A Philosophical Investigation: A Novel

by Philip Kerr

  That represents the view from the bridge. My own experience has been largely on deck. George Orwell mentioned nine cases of murder which he considered to have stood the test of time. Coincidentally I myself have been involved in nine investigations of murder. I doubt that any of them will stand something as mythologising as a test of time. I certainly hope that they do not. But there is one case which I do propose to describe to you as an example of the investigative two-dimensionality I’ve been referring to.

  On the face of it we were presented with a fairly typical case of Hollywood gynocide. A maniac was terrorising the women of a university town in southern England, killing eight women within as many months. His modus operandi was to beat his victim unconscious, drag her to some quiet, secluded spot where he would strangle her, and then gratify himself in her lifeless mouth. Perhaps the strangest feature of the case, and what partly distinguished it from the more usual kind of recreational killing, was that when he had finished he would insert two batteries into the dead woman’s vagina.

  Male colleagues working on the case adopted a typical phallocentric view of this last item of behaviour, as was clear from the nickname they soon gave to the killer: the Everready Man. Familiar as they were with the kind of pornography in which foreign objects are routinely inserted into a woman ab vaginam as penis substitutes, these male police officers saw little that was particularly significant about two dry-cell alkaline batteries. And beyond making a few enquiries among the town’s electrical retailers, these police officers made no real attempt to try and comprehend this, the most unusual feature of the murderer’s working method. There was even a tacit assumption among them all that the batteries were dead - the sub-text of this being the thought that nobody would waste a good battery on something like a dead woman’s vagina.

  It was female police personnel working on the case who first thought of establishing whether or not these were new batteries. In fact, we later discovered that they were purchased specially for the murders. It was also our theory, also verified after the killer was in custody, that there was nothing at all phallic about the insertion of batteries into the woman’s vagina; and that having rendered the woman lifeless for his sexual purposes, the killer then sought to bring her back to life, to re-energise her with a fresh source of power, like a portable disc player.

  Yet another unusual feature of the case, and what once again illustrates the two-dimensionality of including women in all serial gynocide investigations, was the significance of the times when all the victims were killed. It was always between 10.30 and 11.30 at night.

  I’ll return to this fact in just a moment. But first let me go back to the beginning of the investigation when, as a matter of routine, the names of all sex offenders in the area during the previous twelve months were called up on the computer. Police constables questioned these men with a view to establishing their alibis. (I should also add here that this case took place prior to the inclusion of the genetic fingerprint on identity cards.) One man in particular, a twenty-nine-year-old male who had tried to rape a woman in a park where subsequently one of the murder victims was found, drew the interest of the male officer leading the inquiry. Meanwhile, I and another officer continued to make enquiries among the area’s previous sex-offenders.

  It was while questioning a forty-two-year-old single man called David Boysfield, convicted of exposing himself in a local department store, that I noticed several copies of one particular issue of a woman’s magazine. Perhaps it is significant that my male colleague did not notice this. Not that there is anything wrong with a man reading a woman’s magazine. But all the same it made me curious to find out just a little more about Boysfield. And when I looked up the facts of his case it appeared that he had been in the store’s electrical department when the indecent exposure took place. What was even more interesting was the evidence of one witness which seemed to indicate that Boysfield had not exposed himself in the direction of the female members of staff, but to a number of television screens.

  By now I was really curious and checking back through the television company’s broadcast sheets of the day of the offence, I discovered that a programme featuring a well-known television newsreader, Anna Kreisler, had been broadcast around the time that Boysfield was in the store. Indeed the programme was devoted to raising money for charity and at one stage Anna Kreisler had stripped naked for a telephonic pledge of one million EC dollars. It was Anna Kreisler who had also appeared on the front cover of the magazines I had seen in Boysfield’s apartment. More checking now revealed that she had been reading the ten o’clock news on every night when the killer had struck.

  Obtaining a search warrant for the suspect’s home I found a number of pornographic magazines in which cut-outs of Ms Kreisler’s head had been glued onto other naked female torsos. I also found a personal televideodisc which Boysfield had used to watch his own custom-made pornographic movies using intercut footage of Ms Kreisler reading the news. And a masturbatory sex-mannequin, with Ms Kreisler’s voice, recorded off television, and a battery-powered suction-operated vagina. Both the videodisc player and the mannequin were found to be fitted with the same brand of batteries that had been found inside all eight murder victims. It appeared that, for want of a better term, Boysfield was a gadget-freak. His apartment was full of electrical appliances of every conceivable kind. Everything from an electric bottle opener, to an electric clothes-brush, and an electric fishfilleter. It was quite clear that in Boysfield’s gadget-run world, women had been reduced to the status of mere domestic electrical appliances.

  A forensic DNA profile subsequently confirmed that Boysfield had restriction fragment length polymorphisms that were identical with the killer’s. He later confessed that he had killed all eight women after watching Anna Kreisler read the TV news. Obsessed with her, he had for a long time satisfied himself by exposing himself to Kreisler’s head as it appeared on his own high definition television screen. He fantasised about having oral sex with her, and so when after a while he could contain himself no longer and he started to attack women, he sought to ejaculate within the mouths of his victims. Boysfield was able to escape a sentence of punitive coma by virtue of the fact that his insertion of the batteries into the vaginas of his victims was deemed to have proved that he could not have had an intention permanently to deprive them of life. Boysfield is now detained indefinitely in an asylum for the criminally insane.

  Of course, two-dimensionality works two ways. Just in case any of you were under the impression that I don’t think too highly of my male colleagues, I should like to say this: only a few weeks ago, in a situation that I myself had completely misjudged, it was only the quick-thinking of a male colleague which prevented me from being killed or seriously injured. Incidentally this was the same colleague who accompanied me to Boysfield’s apartment and failed to notice the women’s magazines there.

  Earlier on I described the incidence of the Hollywood-style gynocide as a virtual epidemic. I did not exaggerate. European Bureau of Investigation statistics show that serial sex-killings in the EC have increased dramatically, by over 700 per cent, since 1950. Last year there were an estimated 4,000 such murders in the Community, comprising over 20 per cent of all Europe’s homicides for the year. Not only that, but the EBI estimates that even now there are at the very least 25 and possibly as many as 90 active killers of this type roaming the EC.

  People still talk about Peter Sutcliffe, the so-called Yorkshire Ripper, who killed thirteen women during the 1970s, and Jack the Ripper, who killed six. But there are people out there now killing twenty or thirty people, or more. And while the victims continue predominantly to be female, it behoves women everywhere not to leave it to men to try and put a stop to it.

  Of the other seventeen Community members, only Denmark, Sweden, Holland and Germany show any signs of adopting the British model of the two-dimensional gynocidal inquiry. To those other member countries whose police forces remain resolutely patriarchal, not to say macho, I say this
: unless you wish forever to categorise women as potential victims, you must permit them to abandon whatever submissive role you have historically kept them in, so that they may become joint custodians of our society’s future health. Thank you.

  The audience applauded politely as Jake finished her speech and having acknowledged the applause for no longer than seemed modest, she stepped down from the rostrum and returned to her seat. The conference chairman, a fat German bureaucrat with an expensively-cut pink suit that did a great deal to disguise his bulk, came back to the microphone.

  ‘Thank you, Chief Inspector,’ he said in English. Some of the women in the audience, enthusiastic for Jake’s brand of feminism, continued clapping for another minute which obliged the chairman to pause before adding, ‘That was most informative.’

  ‘Yes indeed it was,’ said Mark Woodford, as Jake found her seat beside him. ‘A little strident in some parts, but I suppose that’s only to be expected considering the subject matter.’ He glanced around the auditorium uncertainly and chuckled. ‘Even welcomed.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  Woodford’s smooth English features took on a devious aspect as he folded his arms and stared up at the vaulted mosaic ceiling, reminiscent of some early-Christian basilica, except that the scene depicted was a modern one reflecting Frankfurt’s history: Charlemagne, Goethe, the Rothschilds, and Marcuse all meeting up in one uneasy group against a sky-blue background, as if they had been waiting for God to put in an appearance and offer judgment.

  Jake regarded Woodford’s aquiline, inbred-looking and horizontal profile. Was there not some resemblance there to the King? she asked herself.

  ‘It’s always nice to show the French, the Italians, and the Spaniards lagging behind us in something or other,’ he murmured. ‘ “Patriarchal, not to say macho.” Yes, I liked that.’ His head dropped forward again as he caught sight of his Minister out of the bottom of his eye.

  ‘Ah now it’s the Minister’s turn. This should be good, don’t you think?’ He pointed to the title of the lecture as it appeared in the program resting on his thigh. ‘ “Retribution: the theme for a new century.” That should get ’em going.’

  Jake nodded but stayed silent. She didn’t much care for the Minister’s Old Testament view of crime and punishment. No more than she cared for the Minister’s private secretary.

  Woodford glanced at the empty seat beside him as the Minister, a tall handsome black woman wearing a well-tailored lilac suit, joined the German at the microphone. In their expensive, pastel-coloured outfits they looked like two exotic cagebirds.

  ‘Gilmour’s going to miss this,’ remarked Woodford. ‘If he’s not careful.’

  Jake leaned forwards on her chair to look across Woodford’s negligible stomach. Until now she had not noticed that Gilmour was absent from his seat.

  ‘Where is he?’ she asked.

  ‘File a message on his portable computer and see if you can find out what’s keeping him.’

  Jake retrieved her shoulder bag from the floor and took out her own PC. She unfolded the envelope-sized screen and tapped out Gilmour’s name and number on the miniature keyboard. After only a few seconds the word ‘responding’ appeared on the grey-green glass.

  ‘Woodford wants to know what’s keeping you,’ Jake typed. ‘Minister’s about to start speech. Sure you wouldn’t want to miss it.’

  ‘Indeed not,’ came the silent and, Jake suspected, sarcastic reply. ‘But looks as if another man from the Lombroso Program been murdered. Need to make some calls.’

  Mark Woodford, reading over Jake’s shoulder, sighed and shook his head. ‘She’s not going to like this,’ he said quietly as the Minister cleared her throat and took hold of the lectern. ‘Better tell your APC to set up a pictophone conference with the UK. I want the officer in charge of the case on the satellite as soon as possible.’

  Jake typed out what the Minister’s secretary had said and, motivated exclusively by a desire to escape what was coming, added her own offer of help. She sent the message and watched the blinking cursor expectantly.

  ‘No thanks,’ came Gilmour’s reply. ‘You stay and enjoy Mrs Miles’s lecture.’

  Out of the corner of her eye Jake checked to see that Woodford was not looking over her shoulder. But all his thoughts were for his Minister now, with a face that was as proud and attentive as a parent at a school nativity play. Jake wrote, ‘Lucky old me’, sent the message and then returned the PC to her bag.

  Jake had the impression that Grace Miles MP didn’t much care for her. The Junior Home Office Minister seemed to be one of those women who preferred only male colleagues and, since there were eight male bureaucrats in the Police Department responsible for scrutinising the activities of 45,000 employees at the Yard, on matters of law enforcement at least, any such preference would have been easily accommodated.

  Gilmour’s decision to choose Jake to accompany him to the conference had, she suspected, been as much inspired by a desire to irritate Mrs Miles as by the wish to demonstrate the equal opportunities of the Metropolitan Police Force. He had warned Jake it would be difficult. Now she knew why. Gilmour had told Jake that it had been the Minister’s own wish that Jake’s speech should precede her own, in the disappointed expectation that she would make a mess of it, leaving Mrs Miles to provide a comparatively expert demonstration of how to handle a conference.

  In the event the Minister’s account of the failure of deterrence as a suitable basis for a modern theory of law enforcement did not meet with the enthusiastic response she had expected, leaving everyone with the distinct impression that she had been upstaged by a mere police officer. And so Jake was not deceived by Mrs Miles’s appreciation of her efforts when they saw each other again at the meeting which Gilmour had convened at Woodford’s instruction.

  ‘A very good effort, Chief Inspector,’ said Mrs Miles as she took her place at the head of the table. ‘Sounds to me as if you must have been on one of these public-speaking courses for beginners.’

  ‘You flatter me, ma’am,’ said Jake, adroitly, knowing that had not been her intention.

  Mrs Miles smiled vaguely in the hope that the ambiguity of her remark might linger with Jake a little. But Jake, seating herself beside the Assistant Police Commissioner, ignored it.

  Mark Woodford nodded at Jake and Gilmour, then introduced the man who had followed him into the room, and was now closing the door behind him.

  ‘I’m sure we all know Professor Waring,’ he said. ‘I’ve asked him to join us because of his keen interest in all aspects of the Lombroso Program.’

  That was understating it, thought Jake. Waring was Professor of Forensic Psychiatry at Cambridge University and the Government’s principal advisor on crime prevention strategies. It had been Waring who had chaired the committee which produced the report recommending the Lombroso Program’s implementation.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Gilmour. ‘I should have thought to invite you.’

  Waring shook his head at the APC as if to say that these smaller etiquettes were of no consequence to him.

  Woodford consulted his wristwatch and nodded at the empty flickering screen of the pictophone. ‘What time are we expecting the call?’ he asked Gilmour.

  The APC checked his own watch. ‘About two minutes from now,’ he said. ‘Detective Superintendent Colin Bowles of the Birmingham City Police will be making the report.’

  ‘Birmingham?’ Mrs Miles said tersely. ‘Did you say Birmingham?’

  ‘That’s right, ma’am.’

  ‘Exactly where in Birmingham was the body found?’ she demanded impatiently.

  ‘Well until I’ve heard Bowles’s report...’ Gilmour shrugged.

  ‘The Minister’s constituency is in Birmingham,’ explained Woodford.

  The pictophone buzzed loudly. Gilmour, holding the remote control, pressed a button and a bald man, aged about fifty and still straightening his tie, came onto the screen. The small camera lens on top of the set in Frankfurt began
to turn as it automatically focused on a wide shot of everyone seated round the table.

  ‘Make your report, Superintendent,’ said Gilmour.

  Bowles’s eyes flicked between the sheet of paper in his hands and the camera lens on top of his own pictophone set. When he started to speak there was hardly any sound.

  Mrs Miles groaned. ‘The bloody idiot’s still got the secrecy button switched on.’

  Bowles coloured. The Minister might not have heard him, but he had certainly heard her. He picked up his own remote control and pressed a button. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. Then he cleared his throat and started to read again.

  ‘At approximately ten o’clock last night, the body of a thirty-five-year-old male Caucasian was found lying in an alley in Selly Oak Village.’

  The Minister swore. Jake, who was aware that the Minister’s constituency was Selly Oak, cheered inside herself. Superintendent Bowles, faltering, glanced back at the camera uncertainly.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Woodford said smoothly. ‘Proceed with your report.’

  ‘Sir. The man had been shot six times in the back of the head between the hours of nine and nine-thirty. Following an examination of the body and the immediate vicinity by scenes-of-crime officers, the body was taken away for forensic examination. The pathologist subsequently removed six .44 calibre conical-conoidal air bullets, each weighing approximately forty grams and fired from a high-powered gas-gun at a range of less than ten metres. Death was more or less instantaneous.

  ‘The man was later identified as Sean Andrew Hill of Selly Oak Road, Birmingham. When the deceased’s particulars were entered onto the police computer at Kidlington HQ, the Lombroso computer automatically indicated that this was a person who had tested VMN-negative, codenamed Charles Dickens. This, and the killer’s modus operandi, leads us now to suppose that Hill was another victim of the same person who murdered Henry Lam, Craig Edward Brownlow, Richard Graham Swanson, Joseph Arthur Middlemass ...’