Blood Reckoning: DI Jack Brady 4 (19 page)

‘The press? Didn’t they nickname him “The Joker”?’

Brady sighed. Frustrated. ‘Yes, but they didn’t know the make or the year of the deck. All they knew was that it was a Joker card.’

‘I see,’ Conrad answered.

Brady thought about what Conrad had told him. ‘For what it’s worth, if you’re right, then it changes things. It changes the motive. It makes the Seventies case about gay killings. What does that say about the murderer? If he was gay too, perhaps that he hates himself and the urges and desires that consume him. If you’re right, then he actively sought out his victims in gay cruising spots. Gained their trust enough to tie them up. Because, like De Bernier, none of the seven earlier victims put up a fight. He then has oral sex, forced or otherwise, and mutilates their groin – the object of his hate and simultaneously the object of his desire. It both attracts and repulses him. Finished, he chokes them and wraps duct tape around their mouths, securely gagging them and continues wrapping the tape over their noses, eyes, until the head is completely covered. He removed their sexual organ and hides their faces. Both parts of the body that attracts him.’

Conrad nodded.

‘And our victim? Don’t you see that as a hate crime?’

‘Yes, sir. I’m just not convinced it’s the same killer. And it’s nothing to do with the fact that our victim didn’t have traces of semen in his throat. I think that’s down to the murderer being aware of DNA evidence.’

Brady was still waiting to hear if forensics had found anything on the bedding or pillows. But as yet nothing had shown up. Which suggested to him that perhaps the killer was not interested in sex. Perhaps De Bernier had been murdered for personal reasons, unlike the sexually motivated Seventies murders. The victim’s girlfriend immediately came to mind. Molly Johansson had a motive. She was also seen at the hotel on the evening when her fiancé was killed. What were the odds?

Brady pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘Well, we’ll soon be able to see whether your theory is correct.’

Conrad looked at Brady, puzzled.

‘I’ve had Molly Johansson brought in for questioning.’

‘What has she got to do with her boyfriend’s murder?’

‘That’s what I am about to find out.’

Conrad was unable to disguise his surprise at this news.

‘Trust me, I have good reason to bring her in.’

Brady thought about what Martyn Jenkins had said to Conrad. ‘I appreciate you taking the time to talk to Mr Jenkins. I’m sure he would have felt unburdened disclosing what he did to you. And I appreciate you telling me about McKaley. I know this must be difficult for you.’

As soon as he said it, he regretted it.

The flash of anger in Conrad’s eye said it all.

‘Fuck it, Conrad! I’m not McKaley. All right? And I never will be.’

‘I never said you were,’ Conrad replied. But his tone had an edge to it.

Before Brady had a chance to say anything else, Conrad was already walking out the office. He knew that the attack on Jenkins by a homophobic SIO had deeply affected his deputy – more than he wanted to admit.

Chapter Twenty

Monday: 8:10 a.m.

Brady looked around the Incident Room. It was crammed. Some faces he recognised, others he didn’t. This was his murder team. It comprised fifteen detectives and officers, male and female, but mostly male. All watching and waiting for Brady, filled with pent-up frustration. Agitated that he hadn’t finished the briefing so they could get on with the job at hand – finding Alexander De Bernier’s killer.

He winced inwardly as he looked at the whiteboard. The mutilation of the victim’s groin still made him want to puke. Still made his testicles shrivel upwards into nothing. Brady’s mind was filled with questions as he forced himself to continue looking at the graphic images of the faceless body. His eyes moved to various photographs of the crime scene. It again confirmed there had not been a struggle, that the victim had known their killer. This fact was glaringly obvious. Nothing had been knocked over. The pillows and cushions were still on the bed. Blood was the only sign that something had happened. An ugly blight upon the magnolia backdrop of the hotel room.

He then looked at the crimes scene photographs taken of the others in situ. The seven young men who had suffered the same fate as De Bernier, thirty-seven years earlier. Brady sighed. He still couldn’t get his head around it. The murders all looked as if they had been committed by the same hand, the knife wounds uncannily identical. Could he explain it? No, not yet. But there was no denying that the first seven victims were a type. That the recent victim did not fit into that type concerned Brady. The crime scene and the killer’s signature suggested the same perpetrator. The MO said something entirely different. Unless . . . Brady stopped himself. He would need to hear Amelia’s opinion first.

He turned to the room. ‘Anyone?’

No one spoke. Not that this surprised him. They were equally confounded, all looking to him for answers. The problem was, Brady had none.

Brady glanced around the room. And waited. The team automatically shifted their gaze so it wouldn’t be in a direct line with his.

He sighed. Heavily. Looked back at the whiteboard, at the flurry of scrawled words barely legible to anyone else’s eyes but his. He had furiously scribbled what they knew so far. And that wasn’t a lot.

‘The victim?’

Brady could feel the nervous energy in the room mounting. No one wanted to say it. Everyone thinking it.
Which victim?
Because up there on the whiteboard, they all looked identical: mutilated bodies, faceless heads bound in black tape.

Brady turned from the photos of the victims and looked at Daniels and Kenny, sitting side by side. Both slouched as low as physically possible, trying their damnedest to look inconspicuous.

‘Daniels? What do we have so far on De Bernier?’ Brady asked. He could see Daniels wince at the question. He nervously ran his hand over the stubble that covered his scalp, then shifted forward and sat up straight. Finally, he cleared his throat as he scrabbled through his notebook.

Brady waited. He had given Daniels and Kenny a list as long as his arm late yesterday afternoon. Admittedly it was 8:10 a.m. on a Monday morning. But he and the team had had all last night to try to find some much-needed answers. As well as the two hours they had already clocked in this morning.

‘We’ve checked the calls made to and from the victim’s mobile phone. Including texts. There were numerous calls from the mobile number that belongs to the victim’s girlfriend. Throughout the Saturday she bombarded him with calls and then texts. He didn’t answer her calls. Nor any texts.’

‘Any other calls or texts made to De Bernier’s mobile that day?’

Daniels shook his head as he looked back down at his notes. ‘No, sir.’

‘Check with the mobile company. For all we know he deleted texts that he received or sent.’

Brady looked around the room again. Still silent. No one wanted to talk. They had three potential killers: the original Joker, a copycat killer or a murderer who wanted De Bernier’s death to suggest that either of the first two were behind it. But they were no further forward in establishing which of the three scenarios they should prioritise.

They still had no word back on the suspect from the Seventies case. It seemed that Sidney Foster had simply disappeared, taking with him his vintage 1977 red Ford Capri car. A call had been put out on his car but there had been no sightings of it. As yet, no DNA evidence had been found at the crime scene. If it had, it would have made Brady’s job a hell of a lot easier. He would’ve known whether Foster was actually responsible.

‘Sir? There’s something else,’ Kenny ventured, nervously breaking the tension.

Brady turned to him. Kenny shot Daniels a look. But from the expression on Daniels’ face it was clear he had no intention of speaking.

Kenny looked back at Brady standing there, waiting. In no mood for any more surprises. ‘The victim’s girlfriend . . .’ Kenny faltered at the expression on his boss’s face.

‘Go on,’ Brady instructed, steeling himself.

‘She continued texting him up until ten forty-five p.m. Some of them are . . . well . . . quite concerning.’

‘How?’ Brady questioned. The time element had caught his attention. Wolfe, the Home Office pathologist, had said that the time of death was sometime after eleven p.m. ‘Just to be clear, all communication from her definitely ended at ten forty-five p.m.?’

‘Yes, sir. But there was a barrage of unanswered texts between eight p.m. and ten forty-five p.m. Each one escalating in anger. The last one reads—’ Kenny looked down at his notes, ‘yeah, here it is: “Fucking bastard. I know where you are and who you’re with. I’m in the bar downstairs waiting to cut your fucking cheating dick off!” ’

Brady steadied himself. The room was suddenly bristling. He had already told them that he had Molly Johansson in custody, waiting to be interviewed. He caught Conrad’s quizzical eye. It was clear everyone in the room believed he had been privy to this knowledge prior to the briefing.

He looked at Kenny. His eyes darted nervously back down to his notes. His expression was deadly serious. He knew he and Daniels had fucked up in a big way by not informing Brady immediately.

Brady decided he would deal with them afterwards. Now wasn’t the time. Humiliating them in public did him no favours. After all, he could count on one hand how many people he trusted in this room. Most would do anything to further their careers. Jobs were at an all-time premium. Coppers were being re-interviewed for their own job. Some didn’t even have that luxury, finding themselves competing for a lower level rank. Less pay, less responsibility and one step closer to the dole queue. Brady would not make it public that he had two fuckwits on his team, simply because it made him look as if he didn’t know what the hell was going on with his own murder investigation. Which was true, apparently. But it was something that he didn’t want to share.

Chapter Twenty-One

Monday: 8:19 a.m.

Brady now needed Dr Amelia Jenkins’ opinion. He was at a loss. He had a few ideas, but nothing concrete. The case was a conundrum. Every way he looked at it, he had three potential directions. He could not ignore that the original suspect from the Seventies had disappeared. Could Sidney Foster have come back to the North East? Could he have murdered De Bernier? But why? Alex was physically different from the victims in the past. And he had a girlfriend, unlike any of the earlier victims. That made him very different from the original Joker’s ‘type’.

The problem Brady had was in coming up with a watertight explanation, one that he could take to DCI Gates when he showed up. He was struggling. He also knew Gates would not be impressed that they still had no word on the whereabouts of the retired engineer –
or
paedophile
.

Brady had since discovered that another serious allegation had recently been made against Foster. That a twenty-five-year-old man had gone to the police alleging Foster had groomed him from the age of eight years old and had then sexually abused him until the age of fifteen. When asked why he hadn’t come forward earlier, the victim had claimed that he had been too ashamed to disclose what had happened. Brady felt there was a correlation between Foster’s sudden disappearance and the allegation that had been made. His gut told him that the fact they couldn’t track him down was just coincidence and had nothing to do with the murder. Whether Gates would accept that was another matter entirely.

He looked across at Amelia, hopeful that she could shed more light on the similarities between the cold case and the current murder investigation. She was sitting with her hands folded in front of her, composed, relaxed, but very much on the ball. She had been intently watching everything that had unfolded in the briefing. Nothing got past her. Not that Brady would expect it to. After all, she was the police shrink. She waited for him to speak. Her sleek bobbed hair fell against her pale cheek. Dark eyes focused on her notes in front of her. He watched as she unconsciously tucked the stray hair behind her ear.

‘Dr Jenkins?’ Brady asked as he turned to the whiteboard. Unlike Daniels and Kenny, he didn’t need to spell it out for Amelia. She knew her job; knew what he was asking from her.

She followed his gaze, her eyes slowly taking in the carnage on the whiteboard.

Brady turned back to her, expectantly. Her eyes met his. Cold. Brady’s expression remained impassive but inwardly he felt as if he had been punched in the guts.

She cut free from Brady’s gaze and looked down at the open file in front of her. She nodded, as if to herself, before beginning: ‘The signature marks left at all the crime scenes, or should I say on all the victims, are identical. That should concern us.’

‘Why?’ Brady asked. He knew the answer, but it was for the benefit of the rest of the team.

‘Simply put, this signature is the calling card of one person. It is a trademark. A unique message left behind by the murderer,’ Amelia answered.

Brady nodded for her to elaborate.

‘As you’ve already pointed out, rope was used as a method of restraining both the Seventies victims and De Bernier. Could it be pure coincidence? Yes. But what is not coincidental is the fact that the handcuff knot used to restrain the Seventies victims was also used on Alexander De Bernier. I don’t know if any of you are familiar with knots but this particular one is not that common. That’s one example of the murderer’s signature. Also, this perpetrator is not just interested in killing his victims. He has his own unique style. He binds them, strangles them until I imagine they start to lose consciousness and then he waits,’ Amelia said as she looked around the conference table, ‘waits for them to regain consciousness so they are fully aware of it when he mutilates them. We know that there were no traces of semen found in the victim’s throat or on his body this time around. But we are still waiting to hear if any traces were found on the bedding or pillows.’

Amelia turned and suddenly addressed Brady. ‘What about biological evidence from the Seventies cases?’