‘Yes, chief,’ Potting mumbled in his thick burr. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.’
‘Does a man with four failed marriages know the meaning of the word insensitive,’ Bella Moy asked, angrily snatching a Malteser from the box, popping it in her mouth and crunching it.
‘OK, Bella, thank you,’ Grace said. ‘I think Norman knows where I’m coming from.’
Potting stared at his notepad, his face a dark shade of beetroot, and nodded, chastened.
Grace looked back down at his notes. ‘We have another slightly sensitive issue. The Chief Constable, the Deputy Chief Constable and two of our four Assistant Chief Constables were all at the same dinner dance at the Metropole Hotel on New Year’s Eve which Nicola Taylor, the first rape victim, attended.’
There was a moment of silence as everyone reflected on this.
‘Are you saying that makes them suspects, boss?’ DC Michael Foreman asked.
‘Everyone who was in the hotel is a potential suspect, but I think I’d prefer to call them at this point material witnesses to be eliminated from our enquiries,’ Grace replied. ‘They’re going to have to be interviewed along with everyone else. Any volunteers?’
No one raised a hand.
Grace grinned. ‘Looks like I’ll have to allocate that task to one of you. Could be a good opportunity to get noticed for promotion, or screw up your career permanently.’
There were a few uncomfortable smiles in the room.
‘Perhaps I can recommend our master of tact, Norman Potting,’ Bella Moy said.
There was a titter of laughter.
‘I’d be happy to take that on,’ Potting said.
Grace, deciding that Potting was the last person in this room he would allocate that task to, scribbled a note in his Policy Book, then studied his briefing notes for a moment.
‘We have two stranger rapes within eight days, with enough similarity in the MO to assume for the moment it is the same offender,’ he went on. ‘This charmer made both his victims perform sexual acts on themselves with their shoes, then penetrated them anally with the heels of their shoes, then raped them himself. From what we have been able to establish – and the second victim has so far only given us a little information – he was unable to maintain an erection. This may have been due to premature ejaculation or because he is sexually dysfunctional. There is one significant difference in his MO. Back in 1997, the Shoe Man took only one shoe, and his victim’s panties. In the Metropole rape of Nicola Taylor he took all her clothes, including both her shoes. With Roxy Pearce, he took just her shoes.’
He paused to look down at his notes again, while several members of his team made notes also.
‘Our offender appears to be forensically aware. In each case he wore a black hood and surgical gloves and used a condom. He either shaved his bodily hair or naturally had none. He is described as being of medium to small height, thin and softly spoken, with a neutral accent.’
Potting put up his hand and Grace nodded.
‘Chief, you and I were both involved with Operation Sundown, the disappearance of a woman back in 1997 which may or may not have been connected to a similar case then, the Shoe Man – Operation Houdini. Do you think there’s a possible link?’
‘Apart from the differences in the trophies he took, the Shoe Man’s MO is remarkably similar to the current offender’s.’ Grace nodded at the Analyst. ‘This is one reason I’ve brought Ellen in.’
Sussex CID employed forty analysts. All but two of them were female, most of them with social sciences backgrounds. Male analysts were so rare that they were nicknamed manolysts. Ellen Zoratti was a very bright woman of twenty-eight, with dark hair just off her shoulders, cut in a sharp, modern style, and was elegantly dressed in a white blouse, black skirt and zebra-striped tights.
She would alternate round-the-clock twelve-hour shifts with another analyst and could play a crucial role over the coming days. Between them they would carry out subject profiles on the two victims, providing the team with information on their family backgrounds, their lifestyles, their friends. They would be researching them with the same depth of detail as if they were offenders.
Additional and possibly crucial information would be provided by the High-Tech Crime Unit, down on the ground floor, which had begun the process of analysing the mobile phones and computers of the two victims. They would be studying all the calls and texts made and received by the two women, from information on their phones and from their phone companies. They would look at their emails and at any chatlines either of them might have engaged with. Their address files. The websites they visited. If they had any electronic secrets, Grace’s investigation team would soon know of them.
In addition, the High-Tech Crime Unit had deployed a Covert Internet Investigator to log into shoe- and foot- fetish chat rooms and build up relationships with other visitors, in the hope of finding some with extreme views.
‘Do you think it could be a copycat, Ellen?’ Michael Foreman asked her. ‘Or the same offender from 1997 again?’
‘I’ve started work on a comparative case analysis,’ she replied. ‘One of the crucial pieces of information withheld from the press and the public in Operation Houdini was the MO of the offender. It’s too early to give you anything definitive, but from what I have so far – and it is very early days – it’s looking possible that it’s the same offender.’
‘Do we have any information on why the Shoe Man stopped offending, sir?’ Emma-Jane Boutwood asked.
‘All we do know from Operation Houdini,’ Grace said, ‘is that he stopped offending at the same time as Rachael Ryan – possibly his sixth victim – disappeared. I was involved in her case, which is still open. We have no proof – or even evidence – that she was a victim, but she fitted one of his patterns.’
‘Which was?’ Michael Foreman asked.
‘She had bought an expensive pair of shoes from a shop in Brighton approximately a week before she disappeared. Each of the Shoe Man’s victims had bought a new, expensive pair of shoes shortly before they were attacked. One line of enquiry that Operation Houdini pursued at the time was questioning customers in Brighton and Hove’s shoe shops. But no leads came from that.’
‘Was there CCTV analysis then?’ Bella Moy asked.
‘Yes,’ Grace replied. ‘But the quality wasn’t so good, and the city didn’t have anything like the networked coverage it has now.’
‘So what are the theories on why the Shoe Man stopped?’ Michael Foreman asked.
‘We don’t know. The profiler – behavioural analyst – at the time, Julius Proudfoot, told us he might have moved away, to a different county or overseas. Or that he could be in prison for some other offence. Or that he could have died. Or it was possible he could have entered into a relationship that satisfied his needs.’
‘If it is the same person, why would he stop for twelve years and then start offending again?’ Bella Moy asked. ‘And with a slightly different MO?’
‘Proudfoot doesn’t attach much importance to the difference in the trophies from 1997 to now. He is more interested that the overall MO is so similar. His view is that there could be a number of explanations why someone starts to reoffend. If it is the Shoe Man, he could simply have moved back into the area, thinking enough time has lapsed. Or the relationship he got into has changed and no longer satisfies his desires. Or he has been released from prison, where he’s been for some other offence.’
‘A pretty serious one if he’s done twelve years,’ Glenn Branson said.
‘And easy to research,’ Grace said. Then he turned to Ellen Zoratti. ‘Ellen, have you found any other rapes with similar MOs around the country? Or where someone has been banged up for twelve years?’
‘Nothing matching the Shoe Man other than a character in Leicester called James Lloyd, who raped women and then took their shoes, sir. He’s currently doing life. I’ve checked back on all his offences and his movements, and eliminated him. He was in Leicester at the time these offences in Brighton were committed, and I have confirmation that he is currently in prison.’ She paused and glanced at her notes. ‘I have made a list of all sexual offenders who went inside no earlier than January 1998 and who were released prior to this past New Year’s Eve.’
‘Thanks, Ellen, that’s very helpful,’ Grace said. Then he addressed his whole team. ‘It’s a fact that a high percentage of stranger rapists tend to start with more minor offences. Flashing, frotting – rubbing themselves up against women – masturbating in public. That sort of thing. It’s quite possible our offender was arrested for some minor offence at quite a young age. I’ve asked Ellen to check the local and national police databases for offenders and offences that might fit with this timeline before his first rapes in 1997 – and during the period in between.
