Holland’s eyes drilled into Murray’s. He wasn’t averse to a bit of smutty humour, but not when ladies were present. “Kevin, if you can’t say anything constructive don’t say anything at all,” he warned.
“Sorry, sir,” Murray said, avoiding eye contact. “No offence meant; I was just trying to provide a bit of background detail for the team.”
“Her body was found in Mitre Square by some poor sod taking a shortcut on his paper round at 07:15 hours on Wednesday 3rd November,” Barton said, resuming where he had left off. “The cause of death was strangulation. After he killed her, he slit her throat from ear to ear, again almost severing the head.”
Bartholomew grimaced. “He must be using one hell of a sharp knife,” he said.
“Sharp or not, it takes an incredible amount of force to nearly sever a head with one cut,” Steve Bull added.
“He didn’t stop there,” Tim told them. “Both eyes were gouged out, and her nose, ears, and tongue were also removed. As if that’s not enough, he sliced off both breasts, and surgically removed her kidneys.”
Richard Jarvis raised a hand. “How long would it have taken him to do that?” he asked. “I mean, I can understand him taking his time inside the house in Hanbury Street, but with Geraldine, he was working out in the open and must have been very exposed. Anyone could have stumbled across him while he was dissecting her. It seems way too reckless to me.”
“It’s a good point, Dick,” Tyler said. “But we think he killed her in the back of the van and operated on her post-mortem. We think that’s why he strangled her, because he couldn’t afford her to bleed out inside his van.”
“Yeah, but chopping a body up inside a van is still pretty ballsy,” Jarvis said.
“Not when you take into account that it was one of the wettest nights of the year,” Dillon said. “The risks of him being interrupted would have been minimal.”
“Was a message left at the scene, like with the others?” Susan Sergeant asked. DS Sergeant, or Sergeant Sergeant as her colleagues liked to call her, was one of the newcomers who had only joined the team on Saturday. She was a tall, slim girl in her late twenties with strawberry blond hair – woe betide anyone who dared to call it ginger in her presence – and a soft Irish lilt.
“No message at the scene,” Barton said.
“And I take it she was subjected to vaginal mutilation like the others?” Susie asked.
“Actually, no,” Barton said. “We’re not sure why, but the hunting knife wasn’t used to shred her reproductive organs like it was with the other two.”
“The killer deviated from his established pattern in three ways with his third victim,” Jack said. “Firstly, she isn’t a prostitute; secondly, there is no genital mutilation; thirdly, there was no message left at the scene. We’ve been trying to figure out why for days. The lack of a message doesn’t overly concern us. We think the letter and photographs he sent Terri Miller were his message to us. It’s the lack of genital mutilation that confuses us. Were her reproductive organs left intact because the killer only feels the need to mutilate prostitutes in this way, possibly because one of them infected him at some point? That’s DI Sigmund Dillon’s theory, by the way.”
Dillon arched an eyebrow and affected a look of superiority.
“I’m not just a pretty face, you know. There’s a mine of useful information stored in this computer-like cranium,” he said, tapping the side of his head. “Unlike you lot, I’ve read Freud’s theory that repressing your unconscious mind governs your everyday behaviour.”
“Really, boss,” Steve Bull said, grinning mischievously. “I didn’t think they covered subjects like that in The Beano!”
“Or,” Jack said, keen to keep the meeting on track, “is the lack of injury to her nether regions simply because the sadistic bastard had no interest in committing genital mutilation on someone who was already dead?”
“He’ll plead insanity when we catch him,” Holland predicted with the cynicism of one who had seen too many sane killers play that card before. “Full psychiatric evaluations will be carried out prior to trial, so we might get a better idea of what makes him tick then, but I seriously doubt it.”
“Right, Paul, your turn to talk us through the CCTV,” Jack said.
“As you know,” Evans said, grinning broadly, “me and little Kelly have been going at it non-stop all weekend.” This generated a welcome outbreak of laughter, which he acknowledged with a bow. Kelly laughed and blushed in equal measures. “But in between that we did manage to view some CCTV.” This resulted in more laughter from the team and more blushing from Kelly.
Evans inserted a cassette into the video player, and Kelly obligingly turned out the light for him. Evans then pressed the play button and began his commentary. “This is footage of Rye crossing under the one-way system at Aldgate at 23:20 hours on Tuesday 2nd November. It’s absolutely pissing down, which affects picture quality somewhat, but you can just about make her out here.” He tapped the screen with his pen. “As you can see, she’s wearing a three-quarter length Burberry overcoat and carrying a dinky little umbrella.” The picture changed to show the view from another camera. “Now we have her walking along Petticoat Lane on her way to Liverpool Street.” The picture flickered and changed again, providing a view from a third camera. “Now, this clip is hot off the press. Although Rye is only a dot in the distance –” he tapped the screen again with his pen to pinpoint her for the audience “– I want you to concentrate on what happens next.”
Sensing something interesting was about to happen, everyone leaned forward to get a better view of the footage. The camera was obviously mounted high on a lamppost. It provided a poor-quality long-distance shot of a solitary figure
