Her Cold Eyes

by Tony Black

  ‘Well, well, well . . .’ he said, ‘how nice to see you again, Malky. Under such propitious circumstances, as well.’ He smiled and crossed his arms as the interviewee was directed to his seat in front of them.

  Frizzle, sitting with his shoulders hunched, didn’t look comfortable before the officers. When McCormack slapped down the file Frizzle winced and sucked in his thin lips like he was stifling a scream.

  ‘You don’t look like you had a good night, Malky,’ said the DCI.

  ‘You’ve got no right. That was a liberty, keeping me in.’

  ‘I think you’ll find we’ve got every right,’ said Valentine, leaning over the desk and focusing on Frizzle’s eyes. ‘Don’t you know a young girl died, in perhaps the most unusual circumstances I’ve ever seen?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, apart from what you’ve just told me.’

  ‘Is that all now, Malky? That’s not what I hear. Wouldn’t you like to tell me how you knew Abbie McGarvie.’

  He dropped lower in the chair and seemed shrunken before the officers, nervously tapping dirty fingernails on the back of his knuckles. ‘Never heard that name before.’

  Valentine got up from his seat and walked over to McCormack’s side of the desk, where he retrieved the folder. He read aloud Frizzle’s explanation for his where-abouts on the night Abbie McGarvie died. ‘You were on a six-mile run.’

  ‘That’s right, keeping fit’s my thing.’

  ‘I thought fiddling with teenage girls was your thing, Malky.’ Valentine slapped down the file, making the suspect tense in his seat. ‘At least, that’s what your previous states.’

  ‘Look, I haven’t done a thing. I’ve been as good as gold since that last offence, you can ask anyone.’

  ‘Oh, I have. And I got some interesting answers.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re on about. This is police harassment. You’ve lifted me because you can’t find anybody else.’

  Valentine tipped back his head, smirking. ‘I don’t think that’s how it works in the real world, Malky.’ He passed the file over to DI McCormack. ‘Show him the statements we got from those young girls he’s been grooming.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The DI opened the file and retrieved two closely typed pages of statements taken from the teenage girls who had been caught trespassing on the Sutherland estate.

  As Frizzle took the pages he leaned over them and started reading the words by following the tip of his dirty fingernail. When he was finished, he pushed away the pages and slouched in his chair with his hands forced beneath his thighs.

  ‘Nothing to say, then?’ said Valentine.

  ‘They’re lying. You put them up to it.’

  ‘You think so? Well, there’s an easy way to check that out. Come on, get your coat and we’ll drive out to the Sutherland estate and see if the bedrooms all interconnect. Just like you told the girls.’

  Frizzle looked horrified. ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘Oh yes I can. I’m the police, Malky. And you’d do well not to forget that.’

  ‘I won’t.’ The words came so meekly that they prompted a reaction in Valentine that he wasn’t expecting.

  ‘Good!’ he roared. ‘Now tell me what the bloody hell’s been going on up there, and I want to know it all. The masks, the bed-hopping, the pig’s blood and the little girls running naked in front of heavy goods vehicles.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t give me that.’

  ‘I don’t. I just see things. I should have kept my mouth shut.’

  ‘Yes, you should have. But it’s too late for that now because a girl’s dead and you’re the one I’m looking at over a police interview room table, Malcolm Frizzle.’

  He gazed up from the desktop. ‘It’s nothing to do with me. Honestly, it isn’t. I just spoke out of turn, that’s all.’

  ‘Then why are you so nervy?’

  ‘Because you’ve got me in here, and you can put me away.’

  ‘Malky, I most definitely can put you away. What you need to decide here and now is whether I put you away for breaching your probation order or for the death of that young girl. Now make your bloody mind up because my patience is running right out with you.’

  18

  Valentine stood outside the interview room and waited for DI McCormack to join him. He was tapping the edge of the skirting board with the toe of his shoe in a mark of his impatience when she appeared. For a moment the DI seemed confused, unsure of what she’d just witnessed, and then she blew up her cheeks and let out a deflated sigh.

  ‘What was that all about?’ she said.

  ‘We’ve nothing to go on,’ said Valentine.

  ‘Not even the stepladder?’

  ‘Not without something else, something more conclusive.’

  The DI walked around Valentine and leaned on the wall beside him, gazing down the corridor towards the interview room they’d just left. She seemed to be looking for some answers to escape the room, catch them up and solve the dilemma for them.

  ‘Just the rope ladder, print and all, is pretty lame,’ she said, eventually.

  ‘I know. But Malky doesn’t know that. Did you see how nervous he was; the bastard knows something.’

  ‘Are you thinking we might be able to goad him, if we get a little more?’

  Valentine started to tap the front of his teeth with the knuckles of his fist; he had all the pieces in front of him but none of them were making a recognisable shape. ‘Let him go, now.’

  ‘What?’ McCormack pushed herself off the wall to face the DCI.

  ‘Let him go. He’s no use to us.’

  ‘But, boss, he’s all we’ve got.’

  ‘A flighty little score like that is more likely to find even more trouble for himself when we let him out. Get Phil to follow him around for a few days and make sure he’s not too subtle about it. I want Frizzle to think he’s more important than he is, and with any luck, he won’t disappoint.’

  Valentine pushed through the swing doors leading away from the interview room and headed back down the corridor. On the stairs he heard DI McCormack’s footsteps following behind. As he turned she was already composing her next enquiry of him.

  ‘So what do we do now, sir?’ she said.

  ‘Grab our coats.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘We’re going out to see some people.’

  ‘Who might that be?’

  As they reached the top of the stairs, the DCI paused to hold open the door. ‘We’ll start with your social worker friend.’

  ‘Jean Clark, out at the caravan park in Croy.’

  ‘Let’s hope we get a nice day for a run around Burns Country.’

  ‘I hear there’s still some beauty spots. Maybe we’ll be lucky.’

  ‘We need a change of luck. I hope you’re right.’

  Valentine pointed the DI towards DS Donnelly and watched his reaction – hands up to the sky – as he received the news he was going to be shadowing Malcolm Frizzle for the immediate future. The response made Valentine smile, until he remembered that Donnelly was still holding a grudge about missing out on promotion. He didn’t want the DS to think he was being unfairly treated, but he also didn’t want to let him know that he was carrying the best hope for the investigation. It was one of those moments when Valentine had to keep his intentions to himself – it was lonely in the end office, he concluded.

  As he grabbed his jacket the detective caught sight of Malcolm Frizzle walking out the front door – he was moving briskly, almost jogging until he stopped flat. Another man, taller and more agile-looking, was heading in the opposite direction – towards the front door of the station – when he halted too.

  Frizzle made eye contact with the man and the two of them seemed to exchange words. As quickly as the incident occurred it had ended, and Valentine found himself perching on his fingernails at the window’s ledge. He watched Frizzle continue over the
paving flags, towards the bus shelter beyond the King Street roundabout, and then further into the town, and out of view.

  Valentine’s thoughts were pooling as the door to his office opened and McCormack stood there with her coat over her arm and the long strap of a handbag dangling over the top.

  ‘Well, Phil’s less than chuffed, thinks he’s being given the jobs nobody else wants,’ she said. ‘I tried to make it clear that with Ally off we’re running at considerably less than full steam, but I think he was just looking for a chance to moan, really.’

  ‘He’ll get over it.’ Valentine was grinning to himself.

  ‘What are you so happy with?’

  ‘Guess who I just saw Malcolm Frizzle exchanging pleasantries with outside? Alex McGarvie.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. I can’t be sure there was a genuine connection, maybe they just bumped into each other, but it’s something worth checking out.’

  ‘It certainly is.’

  ‘Get DI Davis to conduct the interview with Alex McGarvie, he should be downstairs now.’

  ‘Will do, boss.’

  ‘And make sure he probes him for any knowledge of our good friend Malky Frizzle.’

  McCormack nodded and headed back out the door, bunching her bag and coat under her arm like she was unsure whether she was coming or going.

  Wind worried at the latch of the gate outside the Croy caravan park where the officers had come to find Jean Clark. There had been a burst of heavy rain on the way out but it had stopped now, and still its effects sat in pools on the pitted road before them. As he went out to open the gate and flag McCormack through, the DCI listened to the loud gurgling in the drain beneath the cattle grid. There was more water issuing from a broken downpipe that was spilling into a barrel-sized water butt, the noise of which echoed round the park and picked up approving replies from its counterparts.

  As he returned to the car Valentine massaged his wrist; he wasn’t used to lifting heavy wooden barriers in the cold and wet, but there was still something about the setting that appealed to him. Perhaps it was being perched on the Firth of Clyde, or the dramatic granite cliffs, protruding like headstones into the swell. Either way, the view was much more appealing that the King Street roundabout and the contact with nature made him feel strangely renewed.

  ‘It’s wild out, sir,’ said McCormack.

  ‘It doesn’t bother me, when it’s just me and the elements.’

  ‘There isn’t much else out here.’

  ‘I’m guessing that’s why she picked it, for the peace and quiet.’

  ‘You’d think the loneliness would drive her mad.’

  ‘Maybe it has.’

  McCormack pointed to a lot at the end of the track where a red camper van was positioned. ‘That’s the number plate we’re after.’

  The officers exited the car and headed to the door on the side of the camper. Valentine’s knock made a strange tinny noise that was followed by movement inside and the screech of springs below the vehicle.

  ‘Sounds like somebody’s home,’ said McCormack.

  As the door opened there was a waft of smoke and the smell of wood burning. Jean Clark didn’t look like she was expecting guests, poking her head round the door and smarting in the daylight.

  ‘Yes, what is it?’ She raised the flat of her hand to her forehead, shielding her eyes from the light.

  Valentine spoke. ‘Hello, we’re looking for Jean Clark?’

  ‘Well you’ve found her.’ She widened the door and stepped forward, revealing her full height, which couldn’t have been much more than five foot one. She was dressed in torn jeans and an oversized wool sweater. Her hair, long and naturally curly, was dyed the colour of red wine at its ends but had a thick greying wedge either side of a middle parting.

  ‘We’re police officers, Jean. Could we come in and talk to you?’ said the DCI.

  ‘What on earth for? My tax on the van’s up to date.’

  ‘We’ve come about another matter, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Look, what’s this about?’ The woman glanced back into her camper van, seeming to be concerned with the smoke escaping out the door and the fire going out. ‘I’m not interested in speaking to the police.’

  DI McCormack stepped forward, placing her foot on the first rung of a wooden step. ‘Jean, it’s about Abbie McGarvie, I’m afraid there’s been some bad news. I think it would be best if we came in and talked to you.’

  After listening to the officers detail the young girl’s death, Jean began to make tea on a pot-bellied stove. She stayed silent throughout, only cursing her stupidity when stubbing a toe on the corner of a wrought-iron stove leg.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m not used to having visitors,’ said Jean. ‘I came out here to get away from all that.’

  ‘I heard about your run-in with your employers,’ said Valentine.

  ‘Huh . . . the SS, you mean.’

  ‘You call them that as well?’

  ‘They were bastards, all of them. I suppose there’s a few of them in your line too.’

  ‘You’re not wrong.’

  ‘Oh, I know. I’ve met those bastards too.’

  Valentine watched as Jean poured out the tea, placing the cups on a small tin tray that looked like a charity shop find. The whole place looked to have been put together with the help of charity – a conscious effort was being made to drop all obedience to the pretensions of normality.

  ‘I’ve been working with one of the officers from the original investigation, and if it’s any consolation to you, Jean, I think the police force failed Abbie in the most unforgivable way,’ said Valentine.

  ‘It doesn’t console me in the slightest. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, but you must have no idea what you’re really dealing with, chief inspector.’

  ‘That’s why I’m here, to find out. I want to know everything you know. This is a clean slate from here, a new investigation.’

  Jean put down her cup, grinning. ‘Do you think that will make any difference? Do you really think the powers that be will allow you to take this investigation anywhere near the truth of the matter? If you do, you’re living in a dream world.’

  ‘And what is the truth of the matter?’

  ‘I’m not sure you want to go down that particular rabbit hole. If you do, you’ll not get out again, and you can’t unsee anything shown to you there.’ Jean put up a hand and waved towards the room. ‘Look at how I’m living. Do you really want to know, or even begin to understand why I cannot contemplate returning to the real world? I know what evil lurks there, Mr Valentine.’

  ‘I got a court order to see the case files you submitted. I read all your allegations and I know you believed every word that Abbie McGarvie told you about her abusers. But there’s a lot I don’t get yet, that’s why I’ve come to see you.’

  ‘Those files don’t tell you the half of it, they wouldn’t let me put any of the real truth in there.’ Jean put her head in her hands and groaned. For a moment she sat in that position, head in hands, and then she forced herself to sit up.

  ‘Please, we’re here to help. You can trust us,’ said Valentine.

  Jean’s face seemed calmer than before, her eyes no longer searching for answers to anything. She was resigned to a fate that would not let her escape what she knew. ‘I’ll tell you what I know,’ she said. ‘But you need to understand that there is a reality within your reality which you cannot fully comprehend. It’s a reality so evil, so corrupt and so inhuman, that if you were to fully comprehend it then your own fragile reality might begin to shatter.’

  Valentine turned to McCormack and when she nodded her assent he returned back to Jean. ‘We understand.’

  ‘We’re talking about the worst, the most heinous evil imaginable – the ritualistic torture, abuse and murder of children by an elite group of psychopaths.’ Jean’s composure altered as she spoke, tears welling in her eyes. ‘These girls are trapped by Luciferians that use them to breed more children for sacrifi
ce. But it’s not just the children who are sacrificed, sometimes it’s the breeders too. Women at various stages of the reproductive cycle are sacrificed and sometimes their aborted foetuses. All the rituals have different requirements but they all need flesh and blood. I told you it was sick, but this is the truth nobody will ever talk about.’

  DI McCormack was still, perched on the edge of her chair, knees pressing tight to the table. She looked tense and uneasy, her gaze roving the room for something to alight on. ‘But why? That’s what I can’t get my head around. Why kill children, for what possible reason?’

  ‘They believe there’s a veil between the worlds – our world and Lucifer’s – and that all the evil we create here provides almighty energy on the other side of the veil. To do evil here is to honour their god.’

  ‘But that just sounds absurd,’ said McCormack.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what you believe,’ said Jean, her eyes widening. ‘It doesn’t even matter that you think it sounds absurd, it’s what they believe and that’s what matters here. Don’t you see that? They’re the ones in control. It’s their beliefs that are behind all of this, and it’s their beliefs that killed Abbie.’

  Valentine spoke, his voice calm and reflective. ‘I don’t quite get what you’re saying, Jean. Who are these people? Who killed Abbie?’

  Jean turned to face the detective, dabbing her eyes with her sleeve. ‘The people who killed Abbie are the same ones who believe that the destruction of innocence in God’s image provides them with the most power. You need to understand that the world isn’t just this five-senses creation that you perceive. We’re drenched in much more, much stronger forces. If that doesn’t seem possible, within your limited perceptions, then you are already accepting the lie that’s all around us.’

  ‘Are you talking about a spiritual world?’

  ‘Look around you. Look at the misery, the savagery. We’re all so obsessed with paying the rent, with fears for our security, that we succumb to their control system. They won’t let that change for a moment, not a second even, because there’s a war on for our hearts and souls, and if that stops we might become aware of the chains and find some way to break them.’