intelligence in recent months about some Bristol lads planning to make a move down here. They think the city is easy pickings; bit of a pushover is the word on the street.’
‘What, us?’ Hardin’s face creased, thinking about the headlines again no doubt.
‘No, sir,’ Garrett laughed. ‘The No Prospect lot. A complete bunch of smackheads. We can’t even produce any decent crimos round here.’
‘You could be right.’ Hardin looked hopeful for a moment. ‘Let’s keep our fingers crossed Doctor Nesbit can get some meaningful toxicology to give us something else to go on.’
It seemed to Savage that Hardin wanted to cling to anything that would steer them back to charted waters. He wanted something he understood, something he could deal with by piling in resources. A lone nutter was unfathomable and even a gang selling heroin to twelve year olds was better.
‘We wondered whether Forester was mixed up in a porn or prostitution ring,’ Savage started to explain. ‘We’ve despatched his computer to hi-tech crimes and are awaiting results, but for now we know both he and Kelly were into glamour photography and he had managed to persuade her to do some hardcore videos. He’s done that before with other girls so what the difference is with Kelly we don’t know.’
‘Did the shoot go wrong somehow?’ Garrett said. ‘Could she have been killed by accident? Or deliberately, some sort of snuff film?’
‘I don’t buy the snuff angle, ‘Savage said,’ but an accident is possible. However, whatever the reason for Kelly’s death Forester couldn’t have dumped her body. He’s been dead for weeks. A couple of my people are working up something around Mr Donal. Perhaps he killed Forester in revenge for Forester killing Kelly. How the theory fits in with Malstead Down, Kelly’s body being frozen and the picture that resembled Rosina Olivarez though…’
Hardin shook his head and made a final hiss, all the air gone out of him now. He didn’t move for a minute or so and Savage and the others sat waiting. Then he opened a drawer and fumbled in his desk for a moment. Savage half-expected him to pull out a bottle and offer it around. Instead he brought out a newspaper.
‘I am aware you guys laugh about my obsession with the media, but in this case it is no joke. Did anyone see this morning’s Sun?’
Hardin held up the paper in front of them. The headline wasn’t one of the clever ones, it was just three words, but they took up the whole of the front page and the effect was chilling. The words had been superimposed over an outline map of Devon and Cornwall and said: ‘West country ripper?’
Chapter 21
Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Monday 1st November. 2.05 pm
Hardin had said thank God for the question mark, and when Savage returned to the incident room and told Riley, Calter and Enders they burst out laughing.
‘What does he think they are questioning,’ Riley said, ‘the fact it is in the West Country or the fact there is a ripper?’
‘He’s going to doctor the page using Photoshop,’ Calter chipped in. ‘He’ll put a “T” in front of “Ripper” and tell the CC we might be expecting a good tourist season next year.’
That had them in stitches, apart from Enders who scrunched up his face in bemusement.
‘Huh?’
‘Keep taking the pills, Patrick,’ Calter said.
The banter was still going on five minutes later when a couriered package arrived for Calter.
‘The dump from Forester’s hard drive, ma’am.’ Calter opened the package and read the accompanying letter. ‘Seems hi-tech had an easy job. Forester didn’t take any special measures like encrypting his files or anything. They’ve written all the stuff to DVD, documents, emails, images and a bunch of movies. We’ve got a load of disks here, must be a couple of hundred gigabytes of material in total.’
‘Sounds like an interesting afternoon ahead of us,’ Enders said.
Calter turned up her nose. ‘If you enjoy filth.’
‘Depends if you are the main feature, babe.’ Enders put on a camp American voice and held his hands up, making a rectangle shape with his fingers and thumbs and peering through, like a film director working up shot angles.
‘Now, now folks,’ Savage said, ‘let’s get started on this then. And I don’t want to come over all politically correct, but remember we are dealing with rape and murder here so save the banter for the piss up we are going to have after we have caught this guy, OK?’
Savage grabbed every spare body and managed to get eight of them working on the material, two to a monitor. Text began to scroll across screens and images flashed by, movies played in little windows and the sound of sex filled the room. At first everyone concentrated, focussing on the task with an intensity Savage admired, but as the hours dragged, chairs tipped back and feet went up on desks. This much porn was just plain boring.
DC Carl Denton made the breakthrough. Denton had popped along from the Leash incident room and became ensconced at one of the screens with Calter and Enders. They had found a set of videos showing some very graphic imagery with girls blindfolded and tied to a bed in what appeared to be a mock rape scenario.
‘Fuck.’ Denton exclaimed.
‘I think the language you should be using in your report is sexual intercourse,’ Enders said, causing Savage to cast him a warning glance.
‘No, I mean she’s one of them. I am sure she is.’
‘One of who?’
‘Wait a moment.’ Denton jumped up and dashed from the room.
‘Did I say something?’ Enders held out his arms, palms up.
A few minutes later Denton returned, brandishing a piece of paper, a victim sheet with a little picture of a pretty girl stuck in the top right corner.
‘Georgina Wilkinson. It’s bloody well her!’
Denton appeared stunned as well as pleased with himself, but nobody else seemed to know what the hell he was going on about.
‘Who the heck is Georgina Wilkinson?’ Enders said.
Savage sussed it.
‘Carl is from operation Leash, work it out!’
‘Georgina Wilkinson is one of the Leash victims? Bloody hell!’ Enders understood now and soon everyone else in the room did too.
Once the implications of the discovery sank in all hell broke loose. Some officers began crowding round the screen, others ran up and down the corridor and started to brag they had solved the Leash case. The atmosphere was one of fevered chaos and Savage tried to bring some order back to the situation. She dispatched Denton back to the Leash incident room to obtain pictures and info on all the girls involved. Then she called Garrett, telling him they now had hard evidence that the rapes the Leash team were investigating were in some way connected with the murder of Kelly Donal. The next thing was to get everyone back at their screens and concentrate the team’s effort on looking at video files only, searching out those that depicted rape scenes. Finally, she decided Hardin needed to hear the good news.
By mid-afternoon they had reviewed seventy of Forester’s video files. Sixty four of those were sex scenes which, although graphic, did not seem to involve any coercion. The remaining six files involved rape and it didn’t appear to be simulated. In four of those they were able to identify victims already known to the Leash team.
Hardin came down to the incident room to congratulate the troops on their work and he was gushing in his praise.
‘Christmas has come early this year. First the success on Saturday night and now this. It’s good policing. Bloody good. Well done everybody.’
‘There’s more, sir,’ Savage said. ‘I saved the best until last.’
She motioned for Hardin to take a seat next to Enders and called for quiet.
‘Patrick?’
