‘I do not deny he has a misguided moral belief system. He may believe that he is acting in the interests of the many rather than the few, but a belief in utilitarianism does not justify brutally killing and dismembering an old lady, a teacher, and a man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
‘Send him where he belongs: to prison. Make sure that no other human being suffers because they have slighted Doctor Carruthers’ sense of self-worth. We are all human, and we all make mistakes. That does not justify murder.’
***
The jury was out for days.
Morton got the message that the jury was back just in time to sneak into the public gallery and squeeze past the slew of journalists.
‘All rise!’
Morton stood as Mr Justice Quinn swept into the courtroom and took his place in the centre of the seats at the back of Court No 1 in the Old Bailey. The jury had already been seated, and they were keeping tight-lipped. None of the jurors showed much emotion, nor did they make eye contact with either the defence or the prosecution. To Morton, that felt like the foreshadowing of a compromise verdict, one that neither side would be happy with. He hoped he was wrong.
The jury had three options for each count on the indictment: guilty, not guilty, or not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.
‘Have the jury reached a verdict upon which at least ten of you agree?’
The foreman, who was in the seat nearest to the judge, rose. ‘We have.’
‘Then, on the first count of the indictment, the murder of Amoy Yacobi, what is your verdict?’
The foreman cleared his throat. ‘Not guilty.’
The verdict on the first count swept around the courtroom like wildfire, every spectator whispering with those nearest them. Morton sought out Kieran’s gaze. The prosecutor gave a little shrug as if to say, ‘That was the weakest case on the docket. There’s no need to panic yet.’
Carruthers looked much less sombre. He wore a wide grin that showed off his dentures. He thought he had gotten away with it all.
‘Quiet! Quiet, please!’ Quinn said, and the room hushed. ‘On the second count of the indictment, the murder of Primrose Kennard, what is your verdict?’
‘Guilty.’
This time the prosecutor cheered.
‘Mr O’Connor! Control yourself!’ Quinn cried. ‘Save it for the Bridge Bar,’ he whispered as an afterthought. Then the judge turned to the jury. ‘Is that the verdict of you all, or by majority?’
‘Majority.’
The room fell deadly quiet. If the jurors did not have a sufficient majority to find him guilty, Carruthers might yet go free.
‘How many of you agreed, and how many of you dissented?’ Quinn asked with a hint of trepidation.
‘Ten and two, My Lord,’ the foreman said.
That was it. Carruthers was going down for a minimum life sentence. In short order the jury returned verdicts against Carruthers on counts three and four: the murders of Olivia Hogge and Niall Stapleton. All three murders were majority verdicts: ten for, two against.
‘And on the final count of the indictment, pursuant to the Human Tissue Act, what is your verdict?’
Not that it mattered. Morton watched Kieran smile for the first time in weeks.
‘Guilty,’ said the foreman.
‘Is that the verdict of you all, or by majority?’
‘All, My Lord.’
‘The court thanks the jury for their service,’ Quinn said. ‘Bailiff, you may escort them out of the courtroom.’
Carruthers sat in stony silence until the jurors were gone, and only looked up when Quinn addressed him directly.
‘Mr Carruthers, the sheer depravity of your crimes demands the harshest sentences permissible by law. You are hereby remanded to Belmarsh Prison, where you will serve three life sentences plus ten years.’ Quinn’s voice began to crack with the emotion that the judge had been suppressing for weeks. ‘You will never see the light of day again. It is no less than you deserve. Bailiff, take him away!’
Morton watched as Carruthers gave a little shrug. The man felt no guilt, no remorse, and no shame. The doctor caught Morton’s stare and gave a little wink.
It had been a strange case. Morton wanted to believe the doctor was simply incapable of human emotion, that he was a true psychopath devoid of any ability to feel. And yet, somehow, Carruthers had constructed his own code of morality. He had saved hundreds of lives. He could not be labelled so simply.
The doctor had played God. He had become judge, jury and executioner.
Morton watched the doctor as he was dragged from the courtroom in handcuffs and wondered how a man of medicine could have fallen so far from the path of non-maleficence.
Evil would always abound on the streets of London. Morton only hoped that no more like the doctor would take matters into their own hands.
Chapter 75: And the Whole World Goes Blind
Monday July 20th 16:00
Byron Carruthers was chained and thrown into the back of a Prison Service transport van for the short hop back to Belmarsh. He was taken not to intake but directly to the prison wing, a three-storey building within the grounds of HMP Belmarsh which had its own intensive care unit and a strong link with nearby Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich.
It was more than Carruthers deserved. The prison service treated him with more respect than he had treated his patients, and he was soon settled in a single room with easy access to the dialysis machines necessary to prolong his life.
It was during the first of these sessions that he chatted with Nurse Sally Cooper, a kindly older woman who was new enough to working in a prison medical ward that she had not yet become inured to the antics of inmates.
‘Sally,’ Carruthers said casually, ‘do you believe in atonement?’
‘I believe in punishment. It’s why I came to work here.’ Sally buzzed around the dialysis machine, and then began to see to finding a vein in the doctor’s arm.
‘An eye for an eye? How about a life for a life? Would you sentence a man to death for murder?’
‘I suppose I would.’
‘Then, perhaps you should kill me,’ Carruthers said.
’Are you insane?’
Carruthers gave her a sad smile. ‘The court didn’t think so.’
‘Then, why would you want me to kill you?’
‘Because I’m a doctor. If I die in prison, old and decrepit, I’ll be of no use to anyone and a burden on the world. End my life now and my body can be harvested to save dozens more lives.’
She shook her head and continued to fiddle with the dialysis machine. ‘I can’t kill you.’
‘Then, leave me alone. Just for a few minutes. And don’t resuscitate me. Can you do that for me?’
Sally nodded. ‘I think so. Goodbye, Dr Carruthers.’
***
Nurse Sally returned five minutes later to find Carruthers slumped over unconscious and bleeding out.
Carruthers had taken his last few moments to slit his wrists using the needle with which she had found his vein, and then daub a farewell message on the wall with his blood: You’re Welcome.
He wasn’t gone yet. Sally glanced at her watch. Another five minutes ought to do the trick.
The Evolution of a Serial Killer
Chapter 1: Stupidity
‘Most criminals are stupid. They’re easy to catch because they make mistakes. It’s the smart criminals you have to watch out for. That’s my job. I catch the weird, the wonderful, and the downright dangerous.’
Morton paused to survey the room in front of him. Eight pairs of eyes stared back from the darkness of the small lecture hall, which was illuminated only by the glare of the projector. Ayala was sitting at a desk to the left of Morton’s podium, half-heartedly clicking through the PowerPoint presentation between stifling yawns and trying not to look thoroughly bored. The whole team had been assigned to teaching duty, and yet only Ayala had made it to the first lecture of the week. Rafferty had been summon
ed away for a meeting, and Mayberry was hiding in his office. Morton didn’t blame him. Poor Mayberry wouldn’t have been much help, anyway. With his stutter, the six-week course would have taken three months.
A hand in the front row shot up. It belonged to a lanky man with caterpillar-like eyebrows adorning eyes that were much too big for his face. He smiled earnestly as his hand trembled in the air. Nobody else had joined him in the front row. The other students had the good sense to hide on the back benches in the shadows. Morton nodded at the overly-eager student.
‘Sir, how do you know you’re catching the really smart criminals? Aren’t the truly smart criminals those you never even investigate because they didn’t leave any evidence?’ The man spoke quickly, the words running into one another breathlessly. A verbal machine gun firing at full pelt.
‘And you are?’
‘Crispin Babbage, sir.’
Morton glanced at the clock. Half past ten. It was going to be a long day. ‘Well, Mr Babbage, I can’t disprove the existence of something for which we have no evidence. What I can say is that for every ten bodies, we get nine convictions. That’s higher than virtually anywhere else in the world.’
‘But, sir, what if they were so devious that they never left a body for you to find? Who are the one in ten who get away with it?’
Morton waved for Ayala to click over to the next slide.
‘They, Mr Babbage, are the dangerous ones. I don’t fear the axe-wielding maniac or the wife-beating coward. I don’t even fear the spectre of a serial killer. The murderers we have to worry about aren’t the mentally ill or the dregs of society. The true evil is the emotionless psychopath, the man or woman who can look at you and make a cold, calculating decision based on whether or not they will benefit from your death.’
Babbage’s hand shot up again.
Morton exhaled deeply. ‘Go on, Mr Babbage. One more question, and then I’m going to have to ask you to keep your hands to yourself for the rest of this presentation. Otherwise, you’re all going to be working right through lunch.’
At this, a collective groan rose through the room. Babbage grinned sheepishly, seemingly oblivious to the other trainee detectives staring daggers at the back of his head.
‘Sir, how many psychopaths are there? Didn’t Neumann and Hare think it was about 2% of the population?’
Morton felt his eyebrows arch into a frown. Bloody know-it-alls. ‘Mr Babbage, did you just ask me a question you already know the answer to? Brown-nosing is unwelcome in my classroom, and it won’t do you any good, anyway. I’m not going to decide which of you get to become detectives. If you’re looking to curry favour, then feel free to leave a bottle of Scotch on my desk, preferably one older than you are.’
‘But, sir, I wanted to know how many you’ve come across. It can’t be that hard to plot a murder, can it? Surely, any intelligent person could get away with it if they put enough time and effort in. You can’t be that much smarter than them, can you, sir?’
Morton glared. If Babbage wanted to match wits, Morton would gladly school the arrogant young man. He smiled politely, the kind of smile that doesn’t reach the eyes, and watched as Babbage melted back into his seat, slinking down under Morton’s glare. He made a decision on the spot. Babbage needed to be taken down a peg or two.
‘Let’s find out. Homework!’ Morton cried. ‘I want each of you to spend the rest of the day planning how you’d kill Detective Ayala, here. I want the specifics. You tell me how you’d do it, and I’ll tell you how I’d catch you.’
A few students grinned. The rest looked mortified. Morton motioned to Ayala to pass him his overcoat, then slung it over his shoulder. He nodded to the class, then headed for the exit. He paused in the doorway. ‘We’ll meet back in this room at oh-nine-hundred hours. You have twenty-two hours to plan the perfect murder. Good luck. Class dismissed.’
***
Rafferty exhaled deeply. She could feel the hairs on her arms standing on end. The waiting was the worst part. Rafferty didn’t like the endless paperwork, getting shot at, or canvassing witnesses door-to-door until her feet blistered, but she’d take any of those over sitting still.
Whatever the reason for the wait, it couldn’t be good. The new chief, Anna Silverman, had summoned Rafferty with the briefest of emails:
My office, 12:00 sharp.
Rafferty knew better than to email back and ask for details lest she be accused of wasting the chief’s time. It couldn’t be a reprimand. Or could it? Rafferty strained, trying to think of anything she’d done wrong that would warrant Silverman’s personal attention, but she drew a blank.
Rafferty’s gaze wandered around the room as the clock ticked loudly. The antechamber to the chief’s office had changed since Roberts had retired. Gone were the personal knick-knacks, the sporting goods and photos collected after a lifetime in high office. Gone, too, were the motivational posters. Good riddance, thought Rafferty. Any man who needed such platitudes was too vapid to hold a rank as important as the Commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis.
After an agonising wait, the intercom buzzed. The chief’s private secretary, a young man with a neatly trimmed beard and wire-frame glasses that covered half his face, answered the phone, murmured a few words, and placed the receiver back down almost immediately.
He turned his attention to Rafferty with a thin-lipped smile. ‘Ms Silverman will see you now.’
Rafferty nodded her thanks, gathered up her handbag, and headed for the door. She knocked loudly to announce herself and proceeded in without waiting for an invitation.
‘DI Rafferty, take a seat,’ the chief answered without looking up from her laptop.
Rafferty sat down awkwardly, resisting the urge to fidget. ‘Not going to offer me a coffee, then?’
‘No,’ the chief said simply.
‘Then, what am I doing here?’
The chief tore her attention away from her laptop and locked eyes with Rafferty. ‘I’m giving you your first case. The next murder that comes in is yours. Any problem with that?’
Rafferty’s eyes widened. Her first case. Wait. Shouldn’t Morton be deciding if she was ready? If the chief was going over his head, it spelled trouble. Any idiot could see that Silverman and Morton weren’t exactly friends, but to cut the Met’s most senior detective out of the loop was unprecedented.
Rafferty bit her lip. Finally, she said, ‘Chief, I’m honoured, but why me? I’m not the most senior DI on the force.’ She wasn’t even the most senior DI on the team. Even Ayala had seniority by dint of having been with Morton for two years longer than Rafferty.
‘No, you’re not. I think you’ve got potential. Am I wrong?’
‘N-no...’
‘Good. Then, the next body that drops is all yours. Borrow Detectives Ayala and Mayberry to assist you. It’s not like they’re busy.’
Silverman bared her teeth in a smile that hid the truth. Ayala and Mayberry weren’t busy because Morton’s entire team had been side-lined after the incident in Canary Wharf. They’d been given the bare minimum workload, the boring easy cases that needed no real detective work: stabbings, strangulations, and road traffic accidents, the sorts of cases new detectives cut their teeth on. It was a far cry from the serial killers they usually hunted. Morton ought to be fuming, but he was being as stoic as usual. If he was angry, he wasn’t sharing it with Rafferty.
She felt the chief’s eyes boring into her.
‘Right. Thank you.’ Rafferty looked at the chief, still confused. The chief began busying herself once more with her laptop. Should I go? Rafferty wondered.
The chief looked up. ‘Don’t you have work to be doing? Oh, and one more thing – not a word to Morton. He isn’t supervising you. I am.’
Chapter 2: Ways to Kill
The class ambled in slowly as the clock ticked towards nine. Morton resolved to be strict: any latecomers would be turned away. These weren’t undergraduates, and Morton was in no mood to babysit. Ayala had joined him fifteen minutes ago,
his arms laden down with two boxes of doughnuts.
‘Ayala, what are you doing? You’re not seriously going to feed the students, are you?’
‘Should I not, boss?’
‘Do what you like, but be careful. One kind gesture, and they’ll think you’re a pushover. Is one of those for me? I’m starving.’
‘Yep. Salted caramel, and a black coffee.’ Ayala placed Morton’s breakfast on a side table and set about connecting his laptop up to the projector system.
Morton sipped at his coffee, surveying the class as they arrived. Babbage was the first to arrive. As usual, the pompous young man made a beeline for the front row, and then proceeded to spread out his notes. He even had a small tablet on a kickstand.
‘You can put that away. You won’t need it. I want you listening, not tapping away.’
‘But, sir, I always make notes this way,’ Babbage said.
‘Not my problem.’ Morton glanced over at Ayala. Morton didn’t care about tablets being used during his lectures. He just didn’t like Babbage.
Nobody else sat in the front row. They slunk in at the back, avoiding making eye contact. Small cliques had begun to form already. Little clusters of two or three students gathered among the rows, with the occasional lone student interspersed between them.
Morton leaned in to the microphone attached to the lectern. ‘Move forward, please. I want your attention, and I don’t want to shout.’
Slowly, they shuffled forwards. Morton could only see two women among the group. It wasn’t for want of trying. The new chief had been aggressively recruiting for women to join the training program.
‘Just three women, eh, boss?’ Ayala whispered.
‘Three?’
‘The two in the third row–’
‘I see them,’ Morton said tersely. ‘Where’s number three?’
Ayala nodded towards the back row. Morton followed his line of sight. He hadn’t clocked the person at the back: small, slightly built, with a delicate feminine nose and a military-style close-shave haircut.
The DCI Morton Box Set Page 50
