openly gay-identified. It may well be that he has made a sexual approach to his victims in the past and has been rebuffed. The killer is almost certainly not an out gay; he probably represses his own sexuality at some personal cost. He probably grew up in an environment where masculinity was highly prized and praised and homosexuality condemned, possibly on religious grounds. If he is in a sexual/domestic relationship, it will be with a woman. And he will almost certainly have sexual problems within that relationship, probably ones of potency.
Tony stared bleakly at the screen. Sometimes he hated the way his job constantly forced him to confront his own problems. Did his own sexual failings mean he was really stuck on the road less travelled by? Was there going to be a night when some woman went too far, when her determination to translate his problem into a comment on her womanhood tipped him over the edge? For Tony, it was a scenario that was all too vivid. That’s why Angelica was safe. When she drove him to distraction, he could slam the phone down, rather than slap her face. Or worse. Best stay out of risk, he thought. Don’t even think about thinking about Carol Jordan. You’ve seen it in her eyes, she’s interested in more than your mind. Don’t even think about it, fuck-up. Get back to work.
2. He despises those who express their homosexuality openly. At least part of his motivation in using these dumping grounds is to show his contempt for them, as well as to frighten them. He’s also demonstrating his superiority; ‘Look at me, I can come and go among you and none of you know me. I can desecrate your places, and you can’t stop me.’
3. He is nevertheless familiar with areas where gay men go to socialize and to pick up sexual partners. It may be that his job takes him into the Temple Fields area from time to time, perhaps to make deliveries or to provide some service to businesses. He is fascinated with the gay culture, to the extent that he has scouted out the specific area in Carlton Park where gay cruising goes on.
4. He has a high degree of self-control. He is driving into a populous area and dumping bodies without behaving in a way that draws attention to himself.
‘Tell me about it,’ Tony said bitterly. He got up and stalked a path from the window to the door. ‘I could have written the manual.’ Ever since the bullies had started to pick on him, the smallest boy in the street and in his class, he’d learned the harsh lessons of self-control. ‘Never show you’re hurt, it only encourages them. Never show they’ve hit the mark, it only reveals your weak points. Learn to be one of the lads. Learn the vocabulary, learn the body language, acquire the attitude. Mix it all together and what do you get? You get a man who hasn’t got the remotest idea of who he is. You have a consummate actor, a human impostor who can take on local colour like a chameleon.’ The miracle was that it fooled so many people. Brandon clearly thought he was a good bloke. Carol Jordan obviously fancied him. Claire, his secretary, thought he was the best boss she’d ever had. He was passing for human, all right. The only one he couldn’t fool was his mother, who still treated him with the thinly disguised contempt which was all he’d ever known from her. His fault his father had left them, and no wonder, according to her. She’d have dumped him in some children’s home if it hadn’t been for her need to keep in with her parents, the ones who held the purse strings. As it was, she’d dived head first into a career as soon as she’d been able to persuade her mother to mind little Tony. He’d done his best to be good, as Granny had instructed him, but it wasn’t always easy. She wasn’t a bad woman, just constrained by her own upbringing into the belief that children should be seen and not heard. His grandfather’s response to domestic tyranny was to escape to the betting shop, the bowling green and the Legion. Tony had swiftly learned self-control the hard way. Was that what had happened to Andy, too? Rubbing his hand across eyes surprisingly damp, Tony threw himself back into his chair and started typing frantically.
5. His domestic and work situation allows him to be free on Monday evenings, and he does not expect to be spotted in Temple Fields by anyone who knows him. This throws up several possibilities: he may have chosen Monday nights specifically because it’s his night off work or because his wife/girlfriend is away from home on Monday nights; he may have decided to kill on Mondays because the first time was a Monday and it worked out for him and now has superstitious power; or he may have decided to keep on killing on Mondays in the hope that it will skew the investigation. He is obviously intelligent, and such careful planning should not be presumed to be beyond him.
Tony paused for thought, flicking through the pages of notes he’d made. He wasn’t thinking like Handy Andy yet, but the elusive mind was getting closer and closer. He wondered again if his involvement in the twisted logic of killers was a surrogacy, the only thing that prevented him from joining their number. God knows, there were times when the inevitable drive that surged through their heads seemed attractive. And there were times enough when he’d felt murderous rage, though it was usually turned against himself rather than the person he was in bed with. ‘Enough, already,’ Tony said aloud, and returned to the glowing screen.
The offender is an organized serial killer, who is managing to maintain a constant eight-week gap between killings. This consistency is unusual in itself, since the normal pattern is that the space between murders decreases as they lose their power to satisfy the killer’s fantasies. One reason for the maintenance of this gap may be that he spends so long stalking his victim before the kill. Thus the delights of anticipation, coupled with the savour of his previous kills, acts as a brake. I also believe that the killer is using his camcorder to record his activities and that this is also fuelling his fantasies between kills.
Tony stopped to consider what he had written. The stumbling block. His analysis probably looked good enough to convince the lay person, but he was far from satisfied with it. But no amount of dredging of his mind or his data could come up with a better explanation. With a sigh, he continued.
What is the primary intent of his killings? We can rule out killing in the course of criminal activity, such as armed robbery or burglary. We can also rule out emotional, selfish or cause-specific killings, such as self-defence, compassion, assassination or domestic disputes. This places the killings in the category of sexual homicides.
The chosen victims all fall into the low-risk category. In other words, they all had occupations and lifestyles that didn’t make them vulnerable targets. The flip side of this is that the killer has to take high-level risks to capture and kill them. What does this tell us about the killer?
1. He is operating under extremely high stress levels.
2. He plans his kills very carefully. He cannot afford to make mistakes, because if he does, his victims will escape and put him at risk, both physically and legally. He is almost certainly a stalker. He chooses his victims carefully, and studies their lives in detail. Interestingly, so far he has not been thwarted in his choice of evening. Is this a result of careful planning, prearrangement or just luck? We know that the third victim, Gareth Finnegan, told his girlfriend he was going on a lads’ night out, but none of his male friends or colleagues seemed to know anything about it, and it is not clear whether he was abducted from his home or if the contact took place at a prearranged point. It may be that the killer has had prior arrangements to meet each of his victims, either at their homes or elsewhere. He may even be posing as an insurance salesman or something similar, though I feel it’s unlikely that he would have the people skills to do such a job successfully for a living.
3. He likes the extra excitement that walking out on the high wire gives him. He needs that buzz.
4. He must have some areas of emotional maturity in his make-up that allow him to hold himself under control in these highly stressful situations. This may also allow him to buck the poor work-history pattern so common among serial offenders. (See below.)
Most serial offences demonstrate a degree of escalation, indicating the killer’s need for more thrills, better execution of his fantasies. Like a roller coaster, each high needs to be bigger to compensate for the inevitable low that has preceded…
Tony looked up, startled. What was that noise? It had sounded like the door to the open-plan outer office, but at this time of night, there shouldn’t be anyone on this floor. Nervously, he pushed himself away from the computer desk, steering his chair across the carpet on silent castors till he was behind his desk and out of the pool of light shed by the lamp beside the computer. He held his breath and listened. Silence. The tension gradually began to ooze away. Then, abruptly, a line of light appeared under his office door.
The metallic taste of fear gripped Tony. The nearest thing to an offensive weapon on his desk was a chunk of agate he used as a paperweight. He snatched it up and moved stealthily out of his chair.
When Carol opened the door, she was taken aback to find Tony halfway across the room, hefting a rock in his hand. ‘It’s me,’ she yelped.
Tony’s arms dropped to his side. ‘Oh shit,’ he said.
Carol grinned. ‘Who were you expecting? Burglars? Journalists? The bogeyman?’
Tony relaxed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You spend all day trying to get inside some nutter’s head and you end up as paranoid as he is.’
‘Nutter,’ Carol mused. ‘Now would that be some technical term you psychologists use?’
‘Only inside these four walls,’ Tony said, walking back to his desk and putting the agate back where it
