On that weekend at the beginning of July, a lot of police leave was cancelled. There was not much grumbling from the team. They expected it, and with the prospect of a fourth killing at any moment, no one was inclined to argue.
Detective-Inspector Christopher Rushton, assembling his documentation for the team conference on Saturday morning, had put off his visit to seek reconciliation with his wife. That did not disappoint him: he was glad that the urgency of the hunt for the Strangler gave him the excuse to avoid a conversation he felt unable to handle. Those other women, the three dead victims of the Strangler, occupied his mind more and more. He wondered more acutely than most where the next victim might be found.
Lambert picked up Hook on his way to the station. It was still only nine, but Hook had been at work since six-thirty on his studies with the Open University. ‘It’s when they have to transmit a lot of their broadcasts,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind making way for the test match, but I sometimes think the latest American sit-com shouldn’t take priority.’
‘It’s the advance of philistinism,’ said Lambert portentously. ‘We import everything that is dire from America, and ignore their better facets.’
‘It isn’t their fault, but the OU certainly isn’t user-friendly,’ said Hook. He knew how his chief deprecated Americanisms, and was rewarded by a snort of derision from his right.
‘No good language ever came out of America,’ said Lambert firmly. ‘Remember that, Bert, if you aspire to masquerade as an educated man.’ They ran through the suburbs of Oldford, still only beginning to stir on this weekend morning. ‘Anyway, it’s good of you to come in to this conference when I said you needn’t. Old-fashioned and un-American of you to be so conscientious.’
‘ “Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called Conscience,” ’ quoted Hook with heavy solemnity.
‘A very English sentiment,’ said Lambert approvingly. ‘Bunyan, I expect.’
‘Chap called George Washington, actually,’ said Hook.
There was a pause before Lambert said rather desperately, ‘Sanctimonious little sod who cut down fruit trees and then boasted about it.’
It was Hook’s only moment of amusement in a dark weekend.
Lambert was not as conservative in his views of policing as he often pretended to be. It was he who had arranged for a forensic psychologist to be present at their conference on that Saturday morning.
In the courtroom, psychiatrists are the traditional enemies of policemen, called by the defence to introduce doubts into cases that seem open and shut, producing views on the personalities of those charged with criminal offences which seem naive and unhelpful to those charged with the preservation of law and order. During the course of investigations, however, their views on the likely personalities and psychological make-ups of people who have committed serious crimes are sought more and more readily by the CID, particularly in the case of so-called ‘motiveless’ offences.
Stanley Warboys was not at all vague or unworldly. He was a small man, with a neat beard, closely cut reddish-brown hair and alert brown eyes. He reminded Lambert of a highly intelligent squirrel. But instead of nuts, he stored information, and when he had eventually digested it, he came up with useful and original ideas. He was not afraid to go out on a limb, and though he often emphasized that his ideas on the kind of person they might seek out for particular crimes were quite speculative, he had not so far been made to look ridiculous when criminals had eventually been discovered.
He joined a small but highly informed group. There were no more than seven in all; even the Chief Constable had agreed to content himself with a mere report on their exchanges. Lambert and Hook, Rushton and ‘Jack’ Johnson, the officer who had taken charge of the Scene of Crime team, were the policemen representing the sixty officers who were now involved in the search for the Strangler.
The only policeman from outside the team was Sergeant Paul Williams, the drug squad officer operating under cover at the Roosters. He was twenty-four, a slight, nervous-looking man with jeans and a shirt streaked with white paint; his chin was covered with a two-day growth of stubble. Serial killers transcended even the boundaries of police bureaucracy, so that Lambert had met no difficulties in having him attend this meeting. To preserve his cover, Williams had come to the station crouched beneath plastic bags in the back of Johnson’s car, and would depart in the same way.
The only other person there was Don Haworth, the police surgeon who had shown such a lively supporting interest in their work. To Lambert’s secret relief, Cyril Burgess, the pathologist who might normally have brought his irritating interest in crime fiction to their deliberations, was on holiday in Austria.
‘The idea,’ said Lambert in his role of unofficial Chair, ‘is that we put together the information we have and add to it our own ideas. I want no one to be diffident because he is afraid of looking foolish. We have a murderer who is almost certainly deranged, no discernible motive, and a string of killings which is going to become longer if people like us don’t come up with some ideas. Ideas, not answers – I don’t want anyone to hold back on suggestions for lack of evidence at the moment. Let’s have your thoughts however bizarre: they needn’t go down on paper or even be retailed outside this room.’
Despite this invitation to be adventurous, Rushton began with a cautious thought, checking his own conclusions against those of the others. ‘The case seems to be connected in some way with the Roosters club. All the victims frequented the place to some extent. Our leading suspects have connections with either Oldford Football Club or the Roosters itself.’ He was beginning to check things off on his fingers, in his normal, rational way, though he looked as if he had not slept for days.
Hook said, ‘But our list of suspects isn’t exclusive. Our man may be someone who watches for girls leaving there and follows them. Someone we haven’t even identified yet.’
Rushton frowned, irritated at having his thoughts interrupted. He felt an old tension with Hook, partly because the Sergeant was an older man, partly because Hook had refused promotion and preferred to remain as Sergeant, conferring upon himself that totally unwitting superiority which comes from integrity in an ambitious profession. Rushton could now add Hook’s late but happy marriage and family to the list of his resentments against him, though he was totally unconscious of that.
He said brusquely, ‘I take it we are agreed at least that we are looking for a man?’
The meeting looked automatically to Warboys, who simply nodded and didn’t enlarge. Rushton said, ‘Then perhaps we should go through our list of suspects before we indulge in any lateral thinking.’ He had not intended this as a dig against Lambert’s encouragement of speculation, but it came out as such. The DI was white and tense.
He said, ‘Let’s start with Vic Knowles, our only non-local suspect. That perhaps makes it more significant that he should be in the area of all three killings on the nights they occurred. Sergeant Johnson now has the forensic reports on the examination of his car, which most of you probably haven’t yet heard.’
Johnson took his cue, reporting sensational material in an even, unexcited voice, almost as if he was in court. ‘These findings relate mainly to the second killing, that of Harriet Brown. We gave Knowles’s car a detailed examination the next day. Fibres from the back seat of Knowles’s car are certainly from Hetty Brown’s clothing: there are samples from both her skirt and sweater. There were also fibres from Knowles’s trousers and shirt present on the clothing taken from the body.’
Rushton said, ‘This is good to have, but it isn’t a clincher. When I interviewed Knowles about that night, he admitted to picking up a prostitute outside the Roosters and having sex with her in the back of his car. According to him, she then got out and left him there. Said she was near home. His story is that he didn’t even know her name. We’ve been to the spot and it is very close to the place where she shared a flat. He’s told us a pack of lies earlier in his interview, though; all I’m saying is that these findings don’t contradict his story.’
Johnson said, ‘We took hairs of Vic Knowles from a golf cap in his car and the forensic boys did a DNA test on them. We also now have the test on the semen samples from the corpse. They are from the same man.’
There was a little stir around the room. Lambert said, ‘What about other findings from the Scene of the Crime team for Harriet Brown’s murder?’
‘Precious little that is useful, I’m afraid. That empty house where she was found was too popular a venue for us to pin things positively to the time of the murder. There was a print from a formal city shoe which was fairly recent, but of course, we couldn’t say definitely that it relates to the death. It might have been made earlier in the day. Size nine and a half or ten. A size which could be worn by Vic Knowles, but also by Charlie Kemp, Ben Dexter or Darren Pickering.’
‘And by me, Sergeant,’ Don Haworth reminded him with a sheepish grin. ‘Don’t forget I was there very soon after the discovery of the corpse.’
‘But you went in with bags over your feet, Doctor. And in any case, you were wearing trainers, not city shoes.’ If Johnson was pleased to be able to demonstrate his efficiency as a SOC officer, he gave no outward sign beyond a small answering smile. ‘There is one other thing about the killing of Hetty Brown, though. The pathologist’s examination of the corpse showed no sign of violence beyond the strangulation marks on the neck. There had been intercourse within the hour before death, but it was not rape, unless we assume that the victim had been passive to avoid injury. There was also no sign of robbery. The girl’s purse was intact, as in the other two killings. There was almost forty pounds in it; Knowles says he paid her twenty for sex in the back of his car.’
Lambert said, ‘So Knowles had had intercourse, probably as he told it, but we don’t know yet whether he killed her or not.’
Stanley Warboys said, ‘From the point of view of the psychologist, the most significant difference between the first two killings is that Julie Salmon was violently raped before she was killed, whereas Hetty Brown was not.’
Lambert said, ‘Does that imply two different killers?’ His mind was reeling with the prospect.
‘Not necessarily.’ The forensic psychologist looked round at the other six men, like a teacher sizing up a seminar group and wondering how much knowledge he could take for granted. ‘You probably know that ninety per cent of rapes are really about power rather than sexual gratification. When further violence follows, as it did in the case of your first victim, it is usually for one of two reasons. The first is simply panic: perhaps the girl is screaming, or the man knows that she will reveal to others what he has done. He commits the still greater crime of murder in an attempt to silence the only witness to the rape.’
Rushton said, ‘Would that indicate that the rapist was known to the victim?’
‘Often: far more often than not, indeed; but not exclusively. Again, the majority of people who kill because they panic are of low mentality; with few personal resources at their command, they lose their heads and silence their witness in the only way they can see.’
Lambert said, ‘You mentioned a second reason why murder might follow immediately upon rape.’
Warboys turned his shrewd brown eyes upon the Superintendent, rested them there for a moment, then flicked them around the other expectant faces. ‘An extension of the most usual reason for rape: the assertion of power. Men may either find the rape insufficient to assuage that urge, or be so inflamed by the rape that it excites them to further demonstrations of their physical supremacy.’
‘Like a drug?’ said Hook.
‘If you like. There are certain chemical reactions within the body, indeed, which produce their own stimulations: the best-known one is the production of adrenalin.’
It was Don Haworth, as if indicating that doctors as well as policemen could be in deep waters when it came to psychology, who said, ‘But why should our man rape and kill Julie Salmon, then kill the other two girls without raping them?’
Warboys smiled. For a moment, he was a scientist intrigued by a problem, not an expert called into the investigation of a chain of grisly murders. ‘He might have known the first girl personally, but been hardly acquainted with the others. Or he could simply have found himself more excited by the killings than the rape. Murder made him feel even more powerful, even more the master of these women, than rape did.’ He stopped smiling and looked apologetically at the grim faces around him. ‘If I’m right, that would also help to explain the accelerating rate of the killings. There are nineteen days between the deaths of Julie Salmon and Harriet Brown, but only three between those of Harriet Brown and Amy Coleford.’
‘Which means he might kill again very soon?’ asked Lambert glumly.
‘I’m afraid so. If I’m right and he sees the opportunity. It’s all hypothetical, as you realize.’
Rushton was very white. He said, ‘Yes, it is. Is there anything else you can tell us about the man we’re looking for?’ His voice was unexpectedly harsh in the quiet room; it was impossible to be certain whether this stemmed from a contempt for psychological speculations or from some other kind of strain.
Warboys was completely unruffled. He said, ‘I’d prefer to hear the rest of the forensic findings before we go any further.’
Sergeant Johnson, who had been waiting to speak for some time, said, ‘Now that we can compare the reports on the semen samples from the first two murders, we know that they were not from the same man.’
There was a long silence round the table. Eventually Rushton said, ‘Does this put Knowles in the clear for murder?’
Lambert said, ‘No. It doesn’t really help us. It means that Knowles didn’t rape Julie Salmon. But he could still have killed her, if he found her in a distressed condition after the rapist had left. Alternatively, he could be telling the truth, in which case the murderer of Julie Salmon might have killed Hetty Brown after she had left Knowles.’
Rushton said slowly, ‘Knowles was in this area on the night of the killing of Julie Salmon, although he lived a hundred miles away at the time. It’s the most damning fact against him. When you put that together with his presence at the time of the other two murders, it seems a remarkable coincidence. But perhaps it isn’t all that remarkable. We’ve investigated over a hundred men so far in connection with these killings, but found only four who apparently had the opportunity to commit all three of them and have no convincing alibi for any one of them.’
Don Haworth said, ‘You mentioned that the man who raped Julie Salmon might have had some previous relationship with her. Darren Pickering was her boyfriend until a week or two before she died. I was her GP, and I know how unhappy her parents were about the association.’
‘And he had opportunity to commit the other two killings,’ growled Rushton.
The drugs squad sergeant, Paul Williams, found himself at last with something to contribute. ‘Pickering isn’t as tough as he pretends to be – I’ve seen plenty of him at the Roosters. I’d say he was genuinely very upset by the death of Julie Salmon.’
Stanley Warboys said, ‘I’m afraid that wouldn’t eliminate him as a suspect. It’s quite common for people who kill after they have been rejected as sexual partners to be overcome with emotion afterwards. Sometimes it’s remorse; more often it’s a complex of feelings. As I think we agreed at the outset of this meeting, we are looking for an unbalanced mind. Our problem is that such minds, particularly those suffering from schizoic disturbance, often display quite normal reactions once they are operating away from the immediate area of the killings. That’s why even people close to them sometimes don’t suspect them of their crimes.’
Williams turned to Rushton. ‘Was there anything among Julie Salmon’s possessions which would implicate Darren Pickering?’
Rushton shook his head reluctantly, but it was Johnson who spoke. ‘No. There was one strange thing, though. I said there was nothing at the scene of crime to indicate robbery, and Julie Salmon’s purse was left in the pocket of the jacket she was wearing. But her handbag was missing, and it’s never turned up. Her parents were sure she had it with her, and it certainly wasn’t in the house. We’ve rather assumed that some person unknown removed it from the scene of the crime well after she was dead – remember she wasn’t found until some two days after she was killed. But it could have been the murderer, if the bag contained something to connect him with the crime.’
Hook said, ‘Her parents were not as down on Darren Pickering as I expected. Apparently Julie had had some dealings with an older man – no one seems sure whether there was a sexual relationship or not and she never revealed his identity to her parents. I think they thought Darren Pickering was the lesser of two evils. At least he was about her own age: she was only nineteen when she died, don’t forget.’
Don Haworth said, ‘I understand Pickering has a history of violence.’
Rushton said, ‘Various punch-ups, yes. He also left the Roosters shortly before Harriet Brown was killed, and he was out on his motorbike at the time when Amy Coleford died, without any witnesses as to his whereabouts.’
Paul Williams said, ‘For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t make him a leader in the football hooliganism you’re going to have to snuff out next season. 1 should keep your eye on Ben Dexter in that respect: he fancies himself as a manipulator of puppets. Incidentally, both of them have used pot, and I think Dexter’s dabbling with heroin. It’s possible he’s dealing, but we’re after the big boys, so please don’t raise it with him yet. I mention it only because it might have some bearing on this case.’
They looked expectantly at Stanley Warboys, but he shook his head. ‘I haven’t seen Dexter, so I couldn’t venture an opinion. If he is of a violent disposition, those tendencies of course might be released as any others might by the administration of drugs.’
Lambert said, ‘If he confines his drugs to his leisure hours, that might explain why he was so easily deflated when we saw him in his working environment. He started by being derisory about our efforts, but he collapsed pretty quickly. But he does seem to look for kicks in outwitting the police. I suppose there could be an element of that in these killings.’
Warboys said, ‘Yes. It’s a factor in most serial killings, especially as time goes on and the murderer remains undetected. It has led several killers to ever more daring and shocking crimes, particularly when press coverage has increased and dwelt on the bafflement of the police. I notice that your man is now universally known as the Strangler. It could be worse: there is some evidence that animal soubriquets – the Black Panther and so on – excite minds which are already disturbed to great displays of violence and what they consider invincibility.’
Williams said, ‘Making fools of the police would certainly be attractive to Dexter: the father he claims to hate was a senior policeman. I’ve listened to him in the Roosters and it isn’t just a front. He seems to have a contempt for all authority; perhaps it stems from his days in a public school.’ He looked quickly at Warboys, as if in apology for this outbreak of amateur psychology. ‘That’s what’s behind his preoccupation with organizing football mayhem – which incidentally he claims he did on a bigger scale at West Ham before he came down here.’
Hook said, ‘Dexter’s Porsche was sighted within a quarter of a mile of the spot where Hetty Brown was killed, at the time of the murder. He also left the Roosters at about nine o’clock on the night when Amy Coleford was killed – much earlier than usual. No sightings of his car in Gloucester yet, but the uniformed boys are working on it.’
Hook tried to keep his rubicund features suitably impartial. He very much wanted their man to be Dexter: he only realized that as he spoke. No doubt it had something to do with his Barnardo’s boy background: Dexter’s schooling and higher education could hardly have been more different from his own. But he did not feel guilty about his feelings. Someone had done these killings, and was looking to do more: it had as well be that gilded young psychopath Dexter as anyone else.
Lambert said quietly, ‘Charlie Kemp is just as much in the frame as Dexter or the others. More so, in fact, in that we know from his wife’s statement that he’s lying about his movements on the nights of at least the last two killings.’ There was a murmur of satisfaction among the five policemen around the table: Kemp was a villain who had got away with far too much in the past. They would all be pleased if they could make this one stick.
Sensing the mood, Lambert went rapidly through the facts about Kemp, surprising the team as he had done often before by not referring to a note at any point. ‘We know that he knew the first victim, Julie Salmon, because she frequented the Roosters, often with Darren Pickering. But that is all we have been able to pin down. The case is strongest against him on the second and third murders. We are fairly certain that Harriet Brown was killed in the hour after midnight on 12th June –’
‘I did emphasize you shouldn’t take that as gospel, you know,’ put in Don Haworth with a modest grin.
Lambert’s acknowledging smile was briefer, a mere disguise for his irritation at the interruption. ‘We aren’t in a court of law yet. When we are, no doubt we’ll have enough evidence to make sure that you’re not embarrassed under oath, Doctor. We now have Mrs Kemp’s word that her husband was not in the house that night until one thirty-three, despite his earlier statement to us that he was home by midnight.’
Paul Williams said quietly, as if reluctant to reveal information on a man he had been watching in another context. ‘Kemp took Amy Coleford up to his suite at the Roosters two nights before her death.’
‘Why?’ The monosyllable came like a pistol shot, reflecting Lambert’s annoyance that the information should have been held back until now.
Williams said, ‘It didn’t seem important until a few hours ago, when I heard that Amy had become a Strangler victim. Kemp has always taken girls up there in the three months while I’ve been operating at the Roosters, to have it away with them – there are various rumours among the regulars about how kinky it gets. I think he’s planning to set up some of the girls who are already on the game in houses he will control.
‘You will understand that this information is secondary as far as we’re concerned: our primary concern is with the drugs operation. We have an interest in Kemp because we think he may be involved in that, but we haven’t enough evidence yet to be able to move in. It’s the big boys we want, and they’re the most shadowy figures, as always.’
It was a long speech, and he gave the impression that every word was wrung grudgingly from him. The drugs squad operated with autonomy from normal CID work. Now Williams had the complication that his investigations were being overtaken, his cover threatened, by the oldest and darkest crime of all, and he did not like it.
Lambert understood all this, and knew also the tension under which this taut, unkempt-looking young man was operating. Drug barons were powerful and unscrupulous men; discovery could mean disappearance and death for those who sought to hunt them down. But Lambert had his own tensions, with a serial killer who had struck three times and might do so again at any moment. ‘Have you any suggestions as to how Kemp’s sexual activities might be linked with these killings?’
Williams, who looked as though he wished the discussion could become more general again, said, ‘Harriet Brown had been up there as well. I don’t know about Julie Salmon: she wasn’t on the game. But if all three girls had turned him down, that could be a link, I suppose.’ He looked rather desperately at the forensic psychologist, but Stanley Warboys neither confirmed nor denied his suggestion.
Lambert said, ‘Kemp lied to us about his movements on the night of Amy Coleford’s death, as he did with Harriet Brown. He was in Gloucester with Vic Knowles. He told us he left the Dog and Partridge just before ten, whereas Knowles tells us that it was at half past nine. More significantly, he says he was home before eleven, but his wife tells us he was not in until almost midnight. That leaves two and a half hours unaccounted for, and it covers the period when Amy Coleford was killed.’
He looked round the table, his expression inviting comment. Rushton said, ‘I suggest we get all these four in again and grill them. Using people who haven’t seen them before.’
Lambert looked at him for a moment, conjecturing about his pallid cheeks and his intense air. Rushton seemed more determined than ever that this crime should be pinned to one of the four quickly. That was understandable, but he would have expected him to be cooler, more objective. ‘We can do that, certainly, and see if we can unearth any discrepancies in the stories they tell. Kemp for one will demand his lawyer, which means he will say nothing and challenge us to charge him before we go any further. We must keep our minds open: it’s still possible that the Strangler may be none of these men. I’d like to hear what our forensic psychologist thinks, now that he is aware of what we know at this point.’
Stanley Warboys put both his hands on the table in front of him, studying his closely pared nails for a moment, as if he used them as an aid to concentration. ‘I have listened to what you say about your main suspects. We have to bear in mind the Superintendent’s last remark, that it may be none of the men we have been discussing. So I think it would be best if I couched my thoughts in general terms.’ He had the air of a man launching a dry academic treatise, but there was no lack of attention among the six men who listened to him.
‘Anything I have to say is obviously hypothetical. But perhaps I should emphasize that I do not work in isolation; I try to put together the scene of crime findings and other forensic evidence with any thoughts I might have on the psychology behind a crime. One thing I would be reasonably certain of is that you are looking for a man living alone – but not necessarily physically alone. This man does not seem a likely killer in his normal working and social life; that is probably why you have had no useful suggestions yet from the public. He may well be living with a companion who does not suspect, or has not yet cared to confront, the possibility that he is a killer. The Yorkshire Ripper had a wife, but he lived a completely different life outside his house.’
Rushton said, ‘Should we expect our man to have previous form? A history of violence?’
‘Not necessarily, I’m afraid. No doubt you’ve had men combing criminal records in the last week, but the trouble with serial killers is that by definition they have embarked on a new kind of crime for them. I think we would agree that this mind is unbalanced, and the things which throw minds off balance don’t confine themselves to those who’ve been in prison. I think you’re probably looking for a highly intelligent man, but that doesn’t necessarily mean someone with a lot of formal education.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Don Haworth’s question had a ring of professional curiosity.
‘For a start, he’s outwitted an intensive search by a police machine which is experienced and highly efficient, whatever the popular press might be saying about you this morning.’ Warboys permitted himself a small, ironic smile. ‘Moreover, he seems to be taking a delight in outwitting your efforts. When you concentrated your resources upon the Oldford area, as all the previous evidence suggested you should, he killed in Gloucester. Either he watched your precautions, or he anticipated them. His third murder was a taunt to the efforts of the sixty officers detailed to catch him. And the way he laid out the second and third corpses, like ritual sacrifices or pious emblems, is another form of black humour.’
‘It’s almost as though he was familiar with our methods.’ Sergeant Johnson looked embarrassed as the faces turned to him; he had voiced the thought even as it came into his mind, without weighing it. He was a stolid figure, with short, carefully cut hair, a conscientious scene of crime officer whose normal work involved the patient accumulation of scraps of physical evidence. He found this more tentative and oblique approach fascinating.
Warboys looked at Johnson, then slid his bottom lip thoughtfully beneath his front teeth. It made him look more than ever like an alert red squirrel. ‘It’s possible he does know police work. And possible also that he has a degree of medical knowledge. All three girls died by vagal inhibition within a few seconds. They were expertly despatched, and that efficiency probably appeals to our man: I think he will have a perverted pride in the swift competence of his killing.’
Rushton said harshly, his words almost treading upon the calm phrases of the psychologist, ‘Are you saying that we should be looking for someone with medical training?’
As Warboys shook his head, it was the police surgeon, Don Haworth, who said, ‘Not necessarily. I examined all the bodies. I agree about the efficiency of despatch: not more than a few seconds in each case, with the girl probably not permitted a single scream. But the degree of medical knowledge required is minimal. It could be someone like a male nurse, but it could also be someone who’s learned how to kill: there are plenty of people who have been taught a little karate and become very dangerous to the rest of us. It could even be someone who’s simply read it up.’
‘Like a professional man,’ said Hook.
‘Yes. Or someone who comes into contact with violence and death in the course of his work,’ said Warboys quietly.
‘Someone like an ambulance driver,’ said Johnson.
‘Or a policeman,’ said Warboys.
It is not easy to shock the kind of group to whom the forensic psychologist addressed this thought, but for fifteen seconds there was an electric silence in the room. The policemen looked to Lambert to speak, but he said nothing. It was the hoarse voice of DI Rushton which eventually said, ‘Is that a serious suggestion?’
‘Perfectly serious. But not exclusive.’ Warboys chose his words as primly as a man eating cherries with a knife and fork. He lifted the fingers he had studied at the beginning of his exposition and steepled them six inches in front of his eyes. ‘To summarize my thoughts, for what they are worth: I think you are looking for an intelligent man, who enjoys the thought of outwitting his hunters; a man who knows how to kill quickly and silently, and has a pride in that efficiency; who has a degree therefore of medical knowledge, but one he could have acquired in a variety of ways; who has been so excited by his first killing that he has been led on to others and is unlikely to stop at three.’
The silence this time was one of assimilation rather than outrage. It was the first time that Lambert had spoken in many minutes when he said, ‘Does that exclude any of our present suspects?’
Warboys said heavily, ‘Not from what I understand. Neither Kemp nor Pickering has much in the way of formal qualifications, but neither of them is stupid: in their different ways, they have the kind of shrewdness, and certainly the delight in outwitting police procedures, that I have suggested.’
Rushton said, ‘And Knowles likes to give the impression of being a rough diamond, but he was actually quite well educated in his youth. Could have gone to university apparently, if he hadn’t become a professional footballer.’
Williams said, ‘The best fit for your profile is probably Ben Dexter. He’s sharp, loves violence, and delights in outwitting the police. And he’s a drug user. On a trip, I could see him strangling girls.’
Warboys said, ‘I agree he seems marginally the most likely of your suspects. The way the last two corpses have been tidily arranged for inspection – Harriet Brown like an effigy on a mediaeval tomb and Amy Coleford like a woman sitting quietly in a chair by the fireside – argues both an insolence and a need to taunt those pursuing him. It also reinforces the view that the first killing, where the corpse was not treated like that but left as it fell, stemmed from a more personal hatred of Julie Salmon. That suggests in turn that there was some sort of previous relationship between killer and victim. But I must reiterate that the psychological profile I have outlined doesn’t exclude any of your four. Nor does it mean necessarily that your killer must come from within that group.’
Lambert was not sure whether it had been a good idea to bring this precise, almost pedantic man, into their discussions. Probably his observations would be useful, once they had had the chance to digest them and put them together with the more normal work of a murder investigation. He wound up the meeting quickly.
It was when they were preparing to depart that Warboys, gathering his papers into a neat folder, said, ‘There is one further thing. It is impossible that with three murders already you should not intensify police pressure and activity, both in Oldford and further afield. I do not see that you could do otherwise. However, I have to warn you that this may well incite your killer to a further demonstration of what he considers his superiority.’