The Shadow Maker (24 page)

‘Why?’ He shook his head. ‘A condom was the least protection she needed.’

Rita raised a finger reflectively to her lips. ‘But she didn’t know that before she was attacked. And it’s possible she was approaching him with it at the moment she was hit.’

Mace scratched his head. ‘You’re not telling me she was killed because of a condom?’

‘No.’ She waved a hand dismissively. ‘I’m trying to reconstruct how the crime was committed.’

‘Well, we’re all doing that.’

‘Yes, but I’m doing a psychological evaluation. What type of person would do this? What’s he saying? What fantasy drives him?’

‘Hookers and fantasy go together, don’t they?’

‘True. But is he choosing prostitutes because of a fixation with them or because they’re easy victims?’ She rubbed her chin, concentrating. ‘Where did the steak knife come from?’

‘The kitchen, by the look of it,’ said Mace. ‘Other knives match it. You’ll get the forensic report when it’s ready.’

She sighed, flicking the notebook irritably against her ribs. ‘This guy’s a contradiction.’

‘What do you mean? What are you seeing that I’m not?’

Rita was silent, preoccupied.

‘Look,’ said Mace. ‘I’m not one of those stick-in-the-mud arseholes who thinks there’s only one way to solve a case. If your profiling can give me evidence, believe me, I’ll use it.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence. I mean it.’ She gave him an appraising look. ‘But it doesn’t work like that. Profiling won’t provide evidence. It doesn’t nail anybody. All it can do is suggest a possible suspect. To be honest, it’s closer to art than science.’

‘Yeah. Okay. You want to explain that to me?’

‘What I’m looking for is his mind trace. His crime signature, as distinct from his MO. What he does that is unnecessary. His extra touch.’

‘Like beating his victims senseless then mutilating them.’

‘Exactly. The crime is the canvas on which he projects himself.

The way he does it says something unique to him. That’s what I mean by fantasy. It’s very, very important.’

‘You said he’s a contradiction, but you didn’t say how.’

Rita gestured at the room with a sweep of her hand. ‘This crime scene is random and sloppy. Disorganised. It doesn’t fit with the way an intelligent, socially competent, serial offender would behave. There’s a lack of control. Weapons lying around. DNA, fingerprints. The body just left there. It points to someone of low intelligence and a social failure.’

‘So where’s the contradiction?’

‘The description of the man who blinded Emma Schultz. He’s the complete opposite. All the hallmarks of a slick professional. Well dressed. Driving a smart convertible. Someone in control of the situation.’

‘Are we talking split personality?’

‘Not quite a technical term.’ She gave a low chuckle. ‘But I think we have someone struggling to cope with pressure that’s pulling him apart. A professional man who has to vent his sexual need and inner violence. He plans and controls his pick-ups, and at the point of sex loses his self-control. He doesn’t bring weapons, he improvises.

The same goes for props, such as the candles here, the fire at the first crime scene. And that well-worn bondage gear looks like it belonged to the girl.’

‘That’s right,’ said Mace. ‘It’s from a set in her wardrobe.’

‘So the offender begins with a straightforward pick-up and the intention of recreating his fantasy of the cave. But as he does so, he extemporises and loses control, maiming his victims and leaving a blood-stained mess littered with evidence. It points to a form of breakdown. Something in his life has triggered a fundamental change.

He won’t be able to stop.’

‘Where did you get all that from?’

‘Just a leap of logic.’

‘Right,’ said Mace dubiously. ‘But I agree with you about one thing. These mutilations have only just started. We’d better get ready for the next one.’

He was interrupted by one of his detectives.

‘Look what else we found in the wardrobe,’ said the officer, brandishing a Plato’s Cave T-shirt. It was black and red, with the trademark design of the nightclub.

‘Well that settles it,’ said Mace. ‘We now have a common link in both attacks. I don’t care what Proctor says, we need to pay a call on Kavella’s club and turn over a few rocks. See what crawls out.’

As Rita and her fellow detectives were examining the scene, news of the murder hit the media in a flurry of agency snaps. It wasn’t long before the apartment block was besieged by reporters, photographers, TV camera crews and satellite vans. They were all jumping on the angle of a serial attacker on the loose, and now they had a title for him. Some injudicious cop patrolling the crime scene perimeter had mentioned the mutilation of the victim’s ears. Putting that together with the first victim’s injuries, the reporters came up with an appropriate nickname: the Hacker.

The clamour for a statement was finally satisfied when Mace emerged and answered questions to a cluster of microphones in the glow of arc lights, cameras flashing. It was all that the assembled journalists needed. Although Mace spoke briefly and was circumspect in his comments, there was enough information to hype the story to the hilt. And when crime correspondent Mike Cassidy glimpsed his ex-girlfriend on an upstairs balcony, it handed him a little scoop on the side.

Cassidy’s TV channel broke into its lunchtime show with a news flash.

We interrupt our normal programming to bring you breaking news on
the gruesome discovery of a murdered woman, believed to be the second
victim of a serial attacker. We’re now crossing to our crime correspondent, Mike Cassidy, who’s reporting live from the murder scene.

Cassidy began his report:
Police hunting the man who blinded a prostitute
in a vicious attack early last week believe he’s struck again, this time
killing his victim. The body of a young woman, also said to be involved in sex work, was discovered this morning in the apartment block behind me. This second victim fell prey to a savage assault, during which she suffered mutilation injuries. While the girl last week had her eyes gouged out, this second girl was apparently stabbed through the ears. The nature of the wounds in both cases has led tabloid reporters around me to dub the maniac behind the attacks ‘the Hacker’. It’s not yet clear when the woman was killed, with police only confirming that it was sometime in the past few days. The investigation is now being headed by the Homicide Squad’s Detective Inspector Barry Mace, who spoke to us a few moments ago.

Video of Mace:
What I can confirm, at this point in time, is that we are
investigating the death of a young woman. The body was discovered
after our attention was drawn to her apartment this morning by a phone call from a concerned neighbour. I can also confirm that she suffered a violent assault that led to her death. Forensic officers are still examining the crime scene as the evidentiary process continues.

Voice of Cassidy:
Is it true the victim was a prostitute who was stabbed
through the ears?

Video of Mace:
It’s our understanding that the young woman was a street
worker, yes. As to the type of injuries inflicted, I’m not prepared to go
into details.

Voice of Cassidy:
Will you confirm you’re linking the murder with last
week’s blinding of prostitute Emma Schultz?

Video of Mace:
At this stage each investigation will stand alone, with the
forensic analysis ongoing. However, the nature of the crimes indicate
to us there may be a connection.

Cassidy to camera:
Fears that a maniac is on the loose now prove to be
justified, and it’s clear that his violence is escalating. Women in the sex
trade have already been warned that they’re targets, and now people living in this area admit they’re frightened.

Video of local woman resident:
It’s bad enough what we put up with
around here. You see the hookers, most of them junkies, plying their
trade from here to Carlisle Street, pulling over the motorists. And if they don’t take them back to their homes, they do it in their customers’

cars. It’s disgusting. Now we’ve got this lunatic prowling the streets. It
makes you worried about walking out your front door.

Cassidy to camera:
Of course, it’s not just a worry for red light districts,
although these seem the most likely hunting grounds for this predator.

As if to underscore police concerns, I can exclusively reveal they’ve again
drafted in criminal profiler Marita Van Hassel, who is analysing the
crime scene behind me as I speak. That seems to indicate no solid leads have emerged, and detectives are no nearer to catching or even identifying the Hacker. At this stage officers are unable to give us any further details of the man who perpetrated these horrendous crimes, so he remains at large. Now, back to the studio.

The tabloid press followed suit, making the most of the nickname attributed to the killer. The first front page of the afternoon exploited it neatly with the lurid headline: hacker cuts down hookers.

The coverage was the last thing the crime squads needed, and with some of the macabre details in public circulation their job had just become harder.

Rita and Erin Webster joined around two dozen detectives from the Homicide, Organised Crime and Sexual Crimes squads as they filed into a briefing room and took their places at a long white table under the fluorescent strip lighting.

‘This reminds me of detention at school,’ whispered Erin.

‘I’m sure you had plenty,’ said Rita, ‘and deserved it.’

At the head of the table, Barry Mace and Jack Loftus sat together, hemmed in by a bank of filing cabinets, flip charts and a row of whiteboards. All the relevant information from the two attacks had been gathered and displayed on the walls around them. The graphic images of crime scene photos had been arranged alongside arrowed street maps, forensic science reports, evidence lists, timelines, interview records, clipboards and even Rita’s preliminary profile. Newspaper front pages with Hacker headlines had been tacked to a corkboard.

The accumulated data generated by the two cases loomed over the detectives settling into their chairs as Mace got to his feet.

‘It will be obvious to you why we’re here,’ he began. ‘And you can forget what I told the media earlier today about two separate investigations. We’re hunting the same perpetrator in both cases and he won’t be easy to track down. We’re dealing with an anonymous offender, no prints or DNA on record, someone who appears to strike at random. He’s intensified his attacks from mutilation to maiming and murder, and so far we’ve established no direct link with his victims. You can all see the type of investigation we’re facing, as well as the workload and potential duration. That means we had to make a decision. The result is the gathering in this room. We’ve decided to set up a dedicated taskforce to focus on these two cases, and any further ones the Hacker hands us. We’re calling it Taskforce Nightwatch.’

Mace bowed his head and leant forward on the table, before continuing. ‘Now, you may feel we’ve been here before. In fact, some of you have. A year ago we used the same room for the taskforce hunting the Scalper. I’ve heard the speculation, so let me make a few things crystal clear. Although the file on the Scalper is still open, he hasn’t come back to plague us. It’s definitely
not
the same offender.

The DNA, prints, crime scenes and victimology are emphatically different. Having said that, we do face an odd coincidence - the same make, model and colour of car, a black Mazda MX-5. It means we have to go through the same process of trying to eliminate all the owners of such vehicles. That process is well in hand thanks to Detective Senior Constable Matt Bradby. How far along are we, Bradby?’

Bradby straightened up in his chair. ‘When you mention we’ve been here before,’ he told the gathering, ‘it’s more like a nasty case of deja vu. We’ve hit roughly the same barrier total as in the Scalper case. Let me give you the background. The Mazda MX-5 is the best-selling two-seater sports car of all time, according to the
Guinness Book of Records
. It’s got a global cult following and worldwide sales heading towards a million, with Australia’s share approaching fifteen thousand. When factors such as car colour, region and driver age group are taken into account, we still can’t get the potential suspect pool below three hundred. We’re about halfway through the list, checking out a lot of the same young guys we did a year ago, and so far - zip, nothing to give us the Hacker. We need to narrow the field by getting additional specifics about the car. Either that or conduct a mass mandatory DNA test of Mazda owners.’

That got a laugh.

‘It would certainly mean fun and games with the civil liberties lobby,’ commented Mace. ‘Anyhow, it shows the sort of thing we’re up against. But that’s just one line of inquiry. The pathologist puts the time of death at two nights ago and we’ve started the process of interviewing the dead girl’s neighbours and fellow hookers. As yet, we’ve got no witnesses, so there’s nothing to add to the suspect description.’

Mace took a deep breath, raising himself to his full height.

‘However, we do have a new focus after establishing a common link between the two victims,’ he said. ‘It turns out both were regulars at the Plato’s Cave nightclub, which is a popular pick-up joint for prostitutes. It’s also frontline turf of the city’s gangland, so we’re going to have to tread carefully.’ He paused, directing a fierce frown around the room. ‘Now I can’t emphasise this strongly enough: it’s the
customers
we’re looking at, not the club’s owner, Tony Kavella.

I don’t want anyone to approach him. Leave that to me or Jack Loftus. But with or without Kavella’s cooperation, in the next few hours we’re going to start questioning his Friday night crowd - any customer who fits the description of the Hacker provided by Emma Schultz. It’s tricky ground because of our recent history with Kavella, so I want everyone to behave with the utmost professionalism. That’s about all I’ve got to say at this stage. Jack?’