do have some new information on how he might be abducting the boys in the first place,’ said Dana. ‘The pathologist found evidence of carotid baroreceptor compression on both the latest victims.’
Of all the people in the room, only the profiler looked mystified.
‘You’ve heard of pressure points?’ Dana asked her. ‘Points of the body where relatively modest amounts of pressure can cause disproportionate levels of pain.’
Richmond nodded slowly.
‘Police officers are trained to use pressure points to restrain and subdue difficult and violent suspects,’ Dana continued. ‘They’re of limited use, frankly, because people’s natural reaction when faced with pain is to fight against it rather than submit. The trick is to take them by surprise, get them in some sort of limb lock, then get the cuffs on quick.’ She got up and crossed to where Richmond was sitting. ‘I’ll give you an example,’ she said. ‘Let’s imagine you’re a protestor, sitting on the ground, refusing to budge, and I want to move you.’
She moved to behind Richmond’s chair and placed three fingers beneath Richmond’s jawbone on either side of her chin. ‘OK with that?’ she asked.
‘OK so far,’ replied Richmond. ‘Whoa!’
With barely any effort, Dana had pulled upwards, lifting Richmond just a centimetre or two off her seat. She let her go.
‘Wow,’ said Richmond, rubbing her jaw.
‘Another second or so and you’d probably have pulled free,’ said Dana, ‘because you and I are very similar in terms of weight and strength. If Pete did it to you, on the other hand, you’d probably have to do exactly what he wanted you to.’
‘So with a size advantage as well, pressure points can be a very effective way of subduing someone?’ Richmond asked, still looking uncomfortable. ‘So was that used on the Barlow brothers?’
‘No,’ said Dana. ‘The bruises on the boys were lower on the neck, round about here.’ On her own neck, she indicated two points on either side of her throat. ‘Baroreceptors are a sort of gauge that control blood pressure in the body. One on either side of the neck. Apply pressure to both of them and they send a signal to the brain that the body’s blood pressure is dangerously high. So the brain responds by lowering it. What happens when your blood pressure falls?’
‘You feel dizzy, faint,’ said Richmond. ‘Eventually you pass out. Well, that would certainly explain how he got them away quietly. They were in a faint.’
‘It’s not that easy though, is it, Boss?’ said Anderson. ‘It’s not like the Vulcan Death Grip, one squeeze and you’re down. It takes a minute or two, from what I can remember. And it’s far from reliable.’
‘Neil’s right,’ Dana told Richmond. ‘It’s also exceptionally risky, which is why the police don’t use it. But if an adult is using it to subdue a child, I’d say the child could be incapacitated in less than a minute.’
‘Who would know about this?’ asked Richmond.
‘Anyone trained in combat of any sort,’ said Anderson. ‘Police, armed forces. Even people who study martial arts. Frankly, though, I’ve seen kids doing it. My son and his mates went through a phase of torturing each other with pressure points.’
‘OK, well that is helpful,’ said Richmond, giving her neck one last rub. ‘Thank you. I’d like to look now at what he does with the bodies. And the first thing that strikes me is that he wants them to be found quickly. Leaving Tyler to one side for a moment, he leaves them in places where they’ll be seen within hours. He’s making no attempt to hide them, he wants everyone to know what he’s up to. He’s enjoying the attention. But he’s still careful. He knows the river will cover his tracks after a few hours. He picks places where there’s no CCTV and where he has a good chance of getting in, offloading the body and disappearing again. Quiet, but not too quiet, and always at low tide.’
‘He knows the river very well,’ said Mizon.
‘Yes, he does,’ agreed the profiler. ‘OK, now we get to the interesting stuff. All five victims are Caucasian males, aged ten or eleven. When boys of this age are killed, it’s usually either gang related, involving a close family member or sexual. This appears to be none of those. Something on your mind, Sergeant?’
Anderson had been making faces at Dana, gesticulating that now was the time to bring up her killer-as-a-woman theory. She looked at the floor.
‘Apparently not,’ he said.
‘Is the means of death important?’ asked Stenning.