‘Unless you’ve been going behind my back with my team like you did with Paula on the Robbie Bishop case,’ she said drily.
‘I have not been quizzing your detectives, Carol. But I’m going to tell you some things about your two murders which I know only because they were committed by the same person who killed Jennifer Maidment. I know the signature behaviour, Carol. I know what this guy does.’ He enumerated the points on his fingers. ‘One: they went missing in the late afternoon without an explanation. They didn’t confide in anybody - not friends, not family, not sweethearts. Two: they’d been interacting with someone on RigMarole, someone outside their circle of friends. Someone who seemed to offer something they couldn’t find anywhere else. Possibly someone using a pair of initials - BB, CC, DD, whatever. That last bit’s a guess, but if I’m right, it might have some significance I haven’t worked out yet. Three: the cause of death was asphyxiation by having a heavy-duty polythene bag taped over their heads. Four: there was no evidence of a struggle, indicating they were most likely drugged. Probably GHB, though that will have been harder to establish in your cases because of the time that elapsed before you found the bodies. They’d been dead for a while, hadn’t they? They weren’t fresh kills. Because, five: they were killed very soon after they were taken. How am I doing so far?’
Carol hoped her face wasn’t betraying her astonishment. How could he have known? ‘Go on,’ she said calmly.
‘Six: they were dumped out of town, in an area not covered by traffic cameras or CCTV or Street View. There was no serious attempt at hiding the bodies. Seven: their bodies were mutilated post mortem. Eight: they were castrated. Nine: no evidence of any sexual assault. Oh, and ten: nobody seems to have noticed them being grabbed off the street, so chances are they had a perfectly amicable, non-violent initial encounter with their killer. So, Carol - do I know what I’m talking about? This is way more than coincidence, isn’t it?’
He met her eyes with a level gaze. ‘How did you know this stuff?’ she said.
‘I know it because it matches what happened to Jennifer Maidment. Except in her case, it was her vagina that was excised. Her vagina, please note. Not her clitoris. And this is what I mean about gender being immaterial. Because this is not sexual homicide.’
Carol felt herself floundering. Everything she knew about serial murder pointed to these killings having a sexual basis. It was the very assumption he’d taught her. Even if she couldn’t fathom what the sexual kick was, it was there. ‘How can you say that? Genital mutilation - isn’t that always sexual in some respect?’
Tony scratched his head. ‘Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you’d be right. But I think this is the weird one. The one that blows all the profiling out of the water because it doesn’t follow the probabilities.’ He jumped to his feet and started pacing. ‘There’s three reasons why I’m saying this, Carol. He doesn’t spend long enough with them—’
‘I noticed that,’ she said. ‘It didn’t make sense to me either. Why go to all the trouble to groom them, then kill them almost at once?’
‘Exactly!’ He pounced on the idea, turning on his heel and slamming the flat of his hand on her desk. ‘Where’s the pleasure in that? The second thing is that there’s no evidence of any sort of sexual assault. No sperm, no anal trauma. I take it that’s the same with Seth and Daniel?’
Carol nodded. ‘Nothing.’ It dawned on her that she had been seduced by his argument in spite of her best intentions. Because, in a horrible way, it made sense. ‘You said there were three reasons.’
‘He’s saying, it ends here. You’re not just dead. You’re the end of the line. Whoever it is they remind him of, he wants to wipe that person off the face of the planet.’
His words sent a shiver through her. ‘That is harsh,’ she said. ‘So cold.’
‘I know. But it makes sense in a way that nothing else does.’
In spite of everything, Carol felt a fizz of delight. These were the moments she lived for in this job. Those dazzling moments when the tumblers of the lock lined up and the door to understanding swung open. How could you not love that feeling, when the impenetrable suddenly yielded? She smiled at him, grateful for his insight and for the patient endurance he brought to their work. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I owe you an apology. I’ve never known you to be petty, I don’t know why I imagined Tim Parker could have provoked it in you.’
Tony smiled back at her. ‘Parker’s history. Whatever Blake says, this is my case now. Worcester has precedence.’ He took Stuart Patterson’s card from his jacket pocket. ‘This is the guy you need to speak to.’
Carol took the card. ‘There’s someone else I need to speak to first.’ Her smile took on a grim edge. ‘And believe me, I’m going to enjoy it.’
CHAPTER 31
Among the tight-knit fraternity of illegal egg collectors, Derek Barton had a reputation for always delivering what he had promised. It allowed him to charge top dollar, since his customers knew they could rely on the quality of his wares. That Sunday, he was looking forward to a good harvest. He’d been staking out the nest on the Forestry Commission land for a while now and he reckoned this Sunday was the time to strike. Peregrine falcon eggs were always in demand and they commanded a good price. It was always a challenge to get to the nests, but more than worth it.
Barton packed his rucksack carefully. Spikes to hammer into the trunk of the tall pine so he could climb it easily. Rubber hammer to deaden the sound. Helmet and safety goggles to protect him from the birds themselves. And the plastic boxes filled with cotton wool for his prizes.
He took his time driving out of Manchester, choosing a sequence of back roads to make sure he wasn’t being followed. Ever since he’d been nicked a couple of years back, he’d been cautious when he went out on the hunt. That time, he’d been followed by an RSPB warden and they’d caught him red-handed with a pair of red kite eggs. The fine had been bad enough, but what galled him was having a criminal record. All for doing what men had been doing for hundreds of years. Where did they think all those birds’ eggs in museums came from? They weren’t plastic replicas. They were the real thing, eggs collected by devotees like him.
Once he was sure he wasn’t being followed, he turned on to the road that curled round the Stonegait reservoir. As usual, there wasn’t another vehicle to be seen. Now the new valley road had been built, there was no reason to come this way unless you were planning to hike one of the forestry roads. Given how many spectacular paths there were around here, hardly anyone chose a walk through tall dense stands of pine with no view and nothing much in the way of interesting flora or fauna. Barton was pretty sure he’d have the place to himself.
It was a grand day for it, the sun dancing on the water like a mirrorball. Barely a breath of wind, which was a distinct advantage if you were planning to climb a bloody big pine tree. Barton slowed as he rounded the last bend, checking there was nobody else about. Convinced he was in the clear, he pulled off the road a couple of hundred yards from the start of the forestry road. He backed up a little so that the vegetation on the verge obscured his number plate. It wouldn’t stop anyone who was serious about checking him out, but it kept him safe from casual passers-by. Then he grabbed his backpack and set off at a brisk walk.
As Barton turned into the forestry track, he looked back over his shoulder to check again that he was alone. Taking his eyes off where he was going turned out to have been a bad mistake. He tripped over something, stumbling into a half crouch. He collected himself and looked down at what had caught his foot.