Carol rubbed the shampoo to a rich lather and felt herself gradually wake under the warm spray. Well, her corner of the investigation wasn’t going to run aground on the rock of Popeye Cross’s bigoted prejudice. Even if some of her junior officers were inclined to grasp at the boss’s tunnel vision as an excuse for their own uninspired investigations, she wasn’t going to stand for anything less than one hundred per cent committed action, and in the right direction. She’d worked her socks off for the best part of nine years, first to get a good degree and then to justify her place on the promotion fast track. She didn’t intend her career to hit the buffers just because she’d made the mistake of opting for a force run by Neanderthals.
Her mind made up, Carol stepped out of the shower, shoulders straight, a defiant glint in her green eyes. ‘Come on, Nelson,’ she said, shrugging into her dressing gown and scooping up the muscular bundle of black fur. ‘Let’s hit the red meat, boy.’
Tony studied the overhead projection on the screen behind him for a final five seconds. Since the majority of his audience had expressed their lack of commitment to his lecture by pointedly not taking notes, he wanted at least to give their subconscious minds the maximum opportunity to absorb his flow chart of the criminal profile generating process.
He turned back to his audience. ‘I don’t have to tell you what you already know. Profilers don’t catch criminals. It’s bobbies that do that.’ He smiled at his audience of senior police officers and Home Office officials, inviting them to share his self-deprecation. A few did, though most remained stony faced, heads on one side.
However he dressed it up, Tony knew he couldn’t convince the bulk of the senior police officers that he wasn’t some out-of-touch university boffin there to tell them how to do their jobs. Stifling a sigh, he glanced at his notes and continued, aiming for as much eye contact as he could achieve, copying the casual body language of the successful stand-up comics he’d studied working the northern clubs. ‘But sometimes we profilers see things differently,’ he said. ‘And that fresh perspective can make all the difference. Dead men do tell tales, and the ones they tell profilers are not the same as the ones they tell police officers.
‘An example. A body is found in bushes ten feet away from the road. A police officer will note that fact. He’ll check the ground all around for clues. Are there footprints? Has anything been discarded by the killer? Have any fibres been snagged on the bushes? But for me, that single fact is only the starting point for speculations that, taken in conjunction with all the other information at my disposal, may well lead me to useful conclusions about the killer. I’ll ask myself, was the body deliberately placed there? Or was the killer too knackered to carry it further? Was he hiding it or dumping it? Did he want it to be found? How long did he expect or want it to stay hidden? What is the significance of this site for him?’ Tony lifted his shoulders and held out his hands in an open, questioning gesture. The audience looked on, unmoved. God, how many tricks of the trade was he going to have to pull out of the hat before he got a response? The prickle of sweat along the back of his neck was becoming a trickle, sliding down between his skin and his shirt collar. It was an uncomfortable sensation that reminded him of who he really was behind the mask he’d assumed for his public appearance.
Tony cleared his throat, focused on what he was projecting rather than what he was feeling, and continued. ‘Profiling is just another tool that can help investigating officers to narrow the focus of their investigation. Our job is to make sense of the bizarre. We can’t give you an offender’s name, address and phone number. But what we can do is point you in the direction of the kind of person who has committed a crime with particular characteristics. Sometimes we can indicate the area where he might live, the kind of work we’d expect him to do.
‘I know that some of you have questioned the necessity for setting up a National Criminal Profiling Task Force. You’re not alone. The civil libertarians are screaming about it too.’ At last, Tony thought with profound relief. Smiles and nods from the audience. It had taken him forty minutes to get there, but he’d finally cracked their composure. It didn’t mean he could relax, but it eased his discomfort. ‘After all,’ he went on, ‘we’re not like the Americans. We don’t have serial killers lurking round every corner. We still have a society where more than ninety per cent of murders are committed by family members or people known to the victims.’ He was really taking them with him now. Several pairs of legs and arms uncrossed, neat as a practised drill-hall routine.
‘But profiling isn’t just about nailing the next Hannibal the Cannibal. It can be used in a wide variety of crimes. We’ve already had notable success in airport anti-hijacking measures, in catching drug couriers, poison-pen writers, blackmailers, serial rapists and arsonists. And just as importantly, profiling has been used very effectively to advise police officers on interview techniques for dealing with suspects in major crime enquiries. It’s not that your officers lack interviewing skills; it’s just that our clinical background means we have developed different approaches that can often be more productive than familiar techniques.’
Tony took a deep breath and leaned forward, gripping the edge of the lectern. His final paragraph had sounded good in front of the bathroom mirror. He prayed it would hit the right spot rather than stamp on people’s corns. ‘My team and I are now one year into a two-year feasibility study on setting up the National Criminal Profiling Task Force. I’ve already delivered an interim report to the Home Office, who confirmed to me yesterday that they are committed to forming this task force as soon as my final report is delivered. Ladies and gentlemen, this revolution in crime fighting is going to happen. You’ve got a year to make sure it happens in a form that you feel comfortable with. My team and I have all got open minds. We’re all on the same side. We want to know what you think, because we want it to work. We want violent, serial offenders behind bars, just like you do. I believe you could use our help. I know we can use yours.’
Tony took a step backwards and savoured the applause, not because it was particularly enthusiastic, but because it signalled the end of the forty-five minutes he’d been dreading for weeks. Public speaking had always been firmly outside the boundaries of his comfort zone, so much so that he’d turned his back on an academic career after achieving his doctorate because he couldn’t face the constant spectre of the lecture theatre. The ability to perform was not a reason in itself for doing so. Somehow, spending his days poking around in the distorted recesses of the minds of the criminally insane was far less threatening.
As the short-lived clapping died away, Tony’s Home Office minder bounced to his feet from his front-row chair. While Tony provoked a wary distrust in the police section of his audience, George Rasmussen generated more universal irritation than a flea bite. His eager smile revealed too many teeth and a disturbing resemblance to George Formby that was at odds with the seniority of his Civil Service post, the elegant cut of his grey pinstripe suit and the yammering bray of a public-school accent so exaggerated that Tony was convinced Rasmussen had really been educated in some inner-city comprehensive. Tony half listened as he shuffled his notes together and replaced his acetates in their folder. Grateful for fascinating insight, blah, blah … coffee and those absolutely delicious biscuits, blah, blah … opportunity for informal questions, blah, blah … remind you all submissions to Dr Hill due by …
The sound of shuffling feet drowned out the rest of Rasmussen’s spiel. When it came to a choice between a civil servant’s vote of thanks and a cup of coffee, it was no contest. Not even for the civil servants. Tony took a deep breath. Time to abandon the lecturer. Now he had to be the charming, well-informed colleague, eager to listen, to assimilate and to make his new contacts feel he was really on their side.
John Brandon stood up and stepped aside to allow the other people in his row to move