Chapter 31 #2
‘I’ll speak to Kent police and also the NCA if she’s moved to Margate, but you know how it works, they won’t provide as much as a panic alarm unless Tabitha Ashcroft agrees to co-operate,’ Pellacia pointed out.
‘I think that we may have some difficulty with that,’ said Ramouter. ‘The Ashcrofts are refusing to sign their witness statements.’
‘Even though they told us what happened to them?’ asked Pellacia.
Ramouter nodded. ‘We had to really push for them to do that.’
‘I can talk to Tabitha,’ said Copeland. ‘Convince her that we can—’
‘Ramouter will speak to the Ashcrofts,’ Henley cut in. ‘Make sure that you pass on the Margate details to him. Let’s move on. The vigilante angle?’
‘I think that it may be more than one person. This is the problem with these people – these vigilante groups. They do more harm than good,’ said Eastwood.
‘That’s not strictly true,’ DC Copeland jumped in. ‘Some of these vigilante groups have been successful in stopping men grooming young people and attempting to commit sexual offences. Their actions have resulted in successful criminal prosecution.’
‘Pretending to be a fourteen-year-old kid and arranging to meet a disgusting pervert is a lot different to dragging people off the street, pumping them full of fentanyl and hanging them over the river,’ said Eastwood coldly.
‘DC Eastwood, I wasn’t sa—’
‘It’s DS,’ said Eastwood.
‘I’m sorry, DS Eastwood,’ Copeland said warmly. ‘I don’t agree with the idea of vigilantism, but we can’t ignore that their actions have been helpful. Of course, that’s not the case here.’
‘That’s an understatement,’ Eastwood bit back.
‘Let’s get back to the case,’ Henley said, joining Eastwood at the front in a show of solidarity. ‘Unless Eastwood has discovered any other cases preceding Mantell or anything between Hyoo’s murder and the Ashcrofts’ attack?’
‘None with the distinctive MO of the scalping,’ Eastwood confirmed.
‘But that’s not to say there may not have been any attempts,’ Ramouter added. ‘Tabitha Ashcroft got away but only because her husband was home. What if she wasn’t the only one?’
Eastwood sighed as she reached for her notebook. ‘You’re right. I’ll take a look.’
‘I’ll take London, and you take Manchester,’ offered Stanford supportively.
‘That’s great,’ said Henley. ‘We also can’t dismiss the family and friends of Fox-Carnell’s victims and the men who accused Nathan Hall of rape. Where are we with Laurence Durant?’
‘His car was seized last night but I don’t think CSI have got round to examining it yet. I’d rather not drag him into an interview until I’ve got something solid to put to him,’ answered Stanford.
‘I agree.’ Henley took her phone out. ‘I’ll text Anthony and ask him if he can pull some strings to get us higher up the priority list. Right, let’s go back to the location of these attacks. There has to be a good reason why the attacks started in Manchester and then migrated to London.’
‘The London cases start with Tabitha Ashcroft but why her? It wasn’t as though the case made national news,’ said Ramouter.
‘Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds. All three are big cities and at least forty miles from Manchester. Depending on the traffic it would take you no more than ninety minutes to get there,’ said Copeland.
‘But to come to London, that’s a ten-hour round trip.
I think maybe our vigilantes had a specific reason to be here that had nothing to do with the Ashcrofts or even Nathan Hall. ’
The image of Henley’s husband Rob, booking his train tickets to Manchester Piccadilly popped in her head. ‘Work,’ she said. ‘If Stanford and Eastwood don’t find any more similar cases in North-West England then I’m thinking that whoever we’re dealing with may have moved down to London for work.’
‘That’s a bit of stretch,’ said Pellacia.
‘I don’t think that it’s a stretch at all,’ said Henley.
‘They could have moved down here for work or followed a partner who has moved for work. If Eastwood and Stanford don’t find any more cases north of the M25 then I think it’s safe to assume that whoever is responsible has set up base in London. ’
‘Fair enough,’ Pellacia conceded as he shuffled in his seat. ‘How about the elephant in the room? The scalping.’
Henley brought up the photographs of the injuries on each of the victims onto the smartboard.
‘Oh god,’ Copeland said, putting her hand to her mouth. ‘That’s horrific. I had no idea.’
‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Henley replied. She picked up a marker and added Nathan Hall to the victim board. ‘Obviously we need to see the full investigation file for Mantell and Hyoo.’
‘Five victims,’ said Pellacia.
‘Five targeted victims. I’m not including Graham Ashcroft. He wasn’t a target. He just got in the way.’ Henley paused. ‘I think we need to bring Mark on board.’
‘Who’s Mark?’ Copeland asked as Pellacia shook his head no.
‘Mark is a criminal profiler,’ Stanford intoned monotonously.
‘Dr Mark Ryan is a forensic psychologist and a consultant for the SCU,’ Henley said sternly. ‘We need him to explain the motivation behind the scalping. It’s extreme and I’ve never seen anything like it before.’
‘Forensic psychologist, criminal behaviour analyst. Whatever you want to call him, it’s all a bit woowoo. You don’t need a degree to tell you why a madman is killing people,’ Stanford gave his well-rehearsed speech.
‘We’ve used him on a number of cases where the case circumstances and the MO were unique,’ Henley explained.
‘We won’t be using him on this one,’ said Pellacia. ‘We can’t afford him.’
‘I’ll call in a favour. He’ll do it for me,’ Henley said.
Ezra walked into the room with a smile on his face. Henley quickly tapped the screen and turned it blank.
‘I have— you’re new?’ Ezra asked, pointing his laptop in Copeland’s direction.
‘I’ll explain later. What is it?’ Henley asked.
‘The phone company finally came through with the cell site report for Fox-Carnell’s phone and I’m done with the Soteria data,’ said Ezra. ‘Can you turn on the smartboard please.’
‘Because I know you lot like pictures, I’ve got a map,’ Ezra said proudly. ‘These are Fox-Carnell’s movements. After she left your house boss—’
‘Left your house. What does he mean?’ Copeland asked.
‘Carry on, Ez.’ Henley turned her back to Copeland.
‘Her phone and tracker places her at New Cross Gate at 6.04 p.m. and at London Bridge at 6.12 p.m.. I’m assuming she goes on the tube because her phone connects to a phone mast and her tracker places her thirty-five minutes later at 6.47 p.m., Colindale tube station,’ Ezra continued.
‘She’s got a little more than two hours before her curfew kicks in,’ said Ramouter. ‘So where does she go?’
‘I think she’s walking because the tracker information next places her at Colindale Park. She doesn’t move for about thirty minutes. It next tracks her to the Co-op on Colindale Avenue.’
‘Stanford, I need you to get hold of the manager for that branch. We need details of CCTV and anyone who was working there at that time,’ said Henley before turning back to Ezra. ‘Where did she go after that?’
‘Her tag and her phone next place her near Mornington Close but that’s where the information ends,’ said Ezra. ‘Whoever was receiving the monitoring information was able to switch it off.’
‘I’ll find out which council covers Colindale and see if they’ve got CCTV available for the area,’ said Ramouter.
‘Thank you. There’s one more thing. Is there any way that you can check if the monitoring information for anyone else was being diverted?’ Henley asked Ezra.
‘Yeah, I can do that,’ Ezra replied. ‘Anyone in particular or just see what turns up?’
‘Look for Nathan Hall first.’
Ezra left the room, and Henley took a deep breath, finally feeling as though she was getting control of the case.
‘I’m going to talk to the victims of Fox-Carnell who survived. DC Copeland, I want you to familiarise yourself with the serial crimes investigation manual,’ said Henley.
‘Wouldn’t it be more useful to investigate Nathan Hall,’ asked Copeland, flipping the page of her notebook. ‘I can check for any instances of recorded harassment against him and look into the backgrounds of his complainants.’
‘No,’ said Henley. ‘This is your day one. An SCU investigation doesn’t work in the same way as your usual major crime.’
‘I didn’t expect it to, but I have worked on a murder investigation before.’
‘Oh god. She’s going to get a lesson,’ Eastwood muttered. She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a bag of Maltesers.
‘DC Copeland, a homicide is investigated by a major investigation team that usually includes at least four Detective Sergeants and eighteen Detective Constables.’ Henley bit her lip to stop herself from adding that she was sure that Copeland was on the lowest rung of the ladder.
Instead, she said, ‘We’re a smaller, specialised unit and you don’t work until you understand how we work. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, guv,’ Copeland replied, her Welsh accent prominent.
‘Once you’ve completed that task, I want you to go through the Fox-Carnell and Ashcroft CRIS reports, witness and forensic statements so far. And you …’ Henley said, turning to Pellacia. She stared at him, the anger visible in her eyes.
‘You forgot to say guv,’ Pellacia said icily.
‘I need to talk to you. Outside. In the yard, guv,’ Henley said.
‘That really is no way to talk to me, especially in front of the rest of the team,’ said Pellacia.
‘I don’t appreciate being left in the dark,’ said Henley. She pulled the hairband off her right wrist and tied back her hair. Despite the blue sky interrupting the sequence of clouds, she could smell rain in the air.
‘How have I left you in the dark?’ Pellacia asked.
‘DC bloody Copeland. You just sprung her on us. You’ve never done that before when you’ve brought someone new into the team. You didn’t do that with Ramouter. You consulted all of us and you didn’t do that with DC Kemble who was here for all of five minutes. Why didn’t you call me last night?’