Random

by Craig Robertson

  I threw some practice dice in my head. Think of a number.

  Eight. Castlemilk. Château Au Lait or Castlemanky depending on your point of view. It had one pub and seven hundred hungry weans testifying that you couldnae fling pieces oot a twenty-storey flat. If it was butter, cheese or jeely, if the bread was plain or pan, the odds of it reaching earth were ninety-nine to wan. Numbers everywhere.

  Ten. Corkerhill. Home of the Paka, a canal or train stop for Paisley, refurbished commuter land and not half as bad as it was painted or as it used to be.

  Seven. Carnwadric. Another tweeny war housing scheme on the fringes of civilization, east of safe Arden and north of Thornliebank. I’d say it was a shithole but that would hardly distinguish it from so many of the badly thought out schemes thrown up to take the spillover from the old slums.

  I threw the dice for real.

  A two. A three.

  Five. Cardonald.

  I knew there was the college, a cat and dog home, the Bute and Cumbrae multis and not much else of note except the bus into town. Cardonald it was.

  Random step number two.

  I opened an email account in the name of Wayne Wayne. Wayne.wayne@live.co.uk. I then opened a Facebook account in the name of Wayne Wayne. As good a name as any, better than most.

  Wayne is the most common middle name of America’s most prolific murderers. It’s all big John’s fault. Over 150 of the USA’s most vicious serial killers had the middle name Wayne. John Wayne Gacy, 36 victims. Elmer Wayne Henley, 27 victims. Conan Wayne Hale, Jimmy Wayne Jeffers, Robert Wayne Sawyer.

  Blame the parents. Give a kid a name like that and don’t be surprised if he grows up just a little more aggressive and macho than you expected. Wayne Wayne it was.

  Facebook search engine. Type in the word Cardonald and hit enter.

  Top of the list of over 500 names was Lara Samoltowski, the unwitting victim of the social networking revolution. It was all Google’s fault for opening Facebook up to their search engine and so opening her up to me. She really ought to have listened to those warnings on privacy settings.

  A look at her profile told me a lot. Where she studied. What bands she liked and so what concerts she might go to. Where she liked to eat. Where she liked to drink. Where she liked to shop. The lack of a boyfriend. Her vulnerability.

  So much networking. So much information.

  I was the most patient of impatient killers. It took three meals at Gambrino on Great Western Road. It took three times of wandering carefully through Zara, H&M and Oasis. It took four fairly uncomfortable visits to Oran Mor and the pubs of Ashton Lane before I saw the face from Facebook.

  It was in Jinty McGinty’s on Friday 3 April that I eventually saw her. She was sitting at a table in the corner with three other girls. I knew them immediately. Maz, Christine and Ash. Her Facebook friends, her best pals. Fellow students who didn’t know how lucky they were. But they would.

  Maz was a hotshot netball player, had a thing for guys with glasses and the only thing she loved more than vodka and cranberry was Ugly Betty. They all thought Christine was the best-looking girl in college. Chrissie had loved Take That since she was seven but now she was big time into the Chemical Brothers and missed her dog Robbie who was at home in Elgin. Ash was a party girl, hated studying but loved Greggs steak bakes, Pinot Grigio and tablet.

  Then there was Lara. She wasn’t one of the new Poles who had flooded into Scotland since EU expansion. She was fourth generation. Her dad couldn’t even speak Polish. Lara wanted to save the planet, the environment, the whale, the proboscis monkey, the Penan forest people of Malaysia and the old Atheneum theatre. She’d have been better off trying to save herself.

  She loved hillwalking and clubbing, lusted for Ashton Kutcher and admitted a guilty fancy for Al Gore. She barely looked her twenty years. Slim and pale. Long, dark curly hair. A near constant, guileless smile on a pretty face.

  One of the other girls, one of the lucky ones, sat with her back to me. Whatever she was saying, Lara smiled, laughed and nodded. Quick impressions were that she was smart and lively, an intelligent face, not too loud, interested. Nice. Beautiful. All to live for.

  I saw a couple of other guys in the pub looking at her too, checking her out and nudging their mates. That helped. It wouldn’t seem so odd if someone caught me staring at her. And I did.

  In fact, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Lovely, laughing, lively Lara.

  But I wasn’t looking for the same reason the other guys in the bar were. It wasn’t the slim waist, the long hair or the beautiful smile. I was staring because I was going to kill her.

  I wasn’t like them. I wasn’t gawping at her slim neck because I wanted to kiss it. I wasn’t like them at all.

  I wasn’t like anyone. Not in that pub or anywhere else. I hadn’t been like anyone else for a very long time.

  Not since my wee girl died under the wheels of Wallace Ogilvie’s car. Not since I had taken the lives of Carr, Hutchison, Tierney, Ogilvie and Sinclair. And I would be a lot less like anyone else after I disposed of the young girl sitting a few yards away from me.

  I had no choice. There was no choice. The dice said so. Facebook said so. The others, Ogilvie apart, were the unlucky losers in my Cutter’s lottery. She was part of the afterthought, the camouflage, the extra padding, the rest of the plan. Not the way a young life should be described. Not the way things should turn out.

  There was something about her neck though. My eyes kept being drawn to it. A pretty neck but slender. Fragile.

  I’d watch what she was doing – taking in her friends, her movements, trying to pick up more clues about her – but again and again my eyes went back to that delicate neck. Brass neck. Won by a neck. Red neck. Up to your neck in it. Dead from the neck up. Pain in the neck. Stick your neck out. Millstone around your neck. Hung from the neck until dead. Broken neck.

  She would be just a couple of years older than Sarah would be now. Maybe Sarah would have been at college or university now too. A young woman. Out on the town with her friends. Her life ahead of her.

  I shook my head. Shook the interfering thoughts out. No time for that. A distraction I didn’t need. I mentally apologized to her for doing so but it had to be done. Out damn thoughts.

  They kept coming back though. Maybe Sarah and Lara would be friends. Maybe Sarah would have been on her Facebook list, swapping messages with Maz, Ash and Christine. Maybe she’d have been in that happy group in Jinty’s with white wine, vodka and cranberry and bottles of beer.

  I’d been mugged by my memories again. Sarah came flooding back, pushing at me, arguing with me. She was saying no, I was saying it had to be. The plan, the dice, Facebook. They all demanded it.

  I shook the thoughts out of my head again and screwed my convictions to the sticking place. It had to be done. That neck. I was still looking at it when I became aware of someone standing at my shoulder. I hadn’t paid any attention to the door opening or the two sets of feet that had walked near me.

  I looked up and saw the inquisitive face of Detective Sergeant Rachel Narey looking back down at me.

  CHAPTER 33

  We were back outside the pub, standing on Ashton Lane, groups of people passing by on their way to the Loft, Vodka Wodka or Brel.

  Me, DS Narey and wide, balding DC Dawson.

  ‘How nice to see you again.’ DS Narey.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘I’m just being polite.’

  ‘Oh well, they say it’s nice to be nice. You not making house calls these days? I missed you the last time when you came round to chat to my wife.’

  ‘She confirmed that you were with her and asleep when two of the killings took place.’

  ‘I know. Strangely enough it did come up in conversation.’

  ‘You must be pleased that she put you in the clear. And yes, I suppose that is a question.’

  ‘Hardly. I had no need to be put in the clear. Instead I had to comfort an already troubled woman after her husband was acc
used of being a serial killer.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘OK, maybe I’m not. I didn’t accuse you of being a serial killer but I understand why you might resent the suggestion. I had to look into all aspects of the case but then I explained that to you before.’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘You see we are trained to always look close to home before examining the possibilities that a murder might have been committed by a complete stranger.’

  ‘Are you now?’

  ‘The percentage of what we call stranger murders is pretty low. Most victims know their killer. There is usually a reason for it in my experience. Random killings just don’t happen very often.’

  ‘But they do happen?’

  ‘Oh they do, yes. But I’m an awkward sort. Someone tells me something I tend to doubt it. I blame my parents.’

  ‘I’m sure they are very proud of you. The newspapers seem certain that these murders are being done at random.’

  ‘Don’t you know you shouldn’t believe everything you read? I wouldn’t believe the date on half those rags. Maybe they’re right but I’m keeping an open mind on things.’

  ‘Well done. So is that why you are speaking to me again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh good. And are you having me followed or did you just pop in here for a quiet drink with DC Whatsisname here. I thought they frowned on officers drinking on duty.’

  ‘They do if we get caught.’

  ‘Does that go for serial killers too?’

  ‘Oh most definitely. But no, my visit wasn’t entirely accidental. I fancied a quick word with you and a wee birdie told me you were in here.’

  ‘The wee birdies are awful well informed. So why do you want to talk to me then?’

  ‘Oh it’s not just you. All aspects of the case remember? All of the victims of this killer had given someone a reason to want them dead. Just that in some of the cases we maybe don’t know what the reason is yet. In your case, maybe we do.’

  ‘I told you. I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘I know you did. And I told you I’d understand it if you had wanted to. I don’t have children of my own but I think I know how you must have felt.’

  ‘Believe me, you don’t. Not even close.’

  ‘A drunk that knocked and killed a daughter of mine? I’d want him hurt. I’d want revenge. I’d maybe do anything to make him pay.’

  ‘Maybe you would.’

  ‘I understand that need to make things right. That’s my job. To sort things.’

  ‘You don’t seem to have made too good a job of it, DS Narey. No offence.’

  ‘None taken. You can surely see why you would make a good suspect for the killing of Wallace Ogilvie though.’

  ‘Maybe. But I didn’t kill him. And I certainly didn’t kill the rest of them. You tell me what makes me a good suspect for the others.’

  ‘Nothing does. Not a thing. That would be a puzzle right enough.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to your puzzle then, DS Narey, if there’s nothing else. Was there anything specific you wanted to ask me?’

  ‘Oh no. Just a wee chat. Helps me get things straight in my mind. I might need to chat to you again sometime.’

  ‘You do that. If you get a spare minute from catching the serial killer that is terrifying Glasgow then you come and have a chat.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll do that.’

  I had just turned away from her and could hear the two lots of detective feet ringing on the cobbles when the door to Jinty’s opened. Out came Christine, Maz, Lara and Ash. They were on their way to the Loft, I heard Christine say so. They were on their way for some food and some more drinks. They were on their way to sanctuary and salvation for Lara.

  If I ever saw her again it would be pure chance.

  I wanted to turn and watch them walk across the lane but I was aware that the two cops might also have turned and might have been looking at me. I caught the door to Jinty’s that they had left swinging behind them and went back in to finish off a pint of Guinness that was about to taste sweeter than it did before. A voice in my head said ‘Good’ and I didn’t disagree.

  I silently wished Lara Samoltowski a long and happy life.

  CHAPTER 34

  I was doing everything I could to avoid conversation with her. Wasn’t too difficult. I badgered Cammy for as many back or night shifts as were going. He was happy to oblige.

  It meant she was out all day on her pointless crusade against drunk drivers while I slept or planned. I was on the streets while she was in bed. At most it left a short awkward time when she got in from her day and before the pills kicked in and sent her to dreams, nightmares or nothingness.

  I was quiet, reluctant. She was used to that by now. Didn’t put her off talking. Got little back in return but ploughed on regardless. I could see the topic coming a mile away and would do my best to head it off. Sometimes wondered if she noticed that I spoke most when I was trying to avoid saying anything. She could never resist it for long. Probably like every other household in Glasgow. But ours was different. We were touched by it.

  Maybe they all thought they were. No more than six degrees of separation between them and a victim of the man they called The Cutter. Heard that all the time when I was driving.

  ‘My sister works beside this guy who’s dad knew that Billy Hutchison. You know. The bookmaker. Says the guy was in the bookies the very day that the man was murdered. Terrible, ain’t it?’

  ‘My cousin Johnny is going out with a girl who was a patient of that dentist Sinclair. Brian, isn’t it? Was. She hadn’t seen him for a while right enough. Good teeth this girl, our Johnny says. Anyway she says he was a really nice guy. Very professional. Sin what happened to him, wasn’t it?’

  When you live in a village like Glasgow then you can be sure everyone would have known someone. All over the papers. All over the TV. Only thing anybody talked about. That and the football.

  Different for us though. We were glad Wallace Ogilvie was dead.

  We were just one separation away from it. A single step. And we were glad.

  We didn’t say it. Not to each other or anyone else but there was no doubt about it. She denied it after that first time when she read about his death and broke down and swore. She maybe even denied it to herself but she was glad. And I was very glad. It meant she wanted to talk about the killings every chance she got. She never missed a news bulletin. Just in case.

  There had been a special report on the BBC the night before. A Crimewatch special. The whole programme devoted to it. Reconstructions. Witnesses of sorts. Relatives. Police. So-called experts. She stayed up to watch it, of course. Left her pills till later. Didn’t want to take the risk of snoozing through it.

  Rachel Narey was live in the studio. Whisked down to London to film it then doubtless back up to continue the chase. She looked good. Camera still liked her. Dressed well, composed, in charge. Strain behind the eyes though. Could see that. Couldn’t miss it. Taking its toll.

  The presenter was asking her to reassure. Asking her what the public could do to help. Not a whole fucking lot it seemed.

  Rachel said that someone must know who the killer was. Said that there must be someone in Glasgow whose behaviour had changed, who had unexplained absences, whose actions were causing suspicion. Urged anyone who had doubts, even about a partner, a member of their family, to contact the police.

  I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. Watched for a reaction but there was none. Nothing at all.

  Rachel had practised this, I was sure of that. So smooth. Full of nothing but well delivered. There was a plea from the heart from Sinclair’s widow. The recently married, recently widowed Mrs Sinclair. She looked like shit.

  Could barely look at the camera. Hadn’t slept since it happened. Hadn’t stopped crying since it happened. I didn’t need to see this. Looked at my wife and saw in her some of what Mary Sinclair was going through. Tired. Haunted. Gau
nt. Shocked, still.

  Programme ended with yet more showings of the numbers to call. All treated in the strictest confidence and you may be eligible for a reward. Businessman from Glasgow had put up £125,000. Others had put up smaller amounts.

  She sank deeper into her chair and breathed out. Like she’d been through a boxing match and had taken a beating. She didn’t say anything for a few minutes and I certainly wasn’t going to. Then she started.

  ‘Still can’t believe this. What’s happening to this place?’

  She was glad.

  ‘Did you see the state of that poor woman? Shocking. How could anyone put her through all that? Would have been better killing her too.’

  She was glad.

  ‘Someone must know something. That polis woman is right. There’s no way you wouldn’t know if it was one of yours. Your husband or your son or your brother. How could you not know? Someone must be hiding him, covering for him.’

  I knew she was glad he was dead.

  ‘Maybe someone’s too feart to speak out. Murderer like that it stands to reason. Things he’s done. Unbelievable.’

  She was glad.

  ‘Because there’s no way you wouldn’t notice. Guy must be a lunatic. Might pretend to be normal but he couldn’t keep that up for long. Capable of doing all that then how can he act like nothing’s happened? What do you think?’

  I think you’re glad Wallace Ogilvie is dead. That means you are glad they are all dead. Think the killer can act normal because he is normal. He has a job to do. He has a promise to keep. He is doing what is right and you are glad.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘People are strange. Never know what’s going on in someone else’s life.’

  ‘Well, no. That’s true. But, oh my God, how can he do that? How can he get away with it?’

  He does it because he has to. Because a wrong needs to be put right. Because a drunken bastard killed the most precious thing in his life. Because you cannot let a person get away with something like that.

  He gets away with it because he is smart, because he plans well and because he has thought it all the way through. He gets away with it because what he is doing is right.