The Mindhunter: The Kate Hoagan Investigations, #1

By Len Cooke

A serial killer is on the loose in Northern England, arrogantly discarding his many victims like so much garbage in the countryside and meres of the beautiful, but wild and often lonely English Lake District. Detective Chief Inspector Kate Hoagan is charged with stopping the murders by bringing the killer to justice but the perpetrator is clever, very clever and despite her and her team’s best endeavours, Hoagan finds herself confronting not only a ruthless predator and slayer of young women but also the sexist bigotry still present in the era and the very active and omnipresent demons of her own, extremely violent, past.

Set in 1993, against a backdrop of the modern Irish ‘Troubles’, Mindhunter takes the reader on a journey into the, American pioneered, early days of British forensic psychological offender profiling and the dark and terrifying mind of a ruthless, multiple murderer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Panda Press
• Release date: Aug 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536581683

Len Cooke

As with many writers, Len regards the art as being very much part of his DNA. After taking early retirement from his work on nuclear submarines, his passion for justice and decency led him to work as a volunteer in one of Her Majesty's Prisons and that collective experience, together with his travels to many parts of the world, has given him an unrivalled maturity, and at times, wicked sense of humour that can often be seen in his work.  

Book preview

Saturday, April 17 1993, Wasdale, the English Lake District

On the southern side of Wastwater loom the great screes of Illgill and Whin Rigg. Almost two thousand feet high and rising sheer out of the lake, their slopes of loose, mainly grey shale, are well-weathered and occasionally, dangerously mobile. At the foot of these great ancients and in parts only a few feet above this deepest of English lakes, lies a pathway. In places barely a foot wide and elsewhere completely obliterated by falling boulders and shale, the route is more of a treachery; a walk for the very keen, extremely foolish, or those, perhaps, who have some other, less obvious purpose.

Overhead in the still, blue calm of the April afternoon, a buzzard, hanging on the lightest of thermals, circled lazily, eyes keen for rabbit or vole. It is likely the hawk had seen the grey-clad figure of a man as he picked his tortuous way along this precipitous and perhaps foolhardy route. It is a fact that he was not observed by the small throng of eager aqualung divers preparing to enter the Water from the far shore.

As the solitary figure drew level to this pre-engaged group, he paused, his breathing now shallow and ragged. This was by no means entirely due to his physical exertions for he was a young man and although displaying a slight limp, extremely fit. However, for a full five minutes he remained quite motionless as he stared at the divers’ point of entry. Then, slowly, his body began to sway.

At first this was erratic with no obvious sense of rhythm, but soon the movements became more regular and synchronous. Suddenly, a full eight minutes after the divers had submerged everything intensified. Unexpectedly early, a diver broke surface and made for the shore with as much speed as he could muster. Immediately, the man’s breathing became louder and significantly more laboured; the pelvic motions stronger and more violent. The diver ripped off his flippers and ran up the short, steep beach. Once at the top dumping bottles, weights and mask. As he drove off at high speed, in the direction of the Wasdale Head Inn, the solitary and clandestine observer tore frenziedly at his clothing before, very quickly, reaching orgasm. Such was the violence of the catharsis he began to shake, uncontrollably; then, quite exhausted, fell heavily to the ground.

*

Detective Chief Inspector Kate Hoagan shivered and tugged on the zip of her Barbour. She had arrived at Wasdale a little before three o’clock, now, at nine, she was cold, tired and hungry.

Hoagan shivered again, cursing that in her haste to leave home she had not brought with her a warm sweater. She stood at the side of the lake, a scene of intense police activity. Despite the presence of so many colleagues and the gentle throb of the diesel generators that serviced the floodlights, Wasdale was still eerily quiet.

Earlier that afternoon she had looked out across Wastwater towards the high screes; in the afternoon sunshine grey, green and red. High overhead a buzzard, in seasonally territorial mood mewed warnings of tenure to others of his kind. Even then, in broad daylight, Hoagan had found the area surprisingly threatening. Wasdale was a great and ancient place, a glacial valley guarded not only by the screes but also the towering monuments to a different age, a different reality. As she looked east, along the length of the lake, she, like tens of thousands before her, felt intimidated by the awesome majesty of the terrain. By Great Gable, Scafell Pike and ancient Yewbarrow; peaks that, even in April, had far more than a light dusting of snow above two thousand feet. These, she knew, were the immortally enduring guardians of Wasdale, the sentinels of antiquity itself.

*

It was dark now, not crow-black for the sky was cloudless and starlit but dark enough to remove the threatening landscape from the immediate consciousness. Hoagan gazed across the lake in the direction of the night-cloaked screes. Why was she feeling so uneasy? She stared hard into the darkness and shivered. There was something nasty crawling up her back; gradually, inexorably, vertebra by vertebra something intangible but, something nonetheless, was crawling up her spine. She pulled the wax jacket closer to her body; not because of the cold; this was more a protective, comfort reflex. Was it her imagination or a sixth sense trying to tell her, to caution her; to warn her that something was out there, something indescribably evil, in the blackness, waiting for her, wanting her, perhaps even trying to destroy her?

‘Divers are up, ma’am!’

Startled back to reality, she looked to the water’s edge where four police divers were struggling ashore with their pathetic, broken, burden.

‘Thank you, John, tell the men to put the body in the forensic tent and keep everyone else back.’ Twenty minutes later she was squinting, her eyes only slowly adjusting from the darkness of the Wasdale night to the brightness of the tent interior. She lit a Marlboro, patient as the pathologist finished his notes.

Doctor Lionel Dawson was in his late fifties, balding, of a squat build and significantly overweight. Hoagan smiled, sardonically, he was still dressed in what she assumed were his gardening clothes.

‘Interesting case this, chief inspector,’ Dawson stood up, his face showing the tireless enthusiasm of the career scientist. ‘Where would you like me to begin?’

Hoagan took a long pull on the cigarette, it was not helping much. She often envied those who had a less keen sense of smell than herself. ‘Just tell me what you know,’ she replied; making it clear she did not share his excitement. She produced a voice-activated pocket tape recorder and placed it on the table near the feet of the body.

Dawson nodded and consulted his notes. Hoagan took her first real look at the greyish yellow, partially bloated remains and was shocked at how young the girl looked.

‘The body is that of a white female, height approximately five feet three inches. Age...I’m going to put her age, tentatively, at around eighteen.’

‘As old as that?’ Hoagan was surprised.

‘Yes, there’s a little tolerance on that of course. Some of us look our years, some don’t, that’s life I’m afraid. I’ll try to firm up on age at the full PM.’ Hoagan nodded, gesturing for him to continue. ‘Death appears to have been caused by strangulation,’ Dawson pointed to bruising around the neck. ‘The body has been subjected to multiple stabbings and in the case of the breasts, mutilations.’

She followed the movement of the ruler Dawson was using as a pointer; as he had observed the body had numerous stab wounds, also the girl’s nipples had been removed.

‘Christ!’ said Hoagan, ‘looks as though we have a right fruit cake here! How the hell do I tell the poor kid’s parents about this?’ That was not Dawson’s problem and he merely shrugged. ‘Can you say whether the stabbings and mutilations were ante or post-mortem?’ she asked.

‘Yes, but that will take at least a week. Adjacent tissue will have to be examined for evidence of bleeding.’

‘How long after death do you think it was before she was put in the lake?’

Dawson shook his head. ‘Too early to say; too many variables.’

‘Can’t you make an informed, unofficial guess?’

‘Unofficially, I would say that she’s probably been dead for one to two weeks, especially bearing in mind the apparent total lack of animal damage to her body. However, it will be six to seven days at the earliest before I’ll be in a position to go firm on that.’

Hoagan nodded gratefully, Dawson had a reputation for being a stickler for facts; he also enjoyed a similar one for invariably being correct. ‘Thank you,’ she began, ‘that’s useful.’

Dawson moved to the girl’s head and opened her mouth. Both rows of teeth were decayed, especially the bottom. ‘The condition of the teeth is interesting,’ he began. ‘I’m not a dentist, but I do know this condition can be explicable through cocaine abuse.’

‘Really?’ Hoagan sounded sceptical. ‘Not sweets, chocolate, pop; I mean, effectively she’s only a child, isn’t she?’

Dawson shook his head. ‘It’s the extent of the decay, especially when one considers that, in the UK, we have free dental care for people up to this age. All her deciduous teeth have gone, these are adult teeth. For these to have deteriorated so quickly I feel that there may have been an aggravating factor.’

Hoagan shrugged her shoulders, Dawson’s theory, if proved correct, could be of use. Drug taking was an expensive hobby, invariably paid for by crime. If the girl was on drugs the chances were she would have a criminal record. Aside from revealing her identity, a search of her files may say much about her biography. Perhaps even reveal the name of her killer! She made a mental note to have the girl’s fingerprints distributed to all UK forces as quickly as possible.

Dawson moved to the girl’s legs. ‘I’ve removed the chain, you might find this interesting.’ He moved the corpse onto its side; again Hoagan followed the pathologist’s pointer.

‘What does it say?’ she asked.

‘VFI,’ said Dawson. ‘It appears to have been cut into the flesh with a sharp knife.’

‘VFI?’ Hoagan screwed up her face in disgust. ‘Surely to God he hasn’t carved his own initials into her body.’

Dawson shook his head. ‘Not my area; knew you’d want to be told about it though.’

Hoagan nodded. ‘Yes, if you’ve finished we’ll get some shots before she goes to the mortuary.’

*

It was nearly ten o’clock before Hoagan was ready to leave Wasdale. As she opened the door of the police car she once again turned towards the screes, just under a third of a mile away across the water.

‘Are you all right, ma’am?’ Her driver looked concerned.

‘Oh yes...yes, I’m fine thanks,’ she replied. ‘For a moment I felt...oh it doesn’t matter, just take me home please.’

*

The man who had been watching the activity across the water lowered his binoculars and glanced skywards. It was too dark now for him to consider trying to navigate the dangerous scree-path. He had brought warm clothes with him, in anticipation of a long and cold night outdoors and he would now wait until dawn; then, in the half-light, would begin to make his own, very cautious, way home.

*

Hoagan walked out of the mobile incident room into the pleasant warmth of the April afternoon. The normally quiet and peaceful dale had become a scene of intense police activity. A large area of ground, adjacent to that part of the lake where the girl’s body had been found, had been cordoned off. She watched, with professional interest, as over thirty police officers crawled across this sanitised area, carrying out a painstaking fingertip search. In the lake itself, divers were trying to ascertain if more bodies were lying there, silently awaiting discovery. This was a particularly difficult task; Wastwater was large and its depth made the search extremely limited. She moved her gaze across the lake towards the, thankfully, no longer threatening screes. The unpleasant sensation of the previous day had now disappeared, nor was she experiencing the unnerving and inexplicable presence of evil. She smiled, whimsically; quite clearly, yesterday she had been oversensitive. Extreme violence, especially a murder case, often upset her. As a professional police officer she was always telling herself that she should distance herself from emotion but she was only human and therefore could not always obey her own good advice. There were too many memories; she herself had once been there, at the brink, at the very edge of the abyss. She shrugged and still deep in thought, began to walk, slowly, along the edge of the lake.

The young police officer’s dog-like eyes followed her, as once again the breeze pushed the blue cotton dress against the contours of her still firm and youthful looking body. Earlier, in the incident unit, he had been impressed by her beauty, that indefinable mature, graceful beauty; often unpredictable in youth and that so few women really acquire as they enter middle age. The chestnut hair cut in a bob, the well-formed facial features, only possible with a flawless bone structure, the laughing, hazel eyes and white teeth; framed against a tanned and almost, blemish-free skin.

The gravelly voice of a committed career smoker brought him back to reality. ‘Are you listening to me lad?’

PC David Broadbent quickly turned away from the window and sat beside his superior. ‘Yes, sir, sorry, sir.’

Detective Inspector John Hawthwaite smiled with understanding. ‘Good looking woman, isn’t she?’

The twenty-year-old probationer constable was embarrassed and he started to fiddle, nervously, with his pen. ‘Hmm, yes, I suppose she is, sir; bit old for me though; I mean, I know it’s hard to believe but they do say that she’s...well – that she’s over forty.’

Hawthwaite chuckled. ‘One should never discuss the age of a lady, Broadbent, didn’t your mother ever tell you that?’

The young PC’s face turned crimson. He tried to change the subject slightly. ‘Is it true what they say about her and that terrorist bloke?’

Hawthwaite moved his six foot five inch frame into a more comfortable position in the chair and pushed a thoughtful hand through thick, greying hair. ‘There’s been lots of things said about Kate Hoagan over the years lad, most of it bullshit, but some of it true.’

The younger man looked in anticipation at the well-lined, baggy-eyed, hunted face of his inspector. Disappointment replaced the emotion as Hawthwaite looked at his watch.

‘It’s lunchtime lad, go and make us a brew.’ Hawthwaite caught the probationer’s look of disappointment and grinned. ‘Then I might just tell you everything you always wanted to know about DCI Hoagan – but never dared ask!’

*

Hawthwaite sipped at the hot tea before taking a bite out of the pre-packed ham and tomato sandwich. He studied the younger man, carefully, his keen, blue eyes noting the thick, dark hair and aggressive good looks; the resemblance to the former force detective chief superintendent, albeit a few years ago, was uncanny. ‘Did your uncle never tell you about Mrs Hoagan?’ he asked.

‘No, sir, I know that as the detective chief super he would know all about her but he’s never told me anything. He hardly ever talks about work.’

Hawthwaite looked surprised, put down his half-eaten sandwich, lit a cigarette and leant back in the chair. ‘I’ve known Kate Hoagan for nineteen years. She joined the force as a graduate, at the age of twenty-one.’

‘What was her degree in, sir?’

‘Politics...I think,’ Hawthwaite laughed. ‘God knows how she managed that, at times she’s the most politically incorrect person I’ve ever met! Anyway, by the time we were celebrating our twenty-third birthdays Kate was married, me nearly so. I was her tutor constable for a time, so we worked together, in the same sub-division, from the same nick.’

‘Where was that, sir?’

‘Ambleside,’ Hawthwaite paused, his expression suddenly nostalgic, ‘they were great times, those twelve months. We had youth, energy, money and with the Lake District as our beat one of the biggest playgrounds in England to enjoy all three.’ His expression suddenly darkened. ‘Then, one wet, March night, it was all blown away by a madman!’

He took a long pull on his cigarette, talking slowly, more thoughtfully. ‘Kate had married a high-flyer, an Irishman called Jack Hoagan. Like me, he was one of the original sixty-nine entry of police cadets.’ He laughed, wryly. ‘With divorce rates reaching forty percent these days it sounds corny to say it but they really were devoted to each other.

Well, in the early hours of this particular night shift, Sergeant Jack Hoagan was driving his Panda through the town of Ambleside. At about three a.m. he clocked two men in a Ford Escort RS Two Thousand and I suppose his training and natural curiosity got the better of him. Anyway, he radioed in the vehicle’s index number and sure enough – bingo! It had been stolen in London the week before!’

Hawthwaite stubbed out the cigarette and started nibbling at the remains of the sandwich. ‘Jack told his sub-divisional control room that he was going to have words with the driver. Less than two minutes later, Ambleside Nick was swamped with three-nine calls.’

‘What had happened?’ asked Broadbent.

Hawthwaite smiled, sadly. ‘The good burghers of Ambleside were not used to the sound of gunfire at three in the morning and wanted reassurance that the earth was still safely revolving on its axis.’

‘And Jack Hoagan?’ asked Broadbent.

Hawthwaite held up a hand, indicating patience. ‘The radio operator at Ambleside was an old timer; he put two and two together immediately, especially as he couldn’t raise Jack. He informed HQ who put out a county alert. They knew what type of vehicle they were looking for from Jack’s radio call; they also had the index number. Kate was on duty that night, she was part of an experimental rapid-response team. They had the use of a high-powered, three-litre Capri. There were two of them, Kate and an older, much more experienced officer – John Wilson. Their brief was to tour the southern part of the county and be ready to assist the conventional lads in case of really serious trouble.’

‘Conventional?’ asked Broadbent.

‘Kate and her colleague were armed! That was certainly unconventional in nineteen seventy-seven. They were just off the A-Five-ninety, parked up in lay-by having their bait when the call came through. All they were told was that there had been reports of gunfire in Ambleside. There was no mention of Jack, or even that an officer had been shot, just the description of the suspect vehicle and that the occupants were probably armed.’

Hawthwaite threw the crust of his sandwich to a black-headed gull, patiently guarding the incident unit door. Another one arrived from nowhere and stole it. ‘They took off immediately of course’, he continued, ‘heading west and they’d just turned right at Newby Bridge when a car, driven at a suicidal speed, came towards them from the direction of Ambleside. It was a Ford Escort RS2000, being driven so erratically it very nearly forced Kate, who was driving, off the road.

‘What did she do then?’

‘Turned round and gave chase, at times they were both touching a hundred. As you know that road is notoriously dangerous today, it was ten times worse sixteen years ago!’

‘What happened?’

‘As I said, Kate was driving. She was about four hundred yards behind the Escort; she’d lost a lot of time turning the Capri round in the narrow lane to Ambleside you see. As she approached High Newton, she’d lost sight of the suspect vehicle but she could just make out slow moving headlights coming towards her. Then, inexplicably, they stopped dead. A sixth sense, woman’s intuition, whatever you want to call it, told her to slow down. She was glad she did for as she came round the first of the series of bends she saw it!’

‘Saw what?’ Broadbent was becoming extremely agitated with Hawthwaite’s protracted narrative style.

The inspector grinned, he enjoyed storytelling and he regarded Broadbent’s impatience as a compliment to his art. ‘The Escort had taken those bends at something like sixty miles an hour. Dangerous to say the least at the best of times, with a wide load heading for the Barrow shipyard coming the opposite way...!’

‘Bloody hell! What happened?’

‘The lorry driver had obviously swerved to avoid a collision. Unfortunately the road was quite wet; the trailer jack-knifed and pushed the cab into an old beech tree at the side of the road. He must have been travelling at a fair old lick himself; although the tree stopped the lorry dead it didn’t stop the steel plates. They just kept on going, cutting their way through the cab, the driver even the beech itself. As Kate came round the bend she was just in time to see the tree crash down on the remains of the cab!’

‘And what of the men in the car?’ asked Broadbent.

‘They’d taken avoiding action by swerving up the left-hand banking. It’s very steep there and they went over their centre of gravity. After landing back on the road they slid along upside down for a hundred yards, eventually ending up facing west, the direction they had come from.’

To the further annoyance of Broadbent, Hawthwaite paused again, this time to light another cigarette. ‘They checked out the lorry driver first, waste of time of course, he was sat on top of the plates with his legs under them.’ He waited momentarily for the anticipated expression of disgust from his listener and, not disappointed, continued. ‘Then they made their way to the car.’

‘You mean that they just ambled over towards the Escort, without properly covering each other?’

Hawthwaite once more held up a cautionary hand. ‘The car was on fire, in fact by the time they reached it, it was well away. Too hot for them to get closer than about thirty feet and they couldn’t make out whether anyone was still inside. There was nothing for them to do really, other than get reinforcements, call out the fire service and make the scene safe for other approaching motorists. They were just about to take up station to do that, one at the eastern approach, one at the western, when Kate saw John Wilson’s head explode, Just like an overripe melon dropped onto a concrete floor, so she said.’

‘Christ! What did she do?’

‘She didn’t comprehend what was happening at first. Think about it, what would you do if my head were suddenly to explode in front of you? Not your average every day event, is it?’

The younger man shook his head with awed and terrified understanding.

‘She watched Johnny Wilson’s knees buckle, staring at him as he collapsed onto the floor. Then, suddenly, she’d joined him. Something had hit her in the chest, no noise, nothing, just a blow to the chest as though someone had hit her with a sledge hammer. For a moment she simply lay there, in shock I suppose. She was in a lot of pain too but as it turned out she’d not actually been shot, not as such anyway.’

‘I’m sorry, sir, I don’t think I follow.’

‘The bullet had hit her pocket radio, in the NiCad batteries of said, to be precise. That’s what saved her. However, in doing so it had rammed the thing into her chest, breaking a couple of ribs. One of those ribs had punctured her lung; therefore, naturally, she thought she’d been shot. It was then that she heard the laughter.’

‘Laughter?’ Broadbent sounded confused again. ‘Who in God’s name was laughing?’

‘Well, Kate said it was more of an insane giggle rather than a laugh. As I said earlier, the RS Two Thousand was on fire and by this time it was blazing like hell itself. Just after she heard the giggling she saw a man walking towards her, quite slowly and silhouetted by the flames. Her first instinct was to raise her weapon which, oddly enough, she’d managed to hang onto. Then she saw the sub-machine gun the man was holding, a Sterling Patchet, very accurate, very, very silent! She decided that as he was already covering her, discretion was the better part of valour. She just lay there and let him come on.’

‘Who was he?’ asked Broadbent.

Hawthwaite’s expression now changed to one of intense hatred. ‘Sean Liam O’Malley, better known to his friends, and enemies alike, as – Doctor Sean O’Malley; a complete psychopathic killer and fucking nutter extraordinaire!’

‘Doctor?’

‘A nickname acquired due to his penchant for the chain saw; you see he was an amputation specialist. Most of his ilk kneecapped as a punishment, or used a drill. O’Malley preferred to leave them something more permanent to remember him by. Or should I say remove something more permanent? Dependent upon the gravity of an offence he would take a hand, an arm or a leg. But he always boasted that he was never a thief and sure enough, a few days later, the severed limb was delivered back to the home of the victim; usually via the unwitting services of the Royal Mail!’

‘Good God, that’s, that’s...that’s sick!’ by now Broadbent was beginning to feel quite ill; Hawthwaite noticed.

‘You all right, lad?’ he asked.

‘Yes...yes, I’ll be all right, sir...but tell me, was he IRA?’

‘No, they wouldn’t have him, he was too much of an individual, wasn’t a good fit into a team. So he and his brother started up their own little band of friendly assassins specialising in attacks on economic and political targets in mainland Britain. Special Branch thought that he’d probably been doing a recce at Windscale on the night of Jack Hoagan’s murder.’

‘Windscale?’

‘The former name of Sellafield – the nuclear re-processing plant.’

‘So what happened to Kate...I’m sorry, DCI Hoagan?’ Broadbent was anxious to hear the end of the story.

‘O Malley came and stood over her, teasing her with the machine gun. He pointed it at different parts of her body, making as though he was about to shoot, then changing his mind. As I said he was a nutter, he was just playing with her; you know, on some kind of power trip. Kate knew she was finished; she just lay there staring up at him, looking at his hideous eyes. They were illuminated by the blazing car, black and evil they were, she said. She still has nightmares about those dreadful eyes to this day.’

‘Did he speak to her?’

Hawthwaite shook his head. ‘No. he just giggled, insanely, all the time.’

‘How long did this go on for?’

‘She can’t remember, she said that it seemed like hours, but...in a situation like that, putting a time on things is difficult. I suppose it probably wasn’t more than a couple of minutes.’

‘What saved her?’

‘There was a very loud bang, like a gunshot. The investigation team thought at the time it was probably a burning tyre exploding. Anyway, whatever it was, it distracted O’Malley for a crucial couple of seconds. He was standing side-on to the car and as he turned, instinctively, towards the sound Kate just took her opportunity; she brought up her Walther PPK and emptied the magazine into him. She’s a damned good shot is Kate; seven times she hit him...in the back, and as he fell he dropped the Sterling onto the road, causing it to discharge a round into his leg. The bastard had loaded it with dum-dum bullets and the round nearly blew it clean off!’

‘That was ironic,’ observed Broadbent.

Hawthwaite nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes lad, you’ll find there are lots of ironies in police work.’

‘You said there were two men in the car, what happened to the other?’

‘Burnt to death, a fitting end for a man who had the blood of over a dozen people on his hands; he was also thought to have been responsible for the attempted bombing of an Army barracks on the mainland.’

‘And Jack Hoagan was dead?’

‘Oh yes, O’Malley shot him three times with a handgun. He was DOA at Barrow Hospital, I’m afraid.’