A Killing Mind, page 15
part #5 of DI Sean Corrigan Series
You needed the release – Sean immediately thought to himself. Just like you did at the first scene; you needed to release the power and the tension, but the victim was male, so you ejaculated over his body – his final humiliation.
‘No great surprise,’ Roddis continued. ‘It was never very likely we were dealing with two different killers.’
‘No,’ Sean agreed. ‘No, it wasn’t.’
‘And his DNA isn’t on file,’ Roddis reminded him, ‘so it’s not going to help us catch him, but it will obviously help us convict him when we do.’
‘That’s all well and good,’ Sean replied, ‘but I need to find him first.’
‘I’ll keep looking,’ Roddis assured him.
‘I know you will.’
As soon as he’d hung up, Sean headed for Sally’s office, where she and Anna were sketching the offender profile for the killer on to a large whiteboard. He glanced at the scribbles written in red marker pen. ‘You seen Dave?’
‘No,’ Sally answered. ‘I haven’t seen him all day.’
‘Great,’ he said sarcastically. ‘We need an office meeting. I want to know where we are. Call everyone together,’ he ordered, storming off to his own Perspex cubicle.
‘OK,’ Sally said, although he’d already left, and headed into the main office. ‘All right, everyone,’ she called out. ‘Office meeting in a couple of minutes. Boss wants to know what progress you’ve all been making.’ After a few nervous looks between the detectives present everyone began to gather around the boards, which were now covered with crime scene and other photographs, as well as dozens of facts that had been established and leads that needed to be chased down.
Having composed himself after his outburst, Sean strode into the main office, coming to a halt in front of the boards. ‘All right,’ he began. ‘Listen up: I’ve just had a call from DS Roddis – the lab found semen on the clothing of the second victim. It looks like he ejaculated on him, but there’s no other evidence of sexual assault. After initial examination, it would appear to be from the same man who left semen at the first scene. It’ll take a few days before it’s one hundred per cent confirmed, but it shores up what we already believed – i.e., we’re dealing with the same suspect. DS Roddis was also able to confirm that the suspect’s DNA is not on file.’ There were a few murmurs of disquiet from the audience. ‘So,’ he told them, ‘we’ll have to solve this one the hard way. Nobody’s going to be handing us a name and address for the suspect anytime soon, so we need to get on with it.
‘Alan,’ he turned towards DC Jesson. ‘Any news on the CCTV?’
‘TFL are examining both victims’ Oyster cards,’ he explained, ‘so we should have their movements on the day they were killed and we can gather up the CCTV. We’ve had CCTV from Borough tube looked at from the night Dalton was killed, but all it shows is that, if he was being followed, he wasn’t being followed closely.’
‘You need to go back further,’ Sean told him, remembering his visit to the Richards crime scene. ‘There’s a chance our man followed both victims for some time before he actually killed them. He may have been watching them.’
There were a few surprised looks and whispers.
‘We need to go back at least ten days before the killing. And if that reveals nothing, we go back further.’
‘That’s a lot of CCTV to plough through,’ Jesson pointed out.
‘We have two victims,’ Sean reminded him, ‘and there’ll be more if we don’t find him, so I don’t care how much footage there is, we need to do it. Concentrate on Tottenham Court Road and Borough stations for now. That should make it more manageable.’
‘Why go back specifically ten days?’ DC Maggie O’Neil asked.
‘Because he’s on a ten-day cycle, remember,’ Sean reminded her. ‘He probably concentrates entirely on one victim before moving on to the next. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.’ He waited for any more questions – moving on when none came.
‘OK,’ he said, looking around to see if Donnelly had sneaked into the meeting, but he was nowhere to be seen. ‘In the absence of DS Donnelly, is anyone here from the door-to-door team who can update us?’ He was greeted with awkward silence until Sally spoke.
‘They’re all down at Mint Street,’ she told him. ‘I don’t have any updates yet.’
‘Fine,’ Sean muttered, the irritation clear in his voice. ‘Moving on: what about victim selection? Any ideas? Anyone?’
‘Both young and vulnerable,’ Sally offered.
‘We know that,’ Sean dismissed it, ‘and that one was male, one was female and they both used class-A drugs, but how is he selecting them? What, if anything, ties them together?’
‘What’s to say he doesn’t search the streets until he finds someone he’s drawn to?’ Sally asked.
‘Nothing,’ he admitted. ‘But what if it’s not as random as it first appears? What if there’s more to his victim selection than just young and vulnerable?’
‘We have nothing to suggest there is,’ Sally reminded him.
‘Not yet,’ Sean told her, ‘but if there is and we can find it, then we’ll be a lot closer to finding him. I want you all to keep that in mind,’ he ordered his team. ‘If you get the slightest indication of a specific selection process, I need to know.’ He was answered with lots of nodding heads.
‘What about the killer?’ Jesson asked. ‘We know what sort of victims we’re dealing with, but what about the killer? What sort of man are we looking for?’
‘Anna?’ Sean said, handing the question over to her.
‘Well, he’s clearly both psychopathic and sadistic, but he’s also organized and confident, which suggests an older man – between thirty-five and fifty, and reasonably intelligent. I would anticipate he’s been fairly successful in his life, although behavioural problems may have held him back, but he has no criminal record, so he’s been able to control himself – at least until now.’
‘He could be a failed dentist, then?’ Sally asked. ‘Hence the teeth.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Anna frowned. ‘When I say fairly successful, I mean he’s probably qualified in a trade or perhaps a lower-level professional – all of which fits with him being married and likely with children, although I believe the marriage didn’t work out.’
‘Why?’ Jesson asked.
‘A psychopath is a very difficult person to live with,’ she explained. ‘Even one who lives an apparently normal life within the law. What we know of his movements – being out late at night, missing for hours on end hunting victims – wouldn’t fit too well with married life or cohabiting with a partner. Whoever shared his life would be bound to ask questions – questions that would be difficult to answer. For what he’s doing, it’s better to live alone.
‘And then there are his victims,’ Anna continued, enjoying herself now, relaxed and lost in her impromptu lecture. ‘Both young and, more importantly, white – which tells us he’s almost certainly white himself. Serial killers tend to stay within their own ethnic group.’
‘Why?’ Sally asked. ‘I mean, I know they do, but I’ve never understood why.’
‘Because it makes it more personal,’ Anna told her. ‘Serial killers always want it to be as personal as they can make it. Our own race always feels that little bit more human to us than others. Remember, most serial killers are murdering strangers – so they’ll do everything they can to make it feel more personal, starting with killing within their own ethnic group.
‘They also like to feel as safe and comfortable as possible when stalking and killing their victims, which means they’ll usually operate within a geographical area they know well. If they’re disturbed and have to run, they don’t want to be in unfamiliar surroundings where there’s a risk of becoming disorientated or lost. This one’s almost certainly a Londoner, or someone who’s lived here most of their adult life.’
‘So we’ve got a middle-aged white male Londoner who’s probably divorced, who’s possibly anything from a carpenter to an office clerk,’ Jesson sarcastically summarized. ‘Not really a great help, is it?’
Sean noticed Anna visibly deflate and stepped in. ‘Once we get close to him, it’ll help,’ he argued.
‘When we get close,’ Jesson emphasized.
‘What about his sexuality?’ Sally asked. ‘He seems confused – a male and a female victim. We now know there was sexual activity at both scenes.’
‘I don’t agree,’ Anna recovered. ‘His sexual activity at the first scene was strongly heterosexual, but while it now appears he ejaculated over the male victim at the second scene, no clothes were removed and there is no evidence of sexual molestation.’
‘Meaning?’ Sally pressed.
‘Meaning, his sexuality is important to him,’ Anna explained. ‘Very important. He sees himself as a red-blooded alpha male, and it’s a self-image that everything else hinges around. He may actually be quite successful with women – initially, anyway – and the last thing he wants is to be mistaken for or accused of being homo or bisexual. Hence he doesn’t interact with his male victim sexually.’
‘But he did ejaculate over him,’ Jesson reminded her. ‘In my book, that’s sexual activity. If his alpha-male image is so important to him, why do that and risk having people believe he’s gay or bisexual?’
‘Killing made him feel more alive than he’d ever felt in his life,’ Sean tried to explain. ‘So alive he would have felt like he was on fire. It was too much for him, so he needed a release. Ejaculating changed the chemical balance in his body long enough for him to calm down and regain his composure. He’d just committed murder. He needed to think.’
‘If you say so, boss,’ Jesson relented. He’d been working with Sean long enough to know there was a point at which it was better to accept what he said than try to argue.
‘But none of this is telling us why he’s killing,’ Cahill pointed out.
‘It’s complicated,’ Anna told her. ‘He no doubt has a lot of issues in his life – probably a legacy of his childhood. Given what we know about him, he’s likely very egotistical, so maybe his ego has been severely damaged at some point and he’s looking to make himself feel in control again or—’
‘Because it makes him feel a hundred times more special than he really is,’ Sean interrupted Anna’s diagnosis. ‘He wants to be top of the food chain – something he can never be in his other life – and now he feels he is. Which is why he won’t stop. He can’t give up that feeling.’
He looked around at the quiet, concerned faces, picking DC Summers out of the crowd. ‘Tony, I need you to go back over both victims’ intelligence records. Dalton and Richards have criminal records going back several years. In isolation they haven’t told us much, but we need to look at them together – see if there isn’t a common denominator, an associate they share – a friend, a dealer, anything.
‘Fiona,’ he turned towards Cahill. ‘We know he has no convictions in the UK, but maybe he’s been indulging his unpleasant tastes somewhere else in the world. Liaise with the lab and have his DNA profile sent over to Interpol and the FBI – see if he’s on someone else’s files. Get his MO circulated too. It’s distinctive enough that if they’ve come across it, they’ll recognise it pretty quick.’
‘What about the victims’ phones?’ DC Maggie O’Neil asked.
‘They’re at the technical lab being examined,’ Sean told her. ‘Nothing much so far, but as with everything else, if we don’t find anything first time, we go back and dig deeper – cross-referencing numbers and contacts to look for a common denominator.
‘As yet,’ he reminded them, ‘we only have one suspect – Tanya Richards’ pimp, Joey Mehmet. He’s a long shot, but he needs to be found.’
‘We’re on it,’ Sally assured him. ‘He’s circulated as wanted and we’ve made sure every intelligence office across the Met has his face taking pride of place on their bulletin boards.’
‘Good,’ Sean told her. ‘As soon as we find him, I want to know. Anything else?’ he asked the gathering. No one spoke. ‘OK, well let’s get on with it.’
He immediately headed back to his office, followed by Sally and Anna.
‘We have a lot of information, but not much progress,’ Sally complained.
‘It’s always like that at the beginning,’ Sean reminded her. ‘You know that.’
‘I know,’ she admitted. ‘Could do with something a bit more solid though.’
‘It’ll come,’ he assured her. ‘Do we have the keys for Richards’ home?’
‘We should,’ Sally replied. ‘Tessa’s taking care of all exhibits – but why do you want her flat keys?’ Sally asked.
‘Because I know how she died,’ he answered. ‘Now I need to see how she lived.’
David Langley sat at his desk, his digital camera connected to his work computer, the screen displaying a picture of the girl from the Roehampton estate immediately after she emerged from having degraded herself to feed her habit. He tapped his keyboard and scrolled through the pictures that had been snapped so close together that they almost looked like film. She was perfect – young and vulnerable, flawed but beautiful. His nostrils flared as he imagined what she smelt like: inexpensive soap mixed with clothes that needed cleaning, the reek of cigarettes and possibly alcohol. The memory of the smell of desperation made his entire body come alive. He felt the tightening in his groin and the beginnings of an erection that he ignored, telling himself it was merely a side effect of the power his body now possessed.
One particular photo came on to the screen that made him freeze, his finger poised over the clicker on his mouse. Instead of moving on, he enlarged the area of the frame showing the girl’s throat – slim and elegant with pale thin skin. For a moment he thought he could almost see her carotid artery pulsing, thought he could feel her blood racing through his fingers as he tightened them around her neck. ‘Only a few days now,’ he whispered to himself. ‘A few days more and you’ll be mine.’
Suddenly his fantasizing was shattered as the assistant manager, Brian Houghton, burst in without knocking. ‘Oi, oi,’ Houghton smiled lasciviously, ‘watching porn again. Eh?’
Calmly he clicked the mouse and made the photographs disappear. ‘Do you want something?’
‘It’s my office as well,’ Houghton reminded him, which drew a withering look from Langley. ‘Anyway,’ he moved on, ‘thought you’d want to know that Jane’s been looking for you.’
‘Huntingdon?’ Langley asked. ‘She’s been here?’
‘No. She was on the blower, wondering where you were.’
‘And what did you tell her?’ he asked, the urgency thick in his voice.
‘Calm down,’ Houghton teased. ‘I told her I was busy on the shop floor and that I’d seen you about, but didn’t know where you were right that second. Why the panic?’
‘Because she called me,’ Langley told him, ‘on my mobile. I told her I was in the stock room and away from my desk, which was why I wasn’t answering my office phone.’
‘Tricky bitch, eh?’ Houghton smiled. ‘Trying to catch one of us out. Or both of us.’ Langley didn’t respond – his mind racing with paranoid thoughts of what she might have discovered or suspected. ‘Fit, though,’ Houghton said in a hushed tone, as if she could hear him. ‘I know what I’d like to do to her,’ he smiled an ugly smile. ‘I’d teach the bitch a lesson, I can promise you that. Bend her over your desk there and put her in her place, eh?’
The anger Langley felt towards Jane Huntingdon mingled with his contempt for Houghton like a chemical reaction. Rage began to surge through him, threatening to overwhelm him. Once he was with his little Roehampton girl, he’d be in complete control again, but putting up with the likes of Houghton and Huntingdon was becoming unbearable. He’d be doing the world a favour if he slit both their throats – just like his father had taught him to when he was a young boy and they’d hunted animals in the forest together, away from the mindless, squabbling chatter of his mother and sisters. Alone in the forest where they could be men, cooking whatever they’d managed to catch over an open fire while his father talked to him about the world they lived in – how it was a man’s world, no matter what women like his mother tried to tell him; that when he grew older he should take whatever he wanted – including women. It was his father who’d taught him that he was different. That he was special. That he would do great things. He still missed him and wished the old man could see the great things that he’d done. Things a fool like Houghton could never understand.
‘What would you know about teaching her a lesson?’ he turned on Houghton – the need to be cruel too powerful to resist. ‘Look at you. You really think she would ever want you?’
‘Who said anything about her agreeing to it?’ Houghton tried to bluff his way out of the awkwardness.
‘You’re talking about raping her?’
‘No,’ Houghton backed away. ‘Course not. I was only— ’
‘Sounded like you want to rape her,’ Langley continued. ‘Force her to have sex with you.’
‘Hey, look,’ Houghton pleaded, ‘it was a bit of banter, that’s all.’
Langley smiled and took a few steps backwards. ‘I’m just fucking with you,’ he admitted, the burst of cruelty enough to satisfy his immediate need and restore his calm. ‘You shouldn’t take me so seriously.’
‘Jesus!’ Houghton breathed a sigh of relief. ‘You had me going there for a minute.’
Langley smiled pleasantly. ‘Well, you’re right about one thing – she is most definitely fuckable.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Houghton grinned, his enthusiasm for puerile, sexual machismo having returned. ‘You gonna have a crack at her then? Christmas party, eh? I’ve seen you – you’re good with women. Reckon you’ve got a chance? Shagging the boss? Very nice.’
‘I’m sure our paths will cross,’ Langley told him as his hand covered the computer mouse and brought up the pictures of the Roehampton girl once more – his screen angled so Houghton couldn’t see. ‘And when they do, we’ll see, won’t we.’
