The Falcon Tattoo (The National Crime Agency Series Book 2) Read online

  ‘It’s my homework,’ she said.

  The woman prodded her partner.

  ‘I need to go to the loo,’ she whispered.

  He shuffled along his seat, and stood in the aisle to let her out. Then he followed on behind.

  Ten minutes later, neither of them had returned. Jo wondered how they would have felt if they’d seen her a few hours ago in full combat gear, reeling off the rounds. She smiled and turned the page – Chapter 4: The Dead Speak.

  Chapter 3

  Early next morning, Jo’s team, the Behavioural Sciences Unit, gathered in the meeting room around the smaller of two oval tables. Harry Stone, Deputy Director of Specialist Services, their boss, was seated opposite his team, a pile of folders in front of him.

  ‘A series of rapes,’ he said. ‘Five to be precise. In every case, the perpetrator was believed to be a single unidentified subject. All of them were stranger rapes. All of the victims were students. There are sufficient markers to suggest that they may be part of, or develop into, serial offences. Hence they fall within our remit.’

  ‘Which markers in particular?’ asked Andy Swift, the team’s behavioural psychologist. In his cargo pants, trainers and favourite LIFE BEHIND BARS T-shirt, he could not have made more of a contrast with the Boss’s dark grey suit, white shirt, and brick-red tie. Mad scientist versus Corporation man.

  ‘We’ll get to that,’ said Stone.

  He opened one of the folders, and handed each of them a set of papers stapled in one corner. ‘This is the case file detailing the first of these offences. It’s typical of the others, which are believed to have been committed by the same unsub. As you can see, it’s from Lancaster PPU.’

  ‘PPU, not the CID?’ said Max Nailor, Jo’s fellow senior investigator.

  ‘That’s right. They made the decision to put another thirty CID detectives on to pursuing paedophile investigations, and let the Public Protection Units handle all the other sexual offences, including rape.’

  ‘That would make sense,’ said Jo. ‘It would make for more consistency and focus in both cases.’

  ‘But do the PPUs have enough experience?’ wondered Ram Shah, their slim, youthful unit intelligence analyst.

  ‘Not when it comes to a case like this one,’ Stone replied.

  The name of the investigation was printed in bold on the first page: Operation Juniper.

  ‘Random computer generation,’ Ram surmised.

  Stone carried on talking while the team read the files for themselves. ‘Sareen Lomax. Eighteen years old. Freshers’ Week pub crawl in the city centre, with a bunch of girls she’s only just met. You know the scenario. Chance to let your hair down, start to socialise, maybe score if you’re that way inclined.’

  ‘Sharks circling,’ muttered Max, struggling to get comfortable in the mean-spirited chair. At six foot three and close to fourteen and a half stone, Jo could see Max on the rugby field.

  She nodded. It was a good metaphor. These students were a shoal of innocent seal pups playing in the surf, blissfully unaware that a great white shark was preparing to take one of them out.

  ‘She gets carried away,’ Stone continued, ‘as they do, and gets left behind when the others move on to another pub. They don’t notice she’s missing till it’s time to get the coach back. She turns up the following morning six and a half miles away in the middle of a bridge, in a place called Samlesbury Bottoms. And you can spare us the comments, thank you, Ram.’

  ‘Wasn’t going to, Boss,’ said Ram, holding up his hands in mock surrender.

  ‘Good. Passing motorist, a farmer’s wife, almost knocks her down on the bridge when she lurches in front of her Land Rover. She’s incoherent, sweating and shaking. Motorist takes her to A&E. They call the police. When they ask her about her movements the previous evening, she has no memory of any of it other than starting out with the other girls. When they carry out the medical examination and she finally realises that she’s been raped, she’s panic-stricken.’

  Max flipped to the forensic report.

  ‘No evidence of excessive force,’ he observed. ‘No internal or external bruising. No evidence of restraint or defensive wounds.’

  ‘She was drugged,’ noted Jo. ‘Gamma hydroxybutyrate showed up in the urine. There’s a new test for GHB that has trebled the number of positive results. Another few hours, however, and they still might have missed it.’

  ‘He used a condom. Absence of perpetrator body hairs suggests he shaved them all off,’ said Andy. ‘There’s also a chance he either wore a hairnet, or is bald.’

  ‘No sweat traces either,’ said Ram. ‘Forensics reckon he must have bathed or showered her afterwards, then dressed her, and dumped her close to where she was found.’

  ‘She could easily have stumbled into the river,’ Jo pointed out.

  ‘No trophies taken from her person,’ said Stone. ‘But he did leave a calling card.’

  ‘The tattoo,’ said Max, holding up one of the photographs. ‘What kind of bird is that?’

  ‘A falcon,’ Stone told him. ‘A raptor in the species Falco. Specifically, a peregrine falcon.’

  ‘What do we know about peregrines?’ asked Andy.

  ‘You’ll find a note on the back of the photo,’ Stone replied. ‘In essence, it’s the most common of all falcons, found almost everywhere from the Poles to the Tropics. It lives off small to medium-sized birds. The female is larger than the male, and at two hundred miles an hour the peregrine is the fastest animal on Earth.’

  ‘That’s two reasons for him to be angry,’ said Ram, grinning. ‘Envy and premature ejaculation.’

  ‘Ram!’ said Stone.

  ‘Sorry, Boss. Just trying to lighten it a bit.’

  ‘I doubt that’s how either the victim or her parents would see it.’

  ‘He thinks of himself as a hunter,’ said Jo. ‘A natural predator. Instead of taking a trophy, he leaves a signature in the form of a tattoo, and as a symbol of his control over his victim. I hope for her sake it isn’t permanent?’

  ‘That would have taken too long. You’ll find that in the notes too. They believe he used a stencil and an inkpad. Then he used hairspray to fix it. Her own hairspray, would you believe? It washed off, but it took some scrubbing.’

  ‘I suspect that he did take a trophy,’ said Andy. ‘In the form of a photo or a video.’

  ‘Like the guy in the States who had a place full of photos? The one who appeared on The Dating Game after he’d already killed two women?’ said Max.

  ‘Rodney Alcala,’ said Andy. ‘Except that they were never able to prove that any of the women in the photos were his victims.’

  ‘Maybe not, but some of them were of girls, women and even boys who’d gone missing. And he did admit to a further thirty murders.’

  ‘Let’s stick to the facts of this case,’ said Stone. ‘Few witnesses came forward. Most of the men caught on camera in the pubs and clubs she and her friends visited together that night were subsequently identified, and they’ve all been eliminated from the investigation. There were some who it was impossible to identify. Dark lighting, backs to the camera. She hadn’t made any male friends in the short time she’d been in the city. There were no boyfriends that might have followed her from Bristol where she lives with her parents and a younger sister. Fairly extensive analysis of traffic cameras and CCTV at and near the club has produced no leads whatsoever. There was no evidence on her laptop or in her emails that she was being stalked, groomed or harassed in any way. Seven months on and they’ve made no progress whatsoever.’

  ‘They do have some trace evidence though,’ Max pointed out. ‘The foreign fibres and a single strand of hair found on her skirt.’

  Stone nodded. ‘The fibres are from upholstery that was supplied to Adam Opel AG and Vauxhall Motors, both subsidiaries of General Motors. There’s a list of relevant models and years at the back. They’re all saloons or estates registered between 1996 and 2013. A total of eight hundred and sixteen thousand cars,
according to the manufacturers. Just under half that if you exclude foreign registrations.’

  ‘Four hundred thousand registrations to check,’ said Max. ‘The senior investigating officer might have got approval for that if it was a murder investigation, but not for a single rape.’

  ‘You’re right, they didn’t. As for the hair, it was identified as belonging to a female Caucasian, who drank alcohol on a regular basis and was an occasional user of cocaine.’

  ‘Could it have belonged to one of her friends?’ asked Jo.

  ‘No. They were all eliminated, but she could have picked it up in any of the places they’d been that night.’

  ‘Or it could have come from the same upholstery in the same vehicle as the fibres?’

  ‘Exactly. But without that vehicle, they’ll never know. So, Jo, tell me – why do you think they want our help, and what do you think they expect us to do?’

  The others all stopped reading, and stared at her. ‘Like you said, Boss,’ Jo said, ‘this case has multiple markers that suggest that the perpetrator, if he’s not already one, is likely to develop into a serial offender.’

  ‘The markers being?’

  ‘The perpetrator is not known to the victim. The attack was premeditated. He’s organised and methodical, in that he came equipped with GHB to render his victim unconscious and powerless; he was able to remove her from the scene undetected; he took precautions against leaving trace evidence; and he had a stencil and ink pad ready to leave his signature in the form of the tattoo. That signature alone, like that of a graffiti artist, would indicate that he’s confident, proud of his handiwork, craves attention, and intends to strike again.’

  ‘He didn’t though,’ Stone said. ‘Not for over six months. That’s a long time between attacks for a serial perpetrator.’

  ‘Not if it was his first,’ Jo pointed out. ‘His apprenticeship as it were. He would have been waiting to see if he’d really got away with it, and how the police responded. Following everything that was written about the investigation in the media and on social media, and learning from it.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Andy. ‘How long was there between the second and third victims?’

  Stone opened the second of the files and distributed sheets with photos, descriptions, names, dates and locations of the five offences.

  ‘Victim two’s last known sighting was in Preston, twenty miles away from the first abduction. She’s American: Wallis Grainger, age nineteen, five feet tall, blonde, blue eyes. Different university. On a Freshers’ night out, just like the first victim. Only she staggered outside saying she felt a bit sick and needed a wee. She was seen going round the back of the club.’

  ‘And she didn’t come back?’ said Ram.

  ‘She came round in the grounds of a former psychiatric hospital near Goosnargh, five miles away,’ said Stone. ‘Following the attack, she packed up and went back to the States. Six weeks after she was assaulted, he struck again nineteen miles down the motorway in Bolton. Hayley Royton, victim three, was left on the moors near Darwen. Four weeks later, he abducted another girl in Salford. She turned up in Worsley Woods. And the latest victim was plucked off the street in Bradford last week, and left unconscious in a wooded copse in a farmer’s field near Denholme.’

  ‘A classic escalation pattern,’ said Andy.

  ‘The gap between numbers two and three fits exactly with the university summer holidays,’ said Jo. ‘All of the attacks occurred in term time.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a member of staff,’ said Ram.

  Stone looked sceptical. ‘At five different universities?’

  ‘They’re all within a radius of forty miles or so,’ Ram said. ‘That’s less than the Yorkshire Ripper covered. And they’re all connected by motorways.’

  Jo was staring at the colour photographs and the sketchy details beside each of the victim’s names.

  ‘There’s another thing that connects the victims,’ she said. ‘Besides their being students. They’re all blonde and short. The tallest is five foot three, the shortest four foot nine.’

  ‘I noticed that,’ said Andy. ‘In my view, we’re looking at a collector. One with a very specific set of criteria. Somewhere in his past there’ll be a trigger that explains why he selects these girls in particular.’

  ‘A fact, Andy, that I’m sure will figure in your behavioural profile for Operation Juniper,’ said Stone. ‘But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First I need to tell you where we’re going with this.’

  He flipped open another of the files and handed them each a sheet of A4. ‘We’re not going to repeat the mistakes that were made in the Ripper case. Forces failing to share information with each other, data collection and analysis all over the place, interview and search procedures poorly conducted.’

  He shook his head and raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

  ‘Sutcliffe was interviewed ten times before he was finally arrested, and even then it was by accident. That’s not going to happen this time.’

  He held up the sheet of A4. ‘The Operation Talon team has set up a Major Incident Room here in Manchester, specifically for Operation Juniper. They’ll collect and collate all evidence as it comes in, and feed it directly to a satellite MIR here in the Behavioural Science Unit. Jo will be the NCA senior investigator with free rein to carry out victim and prime suspect interviews, request analysis and operational resources. Where Talon cannot supply the resources, the NCA will.’

  ‘Talon,’ said Ram. ‘Is that to do with him using a falcon tattoo?’

  ‘No,’ Jo told him. ‘It’s the name of the Greater Manchester Police team tackling sexual crime across the region. There are nine hundred specially trained officers and staff.’

  ‘That’s what I call a resource,’ said Ram.

  Stone turned to the psychologist.

  ‘Andy, as usual, will work on a behavioural profile for these assaults, and at the same time postulate what the behaviours of the perpetrator and other features tell us about the unsub and his likely future offending behaviour, and advise Jo accordingly. And you, Ram, will interrogate our unique national database of unknown motive sexual attacks by strangers, and identify any matching patterns of behaviour or other aspects relating to this case. You will also carry out other analyses requested by Jo, including geolocation analyses.’

  Max raised a hand. ‘What about me, Boss?’

  ‘I know you’re tied up helping to review the sequence of unexplained male drownings in north-west waterways,’ said Stone. ‘But I want Jo to know that she can call on you whenever she needs to. And if she does, you’re to give this your immediate attention. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, Boss.’

  Her fellow investigator had said it without rancour, and had even managed a smile in Jo’s direction. Things are looking up with Max, she thought. Maybe he does have a cheerful side after all.

  Chapter 4

  Sareen Lomax was fragile. It was not the pale face, the paper-thin hands, or the fact that her camouflage jeans and matching hoodie hung limp on a fleshless frame. It was her eyes. They were cold and blank, even as she smiled and shook Jo’s hand.

  ‘I’d like to help,’ Sareen said. ‘But I’m not sure that I can. I told the police what little I remembered at the time.’ She hesitated. ‘And that was over a year ago.’

  She seemed surprised that it had been that long. Jo realised that there was plenty going on behind those eyes after all, but it was happening in another place, a long way away. That’s it, she thought, a place of safety. Out of range.

  They sat down in two comfortable chairs in an office the college counsellor had vacated for their meeting.

  ‘I understand, Sareen,’ said Jo. ‘And there’s really no pressure for you to try to remember something new, far from it. It’s just that I’m now in charge of this investigation and it would really help if I could hear your story for myself.’

  The student nodded. Her short hair, newly dyed chestnut brown, limp and badly conditioned, barely
moved. Jo wondered if she’d been told that she’d been chosen for her looks. That her abuser had a penchant for blondes.

  ‘But if you’d rather not, Sareen,’ she said, ‘I’ll understand completely.’

  ‘No, it’s okay,’ Sareen replied. ‘Sometimes it can help to talk about it. That’s what I’ve been told.’ She didn’t sound convinced.

  ‘It can,’ said Jo, ‘and more often than not it does.’

  Something flickered in the student’s eyes as she picked up the hint of personal experience in the detective’s voice.

  ‘So,’ Jo continued, ‘take your time. Starting with how that evening began.’

  ‘It was the end of Freshers’ Week. There were two mixed pub crawls organised. One was around the campus bars, the other was around the town.’

  Her voice, low and faltering at first, became stronger and more assured as the story unfolded. ‘The group of girls that I was with from our college, well, my hall of residence mainly, decided to go into town. There were coaches arranged.’

  She looked up to check that Jo was following her.

  ‘You were all girls? No male students?’ Jo asked.

  ‘There were plenty of boys. I mean, it’s a mixed hall, it’s just that it was early days, and we’d sort of bonded, the six of us.’

  Jo nodded. It had been the same when she’d started at Manchester Uni. You found your feet in a group of like-minded girls, and then people gradually began to go their own way. But some of those earliest liaisons were the ones that endured. It was how she and Abbie had met.

  ‘Besides,’ Sareen continued, ‘only one of the girls wanted to go round the campus bars.’ She paused, and Jo guessed that she was probably reflecting on how different things would have been if she had gone with her instead.

  ‘There were three coaches. Ours dropped us outside The Bobbin on Cable Street. We had one drink in there, but it was heaving. And with it being a real ale pub the lads were all ordering pints, so we decided to leave first and get to the next one ahead of them. We had a map.’