Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [43]
about the difficulties of the case, the chief superintendent had made it pretty clear that he was going to hand the inquiry on if Harris didn’t come up with some results. And soon.
The Doctor arranged three of the photographs in front of the chief inspector.
Each one was a close-up of the victim’s throat wounds.
Harris looked from the gruesome pictures to the Doctor and shrugged.
‘Same modus operandi. Same killer. You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, Doctor.’
The Doctor perched on the edge of the desk and leant over, directing Harris’s attention to the deep cuts in the base of the victims’ throats. ‘But why here? Why make incisions here? It doesn’t make any sense. If the perpetrator intended to kill, why not cut higher? Why not simply open the artery? Slit their throats?’
‘I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess as to what is going on in this man’s mind.’
The Doctor paused for a moment. ‘Inspector, have you ever heard of psychological profiling?’
‘Psycho-what?’
‘I thought not. To put it in simple language, we need to try and work out what’s going on inside our killer’s head. Why he is committing these heinous acts.’
‘I should have thought that was obvious, Doctor.’
‘Really? Oh, do tell.’
‘Well, because he’s a nutter.’
The Doctor blinked. Twice. ‘Yes, well I think we can do a bit better than that.’ And then he was off, rattling on about his ideas like an excited schoolboy. ‘Look again at the incisions. According to my, not inconsiderable, knowledge of your anatomy, there are no major arteries in any of these places.’
An intuitive part of Chief Inspector Harris reacted with alarm to the Doctor’s use of the word ‘your’ in that context. He swallowed, suppressing a ridiculous thought, and refocused on what the pathologist was saying. ‘Do you mean that they shouldn’t have died of these wounds?’
The Doctor considered this question. ‘Well, not as quickly as they did. In fact I was sure I was going to be able to save the boy, Eddy.’
Harris looked up, frowning. The name was unfamiliar. ‘Eddy who?’
The Doctor opened his mouth and then closed it again. ‘Ah,’ he managed, after a moment. ‘Nothing, Chief Inspector, nothing at all. Now,’ he hurried on, ‘I rather suspect that the reason that these incisions are so large is that something was actually removed from. . . ’
Harris stopped listening to the Doctor’s attempts to divert attention from his slip. He held up his hand to break through the Doctor’s monologue. ‘Doctor, please answer my question. How do you know the dead boy’s name?’
72
The Doctor slipped off the desk and sat back in his chair. He looked like a naughty pupil called up in front of the headmaster. Sulky and silent.
‘Doctor, I would remind you that this is a murder inquiry: withholding evidence is a serious criminal offence.’
The Doctor looked defiant for a moment and then his expression collapsed.
‘Oh very well. I found the last murder victim’s personal possessions. I intended to slip them back to you, but. . . well, I’ve been preoccupied with. . . well, that doesn’t matter now. I forgot. But, yes, I do know who he is. Or rather was.’
Harris was barely holding on to his temper. ‘Then why the hell didn’t you tell me?’
‘I. . . um. . . wanted to look into it first. Sorry.’
Harris gave the Doctor a withering look. ‘Quite the amateur detective, aren’t we?’ He called for Bridie, who appeared in the doorway. The sergeant didn’t bother to conceal his disapproval of the Doctor. ‘Sergeant, we’ve got a positive identification on the dead boy. Doctor?’
The Doctor exhaled and dug his hands into the pockets of his trousers. ‘Eddy Stone. He was a hairdresser at Snips Salon, Wardour Street.’
‘I know the place,’ Bridie muttered, jotting the name in his notebook. He turned to his senior officer. ‘Where did this information come from, sir?’
Harris tapped his desk, impatiently. ‘Don’t worry about that now. Just get on with it. Get a home address and see if you