RGANIZED OFFENDER CHECKLIST

Jacko Vance

Re: MIS PER cluster

High birth order Only child.

Father's work stable

Civil engineer often away from home for prolonged periods on long-term contracts.

Absent father See above.

Parental discipline perceived as inconsistent

See above; also, mother appears to have suffered postnatal depression, rejected JV and later treated v. strictly.

Higher than average IQ

Regarded as bright by teachers but never did as well as expected academically; poor exam performer.

Skilled occupation, work history uneven

First as a champion javelin thrower then as TV presenter; perfectionist, prone to temper tantrums and firing junior members of team; if not for medal-winning prowess popularity with TV audience, would have lost several contracts over the years because of arrogant and overbearing behaviour.

Socially adept; may be gregarious and good talker, but can't connect emotionally

See above; relates very well to members of the public on superficial level; however, one of reasons why his marriage is perceived as so successful is that he appears to have no intimate relationships with either gender outside that relationship.

Living with partner

Wife, Micky, been together for twelve years. A very public marriage, the golden couple of UK TV. However, often away from home both on business and on extensive charity work.

Controlled mood during commission of crime Unknown: but Vance is known in the business for coolness under pressure.

Use of alcohol or drugs during commission of crime Unknown. No history of drink problem, some hint that there may have been a problem with painkiller addiction following accident in which Vance lost his arm.

Mobile; car in good condition

Vance has a silver Mercedes convertible and a Land Rover. Both are automatics and have been adapted for his disability.

Follows crimes in the media

He's perfectly placed to do this he has direct access to all areas of the media. He numbers many journalists among his circle of acquaintance.

Victims share common characteristics Yes see appendix A on original cluster of seven victims.

Unsuspicious demeanour

Millions of people would trust him with their lives or their daughters.

In a poll four years ago, he was voted the third most trustworthy person in Britain after the Queen and the Bishop of Liverpool.

Looks average

Impossible to comment objectively. The gloss of celebrity, grooming and an expensive wardrobe makes it hard to judge beyond the facade.

Mental illness in immediate family

Nothing known; mother died eight years ago, cancer.

Alcohol or drugs problem in immediate family Nothing known.

Parents with criminal records Nothing known.

Emotional abuse

Mother reportedly told him he was ugly and clumsy, ' like your father'. Mother appeared to blame him for his father's absences.

Sexually dysfunctional incapable of mature, consensual relationship with another adult

Nothing to support this: marriage very public. No indications that MM unhappy with marriage or has lover. ??? Check newspaper gossip columns ??? Check with uniforms on local patrol any signs ???

Cool, distant mother; very little touching or emotional warmth as child

Implied in both books.

Egocentric world view

All the evidence even from MM's adoring account -supports this.

Beaten as child

MM recalls him speaking of his father coming home from trip and thrashing him for failing eleven-plus; otherwise, nothing known.

Witnessed sexually stressful situation as child, e.g. marital rape, mother engaged in prostitution Nothing known

Parents separated in childhood or early adolescence Parents divorced when he was twelve. According to MM book, his obsession with athletics was bid to gain father's attention.

Autoerotic adolescence Nothing known.

Rape fantasies Nothing known.

Obsession with pornography Nothing known.

Voyeuristic tendencies

Nothing specific known; but of. Vance's Visits, the ultimate poke-your-nose-in television.

Aware his sexual emotional relationships are abnormal and resents it Nothing known.

Obsessive Attested to by work colleagues and rivals alike.

Irrational phobias Nothing known.

Chronic liar

Several instances of him '' past incidents; compare two books.

Initiating stress or

Jacko Vance's first girlfriend was Jillie Woodrow. He was unsuccessful with girls before her, and by the time they got together, he was almost sixteen and she was just fourteen. Apart from his obsessive sports training, she was his only interest. They had a relationship that was exclusive, compulsive and consuming. He appears to have been a dominating influence upon her. They were engaged as soon as she turned sixteen, opposed by her parents and his mother; he was no longer in touch with his father by this time. After the accident when he lost his arm, MM's account claims he set Jillie free since he was no longer the man she'd contracted to marry; TB's version is that she had been looking for a way out of the claustrophobic relationship for some time and fixed on his accident as a way out, claiming she was repelled by his injury and the prospect of living with a man with a prosthesis. MM and Vance got together shortly afterwards. Just before they married, Jillie did a 'kiss and tell' with the News of the World revealing that Vance had forced her to indulge in sadomasochistic rituals, tying her up to have sex in spite of her protests that it frightened her. Vance tried to prevent the story's publication, denying it vigorously. He failed to get an injunction, but never sued for libel, claiming that he couldn't afford the legal process. (Probably true at that stage in career.) Either the end of the relationship with Jillie in such stressful circumstances or her subsequent revelations could have been a powerful enough stress or to trigger off the first in Vance's series of crimes.

"Oh, shit," Carol said as she reached the end of Shaz's analysis. "You really have to wonder, don't you?"

"You think Jacko Vance could be a serial killer?" Kay asked.

"Shaz thought so. And I think she might have been right," Tony said grimly.

"There's something bothering me about this," Simon said. Encouraged by a questioning look from Tony he continued. "If Vance is a sociopath, how come he saved those kids and tried to rescue that

lorry driver in the accident where he lost his arm? Why did he not just leave them to it?"

"Good point," Tony said. "You know I hate to theorize ahead of the data, but looking at what we know so far, I'd say Jacko spent most of his formative years desperate for attention and approval. When the accident happened, he automatically went down the road that would make him look good in other people's eyes. It's not uncommon for what looks like heroism to be a desperate craving for glory. I think that's what happened there. If you still think we're barking up the wrong tree, let me tell you about a conversation I had with Commander Bishop this afternoon." He told them about Shaz's appointment with Vance and the conclusions he'd drawn from that.

"You're going to have to let Mccormick and Wharton know about this file," Carol said.

"I don't feel much like it, the way they treated me."

"You want them to put Shaz's killer away, don't you?"

"I want Shaz's killer put away," Tony said firmly. "I just don't think those two have the imagination to deal with the information. Think about it, Carol. If I tell them what we've found here, first off, they won't want to believe it. They'll think we've tinkered with her files.

I can just imagine the interview with Vance. He slipped effortlessly into the broad Yorkshire of his childhood. "A'right, Mr. Vance, we're sorry to trouble that, but we think the lass here last Saturday thought that were a serial killer. Daft, that knows, but seeing as ' she got herself murdered that night, we thought we'd better come and ' a word. "Appen that might've seen sum mat some weirdo following her, like."

"They're not that bad, surely," Carol protested, spluttering with laughter in spite of herself.

"You ask me, he's being generous," Leon muttered.

"They're not going to go in and interrogate Jacko Vance," Simon said.

"They're going to be overawed, they're going to be on his side. All they'll do is mark his card."

"And Jack the Lad is a clever bastard," Tony continued. "Now he knows they know about Shaz's visit, he'll be the biggest Goody Two Shoes on legs. So there's part of me that thinks, no, don't tell them."

There was a long silence. Then Simon said, "So what now?"

Tony had taken a notepad from the laptop bag and Started sc

scribbling. "If we're going to do this, we've got to do it right.

Which means I act as controller and co-ordinator. Carol, is there a local take away that delivers?"

She snorted with derision. "Out here? Do me a favour. There's bread, cheese, salami, tuna, salad stuff. Give me a hand, team, we'll throw some but ties together while our leader cogitates."

When they returned fifteen minutes later with mounds of sandwiches and a mixing bowl filled with crisps, Tony was ready for them. Sprawled round the room with bottles of beer and plates of food, they listened while he explained what he wanted them to do.

"I think we're all agreed that on the balance of probabilities, Shaz was killed because of the work she'd done since she came to Leeds. There's no indication that she had any kind of personally threatening experiences up to that point. So we take as our starting point the assumption that Shaz Bowman correctly identified the existence of an as yet unknown serial killer of teenage girls." He raised his eyebrows in a question and noted four nods.

"The external connector in these cases concerned Jacko Vance. Shaz assumed him to be the killer, though we shouldn't fail to consider that our target could conceivably be someone in his entourage. Me, I'm inclined to go for Vance."

"Good old Occam," Simon muttered wryly.

"Not just on the least complicated principle," Tony said. "My view is coloured by the length of time these killings apparently cover. I don't know if there's anyone who has been professionally close to Vance for that long. Even if they had, I'm not convinced that they would have the charisma to lure young women into what looks superficially like a runaway bid.

"So, we've got Shaz's profile of Vance. It's inevitably superficial.

She only had access to what was in the public domain that she could get her hands on readily. That seems to have consisted mainly of two biographies, one written by his wife, the other by a showbiz hack. We need to dig a lot deeper than that before we can check whether this man is a serious possible for the series of killings we're postulating. This is an unusual job for us profilers. Usually we're making deductions from crime to offender. This time, we're going from putative offender to hypothetical murders. I don't feel entirely confident about it, if I'm honest. It's fresh territory for me. So we need to be very careful before we put our heads anywhere near the parapet." More nods. Leon stood up and moved across to the door

way so he could smoke without polluting everyone else's food.

"We get the message," Leon drawled. "Our missions, should we choose to accept them, are ... ?"

"We need to track down his fiancee, Jillie Woodrow. The person responsible for interviewing Jillie should also carry out a general investigation into his early life family, neighbours, school friends, teachers, any local bobbies still on the payroll or recently retired.

Simon, are you up for that?"

Simon looked apprehensive. "What exactly do I do?"

Tony signalled to Carol with his eyes. "Find out everything you possibly can about Jacko," she said. "Deep background. If you want a cover story for everyone except Jillie, say we're investigating threats against him and we think the reason may lie deep in his past. People love a bit of melodrama. With Jillie, that won't work. It might be worth hinting that you're investigating allegations made against Jacko by a prostitute, perhaps imply that you suspect they're malicious lies?"

"OK. Any ideas how I find her, given that I haven't got access to the

PNC?"

"I'll get to that in a minute," Tony said. "Leon, I want you to start digging into what was going on in his life around the time of the accident where he lost his arm. That and his early TV career. See if you can find his old trainer, the first people he worked with when he was starting out in sports' broadcasting. Athletes on the British team with him, that sort of thing. OK?"

"Just watch me," Leon said, cold and serious for once. "You won't be sorry you asked me, man."

"Kay, your job is to go round the parents of the girls Shaz identified in her cluster and re-interview them. All the usual whisper stuff, plus anything and everything you can pull out about Jacko Vance."

The local lads should be more than happy to hand off their case files to you," Carol put in. "They'll be so delighted that somebody else is prepared to take responsibility for such a no-hoper, they'll probably give you the freedom of the nick."

"All of which DCI Jordan here will set up for you in advance," Tony continued. "She will be your facilitator, the one who speaks to ranking officers in other police stations around the country and gets you the information that will kick-start your inquiries. Stuff like where Jillie Woodrow is now, what happened to Vance's coach, which victim's parents have moved to Scunthorpe."

Carol stared open-mouthed for a long moment. Leon, Simon and Kay looked on with the delight of adolescents watching grown-ups on the verge of behaving badly. "Fine," she eventually said, her voice loaded with sarcasm. "I have so little to do at work, it'll be a pleasure fitting it in. So, Tony, what are you going to be up to while the rest of the squad are doing all the hard graft?"

He reached for a sandwich, checked the filling, then looked up with a smile that appeared entirely free from guile. "I'm going to shake the tree," he said.

Detective Inspector Colin Wharton looked like a refugee from one of those dreadfully predictable gritty northern cops-and-robbers dramas that the networks churned out to fill the gap between the late news and bedtime, Micky thought. Once handsome in a craggy way, too much drink and junk food had blurred his features and shrouded his blue eyes in heavy pouches. She imagined him on a second marriage which would be in trouble; the kids from his first marriage would be the teenagers from hell; and he'd have a vague but worrying recurring pain somewhere in his internal organs. She crossed her legs demurely and gave him the smile that had reassured a thousand studio guests. She just knew he'd be a complete sucker for it. Him and Detective Constable Sidekick, who looked one step away from asking for her autograph.

She glanced at her watch. "Jacko should be back any minute. It'll be the traffic. Same with Betsy. My personal assistant."

"You mentioned that," Wharton said. "If it's all the same to you, we might as well get started. We can talk to Ms. Thorne and Mr. Vance when they get here." He consulted a folder spread across his tightly trousered lap. "I'm told you spoke to DC Bowman the day before she died. How did that come about?"

"We've got two phone lines one for me and one for Jacko. They're ex-directory, very private. Only a handful of people have the numbers.

I switch mine over to the mobile when I'm out and DC Bowman came through on that. It must have been about half past eight on Friday morning I was with one of my researchers at the time, she could probably confirm that." Realizing she was wallowing in inconsequentiality, too obvious a marker for nervousness, Micky paused for a moment.

"But it wasn't your researcher?" Wharton prompted her.

"No. It was a voice I didn't recognize. She said she was Detective

Constable Sharon Bowman from the Metropolitan Police and she wanted to arrange an appointment with Jacko. My husband."

Wharton nodded encouragingly. "And you said?"

"I told her she'd come through on my line and she apologized and said she'd been told this was his private number. She asked if he was there, and when I said he was away she said could she leave a message. I don't normally act as Jacko's secretary, but since she was with the police and I didn't know what it was about, I thought it would be best just to make a note of what she wanted and pass it on to him." She smiled, aiming for the self-deprecating air of a woman unsure of herself faced with authority. It was a blatant performance, but Wharton didn't seem to notice.

"Sensible approach, Ms. Morgan," he said. "What was the message?"

"She said it was merely a formality, a routine matter, but she'd like to interview him in connection with a case she was working on. Because of her other commitments, she said it would have to be Saturday, but she'd happily fit in with his arrangements. The time and place would be up to him. And she left a number where he could get back to her."

"Do you still have that number?" Wharton asked, just another standard question.

Micky picked up a notepad and held it out to him. "As you see, we start a fresh page for each day. It's a catch-all phone messages, programme ideas, domestic bits and pieces." She handed it over, pointing to a few lines near the top of the page.

Wharton read, "Det. Con. Sharon Bowman. Jacko. iv ???Satur-day???

you name time + place. 307 4676 Sgt. Devine." That confirmed the telephone statement Chris Devine had already given them, but Wharton wanted to double-check. This number ... is it London?"

Micky nodded. "Yes. 0171. Same code as ours, that's why I didn't bother writing it down. Well, it would be, wouldn't it? She was with the Met."

"She was on secondment to a unit in Leeds," he said heavily. "That's why she was living there, Ms. Morgan."

"Oh God, of course," she said hollowly. "Do you know, for some reason that just hadn't registered. How odd."

"Indeed," Wharton said. "So, you passed the message on to your husband and that was that?" he said.

"I left the message on his voice mail. He mentioned later that he'd arranged for her to come to the house on Saturday morning. He knew I wouldn't mind since Betsy and I were going off on Le Shuttle on a freebie. Perks of the job." She gave him the full-beam smile again.

Wharton wondered sourly why the women in his life never managed to look so gratified when they spoke to him.

Before he could ask the next question, he heard footfalls on the parquet floor of the hall. He half-turned as the door opened behind him. His first impression of Jacko Vance was a sense of tremendous energy contained within expensive tailoring. There was something irresistibly watch able about him, even doing something as banal as crossing the room and extending his left hand in a gesture of welcome. "Inspector Wharton, I presume," Vance said warmly, affecting not to notice the policeman's fluster as he half-rose, reached out with the wrong hand then clumsily shifted his papers and grabbed at the proffered hand in an awkward shake. "I'm Jacko Vance," he said, pretending a humility Micky recognized as false as her own. "Desperate business, this." Vance turned away from the detective, nodding a friendly greeting at the hovering constable and dropped on to the sofa next to his wife. He patted her thigh. "All right, Micky?" His voice dripped the same concern he always showed the terminally ill.

"We've just been going over DC Bowman's phone call," she said.

"Right. Sorry I'm late. Got held up in traffic in the West End," he said, his mouth curling upwards in a familiar self-deprecating smile.

"So, what can I tell you, officer?"

"Ms. Morgan passed a message on to you from DC Bowman, is that right?"

"Absolutely," Vance said confidently. "I called the number she'd left and spoke to a detective sergeant whose name I have completely forgotten. I said that if DC Bowman came to the house on Saturday morning between half past nine and noon, I would see her then."

"Very generous, a busy man like yourself," Wharton said.

Vance raised his eyebrows. "I always try to help the authorities when I can. It didn't inconvenience me in any way. All I had planned for the day was to catch up on some personal paperwork then drive up to my cottage in Northumberland in time for an early night. I was running a charity half-marathon at Sunderland on Sunday, you see." He leaned back negligently, fully expecting his throwaway line to be noted, believed and filed away in support of his innocence.

"What time did DC Bowman arrive?" Wharton asked.

Vance pulled a face and turned to Micky. "What time was it? You were just leaving, weren't you?"

"That's right," she confirmed. "Must have been around half past nine.

Betsy could probably tell you more exactly. She's the only one in the house with any sense of time." She smiled wryly, amazed at how ready this policeman was to accept that two major TV personalities who anchored key programmes couldn't measure time instinctively to the last half-minute. "We more or less passed on the doorstep. Jacko was on the phone upstairs, so I pointed her in here, and we were off."

"I didn't keep her waiting more than a couple of minutes," Vance continued seamlessly. "She apologized for interrupting my weekend, but I explained that in this job, we don't really have weekends. We take time for ourselves when we can, don't we, darling?" He gazed adoringly at her, slipping his arm round her shoulders.

"Not often enough," Micky sighed.

Wharton cleared his throat and said, "Can you tell me what it was DC Bowman wanted to talk to you about?"

"You mean, you don't know?" Micky demanded, the dormant news reporter inside her springing into action. "A police officer comes all the way from Yorkshire to London to interview someone with as high a profile as Jacko, and you don't know what it was in aid of?" She looked astonished, leaning forward, forearms on thighs, hands spread open.

Wharton shifted in his seat and stared fixedly at a point on the wall between the two long windows. "DC Bowman was attached to a new unit.

Strictly speaking, she should not have been on operational duties at present. We think we know what she was working on, but as yet we have no independent corroboration of that. It'd help us a lot if Mr. Vance could just tell us what transpired between the two of them on Saturday morning." He breathed out heavily through his nose and shot them a quick look that mingled embarrassment and pleading.

"No problem," Vance said easily. "DC Bowman was very apologetic about invading my privacy with her questions, but she said she was working on a series of missing teenage girls. She thought they had been lured away from home by the same individual. It appeared that some of these girls had been at one of my public appearances shortly before they dropped out of sight and she wondered if some nutter was targeting my fans. She said she wanted to show me pictures of the girls, just in case I'd noticed them talking to a particular person."

"One of your entourage, you mean?" Wharton prompted, proud of knowing the right word.

Vance laughed, a rich baritone laugh. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, Inspector, but I don't exactly have an entourage. When I'm doing the programme, I have a team who work very closely with me. Sometimes when I'm doing PAs public appearances, that is my producer or my researcher will come along to keep me company and provide a bit of back-up. But that apart, anything I spend on minders or whatever comes out of my pocket. And since most of the work I do involves earning cash for charities as well, it seems crazy to spend any more than is absolutely necessary. So, as I explained to DC Bowman, there are no loyal retainers. What there is, however, is a hard core of devotees. There are, I suppose, a couple of dozen fans who turn up regularly at virtually every event I do. Strange people, but I'd always considered them harmless."

"It's a mark of celebrity," Micky said matter-of-factly. "If you don't have your retinue of attendant weirdos, you're nobody. Badly dressed men in anoraks and women in polyester slacks and acrylic car dies All of them with dreadful haircuts. Not the sort your average teenage girl would run off with, take it from me."

"Which is pretty much what I told DC Bowman," Vance continued. They were so smooth, so natural, he thought. Maybe it was about time they made some programmes together. He made a mental note to explore the idea with his producer. "She showed me a few photographs of the girls she was concerned about, but none of them rang any bells." His shrug was disarming. "Not surprising. I can sign upwards of three hundred autographs at a PA. Well, I say sign ... scrawl would be more like it." He looked ruefully at his prosthetic hand. "Writing's one of the many things I can't do properly any more."