He explained that there had been three encrypted files on Emma Tysoe’s hard disk, each allotted a number that he thought represented the date it was created. 1706 was the seventeenth of June. The next was the twenty-second. The last was the twenty-fifth.
“Two days before she was murdered,” Diamond said to show he wasn’t completely adrift. “And we can now read it straight off the screen? Let’s go. It starts on the seventeenth, you said?”
Clive had better ways of spending the rest of the morning than sitting beside Peter Diamond. He gave him a quick lesson with the mouse, showed him how to access the files and left him to it.
Magic.
The first lines of text were on the screen, and suddenly Diamond was right where he wanted to be, inside the mind of the murdered woman, getting that precious insight he’d been denied up to now. So direct was the contact, so vivid, it was almost too intimate to take in a sustained read.
Had this 8.30 a.m. call about another profiling job. Just when I was starting to coast, and think of holidays. Bramshill insists no one else but me will do, and won’t give me any details except an address in Sussex. All very cloak and dagger. Just to cover my rear end, I’m going to keep this personal record of what happens and encrypt as I go along. I can’t keep everything in my head.
I’m flattered in a way to get this assignment, kidding myself I’m indispensable, but it’s a bloody nuisance too if I’m going to have to make up excuses for not going out with Ken. We’re supposed to be eating at Popjoy’s tomorrow night. Just my luck. Even if I get there it takes the pleasure out of a beautiful meal (not to mention the shag later) when you’ve looked at a mangled corpse the day before.
The upside is that I get out of the university for a bit. This end-of-semester time is when Chromik tries to think of jobs to keep people busy. I called the office and fixed it with Tara to take indefinite leave. More later.
I dressed for the country, smart casual, and drove to this house overlooking Bramber, a village tucked away below the South Downs in Sussex, and rather a dinky place. In fact there wasn’t much to see-of the murder scene, I mean-except police photos. It all happened three days ago, so they’d already removed the corpse and finished their forensics. Victim was Axel Summers, that smooth old (fiftyish?) film director who can talk about anything. Saw him on Question Time a few weeks ago speaking up for the right to choose, and rather liked him. Someone didn’t, obviously. He’d been hit through the head with a nine-inch arrow-a bolt, they call it-from a crossbow.
Archery isn’t my kind of sport. I had no idea a crossbow packed such force. In the photos you could see the point sticking out of the other side of his head. They tell me when it was a weapon of war a crossbow bolt was made to penetrate armour. The power is in the bow part (or ‘prod’), made of steel usually. The bowstring is pulled back to a catch, or ‘cocked’ (dear old Freud would have a field day with this jargon) with a lever or some winding mechanism far more powerful than you get with ordinary bows and arrows.
The reason they asked for a profiler is that the killer left a note- the usual paper and paste job-with a quote from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, “he stoppeth one of three,” and two extra names. Is this a serial murderer declaring himself? they want to know. Strictly between you and me, Computer, one of the names is the glamour boy golfer, Matthew Porter, and the other is gorgeous, pouting Anna Walpurgis, the one-time pop star.
“Get away!” said Diamond aloud. These were huge names. Already the decrypted files were yielding information he’d been denied. He took a gulp of coffee and scarcely noticed it was lukewarm.
Media people-and named. My first thought is that this killer must be some kind of attention-seeker. Egocentric, and either extremely stupid to announce his plan, or brilliant. I don’t see much between. Summers has been filming a big-budget movie of The Ancient Mariner, that strange, long poem by Coleridge we did in the fifth year at school. The wording of the message was straight from the poem, and so was the weapon. The SIO reminded me that the Ancient Mariner in the poem uses a crossbow to kill the albatross. Coincidence? I don’t think so. This is someone using murder as a melodramatic statement.
Does he have to be an insider, close enough to the victim to know what he was filming? Not necessarily. The Ancient Mariner project has been getting plenty of publicity. They brought over Patrick Devaney from Hollywood to play the main role, and he’s a megastar in the movie world. The budget runs to millions. With some arm-twisting from the Arts Council they managed to get some of Britain’s industrial giants to back it, companies like Superglass and British Metal. I said I couldn’t imagine how a poem, a long one admittedly, can be spun out into a feature-length film. The SIO-a literate policeman!-tells me they could do a lot with the life aboard ship and the character of the Mariner even before the story gets under way. There’s also a secondary plot involving the wedding guest the Mariner meets. And there are huge set-pieces ideal for all those special effects you expect in a movie these days.
God knows what happens now, because a lot of the film still has to be shot. Summers had finished directing the scenes with the star and was having a few days off. Up to now, they’ve put some kind of press embargo on the news of his murder, but it’s bound to break soon.
The police have already warned the other two “targets” and beefed up their security.
So what are my early thoughts? This could be a one-off murder. If the killer-the police team call him the Mariner-is an attention-seeker he may have thrown in a couple more juicy names just to see the effect. Somehow, I doubt it. I think he really means to get Porter and Walpurgis as well. This is an off-the-cuff reaction on my part, but I get the impression of a cold-blooded killer (unscientific terminology, but I’m doing my best to avoid the term psychopath) at work here, untroubled by conscience or emotion, figuring he’s so far ahead of the game he can safely post his intentions. It’s new in my experience, actually to name future victims. I can’t remember anything like this.
And murdering Summers must have been a pushover for him. The level of security at the scene was nil. It’s an isolated house built quite high up, well above the village, in a large, wooded garden with only a low iron railing around it. Summers was killed while seated outside on a bench that faced a gorgeous view to the west, watching the sunset and enjoying a g &t. Apparently this was his routine on fine evenings when he was home. If the Mariner knew of this, he had a good opportunity to choose his shooting position (do you shoot with a crossbow?). There was plenty of thick foliage only ten metres away, where the police say the killer probably stood or lay. No obvious footprints in soft earth, or fibres caught on the branches. He was ultra-careful to leave no trace except the bolt. They’ve carried out fingertip searches, but I’ll be surprised if anything is found.
Motive? We’ll see. At this stage it doesn’t look like theft. Summers had valuable paintings and some cash in the house, and according to the housekeeper (a man I haven’t yet met) everything is intact. Housekeeper, by the way, has an alibi for the evening of the murder. He knows of no feuds, no obvious enemies, though there’s always bitching in the TV and film world. Actually Summers had the reputation of being a charming bloke, generous to others in the profession and always willing to help people out. There are no women in the frame. The police think he was probably gay by inclination, but sexually inactive. He put a lot of energy into his work.
What does the method tell us about the murderer? I’m relying on what I’ve been told here. The crossbow is an eccentric choice of weapon, as accurate and deadly as any gun, the only drawback being… the drawback. Unlike a handgun it takes time to load. However, there can’t be all that many crossbows in circulation, and I gather the dishy detective is pinning his hopes on finding where it was obtained. There are archery clubs all over the country, but they mostly use the longbow. There aren’t more than a couple of hundred regular crossbowmen, he’s been told. But there’s no official register of these things. You don’t need a licence. Hunting using bows is against the law in this country, and that’s that. They can shoot at targets if they want or, more rarely, for distance.