A detective sergeant with a crew cut consults a laptop. ‘Twenty-two names have come up on the Sex Offenders Register, living within three miles of the murder scene. We’ve spoken to eight of them and will get to the others today.’
‘Any of them known to Jodie?’ asks Lenny.
‘Kevin Stokes lives three doors away. He served seven years for molesting two boys at a swimming centre in Coventry. The victims were five and seven.’
‘When was that?’
‘He was released eight years ago.’
‘Anything since?’
‘Nah. He’s on a disability pension. Needs a mobility scooter to get around.’
‘Check with his doctor,’ says Lenny, turning to another detective. ‘Where are we with the family?’
Prime Time licks his finger and flips a page of his notebook. ‘Dougal Sheehan is a cabbie. He says he left home at seven and did a twelve-hour shift, but it’s proving difficult to track down his movements. We’re going to look at his logbooks and credit card machine. The uncle, Bryan Whitaker, teaches at the National Ice Centre. He’s a recovering alcoholic, who briefly lost his coaching licence eight years ago, following a complaint about inappropriate behaviour from one of his students. The allegations were withdrawn.’
‘What sort of complaint?’
‘She accused him of taking pictures of her in the showers. He denied it.’
‘Were there photographs?’
‘None were found.’
‘Talk to the girl.’ Lenny turns to Monroe. ‘What about Jodie’s brother – Felix?’
‘He was at the fireworks early in the evening but left with friends before eight. He says they went to a nightclub where he picked up a girl around midnight and went back to her place. He can’t remember the address or her name.’
‘Convenient,’ mutters Nobody.
‘He seemed pretty cut up about what happened to Jodie,’ says the constable I saw outside the Sheehans’ house last night.
‘You talked to him?’ asks Lenny.
‘Yes, Guv, but he didn’t say much. I’d call him strong and silent, but it’s more like brooding and sulky.’
‘Did you clock his car?’ says Edgar. ‘A top of the range Lexus. Business must be good.’
‘Find out what business,’ says Lenny, before turning to Nobody. ‘Where are we with Jodie’s phone?’
‘Her mobile puts her at the fireworks until about eight o’clock but it stopped transmitting at eight-twelve. I figure she must have turned it off.’
Lenny looks at him askance. ‘Do you have kids, Nobody?’
‘No, Guv.’
‘For future reference, should you ever find a woman who wants to give birth to a little Nobody, you’ll discover that teenagers can’t go five minutes without their phones. Jodie wouldn’t have turned it off without a very good reason.’
‘Maybe it ran out of juice,’ suggests Monroe.
‘Perhaps,’ says Lenny, clearly not convinced. ‘Find out what sort of phone she was using. She might have had tracking software, or some app that allows us to turn it on remotely.’
‘Yes, Guv.’
‘When and where did we lose the signal?’
‘A fish and chip shop called the In Plaice on Southchurch Drive.’
‘Talk to the staff. See if anyone remembers her. Where are we with her call log and text messages?’
‘We’re waiting on her service provider to release them,’ says Edgar.
‘And her laptop?’
‘Nothing out of the ordinary in her search history – apart from the fact that she wiped it regularly. Mostly it was homework assignments, music videos, clothes, make-up, et cetera. We’re still trying to access her iCloud account, but these tech companies treat every request like it’s an attack on civil liberties.’
‘That’s because we’re fascists,’ grunts Prime Time.
‘The Deep State,’ says Monroe.
Lenny gets to her feet, hitching her houndstooth trousers and running her hands through her hair. ‘OK, I want interviews with everybody who had contact with Jodie on Monday evening and that includes friends, neighbours, secret admirers. Also look at anyone who follows her on social media and who comments on her posts.’
She divides the task force into four teams, each with a senior officer in charge. One group will concentrate on the door-to-door interviews, another will trace Jodie’s movements, a third will track down known sex offenders in the area, and the fourth will search for anyone seen talking to Jodie at the fireworks.
The briefing ends and detectives disperse, some pulling coats from backs of the chairs and heading out. I get a nod from Lenny. She wants to talk to me privately. Closing her office door, she sits in her high-backed chair and opens a desk drawer, pulling out a scented candle, which she lights with a match, filling the room with the chemical reek of lemons.
‘My personal trainer suggested them,’ she says. ‘Apparently they relieve stress. I think they mask the smell.’
‘Of what?’
‘Forty detectives, fast food and too much caffeine.’
I notice a wedding gift register open on her laptop.
‘My sister is getting married again,’ she explains. ‘You’d think after two husbands she’d be gun-shy but she’s having all the bells and whistles – a horse-drawn carriage, white wedding gown and a reception in a manor house. The whole family has to show up and watch her pledge her undying love for some guy she met on a Caribbean cruise in August.’
‘Third time’s a charm.’
‘He’s a sodding dentist!’
Lenny closes her laptop and moves away from her desk, pressing her back against the window frame. ‘You got anything for me?’
‘Not yet.’
‘What does your gut tell you?’
‘Strangely, my colon hasn’t said a word since this morning.’
Lenny nods, as if to say, ‘Point taken.’
Despite our closeness, Lenny has never fully embraced psychology as being a science and criminal profiling as an important tool. She’s not a complete philistine, but regards it more like a dark art akin to psychic readings or ESP. Lenny doesn’t try to understand the moral insanity of a perpetrator or put herself in his or her shoes. She doesn’t want to look at the world through a criminal’s eyes, or imagine their torment, or sympathise with their motives, because it might interfere with catching them and locking them away.
Psychologists care about motive, as do juries and actors and people who’ve lost someone to suicide. For a homicide detective ‘that which moves’ and ‘that which impels’ is never as important as the action itself. ‘Fuck the why,’ Lenny would say. ‘Tell me the what, where, how and who.’
Her arms are folded. She waits.
‘Jodie was a low-risk victim for her attacker,’ I say. ‘She was young and small for her age, which made her easier to subdue. The attack site was also low risk – a quiet footpath, deserted at that time of night. Jodie wasn’t expected to be there, so most likely he’s an opportunist, unless they arranged to meet earlier. More likely, it was unplanned. She was hit from behind and subdued quickly. He didn’t bring anything to bind her and made little attempt to clean up afterwards.’