The Scribbler by Iain Maitland (a court of thorns and roses ebook free TXT) 📗

and all the harm it does. I had a brother …” Gayther stopped again, struggling for words.

“I have two great-uncles, well one is a proper uncle, the other is his … partner, really,” Carrie said, simply. “They’ve told me what it was like when they were growing up. The discrimination. Things that were put through the letter box. Disgusting.”

“My older brother, Mike, was hounded to his death because he was gay. He was in the army in the 1970s. He took his own life, eventually. But that’s another story.”

They looked at each other, a sense of understanding between them.

A shared anger.

The joint, unspoken commitment to bring The Scribbler to justice.

“Okay, good … look, can you text Peter, the sketch artist. See when he’s free so we can get him … no, wait, let’s show any pictures they get to Karen Williams first. You and I can run over there this afternoon, lunchtime maybe, catch her on her lunch break. Let’s see. Meantime, in case she doesn’t recognise any of them and I’m taking us all up a blind alley, what did you manage to dig up yesterday?”

Carrie sat back in her chair, stretching her shoulders. She then leaned forward and fiddled with her phone. “The number of people who go missing, guv. I’ve not got county figures yet, but nationally, depending on who you read, and I’ve got this off a missing persons website, … some 180,000 people are reported missing every year. Another 160,000 go missing without being reported, so the site says. In all, 340,000 missing incidents a year. To put that into context, and according to the last census, it’s like the whole of Bradford or Cardiff just vanishing. Every year.”

Gayther thought of a joke, then thought better of it and just nodded and asked, “What about the National Crime Agency and the Missing Persons Unit? Any joy?”

“Not really, guv, not when I’m not all that sure what I’m looking for. Most of the missing cases, the formal ones anyway, are usually resolved within a week. Most people turn up somewhere, alive. There’s a hardcore of about 2,500 people a year who go missing and are never seen again. I don’t have numbers yet, but I’d assume lots of teenagers, people struggling with their sexuality, maybe middle-aged men who have just had enough and walked away.”

Gayther thought carefully and then said, “I think what I want from you, if you can do it, is a list of middle-aged men who have gone missing each year since, what 1988 to 1990, from around here and who have never been found.” He looked across and saw the flash of exasperation on Carrie’s face.

“But…” Carrie said and then stopped.

“Go on,” Gayther encouraged her to speak further.

She took a moment to formulate her words. “I can see that … if we had a list of, let’s say, I don’t know, so many middle-aged men who went missing every year from 1988 and we drilled down into what we had on them … not a lot, I think, and only half of the possible total anyway … and so long ago … we may get a lead … possibly. Maybe they all drank in the same pub or borrowed a book from the same library. But The Scribbler … if it’s not this Smith … may have simply stopped … or emigrated … or died. I mean, it’s all so … vast and endless.”

Gayther nodded, sensing she had more to say.

“I mean The Scribbler had a pattern, a clear, unmistakable pattern. He was a young man who picked up … sexually confused middle-aged men in bars. Killed them and left their bodies to rot in ditches. He then stopped … dead in his tracks as far as we can see. So, my question, the one we should be focusing on, in my opinion, is that. Why did he stop? Don’t serial killers just go on and on until they’re caught?”

Gayther shrugged, indicating he didn’t know. Then he spoke.

“It’s a myth, from what I’ve read, that serial killers can’t stop. They can go for periods when their urges are subdued, I guess, and eventually they age and their testosterone levels subside and ooze away.”

He pondered for a moment before going on.

“Who knows why The Scribbler, in his twenties, in his physical prime, stopped … it could be for any number of reasons. I’m guessing, maybe, with the ones that got away, he got spooked and thought he might be caught next time and he didn’t want to shame his dear old mum and dad. He could have died. Cancer. A car accident. He could have moved overseas. He could even have married or got into some sort of twisted relationship with a goat that satisfied his urges … whether that would be enough on its own, I’m not sure.”

“So, can we do any sort of trace on all those possibilities. From all those years ago?”

Gayther shrugged. “I don’t know, Carrie. I’m just trying to spread the net far and wide, then pull it in and go through everything we’ve got, bit by bit.” He then asked, “And the deaths, Carrie, of young men in their twenties, in the three, six, twelve months after the last murder? What did you turn up?”

Gayther saw the quickly covered look of frustration on her face again. He knew that, if he weren’t her DI, she’d speak quite sharply to him at times. Instead, she spoke in a calm and measured voice.

“Again, where to start, guv? According to the local council, there were about 7,500 deaths in Suffolk last year. So, add in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire and we’re looking at, assuming the same sort of numbers there, maybe 22,000 or more for the year after the last murder thirty-odd years ago. That’s 400 or so deaths a week and, I’m guessing now, but if, say, perhaps 10 per cent would be younger males, we’d be looking at 2,000 deaths a year for how many years? … and it’s