As his thoughts picked over possibilities and rejected them almost as soon as he’d developed them, he ranged through the house, moving from room to room without thinking about it, not even conscious of how at ease he was with his surroundings. When his mind finally stopped churning over, he found himself in the kitchen and realised he was hungry. He opened a couple of cupboards, looking for something to eat. There wasn’t much choice, but Tony had never considered himself a gourmet. He chose a packet of oatcakes and a tin of baked beans and sat down at the breakfast bar with a spoon and plate. Absently, he loaded the oatcakes with cold beans and ate the result with more relish than it warranted. There was something satisfying about this - he felt like Hansel and Gretel secretly exploring the witch’s cottage. Only for him there would be no witch.
Once he’d satisfied his appetite, he went back to the armchair where he’d left the paperwork and crawled through it again. He looked at the locations of the various computers used to send messages to Jennifer Maidment and vaguely recalled Ambrose saying something about hoping they could use them to narrow down a location for the killer. Tony hadn’t paid a great deal of attention because that sort of analysis wasn’t something he used himself. He trusted his own observations and his own capacity for empathy, his own experience and his own instincts. He was uncomfortable with the idea of reducing human behaviour to a set of algorithms, even though he knew it had produced startling results on occasion. He just didn’t feel comfortable with it.
But he knew a woman who did.
Fiona Cameron’s number was stored in his phone. They’d met at various conferences over the years, and she’d called him in for a second opinion on a case she’d been working in Ireland. There had been nothing he could fault her on, but he had been able to offer a couple of helpful suggestions. They’d worked well together. Like Carol, she was intelligent and diligent. Unlike Carol, she’d managed to marry a demanding professional life with a long-term relationship. Tony glanced at his watch. Just after nine. She’d probably be doing whatever it was normal people did at this time of the evening. He wondered what that might be, exactly. Finishing off dinner? Watching TV? Sorting the laundry or just sitting talking over a glass of wine? Whatever it was, she probably wouldn’t appreciate a call from him.
Knowing that had never stopped him before, and it wasn’t going to stop him now. The phone rang out. Just when he was about to give up she answered, sounding a little flustered. ‘Tony? Is that really you?’
‘Hi, Fiona. Is this a bad moment?’
‘No, not at all. I’m stuck in a hotel room in Aberdeen.’ So, not like normal people, then. Just like him. All alone and a long way from home. ‘I was just putting my room-service tray out in the hall, I nearly locked myself out. So, how are you?’
‘I’m in Worcester,’ he said, as if that was an answer. ‘Something’s come up on a case I’m working on and I wanted to ask you if you thought it was something that was susceptible to that geographic profiling program you use.’
She chuckled, the distance doing nothing to diminish the warmth in her voice. ‘Same old Tony. Absolutely no small talk.’
She had a point, he thought. But he’d never bothered trying to pretend otherwise with a woman as acute as Fiona. ‘Yeah, well, leopards and spots, what can I say?’
‘It’s OK, I don’t mind. Anything to take my mind off the yawning tedium of the evening ahead. I daren’t leave my room. I’m doing a seminar tomorrow and there are a couple of colleagues down in the bar I would slit my wrists to avoid. So I’m very happy to have something to pass the time with. What is it?’
‘It’s the murder and mutilation of a fourteen-year-old girl. And it’s a killer who’s going to do it again if we can’t stop him. We’ve got an unidentified suspect who’s been spending time online with our victim. He uses public- access computers spread across a hundred miles or so. Mostly single use but some of them more than once. So it’s not offences, as such. Just locations that we know he’s used. Is that something you can do anything with?’
‘I’m not sure till I see it. Can you fire it over to me?’
‘I’ll have to type it in. I’ve only got a hard copy.’
‘Poor you. I hope it’s not too long a list.’
‘I’ll get it to you in the next hour or so.’
‘I’ll look out for it. Take care. Good to talk to you.’
He pulled out his laptop and booted up, pleased to see that Blythe’s wireless broadband appeared still to be functional. It didn’t really matter whether Fiona Cameron could help. He was doing something positive, and experience had taught him that starting down that road always freed up the part of his brain that came up with the inspired connections that made him so effective a profiler.
There was a reason why Jennifer Maidment had died the way she had. And Tony sensed he was edging closer to it.
CHAPTER 20
Paula knew she was the best interviewer on the team. But still she felt ill at ease when she was confronted with teenage girls. Her own adolescence had been so atypical, she always felt she had no common ground to build on. It was ironic, she thought. She could find a starting point to reach out to violent sex offenders, to paedophiles, to stone-hearted people traffickers. But when it came to teenage lasses, she always found herself at a loss.
Unfortunately, she didn’t have a choice. Carol Jordan had turned up at Bradfield Cross just in time to catch a harassed Casualty officer breaking the news to Mike Morrison that his wife hadn’t made it. Not surprisingly, the poor bastard looked like a lost soul. Wife and son ripped out of his life without warning, everything solid turned to mist. Thank God the chief had stepped up to the plate and taken over, sending Paula off on the thankless task of trying to elicit information from Seth Viner’s girlfriend.
Still, she couldn’t be too glum. She’d had a cup of coffee with Elinor Blessing and a promise that they’d get together soon for a bite to eat. It seemed Paula’s interest wasn’t all one way. It was such a cliche, though. Cops and doctors or nurses. They were always hooking up. It was partly because the only person who could understand the madness of your work demands was someone who had the same insanity in their own professional life. And it was partly because they were the only people you ever met who weren’t villains, victims or patients. And maybe it was also partly to do with the fact that a lot of people became cops or health professionals because they genuinely wanted to help people, so there was some semblance of common ground.
