He nodded. ‘I know, it’s not the sort of thing you’d normally boast about, is it?’
‘That’s where one of our murder victims was dumped,’ Fiona said slowly. ‘I was working on the assumption that only locals would be familiar with it.’
‘Well, I can tell you all about it,’ Kit said. ‘This woman shagged one of the guards and let the enemy attack the city, so they cut her throat to make sure she wouldn’t be doing that again in a hurry.’
‘Did you go down to San Juan de los Reyes? The big monastery church?’
‘I walked past it. I’m saving it for tomorrow.’
‘Did you notice the chains on the facade?’
‘It’s hard to miss them. According to the guide book, Fernando and Isabella had them hung up there after the reconquest of Granada. They were used to shackle the Moors’ Christian prisoners. I must say, if that’s typical of Isabella’s idea of decor, I can’t wait to see the inside. Eat your heart out, Home Front,’ he added with an ironic grin. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘That’s where the second body was found. You’ve only been here half a day, and already you know the story behind both body dumps. It makes me wonder if I’m right in what I’m thinking.’
Kit patted her hand and assumed an expression of mock-patronage. ‘Never mind, love, you can’t be right all of the time. You leave that to me.’
Fiona snorted with laughter. ‘I’m so glad I’ve got you to rely on. Now, are we going to eat dinner, or what?’
Fiona sipped a glass of brandy and studied the rough ideas she’d sketched out. In the background, the sound of Kit’s fingers tapping the keyboard of his laptop was faintly soothing. Even the mosquito buzz of his Walkman was comforting in its familiarity. He never interfered when she had work to do, something she was eternally grateful for. She had heard too many of her friends complain that if their man wasn’t working, neither were they supposed to be. Kit was always happy to occupy himself with his own work or a book, or to take himself off to a bar and make new acquaintances.
‘I am convinced that the perpetrator’s primary interest is not sexual satisfaction,’ she read. ‘However, the nature of the sexual mutilation he has performed postmortem is suggestive. I believe it is a way of demonstrating contempt for what he sees as the “weakness” of his victims, which leads me to postulate that his method of contact with his victims was one of physical or sexual appeal. At its most crude, I would suggest that he picked them up, possibly on an earlier occasion, and arranged to meet them on the nights of the murders. He may have baited his approach with the suggestion that his specialist knowledge might be of use to them in their professional lives. It is clear that he does not appear to pose a threat to those he has selected as victims. He knows the kind of places where his potential victims are to be found. This implies considerable local knowledge and suggests that he is a native of Toledo.
‘These were not killings that occurred out of sexual rage because of failure of performance or overarousal, but from a different motive entirely.’
So far, so good, she thought. She didn’t think there was much to argue with there. ‘These crimes demonstrate a relatively high level of sophistication and planning. It is therefore unlikely that the perpetrator is new to the world of criminal activity. He is far too comfortable with what he is doing. But if we accept that the motivation behind these murders is not primarily sexual, it therefore follows that it’s unlikely his previous crimes have been sexual in their nature.
‘Given that both crime scenes are significant tourist sites, and that both victims were foreigners, I believe the key to the killer’s motivation is his view of visitors to his city. He sees them not as a benefit but as interlopers who are not to be welcomed. I think it most likely that his past crimes will have targeted either tourists or businesses related to tourism. He most probably began with acts of vandalism against hotels or businesses catering for tourists, such as souvenir shops. This may have escalated into attacks on tourists themselves, such as muggings.’
Fiona sat back and considered. What she was suggesting was by no means a conventional profile of a serial killer, but she had been struck from the first by the unusual nature of the crime scenes. Most killers left their bodies where they killed them or chose carefully selected body dumps that had significance only because they were unlikely to be spotted abandoning the corpse. This killer had taken a high risk with his second victim, so the sites were clearly symbolic for him at a deep level. For once, where the bodies had been found seemed at least as important as the selection of the victims. They weren’t just places that symbolized violence. They would also have meaning for the casual visitor to the city, as Kit’s experience demonstrated.
She was pleased with the progress she had made. Now it was up to Salvador Berrocal to persuade the local police to give her the data she needed on crimes against property and persons related to tourism. Armed with that information, Fiona would be able to apply her theories of crime linkage to figure out which crimes had common offenders.
Once she had established which acts were part of series as opposed to isolated events, she would map the relevant scenes of crime on a street plan of the city that had been scanned into her computer. The powerful geographical profiling software loaded on her laptop would apply a complex series of algorithms to the points on the map. It would then chart probable areas where the perpetrator of those crimes might live or work. She could add the murder scenes to the mix, and if they didn’t significantly distort the areas the computer had suggested, she might be able to indicate to Berrocal the area of the city the killer called home.
Ten years ago, Fiona mused, she’d have been laughed off the platform if she’d dared to suggest that a mixture of psychological profiling, crime linkage and geographical profiling could lead to the capture of a killer. Back then, there simply hadn’t been powerful enough computer programs to crunch the numbers fast enough, even if anyone had considered this an area worth investigating. The world of criminal investigation had changed faster than anyone could have imagined. At last, technology was outstripping the ability of criminals to keep one step ahead of it. And she was lucky enough to be part of the revolution.
And in the morning, she could put her skills to the test once more. Working with the police to capture killers was the most exciting thing she had ever done. But she never lost sight of the fact that she was dealing with real lives, not just a series of mathematical events and computer calculations. If what she did couldn’t save lives, it was ultimately meaningless. And so, every case she was involved in became not only a professional challenge. It was nothing less than a measure of herself.
Fiona walked into the smoky office just after eleven. Berrocal and his two detectives were all deep in telephone conversations, barely looking up at her arrival. She’d faxed her report to Berrocal at eight, knowing he’d need some time to assemble the material she needed. She’d used the three hours to have a leisurely breakfast in bed with Kit then to accompany him to see the definitive El Greco, the Burial of the Count of Orgaz, displayed in splendid isolation in an annex to the church of San Tomas. It had been a better start to the day than reading police files.
The stacks of folders on her desk looked the same as they had the day before. She waited for Berrocal to replace the receiver, then spoke. ‘Hi. Are the reports on the vandalism and assaults not here yet?’
Berrocal nodded. ‘That’s them on your desk. Unsolved are on the left, the solved on the right. These are from the last twelve months.’
‘Quick work.’
He shrugged. ‘They knew I’d be on their backs till they came up with what you asked for. They like a quiet life. Can anyone help you with this, or is it something you must do yourself?’
‘Unfortunately, I need to analyse the data myself,’ Fiona told him. ‘What