Black Noise

by Hiltunen, Pekka

  Lia had prepared herself to meet DCI Gerrish. She was not expecting a warm reception.

  Gerrish walked down the steps of the City of London Police headquarters on Wood Street and looked at Lia curiously. After they shook hands, he told her why.

  ‘It was high time for us to meet again.’

  One year earlier they had met three times. Each had heard things from the other that helped them investigate a crime. But in Gerrish’s eyes Lia had to be a strange case: a civilian who intervened in police business, and in only the most shocking crimes no less. Still he had agreed to the meeting without hesitation.

  Gerrish led her to the Major Investigations Team offices. Lia remembered the narrow corridors, and the piles of paper on Gerrish’s desk had not grown shorter since her last visit. As she was sitting down, Gerrish motioned to one of the piles.

  ‘That case from last year,’ he explained. ‘It isn’t over.’

  Because several things about the case remained unsolved, the police had not completely given up their investigation. All unfinished cases in the police division were taken up for evaluation once a year. They reviewed the evidence, seeing if anything new had come to light about the parties or facts involved.

  ‘We don’t reopen them completely, but someone approaches them with fresh eyes,’ Gerrish said. ‘We’ve been meaning to get in touch with you.’

  Lia shook her head.

  ‘I don’t have anything new about that case.’

  ‘You didn’t come because of that?’

  ‘No. I came because of the video killings.’

  The police detective’s gaze turned penetrating.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  Lia ignored the question.

  ‘I have information that might help you.’

  ‘Then I have to tape this conversation,’ Gerrish said quickly, leaning towards the digital recorder at the edge of his desk and turning it on.

  ‘Is that necessary?’

  ‘Apparently it is.’

  The recording made Lia more nervous, but she couldn’t take time thinking about it.

  ‘I have a sort of calculation for you,’ she began, spreading out a map of London marked with the places indicated by Rico’s program.

  She explained how a computer program had been tasked with analysing probable future locations for more killings in the video series.

  Gerrish listened to her account in silence.

  ‘We came up with twenty-three places. One of them is where the latest murder, the one with the two victims, Brian Fowler and Bertil Tore Berg, happened,’ Lia said in conclusion.

  She had memorised what to say. She used Berg’s full name, as a stranger might.

  ‘We?’ Gerrish asked.

  Lia was prepared for this. With Paddy she had practised responding to the questions Gerrish might present.

  ‘I did the calculations with a friend. He knows computer programming.’

  ‘And your friend’s name is…?’

  ‘That I’m not going to say.’

  Gerrish stared at the map.

  ‘You got one right,’ he said.

  Lia nodded. Quickly he snapped up his mobile and made a call.

  ‘This is Gerrish,’ he said when someone answered. ‘I have a civilian here who claims her computer program guessed Rich Lane right. In advance. Before the shooting there.’

  Lia didn’t hear the answer, but she could tell its tenor from Gerrish’s face.

  ‘I don’t know how it’s possible. But the results are right here in front of me,’ Gerrish continued.

  He clearly didn’t like the instructions he received, but he didn’t start arguing.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said to Lia after ringing off.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘You want to get mixed up in a police investigation?’ he said coolly. ‘Well, you are now. My colleague wants to see you. His calculations didn’t get any streets right.’

  The drive was only five kilometres but the afternoon traffic made it feel much longer.

  Sitting in DCI Gerrish’s car, next to him, she tried to keep calm in a situation that was out of her control. She glanced around the car. Gerrish’s office was cluttered, but the car was spotless, without a single paper or drink can. Either he loved his car or one of his subordinates cleaned it regularly.

  ‘Why are you drawn to cases like this?’ Gerrish asked.

  ‘That thing a year ago was mostly a coincidence,’ Lia said. ‘It just… came into my life. This one I wanted to intervene in myself.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I can. And because I don’t think the police are completely handling it the way they ought to be.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Well, that you’re concealing the fact that this is anti-gay violence.’

  Gerrish fell silent for a moment.

  ‘We are investigating the gay aspect,’ he finally said. ‘We have a lot of resources on that. What we say in public is a different matter.’

  ‘Why?’

  Gerrish suddenly turned the wheel and overtook two cars by veering into the oncoming lane.

  ‘That’s a pretty big question,’ he said.

  When Gerrish pulled out onto Victoria Street, and Lia saw that they were approaching New Scotland Yard, her breathing quickened. The headquarters of the entire Metropolitan Police Service.

  Gerrish noticed her gaze.

  ‘We aren’t going there,’ he said.

  New Scotland Yard was an administrative centre, and that was where Operation Rhea had begun, he said. The investigation quickly moved into another space when it became clear how big the case would be. Such large investigations required dozens of rooms, which the police rented in buildings where they could proceed unnoticed.

  They passed the tall, shining mirrored towers of New Scotland Yard. Gerrish changed lanes and turned onto Artillery Row. A couple of corners more, and on Francis Street he pulled into the underground car park of a large, red brick building.

  Gerrish flashed his badge at the security guard and stopped the car where the ramp widened. As they hurried to the lift, Lia saw one of the guards climb into the car and drive it off somewhere into the bowels of the car park.

  Second level, entrance checkpoint. Gerrish swiped himself through the electronic gates with his ID. To the officer at the reception desk he said, ‘We’re going to the incident room. She’s with me.’

  Gerrish only paused for a moment to write a name on the guest register lying on the counter: Lia Pajala. Lia noticed that he spelled it right from memory. The officer behind the desk handed Lia a visitor pass, and Gerrish hurried her on through the network of corridors.

  Their arrival silenced several small groups of police investigators, who stopped working to stare at Gerrish and Lia. This was the room from which the operation was run around the clock. Next door Lia could see into a windowless hall where twenty or so police officers sat answering phone calls in hushed tones.

  ‘Brewster,’ Gerrish said, nodding to the head of the investigation. ‘Here she is.’

  Keith Brewster was a tall, impatient seeming man, who eyed Lia closely.

  Lia ignored his look. She glanced around nervously at the large space. The incident room was full of tables, chairs, computers and information. Here and there stood tall notice boards with lists of things, place names and small pictures. Even in the age of computers they wanted to keep all of this out where the investigators could see it. Some items on a side table were completely foreign to Lia: electronic devices, small glass bottles and strange words written on a whiteboard.

  Enlargements of images from the video killings dominated the walls of the entire space. They made the place creepy. The pictures were all too familiar to Lia. Rico had enlarged many of the same ones at the Studio for them to look at, but here their dreadfulness was eye catching.

  Two pictures showed Berg. Something ripped inside Lia. Crime scene photos of their Berg. Blood, so much blood. Berg’s position unnatural. The other pi
cture showed how the force of the shot had ripped his head apart. Berg was a broken, mangled, dead creature.

  Lia couldn’t scream. She couldn’t cry. All she could do was stand and stare. Her throat hurt, and she had to swallow. In these pictures was all the sorrow of the world, but she couldn’t let it loose.

  ‘Who is she?’ Brewster asked Gerrish, nodding towards Lia.

  A Finnish graphic designer, he replied. A civilian who had provided information about a previous criminal case and now possibly about the video killings.

  ‘She says she got Rich Lane right,’ Gerrish said.

  ‘Not possible,’ a young male police officer said from the side of the room. ‘How the fuck is that possible!’

  At Gerrish’s signal, Lia spread her map out on one of the tables. The ten or so officers in the room regarded her with conspicuous suspicion, but when they saw the map, the entire mood in the room changed.

  The lead investigator, Brewster, quickly scanned the bits of street marked on the map.

  ‘Twelve of the same places we had,’ he counted. ‘All the other entries are in entirely different places. How did you come up with these?’

  Lia listed the same variables she had to Gerrish earlier. The young officer was dumbfounded when he heard that Lia had precise information about the businesses at specific properties and the location of CCTV cameras at her disposal. The police had more comprehensive records than any other official agency, but the details in them were often out of date or otherwise deficient.

  ‘How can you get even partially accurate information about so many properties?’ the man demanded.

  ‘We combined several different databases,’ Lia said. ‘Including commercial business directories.’

  Brewster straightened up from the map.

  ‘Yes, you must have, since this information is impossible to get from any one source,’ Brewster said. ‘We have SCAS to help us, but even they haven’t been able to get all this.’

  Gerrish noticed Lia’s questioning look. The Serious Crime Analysis Section was a service of the National Crime Agency that specialised in identifying serial rapists and killers, he explained. Its analysts and databases were located in Bramshill, in Hampshire, but it helped out police forces across the country on request. They had been involved in Operation Rhea from the beginning.

  What information did the police have in their program? Lia asked.

  Gerrish conducted a short, hushed negotiation with his colleagues. As the product of this discussion, Brewster called Lia over to look at a printed table on the wall.

  ‘Here is a list,’ Brewster said.

  The information in the table was mostly familiar to Lia: Underground stations, the proximity of bars…

  ‘How did you choose the clubs?’ Lia asked.

  They had to be known gay gathering places that had been open for a while, Brewster explained. The name of the club could have changed over the years, but it needed to have been in business for more than two. Before Rich Lane, each kidnapping and discovery of a body had happened near an old, established bar.

  ‘We didn’t limit them that way,’ Lia said. ‘Newer gay bars were fine too.’

  ‘If we combine your information with our calculations, the result could be very precise,’ Gerrish said. ‘Twelve places.’

  Twelve possibilities, Lia thought, knowing the others were thinking the same thing.

  If the killer still intends to snatch more victims, it will have to happen at one of these twelve places.

  ‘In the course of this investigation we’ve already received another unusual tip-off,’ a female inspector said to Lia. ‘Did it come from you?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about any other tips,’ Lia said quickly.

  ‘It was from Rich Lane. I think you’re bluffing and want us to believe you weren’t behind it.’

  Lia knew well enough that the woman meant the video of Berg’s death on Rich Lane. But she hadn’t mentioned that it was a video. She was trying to make Lia slip.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Lia said.

  Gerrish gave Brewster and his female colleague a narrow look.

  ‘We can put these twelve locations under heightened surveillance tonight,’ he said.

  ‘It’ll be tight,’ Brewster said.

  ‘Call everyone in,’ Gerrish said.

  Brewster glanced at Lia.

  ‘We’ll make you a civilian consultant on the case.’

  Gerrish stepped in immediately.

  ‘No. I don’t recommend that.’

  Lia saw that Brewster was forced to tamp down his irritation, but he didn’t want an open dispute with Gerrish.

  ‘Very well,’ Brewster said. ‘But she has to stay reachable. And I want the source material used to make these calculations now.’

  Gerrish pulled Lia aside as the other investigators studied Lia’s map.

  ‘You need to leave now,’ Gerrish said. ‘Unless you have more information.’

  ‘No, I don’t. What is a civilian consultant?’

  Sometimes the police used experts in various fields in their investigations, such as medical, telecommunications or financial professionals, Gerrish explained. The police tried to tell them only the details of the crimes they absolutely needed to know, and they were bound by confidentiality.

  ‘Why couldn’t I be a consultant in this case?’

  ‘Because I don’t think it would be the slightest bit practical.’

  Gerrish extended a card with his mobile number.

  ‘All the source material used to make the calculations,’ he said. ‘Immediately.’

  He saw Lia starting to object and hurried to prevent her.

  ‘This isn’t something you can refuse,’ Gerrish said.

  The police commissioner was going to call in significant backup for the evening. The Metropolitan Police’s Homicide and Serious Crime Command was responsible for investigations of this nature. Hundreds of inspectors operated under the unit across every borough in the Greater London area. Most of them could be called in quickly, and it was possible to call in help from other departments too. A lot of reserves were already connected to Operation Rhea, and plain-clothes investigators were trawling the London gay bars every night searching for clues about the killer. This turn of events would transform Rhea into one of the biggest police operations the city had ever seen.

  Lia promised to deliver Rico’s background material quickly, despite knowing that Rico might still resist. But there weren’t any alternatives.

  ‘I’ve had two civilians like you before,’ Gerrish said. ‘Two civilians who became part of a murder investigation. Who got involved of their own free will.’ A young man years ago and a middle-aged woman, Gerrish said. Different investigations, different people. ‘The thing you all have in common is that you imagine you can choose what you do,’ he continued. ‘That there is information you can tell and information you can keep to yourself. It doesn’t work that way.’

  In major crimes, the investigators had to have all the information, immediately and without reservation. If not, someone always suffered.

  ‘If you get mixed up in an investigation, part of the moral responsibility for solving it lands on you,’ Gerrish said. ‘No court of law would hold you to it, but still it’s there.’

  Lia didn’t have a response to that.

  ‘You’re pulling out of this now,’ Gerrish said. ‘Completely. You send us that information and then leave this behind you.’

  Lia stared at Gerrish, indignant. She had just helped the police in their investigation, but now Gerrish was ordering her away.

  ‘A civilian can’t have a role in a serial killer investigation,’ Gerrish said. ‘There isn’t any safe way to be involved. Don’t even think about it.’

  It was typical for a civilian who became part of a police inquiry to fall under a sort of euphoria at first, Gerrish said. Everything was deadly serious, everything was exciting and every detail felt significant. But before long reality would
hit, and when you were dealing with a serial killer, the situation could be life-threatening. Keeping Lia involved any longer than absolutely necessary was irresponsible.

  ‘Your colleagues seemed to want to include me,’ Lia pointed out. ‘And if you’re downplaying the fact that gay people are being targeted –’

  Gerrish silenced her mid-sentence by shaking his head. This wasn’t the time or the place to thrash out these questions, Lia understood.

  ‘Stay away,’ DCI Gerrish said. ‘I didn’t want to bring you to the incident room, and I don’t want to bring you here again.’

  The police could also arrest her if necessary, he added.

  ‘On what grounds?’ Lia asked, astonished.

  ‘Suspicion of interfering with official police business. For questioning. I can come up with a pretty long list of reasons for an arrest warrant.’

  ‘I’m sure you could,’ Lia said. ‘And the moment you do, you lose the information used to make these location calculations.’

  Gerrish took her into the corridor, found another officer and asked him to escort Lia back to the lobby.

  ‘What did those other two civilians do?’ Lia asked Gerrish as she left. ‘Were they any help to you?’

  ‘They were. A little,’ he said. ‘I’ve kept in touch with them a bit. The woman is doing quite well. The man not so much. He’s in a wheelchair.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He got too involved.’

  Rico didn’t resist when Lia announced that they had to deliver his databases to the police.

  ‘I’ll just clean them,’ Rico said.

  He altered the files he had used so the original sources couldn’t be traced. He stripped the original formatting, making the text and numbers a raw mass of data he could reformat. In order to ensure secrecy he ran the files through a series of conversion programs so nothing exactly like them would exist anywhere.

  ‘Of course the police will eventually get their hands on my sources, but now they won’t know who collected the data. They’ll still have all the addresses and other details available immediately though,’ Rico said.