If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
― Friedrich Nietzsche
Am I a monster, or just misunderstood?
The line from The Burden of Day song keeps going through my head.
There's something wrong when you start seeing things with regularity you've never seen before over twenty years of police work.
I've hunted serial predators, rapists, torturers and killers—but lately, I've been finding all four aspects present, in the work of one depraved mind.
The latest victim is a sixteen year-old girl. She was found, with her throat slashed, raped and brutally tortured—and her body buried under the floorboards of a Glasgow church.
Yes, there are monsters among us—and now we're dealing with some of the worst.
I'm Detective Superintendent Alan Marks of Scotland Yard and my partner is Rebecca Mitchell. We've been sent to Glasgow to investigate what appears to be a series of murders stretching back over fifteen years.
The public is often mystified murders can go undetected, but until there's a body, there are simply missing persons—and we have hundreds of those.
Hindsight is sometimes the only way we ever know the extent of a killer's long career.
"I can't believe the brutality of this attack."
Rebecca is shaking. After twenty years on the job, I still can't get used to the sight of a beautiful young girl horribly disfigured and mutilated.
"What's the girl's connection with the church?" I ask the rector.
"She worked doing odd jobs—secretarial duties, even some light cleaning."
"Anyone else employed?"
I ask.
"The organist, the janitor and a woman accountant who comes in once a week."
"We'll need to interview all three."
The priest is visibly upset. "Yes, of course."
He points to the nearby rectory, "—Do you mind?"
"No, Father. We can take it from here."
Rebecca was standing in the nave, staring up at the fresco on the ceiling and rubbing her arms.
We had seen enough.
"Come along Sergeant, we can leave this to forensics to wrap up."
She looks relieved.
We walk back through light rain to the car.
"Coffee?" I ask her.
"I'd love one," she sighs as the wind sweeps round the corner of the building, and makes her shiver.
"In case you're wondering," I say as we get in, "it doesn't get easier. I don't blame you for being upset. I'm shaken myself—this is one of the worst I've seen."
"Really?"
I nod. "You're holding up fine, Rebecca."
I watch her breathing come a little easier. She needs to be reassured.
In the coffee house, we go over the details.
None of the church employees has a criminal record. We're stymied—until I get a call from headquarters—the motor vehicle registration of Morris Lewis, the janitor, doesn't check out. It's fake and they're now running his photo through facial recognition.
"Have we got an address for the janitor?" I ask Rebecca, and she begins flipping through her notes.
"Yes—here it is. He lives in Kinning Park, not far from here."
My cell rings again and I pick up. I shake my head at her and she waits until I finish.
"Our janitor is Brian Fieldstone—an identified sexual offender—served ten years for stabbing an eighteen year old girl in Brighton."
"Bloody hell—and he's working in a church."
I shrug.
"That address is a long way off," she says.
"They're checking his previous addresses—it doesn't look good."
We pay out tab and head out to Kinning Park, but neither of us expect to find Fieldstone there.
He lives in a row house on a quiet street. The neighbours tell us they saw him briefly that morning—he left in a hurry in his Austin Mini carrying only a few things.
"We'll alert the local police to search for the vehicle, but I figure he's dumped it by now."
She's frustrated. "What do you think he'll do?"
"Hole up somewhere for a while."
I figure Fieldstone will go by train or bus to a nearby city—someplace large where he can disappear—perhaps find a short-term rental or stay with a friend. He'll be hard to trace.
By mid-afternoon, the background check on Fieldstone is looking grim. They've found a previous identity and an address in Bristol.
"Looks like our boy's moved around and kept changing his name. I'm going to get warrants to search the house in Bristol and this one here in Kinning Park—maybe dig up the gardens and see if anything turns up."
Two days later, we're rewarded. The garden in Kinning Park contains two partially decomposed bodies, but forensics is able to match dental records with two missing girls from Cardiff.
I look helplessly at Rebecca. "How many people did this man kill?"
We both know we're just entering the race—a sport he's excelled in for at least fifteen years.
It doesn't look good.
By week's end, we turn up ten more identities and addresses in England and Wales.
It seems he's never remained in one place for longer than six months.
Another two weeks of warrants and digging and we have ten victims from all over the U.K.—all of them reported as missing persons.
I'm beside myself. "Damn! We need a break here."
We get it that afternoon.
A forty-year blonde woman asks to meet with us. She's read the newspaper reports and says she was married briefly to Terrence Tobin—one of the many identities of our missing killer.
She sits nervously sipping tea and rambling through details of life with Terrence.
"I met him when I was seventeen and fell totally for him. He was so gentle and understanding. We went out for three months and he never laid a finger on me."
Rebecca's sitting at her desk, chin resting on her hand, as she studies the woman. She seems fascinated by her account.
"Then one day, Terrence asks if I'd like to see his flat. I agree and we spend the afternoon, but then it's late and I know Mum will be looking for me. I say I have to leave and suddenly two arms push by me and shut the door.
He holds a knife to my throat and forces me back into the room."
I watch Rebecca—she can't take her eyes off the woman.
"He raped me and forcibly confined me until he was sure I would be too scared to cry out. Once I did scream, and he stabbed me in the side. I never cried out after that."
"Did your mother report you missing?" I ask.
"No, she didn't. I think she figured since I was a headstrong girl, I'd run off with him and she felt she'd give me some space."
"How did you end up married to him?" Rebecca asks.
"He got me to forge my parents' signatures and we got married. Every time we walked down the street and he saw a policeman, he'd push me into the nearest shop. I knew he must have done something else—something really bad, but he didn't talk about it."
Rebecca's fascinated. "How did you get away from him?"
"He and a friend were taking me for a drive in the country. I just knew I wouldn't come back alive. I saw an Inn and told him I needed to use the washroom and we could get coffee. He agreed and I spoke to the cleaning woman I met upstairs and told her I was being kidnapped—that Terrence had a knife. She believed me and within fifteen minutes they arrested Terrence."
"Do you have any idea where Terrence could be staying?"
She nodded. "His family had an old summer house near Brighton. The aunts that owned it hardly used it—we stayed there for several weeks once."
We get the particulars and are in the car within minutes.
Rebecca's leaning forward in the passenger's side as if urging the car to go faster. Her jaw's clenched.
An hour and a half later we're outside the ramshackle cottage.
Rebecca guards the rear while I take the front.
As I approach the door, I see movement inside.
I call for Tobin to open and when he doesn't I kick the door in.
In a moment, I'm standing in the front room, watching Tobin, standing behind Rebecca, an arm wrapped around her, his hand holding a knife to her throat.
"Oh no, you don't Copper—stand right there, or I'll cut her."
I have no doubt he will. He's dragging Rebecca backwards and moving toward the rear door.
"Don't follow and she won't get hurt."
I don't believe it for a moment.
He keeps moving backwards and is almost through the door.
Rebecca senses the point of no return—she kicks backward at his shins and as he pitches forward slightly, I fire and hit him square in the temple.
He crumples in the doorway and Rebecca pitches forward into my arms.
It takes a long time for her to stop shaking. Finally, she does. But neither of us have the slightest remorse about Tobin's death. It's the best outcome under the circumstances.
The monster has been tracked and killed, but it's little consolation.
In the end, a dozen young victims are found—there may have been more. We'll never know.
Tobin never revealed any details of his crimes. He was utterly heartless—with no sense of human compassion, no feeling at all for the suffering of his victims or their surviving kin.
We expect animals to lack compassion; we expect people to be human.
The problem here is with a human being, a monster.
The human being is capable of compassion but chooses instead to maim and kill.
There are still monsters out there, lurking in our cities, watching and waiting.
We study them; we profile them.
The cleverer they become, the craftier we must be—but with one caveat—they must remain a mystery.
We can never fully understand our monsters, because in order to know them, we have to become them….
And that’s something I never want to do