Page 104 of Deadly Cry

‘You got any photos?’ Penn asked, printing something off behind her.

She reached for the file that had been pushed to one side.

‘Here,’ she said, pushing the open file across the desk at the page he was after.

He took the file to the copier and then handed it back.

‘You know something,’ Stacey said as a sudden thought occurred to her, ‘if we’re right, I’ve actually spoken to two of his victims.’

Both Penn and Alison looked her way as she continued, ‘And there was a great disparity in their accounts. Gemma’s attack was vicious, brutal and included a knife. Lesley somehow got a sense that when he attacked her he didn’t really want to do it, that there was emotion, tenderness.’

‘You’re kidding?’ Alison asked, and even Penn was frowning hard.

‘Tenderness and rape do not go in the same sentence.’

‘Exactly, but where does that leave us now?’

‘More confused than ever,’ Alison said, turning back to her notes.

Eighty-Five

Having learned from their first visit to the graphologist’s house the previous day, Kim accepted Reg’s wife’s offer of coffee, aware that she was going to get it anyway.

‘Okay, let’s get started,’ Reg said, taking a notepad from beside the well-watered plant.

‘So we’re going to start with the letter T, which shows more personality traits than any other letter of the alphabet.

‘Our subject is ambitious and self-confident. The T bars are high but not right at the top. That would be overly ambitious with distant goals. The heaviness of the subject’s T bars in relation to the rest of the writing indicates lower than average levels of willpower.’

‘Our subject—’

‘He,’ Kim interrupted.

‘I cannot state that,’ Reg said, peering over the top of his glasses.

‘You can’t tell the gender?’ Bryant asked.

He shook his head. ‘As all people possess both masculine and feminine components, it would be at best a guess. Not unlike a painting in a gallery or a novel with an androgynously named author. You may guess at the gender, but you couldn’t be sure. Similarly, we are unable to detect the age of the subject. Some people are mature for their age and others are immature.’

‘Okay, please continue but refer to the subject as male.’

‘As a reference, I will, but not as a judgement. The sub… sorry… he does not exhibit any traits of domination, as the T bars don’t slant down. There is enthusiasm in the long sweeping T bars, but it does not demonstrate procrastination. His T’s do show a measure of initiative, but the upsweep of the T bar shows self-castigation. Blame for things not his fault.’

‘Really?’ Kim said, sitting forward.

‘He doesn’t show a tendency to temper, as the T bar is not to the right of the stem. When the T and D stems are very high, there is vanity and ego has taken over; but see these loops on the T and D stems, they indicate he is sensitive to criticism.’

Kim glanced at Bryant. Thank goodness she hadn’t publicly berated him as she’d been instructed.

‘And this wide gap between the upstroke and the downstroke at the base of the letters T and D: he is stubborn.’

‘But you said he lacked determination,’ Kim said, frowning.

He thought for a moment, taking time to find an example as Henrietta brought in a tray laden with coffee, mugs and delicately cut pieces of Battenburg cake.

All three of them thanked her, and Bryant moved forward to pour from the cafetière.

Reg held up his hand to signal no coffee for him. ‘Okay, look at it this way, determination is the ability to climb to the top of the tree for the best apple even though you’re tired. Stubbornness is the refusal to move out of the way so someone else can’t get past you and take the apple.’