Tony grinned. The perfectly contrived lead into the next subject. Thanks, Simon. Today, Im going to hand out your first assignment, the preamble to which is the beginners guide to signature versus MO. Anybody know what Im talking about?
Kay Hallam, the other woman on the team, raised her hand half a dozen inches and looked questioningly at Tony. He nodded. She tucked her light brown hair behind her ears in a gesture hed come to recognize as Kays keynote mechanism for looking feminine and vulnerable to defuse criticism, particularly when she was about to make a point she was absolutely sure of. MO is dynamic, signature is static, she said.
Thats one way of putting it, Tony said. However, its probably a bit too technical for the plods among us, he added with a grin, pointing his finger one by one at the other five. He pushed back his chair and started moving restlessly round the room as he talked. MO means modus operandi. Latin. The way of doing. When we use it in a criminal context, we mean the series of actions that the perpetrator committed in the process of achieving his goal, the crime. In the early days of profiling, police officers, and to a large degree psychologists, were very literal about their idea of a serial offender. It was somebody who did pretty much the same things every time to achieve pretty much the same results. Except that they usually showed escalation, moving, say, from assaulting a prostitute to beating a womans brains out with a hammer.
As we discovered more, though, we realized we werent the only ones capable of learning from our mistakes. We were dealing with criminals who were intelligent and imaginative enough to do exactly the same. That meant we had to get our heads round the idea that the MO was something that could change quite drastically from one offence to the next because the offender found that a particular course of action wasnt very effective. So hed adapt. His first murder could be a strangulation, but maybe our killer feels that took too long, was too noisy, frightened him too much, stressed him rather than allowing him to enjoy his fulfilment. Next time out, he smashes her skull in with a crowbar. Too messy. So number three, he stabs. And the investigators write them off as three separate killings because the MO looks so different.
What doesnt change is what we call, for the sake of giving it a name, the signature. The sig, for short. Tony stopped pacing and leaned against the window sill. The sig doesnt change because its the raison dêtre of the offence. Its what gives the perpetrator his sense of satisfaction.
So what does this signature consist of? Well, its all the bits of behaviour that exceed what is actually necessary to commit the crime. The ritual of the offence. To satisfy the perpetrator, the signature elements have to be acted out every time he goes out on a mission, and they have to be performed in the same style every time. Examples of signature in a killer might be things like: does he strip the victim? Does he make a neat pile of the victims clothes? Does he use cosmetics on the victim after death? Is he having sex with the victim postmortem? Is he performing some kind of ritualistic mutilation like cutting off their breasts or penises or ears?
Simon looked faintly queasy. Tony wondered how many murder victims hed seen so far. He would have to grow a thicker skin or else be prepared to put up with the jibes of colleagues who would enjoy watching the profiler lose his lunch over another vitiated victim. A serial offender must accomplish signature activities to fulfil himself, to make the act meaningful, Tony continued. Its about meeting a variety of needs to dominate, to inflict pain, to provoke distinct responses, to achieve sexual release. The means can vary, but the end remains constant.
He took a deep breath and tried to keep his mind off the very particular variations hed seen at first hand. For a killer whose pleasure comes from inflicting pain and hearing victims scream, its immaterial whether he his voice faltered as irresistible images climbed into his head. Whether he They were all looking at him now and he desperately struggled to look momentarily distracted rather than shipwrecked. Whether he ties them up and cuts them, or whether he
Whether he whips them with wire, Shaz said, her voice casual, her expression reassuring.
Exactly, Tony said, recovering fast. Nice to see youve got such a tender imagination, Shaz.
Typical woman, eh? Simon said with a grunt of laughter.
Shaz looked faintly embarrassed. Before the joke could escalate, Tony continued. So you might have two bodies whose physical conditions are very different. But when you examine the scenario, things have been done that were additional to the act of killing and the ultimate gratification has been the same. Thats your signature.
He paused, his control firmly in place again, and looked around, checking he was taking them all with him. One of the men looked dubious. At its most simplistic, he said, think about petty criminals. Youve got a burglar who steals videos. Thats all he goes for, just videos, because hes got a fence who gives him a good deal. He robs terraced houses, going in through the back yard. But then he reads in the local paper that the police are warning people about the video thief who comes in through the back yard, and theyre setting up neighbourhood watch teams to keep a special eye on back alleys. So he abandons his terraced houses and instead he goes for between-the-wars semis and gets in through the side windows in the downstairs hall. Hes changed his MO. But he still only nicks the videos. Thats his signature.
The doubters face cleared. Now hed grasped it. Gratified, Tony picked up a stack of papers divided into six bundles. So we have to learn to be inclusive when were considering the possibility of a serial offender. Think linking through similarity, rather than discounting through difference.
He stood up again and walked around among their work tables, gearing himself up to the crucial part of the session. Some senior police officers and profilers have a hypothesis thats more confidential than the secrets of the Masonic square, he said, capturing their attention again. We believe there could be as many as half a dozen undetected serial killers who have been operating in Britain over the past ten years. Some could have claimed upwards of ten victims. Thanks to the motorway network and the historic reluctance of police forces to exchange information, nobody has sat down and made the crucial connections. Once were up and running, this will be something well be considering as and when we have time and staff available to look at it. Raised eyebrows and muttering filled his momentary pause.
So what were doing here is a dummy run, Tony explained. Thirty missing teenagers. Theyre all real cases, culled from a dozen forces over the last seven years. Youve got a week to examine the cases in your spare time. Then youll have the chance to present your own theories as to whether any of them have sufficient common factors to give us grounds for suspicion that they might be the work of a serial offender. He handed them each a bundle of photostats, giving them a few moments to flick through.
I should emphasize that this is merely an exercise, he cautioned them, walking back to his seat. Theres no reason to suppose that any of these girls or lads has been abducted or killed. Some of them may well be dead now, but thats probably got more to do with the attrition of life on the street than foul play. The common factor that links them is that none of these kids were regarded by their families as the kind who would run away. The families all claimed the missing teenagers were happy at home, there had been no serious arguments and there were no significant problems with school. Although one or two of them had some history of involvement with the police or social services, there werent any current difficulties at the time of the disappearances. However, none of the missing kids subsequently made contact with home. In spite of that, its likely that most of them made for London and the bright lights.
I should emphasize that this is merely an exercise, he cautioned them, walking back to his seat. Theres no reason to suppose that any of these girls or lads has been abducted or killed. Some of them may well be dead now, but thats probably got more to do with the attrition of life on the street than foul play. The common factor that links them is that none of these kids were regarded by their families as the kind who would run away. The families all claimed the missing teenagers were happy at home, there had been no serious arguments and there were no significant problems with school. Although one or two of them had some history of involvement with the police or social services, there werent any current difficulties at the time of the disappearances. However, none of the missing kids subsequently made contact with home. In spite of that, its likely that most of them made for London and the bright lights.
He took a deep breath and turned to face them. But there could be another scenario lurking in there. If there is, itll be our job to find it.
Excitement started like a slow burn in Shazs gut, powerful enough to dim the memories of what shed read about Tonys last close encounter with a killer. This was her first chance. If there were undiscovered murder victims out there, she would find them. More than that, she would be their advocate. And their avenger.
Criminals are often caught by accident. He knew that; hed seen programmes about it on the TV. Dennis Nilsen, killer of fifteen homeless young men, found out because human flesh blocked the drains; Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, despatcher of thirteen women, nicked because hed stolen a set of number plates to disguise his car; Ted Bundy, necrophiliac murderer of as many as forty young women, finally arrested for speeding past a police car at night with no lights. This knowledge didnt frighten him, but it added an extra frisson to the adrenaline buzz that inevitably accompanied his fire-setting. His motives might be very different from theirs, but the risk was almost as great. The once soft leather driving gloves were always damp with his nervous sweat.
Somewhere around one in the morning, he parked his car in a carefully chosen spot. He never left it on a residential street, understanding the insomnia of the elderly and the late-night revels of the young. Instead, he chose the car parks of DIY stores, the waste ground beside factories, the forecourts of garages closed for the night. Secondhand car pitches were best; nobody noticed an extra car there for an hour or two in the small hours.
He never carried a holdall either, sensing it to be suspicious at that time of night. A policeman spotting him would have no cause to think hed been out burgling. And even if a bored night-beat bobby fancied the diversion of getting him to turn out his pockets, there wouldnt be much to arouse suspicion. A length of string, an old-fashioned cigarette lighter with a brass case, a packet of cigarettes with two or three missing, a dog-eared book of matches with a couple remaining, yesterdays newspaper, a Swiss Army knife, a crumpled oil-stained handkerchief, a small but powerful torch. If that was grounds for arrest, the cells would be full every night.
He walked the route hed memorized, staying close to the walls as he moved silently down empty streets, his blank-soled bowling shoes making no sound. After a few minutes, he came to a narrow alley which led to the blind side of a small industrial estate hed had his eye on for a while. It had originally been a ropeworks and consisted of a group of four turn-of-the-century brick buildings which had recently been converted to their present uses. An auto electricians sat next to an upholstery workshop, opposite a plumbing supplier and a bakery that made biscuits from a recipe allegedly as old as the York Mystery plays. He reckoned anyone who got away with charging such ridiculous prices for a poxy packet of gritty biscuits deserved to have their factory razed to the ground, but there wasnt enough flammable material there for his needs.
Tonight, the upholstery workshop was going to go up like a Roman candle.
Later, hed thrill to the sight of yellow and crimson flames thrusting their long spikes into the plumes of grey and brown smoke billowing up from the blazing cloth and the wooden floors and beams of the elderly building. But for now, he had to get inside.
Hed made his preparations earlier that day, dropping a carrier bag into a rubbish bin by the side door of the workshop. Now he retrieved it and took out the sink plunger and the tube of superglue. He walked round the outside of the building until he was outside the toilet window, where he stuck the plunger to the window. He waited a few minutes to be certain the contact adhesive had hardened, then he gripped the plunger with both hands, braced himself and gave a sharp tug. The glass broke with a tiny tinkle, the fragments falling on the outside of the window, just as they would if it had exploded from the heat. He tapped the plunger smartly against the wall to shatter the circle of glass, leaving only a thin ring still glued to the rubber. That didnt worry him; there would be no reason for any forensic expert to reconstruct the window and reveal a missing circle of glass at the heart of the shards. That done, he was inside within a few minutes. There was, he knew, no burglar alarm.
He took out the torch and flipped it quickly on and off to check his position, then emerged into the corridor that led along the back of the main work space. At the end, he recalled, were a couple of large cardboard boxes of scrap material that local handicraft hobbyists bought for coppers. No reason for fire investigators to doubt it was a place where workers might hang out for a sly fag.
It was a matter of moments to construct his incendiary device. First he opened up the cigarette lighter and rubbed the string with the wadding which hed previously saturated with lighter fluid. Then he put the string at the centre of a bundle of half a dozen cigarettes held loosely together with an elastic band. He placed his incendiary so that the string fuse lay along the edge of the nearest cardboard box, then laid the oily handkerchief beside it with some crumpled newspaper. Finally, he lit the cigarettes. They would burn halfway down before the string ignited. That in its turn would take a little while to get the boxes of fabric smouldering. But by the time theyd caught hold, there wouldnt be any stopping his fire. It was going to be some blaze.
Hed been saving this one up, knowing it would be a beauty. Rewarding, in more ways than one.
Betsy checked her watch. Ten minutes more, then she would break up Suzy Josephs junket with a fictitious appointment for Micky. If Jacko wanted to carry on charming, that was up to him. She suspected hed rather seize the opportunity to escape. Hed have finished filming the latest Vances Visits the night before, so hed be off on one of his charity stints at one of the specialist hospitals where he worked as a volunteer counsellor and support worker. Hed be gone by mid-afternoon, leaving her and Micky to a peaceful house and a weekend alone.
Between Jacko and the Princess of Wales, you get no peace these days when youve got a terminal illness, she said out loud. Im the lucky one, she went on, moving from bureau to filing cabinet as she cleared her desk in preparation for a guilt-free weekend. I dont have to listen to the Authorized Version for the millionth time. She imitated Jackos upbeat, dramatic intonation. I was lying there, contemplating the wreck of my dreams, convinced I had nothing left to live for. Then, out of the depths of my depression, I saw a vision. Betsy made the sweeping gesture shed seen Jacko deploy so often with his living arm. This very vision of loveliness, in fact. There, by my hospital bed, stood the one thing Id seen since the accident that made me realize life might be worth living.