Heart of the Demon (D.S.Hunter Kerr)

by Fowler, Michael

  “That’s something we’ll have to ask her when she comes round.” Hunter stared down at Kirsty’s damaged body. A cold sensation shot down his spine and caused him to shudder.

  “When you catch the bastard who did this, I hope you hang him,” Mr Evans snarled.

  - ooOoo -

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  DAY TWENTY-NINE: 4th August.

  The local and national tabloids together with the international press had now joined the hunt for the serial killer. They were crawling all over the district; tramping around every cordoned-off crime scene and laying siege to the District General hospital where Kirsty Evans lay sedated. It had meant bringing in extra uniform resources just to fend off the press. Every witness the police had visited received a follow up call from the media vigilantes. At night locals shared their stories in exchange for pints from journalists. Every hotel and Travel Lodge around Barnwell had been booked up. It was great for the local economy but it wasn’t good for allaying the fears of the community. The hacks were making a thorough nuisance of themselves.

  The Major Investigation Team had adopted a siege mentality to all this and only Detective Superintendent Michael Robshaw dealt with the daily press conferences.

  However amongst the chaos the good thing that had come from the high profile status of the investigation was the drafting in of extra staffing. Hundreds of actions were now being tasked to detectives and there was a real resurgence to the enquiry.

  Hunter’s team had processed the fresh exhibits from the serial killer’s latest attack on Kirsty Evans and those were now being ‘fast tracked’ by forensics. The hope was that within days they would have a name for their murderer.

  * * * *

  He had been to six separate newsagents to collect different editions of papers to read what they were saying about him. It had taken him a whole morning to digest the contents, going back over many of the paragraphs time and time again, picking over the key words, and he was at boiling point.

  Speculation about his background and the press’s portrayal of him was making him angrier and angrier. They had continually described him as being pure evil and that the victims in all this were so innocent.

  He wanted to scream. The stupid bastards have got it so wrong. It was those girls they should look at and blame for all of this. He was the one ridding society of its evil. After all what had his mother told him repeatedly when he had been so young; that he was the Angel sent by God to deliver his message. And the press were liars as well: So much of each article had given detail of how close the police were to catching him.

  What a load of rubbish, he said to himself. This drivel isn’t going to help them catch me.

  What did worry him though were the paragraphs about his latest attack on Kirsty. Sooner or later she was going to come round and give police a description. Despite the fact he had disguised himself he couldn’t help but think – remembering that strange look on her face when he had spoken to her - that she had registered something about him. He hoped that what he had already done about that would throw the police completely off his scent.

  In the past few days he had run the attack through and through in his head. How could he have missed that jogger?

  I don’t make mistakes – not like that anyway.

  He’d even had to leave his father’s old belt behind on Kirsty’s neck.

  How could I have been so stupid? I never make mistakes. That’s why I’ve never been caught.

  But on reflection he’d realised why that had happened. He’d panicked when he’d heard that guy shouting and seen him running towards him.

  That was twice in short succession now, when for years he’d gone without being disturbed.

  Is someone up there trying to tell me something?

  Thank goodness the man had stopped to help Kirsty, instead of chasing after him, otherwise he’d more than likely be in prison now.

  As soon as he had got out onto the road he had checked himself, told himself that this action could get him caught and so he had changed his pace to a gentle stroll and taken stock of who was around. There had been no one and so he had slipped off his disguise and dropped his coat and glasses inside the boot of his car. He had started the engine and waited; listening for the sound of the police cars and the ambulance, which he knew, would soon be arriving. When he had been satisfied they were going in the opposite direction he had driven slowly away from the parking lay-by.

  He took in a deep breath, and composed himself and continued about his business, carefully snipping out the newspaper articles to place in his files; adding them to the other cuttings and to his own personal photographs of the girls; the ones he taken when he sneaked around their homes, and when he had dealt with them. He smoothed a hand over the images.

  He still couldn’t believe the thrill he got from tightening the belt around their throats.

  Watching the fear in the slags’ eyes as he’d squeezed out their lives.

  The same fear he had seen in his mother’s face when his father had done the same.

  * * * * *

  Catching her image in the hallway mirror as she made her way into the kitchen, she took a long look at herself. Seeing the large number of deep worry lines etched into her face made her realise that the years had not been kind to her. Continuing on, picking up pace, she lugged the wicker basket towards the washing machine and dumped it in front of the open circular door. As she bent down to scoop out the dirty clothing wisps of frizzy grey hair fell across her face. She swept them back over her ears and continued with the chore of separating the colours into piles. “Dark wash, whites,” she mumbled to herself, like she always did when doing the washing. She stopped abruptly as she caught sight of the stained blue and white striped shirt, which had been stuffed to the bottom of the basket. Using only her thumb and forefinger she picked out the shirt slowly, holding it up to the light streaming through the kitchen window. The dark spots and splashes on the cuffs and sleeves were unmistakeable. She had seen them so many times. Automatically she reached for the bottle of stain remover kept below the sink. As she gripped the bottle in front of the shirt, ready to spray, the news bulletin, which had been broadcast that morning, sprang into her mind.

  ‘A fresh plea for witnesses to an assault on a teenage girl three days ago. Links to the murder of Rebecca Morris.’ The words from the female newscaster were all coming back to her.

  The noise of her son shuffling about in his bedroom above disturbed her thoughts and she raised her eyes to the ceiling. They became fixed as though attempting to penetrate the plaster.

  At that same moment the vision of her ex-husband surged into her mind. How he’d cursed and berated her over the years. Blaming her for their son’s condition.

  “You’ve given birth to a psycho.” she remembered him blasting at her, the stench of chewing tobacco on his breath only inches from her face.

  And as he’d grown older her boy had given her as much grief. Saying it was also her fault that his father had left. If he had only known the truth. He’d never seen the beatings, which had been dished out to her. She had always taken great care to hide the bruising. She had always wondered if the damage had been caused when her husband had kicked her in the stomach when she was carrying her boy.

  Her neighbour, Jimmy Carson, had caught her crying so many times after arguments and had been the only one to comfort her. She had thought that taking a beating for being caught in bed with him might have been a good thing; might have changed the way her husband had treated her all these years. But it had only made things worse. He had punished her even more by leaving.

  Her son had got worse after he’d left.

  She hadn’t even heard of the condition, which the psychiatrist had diagnosed. Paraphilia he’d called it. She could see the Professor now, leaning towards her, solemn faced, elbows resting on desk, fingers fixed as a pyramid and pointed towards her. He’d spoken so softly, choosing such carefully phrased words.

  “The condition mean that
your son needs to do something extreme or dangerous in order to get a buzz,” had been the gist of it.

  And he’d rightly concluded that he would get worse as he got older.

  How ironic that the son she had named after an angel had turned out to be the devil himself. She knew he should be locked up, as much for his own sake as for others, but she couldn’t bring herself to betray him any further than she had already done.

  She shook herself out of her daydream and glanced back down to the shirt she was holding. Tears welled into her sad grey eyes. She wondered if it was time to bring all this to a halt.

  * * * * *

  The double set of doors burst open, one of them crashing against the wall. Grace was bristling with excitement as she bounced into the MIT office holding aloft a bundle of papers.

  “I’ve just got off the phone with our Sex Offender Officer in The Public Protection Unit. I’ve got a cracker of a suspect.”

  Grace’s sudden arrival and announcement caused Hunter to jump. He was the only person left in the office; everyone else was out on ‘the ground.’ Only a minute earlier he had looked at his watch wondering what was taking Grace so long. First thing after morning briefing he had given her the task of contacting the forensics lab to see if they had got a result yet from the Kirsty Evans’s samples, and he couldn’t help but wonder why one phone call had taken her the best part of an hour.

  Grace almost missed seating herself on her chair. She spun it out from under her desk with one foot and just managed to catch the edge of it as she plonked herself down. She adjusted her posture quickly and slid the sheets of foolscap towards Hunter.

  “Firstly we’ve got a positive result from forensics,” she began, almost out of breath “The fibres from under Kirsty’s fingernails match the fibres from the cardigan found on Carol Siddon’s body. The killer is still wearing the same clothing after all these years. And the belt, which was recovered from Kirsty’s neck, fits the marks found on Rebecca’s neck. That’s the good news.”

  “What’s the bad news?” asked Hunter. “And take some deep breaths I don’t want you keeling over on me.”

  She laughed, “Sorry but I’m so giddy. I’ve got loads to tell you.” She took in a deep intake of air. “The bad news is not that bad actually. Although there is a match for the DNA found under Kirsty’s nails with that from Rebecca’s body and the property Billy Smith found - and it’s not his by the way – it’s not on the national database at present. However all is not lost. Remember you gave Barry the task of going through Rebecca’s school stuff. Well I’ve just had a cuppa with him in the exhibits room and he’s shown me some very interesting snippets from her school journal. I’ve photocopied them to show you. Just look at pages six, seven and eight. There’s nearly three weeks between the first entry and the last extract which was written the day before she went missing.”

  Hunter shuffled through the sheets and found the ones Grace had mentioned. He scoured the excerpts from Rebecca Morris’s daily school diary.

  Met up with G after school. He showed me the photos he had taken of me. He said I looked very pretty and should consider taking up modeling. He made me blush. We talked for ages. He said I was a lot more mature than my age. Asked if he could meet up again, and I agreed.

  Went early to the fair today to see G again. I went early because I had arranged to meet Kirsty but G told me he didn’t want her to be around. He said she would be jealous of me meeting him, because he said she had been txting him because she fancied him. He took my photograph again and said he was going to make a professional portfolio for me. After G had gone me and Kirsty went to the youth club. I told Kirsty about someone older fancying me and wanting to take modeling photos of me. She just laughed and said it was weird. G is right she is jealous.

  Arranged to meet G tomorrow. He told me to miss school for once. He was going to start my portfolio so I could take it to a modeling agency. He told me not to tell anyone just yet as it would be a big surprise. I can’t wait to see him again. He treats me just like a grown up.

  Hunter whistled through his teeth. “Bloody hell Grace, I bet this is how our killer has been luring the girls. He’s a groomer.”

  “He certainly is and there’s more. I got back on to the technicians at Headquarters this morning. Do you remember Tony and Mike were given the job of searching the Evans’s house and they seized the computer?”

  Hunter nodded.

  “Well they’ve pulled off a number of chat room extracts, which Kirsty’s been having, with someone called Josh who says he’s seventeen. Well they’ve managed to trace the IP address and it comes back to one Geoffrey Collins.” She dropped several printed sheets in front of Hunter adding to the pile already on his desk.

  Hunter knew from previous dealings that Grace was referring to the Internet provider service, where addresses could be tracked back to an individual computer.

  “And get this, Geoffrey Collins is actually a thirty-seven year old man, and Public Protection Unit have confirmed he’s on our sex offenders’ register. If you look at pages ten and twelve you can see some of his profile that PPU have faxed over to me. His last conviction was over eight years ago and that’s probably why he’s not on the DNA database. He was done for gross indecency against two girls. One was fifteen and the other fourteen. What do you bet that G in Rebecca’s journal is Geoffrey Collins?”

  “My, my, we have been busy haven’t we?" Looks like you’ve solved this all on your own. You’ll be after promotion and a commendation next,” Hunter replied.

  “If the cap fits,” she smiled back modestly.

  “That is real good work Grace. Now you can help me get an operational plan drawn up with the SIO so that we can do an early morning knock on this Geoffrey Collins.”

  - ooOoo -

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  DAY THIRTY: 5th August.

  Geoffrey Collins lived in a one bedroom flat above one of the charity shops on Barnwell High Street. A decision had been made the night before not to contact his landlord for fear of word leaking out and Collins fleeing before the early morning raid. By 7am both marked and unmarked police cars lined the High Street. Overnight one of the evening shift detectives had secreted himself at the rear of the place to keep a check of Collins movements, ensuring he didn’t leave before he could be arrested.

  Hunter and his team were at the back of the queue of police vehicles, watching the Task Force don their protective gear and check their firearms. They were taking no chances. Ten minutes later the radios crackled into life, the Task Force Inspector had begun coordinating the operation. His instructions were short and precise and in a matter of minutes the immediate area around the flat had been cordoned off.

  Hunter wound down the car window as the ‘Strike...Strike...Strike.” shout went out over the airwaves.

  Two dull thuds pierced the stillness of the morning, followed by the shattering of glass and splintering of wood.

  He knew at that moment that Collins door had succumbed to the Task Force battering ram. He listened intently to the radio chatter as the armed team swept the building ‘clearing’ each room, and in less than a minute his name was being called.

  “DS Kerr?” The Task Force Officer requested.

  Hunter responded.

  “The flat is empty, Collins is not here.”

  Hunter cursed beneath his breath. Nevertheless he left the unmarked CID car, followed by Grace, Tony Bullars and Mike Sampson, already garbed in their forensic suits.

  The detectives entered the flat via the ground floor door at the rear of the building. The firearms team were just ‘racking’ their weapons, clearing rounds from the chambers of their Heckler and Kock MP5s.

  Hunter gave them a studious glance. He admired the elite team, always viewing them as a necessary evil in the fight against crime. It had always been his mind-set never to carry a gun. If truth be told he didn’t trust himself with something which could take away someone’s life from the slightest of touch. He had always been wor
ried that with a gun in his hand he might get it so wrong – especially when the red mist came. No, he’d stick with his fists. He had more control over them and the damage he left behind was always repairable. He squeezed past them, over the bits and pieces of broken timber and glass, which had once been the back door. It had been well and truly knocked off its hinges.

  Grace, Tony and Mike followed up behind.

  They all cringed and screwed up their faces as a rancid smell reached their nostrils. Glancing around, the flat was a hovel, filthy and malodorous. A table in the centre of the room was covered in dirty crockery, a half eaten sandwich, and milk had curdled in its plastic container.

  Hunter scrutinised the setting and wondered if it normally was left in such a state, or had Collins left in a hurry.

  A bare electric bulb provided the only light, and wallpaper, the pattern of which must have come from the seventies, peeled in places from the damp walls.

  In the bedroom a patch of light streamed through a gap in the curtains picking out objects within the sparsely furnished room. Against one wall was an old fashioned metal bed covered in an array of yellow stained sheets. The image reminded Hunter of Tracey Emin’s Turner Prize submission to The Tate Gallery.

  On a bed side unit laid a lap top computer. It was still switched on.

  A bundle of newly printed photographs lay scattered over the floor. Grace picked one up, studied it, and turned it to Hunter’s face. He instantly recognised the close-up shot of the pretty teenage girl - Kirsty Evans - who now lay critically injured in Barnwell General.

  He shook his head disconsolately. “We need to nail this bastard, and quick before he attacks again.”

  Grace nodded in agreement, shook out one of the plastic exhibit bags she had been carrying in her jacket pocket and dropped in the photo. Pulling the top off her marker pen with her teeth she timed and dated the exhibit label and bent down to scoop up more of the pictures. They all appeared to be snaps of Kirsty, taken at regular intervals, and she instantly identified the background as the park where Kirsty had been attacked.