by Val McDermid
‘Do I know him?’
‘Well, he has your phone number.’
‘So does my local Indian takeaway.’
‘My boss and I used to do business with Colin Osborne.’
A snort of laughter. ‘He can’t give you much of a reference, now can he? Look, I don’t do business over the phone.’
‘Sure, I understand. All I’m looking for is a character reference. Somebody has applied to work with us, and Kramer seems to think you know her.’
‘I know a lot of people.’ The voice was cautious again.
‘Her name is Caroline Jackson.’
A long pause. ‘I know Caroline. What do you want to know?’
‘Whatever you can tell me.’
‘Fucking hell, you don’t want much, do you? Look, if you’re thinking about working with Caroline, all you need to know is that she’s a serious player. But she’s a loner. She doesn’t trust anybody with her business. She’s smart, she knows how to keep stumm, and she’s very fucking good at what she does. She wants to work with you, you should bite her fucking hand off, because you’re getting the opportunity to work with the best. OK?’
‘OK.’
‘Now you got what you wanted. Good night.’ The call ended abruptly, leaving Tadeusz feeling less uneasy than he had ten minutes previously. What he didn’t know was that he’d just been talking to one of Morgan’s undercover operatives, briefed to give Caroline Jackson as vivid a reality as possible.
Tadeusz had sat through the third act, brooding over his course of action. As The Cunning Little Vixen drew to a close, he came to a decision. He had to see the virtual reappearance of Katerina as a good omen. He’d go with his gut reaction and see what she had to offer him.
In the cold light of morning, the decision still felt like a good one. He wished he’d been able to talk it over with Darko, but his right-hand man wasn’t due back from Belgrade until that afternoon. And this was too important to entrust to telephones. He’d have to rely on his own intuition. He reached for the phone and dialled the number on the card she’d given him.
‘Hello?’ Her voice was already familiar.
‘Good morning, Caroline. It’s Tadeusz here.’
‘Good to hear from you.’
She sounded determined not to show any enthusiasm that might not be matched on his side. ‘I wondered if you might be free for lunch?’ he asked.
‘That rather depends.’
‘On what?’
‘Whether it’s business or pleasure on the agenda,’ she said coolly.
‘I suspect that, with you, business would always be one sort of pleasure or another,’ he said, an undertone of amusement in his voice. He was surprised by how at ease he felt flirting gently with her.
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘I think we may be able to do business,’ he said. ‘But first, we have to get to know each other a little better. You see, I only deal with people when my instincts tell me they’re reliable.’
‘Really?’ she asked, sounding incredulous. ‘And you still chose Colin?’
His source had been right. She was smart. ‘If that was such a bad decision, then by your own admission, the condemnation falls equally on your shoulders, Caroline,’ he pointed out.
‘Touché,’ she said.
‘So, will we have lunch?’
‘If you can make it earlier rather than later. I have some important calls to make this afternoon.’
‘How is noon for you?’
‘I can do that.’
‘I’ll send the car for you at eleven forty-five. I look forward to it.’
‘Thanks, but I’ve got to go out this morning. I don’t know where I’ll be at eleven forty-five. Just tell me where to be, and I’ll get there for noon.’
He named the restaurant and gave her the address. ‘I look forward to seeing you,’ he added.
‘The feeling is mutual. See you later.’ The line went dead. So. To smart and discreet, add independent and wary. Caroline Jackson was beginning to intrigue him. And not just professionally. He found himself looking forward to lunch with an appetite that had nothing to do with food.
Tony stared at the screen. Petra had been as good as her word. The investigation reports from Bremen had been waiting for him when he’d arrived at her apartment, and he’d forced himself to put his feelings for Margarethe to one side and read them as objectively as he could. The fact that the killer had been interrupted had provided a few nuggets of information that might help as he went along, but the most telling details had come from Margarethe’s boyfriend, and these could be incorporated right away in his draft profile.
At this stage, it could only be a rough outline. There were things he still needed to do and see. He wanted to go to Bremen, partly to make his peace with Margarethe, but mostly to see the house where she had died, to see if the crime scene could tell him more about his prey. He needed better quality photographs of the crime scenes. But for now, he could make a start.
He loaded his word processing program and called up his personal template for profiles. It began with a standard disclaimer. This might be an informal, unofficial investigation, but that was no reason not to do things properly.
The following offender profile is for guidance only and should not be regarded as an identikit portrait. The offender is unlikely to match the profile in every detail, though I would expect there to be a high degree of congruence between the characteristics outlined below and the reality. All of the statements in the profile express probabilities and possibilities, not hard facts.
A serial killer produces signals and indicators in the commission of his crimes. Everything he does is intended, consciously or not, as part of a pattern. Uncovering the underlying pattern reveals the killer’s logic. It may not appear logical to us, but to him it is crucial. Because his logic is so idiosyncratic, straightforward traps will not capture him. As he is unique, so must be the means of catching him, interviewing him and reconstructing his acts.
Tony then gave a brief overview of the three cases, with particular attention to the nature of the victims’ academic research. Moving on from there, and assimilating his new information, he wrote,
All academic psychologists who conduct experimental research on human subjects may be at risk from this killer. Given that Margarethe Schilling told her partner she was scheduled to meet a journalist representing a new psychology e-zine, it may be advisable to ask psychology lecturers to contact this investigation if they receive such an approach. However, it is clear that this poses potential problems. If the killer has links to the academic community, he may be privy to any such warning and alter his strategy accordingly. Furthermore, such a warning may provoke a panic response among those at risk. There is also the difficulty of the scale of the operation. The killer has already operated in two EU countries that we are aware of – Germany and Holland. There is no reason to suppose that this is the limit of his range.
What do we know of the killer from his actions so far?
Although there is almost certainly an element of sexual stimulus in the commission of these crimes, the motivation is not explicitly sexual. The victims do not correspond to any physical class and encompass both genders. It is therefore impossible to predict where he will strike next based on any superficial description of appearance. Contingent on this, and on the scalping of the pubic region (reducing his victims to something resembling a pre-pubertal state) I would suggest that the killer’s own sexuality is relatively unformed. By this I mean that he has never successfully established adult sexual relationships. He may have experienced sexual humiliation at an early age and decided that he was not prepared to expose himself to that again. At some level, he blames this inability to form normal sexual contacts on his victim group. I believe it is highly unlikely that he will be either married or in any sort of long-term relationship. He is most likely to be a single man with no history of emotional relationships with either sex.
So many reasons for the corruption of the sex
ual impulse, Tony thought sadly. His own experience of impotence, and the soul-searching journey that had taken him on, had given him a unique empathy with those whose natural desires had been morphed into something the rest of the world saw as perversion. There was always an explanation, always a sequence as unique as DNA that lay beneath these strange surfaces, and it was one of the many paradoxes of Tony’s life that what had given him so much personal pain had also given him a professional head start. Maybe, like the killers themselves, he was looking for something that would make him feel less of a failure.
His choice of victims gives him a sense of superiority. People like them have always made him feel slow, unsophisticated. But now he can move into their world, invade their territory and there is nothing they can do to stop him. It is a way of proving to himself that he is not the inadequate he thinks he is. It’s extremely unlikely that he has a university-level education. I would doubt he even completed secondary education, although he is clearly far from stupid. Given what I believe to be his strategy in the choice of victims (see below), it is likely that he has educated himself in their field of expertise. He has probably read extensively about psychology and its applications, both in books and on-line. He may even have taken adult education classes in the subject. He probably thinks of himself as an expert in his field, although his knowledge will of necessity be superficial.
He is capable of a high degree of self-control and organization. To execute his plan, he has developed a strategy of sufficient finesse to convince victims who are experienced in negotiating with the world. In order to succeed at this, he must be able to disguise his unfamiliarity with their universe.
He must have planned this series of attacks well in advance, since the victims require prior research rather than the opportunistic picking at random of a candidate who meets certain physical criteria. It is clear from how close together the last two murders are that he has a preset list of victims. The fact that his time-scale is shortening means that he is growing in confidence but also that he needs more kills to satisfy whatever his agenda is.
What might that agenda be? The answer to that must lie in his choice of targets. What all three have in common is that they are academic psychologists who have published research based on experiments conducted on (willing) human subjects. I believe he entertains the conviction that his life has been blighted as a result of experiments carried out by one or more psychologists. He may himself have been a direct victim, but I doubt that. If that were the case, he would have a specific object for his revenge and it would probably have been sufficient for him to kill that single practitioner. Perhaps he suffered childhood abuse at the hands of a parent or other adult who had been the victim of psychological torture? Given the abuse of psychology at the hands of, for example, the Stasi, this does not seem as improbable as it might in another time and place.
Tony read over what he had typed so far. It made sense, in the context of what he’d been able to glean from the files. But it didn’t take them any closer to who the killer might be. Now he had to start moving away from what he knew and could logically surmise into the realm where he excelled. He had to reason backwards from the crime to the man who had committed it.
What does all this tell us about the killer?
He is subject to high stress levels, which will be perceptible to those around him. His behaviour will be more erratic than usual.
He is posing as a journalist on an e-zine in order to gain private access to those he has targeted. I believe he will have made the arrangements for his meetings with the victims via e-mail, since he is unlikely to possess the interpersonal skills to set up meetings with such highly socialized victims either face to face or via the telephone. Therefore we can state with some certainty that he possesses his own computer; he would not risk such communications on a system available to others. Furthermore, an expert search of the victims’ computers may reveal traces of these communications.
He is unlikely to be unemployed; he can afford a computer, he can afford to travel. He is also comfortable moving around in more than one country, suggesting a familiarity with them. In my opinion, he is likely to have a job that involves travelling, but not one that requires people skills. It may well be a job that demands a certain level of intelligence and responsibility, yet one that is not highly regarded by the world at large. Perhaps a long-distance lorry driver, or a maintenance engineer on some specialized equipment. He will drive a well-maintained mid-range car of unassuming appearance. It is unlikely that he uses public transport to go to and from the scenes of the crimes, and this may mean that he is either hiring cars in or near the cities where he has killed, or that he has local access to company vehicles because of his job.
The first crime of serial offenders tends to take place nearest their home. Since the first crime in this series took place in Heidelberg, I believe he is probably based in the central region of Germany.
He is most likely to be in his late twenties or early thirties. Typically, serial killers take time to work up to their ambition. If they make it into their late thirties without killing, they’re less likely to start because they have found alternative ways to sublimate their desires.
It is likely that a member of his immediate family has a history of treatment for mental illness or a record of psychological torture at the hands of officialdom. If the latter is the case, it may well be that the family originated from the former East Germany.
If he has a criminal record, I’d suggest that it may include stalking or Peeping Tom offences. Most serial killers exhibit a history of bullying, animal torture, minor vandalism and arson, but in this case, I believe he is more likely to have convictions for violence against the person. Whatever was done to damage his psyche will have produced enormous levels of suppressed rage in him. Until he found an appropriate (for him) target for his anger, he may have been prone to outbursts of violence against anyone who he perceived as laughing at him. He may have assaulted prostitutes or other men who made fun of his lack of a girlfriend.
Tony stared bleakly at the screen. In truth, it wasn’t much. As usual, he felt like the conjuror who is expected to produce an elephant from his top hat but only manages the same tired old rabbit. He reminded himself that this was only a raw first draft. He needed more data and he wanted to talk a couple of ideas over with Carol before he committed them to paper.
Tony packed up his laptop and scribbled a note to Petra. Thanks for your help. I’ve begun work on the profile but I need to go to Bremen. Can you book me on a train or a plane first thing? And is there any way of arranging things so I can talk to the local cops? Also, it would be helpful if you could put me in touch with someone who can talk to me about the Stasi’s use of psychiatry. I’m going back to my apartment – I’ll expect your call.
He let himself out of the front door and wearily descended to the street. It was a beautiful spring day, the air damp and cool, the sky bright with sunshine. Only a clod could fail to be moved by the possibilities of life on a day like this, Tony thought. But somewhere out there, rain or shine, a killer was planning his next move. And it was up to Tony to try to make sure it would be the one that ended in checkmate.
The restaurant he had chosen surprised her. She had been expecting somewhere with private nooks and crannies, where they could talk without fear of being overheard. There was nothing intimate about this place, however. High ceilings with steel and tungsten light fittings, the tables and chairs a design statement in themselves. It was smart and noisy, the sort of place where everyone automatically checked out the rest of the clientele to satisfy themselves that the cutting edge hadn’t moved somewhere else since they were last there.
He was already seated when she arrived, smoking a small cigar and reading the menu at a table in the middle of the room. Carol noticed she attracted a couple of curious glances as the waiter led her to his table. She was going to have to deal with that, and sooner rather than later.
When she reached the table, Tadeusz got to hi
s feet and gave a small, formal bow. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said.
‘Thank you for asking me.’ The waiter held out her chair and Carol settled herself. ‘Tell me, are you some sort of celebrity in Berlin?’
He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I noticed last night and again just now. People stare at us. And since nobody in Berlin has a clue who I am, it must be you.’
His cheeks flushed scarlet and he looked down at the table. He fiddled with his fork, then glanced back up at her, his mouth a thin line. She could see he was struggling not to show emotion. ‘I’m not a celebrity, though many people know who I am. But that’s not why they’re staring.’
‘No?’
‘It’s you.’
Carol gave a self-deprecating snort of laughter. ‘I’m disappointed. I thought your flattery would be a little more sophisticated than that.’
Tadeusz breathed deeply. ‘No, that wasn’t flattery. Which is not to say that you’re not beautiful enough to turn heads.’ He gave a short sharp sigh. ‘This is going to sound crazy.’
‘Oh yes?’ Carol reckoned Caroline Jackson would be suspicious by now and she worked on the matching facial expression.
Tadeusz studied his cigar. Impatient, he stubbed it out in the ashtray. ‘You have a remarkable resemblance to someone.’
‘What? I have a double who’s famous in Germany?’
He shook his head. ‘No, not like that.’ He shifted awkwardly in his seat. ‘You’re the spitting image of a woman called Katerina Basler. She was my lover. That’s why people are staring.’
