A Killing Mind, page 28
part #5 of DI Sean Corrigan Series
‘You’ve done a good job,’ Sean thanked him as the two men shook hands.
‘Pleasure,’ Coles replied. ‘Hope it helps you catch the bastard.’
‘It will.’
As Sean made his way back to his car, his mind spinning, his body aching and feeling sick to his stomach – images of the dead girl from Roehampton burned themselves into his memory alongside the others. Faces that would be with him until he joined them in the land of the dead. ‘You’ll tell me why you’re doing this,’ he whispered into the rain. ‘One way or the other, you’ll tell me why you’re doing this.’
David Langley stepped out of the hot shower and dabbed himself partially dry before wrapping the towel around his waist and walking to the kitchen, guided by a trail of candles. All other lights in the flat had been turned off so he could better appreciate the flickering shadows on the walls. The bright light from bulbs and spotlights would have been inappropriate for the occasion. With his TV and radio off and the rest of the world asleep, he could hear the candle-flames burning – the only sound that he would tolerate when enjoying what were always the most special hours for him – those first few hours after a kill, when he’d made it home safely with his prizes and fresh memories, the smell of his victim still filling his nose and mouth. Few people on the planet were privileged to indulge in an extraordinary experience such as this; conscious of that, he savoured it to the full. Memories of the kill mixed with older memories of sitting by a fire in the forest with his father, calm and relaxed after a day of hunting and killing whatever animals they could track – their hands stained with blood, the pelts drying in the warmth close by.
He considered how truly different he was from the mass of humanity – just as his father said he would be. Few people could appreciate what it felt like, the sense of peace, the sense of his own power. He longed to be able to speak about how he felt in that very moment, but it would have to be someone who understood, one of the few, the chosen. Someone like Gibran or perhaps Sean. He considered calling him, but decided he was unlikely to be in his office at this hour. Assuming the body had been discovered, he was probably at the crime scene at this moment.
At the thought of the girl’s body, lying in the middle of the car park, his eyes were instinctively drawn to his backpack sitting unopened on the kitchen table. He went to it now, sliding it towards him and unzipping it slowly, his hand sliding inside and removing the two plastic bags. Placing them reverently on the table, he pushed the backpack aside and sat down. Drawing in a deep breath, he lifted a plastic bag in each hand and examined the bloody contents – each tooth and nail helping him to relive the moment he’d ripped them from the girl’s body. His breathing quickened as his thoughts travelled back further, to when he was inside her while the blood – her life – drained from her body. If only he had someone special to share it all with. Someone who could appreciate what he was.
Again his mind drifted to Sean as he imagined him at the crime scene, walking around the girl’s body. Crouching next to her to examine her wounds – trying to get inside his skin, feel as he had felt, see what he had seen. That was how Corrigan worked, he’d decided. He was different to other detectives. He didn’t wait for forensic reports to tell him what happened or clumsily try to imagine how the killer had killed – he imagined how he would have killed, what would have made it special for him. Clearly it enabled him to paint a vivid picture of how it happened, using his experience of other scenes and other killers to fill in the gaps. That had to be how he did it, how he caught killers like Gibran and Thomas Keller as quickly as he did. Now he’d be doing the same thing, trying to catch him. But this time it wouldn’t work – not quickly enough, anyway. Langley would achieve all he wanted to achieve and then hand himself in so the whole world could learn about him and all the wonderful things he’d done. Corrigan would never be able to claim his scalp.
Corrigan and Gibran, he thought to himself. Two names forever linked. One still free to hunt while the other rotted in Broadmoor. Even so, he craved Gibran’s approval. His recognition. Maybe now, after his latest creation, Gibran would give him the respect he was due and realize that it was only a matter of time before he had to relinquish his crown.
Sharp pains in the palm of his hands distracted him from his dreaming as he realized he was in danger of crushing the plastic bags containing the girl from Roehampton’s fingernails and teeth. He snapped his hands open and let the bags fall to the table. ‘Soon everyone will know my name,’ he hissed into the semi-darkness – his words making the flames of the candles on the table bend away from him as if they were trying to escape their wick tethers. Once his plan was revealed to the world, both Corrigan and Gibran would have to acknowledge their inferiority and kneel before him.
‘Sleep now,’ he told himself, leaning forward and blowing out the candles.
12
Sean had gone straight from the scene to his office, where he’d waited for an hour before scrambling Sally and Donnelly, trying to allow them as much sleep as he could, knowing it was going to be a very long day. An hour later, he called Anna and the rest of the team. Now he sat in his office drinking black coffee while he prepared to brief everyone. Sally was buzzing around the main office, clearing room on the whiteboards for more photographs, while Donnelly sat in his office looking lost in his own thoughts.
As soon as he spotted Anna coming through the door, Sean jumped to his feet and headed into the main office, popping his head into Donnelly’s office en route.
‘I’m about to brief the team,’ he said. When Donnelly continued to sit, dazed, at his desk, Sean asked, ‘You all right?’
‘Yeah.’ Donnelly ran a hand through his unkempt hair. ‘Wee bit tired is all.’
‘You want to sit this one out?’
‘No,’ Donnelly replied, getting to his feet. ‘I’m fine.’
‘If you’re sure …’ Sean called over his shoulder, striding towards the whiteboards where Sally had pinned photographs of the victim taken on Sean’s smartphone and printed on A4 paper. The professional copies would arrive later, showing the true horror of the scene in all their detailed garishness. ‘OK, everybody,’ he called out. ‘Listen up.’ He waited for the room to quieten and the detectives to move closer. ‘As you all know by now, we have another victim.’ He pointed to the pictures of the girl from Roehampton. ‘Witney Dennis. Sixteen years old, lived on the Roehampton Estate, about two hundred metres from where she was found by a local crack-head in a raely used car park behind some closed down shops. The victim was also known to use crack when she had the cash. Other than that we know she was unemployed, a petty thief – shoplifting mostly – and Wandsworth Borough Intelligence Unit say she was probably an occasional sex worker.
‘She died pretty much the same way as the others,’ he explained. ‘Hit on the head, knife wounds to her throat and the side of her neck. Probable cause of death was blood loss, but we’ll have to wait for Dr Canning to confirm it. Several of her teeth and all of her fingernails have been removed, so we’re sure it’s our man … But be aware, there are some significant changes to his method this time around.’ The team waited in silence for him to explain. ‘Firstly, I’m sure he raped her while she was very much alive. There are numerous cuts to her upper legs. These pictures aren’t great, but you can make them out here, here, here’ – he indicated each wound on the photograph of her thighs. ‘I don’t think these were deliberate. They’re consistent with the sort of injuries you’d expect if he was holding the knife while tugging at her clothing prior to the rape. And that tells us she must have been alive, trying to fight him off. It’s possible she scratched him, but with her nails missing, it’s hard to say for sure. We’ll have to wait for forensics to see if they can find traces of his blood and DNA on her fingertips.’
‘Could that be why he takes the nails?’ Jesson asked. ‘To stop us getting his DNA?’
‘No,’ Sean dismissed it. ‘He’s left his semen at each scene, so he’s not concerned about removing traces of his DNA. The nails are trophies.’ Jesson nodded his agreement. ‘And then there’s this,’ Sean continued, pointing to the stab wound in her shoulder. ‘She was trying to fight him off so he stabbed her here, in the shoulder, to make her comply and—’ He was about to share his theory that it wasn’t just about compliance, but decided against it. He didn’t want them wondering how he could even consider such a thing.
‘Also,’ he changed tack, ‘judging by the location and the time she was attacked, it appears she must have gone there to meet him. That she knew him and knew he’d be there at that time. That they’d arranged it. If he’d ambushed her, it would have happened under cover of the buildings, but she was killed in the middle of the car park, which suggests she walked out to meet him there and was then taken by surprise. As with his previous victims, he’d selected her in advance and made contact with her. But this time around he eliminated the need to spend hours following her by arranging to meet her at a specific place and time.’
‘I didn’t think this type of killer liked to change their method,’ Sally said. ‘At all.’
‘They will do,’ Anna joined in. ‘As their confidence grows and as they learn from experience, they can adjust their methods – fine-tune them. It’s possible that’s what he’s doing.’
‘This will be the method he uses in future,’ Sean insisted. ‘It appeals to his nature. It’s efficient and effective, while allowing him to make the killings feel personal – and that’s important to him.’ He registered the nods and shrugs amongst his audience.
‘OK. Moving on. We know he’s used public transport in the past, particularly with William Dalton, but Roehampton’s a public transport wasteland – nearest tube is Southfields and the nearest over-ground station is Barnes, and they’re both a good hike from where she was killed. My gut feeling is he wouldn’t want to be hanging around waiting for a night bus, giving other passengers a chance to study him, maybe notice blood on his clothing. He’d want to know he could get away quickly, unobserved, so his best bet would be some form of private transport, a car or bike—’
‘Or he lived close by,’ Sally suggested. ‘Maybe he knew the victim for a lot longer than the other two. Maybe he planned on making her one of his victims a long time ago, but he’s smart enough not to kill on his own doorstep first, so he made her victim number three and not number one, to throw us off the scent.’
‘We can’t rule it out,’ Sean admitted. ‘Her associates, friends and family need to be checked out thoroughly in case Sally’s right. We also need to check all vehicles in the vicinity of the scene, any bikes chained to lampposts. The car park itself isn’t covered, but perhaps he was captured by CCTV on his way to or from the scene. Check for witnesses too: maybe someone saw him running or walking through a nearby street. That time of night, in that weather, he might have stuck in someone’s memory. We’ll need to check all buses in and out of the area before and after she was killed—’ There were audible groans at the size of the task. ‘I know,’ he sympathized. ‘I know, but it needs to be done. Check each bus’s CCTV, what Oyster cards or credit cards were used by passengers, and track them all down in case they remember seeing our man.’ The moaning grew louder. ‘Hey,’ Sean snapped. ‘A young girl is dead because we didn’t catch this bastard soon enough, so let’s not moan about the size of the task in hand. Let’s just do our jobs properly.’ The moans changed to nods of agreement. ‘Good,’ he acknowledged the change in attitude. ‘Alan,’ Sean turned to Jesson. ‘How we getting on with the pay-as-you-go enquiries?’
‘Definitely bought in the O2 mobile shop in Oxford Street,’ Jesson reported, ‘and we now have CCTV of the suspect.’ He dashed their raised hopes by adding, ‘But again he has his hood pulled almost completely over his face. The cameras caught a glimpse of his mouth and nose, but nothing that’s going to identify him. The member of staff that sold it to him got a better look at his face than the cameras did and has agreed to help with a photofit, but I’m not expecting much.’
‘Still,’ Sean reminded them, ‘it could be the best image of him we have so far. What about CCTV from the Borough tube?’
‘We have CCTV of the victim leaving the station the night he was killed,’ Sally took over, ‘but he wasn’t followed. However, three days earlier he was followed by a man we believe to be the suspect, wearing a hooded top and carrying a backpack. There are no decent shots of his face and he wasn’t using an Oyster card. Instead he used a one-day travel card bought at four twenty in the afternoon at Charing Cross Underground station. The suspect paid in cash and once again CCTV shows him wearing his hooded top and carrying the bag.’
‘Careful son of a bitch,’ muttered Donnelly, with a hint of admiration.
‘Anything else from the victims’ Oyster cards?’ Sean asked.
‘TFL have examined their travel patterns based on Oyster card usage,’ Jesson explained. ‘There’s nothing that stands out – nothing to show their movements showed any regular pattern. From a travel perspective, their paths didn’t cross.’
‘We need to find something else then,’ Sean moved on. ‘What about their friends, associates, doctors, social workers – anything?’
‘So far we’re coming up blank,’ Sally answered. ‘We’ll keep looking.’
‘Dave,’ he turned to Donnelly. ‘Anything from the door-to-door?’
‘Nothing we can use. They lived their lives like ghosts, drifting around barely noticed. People knew of them, but not much more. Probably why the killer chose them.’
‘Probably,’ Sean agreed. ‘OK. That’s it for now. See Sally and Dave for your assignments.’ The gathering broke up with no one directing questions his way so he returned to his office and sank heavily into his chair. Almost immediately the phone rang. He snatched up the handset. ‘Corrigan.’
‘Ah, Mr Corrigan,’ Roddis began. ‘Just to let you know we’re all set at the scene, although I dread to think how much we lost to the rain before the tent arrived.’
‘Too much,’ Sean answered.
‘The good news is, the unexploded bomb story is holding. The bad news is, we’re going to be here a while and I doubt it’ll last much longer.’
‘Do what you can. Have the victim sent to Dr Canning at Guy’s when you’re done.’
He hung up just as Addis appeared in his doorway.
‘Another damn murder,’ Addis growled, marching into the office and standing in front of Sean’s desk. ‘Three now. This is modern London, for God’s sake, not the Victorian era. You can’t move without being filmed by CCTV, so how is he literally getting away with murder? Christ. Media will have a field day when they find out. It seems to me that this entire investigation has been lagging from the start.’
‘Stranger attacks are extremely difficult,’ Sean reminded him. ‘However, we do now have a description of him and the name he’s using.’
‘I’ve seen the investigation progress reports,’ Addis corrected him. ‘You have a partial description and a made-up first name. Hardly fills me with confidence that you’re about to find him. And these phone calls he’s been making to you – why haven’t we been able to trace him yet or talk him into walking into some sort of trap?’
‘Because we have no one to use as bait,’ Sean argued.
‘Then we need to find someone,’ Addis insisted. ‘Get something organized and authorized – a properly run undercover operation. We need to do something, Sean. He’s got to be caught before three turns into four.’
‘He’s making mistakes, soon he’ll make one that will lead us right to him.’
‘I don’t see him making many mistakes,’ Addis argued, ‘and soon isn’t soon enough.’ He wagged his index finger at him. ‘Find him, Sean or I’ll give the case to somebody who can.’ He spun on his polished heels and marched from the office before Sean could reply.
‘Shit,’ Sean cursed quietly. Addis’s loss of patience was a problem. He was just about to curse again when a thought blossomed in his mind. If Addis was putting him under pressure, it was because someone higher up the food chain was putting Addis under pressure. And pressure made people more willing to take risks. If he played his cards right, it could all be used to his advantage.
Geoff Jackson was sound asleep next to his girlfriend when the shrill tones of his mobile phone cut into his dreams. It took a while for him to be anything like awake. He was tired and hungover from his night out with Denise and a few drinks always made her frisky so he’d had precious little sleep. His hand padded around the bedside table until it found his phone. ‘Bloody hell,’ he complained as he squinted to check the caller ID, but it showed no number. ‘Hello,’ he answered it anyway, trying to sound more awake than he was.
‘Don’t say my name,’ the voice he immediately recognized insisted. ‘Whatever you do, don’t say my name.’
‘OK,’ Jackson replied, becoming more alert by the second as he searched for his cigarettes.
‘I have some information for you,’ DCI Ryan Ramsay told him. ‘Something no one else has.’
‘I’m listening,’ Jackson encouraged him, lighting the cigarette.
‘There’s been another murder.’
‘This is London – there’s always “been another murder”,’ Jackson replied flippantly.
‘Yeah, but this is another by the person you’re interested in,’ Ramsay told him.
‘You sure?’ Jackson checked.
‘I wouldn’t be bothering you if I wasn’t.’
‘What makes you so sure it’s our guy?’
‘Same method,’ Ramsay answered without emotion. ‘Blow to the head, throat cut and his special calling card – her teeth were pulled out.’
‘Jesus,’ Jackson paused for a second to consider the victim’s ordeal. ‘When did this happen?’
‘Last night,’ Ramsay told him. ‘Body was found about one in the morning.’
‘That’s hours ago,’ Jackson puzzled. ‘It should be all over the news by now.’
