The Killing Connection

by T F Muir

  Not a bad idea, but none of this was helping them find the assailant. He forced his thoughts back into focus. ‘Was the skin broken?’

  ‘No. Just bruised.’

  ‘Enough to ID this . . .’ he wanted to use the C-word, the worst word he could think of, but in the end settled for ‘. . . this sick bastard from dental records?’

  ‘Bite-marks on skin can be tricky to ID,’ she said. ‘But at Strathclyde we worked with a university professor – I forget his name – who helped us nail some sicko who’d been going around biting prostitutes’ tits. But his bite-marks were distinctive: a couple of teeth missing, cracked incisor, that sort of thing. You want me to get hold of him?’

  ‘Let me talk to Cooper first,’ he said, and ended the call.

  He kept the engine running, and stepped outside. The cold air did what it could to cleanse his mind of a sense of revulsion. His shoes crunched frosted grass as he walked around the boot. An iced wind swept over frozen fields sprinkled with patches of snow and ice. Bloody hell, it was Baltic. This winter seemed to be starting off worse than most.

  He dialled Cooper’s number. Seawards, the sun was still below the horizon, not up for another fifteen minutes, but already brightening the winter sky with hints of pink. Maybe it would be a good day, after all.

  Cooper answered with, ‘Have you checked your inbox?’

  ‘I asked you to send me the PM report as a matter of priority.’

  ‘I thought you’d assigned that task to your little Glaswegian terrier.’

  ‘Look, Becky, I don’t want to—’

  ‘And I don’t want to get caught up in the middle of your in-house fighting, Andy. Why don’t you talk to Chief Superintendent Smiley? I’m sure Diane can give you a better explanation than I ever could.’

  Cooper’s reference to the Chief Superintendent on first-name terms surprised him, but he said, ‘The victim was bitten. I should’ve been notified immediately. We could have had someone on it, examining the bite-marks. Which is why I’m phoning.’ It had been several years since he’d last sought the help of an expert in bite-marks, and it had not been a happy experience; the man had been a plonker, as it turned out. ‘Didn’t you tell me you went on a course somewhere on the identification and comparison of dental records to bite-marks, or some such thing?’

  ‘I did, yes.’

  ‘Well? Can you recommend anyone?’

  She chuckled, and he could not rid himself of the feeling that she was laughing at him. ‘I’ve already emailed contact details to you.’

  He clutched a hand to his shirt collar as a gust of wind blew frosted snow across the road, stinging his face like sand. ‘Anyone I know?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, but he lectures at Dundee University, and is well respected and highly regarded. His full professional name is Professor Raymond Harris, DDSc., MChD, FFGDP. I think I got all of that correct. But he answers to Ray.’

  ‘Should all these letters mean something to me?’

  ‘Only that he’ll satisfy your requirements for a forensic expert in bite-marks.’

  ‘OK, thanks, Becky.’ He opened the car door to a welcoming blast of warm air from within. ‘I’ll give him a call when I reach the Office.’

  ‘He’s probably already working on it.’

  Gilchrist frowned as he took his seat behind the wheel. Cooper’s office was in the mortuary in Bell Street, within spitting distance of Dundee University where this Professor Harris – call-me-Ray – lectured. Maybe Cooper and he were on speaking terms. ‘Have you already contacted him?’ he said.

  ‘No need to.’

  ‘What am I missing, Becky?’

  ‘I thought you might already know,’ she said, and trilled another chuckle. ‘Ray and Diane are partners.’

  For a moment, the coupling eluded him. Then it hit him. ‘Diane Smiley?’

  ‘The one and only.’

  Gilchrist killed the call, and hurled his mobile on to the passenger seat. The tyres spun for grip on the verge as he floored the pedal, the sound of turf and earth splattering the underside only adding to his mood. He was being toyed with, being made a fool of, and he was damned if he was going to stand for it.

  By Christ, he would make sure he didn’t miss Smiler with this hit.

  CHAPTER 7

  As it turned out, Smiler had been called to a meeting with Chief Constable McVicar at HQ in Glenrothes and was not expected back in the North Street Office until late afternoon. Which was just as well, because by the time Gilchrist had driven through the pend into the car park, he would have been fired on the spot with what he’d decided to say to her.

  But time has a habit of dowsing the fire of the wildest anger.

  And so does a murder investigation.

  Gilchrist threw himself deep into the task of trying to ID the dead woman.

  He phoned Anstruther and secured more help in door-todoors around St Monans, and assigned Jessie to oversee the teams. Jackie Channing, researcher extraordinaire and someone Gilchrist had come to rely on more heavily with each passing week, could find no matching fingerprint or DNA records in the PNC – Police National Computer – which meant that the dead woman did not have a criminal record on file, and was more than likely an innocent member of the public.

  He spent thirty minutes going through Cooper’s PM report, which told him nothing new. The dead woman appeared to have been drugged, sexually abused, then throttled – in that order – before being dumped into the sea. Another review of the reported sightings did nothing to move the case forward, and he breathed a sigh of relief when Professor Raymond Harris returned his call and agreed to meet him mid-morning.

  As it turned out, Harris was younger than Gilchrist had imagined – somewhere in his late thirties – with a strange style, too. A Beatles haircut covered his ears and forehead, and thick sideburns more suited to the nineteenth century covered his jawline, as if he’d grown a full beard then shaved off a two-inch wide strip under his chin. His grip was warm and dry, and lively brown eyes returned Gilchrist’s look with professional confidence.

  An image of Smiler and Harris as a couple simply failed to manifest.

  In his office, Harris sat at a computer and clicked the mouse. The screen wakened to a tiled array of coloured images. He enlarged one, and a measuring tape next to a vagina filled the screen. ‘If you look here,’ he said, and ran a manicured finger along the labia majora, ‘you can see indentations made by the top teeth.’

  ‘You know they’re the top, and not the bottom?’

  ‘By size, and incisors. The top teeth tend to be larger than the lower.’ He clicked the mouse, and the image leaped out at him. ‘See there? That indentation’s been made by the left incisor.’ A couple of clicks and the screen shrank, then returned. ‘And that, by the right. So we can tell which is up, and which is down.’

  Other images came to life as Harris worked the mouse.

  ‘On human skin,’ he explained, ‘it’s always difficult to make an exact match due to the skin’s elasticity. The crushing effect as the jaw closes can distort the bruising. Add to that the different textures of underlying tissue and you can see that it’s not an exact science.’

  ‘Can you draw any conclusions from these marks?’ Gilchrist asked.

  ‘I’d say they’ve been made by a man’s set of teeth – wider than a woman’s – but as to their use in helping you ID the assailant, I’d have to say they’re more or less useless.’

  Gilchrist frowned at the screen. The bruises might not be the clearest he’d ever seen, but they had to provide them with some information – size of the jaw at the very least, surely?

  ‘Why useless?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re too perfect.’ Harris opened his mouth and ran a finger along his top teeth. ‘I take care of my teeth,’ he said, ‘but over time, like everything else, they suffer wear and tear. This one’s crooked, and this one juts out a tad. No one’s teeth are perfect, particularly as one ages.’

  ‘False teeth?’ Gilchrist tried.r />
  ‘Close, but no. I’d say these bite-marks were made by a set you might find as a teaching aid in the school of dentistry.’ Harris reached out to a bookshelf and removed what looked like a set of plastic teeth – top and bottom – hinged with a spring to replicate the jaw opening and closing. ‘Like these.’ They snapped shut with a sharp click. ‘Other sets might be designed to show over- or under-bites.’

  ‘So we could be looking for someone in the dentistry profession?’

  Harris shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. You can purchase these online.’

  Gilchrist almost groaned. Tracking purchases on Amazon or eBay or anywhere else that sold sets of teeth as training aids could keep Jackie glued to the screen for the rest of the year – provided they had been purchased online, or that Harris was correct in his assessment.

  ‘Let me see?’ Gilchrist removed the teeth from Harris’s grip and opened and closed them to the sound of a click. It was possible, he supposed, to use these in the manner Harris described. But somehow, it didn’t seem right. ‘Why would you do that?’ he said. ‘Place them over a vagina, then squeeze them shut. Sexual pleasure? Sadistic satisfaction? Or what? I don’t get it.’

  Harris shrugged.

  ‘There’s no chance you could be wrong?’ Gilchrist asked.

  Harris tugged one of his sideburns. ‘There’s every chance I could be wrong. Someone somewhere could have the perfect set of teeth. It happens. But . . . I don’t think so.’

  Back outside, a grey sky sucked the heat from a wan sun. It could be a dead star for all the warmth it was providing. Before firing the ignition, Gilchrist checked for messages, but either everyone was busy, or had nothing to tell him. He exited the university parking and was about to enter the lane for the Tay Bridge when he decided to pay Cooper a visit in the Bell Street police mortuary.

  He found a parking spot, then powered down his mobile.

  Cooper greeted him with a nod of her chin and a slack smile. Not quite the welcome he hoped for, but he supposed she had to make the point that there was no way they would ever get back together. He thought she looked tired, as if she’d been up most of the night.

  ‘Body’s this way,’ she said.

  He followed her into the cold room.

  To his left, the body of a young man, stiffened from rigor mortis, seemed to grapple the air with outstretched arms. On the next gurney, a woman’s body with frizzled blonde hair lay on its side – at least he thought it was female – skin black and crisp like barbecued meat.

  Cooper veered to the right, and unzipped a body bag.

  Gilchrist placed a hand to his mouth and nose as a waft of putrefaction fouled the air.

  Cooper seemed not to notice. ‘I don’t take kindly to being instructed to rush my PM examinations,’ she said. ‘It’s how mistakes happen, or in this case, how things get missed.’ She lifted the woman’s arm. ‘Where the skin was exposed, it suffered scrapes and cuts from being washed on to the rocks. Her jeans gave some protection to her legs and buttocks, but her torso and arms were scratched despite being covered by a woollen sweater.’

  Gilchrist leaned closer. ‘Missed, you said. As in, not included in your PM report?’

  ‘I woke in the middle of the night,’ she said, ‘with this niggling feeling that I’d missed something. So I came in early and went through my notes again, then re-examined the body.’

  ‘And found what you’d missed?’

  ‘See here?’ She turned the arm so that the palm was face up, then ran a finger along the skin. ‘Numerous cuts and abrasions, the lack of bruising around them confirming they occurred post mortem.’

  Gilchrist could only agree, although it seemed that the victim’s body looked more battered than it had been on the rocks. Of course, breaker spray and spindrift in addition to poor light had not helped his initial examination.

  ‘Not like the broken wrist,’ Cooper said, ‘which is swollen and bruised, the injury having been inflicted prior to death.’ She pressed a finger into the woman’s arm and said, ‘And not like this, either.’

  Gilchrist peered at a small bruise on her skin, no larger than the diameter of a pencil, close to the tip of Cooper’s forefinger. ‘From a needle?’

  She nodded. ‘I’ve gone over the rest of the body and found only one injection site.’

  ‘Not a junkie, then?’

  ‘Nowhere close.’

  ‘You’re thinking . . . maybe benzodiazepine?’

  ‘More than likely, yes.’

  ‘Like Rohypnol?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But why not slip it into her drink?’

  Cooper replaced the arm gently, laying it along the woman’s side, then re-zipped the bag. ‘Any number of reasons,’ she said. ‘It’s one of the most common date-rape drugs and used to come in the form of a 2-milligram tablet that was clear when dissolved, making it almost impossible to detect in a spiked drink. It’s since been reformulated to turn blue when dissolved in light-coloured drinks. Of course, if dissolved in a dark cocktail it’s again almost impossible to detect.’ She shrugged. ‘Or maybe she’d had enough to drink, and didn’t want any more,’ she said. ‘Or maybe she didn’t trust the man she was with. There could be a hundred different reasons for her assailant to resort to an injection.’

  Gilchrist nodded. The fact that the date-rape drug had been injected into the woman’s system, rather than being taken orally, did not change the thrust of his investigation. What it did do – when you also considered the vaginal bite-marks and her broken wrist – was tell him that whoever killed this woman took pleasure from inflicting pain.

  ‘You find anything else?’ he asked.

  Cooper shook her head. ‘That’s it, Andy.’ She walked from the room. ‘I’ll email you a modification to my PM report. It should be with you by midday.’

  On the walk to his car, he switched on his mobile and was surprised and pleased in equal measure to see that his son, Jack, had finally deigned to give him a call. When had they last spoken? A couple of weeks ago? Longer?

  He could not say for certain.

  Jack answered with his customary, ‘Hey, man.’

  ‘It’s been a while,’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Well, heh, what can I say, been busy, man.’

  Gilchrist had never really understood how being an artist could keep his son busy, particularly when Jack seemed to spend most of his mornings asleep, and his waking hours in the pub. This side of midday could be an early rise, for all he knew. Still, he thought it best to play it safe with, ‘That’s good to hear.’

  Jack chuckled, as if he knew his father’s take on his profession. ‘Got some good news,’ he said. ‘Jen’s going to exhibit my work.’

  ‘Who’s Jen?’

  ‘See? That’s your detective mindset overriding your common sense again,’ Jack said. ‘Anybody else’s old man would have said – Hey, Jack, that’s great your work’s going to be exhibited. And hey, when’s it going to be shown?’

  ‘But I’m not like anybody’s old man, am I?’

  ‘You can say that again, man.’

  ‘Well, congratulations are in order, but I do need to ask – when and where?’

  ‘One week’s time in Jen’s new studio on South Street. And she’s keeping my stuff up for an entire month.’

  Gilchrist wasn’t sure if that was the norm for exhibitions, but could tell from the tone of Jack’s voice that he was excited about it, regardless. ‘So, does this mean you’re going to buy a house with all your money, and settle down?’ he tried.

  ‘No way, man.’

  Gilchrist chuckled along with Jack, letting him know he was joking, when his mobile beeped – ID Jessie. ‘Listen, Jack, got an incoming call. But let’s get together for a pint to celebrate. Get back to me with a time and place. OK?’

  ‘Will do, Andy.’

  Gilchrist took Jessie’s call. ‘Any luck?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ Jessie said. ‘Got one teenager who lives in St Monans, name of Jock Fletcher, who says he
’s positive he’s seen her around, no doubts about it. In the bar in the Mayview Hotel. But he doesn’t know her name.’

  ‘Did he talk to her?’

  ‘Tried to chat her up, according to him.’ Jessie snorted. ‘Bumfluff City, for crying out loud. Young enough to be her son.’

  ‘So he doesn’t know anything about her?’

  ‘The square root of eff all, I’d say. But he said his mate definitely knows her pal.’

  ‘The dead woman’s pal?’

  ‘Yes. Says her name’s Kandy. With a K.’

  ‘Kandy who?’

  ‘He doesn’t know, but says his mate might know.’

  ‘Have you spoken to his mate?’

  ‘Not yet. He’s just spent the night in jail for being drunk and disorderly. Does the name Alex Wilson ring a bell?’

  It took a couple of seconds to make the connection. ‘Lex Wilson?’ Gilchrist said. ‘Wasn’t he jailed for producing and distributing videos of young girls?’

  ‘Which he still continues to deny.’

  ‘And he’s supposed to know who Kandy is?’

  ‘According to Fletcher.’

  Gilchrist grimaced. This sounded like wasted effort. ‘Lex’s word isn’t worth a spit in the wind,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe so. But he’s the only lead I’ve got so far.’

  ‘Bugger it,’ he said. ‘I’m on my way.’

  CHAPTER 8

  Lex Wilson was in deeper trouble than Jessie had suggested, and was being held in custody pending his appearance at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court on Monday. So they arranged to interview him in Anstruther police station.

  Jessie sat next to Gilchrist, in charge of the recorder.

  When the door opened and Wilson entered, Gilchrist almost gasped.

  Five years earlier, he’d thought Lex Wilson was the ugliest man he’d ever seen. Since then, time had not been kind. Where his face had pockmarked skin as ruddied and bald as a whipped arse, several days’ worth of growth dotted his cheeks and chin like white skelves. What little hair he had was yellow-white and greasy, and lay flat on a skeletal skull like strips of lard. Swollen bags under eyes as small as beads gave the impression of a man who hadn’t slept in ten years.