The ACC blustered his way through an answer and the reporters went into panic mode. This was Hollywood drama, and they were all caught up in it. Bell didn’t really receive an answer, but that didn’t matter – they had the scoop and inside line.
The conference was brought to a close by a panic-stricken press officer and when they walked off stage the ACC couldn’t hold it any longer. He swung round on O’Connor and made sure that the problem was dumped fairly and squarely on his shoulders.
‘How the fuck did that woman get a hold of this? We kept everything tight and some bastard from your team leaks it.’
O’Connor never lost control, and Macallan, who was already having second thoughts about disclosing the information, knew he didn’t deserve this, but this was how it always played. She knew that better than anyone.
‘There’s nothing to say. There was more than my team in the loop, and there were others who knew, including your office . . . sir.’
He’d paused long enough to show that he regarded the ACC as an over-promoted desk pilot. This was unusual for O’Connor, who knew how to play politics, but Macallan enjoyed watching him stick it to the ACC. O’Connor had won a small victory, but the ACC marked O’Connor’s card for future reference before trudging off to the safety of his office.
Macallan put her hand on O’Connor’s arm and that was as far as she could go. ‘Nice one. Now all you have to do is solve it and you can take his desk off him.’
He gave her a full smile. ‘I can’t believe I just did that. It’s the sort of thing Mick Harkins does every time he wrecks his career prospects.’
They laughed together and realised that, despite the lack of opportunity, something good was happening to them, something they both needed, and it had made them realise just how much was missing in their lives.
O’Connor gathered up his papers and scraped his fingers through his hair. ‘When this is over I’m going to take you away somewhere warm and exotic where none of this can touch us.’ For a brief second he looked vulnerable and it was as if the boy underneath the man had been exposed for a second.
‘Portobello would do me. Anyway, it’s not the end of the world. The press always get an inside track at some stage and we’ve just got to keep control. Want my opinion?’
He nodded and realised she hadn’t batted an eyelid at the press conference or the aftermath. She was different from anyone he’d come across in his service, formed from the tragedy of the Troubles. She’d spent years in a place where intrigue, manipulation and disruption were the norm.
‘Use this against the killer. Speak to the profilers and shrinks and come up with a line that hurts this man. Leak it that we think he’s maybe a paedo or been sexually abused by his mother, but let’s get at him. Christ, it might even be true. I’ve a feeling this one is vain so we can hurt him.’
‘Okay, get them together and let’s see where we can take this.’
She left the room and O’Connor wondered who exactly was being manipulated.
38
He sat in the semi-darkness of his bedroom watching the news coverage of the press conference. He squeezed and released a rubber ball, changing hands every few minutes. This was an exercise he worked on every day and showed how thorough he was about his body. Most guys would go to the gym and that was it, but not him. Walking rather than driving, press-ups in the quiet moments in the office or at home squeezing the ball. Most people forgot about their wrists, but not him – squeezing the ball repeatedly gave him a vice-like grip, and he loved that moment when he was introduced to someone and gave them a handshake. He liked it when there was a wince and he could feel the other person’s hand crumple.
When it came to women, it worked a treat. It could impress the pick-ups, and with the sluts he could watch for the pain in their eyes when he squeezed part of them, and the extra work with the ball would become all the more worthwhile.
The assistant chief looked like what he was – a safe bureaucrat, who, he was sure, had clambered up the back steps of the force, avoiding real criminals like a wasting disease. He lifted his crystal glass and sipped his cold New Zealand white. O’Connor interested him though – he wasn’t the normal type of plod, and in some ways he reminded him of himself. He looked good, knew how to dress and his education was clearly top drawer. He handled the press like a Tony Blair clone, and if this was the man who was after him then his mission might be shorter than he’d first thought. He expected to be caught at some stage – knew enough about crime and punishment to realise that you could commit one perfect crime or near perfect and get away with it. This didn’t work with a series of crimes, and eventually there would be a reckoning, but as long as he could make the last move then he’d settle for that. His mission was to teach and punish all at the same time.
He looked around the room and sighed. The furniture was expensive and everything was the best, but part of the reason he’d started his mission was that none of these material trappings gave him any real pleasure. The women he picked up gave him an initial rush when they fell for his line, but the physical result was empty and sometimes humiliating. Visiting the street whores at least gave him an extra thrill, and running the police ragged was a challenge. He’d accepted that if the prison gates beckoned then he’d finish himself rather than decompose behind the walls of a stinking cell.
The questions the press were asking bored him, and the truth was that the public wanted pictures of open wounds and blood. The pretence that horrific pictures of violence could not be published in order to protect the public made him sneer, and the hypocrisy choked him. They wanted what he wanted; the papers titillated them – kept them in a permanent state of excitement, gasping for the full Technicolor honesty of what had actually happened.
He sat up and sipped his wine again. The thought stayed with him and excited him. The tongue had been a nice touch and should pile pressure on the police. The girl had struggled a bit but that had just added to the enjoyment. He wondered if he should take photographs or another trophy the next time – it could be a final flourish with some coloured brushstrokes to finish his project.
Macallan was introduced and answered a couple of routine questions. He studied her, and if O’Connor interested him then she did a bit more than that. A career that could have come from the pages of a thriller, and she’d come through the terrorist campaigns in Northern Ireland with distinction. The fact that she’d given evidence against a colleague made her an individual who was prepared to stand against the pack; the thought thrilled him and he really hoped they would meet. If he had O’Connor and Macallan after him then he probably should think about his endgame. It would be interesting to talk to O’Connor and Macallan as friends, share their thoughts and fears.
The questions from Bell livened up the proceedings, and of course it wasn’t news to him, but he enjoyed the ACC’s flustered attempt at a response. They were all partly responsible for what he was doing, and he decided to move things on before they got to him. One way or the other, he would meet O’Connor and Macallan before the last throw of the dice.
39
Nearly two weeks after the press conference a fox trotted along the edge of a field – a black silhouette in the light of a full moon. He’d picked up a scent but drew up at the noise that he couldn’t know was a car door closing. He waited until the rumbling noise of the car’s engine had faded towards the bright lights of Glasgow then moved cautiously towards the smell of blood again until he found the girl’s body crumpled in the corner of the field. About ten yards from the girl he stopped, sniffed the air and tried to decide whether the groaning should make him run or wait. He realised this was a badly injured animal so he would wait and move in slowly. The girl died quietly after about half an hour and the fox shuffled warily towards the body.
As he pulled onto the M8 and headed back towards Edinburgh, the killer pushed his foot down on the accelerator, but not so heavily as to attract the attention of the traffic boys. If he was going to make a mistake, it wasn’t g
oing to be that basic. The Merc’s engine had real power and he loved the feel of the car, the way it enclosed him in luxury and shone among all the dull family wagons he overtook on the motorway.
A boy racer pulled past him and he looked at the two chavs sitting in the front. Pimply skin, half a brain between them and a couple of baseball hats made them what they were. They roared past the Merc, no doubt feeling a sense of triumph at leaving the luxury wheels behind. He smiled, letting them have their fun. What else did they have in their miserable little lives? They’d probably be lucky to survive into their forties.
He was buzzing from fixing the girl in the field and he would have loved to see O’Connor’s face in the morning when Glasgow CID called to say they’d one through on their patch. He knew how difficult this made it for the police, and their territoriality would no doubt come into play. The boys from Glasgow would think the Edinburgh squad weren’t up to the job and so it would go on. Meanwhile, shifting the centre of attention would mean he’d have the chance to complete a few more visits before his endgame. He’d made sure to leave the girl where she’d be found quickly, and it was obvious the field was a popular walking route in daylight.
He booked into a decent hotel in Edinburgh rather than going straight back home, where he might leave contamination from the girl. He would pay cash, leave a false name and clean up in the hotel before getting rid of his clothes. He liked hotels and all the secrets they held.
As the high wore off he would tire quickly and need to sleep. He’d done a bit of cocaine in the past, but like everything else it eventually bored him. This was better: the intense high it gave him and the added benefit that he could run and rerun the images through his mind when he was finished. Though even this would begin to bore him some time soon so he would have to plan a grand finale to make sure no one forgot who he was.
40
The retired teacher walked along the path, calling to his old spaniel and wondering how he could have had a dog for so long that still ignored his every command. He loved her though, and she’d been his lifesaver after the death of his wife.
The air was crisp and he never tired of the woodland, rarely missing his morning trek. Two or three hours out with the dog made the rest of the day easy and the future less frightening.
He stopped and wiped his nose, cursing her again. She was barking non-stop and that meant a rabbit, fox or rat.
He eventually found her at the side of the field.
‘For the love o’ God will you give it up?’
He laughed at the words he relayed to the dog almost every day, kneeled down stiffly and rubbed her wet back.
‘Come on, girl. We’ll head back. No rats or rabbits for you today.’
He glanced up through the fence and saw the heap lying just the other side. He stood up and pushed past the branches of a young rowan to get a better look, saw what was left of the girl’s face and threw up on the crime scene.
41
Harkins shook his head. ‘Fuck – now we have a problem. We’ll have teams of Weegies telling us that we don’t know what we’re doing because we’re not from Glasgow. Brilliant – that’s all we need. They’re not going to forget that we fucked them over the Billy Drew case.’
Harkins looked across at Macallan; they both wanted to give O’Connor some good news, but there was none to give. Macallan spoke but only told O’Connor what he knew already.
‘It has all the marks of the same killer. The girl was a street pro, and the level of violence looks like our boy. There’s a chance it’s not him, but for the time being we’ve got to count her in.’
‘Anything to report before I meet our friends from the west?’
‘Felicity came up with this one.’ Harkins put a report in front of O’Connor. ‘And we’ve started looking at the main suspects. We’re going to visit Jonathon Barclay today. He’s got a bit going for him, has a Merc, but I suppose the fact that one of the highest paid advocates in the land has a Merc isn’t going to send him away for life. Having said that, his history is interesting and there’s a story with this guy. I’ve gone nose to nose with him a couple of times when you were both swanning about in different parts of the world and I was keeping Lothian and Borders safe.’ He hesitated, smiled and put on a pretend serious face then added, ‘With the greatest respect.’
They all smiled, but it was strained – the investigation was taking its toll on their sense of humour.
‘We haven’t come across him for a few years, apart from ripping us apart in court, and there’s no doubt he’s a police hater. Some advocates play at it in court and leave it behind after the verdict. Some of our best friends and supporters are in the Faculty of Advocates. Not this guy. He was born shouting that we fit people up and have the intellectual capacity of earthworms. He just won’t play ball with us and clearly he must have some childhood memory of walking in on his mother getting her make-up smudged by the local constable. I just made that up by the way but you never know. Whatever happened, this guy is the enemy, and all the best villains go to him for advice. He delights in that, and it’s his weakness. He thinks he’s fireproof, but he’s almost sailed into our field of vision a couple of times. We know he’s done a bit of coke, but who hasn’t, and there would have been too many problems in trying to fix him for fifty quid’s worth of powder. The main thing is that on a couple of cases where pros had been attacked, he turned up as a punter. I was involved on one of them, and to be fair there was never an allegation that he hurt the girls, but he did like to humiliate. Some of the pros described him as a nasty bastard, but that’s as far as we could get it.’
O’Connor interrupted. ‘What do you think, Mick – is it a waste of time?’
‘I think you never know but most of the creeps we process over the years show signs and patterns of behaviour. I’ve had run-ins with him, and he holds me up as all that’s bad with the police, so I think the DCI will have to be the good cop and I’ll stay bad.’
‘Sounds like a good plan. Go get him but keep me informed because the first thing he’ll do is make a complaint, and we need it like the proverbial hole. Do it right or don’t do it at all – and please don’t assault him.’
Harkins scratched his chin, which he’d forgotten to shave that morning because Young had asked him to stay in bed for another ten minutes.
Macallan took Harkins by the arm. ‘I’ll make sure he behaves.’ She steered him out of the door and looked back at O’Connor. ‘The rest of the suspects look like they have alibis so I hope he’s interesting.’
O’Connor wondered again about Grace Macallan. Most detectives would dread the job of going to see a high-profile, police-hating advocate who would give them as hard a time as possible. Not her – she was relishing it. What was it about this woman? And, he wondered, was it possible to fall in love with someone like her?
Harkins had been correct in his assessment of the Glasgow detectives. If O’Connor hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn they had part-time jobs as Taggart impersonators. They just wouldn’t listen, and it was the old east–west divide – the eternal chip on their shoulder that a city half the size of Glasgow was the capital, held the parliament, the seat of law and one of the Queen’s holiday homes in Scotland. Eventually he reminded them who was the ranking officer in the room and that seemed to calm them down for a bit.
Once they were back on a level playing field, they all remembered they were involved in more than polishing their egos, and O’Connor explained just how big the problem was.
‘Look, guys, what we have is someone who’s off on a run. The shrinks tell us that this guy expects to be caught and is filling his boots while he can. The problem is that we think he’s also highly intelligent, and at this moment in time he’s dictating the story. He knows we’re all over the streets in Edinburgh and anyone looking at a pro is pulled in. He could well start to travel and our researchers and analysts think he may have been attacking woman all over the UK for some time. These attacks were never linked because, to
be honest, they were serious assaults on prostitutes and that doesn’t grab our attention. Now you’d think some of the girls would have provided a few clues, but he went for the junkies who were on the street out of their skulls, so what we have is patchy, and we’ll just have to wait and see. I know you’re going to ask about the girl with part of her tongue missing. Again we’re not sure but the suggestion is that she managed to get off some sort of insult that hit the spot with him and that was his response. Who knows?’
The air had cleared rapidly. O’Connor knew that Glasgow produced some of the best detectives in the UK, never mind Scotland, but like their motherland they had to get their grievances off their chest every so often, hence their initial sparring. They dealt with more gangsters than one city needed but kept forgetting it didn’t grant them a God-given right to lead on everything. He wondered how that would pan out if or when a unified Scottish force came to pass.
The senior Glasgow detective George Dillon explained what they had so far and admitted it wasn’t much. The issue was that there might be a problem identifying the latest victim. The feeling from the other girls on the street was that she had just arrived from Eastern Europe. A couple of them thought her name was Anna, and that was about it.
‘Her pimps are believed to be Albanian bad guys, and if it’s who we think then we’ve got more chance of winning the lottery than getting a word out of them. We’ve sent a message to Interpol with photographs but don’t hold your breath on that one.’
The girl was in too much of a mess to put out a photograph to the press, but that was the least of their worries. At the end of the day, Strathclyde agreed to set up a team looking at the Glasgow murder, and they would include liaison officers from Edinburgh. Glasgow would also put a liaison officer in the Edinburgh squad and they would be linked by the HOLMES computer system.
Cause of Death Page 16
