Sugar & Spice (20 page)

90

He woke up with a start, leapt out of bed and ran to the window.
Dawn.
He cursed his indiscipline. There’d be no chance of moving her again before
nightfall. He booked the room for a further night as he went to breakfast.
Only when he came to back-up the transit did he notice the saloon had gone. The
turmoil in his mind barely registered on his face as he drove away.
He tuned in to the local radio station as he reached the M54, heading for
Telford.
Shropshire Police were still searching Shrewsbury town centre for the missing
girl, nine year old Michelle Morgan, last seen by her mother in the multi-storey
car park late the previous afternoon. Fears were growing for her safety.
The image of her trussed body lingered in his mind. The pink leggings. The
exposed naval.
He needed her.
Anyone.
The decision was made.
Telford.

91

At the best of times Telford has a poor show of policing and today much of the
Shropshire force were swamping Shrewsbury town centre.
There was no obvious connection as yet between Michelle and the Uncle Tom
murders, but by now the thought was uppermost in everyone’s mind and reporters
on the scene were anxious to exploit it.
When no link looked like materialising they made the most of speculation and the
fear of local parents to enliven their midday bulletins.
There were plenty of kids on the way to school. He was enjoying the view, but
they were bunched together, chaperoned, or in busy areas.
Then he saw her, coming out of the newsagents with her father’s paper under her
arm.
Alone.
Seven. Eight maybe. Dressed in a pastel green tunic, with knee high white socks.

He shadowed her in the van, checking for CCTV, then pulled up by the bus stop.
Thereno-one else in sight.
He drove east, back along the A5 through Crackleybank, the child’s pitiful
screams inaudible outside the transit’s soundproofed walls. His face looked
ahead as he drove slowly past the police cordon just outside Weston-upon-Lizard,
but his eyes were on the burned out vehicle. A police car stood idle nearby.
He smiled to himself and accelerated away. He rang through on his mobile and
cancelled the motel reservation before destroying the sim-card.

92

The lunch time radio news led with the gruesome find of the body in the boot.
Shropshire Police confirmed it was the missing school girl Michelle Morgan, who
had vanished from a busy shopping centre car park the previous day. A police
spokesman said they had no reason to connect this with the Uncle Tom child
murders.
The one o’clock news led with reports that another girl, eight year old Andrea
Whiteman, had failed to return from a Telford newsagents that morning. As the
nation’s media descended upon the town, parents everywhere were told to exercise
extreme caution.
He pulled in at the Toddington services southbound past Junction 12 and made a
reservation for the night, paying cash in advance, then spent the afternoon in
Milton Keynes, parking near the car he’d arrived in a few days previously. He’d
be back to collect it later.
He caught a movie at the multiplex before driving on towards the marina, where
he found a quiet spot and joined Andrea in the back of the van.
It was nice to have a name to put to the face.
An appetite worked up, he made his way to the Toby Grill and dined by the
canal-side, lightly crumbed plaice, fries and minted garden peas, with herbal
tea, while he considered the problem of where to dump the body.
The consummate professional, he’d finished his meal and had started on the sweet
before he made a final decision.

93

Professor Gavin Large poured himself another scotch, leaned back in his
comfortable armchair and browsed the paper again. He had before him the homework
of one of his pupils.
He felt like the law professor in The Pelican Brief, given the all important
thesis by the star pupil he’s secretly bedding, that gets the bad guy and
solves the mystery.
Except she wasn’t his star pupil.
The report wasn’t a thesis.
It didn’t solve the mystery, and didn’t name the bad guy.
And he wasn’t knocking her off on the side. Chance would be a fine thing.
Despite such reservations he ran to a third scotch and perused the document once
more.
Ceri Jones was no Julia Roberts. She had little chance of scraping through on
even the lowest grade, let alone becoming his star pupil. She rarely finished
her assignments on time, was always late for class, and talked too much..
Yet Large had just finished reading her homework for the third time, and was now
reading it a fourth.
The task had been simple enough. Select a convicted killer of choice, analyse
the profiles produced during the hunt and compare with the known facts revealed
after conviction. Standard second year stuff. Invariably they picked the tabloid
favourites. Nilsen, Dahmer, Gacy, Bundy and Sutcliffe were always in the
running.
For Ceri Jones he’d anticipated one of the more obscure characters. Pedro Lopez
or Robert Hansen. Maybe Leonard Lake. Albert Fish was a front runner.
He should have known better.
She’d elected to profile a killer not on the list, which was bad news for her.
It was outside the remit of the assignment. He had no choice but to award an F.
But the profile was good.
Wild.
Daring.
Brash.
Presumptive.
By far the best piece any student of his had turned in over the years. It was a
shame he had to fail it.
But quite apart from ignoring the assignment’s oectives, Ceri had completed a
profile which it was impossible for him to mark. Impossible because the killer
she’d selected had yet to be caught.

94

It was Matt’s choice of venue and for once Cafe Nero was not on the list. They
found a spare table in Caesar’s in St Peter’s Street, Canterbury, settling down
to a feast of light pasta dishes washed down with a cheap but exhilarating
Chianti.
“She’s a what?” After Bristow, Claire was not in the mood for this at all.
“A second year student?”
“In applied psychology,” Matt stressed. “Gavin says it’s worth a
look.”
“And this… This student… I suppose she had a couple of free periods so she
popped down the refectory and ran it off between lectures?”
“Claire, I know how you’re feeling just now. But forget Bristow. Think about
Rebecca. Remember what you told me the other day, about playing Miss Marple?”
“That was then. I’m not sure I’m ready for anything else.”
“Claire, this girl’s family live in Rhyl. North Wales. Her sister attends the
same school as one of the victims.”
Claire pushed her plate aside and reluctantly took the folder, casting a
tentative glance over the first few pages, just to keep Matt happy.
He was making the effort for her.
The least she could do was feign interest.
She was on the first train to Liverpool the next morning.

95

“It’s a bit like fortune telling,” Professor Large explained through
mouthfuls of chips and gravy. “You know, horoscopes? If you keep the
information broad enough it will fit any number of scenarios. It’s once you get
down to the nitty-gritty that things start getting difficult.”
In the refectory at Liverpool University Claire listened intently while Large
multi-tasked food and conversation “Don’t get me wrong. There have been some
spectacular successes. You remember the toddler Jamie Bulger?”
Claire nodded. Who would ever forget?
“Paul Britton’s finest hour. Had the two boys spot on. Age, home background,
family. Everything. Devastating. My students idolised him. Remember the
kidnapped baby, Abbie Humphries? The kidnapped estate agent Stephanie Slater?
All resolved with the help of Paul Britton.” More chips. “Then came the
Rachel Nickell fiasco. A young woman out with her child on Wimbledon Common,
attacked by a lunatic with a knife. Stabbed forty-nine times and sexually
assaulted in broad daylight, yet nobody saw a thing. A man was arrested and
charged, only to have the case thrown out of court. The judge all but accused
the police of trying to frame the guy.”
Large paused to deluge his chips with salt. “Mind you, Britton redeemed
himself pretty well with Fred and Rosemary West. Just goes to show, you can’t
win 'em all. Another failure? The Waco siege in the States. Some religious
lunatic, thinks he’s the Messiah. The profilers said, Fine, go ahead. He’s not
the suicidal type. The whole place went up in flames. He didn’t just commit
suicide himself. He took eighty innocent people with him. So yes, it can work.
Just don’t put too much trust in it.”
“I’ll try not to.” Claire pushed a small potato around the plate with a
fork. Any appetite she might have had was lost watching Large eat.
“Even the Old Man himself, James Brussel, got it wrong sometimes. His big
success was the Mad Bomber of New York in the fifties. Some demented idiot led
the Big Apple’s finest on a wild goose chase for sixteen years. Then Brussel
came along. He listed the Mad Bomber’s traits with spectacular accuracy.
Middle-aged, paranoiac, immigrant male living with his sister. He even described
the way he’d dress. In a double-breasted jacket, worn buttoned. He was spot
on!”
Claire nodded politely. The history lesson was mildly interesting, providing you
didn’t have to watcheak.
“Of course, profiling has come a long way since then. The Yanks have it down
to a fine art now. Seen Silence Of The Lambs? I love that film. I’d give my
right arm to visit the FBI Academy in Quantico. There’s nothing comparable
anywhere in the world. Mind you, no country has as many crazed killers as the
States.”
“That I can believe.”
Large took it as is cue to continue. “You see, sex crime is a relatively
recent phenomenon. I mean, sure, there’s been rape and pillage throughout
history. But serial sex attackers, paedophiles, all that nonsense? It’s a
modern phenomena. And no, it’s not just because of improved detection and
recording methods. Ever heard of Abraham Maslow?”
He paused to shovel more food. Claire acknowledged her ignorance with a shake of
her head.
“A genius. Back in the forties Maslow put forward the concept of the hierarchy
of needs. That human motivation is driven not by greed, but by need. He argued
need comes in four stages: food, shelter, emotional stability and
respectability. You can see it in any social class or group. When man just
existed in the wilderness his sole concern was sustenance. Food. Early man.”
The reference to food reminded Large to start shovelling again. “When food is
less of a problem, shelter becomes important. Look at any group of animals. The
more highly evolved they are the more they rate shelter, a home, alongside food
as part of their normal life cycle. What separates man from animals is the need
for emotional stability. The need for relationships. Again, some of the higher
mammals show similar traits. Dolphins, chimpanzees, dogs.”
Large stopped chewing long enough to drain his mug of tea. “Last of all comes
the need for respectability. Self esteem. It’s what drives your traditional
working class pleb to go down the jobcentre and take the first thing that comes
along so he can have the dignity of employment, even if it’s just shovelling
shit from one place to another. It doesn’t matter. It’s work, and that means
self-esteem. Of course, if he doesn’t have somewhere to live or food to eat then
the dignity of work isn’t a consideration. Nor is his relationship with other
people.”
Claire struggled to look interested. It had been a long journey to get here. The
last thing she wanted was a sociology lecture.

96

“Crime reflects this,” Large continued, evidently enjoying himself.
“Early crimes were for food. They teach kids at school that medieval laws were
barbaric, but the laws of that time simply reflected the priorities of the day.
You could get hung for poaching a salmon, but kill your neighbour and nobody
cared. As the economy developed, crime became more money-orientated, but it was
the same driving force behind it. The need for food and shelter. Who’d steal a
lamb nowadays? Most people wouldn’t know how to kill it, let alone skin it and
make a meal.”
Claire nodded her understanding.
Large went on, “So you stole money instead and bought the meat, or nowadays
you’d shop-lift it direct from the supermarket. As society became more
developed, violent crimes became largely domestic. Once the rape and pillage
stage had passed, sex crime virtually disappears. Now there’s several reasons
for that, but mainly availability. No offence, Claire, but women were cheap
then.”
Claire grimaced. She just wanted to know about Ceri’s profile. Matt had warned
her the professor was a lecturer in and out of the classroom.
“Seriously,” Large continued. “The rich had their slaves, the poor had
their prostitutes. For a few pence a man could satisfy his desires. There was no
such thing as working women, bar a few developing cottage industries.
Prostitution was the only independent source of income a woman had.”
Claire raised a doubting eyebrow.
“You have to understand, Claire, attitudes towards sex were different then.
The poor lived squashed into tiny houses, sleeping on top of one another. Men,
women and children together. Sex was quite open, with children looking on.” He
paused to savour a forkful of chips. “Child sex among the poorer classes is
not well documented but that doesn’t mean it didn’t occur. Certainly among the
educated classes it was quite the norm.”
Claire shuddered as she thought of Bristow.
“Then came the Victorian era. Sixty glorious years when you couldn’t even show
the legs of your table for fear of embarrassing someone, and with it the
repression of social attitudes, driving sex and sexuality underground. Suddenly
sex wasn’t so readily available. Crime changed to reflect that. Sex criminals
emerged.”
Large broke off to acknowledge a passing colleague, then resumed in full flow.
“Jack the Ripper is the classic, of course. After domestic crime, sex crime
was a natural evolution. As women became more independent so prostitutes became
more expensive, less available. Violently-inclined men who might have satiated
their desires on a cheap woman suddenly found they couldn’t afford them.
Prostitutes became a symbol of their inadequacies, and for some a means of
hitting back, an easy target.”
“Easier than children?”
Large stabbed at some peas. “Good question. You see, sex crime isn’t about
sex.”
Claire looked surprised. “Then what?”
“It’s about power. It comes back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Most killers
have pretty stable lifestyles. A home, a job, maybe even a successful career.
I’m thinking John Gacy, Ted Bundy, or our very own Dennis Nilsen or Frederick
West. Some were, by all accounts, happily married. Peter Sutcliffe, for example.
Colin Pitchfork had a wife and kids. Ted Bundy was a notorious womaniser. They’d
met the first three needs, food, shelter, emotional stability, although Nilsen
claimed he kept the corpses of his victims by his bedside for company.” He
shrugged his shoulders indifferently. “But they lacked the self-esteem they
wanted, for all their achievements. Self-esteem and power go hand in hand. The
need to control. That’s what drives men to rape and kill, not the act of sex
itself. Controlling another person to the extent of coldly murdering them is the
ultimate act of power. In the warped logic of the killer it’s the ultimate act
of self-esteem.”
“You’re saying Uncle Tom is just some power freak?”
Large considered the question.“Obviously children are easier for an adult to
control, simply because of their diminutive size. But there’s more to it than
that.”
He broke a roll in two and stuffed half into his mouth. “The problem is,
profiling techniques that work well for sex attacks on adults tend to fall down
when it comes to children. That’s one of Colin Dunst’s failings. He can’t bring
himself to accept that some people might actually find children sexually
attractive in their own right.”
“Like Thomas Bristow?”
“Precisely.”
“But he was sick in the head, surely?”
Large shrugged. “Was he?”