Killer Smile

by RC Bridgestock

  ‘You‘d enjoy the markets in Mong Kok most people do, perhaps it’s a place you’d like to go when you retire?’

  Dylan looked across the table at his dinner companion. ‘Markets are not really my cup of tea,’ he said putting his fingers in the finger bowl. ‘Anyway, I’ve quite a few years to go yet before I can retire.’

  Their table was next to the window which looked out onto the taxi rank in George Square.

  ‘In Hong Kong taxi drivers spend most of their downtime cleaning and waxing their vehicles and keeping them spotlessly clean. You don’t see that here do you?’

  Dylan thought about Alan Bell’s taxi; the empty crisp packets, empty cans and sweet wrappers. ‘No definitely not,’ he said.

  The meal finished, the pictures she had promised were taken from her bag. There was no doubt in Dylan’s mind this woman had a great deal of love for China, he just wished she had more passion for finding the murderer.

  ‘... and I’m presently studying Cantonese,’ she said. ‘Hence my using the words and phrases whenever I can.’

  Coffee arrived and she asked for the bill. ‘So Jack, back to reality,’ she said with a big sigh. ‘What about these murders? Have we any potential suspects in the frame at all?’

  ‘I wish I could say yes but I can’t. The arrest of the man who telephoned the radio station was the only positive lead we had, but it looks like he was just out to get some money.’

  ‘And I also believe he has a bit of a thing about Ms Currie,’ said Wendy Smythe.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. They’ve extended his detention but he’s likely to be released later today. As we speak I’m awaiting an update from the DCs dealing with him.’

  ‘So in brief, we are no nearer now than when the first murder was committed?’

  ‘We’ve gathered a lot of evidence, linked the other crimes, spoken to a profiler and ultimately I’ve no doubt in my mind we’ll find him. What we know for sure is that he must spend time at a crime scene carefully removing the teeth. We also believe he is testing us by leaving evidence at murder scenes to see if we pick that up.’

  ‘I like your positive attitude Jack, but what if he strikes again?’

  ‘Well let’s be realistic. The likelihood is that he will strike again and all we can do for now is keep doing what we are doing and like I said at the press conference ask people to be vigilant. The increased patrols and high visibility policing will hopefully make it more difficult for him, so perhaps, maybe, he’ll lie low for a while and allow us to chew through all the gathered data and hope the investigation keeps moving forward at pace.’

  ‘I will be contactable when I am in China, so you can update me at all times. I am au fait with Skype and FaceTime should we need to use it. Of course you may arrest the perpetrator before I go. I’d really like to be here when you do.’ Wendy Smythe’s eyes lit up.

  ‘You would?’ Dylan looked shocked.

  ‘Yes, I’d love to see what the murderer looks like and see him interviewed first hand.’

  Dylan was pleased that she was taking such an interest. Never before had he known any ACC interested in a murder investigation until it was over and they could shine their uniform buttons and come out for the photo call. ‘You can be assured I’ll update you with any developments,’ he said with a slow smile that reached his eyes.

  ‘Jack you must. As you are well aware I’m in overall charge and decisions will have to made about certain strategies and I will need to write and endorse policy. That sounds impressive doesn’t it?’ Wendy Smythe chuckled. ‘But, don’t worry,’ she said laying her hand over his. ‘I know I’m just a figurehead to appease the media and assure the public that someone at the top, or as near the top as to show enough of my arse, pardon my French, has a grip on the investigation. I also like to think it lets the officers out on the street see how serious the Force is taking the investigations with the ACC rank involved. Joy geen,’ Wendy said as they left the restaurant.

  ‘Joy geen,’ the staff echoed.

  ‘Joy geen?’ said Dylan.

  ‘See you again,’ said Wendy.

  ***

  Dylan was back in the incident room and his first priority was to find out what the situation was with Michael Hook who was still in police custody.

  ‘Nice lunch,’ said Vicky.

  ‘Interesting,’ said Dylan.

  ‘Another ACC pretending to be interested?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so Vicky. I was pleasantly surprised at how grounded she is for an ACC with no background in CID. Not as passionate about the enquiry as I’d like her to be as an ACC of Crime but we lost that rank years ago sadly,’ he said with a lopsided smile.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Michael Hook’s home had been searched but nothing had been found to link him to any of the incidents, although the task hadn’t gone without a drama.

  ‘His girlfriend’s locked up sir,’ said DC Philburn.

  ‘She kick off?’ said Dylan, his concentration was firmly on the document he was completing for interview strategy.

  ‘Well, not exactly, she stood in the porch when we arrived, well I say stood, she leant on the door jamb ... and was drunk as a skunk.’

  He stopped what he was doing and looked DC Philburn’s way.

  ‘We must have made her jump, she... well she, lost control of her bladder. She thought it was hilarious for some reason and collapsed on the floor laughing.’

  ‘She did what?’ Dylan said, then uttered a curse under his breath. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Offered to help her inside, if she gave me her key. She struggled to her feet, with a little help from us and asked Howard to hold onto something she had in her hand whilst she looked for the key in her pocket.’ A smile spread across Sue Philburn’s face.

  ‘What?’ said Dylan. Her smile was infectious. ‘What?’

  ‘She only went and placed a bag of cocaine into his hand. You ought to have seen the look on her face when she realised what she’d done, it was priceless, sir.’

  ‘So she’s in the cells too.’

  ‘Yes sir, sleeping off whatever it was she had taken. We’ll speak to her later.’

  ‘And you’ve interviewed him now in relation to the Maggie Currie saga?’

  DC Philburn nodded.

  ‘What did he have to say for himself?’ Dylan leant with his elbows on the table, his chin cupped in his hand.

  ‘He said the only reason he knew about the teeth was that he had been in the Anchor pub, when he had overheard a man talking to the landlord about the Davina Walsh murder and they must have said that the killer had knocked her teeth out. He knew him to be a police officer, Ned Granger. He played football with him some years ago in the Sunday league. The guy fancies the radio presenter so the numbskull saw it as a chance to meet her, and make a bob or two, so he thought.’

  ‘Bloody time-waster,’ said Dylan. ‘You haven’t mentioned to him about his girlfriend and the drugs?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘Just make sure Hook understands the seriousness of his actions will you and how bloody angry I am,’ Dylan said. His expression was tense and strained.

  ‘I will do sir,’ she said heading to the door.

  ‘And Sue?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said with her hand on the door handle.

  ‘Give him a bit of advice. Tell him to stay away from Ms Currie, she’s a witness.’

  ‘Will do. I’ll bail him then sir?’ she said.

  Dylan nodded. ’Pending further enquiries to confirm his movements and check out alibis he’s put forward. You happy he’s not got anything to do with the murders?’

  ‘Well, I’m more or less certain he isn’t our killer but he is guilty of trying to obtain monies by deception and by purporting that he had valuable information.’

  ‘Any more drugs found in the house?

  ‘Not that we could see from the initial look around but it’s a hell of a mess. How people live like that I don’t know. It’ll need a further search to asc
ertain what’s beneath all the clutter.’

  ‘Send Ned Granger into my office will you? I want a word with him. If he had been more discreet this would be one line of enquiry we wouldn’t have had to investigate, and I could have used the resources elsewhere.’

  DC Philburn closed Dylan’s office door quietly behind her. He saw she had stopped at Vicky Hardacre's desk. ‘Ned!’ Vicky yelled a few moments later. ‘Get your backside into the boss’s office, you’re in for a right bollocking.’

  ***

  The integrity of an enquiry was of utmost importance and that should be at the forefront of the minds of the officers who worked on it. Dylan had removed officers from major investigations in the past for a number of reasons. It wasn’t something he relished or did lightly, but he wouldn’t allow any individual’s behaviour to compromise detraction from the focus of catching the murderer.

  All investigations went through a lull, and brought about external enquiries, or so it seemed, but the daily grind of the murder incident room was continually in motion. Every minute, every hour, every day they were gathering and recording vast amounts of information, just none of it seemed to point towards any one suspect which was mightily frustrating.

  Whether relevant or not, a prime function of an investigation was to record, retain and reveal evidence to comply with future disclosure issues, for court purpose. Dylan knew it was early days in piecing this particular jigsaw together and he knew, as always, there would be plenty of pieces of ‘blue sky’ to fill in before they got to the rich rewards of the full picture. However he remained upbeat. They had to be patient and the evidence would come.

  He started a list of questions that needed answering.

  a) Did the killer select his victims because of their white teeth or was it an incredible coincidence all three victims had exceptional white teeth? Dylan pondered. He leant towards the first option and this would also mean that the killer may have been watching them and waited for an opportunity to strike.

  b) Was there some other common link between the victims? Had they visited the same place at different times during the lead up to their murder? There had to be a common theme of how he identified his victims, but what?

  c) Dr Francis Boscombe told him that access and opportunity were imperative to serial killers, and historical data suggested they usually started near to where they lived.

  Dylan decided to take a drive around the area surrounding the cycle path where Davina’s body was discovered. Then he would head over to where Carl Braithwaite’s body was found and last he would tour the last known route Alan Bell travelled. He hoped by doing this that he would get a feel for the immediate areas around the scenes. It also allowed him to take a breather from the confines of the police station.

  ***

  The cycle path along the canal was a twenty mile link between Harrowfield Town, Tandem Bridge and the village of Brelland which was an alternative to the roadway via foot, bicycle or boat. In fact, the scene of the murders of Carl Braithwaite and Alan Bell were also only a short walk away from the path and Davina was killed on the twenty mile stretch of pathway. Was this the killer’s chosen route? If he used the direct pathway Dylan found that there was little or no lighting in most areas other than at the bridges that crossed the canal at various points. These were used by vehicles. To make his journey quicker, and to make his approach relatively quiet, the killer could have used a boat, a bicycle, or a horse he considered, as a horse and its rider trotted over the bridge to join him on the path. The rider courteously waved to him. There was no politer road user than a horse rider. From what Dylan did know of the killer’s modus operandi he did not need a vehicle to carry his murder weapons. Dylan decided he would initiate enquiries at the Braithwaite and Bell murder scenes to ascertain the shortest route from the scene to the cycle path. Then he would arrange with PS Clegg to have the operational support team do a visual search of all routes leading off the canal path to them. He wanted an aerial photograph depicting all three scenes and one showing all three in the one frame. He knew the helicopter pilot and the observer would ask him if he wanted to fly with them. He also knew a lot of people would jump at the chance to have a ride in the police helicopter, but the very thought of it made his stomach flip. His dislike of heights and the fact he was prone to travel sickness meant he would certainly be declining the offer.

  He looked up from the canal banking where he stood quietly, and surveyed his surroundings. He was amid a line of barges. A couple of disused, crumbling cottages nestled between trees not too far away. The housing for the mill workers still stood in a unique relation of ‘double decker’ houses, clinging to the hills. There were one or two large stone properties set above and beyond the canal that overlooked the cycle track, high on the hillside of Norland. The original stone that they were built from had been smoke-blackened by the mills, the dye works and the textile mills – relics of the industrial revolution.

  It was no doubt this canal was once one of the best networks of rights-of-way in the country. Increasingly these abandoned buildings had recently begun to be renovated, and the chimneys now reached like sandblasted fingers to the sky. The mills had taken on a new identity, brought back to life as flats and small business complexes. In some the old waterwheels still turned. How clean these premises looked up against the buildings that had not been given that makeover.

  In the renovated flats groups of strangers lived – many he knew from other enquiries did not know who lived next to them on the same corridor. Never mind on the floors above and below. Gone were the days of a good old gossip over the garden wall. He smiled at the thought of his grandmother and her friends and the black and white pictures he loved looking at as a child. He wondered briefly where those were... Maybe with one of his siblings. He wondered briefly what they were up to too. There was no time to reflect on past times. He’d ensure that routine house enquiries were carried out in all the houses that overlooked the canal from the hillside beyond and the flats in the mill complex. He would also have a static information seek carried out on the canal path from midnight to six a.m. over a period of a week to discover who if anyone used the cycle path during the night. An action plan would need to be drawn up in the event of another murder taking place. He would instruct officers to take up Stop And Check points immediately.

  Dylan pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket. ‘Get everyone together, I want a debrief at six,’ he said to DS Raj. ‘Can you arrange for someone to create a map on which we can show entry and exit points to the canal cycle paths? I want it to include the unofficial as well as the official ones, the snickets, the ginnels, the man made paths. What I’m looking for is the feasibility to have units immediately cover the entry and exit paths in the event of another murder or an attack happening. I’m looking at a five mile radius of where Davina’s body was found. Then we can work out what staffing levels we will need to achieve our plan,’ he said. ‘The killer may be a resident of the area or a past resident. He appears to have a local’s knowledge of the area and that has become more apparent to me on the recce. I’ll see you in an hour,’ he said.

  Dylan stood quietly for a while longer, his phone was still in his hand. He looked at his watch and dialled home. ‘How long does it take for a kettle to boil?’

  ‘Around a minute, I guess why?’ Jen said.

  ‘In that case I’ll be with you in ten,’ he said. He walked to the car.

  ***

  ‘You okay Jack?’ Jen said when he walked in the door and planted a kiss on her cheek.

  ‘I am now,’ he said with a smile on his face.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dylan reached for his pen and signed the documents that Vicky had placed in front of him. His phone rang. She picked it up. ‘DI Dylan will be with you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,’ she said, smiling as she took the papers from Dylan’s outstretched hand and he took the phone off her. ‘Forensic,’ Vicky mouthed and left him alone.

  ‘Beryl! How lovely to hear from you; wha
t’ve you got for me today,’ he said with genuine warmth in his voice.

  ‘Macabrely good news, I think...’ she said.

  ‘That sounds ominous,’ said Dylan draining his coffee cup. It was cold. He grimaced as he looked into the empty vessel and replaced it on his desk.

  ‘The line from the garrotte found in Alan Bell’s taxi has been identified as a piece of braided fishing line.’

  ‘Anything specific about it, can you give us the make? It would help us source suppliers in the area?’

  ‘I’m working on it,’ she said. ‘But, my fishing expert colleague says it’s very old. Braid was first developed in England during the early twentieth century and in the nineteen thirties, the first braided synthetic. Since then there has been significant steps forward as it became popular amongst fishing enthusiasts.’

  ‘Sadly my knowledge of fishing could be written on the reverse of a postage stamp and then there would still be space left, but it’ll give us another line of enquiry.’

  ***

  Dylan walked into the incident room. ‘We must have other reported incidents over the years connected to the canal cycle path? What about other cycle paths and walkways in Harrowfield? This killer must have committed offences prior to these murders,’ he said.

  ‘He might have but were they reported?’ said Raj.

  ‘Or did he commit the offences here, in this county, or country even?’ said DC Wormald.

  ‘Boss, there is someone interesting here that’s just come onto the system,’ said Vicky waving a sheet of paper in the air, like a flag in a breeze. ‘It’s a dentist who was struck off for misconduct. Trouble is its over five years ago.’

  All eyes were upon Vicky. ‘Go on,’ Dylan said looking at her and patiently waiting for more. ‘What was he struck off for?’

  ‘Sexual assault of a patient and theft.’