Peter Robinson - Friend of the Devil

“Not necessarily,” said Nowak. “You’ve got to wonder how smart a killer is when he cleans up a body but misses a drop of semen. Maybe he’s just lucky. But let’s be honest: Anyone who sets out to commit a crime today has seen The Bill, probably Silent Witness and CSI, too. The general public knows way too much about forensics, no matter how much of it is fabricated. People know to be careful, and what to be careful about. In some cases, they even know how to go about it.”

“What I’m getting at, ma’am,” Templeton said to Gervaise, “is that we might be dealing with the first in a series. The more well prepared our killer went out, the more he cleaned up after himself, the more it suggests forward planning, surely?”

“It doesn’t mean that he had any victim in mind beyond Hayley Daniels,” argued Banks, “or that it wasn’t someone who knew her. If Stefan is right and there are two distinct people involved, perhaps her killer wasn’t her rapist. Has anyone traced Hayley’s biological mother, by the way?”

“She went off to South Africa with her boyfriend,” said Winsome. “Hasn’t been back.”

Banks turned to Templeton. “I think we all take your point, Kev,” he said. “Jim, did your search turn up any similar crimes anywhere in the country over the past eighteen months?”

“There are plenty of teenage girls gone missing,” said Hatchley, “but most of them have turned up, and the ones who haven’t didn’t disappear in circumstances like Hayley Daniels.”

“Thanks, Jim. Keep searching.” Banks turned back to Templeton. “What I’m saying, Kev, is that we’ll only know for sure we’re dealing with a serial killer if there’s a second and a third. It could have been a spontaneous crime, a rape gone wrong, not necessarily a serial killer in the making.”

“But we can at least put some men in the Maze on weekends, can’t we?”

“I’m not sure we can justify that expense, DS Templeton,” Gervaise said. “We just don’t have the manpower. We’re already over budget on the forensics.”

“It had to be a spontaneous attack to some extent,” added Winsome. “Nobody knew Hayley was going to go into the Maze until she left the Fountain with her friends at twelve-seventeen.”

“But they all knew?” Gervaise asked.

“Yes. She told them outside the pub. It’s on CCTV.”

“Who else knew?”

“Nobody, as far as we know.”

“Then it’s one of her friends,” said Gervaise. “Or the Lyndgarth yobs, the ones who gave the bartender in the Fountain such a hard time.”

“No, ma’am,” said Templeton. “I’ve just finished checking on them. Seems that after they were kicked out of the pub they nicked a car and went for a joyride. They crashed it outside York. Nothing serious, just cuts and bruises, but they were tied up at the hospital and with the York police most of the night.”

“Well that’s one we can cross off our list,” said Gervaise.

“There is one small point,” Winsome said. “Just now, when I spoke to Jill Sutherland, she told me that she often walks through the Maze when she’s been working at the Fountain. It’s a shortcut to the car park.”

“So you think the killer was waiting for Jill and got Hayley instead?” Gervaise said.

“No, not necessarily, ma’am,” Winsome answered. “Just that he might have known he had a good chance of finding a victim there if he knew about that.”

“What I was saying,” Templeton went on, “is that the killer was already waiting in there, inside the Maze. Winsome’s right. It’s the location that counts, not the specific victim. Maybe he’d been there on previous occasions, staking the place out, but nothing happened, and he was waiting. He knew it would happen sometime, that some unfortunate girl would walk in there alone — Jill Sutherland, for example — and he could strike. These people have infinite amounts of patience. This time he got lucky.”

“I think DS Templeton has a point,” said Dr. Wallace. She was in her casual civilian clothes today and Banks had hardly recognized her at first, a slight figure, with her hair drawn back from her forehead and pinned up tight, black polo-neck top and jeans, Nike trainers. He got the impression that she could be quite attractive if she wanted to be, but that it didn’t interest her. “In my experience,” she went on, “times before I’ve seen such cases, or even read case histories involving such injuries as I found on Hayley Daniels’s body, they were almost always part of a series. I’ve looked at the crime scene photos,” she went on, “and there was a definite ‘posed’ quality about the body. She wouldn’t have been left in that position naturally after he’d finished with her. She would have been… exposed… open… abandoned like a used doll. But she wasn’t. He carefully turned her on her side, hid the damage he’d done, the trauma he had caused, so she just looked as if she were sleeping. He even cleaned her body. One-off killers don’t usually go to such trouble.”

“I understand what you’re saying,” said Banks, “but I’ve seen examples where someone has killed someone close to them and covered up the injuries in that way out of shame, or even covered the body with a jacket or a sheet. No killer except the habitual one knows what he’s going to feel like after he’s finished, and that sort of reaction, horror at the results of the crime, is common enough.”

“Well,” said Dr. Wallace, “I bow to your expert knowledge, of course, but I repeat: This could be only the beginning. There are indications the killer will strike again. And the Maze is a perfect location.”

“All right,” said Gervaise. “Point taken, DS Templeton and Dr. Wallace. But as I said before, at this stage we can hardly afford the manpower to saturate the Maze with police officers on Fridays and Saturdays. Besides,” she went on, “don’t you think that if you’re right, and this is a potential serial killer, then he’ll have the good sense to choose another location next time?”

“Not necessarily,” said Dr. Wallace. “I’m not a psychologist, but I do know something about criminal behavior, and people do become attached to certain places. The Maze is certainly big and complicated enough to be attractive to that sort of personality. He might find that it mirrors his inner state, for example, his inner turmoil. Lots of shadows and nooks and crannies to disappear into and appear from.”

“And lots of ways in and out without being caught on camera,” said Templeton. “The doc’s right,” he went on, getting a frown from Dr. Wallace, which he didn’t notice. “He’s lurking in an area at times when there are likely to be a lot of drunken young girls nearby not exercising a great degree of common sense. There are other similar dark and isolated areas close to the town center, like the Castle Gardens and the Green, and they should be covered, too, but they’re all more open. The Maze is perfect for him. Remember, Jack the Ripper only operated in Whitechapel.”

“Even so, that was a much larger area,” said Gervaise. “Anyway, I’m sorry but the best we can do at this point is increase the number of regular patrols in the area and put up warnings in the pubs advising people to avoid the Maze if they’re alone, especially females,” said Gervaise. “Also to stay in groups, not to wander off alone. That ought to be enough for now. Besides, the place is still a crime scene and will be for a while yet. It’s taped off.”

“Only that part of it near Taylor’s Yard,” argued Templeton, “and if you’re bent on murder you’re hardly likely to worry about a small infringement like—”

“That’s enough, DC Templeton,” said Gervaise. “The subject’s closed.”