“To be honest, I didn’t expect many hits. But we’ve got four rapes and two serious sexual assaults that incorporate all five points. All six took place north of the river. The first was reported two and a half years ago, in Stoke Newington. A woman sunbathing in her garden with her baby asleep in its push chair was assaulted by a man wearing cycling gear who climbed over her garden fence. Her screams alerted a neighbour and her assailant got away.
“The second was in Camden about ten weeks later. A woman was walking along the canal towpath with her three-year-old son when a man jumped out from behind a wall and held a knife to her throat. He told her he was going to rape her, but they were disturbed by a group of students who came along the towpath. He jumped back over the wall and pedalled off on a bike before anyone could stop him.
“The third one was on the top floor of a multi storey car park in Brent. Fifteen weeks later. This time, he raped a woman shopper. She had installed her kid in the car seat and he came up from behind, pushing her down on the seat and raping her at knife point According to the investigating officer, she thought he was wearing a cycle helmet.
“Nearly six months go by before the next reported rape. This time, he moved further west, to Kensal Rise. The victim was taking her new baby for a walk in the cemetery.” Here, Joanne’s professional mask slipped and she glanced up at Steve. “It’s not as weird as it sounds,” she said defensively. “These old Victorian cemeteries can be quite attractive, you know. Especially where there’s not much green space around.”
Steve shook his head. “I never said a word, Joanne. My mate Kit reckons Highgate Cemetery is the best source of inspiration he knows. Of course, he’s not a copper…”
“Anyway, she was walking the baby in the cemetery when she was jumped by a bloke in lycra shorts and a top, with a cycle helmet and goggles and what looked to her like one of those expensive kitchen knives that are made from one solid piece of metal. She fought back pretty hard and got seventeen stitches in her arm for her pains. She saw him take off afterwards on a mountain bike. It’s the best description we’ve got.”
“ICi male, between five-ten and six feet, slim build, dark hair, pale complexion,” Steve read wearily. “Well, that makes half the male members of the Metropolitan Police suspects.”
“Not half of them, boss. I reckon there’s not more than ten percent could make anything like a decent getaway on a bike.”
Steve grimaced at his cigar. “You’re probably right. What’s interesting is that the description doesn’t fit Francis Blake. He’s too short, and I don’t think anyone would describe him as slim. He’s far too broad in the shoulder. OK, let’s hear the rest of it.”
“Number five was a school cleaner in Crouch End. She was last out of the building one Friday night eighteen months ago. He was waiting for her. As she locked up, he came up behind her and held a knife to her throat. He dragged her into some bushes at the edge of the path and raped her. She had no kids with her, but I’ve included this one because it took place in a primary school playground and he was definitely on a bike. What do you think?”
“It’s worth keeping in the cluster for now. And the last one?”
“Now, this one’s really interesting. It was only five weeks before Susan Blanchard’s murder. And it was a bit further afield, actually in Hatfield. But it was in a park. A nanny was out with the little boy she looks after, walking in the woodland garden area. She was knocked to the ground, reckons she was actually unconscious for a few minutes. When she came round, she’d been dragged into the bushes and he was raping her. He had a knife at her throat and told her he’d stick her like a pig if she made a sound.”
“Fuck,” Steve swore softly. “Why didn’t we pick up on that when Susan Blanchard was killed?”
Joanne’s mouth tightened in a prim line. “Principally because Hertfordshire didn’t tell us about it.”
“Why the hell not? It’s not as if we kept the Blanchard murder a secret! It was all over the media. Didn’t it occur to them that it might be the same bloke?”
“Apparently not. The reason being that they reckoned one of their own for it. They had an accused rapist out on bail and they thought this was him taking one last bite of the cherry before he went down. As the investigating officer charmingly put it to me,” Joanne added tartly. “By the time Susan was killed, chummy was inside doing a seven stretch for three rapes, so they didn’t bother telling us because it couldn’t have been him, could it?” Sarcasm saturated her voice.
“Great.” Steve crushed out the stub of his cigar and sighed. “Did their rapist admit to the nanny as well, then?”
“Apparently so. But all his other rapes were late-night back street jobs, and none of his other victims were blondes. Hertfordshire believed him, but I don’t.”
“No, me neither. But I suppose at the time they had no good reason not to, and it cleared the books for them. They’re not the only ones who snatch at the easy option.”
Joanne glowered. “With respect, sir, Blake wasn’t the easy option. He was a plausible suspect.”
“That’s history, Jo. I’m more interested in the future than the past.” Steve got up and paced restlessly behind the desk. “And these six cases are all still unsolved?”
“Apart from the Hertfordshire one, yes. He doesn’t leave much in the way of evidence. He used a condom. And cycling gear doesn’t leave a lot of fibre evidence. What we do have is a few pubic hairs from the Kensal Rise rape, which has given us a DNA profile. But so far there’s no match with any of the DNA samples on record.” Joanne closed her file and replaced it with the others. “There are no viable suspects in any of the outstanding cases. I don’t know where we start to look, boss.”
“Me neither. But I know a woman who might.” Steve came to a halt opposite the window and stared unseeingly at the depressing view beyond.
“Dr. Cameron?” Joanne asked.
Steve nodded.
“I thought she’d refused to work with the Met again?”
“She did. And she meant it.” He turned back to face her, an ironic smile on his face. “Hand me down my grovelling shoes.”
“You’ll be wanting a flak jacket as well,” Joanne said, remembering Fiona Cameron’s icy stare.
“I don’t doubt it, Jo. I don’t doubt it for one minute.”
TWENTY-NINE
A handful of miles away, Kit Martin was sitting in a greasy spoon, waiting for an HGV driver who should have crossed from Belgium overnight. According to a mutual friend, the trucker could fill Kit in on some of the scams that smugglers were pulling on the cross-Channel routes. The man claimed he was no smuggler himself, but he knew all the wrinkles and for a surprisingly small price, he was prepared to give Kit as much background as he could.
He hadn’t mentioned the meeting to Fiona; he knew his source was vouched for, but Fiona might place the trucker in the category of the strangers Kit wasn’t supposed to be meeting alone. But he needed the information this contact could provide, and besides, he felt at no risk here. Probably the most dangerous thing in the café was the heart attack on a plate disguised as the King Size All Day Breakfast. And now he’d heard from Steve that the Garda had found no evidence of death threats at Jane Elias’s home, he was even less inclined to live like a recluse afraid of his own shadow.