Condition Purple

by Peter Turnbull

  Chapter 1

  Tuesday, 17.00-23.40 hours

  It is the city of Glasgow, in the grid system at her centre, Victorian buildings standing four square and solid on the hill, going up and then down the other side. It is the evening, the height of summer, and a young woman in heels is walking.

  Click. Click. Click. Click.

  The young woman is frightened of the evening. She is longing for the night to come, she is longing for the darkness which she can clutch to her like a comfort blanket.

  Click. Click, The man who will kill her when he sees her is in the city. He’s on the town. Somewhere. She knows this because she has seen his car cruising in the system, criss-crossing the street.

  The woman stops walking and stands at the entrance to the alley, just below Blythswood Square. She has short cropped black hair, a short tight skirt and a black handbag slung over her shoulder.

  She knows that the man knows where to find her because she always stands here, at the entrance to West George Lane, off Blythswood Street, looking up and across the road at the National Westminster Bank on the corner of the Square, or looking down the hill to the bus station where the real goats work. The woman stands at the entrance to the alley from 5.30 each evening until midnight, getting into cars and getting out again.

  The woman is just twenty-one years old. She is a sister of mercy and she knows that tonight the man will kill her.

  She was found at 10.00 p.m., the knife still embedded in her throat. She was found close to where she normally stood, further down the alley, in a crumpled bloody heap under the wall, clearly visible from the street. Twenty minutes after a passing member of the public had glanced along the alley as she passed, and had then raised the alarm, a screen had been placed around the body and two cops stood at either entrance to the alley, to West George Lane: the locus of the offence. Dr Chan, the duty police surgeon, knelt by the body. He had felt for a pulse, had opened the eyes and then pressed them closed again, placed a thermometer in the young woman’s mouth and let it remain there for a minute before retrieving it. He then held it up and read the mercury level with the aid of the beam from his pencil torch. He stood and turned to Donoghue.

  ‘Dead,’ he said.

  Donoghue noted the time. 22.23. ‘Stab wounds, I suppose, sir?’ he said.

  ‘That is the immediate indication.’ Dr Chan was small, dark-haired, wore glasses. ‘Though of course that is for the pathologist to verify. The wounds could have been occasioned after death, though in this case I think that that is not likely. The body has all the appearances of having been set on in a most hurried and murderous attack.’

  ‘I’d be inclined to agree.’ Donoghue took his pipe with its slightly curved stem from his pocket and placed it in his mouth. He played the flame from his gold-plated lighter across the bowl of the pipe and the sweet aroma of Dutch tobacco began to fill the still evening air.

  Donoghue looked about him. The alley was long, about three hundred yards from Blythswood Street to West Campbell Street, the distance of one block. The alley itself was part of the alley system in this area of the city; behind each major thoroughfare there is an alley running parallel to it. In this case, Donoghue noted, the alley runs parallel to West George Street. Beginning at Holland Street, it intersects Pitt Street, Douglas Street, Blythswood Street, West Campbell Street, Wellington Street, Hope Street and ends at Renfield Street. It is about twelve feet wide, mainly cobbled surfaces, and along its length are the rear doors of offices and insurance companies, small indented parking spaces for directors’ cars, loading bays, down pipes, windows covered with grilles. The buildings which back on to the alley seemed to Donoghue to be wholly commercial concerns which empty at 6.00 p.m. each night. Occasionally people work as late as 10.00 p.m. There might, thought Donoghue, hoped Donoghue, there might be a building with a resident porter.

  He also noticed that the building immediately opposite the wall underneath which the dead woman was found was being rebuilt. So far as he could see in the fading light, the original Victorian edifice was being retained and a new building was being built behind it. Directly opposite the girl wasn’t another wall but a row of yellow panels, forming a wooden wall ten feet high.

  There might, he thought, be a watchman who could have seen or heard something. He continued to scan the rear of the buildings. Many had lights still burning but he could detect no sign of life from within. The burning lights were nothing more than a sensible burglar deterrent.

  Donoghue glanced over the top of the screen and looked at the corpse. She seemed to him to have a hard or a ‘used’ face, but was by no means unattractive. She had a pleasing figure, long slender legs, and a knife in her throat. She seemed to Donoghue to be in her mid-twenties, but could well be much younger, the girls who work the streets around Blythswood Square age quickly. He knew that. She had died beneath a wall in an alley with the lights of an insurance company building glowing above her.

  ‘I’d like to remain here at the locus and observe the pathologist’s work.’ Chan spoke to Donoghue, bringing him back to the immediate matter of correct observation procedure. ‘If of course you have no objection, Inspector?’

  ‘None whatsoever,’ said Donoghue. ‘None at all, sir, though the final decision rests with the pathologist, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Donoghue liked Dr Chan. He found him polite, quiet, efficient, and in this case he was demonstrating professional interest. Many other police surgeons would be only too anxious to quit the scene of the offence as soon as they had pronounced death. But not Dr Chan. He had often before waited at the scene of the crime in order to observe a kindred professional at work. ‘No objection at all, sir,’ Donoghue repeated.

  Pulling gently and with satisfaction on his pipe, Donoghue walked to the end of the alley, the end of the alley which joins Blythswood Street, the end of the alley from where the passer-by, still shaken, and at that moment still sitting in the rear of the first police vehicle to arrive at the scene, had noticed the folded-up legs of the deceased. The passer-by, a female, upon seeing the body had then apparently ran up to the Square and down to Pitt Street and the Headquarters of the Strathclyde Police, she had burst in through the glass doors and panted, ‘Murder, murder,’ at the startled commissionaire and had continued to pant, ‘Murder, murder, murder,’ until calmed by the duty constable. Tango Delta Foxtrot had been ordered to investigate and moments later radioed back a confirmation of an apparent Code 41. The member of the public was escorted to the scene of the crime, but remained in the rear of the area car, giving a statement to Detective-Constable King.

  Donoghue approached the car and knelt by the driver’s door. Richard King wound down the window.

  ‘Evening, sir,’ said King.

  ‘Good evening,’ said Donoghue. ‘Dr Chan has pronounced the girl dead, Richard. Could you radio control and ask for the services of Dr Reynolds as soon as you like, please.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Richard King said quickly, precisely. He reached for the radio microphone and pressed the ‘send’ button.

  Donoghue glanced at the woman in the rear seat of the car. She was young, white-faced and still shaken, her face illuminated at brief one-second intervals by the flashing of the blue light on the roof of the adjacent police vehicle.

  The police activity attracted attention. Cars slowed as they passed; a group of women, mostly in short skirts, though one wore jeans and another had a full length fur coat, stood in a cluster at the corner of Blythswood Square.

  ‘Do all the girls wear skirts?’ Donoghue asked of the woman in the rear of the patrol car. She had the same hard look that he had noticed about the deceased.

  ‘Aye,’ said the woman. ‘Some girls wear jeans. Shows the figure off better. Cli
ents like to know what they are getting.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘This is Diana McLeod,’ Richard King said to Donoghue. ‘It was Miss McLeod who found the deceased and whom she has identified as one Stephanie Craigellachie.’

  ‘Stephanie Craigellachie,’ Donoghue repeated.

  ‘Believed to be twenty-one years of age.’

  ‘Just twenty-one.’ Donoghue took his pipe from his mouth. ‘I thought she was older.’

  ‘Not according to Miss McLeod, sir,’ said King, bearded, chubby, twenty-five-year-old cop.

  ‘We get old in this game,’ said Miss McLeod, speaking softly from the rear seat.

  ‘How well did you know the deceased?’ Donoghue addressed the woman. King remained silent.

  ‘Just someone to say hello to,’ said Diana McLeod. ‘No more than that.’

  ‘So what happened tonight?’

  ‘I already told this cop—I mean gentleman.’

  ‘So tell this cop,’ said Donoghue.

  ‘Look, I’m a working girl. Time is money.’

  ‘You’re doing a public service.’

  ‘We do, to be honest,’ said Diana McLeod. ‘Basically that’s what we do. We keep marriages together, and things.’

  ‘Just tell me what happened, please.’ Donoghue allowed a note of impatience to creep into his voice.

  ‘It was about ten o’clock. Getting dark, about that time. I got dropped off in the Square, I’d been servicing a client and he dropped me off in the Square. I began to walk down the hill to my pitch. I passed the alley. I didn’t see Stephanie, so I thought she was working…’

  ‘Servicing a client?’ Donoghue echoed.

  ‘Yes. That’s what I thought. I walked down the hill to my pitch. I used to be up nearer the Square, but…well, you move with the times, or time moves you, but I’m still a long way from having to stand down by the bus station…’

  ‘Just tell me what happened tonight, please.’

  ‘Well, I saw Stephanie wasn’t there so I didn’t think nothing about it, but I just glanced up the alley, it was light enough to see along it and there were lights from the offices and that, and I saw a pair of legs sticking out of a black mound. I went up and saw it was Stephanie all bloody with a knife in her throat, so I ran to Pitt Street and told the polis. Holy Mary, I never want to see nothing like that again.’

  ‘You got an address where we can reach you, Diana?’ King half turned and spoke to the woman.

  Diana McLeod gave an address in Garthamlock.

  ‘Bonny Suburbia,’ said King, scribbling the information into his notebook.

  ‘Hardly,’ she said. ‘Not if you know it.’

  King did. Low rise, square blocks, concrete, brick and pebbledash, and glass. Lots of glass.

  ‘I’ve got a three-room apartment and a couple of kids. My man walked out on me, that’s why I’m doing this.’

  ‘Who’s watching your kids?’

  ‘My mother. She thinks I’ve got a job in a nightclub. I don’t miss my man, he used to give me terrible doings. See, doing what I do you get treated like a lump of horse meat, but the punters treat me better than my man ever did. There’s some real gentlemen about.’

  Donoghue noticed a silver Volvo Estate turn off the Square and slow to a stop behind the police vehicle. Dr Reynolds had arrived quickly on the scene. He turned his attention back to the woman. ‘If you’d continue to give your statement to this officer, please,’ he said. ‘It may be that we’ll have to visit you at home if we have to clarify a point or two.’

  ‘Well, anything to help, only…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘See, if you do have to come out to where I stay, you’ll be careful what you say in front of my kids and my mother, aye?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Donoghue, ‘we will. If you scratch our back we’ll scratch yours.’ He left the area car and walked up the steep incline of Blythswood Street to greet the driver of the Volvo.

  ‘Good evening, sir.’

  ‘Evening, Inspector,’ said Reynolds, getting out of his car. He was tall and had a striking mane of silver hair which matched the colour of his car with uncanny accuracy. ‘What have we got this time? Fortunately I was at the GRI. Not far to come.’

  ‘Young female, sir,’ said Donoghue. ‘Just here, down the alley. She has apparently been stabbed. The knife is still in her throat.’

  ‘Useful for you?’ smiled the pathologist.

  ‘Well, I hope so, sir.’ Donoghue walked beside Reynolds. ‘We haven’t touched anything. Dr Chan has pronounced the girl dead.’

  ‘Chan?’ said Reynolds. ‘Yes, I know him, I think.’

  ‘He’s still at the locus, sir, anxious to observe your work.’

  ‘I am honoured.’

  Donoghue halted and let the tall silver-haired pathologist walk the last few feet alone. Dr Chan turned and stood reverently as Reynolds approached. He gave a slight bow of his head and then accepted Reynolds’s extended hand. Reynolds stepped over the orange ribbon which had been erected around the body and invited Chan to follow him. Two uniformed cops stood close by the corpse.

  Donoghue refilled his pipe and strolled back on to Blythswood Street and up on to the corner of Blythswood Square. He glanced along the imposing edifice of the RAC Club and then along the early Victorian frontage of West George Street on the south side of the Square. Two girls stood on the corner, talking to each other. One had a black leather coat, the second wore a full-length mink. Donoghue watched as a red BMW drew up alongside the two young women. The two females chatted briefly and then the girl in the mink coat walked towards the BMW in an aggressive, purposeful, hip-swaying motion, spoke briefly with the driver and then got into the car. She was driven away, just a blazing pair of tail lights disappearing into the night. Donoghue looked at the gardens in the centre of the Square, fenced off with high wire, landscaped with mature shrubs. In the summer lunch-times office workers sprawled on the grass enjoying lunch in the fresh air; at night the gardens were the living, silent heart of the Square.

  The girl in the leather coat stood and looked across the road at Donoghue, who stood on the opposite kerb. He looked at her. Presently she walked across the road towards him, employing the same purposeful hip-swaying walk her friend had used when approaching the BMW. She smiled at him, holding his eyes with hers as she came on. She stopped, standing in front of him.

  ‘Are you looking for business or are you a cop?’ she said. She had a deep, husky voice and was to his eye quite attractive. It was easy to see why she could stand at the top end of the street and edge the Diana McLeods down towards the all-enveloping ‘graveyard’ near the bus station. She also looked young and innocent and had a long way to go before she assumed the hard, used look of the veterans. She had a fresh, alert sparkle in her eyes.

  ‘I’m a cop,’ he said. ‘You’re not afraid that I might book you for opportuning? You took a risk approaching me.’

  The girl smiled and shook her head. ‘You don’t belong to Vice, otherwise I would have recognized you. It’s only Vice and constables anxious to get their arrest rates up that lift you for opportuning, I think you’ve got more important things to do than throw me in the tank. Anyway, I’m sorry to bother you.’

  ‘No bother,’ he said. ‘Do you work here each night?’

  ‘I gave my details already. I don’t see anything.’

  ‘I’m not just talking about tonight.’

  ‘Look, I’m a working girl.’

  ‘I could make you come down to the station and talk to me.’ Donoghue pulled gently on his pipe.

  ‘So what do you want to know? You’ve scared all the men away anyway, all those blue lights.’

  ‘Your friend’s doing all right. I mean the girl in the fur coat who just got into the BMW.’

  ‘Sandra, that’s Sandra. The guy was one of her regulars. He’s a businessman from Birmingham. He comes up to Glasgow most weeks. Phones Sandra when he comes and she keeps herself available for him. She’ll be back in an hour. Then
she’ll maybe do a bit more business, but tonight you guys…I reckon it’s an early night for most girls tonight. Anyway, Sandra’s regular, he makes it in her interest to wait for him. See the fur coat, full-length mink. That’s how much it’s in her interest to wait for him.’

  ‘She can make that much money?’

  The girl nodded and put a long cigarette to her lips and waited for Donoghue to light it for her. Donoghue was a little slow to react, then, mumbling his apologies, produced his lighter and held the flame up to the tip of her cigarette.

  The woman inhaled and while doing so rested her hand gently on the back of Donoghue’s hand and looked into his eyes. Donoghue snapped the lighter shut and withdrew his hand. She just can’t stop, he thought, just can’t stop working.

  ‘Easy,’ said the woman, who Donoghue guessed was in her mid-twenties, but who could be hiding a few years either way behind skilfully applied make-up and was also benefiting from the night and the soft lights of the Square. ‘Sandra could easy make enough to buy a full-length mink in six or seven nights. That’s a good week, mind you. And we don’t pay no tax. It’s all strictly cash, or maybe kind. Like Sandra’s coat.’

  ‘That was given to her?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ The woman inhaled the cigarette with a jerky, affected gesture. ‘Her regular, the guy in the BMW, he’s in the fur trade. He gave it to her. It’s slightly defective, in the lining. Some stitching goes wonky for about three inches, that’s all, but it’s enough to prevent it being retailed so he brings it to her, a wee gift, a freebie, he says, “A wee gift for you, bonny lass,” and that’s on top of, not instead of.’

  ‘Can’t be bad,’ he said, though he knew fine well such a state of affairs lasts as long as the man’s whim, and never more than a few months, and he also knew the other side of the coin, not just the girls who work the bus station at the bottom of Blythswood Street but the real dogs who stand in Glasgow Green, earn enough to buy a drink and regularly end the night in the casualty ward of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

  ‘It’s better than working in an office. We do a good service, me and Sandra. Sandra’s regular says it keeps his marriage together.’