Death Watch Page 7

  So just what was Cloggin’-it Charlie up to?

  ‘I’m sure you could be of great help to the current investigation, Dr Stevenson,’ Woodend said. ‘But before we can talk to you, we will need a few minutes to discuss matters among ourselves.’

  Stevenson nodded. ‘So what should I do? Wait in the reception area until you’re ready to see me?’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’

  Stevenson nodded again, then turned and walked back down the corridor with the air of a man who’d just been granted a reprieve.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Rutter asked, as the doctor’s footfalls receded into the distance.

  ‘It was about the fact that we’re well an’ truly out of our depth on this case, lad,’ Woodend said. ‘It was about the fact that, as you yourself pointed out last night in the Drum, we’ve no way of gettin’ into the kidnapper’s mind. But, you see, the good doctor probably has.’

  ‘He’s nothing but a mumbo-jumbo merchant,’ Rutter said grumpily. ‘They all are. The difference between us and them is that they deal in theories, while we deal in facts.’

  ‘Have you ever heard of James Brussel or George Metesky?’ Woodend asked mildly.

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  Woodend lit up a cigarette. ‘From your reaction just now, I didn’t think you had,’ he said. ‘Back in the 1950s – when you were barely out of short trousers – George Metesky planted a series of bombs in New York. For nearly six years, he had the whole city terrified. The main problem for the police was that there wasn’t any pattern to it, so they had no idea where he was goin’ to strike next. The first bomb was in a telephone box, but the ones that followed it were planted in places like theatres an’ railway stations. None of his bombs actually killed anybody, but the last one – set off in a cinema – seriously injured three people. An’ the New York bobbies were convinced it was only a matter of time before somebody did die. But they still had no real leads on him, even after all that time, an’ it was desperation that made them finally consult Dr Brussel, who was New York State’s assistant commissioner for mental hygiene at the time.’

  ‘And this Dr Brussel was a great help to them, was he?’ Rutter asked sceptically.

  ‘As a matter of fact, he was. He studied the letters the bomber had written to both the police department an’ the newspapers, he examined the photographs of the crime scenes, an’ he came up with what he called a profile of the feller. He said that the bomber would be a heavy, middle-aged man, who wasn’t married an’ was probably livin’ with his brother or sister.’

  ‘Well, in a big place like New York City, that must certainly have narrowed it down,’ Rutter sneered.

  ‘He went on to say that the man would be a skilled mechanic …’

  ‘The police probably already knew that, from the way he’d constructed his bombs.’

  ‘… that he was a Roman Catholic immigrant, who had loved his mother almost to the point of obsession, an’ also hated his father. He added that when the police did catch up with the bomber, he’d probably be wearin’ a double-breasted suit – fully buttoned.’

  ‘And was he right?’

  ‘As near as damn it. He was a Catholic immigrant, all right, an’ he was livin’ with his two spinster sisters.’

  ‘And was he wearing a double-breasted suit?’

  ‘Not at the time they arrested him in his home, no.’

  ‘Well, there you are, then. If you make enough guesses, some of them are bound to be right, just as some of them are bound to be wrong.’

  ‘He was arrested in an early mornin’ raid, so naturally enough, he came to the door in his dressin’ gown. Once the arrest had been made, however, the police said they’d allow him to get dressed before they took him down to the station. What he chose to put on, when given that opportunity, was a double-breasted suit. An’ he had it fully buttoned.’

  Holding the meeting with Martin Stevenson in Woodend’s own office would have given the doctor a semi-official status which the chief inspector was not – as yet – prepared to grant him. Talking to him in one of the interview rooms would have made the whole business seem much more like an interrogation than a consultation. So, as a compromise between the two courses, Woodend decided to hold their discussion in the police canteen, a long, tiled room presided over by two thick-stockinged ladies of indeterminate age who were both permanently inflicted by the snuffles and who served mugs of tea so strong that the thick brown liquid seemed almost on the point of melting the spoons.

  Once they were sitting down at one of the long Formica tables, Woodend pulled out his packet of Capstan Full Strength and offered it to his guest. ‘Smoke?’

  Stevenson shook his head. ‘No thanks, I don’t.’

  ‘Very wise,’ Woodend said, lighting up his own cigarette and drawing on it with obvious pleasure.

  Stevenson looked around with frank curiosity. ‘So this is the famous Whitebridge police canteen, where much of the real work seems to be done,’ he said. ‘I’ve often wondered what it looked like. In fact, thoughts of it have quite tantalized me.’

  ‘If that’s true, then I’m surprised that you’ve never been in here before,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Perhaps I would have been – if I’d been invited,’ Stevenson replied. He saw the questioning look come to Woodend’s face, and continued, ‘Although our working lives might seem to be somewhat complementary, my wife likes to make sure they are kept firmly apart.’

  ‘An’ why is that?’ Woodend wondered.

  ‘I suppose it’s because – like Inspector Rutter here – she feels that she is a real criminologist, and that I am no more than a dilettante, playing my academic games on the fringes of real life.’

  Rutter looked so uncomfortable that Woodend found it very hard to suppress a grin.

  ‘But even if your wife does think that you’re a dilettante, it was her who suggested that you come here today, wasn’t it?’ the chief inspector asked.

  Stevenson smiled. ‘Yes, it was,’ he admitted.

  ‘Why do you think she did that?’

  Stevenson’s smile widened. ‘Would you, as a policeman, ever contemplate investigating your own wife?’

  ‘Definitely not!’ Woodend said, with a shudder.

  ‘Nor will I, as a psychiatrist, analyse mine,’ Stevenson said. ‘She says she feels that in this particular case I may be of some use, and I’m prepared to take her at her word.’

  Woodend nodded. What Stevenson really meant – but was too polite to say – was that his wife had told him the investigation was in the doldrums, and that if he could assist it in any way, some of the credit might rub off on her. And she was right on both counts!

  ‘Shall we talk about the case?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Stevenson agreed. He took a sip of his tea, and then tried to hide the grimace it induced in him. ‘I’d like you to give me all the details you have on the abduction,’ he continued. ‘And I do mean all of them, however insignificant any particular detail might appear to you.’

  Woodend grinned. ‘You sound like a detective,’ he said.

  ‘I suppose that, to a certain extent, that’s exactly what I am,’ Stevenson agreed. ‘In many ways, the human brain is as much a crime scene as the corporation park.’

  Woodend told Stevenson everything they knew, and was more than conscious, as he was outlining it, of how pathetically little that really was.

  When he’d finished, Stevenson nodded his head sombrely and said, ‘It would seem to me that your perpetrator is almost definitely the kind of man who falls within the scope of my research. And that being the case, I’m very much afraid that it could be some time before you find the girl – and that when you do, she will already be dead.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Rutter said, almost contemptuously.

  ‘Yes,’ Dr Stevenson replied, and if he’d noticed Rutter’s tone, he didn’t show it. ‘The straightforward rapist needs to rape, but he wants to get the whole business over and done with as quickly as
possible. If he attacks his victim where he finds her, he will leave the scene immediately after he has carried out the attack. If he abducts his victim and takes her to somewhere he feels secure, he will want to remove her from this safe haven as soon as the violation has occurred. The fact that the girl you’re concerned with has been missing for more than half a day means you are dealing with a different kind of man altogether, and that he has either already murdered her, or – what is much more likely – that he intends to kill her once he has no further use for her.’

  Woodend nodded. The way Stevenson had argued his case seemed to indicate that he really did know what he was talking about, and even Rutter – who had started this meeting determined to be unimpressed – appeared to be taking the doctor a little more seriously now.

  ‘What’s he likely to do to her before he actually kills her?’ the chief inspector asked.

  ‘Something that will cause her a great deal of pain and humiliation,’ Stevenson said gravely. ‘He will show no mercy. He will feel none of the normal limits or restraints that you or I might feel. To him, she will not be a person at all, merely a way of achieving his aims. So he is capable of doing anything – however abhorrent and horrific it might seem to other people – as long as it will enhance his own sense of power. When you’ve recovered the body, I might be able to tell you more, but given the limited data available, I’m afraid I can’t be any more specific than that for the moment.’

  ‘What sort of person is he likely to be?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘Again, without more data, it is difficult to say. The one thing I can be reasonably certain of is that he will blend well into his community.’

  Woodend thought of the long line of perverts he had grilled the previous afternoon. They had been – almost without exception – men who would be shunned by normal society.

  ‘What brings you to that conclusion?’ he asked.

  ‘My own research, and that of others working in the same field,’ Dr Stevenson said. ‘This research is, admittedly, limited in its scope and nature, but even so, a clear pattern is already emerging.’

  ‘What kind of pattern?’

  ‘I believe that you can classify this kind of killer into two main groups – the organized and the disorganized. The disorganized ones kill on impulse, when the opportunity arises. They may have certain rituals which they feel the need to carry out – mutilation or cannibalism, for example – but they will not normally perform them until after their victim is dead. These killers generally have low IQs, and are often social misfits.’

  ‘An’ the organized killer?’

  ‘The organized killer, on the other hand, is much more intelligent. He will plan the whole operation well in advance, including how he will dispose of his victims once he’s finished with them. Your man seems to be a good case in point. He didn’t just happen to have the toy kitten on his person, you see – it was all a part of his well-laid-out plan.’

  ‘Tell me more,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Unlike the disorganized killer’s rituals, he will normally require the victim to be alive when he practises them. He will take pride in his “work”, and will follow the course of the police investigation with real interest. He will not give the impression of being socially inadequate. He will have friends – perhaps even lovers – and when he is arrested, his neighbours and associates will express amazement that he could ever have been involved in anything so horrific.’

  ‘You’re paintin’ a very dark picture,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Dr Stevenson agreed. ‘But then it’s a very dark world these people inhabit.’

  Eight

  Beresford was standing in the central reception area of the Whitebridge Venereal Disease Clinic. He was well aware of the fact that several sets of curious eyes were focused on him, and was trying his very best not to look like a man who’d woken up one morning to discover that something rather strange and certainly unpleasant had happened to his todger.

  A woman in her mid-forties, and wearing a long white clinician’s coat, opened the door of one of the offices which faced the reception area, and said in a loud voice, ‘I’ll see you now, Mr Beresford.’

  ‘That’s Detective Constable Beresford,’ he replied, equally loudly, just in case someone who’d heard might know his mother, and – not appreciating the real nature of his business at the clinic – go telling tales to her.

  Not that it would really matter if anyone did, he thought, in a sudden bout of gloom. If this hypothetical informer caught his mother on one of her good days, she might actually remember who he was for a moment and be shocked that he seemed to have fallen so low, but what she’d been told would soon fade from her mind, as everything else seemed to.

  ‘As the sole administrator of this busy clinic, I have a lot on my plate today, much as I have every other day,’ the woman said, still talking loudly enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear. ‘So if you don’t mind, I’d like to get this over with as soon as possible, Constable Beresford.’

  Constable Beresford! Now that was better, Beresford thought, following her into her office.

  The administrator took her seat behind her desk, and reached across for a cardboard file.

  ‘I understand you wish to make inquiries about one our patients, a Mr Cedric Thornton,’ she said crisply.

  ‘That’s right, we’d like to know—’

  ‘You do understand, don’t you, Constable Beresford, that our medical records are sacrosanct, and that I cannot give you any details of whatever ailment Mr Thornton is suffering from.’

  You don’t need to – he’s got VD! Beresford thought. He wouldn’t have come here if he hadn’t.

  But aloud, he said, ‘All we’re interested in is Thornton’s movements yesterday afternoon.’

  The administrator consulted the file. ‘He signed in at half-past one, and signed out again at a quarter to four.’

  ‘And there’s no chance that he could have nipped out for an hour in the middle?’

  ‘If he had done so, my staff would have noticed it and reported it to me immediately,’ the administrator replied. ‘I run a very tight ship, you know. The doctors are not here to be at the beck and call of the patients. Rather it is for the patients to make themselves available for when the doctors can find the time to treat them. And once he’s signed in, no patient is allowed to leave the building before he’s had his allotted treatment.’

  Well, that was clear enough, Beresford thought.

  If he’d been invited to sit down when he’d entered the office, he would have stood up at his point and held out his hand to the administrator, but since no such offer had been made – and he was consequently still standing – he simply said, ‘Well, thanks for your help.’

  He was almost at the door when the administrator said, ‘There’s one more thing, Mr Beresford.’

  Beresford turned. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Since you’re already here, why not take advantage of the fact and let me arrange for you to have a check-up?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ Beresford said, with frosty dignity.

  The administrator made a disapproving clucking noise with her tongue.

  ‘You men!’ she said, almost contemptuously. ‘You all think you’re so clever, don’t you? That’s probably why it comes as such a shock to you when you find out that you’ve been infected.’

  ‘The reason that it won’t be necessary is because I’m a vir—’ Beresford began. Then he stopped himself, horrified at what he’d very nearly confessed to the woman. ‘The reason it won’t be necessary is because I’m always very careful,’ he amended.

  ‘That’s what they all say,’ the administrator told him.

  Beresford beat a hasty retreat, and only really slowed down when he was clear of the clinic altogether. He took a list out of his pocket, and placed a tick next to Cedric Thornton’s name.

  ‘One down, seven to go,’ he told himself.

  Since Bob Rutter had announced the previous evening that h
e intended to immerse himself in witness statements the next day, it had fallen to Monika Paniatowski to take over the job of supervising the uniformed constables who were searching the corporation park. As a result, she had been forced to drag herself from her bed at an ungodly hour, and had driven to the park while still suffering from a hangover of gigantic proportions, which the brooding – and solitary – excesses of the night before had brought on.

  The hangover was still with her now, two hours later, and when she lit up a cigarette to see if it might somewhat assuage her pain, she discovered it tasted like dried buffalo dung.

  She had very little hope that this extensive search would produce anything of real value, she told herself, as she attempted to ignore the pounding in her head. After all, how likely was it that a man who was smart enough to abduct a girl from a park in broad daylight – without being seen – would also have been stupid enough to leave something behind that would connect him with that abduction?

  It was at that moment – almost as if fate had been reading her mind and decided to have some fun with her – that one of the constables searching in the bushes called out, ‘Sergeant Paniatowski!’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I think I’ve found something!’

  The constable was standing a few feet away from where the scuff marks in the earth indicated that the struggle between the girl and her kidnapper had taken place, and when Paniatowski approached him, he pointed – with great excitement – at one of the bushes.

  ‘Under there,’ he said.

  Paniatowski crouched down. There was definitely something lying among the roots. She could not get a very clear view of it, because of the obstruction caused by the leaves, but she could tell that it was dark brown and possibly rectangular. And one thing was clear – whatever it eventually turned out to be, it certainly wasn’t natural.

  As she pulled on her gloves, she noted that her heart was suddenly beating faster, and that her headache had all but disappeared. She stretched her arm through the foliage, and felt her fingertips brush against the object. She took careful hold of it, between her thumb and forefinger, and slowly withdrew the arm.