Blind Alley (17 page)

‘And you definitely think he works in the area where the victims were attacked?’ Harvey asked. ‘If he’s an opportunist, why not just cruise the streets until he finds a young woman that’s easy pickings? It’s not hard in Whitley Bay at the weekend. You know the problem we have with stag and hen parties getting bladdered down here. Then there’s the hardcore locals who go out every Friday and Saturday night. It wouldn’t be hard to pick up a girl too drunk to even know her name.’

Brady walked back over to the large conference table. He poured himself a glass of lukewarm water before answering. He needed to clear his throat.

‘He is definitely an “opportunist” who works in Whitley Bay at the weekend. He’s clever, Tom. Which is why we haven’t caught him yet. He’s part of the milieu. He’s comfortable there. Knows it.’

Harvey frowned at this comment.

‘He’s part of the physical or social setting. He’s watching the victims. I’ve already said he’s not got a type and that his choice of victim is opportunistic but what I mean by that is that all three were regular drinkers in Whitley Bay at the weekend. Heavy drinkers by all accounts – the high alcohol levels in their blood samples shows that. Also, all three victims said that this wasn’t the first time they had found themselves walking home alone. Yes, they all regularly got taxis, but on the odd occasion they would find themselves with no cash, separated from their group of friends – whatever. I firmly believe that his assaults are deliberate, calculated and pre-planned. He’s already chosen his victim. Now all he has to do is wait until the opportunity arises to attack them, and to be able to do that, he has to be in the same vicinity biding his time for his moment to strike. He’s not a fool, he doesn’t take risks.’

‘So, if I’m not mistaken, there’s one common factor here,’ Conrad interjected.

Brady turned to Conrad. He knew exactly what he was going to say. It was his next and final point.

‘Go on,’ Brady encouraged him.

‘Well, sir. Based on information we’ve got from the victims themselves, their friends and the social network sites they used, they . . . well . . . liked to party.’

Brady nodded. ‘Yes, like a lot of kids their age who go out drinking at the weekends, Conrad. The only difference is, someone out there is watching them and waiting for the right opportunity to enact his sadistic fantasies.’

Amelia looked at Brady and then turned to the rest of the team: ‘The problem we have here is that for some sadistic rapists, the ultimate satisfaction is gained from murdering the victim. What happened to Chloe Winters is just the beginning for him. I think his next victim might not be so lucky – not that “lucky” is the right word considering what the victims have suffered.’

Brady thought of Chloe Winters. She was a twenty-year-old fine art student studying at Newcastle University. The operative word here was ‘was’. Her ordeal was unimaginable. She had been tortured at the hands of a sadistic rapist. Whether she would get over something so horrific was debatable. And he was certain that Bentley’s publicity stunt would have terrified her into thinking that the rapist had struck again. This time leaving his victim for dead.

No one said anything. Amelia’s comment weighed heavily in the air as the team dealt with the knowledge that if they didn’t catch him soon, the next time he struck they could be dealing with a murder investigation.

Chapter Nineteen

Brady took a drink of water as he looked around the rest of the room. He resisted the urge to dismiss them. They had their orders. But it wasn’t enough. He needed the team to be trying to get inside the rapist’s head. They needed to understand him, to think like him to stand any real chance of apprehending him.

Silence.

‘Why those three particular girls?’ Brady said, gesturing to the girls’ faces on the whiteboard.

The first victim had been attacked two months ago. She had only been nineteen – his youngest victim to date. Blonde, petite and full of life. Sarah Jeffries had travelled for three months before returning to Whitley Bay to continue her hairdressing apprenticeship at Thatch in Whitley Bay. That had all disintegrated after her attack. The mental scars were even deeper than the physical ones. It was very much a hate crime. There was no doubt in Brady’s mind that they were dealing with a misogynist. The second victim, Anna Lewis, couldn’t have been more physically different from the first. But like Sarah Jeffries, she was vivacious and enjoyed socialising. That was before she had been attacked. Now was an entirely different story.

Brady thought of the third victim, Chloe Winters. Her life would never be the same – she would never be the same.

Brady sighed. It was torturous. They were no further forward. It was the same old ground that he kept covering.

‘And you definitely don’t think that Trina McGuire is connected to our case?’ questioned Amelia.

Brady dragged a hand back through his hair and looked at her.

‘No, they’re not linked.’

His eyes told Amelia he was 100 per cent behind his conviction, despite Bentley’s press call stating the exact opposite.

‘You’ll see for yourself when Bentley gives you the information he has so far. But I guarantee that her attack was about pure frenzied rage and anger.’

Harvey shot Brady a quizzical look. ‘But isn’t that the same as the assaults on our three victims?’

‘No. They’re very different. The assailant effectively left Trina McGuire for dead. His rage was out of control. It was overkill. Christ! He obliterated her face, Tom,’ Brady said, shaking his head, the image of what he had done to Trina McGuire too much to bear. He tried to block it out of his mind before continuing. ‘I would say that he knew her. He wanted to destroy her. To kill her. Why? I don’t know. But he did.’

He turned and looked over at the photographs on the whiteboard. ‘Whereas the man who carried out those attacks planned every small detail. He took his time. He deliberated every slice of the blade. Enjoyed every moment with his victims. Yes, he hates them. These are very much hate crimes fuelled by his rage at women. But it’s a cold rage. One that he nurtures and to a certain degree can control. Otherwise we wouldn’t see him escalating with every victim. We wouldn’t witness him perfecting his MO. Instead, we would be looking at three identical frenzied attacks.’

Brady studied Harvey’s face. He didn’t look convinced.

‘Whoever attacked Trina McGuire couldn’t care whether she lived or died. The crucial difference here is that our serial rapist wants his victims to live. He wants them to live with the permanent reminder of what he has done to them. He removed Anna Lewis’ and Chloe Winters’ skin as trophies so he would always be connected to them. And them to him.’

‘But—’

Brady stopped Harvey before he had a chance to raise an objection.

‘Whoever cut out Trina McGuire’s skin hasn’t taken it as a trophy. He was simply copying what he’d read in the
Northern Echo
yesterday evening. If it really was our serial rapist then he wouldn’t have so savagely destroyed her face and body, leaving her for dead. He would have raped her and then mutilated her breasts. But crucially, he would have then left her to live with the effects of what he had done to her. He’s proud of what he does, Tom. And if he gets the chance to strike again there’s a high probability that he will kill. But if he does, it will be carefully exacted and not carried out in some frenzied, blind rage like the assault on Trina McGuire.’

Brady sighed. He was tired. Tired of the whole damn case. He dragged his hand back through his hair as he looked around the room.

Silence.

It was heavy and awkward. He had laboured the point. He knew it. But he had no choice. He needed to make sure his team were clear that there was no connection between the attack last night and the serial rapes that had taken place over the past two months. They had no time to waste – especially not when there was a chance that their man was already out there, looking for his next victim.

Amelia nodded at Brady then looked over at the victims’ faces.

‘All right, if we eliminate Trina McGuire then we’re still looking at three rapes that took place within the jurisdiction of Whitley Bay and all at the weekend,’ Amelia said, considering Brady’s idea that the offender worked the weekends near where the victims had been drinking. It made perfect sense.

‘All three victims were highly intoxicated and had decided, for whatever reason, to walk home alone after the clubs and pubs had closed. Perfect combination for someone looking for a woman to sexually assault. I would say he watched them. All three. This is no coincidence. I think you could be right. I think he could have a job which enables him to watch them and then strike when the opportunity arises.’

‘So, you’re now saying that he works locally?’ Brady asked.

‘I still think we should be looking at someone who works away during the week. A blue-collar worker in his mid-to-late twenties. Returns home at the weekend and for whatever reason holds down another job. Maybe as a barman or a bouncer in a club?’

Brady nodded at her. All three victims had said that they ended the night of their attack in Madley’s nightclub, the Blue Lagoon.

‘Either one is the ideal job. It would allow him to watch his chosen victim over a period of time. He might even already be in a relationship. If he is, he’s dissatisfied. He feels powerless. Emasculated even.’

‘Why?’ Daniels asked.

Brady watched him closely. Just to make sure he and Kenny weren’t trying to wind Amelia up. But his question seemed born of genuine curiosity.

Amelia looked across at Daniels and shrugged.

‘It could be to do with his relationship with his mother. Some researchers have suggested in the case of rapists, parental cruelty, sexual frustration, as well as over-stimulation or even seduction are key factors that influence the rapist’s personality and criminal behaviour.’

The look on Daniels’ face was enough for Amelia to realise that she had lost him.

‘OK. You must have seen or heard of Alfred Hitchcock’s
Psycho
with Norman Bates,
and Thomas Harris’
The Silence of the Lambs
character, Buffalo Bill?’

Daniels shot Kenny a wry smile.

‘Yeah, but you can’t believe what you see in a film, Dr Jenkins.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong Daniels,’ she replied. ‘Both Norman Bates and Buffalo Bill were inspired by one of history’s most notorious and gruesome serial killers, Ed Gein. He was born in 1906 to a submissive, alcoholic father and more significantly a dominating, religious mother who preached to him and his elder brother about the evilness of women. She did everything in her power to discourage sexual thoughts and desires in Gein. When his mother died, Gein developed an unhealthy obsession towards the female anatomy, as well as a growing fascination with the Nazi camps and human experiments. Gein went on to dig up graves and experiment on the bodies; it’s believed he even dug up his own mother. When the police searched his house they found his mother’s heart in a pan on top of the stove. As Gein’s experiments developed they became more and more gruesome and even included cannibalism. His desire to turn into a woman led him to make breasts with human skin and wear them. To perfect a sex change, he believed that he would need fresh bodies and so he began a killing spree. When the police finally caught him they found human skin, lips and female genitalia used as pieces of jewellery and art to decorate the house.’

Daniels laughed. ‘That’s some crazy bastard!’

Brady shot him a look that was enough to make him rein it in.

‘I’m sorry. I mean that’s just sick. Surely you’re not suggesting that the rapist we have in Whitley Bay is like this Gein character?’

‘No. I’m not saying that by any stretch of the imagination. We have a rapist on our hands. Gein wasn’t a rapist. He didn’t have sexual intercourse with his victims because he said “they smelled too bad”. The point I was making was that your formative years as a child are crucial and there are countless cases of serial sadistic rapists and murderers who were controlled, dominated and humiliated by their mothers. Some rapists and killers have even blamed their sadistic impulse on their mothers’ exposing them to inappropriate sexual behaviour. Bobby Jo Long killed women who he said reminded him of his own mother – he described his victims as whores and sluts. According to him, his mother had sex with men in the same bed and room that he shared with her until he was thirteen years old.’

Daniels looked visibly sickened by Amelia’s matter-of-fact revelation. As did the rest of the team. Amelia was surprised by their reactions; she was certain that she had already given the team background information on what would lead to someone becoming a rapist. There were multiple kinds of rapes and she had gone through them all: statutory rape, spousal rape, rape of children, gang rape, power rape, prison rape, war rape, corrective rape, anger rape and sadistic rape. But Brady had been right, the team were dealing specifically with a sadistic rapist.

Amelia slowly breathed out and looked around the table at their weary faces. Whether it was because it was late on a Friday afternoon and they all had better things to be doing than going over old ground or if they were sick of the case and the fact that they were not making any real progress with it, she couldn’t be sure. But clearly whatever she had previously told them, they had forgotten.