‘As if in p… p… prayer,’ DS Oakley added out loud.
‘I beg your pardon?’ the DCI said, sounding as if she had just been publicly insulted.
‘Er… the victim’s position, m… m… ma’am, it was if she was in prayer.’
‘Thank you for your entirely unsolicited interpretation of the facts, Simon. The next time I require such a service I will request it from you. Is that quite clear?’ A chastened nod sufficed for an answer, all the other occupants of the room now stunned into an unnatural silence by the fierceness of her expression.
‘Our only other suspect in the Wilson case is Eddie Christie, but he, to all intents and purposes, has been excluded. He has an alibi, albeit provided by his wife, for the relevant time, and no forensic evidence to link him with the crime has been forthcoming.
Turning now to the second victim, Annie Wright. On Monday fifteenth her body was found in a wrecked car at Cargill’s scrapyard. She was aged thirty-five, a prostitute and a known drug user. From traces of blood found a couple of yards to the east of the car it seems that she was killed on the site and then concealed within the vehicle. She, too, was found with her arms crossed on her breast…’
‘As if in p… p…’ Eric Manson said, unable to resist the temptation, his voice becoming inaudible following the basilisk stare the Chief Inspector gave him. ‘…prayer,’ he mouthed.
‘Shut up, Eric!’ Elaine Bell snapped, continuing in the same breath, ‘…she, too, had not been recently sexually interfered with. Post-mortem examination suggests that she was killed on the Friday, approximately three days before her body was found. That estimate for her time of death accords with two other pieces of information. First, the earliest date for her unopened mail. Second, the last sighting of her. On the evening of the twelfth at about eight p.m., her neighbour, a Mr Holroyd, saw her on the landing of her flat, probably as she was leaving the building for the street. Unfortunately, the prostitute with whom she teamed up as a pair was herself absent from their beat from ten p.m. onwards on the Friday. So she didn’t notice or report her pal’s absence.’
‘Ma’am?’ Alice asked timidly.
‘DS Rice?’
‘I’ve asked to see various members of the Leith Vigilante Group, CLAP or whatever their acronym is, from twelve onwards today. One or other of them may be able to help with the final time for a sighting of…’
‘CLRAP,’ Elaine Bell corrected.
‘Sorry?’
‘Their acronym. CLRAP. Central Leith Residents Against Prostitution.’
‘LRAP, surely,’ DC Lindsay said. ‘Just Leith Residents -’
‘Never mind what the hell they’re called!’ the DCI interjected, ‘you’re going to see them, Alice, so that’s fine. If you get anything worthwhile from them, then let me know as soon as possible. Where was I? Oh yes – over much of the likely period that she was killed, Francis McPhail has no alibi. I spoke to him last night in the station and he told us that on the night in question he was, surprise, surprise, alone in the church. So, Eric, I want you to check on his whereabouts with his housekeeper and then go and see that guy, Thomas McNiece. McNiece stood trial for rape, Annie Wright was his accuser, and he was acquitted. He threatened to “get her”, so away and check him out, eh? He lives on Kings Road, off Portobello Street.
Eric Manson nodded, mute, his cheeks bulging with his breakfast roll.
‘The weapon used on Annie Wright hasn’t been found, but the pathologist believes that it may well be the same one as was used on Isobel. The MO in both cases, you will be aware, appears to be identical. Accordingly, we may, God save us all, be dealing with some kind of serial killer. I want you three constables -’ and she stared each one in the eye in turn, ‘to re-do the door to doors. Something may have been missed. Re-do around both the cemetery area, the scrappie’s yard and the prostitutes’ known beats. S.P.E.A.R. could give you information on their territories. The newspaper appeals, as you may have guessed, have produced precisely nothing. The area’s insalubrious reputation, of course, does not help us.
Finally, there are two other things you should know. Firstly, the Chief Constable intends to expand our squad and is, I understand, currently involved in doing that, and secondly, he has decreed that Professor McPherson is to address us. This morning, immediately after I finish in fact.’
A groan went round the room.
‘Has Methuselah not been put out to grass yet?’ Eric Manson asked.
‘No, but he is coming from the Meadows especially to speak to us.’
Professor McPherson touched the material within his pocket, a hand in it would look more assured. Stop the brute shaking and giving him away, too. His hidden fingers encountered three pills and he realised that he had not taken his morning blood pressure or water tablets. But neither the nervousness he initially felt nor the panic that replaced it were evident on his face. It had an inexpressive, mask-like quality, impervious to everything, and easily explained, although not in the terms of the temperamental coldness or permanent boredom guessed by many.
The explanation, the Professor would have said, lay in the works of the great Mr James Parkinson of Hoxton Square. The man after whom the disease, his disease, was christened, or perhaps, more accurately, re-christened, changing from the Shaking Palsy to Parkinson’s Disease. And of course, as a result of it, his voice had become a monotone and he, in short, monotonous. But there it was, and it could not be helped. He tried to clear his throat, thinking that once he had begun to speak he would feel the old enthusiasm which had carried him through his final days as a lecturer.
‘The personality profile of a serial killer…’ he heard himself say in a dull drone, ‘can only be an uncertain business. Nonetheless, of the various theories I continue to favour the disorganised/organised theory of offenders’ characteristics.’ He looked at his listeners, hoping that some of them might be familiar with his subject, but saw no evidence of it on their faces.
‘Mrs Bell has, kindly, described to me the crime scene of both the murders currently under investigation. The relevant aspects, as far as I am concerned are, of course, in each case the absence of the murder weapon at the locus, or around about it, and the movement of the body after the act to a place of hiding. There could be added to this list, I would suggest, the fact that the killer appears to have left relatively little forensic or other traces of himself. These factors all indicate to me that the killer will display the profile characteristics of the organised offender. He, or she, may well be a first-born or an only child, and is likely to have an above-average IQ. Despite such intellectual ability, the offender’s work history may be sporadic and he probably had a poor relationship with his parents or, more likely, parent. His killing “spree”, if I may call it that, has probably been triggered by…’ His voice faded away, his mouth suddenly dry, and he grasped the glass of water that had been provided for him.
The minute his fingers gripped its curved surface he felt his hand beginning to shake, the tremor taking control. And the more he concentrated on lifting it up to his mouth, the worse the shaking became, until by the time it reached his lips water was beginning to splash out of it. Taking a hurried sip he quickly put it down, misjudging the distance to the table and allowing it to land with a loud thud.