The Special Dead

by Lin Anderson

‘So,’ said McNab, drawing the conversation back to where he wanted it to be. ‘When did she leave the pub and who was she with?’

  This time Barry thought. Hard. ‘I came down here to change a barrel sometime after ten. When I went back up she had gone and the blonde was on her own.’

  ‘You were keeping an eye on Leila?’ McNab suggested.

  ‘I wasn’t stalking her if that’s what you mean,’ Barry declared.

  ‘Just taking a keen interest?’ McNab smiled. ‘I take it you two were once an item?’

  Judging by Barry’s expression, he was contemplating another lie, then thought the better of it. ‘No, but we did get together on occasion.’

  ‘You had sex with Leila on occasion?’ McNab said.

  ‘Sometimes she asked me back to her place,’ Barry said defensively.

  Lucky you, McNab thought. ‘But not last night?’

  ‘No. Not last night.’

  ‘The guy she did take home with her. What did he look like?’

  Now that Barry knew that Leila was dead, he was more forthcoming about his rival. ‘Tall, maybe six foot. Late twenties, early thirties. Blond. Worked out by the shape of him. Was wearing a blue striped shirt with short sleeves and jeans. By the clothes, the Gucci watch and the wallet, I’d say he wasn’t short of cash,’ he added.

  The description, McNab noted, was a close match to Shannon’s, although she hadn’t mentioned that he’d looked affluent.

  ‘What about the mate?’

  ‘Dark hair, not as tall, dressed the same, but he never came near the bar. They moved in on Leila and the blonde quite quickly after that.’

  ‘You don’t know Shannon?’

  He shook his head. ‘Leila came in a lot, living round the corner.’

  ‘What about security cameras?’ McNab said.

  ‘One on the front door, one on the side.’

  So they might have footage of Leila and the guy leaving, if they weren’t obscured by a crowd of smokers. McNab thanked him.

  ‘Someone will be round for the security tapes.’ He handed Barry a card. ‘If you remember anything else, give me a ring.’

  McNab fought a desire to reward himself with a dram and headed outside. As he suspected, the entrance was encircled by smokers all within sight of the security camera. He took a look in the back lane and discovered the fire exit standing wide open. Just inside was the Gents, so the mate could have exited here when he’d deserted Shannon on the pretext that he was going to the toilet. If so, there was a chance that the back camera had caught him.

  McNab left the lane and took the short walk between the pub and Leila’s flat. There were plenty of revellers about the city centre at this time on a Saturday night. No doubt there were folk about last night too, who might have spotted the auburn-haired Leila and her tall blond companion walking the short distance home.

  Once the post-mortem was over, they could get down to the business of looking for witnesses, unless the pathologist decided McNab’s intuition was suspect and that Leila Hardy had simply taken her own life. That was a possibility, of course. Suicides were extremely adept at carrying out their wishes, often against the odds. If their aim was a cry for help, that was usually evidenced by the method they chose and the circumstances in which they made the attempt, which often had a ‘way out’. A bit like driving down the wrong side of the road until you met an approaching car, then swerving to avoid it. Alternatively, courting death could be used to make life more exciting or maybe just bearable.

  A condition McNab had been known to suffer from himself.

  Tonight, the real and present danger presented itself in the form of numerous bars, from which music, chatter and female laughter escaped to surround him in a warm embrace.

  McNab walked with a determined step, eyes forward, fighting the desire to say ‘Fuck it!’ and head into the next one he passed. He hadn’t drunk alcohol in the last three weeks and planned a month at least, just to show that he could. Relieved to find that he could function without it, he’d convinced himself that although he’d been drinking heavily, he was not, yet, dependent on it.

  Back at his own flat, he contemplated how to pass the midnight hour, alone and sober, knowing that tomorrow, Sunday, wouldn’t be any easier. He phoned out for a pizza and put the recently purchased coffee machine on. While the coffee was brewing, he stripped to his boxers and did fifty press-ups. Anything to keep his mind off the open bottle of whisky in the cupboard near the sink. Kept there undrunk, it had become a symbol of his success.

  Sex would have helped, but staying away from pubs had meant the only females he met were the ones he worked with. He’d long ago made his way through the fanciable ones, apart from Janice, and was pretty sure none of them would welcome a return visit however fit and sober he was now.

  Janice had suggested, as they parted company, that now he was no longer a DI, he might like to come out for a drink with the team again. McNab was secretly pleased by her suggestion, but didn’t trust himself to do that, yet.

  Then there was his Rhona obsession.

  He may have kidded himself in the past that they might get back together on occasion but he knew that wasn’t going to happen. Ever. He was like the barman, with one eye on the object of his affection and a constant hope that she might just, in a weak moment, ask him back to her place.

  Sad bastards, the pair of them.

  McNab slipped on a T-shirt and answered the buzzer for his pizza delivery.

  Sitting on the couch now, feet on the coffee table, a double espresso already drunk, he was reminded of another night, when Rhona had sat opposite him, sharing a pizza. They’d exchanged words over the girl he’d been bedding at the time, young enough to be his daughter.

  Rhona had been less than impressed, and she’d been right.

  But the memory of those sexual encounters with Iona were as difficult to forget as the bottle of whisky. McNab abandoned the remains of the pizza and headed for the shower.

  Ten minutes later, reddened by the force of the hot, then cold shower, the bullet scar on his back glowing, he poured another coffee and carried it through to the bedroom. The room was stuffy and warm, so he opened the window a little, then lay down naked on top of the bed and listened to the siren sound of his fellow officers dealing with the fallout from too much alcohol on a Saturday night.

  Staring at the ceiling, McNab set his caffeine-buzzed brain to figuring out what had happened to Leila Hardy after she left the pub and headed home for sex with the unknown blond guy.

  In all the possible scenarios he came up with, not one, but two men figured.

  One thing his gut told him.

  Leila Hardy hadn’t died by her own hand.

  7

  It wasn’t a requirement for the investigating officer to attend a victim’s post-mortem and many simply chose not to. Seasoned officers, well acquainted with the variety of terrible ways that humans dispensed with one another, often found viewing the systematic surgical dissection of a body too difficult to deal with.

  Familiarity with the aftermath of murder, however messy and horrific that might be, was not the same as actually being present when a knife sliced its way through flesh, and an electric saw cut its way through bone. The variety of noises alone were often hard to bear, although earplugs could be employed, and often were.

  When Rhona arrived in the changing room, DS Clark was already there.

  They’d exchanged pleasantries as they’d donned the overalls, both managing to avoid mentioning McNab’s recent demotion. Rhona gained the impression that Janice was more relaxed about working with McNab as an equal, which suggested that he was definitely making an effort.

  This pleased her.

  When the object of her thoughts arrived, he wasn’t hungover, which had often been the case in the past. Glancing from one woman to the other, you could see what he was thinking, so Rhona put him straight.

  ‘We weren’t talking about you.’

  McNab’s feigned expression of indifference made
Janice smile.

  ‘So what were you talking about?’ he asked airily.

  Rhona ignored the question and posed one of her own.

  ‘How did you get on with the barman?’

  McNab located a forensic suit and began to pull it on.

  ‘He saw Leila leave with a man fitting Shannon’s description. He admitted that he had the hots for Leila himself and that he and she were an occasional item.’ He threw Rhona a swift glance which she ignored.

  ‘What about the suicide angle?’

  ‘He was as adamant as Shannon that Leila wouldn’t kill herself.’

  ‘Well, let’s see what the pathologist has to say,’ Rhona said, pulling up her hood and raising her mask.

  Dr Sissons didn’t glance up on their entry. His usual behaviour was to simply ignore the presence of others at the post-mortems he conducted. He and Rhona had an unspoken understanding that they did not cross the boundaries between their specializations unless absolutely necessary. Sissons did not like his judgement questioned. Like a surgeon in an operating theatre, he gave out orders and did not take them. To break into his train of thought would probably result in being told to leave.

  All three of them were aware of this, and stood in absolute silence as he recorded the bodily measurements and condition of the body, then the signs of rapid anoxial death.

  Anoxia, the scientific term for a lack of oxygen, could develop over a long period of time, due to a variety of illnesses, where the lungs and the heart weren’t working properly. Rapid anoxial death was an entirely different matter. If the flow of oxygen from the atmosphere to the tissues was interrupted suddenly, then rapid anoxial death occurred. Classification of such deaths included suffocation, choking, strangulation, compression of the chest, cyanide poisoning, drowning and hanging. Some of these methods were swifter than others. In very rapid deaths, the oxygen supply to the body and brain was cut off and the victim immediately became quiet and pale, and passed swiftly into unconsciousness then death.

  Such a quick death usually caused little disturbance at a scene. In more slowly progressing rapid anoxial death, the situation was quite different. Once anoxia had started, the victim fought for breath, often lashing out at an attacker. The result was the obvious signs of a death struggle, evidenced by bruising on both victim and attacker, and DNA exchange often through scratches and blood transfer.

  When Sissons stated that he was about to remove the cord from round the victim’s neck, Rhona asked permission to record this and Sissons gave a curt nod. From observation, she had deduced that the main knot was a slip knot or simple noose. Watching it being unravelled would confirm this.

  Now that the neck was free of the cord, it was clear that there were no pressure fingermarks or bruises associated with strangulation. As was common in hanging, the mark of the ligature was incomplete, evident only at the front. The mark was depressed, pale and parchment-like, the pattern of the plaited cord evident.

  Dr Sissons recorded this evidence in his usual dry tone. As he did so, McNab’s eyes met Rhona’s above the mask.

  ‘I found some fibres in her mouth,’ Rhona said.

  Sissons acknowledged this with a nod and went in for a look himself, extracting a further fibre from deeper in the throat, suggesting, as Rhona had surmised, that a cloth of some sort might have been put in the victim’s mouth or even pushed into her throat to cut off the air supply.

  Gagging was common in homicidal suffocation, along with plastic or wet material covering the nose and mouth, and in some instances shoved down the throat.

  Rhona could feel McNab’s growing impatience; Sissons wasn’t known for speed in post-mortems, even when the cause of death appeared obvious to everyone round the table.

  But Sissons got there eventually.

  In the pathologist’s estimation, the victim had something wedged in her mouth, causing her to pass out. This had then been removed and the cord tied round her neck while she was unconscious. She had then been hung on the hook.

  He finished this by stating, ‘There is, of course, the chance that all of this was done as part of auto-erotic hanging, which she may have consented to.’

  Now back in the changing room, all three stripped off their suits and dumped them in the basket.

  ‘So she was gagged,’ McNab said. ‘What with?’

  ‘The fibres I extracted were a cotton synthetic mix. I sent Chrissy back to the flat to check for anything that might match.’

  ‘I don’t buy the auto-erotic bit,’ Janice said. ‘If she was into all that, we would have found other stuff in the flat. Plastic gags, blindfolds.’

  ‘There’s something else to consider,’ McNab said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I believe the other guy left the pub immediately after Leila and her man. I have a feeling he followed them.’

  If that were true, it could change everything.

  ‘We’re checking the security cameras.’ McNab turned to Janice. ‘Any luck with the next of kin?’

  ‘The brother’s band, the Spikes, are on tour in Germany. I’ve emailed the manager but he hasn’t come back to me yet.’

  ‘Did you ask Shannon about the dolls?’ Rhona said.

  ‘She says she was never in that room,’ McNab said. ‘You still think the dolls are significant?’

  ‘Who hangs twenty-seven dolls from their ceiling unless it means something?’

  ‘Put that way,’ McNab agreed. ‘I take it you never discovered the secret of nine?’

  ‘What’s this about the number nine?’ Janice came in.

  Rhona explained about the nine knots in the cord and the pattern of dolls. ‘Any ideas?’

  Janice shook her head. ‘But it’s intriguing.’

  ‘I thought I might run it past Magnus. He’s back in Glasgow.’ Rhona had been planning to drop that suggestion into her conversation with McNab the previous night, but had decided not to, in view of the circumstances.

  ‘Good idea,’ chimed Janice.

  McNab had opened his mouth, no doubt to protest, but changed his mind and shut it again.

  ‘I’ll give him a call,’ Rhona said. ‘And let you know what he has to say.’

  Back now at the lab, Rhona logged the arrival of the cord, then surveyed the sea of dolls laid out in rows on the table.

  She had filled her Sunday with work, preferring to spend time at the lab to wondering if Sean would get in touch. It seemed, however, that he’d got the message. There had been no phone calls, no texts, and when she’d returned home early Sunday evening, she’d found no evidence he’d been back in the flat, despite still having a key. Rhona had found herself mildly irritated that he had taken her at her word and a little sorry not to encounter the scent of a cooked meal waiting for her.

  Nevertheless, Sunday had been fruitful. A deserted and peaceful lab had resulted in a considerable amount of work being done. She’d established from the swabs that the victim had had sex before she’d died. There had been no bruising in the genital area, which Dr Sissons had confirmed at the PM, so the sex appeared to have been consensual.

  More interestingly, fine fibres plucked from Leila’s navel matched those of the red silk cord, suggesting it had also been round her waist. From sweat on the cord, she’d extracted samples of two different strands of DNA. One from the victim and the other matching that taken from the semen.

  So her sexual partner that night had also been in contact with the cord.

  Examining the red cord in more detail, Rhona found that the nine knots were identical and, from the chirality of each, she deduced they’d been tied by the same person, since the direction of movement was consistent.

  Now she replayed the short movie she’d taken as Dr Sissons slowly untied the knot that had fixed the cord round Leila’s neck. Rhona had suspected a slip knot or simple noose and this was proved to be right. After replaying a couple of times, she retied it herself to make sure.

  It wasn’t possible to definitely determine whether the person who tied a knot w
as left- or right-handed, but it became apparent that replicating the chirality of the slip knot felt awkward, and since she was left-handed, she suspected whoever had tied the slip knot wasn’t. As for the nine knots, they were too simple to be certain. The post-mortem hadn’t established whether Leila was left- or right-handed. That was something McNab would have to find out from Leila’s pal, Shannon.

  Rhona was tackling the knots in the dolls’ cords when Chrissy appeared and waved through the glass, indicating it was time to eat.

  Abandoning the dolls, she joined Chrissy in the office where the warm scent of baking emanated from a paper bag, reminding Rhona how hungry she was.

  Chrissy busied herself spooning coffee into the filter and unpacking what turned out to be four large sausage rolls.

  ‘Help yourself.’

  Rhona did as commanded.

  Coffee machine on, Chrissy plonked herself down next to Rhona with a bottle of ketchup and proceeded to dollop some on her sausage roll before attacking it with gusto. It was clear there was to be no conversation until her forensic assistant had satisfied her hunger. Rhona had to wait until Chrissy had demolished two sausage rolls and half of Rhona’s second one.

  Settled back at the desk with her coffee, Chrissy finally said, ‘I’ve brought a few items back that might match your fibres. How did the PM go?’

  Rhona relayed what Sissons had said.

  ‘Okay, but I don’t think she was a gasper. I double-checked all her belongings. There’s no evidence she was into erotic asphyxiation unless it’s on the laptop the Tech guys took along with her mobile.’

  ‘Except for the hanging dolls,’ Rhona reminded her.

  Chrissy made a face. ‘I used to love my Barbie. Wasn’t so fond of Ken though. He always seemed a bit of a wimp.’

  ‘I’m going to give Magnus a ring. See if he has any ideas about the pattern of nine and the dolls.’

  Chrissy considered this. ‘McNab won’t like that.’

  ‘He agreed,’ Rhona assured her. ‘Or at least Detective Sergeant Clark thought it was a good idea.’

  ‘And McNab didn’t bite her head off?’

  ‘No.’