Broken Dolls (A Jefferson Winter Thriller) (12 page)

That mental snapshot of Sarah Flight dropped into my head again. One second I’d been thinking about Rachel and now I was thinking about Sarah. The image had been bugging me since this morning, dropping into my head without warning. My subconscious was trying to tell me something, but what? I pulled my hood up to block out the world, took a drag on my cigarette, then closed my eyes and drifted back in time a few hours. I could see our ghostly reflections in the glass but still couldn’t see the significance.

And then I got it. I grinned to myself and shook my head and wondered how the hell I could be so dumb. So slow. That mental snapshot had nothing to do with Sarah Flight and everything to do with the unsub.

I smelled Templeton before I saw her. Her scent was subtle and sensuous. I turned around and there she was, smiling that great smile and looking gorgeous.

‘Hatcher sent me to tell you we’re ready,’ she said.

‘I told him ten minutes. By my reckoning I’ve still got another five.’

‘He also wanted me to tell you that you were kind of right.’

‘Kind of?’

‘Rachel Morris’s colleagues did go out for a birthday drink last night.’

‘But Rachel wasn’t with them,’ I finished for her. ‘That figures. All the best lies contain an element of truth.’

‘Rachel stayed behind, working late. She told her workmates she had a couple of jobs she needed to catch up on.’

We headed back inside and rode the elevator to the fourth floor, where Hatcher’s team had taken up residence in a large incident room. The room was cluttered with the detritus of a major investigation. A ton of paper, half-empty coffee mugs, overflowing wastepaper bins, fast-food containers and pizza boxes. Today there was a buzz in the air, a sense of collective purpose emanating from the cops working the case. There was nothing like a fresh development to get people motivated again.

Everyone turned to look when I entered, a dozen cops, all checking me out, suspicion and wariness in their eyes. Most of them wanted me here because they figured I could help, some tolerated me being here because they’d been ordered to, and a few resented me treading on their turf because they felt it reflected badly on them and made it look like they couldn’t do their jobs properly.

It was the same every time I was called in to consult on a case. I couldn’t care less what other people thought of me. That was one of the few positives that comes from having a serial killer for a father. If I’d let other people’s opinions get to me, I would have been destroyed years ago, like my mother had been. She died three and a half years ago, a haunted woman who never got the peace and closure of knowing the man she’d called her husband for so many years was dead. She drank herself to death, a slow, slow suicide. I thought of her as my father’s sixteenth victim.

Walking into that room was like walking into a new school for the first time, something I’d done plenty of times. My mother’s way of dealing with what happened was to run. She started running when the FBI took her husband away, and kept running until she reached her grave. Between the ages of eleven and seventeen, I lived in fifteen cities in ten different states. Fifteen new homes, fifteen new schools. Every school was different but the same in that the new kid always started at the bottom. The trick was to get out from the bottom before any real damage was done, and you did that either by hitting first and hitting hardest, or by being smart. I chose smart.

On one wall was a large map of London with four red pushpins marking the places where the victims were found. Three were inside the M25, all north of the Thames. Patricia Maynard’s was the only one outside. The five green pins scattered across London marked the last places the victims had been seen before they were kidnapped.

To the right of the map was a gallery of photographs of the victims. They were arranged in two neat rows, one on top of the other. The top row contained the five before shots and the bottom row contained the four after shots. Rachel Morris was the newest addition, and the only one who didn’t have an after shot. She was striking a pose in front of the Eiffel Tower, smiling and clearly having a great time, obviously there for pleasure rather than business. Her dark hair was tied back and her brown eyes sparkled. Happy days with Jamie, the denial doing its job.

Hatcher shushed the room, did a quick introduction and waved me to the front. I walked into the space the detective had just vacated and turned to face the crowd. The detectives had arranged their chairs in two neat semicircles, five in the front row, six in the back. Aside from Templeton there was only one other woman there. The men included one guy who was overweight and grizzled and looked like he should have been put out to pasture a decade ago, and a kid who looked like he was too young to be playing with the big boys.

I cleared my throat, then said, ‘What we’re dealing with here is a pairing. There are actually two unsubs.’

23

A wave of murmured speculation went through the crowd of detectives. The idea there were two unsubs working together had obviously not occurred to them. It hadn’t occurred to me until a few minutes ago. I was prepared to wait their reaction out, though, let them get it out of their systems, but Hatcher wasn’t as patient. The detective shouted for everyone to shut up and the incident room fell silent.

‘Pairings are rare,’ I said, ‘but it’s not unprecedented. You guys actually have the dubious honour of having two of the most famous pairings of all time. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, and Fred and Rose West. The reason pairings are so rare is because, thankfully, we live in a society where psychopaths are the exception rather than the rule. That means the odds of these monsters coming into contact with one another is highly unlikely. This is good news for us generally, but bad news for you guys right now. There’s strength in numbers. Two heads are better than one. Pick the cliché that fits. This strength can also be a weakness, though. One strategy we might consider is to try to drive a wedge between the unsubs. If we can undermine the relationship, if we can somehow get it to start unravelling, then they’re going to make mistakes.’

‘How come you’re so certain this is a
pairing
?’

This came from the grizzled old cop. He made the last word sound like a cuss word. Odds on he belonged to the subsection who felt their toes were being trodden on.

‘What a great question. Maybe I took a guess, hoping to get lucky. Or how about this? Maybe I actually know what I’m talking about.’ I gave him the hard stare. ‘The reason I’m certain this is a pairing is because there are two very distinct signatures.’ Half the detectives nodded their heads, while the old guy and the rest looked blank. ‘You all know what a modus operandi is, right?’

Nods all round.

‘Okay, so your MO is the way a crime is carried out, the methods used. The signature is very different. This is something unique to the unsub. With this case you have two distinct signatures. One of the unsubs gets off on performing DIY surgery. The other gets off on playing dolls.’

‘Playing dolls?’ said Templeton.

‘You had dolls when you were a kid, right?’

‘Yeah, but I never played with them.’

That figured.

‘One of the unsubs likes to dress the victims up,’ I said. ‘She likes to do their make-up, that sort of thing. We know this because of the traces of make-up found on the victims. The main reason the victims have their heads shaved is to make it easier to play around with wigs.’

‘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.