Broken Dolls (A Jefferson Winter Thriller)

by James Carol

  ‘What are the other reasons?’ Hatcher asked.

  ‘Well, the other big reason is depersonalisation. The Nazis shaved heads in Auschwitz and Treblinka for much the same reason. When the victims were found they were all wearing identical unbranded grey sweatpants and sweatshirts, right? This is what they would have been dressed in most of the time. It’s another part of the depersonalisation process. Also, the unsub who likes playing dolls would want to keep her dressing-up clothes in good condition.’

  I gave it a second for all that to sink in.

  ‘With pairings you have one unsub who’s dominant and one who’s submissive. In this case our dominant unsub is the guy carrying out the DIY surgery. He’s white, well educated, aged thirty to forty. These crimes are too complex to be carried out by a kid. He’s highly organised. Everything he does is well thought out and planned to the nth degree. His fantasies run his life, and now he’s started acting them out the only way he’ll stop is if he is captured or killed. Also, he has money, probably from an inheritance.’

  I pointed to the map. ‘The fact that all the pins are north of the Thames indicates that he is based somewhere in this area. To do what he does he needs privacy. His victims are going to make a lot of noise, so that means a detached property that’s far enough from the neighbours so he doesn’t disturb them. Property in this area is expensive, particularly the sort of property large enough to allow him the space to have his fun.’

  ‘Fun,’ said the grizzled cop. ‘How the hell can you call what he does fun?’

  ‘Believe me, this guy’s having a ball,’ I replied. ‘You’ve seen the victims’ tox screens, right? The first three all had traces of ecstasy, amphetamines and Valium in their systems. Patricia Maynard’s will come back the same. He uses ecstasy and amphetamines because he wants the victims to experience as much pain as possible. Ecstasy makes them more sensitive to every slice of the knife. The amphetamines keep them conscious longer. The Valium is used to subdue them, to make them more compliant during the downtime when he’s not having his fun. The choice of drugs is interesting in that they’re all easy to get hold of. And the fact they’ll all have been obtained illegally means there’s no way to track the unsub down through that route.’

  ‘Maybe he’s trying to mislead us,’ said Templeton. ‘Like the stunt with the broken camera he pulled in St Albans. Maybe he wants us to believe he’s based north of the river, but he actually lives south of the river.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ I said. ‘Highly organised unsubs like this one are constantly looking for ways to improve their MO. The use of misdirection is something new. The fact he feels the need to do this tells us one of two things. Either something you guys are doing is working and he’s feeling under pressure, or his paranoia is getting the better of him. Whichever one it is, it’s a good sign. Add this to the fact that the kidnappings are coming closer together, and it’s another indication that he’s devolving. The more rapidly he devolves, the easier he’ll be to capture.’

  ‘That’s a pretty big haystack,’ said Templeton. She was staring at the map behind me.

  ‘It is. And I’ll do what I can to make it smaller.’

  ‘Could we be looking for an actual surgeon?’ Hatcher asked.

  I shook my head. ‘Nice idea, but no. This guy has no interest in helping people get well. The surgery he carries out enables him to keep his victims alive and prolong the torture. Very pragmatic when you think about it. That said, the unsub would have started a medical degree, but he would only have lasted a couple of semesters at most. There would have been some indiscretion that would have gotten him kicked out. You need to contact all the universities that offer medical degrees and check out anyone who got kicked out, particularly the incidents where there was some drama involved. Our unsub would not have gone peacefully. You might be talking nearly twenty years ago, so it’s a bit of a long shot, however, I’m betting that whatever he did will be remembered.’

  I paused and scanned the faces to make sure I still had everyone’s attention.

  ‘Which brings us onto the second unsub. You’re looking for a white female. She’ll be a couple of years younger than her partner, shorter, too, and she would have dropped out of the education system before university. She’s going to be smaller than him in every way. Smaller in size, personality and intellect. There’s no way our guy could deal with anyone who could be perceived as superior to him on any level. No way. She’s going to be timid, too. Chances are they’re lovers, maybe even husband and wife like the Wests, but don’t rule out other types of relationship at this stage. They could be brother and sister, for example.’

  ‘You said she’s female,’ said the grizzled detective. ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. And the reason I’m sure is because she’s the reason the victims are still alive. If we were dealing with two males then they would just keep going until the victim was dead. This unsub gets attached to her dolls. She looks after them, feeds them, keeps them healthy. She wouldn’t be able to handle them being murdered, and the dominant partner understands this at some level. The lobotomy is a compromise. The victims are still alive but they might as well be dead. And of course, there’s no way they can ID the unsubs. It’s a neat solution. Another example of the dominant unsub’s pragmatism.’

  ‘You sound like you admire this guy.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t believe how far off the mark you are.’ I locked eyes with the grizzled cop. ‘Don’t ever make the mistake that I admire these assholes, because I don’t.’

  The old guy looked like he could have killed me where I stood. The fact there were almost a dozen witnesses in the room, all cops, would have made no difference. I held his gaze until he looked away first. It was like being back in the schoolyard all over again.

  ‘Okay, moving on,’ I said. ‘The dominant partner is impotent, and this is a source of anger and frustration for him. This is one reason why the torture is so extreme. All the victims have stab injuries that were caused by a knitting needle or a skewer. In this case, stabbing is a substitute for sexual penetration. The same goes for the knife wounds.’

  ‘You said one reason. What’s the other reason?’ asked the female DC on the second row.

  ‘Because he likes to hear them scream.’

  The DC’s face drained of colour.

  ‘One more thing,’ I said. ‘Despite what you guys think, this is actually a murder investigation.’

  ‘How do you figure that one?’ asked Hatcher. ‘There have been four victims so far, and we’ve got them all back.’

  Hatcher almost said alive, but stopped himself at the last second. I could sense it there on the tip of his tongue.

  ‘Because he needed to practise. The four victims we’ve got back were all successfully lobotomised. You don’t get this proficient without practice, and I’m betting that his practising got messy. Look back at any unsolved murders or mysterious deaths that pre-date the first kidnapping. Cross-reference these with the victim profile I gave you and you should come up with a name. Okay, questions?’

  This was met by a wall of silence that stretched out for a couple of seconds before it was shattered by a ringing telephone. One telephone was quickly followed by another, and another. Within ten seconds every phone in the incident room was ringing. For a second everyone just stared at them like they couldn’t work out what they were. It was Hatcher who broke the spell. He grabbed the nearest telephone, listened and asked some questions, told the person on the other end that someone would get back in touch, then hung up.

  ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he said. ‘Rachel Morris’s father has just offered a million-pound reward for any information leading to the safe return of his daughter. It’s all over the news channels. Photographs, a press conference, the works.’

  A collective groan went around the room.

  ‘Great,’ I muttered.

  24

  Rachel heard the rattle of a trolley behind her and strained to turn around. T
he leather straps dug into her arms and legs, restricting her blood flow and making her fingers and toes tingle. She could see the walls either side of her, but she couldn’t get far enough around to see the wall with the door in.

  ‘Number Five will face the front,’ said Adam.

  Rachel’s head snapped forward and she stared at the mattress. She forced herself to breathe slowly, told herself to relax even though it was impossible. The growing bruises on her back throbbed in time with her racing heart, a painful reminder of the cane. The artificial pine stink of disinfectant made her head swim.

  Adam took his time coming into the room. Slow footsteps behind her, the rubber squeak of the trolley wheels on the tiles. He stopped the trolley in front of her, positioning it so she got a good look. It was the sort of trolley found in any hospital. Stainless steel that glinted under the halogens, three shelves, black wheels. The trolley was crammed with an odd assortment of equipment. Most items she recognised, some she didn’t. A mallet, a jigsaw, kidney bowls, safety goggles, knitting needles with heat-blackened ends. Clean clothes and a towel on the bottom shelf. Rachel tried to swallow but her mouth was bone-dry. Her back was on fire but, looking at the trolley, she realised there was much worse to come.

  She stared at the collection of objects on the trolley, her mind spinning one dark nightmare after another. She was too young to die. This wasn’t fair. There were still so many things she wanted to do. She wanted children and a happy ever after, she wanted to visit Mexico and New Orleans and the pyramids, she wanted to get to the end of her life and have no regrets. Right now all she had were regrets, a whole list of them, a ton of things she would have done differently.

  ‘Number Five will sit still.’

  Adam picked up a pair of stainless-steel hairdressing scissors from the trolley and grabbed a handful of Rachel’s hair. Instinct kicked in and she tried to pull away, but Adam dragged her head back into place with a sharp tug that almost ripped her hair out by the roots.

  ‘Number Five will stay still or face the consequences.’

  The needle-sharp point of the scissors was only a couple of millimetres from her left eye. It was too close to focus on and all she saw was a grey, shiny blur. Rachel closed her eyes and waited for the thrust that would steal her sight. Seconds passed. Long seconds. There was a metallic snick-snick as the scissor blades separated then came together again. She opened her eyes and saw a clump of her hair tumble to the ground. Adam took hold of another handful of hair and hacked it off. This time Rachel didn’t see it fall because her vision was smeared with tears.

  Adam hacked at her hair until all that was left was a rough, uneven stubble. He dropped the scissors onto the trolley and the metallic clatter shattered the uneasy silence. Then he picked up a bottle of water and tipped the contents over her head. Rachel tried to move out of the way, but the restraints held her in place. She coughed and spluttered, convinced she was drowning. Adam shook out the last few drops of water then returned the bottle to the trolley. Rachel’s sweatshirt was soaked through, a chilling damp that made her shiver. Adam picked up a can of shaving gel, squirted some into his hand, and massaged it into Rachel’s scalp.

  ‘Number Five will sit very still.’

  Adam went to work with the razor, and when he’d finished he stood back to admire his handiwork. He tilted his head from side to side, checking from all angles. Rachel just sat as still as she could, paralysed and dumb, not even daring to breathe. Adam unfastened the restraints then told her to stand up and take her clothes off. Rachel complied immediately. She didn’t try to hide her nakedness. She just stood with her arms by her sides, trembling from head to toe, and stared at a spot on the floor so she wouldn’t have to look at Adam. He handed her a towel and told her to dry herself, gave her a clean set of clothes and told her to put them on. He left with the trolley and the door banged shut. The halogens were abruptly switched off.

  Darkness.

  Rachel walked back to the mattress and sank down onto it. She squeezed herself tight into the corner, pulled the blankets around herself and hugged her knees, tears streaming down her face. Her naked head felt cold and strangely weightless.

  Losing her hair was horrendous, but right now that was the least of her worries. Rachel had had her suspicions, but until Adam cut her hair, that’s all they were: suspicions. She’d chosen denial because the truth was too frightening to contemplate, but the denial didn’t work any more. She thought back to the conversation she’d had at work yesterday morning, and the tears came harder. She’d been talking with some of the girls about the woman who’d been found wandering in a park in St Albans. The woman had been kidnapped and held captive for almost four months. That was scary enough, but what scared Rachel even more was that her head had been shaved and she’d been given a lobotomy. According to police she’d been the fourth victim.

  Number Five.

  The memory of Adam’s rich, cultured voice resonated through her mind, two words that contained a whole host of terrifying possibilities.

  25

  Donald Cole was an East End boy born and bred. He was also a poster boy for the rags-to-riches cliché. He’d dropped out of school at fourteen without a penny or a single qualification to his name, and built up a thriving property rental business, while somehow avoiding prison. He had done good and wanted everyone to know it. Rachel Morris was his only daughter.

  The headquarters for Cole Properties was in Stratford, a part of London that had been given a new lease of life when the Olympic circus came to town. It was based in an old converted factory, a three-storey red-brick building with blacked-out windows on its south-facing side. Cole’s surname was plastered across the sign on the front of the building in massive capital letters. The ‘properties’ part of the logo was tiny in comparison, more a footnote than a statement. News trucks were parked out front, satellite dishes pointed to the heavens. Sky, BBC, ITV. Camera crews, sound technicians and reporters milled around waiting for something to happen.

  Templeton abandoned the BMW on a set of double yellow lines as close to the entrance as she could get. We got out and slammed the car doors shut and dashed through the slush. The sky was bright blue, the temperature somewhere around thirty degrees. The reporters shouted questions at us as we breezed by, and the cameramen hustled to get their cameras pointed in our direction. We kept our heads down and our mouths shut and bowled through the double doors into the building, the heater above the door blasting hot air at us as we passed underneath it.

  While I stamped the slush from my boots and unzipped my jacket, Templeton marched up to the receptionist and told her we were there to see Cole. The receptionist stuttered that there must be some mistake since Mr Cole had cancelled all his appointments for the rest of the day, and Templeton flashed her ID. One quick call later and we were riding the elevator to the third floor. Cole’s PA met us off the elevator. She was in her forties, blonde and efficient. She must have been stunning when she was younger because she was still attractive now. She led us along a white-painted corridor that was decorated with bland black-and-white photographs that were trying too hard to be arty, and stopped outside a set of wide double doors. She knocked twice, then pushed one of the doors open and stepped aside to let us through.

  Cole’s office was as big as the incident room back at Scotland Yard. Unlike the incident room, though, it was clean and free from clutter, and smelled of orange groves and cigars rather than detectives.

  There were two white leather sofas arranged in an L-shaped formation around a glass-topped coffee table for informal chats. The big oak desk with the huge high-backed leather chair was where the heavy business was carried out. Large expensive rugs covered most of the wooden floor and there were more of those bland black-and-white framed photos on the walls.

  The silver-framed family pictures arranged carefully on the desk covered three generations of Coles. It was strange that there was no other family here. Given the circumstances, I’d at least expected Cole’s wife to be here. The f
act that she wasn’t meant she probably wasn’t handling things too well.

  Donald Cole was standing in front of a large floor-to-ceiling tinted window, staring blankly out at the cityscape. Stood like that, looking without seeing, he reminded me of Sarah Flight. Cole had his back to us, a cigar burning between his fingers. He was a big man, tall and wide. His face was hard and worn with red drinkers’ veins snaking across his nose and cheeks. He didn’t have a broken nose, which meant he either hit first and asked questions later, or he paid someone else to do the hitting. Once he’d been muscled up, a real tough guy, but the years had softened that muscle to fat. He had a chunky gold bracelet, a sovereign ring, and a large expensive watch, unsubtle reminders of his wealth and success. His suit was bespoke and his shoes were handmade from expensive leather.

  ‘Have you found the bastard who took my daughter?’

  Cole’s voice was a low, rough growl. He was still staring out the window.

  ‘Bastards,’ I corrected. ‘There are two kidnappers.’

  The big man turned and stared, a move he had down to a fine art. It was a move designed to intimidate, and it had no doubt worked successfully for him in the past. He had both the look and presence to pull it off. I wasn’t impressed. I’d been given the hard stare by men a lot more dangerous than Donald Cole, men who would cut you up before breakfast then eat your heart and liver for lunch, and laugh with glee while they were doing it.

  ‘This isn’t a joke. These bastards have got hold of my daughter and when I get hold of them I’m going to rip their heads off.’

  ‘No you’re not,’ said Templeton. ‘What’s going to happen is we’re going to catch these people, and they’re going to go to court, where they’ll be tried and then they’ll get sent to prison for a very long time.’