Identity Crisis (10 page)

His daydream ended when he saw a vehicle approaching him from the direction of Helmsdale. It proved to be the forensic officer, the telltale blue, yellow and white livery of the CSI van being distinguishable even at a long distance. Nash smiled, remembering someone describing it as looking like an explosion in a paint factory. He got out to greet his colleague and explained the situation. He pointed out the various scraps of possible evidence and waited as the man retrieved his kit from the back of the van.

As he did so, Nash heard the sound of another vehicle approaching, this time from the direction of Wintersett. He watched with increasing concern as a Range Rover similar to his own hurtled over the brow of the hill. The car was being driven with all the determination, but none of the skill, of a Formula 1 competitor.

As the vehicle neared them, Nash noticed that his colleague had stopped what he was doing and was watching with even more apprehension. That would be because he was nearer. At that moment, the vehicle’s brakes were applied with such ferocity that the car rocked on its axles. Despite its weight, Nash was worried it might go over. Seconds later, it juddered to a halt, emitting clouds of smoke from under the wheel arches. The vehicle had barely stopped its forward motion and was still shivering to a standstill when the driver emerged. For a second, Nash wondered if the car had been fitted with a James Bond style ejector seat. As he darted forward, Nash saw that the driver was in late middle age, and that his face was a shade best described as apoplectic purple.

‘You’re the police?’

Nash nodded, uncertain whether this was a question or a statement.

‘Good! Saved me a journey! Want to report a crime! Serious one! Bloody vandals! What name?’

It appeared as if the man spoke much as he drove. Nash pieced the fractured sentences together and responded. ‘Detective Inspector Nash. What’s the problem?’

‘Problem! More than a problem! Bloody outrage! Some bastard’s wrecked one of my wagons! Joyriders, I expect! Damned scoundrels! Should be horsewhipped!’

Nash was intrigued. He had some difficulty in masking a smile. He hadn’t heard the words ‘scoundrel’ or ‘horsewhipped’ for a long time. ‘Sorry,’ he said, his tone placating, ‘what’s your name?’

‘What? Oh, yes. Cryer. Archie Cryer. I farm over there.’ Cryer waved a hand in a gesture that appeared to include a large chunk of the county plus substantial bits of Lancashire and Cumbria. ‘I also transport livestock.’

‘Right, when you say someone vandalized one of your wagons, exactly what have they done to it?’

‘We’ve been away. Only time of the year to take a break. Had nobody wanting beasts moved so we slipped off to Spain for a week. Got back first thing this morning. Noticed immediately the wagon had been moved. Opened it up and looked inside. The buggers only dismantled all the partitions. Why the hell they’ve done that, can’t begin to imagine.’

‘You’re certain the vehicle was moved?’

‘Damned right I am. Left it parked in the corner of the yard. Always do. Thing was ten feet at least from where I left it.’

‘How did they get it started?’

The farmer’s expression changed from outrage to mild embarrassment. ‘Ah, well, thing is,’ he cleared his throat. ‘We always leave the keys hanging in the porch. Farm’s so remote we’ve never had any bother. Until now, that is.’

‘Have you any idea when this happened?’

‘No, they could have done it anytime after we left. So that gave
them eight days. Thing is, it would have taken more than one person. Those units are bloody strong. Have to be to cope with the beasts we carry.’

‘Who knew you’d be away?’

‘Half the ruddy county, I expect. There was a big article about me in the
Netherdale Gazette
a few weeks back. It mentioned that we were going away. What you going to do about it, eh?’

‘As soon as we’ve finished here, I’ll bring our forensic man along and we’ll give your wagon a good once-over. Please don’t touch anything until we’ve checked it out.’

Nash watched the farmer reverse into a nearby gateway before returning towards Wintersett. The short conversation seemed to have calmed his fury, judging by the less violent style of driving. Although Nash hadn’t told Cryer so, he had a shrewd idea why the vandals had damaged the wagon. The accuracy of his guess would be confirmed once he saw the vehicle.

As he waited for the forensic man to complete his work, Nash pondered the way the robbery of the security van had been conducted. The cash element intrigued him. It was a large amount, large enough to be conspicuous. Many of the thieves who had stolen large sums in the past had been caught. Not by any clues left at the scene or identification by eyewitnesses, most of them had been given up by informers tempted by the large rewards offered by insurance companies, or by conspicuous changes in their spending habits.

Much was made about the activities of money-laundering rings, who were experts at disguising the source of the money they handled. However, their services didn’t come cheap, and Nash didn’t believe the gang would use them. The robbery had been such a professional operation that he felt sure they would have the means of disposing of the money already worked out. Either, they already had their own way of cleansing the money or they intended to sit on it and release it slowly. He shook himself mentally. He was getting ahead of himself. No point in thinking about money-laundering until they had some clue as to who had committed the crime.

Nash’s deliberations were interrupted by his colleague. ‘That
patch in the middle of the road is definitely blood,’ he confirmed. ‘We’ll have to wait for the test results from the lab to see if it’s human or not.’

Nash couldn’t resist the chance of teasing the expert. ‘I watch CSI on TV regularly. They can tell immediately.’

The officer sighed with weary patience. ‘My name’s Robson, not Grissom. And shows like CSI make my job much harder.’

Nash sighed. ‘It seems such a waste having to wait a week only to find we’ve been testing the result of a Charlie dragging his dinner home.’

‘Unlikely that it’ll take so long. A couple of days, more like. I think you can discount Charlie Fox as the culprit, though, there’s nothing tidy about the way a fox kills his prey. Like a lot of murder scenes, it’s usually a bloody mess, literally.’

Although Cryer hadn’t given them directions to the farm, they found it easily enough. The large sign outside the gate advertising Cryer Transport was sufficient to guide them. Cryer was waiting in the yard. Nash looked at the vehicle. It was a large Scania rigid. A few years old but still in excellent condition − on the outside at least.

It needed Nash’s restraining hand to stop the farmer climbing inside to demonstrate the extent of the damage. After Nash explained about possible contamination of evidence, Cryer obeyed with reluctance and departed for the house muttering something about coffee. Nash could have murdered some, but he doubted if either he or his colleague were included in the round. ‘Check out the cab first and let me know if you find anything of interest. I want to have a look inside the animal compartment.’

Despite the brightness of the day, the interior of the wagon was quite gloomy. Nash reached for the torch he kept in the glove compartment of the car. He shone the beam on the floor and was immediately rewarded. There was a large, irregular stain in the middle of the wooden boards. He reached over and banged his fist on the bulkhead separating the box from the cab to summon his colleague. ‘What do you reckon that is?’ He directed the beam towards the stain once more.

‘Given the usual occupants of this place, I dread to think,’ the man replied.

Nash grinned. ‘Normally, I’d agree, but in this case I think we’d both be wrong. Pass me a glove.’ He bent down and rubbed the middle of the patch with one finger. It wasn’t wet, only moist, and slightly greasy. He looked at his stained glove before sniffing
tentatively at it.

‘I thought so. I don’t think whatever produced this had the sort of horsepower you were suggesting. Not unless someone feeds their animals on engine oil.’

‘Where’s that come from?’

‘At a guess, I’d say it came out of the leaking sump of the engine of a security van that vanished so mysteriously, wouldn’t you? That’s the reason the partitions were removed, to create a large enough space to fit the van inside. All they had to do was drive the van up the ramp, disable the GPS tracker, and the vehicle disappears. Anyone who saw the wagon would have assumed it contained nothing more sinister than a few dozen sheep. Valuable, I agree, given the price of lamb these days, but hardly comparable to over six-hundred-thousand pounds in cash.’

‘The only flaw in your reasoning that I can see is the strength of the tailboard of the wagon,’ the officer pointed out. ‘Would it stand the weight? Those vans weigh a hell of a lot, that’s why they use so much fuel.’

‘True, but the tailboard is designed to cope with heavy weights.’

Nash called to Cryer, who was now loitering near the back of the vehicle. ‘How much do the beasts you carry weigh?’

‘Anything up to five-hundred kilos each.’

The forensic officer whistled. ‘Blimey, that’s a hell of a lot of steak.’

‘Just out of curiosity, would your wagon be capable of taking the weight of something like a Transit van?’

‘I’m sure it would. I’ve had a digger in that one,’ he pointed to where the officers were standing. ‘Had to lower the bucket of course, but a Transit wouldn’t be a problem. Why do you ask? Is that what they did with it?’

‘Can you tell if the wagon has been taken out of your yard whilst you were away?’

Cryer thought for a moment. ‘Depends how far it was driven. We get our diesel on account at a garage in Helmsdale. They always record the mileage. Then there’s the tachograph. Bloody things,’ he added sourly. ‘Unless they disabled it.’

‘I’m going to need more help with this,’ the forensic officer said. ‘I’ll radio-in, tell control what’s going on.’

Before setting off back to Helmsdale Nash spoke briefly to Mironova, to report his discoveries. ‘We need to find the crew, there’s no sign of them here.’

‘I can answer that, Mike. I’ve just taken a call from Lancashire Constabulary. Someone walking along Morecambe promenade this morning went in to the public toilet. They heard noises coming from one of the cubicles and found two men, bound and gagged, wearing the livery of Guardwell Transport. They reckon the men have been there a while because they’re in quite a state. By the sound of it, they might be suffering from hypothermia. They’re being checked over at the local hospital, following which, the local CID are waiting to interview them. They’ve promised to report back as soon as they know anything, and arrange for them to be brought home.’

‘When they’ve been interviewed, get the Lancashire lads to fax the report. Those men have been through enough by the sound of it. We can always pay them a visit if their story doesn’t stand up. One thing though, all this proves not only that our hijackers are highly professional, but that whoever’s in charge has a sense of humour.’

‘I’m sorry, I seem to have missed the joke,’ Clara said.

‘Oh, come on, you have to admit it has its funny side,’ Nash said. ‘They’ve had us scuttling around for forty-eight hours, looking in all the wrong places, convinced the crewmen were involved, and all the time the poor blokes were locked in a public loo on the other side of the country. Even now we’ve found them, there’s very little more we can do until we hear their version of events. I’m going to make a call before I get back. When I do, I want us to have a look through those Cremator files, if they’ve arrived.’

‘The last of them was delivered about ten minutes ago.’

Vanda Dawson was back in the room where she was first held captive. The difference was she was no longer on the bed but tied to an armchair. When she came round from the effects of the
drug, she found a small bottle of water had been placed on the table alongside her, close enough for her to reach and with only a small effort, raise to her lips. Further consideration was shown with a television set having been placed directly opposite the chair. The remote control for this was also by her side, as was a small hand-bell. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was tied up in a darkened room she might have been a guest in an hotel, such was her treatment.

She was confused. When she was in the barn, she’d expected to be raped. When her abductor had straddled her she was convinced that was about to happen. But although he’d simulated the act at no time had he attempted to penetrate her. Tied up as she was, there would have been no way of resisting such an assault, but it hadn’t materialized. Vanda wondered if that had been due to impotence.

She’d read somewhere that many sex-killers suffer from an inability to have intercourse, or to become aroused, and that they channel their rage and hate into violence. That didn’t fit with her experience though. As he’d simulated the act, as his naked body was on top of hers, Vanda had ample evidence of his capacity for arousal. That being the case, what had prevented him slaking his obvious desire? And what had been the point of the charade?

Another thought struck her via her devotion to forensic detective shows on television. Had he refrained because he was afraid of leaving DNA that would be traceable to him? But she was expecting to be killed; her body burned as the Cremator did to all his victims − surely the fire would take care of such evidence? But instead of pouring petrol over her and lighting a match, he’d given her a drink of water. Drugged, as she later realized.

Meals began to arrive at regular intervals; other requirements answered whenever she rang the bell. Within minutes of sounding it, her abductor would appear, to take her to the toilet, or to replenish the water bottle. At night, she was told to undress and secured to the bed before the light was switched off. Her gaoler’s last act was to move the bell from the table to the bedside cabinet.

All of his instructions were conducted in mime. From the
moment she first woke up in this strange place, he had uttered no more than half a dozen words, all delivered singly. Nor had he removed the mask that obscured his face.

This was another layer to her increasing bewilderment. If he intended to kill her, what need was there to disguise his identity? The only physical characteristic she was certain of was that he was tall.

To begin with, Vanda was able to keep track of time via the programmes being shown on the television. However, her perception of reality soon became blurred as her captivity continued. She could no longer recall with complete certainty which nights her favourite TV programmes were broadcast.

Unknown to Vanda, her body was adjusting both to her reduced physical activity and the mild sedative contained in every meal she ate, diluted in each bottle of water she drank. Occasionally, she thought about Brian. Had he returned from Spain? Did the police know she was missing? Was there a search being undertaken for her? What would Brian think had happened? Things between her and Brian were bad enough, without all the suspicion and accusations her absence would arouse.

She had remembered with something of a shock that Jo had been coming to visit her. Why hadn’t she thought of that, recalled that before now? Jo would have been sure to have contacted the police. She couldn’t quite recall how many days it was since her abduction. Was it Wednesday or Thursday she’d been taken? And what day was it now?

Even if Jo hadn’t made it to Yorkshire, Brian would be back home. And he would miss her. Wouldn’t he? Or wouldn’t he care? Might he actually be glad she wasn’t there? Tears came to her eyes at the thought of Brian, at the decline in their marriage. Sometimes she’d felt sure he’d be glad to be rid of her. Then, unbidden and unwelcome, a dreadful thought came to her. Was he behind all this? Was this some twisted horrible plan Brian had dreamed up? Was the man holding her in Brian’s pay? A hired killer?

If it hadn’t been for the man’s size she might almost have thought
it was actually Brian who was imprisoning her. But it couldn’t be. All right, the mask could have been because her kidnapper was her husband, as could the fact that he didn’t speak, but this man was taller.

Her long period of concentration was tiring her out. As her eyelids began to droop, Vanda’s mind filled with images of her husband donning a mask and putting on shoes that would make him taller. But something in those images was wrong. Something Vanda hadn’t accounted for. Something that proved it wasn’t Brian that was holding her captive. She tried to think, but the effort was too much, and she was already so tired….

Reading the files on the Cremator cases was hard going. Even without looking at the photographic evidence, the contents of the dossiers made it a harrowing experience. ‘God, this bloke’s sick,’ Clara muttered.

‘You can say that again,’ Nash agreed. ‘What have you noticed about these cases? I mean apart from the obvious.’

Mironova knew Nash well enough to realize that behind the question was the inference that he had spotted something that merited discussion and wondered if she had seen it as well. She pored over the files for a few minutes before admitting defeat. ‘All right, Mastermind, what have I missed?’

‘A couple of things sprang to mind. I’m not saying you missed them. They may be significant, or they may be completely irrelevant when it comes to tracking this maniac. For the first point, we have to take victim number one out of the equation. That was back in 2004.’

‘Is that because we don’t know her identity?’

‘That’s part of it. Because we don’t know her identity we know nothing about her personal circumstances. There are a lot of other differences. For one, her age, and the disposal of the body for another. But if we consider the other victims, they’re all of a type. All of them were either married or in a settled domestic relationship.’

‘I grant you that, but surely the fact that no one has come forward who might have known the first victim suggests that she
wasn’t missed, which blows your theory out of the water.’

‘I think it’s a bit of an exaggeration to call it a theory. But because we know absolutely nothing about the first victim, I think it would be unwise to rule anything out.’

‘All right, let’s beg to differ on that one. What’s your second point?’

‘I’m puzzled by the victims themselves. If you examine the most notorious sexually motivated serial killers, you’ll find their selection of victims falls into three categories. Either they were picked completely at random, as in absolute psychopaths, or they were prostitutes, or were much younger, in their late teens or early twenties. I’m excluding paedophiles and the like, and I know it’s a generalisation, but I think if you were to study the victim profile of a lot of such killers, those would be the types they went for.

‘In this case, the first victim may have been under thirty, but not by very much, according to the pathologist at the time. He put her age range as mid-to-late twenties. All the other victims were over thirty, two of them were nearly forty. Three of them were mothers, the other two, including our mystery woman, had never given birth.’

‘Where’s this leading?’

‘I’m not sure, to be honest, but one thing occurs to me, and it isn’t a very pleasant thought. If we are looking at a Cremator case, then Vanda Dawson fits right into his victim profile. If the Cremator has abducted Vanda Dawson, then he’s remaining true to type.’

‘You really do think this might be significant, don’t you?’

‘I think it may be, but until we have a suspect in our sights it’s impossible to tell.’

‘I’ve just remembered something. After you left us this morning, Dr Grey and I were talking about Mill Cottage. In particular, she doesn’t think the place should be left unattended. She wondered about going to stay there until either Vanda or Brian Dawson reappear. I said I’d check with you and get back to her, what do you think?’

Nash stared at his sergeant in amazement. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? Please tell me you’re joking? Don’t you think we’ve enough
problems without going out of our way to create more? No way will I sanction any woman being allowed to stay in that remote cottage alone overnight given what we suspect has happened there. I wouldn’t even allow one of my male officers to stay there alone.’

‘I take it that’s a no then? Will you tell her, or shall I?’

The door opened before Nash had chance to reply. ‘Yes, Tom, what is it? Have you located Dawson yet?’