All the Rage

Adam Fawley
2 April 2018
17.25

`˜Pull up a chair `“ if you can find one.'

I'm in Bryan Gow's office. Or, strictly speaking, his temporary office, since his building is being refurbished and the Department of Psychology is camped out in a few spare rooms in Plant Sciences. It's a solid 1950s building on the South Parks Road with fixtures and fittings to match `“ wooden panelling and parquet floors and rare botanical specimens in glass cases. Though most of the potted living versions look in need of a good water and a bit of old-fashioned TLC.

Judging by the books heaped haphazardly on the only free seat, Gow's current room-mate is an expert in psycholinguistics, whatever the hell that is. Last time I was here Gow spent the whole time telling me that it's only for a few months and he really doesn't mind sharing, but he isn't fooling me. It seems there's nothing more instinctively human than a desire for our own space. Even psychologists can't talk themselves out of that one.

`˜I wanted to run something past you,' I say. `˜On Monday morning an eighteen-year-old girl was abducted near Cherwell Drive. I want to know who we should be looking for.'

He raises his eyebrows, then sits back and joins his fingertips together. `˜OK. Shoot.'

It takes me a good five minutes to tell him everything, but he's frowning long before I've finished. And even more so when I give him the printout from the Incel board.

`˜And there's no suggestion, is there,' he says eventually, `˜that it was someone this girl knew?'

I shake my head. `˜Much as I want that to be the answer `“'

`˜Or someone who's aware she's transitioning?'

`˜Again, we're looking, but right now we can't find anyone outside the family who knows.'

He taps the printout. `˜So you want to know whether this could be your man.'

`˜And if not him, then who.'

He gets up and edges round the desk to a stack of cardboard boxes heaped one on top of the other on a table under the window. He must have packed them a hell of a sight better than I would have managed because it only takes him a few moments to locate what he wants.

`˜Fairly basic, but adequate for the layman,' he says, tossing a book on to the desk in front of me.

Profiling Sexual Offenders: Theory, Research, and Practice in Investigative Psychology. The author is American, if the surname is anything to go by.

`˜So what's this going to tell me?'

He sits down again. `˜A lot of what you know already. This sort of crime is primarily about power. Power and fear. This man wants to dominate, and he wants to terrorize. Sexual assault is just a means to that end.'

`˜Even though these Incel boards are all about sex?'

`˜They're about the absence of sex,' he says, holding my gaze. `˜And what that absence deprives them of: status, self-esteem, autonomy.'

Sexual assault as taking back control. Jesus.

`˜In that case, what sort of profile should we be looking for?'

`˜Tediously predictable, I'm afraid. Almost certainly white, and low-to-middle class. At least average intelligence `“ perhaps even slightly above.' He picks up the printout. `˜He uses contractions like `њcdve`ќ, but he spells `њrealized`ќ correctly, and puts the apostrophe in `њdidn't`ќ. And he likes wordplay `“ YeltobYob, tashhag `“ that degree of linguistic dexterity suggests the upper end of the educational range generally seen with crimes of this kind.'

He puts the paper down again. `˜My guess is he's holding down a job, though probably not one he considers `њgood enough`ќ for him. A female boss is a possibility `“ someone who doesn't promote or `њappreciate`ќ him. He's likely to live alone and almost certainly struggles to maintain any sort of meaningful long-term relationship with women.'

Classic loner misfit. Just what I bloody needed.

Gow is eyeing me now. `˜Using `њyob`ќ in his username is very revealing. On the face of it, just your typical `њMen Behaving Badly`ќ casual thuggishness, but I suspect it springs from a deep albeit unacknowledged self-loathing.'

`˜Age?'

`˜Despite the `њboy`ќ reference, I suspect he's more like thirties or forties.' He gestures at the book. `˜Read that. I'm sure you'll find it fascinating.'

`˜And the fact that the assault was frustrated `“ what difference will that make?'

Gow raises an eyebrow. `˜Frustrated as in interrupted, or frustrated as in thwarted?'

I shrug. `˜Either. Both.'

He sighs. His face has darkened. `˜I'm afraid that may well exacerbate matters. To have been so close to getting what he wanted, only to have it snatched from him at the last minute. Things will be a lot more urgent now. And he will be a lot angrier.'

I get to my feet. I already knew we were up against it, but there's a cold, sick feeling in my gut now that wasn't there before.

As I get to the door, Gow calls me back. `˜One more thing, as Columbo would say. I'd get the ever-dependable Baxter to do a search on your man's MO. It wouldn't surprise me at all to find he's done something like this before.'

* * *

Graeme Scott turns the lights out in the art room and starts to fumble in his pocket for the keys, then remembers he's forgotten to turn off his sodding PC and has to go back in again. When he finally locks up five minutes later the neon strip in the corridor is still flickering on and off above his head. It's been doing it for at least a month and the caretaker hasn't even bothered to come and look at it. Scott doesn't need reminding that Art comes very much lower down the pecking order than Information Technology or Media Studies but no one likes their inferiority thrust so blatantly in their face.

He rams the jangle of keys back into his pocket then heads out towards the car park. Most of the students have already left, just a few still lingering by the gates waiting for lifts. There are a couple of stringy lads hovering near a group of girls that Scott only now realizes includes some of Sasha Blake's friends.

Scott feels the colour coming to his face and is thankful they're too far away to notice. He reaches the car, opens the doors at the back and starts stowing away his materials as fast as he can manage. He can hear laughing now, a sudden gust of guffaws. It might be nothing to do with him `“ just an accident of timing `“ but paranoia has become a habit. The piss-taking about his clothes and his car, the nasty hurtful nickname. Just his luck that Scott rhymes with spot; though most of the acnefied little shits who call him that are pots calling the kettle black as far as he's concerned. And as for the car, if they don't have the basic intelligence to realize this is a classic, well, that's their problem, not his. Only it isn't, of course, because they're at it again, right now. He can see the two lads out of the corner of his eye `“ one is pretending to crank a starter handle as the other makes farting noises. The girls are hysterical with laughter. Leah Waddell with her high heels and Isabel Parker with that ridiculous hair dye she's done to herself. He's amazed the head is letting her get away with it. And as for Patsie Webb with her fuckwit stupidly spelt name. Too clever for her own good, the nasty, vindictive little cow. He doesn't like the idea of Sasha Blake hanging out with the likes of her. She's worth better than that `“ she actually has some talent, some potential `“

He shoves a can of paint aside to make way for the rolls of card, then yanks the doors shut and goes round to the driver's side and gets in. He sits there a moment, gripping his keys, willing the damn thing to start first time.

* * *

`˜My name's Jed Miller, I'm calling from Achernar Internet Services `“ can I speak to DC Anthony Asante?'

Asante sits up in his chair `“ this is it, this is what they've been waiting for.

`˜My boss said you were after some metadata from us, right? For yesterday?'

`˜That's right.'

`˜I've got what you need right here `“ though I'm not sure how much help it's going to be `“'

`˜Just send it over, Mr Miller `“ the rest is down to us.'

* * *