to answer for him.
When he spoke, even his voice was different. The timbre was rougher, the tones deeper.
"I blended in. I took care. I watched and I learned."
Tony swapped chairs again.
"You obviously did a good job of it," he said.
"How did you choose them?"
Back into Andy's chair.
"I liked them. I knew it would be special with them. I wanted to be like them. They all had good jobs, a nice life. I'm good at learning things, I could have learned to be like them. I could have fitted into their lives."
"So why kill them?"
"People are stupid. They don't understand me. I was the one they always laughed at, then they learned to be afraid of me. I don't like being laughed at, and I'm tired of people being wary of me, like I'm some animal that's going to go for them. I gave them a chance, but they didn't give me any choice. I had to kill them."
Tony sank back in his own chair.
"And after you'd done it once, you realized that was the best thing in the world."
"I felt good. I felt in control. I knew what was going to happen. I'd planned it all out, and it worked!" Tony surprised himself by the degree of enthusiasm that came out. He waited, but nothing more seemed to emerge.
He returned to his own chair.
"Didn't last for long, did it? The pleasure? The sense of power?"
In Andy's chair, he felt at a loss for the first time. Usually, he found role play loosened up his ideas, let his thoughts flow free.
But something was clogging this up. That something was clearly at the heart of the issue. Tony moved back to his own seat and thought about it.
"Serial killers act out their fantasies in their crimes. The crime itself never lives up to the fantasy, so it has limited power. Its details are incorporated into the fantasies, which are then realized in a second, often more ritualistic killing. And so on. But as time goes by, the fantasies have less and less staying power. The killings have to get closer and closer together to keep the fantasies fuelled. But your killings don't get closer together, Andy. Why is that?"
He moved across, not hopeful. He allowed his mind to blank, letting his consciousness drift off, hoping it would come up with an answer that might satisfy his idea of Andy. After a few moments. Tony felt himself slipping away from consciousness. All at once, from what felt like a long way away, a deep chuckle rumbled through him. "That's for me to know and you to find out," his own voice mocked him.
Tony shook his head like a diver coming to the surface. Dazed, he got to his feet and snapped the blinds open. So much for alternative techniques. What was interesting, however, was the point at which his brain had snagged. This was one of the factors about Handy Andy that was unique. The gaps stayed constant. Even allowing for his use of a cam corder it was still remarkable.
The line of thought restored Tony's earlier vigour and he decided to take a side trip to the university library's media-studies section where he went through the back numbers of the Bradfield Evening Sentinel Times for the appropriate dates. A careful scrutiny of the entertainments pages revealed little in common between the four evenings in question, unless he was prepared to consider that the local art cinema always showed classic British black-and- white comedies on Mondays. Somehow, he couldn't imagine Passport to Pimlico fuelling homicidal sexual fantasies. Finally, just after seven, he was ready to start on the profile.
He started with the usual caveat.
The following offender profile is for guidance only and shouldn't be regarded as an identikit portrait. The offender is unlikely to match the profile in every detail, though I would expect there to be a high degree of congruence between the characteristics outlined below and the reality. All of the statements in the profile express probabilities and possibilities, not hard facts.
A serial killer produces signals and indicators in the commission of his crimes. Everything he does is intended, consciously or not, as part of a pattern. Uncovering the underlying pattern reveals the killer's logic. It may not appear logical to us, but to him it is crucial. Because his logic is so idiosyncratic, straightforward traps will not capture him. As he is unique, so must be the means of catching him, interviewing him and reconstructing his acts.
Tony continued the profile