BURN, BABY, BURN

by Jake Barton

  Donna must have looked doubtful, because Kate smiled. "This is really going to cheer up old misery guts here," she said, gesturing in the direction of Dexter. "Hackers in China really get it in the neck. There were these two brothers, twins actually, who were sentenced to death for hacking into a bank and transferring the equivalent of about ￡55,000 into dummy accounts. I even remember their names, one of the penalties of having a head full of useless crap. Jingrong and Jingwen Hao. One brother worked at the bank, Jingrong I think it was. He fitted a homemade modem to the bank's computer and his twin brother used a personal computer in his apartment to transfer money to sixteen accounts they had set up in false names. They got caught and received a death sentence."

  Dexter fidgeted in his chair. "I know you're good at this sort of thing," he said, "and that you cover your tracks, but aren't there meant to be safe-guards against people snooping around in computer systems?"

  "Sure. It's not easy. Encryption is a big problem these days. Not just the good guys either. Drug dealers are so paranoid over recent high profile busts that they use encrypted e-mails and scrambled mobile phones to ensure secrecy. The real villains will wrap their transmissions up so that no bugger will trace them. Well, apart from people like me. No real chance of the authorities breaking all these encrypted messages, too much pressure from Civil Liberties groups. I’ve got no such scruples."

  Kate turned to Dexter. "You might suggest to Abbott that it would be an idea to request a look at that system the Yanks use, make it a sort of a staff suggestion. The FBI system makes anything we’ve got here look primitive. N.C.A.V.C. National Centre for Analysis of Violent Crime is what he needs to take a look at. Not that our man is American, but shoes are an International commodity."

  "Not much to go on," Dexter grumbled.

  Kate frowned. "One more piece of the jigsaw puzzle. One more thing we didn't know before and now we do. Shoe size tells us a lot. Likely height and weight for a start. There’s data for all this. Your boys in blue will be doing this by now, or should be. Jigsaw puzzles."

  "Jigsaw puzzles? How civilised it all sounds." Donna mused.

  "Civilisation is a relative term. It’s only a thin veneer. Underneath, is all the violence and primitive savagery of the Jurassic Age. Tooth and claw, survival of the fittest, kill or be killed. Natural Selection in its purest form. Make no mistake about it. What we have here is not just a man wearing trendy shoes. He's a killer, in the purist sense of the word. It doesn't bother him. He even enjoys it, but he'll be able to walk around without creating the faintest suspicion of what he's really like."

  Something had been bothering Donna for a while, ever since she'd arrived, and then, all of a sudden there it was.

  "Those young girls, the ones that went missing before." Donna paused for breath. Both pairs of eyes were trained on her, expectant. "He could drive, Marcus Green. Clive, his neighbour, told me that Marcus used to take his mother's car. He wouldn't have had a licence, obviously, but that wouldn't have stopped him."

  Kate was animated, feverishly switching through files on her computer, scanning data at high speed, the tip of her tongue protruding from between her lips testifying to the depth of her concentration.

  "What are you looking for?"

  "Give me a minute and I’ll show you."

  Dexter and Donna sat still, with mounting impatience, as Kate continued to raid the contents of her computer. She made a small expression of triumph and pressed the key to print out the files currently on her screen.

  "What's this, then?" Dexter enquired as the first sheets of paper dropped into the tray.

  "Missing persons. Specifically, missing girls. How long since Marcus Green got out?"

  "Three months, give or take a couple of weeks. I haven't got the exact dates."

  "Not to worry, I’ve got the dates on file somewhere. I’ll go back four months to make certain."

  Donna hesitated, and then spoke out. "Missing girls? You mean like Celine, or the girls who went missing years ago?"

  "More like Celine, but without the ransom demand. I collect data on missing persons as part of my research. Mostly, it doesn't amount to much. Lots of people go missing every year for all sorts of reasons, hardly any of them suspicious."

  "So?"

  "The thing is, and it may be nothing, there've been a higher number of missing persons reported in the last few months, in one category anyway. Single girls, aged eighteen, nineteen, or so. No reason to suspect foul play, but enough for me to notice it."

  "None of them turned up?" Dexter was agitated now, his bored air forgotten.

  "One."

  "And?"

  "One girl was found two days after she disappeared. In a ditch, just off the East Lancs. Road, near the Makro warehouse."

  Dexter growled deep in his throat. "Couple of months ago. No marks on the body?"

  "That's the one. Angela Howe. Eighteen years old. Went missing after leaving a disco. Turned up dead twenty-odd miles away a couple days later. One thing I noticed from the reports. The dead girl had a tattoo and was also a heroin user. Needle tracks on her arms. Asphyxiated, but not strangled. Died elsewhere, and then taken to where she was found and dumped there."

  "So where does this leave us?"

  Kate shrugged. "Buggered if I know. Leave it with me and I’ll perhaps turn something up." She turned her back, busy with the computer, her attention totally on the screen.

  Dexter motioned to the doorway with a gesture of resignation. Donna stood, stretching her back, and followed Dexter to the door. Kate didn't even raise her eyes from the screen, totally absorbed in her work. Donna took a couple of steps back into the room. This was turning out to be one of those better late than never days when she remembered things she should have mentioned earlier. The nagging thought that had been haunting her ever since Dexter had told her where Marcus had lived in his early years.

  "His mother moved them to this address when he was about eight or nine. Why?"

  Dexter and Kate both stared at her.

  "Why move from Caldy Hill, all tennis courts, triple garages and built-in saunas? Okay, she wouldn't have her husband's income any more, but it's still a hell of a come-down."

  "So what?"

  Donna gave Dexter one of her looks. It just bounced off him. "What happened to all the money? The neighbours say she's on benefit, but she must have made a bomb when she sold the last house and the house she bought would only cost a fraction of the price. So, where did the money go? Could she have bought another house somewhere, one nobody else knows about? And if so, is that where Marcus is hiding? And, is that where he’s keeping Celine?" Donna ran out of breath and inspiration at the same time.

  Kate and Dexter were still looking at her, then Kate ran over and hugged her, her face lit up.

  "Bloody Hell, what are you like? Well done, Donna, you just may have put your finger on it." Kate was clearly elated at this possible new twist.

  Dexter, who had been furious with Donna for poking her nose around the back of Marcus’s mother’s house, now sat her down and made her go over all the details one more time for Kate’s benefit. Kate scribbled on a sheet of paper and passed it over.

  "Rough prices, no more than a guess at this stage, but that’s what I reckon she paid for the house she’s in now. Give or take ten grand either way, Agreed?"

  Donna nodded. Right on the button, she’d say.

  "Then there’s the place they used to have, up on the hill. I’ve had a quick look at the place next door that has survived the threat of the developers so far. Very similar to the Green’s former place by all accounts. Best part of three acres of garden, and it satisfies the three golden rules of property value. Location, location and location. I know the company bought it to knock it down and build flats, but they’d still have had to pay market value. I reckon a fair price would have been…." She took the paper back and wrote a figure on it.

  "Bloody Nora," Dexter said when he looked at it. Donna was speechless. She’d no idea a house in
this area could be worth so much.

  Dexter blew out an explosive puff of air.

  "Take A from B and what have we got?"

  "A bloody fortune," said Dexter, still staring at the paper in his hand.

  "The neighbours all know she’s on benefit," Donna said excitedly. "So something happened to all that money, didn’t it?"

  "It certainly did. Find what she did with the money. That’s our next step. If she bought property, and she’d plenty of scope with that much capital available, then we need to find that property. Find that and you’ll find Marcus and his captives."

  Dexter and Donna sat in silence, stunned at the possible implications of the last few minutes.

  "Leave the details with me and I’ll firm up the figures. Do a local property search and find out exactly what she got for the Caldy house and what she paid for the house she’s in now. If the figures are a mile away from what we have here, I’ll let you know straight away, but I think we’re on the right track with what we’ve got. Why don’t you two get your heads together and see if you can come up with some idea of what sort of place we need to look for? I’ll start you off if you like."

  "Right," Dexter said, looking pleased at being given something useful to do.

  "Somewhere isolated," Kate said, her tone brooking no argument.

  Donna said nothing, but Kate saw her quizzical expression.

  "I’m certain of it, have been from the first time I started looking into him as a suspect. Back when he was arrested for starting the fire that killed those children, he could have avoided capture, but he stayed in the bushes. Someone saw him there, one of the neighbours, and he was arrested. He stayed because he was enjoying himself. The children would have been screaming. That’s why we need to be looking for somewhere very isolated. He likes to hear his victims scream. Rules out the average bed-sitter, I’d say."

  *****

  An hour later, Kate was still seated at her box of tricks, engaged in another heavy session and Donna was yawning her head off.

  "Get her out of here," Kate grunted, jerking her thumb in Donna’s direction. "All that yawning’s getting on my tits."

  "Best get off anyway," Dexter said, rising from his seat and leading the way. "You'll get on better without the distraction of us pair hanging around. I’ll check with you later, Kate. See how you’re getting on."

  Kate grunted, her attention elsewhere.

  As they reached the door, Kate shouted for them to return. At the tone of her voice, Donna’s previous tiredness evaporated.

  "This is more like it," Kate announced, finger stabbing at her screen.

  "What?" Dexter grumbled, straining to read the words.

  "Runaways. Lots of them. All recent. Last few months. None of them rated as suspicious."

  "So why the interest?"

  "Because there are more of them than there should be. Either a higher proportion of teenage girls have suddenly taken it upon themselves to leave home or there’s a pattern we need to look at."

  "Why hasn’t anyone else noticed this?" Donna asked.

  "Who? The coppers? Come off it. They’ve got too much to do than bother about runaways. File them away under domestic disputes. Not anything to do with them, not without a good reason to suspect foul play."

  "And there isn’t?"

  "No. But there’s too many of them, all in the past three or four months, for it not to be relevant. Even if we accept that a good proportion of these runaways are simply that, it still leaves too many that can’t be explained."

  "The past three or four months?"

  "Yeah. That’s when the figures started to go up."

  They stared at each other, each unwilling to be the first to speak.

  Kate broke the silence.

  "Right then. We may have more than we thought here. Now the real work starts. Location is the key."

  Dexter nodded, but Donna didn’t get it.

  "Why?"

  "If we first accept the premise that Marcus Green could be involved, then extend it to the possibility that a fair proportion of these missing persons, all young females, are down to him, then it becomes obvious." She sat back in her chair. Donna still didn’t get it and it evidently showed in her face because Kate frowned.

  "Where are they? The missing girls. He has a place to take them, and if we follow this to its logical conclusion, a place to dispose of bodies. That’s the key. We’re looking for somewhere isolated. Somewhere private. No bodies, no crime."

  "Oh," Donna said, feeling more than usually stupid. "I see."

  "This is all I have so far. Police reports, all low-grade uniformed stuff. No CID involvement. Unless there are good grounds for suspicion, or the family happen to be well connected, that’s as far as it will go. Only one warranted a major enquiry, the local girl, Angela Howe. Front page news for a couple of days, after the body was found, then nothing. No arrests so far. Nothing in the file to make me think they’ve turned up anything."

  Kate turned to Dexter. "You heard anything?"

  Dexter shook his head. "If you’ve managed to get into the file, then you know more than I do. From what I heard, there’s no physical evidence and no confirmed sightings of her since she left the disco to walk home."

  "Was Marcus involved?" Donna burst out. "Is that what you think?"

  Kate answered. "Could be. Perhaps something went wrong and he had to dump her body. Of course, it could be that someone else took her. We just don’t know. The absence of any evidence and no confirmed sighting of her since she left the disco are significant. Makes me think whoever killed her knew what he was doing. Either he was lucky, or he’s done it before. It could well be our man. If it is him, then the absence of any witnesses fits in with his cautious nature. He’d be much too wary to abduct his victims where there was any chance he’d be seen by witnesses. Animals learn very quickly to bond together when a dangerous predator is on the prowl. The weak, the lame, the solitary are vulnerable. Safety in numbers is one of the basic rules of survival. I’m certain that all the victims were alone when he took them. He would give them no reason to fear him. I can guarantee that this man would never consider picking up his victim in a crowded nightclub and leaving with her on his arm for everyone to see."

  "How does that help?"

  Kate shrugged. "It’s a detail, nothing more. When I have enough of these small details, I’ll know him. Then you can catch him."

  "How far away are you now?"

  "Who knows?"

  Donna had been silent for a while, brooding on Kate’s words. When she spoke, her voice crackled with emotion. The possibility of other victims had affected her deeply. "The other missing girls. How many?"

  Kate consulted her notes. "Thirteen in the last four months. Teenage girls missing from home. Even if we discount the genuine cases, that’s too many. Only six notified in the previous six months. The other missing person figures, males and older women, are pretty constant. The big jump is only in girls between the age of seventeen and twenty. School-girls or college students mostly, but several of them were working, so no set pattern apart from age and gender."

  "With so many, why was there no investigation?"

  "From what I’ve been able to find on file, it seems there was a history of family conflict in almost every case. Not unusual at that age. The natural rebellion of youth, boyfriend problems, all that crap. But, more significantly, nothing to suggest abduction. They usually took a change of clothes, some personal possessions, money. Ransacked the house for money before leaving in some cases. Once the police see that, it’s goodbye to any serious investigation, no matter how adamant the parents might be that their daughter would never run away from home. A bit of counselling and the case is filed away."

  Donna started to speak and then hesitated.

  "Go on," Kate said. Donna got the impression Kate knew in advance what she was about to say.

  "If it’s Marcus, then he’s clever enough to know all that. How if the change of clothes, the stolen money, are int
ended to give the impression that the victim has run away of her own accord? Knowing there’d be less chance of an investigation."

  Kate beamed at her. "Exactly. Either the victims took clothes and money with them, as willing participants in the deception, at the suggestion of their abductor–"

  "Or," Donna interrupted. "He went back and made it look as if money and possessions had been taken away. Someone capable of all this wouldn’t find a bit of burglary difficult."

  "Not at all. Especially if he had a front door key taken from his victim. Take what he needed to give the impression that the departure had been planned and was entirely voluntary. So, there may have been many more victims. No bodies, so if he’s killing them he has a safe place to hide the remains. Find that hiding place and we’ve got our man."

  "Marcus," Donna said.

  Kate grinned. "If you say so. So get out there and find him. If it is him, then he’s reaching a critical time. If even half these disappearances are down to him, that’s someone who’s barely teetering on the edge of control right now. There’s a lot of rage in him, an agenda we don’t know about or understand as yet, and even he won’t be able to hold it in forever. Being as careful as he seems suggests acute paranoia. He’ll be antisocial by nature, and will probably have been forcing himself to mingle with people for some time. That’s a strain, although he’ll almost certainly have developed a high level of social skills. A real charmer, I’d say, judging by the ease with which he seems able to get the confidence of his victims. They don’t fear him on first sight, that much is obvious. Despite this exterior, in reality, he’ll be totally amoral."

  "No conscience?"

  "Correct. He’ll consider everyone else his intellectual inferior." Kate paused. "If Marcus Green is our man, he’ll have a certain justification for that view. A pathological liar with the ability to act out a lie as if it were the truth and intelligent as well. We need to catch this one, Dexter."