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Mother undid her seatbelt as PC Sullivan parked alongside. Sat there, staring out through the rain-strafed window at Helen MacNeil’s house. ‘Maybe we should wait till morning?’
‘You know what Oldcastle’s like: entire police force leaks information like a colander.’
Sullivan stiffened. ‘That’s not—’
‘Yes it is, and keep your gob shut.’ I grabbed my walking stick. ‘We hold off till morning, this place will be swarming with soggy journalists, wanting to know what it’s like living next door to a serial killer. Won’t take much for her to put two and two together.’ Turned my collar up, and climbed out into the storm. Let the wind slam the car door shut for me. Then banged my hand down on the roof three or four times, raising my voice over the wind. ‘DI MALCOLMSON, ARE YOU COMING OR NOT?’
Her door opened and she joined me on the pavement, face a sour sagging scowl. ‘This is what I get for answering my phone after midnight. I never learn …’ Hunching herself up, lumbering after me as we shouldered our way through the gusts to Helen MacNeil’s front door and the relative shelter of her grubby caravan. She rang the doorbell, then tucked her hands deep in her pockets. ‘And how come I’m “DI Malcolmson” now, you always used to call me Mother.’
I frowned at her. ‘You’ve been calling me “Mr Henderson” ever since I turned up.’
‘I thought you were upset with me for some reason.’ She took a hand out again and patted me on the back with it. ‘Ash.’
Ah, why not: ‘Mother.’
Still no sign of life from the house, so I leaned on the bell again, keeping my thumb there as it drinnnnnnnnged. Ringing on and on and on and on and—
‘WHAT?’ The door was yanked open, and there stood Helen MacNeil, wrapped up in a tatty old blue dressing gown, bare legs and feet poking out the bottom. Glaring at us with puffy eyes. Short grey hair flat on one side. Fists ready.
Mother looked at me. Raised her eyebrows.
Coward.
I stepped forwards. ‘Helen, can we come in, please? I’m … afraid we have some bad news.’
She sat there, staring at me.
I shifted on the couch. ‘Are there any questions you’d like to ask?’
Helen MacNeil looked down at my phone again, clutched in her trembling hands. At the image filling the screen: a smiling young woman in an ugly orange-and-brown one-piece swimming costume, face covered in freckles, mousy-blonde hair tucked behind an ear, rolling sand dunes behind her.
PC Sullivan emerged through the living room door, carrying two mugs in each hand, steam rising off them in the chill air. He put the lot on the rickety coffee table, then held one out to Helen. ‘Milk and three sugars.’
She blinked. Shook her head. Voice hollow and distant. ‘This has to be a mistake …’
And again, Sullivan had the common sense to keep his gob shut.
Mother helped herself to a mug and did the same.
Typical.
‘Do you recognise the photograph, Helen?’
‘Gordon wouldn’t hurt Sophie. He wouldn’t. He’s been like family to us, ever since I was a wee girl. This is bollocks!’
‘It’s definitely her, though, in the picture?’
‘I … It’s …’ She placed a fingertip on the screen. Then placed my phone on the coffee table, stood, and marched out of the room.
‘Pffff …’ Mother looked at me over the rim of her mug. ‘You have to feel for her.’
‘And are you planning on chipping in at any point, or do I have to do everything now?’
A smile, then Mother leaned forward and patted me on the knee. ‘But you’re doing so well.’
‘You can stuff your patronising—’
Helen marched back in, holding out a Polaroid. ‘Look.’
It was almost identical to the one we’d found hanging up in next door’s basement. Taken either just before, or just after it. The main difference being that in this version, the woman in the bathing suit was holding a beaming toddler in a pink sundress, floppy white hat on its head. Pinholes speckled the white plastic edges of the photo and its colours were more faded too. A slight grey patina to the whole thing.
‘Gordon and Caroline took them for a bank holiday weekend in Aberdeen, when Leah was eighteen months. I was three years into my sentence …’
I turned the Polaroid over: ‘BALMEDIE BEACH’ printed on the back in neat black felt pen.
‘Had it pinned above my bed, in my cell. And every time I saw it, I’d think about them,’ Helen narrowed her eyes at me, ‘and what I’d do to you when I got out.’
The Polaroid clicked down against the coffee table. ‘I’m sorry.’
Her chin came up. ‘So what if Gordon had a photo of Sophie in his house? He was like a grandfather to—’
‘There’s another photo. It’s …’ What good would it do, telling her what he’d done to her daughter? No parent should have to know that. ‘Sophie didn’t end her own life. She was murdered.’
‘If there’s another photograph, I want to see it!’
All that blood and pain and horror, captured in one horrible three-inch by three-inch square.
‘No.’ I stood. Put my phone back in my pocket. ‘Trust me, you really don’t.’
8
‘… statement that the Justice Secretary, Mark Stalker, has the First Minister’s complete support.’
And we all knew what that meant.
‘Thank you, Janet.’ On the TV screen, a greasy wee man in a too-tight suit pulled on his serious face for the camera. ‘Police Scotland are expected to confirm, later today, that remains of a small boy, found in woods to the south of Oldcastle, are those of missing four-year-old, Lewis Talbot. Our crime correspondent Hugh Brimmond is live at the scene for us now. Hugh?’
Outside, it was still dark, the city’s lights twinkling in the inky black, as I scooped up another spoonful of porridge. With salt, not sugar. Washed down with a sip of decaf tea.
Rock and roll.
A broad-shouldered rugby type appeared on screen, standing in the dark with some trees behind him, lit up by the headlights of passing cars, rain thrumming down on a red-and-white golf brolly. ‘That’s right, Bob. We’re here in a large stretch of woodland known locally as “The Murders”, a name from the sixteenth century that’s been horribly prescient …’
‘Urgh …’ Alice slumped her way in from the kitchen, clanked a big mug of coffee down on the dining table, and collapsed into a chair. Folded over forwards and rested her forehead against the cool glass surface as I finished off the last of my breakfast.
‘… bringing the tragic death toll to three young boys, all under the age of six.’
‘Morning.’
‘I said, “Urrrrrrgh!”’ Not looking up.
The greasy guy in the suit was back. ‘Sport now, and Inverurie Loco Works are looking to make it a hat-trick today as they go up against favourites, Buckie Thistle …’
‘Well, whose fault is that, then?’ Downed the last dregs of tea, picked up my bowl and stood. ‘Briefing’s at quarter to, so better get your bumhole in gear.’
‘URGH!’
‘Don’t “Urgh” me. You know what Jacobson’s like when people are late.’ Putting on a fairly decent impersonation of the man, even if I say so myself: ‘“I’d like to remind everyone that LIRU also stands for ‘Late Is Really Unprofessional’.”’ Back to normal. ‘Hairy wee tosspot that he is.’
A tad harsh, maybe, but what did you expect at quarter past seven on a Saturday morning?
Alice folded her hands over her head. ‘Urgh …’
‘Don’t care. Go get ready.’ The flat’s kitchen wasn’t bad: enough space to throw together a decent meal, if you actually had the time. The clunk-scuff of my limping echoed back from slate tiles and shiny white flat-panel kitchen units.
‘… opening games of the new season. And now here’s Valerie with the weather.’
I stuck the porridge pot and my bowl in to soak. Rinsed out my mug. Raised my voice so it would carry through into the living room. ‘You’ll be shocked to hear there’s been nothing on the news about Gordon Smith and his basement of horrors.’
‘Thanks, Bob. We’ve got an unsettled couple of days ahead as Storm Trevor continues to track north …’
‘Alice?’ Back through the kitchen door.
She’d barely moved. Slumped there, arms dangling, face screwed shut. Groaning.
Oh, for God’s sake.
My old walking stick wasn’t exactly pristine – the varnish worn off the handle, the rubber tip blackened and cracked – but it was perfect for poking people, so I did. Right in the shoulder. Putting some weight behind the thing. ‘You: wretch. Arse in gear. I want your teeth brushed, face washed, hair combed, and ready to go in five minutes.’
Alice’s response was barely audible, ‘Urgh …’
We followed the curling cobbled sweep of Shand Street, down the hill, moving from one yellowy patch of streetlight to the next – Henry trotting along at my side, Alice’s folding umbrella drumming in the rain that pummelled down from a coal-grey sky. Tiny rivers gurgling in the gutters. Past darkened shops with ‘TO LET / MAY SELL’ in the windows. Boarded-up newsagents, tea shops, and empty banks. A couple of charity shops and a bookies still held on, the grilles down over their grimy windows, waiting for the day to begin, but the baker’s was open.
‘Wait here.’ I handed her Henry’s lead, ducked out from under the brolly and limped inside. Came back out again with a mince bridie, a beetroot-and-stovies pie, and a cheese-and-onion pasty, all three turning the paper bag they shared semi-transparent with grease. Handed them over. ‘Get those down you.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Eat.’
She passed me the umbrella and Henry, then grimaced at the bag’s contents. ‘Don’t feel well.’
‘Trust me: nothing better for a hangover than baked stuff in pastry.’
‘Why do you have to be so mean to me?’ But Alice pulled out the bridie, steaming in the cold morning air, bringing with it the rich savoury scent of hot meat and butter, scrunched her eyes closed, and ripped out a big bite. Getting wee golden flakes all down the front of her parka.
Henry bounded along beside her, nose up, sniffing the pastry-scented air. Making hopeful noises as we headed downhill towards St Jasper’s Lane.
‘Right, soon as the team briefing’s over, I want to go jangle Steven Kirk again.’
‘Mmmmngghnnphff, mnngnnn mnnnfff?’
‘Don’t talk with your mouth full.’ A four-by-four rattled up the hill, splashing through the lake formed by an overflowing drain and sending out a spray of grimy water that only missed us by an inch. Tosser. ‘Kirk was in Kingsmeath when Andrew Brennan went missing, I’d put money on it. The only reason he’d lie about that is because he knows we’re onto him.’
‘Still don’t see why we couldn’t have taken the car. It’s cold and it’s raining and my head hurts.’ Whine, moan, whinge. But she polished off the bridie anyway, then started on the pie.
‘We should speak to his mother’s care home: double-check his alibi.’
St Jasper’s Lane thickened with traffic – cars and vans heading off to work. An ambulance crawled past with its blue-and-whites off, the driver and passenger looking about as cheerful as a biopsy. More shops here. A young man in turban and leathers, hauling the shutters up outside a vaping shop. A slouch of people, hunched into themselves as they tromped along the uneven pavement. A young woman huddling outside a newsagent’s, puffing away on a cigarette as if it was the only thing keeping her upright. A figure, lying on their side in the doorway of a boarded-up nail salon, bundled in a filthy-grey sleeping bag, their back to the road.
The pedestrian crossing bleeped and we followed a knot of women dressed in identical black suits across the road.
Alice looked up from her pie. ‘I’ve been thinking about that profile of Gordon Smith.’
‘Don’t know why you’re bothering, it’s not like we don’t know who he is.’
Past the King James Theatre – its gaudy billboards advertising the Christmas panto – a droopy old man in a high-viz jacket hosing vomit off the top step.
‘That’s the point, though,’ pastry flakes going flying, ‘no one did. Well, except his wife. And his victims, of course. Everyone else will tell you what a lovely man he was and he’d never hurt a fly and he was always such a considerate neighbour who’d give you the shirt off his back and other assorted clichés and actually you might be right about baked goods and hangovers.’ Munching down the last mouthful of pie. ‘Could really go something to drink, though, I’m—’
‘Here.’ I reached into my pocket and pulled out the chilled tin of Irn-Bru I’d got her in the baker’s.
‘Ooh!’ She clicked the ring-pull and gulped away.
‘Doesn’t matter, in the end, though, does it? We know it was him; Mother’s got a lookout request on the go; someone will spot him somewhere; uniform will swoop in and pick him up; and he’ll go down for life, with sod-all chance of parole. In the meantime, we’ve got a child-killer to catch. So can we please forget about Gordon Smith? It’s not our—’
A juddering belch burst out of Alice, like a lowbrow foghorn. ‘I think we should visit Rebecca this morning.’
A bus rumbled past, the steamy windows filled with unhappy faces, pale as margarine and twice as depressing.
‘Ash, did you hear me? I said, I think—’
‘Can we get on with the day, please? Enough on my plate as it is, without you—’
‘It’ll be good for you, though.’
We turned right, onto Peel Place. The elegant sandstone buildings were blighted by the manky Victorian redbrick lump of O Division Headquarters, like a big hairy wart on a supermodel’s cheek. Its narrow windows scowled out at the rainy gloom, through bars and grilles. A handful of outside broadcast vans were parked in front of the building: Sky News, BBC, ITV, Channel 4 … Getting ready to hear all about the poor wee dead boy found in the woods yesterday.
The BBC lot were doing a piece to camera, the reporter huddled under his red-and-white brolly, trying to stay dry and keep the ‘POLICE SCOTLAND’ sign in shot at the same time.
‘Eat your pasty.’
‘You’re impossible, you know that, don’t you?’ She dipped back into the greasy bag, though. ‘And we still need to do something for our anniversary: celebratory meal, or something. Somewhere fancy, though, no sticky floors or plastic tablecloths.’
A figure huddled in the lee of the war memorial on the other side of the street – three soldiers in kilts and full WWI pack, bayonets fixed, charging towards the machineguns. She pushed away from the memorial and marched across the road, on an intercept course. Short grey hair plastered to her head, shoulders hunched, bloodshot eyes narrowed against the rain – the bags under them heavy and bruised. Helen MacNeil.
She looked the pair of us up and down, then ignored Alice completely. ‘I spent all night on the internet.’
‘Didn’t they assign you a Family Liaison Officer? They’ll keep you up to date on—’
‘And I’ve been googling you.’ Stepping closer. ‘Thought you were just some thug copper who liked throwing his weight about, but you know, don’t you? You know what it’s like.’
Oh Christ, not this …
‘Mrs MacNeil, it’s not—’
‘You’re telling me that Gordon killed my Sophie. That he’s killed other people. That the man I let look after my child and my grandchild was a bloody serial killer!’
I pulled on my best reassuring-police-officer voice. ‘Look, it isn’t—’
‘YOU THINK I’M STUPID?’ Bellowing it, right in my face. ‘HE KILLED HER TOO, DIDN’T HE?’
Over by the outside broadcast vans, the hyenas were looking our way. Peering out through their windscreens. Scrambling for cameras.
‘DIDN’T HE? HE KILLED MY LEAH!’
Alice put a hand on her arm. ‘Please, this isn’t—’
‘DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH ME!’ Helen’s right hand flashed out, a backhanded slap that sent Alice spinning, stumbling to the ground.
The two silent seconds that followed were broken by Henry growling, hackles up, four little feet set on the wet pavement.
And that was it.
I grabbed a handful of Helen’s collar and slammed her backwards into a scabby Land Rover hard enough to set the car’s alarm shrieking. Hazard lights flashing their orange warning as I bared my teeth and forced my face into hers. Rain hissing down around us like the end of days. ‘You EVER lay a finger on her again and I will FUCKING KILL YOU!’
The growling turned into barking.
Helen grinned back at me, but there was no warmth or humour in it. It was cold and vicious, like her eyes. ‘You know what it’s like.’
I bounced her off the Land Rover again. Then let go. Squatted down beside Alice. Brushed the hair from her face. Helped her sit up. ‘Are you OK?’
Her bottom lip was already swelling up. A thin crack of red bisecting it, glistening. ‘I’m fine, I’m fine …’ Clothes and jacket stained with water where she’d hit the deck.
Helen loomed over us. ‘The Birthday Boy took your daughter, didn’t he? Tortured and killed her.’ A bitter laugh. ‘Oh, I know alllll about it. Even downloaded the e-book.’
‘Come on, let’s get you up.’
The car alarm was still screaming as I helped Alice to her feet.
‘You OK? Not feeling dizzy or anything?’
She brushed my hands away. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Good.’ I dropped my walking stick and Henry’s lead, turned, snatched a handful of Helen’s coat and hauled back a fist to—
‘Ash, no!’ Alice – hanging off my raised arm, pulling it back down again. ‘The TV people.’
They were hurrying across the road, getting their cameras up.
I let go and gave Helen another shove. ‘You don’t touch her again.’
‘You were never that squeaky clean, even when you were a copper. So I’ve got a deal for you: you help me find Gordon Smith before these wankers do, and I’ll make it worth your while.’
Deep breath. ‘Go home, Mrs MacNeil.’
‘I know where an armoured-car job’s hidden. Six million in jewellery, paintings, sculptures, antiques, and the like. You help me, you get a third of it.’
‘Ash, we have to go!’
The cameras were up on their shoulders now, reporters trotting alongside, microphones out, umbrellas up. Closing in for the kill.
I grabbed my walking stick, turned on my heel, and hobbled off down Peel Place, Henry trotting along beside me, Alice scrambling to catch up.
Her umbrella was all collapsed in on one side, where it had bounced off the pavement.
An idiot in a grey suit, stopped right in front of me, holding out his microphone. Eyes widening when he finally realised I wasn’t stopping. He jumped to one side, and the three of us marched past, Helen MacNeil’s voice ringing out behind us: ‘YOU KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE!’
9
Alice shuffled up beside me. ‘She still there?’
‘Yup.’
Down on the street below, Helen MacNeil was standing in the rain, talking to the Sky News people, glaring at the camera as if it’d refused to pay protection money.
Not our case.
Not our problem.
Not our—
A sharp rapping noise came from the front of the room, followed by a pointed, ‘I’m not boring you, am I, Ash?’
When I turned, there was Detective Superintendent Jacobson, tapping the tip of his extendable pointer against one of the small room’s four whiteboards. He’d peeled off his trademark brown leather jacket, leaving it draped over the back of a chair to drip onto the scabby carpet tiles, exposing a dark red shirt that was about two sizes too big for a wee hairy bloke in tiny square glasses.
He wasn’t the only one staring at us.
Professor Bernard Huntly: in his immaculate pinstriped suit, starched white shirt, and pastel silk tie; battleship-grey short-back-and-sides; Sandringham moustache; and a pair of performance eyebrows – both of which were raised as he smirked in our direction.
Dr Sheila Constantine: buried somewhere within a big padded jacket with a furry collar, a tartan scarf wrapped around her neck and chin, two apple cheeks and button nose poking out over the top. Woolly hat covering most of her thick blonde hair, even though the radiators in here were pounding out heat.
Henry: tail going like a furry windscreen wiper, mouth hanging open, tongue lolling out, the smell of wet dog rising off him like a fusty chemical weapon.
And PC Thingy. No idea what her real name was, because I hadn’t been paying attention when Jacobson introduced her. Some no-hoper O Division had lumbered us with, in order to look as if they were cooperating. A stringy scarecrow with oversized hands and a buzzcut, whose nose and chin entered any crime scene about half a step before the rest of her.
Which only left one member of LIRU: Sabir. He wasn’t there in person, but his chubby face looked out from a monitor, placed on a wheelie trolley near the front of the room. Mouth a small twitching horror show as he shovelled in crisps, crumbs and stubble on his jowls, bald as a long-dead egg, skin the colour of slightly mouldy beetroot. Someone had stuck a strip across the top of the monitor with ‘DS AKHTAR’ printed on it. Sabir’s voice crackled out of the speaker, sounding about as Liverpool as you could get. ‘No offence, like, but can we get this thing wrapped up, or wha’? I’m meant to be hackin’ into a crime-syndicate an’ planting Trojan viruses on their Dark Web servers in twenny-five minutes, and I’d kina like to go for a crap first.’
‘Quite.’ Jacobson clicked his pointer against the board again, underlining a bullet-pointed list. ‘So, to recap, now everyone’s paying attention: eighteenth of June, victim one is strangled by hand. Twentieth of August, victim two is strangled with his own belt. And fourteenth October, victim three is strangled with a silk cord—’
‘Actually, Bear,’ Professor Huntly held up a manicured finger, ‘speaking as this delightful little team’s physical evidence guru, I think you’ll find the strangling ligature was probably a curtain tie.’
That got him a scowl. ‘Speaking as this delightful little team’s boss, you lost “call me ‘Bear’” privileges yesterday, when you pissed off the Procurator Fiscal.’
Huntly sniffed. ‘I merely pointed out that decomposition products were—’
‘Don’t make me tell you again!’
A shrug. ‘Sorry, Detective Superintendent.’
‘Better.’ Jacobson frowned at the whiteboard for a moment. ‘Now, where was I? Yes, right: silk ligature. No sign of it at the deposition site, so it was taken to and from the scene by our killer.’ The pointer came around to aim at Dr Constantine. ‘Sheila?’
She dug her hands into her armpits, smothering them in the padded fabric. ‘The transition to ligatures isn’t the only change: there’s a definite difference in how long he takes to kill his victims. With Andrew Brennan he crushes the hyoid bone and the windpipe, so death would be reasonably quick. Oscar Harris has a worse time – going by the bruising, our killer tightened and released the belt around his throat three times, before committing to it. Lewis Talbot …’ She puffed out a breath and dug her hands in deeper. ‘First off, the state of the body didn’t help any: four weeks half-buried in the woods. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve post-mortemed worse, but once the soft tissue starts to go, we lose a lot of structural detail. So while it’s impossible to say one hundred percent for sure, I think he was strangled and revived and strangled and revived at least eight times. And given the infusion of blood in the tissue around his neck, it could’ve taken anything up to an hour. Maybe an hour and a half.’
PC Thingy whistled. ‘Poor wee sod …’
‘Another thing: Andrew Brennan suffered multiple broken ribs. Our killer knelt on top of him while he strangled him. No broken ribs on Oscar Harris, and most of the bruising is around the front of the neck, so I think he was probably standing or kneeling behind Oscar while he strangled him. And Lewis Talbot has broken ribs again.’