Red Ribbons (2 page)

Mother hadn’t meant to resurrect the old wounds, but years of keeping her trap shut had been undone by the garbled workings of a decaying brain, and once resurrected, it had changed everything. It started harmlessly enough, but then, it usually did.

‘Do I look different today?’ she had purred, deluding herself that her beauty had returned.

‘No. Not particularly.’ The air in her bedroom had been dry, stifling.

‘But you are looking at me, staring the way you like to. You always liked looking at your mother, didn’t you?’

‘I was just looking, nothing more.’

‘You shouldn’t stare at me that way, people might talk.’

He had turned his back to her, but the idiotic bitch had continued.

‘But who cares about them? We don’t, my darling, do we? We never did. None of them understand. Jealously is a dreadful affliction, don’t you think?’

‘No one is jealous. You are rambling.’

‘Don’t lie, little boy. I can see right through you.’

Standing at her sick bed, he had breathed in the stench of her old age.

‘I am not a little boy any more.’

‘You are staring again.’

‘Am I?’

‘You know you are, and don’t lean on my shoulders so hard. It hurts. You think I’m weak-minded don’t you, but I have the measure of you.’

‘Just checking your reflexes, Mother. They are as sharp as ever I see.’

‘You were the same with that young tramp, staring at her too, following her like some demented lapdog.’

‘Why don’t you take your pills, Mother? You know how you like to lose yourself.’

‘She was a tramp, you know. Antonio liked tramps – young ones, especially. Don’t you remember? Don’t you? Oh, but you must.’

He’d felt his spine tighten as he clenched his fists. He’d remembered Tuscany, and the room with the long windows. ‘Shut up.’

‘Tickle, tickle, tickle,’ her claw-like fingers had reached out, touching his chest. ‘Remember how you liked this, little boy?’

‘I never liked it.’

He’d stood back farther, because the desire to punch her had suddenly become so strong, throbbing through him like a sharp pain. It would be a mercy, some might think, to finish off the old bitch. He’d taken a long, measured breath, letting her ramble, as he’d listened.

In the end, he was glad he had. It had been so long since he had allowed himself to remember any of it.

≈

Arriving at the outskirts of Livorno, he felt relief at being far away from her. He could almost taste the treasures that Suvereto would unfold. His intentions and aspirations had been clear from the beginning: the trip was simply a way of rekindling the more positive aspects of the past. Sometimes, though, life sends you an added bonus and the course changes, taking you somewhere unexpected.

As he walked across the paving stones in Suvereto’s ancient town centre, its narrow alleyways and broad squares captivating him, he saw Bishop Antonio Peri. At first, he had thought his mind was playing tricks, that it was just a stooped, overweight old man who resembled Antonio. When he looked again, it was undeniably him, even without the pomp and glamour of his ornate bishop’s robes. The last he had heard, the poisonous bishop had been relocated to Florence, but it seemed he too had been compelled to return, and there he was, drifting easily with the locals, none of them knowing the kind of monster he was.

It took some time to secure a private audience with him. In the end, just like the old bitch, the once-arrogant pig shared far more than he had intended; words crawling through old wounds. The fall from the cliff edge some days later would have been attributed to his fragility and stupidity – what was a frail old man thinking, walking on such a dangerous cliff edge? The sea had been so blue, the sun blinding on the water, the fat bastard whining like an abandoned baby, tasting fear, begging for clemency with his pathetic babbling.

He had smiled to himself as he heard the bishop’s scream curling through the air, his death resonating a new beginning.

HEAVY RAIN CLOUDS WERE BEARING DOWN ON YET another dark afternoon when Dr Kate Pearson finally reached the car park. She had spent over an hour negotiating her way through bumper-to-bumper traffic coming out of Dublin, and was hoping to get a shot of caffeine before the talk began. The conference at the university had been booked to capacity over a month in advance, which meant a packed room of people, all waiting for Kate’s talk. It seemed that understanding the psychology behind crime and criminal profiling was the latest buzz and fascination for the masses.

It was the first time Kate had given a lecture at Maynooth and the line-up was impressive, featuring some of the best crime writers and criminology academics in the country. Since returning from London to Ireland after Charlie was born, she’d spent the last few years working with young offenders – a far cry from her tenure with criminal psychologist Professor Henry Bloom. Her current work was aimed at the prevention of criminal acts, rather than identifying key aspects of them. Henry, who was well respected and held in high regard by Scotland Yard, had taught her a great deal about getting inside the mind of an offender, but, despite the positive attributes of her current role, a part of her still pined to unravel a profiling puzzle.

Before entering Renehan Hall, she looked at the whiteboard erected outside:

CRIME AND CONTEMPORAY IRELAND –
NUI MAYNOOTH PRESENTS
‘THE TRUTH BEHIND CRIMINAL PROFILING’
An illustrated talk by Dr KATE PEARSON
– Criminal Psychologist
2.00 p.m.–3.00 p.m.
Sold Out

Kate had prepared her notes the week before, but had revised them earlier that morning. It was important to strike the correct balance when presenting a talk to both students and members of the public, breaking it down over general profiling headings and actual case studies. It was usually best to choose one main case for deep analysis, and she had deliberately chosen a case that would underline the most frightening aspect of most criminal studies – the ordinariness of the offender.

Walking to the top table from the back of the conference hall, Kate deliberately avoided eye contact with members of the audience. She always felt a degree of apprehension about talking in public, but, despite the butterflies in her stomach, past experience told her that once she was up there, she would be fine. Nonetheless, Niall King’s smiling, enthusiastic face felt something like a double-edged sword. As head of the Humanities Department, he had chosen all the speakers for the day with care, and she knew his expectations of her were high.

‘Hi, Niall.’

‘Ready to be fed to the lions, Kate?’

‘Thanks for putting me at my ease,’ she laughed.

‘Don’t worry, they’ve all had their lunch, so they should go easy on you.’

‘Can I upload my file here?’ Kate pointed to the laptop connected to the overhead screen.

‘I’ll load it for you – it’s being temperamental today.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Whenever you’re ready, Kate, I’ll do the intro.’

Kate handed Niall her memory stick, and removed her notes from her briefcase. She took her seat, still avoiding eye contact with the audience, and waited for Niall to begin his introduction.

‘Well, everyone, we are in for a treat this afternoon. I’m delighted to introduce Dr Kate Pearson, a lady whom I admire greatly. As some of you might be aware, along with my keen interest in studying criminology, like many of you here, I’m a firm believer in examining and questioning the social, economic and cultural aspects of Ireland today. It was through this interest that I met Kate, who is currently working with the Counselling and Young Offenders Reintegration Programme at Ocean House. However, it is not her work with probation services that she will speak about today, but rather her extensive experience of criminal profiling from her time in the UK. Kate holds a first-class honours degree in Psychology from Trinity College, a Master’s in Criminology from University College London and a Doctorate in Forensic Psychology from the University of Nottingham. She has vast experience in the area of criminal profiling, having worked with Professor Henry Bloom, one of the leading psychologists in the UK. Since her return to Ireland, she has also given some help to An Garda Síochána. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to Dr Kate Pearson.’

As Niall stood back, Kate took her position at the podium, looking directly at the audience.

‘First, I would like to thank Niall for organising this event and to thank you all for coming here today to listen to my talk on the truth behind profiling. Let’s begin by exposing some of the myths behind criminal profiling. Many people think of profiling as conforming to what they have seen on television, showing an entire crime solved within an hour-long programme. Sadly, the reality is very far from this, not just in the length of time it takes to apply profiling correctly
but also regarding some of the methods used by profilers. The first question we must ask, therefore, is: what exactly is criminal profiling?’

Turning away from the audience, Kate looked up at the screen and read the definition written there.

‘“Criminal Profiling is the process of identifying personality traits, behavioural tendencies, possible biographical maps, or even geographical locations of an offender based on characteristics and evidence found at the crime scene, whether that crime scene is a primary or secondary one.” I will explain the difference between primary and secondary crime scenes later in our discussion. For now, crime scene characteristics are a good place to start.’

As the dark clouds started to shift and the long windows of Renehan Hall admitted thin streams of afternoon sunlight, Kate could tell she already had most of the audience’s undivided attention.

‘Let’s look at how we would pull together the various factors from a crime scene.’ Kate flicked onto the next slide. ‘The three key things we must look at are the important
behavioural aspects
of the crime, what
inferences or probabilities
we can deduce about the perpetrator based on these and, finally, what
other crimes
the offender is likely to have committed.’

Kate was glad she had chosen the Dunmore case to discuss. It displayed all the aspects of what is typically described as a disorganised crime scene, where often an offender has committed a crime spontaneously. One of the important factors that Kate wanted to stress about spontaneous crimes was that although they can happen from a spur of the moment decision, they do not necessarily occur out of the blue.

‘Okay, now I’d like to move to discuss one case in particular, where we can see the work of the profiler on the ground. The case I’ve chosen is the Dunmore case, in which I was personally involved. I worked with members of An Garda Síochána to piece together a profile of the attacker who committed his crime in a frenzied manner.

‘The attack on Noelle Dunmore was sexually motivated, but the motivational needs of her assailant had built up over a period of time. The severity of the attack, including the level of violent force used, was in itself a reflection of the need, anger and compulsion of her attacker. Many of the characteristics of the particular crime scene – the violence, the choice of a public park as the location for the attack and the risks her assailant had been prepared to take both in his choice of location and in leaving his victim at the scene – helped me to form a number of conclusions about him.

‘In cases of angry, sexual and violent assaults, the psychological condition of an attacker is frequently at the point where they have the ability to depersonalise their victim, seeing him or her solely as a means of fulfilling their own needs and fantasy, often without any of the guilt. Noelle’s attacker left her for dead. Thankfully, she survived, but as she had been blindfolded, she could not provide any description of the offender. However, certain aspects of his behaviour, including his incorrect assumption that he had killed his victim, indicated someone who was not just impetuous, but someone who did not have the maturity or intelligence to take his intentions to their conclusion. Even without making the mistake of thinking his victim was dead, he knew Noelle would be found. This told me that his needs and heightened desires were such that fulfilling them was far more important to him than the risk of being caught.’

There was a perfect silence among her audience as Kate delineated the key points of the case. It was almost like they were all holding their breaths, waiting for the revelation that was coming.

‘I was working on the case with Detective Inspector O’Connor. As most of you no doubt know, profilers are not welcome in every police station’ – there was a ripple of muted laughter at this, and Kate knew she must have a garda or two in the audience – ‘but O’Connor and his team were willing to bring me in on this case. It paid off. I was able to tell them that the attacker was immature, probably a young
male between eighteen and twenty-five, and that he was someone whose anger had built up over time, possibly as a result of seeking relationships, but because of inadequate social or communication skills, had failed. This profile helped narrow the list of suspects. The investigation team had plenty of forensics from the crime scene, but had been unable to find a match against known offenders, or anyone else who would have been considered high risk. As I had told them the possible age of the perpetrator and the extremities of psychosis he displayed, further questioning within the local community very quickly led to the arrest of nineteen-year-old Jonathan Kinsella. He had been interviewed by police during their house-to-house enquiries, but his shy and backward behaviour, living at home with his parents, with no previous record, meant he had been overlooked. Kinsella was subsequently convicted of the assault and attempted murder of Noelle Dunmore and sentenced to fifteen years.’

Kate smiled at her audience. ‘I’m almost ready to finish up. I hope that you found today’s discussion helpful in eradicating some of the scepticism around criminal profiling, and the assistance it can bring to bear on criminal cases. It’s very easy to be sidetracked by assumptions and presumptions – the aim of profiling is to work with the available details, however small those might be. It is a far more pragmatic science than its detractors give it credit for and, of course, it’s a fascinating area of criminal work. So, to conclude, let us put the base elements of good profiling in a nutshell, if we can.’