Easy Kill Page 7

Minty pushed her away and she staggered back, her head reeling. Then he was gone, the door slamming behind him. Leanne sat on the edge of the bed, the room drifting in and out of focus. She longed to curl up and let the drug take over, but she had to stand up. She had to go to work. Minty would be back looking for twice as much money tomorrow.

  16

  ‘DOGGING?’ Bill said in disbelief.

  ‘We’re not talking about walking the dog, here,’ grinned McNab.

  ‘I know what we’re talking about.’

  ‘The Necropolis is recommended on dogging websites,’ Janice said. ‘Which goes some way towards explaining the quantity of condoms we’ve picked up, sir.’

  Bill was struggling with such a concept. ‘I thought they needed a car for that?’

  ‘It’s been a long, hot, wet summer.’

  Bill shot McNab a look, ending the joke. ‘So someone might have seen him?’

  ‘Dogging involves watching people have sex outdoors,’ Janice explained. ‘Sometimes joining in. They might not want to advertise what they’ve been doing, or watching.’

  ‘We could ask the websites to mention the crime,’ said McNab, more serious now. ‘Encourage any member who has used the Necropolis recently to email Strathclyde Police in strict confidence?’

  ‘Worth a try,’ Bill conceded. ‘Okay, who have we brought in?’

  ‘The old man, George Wilkins,’ said Janice. ‘Charles Beattie, alias Atticus, should arrive shortly. He denied everything until we pointed out we had phone evidence of his contact with Terri. He asked to come in rather than be interviewed at home.’

  ‘What about the Barras man?’

  ‘Haven’t got hold of him yet. Gary Forbes is being interviewed on his home turf. Posh Ray doesn’t answer his phone. We’re checking his home address via the mobile company. The other contact numbers are being dealt with by the rest of the team.’

  ‘Okay, let’s see Mr Wilkins.’

  ‘I should warn you sir, he’s not washed for a while.’

  That was an understatement. Bill felt his throat close in a reflex reaction. Someone had opened the window, but the combination of heat and stale urine in the room was overwhelming. If Terri agreed to have sex with this old man, she was either out of her head, or she deserved a medal for services to the community.

  ‘Mr Wilkins?’

  A pair of rheumy eyes looked vaguely up at Bill. ‘You found Marie?’

  Bill sat down and faced him across the table. Janice switched on the recorder and identified those present.

  ‘Who is Marie, Mr Wilkins?’

  ‘Everybody calls me Geordie. Marie is my wife, Inspector. Forty years we’ve been married.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know where Marie is, Geordie. We wanted to ask you about another woman. Terri Docherty. You used to meet her on a Wednesday night.’

  ‘I don’t know any Terri Docherty.’ He shook his head. ‘Marie and me every Wednesday, regular as clockwork.’

  Bill changed tack. ‘What does your wife look like?’

  Mr Wilkins’s face broke into a smile. ‘A bonnie, bonnie lass. They all wanted her, but she married me,’ he added proudly.

  Bill turned to Janice and said quietly. ‘What do we know about his wife?’

  ‘According to a neighbour, she died three years ago of cancer.’

  ‘Jesus,’ muttered Bill under his breath. The old man was staring at him, trying to make sense of what was going on.

  ‘You met Marie every Wednesday?’

  Geordie nodded. ‘Same place, same time. I wanted her to come home with me, but she wouldn’t.’ He looked distressed. ‘She was always ill at home.’

  Forty years of marriage and it had ended like this.

  ‘We think, ah, Marie’s gone missing.’

  ‘I know she has,’ Geordie said with certainty. ‘She got into that car and never came back. I waited and waited.’

  ‘You saw her get into a car?’

  Geordie nodded again. ‘She shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘What kind of car?’

  The old man’s eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Geordie,’ Bill said softly.

  Geordie began to cry in earnest, his body slumping forward. ‘She’s never coming back, is she?’ He turned his fearful gaze on Bill.

  ‘We’re going to find her, Geordie, but we need your help. Can you remember what the car looked like?’ Bill watched the old man’s struggle, anxiety driving his desire to be useful, his memory letting him down.

  Finally Geordie said, ‘It was a dark colour. Big and flash.’

  Bill waited patiently, willing him to give them something more. ‘Did you see the number plate?’

  But the light had gone out. Geordie was back in his own world, filled with grief. ‘He won’t hurt her, will he?’

  ‘We’ll make sure he doesn’t.’ Bill could say the words, but he couldn’t keep the promise. ‘What if DC Clark gets you a nice cup of tea? That might help you remember.’

  Geordie’s face brightened. ‘Any chance of a chocolate biscuit?’

  Atticus was waiting in reception. Bill decided to bring him through himself. He wanted a surreptitious look at a guidance teacher who paid for sex with his former charges.

  The view from behind the desk was that of a balding man in his forties, dressed in golfing trousers and sweater. The desk sergeant gave Bill a nod and informed him under his breath that the gentleman had been waiting twenty minutes and had already made a complaint.

  Bill buzzed open the door.

  ‘Mr Beattie. I’m Detective Inspector Wilson.’

  The man rose. ‘I’ve been waiting for twenty minutes.’

  ‘Thank you for coming in so promptly. We appreciate that.’

  Instinct had sent Mr Beattie down the path of outraged innocence. Bill’s grateful response was causing him to reconsider. The man was intelligent and used to giving orders. Being on the receiving end of authority was unnerving him.

  Geordie was still in the interview room. Bill had told Janice to leave the door ajar when she went for the tea. He walked Mr Beattie slowly past so that he could get the full benefit of Geordie’s scent, before showing him into a neighbouring room and ushering him to a seat.

  ‘What was that terrible smell?’

  ‘Another one of Terri’s customers.’

  ‘I was not one of Terri’s customers.’ The affronted air was back.

  ‘Your number is on her phone.’

  Beattie drew himself up. ‘I was Terri’s guidance teacher at school. When her older brother died, she became very withdrawn and I tried to help. I gave her my mobile number then. She recently phoned me to ask if I would help her again.’

  ‘How, exactly?’

  ‘She needed someone to talk to. She was trying to get off drugs and change her life. I told her to call her parents. She said her father had broken all contact and forbidden her to visit or get in touch.’

  ‘Did you meet with Terri?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Terri told someone that you were a regular punter. Every second Wednesday without fail. She recognised you, but you pretended not to recognise her.’

  ‘Then that someone is lying.’

  Beattie was growing more confident with every utterance. Even if they could prove he had sex with Terri Docherty, she wasn’t a minor and he hadn’t committed an offence.

  ‘You are aware that Terri is missing?’

  ‘Of course I am. Her picture is everywhere.’

  As well as being on the front page, Terri’s photograph had appeared on the big screen in the main train and bus stations and two major shopping centres. This still hadn’t resulted in a sighting.

  Bill changed his tone. ‘I’m sure you understand, given the present climate, how imperative it is we find Terri.’

  Beattie looked momentarily mollified. ‘I’ve told you all I know.’

  ‘We’ll be asking everyone connected with Terri to volunteer a mouth scraping for DNA purposes, to eliminate them from our e
nquiries.’

  ‘But I haven’t seen Terri since she left school.’

  ‘Then you have nothing to worry about, Mr Beattie,’ Bill said.

  It seemed to Bill that there was a worse stink in this room than anything coming from next door.

  17

  NORA STOOD OUTSIDE the drop-in centre, trying to pluck up enough courage to enter. Occasionally one of the young women entering the building threw her a curious glance, but for the most part she was ignored. Sweat trickled down the front of her blouse, dampening the material and making it stick to her skin. She’d grown accustomed to the flashes of heat that clothed her body in perspiration and fired her cheeks. In this state, she could neither think nor speak coherently and longed only for a cold shower to beat on her face and reduce her surface temperature to something resembling normality.

  Nora didn’t know exactly why she’d come here, but something had driven her to walk the streets her daughter had walked. She’d told David she was visiting her sister Jessie in Largs for the day. Nora wondered if he’d registered her lie, if he even cared how she spent her time, as long as she was there when he returned from work.

  She had followed the tourist route map from the railway station to the cathedral, her feet too hot in their thin-soled sandals, her mind still reeling after seeing her daughter’s face on the big screen in Central Station. When the cool air in the cathedral had washed over her, Nora had felt she’d left hell and entered heaven. Sitting under the vast arched roof, she had prayed. To whom or what she had no idea, but those moments had seemed to renew what little strength she had.

  The graveyard itself had been off limits, a police barrier erected across the Bridge of Sighs. Nora had stood for a moment, imagining Terri’s body buried somewhere up there. The pain this had generated had crushed her chest, stopping her breath. The policeman on duty had offered to help, thinking her ill. Nora had found herself telling the young man that it was her daughter they were searching for.

  Afterwards, walking the surrounding streets, she’d tortured herself, imagining Terri standing in every alleyway. She wanted to kill every man who had used her daughter as a commodity, and wondered if even for a moment they had thought of her as a person, as someone’s child.

  Nora had contemplated her own death many times. When things were at their worst, it was the one thing that kept her going. Then she would mutter to herself, ‘If I die, it will all be over.’ She hadn’t chosen that escape route. Not yet.

  Nora glanced at her watch. David would be on his way home. She wondered what he would think when he found the house empty. Maybe he would phone Jessie and discover she hadn’t been there? She had never intended going there. Would he worry? Something told Nora that David was past worrying. He was barely alive himself.

  The hot flush had passed, leaving her weak but clear headed. Nora waited for the next young woman to arrive, then followed her inside.

  The woman who handed her a cup of tea seemed much like Nora herself. Weary of the world, but not yet willing to give up on it. Nora suspected Marje’s path in life had been very different from her own, yet they had ended up together, in this little room, with its faint smell of damp.

  Nora sipped at the tea, tasting sugar for the first time in a decade, realising the woman thought she was in shock. And who could blame her? How was she to know that this was Nora’s state, every hour of every day?

  ‘I’m glad you came.’

  The simple welcome brought tears to Nora’s eyes.

  ‘You should speak to Leanne.’

  ‘Leanne? You mean Leanne Quinn?’

  ‘Terri’s partner.’

  Nora wondered if Marje meant they worked together.

  Marje observed Nora’s puzzled expression. ‘They live together.’

  Nora absorbed that. ‘Oh, I see. Is Leanne here?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’

  ‘But she will come in?’ Nora was seized by a sense of purpose. This Leanne cared enough about Terri to report her missing. Nora wanted to speak to her.

  The sugar rush had left a strange taste in her mouth. Normally she would have gagged at the syrupy liquid, Marje’s version of tea. Now Nora craved more, imagining it to be the source of her new-found energy.

  ‘When did you last see my daughter?’

  Marje met her desperate look. ‘She came in the other day, Wednesday, to stock up …’ Marje hesitated.

  ‘Stock up,’ echoed Nora.

  Marje decided to be frank. ‘On condoms. No needles. She and Leanne are clean. Have been for a couple of months.’

  Nora concentrated on the word ‘clean’. Clean meant drug-free, didn’t it? A mental picture of her daughter’s bruised limbs brought back the pain. Nora allowed a measure of hope to wash over it. She felt a hand on her arm and looked up to find Marje’s concerned eyes on her.

  ‘Why don’t you stay for a bit. Leanne usually comes in later.’

  The energy had drained from Nora as quickly as it had come. She had a vision of herself. A middle-aged woman sitting in a dingy little room, her clothes damp with perspiration, her feet swollen. The tears finally escaped her eyes.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Marje was saying. ‘We’ll look after you.’

  Nora felt a pair of strong arms enfold her, a soft, cushioned body press against her own.

  18

  RHONA AND BILL were sitting in his office, drinking one of the endless cups of coffee you consumed to keep your eyes open on a twelve-hour shift. She’d reported her discovery of crystal meth on the twenty-pound note found in Lucie’s pocket. Both were aware that crystal meth was available on the streets of Glasgow. The drug’s fast addiction rate and the violence associated with it made it one of the force’s biggest problems. Crystal, or Ice, could be made relatively simply. The profits from such an endeavour could be substantial. Just the sort of business Minty would relish. They’d brought Minty in many times before, but none of the girls he ran had been willing to press charges. And now he’d simply disappeared.

  ‘You can’t make money from a dead woman. Minty’ll be leaning on all the others to make up the difference, but they’re still too frightened to give him up.’

  ‘When do I get to examine his place?’

  ‘We should have the warrant by tomorrow.’ Bill rolled his eyes: tomorrow was Sunday. ‘No rest for the wicked, eh?’

  They fell into an uneasy silence. Rhona longed to ask about Margaret, but before she could, Bill said gruffly ‘Margaret’s doing okay. Balder than me now, but at least she gets to wear a scarf to cover it.’ His weak attempt at humour only made things worse.

  ‘How are the kids?’

  ‘Lisa’s overprotective, which drives Margaret mad. Robbie’s pretending it’s not happening.’ Bill didn’t say ‘like his father’.

  ‘You shouldn’t be working these long hours.’

  Bill looked up at her. ‘Margaret understands the job. She doesn’t want things to be any different from normal.’

  ‘But they are.’

  Rhona’s frank reply drew a resigned shrug from Bill. ‘The truth is, I’m better working than watching her all the time. I make her more nervous than Lisa.’

  Serious illness had been known to destroy marriages. Rhona couldn’t imagine that happening to Margaret and Bill, but she could appreciate the stress he was under. Rhona judged it was time to change the subject. ‘How’s Magnus getting on?’

  Bill grimaced. ‘He asks a lot of questions. And is yet to prove himself useful.’

  ‘Do I detect a note of resistance?’

  ‘He told me he thought there was another body. I had already worked that out for myself. I just couldn’t find it.’

  ‘Do you think the killer led us there?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘So our perpetrator is now an official serial killer, who will keep going until he’s caught, or dies. You don’t need a profiler to tell you that,’ Rhona said sympathetically.

  ‘You and I both know profiling never brought Sutcliffe, Fred West or
Ian Brady to justice. Solid police work did that.’

  ‘And solid police work needs time, which we haven’t got.’

  ‘I think you should take a look at this, sir.’ Janice had knocked and entered without waiting for a response. Bill swallowed his reprimand when he saw her eager expression and heard the clamour of voices behind her.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The IT boys found a set of photographs of the victims online.’

  Bad news had travelled fast and the incident room was packed. The noise fell to a whisper as Bill appeared. All eyes followed his to the wall screen and the projected images.

  The pictures looked as though they had been taken shortly after death. The latest victim was immediately recognisable, the other two distinguished by location, modus operandi and signature. There was no doubt they were looking at the same gravestone and the wooded area north-east of the Necropolis.

  ‘Could the first one be a crime scene shot?’

  Bill’s question caused a ripple of shock – could a scene of crime officer have posted confidential material online?

  ‘I don’t think so. It must have been taken very soon after she died. Look at the skin and blood colour,’ Rhona moved closer to the screen.

  The victim who shared Lucie’s grave bore a striking resemblance to her. It was almost uncanny. Similar features, hair length and colour, build and age. Had it not been for the different clothes, they might have been the same girl. Dr Sissons would hopefully present his report on victim three at Monday’s meeting. Until now she had been an unknown quantity.

  ‘She looks to be the youngest,’ observed Rhona. The puffy, mottled face that stared down at them from the screen could almost have belonged to a child.

  ‘We’d better trawl for missing minors,’ said Bill.

  There was activity behind them, as some of the team moved to carry out his order.

  ‘He likes them young, and he likes them to look the same,’ said Rhona.

  ‘And Terri Docherty is seventeen, five foot three and blonde.’

  Any hope they’d had that Terri had simply gone AWOL was fast disappearing. Bill was pacing the room, glancing up periodically at the screen.

  ‘Did IT find these by chance, or were they given a lead?’

  ‘A member of the public called in on the confidential line. He said the photos were available via one of the doggers’ websites,’ Janice replied.