the rest of my career. I’m not planning on chasing promotion.’
‘Very wise,’ Bannan told him, rising from his wooden seat and offering his hand to Donnelly who gratefully accepted it, hoping other detectives in the hall would notice the seal of approval a handshake from Bannan implied. ‘Send the boy over in the morning. And take my advice – grow a moustache – it’ll make you look more the part – hide that fresh face of yours.’ He released Donnelly’s hand and seemed to instantly disappear into the crowd.
‘Well, Sean my boy,’ Donnelly spoke to himself, ‘get ready to meet a legend, son. Get ready to meet a legend.’
Tuesday morning, and an apprehensive Police Constable Sean Corrigan approached the smallish open plan office usually used for training lectures, which was where the Area Major Investigation Team would be based until the Parkside Rapist was found and convicted. His normal place of work was inside the same police station in Plumstead, south-east London, on the floor below, with the Crime Squad – primarily made up of officers who had recently been selected from the uniform branch to be trained as future detectives. They may have all been in plain clothes, but they still wore a uniform – jeans, leather jacket, trainers – and Sean was no different. He was learning to fit in. Over the next two years his job would be to constantly harass and harangue the local drug dealers, handlers and low-lifes, with the occasional attachment to major enquiries including murders, hopefully proving he had what it took to become a fully fledged detective.
He’d expected and feared his arrival would cause more of a stir, anticipating the office might fall silent as he entered, all inquiring eyes on him, but he was largely ignored. Donnelly had told him to find and introduce himself to the detective sergeant who was the Office Manager. He scanned the office until he found a man sitting at a desk who seemed to be conducting most of the business around him, handing out pieces of paper with one hand as he collected those handed to him with the other, while giving clear, rapid instructions to whoever approached his cluttered desk before dispatching them with their tasks for the day. Sean waited for a break in the flow of human traffic before jumping in and introducing himself.
‘PC Sean Corrigan,’ he told the detective, who had slim arms and legs, but a swollen beer-gut, ‘from the Crime Squad here. My DS … DS Donnelly said you needed people to help on this enquiry.’
‘He did, did he?’ the detective asked. ‘So why are you here?’
‘I’m supposed to be attached to the investigation.’
‘You are, are you?’ the detective continued to tease him.
‘I was told to find the Office Manager,’ Sean told him, resisting the temptation to bite.
‘Well then you must be some detective, son, because you’ve already found him.’ The detective allowed himself a wry smile. ‘I’m DS Ray Melody. You come to me first thing in the morning and I’ll give you your actions for the day, and then you come to me last thing before you go home – if you ever get to go home – and hand me your completed actions. Simple. Understand?’
Sean swallowed his embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry – what are actions?’
‘Christ,’ Melody cursed. ‘What have they sent me? Actions, son, are exactly that. Listen – an investigation of this size creates thousands of leads, tens of thousands of pieces of information, hundreds of people who need to be found and spoken to – understand?’
‘Yes, Sarge,’ Sean answered, trying to keep up.
‘Bloody hell, you are just out of uniform aren’t you?’ Melody laughed. ‘You’re in the CID now, son – you call me Ray, alright?’ Sean nodded. ‘Together with the DI and the Detective Superintendent, it’s my job to co-ordinate the investigation and make sure everybody knows what they’re doing and that nothing gets duplicated – understand?’ Sean nodded again. ‘I do that by using these,’ he said, waving a green piece of paper in front of Sean. ‘This is an action. I write on here what the action is, meaning what the job is. I give it to you and you tootle off and do whatever job the action tells you to do. When it’s done you give it back to me and I take a look at it. Now, this is the important bit: if in completing an action you discover something else that needs to be investigated – do not run off and try to solve the thing yourself, because you might have discovered something we already know about and are looking into. You’ll only cause duplication. Understand?’
‘What do I do then?’ Sean asked. ‘If I discover something that needs checking out.’
Melody swapped the green sheet of paper for a pink one and again waved it in front of Sean’s face. ‘If that happens,’ he explained, ‘you fill out one of these. This is called an Information Report. You attach it to the original action, cross reference it and hand it to me. If I’m not here you place both in that box over in the corner.’ Melody pointed to a cut-down cardboard box labeled Completed Actions. ‘Then, when I get a chance, I’ll read your Information Report and if necessary create a new action to be completed, that I may or may not assign to you – got it?’ Sean shrugged his shoulders to let Melody know he understood. ‘In fact,’ Melody continued, ‘I have the perfect job to get you started.’ A mischievous smile spread across his face as he searched for the action he needed on his cluttered desk. ‘Here it is,’ he declared, handing Sean the piece of green paper. ‘There you go, son. I think this will be right up your street.’
* * *
An hour later and Sean was alone in Chinbrook Meadows, Hither Green, close to the scene of the latest attack attributed to the as yet unidentified serial offender dubbed the Parkside Rapist by the media. The attack had happened over four days ago now and the park was quiet, the police and forensic circus long since packed up and moved on. Except for Sean – his mission to stop and question everyone walking through the park in the forlorn hope of discovering an untraced witness or even a possible suspect. He knew the chances of either were slim. Most likely Melody had given him the action to keep him out of the way while the real detectives got on with the job in hand. He exhaled deeply, tucking his newly acquired clip-board under his armpit and rubbing his hands together to ward off the approaching winter’s chill as he looked around the deserted park. The usually busy place had been abandoned by the women joggers and the mothers who only days ago walked their children along the paths – their one-time sanctuary within the sprawling city tainted by the spectre of the man who had pulled a young mother into the dense trees, leaving her child sleeping in its pushchair. Even the men had forsaken the park – fearful of being tarnished with the stigma of accusing eyes. The monster’s crimes had stained the ground forever.
Sean absentmindedly began to walk along the path that cut across the park, noticing that it wound closer to the trees in some places – places where it would have been easier to ambush an unsuspecting victim. He found himself slipping the map of the crime scene from his jacket pocket and examining it, trying to get his bearings and identify the area marked as the crime scene. After using the distant tower blocks on the urban horizon as north, he headed further along the path to the south-west corner of the park, just as the victim would have – pushing her toddler and filling her lungs with air the trees had cleansed, thinking of what she would cook her husband for tea, imagining relaxing with her nightly glass of wine – before he dragged her to hell.
As he approached the place where the victim had first been attacked he noticed the path did indeed pass closer to the surrounding trees here, allowing the predator to close in on his chosen victim before bursting from the woods and seizing her. Sean studied the woods either side of the path, the
