The Special Dead Read online

  Contents

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  Notes and Acknowledgements

  For Detective Inspector Bill Mitchell

  If you are reading this then I am dead.

  To know a person’s name is to conjure with it.

  1

  The green eyes were regarding him candidly. Mark suspected she was weighing him up and wasn’t sure she liked what she saw. Jeff, on the other hand, was having an easier time with the girl’s friend. Trust Jeff to strike it lucky, the bastard.

  Mark took another slug of his pint. If the girls came as a pair, then the fact that green eyes didn’t fancy him might mean Jeff got the brush-off too, which would bring Mark no end of grief. As though reading his mind, Jeff threw him a look that urged him to try harder.

  When Jeff had suggested he come through to Glasgow for a Friday night on the town together, Mark had jumped at the chance. True, he’d had to cover his tracks a bit with Emilie and make out he was playing five-a-side football with Jeff and his mates. She’d been a bit suspicious about that, until Mark had suggested she could come with him and watch if she liked. That had done the trick. Plus he’d promised to be back to take her out for lunch in Edinburgh on Saturday. A promise he meant to keep.

  They’d been in four pubs before this one and Mark had lost count of the variety of drinks he’d consumed. None of the previous pubs had produced the possibilities of this one and he owed it to Jeff to play it out. Mark marshalled himself for one more go, but he didn’t get the chance.

  ‘So,’ she said suddenly. ‘Want to come back to my place?’

  To say he nearly fell off the chair was putting it mildly. He shut his mouth, realizing it had dropped open, and tried to look nonchalant.

  ‘Sure thing.’

  She immediately stood up. Mark expected the pal to get up too, but she didn’t. The two girls exchanged some unspoken message and the pal laughed. Jeff, equally surprised by the way things were going, looked askance and not a little jealously at Mark, who grinned in triumph, then followed green eyes to the door.

  Outside, he offered to wave down a taxi.

  ‘No need. It’s just round the corner.’

  Mark felt himself stir in anticipation. It looked as though Jeff wasn’t the lucky one after all.

  She ushered him inside and shut the door firmly behind him. A black cat appeared from nowhere to rub itself against her ankle. When she lifted it, the purring grew louder. The cat fastened its eyes on Mark and he was struck by their similarity to the girl’s eyes. Through the alcoholic haze, sharpened by the coke he’d snorted in the last pub toilet, the scene took on a bright hallucinatory hue.

  The long hallway was dimly lit and painted blood red. He identified a series of doors that shifted and merged until he closed one eye.

  ‘In here,’ she said, throwing open a door on his right. She gave him a slight push and he stumbled inside what was definitely a bedroom. The cat, discarded from her arms, mewed in annoyance and darted off, tail stiffly upright.

  ‘Take off your clothes,’ she ordered. ‘And lie down on the bed.’

  Mark had experienced a variety of sexual encounters under the influence of alcohol and coke before, but he’d never been bossed about. He found he rather liked the experience.

  ‘Are you for real?’ he grinned.

  ‘Just do it.’

  Her expression suggested if he didn’t do what was asked, he would be out the door. Something he definitely didn’t want.

  Mark pulled off his shirt, then his jeans and stood in his boxers.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he said, suddenly feeling he should know what to call the girl he was about to have sex with.

  ‘You’re not here to ask questions.’ She ran the green eyes over him from top to toe. ‘Now the boxers.’

  In a show of bravado, Mark exposed himself.

  She studied him intently, then licked her lips. The result of which was a shot of an aphrodisiac he didn’t require.

  ‘Okay. Now lie down.’

  Relieved that he had passed muster, Mark did as ordered.

  The few clothes she wore were removed in seconds, then she stood before him in all her glory. Mark drank in the smooth white skin, the pink pointed nipples, the neat brush of auburn hair highlighted between the long smooth legs.

  Who was the lucky one now?

  When the cat suddenly jumped on the bed to spoil his view, Mark tried to sweep it aside.

  ‘Leave it,’ she said sharply.

  Before he could protest, the cat had settled on his face, its silky warm body acting like a suffocating blindfold. The purring rose to a crescendo as its open claws kneaded his shoulder. Mark’s surprised cry was smothered in hot fur.

  He could no longer see the girl, but he felt her climb aboard and firmly straddle him. As she lowered herself, pain and pleasure met and exploded in his head.

  His stomach heaved, bringing him back to consciousness. Mark rolled onto his side and vomited a pool of warm stale beer on the carpet.

  Where the hell was he?

  He shivered suddenly in his nakedness. Flashes of memory began bombarding his brain. The girl staring down at him. The smothering action of the cat. The crazy coupling. He turned to check the other side of the bed but there was no one there. The luminous dial on his watch told him it was five o’clock in the morning.

  Sitting up, he swung his feet out of bed, trying to avoid the wet patch caused by his vomit, but not entirely succeeding. He contemplated his next move, which should be to get dressed and leave as quickly as possible. Rising a little shakily, he located the pile that was his clothes. As he dressed, a pair of green eyes appeared suddenly in the semidarkness.

  He recalled the cat settling on his face and the girl ordering him to leave it there. The memory brought a rush of pleasure. For a moment he was back there, wanting more of the same, then the whiff of his vomit reminded him it was wiser to leave. Now.

  Dressed, he checked the corridor, found it empty and stepped out of the room to be presented with four doors leading off the hall, all of them closed. Mark stood for a moment, trying to recall last night and which door might be the exit point. Finally accepting that he had no idea, he chose one and attempted to open it as quietly as possible.

  Immediately the cat tried to squeeze past his ankles, mewing loudly. Mark swore under his breath, attempted
to stop it with his foot and tripped over it instead. The cat sprang into the room, tail bristling, with Mark stumbling headlong into the darkness in its wake.

  He eventually righted himself and stood very still, praying the room, whatever its purpose, was unoccupied. Moments later, he decided it was, although something had definitely spooked the cat. Its mewing had changed into a high-pitched keening sound that reverberated through his brain and would eventually rouse anyone else who might be in the flat.

  Which meant he should get out of here, and quickly.

  Mark swung round, desperate now to make his exit, and immediately walked into a small hanging object. As spooked as the keening cat, he tried to sweep it aside only to have it swing back at him, and poke him in the eye.

  Swearing under his breath, he caught the offending item in his hand.

  In the faint light from the hall, he now saw it was a doll.

  Naked, long-legged, with pert breasts and flowing silver blonde hair, it hung from the ceiling via a length of cord wound tightly round its neck.

  Jesus. Last night had been weird, but this was even weirder.

  Mark released the doll in distaste and it swung away from him, only to immediately collide with something else, setting off a series of eerie clicks and clacks accompanied by the creak of moving objects.

  What the hell was that?

  Mark stood stock-still, knowing he shouldn’t turn, but aware he would anyway.

  When he did, he found that the doll wasn’t alone.

  There were at least twenty of them, swinging in the light filtering through from the hall. Blondes, brunettes, redheads, naked, eyes glinting. All were suspended from the ceiling by a string tied round their necks, all set in perpetual motion by his action.

  The swaying scene was grotesque, but not as terrible as what Mark now discerned beyond the hanging dolls, and the true reason for the cat’s distress.

  2

  Rhona stared up at the ceiling. Beside her, the soft sounds of Sean’s breathing only emphasized how awake she was herself.

  This is one of the reasons I prefer sleeping alone.

  She threw back the covers, knowing leaving the bed wouldn’t wake Sean from his slumbers. Grabbing a dressing gown against the night air, she went through to the kitchen. The wall clock said 3.25 a.m., which meant she’d had about three hours sleep. Not enough to face a day’s work, but judging by her busy brain, she was unlikely to get any more.

  She spooned some coffee into the filter and filled the water reservoir. If she was determined to be awake, there was no point in avoiding caffeine. She took up her favourite stance at the window as the coffee machine hummed into action. Three storeys down, and bathed in a soft spotlight, the statue of the Virgin Mary stood resolute against the surrounding darkness. Soon the lights of its neighbouring convent would spring on, heralding the nuns’ early start to the day.

  In that respect, at least, I would make a good nun, Rhona mused as she poured herself a mug of coffee. She carried the coffee through the hall to the living room, pausing for a moment to glance in at the sleeping Sean. He had moved onto his back, losing the duvet in the process. Naked, his body seemed to gleam like marble in the moonlight that shone in through the open curtains.

  If she chose to go back in there now and stroke him into wakefulness, they would carry on where they’d left off. Rhona contemplated the prospect, albeit briefly, before entering the sitting room and closing the door behind her.

  Settling herself at the desk, she opened her laptop and logged on. As though on cue, Tom arrived to take up his place on her lap. She was never sure if the cat sought company or her warmth, or simply liked the comforting electronic hum to accompany his own soft purring.

  Beyond the window, dawn was beginning to break over the great sleeping mammoth that was Glasgow. Unlike New York or London, Glasgow did at least appear to slumber, usually between three and five in the morning. Or it seemed that way from her vantage point, high above the green expanse of Kelvingrove Park.

  Dispensing with this thought, Rhona turned her attention to the screen.

  The case she was in the process of writing up hadn’t proved forensically challenging. A middle-aged man had visited a gay bar where he’d picked up a teenage foreign national and taken him home, only to be stabbed to death.

  The perpetrator had dumped the knife in a nearby bin along with his backpack. Later, apprehended by the police, he’d confessed to the killing, stating that his victim had launched an attack on him during sex, and that he had retaliated.

  As far as Rhona was concerned, the crime-scene forensics matched the perpetrator’s story. Deposits of both men’s semen and blood had been identified at the scene. The victim’s fingerprints had been retrieved from the perpetrator’s neck, suggesting he’d been throttled, perhaps during the sex act.

  The knife cuts on the perpetrator’s scrotum had definitely been inflicted by a left-handed person, i.e. the victim. Furthermore, the stab wounds in the victim’s chest had been made by the same knife, wielded by a right-handed person, which the perpetrator was. The toxicology report suggested both men had been high on crystal meth at the time. The sexual game, perhaps begun by mutual consent, had ended in death.

  Tragic, horrifying and almost inevitable, if the sad saga of abuse that had been the perpetrator’s life was true. It seemed that the victim had been seen by the young man who’d killed him as just one more abuser, against whom he had finally retaliated.

  One life lost, another ruined, the path that had led to murder seemingly unavoidable. The darkest corner of her mind believed that, yet the ‘if only’ aspect still prevailed. What if the victim had treated the young man differently? What if he hadn’t tried to control him? Abuse and threaten him? What if they had shown respect for one another?

  Both might be alive, and no one a murderer.

  But that ‘what if’ was of no use now. The deed was done, recorded forensically to be shown in court.

  Two hours later, her report complete, Rhona shut the laptop, just as a still-naked Sean appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Was I snoring?’ He looked apologetic.

  ‘No, I had a report to write.’

  ‘And you’ve finished?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll make us some breakfast.’

  ‘No, thanks. I’ve had coffee already.’

  He regarded her with a smile. ‘So you still don’t eat breakfast?’

  Rhona gave him a pointed look in return. ‘And you still make coffee looking like that?’

  Sean glanced down, as though only just registering his nudity. ‘I’ll go and get dressed.’

  Rhona rose, picking up her laptop. ‘Don’t bother. I’m on my way out, anyway.’

  Sean looked a little nonplussed by that. ‘Will you be at the jazz club later?’

  ‘Not sure,’ Rhona said, determinedly non-committal.

  A small smile played at the corner of Sean’s mouth. ‘Fine,’ he said and was gone.

  Rhona heard the tap running, then the spurting sound of the coffee machine, accompanied by Sean’s distinctive whistling of a well-known Irish tune.

  He hasn’t changed and neither have I. If it didn’t work the first time, why should it work now?

  She and Sean Maguire had history. Lots of it. The Irish musician had walked into her life at the fiftieth birthday party of DI Bill Wilson, her friend and mentor, held in the jazz club which Sean part-owned. Sean’s dark hair and blue eyes, coupled with his Irish charm and musical skill on the saxophone, had been difficult to resist. In fact, Rhona hadn’t really tried. Sean had approached her with a bottle of wine when he came off stage and asked if he might be allowed to join her. She’d said yes. When he’d walked her home, Rhona had asked him up without hesitation.

  Last night I did the exact same thing. Talk about history repeating itself.

  As Rhona set about packing up her laptop, her mobile rang. A glance at the screen indicated it was not a caller she particularly wanted to speak to. Neve
rtheless . . .

  ‘DS McNab?’ she said.

  ‘Dr MacLeod. Top of the morning to you.’

  The jibe, aimed no doubt at the reappearance of her Irish lover, only served to irritate Rhona, which is what McNab intended.

  ‘What do you want?’ Rhona said, keeping her voice even.

  ‘I’d like you to take a look at a suspicious death.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘DI Wilson suggested it should be you.’

  Rhona bit off a further retort. If Bill wanted her there, then she would go. Of course McNab knew that, which is why he said it. Whether it was true or not was another matter.

  ‘I’ll send a car for you,’ he said before she could ask for further details.

  ‘Tell them to buzz when they get here.’

  Rhona rang off before McNab could indulge in any more comments on her love life.

  She quickly showered, then dressed in the bathroom, keen to avoid encountering Sean again, naked or otherwise. Maybe he had the same plan, because he didn’t reappear, although she heard the notes of his saxophone from the spare room.

  The familiarity of that sound in the flat disturbed her, but she reminded herself that the instrument was only there because they’d come straight from Sean’s gig at the jazz club the previous night. Its presence in no way signified that Sean had become a permanent fixture.

  She contemplated asking when he was leaving, but the buzzer sounded before she could bring herself to, so she made a swift exit with a shout of goodbye. Hopefully when she returned, Sean would no longer be there. Rhona was pretty sure he had got that message, although Sean had a habit of interpreting her responses in a way more suited to himself.

  Now, outside the main door, Rhona realized the car McNab had ‘sent’ was in fact his own. It was a neat trick. He was well aware that had he indicated he would be the driver, she would have definitely declined. As it was, she now had little choice.

  Rhona slid into the passenger seat without comment.

  ‘Chrissy’s on her way,’ McNab offered by way of an olive branch.

  ‘Good.’

  He headed for town.

  Travelling with McNab was never uneventful. He always drove as though he had a blue light flashing even when he didn’t. The one-way system didn’t serve as any deterrent. Glasgow city centre was as busy on a Saturday as during the weekday rush hour, which made the experience even more hair-raising than usual. Rhona was aware he was trying to provoke her into remonstrating with him, so she chose not to. In a show of determination, she didn’t even grip the seat.