Easy Kill Page 6

‘She said he’d been her guidance teacher in secondary school.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Terri knew him right away, but she said he pretended not to recognise her.’

  ‘Is he on the list?’

  ‘He didn’t use his real name. He called himself something out of a book or a film, Terri said.’ Leanne found it and pointed. ‘That’s it I think.’

  ‘Atticus?’

  ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ DC Clark offered.

  ‘I know where it’s from,’ snapped Bill.

  Leanne identified two more. A young guy called Gary, who came up from south of the city twice a month, and a posh bloke calling himself Ray.

  Leanne sagged back.

  ‘Did Terri ever say anything about a punter hurting her?’

  ‘They all think you’re shite. Some pretend not to, to get what they want. A few get off on pretending to be your friend.’ She paused. ‘They’re all abusive, one way or another.’

  Bill was silent for a moment. ‘We’re advising that the women stay off the streets until further notice.’

  Leanne gave a small, strangled laugh.

  ‘Too late for Terri.’

  ‘We don’t know that.’

  ‘If she was alive she would have contacted me.’ Leanne hugged herself. ‘We were getting out. Two more months, that’s all we needed.’ Her body seemed to fold in on itself.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  Leanne’s face had drained of colour. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You don’t look fine to me,’ Bill said. ‘Have you had anything to eat today?’

  Leanne shook her head.

  ‘Take her to the canteen,’ Bill told Janice. ‘Make sure she eats something.’

  During a post-mortem, the mortuary harboured a smell Bill would never get used to. He had never been sick, or fainted, or had to leave, but it had been a close shave on occasion. Work on the second body, or what was left of it, had taken time. Time to determine the obvious scientifically. The victim had most likely died of strangulation.

  The lower half of the body was in an advanced state of decomposition, but striated marks on the pelvic bones suggested the heel of the shoe had been used to stab the victim. For this one, there would be no gentle closing of eyes, no masking of wounds with the pristine whiteness of a sheet. No one to tell them who she was.

  ‘Female, approximately twenty,’ Sissons told Bill. ‘Five foot two inches tall. Long blonde hair. Under-nourished.’

  A fair description of most of Glasgow’s young prostitutes.

  ‘Nothing that could help identify her?’

  ‘You could try dental records. She’s had some work done, but it looks pretty old.’

  13

  THE BRA WAS black nylon with a lace covering, the details of size and make no longer legible on the frayed label. It was clean and smelt primarily of deodorant, although there was something else in the scent she still couldn’t distinguish.

  Rhona held the bra over paper and used a fine-haired brush to dislodge any loose trace evidence, then taped it to lift any other residue, concentrating on the knot. Trace material depended a lot on the recipient surface and the nature, duration and force of the contact. The murderer had exerted a lot of pressure when he had twisted the rough lace, so he should have left traces behind.

  Rhona’s careful harvest was rewarded with abundant skin flakes for DNA testing, and something else, which proved to be a little more unusual. She examined the printout of the chemical breakdown of the sample. Sodium chloride, sulphate, calcium, potassium and magnesium. There was no doubt what it was.

  Rhona looked up as a pale Chrissy emerged from the washroom, after a bout of morning sickness. It had been like this every day for weeks. Rhona wasn’t allowed to say anything, her words of comfort freezing on her lips under Chrissy’s glare. Having made up her mind to go through with the pregnancy, Chrissy wasn’t looking for sympathy. Rhona had wondered if lab work was triggering the bouts of nausea, or at least exacerbating them. Chrissy had dismissed the idea.

  ‘I’m sick at the same time every morning. It doesn’t matter where I am.’

  Ten minutes later Chrissy was serving up coffee and hot buttered rolls, the colour back in her cheeks.

  ‘Right, where are we then?’

  ‘Exactly where we were yesterday, with one exception,’ Rhona said. ‘Magnus was right. There was something unusual on the bra.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Traces of salt.’

  ‘Salt? You mean table salt?’

  Rhona shook her head. ‘Not pure sodium chloride. I checked the constituents. This was sea salt.’

  Chrissy looked puzzled. ‘Why would there be sea salt?’

  ‘You remember the smell Magnus talked about? It was a mix of diesel and salt, the smell you get around harbours.’

  Chrissy looked thoughtful. ‘It’s something, I suppose.’

  ‘There’s also the matter of the slipknot.’ Rhona told Chrissy the story of Magnus’s experiment in the bar.

  Chrissy smiled. ‘Wish I’d stuck around to see that.’

  ‘I tried to retie the knot, before I began headspace analysis to test for diesel. It wasn’t easy tying it with a bra. A single piece of cord would have been much quicker.’

  ‘So the bra was significant.’

  Rhona nodded. ‘The diesel was red, the stuff used in boats or farm machinery. It’s basically the same as heating oil, but contains a colourless marker, quinizarin, and is coloured with CO Solvent Red 24 to distinguish it from the white diesel you get at roadside pumps. Red diesel has a lower tax tariff, which means it’s much cheaper.’

  ‘So someone who works with boats, with a bra fetish?’

  ‘Points that way.’

  They were prevented from further discussion by the ringing of the lab phone.

  Bill’s voice was grim. ‘We’ve found another one. She’s buried at the eastern end of the graveyard.’

  Bill met Rhona at the Bridge of Sighs. In the near distance, dogs and handlers were strung out across the Necropolis.

  ‘We’ve been over this place twice already. I don’t know how the hell we missed her.’

  A third of a dog’s brain is devoted to scent. Police dogs could be trained to sniff out almost anything, but they weren’t infallible.

  ‘How deep is she buried?’ Rhona asked.

  ‘Not deep, but she’s been there some time. Looks like the gardener’s been trimming the grass over her.’

  ‘No wonder the dog didn’t spot it the first time.’ Rhona wanted to show her support. Bill wasn’t personally responsible for every rogue body they found buried in the graveyard.

  Bill glanced around the well-kept green lawns that separated the rows of ancient stones and mausoleums. ‘How many more are out there?’

  ‘I think we should get GUARD to take some aerial photographs. Recent burials will show in the colour of the vegetation.’

  Bill looked impressed. ‘Bloody ironic, looking for bodies in a graveyard.’

  To cheer him up, Rhona told him about her harvest of skin and salt.

  ‘The boat connection could be significant, if we come up with a suspect. We ran the DNA profiles, identified from the different semen deposits through HOLMES. No matches,’ Bill said.

  ‘Maybe we’ll get a match from the skin flakes.’

  The truth was, if the perpetrator wasn’t on the DNA database, and wasn’t a regular punter, the chances of finding him at all were remote. Bill departed for the station, where they had three of Terri’s regulars waiting to be interviewed.

  The tent was up, a forensic team already combing the surrounding area. Chrissy had stayed on at the lab. Someone had to process the mound of material that was threatening to swamp them.

  Inside the tent, McNab was in deep discussion with Judy from GUARD. Rhona had a feeling it wasn’t about the body, at least not until she walked in. A slight flush crept across Judy’s cheek when she spotted Rhona, and Rhona wondered if she and McNab might have indulged in more than an
after-work drink. Judy covered her embarrassment by urging Rhona over to view the remains, while McNab slipped past her with a twinkle in his eye.

  ‘I see you and McNab hit it off.’

  ‘He’s a funny guy,’ Judy volunteered.

  ‘Hilarious.’

  Rhona pulled up her mask and knelt on the soft earth. Judy had dug away the surface covering, revealing the putrefied remains of a woman bearing all the hallmarks of the previous two victims; a brassiere ligature, a black high-heeled sandal jammed between what remained of her thighs.

  Judy indicated a stack of turf alongside. ‘He must have cut the turf, then replaced it when he was finished. You can make out the discolouration of the grass caused by the decomposition.’

  Rhona leaned closer to the body. The face was a creamy white waxy colour, the classic image of a ‘soap mummy’. A combination of warm wet earth, lack of oxygen, alkaline soil and plenty of fatty tissue had resulted in the formation of adipocere, a process whose advancement could tell them how long the body had been in the ground.

  ‘I’d estimate he buried her approximately four to six months ago,’ said Judy.

  Which meant the killer had been working his patch possibly as far back as the start of the year.

  A shadow loomed over them. Neither had heard Magnus enter the tent, so engrossed were they in their discussion. He wore a forensic suit, his long hair tucked inside the hood. Rhona caught Judy’s disconcerted look.

  ‘Judy, this is Professor Pirie. He’s a criminal psychologist.’

  Judy managed to keep her expression blank, no easy task as Magnus began to sniff the air like a bloodhound.

  ‘Ammonia with a touch of cadaverine and putresine,’ Judy suggested with a smile.

  ‘Not an ideal combination,’ countered Magnus, holding out his gloved hand to grasp Judy’s firmly.

  Rhona watched them eye each other up and wondered if Magnus had had time to do his homework on Judy. She got her answer almost immediately.

  ‘Weren’t you involved in the excavation of a mass grave at Hatra in northern Iraq?’

  Judy looked surprised but flattered. ‘Yes, I was.’

  Magnus frowned sympathetically. ‘A terrible business.’ Unlike the Balkans, where mass graves contained men of fighting age, Hatra had been filled with women and children shot through the head.

  Magnus stared down at their latest find. ‘How long do you estimate she’s been there?’

  ‘Four months, at least.’

  ‘The intervals are getting shorter.’

  ‘If there are no more bodies,’ said Rhona.

  Magnus threw her a worried glance. ‘You have evidence of more?’

  Rhona felt a twinge of guilt at her need to challenge Magnus. She felt herself needled by his constantly thoughtful air, as though he had inside knowledge of the killer.

  ‘We missed this one. We may have missed others,’ she suggested.

  Magnus contemplated that in silence. ‘I don’t think he’ll kill here again, since he left the last body above ground.’ He turned to Judy. ‘Was there anything about this grave that suggested he wanted us to find it?’

  Judy thought for a moment. ‘There was a turf loose when I got here. I assumed the handler had done that. I could check with Michael,’ Judy offered, then looked flustered at her indiscreet use of McNab’s first name.

  Rhona suppressed a smile. ‘Good idea.’

  ‘Office politics,’ Rhona told Magnus when Judy left the tent.

  ‘The most interesting kind.’ He held her gaze, his expression frank and friendly. Despite Rhona’s antagonism, he seemed to want to call a truce. Rhona wasn’t ready for that yet.

  McNab had the good sense not to come back with Judy, or else she’d asked him not to. Rhona knew him well enough to guess he didn’t mind flaunting his new love interest. Judy was another matter, though. Rhona had an urge to warn her colleague – of what, she wasn’t quite sure. Her own relationship with McNab had crossed three genres in swift succession – romance, thriller, horror. In that order. She and McNab had resolved their differences during their last case together, but that didn’t mean he’d mended his ways.

  ‘DS McNab says the turf was like that when they got here.’

  Rhona was irritated to find herself watching Magnus for his reaction. He, on the other hand, seemed oblivious to her interest, muttering to himself under his breath.

  ‘That’s why he came back.’

  ‘You think the killer loosened the turf to help us locate the body?’ Rhona said. The site was alive with police. The idea hardly seemed credible.

  ‘The more he interests us in his previous crimes, the less time we spend anticipating his next.’

  Rhona didn’t buy that. ‘But to come back here?’

  ‘I was here at two o’clock this morning. Just me and the guard, and he spent most of his time in the incident van.’

  Rhona didn’t ask why Magnus was visiting the Necropolis at 2 a.m., but it was pretty clear he was of the opinion the murderer could enter and leave after dark at will.

  ‘Any word on the missing girl?’

  Rhona shook her head. ‘Bill’s gone to interview some of her regulars.’

  Magnus’s face darkened.

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘I think if Terri Docherty’s still alive, it won’t be for long.’

  14

  Glasgow Pussy – Internet Blog

  Saturday July 31st

  If you found your way here, you know what the stakes are. The next streetmeat is yours to slaughter. Bidding starts at a grand.

  15

  LEANNE BOLTED THE door and stood with her back against it, breathing hard, her body crying out for relief from her mounting anxiety and fear. The truth was that she was useless without Terri.

  ‘Please,’ she muttered under her breath as she slid to the floor. ‘Where are you?’

  No locks would deter Minty and his henchmen if he decided to come for his money. She’d left two messages on his mobile, explaining about Terri’s disappearance and the fact the police had her handbag with the money and bank card.

  Since Terri had taken charge of their finances, they’d paid off most of Minty’s loan, despite the huge interest he levied. They’d laughed and joked about how soon they would be free. Free of drugs and free of Minty. How stupid that seemed now. A sob escaped Leanne’s throat. Already the dream she’d had with Terri was fading, replaced by a desperate need for something, anything to take away the pain.

  She scrambled onto her knees, pulled herself upright and staggered into the bedroom. She would have to get out there early, pick up as many punters as she could, if she was going to keep Minty off her back. The only way to face that was to take something. She took the Valium from the bedside cabinet and swallowed four, then took another two to make sure.

  As she got ready to go out, she watched the news. The original story, about a young girl murdered on a night out, had been replaced with the truth. Lucie’s face stared out at Leanne, as the horrifying details of her death were read out. But nothing prepared Leanne for what followed. The revelation that a second body had been found buried below the first, sent her into hysterics. She was crying so loudly, she didn’t hear the first bang on the door. Then Minty’s voice broke through her sobbing.

  ‘Open the fucking door!’

  Leanne froze as fists pounded the flimsy wood.

  ‘I said open the fucking door!’

  Leanne tried desperately to get her head into gear. The Valium was kicking in, bringing euphoria to replace the panic. Minty would be a whole lot angrier if she didn’t let him in. But maybe he would think she wasn’t there and would go away? Leanne stood motionless, unable to make a decision.

  The next thump sent the door flying, crashing against the inside wall. Leanne glanced wildly around, but there was nowhere to hide. Terri had always been the one to deal with Minty. She hadn’t been scared of him, not the way Leanne was.

  Now he was in, Minty was taking his time. Le
anne heard him go through to the living room, then the squeaking hinge told her he was in the kitchen. If she ran now, she might just make it down the hall and out the front door. Leanne glanced down at her half-clothed body and bare feet. Minty would catch her before she got as far as the stairs.

  The door swung open. Minty was perspiring heavily from his exertions. He stank of sweat, stale beer and skag. He smiled when he saw her, exposing the space where his two front teeth should have been. Leanne made a useless attempt to cover her exposed top half. But Minty wasn’t interested in bare breasts; not yet, anyway.

  He snapped his fingers. ‘Money.’

  Leanne struggled to find her voice. ‘I told you on the phone.’ She licked her lips. ‘The police have Terri’s money. I’ll make it up tonight.’

  He thought about that, his eyes roaming over her. Leanne reached for the top she’d laid out on the bed. Until now, Minty had taken their money and never demanded anything else. Lucie had been different. She had been his to own – a piece of streetmeat he’d controlled and fed off when required.

  And Lucie was dead.

  The terrifying thought that Minty might be the killer crossed Leanne’s mind. Maybe Lucie had done something to piss Minty off, like not handing over her earnings, or spending it all on drugs.

  ‘I have to go to work.’ Leanne pulled on the top and sat down to put on her shoes. The tranquillisers were generating a wave of disinterest, as though she were an onlooker rather than a participant in the scene.

  Leanne rose unsteadily and had to widen her stance to balance on her heels. In her present state, Minty’s approach appeared to play out in slow motion, although it must have taken only a split second. She saw the gleam of the knife as he flicked it open, then he was on her. A hand grabbed her bare crotch under the short skirt and she yelped as his nails dug into the sensitive flesh. Then he used the blade to hook the strapless top and yank it down to expose one breast.

  To her fury and shame the nipple grew hard, as adrenalin fuelled by fear fought the Valium for control of her body. Minty swiped the blade past, so close Leanne thought he’d cut her nipple. His face was an inch from hers, his mouth frothed with angry spittle.

  ‘Tomorrow. Got it?’

  Leanne forced a nod.