Blood Atonement by Dan Waddell Read Free Book Online

by a fierce intelligence, same flame-red lipstick. She was wearing a tight blue suit, white low-cut top underneath her jacket. He thought she’d given up criminal profiling in favour of writing books, giving
    lectures and making money.
    Harris introduced her to those who hadn’t had the
    pleasure, as if she was the Queen and they were a football team, putting a slightly creepy hand on her back as he ushered her round them. She nodded politely, almost
    brusquely. He came to Foster last.
    ‘DCI Grant…’
    ‘We know each other pretty well,’ she interrupted, and
    flashed him an immaculate smile. ‘How’ve you been,
    Grant?’
    Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?’ he said, shaking her
    hand. ‘I’ve been better.’
    “Yes, I heard,’ the smile faded, replaced by a look of
    concern. Foster wasn’t sure if it was clinical.
    ‘I’ve asked Susie to get involved because she’s the best there is,’ Harris explained to the group. ‘She’s had a look at the files, the autopsy report and the scene. She’s going to help us narrow the search.
    Good, Foster thought. Before he’d met and worked
    with Susie Danson, he’d dismissed profiling as a bit of
    well-meaning mumbo-jumbo. She had taught him otherwise.

Harris
    gestured that the floor was hers.
    ‘Gentlemen,’ she said, surveying the room, her file in
    front of her. ‘Of course, all that I’m about to say is based on only a glancing acquaintance with the facts. These are some impressions I’ve formed that you’re free to do with as you wish. I’m going to try and come up with a more considered opinion but you know as well as I do how time in these cases is utterly crucial’
    She paused, looked down at her notes, clasped her
    hands in front of her.
    ‘This killer was organized,’ she said. ‘There was no
    frenzy — he was cool, calm, collected and methodical. This was planned, not opportunistic. There was no sexual molestation of Katie Drake. He did not masturbate near
    the body, strip her or interfere with her in any way, pre or post mortem. There is an absence of any sexual desire in her killing. However, given what she was wearing, the fact she allowed him entry, all suggests he has charm. She wanted him. I’d suggest this is a man in his late thirties at the youngest, but probably in his forties and still in pretty good shape. I’m also convinced his intended target was Naomi and that his interest in her is sexual and predatory.
    He reasoned the way to abduct her was to befriend her
    mother, whom he knew to be vulnerable.’
    No one said anything. Foster knew Susie didn’t like
    these briefings to be a soliloquy. That she liked her opinions to be challenged. ‘But why did he kill Katie?’ he said.
    Why not just abduct the daughter? Most paedophiles
    don’t kill other people to get to their targets.’
    ‘Good point,’ she said, nodding. ‘I’ve given that a lot
    of thought because, as you point out, it doesn’t fit the usual pattern. But we know that paedophiles can be very enterprising and very determined. Maybe he deduced
    that the only way he could abduct Naomi was by getting
    inside her house to do it. Fourteenyear-old girls are not easy prey, not so easy to pluck off the street, unless he knew her very, very well. I guess he decided his best method was to charm and seduce her mother and be
    inside the house when she came home. And that to
    abduct Naomi without her mother preventing him he
    needed her silenced.’
    ‘What sort of bloke do you think we’re dealing with?’
    Harris asked.
    “I think this man has dated women. I think he’s probably of above-average intelligence. His real interest is young girls, early teenagers, on the verge of womanhood, between the ages of eleven and fifteen. You need to look at men who might have been charged with sexual offences with women of that age group, and men who have been
    charged with offences against their girlfriends’ daughters, or even their own daughters. Start with the local area