Jacob's Ladder (Stone & Randall 1) Read online

‘Well, I suppose there are lots of families with two children out there, but how did he choose these families? I mean, did he spot them at the supermarket? Identify them from the Electoral Roll, or something else?’

  ‘Yeah, I see what you mean,’ Tony said.

  ‘Work on that, Paul, make a list of who could know about families with two-children and where they lived.’

  Paul stuck his hand up. ‘I haven’t finished yet, Gov.’

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘Well, the locations are all local, which probably means the killer is local.’

  ‘I think we already knew that, Paul,’ Lucy said. ‘Dr. Grady’s psychological profile mentioned something about the killer being local.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ Paul said looking deflated.

  ‘Good thinking though, Paul,’ Molly said.

  ‘What about the gaps between the murders, Gov?’ Lucy asked. ‘There’s six months between one and two, five months between two and three, and thirteen months between three and four.’

  ‘In and out of jail?’ Abby offered.

  ‘Mental patient?’ Tony said.

  ‘Someone who travels?’ Frank suggested.

  ‘Or none of the above,’ Paul said.

  Molly interrupted the brainstorming. ‘Good idea Lucy, you look at those possibilities and see if you can identify any potential suspects.’

  ‘What about the Tarot cards, Gov?’ Tony said.

  ‘We’ll need to get someone in who knows something about them.’

  ‘My mum used to have her fortune read every month,’ Abby said.

  ‘Thanks for sharing that with us, Abby,’ Molly said looking at the clock on the wall. It was ten-forty. ‘Right, let’s take a break, Dr Grady will be here soon.’

  After freshening herself up in the toilet, she paced outside the rear exit feeding her nicotine habit before returning to the incident room.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dr. Marie Grady was just as gorgeous as Molly remembered. Although the woman had aged two years just like her, she looked ten years younger than when Molly had last seen her. This morning she was draped in autumn colours, and had taken off the matching jacket to her dark brown pencil skirt to reveal a sleeveless low-cut beige chiffon top, which made no secret of the fact that she had a fantastic figure and a wonderful pair of breasts. Tony especially had trouble keeping his eyes in his head. Molly decided she hated Marie Grady with a passion, and that the woman would never darken her incident room again.

  ‘Right you lot, sit,’ Molly said. ‘When you’re ready Dr Grady?’

  Tony commandeered a seat directly in front of the forensic psychologist so that he had a clear line of sight for ogling. Molly elbowed him in the ribs when she was sitting down next to him as a warning not to make the ogling too obvious.

  Marie Grady put her mug of coffee down, moved to the front of the room, and began describing their killer. ‘He is obviously male, and probably white. White males disproportionately carry out these types of murders. He is a local man, and knows the area well. Aged between twenty-five and forty-five, he is athletic, cunning, and is familiar with police procedures and forensics. He may come from a dysfunctional background, and as a child he may have been sexually, physically or psychologically abused, but this is not always the case. He probably suffered the early loss or rejection of his parents, which resulted in him disconnecting from people. He may have previously been arrested for less serious offences before the killings, such as rape. He is socially adequate, with friends and girlfriends, possibly a wife and children, but he probably has a history of dysfunctional relationships with women. He conceals himself behind a mask of sanity by outwardly mimicking a normally functioning person. The mask obscures the psychopath underneath, and he is particularly good at hiding who he is. I suspect that he has a high-powered job under somebody else’s identity.’

  Frank leaned forward. ‘You don’t mind if we ask questions, do you, Doctor?’

  ‘Not at all, Sergeant. What do you want to know?’

  ‘I understand that you’re extrapolating the killer’s personality from his behaviour, but how did you arrive at him being in a high-powered job?’

  ‘That’s a gross over-simplification of what I was doing until the early hours of this morning, Sergeant,’ she said with a sparkle in her eyes, ‘but let’s not quibble over my job description.’ She became more serious. ‘As soon as the killer enters the house, he renders his victims unconscious, which suggests that he is obtaining his long sought after desire of object permanence, he is preventing them from running away or vanishing on him like earlier objects – such as his parents, siblings, or girlfriends. The objectification and mutilation allows him to take unchallenged possession of the family and the situation. Due to his psychopathy and pathological narcissism he needs to have the power and be in control. He will have quickly risen within an organisation to reach a position of power over others. He is used to being in control.’

  Frank nodded as if he were satisfied with the explanation.

  ‘The usual murderers don’t leave cryptic messages, or dismember their victims. It’s also unusual to find a killer who sexually abuses their prey – if that’s what he did to the women – and then dismembers them, but he has clearly shown an inability to empathise with his victims, which is a classic trait of the psychopathic personality. He has no concept of sadness, all he feels is a primitive impulsiveness to dominate, control and subjugate his victims. It makes him feel God-like. He’s organised and highly intelligent. The crimes are not spontaneous and sloppy, they’re premeditated and methodically planned to avoid being caught.’

  Lucy put her hand up.

  ‘Yes detective?’ Marie Grady said.

  ‘You’ve seen the crime scenes, they’re chaotic, there’s blood everywhere, how can you say the crimes are planned?’

  ‘The crime scenes may look chaotic, but they’re not. Take away the blood, and you’re left with a methodically planned crime scene. Each one is a mirror image of the previous one. The killer purposefully left the clues at the crime scenes. You have nothing he doesn’t want you to have.’

  ‘So, you think that the pubic hair might have been planted?’ Molly asked.

  ‘It’s a strong possibility, Inspector. After the Randall fiasco I suggest you err on the side of caution.’

  Molly nodded. ‘Yes, I think we’d already reached that conclusion.’

  ‘He chooses the family with care. The bodies are left for us to find, which again is unusual because the organised killer would normally dispose of the bodies, but it tells us that he wants publicity. He’s taking pride in his actions. It’s as if the four families murdered so far are merely parts of a much grander project. He’s inviting us to play his game.’

  ‘Some game,’ Frank said.

  ‘To him, it’s a game, Sergeant. He doesn’t want to get caught and sees himself as superior to us in intellect. He’s left us clues, but he thinks we can’t catch him.’

  ‘You mentioned earlier that he didn’t want to get caught,’ Tony said. ‘I thought all serial killers wanted to get caught?’

  ‘They do, the Tarot cards, the symbol carved on the girl’s forehead, and the arrangement of the murder scene, are all clues to help you catch him, but not yet. First, you must prove yourselves worthy before he’ll let you catch him. He is nowhere near that time yet, he has a magnum opus to complete. As well as the need for power and control over his family, the signature behaviours indicate a secondary motive. For example: he dismembers the mother, father and son, but not the daughter, he puts the severed limbs in the same rooms each time, and he lines the heads up on the windowsill in the bathroom. Then he arranges the daughter on the stairs with the axe in her back and the symbol carved into her flesh. This is ritualistic behaviour. Each time he is re-living his fantasy. These were his parents, the boy was his brother, and the girl was his sister. Remember, I said earlier that his family probably left him. I suspect that he was committed to a mental institution between the ages of
eight and twelve. His family went away and left him there. Now, when he kills, he is getting his family back. This is a seriously damaged individual. He should never have been released, but he’s obviously fooled the psychiatrists into believing that he’s not a danger to society.’

  ‘Why isn’t he chopping up the girl like the others?’ Lucy asked. ‘What’s so special about her?’

  ‘She is special, detective. She was the one who cared for him when he was young, the one who treated him like a human being, and the one who loved him when no one else would. In return, he loved her back.’

  ‘He has a funny way of showing it,’ Abby commented.

  ‘You must remember we’re not dealing with a rational mind, detective. He is getting revenge on his family, but the girl is central to his magnum opus. His love for her is obsessive. When she was taken away from him he felt empty inside, he blamed himself, hated himself. He was filled with anger, rage and a desire for revenge against his parents who took her away. He would have tried to commit suicide on a number of occasions. When he’s finished, he will be together with the girl he loves – his sister.’

  ‘You mean he… you know?’ Frank said.

  ‘No, he was too young, but I have no doubt that he fantasises about her.’

  Molly pushed herself up. ‘Thank you, Doctor. You’ve given us a number of areas to explore.’

  Marie Grady gave Molly three typed copies of the psychological profile and said, ‘One final thing, Inspector before I leave you. Beware of someone contacting you and wanting to help with the investigation. The killer has already involved himself in a way by manipulating the evidence at the Randall crime scene.’

  ‘We will.’ Molly showed Dr. Grady out and then made a detour to the rear of the building to have a cigarette.

  Paul was already propping up the wall and smoking between coughs. ‘I thought she’d never finish,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not impressed by psychological profiling then?’

  ‘I’m sure it has its uses, Gov, but there’s a body of thought that believes profiling constrains an investigation, you start looking for suspects that fit the profile and exclude everybody else. What happens if the profile’s wrong?’

  ‘That’s an interesting point, Paul,’ she said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Hilary Mansell was what the females in Vice called eye candy. He was in his late thirties with free-flowing wavy black shoulder-length hair, dark smouldering Italian eyes, and a face that looked as though it had been chiselled from the jawbone of some exotic animal. His fingernails were manicured, and rattling on his left wrist was a gold Rolex Oyster Perpetual Explorer watch. Molly could easily see him standing on the end of her bed wearing a Fedora and cracking a whip.

  ‘I feel a fraud really,’ Mansell said when Molly shook his hand.

  The team had taken a break after Dr Grady left, and in the midst of it all Dr Mansell had arrived. Now, he was standing at the front of the room drinking coffee, chatting and eating custard creams as if he’d always been there.

  ‘Oh?’ she responded, surprised at his limp handshake.

  ‘Well, I could have told you about the characters over the phone, or sent you a reply by fax, but I thought it was a good excuse to get out of the lecture room. I promise I won’t charge for my services as long as you don’t tell the Chancellor I’ve been pulling a fast one.’ He smiled like a gigolo and Abby went all gooey-eyed.

  ‘You mean you know what they are?’ Molly said.

  ‘Of course. These characters,’ he pointed at the symbols on the four boards, ‘are the first four letters of the Modern Hebrew alphabet, which dates from 1000 CE – Christian Era – to the present day. I won’t bore you with the history of the Hebrew language, except to say that the transliterated glyphs mean A, B, C, and D, or more accurately, Aleph, Beyt, Gimel, and Dalet.’

  ‘Is that it?’ Abby said.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ he said helping himself to another custard cream from the plate on the table.

  Frank butted in: ‘So, the killer has branded each girl with a Hebrew letter, something like, "This is girl A, this is girl B, and so on?"’

  ‘I have no idea what the killer had in mind, Sergeant,’ Mansell said adopting a defensive manner. ‘All I can tell you is what the characters mean.’

  ‘There must be more to it than the killer keeping count,’ Tony said.

  ‘Why?’ Lucy asked him.

  ‘Well, why is he using the Hebrew alphabet? Why not just carve an ‘A’ on their foreheads? How many letters are there in the Hebrew alphabet, anyway?’

  ‘Twenty-two,’ Mansell said.

  ‘Does that mean he’s going to kill twenty-two families until he gets to the last letter of the alphabet? And if he is what then?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I only know about the characters. What I can tell you is that Hebrew is thought to be the word of God.’

  ‘What, you think the killer is a religious nut?’ Paul asked.

  ‘I don’t think anything, Detective. Inspector Stone asked me to come along and identify the characters. I’ve done that. Someone else will now need to put them into the context of the murders. Certainly, the use of Hebrew might suggest a religious meaning.’

  ‘All right, people,’ Molly said holding up her hands. ‘Dr Mansell has told us what the symbols mean and that was all he was asked to do.’ She turned to Mansell. ‘Thank you so much for coming, Doctor. We all appreciate it even if some of them have forgotten where they keep their manners.’ She shook his hand again. ‘Abby, can you show Dr Mansell out, please?’

  Abby was only too pleased to escort him out. Ten minutes later she came back looking flushed.

  It was five past twelve. ‘Before we all go to lunch,’ Molly said, ‘let’s recap on what we’re all doing next. Each of you is to re-interview the witnesses and/or neighbours at each crime scene. Paul is to work on trying to identify how the killer selects his victims by compiling a list of who could know about families with two children and where they live. Lucy is to cross-reference the gaps between the murders with prisons, secure hospitals, and visits out of the country. Frank and Abby, I want you to follow-up on what Dr Grady said about the killer being committed to a mental hospital between the ages of eight and twelve. Look at the people who were released around the first murder. I know we’re clutching at straws at the moment, but it’s all we’ve got. I’m going to find someone who knows about Tarot cards, and a religious person like a Priest or something to come and help us. What we have might be something to do with religion. We’ll meet again at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.’

  ‘What about me, Gov?’ Tony said.

  Molly passed him the 999 tapes. ‘Take them up to forensics for voice analysis and then come back down to my office. We’ll go for lunch and wait for Doc Firestone’s phone call about the DNA analysis.’

  As she was walking back to her office her mobile rang. ‘Stone?’

  ‘Hello, Princess. I have some time tonight if you’d like the rest of your tyres changed?’

  She laughed. ‘Hello, Andrew.’

  ‘Should we have Indian tonight, I know…’

  ‘I can’t tonight, I have something I need to do.’

  ‘All night?’ he pushed her.

  ‘Probably until nine or half-past.’

  ‘You’ll need food then?’

  ‘Only if it’s local?’

  ‘Does it need to be local?’

  ‘Where I’m going at eight is local, so if I can walk to the restaurant it’ll give us more time to eat.’

  ‘Then it’s local,’ he said. ‘Walk along the right-hand side of King Street towards Ravenscourt tube station until you reach The Purple Chilli restaurant, I’ll book a table for nine o’clock.’

  ‘I know it. I’ll see you there around nine then.’

  ‘I’ll count every passing second, Princess.’

  The phone went dead. She smiled inside, but reminded herself that it meant nothing. It could never mean anything. It was merely a fleet
ing moment in time that she had to grasp with both hands. In the end, she would be alone. Men like Andrew wanted male heirs to continue the family name, heirs that didn’t have a genetic defect.

  In her office she logged into the network, clicked on the Internet icon, and typed ‘Tarot London’ in the search engine. A Directory of Tarot Readers in London appeared. She scrolled down the list and noticed that only a few of them appeared to use their real names. They were called Gandalf, Gaelen, or Sarah-Jane. It was more like the member list of a fantasy website, or a front for an escort agency. If they didn’t take themselves seriously, how did they expect others to? She chose a Tarot reader at random, and her choice happened to fall on a woman called Vicki Mandrake. Molly called the number given in the contact details.

  ‘Tarot by Vicki, how can I help?’

  If she was any good, Molly thought, she would already know. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Molly Stone from Hammersmith Murder Investigation Team, I have a problem.’

  ‘You’d like a Tarot reading?’

  ‘No, I’d like some information on Tarot in the context of a murder investigation.’

  ‘The Butcher Murders, I saw you on the news?’

  ‘Everything I tell you is confidential?’

  ‘Of course, my business depends on confidentiality.’

  ‘Do you have time to come and see me at Hammersmith Police Station at nine-thirty tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Will I be paid for my time?’

  ‘That will be no problem.’

  ‘I’ll need to bring my six-year-old daughter with me.’

  ‘I can arrange for her to be looked after while we talk.’

  ‘Then I shall see you in the morning, Inspector.’

  ‘Before you go, is Vicki Mandrake your real name?’

  ‘No, it’s… Maureen Ormorod, but that doesn’t have the right aura of mystery about it for a Tarot reader, does it?’

  ‘I suppose not. Goodbye, Miss Mandrake.’

  Tony knocked and stuck his head round the door. ‘Are we ready for lunch, Gov, my stomach is rumbling?’

  ‘Do you know any Priests, Tony?’