Prosper nodded. He already knew Hatchet Man’s criminal record having read his file.
“If you ask me, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person,” Jill said.
Prosper couldn’t agree. Not when he had helped kill the man. The thought made him feel sick, made him recall the blood – so much blood.
“If it’s possible, you’ve gone even paler,” Jill said.
Prosper gulped. “I think anyone would go pale looking at that bloody picture.”
Jill shrugged. “Do you think the Oracle has added vigilante to his CV?”
“I don’t know. Who knows what goes through his sick head. Anyway, we need the names of those portraits around the body ASAP.”
Jill nodded and crossed her legs, giving Prosper a glimpse of her thigh. Did she do it on purpose? he wondered. Or doesn’t she realise I can almost see everything from here. He reckoned she must have known and he loosened his collar. Well, if she thinks it’s going to help advance her career to flirt with me, she’s sadly mistaken.
As if she’d read his mind, Jill smirked.
A knock at the door roused Prosper from his thoughts and he looked across to see a freckle faced, red-haired woman with piercing green eyes.
“Prosper,” she said in acknowledgement as she entered the room armed with a pile of notes.
“Dr. Angela Lancet,” Prosper said. “Nice to see you again.” He remembered working on a previous case with the middle-aged criminal psychologist, one that involved a man who ran his mother over in the car because the family cat told him to do it
“Yes, I’ve been going over the notes about your Oracle case.”
“Well you’re just in time,” Jill said. “There’s been another killing.” She handed across Hatchet Man’s photograph.
Angela studied it closely, wrinkling her nose.
“So what can you tell us?” Prosper asked when Angela lowered the photograph.
Angela picked up her notes. “Same signature. I presume the M.O. was the same. Fascinating case. Based on the evidence, your killer probably has a psychopathic personality.”
Prosper snorted loudly. “I don’t need you to tell me that.”
Angela regarded him over the top of her notes and then continued unperturbed.
“There are four main types of serial killers: visionary, mission-oriented, hedonistic, and power/control-oriented, but what I think we have here is someone who comes into a subcategory of the hedonistic type, called the thrill-killer. In these cases, the murder is a long, drawn out process. This is because the process is more satisfying than the kill itself. All the excitement that thrill killers get from killing dominates and keeps the killer from feeling sympathy or concern for the victim. These murders usually involve three defined crime scenes: first where the victim is captured, secondly a controlled environment where the victim is tortured and killed, and thirdly the dumping site. The strange thing about this killer though is that he doesn’t dump the bodies. Instead, he’s storing them, keeping them as trophies.
“Studies of serial and mass killers suggest they suffer from personality disorders. The cause of antisocial personality disorder is unknown, but genetic factors and child abuse are believed to contribute to its development. People with an antisocial or alcoholic parent are at increased risk. It also affects more men than women.”
Prosper waved his hand in the air. “Yadda, yadda, yadda. I need more than textbook psychobabble.”
Angela flicked through her notes. “People with this disorder are often angry and arrogant, but they can also possess great wit and charm.”
Prosper raised his hands in exasperation. “Great. So we’re looking for a killer clown,” he snapped.
Angela shook her head slightly and said, “They can also be adept at flattery and good at manipulating the emotions of others, which makes them difficult to spot. In other words, they can look just like you or me.”
Prosper wondered whether Angela saw him blanch at her last comment.
“The difference between serial killers and the rest of us though,” she continued, “is that they lack impulse control, and then they go on to express these urges and drives in socially unacceptable ways and settings. Their lack of empathy means they treat their victims as instruments of gratification.”
“And how does any of this help us?” Prosper asked.
“Well serial killers can be classified in three distinct subgroups. Organised. Disorganised and the mixed category.
“I think what we’re looking at here is an organised killer. A man. He’ll have a higher than average IQ, and he’ll be geographically or occupationally mobile. He’ll return to the crime scene to see if the police have discovered it, but as we don’t have one, it might be worth monitoring the routes the victims were abducted from to see if a familiar face keeps appearing.
“Being organised, he likes to contact the police, in this case sending photos of his victims, which is like a game to him to show how clever he is. Unlike the disorganised killer, he dismembers the victim; The Oracle constructs bizarre exhibits out of them, as though dehumanising them, which suggests he has scant feelings towards them as people.”
As he listened to Angela, Prosper closed his eyes, trying to build a mental picture of the offender, and in his mind’s eye, he saw himself, forcing him to open his eyes again.
“He’s someone who’s thought everything through ahead of time. Someone with a plan for the body, and someone who covers his tracks by not leaving any physical clues. He’ll have an eye for detail, meticulously planning in an almost military fashion.” She coughed and then shuffled through her notes. “He watches his victims beforehand, studying them. Judging by the abrasions evident around the feet and wrists on the photographs, the offender bound the victims to restrain them while they were still alive, enhancing his control over them. The offender must also have use of a vehicle to transport the victim when he abducts them, as it would be impractical to carry a body any great distance. This suggests he’s planned where and when he’ll abduct them, so he knows their routine. Also, the use of a vehicle indicates he is gainfully employed. But as the victims disappeared at different times of day, it would suggest that the offender’s employment varies time wise, such as a shift worker or part time worker who has plenty of spare time.”
“Go on,” Prosper urged.
“Well he’ll be following his crimes closely in the papers and on the news, and he’ll take pride in what he hears about himself. He’ll be socially adequate, have friends, perhaps a partner, even a spouse and children. And he’ll likely be described as the last person anyone would suspect if he was convicted.
“The killer will be a stranger to the victims, and the motive for the crime is psychological and not material. He’s a social chameleon.”
“Anything else?” Prosper asked.
“If we identify why a particular person was targeted, it will reveal the motive, which will then lead to the offender. The victims in this case, like many others perpetrated by serial killers, are the vulnerable: old, young or female, but what makes this latest murder strange is that the victim is anything but helpless.” She studied Hatchet Man’s photograph again. “Yes, it goes against everything he’s done before. Interesting, and it’s worth making note of as it might mean there’s more of a personal connection with this victim.”
Prosper swallowed to dislodge the lump that formed in his throat.
“Well, without a crime scene, we don’t have any idiosyncratic clues to follow up on, but we do have the photographs, which offer clues of their own,” Angela said.
Too tired to remain standing, Prosper sat on the edge of the desk. “Okay, let’s start with the inclusion of the serial killer photographs. What do you think they mean?”
“Well, the obvious thing is that he’s saying, look at me, I’m a better killer than all of these. There was an ironic thing where certain horror film directors were putting posters of other horror films on the set of their own films to say, that’s not a horror film,
this is a horror film. Our killer could be doing the same thing.”
“So why do some killers pictures appear more than once? Is that just coincidence?”
Angela shook her head. “No. As I said, he’s organised, so there will be a reason why he uses them. We just need to find it. But personally, I believe there’s more to them than meets the eye.”
Prosper arched his eyebrows. “Such as?”
“I’m not sure, and this is pure speculation, but perhaps what we perceive as the most logical reason for their inclusion, is anything but.”
Jill drummed her fingers on the table. “Then what other reason could there be?”
Angela shrugged. “That’s what you need to find out.”
CHAPTER 26
The Henry Tomb & Sons warehouse skulked in the darkness like a primordial beast. Prosper heard a bird cry out somewhere in the night, making him shiver, the sound echoing like a scream across the barren wasteland that surrounded the building.
He looked up at the structure, trembling as he remembered what had taken place inside.
Moving involuntarily, he walked towards the front door and entered. The plastic sheets strung between the columns billowed slightly, looking more spectral than ever. From somewhere up above, the wooden floorboards creaked with ghostly squeals and Prosper continued towards the source of the sound.
The stairs swayed as he ascended, making him feel unsteady on his feet, as though he was onboard a boat in high seas, and he felt a sense of relief when he reached the second floor. But his relief was short-lived. As he made his way through the warren of corridors, his heart felt like a grenade about to explode.
He couldn’t forget that this was now a charnel house. Couldn’t forget the horrors performed within its walls.
Next second he found himself outside the killing room and after only a momentary hesitation, he entered. Terrified that Hatchet Man’s corpse would still be here, he sighed with relief, rubbing his cheeks when he saw the room was empty. There wasn’t even any blood. He was surprised that one of them had had the gumption and foresight to clean the evidence of their crime. Although he had cleaned Hatchet Man’s and Paris’ blood from the alley, he was unsure whether he would have been able to clean the warehouse floor, not when he recalled how much there had been. It had looked like an abattoir.
Moonlight flooded through the double doors where they had hoisted Hatchet Man into the room. The rope was still attached to the pulley outside and it swung in the breeze. Prosper walked across and stared more closely at the floorboards. There should have been a trace of blood, but there was nothing. Not even a speck.
He frowned. How had they gotten it so damned clean?
As he contemplated the matter, a sound drew his attention and he spun around, narrowing his eyes as he stared at the far wall where something moved beyond the reach of the moonlight.
“Who’s there?” he asked, his voice shaking.
No one answered.
“I said—”
A figure materialised out of the darkness and scuttled into the light. Prosper’s heart stopped and his hand rushed to cover his mouth, stifling the scream that wanted to break free.
Impossibly, Hatchet Man crouched before him, bathed in luminescent light. His body was disfigured, arms where his legs should be and legs where his arms should be, just as they had sewn him up after butchering him. Blood crusted around the nasty wounds. Prosper stared wide-eyed. He took a step back, almost tripping over his own feet.
The cord that stitched his eyes and lips shut unravelled and Hatchet Man’s eyes and mouth opened, allowing him to glare at Prosper, his mouth twisting into a vicious grin. “So what do you think of your handiwork?”
Prosper gagged, then he took another step back, then another, suddenly finding that he had nowhere else to go as he reached the double doors.
Hatchet Man scuttled towards him snarling savagely, his movements gangly and stiff, almost comically macabre.
Prosper teetered on the edge, then he fell, stomach in his throat, arms flailing as he reached for the rope, feeling it curl itself around his neck and he gagged, struggling to breathe, his fingers scrabbling to disentangle himself.
“Prosper, what’s wrong?”
Prosper jerked awake to find the bed sheet wrapped around his throat. He tugged it off and wiped cold sweat from his brow.
“I was having a nightmare,” he said. His hands were shaking and he linked them together as he rocked forwards and backwards.
Natasha shuffled across the bed and put her arm around his shoulders. “Talk to me, babe. Is it the case you’re working on?”
Prosper nodded. “Yeah. Probably.”
She hugged him tight, and for the first time in a while, Prosper took some comfort from her embrace.
During the next few days, papers piled up on Prosper’s desk, a virtual mountain of work and the incident room became a hive of activity. After the latest photograph, Mack – the Hatchet Man – Taylor had been featured on the cover of every newspaper and on every televised news bulletin in the hope that someone could help. If Angela was right, the killer would love all the attention he was getting.
The usual cranks had replied, trying to take credit for the crime, but now, days after the last picture rolled off the press, Prosper’s tensions eased. It appeared they had gotten away with murder.
He didn’t know where Hatchet Man’s body had been buried; only that Wolfe had taken care of it. He didn’t want to know. The less he knew the better.
The Oracle’s growing gallery of macabre photographs were taking over the walls of the incident room, and each time Prosper caught sight of Hatchet Man’s picture, the sick feeling returned and he kept remembering the nightmare from the other night.
They were still trying to discern the meaning of the word, ‘qana’ that the killer had sprayed on the wall where Jane Numan was abducted. So far they knew it was the name of a village in Southern Lebanon that was the site of an Israeli missile attack in 2006, killing at least 56 people, most of them children, which Prosper thought might appeal to a killer’s sick psyche. It was also the name given to the lattice walls of a Mongolian tent. An Inuit word for ‘falling snow’. And a song by Patti Smith.
He flicked through the pile of papers on his desk, but his heart wasn’t in it and he stood up, walked to the water fountain in the corner, and poured himself a drink. When he finished, he crumpled the plastic cup and tossed it in the rubbish bin. He ran a hand across his mouth and turned to return to his desk when Jill came running over to him.
“Sir, I think we’ve got a witness.”
“Witness. Witness to what?”
“To Mack Taylor’s abduction.”
Prosper wasn’t too worried. It wasn’t the first time someone had claimed to have seen something, and it would no doubt not be the last.
Smiling benignly, he indicated she should lead the way and he followed her to the interview room.
He hoped this wasn’t going to take too long, otherwise he’d never get his paperwork finished.
That thought vanished as he spotted the potential witness. A cold spear of ice pierced his heart and spread through his veins.
It was the man from the alley. The drunk with the hooded, predatory eyes, and he stared at Prosper as though he’d seen a ghost.
CHAPTER 27
“That’s him,” the man said, his eyes the size of dinner plates as he got to his feet and pointed an accusatory finger.
Prosper looked over his shoulder, trying to act puzzled, but his cheeks felt like they were on fire. “That’s who?” he asked, trying to act the consummate professional as he turned back to face the witness.
“That’s one of them who did it,” the man repeated, staring at Jill.
Jill frowned. She looked from the potential witness to Prosper.
“That’s one of the men who attacked Mack Taylor.”
Prosper’s brow wrinkled as he pretended puzzlement. “What are you on about?” he asked.
The man
glared. “You were one of those men that attacked Mack Taylor.”
Prosper forced a laugh. “I can assure you sir, you must be mistaken. Mr. Taylor was abducted by the man who calls himself the Oracle.”
The man shook his head and looked at Jill. “That was him, I swear.”
Jill cocked an eyebrow, confused.
Prosper ground his teeth. “Constable Jones, what is this? What’s this man going on about?”
“I don’t know, sir.” To the man, she said, “This is Prosper Snow, the man leading the investigation into Mack Taylor’s disappearance.”
The man shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on, but this is bullshit,” he said, staring at Prosper.
“Look, sir, I haven’t got time to mess around. Do you know anything or not?”
The man sat back down and leaned forward, predatory. “I know plenty.”
Prosper felt the pieces of his life tumbling like dominoes, one against the other, a chain reaction, unstoppable. Unless he acted quickly, his downfall was imminent.
He wiped his brow and then sat opposite the man. “Let’s start at the beginning. For some reason, you seem to be implying that you recognise me. Is that right?”
The man nodded.
“And why would you think that?” Prosper tried to make his voice sound subtly menacing.
“Because I know what I saw.”
“And what was that?”
“You and some other men attacking Mack Taylor.”
Prosper laughed. “Do you realise what you’re implying?” He looked at Jill and raised his eyebrows in mock exasperation.
Jill shrugged, looking puzzled.
Looking back at the man, Prosper narrowed his eyes. “This is a serious allegation. You do realise that, don’t you, Mr ...?”
The man chewed his lip, deliberating.
Prosper Snow Series Page 12
