Philip Kerr - A Philosophical Investigation

‘So what’s next?’ asked Gilmour.

‘Well, sir, Sergeant Chung tells me that with the computer system the BRI have been using, it is sometimes possible to recover material that has been accidentally deleted. It’s called an electronic spike. I’ve told him to make that his first priority.’

Gilmour shook his bald head and proceeded to stroke his Mexican-style grey moustache nervously. ‘I don’t understand these blasted computer people,’ he said irritably, transferring his attention to the buttons on his well-pressed uniform. ‘Either something has been deleted or it hasn’t.’ Anger made his light northern burr become more noticeably Glaswegian.

‘That’s what I said,’ Jake reported. ‘But Chung says that sometimes artificial intelligence will find a way of erasing something from a file directory and yet keep it hidden safely, somewhere within the main memory.’

‘Any other bright ideas, Jake? Mayhew’s last words. What about that?’

Jake shrugged. ‘It could be he thought that the Lombroso people set him up to be killed. It could be he was even right. Could be he was just paranoid.’

‘Yes, well I know just how he must have felt.’

‘Sergeant Chung has had one other idea, sir. He thinks he’s got a way of breaking into what’s left of the Lombroso database. You’ll recall that the Lombroso computer is connected to our own at Kidlington? And that their system is supposed to alert us if a name which we have entered into our computer, in the course of a violent crime investigation, should be on the Lombroso list of VMN-negatives?’

Gilmour grunted an affirmative.

‘Well, Chung wants to take the entire UK telephone subscribers-list, which exists on a series of discs, and feed all the names and numbers at random into the police computer within the context of a fictitious murder investigation. It might take a while, but the idea is that one by one, Lombroso will be forced to release all the names and numbers of those men classed as VMN-negative. Or at least the ones it has left since the killer’s logic bomb went off. That way we can at least keep some of them under surveillance.’

Gilmour held his head weakly. ‘Spare me the technical explanations, Jake. Do it, if you think it’s a good idea.’

‘I’ve also prepared a letter addressed to each VMN-negative person who has elected to receive psychotherapy. There are about twenty of them. Professor Gleitmann has agreed that Lombroso counsellors will give these letters to their patients. The letter asks each man, for the sake of his own safety, to contact me in total confidence. The only trouble is that these men aren’t much disposed to trust the police. They think it’s part of some grand plan that at some stage we’re going to round them all up and put them in a special prison hospital. But I still think it’s worth a try. I’d also like to take out some advertisements in the newspapers. Just a list of codenames, nothing else. But warning them to get in contact with a number.’

‘I think I’d have to clear that with the Home Office,’ said Gilmour.

‘We’ve got to try and warn all of these men,’ said Jake. ‘Surely—’

‘I’ll see what I can do, Jake. But I can’t promise anything.’

Jake felt herself frown.

‘Was there something else?’

‘Perhaps now is not the best time,’ she said defensively. ‘It’s a bit wild.’

‘No, I’d rather hear it, Jake. No matter how fantastic.’

She led Gilmour up to it gradually, telling him how she already had a team of officers checking the sales of gas-guns and combing the police files for those who had a record for unauthorised computer entry. Finally she described how one of the counsellors at the Brain Research Institute remembered having talked to the man, codenamed Wittgenstein, now assumed to have committed the murders.

‘At least, he can remember the codename and not much more,’ she explained. ‘So what I want to do is hypnotise him to see if his subconscious can make a better job of a description.’

Gilmour pulled a face and Jake wondered how much longer he had before retirement. Not very long, she imagined. But he nodded.

‘If you think that it’s necessary.’

‘I do, sir.’

The nod turned into a shrug of resignation.

‘There’s something else, sir. I’m convinced that our man believes that what he’s doing is in the public interest.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Killing men who have tested VMN-negative. Men who are potentially killers themselves. I’m sure that — our man...’ She still couldn’t bring herself to refer to the killer by his codename. It seemed too absurd that a homicidal maniac should be named after one of the twentieth century’s greatest philosophers. ‘Well, he might just have worked out some sort of justification for his actions, sir. I’d like to draw his fire a little. Try and engage him in some sort of dialogue.’

‘How would you manage that?’

‘I’d like to arrange a press conference, sir. To talk about these murders. Naturally I won’t refer to the Program itself. But I would like to try and provoke him a little. Talk about the complete innocence of the victims, how these murders were committed without reason, the work of a lunatic, that sort of thing. If I’m right, he won’t like that much.’

‘And suppose you only succeed in provoking him to go to the newspapers to explain what he thinks he’s up to? We’re just about keeping the lid on this as things stand. But if this lunatic were to go to the newspapers with a story, that would be it, I’m afraid.’

‘No, sir, I’m certain he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t want to alarm all the other VMN-negatives he’s got on his list. It would make his job a lot harder if they were all scared shitless and looking out for him as a result of reading his story in the newspapers. No, sir, my guess is that he’d try to contact us, to try and put the record straight.’

‘And if you do manage to get him to contact you, then what?’

‘Depending on how he chooses to make contact, there’s a lot of valuable profiling data we might be able to obtain: handwriting analysis, linguistic analysis, personality assessment — all of this would be invaluable in tracking him down. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, sir, that this is notoriously the most difficult kind of killer to catch. It may look as if we’re grasping at a few straws here but frankly, sir, it’s only these small fragments of data that will enable us to build up a complete picture of our man.’

Jake paused to see if Gilmour was with her. He wasn’t, she knew, a sophisticated kind of man. He was one of the old school of policing: left school at sixteen to join the force and then up through the ranks. The Scot knew as much about forensic psychiatry and criminal profiling as Jake knew about Robert Burns. But seeing that his eyes hadn’t yet glazed over, she kept on going.

‘I’m talking about systematic composite profiling,’ she said.

‘We’re trying to establish the type of man responsible, as distinct from the individual. The Yard’s own Behavioural Science Unit has already compiled in-depth psychological studies of everyone from the Yorkshire Ripper to David Boysfield. We’ll be using their body of work as a comparison in an attempt to identify the type of offender that we’re looking for. But I can’t make bricks without straw. I need some data. Contact with the killer would give us something.’

Gilmour nodded gravely. ‘What kind of man do you think we’re looking for, Jake?’

‘My guess?’ Jake shrugged. ‘Well, this is no disorganised asocial we’re dealing with, I can tell you that much. He’s a cunning, methodical, calculating killer for whom homicide is an end in itself. That is, on its own, highly unusual. Most serial killing is driven by lust. But this man is inspired by nothing other than his own sense of mission. It means he has no obvious weakness, and that makes him very dangerous.’