Condition Purple

by Peter Turnbull

  Richard King arrived home late. He let himself in through the rear doorway. He heard Ian crying upstairs. It was a difficult time for Rosemary. Not only was Ian teething, but he was suffering badly from colic. He walked into the kitchen past the wood he had bought from the timber merchant the previous November with every good intention of putting up the shelves Rosemary had once requested and which she never reminded him about. He sat in his armchair and picked up that day’s copy of the Independent scanned the headlines but was too tired to read. Rosemary came downstairs quietly, unhurriedly, gentle in her presence as befitted her Quakerism. She was a slim girl, wore her hair in a bun, favoured pastel shades for her clothing and wore only skirts or dresses, never jeans or slacks. She laid her hand on his and said, ‘Hello, we are pleased you are home.’ She went to the kitchen and returned moments later with a mug of tea which she pressed into his hand. He pulled her towards him and kissed her gently. She smiled, she said dinner would be ready soon, it was just a question of heating it up.

  In Edinburgh, in a suburban development of new housing of small front and rear lawns, with Volvos and smaller ‘second’ cars in the driveways, a man drove down the street. He was well dressed and smoked a pipe as he steered his Rover slowly and steadily towards a four-bedroomed bungalow. Inside the house a woman was baking, her daughter stood beside her kneading dough. Her son played with his model train in the adjacent room. The man entered the bungalow, the woman threw a powdery arm round her husband’s neck, the children grabbed a leg each. Fabian Donoghue had returned home.

  Sussock leafed through the file on Jimmy ‘the Rodent’ Purdue. The photograph first, a hard sullen look, full face, three-quarter turn, profile. The file gave his height as five feet four inches tall, build was described as ‘stocky’, name James Maxwell Purdue, also known as ‘the Rodent’. The given date of birth put his age at present at fifty-three. The list of previous convictions stretched to three sheets. He did a pen portrait of the convictions, a simple technique for summing up a character, convictions for violence and theft from the age of fifteen to twenty-seven, fines and sentences of up to four years until finally at the age of thirty-one Purdue was nailed for murder and served ten years. He came out of the slammer at the age of forty-one and was not heard of again. Until now, until the death of Stephanie Craigellachie and the disappearance of Toni Durham. In the last twelve years James Purdue had either gone straight or committed crime undetected. Sussock sipped his coffee. The latter he thought was the more likely.

  He stood and crossed the floor of his office and glanced out of the window. It was 10.00 p.m., just after, the city was slumbering in a deep twilight. The lights within his office caused his reflection to appear on the windowpane. He looked at himself—tall, thin, greying, fifty-five years of age. He felt himself to be slowing up, a rapid deceleration. Sussock returned to his desk. There was no information in the file less than twenty-plus years old, other than copies of prison reports and a note advising of his release from Peterhead. None the less the photograph in the file and the photograph of the man leaning against the black Mercedes were definitely photographs of the same man, younger and resentful-looking in the police files, older and more smug-looking in the other photograph, but the same man all right.

  Sussock pulled the reports from the file and read in detail the crimes he had been convicted for, a carving of a face, a ‘Glasgow Kiss’ with a broken bottle, breaking into cars; it was, though, tame stuff by comparison. He put the reports back into the file, leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. He had one large advantage over any other cop who might read the file because it did not seem like yesterday when he, still a detective-constable, was part of a team which followed a bear of a man with no brain across the city for a period measured in months, following the man’s spoor which seemed to consist of human blood and dismembered bodies and skulls shattered like eggshells. And did they pin any of it on him? Did they ever. The name of bear with no brain: Jimmy ‘the Rodent’ Purdue. The file on Sussock’s desk was playschool compared to what was down to Purdue but which could not be proved.

  A man carved in front of his wife and kids, every muscle slashed through never to heal again. Total cripple.

  That was Purdue.

  A man crucified on the floor of a derelict tenement which was then set on fire. Sussock had attended the scene in time to hear the last of the screams from within the flames.

  Later he attended the Forensic Science Laboratory and was shown two six-inch nails blackened and twisted in the heat.

  That was Purdue.

  There was the young pregnant woman found naked in the snow, kicked to death.

  That was Purdue.

  There was the woman with ninety-seven stab wounds.

  That was Purdue.

  That was just the tip of the iceberg. There were lots of busted limbs, and heads, lots of scars, lots of splints, plaster casts, and plasma drips.

  And it was all down to Purdue.

  Then he was nailed.

  Sussock recalled how it happened. Purdue had taken a girl for a drink in a bar in the south side, just off Pollokshaws Road: it was a real dive. Had been a nice bar in its day, solid walnut, rich panelling, frosted glass, then it got a lazy manager, went down the tubes and by the time Purdue took the girl there it was just no place to take a lady. If he’d taken her to another bar things might have worked out for her, but as it was he was a hard man with scars on his face which he wore like medals and there’s only one sort of bar a guy like that drinks in, lady or no lady on his arm. She had just six hours to live from the moment they found floor space to stand.

  There was a tap on Sussock’s door. It was opened before he could say anything. Elka Willems stood in the doorway, smiling, a mug of steaming tea in her hand.

  ‘You’re rich,’ he said leaning forward, resting his elbows on his desktop.

  ‘How do you mean?’ She advanced and placed the mug of tea on his desk.

  ‘Well, you’re always going on about the need for discretion and here you are bringing me a mug of tea in the middle of a shift in full view of everybody.’

  ‘In full view of nobody, old Sussock. Things are quiet down there, there’s nobody up here. Abernethy’s still out, not finished his shift yet. The others are off duty. What are you reading?’

  ‘It’s the file on Jimmy “the Rodent” Purdue.’ He closed the file and handed it to her. ‘Turns out that he might be involved in the murder of Stephanie Craigellachie. You visited her flat yesterday.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ She opened the file. ‘Any progress?’

  ‘Nothing to speak of. We’d like to trace this guy.’ He tapped the file. ‘There is the possibility that another girl who has been reported missing is caught up in it, one Toni Durham. She’s a known associate of both Stephanie Craigellachie and Jimmy Purdue.’

  ‘Murdered or missing?’

  ‘Who can tell,’ said Sussock, picking up his tea. ‘She may have upped and gone to live in London, she may have fallen into the Clyde.’

  ‘Or she may have been murdered by Jimmy the Rodent and her body concealed.’

  ‘That wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest,’ said Sussock. ‘I knew this turkey years ago.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He’s a pure animal, a violent wee thug, a knife-man.’

  ‘That’s significant. Stephanie Craigellachie was knifed.’

  ‘It’s only superficially significant.’ Sussock held the mug of tea with both hands. ‘Her injury had the feel of a lucky stab wound and the knife was left in the body.’

  ‘You don’t think that’s the work of Purdue?’

  Sussock shook his head. ‘He’s a professional. If that was his work, then he was disturbed.’

  ‘So there’s a witness to the murder in the town, somewhere?’

  ‘If the murder was down to Jimmy the Rodent, then yes, and it would have to be someone he was afraid of It’s something that I’ll have to float with Fabian in the morning.’

&n
bsp; ‘What’s this?’ Elka Willems pulled a sheet of paper from the file.

  ‘It’s his submission to the Parole Board,’ said Sussock.

  Elka Willems looked at it. The front sheet was in longhand, written in heavy deliberate printing, very legible but semi-literate. Attached were a number of photocopies each of which had a typed version also attached for the convenience of the Parole Board members. She read it.

  I took Mandy for a wee drink. I took her to a bar in the south side. I had a heavy with a whisky. I told him to stick a head on the heavy. I was drinking all night. She looked at other men. We had a wee fight in the pub. I chibbed her with a broken glass and cut her neck. It wasn’t me that did it, it was the drink. I took her out. Some guys followed. I still had the broken glass, I said I’d chib them too if they didn’t back off. I flagged a cab and put Mandy in. I got in and said Rutherglen. The cab drove off. Mandy was making sounds. The driver said Mandy was sick and stopped. We got out. I chucked him a quid and told him he’d seen nothing but he must have told the polis because the streets were soon crawling with them looking for us. I got Mandy to a hut where I thought we could stay. She was moaning but I had my hand over her cut and I was letting her lean on me. We got to the hut and the man said we had to go so I said I knew where there was another hut where we could stay. She kept saying she was cold. I told her to shut up. I said I knew a short cut because she was soaking my clothes and the polis was looking for us. We had to cross over a railway line. We went down the embankment, rolling, falling. At the bottom we lay by the tracks. The trains were coming fast and I could feel the draught as they passed. I lay beside her and held her as they went by and said don’t worry my darling I will soon have you in a hut and I’ll put a bandage on your cut. She was shivering but it wasn’t cold. There was a gap in the trains and we went over the tracks and up the embankment on the other side. We had to go through nettles and brambles and over a fence. Then we went into a garden and into the hut. Mandy fell on the floor and was still so I lay on the mattress which was there. In the morning I was hungry. Mandy was still there. She hadn’t moved. There was dried blood all over her and her eyes were open. I said you daft wee bitch I didn’t chib you that hard and went to get some food. On the way I phoned the polis and told them where she was. I got lifted 2 days later.

  I know I done wrong by her but I’m brand new now and if I get released I will be OK.

  James Purdue Elka Willems closed the file and laid it back on the desk. ‘I’m not impressed,’ she said.

  ‘Neither were the Parole Board,’ said Sussock. ‘Purdue was sentenced to ten years for the murder of Mandy McBride, aged nineteen years—a light sentence we thought and he served every minute. No remission for good behaviour for Jimmy the Rodent. The hall officers’ report is in there somewhere and it would amount to a character assassination if it wasn’t all true. Once he tried to chop off a screw’s head with a metal tray. He got four years for serious assault but it fell within the span of his ten-year stretch so he didn’t notice it.’

  ‘So he came out twelve years ago and disappeared?’

  ‘Yes, in a nutshell. Now he has reappeared in connection with one girl who was murdered and another who has disappeared.’

  ‘Presumed dead?’

  ‘Presumed dead.’

  ‘How are you going to set about finding him?’

  ‘I was thinking of using Montgomerie’s snout, Tuesday Noon by name.’

  ‘He’s talked of him to me.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Elka Willems, leaning forward and smiling. ‘When he asked me out.’

  Sussock smiled. ‘You never told me.’

  ‘Didn’t I? It must have slipped my mind.’

  ‘Nothing slips your mind. What did you say to him?’

  ‘I said I’d think about it.’

  ‘What was his line?’

  ‘Something along the lines of needing to get to know each other better because we work well together. He said he thought we had a natural affinity, a good rapport. I think he was implying that he thought we could touch souls, I think what he really meant was that we could touch each other’s flesh.’

  ‘Mind you, I like his line. I’ll remember that.’

  ‘And use it on who and when. You haven’t got his panache, old Sussock. Tell me about Tuesday Noon.’

  ‘He’s a grimy, smelly old guy. Montgomerie meets up with him in a pub near the Round Toll up Woodside way. I’ll leave a note asking Montgomerie to make contact with him. Purdue has a “loud” profile, Tuesday Noon will know where he is.’

  The phone on his desk rang. Sussock reached forward and picked it up, reaching for his pen and notepad as he did so.

  Elka Willems watched his brow furrow. He wrote fully on his pad, but said little other than the occasional ‘oh’, ‘I see’, ‘yes’, and eventually ‘thank you’. He looked up at Elka Willems. ‘Female corpse,’ he said, ‘partially clothed, evidence of violent attack. Found in a derelict tenement in Finnieston. Has been there for some time, a week, maybe more.’

  ‘Any identification?’

  ‘Toni Durham,’ said Sussock.

  It was Wednesday, 23.53 hours.

  Chapter 7

  Thursday, 00.30-06.45 hours

  Violent attack, thought Sussock, was something of an understatement. Toni Durham hadn’t been knifed so much as dissected. It was like stepping back twenty years for Sussock. Again here in this room were all the hallmarks of the work of James ‘the Rodent’ Purdue who didn’t seem satisfied to take life, he wanted to destroy the life form as well. In this instance there was the additional unpleasantness of the putrefaction of a ten-day-old mutilated corpse.

  Toni Durham’s body had been found by a down-and-out. The man, reeking of alcohol and stale sweat, had spent the day walking round the town, rummaging in waste-bins, begging for ten pence for ‘a cup of tea’, eating what he could and at the very close of day, near to midnight, he returned to the den where he was ‘skippering’. The man was still in his twenties but he was already immersed in the strange world of the down-and-out, the mental attitude of extreme detachment, wound up in his own thoughts, his own playacting, with a sense that all around him was a dream. Like all down-and-outs, he didn’t like human company, even of other down-and-outs, because human company meant communicating and communicating meant leaving the comfort of the strange world and touching reality. ‘Can you lend us ten pence for a cup of tea, sojer?’ was the only exchange this man would offer, occasionally he might add ‘ya bastard’ as the ‘soldier’ swept by. So at the very end of the day he returned to his earlier home. He had not been there for the last three weeks: he’d been in the boiler room. The boiler room had been magic; he’d remember the boiler room for a long time. The door had been unlocked, then there was an inner door, a flight of steps, dry concrete floor and heat from the boiler. All the comforts of home. Then he had been discovered, ordered out. Tonight the door was securely locked so he returned to the derelict tenement in Finnieston. He went up the stair. He found other guys were still ‘skippering’ there, each with his own space in the empty rooms. There were wine bottles on the floor, super lager cans crushed in pent-up frustration. He had proceeded up the stair and found a bloody mess in his room, which was illuminated by a street lamp, he stood at the entrance to the room and swayed and tried to focus and he resented it, this mess. He resented it because this was other people’s reality, it was the real world, and if he stayed he would have to leave the comfort of this fantasy world. He turned away from his room and shouted a warning and others came groping and fumbling up the stairs to the small room they never had occasion to visit and the word spread through the tenement. The down-and-outs packed up their rolls and plastic carrier bags. The first to leave were the younger ones who’d come down because of the needle, they were followed by the men who had just enough grasp of reality to remember that they were wanted on outstanding warrants, the rest followed because they knew that the body in the upper room meant the law, t
he law could mean a night in the cells, a breach charge, a drying out spell, it also meant Building Control and a new metal door on the close. Either way the building was shot. No more skippering here.

  Phil Hamilton strolled down the street. It was a warm night, quiet, not a lot had happened. Even the pubs had turned out quietly. Then he noticed a figure step out of a doorway, the figure carried a bundle and it slithered away into the shadows and the darkness.

  Then another followed.

  Then another.

  Then another and another and another.

  Hamilton counted ten and then gave up counting but still they came out and disappeared separately into the gloom, all running from the same close. He quickened his pace. He fancied he knew what had happened, a bottling, maybe one had knifed another badly enough to cause a panic. He reached the close mouth. The stench of sweat and stale breath hung solidly in warm still air of the close. He went into the close, torch in one hand, truncheon in the other, one room at a time, one flat at a time, all were empty but all revealed signs of recent human habitation, piles of newsprint used as bedding, remains of fish supper carry-outs, once he came across a down-and-out curled up in a foetal position, snoring heavily and too comatose to have been wakened by the commotion. Hamilton inched up the stair, ‘proceeding with caution’.

  He smelled the body before he saw it. A sickly sweet, nauseating smell. And the body, lying there, contorted and stiff with rigor marks, her innards spilling out between her ripped clothing, heaving with maggots, and her blood, dry and black on the floor, on each wall. It was, thought Hamilton, stepping back, gagging for breathable air, as if she had been torn apart by a demon. He returned to the room, snatched up the handbag lying close to the body, opened it, a transcard, a few letters, a driver’s licence, all bearing the same name. He clutched his radio and radioed for assistance, a Code 41, believed to be one Toni Durham.