He stumbled back to the car, unlocked it and squeezed himself into the back seat. He locked the doors from the inside and turned the heater on, wrapping his coat around himself, resting at an uncomfortable angle until he succumbed to whisky-ravaged demons.
Sometime later, he woke. His phone had buzzed. Slightly more sober, he registered the Dunsmuir house across the darkened street while he unlocked the phone. The messaging app had reappeared, inviting him to tap.
[2019-01-15:0422] Feeling totally alone, Leccy? She never really loved you. While you sit outside nothing is what it seems to be. The boy is safe now so we will go mano-a-mano J.
How did J know about Nathaniel? Carter oozed himself out of the back seat and stood in the darkened road, looking around. His watch read 4.22 a.m.
‘Fuck yez all,’ he shouted, sliding into the driver’s seat and driving off.
14
Bring Me Flowers
Carter rocked up at Fettes next morning looking better than he felt. Wearing his Crombie coat, jeans, collared shirt and tan brogues, he’d even stuck some gel in his white hair and combed it up to pretend he was confident and in total control. Holding his treble-shot latte, the coat kept the chill of the office at bay while he waited impatiently for Dr Flowers to begin. The previous evening’s discussion with his father-in-law was still raw.
She sat behind the table wearing a powder-blue suit with a skirt that rose up over her fine knees. At the end of her shapely legs, killer stilettos matched the colour of her outfit. He lounged over the chair, his arms folded, watching her prepare for the interrogation. Her blonde ponytail was perfectly intact as if she’d just teleported from a fashion runway. Where was home for her? The south – perhaps London, or of that ilk? She’d be staying locally while consulting. The Grosvenor or the Caley, maybe. Definitely not the Balmoral. Police Scotland wouldn’t pay that kind of dosh to sort out the petty niggles of his wretched soul.
‘Good morning, Lachlan. Are you making a fashion statement this chilly morning?’ Dr Lisa Flowers opened the morning’s session, nodding towards Carter’s Crombie, still firmly in place.
‘It’s cold in here,’ he shrugged.
‘How is your mood today?’
‘You really want to know? I’m feeling angry.’
‘And why is that?’ she scribbled quickly on her notepad as if this was an undesirable turn of events.
‘My in-laws have taken out a court order, allowing them to have residency of my son. It appears Kelsa testified in court months ago, while she was still able, that I wasn’t a suitable father. She kept that little nugget from me.’
‘She should have told you she was planning to do it,’ Dr Flowers responded, as devil’s advocate. ‘So, what can you do about it?’ She stared at him.
‘Apart from digging her up to ask why? Old Dunsmuir dared me not to challenge the court order, so I’m going to get a lawyer. Someone who will totally fuck him off.’ He pointed his finger at her. ‘Take down a note in your pad, Petal. “Definitely not a suicide risk.”’
‘So, tell me about meeting Kelsa for the first time.’
She wanted to get on with her plans, but he had more steam to vent on the current topic. ‘What will that achieve?’ he responded.
‘Humour me. Was it love at first sight?’
‘It was big love if that’s what you want to hear. I’d finished my stand-up gig at the Stand, and a few of us comics went to the Dome on George Street. She and her girlfriends had seen my slot and she came over to say hello. We chatted, dated, fell in love and married. We got pregnant, she handed off my son, abandoned me and died. The circle of life, what else is there?’
‘You’re a stand-up comedian?’ Dr Flowers seemed dumbfounded.
‘As a career, it has more prospects than an axe murderer.’
‘I guess,’ she smiled nervously, wondering if she should reboot the morning.
‘Knocked you off your stride, Petal?’ Carter teased. ‘You came in here to be all serious and psyched up, and now you’ve stalled.’
‘A bit,’ she blushed. ‘I wasn’t ready for that.’ She shuffled some papers about nervously. ‘Nobody mentioned it during my research. And don’t call me Petal.’
‘It’s still one-nil to me.’
She ran her fingers through her hair and took a deep breath. ‘Did Kelsa feel the same about you?’
‘Yes.’ His grin went from one ear to the other. ‘We just clicked. The fire hose to the face kind of love. You know, boom. She was the woman I was going to spend my life with because she wanted to spend hers with me.’
‘You’d dated before, I assume?’ Her composure was coming back.
He chewed on his answer, wondering if he could noise her up some more. ‘Has this ever happened to you before? Patients knocking you off-course?’
‘I’ve sat in front of killers and child molesters and made them weep, but nobody has blamed stand-up comedy as a reason for taking up life as a serial killer. Maybe you’ll be the first.’
He decided to temporarily let her off his hook. ‘I’ve had my fair share of dating, but not serious. One wanted the full wife-and-kids package, but she wouldn’t move to the city. I’ll be honest and say that wouldn’t have worked for either of us.’
‘What about Kelsa?’ Dr Flowers asked, back online again and scribbling furiously in her notepad. ‘How did she feel about family?’
‘The same. We never talked about our exes. There didn’t seem to be any point; we’d found each other, no one who came before mattered.’
‘How long before you married?’
‘We went on our first holiday to Las Vegas. While we were there, we just did it. Eighth of December 2017,’ Carter counted back the time. ‘About eight months after we met.’
‘Something is bothering me,’ Flowers said, the slightest of dimples appearing as she smiled. ‘Do you dye your hair?’
‘Are we finished now?’ He felt that the ice between them had melted a bit.
‘Not till you tell me about your hair.’
‘My gran said it turned white after the accident.’
Her smiled faltered. ‘Has the grief hit you yet?’
‘Some,’ he said. ‘But it’s only been days since her burial.’
‘I mean your parents.’
Her left-hook caught him by surprise.
‘What do you remember of them?’ She followed up with a right.
‘Nothing,’ he whispered, groggy, annoyed at what she’d done just when it was going well. He spun away from her, not towards the exit but to the picture window, to gaze outside at life and the things that everyday people do. The kids at Fettes College were playing football and hockey.
‘Who cared for you as a child?’ He heard her voice from a million miles away.
‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore.’ He buttoned up the Crombie, turned and walked to the door.
‘That’s a shame,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
15
Rocketman
Mary Brooks saw Carter coming down the stairs after his session with Dr Flowers and plotted an intercept course.
‘Don’t,’ he said, striding past her, his face set tightly. ‘I don’t want to know.’
‘OK,’ she called to his disappearing back. ‘Shall I tell Rocketman you’re packing it all in for the stage?’
Carter pulled up and did a U-turn. ‘What does he want?’
‘He wouldn’t tell me,’ she replied, betraying a lifetime of disappointment in the man who would never tell her what she wanted to hear.
‘Basement Two?’ asked Carter.
‘Where else?’
Carter took the stairs rather than the lift. The forensic labs for the south-east of Scotland were underground at FOC Fettes, the hideout of Chief Technical Officer Davey ‘Rocketman’ Johnstone, a man who held the same rank and stature as DCI McKinlay and had been around just as long. He and McKinlay had joined the force together, it was rumoured, and he knew where McKinlay’s bodies were buried, it
was whispered whenever new recruits were indoctrinated.
Basement Two was light and airy and spread beyond the visible footprint of the FOC building above like weeds spread roots. It shared its accommodation with Forensics and Firearms. There was a vehicle garage with a secure entry that from the outside looked like a fire station. The forensic suite was state of the art. It was suspected a long-departed Chief Constable had conceded to all of Rocketman’s equipment demands based on a real promise to exhume some of those putrefied bodies.
Carter arrived at a frosted glass door that spanned the corridor’s width, pressed the visitor’s button to announce his arrival and waited. He imagined sensors scanning every millimetre of his body to check he was a fit and proper person to be granted entry to the Lothian kirk of criminal science. The door relented with a click and he was admitted into a reception area that could have graced Holyrood Palace. With one hand suspiciously hidden under the table, a young receptionist smiled at him and told him to sit while she informed CTO Johnstone.
Moments later, Johnstone himself appeared in a doorway further down the corridor. ‘Sergeant Carter,’ he commanded.
Carter stood and walked towards him, his footsteps making no sound on the rubberised floor, musing that Rocketman didn’t look anything like the lead guitarist of Elton John’s band. They only shared the same name and city as a hometown. Johnstone was small for a man, dark-haired with quick eyes and a faster mind, who could and did detective work if pressed. However, he drew the line at playing ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’ on the streets of Niddrie.
Carter entered a laboratory full of white-coated young people busily doing stuff on impressive machines usually only seen by mortals on television. Rocketman got straight to the point.
‘The girl in hospital, Alice Deacon. We’ve got some news, but how much of it is useful, I think you’ll decide. First—’ Rocketman launched straight into an analysis of clothing and cell transfer and soil samples and DNA testing. Carter waited a full five minutes until he finished.
‘You didn’t call on Mary to catch me just to tell me the soil on Alice’s clothes came from an old graveyard. What else?’
‘That what I like about you, Sergeant Carter, you cut to the chase. So first, there are her shoes.’
‘What about them?’
‘She wasn’t wearing any. We checked with the ambulance crew and Dr Murray and the nursing staff. Coat, dress, underwear, tights, gloves: all accounted for. Handbag in a tree. As you found the scene, I’m assuming you didn’t lift her shoes off the verge as a souvenir?’
Carter thought back to his search of the scene at the bridge.
‘Nobody goes on a night out in winter in stocking feet,’ Rocketman carried on with his assessment. ‘So, a serial rapist who takes keepsakes. One step away from a serial killer.’
‘That’s a leap of faith.’
‘We can’t find enough DNA from her clothes and skin to get a reliable sample. Either we’ve been unlucky this time, or he’s forensically aware. Gloves, facemask, a prophylactic, wet wipes, etcetera. That takes me nicely to my main course.’
‘Which is?’ asked Carter.
‘Drug-facilitated sexual assault, our American colleagues call it.’
Carter hadn’t seen this coming. ‘Which drug?’
‘There’re many to choose from, and all are hand-boiled. We’re running the blood, hair and skin tests. Scoop is the leader in the clubhouse.’ Rocketman smiled, waiting to see if his allegedly smarter colleague could decipher his chemist’s code. ‘The street names constantly change, because no batch is ever quite the same. GHB and GBH, goop, scoop, soap, liquid X and Mad Max are just some of the monikers.’
‘Rohypnol?’ Carter guessed.
‘No, that’s flunitrazepam, known as Roofie in some circles and Rope in others. This is hyoscine, a derivative of the nightshade plant, probably prepared as scopolamine hydrobromide. Known as Scoop, Burundanga, or the more cultish Devil’s Breath. Common in the UK because the base is legal – but prescription-only. Most base drugs are mixed with other drugs and excipients to get more potent effects. A few years ago, GHB was the fashion amongst the unfashionable. But Leith Drug Squad got the dealers by the balls, and the girls learned to finish their drinks before going to the loo. Ms Deacon would’ve been staggering all over the place, so your man would have had to hold her up.’
‘It explains how he was able to rape her in the cemetery,’ Carter ran with it. ‘She’d look like she was blootered and he was taking care of her. And it explains how he was able to get her over the bridge parapet.’
‘It’s not for me to plant ideas in your head, Leccy, but I don’t think this is an opportunist rape. This drug is easy to buy, but not easy to dose. Too little of it and your victim will fight back. Too much of it and she’s a ragdoll; maybe even a dead-doll. I’m guessing he’s experimented before – or he’s been lucky. But I think we’ve just discovered a small piece of a much bigger picture.’
‘He’s done this to other women?’
Rocketman nodded. ‘Maybe Alice was his first murder attempt, but it’s likely he’s built himself up to it. If he was a chemist, he could make it himself. That would narrow down your search. How many sexual assaults in the city last year?’
Carter pondered the quiz question. ‘I don’t know. You’d be better placed to answer that.’
‘Ten murders. Not many by some cities; Glasgow had sixty-five, London was one-hundred-and-thirty-two. In Edinburgh and surrounds, close on a thousand sex crimes, all told.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Carter blew out his cheeks.
‘I’ll tell Cheryl, but I think you’ll need a bigger team. You’ve got a lot of digging to do, and I do hope that’s only a metaphor.’
16
Team Meeting
After leaving the forensic suite, Carter took out his phone, opened the Police Scotland ICRS case management app, found his team icon and sent them a secure text message. ‘Diary Buster’.
At 10.30 a.m. DI Mason, DC Podolski and DC Garcia were in a meeting room in St Leonard’s. Carter brought them up to speed about the date-rape drug.
‘Nick, have you authorised the analysis of Alice’s phone?’ Carter asked.
‘It was couriered to Helen Street in Glasgow last night,’ Mason replied. ‘Our Kiosk is out-of-bounds. Check ICRS yourself and see if Roy’s team have started work on it.’
‘Alice has messages on her phone,’ said Carter, ‘assumed to be from the man responsible for her flight over the footbridge.’
‘How do you come to that conclusion, Leccy?’ Mason asked.
Carter fiddled with ICRS on the desktop computer, struggling to find the evidence he was looking for.
‘Leccy’s name was in the text on her phone,’ DC Garcia said, filling the void in the room while the tech played up.
‘Thanks, Charli, I can explain it,’ Carter admonished her, finding what he was looking for at last. An image of the text message appeared on the electronic whiteboard.
[019-01-14:0015] Now I’ve got your attention, Leccy, you know I am serious. Was my calling card what you expected? What secrets will Alice tell you and will you ever find me? J.
‘How does he know you, Leccy?’ Mason asked, ready to pounce.
‘I don’t know, but there’s more here. This sixteen-character code seems to change every time he sends a message,’ said Carter.
‘So what?’ Mason said.
‘There are more texts. Her messages have her name, his have these random numbers instead of a name. And I’ve received messages to my own phone in the last two nights, direct from him.’
‘Why haven’t you told us this before?’ Mason saw leverage. ‘Are you holding back evidence?’
‘The texts were erased from my phone. There’s no evidence they ever existed.’
‘So, there’s a link between Alice, J and you,’ Mason concluded. ‘It must be someone else you know.’
The tension in the room tightened. The junior officers held their
breath, waiting for the next revelation. Carter knew he had to share his fear with Mason sometime but was now the moment? He thought not.
‘J knows Kelsa died, and he knows about Nathaniel.’
‘That’s awful, Leccy,’ DC Podolski said.
‘Come clean, Carter,’ said Mason. ‘You’re holding back.’
‘You’d like that, eh?’ Carter snapped at Mason’s lure.
‘You’re involved, somehow,’ Mason said. ‘It would be a dereliction of duty not to look into your background. I’ll propose it to the boss – right now – see if she agrees.’ He got up from his chair.
‘Is it really necessary? We should focus on this app, see if the techs can shed light on it.’
Mason ignored his plea and left the room.
‘Ellen, any luck with Alice’s family?’ Carter felt he should get on with the rest of the briefing.
‘Yes. We contacted her boyfriend, Hamish. He gave us the address of her parents. They’re shocked, as you’d expect, but knew nothing about anyone who could be J. Alice seemed to compartmentalise her life. They went to the hospital last night to see her.’
‘CCTV, Charli?’
‘Two cameras on George Street show someone getting out of a taxi and going into the Dome. The timing suggests it’s her, but the street was busy, and the resolution isn’t great.’
‘Follow up with the Dome, they might have private CCTV inside.’
The door opened. DI Mason accompanied DCI McKinlay. She sat down in Mason’s chair.
‘Nick has explained the complication, Leccy,’ McKinlay summarised. ‘You’ve received two messages from Alice’s rapist, but they’ve been deleted from your phone?’
‘Not by me, ma’am. I don’t know how they were deleted.’
‘And you’re mentioned in a message he sent to Alice?’ She looked at the whiteboard.
A Wife Worth Dying For Page 5
