The Jigsaw Man (17 page)

‘How long had she been dead?’ I asked.

‘Eight, possibly nine days.’ He drummed his fingers on an unopened packet of cigarettes. ‘Let me start right at the beginning.’

Taylor explained that two days before Julie’s disappearance, she and her boyfriend had a violent row and both of them were admitted to St James’s Hospital in Leeds in the early hours of the morning. Julie had head and facial injuries and her boyfriend, Dominic Murray, suffered a broken ankle. Against medical advice, they discharged themselves from hospital seven hours later.

Julie, aged eighteen, normally lived at home with her mother at a council house in Oakwood, Leeds, although she spent much of her time staying at Dominic’s flat on the St Wilfrid’s Estate at Gipton. According to neighbours, she and Dominic had a stormy relationship that swung between stand-up fights one day and open displays of affection the next.

On 9 July she left Dominic’s house at 7.45 p.m., saying that she was going to her job at the Leeds General Infirmary where she worked as a laboratory assistant several nights a week.

‘Only there was no job,’ said Taylor. ‘We’ve checked and rechecked. No-one at the Infirmary knows her.’

‘So where did she go?’

‘Good question.’

Taylor handed me a letter in a clear plastic envelope. ‘This arrived at Dominic’s house three days later. We’re ninety per cent certain it’s Julie’s handwriting.’

Hello Dominic,

Help me please. I’ve been kidnapped and am been [sic] held as a personal security until next Monday night. Please go and tell my mum straight away. Love you so much Dominic.

Mum phone the police straight away and help me. Have not eaten anything but I have been offered food. Feeling a bit sick but I’m drinking two cups of tea per day. Mum - Dominic, help me.

[Then a paragraph appeared to have been written by another hand, giving her mother’s telephone number. The letter ended:]

Love you all,

Julie.

The handwriting seemed quite immature, but certain phrases didn’t seem to fit with the little I’d been told of the girl. It struck me as unlikely that Julie would use a term such as ‘personal security’. But the next phrase, ‘Love you so much Dominic,’ did sound like something she might have added. It suggested that for at least part of the letter she was writing words that someone else had dictated to her.

A very neat construction ensured that a considerable amount of information and instruction had been conveyed in only three paragraphs, but with no explanation of why the letter had been sent. There was no demand for money from Julie’s family. Instead, her mother was told to ring the police. Why would an abductor want the police involved?

Taylor had another letter in his hand, this one typewritten.

‘This arrived on the same day, July the twelfth, addressed to “Leeds City Police”. Both letters were posted in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, the day before.’

On the envelope the word ‘headqarters’ (sic) had been misspelt and Taylor pointed out that there was no longer a force called ‘Leeds City Police’.

All spelling and grammatical errors are the blackmailer’s.

A young prostitute has been kidnapped from the Chapeltown area last night and will only be released unharmed if the conditions below are met. If they are not met then the hostage will never be seen again also a major city centre store (not necessarily in Leeds) will have a firebomb explode at 5am 17 July.

1) A payment of Ł140,000 is paid in cash (one hundred & fourty thousand).

2) Ł5,000 is put in two bank accounts, 2 cash cards and P. I. N. issued, these two bank accounts to allow at least Ł200 per day withdrawal.

Next Tuesday 16 July a WPC will drive to Birmingham New Street station with the money, and await a phone call at the Mercury phone terminal in the waiting room on platform 9, she must wear a lightish blue skirt with the money in a sholder bag.

She must be there by 6 pm and await the call at 7 pm, she will then be given a location of the next phone call, (after receiving the call she must drive north out of the city on the A38M Aston Expressway to join the southbound M6, this information is given to avoid her getting lost in the city.) She must have enough petrol for at least 200 miles driving, and a pen and pad may also be carried, but no radio or transmitter,

All phone calls will be prerecorded and no communication will be possible or answered. No negotiations will be entred Into. Any publicity or apparent police action will result in no further communication.

The monies must be in equal quantities of Ł50/20/10

used notes and the cash cards to have their P.I.N. marked on them in marker pen. The money to be wrapped in polythene of at least 120 microns then taped with parcel tape the bank cards to then be taped to the polythene then the package to be wrapped in brown paper and tied by a nyolon cord with a looped handle. The whole package to be no more the 350mm X 350mm X 90mm.

Once the money has been received, Leeds will receive a phone call at around midnight of the name and address of store with the firebomb in five hours should be ample time to gain entry to the store. The hostage will only be released when all the monies have been withdrawn from the accounts.

The hostage will be well fed and well looked after in a home rented for the purpose, she will be guarded 24hrs a day by P.I.R detectors connected directly to the mains. Once the monies have been withdrawn you will receive the address of the hostage, BEFORE ENTERING HOUSE THE ELECTRICITY MUST BE SWITCHED OF FROM OUTSIDE before opening the door or any movement will activate the detectors.

No attempt must be made to follow the WPC and as she will be followed over very quite roads which can easy be checked, aircraft can be heard.

Tuesday the WPC will at al times carry the only packages with her. She will bring it to various phone boxes for phone messages. At one box a small plastic box with a small green L.E.D. illuminated will be inside the box, this must be picked up and placed ontop of the instrument panel of the car dashboard and must be visible through the front windscreen, this box will also have a large red L.E.D. (Antitamper) and a large amber L.E.D. (Transmitter detector) if either of these two illuminate then no further messages will be received. The money package as I said must be carried at all times and at one destination it must be clipped to a dog type clip that will be hanging from a tree, no downward pull must be made on the rope. The WPC must then return to the car which will be some 300 metres from this point within 60 secs and drive a further 800 metres before removing the plastic box with the LED. s.

The money will be picked up by someone unconnected with the writer but will be the only person who parks down this lovers lane’ each Tuesday for a few hours, his female companion will be held hostage until the money is picked up from him, he will have a short range two way radio which I can direct him. Should anything go wrong these two hostages will not be harmed.

This action has been planned for some time, but obstining a small hand gun plus ammunition took longer than antisipated. If anything goes wrong or the ploice are not able to meet the demands then the hostage will never be seen again, plus the store will be fire bombed, the action will then begin again next time an employee of say the Electric/Gas/Water companies will be used, to kidnap them in course of there work will make the company pay the ransom.

No publicity must be given until the money has been received then a press statement may be released but must mention that no monies were handed over.

The extra Ł5,000 must not be added in cash with the main money, as the main package will be buried for a long while so that serial number will not be traced, serial number in cash dispencers cannot be traced.

A great deal of information and a complex set of instructions had been encapsulated in just a few pages. The author had obviously gone to considerable effort yet, strangely, had managed to put the wrong address on the envelope and make a number of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Were they contrived or genuine?

‘The dimensions he gives for the package of money…’

‘They’re perfect,’ said Taylor.

‘And the directions out of Birmingham?’

‘Totally logical.’

What remarkable details, I thought, yet none of them made sense in the context of a straight forward extortion. Why send a blackmail demand to the police, making the very people who have to investigate the crime into the primary victim? And why ask for such an unusual amount of money; Ł140,000 was almost small beer when compared to the time, effort and, above all, the risk that would have to be taken to collect it.

Julie’s family and boyfriend insisted that she wasn’t a prostitute, but within twenty-four hours police had linked her with the Chapeltown red light area of Leeds and several known prostitutes confirmed seeing her on the night she disappeared.

I asked Taylor what had happened on the Tuesday. He said that a WPC had been waiting for the call at Birmingham New Street. The telephone rang but when she picked it up no-one answered. Three days later Julie’s body was discovered.

‘So the first two letters must have been posted after she’d died,’ I said, thinking out loud. Taylor nodded.

I began flicking through the photographs showing how Julie’s body had been found wrapped in a sheet lying at the foot of a tree. The field could be entered from a farm track that ran in the direction of the A1, The Great North Road, a few hundred yards away. The only other notable feature was a grassed-over disused railway line not far from the tree under which she’d been left.

The postmortem report indicated no evidence of sexual assault. Two injuries to the back of her head were inflicted by a heavy blunt instrument, possibly a hammer, which had fractured Julie’s skull. A series of bruises on her right ankle were consistent with a rope or chain having been tied around it. Julie had been dead for at least a week. The rapid deterioration indicated that her body had been kept in some container sealed from easy air flow and exposed to warmth.

Julie had been an attractive girl, five foot nine inches tall with brown eyes and shoulder-length curly brown hair, normally tied back. She had a distinctive chipped front top tooth and had last been seen wearing a black and mauve suit jacket, black shirt, suede shoes and carrying a black shoulder bag.

‘How long had she been a prostitute?’ I asked.

‘Not long and probably only part-time. She had no convictions or cautions.’

She’d also been in the habit of using different names, sometimes going by ‘Atkins’, her mother’s maiden name, or ‘Hill’, her natural father’s surname. At school she’d been a promising athlete, winning dozens of medals and trophies. She carried on running after she left, aged sixteen, and got a job at a High Street chain’ store. According to friends, she enjoyed karaoke nights and going out for a drink and was well-known in the pubs and clubs of central Leeds.

Three days after Julie’s body had been found, another letter had arrived at Millgarth Police Station.

Words will never be able to express my regret that Julie Dart had to be killed, but I did warn what would happen if anything went wrong, at the time of this letter there has been no publicity, if you do not find the body within a few days I will contact you as to the location, it will have to be moved today as it appears to be decomposing.

She was not raped or sexually abused or harmed in any way until she met her end, she was tied up and hit a few blows to the back of her head to render her unconscious and then strangled, she never saw what was to happen, never felt no pain or know anything about it.

The fire bomb was not left as promised as the selant around the combustables must have got knocked in transit and - smelt badly, so it was never placed. Owens furniture store in Coventry was to be the target.

The mistake I appear to have made is that I did not know the voice at the end of the phone… I still intend to carry out this campaign until I receive the monies no matter how many people suffer. In two weeks or so I shall demonstrate my fire bomb.

I still require the same monies as before under the same conditions if you want to avoid serious fire damage and any further prostitutes life, to contact me place an ad in the Saturdays ‘SUN’ newspaper personal column and a phone call will be made to the box at Leicester Forest East northbound services, the box nearest the R.A.C. box. On the following Tuesday at 8.30 p.m. The courier to be the same W.P. C. as used last time (I presume it was her of course that was at Birmingh New Street) and when answering the phone must say, ‘Julie speaking’ she will once again be given instructions, a little clearer next time, if she misses the instructions a reaet phone call will be made straight away, she must pick it up a second time if she has got it the first time as only one repeat call will be allowed. If any phone box is occupied then a call will be made as soon as available. The calls as before will be recorded, this time by a hostage picked up on the Monday evening in other cities red light district.

The ad in the Sun to read ‘Lets try again for Julies sake’. If no message is seen on Sat 27 th or Sat 3 August then the fire bomb will definately be placed on Tuesday 6 August. No prostitutes will be held until the message is received or until the fire bomb fails to bring any response.

A Home Office pathologist immediately re-examined Julie’s body and found a compression mark around her neck indicating that a ligature had been applied. The cause of death had been strangulation - something only the killer could have known.

In the wake of this letter, the Regional Crime Squad and murder inquiry team began planning a full operation to trap the blackmailer. On Saturday 27 July, as demanded, they placed the advertisement in the Sun. It prompted a fourth letter posted from York and found on Tuesday morning at a sorting office in Leeds.

This time it had been handwritten in upper-case letters and obvious attempts were made to disguise the writing, perhaps by holding the pen in a different hand. It listed the final details for the ransom drop that night.

A policewoman was to wait for the call at 8.30 p.m. at the Leicester Forest East service station on the M1. She would answer the phone by saying, ‘Julie’ and give her car make and colour. She would then be given the name and place where another ‘prostitute-hostage’ had been picked up during the previous two days. The WPC was then to follow the tape-recorded directions to the location of the next call.