Murder in the Merchant City

by Angus McAllister

  It takes a while, but I don’t mind. I’m not in any hurry. Eventually he begins to stir, opens his eyes. I give him time to get his bearings, a few moments to struggle with his bonds and realise that it’s pointless.

  Then, seeing that I’ve got his full attention, I introduce myself and tell him why he has to die.

  After I bring out the knife, he makes a final attempt to reason with me. ‘I understand how you feel.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  ‘But I think you’ve got things out of proportion. Can’t we come to some arrangement?’

  ‘An arrangement? You think you can buy your way out of this?’

  ‘That’s not what I mean. I can give you money, no problem about that. But I don’t think that’s what you want. If you let me go, I promise I won’t go to the police. Why should I? I don’t want my wife to know about this. And you’ve got my word that I’ll never . . .’

  I interrupt by jabbing him in the arm with my knife. He gives a yelp of pain and looks down in horror at the blood. I cut him again, this time in the leg. Nowhere fatal just yet. At last he begins to show his fear.

  I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to contain my rage. But first I mean to have some fun with him.

  Things are working out well. This promises to be my most satisfying effort so far.

  21

  The Talk of the Steam Room

  ‘I’m telling you,’ said Annette, ‘it can’t be a coincidence. Three of our customers murdered. All in the same way. All by the same guy.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Cleo. ‘What d’you mean three? OK, that last one looks familiar. I may have had him once, or maybe twice.’

  ‘Or three times, or four,’ said Claudia.

  Cleo ignored her, affecting the air of disdain she normally reserved for the customers. She was probably Claudia’s biggest rival for the ‘treat the punters with the contempt they deserve’ corner of the market.

  ‘You wouldn’t know the others,’ said Annette. ‘You’ve only been here a month. They were killed before that.’

  ‘Well, that puts me in the clear,’ said Cleo. ‘Far as I know, the Manchester punters are all still alive.’

  ‘Recoverin’ well fae their injuries,’ said Claudia. ‘Since you came up here.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  Annette listened to the exchange with some surprise. This wasn’t like Claudia. Was it her idea of good-natured banter?

  ‘Look,’ she said, pointing to the tabloid laid out on the coffee table. The other girls obligingly clustered round. The first customer had still to arrive and they had to pass the time somehow.

  BUILDER SLAIN IN SHOW FLAT THIRD LINKED MURDER?

  Glasgow builder Steven Archer (35) was found brutally murdered yesterday morning, in a way that suggests a link with two unsolved killings in the city earlier this year. Horrified foreman Joe MacFarlane (45) arrived at the new luxury development yesterday morning to find his boss tied to a chair in a pool of his own blood.

  TURN TO PAGE TWO

  The remaining space on the front page, sandwiched between the huge headline and the brief text, was filled by a large photograph of the murdered man and two smaller pictures of the earlier victims. The latter were identified as Richard McAlpine, a solicitor, and Arnold Bell, an accountant.

  The murderer seemed to be concentrating on the middle classes. Or maybe only those who could afford expensive vices, like the one that linked all three.

  Am I the only one to realise the significance of this? Annette wondered. ‘You must know them. This one, the accountant guy. I gave him a massage only a few days before he was killed. I thought it was just a coincidence at the time. But now there’s this new one, and the first one as well. I didn’t know about the first one at the time. There couldn’t have been much publicity. But look at him. Who could forget that face?’

  ‘Aye, he does look familiar,’ said Claudia. ‘I havenae seen him about lately.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Claudia!’ said Annette. ‘He was murdered in February!’ Then she noticed Claudia’s grin. ‘Aye, OK . . . So what about you, Miranda? You must know them.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Miranda. ‘I think so. It’s just so awful.’

  ‘You must know that last guy, Steven Archer. He used a different name. He had a fight over you, remember? With that bastard who beat up Justine.’

  ‘Was that him?’ Miranda shuddered. ‘Oh no!’ She looked ready to burst into tears.

  The first customer of the day arrived, and the conversation was stopped for a while. To no one’s surprise he went off with Miranda, who seemed to have made a quick recovery.

  All the same, Annette thought, she had at least shown some reaction. Claudia and Cleo just didn’t care. If someone had been killing off the girls, they might have taken notice. But it was only the customers, and there were still plenty of them left to part with their cash.

  ‘I suppose I’d better tell Edna,’ said Annette.

  ‘What’s the point?’ said Claudia. ‘You know what she’s gonnae say.’

  Annette did have an idea, which would be proved right. Meanwhile the day progressed in a normal fashion. Annette was kept reasonably busy, even though there were four girls on instead of the usual three. Miranda had asked for an extra shift – an offer her mercenary boss had found impossible to refuse – and Edna had thought that the Friday trade could probably stand it. So in fact it proved. As well as stealing the other girls’ customers, Miranda tended to bring in additional ones. It seemed as though the punters, phoning on the off chance, would hear Miranda’s name and head for the Merchant City like flies to a jam pot. It didn’t turn out too badly for Annette. Claudia mainly had her own customers; as for Cleo, the punters seemed evenly divided between those who looked on a black girl as a novelty and those who weren’t interested at all. This left Annette with more than her fair share of Miranda’s leftovers, a slightly humiliating but profitable situation.

  A couple of her regulars also turned up. Though not, of course, Jack.

  But she was seeing him the following day. A bridge was being formed between the two worlds that she had kept so strictly apart. She still wasn’t sure if she was doing the right thing, but she was looking forward to it.

  Edna arrived promptly at a quarter to five, fifteen minutes before the shift change. Seeing no sign of a final customer on the way, Annette went straight through to Edna’s office. She showed her boss the newspaper and told her the story. It was clear Edna did in fact take the matter seriously. She read the newspaper article from beginning to end, then turned back to the front page and the three photographs.

  ‘You’re sure it’s the same men?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘You cannae be that sure. Why dae you think I fit dimmer switches in the cabins? So you can lie back an’ pretend it’s Brad Pitt.’

  ‘Come off it, Edna. We don’t just see them in the cabins. There’s no doubt.’ Annette shuddered. ‘It’s horrible. It can’t be a coincidence. There must be a link.’

  Edna eyed her steadily. ‘So what should I do about it?’

  ‘We’ll need to report it to the police. It’s an important clue.’

  ‘I thought you’d say that,’ said Edna. ‘Now listen carefully, Annette. Read ma lips. We’re reportin’ bugger all to the cops. We’re keepin’ our mouths shut. You’re keepin’ your mouth shut. Got me?’

  Annette hadn’t really expected Edna to respond to a good citizenship plea, so she tried self-interest. ‘Well, it won’t do us much good if all our customers get killed off.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Edna. ‘They’ll probably catch the killer before he does it again. At the worst, we might lose a couple more punters. But if this gets intae the papers, they’ll stay away in droves.’

  ‘At least they’ll be alive.’

  ‘If they’re no’ comin’ here, they might as well be deid as far as I’m concerned. Anyway, it’s probably got nothin’ to do wi’ us at all. You think this is the only place
these guys came to? They’re probably known in half the saunas in Glasgow. Let one of them blow the whistle. We can pick up their customers afterwards.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘End of conversation. If you want to keep workin’ here, you’ll keep yer mouth shut. I mean it, Annette. Who else have you told about this?’

  ‘Just the girls that were on today.’

  ‘Right,’ said Edna. ‘Let’s settle up, then we’ll have them all through.’

  Five minutes later, all the day girls had gathered in Edna’s office, along with Moira from the front desk and the first girl to arrive for the evening shift. (Cleo was doing a double shift and Candy had still to appear.) Edna briefly told them the story and repeated her edict. None of them put up an argument. When told that Annette had wanted to tell the police, they regarded her with varying degrees of surprise; Claudia looked at her as if she had gone insane.

  Annette began to wonder if she was indeed making a fuss about nothing. Why should she bother, if no one else did? Edna was probably right. These men would be known in other saunas. The connection might lie elsewhere.

  But they had all been regulars. In how many other places could all three of them be that well known? How much money did these buggers have, for God’s sake? And wasn’t it up to the police to decide if there was a link?

  To hell with it. She had done her best. As she was leaving, the evening shift had started and it was business as usual. ‘Yes,’ Moira was saying into the phone, ‘tonight we have Candy, Cleopatra and Chantelle.’

  Annette found herself laughing. How many baby girls in Glasgow (or Manchester) were christened with names like that? Why was she getting uptight? She was going home to her family. Tomorrow was a day off and she was seeing her new boyfriend.

  She met Candy on the stairs. This was her one evening shift, her liver’s night off.

  ‘Edna wants to see you,’ said Annette.

  ‘Damn,’ said Candy. ‘I couldnae help it. It was . . .’

  ‘I know. You slept in. It’s nothing to do with that. Another customer’s been murdered.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Candy. ‘Was it Bob the Gobbler?’

  22

  Forebodings

  Jack travelled by train from Glasgow to Paisley, then followed the directions Annette had given him. After a few minutes’ walk from the station, he found the pub; it was just off the main street, occupying the ground floor of an old tenement, now stone-cleaned and transformed into a beautiful red sandstone building.

  Inside, the period design had been preserved, subject to a few modern intrusions, including the huge television screen that looked down the long bar from its vantage point just inside the door; fortunately no football match or other communal distraction was showing, and the sound was turned down, leaving a silent display of the sports results for any who were interested. The bar was crowded, but it only took a moment for Jack to check that Annette hadn’t yet arrived. She generally arrived about ten minutes late for their pub appointments. It might have been no more than unpunctuality, but Jack suspected that she felt diffident about entering pubs on her own. It was an old-fashioned attitude, but one he rather liked.

  This time she was fifteen minutes late, but as soon as she appeared he forgave her. At once he felt at home in a room full of strangers. He ordered her a drink, along with a half pint to top up his own.

  ‘I like your choice of pub.’

  ‘It’s busier than I thought it would be.’

  ‘What do you expect at teatime on a Saturday?’

  ‘Shows you how often I get out these days.’ They were standing at the counter, jammed between bar drinkers and incomers clamouring for service. ‘Are there any seats?’

  ‘Loads, but there’s an arse on every one of them.’

  ‘Oh God!’ Annette giggled. ‘There are some rooms at the back. Let’s have a look.’

  They squeezed their way to the back of the bar. All of the rooms had people in them, but one of the larger ones had a spare table. They sat down, trying to ignore the four men who were talking loudly about football.

  After a little more small talk, they fell silent. Annette had at first seemed to be her usual self, but now Jack sensed that something was troubling her.

  ‘You’re a bit quiet.’

  ‘Sorry. There’s a reason for it.’ She lowered her voice. ‘But I don’t want to discuss it here.’

  ‘Have I done something wrong?’

  Annette laughed, then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. ‘A man who admits the possibility that something might be his fault. That’s really refreshing. But don’t worry, you’re in the clear.’

  ‘But very curious.’

  Annette glanced at the other table, then opened her handbag and brought out a folded newspaper. She unfolded it, revealing the front page. She held it at an angle, between the front of the table and their laps, keeping its contents out of the other table’s view. ‘Did you see that story?’

  ‘I saw something on the telly. Horrible.’

  Annette pointed to one of the three pictures. ‘And do you remember him?’

  Jack glanced at the picture, then took a second look. ‘God. They said the new one might be linked with previous murders, but I never . . .’

  ‘That’s not all.’ Annette looked up at the other table, but the men were engrossed in their discussion, paying no attention to the couple in the corner. ‘I recognised the other two as well,’ she said, in a lower voice. ‘From the same place.’

  It took a moment for the information to register with Jack. ‘You mean . . . ?’

  Annette leaned across and spoke in his ear. ‘They were all regulars.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’

  ‘Not him, only the other three.’

  ‘It’s not funny.’

  ‘You’re bloody right it’s not.’

  Jack took the paper, read the article in full, then returned to the front page and examined the photographs again. He remembered meeting the second victim, though the other two were strangers to him. But that meant nothing: the first one had been killed before Jack had even set foot in the Merchant City Health Centre. And it would have been something of a coincidence if he’d run into both of the other victims.

  But Annette recognised all of them. It couldn’t be a coincidence. He was too confused to think beyond that.

  He refolded the paper and returned it to Annette, who put it back in her handbag. ‘Have you told the . . . ?’

  Annette put her finger to her lips. ‘Not here. We’ll talk about it in the car.’

  The conversation lapsed again, any small talk unable to compete with what had gone before. They finished their drinks and Jack said, ‘Do you want another one?’

  ‘It’s my turn, but I thought we’d get on our way. I don’t have a babysitter, I just got Norah to sit in with the kids for an hour.’

  ‘Norah?’

  ‘My next-door neighbour.’

  They left the pub and made their way down the street. ‘By the way, don’t say anything to Norah about . . .’ Annette hesitated. ‘She doesn’t know what I . . .’

  ‘Don’t be daft. So where did we meet?’

  ‘You were a patient at the private clinic where I work. It’s almost true.’

  ‘A patient falling for his nurse. It sounds trite enough to be plausible.’

  A short walk took them to the multi-storey car park where Annette had left her car. When they were seated in the car, Annette put the key in the ignition, but didn’t turn it on. ‘I don’t know what to do. I had to tell somebody.’

  ‘You haven’t told anyone else?’

  ‘Only the other girls. And Edna, the boss.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She told us all to keep our mouths shut. If it gets into the papers, we might as well close down.’

  ‘So she’s not going to the police?’

  ‘You don’t know Edna. She’s got a thing about the police. It goes back to her time as a working girl, in the bad old days
. She wouldn’t even let Miranda phone them when she thought her car was stolen.’

  ‘Someone’s got to tell them.’

  ‘Don’t look at me. Edna would sack me on the spot. She told me.’

  ‘You could phone them anonymously. She wouldn’t know it was you.’

  ‘Oh aye, she would. None of the other girls give a damn about it, at least not enough to stand up to Edna. I’ve already stuck my neck out.’

  ‘So you do what you’re told and keep quiet. How are you going to feel when the next guy gets the chop? What if it’s me?’

  Annette shuddered. ‘Don’t say that!’

  ‘Why not? I may be next on his list. I seem to have the right qualifications.’

  ‘No, you haven’t. You don’t go there any longer.’

  ‘Maybe the murderer doesn’t know that.’

  ‘Jack, you’ve got to promise me you won’t tell anyone!’

  ‘You should’ve asked me that at the beginning.’

  ‘Promise me!’

  There was a pause. ‘All right, I promise. But only if you do something about it yourself.’

  ‘OK, OK.’ Annette turned the key in the ignition. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  They spoke very little during the short journey to Annette’s house. Within ten minutes, they had left the centre of town, passed through a suburban area and were in the housing estate where Annette lived.

  She parked beside an end terrace house, at the bottom of a culde-sac. It had a small patch of garden at the front and a larger grassy area at the side. The whole garden was bounded by a three-foot-high hedge, recently trimmed. A footpath ran along the side boundary, and at the other side of the path a high wooden fence and some trees separated them from what looked like a private housing estate. Directly across from Annette’s house, children were playing football in a large, open area with a scattering of young trees.