records have the patient’s height. The hospital ones don’t.”
“So, how many people does that mean we’ve got to interview?”
“Even if we restrict it to the indicated area, about three hundred.”
“Bloody hell,” said Metcalfe, who was listening.
“Good old-fashioned police work, Bob,” Collison said with heavily overdone enthusiasm. “Nothing like it.”
“We have eleven people on the team, sir, so that’s only about twenty-five each,” Karen said.
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sp; “Good,” he said briskly. “Bob, you coordinate that with Karen, will you? By the way, I think we should exercise a bit of discretion here. Some of these men may have partners who never got to hear of their—ah—affliction.”
“What should we brief the troops to look for?”
“Initial screening should be to look for men of below average height and build, either living alone or with a job that involves them being away from home frequently. Once they can press those buttons, they need to close in for detailed questioning about their whereabouts on the relevant dates.”
“OK,” Metcalfe nodded.
“Good, let’s report back at 1700 tomorrow,” said Collison. “I’ll be at the Yard in the morning if anyone wants me. I have to brief the ACC.”
The next day was Friday; another week had passed, largely wasted in legal procedure. Little success had been encountered in running patients to earth, presumably because most were at work and their patient records listed only their home addresses. Collison authorised voluntary overtime over the weekend for anyone who wanted it. Many did; for the first time in the long investigation there was a feeling that they were getting closer to a result. Karen ran off notes to be left where no answer was to be had, asking the named individual to contact the incident room.
Metcalfe diffidently suggested that the two of them should meet up at Saturday lunchtime and she readily agreed. “I’ll be ready for a break,” she said. “How about the Wells?”
“Might be very busy if it’s a nice day,” he demurred. “Why not, say, the King William?”
“OK.”
“You’re sure you don’t mind?” he asked, in some surprise.
“Not at all,” she said with a laugh. “It’ll make a change from door-stepping VD patients, anyway.”
Waiting for her, Metcalfe felt irrationally nervous, like a schoolboy waiting for his date. What was it about her that he couldn’t get out of his mind?
Suddenly she was there. “Hello,” she said, dropping her shoulder bag on the seat beside him. “How did you get on?”
“Not bad. Not a bad response rate, that is. But nothing that looks interesting. All of them could say more or less straightaway where they were on the evening of the last murder, and most of them for the one before that as well. Of course, we’ll have to check the details…”
“Another fun job. Why can’t police work be more like all those detective stories?”
“What, you mean like Prime Suspect, or something like that?”
“Actually, no. I was thinking more of the Golden Age. Sayers, Marsh, Allingham, all that mob. Peter’s mad about them. In fact, he’s close to being obsessed with Lord Peter Wimsey.”
“Like Agatha Christie’s Poirot?”
“Yes, but Peter doesn’t really rate Christie. Nor do I, actually, I much prefer Alleyn to Poirot, for example.”
“Hm,” said Metcalfe. “Not sure I’ve heard of him—or is it a her?”
“The author’s a her, the detective’s a him,” she said briskly. “Drink?”
“I’ve already got one, thanks. Let me get you one.”
“OK—same as you if that’s Diet Coke.”
“It is,” he admitted ruefully. “Think anyone could guess we were coppers?”
“More than likely. See you in a mo—I’m just off to the loo while you’re at the bar.”
“I’ve never been quite sure about real-life policemen reading detective stories,” he said when she returned. “Difficult to take them seriously somehow.”
“Know what you mean,” she said, sipping her drink. “Peter loves them, though. Actually, so does Collison, I think. I’m dreading him and Peter getting going about them one day.”
“How do you know?”
“I read something he wrote for one of the Sunday papers a while back. It was about the criminal’s need to be discovered, well, some criminals anyway, and he turned it into a discussion about lots of different detective writers.”
“I didn’t know he’d studied psychology. I thought he had a law degree.”
“Yes, he does. I think it’s just an interest really. Maybe he did criminology as part of his degree course.”
“So, what do you think of him?” Metcalfe asked.
“As a person, or as a copper?”
“Both, I suppose.”
She thought for a while. “As a person I think he’s intelligent and genuine. I think he tries to do the right thing by people. He’s got a good reputation in the force. Of course there will always be people who make snide remarks when you’ve been promoted so quickly…”
“And as a copper?”
“I think he’s good,” she said simply. “He thinks really deeply about what he’s doing, and he knows all the procedures. What’s missing is all those years of grubby, everyday experience that all the old-timers believe you need to be a good detective—copper’s nose, copper’s instinct, whatever you want to call it. Personally, I’d take intelligence any day.”
“I agree,” Metcalfe nodded. “It’s a horrible thought, but if you could put him and Tom Allen together, you’d probably have the perfect policeman.”
“Horrible and quite impossible,” Karen said with a grimace. “They’re so totally unalike, the mind meld would never work. They’d reject each other.”
“Yes,” he mused. “Maybe you’d get left with two monsters who’d each taken the worst of each other.”
They both smiled and fell silent. A strand of hair, which she normally wore tied back, fell across her face. As she brushed it back, he felt a sudden surge of longing mixed with sadness for what he knew could never be.
“I think he’s getting frustrated, though, the guvnor, I mean,” Karen went on, “and I can sympathise. He’s pressing all the right buttons but nothing’s happening. He must feel under a lot of pressure, having been brought in by the ACC to ginger things up.”
“I have a theory, for what it’s worth,” Metcalfe proffered.
“Go on.”
“I think serial killer cases are very different to normal murder enquiries, though that must sound very pretentious since this is the only serial killer case I’ve ever worked on.”
“Me too, and I hope to God it’s my last.”
“Amen to that, but as I was saying…”
“Yes, sorry.”
“You see with a normal murder, if that doesn’t sound a strange phrase to use, you can generally work out a list of suspects and motives. After all, most murder victims know their killers. Serial killings are different. They’re random attacks by a complete stranger, and often at night and/or in remote locations. So unless you have an immense stroke of luck and catch them in the act, or by accident, the odds really are stacked against you.”
“What about DNA?”
“DNA evidence has made a big difference,” he acknowledged, “but if the killing takes place outside and it’s some time before anyone finds the body, then you don’t have much chance. Look at Ted Bundy. Most of his victims were badly decomposed when they were found. Some had been partially eaten by wild animals. Some were never even found at all.”
“That’s a depressing picture you’re painting,” Karen said quietly.
“Depressing, yes, but realistic I think. We have to face the fact that most serial killers never get caught. Look at the Zodiac Killer, for example.”
Karen stared at him. “Do you mean there are serial killers at work all around us, and only a tiny minority ever get caught?”
“Yes, I do,” Metcalfe replied resolutely. “Look at the number of people who simply go missing in Britain every year. Generally they either turn up in a matter of days, or they’re never heard of again. I’ve actually been doing some research on it, just for my own interest. Over a quarter of a million people go missing every year. That’s one in every 225 members of the population, by the way. Most are found almost straight away, though not always alive, but that still leaves about eight per cent who are never heard of again. That’s a lot of people.”
�
��And you think that proves there a lot of serial killers out there getting away with it?”
“I think it’s a possible explanation. In fact, I think it’s the most likely explanation.”
“Sounds logical,” she agreed. “You know, you should tell Collison about this. I’m sure he’d suggest you work it up into a formal paper and submit it to the Commissioner.”
“I think I’ll leave it for the time being,” Metcalfe said sardonically. “He’s got rather a lot on his plate right now.”
“Yes,” Karen said soberly. “Poor guy. It’s bad for us, but it must be much worse for him. The pressure must be building with every day that goes by. Will we get a break, do you think, Bob?”
“You have to believe so, or you couldn’t do this job,” he responded after a moment’s thought for reflection, “but I have a theory—yes, another one,” he added with a smile. As he did so he suddenly realised that she had called him “Bob” for the first time. He brushed the thought away, but still somehow found it absurdly pleasing.
“Which is?”
“That in a case like this you don’t find the break, it finds you. Oh, of course you have to do all the work, put the hours in, follow the leads. I’m not suggesting that we just sit around waiting for something to happen. But it goes back to what I was saying just now. The odds against you finding anything that points to one specific individual are enormous, overwhelming. You have to believe that sooner or later the fates will align and an apparently random connection will suddenly click into place.”
Karen thought about this. “Like synchronicity, perhaps?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s Jung. He believed that we are surrounded by much more coincidence than we realise, and so we’ve become incapable of noticing most of it. It’s only when it becomes sufficiently extreme that we begin to recognise it for what it is.”
“Wait,” Metcalfe said with a sudden rush of recollection, “I’m remembering reading something about this now. But isn’t there more to it than that?”
“There was, but it’s the bit that most people find pretty weird or cranky.”
“Something to do with us being able to control our own destinies, wasn’t it?” he asked uncertainly.
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