Jack's Back

we have of her is at about 01:25 hours in Quaker Street on Sunday 31^st October, and that was by her best friend, Sandra Dawson, a fellow prostitute. Dawson popped off to use the loo shortly after, and when she came back approximately fifteen minutes later, Tracey had gone. Her mutilated body was found the following morning at a nearby building site by the watchman.  As there are no witnesses, we don’t know if she went there of her own volition or was abducted. In the past week, we’ve conducted door to door enquiries with every shop, pub, business and residential premises in the vicinity of her last sighting and the body deposition site. We’ve done this for all three victims, and nothing useful has come out of any of it. Over the weekend, with the help of the charity workers Steve Bull rustled up from the Sutton Mission, we’ve interviewed every sex worker we could find – forty-two in total. If they can be believed, none of them has a Scooby about what happened to any of our victims. We’ve had PCSOs handing out witness appeal leaflets to the public all week.” He held one up for them to see. “They contain the usual message. You know, requesting information or sightings from anyone who was in the area on the night in question, and naturally, they promise complete confidentiality for anyone coming forward.” He contemptuously screwed the A5 sized leaflet up into a ball and threw it into a wastebasket. “So far, we’ve drawn a complete blank,” he told them with a bittersweet smile. His tone implied the exercise had been a complete waste of time and money.

“But it’s still early days yet. Someone could be wrestling with their conscience, trying to pluck up the nerve to contact us with information that could lead to a vital breakthrough,” DC Richard Jarvis piped up from the back of the room. Jarvis, fresh-faced and fair-haired, was the youngest member of Jack’s team. He was also the newest. A Cambridge University graduate who only joined the Job four years ago, he spoke with a frightfully posh accent, which sometimes made him the butt of jokes for some of the old sweats. Jarvis took the jibes in his stride, retorting that if he had a pound for every time one of the old farts told him they might not have attended Cambridge but they were graduates of the ‘University of Life’, he would be a rich man.

“That university education your parents paid for was wasted on you, wasn’t it?” Murray said, eyeing Jarvis with scorn.

Copeland snorted. “Sounds like something straight out of the detective training manual.”

“Okay, so we have no witnesses,” Jack said, killing the banter before it could start. “We’ve discussed applying for a reward to be sanctioned, and if we are no further forward by the end of the week DCS Holland will speak to the AC about making it happen. Kelly, what about CCTV?” Kelly had spent the entire weekend assisting Paul Evans, the enquiry’s dedicated CCTV officer, to view the footage. She had sat staring at a screen for so many hours that she was surprised her eyes hadn’t turned square.

Kelly stood up hesitantly and walked over to the TV-video combination. “Could somebody flick the light switch for me, please,” she asked, switching the TV combo on.

“I’d like to do more than flick the lights for you, sweetheart,” Murray leered, Les Dawson style, and was rewarded with a slap across the back of the head from Steve Bull.

Kelly smiled at his chivalry. “Thank you, Steve.”

“Thank you, Steve,” Murray mimicked, and he had to duck quickly to avoid a second blow. Once the lights were out, she played the tape. It was in black and white and the quality was dubious. The picture flickered briefly and then settled. Flowers gave a commentary to augment the picture.

“Right, I’ve reviewed the bulk of the footage relating to Tracey and Alice. Paul has been looking at everything relating to Geraldine. Unfortunately, the spot in Quaker Street where Tracey and her mates were plying for trade isn’t covered by CCTV, but there’s a local authority camera further along Commercial Road that provides coverage of the junction, so we can see vehicles turning into or pulling out of Quaker Street. There is also a private wall-mounted CCTV system further along Quaker Street, about a hundred yards past the used car lot, so we’ve effectively got footage of the only two routes she could have taken to get in and out of Quaker Street. We have identified Winston’s BMW turning into Quaker Street at 01:23 hours, and we now know that was how Tracey arrived. Furthermore, we can safely say that Tracey didn’t leave the area on foot, which means she must have gotten into a vehicle, either of her own accord or under duress. The viewing parameters the DI set for the first murder required us to search for any vehicles that appeared to be engaging in kerb-crawling. These were allocated High Priority Trace-Identify-Eliminate actions, and I know that quite a few of you were kept very busy visiting the registered keepers of all these cars over the weekend.”

“I had a very awkward conversation with one man who vehemently denied being anywhere near the area,” Jarvis said. “At least he did until his wife popped out to make us tea. Then he was practically down on his knees begging me not to say anything in front of her. It was a bit sad really.”

Murray looked at him as though he were retarded. “You really are in the wrong job, you know that, right?”

“I know all these seemingly pointless TIE actions have been a royal pain in the arse for some of you,” Dillon said, “but they were important, and they have helped us to eliminate about ninety percent of people who appeared on the CCTV. Kelly, tell these good people – and DC Murray – what we are left with.”

“As Mr Dillon says, after sorting