Like This, for Ever

business?’
    All eyes turned to the profiler.
    ‘Renfield’s Syndrome
is
a recognized psychiatric condition,’ said Richmond. ‘But it’s very rare. On the TV this morning, Dr Hunt gave quite the opposite impression, but I’d be willing to bet a lot of practising psychiatrists have never heard of it. I’ve spent the last hour trawling the internet, printing off every published article I can find and there isn’t much.’
    She opened the blue file on the desk in front of her and took out several sheets of paper, website pages that she’d printed off. Several members of the assembled MIT glanced over; no one moved to pick one up.
    ‘What is it again?’ asked Anderson, who was picking at a loose piece of skin just below his right ear. ‘What that Hunt geezer called it?’
    ‘Renfield’s Syndrome.’
    ‘And it means an obsession with drinking blood?’
    Richmond nodded. Around the room, people were shooting uncomfortable glances at each other. Dana could feel Weaver stiffening at her side. ‘Human blood?’ he asked.
    ‘Ultimately, yes, but not exclusively,’ said Richmond. ‘People who have this condition experience a craving for blood that gets out of control. It’s believed that it stems from the idea that blood has life-giving powers. It makes you stronger, more potent, live longer, that’s the general idea.’
    ‘I knew I shouldn’t have had black pudding for breakfast,’ said Anderson.
    ‘The term was coined by a psychiatrist called Richard Noll,’ said Richmond. ‘He named it after a character in this book.’ From her bag, she took a paperback with a black cover and handed it to the nearest person, Stenning.
    ‘Bram Stoker’s
Dracula
?’ he said.
    ‘Stoker’s Renfield is a character in an asylum,’ said Richmond. ‘He’s insane and he’s obsessed with consuming other creatures. He eats every insect he can get his hands on and spends his days trying to capture birds. He begs his doctor to get him a kitten so he can eat that, too.’
    Weaver’s nostrils twitched. Without turning his head, he reached out towards Stenning for the paperback.
    ‘According to Noll,’ said Richmond, ‘the condition begins with a key event in childhood in which an injury involving blood, or the swallowing of blood, is seen as exciting. The child will then experience a growing interest in blood. He’ll be fascinated by roadkill, he might enjoy licking his own wounds and scratches.’
    ‘We all do that,’ said Weaver, looking up from reading the cover blurb.
    ‘Yes, but for most people it’s an instinctive reaction, we’re trying to soothe the wound and keep it clean. These people are enjoying the taste, and the sensation of blood in their mouths. As they get older, they’re likely to start inflicting wounds on themselves, so that they can swallow blood. This stage is known as auto-vampirism. They start with self-induced cuts and scrapes and eventually learn how to open major blood vessels.’
    She paused, giving the team time to take it all in.
    ‘The next documented stage is called zoophagia,’ she went on. ‘That means eating living creatures and drinking their blood. When the child reaches puberty, he or she starts to associate the swallowing of blood with sexual arousal. After that, the next stage is clinical vampirism in its true form, acquiring and drinking the blood of living human beings. Sometimes the blood is stolen, from hospitals and laboratories, quite often it’s consensual. It’s often linked with consensual sex. But in the more extreme manifestations, the sexual activity and the vampirism may not be consensual.’
    ‘Why didn’t you say anything about this before?’ Weaver, as Dana had expected, was running low on patience. She’d learned some time ago that his calm exterior wasn’t necessarily a reflection of what was going on inside. He was surprisingly short-tempered for such a still man.
    ‘Please bear with me,’ said Richmond. ‘On the one hand, I can seewhere Hunt is coming from with this. When children are taken by strangers and found dead, the natural assumption is that they’ve been the victim of a paedophile.’
    ‘But there’s no evidence of sexual abuse on any of the boys,’ said Dana.
    ‘Exactly,’ agreed Richmond. ‘So we look at what else he might want from them, and there is no doubt that he is taking their blood.’
    Across the room the phone rang. Anderson answered it.
    ‘God, the bloody media will have a field day when we admit we’re