A Body in the Lakes by Graham Smith (great books of all time .TXT) 📕

was just as well the others were out as she wasn’t in the mood for chit-chat or the interruptions which always happened in a busy office. O’Dowd had listened to her theory about penis enlargements, and while she’d agreed it may be something they could pursue, the DI had decided that it was a long shot and their time would be better spent following other leads.

Each one of the little boxes on her screen mocked her. They just sat there, every one an unmatched piece of the jigsaw. No one thing aligned with another in a way that could be classed as making sense.

The victims were old, young, tall, short, fat and thin. They were from different backgrounds, and while they were all working class.

The only thing they had in common was their fate.

That the Lakeland Ripper had escalated his methodology was a worry. He was learning what gave him pleasure and had discovered a way to take it. In Beth’s mind, raping the women would be his revenge for all the slights he’d endured, for all the times he’d felt inadequate and for the thrill he got from the experience.

Beth’s greatest fear was that because the Lakeland Ripper was escalating the way he’d taken his desires, he would also escalate the other parts of his process, that he’d refine his methods. The women he’d attacked so far had been missed by loved ones and they seemed randomly selected. But there was a chance he could escalate by fixating on a single target and increasing his levels of violence after the abduction, or by targeting an increased number of victims such as those who were vulnerable. If he’d moved on to targets who were less likely to be reported missing, there was every chance that he may have killed again without the FMIT’s knowledge.

And if he was sticking to his cycle, he was overdue to strike again, if he hadn’t already.

As a matter of course, she’d checked HOLMES again to look for similar cases in Cumbria and its neighbouring counties. None had been listed, but that didn’t mean a lot. Christine Peterson’s case hadn’t been considered major by the inspector who’d led the investigation, and therefore it hadn’t been added. It was possible there were other cases out there which also hadn’t been added.

That was one for Mannequin and his PSD team to pursue. Their focus was on finding police errors and they’d be all over this case as there had been clear failings of the system. While he may be viewed as an officious prig by many, nobody had ever denied Mannequin’s intelligence, therefore he’d make it a priority to look for anything else connected to the case that may have slipped under the radar.

If the Lakeland Ripper was going down the route of selection in favour of opportunity, then he’d be far more dangerous as he’d be engineering the abduction to occur at an optimum time. The way he’d already taken four women without leaving a trace showed he was clever and resourceful.

Beth guessed that he’d also be forensically aware. That wasn’t such a surprise any more considering the proliferation of police TV dramas. There was barely a week that went by without one show or other depicting a crew of white-clad Scenes of Crime Officers going about their job. The fictionalised versions got a lot of the details wrong, but they still made the public aware of how the police could find the tiniest piece of fabric, a hair or a flake of skin that would tie the criminal to the scene and solve the case. This meant that those of a criminal persuasion knew to take measures to prevent leaving trace evidence of any kind.

That was the one thing which had shone through about each of the women. None of them had carried any evidence underneath their fingernails, no hairs or obvious skin particles found anywhere on their bodies. In the absence of definitive abduction sites, there were no specific locations to search for the tiny clues which may have identified the Lakeland Ripper. The deposition sites had all had a thorough forensic examination, but none of them had yielded a piece of evidence that had produced a solid lead.

Regardless of this, Beth went over the crime-scene pictures again. Christine Peterson’s naked body lay on the sandy dunes of the Barrow beach in the south-west of the county. Sand was a notoriously tough medium to gather evidence from as it could drift in the wind or shift with footsteps.

The tree-covered bank at the side of Lake Buttermere where Joanne Armstrong had been discovered was central to Cumbria and it was layered with pine needles and there were myriad rabbit holes in the surrounding area. Like the sand at Barrow beach, the pine needles weren’t the best medium for finding evidence and the fact there was so much wildlife in the area meant that a vital clue may have been carried off or trampled under the rabbits’ feet.

Harriet Quantrell’s body had been found on the northern reaches of Cumbria. The tough grasses of Rockcliffe Marsh were good at catching evidence, but like Joanne’s and Christine’s deposition sites, the location where Harriet was found yielded no secrets.

A thought struck Beth and she knew it had merit. That it should be checked out. The first step was to check the police database: that yielded six options, but the database would only cover the instances that were reported.

Beth ran a couple of searches on Google and found the phone numbers she was looking for.

Twenty-Nine

Beth poured herself a glass of water and slumped down on her couch. She’d worked at her spreadsheet until eight. The rape charities and counsellors she’d spoken to had been guarded, but she’d managed to get what she needed from them.

Her thinking had been that the Lakeland Ripper may not have killed every woman he’d raped. All of the people she’d spoken to had denied having anyone in their care who’d been raped by a stranger