The two Met officers exchanged glances, and DSI Hammersley took up the conversation. ‘That’s actually something we’ve considered at length. In fact, we’ve thought of little else since our man appeared to go quiet. We were counting the days in the end, because we were getting nowhere finding him. Forensically he’s pretty clean, although we have fibres and soil samples and perhaps even shoeprint casts. Not a single witness, though. That alone tells us how careful he is, how much planning goes into what he does. So, yes, it’s entirely possible that we’ve missed other murders in London.’
‘Although it’s highly unlikely,’ Attwood added sharply. ‘Mainly because of the MO; he leaves the victims where they can be found. It’s unlikely that this could have happened again inside the Metropolitan area without us being aware of it. Cliff and I discussed this very point on the drive up, and we think it’s much more likely that he struck elsewhere. Until today you thought your own victim was a one-off, and it’s quite possible that another area thought the exact same thing. We’re having checks run in neighbouring counties first, before spreading the enquiry nationwide.’
‘Presumably they will have had about as much luck as we both have in finding evidence that might lead to our killer,’ Superintendent Fletcher said. ‘So while other murders would explain the void between the known victims, they’re unlikely to take our investigation any further.’
‘Will any of this pooled knowledge?’ Bishop asked. He looked around the table. ‘I think we can agree a connection has been established. But the Met’s nothing, added to our own nothing, surely still leaves us with nothing.’
‘And there’s always the possibility of the gap between victims being explained by something else entirely,’ Chandler said. ‘A short stay in hospital. Being held on remand. Even murderers take holidays. Or he might simply have been lying low.’
‘True. But at least we can check into remand prisoners between specific dates, which is something.’
This elicited nods of agreement. But Bliss was keen to jump in. ‘I think the boss is right. At the moment we still have nothing to work with. However, my personal baseline in such investigations is to find the anomalies. We’re talking four murders that we know of, with the presumption of more. Even if he planned to the nth degree, it’s unlikely he could have executed all those plans to the same fine margins. Perhaps our answer lies somewhere in those minute differences.’
‘How about the clothes?’ Chandler said. ‘I’d like to know what the original investigators made of the clothing that was left with the bodies.’
Attwood responded to that. ‘At the first crime scene, we found a mixture of clothing belonging to the victim and clothing belonging to a woman or women unknown to us. Subsequently, items we believe to have been worn by previous victims were added to the mix.’
‘So the unidentified clothing might belong to a single woman?’
‘Yes.’
‘Had it been worn? Were you able to tell?’
The Met DCI nodded. ‘Yes, it had been. And those unidentified items were all approximately the same size, which is why we believe they could have belonged to one woman. It’s all there in your folders. Right down to each individual item and their designations.’
‘But what you’re saying is we’re looking at one item from your first victim being left at the second crime scene. Another at the third, together with an item from victim number two.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘So if the unknown clothing did all belong to the same woman, she might well be one of the anomalies DS Bliss mentioned. She may even be the real first victim.’
‘That’s a nice idea,’ Hammersley said. ‘We had already considered the possibility of there being a first victim yet to be discovered. However, we’d not thought about it specifically in terms of identifying anomalies. It would be relatively easy to add a further heading to the existing case files.’
‘And we are ready and willing to offer you all the help you need,’ Superintendent Fletcher said. ‘DCI Warburton is our SIO on Phoenix, and her team are obviously already deeply involved, so they are primed to go.’
Hammersley cleared his throat. Cheeks pinched, he leaned forward and said, ‘It’s been decided by those above my pay scale that this is to be your case. You have the most recent victim, while our own trail has grown cold. Plus, we’ve mostly moved on to new investigations and it was felt we’d be better off focussing fully on those. Ostensibly, we’re here to hand over, and of course anything you need to know that you can’t find in these files or on the digital versions being sent to you today, please give us a bell and we’ll gladly provide it for you.’
Bliss was astonished. The Met did not let go of investigations lightly, especially those involving murder. He was about to probe further when he was suddenly struck by a terrible realisation.
‘Hold on a moment,’ he said. ‘I think we skipped over something pretty important. Your records tell you our man takes a new victim within a day of murdering and dumping the last, correct?’
Hammersley nodded. ‘That’s right.’
Bliss felt his shoulders slump. When he spoke, his voice was low and troubled. ‘In that case, if he’s back and following his previous routine, he may well have already struck again.’
Nineteen
Nineteen-year-old Abbi Turner had considered herself streetwise until the man calling himself Des Knowles entered her life. He’d played her so easily that not only had she been blind to his intentions, but she would never have guessed it of him in a million years. An apparently shy, timid soul, he came across as a decent human being who lacked the confidence to approach women naturally. In retrospect, his had to be one of the oldest tricks imaginable. And still she had fallen for it.
As
