Walking into the Ocean (17 page)

“Stan, slow down . . .”

“The good part's coming,” Stan bellowed into the phone. “He, Stephen, said I had to attend the briefing today. Guy called Maris called my number and confirmed.”

“Confirmed what?” Peter said.

“Some kind of inter-agency briefing at noon.”

“Today?” Peter struggled to sort it out. Bartleben had confirmed his and Stan's appointment to the Task Force. Now Maris was already playing games. He'd notified Stan of the briefing session and ignored Peter.

“Where are you staying, Peter?”

“Sunset Arms,” Peter replied. He had decided, for reasons he couldn't explain, to change lodgings.

“Me too.”

“Where are you now?”

“In a cab on my way to the Whittlesun police station.”

“I may be late,” Peter said.

Stan always had to have the final word. “Save you a seat. See you.”
Click
.

Tommy Verden looked over at his friend. “You want me to wait?”

Peter hesitated. Tommy was the one he trusted, more than Stan. At some point, he would summon Tommy back to Whittlesun, but not yet.

“No,” Peter finally said. “But I don't like the games they're playing.”

Tommy eased the car into the central zone of Whittlesun.

“Just call, Peter.”

“Soon.”

Shiny official vehicles clogged the front and side car parks of the Whittlesun station. Peter went inside as a distant church bell chimed noon. He was let through security by the same woman guard behind her Plexiglas window. Entering the open area, he met clusters of lower- to mid-level police officers, most of them in uniform, coming out of the big conference room. He seemed to have missed the entire briefing, although Stan had clearly said noon.

Detective Hamm tapped Peter on the shoulder from behind. As Peter faced him, he smiled broadly. Peter saw that once again his shirt was rumpled, and he was generally unkempt and sweating.

“Chief Inspector, I'm glad you made it back. I'd like a chance to follow up with you on a couple of things. The pub at 1600 hours?” Peter wondered what Maris might have said about Hamm's continuing working relationship with him.

“I'd like that, but could we make it five? Better yet, 5:30?”

“Done!” Hamm seemed anxious to return to the conference room.

“I've moved to the Sunset Arms, but the Crown is still convenient. Did I miss the meeting?”

“No, sir. Our fellows just got an overview briefing on the Task Force's work. The Task Force itself, of which you are a member, I'm glad to hear, is meeting now. Most of them are already in the room.”

Detectives were crowding into the conference room and Peter assumed they were from both the Dorset and Devon Forces, although only official members were allowed in this time. He hung back at the doorway and noted that a head table had been set up at the far end; he wondered if he was expected to sit up front. He spied McElroy conferring with Maris in a corner; the Devon chief inspector, his back turned, failed to see him. It seemed to Peter that his old colleague looked sickly. Peter threaded his way through the groupings of detectives. On the wall behind the wide table someone had tacked a map of the coastline, a satellite photograph blown up to panoramic proportions. Peter recognized the Whittlesun Cliffs and the two beaches. St. Walthram's Abbey was a rectangular speck on the map. The car park up on the hill was visible as a grey smudge.

He scanned the crowd and nodded to several veteran detectives he had worked with before. He stopped at the sight of Stan Bracher sitting quietly at one side of the room, his legs crossed at the ankles in an insouciant pose, directing a wry smile at Peter. Stan was tall, round-faced and thick across the shoulders, reportedly from a youth spent tossing bales of hay on farms in Saskatchewan. When he stood up he seemed to be all upper body, almost triangular. But for now, he was lounging in his chair, his long legs stretched out; he didn't care if he tripped several people. He projected affability and informality. He was a nice guy, everyone agreed, but Peter knew that his sociability was also a policeman's persona crafted to win over witnesses and other strangers; Peter's own formal politeness served the same function. Stan could be combative, and he loved to defend — and endlessly debate and recast — evidence that fell within his domain of scientific expertise. With his open demeanour and his uninflected speech, he was often mistaken for an American, which Peter supposed was the curse of all Canadians abroad. But inevitably when Stan grinned and corrected inquiries about his nationality, the questioner smiled with relief that he wasn't American, and became friendlier. He had a sardonic sense of humour too. He had pasted an
OPP
logo, a black-and-yellow badge, on the side panel of his attaché case and liked to leave it exposed during meetings. Often as not, British officers would puzzle over the acronym, which stood for Ontario Provincial Police. Their usual gambit was:
That badge looks familiar. Where have I seen it before?
Stan would answer:
The Beatles were members of the
OPP
. You saw it on the
Sgt. Pepper
album cover. Paul's wearing it in the picture.
He would then pull out a copy of the album jacket and point to the shoulder patch worn by Paul McCartney. Many a meeting veered off topic as aging police officers revisited their Carnaby years.

Stan had been reserving the chair next to him. Peter came up and they shook hands.

“Who's he made the official liaison, you or me?”

“Peter, you know I hate that bureaucratic stuff. I'm a techie. Why don't you be the official rep?”

“What did Bartleben indicate to you?” Peter said.

“Nothing. You know him, always jockeying for position, using you and the likes of me as pawns. That's a mixed metaphor, isn't it?”

Now
there's
a good reason for not making Stan our spokesperson, Peter mused: he can't stay on topic. But he liked Stan.

“I'm in the doghouse with the locals,” Peter noted.

“And how's Joan?” Stan said, with what he would call a shit-eating grin on his face. Peter ignored the provocation.

“You available to see the Lasker house at two?”

“Absolutely. I hear it's quite something. I'm looking forward to it.”

The meeting was about to start. “It's quite something,” Peter whispered.

Maris called the briefing to order by tapping a drinking glass with his pen. As the group, twenty men and four women, settled down, Peter caught Jerry Plaskow waving at him. Jerry, Royal Navy, resplendent in his uniform, was an old colleague. He gestured to two empty seats at the head table. Stan took the chair on Jerry's right, while Peter occupied the last spot at the table, farthest from McElroy.

Maris kept his introduction short, conscious that this session was an extension of the briefing earlier. There was a good reason for two sessions, however: this one was for Task Force members only, and thus would cover inside information on the Rover. Or, as Bartleben would have summed it up, it would be about optics and politics. As Jack McElroy rose, Peter understood what had happened. Maris had told McElroy that Peter wouldn't be in the room; Maris had to invite one of the Yard men, per his commitment to Sir Stephen, and thus the phone call to Stan. The only remaining question was why McElroy was so hostile to Peter.

McElroy had the build of an old football centre-half. He boasted a full head of completely white hair, which he kept flamboyantly long, and he wore impeccably cut suits — unusual, to say the least, among police officers in County Devon. He liked facts, a tad like Mr. Gradgrind in
Hard Times
, Peter thought, and had a declamatory style when discussing case files. Peter preferred a more free-flowing manner in briefings, but McElroy, he admitted, was the right man for a disparate group like this, most of whom had never confronted a serial killer.

Except that he wasn't. Today his shirt collar was frayed and his suit coat shifted off one shoulder when he stood. The group of detectives sensed the change. Their first, forgiving reaction was that McElroy was under the weather, but Peter felt that something else was going on.

“Gentlemen,” — the four women went unacknowledged — “this is not this morning's briefing. We are here to talk strategy, and here is the first strategic decision you need to make. Any member of this Task Force who talks to the media will be sacked. The watchword for all of us must be containment. I am not just referring to our media strategy, though talking to reporters would serve no useful purpose. I mean, this tragedy must be contained. There is no need for the public to panic and we will avoid doing anything to feed paranoia. The tourist season is over; we're into October. The predator is working the cliffs of Devon, and possibly moving into Dorset, but he has shown no signs of working the tourist beaches in the area. The victims are local girls, the children of farmers. He hasn't taken anyone from the beach huts, or hikers from the paths higher up. We can contain this, with solid police work.”

Peter watched Maris frown. McElroy was veering off script. He should have done introductions, or passed the podium on to Maris himself to do them. Peter dreaded what might be coming next. But then McElroy appeared to settle down; at least, his voice became calmer.

“I want to point out several people who are new to our group. Let me welcome Jerry Plaskow from Ports Security. If you have ever dipped your toe in the English Channel, you undoubtedly know Jerry.” Plaskow nodded.

“I also welcome two members from New Scotland Yard to our team, Detective Stan Bracher, late of Canada, and Chief Inspector Peter Cammon. They will provide liaison with the Yard and — we in the regions are always hopeful — access to ‘central' resources.”

There was chuckling around the table and Stan, who seemed oblivious to McElroy's earlier distress, joined the banter. “Mr. Chairman!” he called out. “For the record, my ‘Detective' is a Canadian designation, so that I am not officially a Yard employee.”

“Duly noted. In the event, we welcome the Detective, despite being lost in the mid-Atlantic.”

But then McElroy's face darkened and he seemed to lose energy. Bitterness entered his voice. “Dorset men are full partners in our Task Force effort. Out on the pitch . . . out on the field . . . in the field . . . our regional forces will triumph, without the need of meddling from London.” He faltered, and turned his uncertainty into an acceptable pause by pretending to refer to some papers. “Our evaluators, and by that I mean experts attached to my force, and people at the Regional Lab, believe that he will move up or down the coast in a linear pattern. Admittedly, that brings him anywhere from Land's End to where we are now.” His voice faded, as if he had just delivered a non sequitur.

Jerry Plaskow, two down from Peter, put up his hand. “Jack, can you tell us why your profilers say he'll keep moving that way?”

“I'll let Martin Finter answer that.” McElroy finally sank into his chair. He wiped sweat from his forehead. Attention turned to the young man sitting next to the head table. Peter recognized the executive assistant type. Finter stood up; he spoke without notes.

“Thank you, Chief Inspector McElroy. Our behaviouralists have assessed his psychological makeup as well as his geographic pattern.” The tone was slightly patronizing, as though this group might not understand how rapists established their territory.

Finter went on. “The first two crimes occurred exactly six kilometres apart, bodies found in a rocky cave or grotto, both in Devon County. The third girl was discovered lying on a rock on the clifftop even farther east. The fourth girl, Molly Jonas, vanished close to six kilometres eastward, towards Dorset, but still inside the Devon line. We've searched every cavern and inlet in the area but we haven't discovered her body.”

Not a person in the room believed that Molly Jonas was still alive.

Finter proceeded. “This is a pattern, make no mistake. His method is meticulous. He lays out the body neatly, like the corpse at a funeral. Cleans off the faces, puts a handkerchief over their eyes. In the first two murders, he threw the girls' shoes into the sea. The first body was left on a sandy, silted area inside a cave, yet there were no footprints.”

Peter hoped that Stan wouldn't be the one to challenge the theory that the Rover was moving up or down the coast in regularly spaced intervals. He wanted someone less amiable to confront Finter, to bring him down a notch.

Jerry Plaskow, who knew the sea cliffs like a pirate, raised his hand again.

“A follow-up. I was here this morning and you mentioned the need to keep a watch on the whole south coast. That's a real manpower challenge. Aside from the views of my colleagues within Ports Security on the feasibility of doing that, are there reasons to believe that he
won't
follow the same pattern? Or that he'll even kill again?”

Peter saw McElroy give Finter the go-ahead, even as he grasped that Jerry might be baiting the slick young man.

“The killer won't be satisfied until he's stopped. Now, he might stop killing for the time being because of winter setting in, but our profilers are sure that he'll simply start up again in the spring.”

This wasn't a popular answer. Peter, like every police professional in the room, wanted to stop the Rover fast. Nor did it fully address the killer's modus operandi and geographic patterns.

Plaskow spoke again, not bothering to put up his hand this time. “I checked the charts for the days the first three victims disappeared. On two nights there were four-foot seas in the Channel and cold, driving spray along the shore. He may not be deterred by winter.”

Yes, thought Peter, who had read the Task Force summaries, but there was also fog on all three days, he seemed to recall.

Stan Bracher put up his hand. “Forgive me, but I will ask the obvious next question if no one else is going to.” Peter looked over at McElroy, who was looking anxious. “If we measure six more kilometres down the coast towards us, does that put the Rover in Dorset County?”