He rang Sally to let her know he was running late.
Ill be there within half an hour if this traffic starts moving. Briefing is still at ten unless I call again.
Do you want everyone in the briefing room? Sally asked.
Er. . no, Sean answered after a seconds thought. Well do it in our incident room, theres more space.
No problem. Sally had more to say and knew she would have to speak quickly or Sean would already have hung up. Guvnor. .
He heard her just in time. What?
I thought you should know some wits come up with a name for our killer.
Sean knew he wasnt going to like this. Go on.
Some of the guys have christened him the Fairy Liquidator.
There was silence from Sean. He sat stony-faced, thinking about what the family would say if they knew the police investigating their sons death were calling the killer the Fairy Liquidator.
After five seconds he spoke. Let them know in advance that from this second onward anyone using that name will be off the team, back in uniform, and directing traffic in Soho just as soon as they can get measured up for a new helmet. Take this as a first and final warning, Sally.
I understand. Ill make sure its not used again.
Good. He hung up and continued his tortuous journey through the unbreathable air. Before the murder of Daniel Graydon hed planned to take the day off and make it a long weekend with his family, doing normal things that a normal family would do-the sort of things he never did as a child. More promises made to his wife and children broken. His stomach tightened with the sense of sadness that suddenly engulfed him-an almost panicked longing to be with his family. He shook the feelings away as best he could, chasing them from body and mind as if they were a weakness he couldnt afford to carry with him to his work. Besides, there was nothing he could do about it. It was the nature of the beast. It was his job.
Sean and his team were back in the open-plan office that was their incident room and second home. Desks were scattered about, mainly in groups of four, and most were adorned with old oversize computer monitors and, if the owner was lucky, a corded telephone. Murders in London were still being solved in spite of the equipment available rather than because of it. Sean stared through the Plexiglas into the room on the other side, watching the detectives, most preferring to sit on the edges of their desks talking in groups, while others moved with purpose, gathering last-minute stationery or squeezing in one final phone call ahead of Seans arrival.
The incident room was already changing as the investigation developed. Where there had been blank whiteboards and bare walls the night before, now, pinned up in no particular order, there were photographs of the scene, the victim, and the initial postmortem results. The name of the victim had been confirmed: Daniel Graydon. It adorned a piece of white card and was stuck above the photographs of his mutilated body and violated home. Sean noted theyd been put up in one corner of a wall only. The rest of the wall had been left empty. Clearly someone on his team believed there could be more photographs. More victims.
The whiteboard listed tasks to be undertaken and which detective was allocated to each. All were numbered, and when one was complete a line would be drawn through it, so if the investigation was failing, the board would tell the tale. It never lied. No progression meant fewer and fewer tasks to be placed on the board, causing Seans seniors to grow ever more anxious, more desperate, and more likely to interfere; but such concerns were for later. The first couple of days would be busy enough just collecting and preserving evidence. The early days were crucial. Evidence missed now could be lost forever.
Sean walked the few steps from his office into the main body of the incident room and waited for the detectives to become still and quiet-the noise level fading as surely as if hed turned the volume down on an amplifier. He spoke: Right, people, before we get into this, lets be clear that if anyone uses the term Fairy Liquidator on this inquiry theyre gone. Understood? Silent nods of agreement all around the room. Good. Now that that nonsense is out of the way, we can get down to business.
First, you all need to know that in light of the autopsy, I no longer believe this is a domestic murder. Dr. Canning tells me that the victim would have been incapacitated with the first blow to the head, meaning there was no violent struggle.
What about the broken furniture and the blood spray patterns suggesting a fight? Sally asked.
Staged, Sean told her. Cleverly staged, but staged all the same. Hes trying to throw us off the scent. The stab wounds have the appearance of some sort of ritual killing, not a frenzied attack.
Most of you know DS Andy Roddis here, the forensics team leader. Andys kindly given up his time to bring us all up to date on any findings from the scene.
Thats very fucking nice of you, Andy, Donnelly interjected, to the amusement of his audience.
All right, all right, Sean hushed the room. I strongly suggest you pay attention to what hes about to tell you. He turned to DS Roddis, gesturing with an open hand for him to begin. Andy.
What about the broken furniture and the blood spray patterns suggesting a fight? Sally asked.
Staged, Sean told her. Cleverly staged, but staged all the same. Hes trying to throw us off the scent. The stab wounds have the appearance of some sort of ritual killing, not a frenzied attack.
Most of you know DS Andy Roddis here, the forensics team leader. Andys kindly given up his time to bring us all up to date on any findings from the scene.
Thats very fucking nice of you, Andy, Donnelly interjected, to the amusement of his audience.
All right, all right, Sean hushed the room. I strongly suggest you pay attention to what hes about to tell you. He turned to DS Roddis, gesturing with an open hand for him to begin. Andy.
DS Roddis walked to the photographs of the scene pinned to the wall behind him. Thank you, sir. He paced back and forth as he took up the story. Most of the exhibits from the scene have been taken up to the forensics lab, so we wont know the full picture until theyve been examined. Thatll take another few days. Scientists dont work weekends, so we wont know much until Tuesday at the earliest. There was a small ripple of laughter in the room.
In addition to staging the scene, we believe the suspect is forensically aware. There were no obvious signs of semen, saliva, or anything else that could have come from the suspect.
The team listened intently without interrupting. Roddis knew everything about the scene there was to know and they knew nothing. This was the time to listen and learn, not to question and disagree. That would come later, once they knew what Roddis knew, but until then, time to honor the ancient detective code: keep your mouth shut and your eyes and ears open.
Theres a lot of blood, but Im betting it all belongs to the victim. Initial tests show its the same blood type as the victims. DNA confirmation will take a few more days. We found several head hairs about the place, but they also look like they came from the victim. The body was swabbed before removal from the scene, so you never know your luck-we may yet, under lab examination, find some body fluids belonging to the suspect. Thats our best bet for getting the suspects DNA.
No murder weapons found yet, but its possible the suspect cleaned them after use and placed them somewhere in the flat. All possible weapons have been sent to the lab to see if they match the victims wounds.
The fingerprint search was completed using chemical treatment. We sealed the flat and pumped it full of gas. For the uninformed, we use a chemical that causes any fingerprints to reveal themselves. Much easier than crawling around the place with a brush and aluminum powder. We expected quite a lot of peoples prints to flash up, which is usual for this kind of search, but we were surprised to find only a few different marks. Im pretty sure the scene wasnt cleared of prints by the killer. I base that on the fact that we found a lot of prints about, but they were predominantly the victims.
Sean intervened. But there were prints at the scene other than the victims?
Yes, replied Roddis. Unless the victim was a total recluse, you would expect to find alien prints at the scene. He paused for a second and began again. Could these alien prints belong to our killer? Well, yes they could, but somehow I doubt it. The killer has gone to great trouble to avoid leaving evidence at the scene, so I think it unlikely he would be so kind as to leave us a nice, clear fingerprint.
He could see Sean was about to jump in again, but he wasnt ready to surrender the floor just yet.
However, the prints we have recovered have already been sent to Fingerprint Branch for searching. At the very least it may tell us something about who the victim associated with. Always useful.
Sean nodded his appreciation.
And last, but not least, we are lucky the carpet in the hallway is new and of good quality. It was nice and deep and we found the scene quickly enough to recover some interesting shoe marks that hadnt yet degraded. Roddis took a series of photographs from his file and attached them to the board like a doctor preparing X-rays for viewing. The shoe marks looked like negatives.
This set-he pointed to two photographs-belonged to the victim. We matched them easily enough. They belong to a rare type of Converse running shoe and the unique marks on the soles, the scars, if you like, matched the individual cuts and marks on the victims shoes.
Roddis took a step to his left and pointed at another footprint photograph. This size ten Dr. Marten belongs to the PC who first entered the scene. Fortunately he remembered his training and walked along the side of the corridor the door closes on, so he didnt destroy what Im about to show you. Again Roddis took a step to his left and pointed to the board.