‘The man was later identified as Sean Andrew Hill of Selly Oak Road, Birmingham. When the deceased’s particulars were entered onto the police computer at Kidlington HQ, the Lombroso computer automatically indicated that this was a person who had tested VMN-negative, codenamed Charles Dickens. This, and the killer’s modus operandi, leads us now to suppose that Hill was another victim of the same person who murdered Henry Lam, Craig Edward Brownlow, Richard Graham Swanson, Joseph Arthur Middlemass...’
‘Thank you, Superintendent,’ Gilmour interrupted. ‘There’s no need to read the whole list.’
‘Superintendent,’ said Woodford. ‘Have your scenes-of-crime people found anything?’ He pursed his lips and shook his head as if trying to find something to prompt Bowles. ‘Clues?’
‘Clues?’ Bowles looked pained at the very mention of the word. ‘No, sir, we haven’t found any of those.’
‘And what about witnesses?’ he continued. ‘Did anyone see or hear anything?’
Bowles smiled nervously as if suddenly aware that he was speaking to someone who had only the vaguest idea of what he was asking. ‘Unlikely they’ll have heard anything, sir,’ he said. ‘As I said before, the killer used a gas-gun to murder his victim. It’s totally silent.’ He nodded slowly. ‘But it’s early days and we’re still making our enquiries.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Woodford glanced around the table. ‘Anyone else?’
‘Perhaps the Detective Chief Inspector,’ the Minister said helpfully. ‘This is your field of expertise, isn’t it? What was that curiously tabloid phrase you employed in your lecture? “The Hollywood-style murder”, wasn’t it?’
Jake sat up in her chair. ‘With respect, ma’am, that refers exclusively to the recreational murder of women.’
‘But this is a case of recreational murder,’ Mrs Miles insisted. ‘I can’t see that it matters much whether it’s a man or a woman. Surely there must be some common denominators?’
‘I have no questions for the Superintendent,’ Jake said firmly.
‘Thank you, Superintendent, that will be all for the moment.’
Gilmour’s thumb ended the satellite link and for a moment the room was silent.
Jake appraised her surroundings. It was the kind of all too common meeting-room in which comfort had yielded to colour, geometry and functionality. The kind of room that made her feel like a plastic toy in some architect’s model. She wouldn’t have been at all surprised to have looked out of a window and seen tree-foliage that was made of foam rubber.
‘How many is it now, Mr Gilmour?’ asked Mrs Miles.
‘This makes the eighth killing, in as many months.’
‘I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of just how sensitive a matter this could become.’
‘No indeed, Minister.’
‘The Lombroso Program has cost millions of dollars,’ she continued. ‘True, it’s just part of the increased spending on law enforcement and crime prevention to which, time and again, this Government has committed itself. But it is perhaps the flagship of that general policy. It would be unfortunate if the Program had to be interrupted or even scrapped because of this maniac.’
‘Quite so, Minister.’
‘I cannot sufficiently underline just how electorally damaging it might be if the press were to make this thing public,’ she said. ‘The fact that the Lombroso Program itself is the only common factor in eight murders. You can see that, can’t you?’
Gilmour nodded.
‘But we can only keep the press off it for so long. Journalists have a nasty habit of going up against Government on this kind of thing. Even if it is something that’s covered by the Secrecy and Information Act.’
She glanced at Professor Waring who was occupied in the creation of an elaborate doodle on the triangular-shaped blotter in front of him.
‘And what do your inkblots tell us this time, Norman?’ she said crisply.
Waring continued with his doodle for a few seconds. He spoke slowly.
‘We’ve gone a little way past using the perception of unstructured forms as a diagnostic tool,’ he said punctiliously, adding a wry smile to the remark.
‘I want some ideas, Norman,’ she said. ‘If this psycho stops the Program your research might find it never recovers from the shock. If you receive my meaning.’
Waring shrugged with frustration. ‘With all due respect, Minister, we don’t yet know that he is a psycho.’ He looked meaningfully at Gilmour. ‘No more than the police know how to catch him. I’ve spoken about this matter with Professor Gleitmann on many occasions and he still has no idea how such a breach of security might have occurred. I myself am unable to imagine how such a thing might even be possible.’
‘Nevertheless,’ the Minister insisted, ‘it has happened.’
There followed another uncomfortable silence. This time it was Jake who ended it.
‘If I might make a suggestion—’
‘Yes, well that’s why we’re all here, Chief Inspector.’
‘Surely the fact remains that somehow a breach of the Lombroso Program’s security has occurred, whether one likes it or not. As I see it, the priority must be to establish whether that breach occurred from within or from without. Only when that question has been answered can an investigation properly proceed.’
Professor Waring returned to his doodle. ‘Chief Inspector,’ he said. ‘How much do you know about the Program?’
Jake shrugged. ‘Only what I’ve read in the newspapers, and seen on television.’
Waring began to score aggressively at the centre of his drawing. ‘Then have you any idea what it is that you are suggesting? The Lombroso computer system is highly sophisticated. To suggest, as blithely as you do, that it might be possible to breach the system’s security is almost as nonsensical as the idea that one of Gleitmann’s own staff could have something to do with this whole dreadful business.’
‘Nonsensical or not, sir, those are the only two logical possibilities.’
Waring snorted and shook his head impatiently. The doodle was starting to look more like an engraving.
‘What would you do, Chief Inspector Jakowicz?’ asked Mark Woodford. ‘If it was you who was in charge of this particular investigation?’
Jake ran through a few ideas in her head. Then she said: ‘Well, sir, the first thing I would do would be to have the Yard’s Computer Crime Unit assign me their best man. I’d have him take a look at the Lombroso computer and try to find out what happened. What I would also do—’ Jake hesitated for a moment as she wondered how best to approach her next suggestion.
Woodford was typing her ideas onto his PC. He looked up expectantly. ‘Yes?’
It seemed to Jake that there was no other way but to be direct. ‘ — is polygraph all the staff working on the Lombroso Program.’
Waring tossed his pen onto the table. As it bounced it left a little line of ink droplets on the polished walnut table. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this,’ he snarled. ‘Chief Inspector, you cannot seriously think that one of Professor Gleitmann’s staff could be lying.’
He fixed her with a sharply-pointed stare which Jake did her hard-eyed best to blunt. ‘Either one of his staff, or Professor Gleitmann himself,’ she offered provocatively.
Waring let out a burst of indignant air which the Minister and her secretary seemed to find amusing. But Jake hadn’t finished.
‘With respect, sir,’ she said to Woodford, ‘it is the only logical course for any investigation while there continues to be an absence of any—’ She found herself half-smiling as she prepared to utter what was for her an infrequently used word. ‘—clues.’ The word prompted a picture of herself winding in a ball of thread to find her way out of a maze. ‘We must start from the inside and work out,’ she added. ‘The Program itself holds the key to establishing some kind of a pattern to these killings. But while we persist in trying to address only the exterior facts of each case, there will be no progress.’