by Tana Collins
‘Can you tell from your computer what time it was taken out?’
He peered over the computer. Yes, it was taken out at 12:04. And it’s due back on the twenty-fourth. Some are late bringing them back though. And of course, there’s others who never bring them back at all. Oh, before you go.’ He disappeared from view for a moment, then came back holding a student card. ‘I knew that name was familiar. She must have dropped her student ID badge while she was here. Another student handed it in. Here it is.’
Fletcher took Rachel Abbie’s student ID from him and studied it. She turned it round so the photograph was facing the librarian. She looked down at him. ‘Do you remember seeing this girl?’
He took a look at the picture in the photo but shook his head. ‘The book was logged out at 12:04pm. I go on my break at 12. I must have just missed her.’
‘Who would have been on duty? Are they still in the building?’
The librarian nodded. ‘Wee Mary McPhee. Lovely Irish girl. One second.’ He picked up a phone. ‘Mary, can you come to the desk for a minute? There’s a police officer would like to speak to you.’
A young woman with bleached blonde hair walked up to the front desk. She looked hardly older than Rachel Abbie. Perhaps she was a student herself trying to pay off some of her debt. Fletcher repeated the question she’d asked the other librarian and showed her Rachel Abbie’s student ID card. The young woman took it and studied it before she shook her head. ‘No sorry. I don’t remember her. We had a bit of a rush on at lunchtime and, as Bill has probably told you, a lot of library work is now automated.’
Fletcher felt her heart sink. They’d missed a great opportunity to find out if the student had left on her own. She turned to the man. ‘Do you have CCTV in the library?’
‘No, ’fraid not.’
She sighed, dropped the student ID and her warrant card back in her bag while searching for her mobile, thanked him and left the building. At least the mystery of the missing ID badge had been cleared up. It was only later that she thought what a strange comment he’d made about some students never bringing their books back.
Fletcher had not been long back at the station before her mobile rang. She picked it up, wondering how the PM had gone. The photograph they had retrieved from Rachel Abbie’s room had been logged and processed. Further examination of Rachel’s room hadn’t revealed anything else of significance. Just an ordinary student’s room and, when shown, her housemates hadn’t known either of the two men in the photograph.
Fletcher frowned. Unfortunately for them, not only had Rachel’s mobile been password protected, but nobody else had the password. Not even Will. Fletcher was starting to wonder if Rachel Abbie was a secretive person. Or is this normal in this age group? Her mind went back to the anomaly with the addresses the young woman had given. What did that mean?
She answered her mobile. It was Carruthers. ‘Boss?’ She smiled her thanks as Gayle Watson put a cup of much-needed coffee on her desk. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She realised she was feeling very empty.
His disembodied voice came over the mobile. ‘I’ve just left the PM. Are you back at the station, Andie?’
Fletcher sat upright. She felt a bubble of excitement. Perhaps they had some news that would further the investigation. ‘Yep. How did she die? Was it strangulation?’
The reception wasn’t good. Carruthers’ voice kept cutting out. In an open-plan office Fletcher had to really concentrate hard to hear him and understand what he was saying.
‘Yeah, listen Andie, this is to go no further…’ His voice cut out for a moment. ‘…index finger had been severed…’ The line dropped again. ‘…deliberately. I’m just about to phone Sandra and give her an update. Do you know if she’s still in the building?’
What had he just said? She asked him to repeat it.
‘The tip of Rachel Abbie’s index finger has been severed. Deliberately.’
She felt butterflies in her stomach as she started processing just what this might mean. Her thoughts then went to the DCI. ‘I don’t know, Jim. I think she may have already left.’ Despite her hand wrapped round a scalding cup of coffee the DS felt herself turn cold. She swallowed hard. ‘When you say severed deliberately…’
‘Clean cut done by a sharp blade, post mortem.’
Fletcher felt the coldness creep all over her. She shuddered. ‘Oh Jesus, that’s horrible. Do we have a trophy hunter on our hands?’
‘I don’t know. The finger wasn’t found at the scene so it does look as if it’s been taken.’ Carruthers spoke urgently into the mobile. ‘We need to try to keep this out of the papers.. If the press get hold of it, we might end up with a full-scale panic on our hands.’
‘They won’t hear anything from me,’ said Fletcher. ‘If we are dealing with a trophy hunter that makes it more likely we have a serial killer on our hands, doesn’t it, which also means it’s likely there’ll be more attacks–’
‘Let’s not jump ahead of ourselves. What did you find out from the students at her halls?’
‘Jim, there is one thing I need to tell you. Rachel gave a different home address to her housemates from the one she gave to the department. The address she gave to her boyfriend, a lad called Will Smith, is an address in Ashington in Northumberland. I’ve got someone checking it out. The thing is, she’s not moved house recently, so I’m a bit stumped. I’m hoping we’ll hear more when the local police get back in touch.’
‘Keep me posted.’ He said something else but it was lost as the mobile cut out once more.
‘Will do. I’ve also been to the central library on King James’ Way. Rachel Abbie did take out a copy of Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature earlier today at precisely four minutes past twelve, so we now know both girls had been to the same library on the day they were attacked, but the wee Irish girl, Mary McPhee, who was on reception at the time, doesn’t remember seeing her.’
‘Good job, right, get yourself away home soon and get an early night. I think Sandra wants to schedule a meeting for 8:30am tomorrow. I need you at your best.’
As soon as Fletcher had finished the call her mobile rang again. It was the control room at Bilston.
‘We sent someone local to the address you gave us in Ashington.’
‘Go on.’ Fletcher tried to keep the excitement out of her voice.
‘That’s just it. It doesn’t exist. It’s a depot.’
Puzzled Fletcher finished the call, rang Carruthers to fill him in and then leant forward, steepling her hands against her face. The coffee Watson had brought her was all but forgotten.
Chapter 8
Wednesday
‘Are we talking about a psychopathic serial killer?’ asked the young, spiky-haired DC Helen Lennox, who had been drafted in to help with the investigation. It was 8.30am. DCI Sandra McTavish had yet to make an appearance. She had called Carruthers earlier to say she’d been held up and had given him permission to start the brief without her.
‘We’ve only got two victims,’ said Carruthers, standing by the incident board. ‘It’s too early to call the perpetrator a serial killer.’ The young DC blushed. ‘If we do have a psychopathic serial killer on our hands,’ Carruthers continued, ‘then let’s hope to God we can catch them before they strike again.’
‘And are we sure they will strike again?’ asked Willie Brown.
‘That’s the big question, isn’t it, Willie. The problem is we have no way of knowing. But I think at the moment we have to assume they will. And let’s face it, whether they do or not we need them caught.’ Carruthers turned from the packed room of CID back to the whiteboard. ‘Let’s build up a picture of what we already know.’
‘First, we have eighteen-year-old student Serena Davis slashed across the face. She survived an attempted strangulation and is currently recovering in hospital. She was attacked on Marshall Place.’
He then pointed at the latest photograph that had been pinned to the board. ‘Five days later we have our seco
nd victim attacked on Greyfriar’s Wynd. We believe the victim is nineteen-year-old Rachel Abbie but until such time as we can get a positive ID we will refer to her as Jane Doe. She wasn’t as lucky as Serena Davis. She didn’t survive the attack. The PM shows the girl died from manual strangulation, pending toxicology results.’ He turned to Dougie Harris. ‘Dougie, you were pulling the files on similar attacks in Scotland? Do you have anything for us?’
The middle-aged detective sergeant shook his head. ‘If we’re looking at serial killers of teenage girls there’s nothing recent, boss. Robert Black and Peter Tobin are two names that spring to mind. Tobin’s now a frail old man in Saughton Prison, too scared to come out of his cell apparently, and Robert Black died in prison in Northern Ireland in 2016. Emma Caldwell’s murder still remains unsolved, mind.’ Harris was talking about the murder of the 26-year-old Glaswegian who had sadly gone off the rails, slipping into prostitution after the death of her sister.
‘Hmm. Keep digging.’ But even as he said this Carruthers thought that the two recent attacks were most probably the actions of someone completely under the police radar whose recent activities in all likelihood had only just been triggered. But that was nothing more than a hunch.
‘Do we know if Rachel Abbie’s father’s been located?’ Watson straightened her tie as she asked the question. This no-nonsense lesbian had a penchant for wearing men’s suits and she carried them off beautifully, Carruthers had to admit. He often wondered how she and old-style cop Dougie Harris managed to rub along so well. Nothing as queer as folk, he thought. If he’d voiced this to Watson she would have laughed her head off. She loved puns.
Fletcher turned to answer Watson’s question when her mobile rang. ‘Sorry, I need to take this.’
Carruthers nodded his permission and Fletcher stood up and made her way to the door. ‘It’s Bilston on the phone,’ she mouthed as she exited. As she shut the door behind her Carruthers heard her say into the mobile, ‘This had better be good. I’m in the middle of a team brief.’
Turning back to the expectant officers Carruthers said, ‘No, Rachel Abbie’s father has not been found yet but perhaps Andie will have some news for us when she returns.’ He looked round the room before glancing at his watch, wondering when Sandra McTavish would arrive and if, in her continued absence, he should start assigning jobs. ‘We need to step up our investigation.’
Just as he said that Andrea Fletcher re-entered the room and spoke to the assembled mass as she took her seat, smoothing her skirt as she sat. ‘That was the control room. They’ve located Rachel Abbie’s father. He’s on his way up.’
He nodded his thanks to Fletcher. ‘Thank goodness. That’s good news. Means we don’t have to ask one of her poor housemates. The station’s taken a call from Will Smith first thing this morning. Rachel didn’t return home last night. In my mind it’s only a matter of time before we’re formally able to ID our Jane Doe as Rachel Abbie. I’m afraid that’s not all. What else we do know of the latest assault from the PM is that part of the girl’s right index finger has been deliberately cut off. After her death.’
There was a sharp intake of breath. ‘And that bit of information is not to leave this room. Are we agreed?’ There was a collective nodding of heads. ‘And definitely not to get into the hands of the press. We don’t want to cause a panic.’
Helen Lennox cleared her throat before speaking. ‘Do we tell Rachel’s father? About the severed finger? I mean, if it is his daughter lying there on the slab?’
Carruthers turned to the spiky-haired officer. He wondered how she would fit into their close-knit team.
‘We’re going to have to. He has a right to know and these things sometimes have a habit of getting leaked to the press. Much better coming from us. But don’t worry, you won’t be assigned that job.’
Lennox, having turned pink, nodded, looking relieved, and returned to scribbling in her notebook. No sooner had Carruthers finished speaking than the door opened and the newest member of the station walked in unbuttoning her coat.
‘I got held up,’ announced DCI McTavish. ‘I’m here now, though.’ She addressed her comment to Carruthers. He tried very hard to maintain a neutral expression but knew he was frowning. He couldn’t help it. In all his time as DCI he’d never been late for a brief this important. He took a deep breath and tried to relax his facial muscles. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Sandra McTavish plonk her briefcase down on the floor, whip her coat off, place it on the back of one of the vacant chairs. She was wearing a charcoal grey knee-length dress. Her flesh-coloured tights were wrinkled. She must have seen Carruthers stare at them as she bent her head forward and pulled them up.
‘In terms of similarities between these women,’ he carried on, ‘both were young, both blondes, both most likely students. These crimes are nothing short of heinous and we need to catch the perpetrator.’
‘Are we sure it’s one person and not two?’ asked Brown, smoothing down his comb-over with his right hand. He addressed his comments to Carruthers. ‘Could the second not be a copycat? After all, only the second victim had her index finger severed.’
‘Yes, but Serena Davis’s attacker didn’t get the chance to finish the job, did they?’ Fletcher piped up.
‘It’s a fair question,’ said Carruthers, his brows knitting together as he now watched McTavish, still standing, searching her briefcase for her phone which she brought out and looked at. She fiddled with it and put it back in her bag. Carruthers hoped she’d put it on silent. He didn’t want any more interruptions.
‘Mackie is pretty confident–,’ he began, only to be cut off by McTavish who strode to the front of the room.
‘Mackie’s confident the two attacks have the hallmarks of the same person.’ McTavish gave Carruthers a sharp look, meaning she’d now arrived, she would take over and he needed to take a back seat and let her get on with the job she was paid to do. Awkwardly, he returned to his chair.
‘And of course,’ she continued, ‘we know from Mackie part of the index finger was severed post mortem. What we’ve got to work out is whether these were two random attacks or whether these particular girls were targeted. At first glance there don’t seem to be any similarities between the two except that they are both blonde female students.’
‘Well, you’ve got three similarities there already,’ said Brown, smirking.
McTavish kept quiet, clearly deciding to ignore Brown. For all that she had taken his job, Carruthers was beginning to see that she was getting the measure of her staff early on.
‘And both having just been to the library when they got attacked,’ said Fletcher. ‘And talking about books, both girls had a copy of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged in their possession.’
‘That’s five then,’ said Brown.
Helen Lennox lifted her hand to ask a question. ‘Does the perpetrator wait for these women to leave the library and then follow them, do you think? Perhaps it’s a member of the library staff or a fellow student.’
Both Carruthers and McTavish spoke at once. ‘It’s a possibility.’
Lennox still had her hand in the air when she spoke. ‘Perhaps it’s worth checking out the library again?’
Fletcher spoke up. ‘I’ve already been to the library. The librarian that I spoke to wasn’t on duty when Rachel Abbie took the book out, and his colleague,’ she looked at her notes, ‘a Mary McPhee, doesn’t remember seeing Rachel.’
Carruthers bit his lip and allowed McTavish to answer Lennox’s question. He had to remind himself who was the senior investigating officer here. And it wasn’t him.
‘I agree.’ She turned to Carruthers. ‘Jim, can you go through the details of the two victims for us.’
Carruthers nodded and turned to Fletcher. ‘Andie, I believe you’ve got their details.’
Fletcher flipped back a couple of pages in her black notebook and began to read. ‘First victim is eighteen-year-old Serena Davis. She’s five-four, blonde-haired and studying history of art. Jane Do
e is five-two and blonde. If she does turn out to be the missing student, Rachel Abbie, then Rachel was nineteen and studying philosophy.’
‘What time is Rachel Abbie’s father due to arrive in Castletown, Jim?’
It was Fletcher who answered McTavish. ‘Within a couple of hours, ma’am.’
‘Good. We need to confirm the ID of the victim as quickly as possible.’
Carruthers knew as soon as the formal ID had been made, the painstaking process of piecing together the girl’s last movements would start.
McTavish looked around the room. ‘Who’s accompanying the man to the mortuary?’
Carruthers noticed his new boss had her eyes on her mobile again. He opened his mouth but didn’t get a chance to speak.
‘I want you here at the station, Jim. Get Andrea to go. It’s a job for a DS.’
Carruthers looked at the new DCI. He was still sizing his replacement up. He cast a critical eye over her. Sandra McTavish was looking immaculate as ever. Charcoal grey clearly suited her. Her black hair was up in a smart chignon. The previously wrinkled tights were the only giveaway that she had arrived in haste. He was aware she was still speaking.
‘From a press point of view this has to be handled extremely delicately. I want very little of the actual detail given to the press for obvious reasons. Gayle, are you happy to still be our press liaison?’
Watson smiled. Press liaison was quite clearly a job she relished. ‘Happy and on it, ma’am.’
Carruthers thought privately that Gayle Watson was the perfect press liaison. Like Fletcher she had a calm efficiency about her but the few years she had on Fletcher could be used to good advantage. Carruthers knew she was also excellent at fielding questions.
‘I want you to contact the press and set up a meeting,’ continued McTavish. ‘But wait until you get a formal ID on the dead girl first. Family needs to be notified. Correct procedures to be followed.’
