Philip Kerr - A Philosophical Investigation

As developed by her former employers, the European Bureau of Investigation, the MAP was the very latest expert guidance system for assessing a suspect’s personality as a possible multiple killer. From a worldwide database of some 5,000 multiple killers, compiled over a period of fifteen years, the MAP included up to 300 common characteristics of known multiple offenders.

The detective fed information about a suspect into the computer. Then the MAP awarded a certain number of possible points for each item of information that tallied with known multiple behaviour. For instance, the MAP awarded maximum points if the suspect was white, since it happened that most multiple killers were white. Blacks could only obtain a maximum number of points in this respect if the victim was elderly and white: this was because the existing database showed that murders of elderly whites were most commonly committed by blacks. When all the information available to the detective had been fed into the computer, the MAP counted up the number of points and offered the detective a statistical probability that the suspect was indeed a multiple killer. Even then there was nothing automatic about what resulted from the program’s assessment. The sole responsibility for if and how the results were used remained the detective’s. For Jake it was the one computerised system of investigative analysis that she actively enjoyed using.

Stanley stood over her shoulder as Jake started to key in the information using the Ministry’s personnel file on Esterhazy as a reference. When it came to the suspect’s religion Jake was surprised to see that Esterhazy had described himself as a Manichean.

‘What the hell’s a Manichean?’ Stanley growled.

‘Manichean? It’s not really a religion at all,’ Jake explained. ‘More a kind of viewpoint that considers Satan to be co-eternal with God. Equal sides of the same coin, so to speak. St Augustine was a Manichean for a while, until he thought better of it. Eventually it was denounced as a heresy.’

She glanced at the record of Esterhazy’s distinguishing marks. ‘Excellent,’ she murmured. ‘This guy has three tattoos.’

The EBI held that tattoos were one of the most common physical similarities among multiple killers. Examination of the bodies of 300 multiple killers, dead or alive, had revealed that almost 70 per cent of them were marked in this way. It was generally held by forensic psychiatrists that self-mutilation was often an early indicator of criminally aggressive behaviour. The greater the percentage of body area covered with tattoos, the greater number of points the MAP would allocate to the suspect.

She glanced over at the laser-printer as it sprang into swift action.

‘Is that the handwriting sample they’re sending?’ she asked Stanley.

Stanley leaned over the machine and inspected the printout. Then he tore it off the main sheet and handed it to Jake.

She opened her desk drawer and took out a magnifying glass which she passed over the handwriting as if she had been looking for a fingerprint. Graphology had been a major part of her training with the European Bureau of Investigation.

‘Look at this,’ she murmured. ‘The handwriting is hardly joined up at all. It’s mostly capital letters. Small ones too.’

Stanley bent over her to take another look.

‘Neat though,’ he observed.

‘Too neat,’ said Jake. ‘This is someone who’s really straining to keep things under control. It’s almost like he could explode at any minute. I wonder when this was written.’

‘Maybe when he joined the hospital,’ Stanley suggested.

Jake typed a description of Esterhazy’s handwriting onto the program.

‘Other distinguishing characteristics?’ She picked up the glass and was silent for a minute while she searched again. Finally she handed Stanley the glass.

‘Take a look at the way he writes his letter “W”,’ she said, pointing them out on the copy. ‘Here, and here.’

‘It’s more like a letter “V”,’ said Stanley. ‘With a stroke in the middle. Like a pen nib.’

‘But don’t you think it’s actually rather vaginal?’

Stanley looked again.

‘Now you come to mention it,’ he said. ‘Yes, you’re right, I think.’

Jake typed her description and then pondered her own graphologist’s analysis.

‘You know, that might just indicate a possible Oedipus complex.’

‘The bloke who fucked his mother, right?’

‘Yes, Stanley,’ she said coolly, ‘the bloke who fucked his mother, Jocasta. More pertinently, he also murdered his own father, Laius, King of Thebes.’

‘So what does that mean?’

‘It means that our friend here may be paranoid. He may resent paternal and, therefore, all male authority. Believe me,’ she added, ‘I know what I’m talking about. That’s one thing Esterhazy and I have in common.’ She smiled to herself, and glanced sideways at Stanley but his crumpled face registered no sign of surprise. She almost thought there ought to have been a fanfare of trumpets.

‘That sounds criminal enough,’ said Stanley. ‘Where does this bastard live?’

Jake glanced up at the side of the computer screen still containing the details of Esterhazy’s personnel file. She hit the keyboard to send the cursor in search of this information.

‘Nurses’ home, at Guy’s Hospital,’ she said.

‘The nurses’ home?’ Stanley sounded shocked.

‘I imagine it’s the male nurses’ home,’ Jake said patiently.

‘Whatever it means, he sounds like a bit of an outsider to me,’ said Stanley. ‘Leastways someone who’s not much at home in this world.’

‘You could be right,’ said Jake. ‘But let’s see what the program says, shall we?’

She finished typing in the rest of the information and glanced over the result.

When she was satisfied that there was nothing more she could usefully add, Jake instructed the program to calculate the degree of probability. The machine gurgled, emptied half of the screen, flashed several colours and was silent for almost a minute. Finally a number arrived on screen.

‘56.6 per cent probable,’ said Jake.

‘Not much better than an even chance,’ said Stanley.

Jake grunted. Accessing the original MAP once again, she asked to review the existing 300 characteristics of the database. This took several minutes to read through.

‘You know,’ said Jake finally. ‘There’s nothing here about transportation. What’s a multiple’s most common mode of transport?’

‘Truck,’ said Stanley, hardly hesitating. ‘Small van, or an estate car.’

‘Right,’ said Jake. She cleared the screen and accessed the main menu. This time she selected the National Vehicle Licensing File to check if a vehicle was registered to Esterhazy. After a short pause the computer returned with the information.

‘Bullseye,’ said Jake. ‘He owns a blue Toyota Tardis van, registration Gold Victor Bravo 7-8-3-7 Romeo. Now if we assume that the van is worth another three points, that takes us to almost 60 per cent.’

‘That’s a bit more like it,’ agreed Stanley.

Jake started typing again.

‘One more thing,’ she said. ‘That racial marker we had from the killer’s DNA...’

‘A German. So?’