he said, and gave assurances that every possible resource Sussex Police had at their disposal was being harnessed. The safety of the city’s women was their number-one priority.
Then the next paragraph hit him with a jolt.
In an exclusive interview with the Argus, Detective Superintendent Grace stated that the offender had a physical sexual deformity. He declined to be specific, but told this reporter that it included an exceptionally diminutive manhood. He added that any woman who had had previous relations with him would remember this feature. A psycho-sexual therapist said that such an inadequacy could lead a person to attempt to compensate via violent means. Anyone who believed they might know such a person was urged either to phone 0845 6070999 and ask for the Operation Swordfish Incident Room or to call the Crimestoppers number anonymously.
His phone beeped twice with a voicemail message. He ignored it, glaring down at the print with rising fury. Sexual deformity? Was that what everyone was thinking of him? Well, maybe Detective Superintendent Grace was not very well endowed in another department, his brain. The detective hadn’t caught him twelve years ago and he was not going to catch him now.
Little dick, big brain, Mr Grace.
He read the article again, every word of it, word by word. Then again. Then again.
A friendly female voice with a South African accent startled him. ‘Are you ready to order, madam?’
He looked up at the young waitress’s face. Then across to the table next to him by the window.
Billy No Mates had left.
It didn’t matter. He knew where to find her later. In the car park at Withdean Sports Stadium after her game of squash this evening. It was a good car park, open air and large. It should be quiet at that time of day and pitch dark. With luck he’d be able to park right alongside the bitch’s little black Ka.
He looked up at the waitress. ‘Yes, I’ll have a rump steak and chips, bloody.’
‘I’m afraid this is a vegetarian restaurant.’
‘Then what the fuck am I doing here?’ he said, totally forgetting his ladylike voice.
He got up and flounced out.
63
Tuesday 13 January
At the end of Kensington Gardens he turned left and walked down Trafalgar Street, looking for a payphone. He found one at the bottom and went in. Several cards featuring half-naked ladies offering French Lessons, Oriental Massage, Discipline Classes were stuck in the window frames. ‘Bitches,’ he said, casting his eye across them. It took him a moment to work out what he had to do to make a call. Then he dug in his pocket for a coin and shoved the only thing he had, a pound, into the slot. Then, still shaking with rage, he looked at the first number in the Argus article and dialled it.
When it was answered, he asked to be put through to the Incident Room for Operation Swordfish, then waited.
After three rings, a male voice answered. ‘Incident Room, Detective Constable Nicholl.’
‘I want you to give a message to Detective Superintendent Grace.’
‘Yes, sir. May I say who’s calling?’
He waited for a moment, as a police car raced past, its siren wailing, then he left his message, hung up and hurried away from the booth.
64
Tuesday 13 January
All the team at the 6.30 p.m. briefing of Operation Swordfish, gathered in MIR-1, were silent as Roy Grace switched on the recorder. The tape that had been sent over from the Call Handling Centre began to play.
There was a background rumble of traffic, then a man’s voice, quiet, as if he had been making an effort to stay calm. The roar of traffic made it hard to hear him distinctly.
‘I want you to give a message to Detective Superintendent Grace,’ the man said.
Then they could hear Nick Nicholl’s voice replying. ‘Yes, sir. May I say who’s calling?’
Nothing for some moments, except the almost deafening wail of a passing siren, then the man’s voice again, this time louder: ‘Tell him it’s not small, actually.’
It was followed by a loud clattering sound, a sharp click and the line went dead.
No one smiled.
‘Is this real or a hoax?’ Norman Potting asked.
After a few moments Dr Julius Proudfoot said, ‘I’d put my money on that being real, from the way he spoke.’
‘Can we hear it again, boss?’ Michael Foreman asked.
Grace replayed the tape. When it finished, he turned to Proud-foot. ‘Anything you can tell us from that?’
The forensic psychologist nodded. ‘Well, yes, quite a bit. The first thing, assuming it is him, is that you’ve clearly succeeded in rattling his cage. That’s why I think it’s real, not a hoax. There’s genuine anger in the voice. Full of emotion.’
‘That was my intention, to rattle his cage.’
‘You can hear it in his voice, in the way the cadence rises,’ the forensic psychologist went on. ‘He’s all bottled up with anger. And the fact that it sounded like he fumbled replacing the receiver – probably shaking so much with rage. I can tell also that he’s nervous, feeling under pressure – and that you’ve struck a chord. Is that information about him true? Something that’s been obtained from statements by the victims?’
‘Not in so many words, but yes, reading between the lines of the witness statements from back in 1997 and now.’
‘What’s your reasoning for giving that to the Argus, Roy?’ Emma-Jane Boutwood asked.
‘Because I suspect this creep thinks he’s very clever. He got away with his attacks before and now he’s confident he’s going to get away with these new ones too. If Dr Proudfoot is right and he committed the ghost train rape as well, then he’s clearly stepping up both the speed and the brazenness of his attacks. I wanted to lance his ego a little and hopefully get him into a strop. People who are angry are more likely to make mistakes.’
‘Or be more brutal to their victims,’ Bella Moy said. ‘Isn’t that a risk?’
‘If he killed last time, Bella, which I think is likely,’ Grace replied, ‘there’s a high risk he’ll kill again, strop or no strop. When someone has taken a life once, they’ve crossed a personal Rubicon. It’s far easier the second time. Particularly if they found they enjoyed it the first time. We’re dealing with a nasty, warped freak here – and someone who’s not stupid. We need to find ways to trip him up. I don’t just want him not being more brutal to a victim – I want him not to have another victim, full stop. We have to catch him before he attacks again.’
‘Anyone figure out his accent?’ Nick Nicholl asked.
‘Sounds local to me,’ DC Foreman said, ‘but difficult with that background noise. Can we get the recording enhanced?’
‘That’s being worked on now,’ Grace replied. Then he turned to Proudfoot. ‘Can you estimate the man’s age from this?’
‘That’s a hard one – anywhere between thirty and fifty, I’d guess,’ he said. ‘I think you need to run this through a lab, somewhere like J. P. French, which specializes in speaker profiling. There’s quite a bit of information they could get us from a call like this. Probably the man’s regional and ethnic background, for a start.’
Grace nodded. He’d used the specialist firm before and the results had been helpful. He could also get a voiceprint from the lab that would be as unique as a fingerprint or DNA. But could they do it in the short amount of time he believed he had?
‘There have been mass DNA screenings in communities,’ Bella Moy said. ‘What about trying something like that in Brighton with the voiceprint?’
