"How's the victim, Sarge?" Zain asked, perching on the edge of his desk and breaking off from his heated debate with Suzie as Sam and Jo walked back into CID.
"Critical. He's left her with a fractured skull – serious blunt trauma, possible brain damage – stab wounds to her chest and abdomen and numerous fractured ribs. It also appears she was tied up this time, she has rope injuries to both wrists consistent with her arms being tied above her head. We'll be getting photographs of her injuries as soon as their printed." Sam cleared her throat as she considered how she was going to broach the subject of Jo's mission with the rest of the team, knowing they would have the same objections she did and not sure she would be able to assuage their fears when she was persistently being haunted by images of Jo lying in St Hugh's suffering injuries similar to those she had just described. "Jo has brought to my attention that her current…erm situation has given us a perfect opportunity to lure this man into the open. She has volunteered to return to her home after changing her details with the gas company in the hope that our guy will pick up her details and see another potential victim. I've cleared the operation with DCI Meadows so I need volunteers to keep an eye on Jo's house, watch discreetly if anyone is showing an unusually high interest in her schedule." Sam paused waiting for the barrage of objections and was not disappointed.
"No way! Absolutely no way!" Cried Zain.
"Are you insane?" From Suzie, directed at Jo and Sam in equal measures.
"No disrespect but it'll never work, it's like dangling your fishing rod in the middle of a trawler net and hoping the fish grabs your line. There's going to be hundreds if not thousands of people changing their details every day, what chance is there of him picking up Jo's? And no offence Jo but after the last week, you're hardly in the right frame of mind to be taking on something like this." Phil drove straight to the point, as always.
"Oh, thanks very much." Jo retorted as she listened to her colleagues outline their disapproval. "This guy's target area is not all that wide, my house happens to be as close to the centre of it as you can get – how many more women are going to find themselves suddenly single within such a narrow area? I'm going to go on record when I phone the company, feed them the whole sorry sob story about my girlfriend leaving me hence the name change, which is what the other victims have done. It might not work but at least we'll have tried everything we possibly could to catch this vicious rapist before he can taint another woman's life."
"And if he does bite? What then?" Zain asked the question on everyone's lips.
"Then we arrest him, bring him in, get a DNA sample from him and hope it matches against those taken from the other victims." Jo listed, as though talking to a particularly dumb child, eyebrows arched as if daring anyone to challenge her logic. Reluctantly, seeing that the decision had already been made and was out of their hands, Suzie, Phil and Zain volunteered to take shifts watching Jo's house from another building across the street.
"I'm also going to ask uniform to discreetly keep an eye on the area. The Superintendent is giving a press release which will state an increased presence of uniformed officers will be in place, which as well as reassuring the public also gives credibility if our guy sees one or two patrol cars. Hopefully, it won't spook him enough to make him think Jo is an unattractive target,"
"Not much chance of that!" Phil couldn't resist, adding a wink in Jo's direction for good measure.
"Thank you Phillip." Sam admonished him gently, the sparkle in her eyes betraying her amusement, "as I was saying, hopefully he is arrogant enough to assume the police presence is not an issue he needs to worry about."
"Sorted, I'll get onto Easigas then." Jo walked away from the rest of the team, hearing the mutterings begin anew about her sanity volunteering to act as bait in such a case. "Hi, I need to change the billing details on an account." Jo turned her concentration to the young sounding woman at the other end of the telephone, butterflies stirring in her belly as she put her plan into action, hoping against hope that she didn't live to regret it.
"Can I take your account number please?" Jo recited it looking at the bill in front of her having picked it up on the way back from the hospital. "And are you the account holder?"
"No that's the thing, the account holder has actually moved out. It was in my name, about five years ago but more recently it's been in the name of Miss Tessa Abraham. I need it switching back to my name, Miss Joanne Masters." Jo became aware of Sam hovering by her desk, fidgeting with a pile of files balanced on the edge of the pending tray.
"Can you confirm the first line of your address and your postcode for me please?" Again Jo recited the necessary details. "Would it be possible to speak to the account holder?"
"As I said, Tessa no longer lives with me, we split up, rather acrimoniously. I don't know where she is and I doubt very much she'd do anything I asked of her. Is it really necessary? I mean, I'm not wanting any details of her, I just want the name of the account changing to my name." Jo pulled a face letting Sam know that she had managed to find a real jobs-worth, determined to do everything by the book.
"Just bear with me a moment, while I speak to someone about this."
As she was put on hold, Jo commented to Sam, "surely I'm not the first person to want to change the name on an account without being in the same place as the account holder. She's checking with someone if she can do it."
"Maybe she's new, not sure of all the procedures yet." Sam reasoned.
"Or maybe she's feeding the information to someone else, someone who likes stalking, abducting and torturing women maybe!" Phil supplied as he passed the desk having overheard Jo's comment.
"Sorry to keep you waiting. I can update your details for you now. What name is the account to be transferred into?"
"Miss Joanne Masters."
"And for security purposes, can I take your date of birth?"
"Fifth of April 1964." Jo saw Sam mentally working out the arithmetic, shooting her a look inviting her to comment at her peril. Sam for her part stored that priceless nugget of information away for a later date, determined to remember Jo's birthday even if she had to set a reminder on her mobile to aid her.
"And your mother's maiden name?"
"Lucas."
"Can I take a contact telephone number for you?"
After reeling off her mobile number by heart, the brunette cheekily asked, "anything else you need to know: bra size, inside leg measurement?" Jo chuckled at Sam's shocked expression.
"I don't think that'll be necessary, thank you. Our system is asking me for a reason for the name change – did you say Miss…er…Abraham left the residence?"
"Yeah, she was having an affair with a man she works with which didn't really fit with my idea of the perfect lesbian relationship. We argued, she stormed out presumably to be with him while I'm left alone." Jo winked at Sam, scribbling on her notepad furiously. Sam turned the pad towards her after Jo had completed her message, not sure if she shared Jo's enthusiasm that she thought this was promising.
"I'm sorry to hear that Miss Masters. I've updated your details for you and someone will be round within the next week to read the meter so that you are only solely responsible for what you use from then on, anything used before that will be billed to Miss Abraham. Is there anything else I can help you with today?" Having already caused Sam to blush once, Jo could not resist the temptation to try again.
"Not unless your cute, single and up for a date?" Jo was not disappointed by the reaction she gained from both Sam and the telephone operative.
"I'm afraid I'm not in the habit of mixing business with pleasure. Goodbye." The phone-line went dead as the young woman hung up, probably thinking Jo was some weird butch lesbian on a crusade to sleep with any female she came into contact with.
"DC Masters, interesting angle, I don't remember propositioning the staff being in the brief." Sam felt a little uncomfortable with Jo's show of bravado, knowing if was honest with herself it was due, at least in part, to jealousy.
"Call it a hunch Sarge. This guy's into teaching women lessons in submission, I took a chance that he won't like a woman who thinks she's God's gift!" Jo shrugged off Sam's admonishment, still revelling in the faint blush barely visible on Sam's cheeks.
"You have a lot to do before your house is inhabitable again, why don't you take the rest of the shift off? Take the time to sort things out and then you can feel a bit more comfortable living there temporarily. I know it'll take more than tidying up to rid the place of bad feeling but at least it'd be a start. I'll square it with the DCI." Sam could not shake her sense of foreboding now that there was no going back from Jo's plan, never having been satisfied to sit back and wait for things to happen.
"Thanks Sarge, I could use the time to clear up." Jo offered Sam a small smile, struggling to keep from calling her Sam at work, suddenly feeling lonely at the prospect of going back to the house.
"Will you come round later, have something to eat with Abi and I? I'll only worry about you otherwise." Sam spoke quietly, the sudden switch from boss to friend catching Jo slightly off guard.
"Sure why not, think I'll have had enough of my own company by then! I'll come round about seven-ish if that's ok?" Jo answered warmly before grabbing her scarf and jacket, wrapping up against the cold as she waited for confirmation before venturing outside.
Following Jo's departure, Suzie Sim ended a phone call which infinitely raised the stakes of Jo's gamble. "Sarge, we've just had a phone call from St Hugh's. Emily Walker died half an hour ago from her injuries. She had an underlying infection which wouldn't normally have given her any trouble but with the damage she'd suffered to her spleen, her body couldn't fight it." Suzie's face was grave as she delivered the news all of the detectives had been fearing ever since the first victim had reported her ordeal.
"Ok, so now we're looking at him for manslaughter, possibly murder as well as abduction, rape, grievous bodily harm and anything else we can get him on. If any of you needed any added incentive for pulling out all the stops to catch this guy, this should be it, we can't afford for any more women to fall into his hands." Sam felt panic grip her at the thought of Jo suffering a similar fate as the sixth victim, her sense of foreboding deepening. "What have we got from the gas company in the way of names? Anyone with a record or looking interesting?"
"There are one or two names that stand out. One in particular, Mark Somerton, could be worth talking to again. He seemed cagey and nervous, not altogether unusual I know, but he's moved here fairly recently from the Northeast, been with the company twelve months. There was a previous accusation of sexual assault that was never proven when he lived in Sunderland. Could be he's just defensive because of that but he had a pretty light schedule on each of the days the six victims were abducted, might have given him time to snatch them, take them somewhere and work out the rest of his day before returning later."
"Ok, bring him in, I want you and Zain to talk to him again, make sure whether he's a serious contender." Sam wrote his name on the board with a question mark beside it, knowing it was the closest they had got to a solid suspect and that they had Jo in part to thank for it. "I'll have a word with the DCI, see if I can organise some surveillance.