Deadly Dance

Twenty-Two

Vogel was at his desk continuing to puzzle over the baffling turn of events, when the results of the second DNA test on Terry Cooke dropped.

They were, as Vogel had more or less expected, totally different to the first results. The foreign DNA, extracted from the hair follicles found in Melanie Cooke’s fingernails, did not match the new sample taken from her father’s at all. It did, however, match DNA taken from the crime scene of murdered Timothy Southey in London, as the Met’s forensic people had already reported.

No further match had been found with this DNA on any national data base so far, although forensics would continue to search. Meanwhile, there was no doubt at all that somewhere, somehow, there had been a catastrophic error. Terry Cooke was almost certainly innocent and an extraordinary double murderer was still at large.

Vogel knew that the first thing he must do was to inform his superior officer. He decided he would knock on Hemming’s office door unannounced. There was no easy way of doing this. Vogel was expecting a fairly unpleasant confrontation and he was not to be disappointed.

Hemmings was not a man who often swore or raised his voice. He was a thoughtful, measured policeman. He had no time for the ranting and raving looked upon as par for the course amongst many senior officers of his generation.

On this occasion, however, Hemmings hit the roof and his language was blue.

‘For fuck’s sake, Vogel.’ He roared. ‘How could this have happened? It’s a total cock-up. This force is going to look like a bunch of incompetent idiots. I have absolutely no choice but to order the immediate release of Terry Cooke and get all charges against him dismissed. Not only that, I’m going to have to reveal to the general public that there is some kind of weird monster out there somewhere.’

‘Don’t shout at me, boss,’ remarked Vogel mildly. ‘I don’t run forensics.’

‘I’d like to fucking get hold of whoever does — or fucking pretends to,’ stormed Hemmings.

After a brief pause, he continued in a more reasonable tone of voice.

‘There can’t have been a cock-up at this end, Vogel, can there?’

‘I don’t see how, boss,’ replied the DI. ‘Terry Cooke’s DNA was taken at Patchway custody suite in the usual way. Properly packaged and dispatched, I even sent Willis along to oversee it and make sure everything went smoothly.

‘Forensics must have got Terry Cooke’s sample mixed up. I can’t think of anything other explanation. I know there is supposed to be every precaution in place and it would be highly unusual, but it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened. They’ll deny it, of course.’

‘They can deny all they fucking like, but heads are going to roll over this, Vogel, and I sure as hell do not intend one of them to be mine.’

‘No sir,’ murmured Vogel formally. ‘Will that be all, sir?’

‘For the moment. Just sort this bloody mess out as soon as, Vogel, do you hear?’

‘Yes sir,’ said Vogel, who was already halfway out of the door.

Back in his own office, he called in Willis and Saslow to give them the bad news.

‘I can’t believe it boss,’ said Willis. ‘How could a mistake like that have happened?’

‘There’ll be an inquiry of course,’ said Vogel. ‘Meanwhile, we can only start from where we are and it pretty much means starting again, but this time with even more cards stacked against us. We’ll be liaising with the Met, but they’ve got bugger all themselves, so far.’

‘Are we going back to regarding Al the paedo as our number one suspect then, boss?’ asked Saslow.

‘He could be our only suspect, certainly our only lead, however weak,’ Vogel replied morosely.

It was nearly ten at night. The DI was exhausted and bewildered. He had little of his usual energy. He was having to push himself, but he couldn’t even face the walk and the train journey home. He asked if there was a squad car free to take him to Sea Mills, something he almost never did. Vogel didn’t think tax payers should be paying to get police officers home. Particularly not police officers who were stupid enough never to have learned to drive. He believed squad cars had rather more important purposes, but on this occasion, he gave in to his total weariness of mind and body and asked for a ride home.

His mood, driven both by his personal and professional dilemmas, was blacker than ever by the time he arrived. It felt as if his entire life was in a mess. The Melanie Cooke case was in total disarray and the revelation that he had been adopted continued to torment him. Then something else happened, the very rarity of which made it all the more horrible. He had a row with Mary. A nasty silly row, which was entirely his fault.

She began to ask about his day, ready to listen and to support him like she always did. He bit her head off.

‘Can’t you see I’ve had enough,’ he snapped. ‘I’m living and breathing this damned case and now there’s been a major cock-up, which I’m likely to get the blame for. Do you think I want to bring it back here with me?’

‘Well, you usually say how much it helps you to talk things through with me,’ Mary began reasonably.

‘Well not this time. You should be able to bloody well tell.’

‘Really?’

Mary was a good woman, totally supportive of her husband and an exceptionally reasonable and understanding wife. She was not a saint.

Vogel caught the note of icy warning in her voice, but didn’t care.

‘Yes, bloody really,’ he stormed. ‘I’m dog-tired. I just want to sleep, for a week if I could.’

‘David, stop taking this out on me, do you hear?’ Mary shouted back. ‘Now. Right now. You’re going too far.’

‘Taking what out on you, for God’s sake?’ Vogel muttered.

‘You know very well what. The Melanie Cooke case may be a nightmare, but you can always cope with your work. Always. What you can’t cope with is learning that you were adopted and that you weren’t even born a Jew. And you aren’t going to cope with it until you come to terms with it.’

‘Indeed? As easy as that, is it? And what do you suggest I do about it?’

‘I never said it was easy. What you do is your business, but sweeping the whole thing under the carpet isn’t going to work. Perhaps you should at least get in touch with your sister and your birth mother. Maybe arrange to meet them. You never know. It might help.’

‘Might it? Well, if you’re so bloody wise why don’t you bloody well do it. I’m too busy for any of this. I’m in the middle of a murder inquiry which has gone totally pear-shaped.’

‘Fine. I might just do that. If that’s what you really want, I’ll call them tomorrow!’

‘You know what Mary, I don’t care what you do about my bloody birth mother and my bloody half-sister. I’m too tired to care. I just want to go to sleep and I’m sleeping right here.’

He pointed at the sofa.

Mary said nothing more. She simply headed for their bedroom in silence.

Vogel curled up on the sofa as he had threatened, wrapping himself in his coat.

It was not the first row Mary and David Vogel had had in their marriage, but it was the first ever to end with them sleeping apart.

Twenty-Three

The next morning, Vogel remained more than a little preoccupied with the events of the previous evening. This was most unusual for him when he was working and on such a major case, especially one so disturbing in so many ways. He had just decided that he would call Mary and try to put things right, when his desk phone rang. His mind was still largely on Mary as he answered it.

‘Vogel,’ he said absent-mindedly.

Within seconds, his whole body language changed. He sat bolt upright in his chair, clearly listening intently.

‘My God,’ he said. ‘That’s extraordinary.’

Then he added: ‘Right. Yes. It gets curiouser and curiouser, indeed.’

He spoke for a few minutes more, before replacing the phone in its holder, then he called Willis and Saslow into his office.

‘I’ve just had a call from Bob Farley at Trinity Road,’ he began. ‘He’s now leading the team over there on the Thai girl murder case. They’ve just had the DNA results back. Another direct match. Actually two direct matches — with both the DNA taken from Tim Southey and from Melanie Cooke.’

‘Jesus,’ said Willis.

‘Are they sure they’ve got it right, boss?’ asked Saslow.

All three knew that was a rhetorical question. A mistake within forensics on the scale they had witnessed was not going to happen twice, let alone three times.

‘So, boss, we are looking for just one perpetrator for all three murders,’ said Saslow.

‘It would seem so.’

‘But they’re so different. I mean, you’d come up with a totally different profile for each, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes.’ Vogel concurred. ‘Firstly, we have someone whose target was a gay man. But, from what we know, Tim Southey’s killer is a homosexual himself, as there was plenty of evidence of sexual activity. We don’t know for sure how Southey met him, but the lad did have gay dating apps on his phone. Secondly, we have a killer who murdered a young Thai woman. One whom he had contacted through the net, allegedly with a view to a long-term relationship. The woman apparently thought she was coming here to marry him. Meanwhile, our third killer is a paedophile weirdo, who also met his victim through an online dating site. So, besides the DNA matches, the use of dating websites is the only thing we have so far that might remotely link the three killers. If it really is one man, then that’s extraordinary. It’s quite unheard of.’

‘Presumably there are no other DNA matches on record?’ queried Saslow.

‘No,’ Vogel agreed. ‘No matches and our perpetrator clearly knows there won’t be. He has not exactly been careful about avoiding giving us samples. Although, if the paedo is the same man who’s been staking out primary schools he always kept his stolen vehicles free of prints for some reason. Habit maybe. Or just good paedophile practice.’ Vogel stretched his lips into a humourless smile.

‘He’s an arrogant bastard, all the same,’ muttered Saslow.

‘Or just confident,’ offered Willis.

‘Let’s hope to God he’s overconfident, Willis,’ responded Vogel. ‘We need him to trip himself up, because right now we are going nowhere with this investigation.’

‘That’s what usually happens in the end, isn’t it, boss?’ commented Saslow.

Vogel grunted.

‘I’m afraid there’s nothing “usual” about this case, Dawn,’ he said. ‘There’s something else that’s odd, too. The bastard’s choice of names. Trinity Road just heard from Thailand again. When Manee Jainukul’s sister was interviewed a second time, she remembered this Saul’s last name. Homer. Saul Homer. And we also have Leo Ovid. Both of possible classical derivation.’

Willis and Saslow looked blank.

‘You two need to read more. Ovid, the Roman poet? And Homer, the Greek author?’ Vogel sighed. ‘Look them up. And let’s feed all this new information into what we have compiled already.’

After a brief silence, Vogel continued. ‘Willis, get the whole team checking and double-checking everything. You can brief them. You know as much as I do. I need to think all this through.’

Willis nodded his understanding.

After the two officers had departed, Vogel tried to do what he did best: study and assimilate. But he couldn’t put his personal dilemma out of his mind; the awful and completely needless row with Mary lurked on the fringe of his thoughts, blurring his focus. He shook his head and looked at the names again: Leo. Al. Saul. Surely there had to be significance in the choice of the unlikely names of Homer and Ovid, he thought, both with that classical association? But the significance evaded him. Until things were set right with Mary, Vogel knew he wouldn’t feel right in himself.

Vogel called Mary then, told her briefly what was happening and apologised for the night before.

‘I can’t believe I behaved so badly,’ he said. ‘I’m so very sorry, sweetheart.’

‘I’m sorry too,’ Mary responded at once.

‘You didn’t do anything,’ he said. ‘I just took everything out on you, just like you said.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It really is, David.’

He had known it would be, of course. Nonetheless, he breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Oh, and by the way,’ Mary continued, ‘Eytan called this morning, soon after you left.’

Vogel thanked her for telling him. They both knew he was far from ready to return the call. He was also far too busy. Vogel was about to say goodbye, when Mary suddenly said,

‘I was just thinking about the names you mentioned: Leo Ovid and Saul Homer and how you thought that they must be connected in some way. You don’t suppose that your killer likes word games just as much as you do, David?’

That turned on a switch in Vogel’s mind, which — now his argument with Mary was behind them — was suddenly clearer than ever. Vogel said a hasty thanks and a swift goodbye to Mary. He couldn’t wait to follow up her idea.

Like many compilers of crosswords, Vogel was a classicist and more than moderately familiar with ancient literature. He knew that Homer, the legendary writer of The Iliad and The Odyssey, was often considered to be the father of Greek mythology. Then there was Ovid, an important mythographer of the Virgil and Horace era. He felt so certain that those names hadn’t been picked at random. The two surnames held a direct link to ancient mythology and perhaps that was the biggest clue. Homer and Ovid were writers, they were creators of characters. Maybe what Vogel needed to look for was a mythological character with some, yet to be revealed, relevance to all that had happened.

He began scribbling the names on a piece of paper, jumbling them up, transposing letters. He kept thinking about what Mary had said: might the killer also like word games? As a crossword compiler, he was an expert juggler of letters and words. He played with all five names at first — an awful lot of letters, even for him. Then he separated the last names from the first names. He got nowhere with Homer and Ovid, so he started to concentrate on Al, Leo and Saul. He felt quite sure there was an anagram there somewhere.

He delved into his memory, dredging the very depths of his knowledge of ancient literature. Eventually something jumped out at him.

He turned to his computer and went into google. The results took just a moment or two.

Vogel leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Oh my God, he thought. Could this be possible? Leo, Al and Saul. The whole thing was unbelievable.

After just a few seconds he forced himself back into action. He printed out a couple of pages and reached for his phone to call Hemmings, then thought better of it. This needed to be done face-to-face. On the way through the incident room, he asked Willis and Saslow to join him.

They followed at once and he could feel their eyes on his back, as he strode purposefully along the corridor to Hemmings’s office. Vogel was excited and, at the same time, in a state of some shock. He could feel beads of sweat forming on his forehead and his trembling hands were clutching the freshly printed pages.

Hemmings was on the phone when Vogel poked his head around his office door and asked if he could see him for a minute. Immediately, the DCI ended his call and beckoned Vogel and his two lieutenants in. Hemmings had realised immediately that something momentous was afoot.

Vogel knew he was blinking behind his spectacles as rapidly as he ever had in his life. He couldn’t help it. He feared that what he was about to say was going to sound crazy, so much so that he wasn’t sure he could deliver it with the required conviction.

‘We are looking for just one man, for three very different murders,’ he began. ‘The DNA results have made that virtually irrefutable. The thing is, what I think I have discovered is, that our perpetrator actually thinks he is three different people. Indeed, he lives his life as three different people.’

‘You’re losing me, Vogel,’ responded Hemmings. ‘What possible evidence do you have for that?’

‘Not evidence exactly, sir, but either I’m right or we have a pretty unbelievable coincidence. I’ve been playing with the names the bastard’s been using, jumbling up the letters and that sort of thing. At one point I removed the duplication. The names Leo, Al and Saul, contain two As and three Ls. So by removing two Ls and one A, I was left with the letters LEOASU.’

‘And so?’ enquired Hemmings.

‘Well I tried looking for anagrams, any combination of all, or some, of those letters that might make a word, or rather a name. One combination forms the word Aeolus. It even uses all the letters. AEOLUS. And it hit me straight away. I was focusing on some kind of connection with ancient mythology — because of the last names our killer had used, Homer and Ovid — and I remembered, or half-remembered anyway, who Aeolus was. I mean, it’s pretty unbelievable, but…’

‘Vogel, get on with it,’ instructed Hemmings.

‘Yes sir.’

Vogel looked down at the Wikipedia printout in his hand.

‘“Aeolus, a name shared by three mythical characters, was the ruler of the winds in Greek mythology. These three personages are often difficult to tell apart and even the ancient mythographers appear to have been perplexed about which Aeolus was which.’”

Vogel lowered the printout and looked directly at Hemmings. ‘It was Aeolus who gave Ulysses a tightly closed bag containing captured winds, so that he could sail easily home on a gentle, easterly breeze. But his men thought the bag was filled with riches, they opened it and unleashed a hurricane. And Homer relates that story in The Odyssey, his masterpiece.’

Vogel paused, waiting for the response of his fellow officers.

Saslow was the first to speak.

‘Well, our man has certainly unleashed a hurricane and he may not have finished,’ she said. ‘It’s crazy all right, boss, but I reckon you might be on to something.’

‘S-so you actually think the bastard believes he is three different people, boss?’ Willis enquired haltingly.

‘I think we are probably dealing with someone who is suffering from multiple personality disorder or dissociative identity disorder, as it is more usually known nowadays. His transition from one self to another is not always voluntary and when he is in one identity, he may have no memory of the others, or not all of them anyway,’ said Vogel. ‘That’s my basic understanding of this condition, but this would be a particularly extreme case.’

Hemmings looked stunned.

‘Well one thing’s for certain,’ he said. ‘We can’t afford any more mistakes on any of this. To start with, we need an expert medical opinion, Vogel.’

‘Yes boss. I was about to suggest that. There’s a trick cyclist in London, who Nobby Clarke called on in the aftermath of the Sunday Club murders. She’s a chum of Nobby’s, big in the world of criminal psychiatry. Our killer there had a personality disorder too, but nothing like this, though.’

‘All right. Well, get on with it then, Vogel. Try for a meet today, if you can. DCS Clarke will be the one to fix that for you, then, won’t she? And let’s keep this between ourselves, shall we, until we know a bit more.’

‘OK, boss.’

‘Meanwhile, we carry on looking for Al, Leo Ovid and Saul Homer as if they are three different people. I don’t see what else we can do.’

‘OK, boss,’ said Vogel again.

He led Willis and Saslow towards the door.

‘So, if you’re right, which would be his real self, then boss?’ asked Saslow as they stepped into the corridor. ‘Saul, Al, or Leo? And how do we know?’

‘I have no idea, Saslow,’ replied Vogel. ‘Maybe there’s even another self.’

‘What? Aeolus, you mean?’

‘Good point, but no, as well as Aeolus. Look, we have no other record of any crime where his DNA has been found. So maybe our man has been living an apparently normal life outside his three, or four if you include Aeolus, alter egos.’

‘Surely nobody could do that, boss,’ said Willis.

‘I have no idea what this bastard can and cannot do,’ replied Vogel. ‘He certainly doesn’t seem to do limits. If I am right, there is only one thing we know for absolute certain about him: he’s mad. Quite mad.’

Twenty-Four

Vogel called DS Clarke straight away.

‘Boss, I think I’ve got something here, but I need help to sort it out,’ he said. ‘Do you remember that trick cyclist, the one you got to help us tie up the loose ends after the Sunday Club murders, Freda something or other?’

‘Do you mean Professor Freda Heath, per chance, Vogel, arguably the most distinguished criminal psychiatrist in the country?’

‘That’s the one, boss. Could you arrange a meet, soonest?’

‘Perhaps, if you were a little more respectful, Vogel.’

‘Sorry, boss. Look, I think I may have sussed out something about this raving lunatic we’re both after, but I need to be sure I’m not going barmy myself. Can you fix a meet today?’

‘Vogel, you don’t half push it. It’s two thirty in the afternoon already and you have to get here from Bristol. Freda’s NHS. Do you expect her to drop everything?’

‘I hope you will persuade her too. Yes. We’ve got three deaths between us already, boss, and barely a clue to go on.’

‘She’ll want to know where you’re coming from, Vogel.’

‘Of course.’

Vogel briefly explained his hypothesis. When he’d finished there was a brief silence before Nobby Clarke spoke again.

‘So you think our man has, at least three, separate identities and may also believe that he is a figure from Greek mythology. Is that about it?’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘You don’t think this is a theory that may be just a tad off the wall, do you, Vogel?’

‘The whole thing is off the wall, boss, but it’s all we’ve got. Anyway, that’s why I need to talk to your trick cyclist. Sorry, I mean Professor Heath.’

Clarke let that pass.

‘I’ll call you back,’ she said and, without another word, ended the call.

Ten minutes later she was back on the line.

‘Freda says even NHS doctors have to eat. She’ll meet you and me both for an early dinner. Six o’clock at Joe Allen. She’s giving a talk to the Royal College of Psychiatrists at eight and will need to leave around seven thirty. Don’t be late.’

‘I won’t. Will you be able to stay on? I want to pick your brains more about the Timothy Southey murder and generally compare notes.’

‘Vogel, what time did you leave home this morning?’ asked Clarke obliquely.

‘About a quarter to six. What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘And you’ll be lucky to get home much before midnight. You don’t change, Vogel, do you? Can’t imagine how your missus puts up with you. You’re like a dog with a bone.’

‘And you’re not, boss?’

‘Ummm, maybe, but I don’t have a missus.’

‘Really, boss?’

‘You’re so pushing it, Vogel.’

Vogel smiled. DCS Nobby Clarke was notoriously protective of her privacy in many more respects than just that of her name. Nobody in the Met knew anything worth knowing about her private life. There were the usual rumours amongst the good old boys that she was a lesbian, but based more on the fact that she had rarely been spotted with a man, other than a colleague, and always turned up to police functions alone.

In spite of the banter, she was and would always be something of a mentor to Vogel. He welcomed the opportunity of discussing everything with her, almost as much as getting the opinion of an eminent psychiatrist.

‘By the way, Joe Allen, that sounds familiar.’

‘I’m quite sure it does. You’ll be able to find your way all right, I expect.’

‘I will indeed, boss.’

He caught the 3.30 p.m. train from Bristol Temple Meads by the skin of his teeth and arrived at Joe Allen in Covent Garden at five minutes to six. He paused briefly outside, remembering his association with the restaurant, known as Johnny’s Club at the time, during the Sunday Club murders. Vogel hadn’t been there since that investigation. It looked much the same as he remembered it. The same theatrical billboards and photographs. The same piano, albeit with a different, female pianist, wearing a hat.

He was the first to arrive and shown to the table in the far corner, where a plaque commemorating Sunday Club remained on the wall. Clarke and Professor Freda Heath arrived a couple of minutes later. Freda Heath was very tall, very black and very beautiful. She was also very clever and at the top of her profession, which, of course, was the only thing about her which really interested Vogel.

Hands were shaken and greetings exchanged. They quickly ordered drinks and food.

‘I asked for this table,’ said the DS, waving one hand at the Sunday Club plaque. ‘Holds a few memories for us, eh Vogel?’

‘Some I would like to forget, boss,’ said Vogel.

‘We solved the case, that’s the main thing.’

Vogel nodded. He would have preferred to have solved it a lot more quickly, before so much damage was done. Now, he was becoming desperate for the Tim Southey, Melanie Cooke and Manee Jainukul murders to be solved, before anyone else was hurt or killed.

‘I hear you have a rather intriguing theory for me,’ interjected Freda Heath.

‘The boss has filled you in then?’ Vogel asked, Freda nodded. ‘So, am I just as crazy as I believe our killer to be, or does any of this make any sense to you at all?’ asked Vogel.

Freda Heath nodded again.

‘It does make sense,’ she said. ‘And it’s possible that this could be an extreme representation of Dissociative Identity Disorder. But you may not be aware, David, that there are a number of highly esteemed figures in my profession who don’t even recognise its existence.’

‘Really? I’ve done some internet research and I would have thought there were far too many case histories on record for any expert to totally dismiss it.’

‘Not totally, perhaps, but it is a reasonable argument to dismiss DID when used as a defence in criminal law as nothing other than a legal ploy. And there are definitely examples of that having been the case in the UK and to a considerably greater extent in the States and then there is the Iatrogenic factor.’

Vogel raised his eyebrows questioningly.

‘Cause and effect,’ said the professor. ‘It has often been alleged that the wide publicity given to people of suggestive personality, combined with the credulity and enthusiasm of therapists…’ Freda Heath allowed herself a wry smile. ‘… has been responsible for at least a proportion of those claiming to suffer from DID.’

‘But you don’t go along with that? You believe in DID?’

‘Whether or not I go along with the Iatrogenic factor depends on the circumstances,’ said Freda. ‘There is little doubt it plays a part. But in my opinion, the Iatrogenic factor can detract from the genuine cases out there. Even I am cynical about anything in psychiatry that cannot be clinically proven but, over the years of my work at The John Howard Centre, I have no doubt that I’ve dealt with several, absolutely genuine and involuntary cases.’

Vogel realised he had no idea what The John Howard Centre was, and neither could he exactly recall Freda Heath’s position in the NHS.

Nobby Clarke came to the rescue.

‘Freda’s professor of Personality Disorder for The East London Trust, and The John Howard Centre is their medium security hospital out at Homerton,’ she said. ‘I’ve been there. Trust me. There is unlikely to be any condition of the human mind which hasn’t been seen at the John Howard.’

Vogel was thoughtful.

‘You referred to “totally genuine and involuntary cases,”’ he began. ‘Does that mean that someone with DID has no control over which personality they become at any given moment? Because I am not sure how our man could have continued to function, if that is the case.’

‘Sometimes they can maintain a certain control,’ Freda explained. ‘They have their own ways of keeping an unwanted, alternative identity at bay, for example. If they are with people, they may make an excuse like a visit to the bathroom, or feeling ill if more time is needed, in order to prevent an involuntary intrusion.’

‘How long can someone keep up this business of being several different people?’

‘Much longer than you would think.’

‘Is there always a dominant personality, one which takes precedent over the others and maybe has some control over the others?’

‘More often that not, yes. What we usually talk about is a host. In the case of your man, whom you believe to have several unrelated identities, Saul, Leo and Al, possibly Aeolus too, there is probably a host. Your subject’s behaviour patterns indicate that there is a secretive side to all three of these characters. This secrecy was perhaps obligatory with Al the paedophile, but not necessarily so with the other two, before they turned to murder.’

‘But isn’t the host Aeolus?’ asked Vogel.

‘I doubt it. Complicated as this sounds, I would say Aeolus is the driving force. The personality your man aspires to be, rather than the host. We can assume that he has been going about his day-to-day existence in an apparently normal way for a considerable period of time, perhaps years. This doesn’t quite fit with being a Greek mythological hero. No. I suspect that there’s an unrelated host; someone who appears to be totally normal.’

‘So it’s the host we should be looking for?’

‘Yes. I would say that’s correct.’

‘Any idea what sort of person might host these disparate characters?’

Freda shrugged.

‘I’m afraid not,’ she said. ‘It’s often someone who does not draw attention to themselves. He almost certainly lives alone, because it would be difficult to hide something this complex from anyone you lived with, be it a lover, a relative, or even just a flat mate. He probably avoids making friends too. But he would also contrive to appear pretty normal. It is quite possible that he holds down a job, even a responsible job.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Well, clinical research shows that DID patients describe severe childhood abuse, physical or sexual or both. Your subject has probably experienced some kind of major trauma but, of course, you wouldn’t know that.’

‘So are the different personalities aware of each other?’

‘Each would have its own memories, behaviour patterns and preferences, including sexual preferences, but none would have access to the memories and thought processes of the other. The host must be aware, to some extent, of the existences of these secondary identities. But when another identity takes over the host, it’s usually involuntary, as I explained earlier, though some hosts can develop ways of control, up to a point. However stress and, most importantly of all, an event or incident which could be seen as a threat to one of the identities, is likely to bring that identity to manifest itself.’

‘So where would Aeolus come into this?’

‘Ummm, a complication, but not unknown. In the case of your subject, it seems likely that the host, almost certainly subconsciously, loathes and has contempt for his alternative identities. But not Aeolus, it is Aeolus he reveres and aspires to ultimately become.’

‘Where does that lead us?’

‘Well, if someone with DID actively seeks to become a certain personality, they won’t be able to control that indefinitely. Extreme pressure or stress will bring Aeolus to the forefront. He will take over and your man — the host — won’t be able to stop it. Ironically, the closer you get to him, the more likely it is that he will succumb to his own involuntary subterfuges and believe that he has become Aeolus.

And that, DI David Vogel, is when your killer will get really dangerous.’

Vogel called Hemmings from the 21.15 back to Bristol. The commuter rush was well over and the train was quiet. Vogel was easily able to find a secluded corner, where he wouldn’t be overheard. He related his meeting with Professor Heath as quickly and accurately as he could.

‘Basically she backs up my theory, boss. I know it probably sounded far-fetched when I came into your office today, but it does make sense. The DNA evidence means it’s virtually indisputable that the same man was responsible for all three murders. I don’t think there’s any other feasible explanation.’

Hemmings remained silent for several seconds.

‘Neither do I, Vogel,’ he said eventually.

Vogel waited for Hemmings to continue. He understood the senior man’s reticence. The next step presented clear risks. It could leave the entire Bristol MCIT team open to ridicule.

‘OK, we have to go public with this now, without delay,’ said Hemmings.

‘I’m sure that’s the right thing to do, sir,’ responded Vogel.

‘Yes,’ agreed Hemmings. ‘I still don’t like it, but we have no choice. The only hope we seem to have of finding this man is through the media and the public. I shall call the Chief Constable straight away.’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘We now have a picture of the bastard by the way. A photo he emailed to the Thai girl. He’d deleted it and tried to remove all traces of it from his own email account and hers, but the tech boys finally unearthed it.’

Vogel felt a frisson of excitement.

‘What does he look like, boss?’

‘A pretty ordinary Joe. I’ll send it to you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Oh and David…’

Vogel stiffened. In their almost two-year association, Vogel could count the number of times Hemmings had addressed him as David on the fingers of one hand.

‘Well done. Nobody else in the force would have come close to this.’

Hemmings ended the call, leaving Vogel thinking that his superior officer was not wrong about that: which meant that the consequences of going public with the Aeolus theory, whatever they may turn out to be, now rested on Vogel’s, not particularly broad, shoulders.

Twenty-Five

A press conference was held at the Avon and Somerset Constabulary’s Portishead HQ at 11 a.m. the following morning. It was hosted by Hemmings, as SIO, with Vogel and the force’s senior press officer, Jennifer Jackman, by his side. Willis and Saslow were also present, as Vogel’s first lieutenants, in case he wished to refer to them, but they hadn’t been asked to sit on the platform.

Vogel suspected that Hemmings may have been hoping this would be one of the conferences the Chief Constable might choose to host himself. But the CC, like most of his rank in modern policing, had become rather more a politician than a policeman. He excelled at covering his own back more than anything else, in Vogel’s opinion.

Hemmings, however, gave no sign of any discomfiture he might be feeling and did a more than competent job. He ran through the basic details of the three murders, then revealed that DNA evidence pointed to the same perpetrator in every case. There was a stir of increased interest in a briefing room packed almost to capacity.

On the instruction of the CC, Jennifer Jackman had already indicated that there’d been a sensational development suggesting a strong link between the cases of Timothy Southey, Manee Jainukul and Melanie Cooke. Journalists known to be closely following these cases had been contacted directly. Almost all of those in attendance were experienced crime reporters representing local and national television, and mainstream local and national written press. They understood about profiling and modus operandi. They were as surprised by the DNA evidence as Vogel and the MCIT team had been.

Hemmings turned to Vogel to explain his theory of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Vogel hated doing this sort of thing, but he couldn’t avoid it. It was his convoluted brain that had come up with the Aeolus theory and it was only logical that he should be the one to pass on his thinking to the world at large.

By the time he finished the air of quiet excitement and anticipation had turned into near bedlam. The press photographers and news cameramen pushed forward, thrusting their cameras into Vogel’s face. Many of the gathered journalists rose to their feet and started to shout out questions. Others were clearly already filing copy.

Jennifer Jackman called for order.

‘Neither DI Vogel nor DCI Hemmings will say anything more nor take any questions until everyone calms down,’ she said. ‘Please take your seats and if you have a question raise your hand.’

Jackman succeeded in her plea for calm, to a degree, but her reward was merely a sea of waving arms.

‘Question for DI Vogel,’ began the correspondent from BBC Bristol. ‘Are you really telling us that we are looking for one man, who thinks he has at least four personalities including a figure of Greek mythology, Detective Inspector? Could you clarify that for me please?’

Bedlam turned to hush.

Vogel blinked rapidly behind his spectacles. He reckoned he would prefer to pull his own teeth out, rather than face the great British press on a charge.

‘Well yes, that’s about it,’ said Vogel.

‘Do you have any medical evidence to back this theory up?’

‘We have taken advice from a senior criminal psychiatrist, yes, which led us to decide to make this announcement this morning.’

‘So do we have three different motives then, as well as three different identities within the same perpetrator? Is that what you are saying, Mr Vogel?’

That was a concept Vogel had considered, but he had so far been unable to come to a properly thought-out conclusion.

‘Until we apprehend this man and can acquire detailed psychiatric reports on his state of mind, I’m afraid we cannot comment on his motivation,’ he said.

‘Exactly how do you plan to apprehend him, DI Vogel? I mean, isn’t he really little more than some kind of fantasy figure?’

‘Not exactly, we do have a photograph of our suspect,’ Hemmings interrupted.

The DCI waved a hand at Janet Jackman, who had her laptop open in front of her. She tapped the keyboard and a large image of the photo emailed to Manee Jainukul flashed up on the big screen above the platform.

Vogel turned to look at it. He’d already pored over the photo on the train as soon as Hemmings had emailed it to him the previous evening and again when he got home and again that morning. He had a feeling that face was vaguely familiar but then, he’d spent so much time looking at it he supposed it would be.

‘The experts tell us this image has been heavily Photoshopped,’ said Hemmings. ‘We have no idea how alike it is to our suspect — whom we believe to be Saul Homer, Leo Ovid, and Al — but it’s the best we’ve got. Please use it to help us find him. He is highly dangerous.’

The media went ballistic.

Aeolus

I wasn’t quite sure what I felt when I watched the news and read the TV reports. In a way I was proud of the attention. Who wouldn’t be? My story led the news on every TV bulletin and I was splashed all over every front page. My picture was everywhere, well, the picture they thought was me. It was the same on the net.

Of course, I knew the story was a captivating one. A damned good yarn, the press boys would say. I particularly enjoyed headlines like POLICE PUZZLED AND BEFUDDLED BY TRIPLE KILLER…, MYTHICAL MURDERER MAKES MOCKERY… and THREAT OF THE THREE-IN-ONE FIEND…

I was, of course, aware that merely by working out what I was, the forces of the law had put me at greater risk of discovery. Detective Inspector David Vogel was clever for a police officer, there was no doubt about that, but not as clever as me. I wasn’t too worried.

The media asked one question. The same question.

‘Who is Aeolus?’

I am Aeolus. I am not the pathetic creature whose picture the police released. I’d used and doctored that picture, for my own ends. It barely resembled me. Nobody would recognise the real me from that picture.

I am Aeolus. I am the ruler of the winds. I have powers the likes of which DI Vogel can only ever dream of.

Twenty-Six

The results of the press conference wildly exceeded anything Vogel had ever experienced. Even the coverage of the Sunday Club murders in Covent Garden, which had attracted extensive media attention, paled into insignificance compared with this.

It was approaching mid-morning the following day and Vogel was still trying to get to grips with the sheer enormity of public response to the massive media onslaught, when his phone rang. Bill Jones, the duty sergeant at Trinity Road — the police station which covered the St Pauls district, where the body of Manee Jainukul was found — sounded unusually animated.

‘Woman just walked into the front office here. I think you should see her personally, sir,’ said Jones. ‘Claims she had an internet relationship with your Saul. Got a feeling about this one, sir.’

‘You’ve talked to her yourself?’

‘Briefly, sir.’

‘All right,’ said Vogel.

He respected Sergeant Jones and was pretty sure the man wouldn’t bother him directly with anyone likely to turn out to be a nutter. If Jones thought this woman was worthy of Vogel’s personal attention, then she almost certainly was.

But, for once, even Vogel didn’t dare leave his office. He really had to remain at the hub of the investigation of which he was DSIO. Hemmings was not going to stand for anything else.

‘Look, there’s no way I can come over to you,’ he told Sergeant Jones. ‘Would this woman be prepared to come here, do you think, if you got a uniform to drive her?’

Sergeant Jones replied that he reckoned that could be arranged.

Miss Sonia Baker arrived less than half an hour later. Vogel had her brought straight to his office. She was now sitting opposite him, a fair-haired woman, probably in her late thirties, just a little plumper than she might like to be and well dressed, in a rather old-fashioned sort of way. Discomfort oozed from every pore of her body. A handkerchief was clasped tightly in her left hand. She looked as if she may have been crying.

Vogel introduced himself, offered Sonia Baker coffee or tea and tried to do everything he could to make her feel less ill at ease. The woman attempted a weak smile. He noticed that her lips were trembling, but he needed to start questioning her swiftly in order to ascertain whether she really was the genuine article or just another time-waster.

‘Could you please begin by telling me what you told Sergeant Jones at Trinity Road,’ he said.

Sonia, in spite of being so upset, related clearly how she had met Saul Homer on line, through marryme.com, how they’d corresponded in detail for some time and had eventually arranged to meet.

‘And you are sure it’s the same Saul Homer we are now looking for?’

‘Oh yes. Well, it’s an unusual name, of course, but that’s not it. As soon as I saw the picture on the TV this morning, I recognised him at once. It’s the same photo he posted on marryme.com. It’s not there now though, I checked. But I have a print-out.’

Sonia Baker reached into her handbag, removed a sheet of A4 paper and put it on Vogel’s desk. Vogel glanced down. The bespectacled face, which had been haunting him for a day and half now, was before him. It was the same Saul all right.

‘So did you ever meet him, Miss Baker?’ he asked.

‘No, he didn’t turn up, you see,’ said the woman ‘I stood on the railway station at Bath like a total idiot. He was supposed to be arriving there from Swindon, where he said he lived. I looked all along the train he was supposed to be on. I even thought I saw him. There was this man who was about to step out of one of the carriages and then turned away and went back in. I thought it was him at first. There was definitely a similarity, although it might just have been that he was wearing tinted glasses like Saul’s. I caught a glimpse of him again, looking out of a window. Straight at me, I thought, but he wasn’t my Saul, obviously. My Saul never arrived. I waited for the next two trains from Swindon. We’d spoken on the phone a couple of times. He had this quite gentle voice, with the hint of a rural Wiltshire burr. I thought he sounded so nice. What a fool. I couldn’t phone him from the station. He said he’d lost his phone, a lie obviously. I realise now how stupid I was, but he seemed to want all that I wanted. He must have told the same sort of story to this poor woman from Thailand. It still upsets me, which is ridiculous really because I could be dead, couldn’t I, Mr Vogel? I could have been another victim. It all fits.’

‘If you are right and I suspect you are, then I think you may have had a very lucky escape indeed, Miss Baker.’

Vogel asked the woman if she would make a full statement and she agreed to do so at once. He said he would arrange for someone to go through the procedure with her and asked her to accompany him to reception. In the corridor, they met Willis and Saslow, clearly on their way out.

Vogel asked Sonia to wait a moment and took Saslow to one side.

‘I need a word with you two, where are you off?’ he asked.

‘They’ve had a walk-in at Avonmouth nick. Character who claims he’s Aeolus.’

‘Ah, the first and almost certainly not the last.’

‘I know boss, but apparently he’s pretty convincing. Hemmings wants us over there pronto, just in case.’

‘All right, Saslow, let me know how you get on.’

Saslow hurried after Willis, who had barely paused and was virtually out of the door. Typical, thought Vogel, not disapprovingly, Willis was always completely focused on the job in hand.

Sonia Baker took a step towards the DI and touched his arm lightly.

‘Mr Vogel, who were those people?’ she asked.

Vogel told her.

‘Then you are probably going to think I’m crazy, Detective Inspector, but I have something to tell you.’

As soon as Sonia Baker left, Vogel picked up his phone to call Saslow and Willis. Then he put it down again.

He had questioned the woman thoroughly and the more he’d questioned her, the clearer it seemed that she was not entirely sure of the quite startling information she had given Vogel. Indeed when the DI had suggested that she make a formal statement on the matter she’d declined at once.

‘I wouldn’t like to do that, not until you have checked it out and tried to discover whether it might be possible or not,’ she said.

She could be letting her imagination run away with her, Vogel told himself.

But he’d seen, many times, how a clever barrister can destroy a witness in a court of law; making someone, who had previously been quite sure of their evidence, seem inept and full of doubt. He’d always thought that sort of lawyer to be too clever by half, and maybe that’s how Vogel himself had just been behaving to Sonia.

On the other hand, Sonia Baker had said that she couldn’t be sure, not absolutely sure, anyway. Then again, Vogel had never been the kind of policeman who would only believe what he wanted to believe. He was a meticulous man, who made sure that he or his team checked and double checked every lead, however obscure. However unlikely. However ridiculous.

And this was ridiculous, surely.

Quite ridiculous.

He should certainly do a little elementary checking before alerting others. He didn’t want to be guilty of a false alarm on a matter of this enormity.

It was always a good idea to check dates and opportunity before wreaking havoc. To at least discover if a possible suspect had a solid alibi, like being aboard an aircraft in the middle of the Atlantic or picked up on CCTV at the other end of the country. He switched on his computer and called up a file, which would give him the information he needed.

Involuntarily, he raised one hand to his lips. It was as he’d feared. He knew his breathing had quickened. So far, everything matched. He was pretty sure of that. But it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

He made himself take extra special care. He knew he must be as sure of himself as humanly possible before proceeding. He closed the file and opened another containing the Met’s report on the murder of Timothy Southey in London, sent over by Nobby Clarke’s team.

He needed to double-check that the dates matched.

They did.

Vogel leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment. An occasional habit when under stress or in shock. He clasped his hands and rested them on his chin. His palms were clammy.

He told himself it could still be nothing. All of it. On the other hand, he thought, better safe than sorry.

He sucked in a gulp of air, filling his lungs, then he leaned forward and picked up his phone again to call Dawn Saslow.

Aeolus

I knew the net was closing in at last. I suppose it was inevitable. Even so, it was probably a stroke of silly, bad luck that was going to bring me down, rather than any mistakes I had made. The events of the last few minutes had been disturbing; an unlucky coincidence that could destroy me. I might get away with it, yet again, or I could be wrong. It may not have mattered at all. I told myself to stay calm.

I was the one who would have to clean up the mess that Saul left behind in his foolish wish to meet Sonia. But, no matter, I was strong. I was clever. I could handle this. I’d handled everything else, after all. I controlled the winds. I could whip up a hurricane. I was all powerful. These people would never understand me. Never get close to me or be able to guess what I was capable of. They would never get inside my head.

I had always known, I suppose, that I would have to reveal myself one day. Show them who I was. I was proud of what I was capable of. Proud of what I had done right under their foolish noses. In some ways, I wanted it out there. I wanted the world to know who I really was. And there were people in my life I would quite relish bringing down with me too. Smug bastards who thought they were smart but, compared with me, they were stupid.

So it annoyed me immensely that they could now take credit for having brought me down. I had always imagined that I, and only I, would decide how and when to show myself. That I would reveal myself on my own terms, as I pleased and right now I wasn’t ready. Not yet.

I had to remind myself that it still might not happen. Not any of it. They had all repeatedly shown how slow they were. How clumsy their thought processes were. I told myself I was quite likely to continue to get away with it. They could not unmask me. I was Aeolus. I governed the winds. I governed a force that made all the sources of power and energy created by man look as pathetic as they really were.

It was at that moment that the phone rang.

Twenty-Seven

Saslow was mildly surprised at Vogel’s instruction, not least because the DI was overriding a direct order from DCI Hemmings, but she wasn’t in any way alarmed. That’s how it was with policing. People kept changing their minds, particularly senior officers, it seemed to her.

‘I need you and Willis back here sharpish,’ said Vogel. ‘Something urgent has come up.’

‘Right, boss,’ said Saslow. ‘Are you sure you don’t want us to check out the Avonmouth Aeolus first? We’re nearly there.’

‘I said it was urgent,’ snapped Vogel. ‘Please don’t argue with me.’

‘I… I wasn’t, I mean, uh, sorry boss,’ said Saslow, stumbling over her words.

She was surprised and curious. This wasn’t like Vogel. He was almost always measured and quietly spoken.

‘Who’s driving?’ asked Vogel

‘Willis,’ replied the detective constable. She was really curious now.

‘Are you in his car?’

‘Uh yes, it was parked right outside, so…’

‘Of course,’ responded Vogel.

Saslow felt he was making an effort to sound as if everything was fine, when it wasn’t. Whatever he wanted her and Willis for, was something major, no doubt about that.

‘All right, well ask him to turn around soon as he can and get back here, OK?’

‘OK boss, will do,’ said Saslow.

She was aware of Willis glancing at her sideways.

‘What was all that about?’ he asked, turning his attention to the road again.

‘The boss wants us back straight away,’ Saslow told him. ‘Said something urgent has come up.’

‘Did he say what it was?’

‘Nope. Think it’s something big though. He practically bit my head off when I suggested we check out this alleged Aeolus first. After all, it was Hemmings who dispatched us…’

Saslow paused, suddenly aware that Willis had made no effort to find a place to turn around or even to slow down. In fact, he seemed to have speeded up.

‘Come on, John,’ she said. ‘We’d better get back there. The boss is in no mood to be messed about, I can tell you. In any case, I want to know what the hell is going on.’

‘Of course,’ said Willis. He aimed a smile at her, began to slow down and swung his vehicle into a side street, which appeared to lead only to a row of deserted lock-ups.

‘This will do,’ he said, putting the car into reverse.

Saslow was still musing about Vogel’s manner.

‘He sounded really stressed out,’ she said. ‘I’ve never heard him quite like that… just can’t imagine what’s got him going. He’s usually so bloody cool…’

They slowed to a halt. Willis switched off the engine.

‘For God’s sake, what are you doing now?’ asked Saslow.

‘I think I need a slash,’ said Willis.

‘Well hurry up then…’ began Saslow.

She managed no more words. Willis’s fist caught her full on the right side of her head. It was a good punch. He was a fit man and he’d trained as a boxer, earlier in his police career. Saslow wasn’t knocked unconscious but she was stunned.

By the time she became fully aware again, she realised that Willis had used his handcuffs to fasten her hands behind her back, then pulled her seatbelt tight around her. Too tight. Her hands and arms were twisted uncomfortably. She was aware of shooting pains in her shoulders and her chest. It felt as if she could hardly breathe.

She began to shout and struggle, kicking out at the man she’d thought was just another colleague. The one she spent the most time with.

‘Stop that,’ Willis commanded. ‘If you do not stop I will kill you, here and now. If you do as I tell you, there is a chance that you might live. I have no wish to hurt you. I am not a common murderer. I need to protect myself, that’s all.’

His voice was very calm.

Saslow was afraid she was going to be sick. She’d heard and used the expression sick with fear, but she didn’t think she’d ever really understood what it had meant before now. She stopped struggling. She would do as she was told. Maybe he was going to hold her hostage. She had been trained for hostage situations but nothing, she thought, could ever prepare you for the real thing. The very thought of it terrified her even more, but she guessed it was her best chance of survival.

She stared at him. The man she knew only as DS John Willis. His eyes were dead and his lips were contorted. His voice sounded different. The tone was deeper than usual and he spoke with the hint of an accent she could not quite recognise. It could have been Greek, or perhaps Latin. Although Saslow, like most people, had never heard much Latin spoken. She wondered how she could not have seen something in that face, heard something in that voice before to make her at least suspicious of John Willis But she never had.

‘You are Aeolus,’ she murmured.

It was not a question, just a statement of fact, which she now accepted with a terrible, clear finality.

‘I am.’ He hissed the words at her, his face close to hers. ‘I am the ruler of the wind. I can dictate the direction the world will take. I can be whomever I want and I can do what I want, just as I have always done. You cannot stop me. No one can stop me.’

His eyes were quite mad. Dawn could not understand how he had been able to hide his obvious insanity so well that neither she, nor Vogel, nor anyone else had suspected anything. How could they have missed it and for so long?

His words were those of a madman too. A madman who had killed three times. At least three times. How many more times might he have killed in his crazy mixed-up life, she wondered?

Her mouth was dry. Her throat was dry. There had previously been frightening moments in Dawn Saslow’s time as a police officer, but she had never before experienced blind terror.

So this was what it felt like.

Almost involuntarily, she began to scream. The uncontrolled wailing of a creature suddenly aware that it is in mortal danger. A sound common to all living things.

He hit her again in the side of the head. It was an even more powerful blow than before.

Afterwards there was nothing.

Twenty-Eight

Sonia Baker had told Vogel that she thought it was Willis she had seen at Bath railway station, the day she had gone there to meet Saul.

‘He’s the man I thought was my Saul, I’m almost sure of it,’ she said. ‘The man who nearly got off the train, then seemed to change his mind. There wasn’t much resemblance to the photograph he’d posted online, but there was something about him. And then there was the way he peered along the platform, as if he were looking for someone. Our eyes met. I was convinced I saw recognition in them.’

Already shocked, Vogel had pressed her, pressurised her even, and it was then that she had said she couldn’t be certain.

‘Not a police officer, surely?’ she’d queried. ‘I mean you work with this man, Mr Vogel. How could it possibly be him?’

‘I don’t know, Miss Baker,’ Vogel had replied. ‘I certainly hope you are mistaken, I know that.’

‘Well, I probably am,’ she said then. ‘After all, surely you’d know if someone you were close to was capable of such terrible things. We’d all know, wouldn’t we?’

‘Well, we’d all like to think we would,’ ventured Vogel cautiously.

‘Yes,’ said Sonia Baker. ‘Yes, of course. Oh, take no notice of me, Mr Vogel. I’m just a silly woman approaching middle age still looking and hoping for love. I get everything wrong.’

But Vogel had taken notice, and his antennae had begun to waggle, even though he didn’t really want them to.

The first file he had looked at on his computer, just after his conversation with Sonia, was the attendance record of MCIT officers. He then double-checked that his immediate suspicions were correct. Timothy Southey had been murdered at the Leicester Square Premier Inn on the same day that Willis had so apologetically requested leave, because his younger child had been taken ill and rushed to hospital. And Vogel clearly remembered Willis going home with a migraine on the day that Melanie Cooke was killed. An excuse to disappear because he could not control one of his identities perhaps, a scenario presented by Professor Heath.

None of this was conclusive and Vogel sincerely hoped he had summoned Saslow and Willis back to Kenneth Steele House quite unnecessarily. It could all still be coincidence and he could be quite wrong in his suspicions.

He decided to call Willis’s ex-wife, now Mrs Vera Court, before alerting DCI Hemmings. Fortuitously, she remained listed as Willis’s next of kin. She was the mother of his children after all and luckily retained an unchanged mobile number.

Vogel opened the conversation by asking if her children were well.

‘Uh yes, very well, thank you,’ Vera had replied. ‘But why are you calling Mr Vogel? Has something happened to John?’

‘No, no,’ Vogel reassured her, thinking to himself that, really, he had little idea what may or may not have happened to John Willis.

‘No, nothing like that,’ he continued. ‘It’s just that I need to check something. Has your son been taken to hospital recently?’

Vera Willis giggled in a nervous sort of way.

‘Our Sam? Fit as a flea, that one. Can’t remember when he was last ill and he’s never been to hospital in his life. Oh, except when he broke his toe playing football, but he wasn’t kept in or anything…’

She paused.

‘What’s this all about, Mr Vogel?’

‘Oh, I’m just checking out attendance records here, that sort of thing,’ Vogel responded, trying to keep his voice light. ‘About a month ago, John suddenly asked for leave, because your son had been taken to hospital. He said it was very serious and he needed to be there. Do I take it that wasn’t the case?’

‘Absolutely not, Mr Vogel.’

‘Was he with you at all around that time?’

Vera Willis laughed, more genuinely this time, albeit with some irony.

‘I can’t remember when I last saw John, Mr Vogel,’ she replied. ‘He’s not visited the kids in years, rarely bothered since we parted. I doubt he’d turn up, even if one of them was rushed to hospital. I doubt it very much. He pays his child maintenance regularly on a direct debit, always has done. But he made it pretty clear, years ago, that was it as far as he was concerned. He would do his legal duty until they were eighteen, but he wanted nothing to do with any of us.’ She paused. ‘What’s he done, Mr Vogel? What’s that bastard done?’

Vogel was surprised at the bitterness in her voice and the note of resignation.

She spoke again, before he had chance to.

‘Nothing would surprise me,’ she said. ‘You should know that. I’ve always thought there was no limit to what he might be capable of.’

‘Why do you say that, Mrs Court?’

‘I lived with him didn’t I? I had his children. I’m not sure John has ever allowed anyone to get to know him, really get to know him, but if there is anyone in the world who does, then that would be me.’

Vogel felt his nerves jangle as the woman spoke.

‘Come on, Mr Vogel,’ she continued. ‘Anyone who’s lived with a copper knows DCIs don’t check on attendance records.’

She was right there, thought Vogel, but he couldn’t tell her any more, not yet.

‘Look Mrs Court,’ he said. ‘I’ll not insult your intelligence. It is possible that John may be involved in something very serious. But I’m not sure yet, so, for the time being, I can’t discuss it with you and certainly not on the phone. I wonder, you couldn’t pop along to Kenneth Steele House later on today, could you? I wouldn’t ask you if it weren’t important. Also, by the time you get here I should know more.’

‘You’re beginning to frighten me, Mr Vogel.’

‘I’m sorry. I can assure that’s not my intention. Indeed, it is still quite possible that I might be wasting your time.’ Vogel paused and took a deep breath. He no longer believed what he was saying. It was both extraordinary and terrifying, but everything was leading to Willis. ‘Could you make it in about an hour?’ Vogel continued. ‘I could send a squad car to pick you up, if that would help.’

‘No. I’ll drive myself. The last thing I want is a cop car pulling up around here. I’m fairly free during the day, as the kids are at school, but I shall have to be back well before three, when they get home.’

‘We shouldn’t keep you long,’ said Vogel, who actually had no idea at all whether that was true or not.

‘All right. I’ll see you in an hour or so.’

‘I’m most grateful, Mrs Willis,’ responded Vogel. ‘There’s just one thing more. Please make no attempt to contact John directly. This whole matter is highly delicate and highly confidential. So please don’t try to phone him.’

‘Phone him?’ queried the woman. ‘I couldn’t damned well phone him, even if I wanted to. Bastard changed all his phone numbers years ago and he’s certainly never given me the new ones. He doesn’t want me in his life and I can assure you, Mr Vogel, I certainly don’t want him in mine.’

Vogel put the phone down with Vera Court’s voice ringing in his ears. What she had told him made it even more likely that Sonia had been right and that her online suitor had been a disguised Willis. Or, if Vogel’s Aeolus theory was correct, a Willis alter ego, which was far more frightening. Not only was there evidence that Willis had lied about his whereabouts at the time of Tim Southey’s death, but Vera Court’s view of him, of a man who she thought had “no limit to what he might be capable of,” shed a disturbing new light on Willis’s character. Vogel reminded himself that husbands and wives often had low opinions of each other after an acrimonious break-up. None the less, this, on top of the accumulating evidence against Willis, led him to accept that an urgent investigation into the detective sergeant was now called for. And the time had come to make a full report to DCI Hemmings.

Vogel just hoped he had done the right thing, in attempting to quietly recall Saslow and Willis. But perhaps he should have had Saslow’s phone tracked and sent an armed response unit straightaway to intercept the two officers. He had chosen what he had considered to be the course of action least likely to bring about a violent outcome. If Willis had been confronted by armed officers, he would have known at once that he was a suspect. Dawn Saslow was with him and if he really were Aeolus, which was beginning to seem more and more likely, then God knows what he might do to her before he was apprehended.

Aeolus was totally ruthless.

He was supremely arrogant, too. The manner of his killings made that quite clear. Aeolus believed he was cleverer than anyone else and that he could do just what he wanted, that he was untouchable.

He was also totally mad.

Was Willis mad? Vogel couldn’t get his head around it. Could he be that mad and none of them aware of it? He remembered how closed up Willis had always been, how he’d rarely smiled or engaged in conversation about anything other than police business. Willis made Vogel look outgoing and open.

Professor Freda Heath had told him about people suffering from multiple personality disorders being totally convincing, but could anyone be that convincing? Vogel was still clinging to the hope that nobody could, that his suspicions were unfounded and that Willis was the socially awkward but professionally excellent copper he had always been, nothing more or less.

That could still be, yet Vogel’s every instinct was beginning to tell him it wasn’t and that, however extraordinary, Willis was Aeolus.

He checked his watch as he walked along the corridor towards Hemmings’s office. When he’d asked her and Willis to return to base, Saslow had said they’d been nearly at Avonmouth. They could not possibly have got back yet, but there was increasingly less and less doubt in his mind that Dawn Saslow was in very great danger. He was going to be right on edge, until she and Willis returned. If they returned. He preferred not to think about that.

All he could do was to continue to hope that his decision to make a softly, softly approach had been the right one and that Willis/Aeolus was arrogant enough not to be alerted to impending danger.

Aeolus

How dare they insult my intelligence like this? Did David Vogel really think for a moment that I wouldn’t realise what his urgent new development was? Did he really think I wouldn’t act to protect myself? I have always had a contingency plan. A number of contingency plans, actually. I have always been ready to deal with any eventuality. After all, I am Aeolus.

People like Vogel and the Saslow girl are just minor inconveniences to me. I knew what I had to do as soon as Saslow received that call. It wasn’t going to be difficult for me. I, more than anybody, know how to make myself disappear.

First, I had to deal with the Saslow girl. Then, I would give my orders to Vogel. He would have no choice but to obey me. The wind obeyed me. I am the ruler of the wind. I have the power of the wind. I can raise a hurricane with a blink of an eyelid. Saslow was still unconscious from the second blow I dealt her. I made sure she would be under my control when she came around. Her upper body was restrained by the seat belt. Her wrists were still cuffed. I used her own handcuffs on her legs, clamping them around her ankles. She would not kick me again.

Saslow was a small girl. Nonetheless the cuffs were not quite big enough, when I pressed them shut they dug into her flesh. I didn’t care about that. I never deliberately set out to hurt anybody. But when people challenge me, I must eliminate them. I always triumph. I am Aeolus. I must never allow such paltry outside forces to try and threaten me.

I let Saslow’s head fall onto my shoulder. Anyone we passed, who might glance into the car, would almost certainly think she was sleeping.

The girl was now the key to my survival. She would make it possible for me to move on to the next stage of my life.

I needed to get away. I needed to go to another country. I knew what my choice was. I needed to be somewhere where cooperation with the United Kingdom was rarely an option. Somewhere I already had contacts in organisations which would welcome my special abilities. I had money. Not a lot, but enough to keep myself while I rebuilt my existence.

And I had my people, many more than Saul, Al and Leo. I could not always summon them at will, nor could I always deny them when they came to me. Sometimes I could make them wait. Other times I had to allow them to take me over at once. When they come to me and I become them, sometimes it is I, Aeolus, who has summoned them. Called them up at will. But sometimes it is as if they summon me and I have answered their call. They are my people.

As for Willis, poor Willis, he was never more than the cloak within which I wrapped my real selves.

If he disappears for ever, he will be no loss.

I am Aeolus.

Twenty-Nine

Hemmings stared at Vogel.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No.’

‘Well I can’t be sure, sir…’

‘I think you are, Vogel, you know it in your gut, don’t you, man?’

‘I feel it, that’s for certain, sir,’ said Vogel.

‘What about DNA and fingerprints? Willis’s will be on record like every serving police officer in the UK. If he’s our killer then his DNA would have come up as a match on the national data base straight away, wouldn’t it?’

‘Apparently not and I can’t explain that, sir. Not yet. We’ll have to look into it. Meanwhile, I think we need to take every precaution. All being well, Willis and Saslow should be back within fifteen minutes or so.’

Involuntarily, he glanced at his watch again. If they are coming back, he thought. If Willis was still sticking to his reliable copper personae and hadn’t totally transformed himself into Aeolus. It didn’t bear thinking about. If anything happened to Saslow, Vogel would hold himself responsible for the rest of his life.

Hemmings was speaking. Vogel heard him from afar. He made himself listen properly. He and Hemmings could only deal with the situation as it now was.

‘So let’s get an armed response presence here, right away,’ Hemmings was saying. ‘Low profile, keep them out of sight. Then as soon as Willis and Saslow are in the building we separate them. Get Saslow out of the firing line, before the armed response boys do the arrest. Got it?’

Vogel had it.

‘I’ll call them in,’ said Hemmings.

He did so at once on his desk phone.

‘They’ll be here within twenty,’ he said. ‘We may have to play a holding game for a bit, if Willis and Saslow get here first. Keep Willis sweet. String him along a bit.’

Vogel stared at Hemmings in silence for a moment.

Sometimes, just sometimes, he thought the detective chief inspector was from another planet. Keep him sweet? String him along a bit? This could be a man who had killed three times in cold blood and those were only the killings they knew about. This could be a man who did not know who he was from one day to the next, and who, if Vogel had correctly understood Professor Freda Heath, could swing in and out of his various murderous identities almost by the minute. Vogel felt totally out of his depth and that had never happened to him before.

‘You know what sir, I’m not sure if that’s going to be possible…’ he began.

‘If he comes back here with Saslow, then surely it will be,’ said Hemmings.

Vogel did not entirely agree, but saw Hemmings’s logic.

‘It’s if he doesn’t come back with Saslow that we need to really worry,’ the DCI continued.

Vogel didn’t need telling that. He was already desperately worried.

When Saslow came round, she had no idea where she was. For just a split second, she could not even remember what had happened to her. Then she saw Willis and she remembered it all. That’s when the pain hit her, surging though her body. The second blow had been much harder than the first. She realised she’d been concussed, more than that, she had been rendered unconscious.

He was standing at a table and seemed to be sorting through the contents of a box. He had his back to her. She tried to speak. Her head hurt, a lot. Her right cheek hurt worst of all. Without thinking, she tried to raise a hand to touch it. She was still handcuffed behind her back. Her ankles were handcuffed too. She realised she was half-sitting, half-lying on a concrete floor, with her upper back against a wall. She wriggled, involuntarily struggling to move, but she was chained to the wall. Willis had looped one of the cuffs on her wrist through a thick, metal chain.

She looked around her. She was in some sort of dimly lit room without windows. This was her prison now. The air was dank and heavy. She wondered if it was underground.

She wondered if she would die there.

She was finding it difficult to breathe. It felt as if her nose and throat were blocked. She tried to speak again, but was aware only of a gurgling sound. Willis turned around then. Only, she could barely recognise him as Willis. The man she’d thought of, not really as a friend like some of those she worked with, but certainly as a close colleague, perhaps her closest colleague. Someone trustworthy upon whom she could rely. This was not Willis. This was some madman, with eyes cold as ice.

He moved towards her. Willis was tall, a good six feet, and the celling in the room was low. He couldn’t quite stand up fully. So he walked with his head slightly bowed and when he stood above her, his bent upper body loomed over her. He reached out with one hand. Saslow was absolutely terrified. Was this it? Was he going to kill her? She cowered away from him, as best she could given her handcuffed hands and feet.

‘Don’t worry, you snivelling bitch, I can hardly bare to touch you,’ he hissed at her. Then she saw he was carrying a plastic bottle of water. He placed the neck of it between her lips and tipped. She gulped down as much as she could, desperate for it. Her throat seemed to clear. Then water began to dribble down her chin. She couldn’t take any more. Mercifully, he removed the bottle before she choked. She gasped for air. Her breathing seemed a little easier, but she could barely speak. Her voice was little more than a whisper.

‘What are you going to do with me?’ she asked.

‘That depends on your friends, your police friends,’ he said. ‘If they follow my orders, I will tell them where you are. Then they will come for you, I suppose. If they disobey me, well, you will die, eventually.’

She heard herself begin to sob.

‘What did you expect?’ he asked coolly. ‘You aren’t a total fool, are you?’

Saslow was suddenly aware that she was losing control of her bladder. She knew that fear did that. She had seen it happen, but never thought it would happen to her.

‘I need to go to the toilet,’ she said. ‘Quickly.’

He shrugged.

‘There is no toilet here,’ he said.

She heard herself pleading with him.

‘Please, I need to go. I can’t hold it much longer…’

He shrugged and turned away.

She couldn’t help it. She began to urinate. The liquid poured from her, seeping through her clothes and leaking on to the floor. He turned back to face her.

‘You filthy, filthy bitch,’ he growled.

Then he stepped towards her and slapped her twice across her already battered face. She screamed with pain. He stepped back and just stared at her.

‘I couldn’t help it,’ Saslow stammered, aware that anything she did which offended him, would only make him more dangerous. ‘I told you I needed to go. I couldn’t stop it.’

He stepped towards her again and began to unlock the handcuffs on her wrists.

‘If you try to struggle I shall hit you again,’ he said. ‘And this time I shall not be so gentle. If you want a chance of living, do not resist me. Never resist me.’

He removed the handcuff on her right wrist. The one on her left was still fastened to the chain, which attached to the wall.

‘You are alive only because you are useful to me,’ he said. ‘I am not a common criminal. I do not kill or cause pain unless I have to. I am Aeolus, I am the ruler of the winds. I am honourable. I now seek only safe passage. If I am given it, I shall tell them where you are. If not, I shall never reveal your whereabouts and you will not be found, Dawn Saslow. I am telling you this because I want you to know that, if that is what happens, it will not be my fault. It is not part of my plan that you should die.’

He then fetched a bucket from the far side of the room, which he placed beside her.

‘Your toilet, madam,’ he said. ‘Although it seems you know how to do without one.’ His lips curled with distaste.

He went back to the table and brought to her the box he had been sorting through. In it were some basic supplies: packets of biscuits, tins of meat, baked beans and two more bottles of water.

‘You have provisions here to keep you alive, until they get to you. There’s probably enough for a week or so. I would expect them to get to you before that, long before that. Indeed, if they don’t, I suggest you conserve your rations, because that means they have double-crossed me. If they double-cross me, I shall tell them nothing and your life will end here.’

He leered at her. She made herself try to think. What could she say, what could she ask for that might help her?

‘Why don’t you unchain me and free my legs?’ she asked. ‘The handcuffs are too small for my ankles. My feet have gone numb. After all, you said you didn’t want to cause me unnecessary pain. You said you were honourable. And what am I going to do? I accept what you say. I will never be able to get out of here, once you have gone, unless they come to get me.’

‘I do not take unnecessary risks,’ he said. ‘You will remain cuffed and chained. You will just have to hope that Vogel does not try to be clever, that he does my bidding. Then you will be freed. Then and if.’

She made one last attempt to talk to him. He was Willis after all. The man she had worked alongside for almost six months — or at least that was one part of him. Perhaps, if she appealed to that part of him, she might get through.

‘John,’ she said. ‘C’mon. You and I have always been chums. I would never do anything to harm you. Set me free and I’ll try to help you.’

‘Who is this John?’ he asked. ‘I know no John.’

As he spoke, she realised it was hopeless. He turned and walked to the far side of her prison. She watched him pick up a suitcase, clearly pre-packed. Ready for this eventuality, presumably. She realised he was now going to leave her. He took a small torch from his pocket and turned it on. Then he flicked a switch on the wall. The terrible, little room was plunged into darkness, apart from the narrow beam from his torch.

She lost control again then. She’d done her best to engage him and failed. It was over now, probably for good. She began to scream. She could no longer see his face, but she could hear his voice all right. That awful, hissing apology for a voice, half-pompous and half-threatening, the voice that was not Willis any more. The voice that was Aeolus.

‘Make all the noise you like,’ he said. ‘Scream and scream with all your might. You will not be heard. Nobody will hear you.’

She was lying in her own urine and she could feel her bowels beginning to move. She had no control at all over her body any more. She was aware of him leaving though, and the sound of some sort of very heavy object sliding across the floor. Then he’d gone and there was only darkness.

She was quite alone in her stinking, black prison.

Thirty

As promised, the armed response boys arrived within twenty minutes and concealed themselves strategically, both in the car park and inside the building.

Willis and Saslow had yet to return.

Vogel was beginning to get very nervous indeed. He tried to make use of the waiting time by studying Willis’s file and collating everything he knew about the DS. It wasn’t a lot. Willis had graduated as a mechanical design engineer at a Manchester college and worked briefly in construction, before totally changing tack and moving to Bristol to join the Avon and Somerset Constabulary. Vogel had been vaguely aware that Willis had an engineering background, but he had little knowledge of the DS’s early life. After all, Willis barely talked about it.

It had never occurred to Vogel to question Willis’s career switch. Many officers joined the force from very different walks of life. But, if Willis was Aeolus, why on earth had he decided to become a policeman? Vogel had no idea.

An alert had been put out for Willis’s vehicle, with an instruction that no approach should be made, but any spotting reported at once to MCIT. The region’s CCTV units were also alerted, but results from this source would not be immediate. Footage had to be collated and checked. As the minutes passed, Vogel continued to wait uneasily for the return of Willis and Saslow or news that the vehicle had been spotted. The tech boys were swiftly able to identify the location from which a signal had last been picked up from Saslow’s phone. It was an industrial cul-de-sac just off the Avonmouth Road.

A squad car, already located nearby, was sent to investigate cautiously. They called in within minutes. To Vogel’s dismay, they reported that there was no sign of Willis’s vehicle or either officer believed to have been travelling in it, but they did have some disturbing news.

‘We’ve found a phone,’ said Constable Jamieson. ‘It looks as if it was thrown against a wall. The screen’s smashed and the back’s fallen off. The sim card’s been removed and it’s dead as a Dodo.’

‘Is it an Iphone seven plus, with a blue, sparkly case?’ asked Vogel with trepidation. He and Saslow had the same phone, only hers had that sparkling case on it, and she’d actually once threatened to get the pink version for Vogel. They were both Apple devotees and liked to have the latest technology.

‘Yes, sir. We found a case like that, too.’

That was not what Vogel wanted to hear. Clearly this was Saslow’s phone. He slumped in his chair behind his desk. This was the calm before the storm. There was no point in waiting and hoping any more. Willis and Saslow were not returning. Vogel steeled himself to take control of the situation and be ready for the next course of action.

He stood up and headed for the incident room.

It was then that his mobile rang.

The caller was Willis.

Vogel felt his heart thumping in his chest.

He pushed the green button and spoke, in as level a voice as he could manage.

‘John,’ he said.

The voice which responded didn’t sound like Willis at all.

‘If you do exactly as I say, nobody will be hurt.’

It was the voice of someone who expected to be obeyed. It was confident and clear as an English public schoolboy’s, but with more than a touch of a rarely heard accent. Latin, thought Vogel.

‘Go on,’ he said, struggling to keep his voice level.

‘I need to leave the country,’ Willis continued. ‘I shall not trouble you again. I have a place to go. I have a plan. I always have a plan.’ There was a pause. ‘I am Aeolus. I do what I wish, when I wish.’

Vogel’s heart seemed to do somersault inside his chest. He could barely breathe. He waited. There was only silence.

‘Go on,’ he said again.

‘I need no help from you, not any of you. Alone, I am enough. I need only for you to clear a passage for my journey and not to stand in my way. You may well spot me, on the road or elsewhere, as I begin my journey. You may well spot me as I board an aircraft or a ship or a train. Yet you will not apprehend me. You will do nothing to hinder my passage.’

The last two sentences were shouted at the top of the caller’s voice. It was filled with menace. Then Willis continued, softer, quieter and even more threateningly.

‘If you hinder my progress in any way, you and your people will never see Saslow alive again. I have her safe, but you will never find her without me and, if you hinder me, I will never tell you where she is. But if you allow my safe passage to another place and another life, then I will contact you. Only when I know that I am free again, will I tell you where she is.’

‘Look, Willis, I will do everything in my power to assist you, you must know that…’ Vogel began.

‘I am Aeolus,’ the voice boomed. ‘Willis is my servant. Willis is nothing, Aeolus is everything, all-seeing and all-powerful. All you have to do is obey the orders of Aeolus. If you do not do so, then Dawn Saslow will die and it will be a terrible death. A death decreed by the Gods. So you will obey. You must obey. Aeolus has spoken.’

Vogel’s heart now felt as if was no longer ticking. This was his worst nightmare.

An all out operation was launched to search for Saslow and Willis, with a warning that Willis, must not on any account be approached, apprehended or alerted in any way. The CCTV team pulled out all the stops. They scoured, as a matter of urgency, footage within a five-mile radius of the cul-de-sac where Saslow’s phone had been found. One camera had picked up Willis’s vehicle proceeding north up the B4057 along King’s Weston Road. The shot was such that it was unclear whether or not there was a passenger in the car.

It was Hemmings, who knew Bristol like the back of his hand, who spotted something Vogel never would have done.

‘Hang on a minute, doesn’t Willis live out that way?’ he asked.

Vogel had Willis’s address to hand. A team had already been sent to the detective sergeant’s home, as a matter of routine.

‘Henbury, BS10,’ said Vogel, who had little idea exactly where that was.

‘And his vehicle hasn’t been picked up since?’

‘Not yet, boss,’ said Vogel.

‘The bastard was heading home!’ said Hemmings. ‘If he plans to leave the country, whether we do his bidding or not, he needs a passport, doesn’t he? Does he carry his passport? I don’t know. Most of us don’t, not that he’s most of us. He probably has a selection of passports, I shouldn’t wonder, one for each of his many identities. Well, whatever identity he has chosen for his great escape he’ll need a passport and money. We already know he has at least two bank accounts, his own, and one in the name of Richard Perry. He quite likely has more. If he’s capable of murder as he appears to be so casually then he’s surely capable of embezzlement and theft on a massive scale. He told you he had a master plan, Vogel, and no doubt he does. It makes sense that he headed home to sort himself out, before taking off.’

‘It makes total sense sir,’ said Vogel. ‘But the team already at his house have found no sign of him or Saslow. They’re searching the place as we speak, but so far they’ve discovered nothing untoward.’

‘When did they get there?’

‘About five minutes ago,’

‘So Willis would have had time to do whatever he wanted to do there and leave.’

‘Yes, but what’s he done with Saslow? He said he’d hidden her somewhere we’d never find her. Surely not at his home?’

‘Just make sure the place is torn apart, Vogel.’

‘I will, boss.’

‘And keep checking Willis out. I want to know how we’ve missed this. It just doesn’t seem possible.’

No, thought Vogel, but we damned well have missed it. We’ve been working alongside a crazed murderer for years and we didn’t have a clue.

Aeolus

I knew exactly what would be happening within MCIT. I had specialist knowledge of similar investigations. Nothing on this scale, of course, nothing like the havoc I, Aeolus, have wreaked. But I knew I could second-guess the lot of them.

There would already be a call out for Willis’s vehicle. They had probably already spotted me at least once or twice. Sooner or later, they would pick up on the direction in which I was now travelling. They would have already sent a team to search Willis’s home.

That didn’t matter. They would find nothing there that would lead them to be able to apprehend me. Nothing which would shed any light on what I had done in order to protect myself. I was Aeolus and I could not be harmed. I must not be harmed. I still had another life awaiting me in another land.

Perhaps they would work it out in the end, but that’s probably giving them too much credit. Anyway, by then, I would be clean away. After all, how would they dare stop me, when my freedom was the price they must pay to allow poor, little Dawn Saslow the chance to survive?

Not that the chance was all that great, fifty-fifty probably. Sure, I’d left her food and drink, but she probably needed medical attention from the blows I dealt her.

I wouldn’t expect her to last long. Her only real hope for surviving was if nobody got in my way and I reached my destination safely and quickly. Otherwise, she would die.

I felt no animosity towards Saslow. Indeed, she had been probably the least annoying of my alleged colleagues within the Avon and Somerset Constabulary.

But neither did I feel anything else for her. No affection. Not even professional regard. It is impossible to feel such things, when her abilities were so much more inferior than mine.

I wished her no harm. But if she died, then she died. I did not care. I was Aeolus. I had to protect myself.

Thirty-One

Vogel was on his way back to his office when Willis’s ex-wife arrived. So much had happened since his phone conversation with her, that he’d practically forgotten that Vera Court had agreed to come in.

Vogel had never met Vera. He’d transferred to the Avon and Somerset only relatively recently, long after Willis and his wife had parted. In any case, he doubted that Willis would have ever included his wife much in his working life. Vogel, being a private man himself, hadn’t even considered that there was anything odd in Willis’s reticence concerning anything personal. He kicked himself now. Willis was right, he thought, he was supposed to be so damned clever and yet he’d spotted nothing amiss. He chastised himself. Another, more outgoing officer might have been so much more aware. Although, of course, Willis had somehow or other kept up his front within the force for many years. And nobody came close to guessing what lay beneath his calm exterior.

Vera Court was a surprise. Vogel didn’t know why she should be, but she was.

She was tall and thin, with spiky blonde hair. She was dressed young and streetwise, sporting stonewashed jeans, boots and a funky, leather jacket. She appeared to be neither mumsy nor downtrodden ex — nothing like the rather cliché-ridden image he had imagined.

She and Vogel walked together through the incident room, en route to his office. Vogel could see her looking around at the photographs and charts lining the walls. She no doubt watched the news on TV and read newspapers. Vera Court had already made it clear on the phone that she was no fool.

‘Is this about these murders?’ she asked. ‘The serial killer with different identities?’

Vogel dodged the question as he gestured for her to take a seat.

‘Look, please bear with me,’ he said. ‘I just need to ask you some more questions. First of all, can I ask you if John was ever violent towards you when you were together?’

Vera Court looked stricken.

‘Why are you asking that?’

‘Please, Mrs Court, I know this must be very disconcerting, but could you just answer my question. Was John ever violent towards you?’

Vera Court answered quickly then.

‘Once,’ she said.

Vogel was mildly surprised. Not that Willis had been violent towards his ex-wife, but that it had only been once. He studied the woman carefully. Was she telling the truth? He was almost sure she wouldn’t lie. She’d already worked out how serious this all was.

It was just that, in his experience, if a man was violent towards his wife once, he almost always was again. And again. This was unusual. But then, everything was unusual in this case. John Willis thought he was a figure out of Greek mythology. No. He didn’t think he was, Vogel corrected himself, he became a figure out of Greek mythology in his own head. Freda Heath had told him that people with DID actually did become their alter egos.

‘It was the beginning of the end really, Mr Vogel,’ Vera Court continued. ‘In more ways than one. He nearly killed me.’

She paused. Vogel waited in silence for her to begin again.

‘He tried to strangle me. He put his hands around my neck and squeezed. All the while, it was as if he were not seeing me. We were in bed. I was asleep. Can you imagine that, Mr Vogel? I woke up to find him on top of me. I was gasping for breath. I couldn’t speak and, in any case, I instinctively knew it would make no difference. There was a pair of scissors on the bedside table. I grabbed them and lashed out. I stabbed him in the shoulder. It wasn’t very deep, but then he went really crazy. He started to hit me in the face. He dragged me out onto the landing and pushed me down the stairs. All the while he didn’t speak. I fell awkwardly. I broke my ankle and my left wrist. He just walked casually down the stairs, stepped over me, opened the front door and left the house.

‘I didn’t hit my head thank God. I was in horrible pain, but I remained conscious. The children were in the house. The eldest, Sam, he was five and little Lucy just three. They both woke up. There’d been such a commotion. Sam came on to the landing. I told him I’d been a silly mummy and fallen down the stairs. I said would he go to the phone and bring it to me. I dialled 999. I also told the emergency services I’d fallen down the stairs. I don’t know if they believed me.

‘I’m sure they didn’t at the hospital. They kept asking me about the marks on my neck, then questions about my husband. I did what so many wives do, even nowadays. I told them nothing and made excuses. I said my husband locked up men who beat up their wives, that he was a police officer. They backed off a bit then.

‘I should have told the truth but, apart from anything else, I was in shock. John had never laid a finger on me before. Although sometimes, if we’d just had a silly row, only like husbands and wives do, he would look at me as if he hated me. Stare at me and not say anything. I’d sometimes thought he might attack me, but he just used to back off in silence and go to the spare room. Afterwards, he would seem to be perfectly normal again, in as much as John was ever normal. He always blamed his migraines.’ She glanced up at Vogel. ‘I expect you know about the migraines?’

Vogel nodded. The times, albeit not that often, when Willis had simply said his head had gone and he had a migraine. Like on the day Melanie had been killed, he would always leave at once. Wherever they were, at Kenneth Steele or out on inquiries. Usually, he would drive himself home. Vogel had occasionally wondered about that. How could a man drive in that condition? Vogel had never suffered from migraines, but his mother had. During her brief yet severe bouts, she’d been incapable of functioning at all, let alone driving a car. Now it was all beginning to make sense.

Willis hadn’t been battling migraines. He’d been battling the multiple personalities, which lurked within him and surfaced at times without him wishing them to. Freda Heath had called them ‘involuntary identity switches.’

‘Anyway,’ Vera continued, ‘John eventually turned up at the hospital full of concern. He actually asked me how it had happened and said he was so sorry he hadn’t been with me. Then muttered about that being the trouble with being a policeman. I just took it, but when the nurse had gone I turned on him. Told him he was a terrible hypocrite and a vicious bastard. He’d done this to me, he had tried to strangle me, then he had pushed me down the stairs. No, half thrown me down the stairs. I was lucky to be still alive.

‘He was so calm, eerily calm. He said I must have had a really bad knock on the head. I was confused. Surely I knew he would never hurt me, not with his history. I kept saying I hadn’t knocked my head and he bloody well knew what he’d done. He wasn’t kidding me, but he insisted that he hadn’t touched me. And you know, I found myself believing that he really didn’t know that he had attacked me. Let alone why and that was all the more frightening.’

‘What did he mean about his history?’

‘Oh, both his father and his stepfather used to knock his mother around. The stepfather used to hit him too. That’s what he said anyway. I never knew what to believe.’

Vogel remembered then Willis’s remark on the day after Melanie Cooke’s death, concerning violence that he had experienced in his childhood.

‘His father was a philanderer too, apparently. He walked out when John was five or six, then his mother took up with another bastard. Or so he said. She was following a pattern like a lot of women do, he told me. Almost as soon as we met — it was a year or so after he came to Bristol — he told me that I could be sure he would never stray and that he would never hurt me. Because of his childhood. I believed it too and that’s part of the reason I stuck with him, even when he became so peculiar and distant.

I thought, well, a lot of women have it worse. I had a husband who brought home a decent wage, provided a nice home, wasn’t violent — until that one awful time — and never strayed. Although he was absent from home so much, I did begin to wonder about that. But he always blamed police business, what a great excuse for a double life, eh?’

Vogel smiled weakly. A double life, he thought. That, he feared, was something of an understatement.

‘What happened after he attacked you? What did you do?’

‘I had two young children. I did what so many women do. I just went home and got on with it, but it was eerie. Uncanny. I tried to talk to him about what had happened. He shut down. He said that I must try to forget about it, try to move on and be thankful I wasn’t more badly hurt. That he wished we knew what had caused me to fall down the stairs, then it would be easier for me. That I must stop this ridiculous thing of saying that he’d done it. He was my husband. He would never hurt me. I almost came to believe it in the end. Crazy, I know, but he was so certain and so calm, quite kind too, albeit distant. I told myself perhaps I really had imagined the whole thing…’

Vogel felt as if his whole body were chilled. The picture emerging of John Willis fitted pretty damned exactly the profile of Aeolus provided by Freda Heath

‘You hadn’t imagined it, though, had you?’ he asked, although it wasn’t really a question.

‘Of course not.’

‘And he really never did it again?’

‘Well, no.’ Vera Court hesitated. ‘But I carried on thinking he was going to, so I couldn’t sleep properly. I was sharing a bed with him. What if he attacked me again in my sleep? Then, one night, I woke up to find him looming over me, arms outstretched, as if he were preparing to put his hands around my neck again. I think I’d only been dozing, because I woke so quickly and I suppose I was half prepared this time. I slapped him hard across the face and he just rolled off me onto his side of the bed. I jumped up. I was terrified he was going to hurt me badly again. But there he was, lying there, looking every bit as if he’d just woken up or, actually, had been woken up by me. “What’s up love?” he asked. “Can’t you sleep?”

I’d hardly been able to believe my ears. I didn’t challenge him. I was too afraid. I was beginning to think he was quite mad. The next day, he left for work early, as usual. I kept our Sam off school and just walked out with him and the little one. I went straight to my mum and dad’s place. I’d eventually told them the truth about what John called “my accident” and my mum had begged me to leave him then. But like I said, there were the children. Two lovely kids. Mind you, they were a miracle.’

‘Why?’ Vogel asked. ‘Why a miracle?’

‘John was virtually impotent. With me anyway. I read somewhere that impotent men often have a very high sperm count. God’s way of compensating. He could only… I’m sorry. This is embarrassing. Do you really need to know?’

‘I would appreciate it,’ said Vogel. ‘It could be relevant.’

‘To what? To the profile of a serial killer?’

Vogel tried to look non-committal.

‘I really would appreciate…’ he began.

‘All right. Well, I could coax him into an erection, but, uh, almost as soon as he tried to enter me he would lose it, sometimes ejaculating, sometimes not. Well, I suppose it only takes one of the little buggers,’ she said with a wry smile.

‘Have you met John’s mother, the father or the stepfather?’

Vera Court shook her head. ‘His mother died when he was in his late teens, he said. He wasn’t in touch with either his father or his stepfather. He said he hated them both.’ Vera paused.

‘There’s something else?’ Vogel enquired.

‘John’s mother had another child with her second husband. John’s half sister was born when John was eleven or twelve I think. The girl died, drowned in the bath. Her father, John’s stepfather, was bathing the little girl, claimed he’d gone to answer the phone or something, and the child had slipped underwater and drowned. But there was some question of unexplained bruising on the child’s body and both parents were questioned. Her father several times, not just concerning the drowning, but also on suspicion of having abused the little girl.

‘There was no real evidence and John’s stepfather was never arrested or charged. But John said his mother always suspected the stepfather might have been abusing the little girl in the bath and then killed her, even if accidentally, when she struggled. Unsurprisingly, the marriage broke up. That was John’s story anyway, and he made it quite clear he was glad to see the back of his stepfather. Same with his father. He adored his mother, though. The only time I ever saw him show any real emotion was when he spoke about his mother.’

Vogel could hardly believe how well everything Vera Court said fitted in to the shocking scenario now unfolding.

According to Professor Heath, this was an almost classic background for someone suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder. John Willis’s colleagues had just accepted Willis as a socially awkward man, who didn’t like to be drawn on anything personal, but was a damned good copper. What a joke that assessment was proving to be.

Vera Court began to speak again.

‘Mr Vogel, I’m right, aren’t I? You think John is this crazy killer, this Aeolus?’

Vogel felt the time had come to be honest. He needed more help from Vera. Willis had Saslow. He didn’t suppose anyone could second-guess the man who thought he was Aeolus, but Vera had some insight that nobody else did. At that moment, she seemed the only hope he had.

‘Yes Mrs Court,’ he said. ‘I am afraid there is no longer any doubt.’

‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘I’ve thought for years he wasn’t right in the head. But this? Nothing like this.’

The woman may have already guessed, but now that Vogel had confirmed her suspicions, she seemed totally in shock.

‘Mrs Court,’ continued Vogel gently. ‘There’s more. It appears that John is holding one of our officers hostage. We have grave fears for her safety. We need to find her, and John, as quickly as possible. Have you any idea where he might go, where he might take someone in a situation like this?’

Vera Court shook her head.

Vogel persisted.

‘He didn’t have another property. A lock-up anywhere?’

‘No, not that I know of, anyway.’

‘Was there any place, I don’t know, somewhere remote, where he might hide, or hide someone else?’

Vera Willis shook her head again.

‘Mr Vogel, I lived with John for nearly seven years, and I realised long ago that I didn’t really know him at all. I have no idea where he might go, or where he might take someone, but I dread to think what he might do to that someone.’

Right after Vera Court left, Vogel called forensics to see if there’d been any results yet, following his request for an urgent check on the DNA and fingerprints on record for Willis. He wasn’t surprised to learn that there were still no matches found for Willis’s DNA.

‘The fingerprint record on file has just been checked and found to be unidentifiable,’ the forensic technician told Vogel.

‘What does that mean?’ Vogel asked.

‘Well, it’s not a properly obtained record,’ came the reply. ‘The prints are distorted.’

‘Distorted?’ queried Vogel. ‘How?’

‘Simple really,’ said the forensics technician. ‘You only have to drag your finger a fraction of a centimetre and the prints are rendered useless. Of course, with members of the public, who are on suspicion of offences, the results would immediately be thoroughly scrutinised by the officer in charge. But with a copper? Well, you know…’

Vogel did know. The taking of a new police officer’s fingerprints was just a matter of routine. Nobody was likely to check them very thoroughly. As for DNA, Vogel thought back to his own experience. Samples were usually taken during a recruit’s training. In Vogel’s day, the instructing officer was inclined to build the taking of such samples into training procedure. Vogel remembered being teamed up with another young copper. They took samples of each other’s saliva using a swab. That way, not only was their DNA put on record as required, but they learned the procedure of doing so.

It seemed clear that Willis had falsified his own records one way or another. Unfortunately, Vogel could see only too clearly how it might have been done. Advanced technology and tighter regulations had combined to make it increasingly more difficult for anyone so inclined to do such a thing, but John Willis had joined the force thirteen years previously.

One of the most frightening aspects of this was why had he falsified his records all that time ago, long before the recent spate of killings that he was almost certainly responsible for? The obvious answer was that Willis had already committed some kind of serious crime, most likely a murder or murders. At the very least, he was covering his tracks for the future.

Vogel thought it was probably both.

He clicked into Willis’s file again to see who his training officer had been, the man who would have overseen his DNA testing and finger printing. DI Phillip Marcus was long retired, but his contact details were all there. Marcus answered his phone straight away. He sounded surprised but not alarmed.

No, he didn’t remember John Willis in particular. But yes, he always used to ask recruits to take each other’s DNA samples. Two training jobs got done at once that way. And yes, of course he’d always checked that recruits’ fingerprints were identifiable. Only when pressed by Vogel, did Marcus finally admit it.

‘Well, no, I was probably not as thorough as you would be with a suspect. I don’t think anyone was. Not in my day, anyway. I mean, you’re dealing with police officers and it’s a routine process.’

Marcus told Vogel nothing he did not already suspect. Things were going from bad to worse. The DNA must have come from a real person and someone not on the PNC or the national data base. Various scenarios came to mind, all of them chilling. Vogel had read of a case in America where a suspect had paid a down-and-out to allow him to take a DNA sample, which he later substituted for his own. Vogel had no knowledge of any suspect having manipulated DNA that way in the UK, but it would clearly be much easier for a trainee police officer to do so.

Which led Vogel’s train of thought onto the muddle over Melanie Cooke’s father’s DNA. They’d put it down to a rare forensics cock-up. Now it seemed likely that Willis had deliberately substituted his own, previously unrecorded, DNA and prints for Terry Cooke’s. He’d almost certainly done something very like it before.

Willis, at Vogel’s own request, had gone to Patchway to babysit Cooke’s processing. More than likely he took over, thought Vogel. The custody boys wouldn’t have questioned an MCIT sergeant.

Of course, Willis would have known that, sooner or later, it would be discovered that the samples he submitted were not Cooke’s. So why would he do it? Vogel remembered the absolute loathing Willis had expressed for Cooke, the alleged wifebeater. As the son of a mother who had been beaten, that alone could have been Willis’s motive for framing Terry Cooke. Or Willis may have been playing for time, trying to wrong-foot his own team, which he certainly succeeded in doing. Vogel wasn’t sure, but he reminded himself that Willis was mad. He might have switched the samples just because he could.

Whilst he was still contemplating this latest piece of news, PC Polly Jenkins knocked on the open door to his office and entered.

‘Boss, traffic have spotted Willis heading out of the city and onto the M4 towards London. The boys want to know what to do. They are currently following but keeping their distance. They think Willis has spotted them, but he doesn’t appear to be reacting.’

‘Tell them to back off,’ said Vogel quickly. ‘The car’s on a motorway. We can track it without physically following it, make sure we do and make sure everyone knows that no approach must be made.’

‘Right boss.’

‘Most importantly of all, could the boys see if there was anyone else in the vehicle? If Willis still has Saslow with him?’

‘We asked that straight away, boss. They couldn’t say for certain but, if Dawn is in the car, they’re pretty sure she’s not sitting next to him in the passenger seat.’

Vogel grunted. Jenkins looked as concerned as he felt. He knew what the young woman was thinking. Dawn could be lying on the back seat out of sight of the cameras. She could be locked in the boot. She could be unconscious, or already dead.

Vogel shook himself out of it. She could be alive and secreted somewhere Willis/Aeolus was confident she would not be discovered, as the man himself had said on the phone. Aeolus wouldn’t lie, would he? He wouldn’t see the need to lie, Vogel told himself. They just had to find her.

But where was she?

Thanks to the CCTV cameras along the B4057 and Hemmings’s local knowledge, it was strongly suspected that Willis had driven straight to his home, after being alerted by Vogel’s phone call to Saslow. It was reasonable to assume, from the timeline, that Saslow had still been with him and quite probably still with him when he arrived at his home.

Vogel struggled to keep calm. Not for the first time he was glad that he wasn’t naturally an emotional man. Nonetheless, when the life of a fellow officer was at stake, it was difficult even for him to remain composed, and this wasn’t just any officer. This was Dawn Saslow. His Dawn.

He had to remind himself that he didn’t even know for certain yet that Willis had gone to his home, let alone taken Dawn Saslow there. But every instinct, coupled with Hemmings’s irrefutable logic, told him that’s what had happened. If Saslow was no longer with Willis in his car, or heaven forbid, lying dead or injured on the floor or in the boot, then she could still be at the house.

But Willis lived in an ordinary suburban semi. A cursory search had already been completed and the CSIs were now going through the place with a fine toothcomb. Vogel knew all about deficiencies in police searches. The Tia Sharp case came to mind; the twelve-year old’s body, concealed in the attic of her grandmother’s East London home, was missed twice by police searching the premises. Vogel had personal knowledge of CSIs failing to notice an obvious murder weapon, even a bloodied knife, at a crime scene. But this time they were looking for a fellow police officer. Everyone involved was on red alert and hopefully Dawn Saslow was alive. Surely her presence in a three-bedroomed semi couldn’t be overlooked.

Vogel called Vera Court on her mobile. The woman had not quite reached home. She still sounded in shock. Her life was going to change, thought Vogel obliquely. She mightn’t still be married to this monster, who had fooled so many, but she had been once and their children still bore his name.

‘Look, this might seem crazy,’ Vogel began. ‘But is there anywhere at your old, marital home where a person could be hidden? A place that we wouldn’t find, unless we knew it was there?’

‘No,’ replied Vera at once. ‘It’s just an ordinary, small house. I mean, there’s an attic, not much space up there. Then there’s the garage. John was always very protective about the garage. I called it his man cave. Nobody else had a key to it and the kids weren’t allowed in. He kept stuff in it for tinkering with the car, for the garden, just ordinary things. I hardly ever went in there. He kept the car in the garage, but if we were going out together he’d fetch it and drive round the front to pick me up. But I’m sure your people have looked in the garage by now, haven’t they, Mr Vogel? And I expect it was as tidy as ever, too. Not much of a hiding place.’

Willis muttered his agreement.

‘You really can’t think of anything else?’

‘No. Well… just something, but it’s probably nothing…’

‘Go on, Mrs Court.’

‘Well I remember one of the elderly neighbours there, old Willy Fox, who used to talk about playing in the air raid shelter, which was built in his garden just before the war. I suppose it would have been used when the docks were bombed in Bristol. Our house didn’t have one as far as I know. John never mentioned it certainly, nor anyone else, but it’s just a thought…’

Vogel sat up straight in his chair.

‘John lived in the house before you were married, didn’t he? Might he have known things about the house that you didn’t?’

‘I suppose so, but he couldn’t hide an air raid shelter from me and the kids, surely?’ said Vera.

‘I don’t know, Mrs Court,’ responded Vogel. ‘I do know that he appears to have hidden multiple identities and multiple murders from all of us. You said you thought John was capable of anything. He thinks that too. He thinks he is super capable, super clever and that the rest of us pale into insignificance by comparison. That may be his only weakness.’

As he ended the call, Hemmings walked in.

‘The CSIs have been on again to say that there’s nothing at all at Willis’s house,’ said the DCI. ‘A neighbour saw him pull out of the back alley leading from the garage about an hour ago, but couldn’t tell whether there was a passenger in the car. Indeed, they couldn’t actually see Willis, but just assumed it was him. Nobody, that we know of so far, saw the car arrive. There’s no sign of any hurried packing or anything like that and certainly no sign of DC Saslow. They found his passport, in the name of Willis, but we know he has at least one other in another name…’

Vogel was barely listening. He interrupted Hemmings to repeat what Vera Court had just told him.

‘There could be an old air raid shelter at Willis’s place, and I’m banking on it being beneath the garage. Aeolus’ lair. He’s hidden Dawn at that house somewhere, I feel sure. He just wouldn’t have had time to do anything else. And the bastard believes she’s too well concealed for us to find her. I’d like to go round there myself. I know Willis.’

‘Umm,’ muttered Hemmings, ‘Not as well as you bloody well thought, it would seem.’

Vogel couldn’t argue with that. He said nothing.

‘What makes you think you can find something the search team haven’t?’ Hemmings persisted.

‘I’m gonna dig, boss,’ Vogel said. ‘Aeolus think’s his lair is safe. Thing is, I don’t remember any mention of pneumatic drills in Greek Mythology.’ Vogel almost made himself laugh. It must be the onset of hysteria, he thought. ‘I want to get some hairy-arsed, construction workers out there, sir,’ he continued.

‘If you think you’re onto something, go for it.’

‘Yes, boss, if I’m right and he’s made some sort of a den out of an old air raid shelter, we don’t even know what ventilation system it has. We need to find Dawn fast, whilst she’s still alive. If she’s still alive.’

Thirty-Two

Vogel took Polly Jenkins with him to Willis’s home. He knew she and Dawn Saslow were friends. If they found the DC there, he had no idea what state she might be in, and he felt that Jenkins’ presence could only help.

As soon as they arrived, they both suited up and joined the search team already at work in the detached, double garage at the top of the small back garden. It contained a mechanics inspection pit, which clearly demanded close attention. In spite of assurances from the CSI team that they had checked out that area thoroughly, Vogel clambered down, armed with a lump hammer which he smashed with all his strength against the walls and floor of the pit.

‘Careful, sir,’ admonished a young woman CSI.

Vogel glowered her.

‘We have an officer missing,’ he growled. ‘Our first priority is to find her. We can worry about forensics after that.’

‘Yes sir, of course, sir,’ said the young woman. ‘But you should know we’ve done more or less exactly what you’re doing all over the garage. Everything is solid as a rock. There’s no false floor or anything like that. We’re sure of it.’

‘Some of these wartime shelters were five, or more, metres below ground level,’ muttered Vogel.

‘Yes sir, but they had to have an entrance. We’ve found no sign of anything.’

Vogel started to climb out of the pit. As he did so, the workmen he’d asked for turned up; two of them, both carrying heavy-duty, pneumatic drills.

Ignoring the obvious disapproval of the CSIs, Vogel ordered them down into the pit and told them to dig.

The noise, in a confined space, was overwhelming.

After a few minutes, the workmen paused.

‘We’re down three feet and it’s still solid concrete,’ reported one.

‘Three feet of concrete?’ queried Vogel. ‘Isn’t that odd?’

‘Well yes. Unless it’s the roof of an old shelter which no longer has an entrance at all.’

‘It must have an entrance.’

Vogel was adamant.

‘Try drilling down the sides.’

They did so.

‘Anything?’ yelled Vogel after a few minutes.

The men switched off their drills so that they could all hear themselves speak.

‘Well, there does seem to be the narrowest of gaps around three sides of the pit and down the centre,’ reported one of the workmen. ‘Hair’s breadth. But then, concrete is sometimes laid like that — well, it’s always laid a bit like that, in blocks, to stop it cracking as it sets. Do you want us to carry on digging, mate?’

‘Hold on a minute.’

Vogel lowered himself into the pit and bent over to examine closely where the men had been drilling around the edges. He asked to borrow a screwdriver with which he prodded and probed.

‘This couldn’t be some kind of giant plug, could it?’

‘A plug, mate?’

‘Yes, exactly that. A plug made to fit precisely into a bloody great hole.’

‘Well if it is, then it looks to be permanent.’

‘It can’t be permanent. It has to move. The only question is how it moves.’

Vogel hauled himself up and began to root around the garage.

‘What’s that,’ he asked, pointing at a large piece of machinery propped in a corner. ‘Isn’t that some sort of hydraulic pump?’

‘Well yes, but it’s just the sort of stuff that ends up in a garage, isn’t it?’ said the same young woman CSI.

‘Is it?’ queried Vogel. ‘Look, you can see it’s in decent working order. No dust. Could have been used recently. Hydraulics can be channelled to move large objects. Did nobody think of that?’ The CSIs exchanged uncertain glances. ‘If this is what I think it might be, that pump must connect to something,’ muttered Vogel.

Jenkins spoke then, pointing to a cupboard over to Vogel’s left.

‘Look at that, boss,’ she said.

The door to the cupboard was slightly ajar. Vogel could just see a wheel inside, fitted to the wall, and a complex of pipes emerging from the floor.

‘Have you checked that out?’ he asked the CSIs.

‘Probably some sort of old water supply,’ replied one of them. ‘We did look at it, yes…’

His voice tailed away as he glanced back from the cupboard to the pump.

‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered.

‘Let’s get on to it,’ snapped Vogel.

‘You guys.’ He turned to the workmen. ‘Either of you two know any more about engineering than this lot seem to?’

‘A bit, I’ve worked in mining in South Africa,’ said one of them, a big man with an abundance of red hair that matched his complexion. ‘We used hydraulic rams over there. I’ll have a look if you like.’

‘Good, get on with it.’

Vogel turned to the second workman. ‘And you, clear all that rubble away in the pit. They’ll help you.’ He gestured at the less-than-thrilled-looking CSIs. ‘If I’m right, we need to make sure there’s nothing down there that might impede smooth movement.’

The redhaired workman was already at work.

‘The pump’s petrol driven and its tank’s half full,’ he reported. He moved the pump close to the cupboard. Vogel was no longer surprised when it became apparent that the pipe-fitting connectors in the wall cupboard and on the pump itself matched perfectly.

The workman was able to attach the pump with little difficulty.

‘Shall I fire her up?’ he asked.

‘Quick as you like.’

The man paused.

‘You know, it would be quite an engineering feat to construct anything like this. Can’t be many people capable of it.’

‘No,’ agreed the DCI, thinking about Willis’s background as a mechanical design engineer.

‘Just the one,’ he continued. ‘But he is Aeolus.’

The man looked confused, perhaps he was one of surely only a handful of people in the country who’d managed to avoid the massive media coverage.

‘Just get on with it,’ instructed Vogel.

The pump fired at the third attempt.

The workman then began to turn the wheel within the cupboard, at first with no apparent result. He tried again. There was a grinding noise, followed by a shuffling sound, which came from the foot of the inspection pit. Vogel swung round, lurched towards the edge of the pit and lowered himself down in one clumsy but effective motion.

Part of the base of the pit was moving; a section of concrete was sliding slowly to one side. But the giant plug, as he had rather aptly described it, was moving too slowly for Vogel. As soon as a big enough gap had been created he leaned through it, hanging on precariously in a crab-like position, with one arm and one leg still on the stationary part of the pit’s base.

As soon as he got his head through the gap, he could tell there was a considerable space beneath him. But it was very nearly pitch black, barely illuminated at all by the light behind him. He yelled for a torch which was thrown down by a CSI. He shone it into the space.

Dawn Saslow was just a few feet away, sprawled on the floor and chained to a wall, the way Willis must have left her. Even in the dim light of the torch, it was immediately apparent that she had been badly beaten. Her face and clothes were covered in blood. One cheek was little more than a swollen, black mass. Vogel could also smell the sweet stench of human excrement. Oh my God, he thought, were they too late? Then Dawn lifted one arm, just a little, almost like a weak wave of greeting.

She was alive.

‘It’s all right, Dawn, it’s all right now, we’re here,’ he shouted.

She seemed unable to speak. He couldn’t tell yet how bad her injuries were. But Dawn Saslow was alive. The massive block of concrete continued to shift. Vogel let himself drop to the lower ground level. He ran to Dawn, scrabbling hopelessly at the cuffs around her legs and the chain which restrained her. PC Jenkins followed Vogel down through the inspection pit and was quickly beside him.

‘Sir, gently, sir, you could hurt her,’ she said.

She let her fingers brush lightly against Dawn Saslow’s good cheek.

‘Hang on in there, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘We’ve got you now and we’ll have you free in a jiff.’

It was probably the gentle touch and the kind words which caused the tears that began to run freely down Saslow’s damaged face.

The workmen had come well prepared. On cue, one of them jumped down wielding a pair of heavy-duty bolt cutters. Vogel gestured him forwards and he began at once to cut through the cuffs and the chain restraining Saslow. She grunted with pain as the man attacked the cuffs around her ankles, which had bitten deeply into her flesh, but, although clearly shocked to the core, he was admirably quick and efficient.

Once Dawn was free Vogel wrapped his arms around her and held her close.

‘It’s all right, baby,’ he said. ‘It’s all right.’

He could feel the young woman’s body heaving, her sobbing now quite out of control. But she was alive, bless her, she was alive. Vogel felt relief flowing through every vein in his body. Eventually Dawn’s sobbing began to subside, then she spoke. Her voice was weak, little more than a croak, but the message was clear enough.

‘Just get the bastard, boss,’ she said.

The paramedic team were still checking out Dawn Saslow, before carrying her from the prison that had nearly become her grave, when Hemmings called Vogel’s mobile. He said that Willis/Aeolus had been duly tracked up the M4 and spotted swinging off towards Heathrow.

A simple check of flight information had already revealed that he’d booked himself on a flight to Moscow under the name of Richard Perry, whose passport and driving licence he presumably had with him.

Well, he didn’t think he had anything to fear, did he?

After all, he’d been quite confident that Dawn Saslow would not be found, unless he chose for her to be.

The airport police, a branch of the Met since the 70s when airport security concerns had begun to seriously escalate, had been alerted. Yet, so far, they had been told to keep only a watching brief. They, and just about every cop in the country, had been informed of DC Saslow being missing and instructed that her recovery was first priority. Now she was safe, their priorities had shifted. Heathrow’s highly trained specialist police unit were fully armed and programmed to handle major terrorist situations. Vogel thought they were just the boys to deal with bloody Aeolus.

‘Dawn’s safe, boss,’ he said. ‘We’ve just found her and she’s alive. You can tell the Heathrow lads to move in on Willis, or whatever he’s calling himself today. And they can move just as hard as they like.’

The relief was clear in Hemmings voice when he spoke again.

‘Thank God,’ said the DCI.

‘But please boss, can you make sure I’m the one to talk to Willis first?’ asked Vogel.

‘He’s yours, David,’ said the DCI.

Thirty-Three

Willis was arrested on suspicion of three counts of murder and brought straight back to Bristol, where he was processed at Patchway and held in a police cell.

Within four hours of Dawn Saslow being found, Vogel — backed up by Polly Jenkins — was ready to conduct the first interview. Freda Heath, whose expert opinion was much-needed, had dropped everything to make the journey from London as soon as Vogel contacted her. She might be NHS and overworked, but she wasn’t going to miss this opportunity.

‘You do realise this is psychiatric history in the making,’ she told Vogel excitedly.

‘It wasn’t my first thought,’ responded Vogel drily.

DS Nobby Clark travelled to Bristol with the professor. After all, the extraordinary suspect now in custody had murdered on her patch too.

Willis was already sitting in an interview room, when the four entered. Vogel studied him carefully while PC Jenkins made the usual formal pronouncement of date, time and those present, for the video record.

Willis looked like, well, he looked like Willis, thought Vogel. Nothing more or less. Albeit Willis in a custody suit. Other than that he looked pretty much as usual.

It was Willis who spoke first and it really was Willis, or as near to Willis as was ever likely to be seen or heard again. Willis’s voice with more than a hint of Lancastrian.

‘I don’t understand boss, what’s all this about?’ he asked, as he straightened the sleeves of his suit and turned them back so that they formed neat cuffs of equal size. ‘I was heading off with Saslow, to see that walk-in at Avonmouth, and the next thing I knew I’d been arrested.’

‘Is that really your only memory of today, Willis?’ asked Vogel.

‘Yes, boss. Of course it is.’

‘Do you remember where you were arrested.’

‘Course I do. I was in my car. A load of armed heavies pulled me over. They were none too gentle, either.’

‘Yes. But do you remember the location of your car at the time you were pulled over?’

Something flitted across Willis’s eyes. One of those involuntary events Freda Heath had described to the DI, perhaps.

‘Uh no. Not exactly.’ Willis suddenly seemed confused. Unsure.

Vogel glanced towards Freda Heath. He’d already asked her to intervene and indeed to take over the questioning, if she felt he were muddying psychiatric waters. She shook her head very slightly and gestured for him to continue.

‘Do you remember if anyone was with you in the car?’

Willis frowned. He seemed to be really concentrating, making an effort to answer truthfully.

‘I’m not sure. Uh, yes. Dawn Saslow was with me, wasn’t she? But…’

Was there a kind of panic in Willis’s eyes. Vogel couldn’t tell for certain.

‘But… she wasn’t there when I was pulled over.’ Willis clenched both his fists and held them briefly in front of his mouth, before lowering his hands and placing them on the table before him.

‘Why was that?’ he asked, almost curiously. Vogel glanced at Freda Heath again.

‘Might you have left Dawn somewhere?’ Freda asked in a level tone.

Willis looked at the professor as if seeing her for the first time.

‘Why would I have left her anywhere?’ he asked, sounding bewildered.

‘Could you have hurt her, perhaps? Might you have done that, DS Willis?’

‘What? Hurt Dawn? Why would I do that?’

The words sounded normal enough, but Willis’s eyes no longer seemed focused on anyone or anything in the room. His chest began to heave, as if he were having trouble breathing or as if he were struggling to control forces within himself. His eyes rolled back into their sockets. His tongue protruded slightly from his mouth. He lifted his hands from the table and let his arms fell loosely by his side. Then he sprang to his feet and threw both arms in the air.

The two uniformed constables on duty by the door stepped forward. Vogel and Nobby Clarke both indicated that they should hold back.

‘I am Aeolus,’ said the man, who had previously been known to them only as Willis. ‘I am Aeolus. I control the winds. The winds of fortune. The winds of change. I am all powerful. This Willis is merely my servant.’

The voice was immediately different, more educated and with the hint of Latin accent that Vogel had noticed on the phone. His eyes blazed. If Vogel hadn’t known better, he would have thought it was with a kind of righteousness. So, when Willis was Aeolus, he was aware of his other identities. Or at least some of the time he was, at any rate. Freda Heath had suggested that might be so.

‘And the others, Leo, Al, Saul, are they also your servants?’ Vogel continued.

‘When I call upon them they are there.’

‘But why, you Aeolus, so powerful, why do you call on these…’ Vogel paused, wondering how far too push this. Again he glanced towards Freda Heath. The professor gestured for him to continue. Was she reading his mind, Vogel wondered? Well that’s what psychiatrists were supposed to be able to do, wasn’t it? Or was it? Vogel didn’t have the faintest idea. He went for it anyway. The man he had thought to be a perfectly ordinary police detective was staring at Vogel. Silent. Expectant. Challenging?

‘Yes?’ he queried.

‘… these pathetic apologies for men,’ Vogel continued. ‘A serial paedophile, a twisted closet gay, an inadequate sexual misfit, who dreams of having a family but cannot even perform the sexual act…’

It happened very quickly. Again there was the moment of almost total muscular relaxation. Then the man, who had once been Willis, threw himself across the desk that separated them and tightened his hands around Vogel’s neck.

‘You think you are better than me, you jumped-up piece of filth,’ he yelled. ‘You think you’re the special one. I can have any woman I damned well want. They flock to me. I know how to court them. I know what they want…’

The two uniforms leapt forwards, grabbed the suspect and pulled him off the DI. This time nobody protested. They pushed him back onto his chair and now stood on either side of him, each with a hand on one shoulder.

Willis slumped in his seat. Vogel coughed a couple of times and took a drink of water from the one glass that had survived the unexpected onslaught. The voice Willis had just used had held more than a trace of Wiltshire. A rural burr. That must have been Saul speaking, Vogel thought, just as Sonia had described him.

‘Yes, but you can’t give it to them though, can you?’ Vogel remarked, continuing to pressurise. ‘That’s your problem, isn’t it? You can’t do it. You can’t fuck.’

Willis/Saul/Leo/Al, the man who believed he was Aeolus, raised his head and stared at Vogel. There was ice in his eyes. Vogel wondered if he would try to attack again, but he didn’t. Instead, his lips cracked into a kind of leer.

‘They have to be the right age,’ he said. ‘If they’re young enough I can do it.’

The accent was now Scottish. Melanie Cooke had told her friend, Sally, that Al spoke with a Scottish accent. So this was Al, Vogel thought. Vogel watched him pull repeatedly at the collar of his suit, at the back of his neck. What was he doing, Vogel wondered? Then he realised. He was trying to put a non-existent hood over his head. Al was always hooded, even in the summer. All the reports about him indicated that. This was Al all right.

‘So,’ Vogel continued gently. ‘Why didn’t you make it with young Melanie Cooke?’

The other man’s eyes narrowed.

‘Because she was a vicious, knowing bitch,’ he said, still sounding Scottish. ‘She wasn’t the way I like them at all. She was no child.’

Vogel almost had to physically gulp back his repulsion. He had worked with this man, lived out his professional life alongside him. Vogel wanted to attack him, just as the creature he had once known as Willis had attacked him, only more effectively. He controlled himself with difficulty.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You can’t ever do it with a woman, can you? Not really. Not the way they want. Not the way you want.’

The other man’s eyelids flickered. He made no reply.

‘You’re all right as Leo though, aren’t you? You can fuck a man all right. Can’t you? That’s no problem for you is it, Leo?’

Vogel felt Nobby Clarke’s eyes upon him, burning into him. Had he really gone too far now? The man they had known as Willis took a huge intake of air, exerted his not inconsiderable strength, forced himself to his feet not withstanding the restraining hands of the two uniforms and stood, directly facing his four inquisitors.

‘I am Aeolus,’ he said, in that curious mix of English public school and classic Latin.

‘I know not of what you speak. I am Aeolus.’