I’d hardly been able to believe my ears. I didn’t challenge him. I was too afraid. I was beginning to think he was quite mad. The next day, he left for work early, as usual. I kept our Sam off school and just walked out with him and the little one. I went straight to my mum and dad’s place. I’d eventually told them the truth about what John called “my accident” and my mum had begged me to leave him then. But like I said, there were the children. Two lovely kids. Mind you, they were a miracle.’
‘Why?’ Vogel asked. ‘Why a miracle?’
‘John was virtually impotent. With me anyway. I read somewhere that impotent men often have a very high sperm count. God’s way of compensating. He could only… I’m sorry. This is embarrassing. Do you really need to know?’
‘I would appreciate it,’ said Vogel. ‘It could be relevant.’
‘To what? To the profile of a serial killer?’
Vogel tried to look non-committal.
‘I really would appreciate…’ he began.
‘All right. Well, I could coax him into an erection, but, uh, almost as soon as he tried to enter me he would lose it, sometimes ejaculating, sometimes not. Well, I suppose it only takes one of the little buggers,’ she said with a wry smile.
‘Have you met John’s mother, the father or the stepfather?’
Vera Court shook her head. ‘His mother died when he was in his late teens, he said. He wasn’t in touch with either his father or his stepfather. He said he hated them both.’ Vera paused.
‘There’s something else?’ Vogel enquired.
‘John’s mother had another child with her second husband. John’s half sister was born when John was eleven or twelve I think. The girl died, drowned in the bath. Her father, John’s stepfather, was bathing the little girl, claimed he’d gone to answer the phone or something, and the child had slipped underwater and drowned. But there was some question of unexplained bruising on the child’s body and both parents were questioned. Her father several times, not just concerning the drowning, but also on suspicion of having abused the little girl.
‘There was no real evidence and John’s stepfather was never arrested or charged. But John said his mother always suspected the stepfather might have been abusing the little girl in the bath and then killed her, even if accidentally, when she struggled. Unsurprisingly, the marriage broke up. That was John’s story anyway, and he made it quite clear he was glad to see the back of his stepfather. Same with his father. He adored his mother, though. The only time I ever saw him show any real emotion was when he spoke about his mother.’
Vogel could hardly believe how well everything Vera Court said fitted in to the shocking scenario now unfolding.
According to Professor Heath, this was an almost classic background for someone suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder. John Willis’s colleagues had just accepted Willis as a socially awkward man, who didn’t like to be drawn on anything personal, but was a damned good copper. What a joke that assessment was proving to be.
Vera Court began to speak again.
‘Mr Vogel, I’m right, aren’t I? You think John is this crazy killer, this Aeolus?’
Vogel felt the time had come to be honest. He needed more help from Vera. Willis had Saslow. He didn’t suppose anyone could second-guess the man who thought he was Aeolus, but Vera had some insight that nobody else did. At that moment, she seemed the only hope he had.
‘Yes Mrs Court,’ he said. ‘I am afraid there is no longer any doubt.’
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘I’ve thought for years he wasn’t right in the head. But this? Nothing like this.’
The woman may have already guessed, but now that Vogel had confirmed her suspicions, she seemed totally in shock.
‘Mrs Court,’ continued Vogel gently. ‘There’s more. It appears that John is holding one of our officers hostage. We have grave fears for her safety. We need to find her, and John, as quickly as possible. Have you any idea where he might go, where he might take someone in a situation like this?’
Vera Court shook her head.
Vogel persisted.
‘He didn’t have another property. A lock-up anywhere?’
‘No, not that I know of, anyway.’
‘Was there any place, I don’t know, somewhere remote, where he might hide, or hide someone else?’
Vera Willis shook her head again.
‘Mr Vogel, I lived with John for nearly seven years, and I realised long ago that I didn’t really know him at all. I have no idea where he might go, or where he might take someone, but I dread to think what he might do to that someone.’
Right after Vera Court left, Vogel called forensics to see if there’d been any results yet, following his request for an urgent check on the DNA and fingerprints on record for Willis. He wasn’t surprised to learn that there were still no matches found for Willis’s DNA.
‘The fingerprint record on file has just been checked and found to be unidentifiable,’ the forensic technician told Vogel.
‘What does that mean?’ Vogel asked.
‘Well, it’s not a properly obtained record,’ came the reply. ‘The prints are distorted.’
‘Distorted?’ queried Vogel. ‘How?’
‘Simple really,’ said the forensics technician. ‘You only have to drag your finger a fraction of a centimetre and the prints are rendered useless. Of course, with members of the public, who are on suspicion of offences, the results would immediately be thoroughly scrutinised by the officer in charge. But with a copper? Well, you know…’
Vogel did know. The taking of a new police officer’s fingerprints was just a matter of routine. Nobody was likely to check them very thoroughly. As for DNA, Vogel thought back to his own experience. Samples were usually taken during a recruit’s training. In Vogel’s day, the instructing officer was inclined to build the taking of such samples into training procedure. Vogel remembered being teamed up with another young copper. They took samples of each other’s saliva using a swab. That way, not only was their DNA put on record as required, but they learned the procedure of doing so.
It seemed clear that Willis had falsified his own records one way or another. Unfortunately, Vogel could see only too clearly how it might have been done. Advanced technology and tighter regulations had combined to make it increasingly more difficult for anyone so inclined to do such a thing, but John Willis had joined the force thirteen years previously.
One of the most frightening aspects of this was why had he falsified his records all that time ago, long before the recent spate of killings that he was almost certainly responsible for? The obvious answer was that Willis had already committed some kind of serious crime, most likely a murder or murders. At the very least, he was covering his tracks for the future.
Vogel thought it was probably both.
He clicked into Willis’s file again to see who his training officer had been, the man who would have overseen his DNA testing and finger printing. DI Phillip Marcus was long retired, but his contact details were all there. Marcus answered his phone straight away. He sounded surprised but not alarmed.