Jack Be Nimble by Adam Croft

Author:Adam Croft [Croft, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Circlehouse
Published: 2015-07-09T16:00:00+00:00

32

28th September

They say that knowledge is power. Knowing that two women were about to be murdered certainly didn’t help anyone on the investigation to feel anything but powerless, particularly as they didn’t know where the killer was going to strike or who his target was. They only knew when.

The scale of the operation was unprecedented in the town, and all whilst trying to avoid panicking members of the public. Culverhouse had agreed that the public should at least be told that the police were now linking the deaths of Keira Quinn and Lindsay Stott, and that their killer might pose a danger to other women in and around Mildenheath. To that effect, women were advised not to leave the house alone and to ensure their home security was more than adequate.

Culverhouse was keen to ensure that a balance was achieved between caution and panic. Local residents needed to be aware of the dangers — they had a right to be aware of them and their caution could help the police to catch the killer — but he knew from experience that public hysteria would be counterproductive.

The Chief Constable had agreed that patrols in the town needed to be stepped up. As the most underfunded police force in the country, they couldn’t rightfully pull numbers of police officers from other areas of the county, and the decision had instead been taken to halt and rescind all booked holidays and off-days. All police officers assigned to the county’s force would be required to report for duty immediately, provided they weren’t breaching health and safety laws on working hours.

Uniformed PCs had also been drafted in from neighbouring forces, with the increased numbers being used to form foot and vehicle patrols in and around Mildenheath. The intention was not only to reassure the public but to use the vastly increased police presence to try and scupper the Ripper’s plans. Knight and Culverhouse knew from experience that killers tended to make mistakes when they were forced to change their carefully-laid plans. And when killers made mistakes, they were caught.

A list of potential victims had been drawn up, but it contained almost three hundred possibilities from the Police National Computer alone. Based on people living within ten miles of Mildenheath town centre, that was the number of potential targets indicated by looking at middle-aged women of Scandinavian or North European origin, or women who were known to be born in the Wolverhampton area, or women of non-British European origin who were known to be working as prostitutes in and around the town.

With a list so large, it would be impossible to keep tabs on them all or even to warn half of them of the potential danger. As the list came from the PNC, it only contained people who were already known to the police. If the Ripper’s next two victims had never been arrested, they’d have no record of them at all and no way of warning them of the potential danger to their lives.

It

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