High Force: A DCI Ryan Mystery (The DCI Ryan Mysteries Book 5)

by LJ Ross

  Edwards had excelled himself this time, Ryan thought. Not only had he staged the bodies in a coarse rendition of intimacy to remove their dignity, he had also removed most of their organs and propped what looked like liver, kidneys and intestines in a neat row at the end of the bed.

  As he moved further into the room and the putrid stench of death became almost unbearable, he realised that the organs had been arranged into another Latin word: MANEO.

  “Oh, dear God,” Faulkner choked out, breathing through his teeth. “What does it mean?”

  “It means, ‘unvanquished’,” Ryan answered. “Putting the two words he’s given us together it forms a well-known Latin motto: ‘I remain unvanquished’.”

  Ryan tore his eyes away from the gory spectacle.

  “Pinter?”

  The pathologist looked across and only his eyes were visible between the hairnet and face mask he wore, but they were wide with shock. For a man who dealt with death every day, that was quite something.

  “Thoughts?”

  Pinter just spread his arms in an all-encompassing gesture.

  “Where do I start? The smaller body appears to be Moffa, but with all the blood…” he shook his head. “I can’t tell you anything quickly. There are too many variables. But a glance, it looks like the taller of the two is the man who was dragged in from the car. You can see the throat has been severed all the way to the trachea,” he held out a retractable pointer, and Ryan made a polite sound of agreement. “As for Moffa, any one of these injuries could have killed him. I’ll need some time.”

  Ryan nodded and turned to leave.

  “Let me know when you’ve got an update. I have to go and inform two gangland bosses that their baby brother has been murdered.”

  It wasn’t every day you made that kind of house call.

  CHAPTER 21

  Fate finally smiled upon Ryan in the form of leading forensic psychologist Doctor Alexander Gregory. The man was the closest thing Britain had to a criminal profiler since the demise of the government’s fledgling effort to establish a criminal profiling think-tank to rival the FBI Behavioural Science Unit. Their efforts had come to a disastrous end following a series of failures and the wrongful imprisonment of innocent men and women. Yet one specialist remained, having had the foresight and wherewithal to realise that his methods were superior to those peddled by his former colleagues and having resigned years before the project’s ultimate closure. Gregory worked on a freelance basis now and his skills were in high demand from police forces across the globe. It was therefore a stroke of incredible good fortune that he happened to be visiting Durham University to give a series of guest lectures when Ryan looked him up.

  They agreed to meet outside the Palace Green Library at two o’clock, which allowed Ryan time to gather some files together and recover from his unnerving interlude with Jimmy Moffa’s grieving brothers. There was one positive he could take from his visit to their lair, and that was the sure and certain knowledge that the Moffa brothers’ hatred of him was now outweighed by their hatred of Keir Edwards. Of course, until the DNA results came back, nobody knew for sure that Edwards was the man to blame, but he was certainly the most likely candidate. Without his name ever having been spoken, it was clear from their faces and demeanour that the Moffa brothers knew it too and it was some comfort to know that, if Ryan failed to find The Hacker first, they would undoubtedly be waiting in the wings to deliver their own punishment to the man who had killed their brother.

  Ryan was inclined to think that police custody would be the safest place for Keir Edwards now, in more ways than one.

  The skies were still heavy, with rainclouds threatening to spill over at any moment, casting a daytime shadow across the wide expanse of lawn known as Palace Green. In years gone by, it had been a bustling marketplace but it was now the domain of bookish types coming in and out of the library, or tourists snapping pictures before the rain forced them indoors. Ryan had no idea what Gregory looked like—he hadn’t had the time to scroll through online images—but the man’s stellar reputation preceded him. He imagined it would come with a hefty fee but, if necessary, Ryan would pay for it out of his own pocket. Anything to help bring MacKenzie home.

  As the rain finally started to fall, first in a drizzle and then in fat droplets, he ducked beneath the cover at the entrance to the old library and watched passers-by run for cover. He looked out for a man he imagined to be somewhere in his fifties or sixties, perhaps with a stoop and a paunch to go with his bifocal lenses. Anyone who had developed the kind of career resume that Gregory had would probably be getting on a bit.

  “Chief Inspector Ryan?”

  He turned at the sound of his name, spoken with the kind of transatlantic drawl many Englishmen developed after spending years abroad. It spoke of international schools in Switzerland, or winters spent skiing in St Moritz.

  The man looked nothing like Ryan had imagined. They were of a similar height and Gregory appeared to be somewhere in his late thirties, much like himself. He sported an enviable tan and a pair of assessing green eyes that instantly put Ryan on edge.

  “Yes?” he said, tersely.

  Gregory held out his hand, smiling inwardly at the automatic defensiveness he found all the time with new clients.

  “Alex Gregory.” They exchanged a firm shake. “Shall we see if there’s a coffee shop nearby?”

  The two men walked briskly through the rain and found a quiet, unpretentious little place where they could sit without fear of being overheard and they both ordered strong coffee.

  At least that was something they could agree on, Ryan thought, making a conscious effort to push his natural cynicism to one side.

  “Thank you for finding the time to see me,” he offered, with a grateful smile for the waitress.

  “Not at all,” Gregory replied. “I’ve been following your case with interest.”

  “Then I don’t need to tell you about the kind of animal we’re dealing with.”

  Gregory smiled over his cup.

  “What I read in the papers is often a far cry from the reality.” He raised an eyebrow towards the file Ryan had brought. “Is that for me?”

  Ryan placed his hand on the top of the file, strangely unwilling to part with it.

  “Look, doctor—”

  “Call me Alex.”

  Ryan wished the man wouldn’t be so damn affable. It made it infinitely harder for him to stereotype him as an interfering know-it-all if he went around behaving reasonably.

  “Alright. Look, we normally work with another psychologist, attached to the department,” Ryan thought it was best to come straight out with it. “I haven’t cleared this with the Chief Constable but it’s within my power to instruct you, so I’m going over her head on this.”

  Ryan frowned at himself. What on earth had possessed him to confess that? He’d only been in the man’s company for five minutes, and already he was spilling his guts.

  Gregory read the confusion and irritation on Ryan’s face and smiled inwardly.

  “Why don’t I put your mind at ease and tell you a bit about myself and my methods?”

  Ryan said nothing but picked up his coffee and took a sip, which Gregory took as an invitation to proceed.

  “I started out with a degree in law,” he said. “Then I realised that I was more interested in getting inside the heads of the criminals I was reading about, so I cross-qualified in psychology and did my clinical training.” He rattled off a list of well-regarded hospitals in London, then shrugged. “I worked for two years at Broadmoor Hospital before I transferred to the Criminal Profiling Section at the Met—”

  “Oh yeah?” Ryan’s ears perked. He’d cut his teeth at the Metropolitan Police over ten years ago. “When were you there?”

  “Back in 2003,” Gregory replied. “A couple of years before your time, I think.”

  Ryan nodded.

  “Organisation and funding failed the Criminal Profiling Section, so I wanted to strike out and
try my hand at freelance. I found myself most interested in what makes criminals tick and in prevention rather than cure, although I admire those who try.”

  Ryan raised an eyebrow at that. Gregory was the first psychologist he’d ever spoken to whose approach mirrored his own. Usually, it was all about curing the diseased mind of the criminal, but here was a man who was concerned with protecting others first.

  “What happened to you?” Ryan asked, forthrightly.

  Gregory smiled and cocked his head at Ryan.

  “Are you sure you’re in the right business? With perceptive skills like that, you should be doing my job.”

  Ryan raised his coffee cup in salute.

  “You’re right, of course,” Gregory said, and his eyes dulled slightly at the memory. “But that’s for another day, over a glass of single malt.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “For now, let me say that my basic approach is a combination of different psychological models. I’ve worked alongside criminal profiling units around the world, chief inspector—”

  “Ryan.”

  “Ryan,” he corrected. “And I’ve learned lessons from all of them. The basic idea is that Keir Edwards’ behaviour reflects his personality,” Gregory leaned back in his bistro chair to make himself more comfortable. “The Americans believe there are four ‘crime phases’ that help us to gain an insight into a serious offender’s personality.”

  “I’m familiar,” Ryan interrupted him. “It was part of a weekend ‘teambuilding’ course I was subjected to, a few years ago.”

  Gregory surprised him by laughing richly.

  “You’re a tough nut,” he observed, and took another sip of coffee. “Alright, I’ll assume you know all about the importance of ascertaining the subject’s fantasy; it’s the reason they act on some days and not others, it informs their overall plan. Thereafter we look at the methodology of killing and disposal, and then post-offence behaviour.”

  “Edwards is a textbook case on three of those,” Ryan commented. “His method of killing and disposal are well documented. He likes his victims to be found quickly and he doesn’t mind a bit of media coverage afterward. He loves the limelight, in fact. But the problem I’m having is understanding his overall plan, his underlying fantasy, you might say. I know that he goes for young brunettes, but I don’t know why. I can make assumptions but his personal history is so limited, I can’t say for certain. It won’t help me find him, per se, but I need to understand why he’s deviated from his usual MO.”

  Gregory nodded his understanding.

  “Yes, I see that Edwards gave interviews to various news outlets while he was incarcerated and the information he gave rarely matches, which makes it difficult to sort truth from lies,” Gregory said. “I don’t ascribe to the organised—disorganised model of criminal behaviour. That is to say, I don’t think there is a straightforward split between ‘organised’ criminals who are believed to know right from wrong, to leave little evidence and to have no sense of remorse, versus ‘disorganised’ criminals, who have traditionally been painted as young, mentally ill, or under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”

  “What makes you so different?” Ryan queried, finding himself drawn into the discussion despite his previous doubts.

  “I have accumulated a body of empirical, peer-reviewed research that shows serial killers of Edwards’ kind are almost always organised. Although killers like him might appear insane to the layman, they are rarely ‘insane’ in the clinical or legal sense of the word. The positioning of the bodies and the method of killing all demonstrate organisation. What sets killers apart from one another is the way they interact with their victims.”

  “What do you mean? The way they kill them?”

  “Not only that,” Gregory explained. “I’m talking about control, sex, mutilation, execution and so on. I group together different offender behaviours using these specifics. For instance, were any of Edwards’ previous victims sexually assaulted prior to death?”

  Ryan thought back and shook his head slowly.

  “He has a very sexualised mode of expression,” he murmured. “But, now I think of it, there was never any evidence of sexual assault, only severe mutilation and sometimes decapitation, as with his most recent female victim.”

  Pity flickered in Gregory’s dark green eyes, and Ryan was perversely glad to see it because it made him human like the rest of them.

  “What about his latest victim?”

  Ryan finally relinquished his file and pushed it across the table for Gregory to leaf through. He signalled for more coffee while Gregory silently turned the pages with agile fingers, his face completely impassive as he surveyed the photographs taken of Jimmy Moffa earlier that day.

  Eventually, Gregory shuffled the papers back into a neat pile.

  “It’s an interesting departure from his normal victim type, but I presume his purpose was to execute Moffa for different reasons. Relating to money, perhaps? Have you had a post-mortem done?”

  “It’s in progress.”

  Gregory nodded.

  “I anticipate there will be no sexual assault, despite the highly sexualised manner in which the bodies were staged. It’s a little theatre production he’s put on especially for you rather than for his own pleasure. It’s likely that he’s completely impotent, which contributes to his feelings of anger and aggression. The degradation he inflicted on Moffa and his bodyguard was a form of punishment, for their virility, apart from anything else.”

  Ryan listened intently, watching him with clear grey eyes.

  “More interesting is his systematic slaughter of beautiful, brunette women,” Gregory continued. “His approach is unusual because it crosses the ordinary boundaries of the ‘types’ of serial killer I often find operating worldwide.”

  “I thought for a person to be defined as a serial killer, it was just a case of killing three or more victims, with a cooling off period between each one.” Ryan’s brow furrowed.

  “That’s part of it,” Gregory agreed. “But from a psychological perspective, we usually find three main types of serial killer: the thrill seekers, the missionaries, and those obsessed with power and control. In the case of Keir Edwards, you have a man who seems to enjoy the thrill of evading capture and taunting the police, as well as the power and control of torturing his victims. This methodology indicates a real enjoyment of the process of killing, rather than a swift, execution-style murder.”

  As they delved into the subject, neither man noticed that the rain had stopped.

  “Why the protracted, drawn-out killing? Why not something quick and simple?”

  “It’s likely that he derives his pleasure not from normal sexual acts, but from the act of killing itself, so he likes to make it last,” Gregory said, conversationally. “He probably has a paraphilia of some kind. His sexual gratification—if any—comes from exposure to internal organs or the mutilation of them. You said he was a consultant doctor in the A & E department before his arrest?”

  “Yes,” Ryan nodded, thinking of Edwards roaming about the hospital wards with distaste. “He had an exemplary record and he was loved by all who met him.”

  Gregory gave a knowing smile.

  “Yes, that’ll be the veneer he developed, to operate in society and continue to have access to what he enjoyed. You see, he probably enjoyed being exposed to serious injuries on an hourly basis. All the car crashes, all the gangland stabbings, the gunshot wounds—”

  Ryan pressed a hand to his temple as he tried to step into the mind of a disturbed man.

  “It’s probably what kept him going between kills,” he realised suddenly. “I thought it was the memories of his previous victims because Edwards kept stacks of photographs taken from each scene. They’re in an evidence box, back at CID,” he murmured. “But it’s more than that, isn’t it? He didn’t just manage to go without killing for months at a time because he had his photographs to keep him company, he managed it because he had fresh images provided on a ro
tating belt, every day.”

  Gregory polished off his coffee and thought that he’d found a quick study.

  “Exactly. If you want to find out why he kills brunette women, you need to find out what happened to cause his killing spree in the summer of 2014, which was out of character for him. It’s likely he’d been quietly picking off victims for years without detection, feeding his addiction and his needs. What happened to make him snap and go on what appeared to be a frenzied spree without his usual cooling off period?”

  Ryan paled slightly.

  “We know he had an interest in sado-masochism as early as ten years ago,” he muttered. “We always assumed he was a sick bastard but there were no other victims to pin on him; just the ones from 2014, including my sister.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gregory said, and meant it.

  Ryan wanted to stay focused.

  “You’re saying it’s possible that Edwards was a different kind of killer before 2014. One who killed quietly, without the pomp and circumstance, without the need for attention and recognition that seems to define him now. There’ll be a life event that affected him, maybe released him, from his earlier restraint?”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” Gregory tapped a finger on the sheaf of papers. “But I’m going to go through this and any other information you can give me to see what else I can do for you. I’d suggest you look for the brunette who ruined him for all other women—it’s usually the mother.”

  Ryan shook his head.

  “We haven’t been able to locate Edwards’ mother,” he said. “We know that Keir Edwards isn’t the name he was given at birth; he changed it when he was sixteen and went to boarding school. Before then, he was Charles Adams.”

  “How intriguing,” Gregory remarked, green eyes shining with renewed interest. “Why would he do that?”

  “That’s something we clearly need to find out,” Ryan agreed. “His mother is listed as Jenny Adams and his father is listed as unknown on his birth certificate, which doesn’t help. We’ve tried and failed to locate Jenny Adams and there was never anybody present at any of his hearings or at the trial. There’s no log of anyone by that name having visited him in prison.”