Random

by Craig Robertson

  The Ripper case is being led by Detective Chief Inspector Lewis Robertson and Detective Sergeant Rachel Narey. When the Daily Record contacted DS Narey by telephone she said that she would not comment on operational matters. However when the Record told her that we were in possession of a severed finger which we knew to belong to one of the Ripper’s victims, she could not hide her surprise. She agreed to meet with this reporter and took possession of the severed finger.

  DS Narey agreed to make a statement on the unsolved murders but the Record would like to stress that this was not dependent on the provision of the finger. We were happy to hand it over as part of our civic duty and to help the police catch the maniac that is terrorising the city.

  ‘I cannot confirm that these four men were killed by the same person but I can say that Strathclyde Police are looking at all four cases as part of the same investigation. We have ruled nothing either in or out of that investigation.

  ‘There has been contact by someone who may well be the killer of one or more of these men but we would prefer not to comment on the nature of that contact in order to reduce the possibility of imitators.

  ‘The revelation of the nature of any contact between a possible killer and Strathclyde Police would, in this instance, be unhelpful and possibly damage this investigation.’

  The Daily Record, its editor, management and owners take the safety of the public very seriously indeed and that is why, after much consideration, we have taken the decision to publish the details we have about this horrendous killing spree. We do not take lightly the possibility of interference into a murder investigation but we believe that public safety is paramount. The people of Glasgow need to be fully informed about the murderous lunatic that has already taken four lives.

  We can also reveal that Strathclyde Police have recruited a leading Cracker-style forensic psychologist to work on the case. Well-known profiler Dr Paul Crabtree has been involved with the case since the third murder. He has drawn up a profile of the Ripper and officers are now working within certain parameters in their pursuit of the killer.

  Strathclyde Police have always been reluctant to make use of such profiles in recent years so some will see the hiring of Dr Crabtree as an act of desperation. Crabtree himself has previously been openly critical of the force’s suspicion of forensic psychology.

  The Daily Record will continue to help Strathclyde Police in any way it can in the course of this investigation. In the meantime, we ask all the people of Glasgow, indeed all of Scotland, to be vigilant and to contact this newspaper if they have anything which might help catch Jock the Ripper.

  CHAPTER 21

  Crazed.

  Psychopath.

  Barbaric.

  Brutal.

  Sick.

  Deranged.

  Maniac.

  Murderous.

  Lunatic.

  Perfect. Say what they want. Think what I want them to think.

  CHAPTER 22

  I had been on day shift so knew she would be sitting waiting for me when I got home. I was sure she would know by then but apart from that I had no idea what to expect.

  I closed the front door behind me and paused for a second or two before going in search of her. I opened the door to the living room but one look inside showed me she wasn’t there. I tried the kitchen.

  She was sitting at the table with her back to me. Her hair was loose but unruly, as if it had been pulled out of a hairband and just left where it fell. She was wearing a dark cardigan and it was pulled tight to her.

  My heart was in my mouth. Maybe for the first time in a very long time, I knew the feeling of fear.

  She must have heard me come in to the house. Must have heard the kitchen door open and close. Knew I was standing behind her but she didn’t move, didn’t speak. I walked round her to the other side of the table, seeing the open newspaper that lay in front of her. Even before I looked at it I knew what it would be. Couldn’t be anything else. The photographs of Carr, Hutchison, Tierney and Ogilvie – although she was only looking at one of them. The lurid headlines screaming at her. The words, so many words. All laid out in front of her eyes.

  There was no tea or coffee on the table. No kettle on the boil. Just her, the table, the newspaper and the photograph of Wallace Ogilvie.

  I pulled back the chair, deliberately scraping it against the floor so it made a noise before I sat down. She didn’t flicker. Her eyes, red and wet, stayed fixed on the paper.

  My breathing was stilted and I could hear my heart. My eyes went from her to the paper and back again. I tried to will her to look up and say something.

  I followed her eyes. She was reading it all, word after word, not for the first time I was sure of that. But after every few paragraphs her gaze switched to the photograph of Wallace Ogilvie for a few moments then back to the text. Few paragraphs, picture, few paragraphs, picture, few paragraphs picture.

  I could see she was nearing the end of Imrie’s article and hoped that meant she would stop and look at me. Speak to me. Tell me what it meant to her. I almost began to speak as she reached the last few words, ready to ask or answer. But her eyes switched back to the beginning of the story and she read again.

  Few paragraphs, picture, few paragraphs, picture, few paragraphs picture. I watched her go through it all again, forcing myself to gulp down a nervous, anxious breath. Her eyes strained over it, every now and again a single tear escaping and trickling down her cheek.

  Few paragraphs, picture, few paragraphs, picture, few paragraphs picture until she again neared the end of the article.

  This time she suddenly lifted her head and looked at me through her wet screen. She looked at me for an age, helplessly trying to get words out. Struggling.

  ‘I’m glad,’ she said at last.

  Just that. No explanation. None needed maybe.

  She just kept looking at me and I didn’t know what to do. I was sure she didn’t want me to go to her and hold her. A bit of me wanted to do just that. A very small part of me wanted to tell her everything. I told that part of me to stay quiet.

  ‘I’m glad,’ she said again. Her voice was level, making it hard for me to read as much into it as I’d like. She sounded tired too, even more than she would normally do at that time of night.

  She just looked at me. And just for a bit, I wondered if she knew. Or guessed. But she couldn’t.

  ‘I am glad that bastard is dead,’ she whispered. It wasn’t like her to swear. Even when it happened she didn’t swear. She shouted and she cried a lot. For maybe a year and a half she cried all day and cried all night. Then the pills started, the crying stopped and she slept at night. After a year and a half of constant grief she gave in and let chemicals dictate her mood and sleeping habits. Eighteen months after losing my child, I lost my wife as well.

  I just looked at her, giving her time to say more, to open up if she wanted. Maybe to say the one thing that I wanted to hear her say. Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times, silent tears slipping down her face and stinging her lips.

  I tried to remember how long it had been since I kissed her. Her birthday was July so probably then. How long since I kissed her as if I meant it, how long was that? Did I kiss her after Sarah was killed? Hard as I tried, I couldn’t remember. I held her, held her for the longest time, so hard and so close but couldn’t remember kissing her on the lips the way a husband and wife should.

  Her mouth opened again, words hanging off them but unspoken. She choked them back, swallowed them whole. Then her eyes left mine and dropped to the table. She looked at the swirls of the pine and the lines of the grain as she eventually found some more words that could leave her.

  ‘I am so fucking glad that bastard is dead. I am so fucking glad he isn’t around to hurt anyone else.’

  She paused just long enough for my heart to stop and wonder.

  ‘I am glad that someone had the balls to kill him.’

  She left that there, hanging between us like a ball waiting to be
batted. Her eyes were fixed on a gnarl in the wood of the table, examining every curve of the knot so that she didn’t have to lift her head and look me in the eye.

  She repeated herself, slower.

  ‘I’m glad . . . that someone . . . had the balls . . . to kill him.’

  My heart was pounding. It was deafening in my ears. My skin was cold and I was acutely aware of every part of me.

  ‘I am . . . glad . . . that someone . . . had . . . the balls . . . to kill . . . him.’

  I pushed myself out of my chair, clumsily getting to my feet and rushing over to her. I dropped to one knee so I could hug her, envelop her in my arms and bury my head into her neck. Hadn’t dared to expect that she would understand. Had been so terrified of her knowing, her finding out and yet she had wanted the same as me all along. Far more than I hoped for. I held her tight and smelled her, kissed her hair. My heart was bursting and I had so much to tell, so much I would spare her from but so much to share. I squeezed her, almost wanted to be inside her skin, part of her.

  ‘Get . . . off . . . me.’

  I didn’t understand. I held on.

  ‘Get off me,’ she ordered.

  I let go, confused. She looked at me.

  ‘You can’t make up for it by holding me now,’ she said. ‘It’s far too late for that. I don’t want an apology now.’

  I didn’t understand. Her red eyes blazed at me in anger.

  ‘You should have done it. You shouldn’t have left it to someone else. It’s far too late to say sorry for that now.

  ‘And now here I am, glad that a man is dead. Christ I’m glad that some . . . some psychotic freak has murdered four people. Do you know how that makes me feel? Disgusted with myself, that’s how.

  ‘You made me feel like that. You. Hope you’re proud of yourself. If you had acted like a man it wouldn’t have come to this.’

  I fell back from her in shock. Thought she had understood, thought she had known but her anger just made me want to scream. It wasn’t like that. No freak, no psycho. It was me. I had done all that.

  But I saw her eyes, could see her self-loathing right at that minute. She was angry at me but she was so much angrier at herself. She had been sat there much of that day celebrating a death and by doing so she had been rejoicing at four deaths by a person she thought was a serial killer. She was right, I had done that to her.

  I tried to speak, realizing for the first time that I hadn’t said a word since I entered the house. Didn’t know what to say to her. Didn’t have a clue where to start. If she hated us both for very different reasons then she would hate us both all the more if she knew the truth. I would kill her by telling her.

  ‘You have done nothing,’ she spat at me. ‘Not a thing. At least I’ve tried to stop bastards like him from drink-driving. I’ve tried to make a difference. Tried to change the law and keep the likes of Ogilvie off the street. What have you done? Disappeared inside yourself, hiding from the world like a coward. Did you even think about doing something? Do you even think about her?’

  Blood rushed through my head like a passing train and I nearly lifted my hand to her for the first time ever. I wanted to slap her hard across the mouth. I wanted to hurt her for saying the most hurtful thing that anyone could have said to me. I thought of nothing else but her.

  She saw it. Saw my rage. Saw my hurt. Saw what her words had done and she crumbled. Her own anger was gone and her hands reached out grabbing at me in apology, trying to reel me back in, sorry, sorry, sorry spilling from her lips.

  I backed away at first but stopped and let her hold me. Words fell from her, telling me she didn’t mean it, any of it. I knew that wasn’t true. But she told me she’d have hated it if I had killed Ogilvie, not what she wanted, knew I loved Sarah, was so sorry, didn’t really want him dead, couldn’t believe someone had murdered four people, so sorry, what had happened to us. Why us? So sorry.

  I stared over her shoulder, lips pursed, eyes straining back, fighting off all the emotions that had been strangers to me for so long. My hate for Wallace Ogilvie simply strengthened. My determination bolstered.

  I squeezed her, comforted her. But my eyes remained fixed on a spot on the wall behind her. Just a random bit of paintwork, stared at it hard, burrowing into it.

  ‘I know,’ I told her at last. I didn’t particularly know what I was telling her but I knew it was what she wanted to hear. Comfort words. I knew.

  She sobbed into my shoulder, soaking it with guilt, grief and apologies. She was incoherent now, the pills kicking in faster than ever before, accelerated by a broken heart that offered a motorway straight into her bloodstream.

  She wept and mumbled till she fell asleep. Long after she had dropped off, I continued to hold her and stare at the spot on the wall. I knew that even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stop. More than ever I had to see my plan through. For Sarah and for her. I was barely more than halfway there and to stop now would ruin everything.

  So much more to do.

  Eventually I picked her up without waking her and carried her upstairs. I pulled back the cover and lay her, fully dressed, on the bed. I slipped off her shoes and kissed her full on the lips before tucking the duvet round her again.

  I had so much more to do. The police would be here before long and I had to be ready for them. It would be Rachel Narey, of that I was pretty sure. And hoped.

  CHAPTER 23

  The door. It would be her.

  She was prettier than she’d looked on television and in the papers. Smaller though. Her dark hair was tied back but wisps of it escaped and played with her face. I tried not to look too long or too obviously.

  She introduced herself and shook my hand. Soft but firm. Textbook for a female cop probably. She made a show of looking around the room as if taking an interest in the décor. Looking for signs of something else no doubt. No signs to be seen, DS Narey. Made sure of that a long time ago.

  There was a guy with her. DC Dawson. Balding, narrow eyes and wide shoulders. She did all the talking.

  Small talk to start with. Weather, traffic, the house. Disappointing, I’d expected better. When I didn’t bite, when I just sat and looked back at her, she soon gave up. I knew why she was there and she knew I did.

  Cut to the chase, Rachel. Mention his name.

  ‘Wallace Ogilvie.’

  There. That wasn’t too difficult, was it?

  ‘Wallace Ogilvie. I take it you have heard that he has been murdered?’

  ‘I’d heard. I read the papers.’

  ‘You will know why we are here to speak to you then.’

  ‘Is that a question?’

  ‘If you want. We have to explore every avenue connected with his murder. You are one of these avenues.’

  ‘Am I? I don’t see how.’

  ‘We have to wonder about people who might have a grudge against Mr Ogilvie.’

  ‘Someone obviously did.’

  ‘That’s what we have to establish. When did you last see Mr Ogilvie?’

  ‘Six years ago. At the trial.’

  ‘And you haven’t seen him since?’

  ‘You asked me when I last saw him. I told you when.’

  ‘OK. How did you feel when you heard he’d been killed?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘I felt nothing. It’s been six years. I don’t care anything about him.’

  ‘That’s hard to believe. Given what he did. I know I’d be pretty angry if it was me.’

  ‘Yes, you probably would.’

  ‘And you aren’t?’

  ‘I’m not. Not any more.’

  ‘After what he did?’

  ‘I said.’

  ‘So you did. It was a terrible thing.’

  ‘I’m very aware of that.’

  ‘Of course you are. Where were you on the twelfth of this month?’

  ‘Am I being accused of something?’

  ‘No. But we have to establish some facts. Establish the whereabouts of everyo
ne involved at the time concerned.’

  ‘I’m not involved.’

  ‘I have to ask.’

  ‘So ask.’

  ‘Where were you on the twelfth of this month?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You must have some idea.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘The hours around midnight.’

  ‘Working or asleep.’

  ‘You weren’t working, we’ve already taken the liberty of checking with your boss.’

  ‘Sleeping then.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I can’t. But I sleep at night so that would be my best guess.’

  ‘Can anyone verify that?’

  ‘My wife. But then she would have been sleeping too. You can check with her.’

  ‘We will.’

  ‘Thought you might. She’s out.’

  ‘We will come back. If you read about Mr Ogilvie then you’ll have read about the other killings.’

  ‘Is that a question too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And do you know where you were on the nights when they took place?’

  ‘I have no idea. I don’t even know when they were. But I am guessing you have already checked my shift rota.’

  ‘We have. You were working on one of them and off on the other two.’

  ‘There you go.’

  ‘What do you think of those killings?’

  ‘What do I think of a serial killer roaming the streets and murdering folk at random? That’s a strange question.’

  ‘I’d still like you to answer it.’

  ‘It’s sick. Scary. Depraved. I feel sorry for their families.’

  ‘All four families?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Including Mr Ogilvie’s?’

  ‘I said all four.’

  ‘After what he did?’

  ‘You asked me that already. I said I felt sorry for his family. I didn’t say I felt sorry for him.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Feel sorry for him? No.’

  ‘You don’t feel sorry for him but you don’t feel angry? And yes, that’s a question.’