Seeing where her cursor had paused, Kit groaned. “Gossip central,” he complained.
“You’d be surprised how often they get it right,” she said mildly.
“Maybe so, but they always leave me feeling like I need a bath. And they can’t write for toffee.”
Fiona couldn’t resist a smile as she connected to the site. “Never mind the morality, feel the semicolons,” she said ironically. When she was prompted for her area of interest, she typed, ‘Drew Shand’. In the top left-hand corner of the page that unfurled before them, the same photograph of Drew brooding handsomely into the camera appeared. This time, however, the text was very different. Scottish thriller writer Drew Shand has been found murdered in the historic heart of the city he lived in and used as the background to his first gruesome novel, the award-winning Copycat. His mutilated body was found just behind St. Giles Cathedral, only feet away from the pavements pounded daily by millions of tourists. So far, no suspects have been arrested. MBTH hears from a source inside the investigation that there are some very spooky coincidences connecting Shand’s own death and the graphic violence he turned to good commercial effect in Copycat. The plot of his serial killer novel centres round a contemporary recreation of the celebrated Whitechapel Murders a sort of Jock the Ripper gore fest. The original Jack the Ripper’s fourth victim was found by a policeman on his beat. So was Shand’s fourth victim. And so too was Shand. The police surgeon at the time of the Whitechapel Murders, Dr. Frederick Brown, reported that: The body was on its back, the head turned to the left shoulder. The arms by the side of the body as if they had fallen there. Both palms upwards, the fingers slightly bent…Left leg extended in a line with the body. The abdomen was exposed. Right leg bent at thigh and knee. The throat cut across. The intestines were drawn out to a large extent and placed over the right shoulder…A piece of about two feet was quite detached from the body and placed between the body and left arm. The lobe and auricle of the right ear was cut right through…There was a cut…through the lower left eyelid dividing the structures completely through…The right eyelid was cut through to about half an inch. There was a deep cut over the bridge of the nose…This cut went into the bone and divided all the structures of the cheek except the mucous membrane of the mouth. The tip of the nose was quite detached…There was on each side of the cheek a cut which peeled up the skin, forming a triangular flap of about an inch and a half The actual cause of death was haemorrhage from the left carotid artery. Each of these grim facts was annexed by Shand for his novel. And according to our source, they were all present in the murder of the writer himself. Apparently one of the murder squad detectives called to the scene of the crime had read Copycat and was immediately struck by the similarities. It was only when the police surgeon itemized the injuries and the detective went back and checked both with Shand’s book and accounts of the original Ripper case that the police became convinced that they were dealing with a Copycat copycat. Apparently the theory doing the rounds at police HQ is that Shand was into hardcore S&M sex. They reckon that made him vulnerable to a perp who had fixated on his book and wanted to try it out for real. Shand was apparently a creature of habit his daily routine is outlined on his website for all to see. So it wouldn’t have been too hard for the hunter to track him down and, providing the killer was Shand’s type, it would all fall into place. And of course, the easy thing about killing somebody who’s into S&M is they think you’re only playing when you tie them up. Doesn’t matter that, like Shand, your victim works out down the gym every day, because he’s trussed up like a chicken all ready for you. One other detail the cops think he was killed somewhere else then brought to the body dump, unlike both the Whitechapel Murders and the slayings in Copycat But Shand’s flat was clean, so they’ve no idea as yet where the murder actually took place. One thing they can be pretty sure of, though somebody’s got a helluva cleaning job on his hands.
REMEMBER YOU READ IT FIRST ON MURDER BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Kit whistled softly. “That is seriously creepy shit.”
Fiona logged off. “You’re not kidding.”
“So what’s your take on it?”
“Probably much the same as yours,” Fiona said. “He clearly planned his crime to mirror the circumstances of one of the murders in Shand’s book. Which in turn mirrors one of the original Ripper murders, apart from the gender of the victim. That he’s succeeded so accurately indicates a high degree of control and organization. His intelligence therefore is likely to be significantly above average. He has a highly developed fantasy life and would probably use violent pornography to support that. He would be unlikely to respond well to authority, so if he had a job it wouldn’t be commensurate with his intelligence, which in turn would be a source of irritation to him.” She pulled a face. “But saying that is simply a matter of playing the probabilities.”
“But what about his relationship to Drew? Is he a stalker, a jilted lover, or some sort of fucked-up wannabe acolyte? What do you think?”
She dropped into one of the chairs by the window and stared out at the city. When her answer came, she spoke slowly, feeling her way from sentence to sentence. “That is without doubt the most interesting question, Kit.” She gave him a quick smile. “Hardly surprising that it was you who asked it. That the murderer fixated on the book and copied its crimes isn’t particularly remarkable. Often killers who display their victims’ bodies ritualistically are replicating images they’ve seen in pornography or in some situation that was particularly meaningful to them. But most sexually motivated killers would be satisfied with wreaking their havoc on any victim who broadly fitted their fantasy. To have chosen to hunt and destroy the creator of the very fiction that fuelled his desire to kill is curiously personal. And in a crime where depersonalizing the victim is often crucial to the process, it’s distinctly unusual.”
Kit ran his hands over his scalp, his face a mixture of amusement and exasperation. “It’s always got to be a lecture with you, hasn’t it? You still didn’t answer the question.”
Fiona grinned. “I sort of hoped you hadn’t noticed. If you pushed me on it, I’d probably plump for a stalker who has become obsessed with Copycat. But that’s purely speculation.”
“So is Murder Behind the Headlines, but it doesn’t stop you reading that,” Kit pointed out. He got up and wandered round the room. “It’s a bit freaky, isn’t it? The thought of somebody following Drew around like a shadow, invisible till the last moment when he shows himself. You never think of anything like that when you’re writing. That some nutter is going to read their life story into your words.”
“You’d probably never write another book if you give that possibility space in your head,” Fiona said. “Other people’s madness is not your responsibility. Come here, give me a hug.”
He crossed to her and gently pulled her to her feet, wrapping his arms around her. She turned her face up to his. “There are other ways of taking your mind off things, Kit,” she said softly as his lips came down to meet hers.