Chantal van Mierlo - Julia Menken

“What have you found so far, Rich?” she asked and pointed at the body. He had opened up the abdominal cavity and was busy removing the organs. These were rinsed off and placed on the preparation table next to the autopsy table. Diego was constantly putting his foot back down on a pedal and reporting on the findings.

Julia looked at the boy’s face, at the pale skin around his blue lips and closed eyes. She followed the fine contours, which would undoubtedly have developed into coarser facial features if time had allowed it. It was the face of a boy who was about to become a man.

“He was attacked with an incredibly sharp knife, probably a boning or filleting knife. And the perpetrator knew exactly what he was doing.”

“Yes, I had reached that conclusion too.”

“Apart from his genitals, there is also a large chunk of muscle missing from his thigh.”

How stupid, she hadn’t noticed that yesterday. “I’ll show you.” He rolled the stiff body onto its side, with a little help from his assistant. “Look. Can you see that?”

She nodded. “Why his thigh?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Perhaps some form of trophy?”

“We can at the very least call it remarkable.”

There had been a great deal of blood at the crime scene and she had assumed it had all come from the wounds the front of the boy’s body had suffered. She frowned at the large flesh wound. A great big chunk had been cut out from his upper leg and buttock. The skin around it showed dark purple corpse stains, because the blood had drawn there after the victim had died.

“So is he intact apart from that? No missing organs?”

Galvez shook his head. “I’m not completely done yet, but I don’t think so. To be honest, it’s certainly bad enough like this. He allowed him to bleed out like an animal.” He was referring to the cut throat. He looked at the body whilst shaking his head. “God have mercy on his soul.”

“What do you think?”

He pressed his lips together. “Difficult to say, it can really go in any direction. But the killer is an absolute animal, that much I’m sure of.”

*

She walked into the East Netherlands Police Department’s Regional Crime Squad meeting room with Diego a good hour later. A white, almost sterile room, with a whiteboard on the wall as the only distraction, depicting pictures of the crime scene. There was a buzz in the room and she was aware of the smell of vending machine coffee, mixed with various different types of after shave. A group of men who were stood chatting next to the whiteboard fell silent when Julia entered the room. She could feel the detectives’ stares on her body like the red laser dots of a gun.

A thin and awkward-looking figure came walking towards her. He had an unhealthy pale complexion and his eyes were deep in their sockets. He smiled at Julia.

“My name is Rens. Digital investigator.”

He probably hadn’t been doing that job for too long, as he looked like he had only recently left school. She nodded at him and he laughed a little nervously, like a shy child.

Diego sat down at the large oval meeting table and the rest of the team followed his example. She recognised the three forensic detectives she had already met at the crime scene.

“The core team are meeting here today,” Diego explained. He introduced her to a number of detectives. She only managed to remember the name Justus Beekmans, purely because he gave her a particularly dirty look.

“The Public Prosecutor has decided to seek support from the National Unit, considering the complexity of the case,” Diego explained. “In the form of Julia Menken. She is a Behavioural Expert within the DNOC in Zoetermeer. She’s going to be working on a profile sketch of the perpetrator.”

The older of the two detectives gave an approving nod in Julia’s direction. Justus didn’t move a muscle.

“Do you have any information about the victim’s identity?” Diego asked.

Justus shook his head. “We’ve been round all the surrounding schools, but it didn’t result in anything. We’ve now increased the radius and are making enquiries throughout the whole of Arnhem.”

“Surely someone must have reported that boy missing?”

Diego took in a deep breath. “So what do we know at the moment?”

One of the forensic detectives, a thin man wearing glasses, pointed at the pictures which had been secured to the whiteboard with brightly coloured magnets. Everyone got up and gathered around the whiteboard.

“Do you want to start us off, Julia?” Diego asked.

“I’m going to be drawing up a perpetrator profile. I’ll be doing this using the clues we found at the crime scene. These could indicate certain characteristics which can help to identify the type of person. Which emotions, thoughts and feelings did the perpetrator experience before, during and after his crime? We need to try to step into the perpetrator’s shoes.”

“And you’re going to do this purely based on a gut feeling?” Justus Beekmans asked, raising his eyebrows.

“No, not completely. I follow a fixed set of criteria.”

“Like?”

“The guiding principle is that someone’s behaviour reflects their personality. So the modus operandi is the key to it all: How did the perpetrator get to work? There are a number of things which instantly stand out here. Like the way the shoes and clothes were positioned. An impulsive perpetrator wouldn’t have cared about what happened to those personal items, he would simply have discarded them. But our perpetrator didn’t. He positioned them very precisely and there’s undoubtedly more to that than we currently know.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not sure yet, but it’s definitely very remarkable. A trademark of his actions.”

“That doesn’t sound particularly concrete.”

“With the knowledge I currently have at my disposal I would class him as anti-social, but he’s able to distinguish between good and bad. He doesn’t suffer from regret or a bad conscience, but he is not mentally ill.”

She looked around. Justus’ laugh was irritating, he obviously wasn’t taking her seriously. The others avoided looking at her.

“Have you found anything useful?” Diego broke the silence.

The forensic detective wearing the glasses turned to face Diego, making sure he had his back towards her and she was well and truly outside the little circle.

“Doesn’t appear that way. We managed to secure some fibres and we’re still busy analysing some traces left on the boy’s body, but we haven’t found any clear clues so far.”

And they won’t find those either, Julia thought. The perpetrator had made sure of that. His crime appeared to have been planned into the finest details.

Diego motioned for them to sit back down again. He poured himself some coffee and offered Julia some too. She declined.

Justus took the floor. “It must have all happened very fast, the boy was taken by surprise and didn’t even have the opportunity to defend himself. No traces were found under his nails.”

“And the deed itself? Anybody care to share any thoughts about that?” Diego asked.

They all looked at Julia.

She cleared her throat. “He took body parts with him. So it’s obvious he was after a trophy of some sort. Very typical of serial killers.”

Justus crossed his arms and leaned back. “That all sounds rather vague and it could literally apply to any killer. I think we need to start thinking about the possibility of paedophilia.”

The room fell silent.

“Why do you think that?” Julia asked.

“The neighbourhood where he was found isn’t the nicest of places. There are plenty of prostitutes, many of them addicts too. There’s usually all sorts of scum loitering around there. We’ve got a boy here who hasn’t been reported missing. The whole case stinks, if you ask me.”