He had learned to live with it all. That’s what you did, wasn’t it? That’s what everybody did who wanted to survive. But now it had all returned to haunt him.
Abruptly pushing both photographs away, and turning them face down so he no longer had to look at them, Fielding consulted a note he had made on a message pad, picked up the telephone and dialled the first three digits of a London telephone number.
Then he stopped.
Then he began to dial again, this time a local Exeter number. His wife answered on the third ring.
‘I’m going to be late,’ he told her bluntly. She registered no surprise. After nearly thirty years of marriage to a police detective who liked women almost as much as he liked whisky, there wasn’t much he could do that would surprise her. Fielding replaced the receiver and studied the DNA reports once more. He picked up a red marker pen and encircled the damning data on both sets.
It had all happened by chance in the end. Not that there was anything strange about that. They only caught the Yorkshire Ripper because of a routine check by traffic cops. Mind you, the Ripper case had been one of the most incompetent criminal investigations of the twentieth century.
Fielding put the top of the marker pen in his mouth and began to chew it. It was a habit he had indulged in since he gave up smoking. That had been almost ten years ago and he had lapsed only briefly just a couple of times. For once in his life, he had shown some won’t-power, he reflected wryly. Never short of will-power, it was just the won’t-power he struggled with — his father had coined that one about him. His father, Jack Fielding — also in the job, retired as a uniformed superintendent — who had at first been so proud of the bright, intelligent son following in his footsteps, but then, Fielding suspected, by the time of his death three years previously, bitterly disappointed.
Anyway, Mike had always used the won’t-power line as a kind of running joke, but there was, of course, a lot of truth in it. The top drawer of his desk was full of pens and pencils with chewed broken tops. Occasionally he ended up with ink all over his mouth. And he didn’t work in the kind of environment where some kind soul was likely to obligingly point this out before he made a complete fool of himself. Remembering this, and that the marker pen was a particularly vivid red, he took it out of his mouth and replaced it with a pencil.
He didn’t really like thinking about incompetent investigations. The whole Beast of Dartmoor operation had been deeply flawed. He knew that. A lot of it had been down to his governor — Parsons had been far too sure of himself, as indeed, Mike was aware, he himself had been back then. He was also certain that at least one of the mistakes which had been made could be laid at his own door. Perhaps the biggest mistake of all.
He reached behind the pile of files in the bottom drawer of his desk and retrieved a two-thirds empty bottle of supermarket Scotch. Then he rummaged around for the glass he was sure he had replaced there the previous day. He couldn’t find it. In the end he just took a deep swig from the bottle.
The rough, cheap spirit hit the back of his throat and burned a little as he swallowed. First of the day. It felt good. It always did. Fielding rarely drank at lunchtimes. He didn’t dare. He kidded himself that as long as he didn’t drink till the evenings he didn’t have a problem. Certainly he knew that the longer he could put off the first taste, the better chance he had of ending the day in a reasonable state.
He took a second welcome swig. Then he put the bottle back in the desk drawer and closed it. He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, still enjoying the warmth of the whisky, and, for just a few seconds, tried not to think. Not about anything.
It didn’t work. He pulled open the desk drawer again, removed the bottle and took another deep drink. This time he didn’t bother putting it away. Instead, he stood it on the floor next to his chair, where he could reach it easily but nobody coming into the room could see it.
The Beast of Dartmoor had been involved in a minor traffic accident in London. Proof yet again that even traffic cops had their uses. Mike allowed himself a wry smile at that. It hadn’t even been the Beast’s fault, and he certainly hadn’t been drunk. Far too controlled for that. After all — although Mike didn’t believe his habits would have changed much, and certainly not his sexual perversions — he’d kept out of trouble, somehow, for twenty years, albeit through nothing other than nifty footwork. But the Beast had been given a routine breath test, just standard procedure, and failed. It was also routine to do a DNA test, a buccal swab, a kind of toothbrush scrape of the inner mouth. It had all been routine, in fact. The DNA was run through the computer, standard practice again, and bingo, as Fielding’s old adversary Todd Mallett — with whom he had attended police college, which was absolutely all the two of them had in common — would have said.
It came up the same as DNA taken from the dead girl’s body, from the body fluids that could only have been deposited by her murderer.
DNA. Deoxyribonucleic acid. Minute threadlike molecules, each made up of two intertwined strands, which carry the unique genetic make-up of every human being. A sort of personal blueprint. Strange how quickly such an extraordinary development in science had become taken for granted. DNA had transformed police work, no doubt about that. Except in this case it made no difference. Suddenly there was irrefutable evidence of the guilt of a vicious perverted murderer, but there was bugger all anybody could do with it. That was the law for you. And sometimes it seemed to have very little to do with justice.
After a few moments Fielding stood up and walked over to the window. It was Monday, 26 June 2000. A remarkable landmark day. Fielding had earlier watched the TV news and seen the announcement that scientists had cracked the DNA code. Soon they would be able to map out your body’s future for you, predict what diseases you were likely to develop and maybe prevent them. Perhaps even predict that a particular human being was liable to turn into a perverted monster like the Beast of Dartmoor. Fielding didn’t understand the half of it, but one thing he was damned sure of was that the law would get involved sooner or later, and would no doubt make an ass of itself as it had, in his opinion, with every other DNA development so far.
He checked his watch. It was just gone seven, his favourite time of day in the police station at Heavitree Road, Exeter’s premier nick, which had been his base throughout the bulk of his service. Unless something really big was afoot, the evenings were usually quiet; he could clear his head, allow himself time to think. When he was alone like this at the end of the working day in the environment he was so familiar with, Fielding was inclined to feel as much at peace as he ever could. But not today. Today there could be no peace.
It was hot, too. In Devon it had been one of the best days of a so far disappointing summer. Too hot to work, though, and the temperature had yet to drop much. Fielding’s first-floor office was small and airless. It looked over the car park and a broad patch of grass to the Heavitree Road beyond, one of the main arterials leading to and from the city centre. Exeter’s workforce was still wending its way painfully home and the slow-moving vehicles seemed to be creating their own heat haze. Fielding half imagined he could see their passengers sweating. Too hot for driving as well. His office window was open although it brought scant relief. Fielding tugged at his already loosened tie. A trick of the evening sunlight caused him to be able to see his own reflection in the angled glass.