Falling Fast

by Neil Broadfoot

  Three months later he was put on trial. Someone on the prosecution team was very smart, very lucky or very connected, as they managed to push the charges all the way up to attempted murder. And, after no more than a week – during which Bethany was forced by both the prosecution and defence to relive what had happened in front of a room full of strangers – McGinty was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

  After the trial, Bethany quit her university course and returned home to her parents. Doug couldn’t find any mention of her after that, but he hoped she had found a little peace. She deserved it.

  McGinty, meanwhile, served six years before appealing against his sentence in 1998. A bleeding-heart judge, who Doug could only assume was a woman-hating fuckwit whose brains had long since turned to mush beneath his wig, heard the appeal, which hinged on diminished responsibility and a ‘febrile atmosphere at the time of the case due to media interest’. The judge ruled that McGinty’s sentence was overly severe, and promptly slashed it to eight years, including time already served.

  Derek McGinty walked free of Edinburgh’s Saughton jail on January 26, 2001. The story was a national sensation, with reformers, right-wingers and human rights activists all chipping in to the debate over sentencing and rehabilitation. Bethany was only mentioned in passing. Not surprising. Why dwell on yesterday’s news?

  At the time, speculation was rife as to what McGinty’s next move would be. As he had attacked Bethany before the introduction of the Sex Offender Register, he was free to go wherever in the UK he chose, and the police couldn’t do a thing – officially. Unofficially, a close eye was to be kept on him. But not too close, the human rights groups made sure of that. The last thing the police needed was some injury-claims-rent-a-lawyer suggesting McGinty should sue them for harassment.

  The reports Susie had provided showed that McGinty initially headed west, working his way from Glasgow up to Greenock on the west coast and then back inland and east towards Fife. He had appeared to settle in Cairneyhill, a small village outside Dunfermline, and take work in a local pub as a barman. That had lasted until about a month ago, when a TV news and current affairs show aired a programme about Scotland’s relationship with the UK and the European Union. One section examined human rights law – including how it had influenced the slashing of Derek McGinty’s jail term.

  The show used file footage of him being led away after being sentenced at his trial, footage that was seen by more than one resident of Cairneyhill. Ugly scenes followed, and officers from the Fife arm of Police Scotland were called to escort McGinty from his home to avoid a public lynching of ‘that perverted bastard’.

  McGinty had been offered protective custody, which he blankly refused. The police could do nothing but let him go and he promptly vanished.

  But, asked the media, where would anyone, even a ‘sick sex pervert’, go when they had no job, no place to stay and no money?

  Everyone came up with the same answer. Home. After all, it was known that, despite everything, he had kept in touch with his mother and father.

  And so a game of cat and mouse began. Doug had written several pieces connected to the story, from feature stories about a town ‘living in fear of its most infamous son’ to hard-edged news and political pieces calling for reform of the legal system and retroactive listing of anyone in Scottish prisons for a sexually-related crime. The stories gave him a headache every time he sat at his keyboard, as he was running along a legal knife-edge with every sentence he wrote, but it was a great story, and the deeper Doug looked, the more he wanted to know what would happen next.

  But so far, McGinty had failed to appear.

  Doug shuffled through his papers, finding a shot of McGinty taken from his trial. About 5ft 8ins tall, thick set with the beginnings of a beer gut, severely cut dark brown hair with a sharp widow’s peak. Thin lips, a nose that was obviously no stranger to knuckles. Police reports described McGinty’s eyes as brown, but to Doug they looked black. In the picture, he was glaring straight into the lens, unashamed. Come and get me, fucker, those eyes said. Come and get me.

  Doug was startled out of his thoughts by his phone. He flicked answer.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Doug, it’s me.’ The voice was flat, almost atonal.

  ‘Susie? That you? You sound awful.’

  ‘Yeah, fuck you very much, Doug.’ A pause, then a heavy, body-shaking sigh echoed down the line. ‘Shit. Sorry, bad day. You still want to meet?’

  ‘You still up to it?’

  ‘As long as it’s in a pub,’ Susie replied. ‘After what I’ve just seen, I need a drink. And you’re buying.’

  ‘No problem. Where do you want to meet?’

  ‘You know the Mitre?’

  Doug mumbled a response. It was a pub in the middle of the Royal Mile, close to its junction with North Bridge. ‘How long?’

  ‘Say about ten minutes?’

  No problem,’ Doug said. ‘I’ll have a drink waiting for you.’

  ‘Make it a double, will you?’

  ‘No problem, Susie. See you in a bit.’

  Doug hung up and began gathering his notes on McGinty. As he did, he came across the photo he had been studying when Susie called.

  Black eyes boring into him, full of hatred and arrogance. Come and get me, motherfucker. Come and get me.

  Doug intended to do just that. If not for him or his readers, then for Bethany. She deserved that much at least.

  6

  Susie paused on the steps of the morgue and waved at a couple of uniforms she knew who were sitting in a patrol car at the entrance, waiting for the security barrier to rise. They had offered her a lift back to the CID room at Gayfield Place but she made her excuses, saying she needed to chase up a few leads while she was in the centre of town.

  The sky was now dull and heavy with the threat of rain. She wished it would. Maybe it would wash away the cloying sting of chemicals and the rotten, bitter-iron tang of blood and dead, mangled flesh that clung to the back of her throat.

  The morgue was at the top of a slight hill overlooking the Cowgate. She watched as cars droned past, drivers blissfully unaware of the horrors contained in the building she had just emerged from. The stench of blood and chemicals and decay, bodies that had been burnt or stabbed or beaten, or the decayed husks of those who just closed their eyes and never woke up. All framed in harsh florescent light and cold glinting metal, making sure you saw every detail. Susie envied the passers-by their ignorance. She closed her eyes, took a few deep, greedy breaths of the damp fresh air. She ran a hand around her neck inside the open-necked collar of her blouse. It wasn’t tight, but she felt stifled.

  She glanced to her right, down the hill towards the Pleasance. When she was a student at Edinburgh, the Pleasance – and the gym there – had been her refuge. She supposed it was natural enough as she had always been interested in sports. Tall and willowy as a child growing up in Clydebank, her long lean frame made her perfect for athletics. The male-dominated school teams suited her; with her slight build and natural auburn hair singling her out amongst her female peers, she preferred being with her male friends.

  While many of her classmates set their sights on bagging a man and a couple of pregnancies before they hit their twenties, Susie took an English degree, head filled with her parents’ encouragement to be a teacher. After all, it was a good enough career for them, so why not her as well?

  She knew the stories of life in university and she expected to become just another student cliché: overindulging in her new freedom in a haze of drinking and random shagging; books left unopened, essays left unwritten. But it never happened. She made friends in her halls, mostly studious girls from single-sex boarding schools in the Home Counties. Girls whose career ambitions were matched only by their desire to snag a posh heir playing student until Daddy organised that first job in the City.

  She went for the nights out, had a couple of not-overly-serious boyfriends, and settled into a quiet routine. She devoured the class
ics and found a taste for Dickens, but the lectures infuriated her. Sitting for what felt like hours, listening to some tweed-jacketed academic or too-cool cord-wearer trying to dazzle with his intellect. All the while pretending he wasn’t leering at the tight-jeaned crotch and bulging pecs of the second year in the front row. She felt a burning need to be active. To move, just as she had done as a child, running as fast as she could with the taunts of the bullies ringing in her ears.

  Looking for some way to burn off her frustrations – finding the student staples of sex and drinking insufficient – she turned to the gym after seeing a flyer on the hall wall, and fell in love. The repetition of the treadmill provided a sense of relief from the mental strain of studying, and a brief romance with a member of the hockey Second XI introduced her to weight training. She loved the feel of physical strength; nothing bodybuilder-like, but enough to allow her to easily carry her own shopping and lift heavy boxes when moving halls. While other girls simpered and made shopping look even heavier to lure men to their rescue, Susie resented the implication of inherent female weakness.

  Maybe that was what attracted her to the police stand at a career fair in the students’ union, the chance to prove herself in a ‘man’s’ job. Her parents were disappointed – ‘Such a dangerous job for a girl,’ her dad had muttered, while her mother despaired of ‘that uniform’, which was ‘so unflattering on the hips’ – but they supported her anyway, especially when they heard about the accelerated promotion scheme for graduates.

  She signed up as a cadet as soon as she graduated, found she took to the training easily. But what she loved most of all was pounding the streets on dark winter nights, especially when the rain cleared the pavements. Mile after mile, the rhythm of stride after stride drowning out her restless thoughts.

  Susie felt the first tickle of adrenalin as she imagined her dry-lunged rasp as she powered up a hill, losing the images of shattered bone, torn, bloodied flesh and congealed, pulverised brain in the pounding rhythm of her stride. Tonight. She would get home, pull on her running gear and hit the streets. A 10k would do it, just long enough to build up a bit of heat, clear her thoughts.

  She walked away from the morgue and towards the pub, mentally skipping through tracks on her iPod running playlist, drowning out the morgue memories with ever-increasing volume whenever they threatened to surface.

  • • •

  The Mitre was late-afternoon busy; caught in the twilight zone between the end of lunch hour and the end of the working day for the businesses nearby. A few workers from those offices, who had either knocked off early or just decided to call it quits after lunch, were scattered around the bar, nursing pints or shorts as they made themselves busy with smatterings of paperwork or the evening paper; the quiet acts of desperation underlining the fact they were putting on a show for the world, trying to make it look like the drink wasn’t the only reason they were there. They were joined by a handful of tourists – standing out from the herd by virtue of their bomber jackets, baseball caps and oversized video cameras. It occurred to Doug that tourists never looked like they were on holiday any more, never looked like they were having fun. With their cameras, maps and incessant questions, they looked to Doug more like fact-finders.

  Or the advance party.

  He ordered at the bar – a pint for him, a double vodka and lemonade for Susie –then took the drinks up to the back of the pub where there were about half a dozen tables set for lunches and dinners and a few corner booths. He slid into one of the booths, taking the bench that faced back down into the bar and the saloon-style double doors leading into it, and waited for Susie.

  She appeared about five minutes later. At first glance, she looked like just another office worker; conservative charcoal suit (about half a size too big for her, Doug thought), long, auburn hair pulled back in a loose pony tail draped over her left shoulder. Light make-up that accentuated her high cheekbones and gave some extra volume to her thin lips, making her look about five years younger than her thirty-four years. She even carried the standard-issue briefcase of the middle-management executive. But it was her eyes that broke the illusion. They strobed across the pub as she walked through the bar area to where Doug was waiting for her, that piercing, grey-green gaze flitting from one face to another as she searched for recognition and sized up potential trouble. Doug had seen the look and the subtle, almost bird-like motions of the head a million times before. To him, it said ‘police’ louder than a uniform or warrant card ever could.

  ‘Hiya, Susie,’ he said as she slid into the seat opposite him. ‘How’s your day going?’

  ‘Shit,’ Susie said, her voice still affected by the flat, almost apathetic tone he had heard on the phone. When she reached for her drink, Doug noticed her hand wasn’t quite steady. He watched as she took a large gulp, grimacing as the vodka bit into her taste buds. She tilted the glass slightly towards him in thanks.

  ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘Rough day?’

  ‘You have no idea.’ Her glass was back on the table now, but she hadn’t let it go yet. Doug didn’t think she would until her drink was finished. He was itching to get down to questions, to find out what she knew and how it could be built into a story, but he knew better than to push. She would talk to him in her own time. She always did.

  ‘Right,’ she said after a moment, more to herself than anyone else. ‘You better get a notepad in front of you, Doug, you’re going to want to write this down.’

  Doug produced a notepad and pen from his jacket pocket, theatrically pulling the cap off the pen as he did so. Ready when you are, the move said.

  Susie fixed Doug with her hardest stare. He felt the urge to look away or busy himself with his pint, but resisted it. Christ though, she could be intimidating when she wanted to be. I’m the boss, her look said. Doug wasn’t about to argue.

  Susie’s voice dropped to little more than a whisper as she leaned across the table, cupping her hands around her glass. ‘Before we go any further, this is anonymous, Doug. I don’t need my name attached to this shit right now, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ Doug said. ‘But surely it won’t take them too long to figure out who’s been talking?’

  ‘I’ll worry about that. Trust me, there’s going to be press coverage on this one anyway, a lot of it. At least this way, we can control the story for a little longer, make it work for us.’

  Doug bristled slightly, forced himself to swallow his pride. He knew most coppers only talked to reporters when they needed or wanted something, but he didn’t like to be reminded of the fact so bluntly, especially by Susie, who he also considered a friend.

  ‘So, what’s the story, then?’ he asked.

  Susie exhaled, as though blowing out smoke from a cigarette. She swallowed back the itch at the back of her throat for one. Just one.

  If she caught the edge in Doug’s voice, she’d ignored it. ‘Most of it, you already know. Just after noon today, a young woman fell from the top of the Scott Monument. She died on impact and managed to give the poor sod unlucky enough to be close to where she landed enough material for a lifetime of nightmares.’

  ‘Any sign she was pushed, or does it look like a suicide?’

  Susie’s mouth twitched in what could have been mistaken for a smile. ‘Helpfully, there are no working CCTV cameras on the top level of the Monument, so we can’t just look at what happened the moment before she went over the edge. However, witnesses say that one minute she was there, and the next the screaming began as she hit the ground. Whatever happened, it was sudden. If she was pushed, it happened so quickly she didn’t even have time to struggle, scream or cause a scene. At this point, we think it’s suicide.’

  Then, almost to herself, she added: ‘Which may be a blessing.’

  ‘How so?’ Doug asked, not taking his eyes from the page he was rapidly filling with shorthand notes.

  ‘Because we caught a break with identifying the body.’ Susie paused for a moment, closing her eyes and shuddering slightly at the
memory of what she had just seen at the lock-up. ‘How so?’ Doug asked again, trying not to sound like he was pushing and failing miserably. ‘Surely there was some identification: driver’s licence, credit card, wallet, something on the body?’

  Susie sat upright, forcing back images of gore-streaked blonde hair. ‘None that we found. Which is why we’re not ruling out a robbery gone wrong, despite what the circumstances point to. All we found on the body was some change and a set of keys.’

  ‘So, how did you get a break?’

  ‘Although there were no working cameras at the top of the Monument, there was one on the entrance,’ Susie said. ‘It records the face of everyone going in to the Monument through the turnstile, so the wardens can track down any possible vandals or people who throw things off the Monument.’

  ‘Including themselves?’

  Susie snorted a dry laugh in spite of herself.

  ‘Hold on a minute, though,’ Doug continued. ‘Even if you could tie a face from the video footage to the body, then how does that help you? I mean, she’s still just a face unless…’

  ‘Exactly,’ Susie nodded as she watched Doug arrive at the answer himself. ‘Given the mess the body was in, we couldn’t get a visual ID. There wasn’t much left of her face, and Dr Williams found most of the teeth had also been shattered on impact. All we had was a record of who had gone up the Monument that day, the clothes and rough build of the deceased. We knew her hair colour too, but that didn’t help as the CCTV footage was black and white. So we went over the footage for someone whose clothes and build matched and…’

  ‘And you saw someone you recognised, a familiar face that matched what you had,’ Doug interrupted. She had his full attention now. He was like a child being told a bedtime story. ‘Who?’

  Susie finished her drink in a gulp. Took her time replacing the glass on the table as she looked around the bar, making sure no one else was listening.