Death in Profile

by Guy Fraser-Sampson

  “I am choosing them carefully,” Metcalfe said, “precisely because I don’t want to be misunderstood. Ken’s a perfectly sound copper, but he’s forty-odd years old and he’s still a Detective Sergeant. Even he’s worked out that he’s not going any further, and he’s not the brightest thing on two legs. Good for routine leg work, but don’t expect imagination or flashes of inspiration.”

  “OK. And the others?”

  “The others are really just ships that pass in the night, and that’s been part of the trouble. They drift in for a month or two, and then they drift away again as they get reassigned or go on leave. To be honest, I don’t think any of them really fancied being part of a long, drawn-out investigation that’s going nowhere. Some of them couldn’t wait to get off the team. And that all added to the problems for the guv’nor – DCI Allen, I mean.”

  There was silence in the car while Collison digested this, and Metcalfe realised it might be his best chance of broaching a sensitive subject. “Listen, sir, about Tom Allen. I’ve got something I should tell you.”

  “Go on.”

  “He rang me yesterday to tell me he’d been taken off the case. Asked me to meet him this morning for breakfast on the way to the nick.”

  “I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Collison said mildly. “After all, you’re friends aren’t you?”

  “There’s more I’m afraid, guv, or I wouldn’t be troubling you with it. Fact is he seems to have taken all this pretty badly. He’s insisting that he wants to stay involved with the case, in his own time if necessary. The real point is this, though: he asked me to be his source of information from within the team. Passing on anything we come up with.”

  “Oh dear,” said Collison after a pause. “To which you said no, presumably?”

  “Of course,” Metcalfe averred. “Plus I decided to log the incident in my diary and report it to you as the officer in charge of the investigation.”

  “Then you’ve done exactly as you should have done,” said Collison. “Thank you for telling me. I’ll put it in my diary as well.”

  “You know,” he went on, “I feel very sorry for Tom. He was damned unlucky to end up in charge of a high profile inquiry, which was stuck for lack of evidence. Once the bloody papers started with their fun and games it was inevitable that the Home Secretary would lean on the Commissioner, that he in turn would lean on the ACC, and ...” he let the thought trail off.

  “The real irony,” he continued, “is that he should never really have been in charge in the first place.”

  “What do you mean, sir?” asked Metcalfe, sounding confused.

  “Oh, come on, Bob, a serial killer rates a superintendent, maybe even a DCS. The problem was, of course, that it wasn’t apparent that it was a serial killer until the second victim turned up. There was apparently some thought at that time of putting more senior officer in, but the official line was that there was a shortage of experienced case-handlers.”

  “The official line, sir ...?”

  “Yes. My theory is that none of the available candidates fancied taking over what was already looking like a difficult case, with the very real possibility of falling flat on their face in the full light of national media coverage, so they all invented good reasons why they couldn’t possibly leave what they were already working on. So, like I said, Tom was unlucky. If someone had been put in at that stage he would have continued on the case as second in charge, with a more senior officer over him. As it was, he had to carry the full load himself. I’m only surprise he hasn’t cracked up completely under the strain.”

  “He may have done, guv. At least, I’m worried that he may have done.”

  “Hmm,” said Collison. “Have you thought what you’ll do if he asks you again?”

  “I really don’t know. To be honest, I’d welcome your guidance. What do you think I should do?”

  “Well, the rules are very clear. You are not allowed to discuss the case with anyone who is not a member of the team. Tom is no longer a member of the team ergo you cannot tell him anything about it. I appreciate it’s a difficult situation, since you’re good friends. Perhaps it’s better if you agree not to see each other again until after the case is closed, but really it’s a matter for your own personal judgment.”

  “Suppose he just comes wandering into the incident room, though, or starts hanging around the canteen? The team need to know how to handle the situation, I think.”

  “I agree.” Collison thought for a while. “I think I can handle that. Now he’s off the case he’s got no official reason to need access to Hampstead nick. After his leave he’ll revert to his central posting at Scotland Yard pending reassignment to a new case. I’ll speak to IT and get his Hampstead access cancelled. Remind me as soon as we get back, will you?”

  Conveniently, they arrived at the mortuary yard at this point, thus drawing the conversation to a close. Brian Williams was waiting for them in the pathology room, which was insulated from the day-to-day business of bodies coming and going by a locked security door.

  “Good morning, Doctor,” Collison said formally, “we haven’t met. I’m Superintendent Simon Collison. I’m standing in for Tom Allen, who’s off on leave.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Williams. “I didn’t know Tom was going on leave. He didn’t mention it yesterday.”

  “No, he wouldn’t have done,” said Collison awkwardly. “It was all rather sudden.”

  He wondered whether to go on, but decided that whatever else he said could only possibly make the situation worse.

  “I see,” said Williams, though he wasn’t at all sure that he did. “Ah well, police business, I suppose ...”

  “Quite,” Collison concurred.

  “Well, let’s get on anyway,” said the pathologist, leading them across the room to where Kathy Barker’s body was already uncovered.

  Although they knew what to expect, both men swallowed hard. Collison, who had seen these things less often, comforted himself as he had on every previous occasion by the reflection that it was very difficult still to think of a body as a person once it had been opened up down the chest and round the head. Much better to regard it simply as a piece of meat, like a side of lamb hanging in a butcher’s shop.

  “All pretty much as expected,” Williams was saying. “Definite signs of bruising around the vagina, consistent with rape and, as with the others, there are traces of a spermicide commonly used in condoms. It seems reasonable to assume that she was raped before death by a man wearing a condom.”

  Any thoughts on that, Doctor?” Collison asked. “As to why he does it, I mean?”

  “Not my area, dear boy,” Williams said briskly, with all the bonhomie pathologists traditionally exhibit when in close proximity to a mutilated body. “You need a psychiatrist for that one.”

  He pointed with a gloved hand to the face. “Chloroform burns around the mouth and nose consistent with the application of a pad covering both. A few strands of cotton wool in the nostrils seem to confirm that. Again, it’s exactly as with the previous victims.”

  His hand now gestured to the top of the head. “You can’t see it now because I had to saw the top of the skull off, but I took plenty of photos for you first: a single deep and jagged wound to the upper part of the back of the head. That’s definitely the cause of death.”

  “Any thoughts on a weapon?” enquired Collison.

  “Nothing definite. If I had to conjecture, I’d say a hammer of some sort. Not a big, thick thing like a sledgehammer. Something smaller perhaps, but used with some considerable force.”

  Collison digested this. “More force than was necessary, you mean? Necessary to kill her, that is.”

  Williams looked at him in surprise. “Yes, I suppose so. Why? Is that relevant?”

  Collison shrugged. “You never know,” he said vaguely.

  “Anything else, Brian?” Metcalfe said as a formality, already closing his notebook.

  “Oh, yes,” said Williams with a positive
twinkle in his eye. “There is indeed. Take a look at this.” He held up a sealed plastic laboratory packet, which at first glance seemed to be empty. “If you look very carefully, you will observe a few grains of fine, sandy-coloured powder. I found them while rummaging through our victim’s pubic hair.”

  “From the killer?” Metcalfe’s eyes lit up.

  “I would think it’s highly likely, wouldn’t you?”

  The two policemen exchanged glances. Collison had been on the case for less than twenty-four hours, but he could feel the exultation surging through the other man. A year and a half of dead ends. A year and a half of sitting despondently in the incident room trying to think of anything you may have overlooked. A year and a half of door-to-door enquiries trying to get something, anything, out of people who opened the door grudgingly, who were anxious to close it again as soon as possible, disavowing any knowledge of anything that might ever have happened, anytime, anywhere. A year and a half of misery, of slugging your guts out to no good purpose, of arguing with the wife when you got home because you were two hours late and had forgotten to tell her, and now suddenly the breakthrough that made it all worthwhile.

  Metcalfe was smiling and Collison felt his own spirits lift as well. “So, what is it?”

  “We don’t know,” said Williams carefully.

  It took a few moments for this to sink in.

  “You don’t know?” echoed Metcalfe stupidly. He had the weirdest feeling that he was watching one of those comedy sketches that features a big build-up to get everybody excited, only to deliver a real sucker punch at the end, leaving the fall guy standing there with a dumb expression on his face.

  “No,” Williams said calmly, and then after a pause, “but we will,” and then after a slightly longer one, “hopefully”.

  “Hopefully,” Metcalfe repeated slowly.

  “Yes, there’s no guarantee of course, but we can usually track something down. It’s just a matter of chemical analysis and then trying to find a match for the results. We have a comprehensive database of household and industrial products. I’m sure we can come up with something for you in a few days.”

  Metcalfe looked down at the corpse. “Let’s hope so,” he said quietly.

  Williams handed him a few pages of notes. “Here’s a copy of my official report for your file,” he said. “You’ll see that the only other point of note is the alcohol level in the blood. Even allowing for the time factor, she must have had a considerable amount to drink earlier in the evening. I reckon she would have been about three times over the limit for driving. There were also indications of the early stages of some liver damage, so it looks like she was a habitual heavy drinker.”

  Back in the car, Collison was silent for a while. Then he stirred and said, “Do you think we might be missing anything with this latest victim? You saw the husband – what did you think?”

  “We’re checking his story, of course,” Metcalfe replied cautiously. “We’re interviewing the sister and also making some discreet enquiries of the neighbours in Lyndhurst Gardens, but it had the ring of truth about it for me. Anyhow, the MO is clearly the same as the others, so it’s rather irrelevant isn’t it? We’re looking for a serial killer, not a domestic dispute that’s got out of hand.”

  “Agreed,” Collison concurred, “but we still need to make sure we’ve covered all the bases.”

  “Well, we should have our answers by the end of the day, guv. Priya should be interviewing the sister right now. She got off a night shift at the hospital an hour or two back.”

  “Good. Then let’s have an update meeting before we finish today, and see where we are.”

  At five in the afternoon the team gathered again in the incident room. As Collison came into the room, Metcalfe slipped a couple of sheets of paper into his hand. Glancing at it, Collison saw that it was a briefing note on the team itself. Each member’s photograph was reproduced together with their name, extension number, radio call sign and mobile phone number.

  “Thanks, Bob,” he said warmly. “That’s just what I need.”

  “Yeah, well, I thought it might come in useful.”

  Putting the details on the table beside him, Collison addressed the room. “I thought it would be useful to have an update meeting to review what we have learned today,” he began. “But before I do that, there is a procedural matter I need to raise.”

  He paused briefly, thinking of how best to phrase what he had to say.

  “I would like to remind you all of the rules regarding the confidentiality of criminal investigations. In particular, I would like to make it clear that, without my express permission, it is absolutely forbidden to discuss any aspect of this investigation with anyone who is not a member of this team. A current member, that is.”

  The stress was deliberate and, looking round the room, it seemed to him that they had got the message. “OK, let’s move on. Pathology – Bob?”

  He moved to one side to allow Metcalfe to stand before the team.

  “The guv’nor and I saw the pathologist this morning, as you know,” Metcalfe began. He realised with a shock that it already seemed natural to refer to Collison, rather than Allen, in this way. “Same MO as before. Identical in fact. One very interesting new development, however. They found traces of a powder of some kind on the victim’s body. It seems probable that it was deposited there, possibly inadvertently, by our killer.”

  A murmur of sudden excitement ran through the team.

  “Yes, this could be the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for, but let’s not get carried away. We don’t even know what it is yet. Forensics will let us know as soon as they find out.”

  He checked the notes he had jotted down before the meeting. “Priya, where are we on the sister?”

  “I saw her this morning,” Priya confirmed. “I’ve just done a note which you’ll find waiting for you. Basically, she confirms the husband’s story in every detail. Kathy had a bit of a drink problem, and it had a tendency to make her aggressive or upset. This is turn led to major tiffs with the doctor. Angie, the sister, says it wasn’t pretty to watch. Kathy used to needle him and, when eventually he rose to the bait, she’d start a major shouting match. I got the impression that she and Kathy weren’t that close, and that she resented the fact that her sister used her place as a bolthole whenever she felt like it.”

  “What about the sequence of events on the night she went missing?” asked Collison.

  “Angie was on duty, so she can’t help shed any light on what actually happened. She couldn’t confirm whether Kathy had phoned or not, as she isn’t allowed to have her mobile switched on when she’s working in intensive care, and her home answering machine is on the blink.”

  “We could check with the phone company,” Metcalfe pointed out.

  “I already have, guv,” replied Desai. The note of reproof was unmistakeable. Collison caught Metcalfe’s eye and gave him a wry smile.

  “The phone company confirms that Kathy made two calls on her mobile, one at 23.41 and one at 23.43. The first was to Angie’s home number, and the second to her mobile. There were no calls to anyone else, by the way. Those were the last she made.”

  “So, we’re no closer to actually tracing her movements,” said Collison heavily.

  “No, guv. But Angie did confirm that Kathy had a key to her flat, and it was in her handbag when she was found – I checked. She would have had no reason to go the flat and then go out again. She could have crashed there for the night.”

  “It’s probable that our victim took a cab,” Metcalfe said. “The most likely place at that time of night would have been Haverstock Hill around St Stephen’s Church and the Royal Free Hospital. Let’s make enquiries. We need to find the driver who picked her up, so we can know exactly when and where he dropped her.”

  “Yes, let’s put that on the list for tomorrow,” agreed Collison.

  “Neighbours?” asked Metcalfe.

  “I managed to speak to three or four who were there durin
g the day,” Andrews reported. “You’ll all get my note tomorrow, but basically the husband’s story checks out. One lady heard a door slamming and a woman shouting sometime after 2300. She remembers, because it woke her up and she looked at the alarm clock beside the bed. She and others also confirm that sort of thing had happened before.”

  “Anything else?” Collison asked.

  “Yes, guv, the condoms,” Karen Willis reminded him.

  “That was quick,” commented Collison approvingly. “What have you got?”

  “Nothing that gets us very far, I’m afraid,” she said. “Initially I thought it was pretty unusual for a rapist to use a condom. In cases of gang rape in America it seems it’s now quite common. Not out of concern for the victim, naturally. Apparently each gang member is afraid of being infected by the others.”

  “Ironic,” Collison commented, “in a nasty sort of way, that is.”

  “Yes. But even so, I don’t want to give the impression that this is a universal trend. In Johannesburg, for example, which is the gang rape capital of the world, rapists typically use no protection at all, even though the proportion of adults who are HIV positive is dramatically higher than in America.”

  “Also ironic,” Collison said, suddenly feeling rather sick. “I suppose.”

  “Well, general attitudes to condom use are very different in Africa,” Willis replied. “Hence the rapid spread of AIDS in the first place. I suppose, if they know they’re already HIV positive in the first place then they just don’t care.”

  “Bastards,” muttered Desai, looking close to tears.

  “OK, let me see if I understand this,” Metcalfe broke in hurriedly. “Condoms may or may not be used in cases of gang rape, seemingly dependent largely on geography. But in cases of a single rapist it does seem to be pretty unusual.”

  “So far as I’ve been able to find out in the course of a few hours trawling the internet and making a few phone calls,” Willis qualified. “But I think there may be something more to this.”

  “I think I agree,” Collison said slowly. “After all, I assume nobody is suggesting that we’re looking at more than one perpetrator here?”