In a small conference room off the main corridor in the headquarters of Tayside Police, three detectives sat looking at each other. On the table between them were six photographs. Three of the pictures depicted females smiling, relaxed and vibrantly alive. The remainder showed the same women after they were dead – two of them with the life choked out of them, the other lying in a pool of blood that had poured from her innards.
Although she was the junior officer, DI Petra Novak was directing the meeting because she had called it. She looked in turn at each of the two men sitting opposite and waited for them to say something. For the previous fifteen minutes she had spoken uninterrupted and had tried to persuade them that there was a good and urgent reason why they were there. Their silence and expressions told her they did not agree.
Detective Chief Inspector James Brewster stood up and took off the jacket of his polyester suit. Sweat stains darkened his armpits and the shirt that had once been white was now starting to stick to his back. He opened the button of the too-tight collar and slackened the knot of his unremarkable tie.
He was the first to speak. ‘Sorry, dear,’ he said, shaking his head and looking at Petra. His eyes were lifeless and betrayed a complete lack of interest. ‘I just don’t buy it. Serial killer? More like serial waste of time. You haven’t even come close to making a case.’ He waved a hand in the direction of the photographs. ‘Where’s your identical MO? Two of them strangled – by different methods – and the other so viciously assaulted up the jacksie that she bleeds to death.’ He was dismissive. ‘Did nobody tell you at police college that serial loonies always revert to type?’ Brewster sat down and looked at the other man in the room for support.
Detective Chief Inspector Michael Law was everything that Brewster was not. In his perfectly pressed navy-blue suit, crisp shirt and fashionably discreet tie, he was cool, in control. He’d recently been made up to a divisional head of CID with Fife Police – the name had probably helped. He nodded slowly, wanting to disagree with his pedestrian opposite number from Aberdeen, to distance himself from him, but he was unable to. He spoke deliberately, reluctantly. ‘I understand where you’re coming from, Petra, but Jim’s right. There’s no evidence – just some coincidences,’ he said.
The DCI from the south side of the River Tay picked up the photographs of Alison Brown, Ginny Williams and Claire Bowman. He leafed through them, studying their laughing faces again but taking no time over their death masks. ‘The fact they all had fathers in the police is interesting but it’s hardly a clincher,’ Law said. ‘Do you know how many policemen there are in the world? It’s a coincidence – maybe a big one – but still just a coincidence.’ He pressed on. ‘All the women come from different parts of the country – one of them from a different part of the world – so where’s your connection?’ He spread his hands. ‘There’s not a single piece of evidence to indicate that their paths might have crossed, never mind them actually knowing each other. OK, there might have been sexual activity before they died but the DNA is different so we have different killers.’ He looked at Petra, crossed his arms over his immaculate jacket, leaned back in his seat and waited for her to respond.
She did so at once. ‘Surely they told you at police college that the victims of serial killers rarely know each other,’ she said, defiance filling her voice. ‘I’m not aware that the thirteen women Peter Sutcliffe hit with his hammer attended tea parties together. Or, for that matter, that the thirty-plus victims of Ted Bundy ever clapped eyes on each other. They came from different states across America, for God’s sake. The thing that unites the victims is the person who put them to death. You both know that. I understand what you’re saying about sex but who’s to say that the person who left the DNA has to be the murderer? I can give you an explanation for that.’
‘Give it,’ Brewster and Law said in unison.
‘Right, what about this?’ Petra said. ‘You have a perv – let’s say he’s a cop – who watches through the window as the victims have sex with their boyfriends. But he’s not just a peeping Tom who gets his satisfaction by doing this and playing with himself – he’s a homicidal maniac who has to do more. So he waits until the boyfriends leave. Then he goes in and pleasures himself in the way he likes best – by satisfying his blood lust. OK, I know you can easily pick holes in all that but it shows there are possibilities.’
Brewster and Law looked at each other but said nothing.
Before they could respond, Petra rose from her chair and walked round the table until she was standing beside them. She looked at them in turn again, this time not inviting them to speak but willing them to remain silent. ‘It’s because you can’t cope with the idea that a policeman might be who we’re after, isn’t it? You just can’t handle that, can you?’ She knew she was being insubordinate but didn’t care.
DCI Law looked up at her, ignoring her rebelliousness. His lips moved slightly. He smiled sardonically. ‘And you can’t manage the idea that your boyfriend from the press might be wrong, can you?’ he said, his eyes not leaving her face.
Almost before he stopped speaking a crimson flush had rushed up from DI Novak’s neck and into her cheeks. ‘He’s not my boyfriend – definitely not.’ She spat out the last two words with firmness. ‘Are you really saying the notes he was sent and the pieces cut from the newspapers in the library have no relevance?’ She struggled to keep a mocking tone from her voice.
Brewster and Law fought to be first to reply. The detective chief inspector from Aberdeen won. ‘How do you know someone’s not just having him on? Taking the piss?’ Brewster said. ‘It has been known. Just because he’s a flash investigative reporter from London doesn’t mean somebody can’t make a horse’s backside of him.’ Brewster laughed at the prospect.
The composed DCI Law waited for Brewster’s mirth to subside. He brushed non-existent fluff from the razor crease of his trousers, smoothed down the silk tie with its shadow stripe. ‘Look, Petra, just because poor Claire Bowman was raped and murdered by an ASP baton, it doesn’t follow it was a policeman who was using it,’ he said. ‘They’re not exactly impossible to acquire if you’re a civvy.’
She had been saving some ammunition. ‘It wasn’t just a police baton,’ she said softly. ‘The tie used to strangle Alison Brown was black. So was the belt that throttled Ginny Williams. I’ve checked and the belt is identical to the kind issued to some forces. Sounds like parts of a police uniform to me.’
Law interrupted, ‘The tie – full length, was it?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Novak answered, an unspoken question on her face.
‘That rules us out then,’ Law replied with a gleeful smile. ‘All our guys wear clip-ons. Or is that something else they neglected to explain to you at police college? Can’t have the villains strangling us when we’re fighting them off!’
Law looked over at Brewster. They laughed together, simultaneously licking their index fingers before holding them up. ‘One–nil,’ they said in unison.
Petra remained silent, allowing them their moment of triumph. Her mind was in overdrive. She had a flashback to a semi-formal evening at the Scottish Police College at Tulliallan. ‘Not quite, gentlemen,’ she said slowly. ‘Some senior officers still prefer proper length ties. Ask around and I think you’ll find I’m right.’ She wet the index finger on her right hand and lifted it. ‘One–all, I think,’ she said.
The three detectives continued to speak for another fifteen minutes. Despite their stated misgivings, the visiting chief inspectors from the forces on either side of the Tayside Police area promised they would work together with DI Novak. She listened to their assurances of co-operation and politely thanked them for their attendance. Inwardly, she sighed at their scepticism, forgetting that that was how she had felt when McBride had first revealed his theory of connected murder victims.
As the two men were about to leave, she made a suggestion. ‘Since you’re co-operating so helpfully, we’d best give the inquiry an operational name – you know how our superiors enjoy these things.’
Brewster shrugged. ‘Please yourself. What do you fancy?’
‘Something with “tri” in it – you know, for three, as in three police forces,’ she explained.
Law made the first offer, ‘What about Trichomonas?’
Brewster looked blank.
Novak smiled sweetly. ‘Oh, nice. You want us to name it after a sexually transmitted disease.’
The chief inspector from Fife grinned but said nothing.
Brewster brightened. ‘I know – Tripe!’ He could barely get the word out for laughing.
‘My turn,’ Novak said. ‘We’ll call it Operation Tribune.’
The two chief inspectors nodded absently. ‘Fine,’ each of them said.
As she bade them farewell at the lift in the corridor outside the conference room, she allowed herself a private smile. The name of a newspaper – how appropriate, she told herself.