Deep and Crisp and Even

by Peter Turnbull

  CHAPTER 1

  It had begun to freeze at midday. The slush in the roads set in solid troughs six inches deep and cars slid into each other as brakes and steering became useless. Shivering citizens sought refuge in cafes and bars and strangers talked to each other, complaining in frosty breaths. It was the kind of coldness that gets everywhere, creeping into homes and workplaces, piercing joints and stabbing at bronchial chests. At four in the afternoon the sky was heavy and black and the buses slowly stopped as the diesel fuel froze in the tanks and feed-pipes. The main roads were gritted, but not the schemes: women in labour and men with broken limbs had to be carried over the ice to where the ambulance waited. People with frostbite sat in the casualty departments. The cold wasn't carried on a slicing wind: there was no wind. There was no shelter; all you could do was to keep your hands in your gloves and your gloves in your pockets, keep the heat turned up and hang the bill, because this was one of those few periods in late twentieth-century Britain when actual survival means just that; survival with a capital S.

  There seemed to be no respite from the cold, but at 11 p.m. the mercury forced its way up the thermometers in the city. It was only a few millimetres of movement but it was enough to make the difference between freezing air and being warm enough to snow. The snow fell thickly and settled without hesitation. PC Phil Hamilton glanced at his watch when the snow began to fall, because snow can capture an event in time and place and record it for hours, sometimes.days. That night the snow began falling at 11.10 and stopped very suddenly at three the following morning. Phil Hamilton committed the time to memory, and he knew by the manner in which the snow had stopped falling that it marked the beginning of another freeze. The snow which had melted into cracks in the cement and masonry of the buildings froze and splintered the stone, making a sound like the crack of a .22 air rifle. Apart from his boots crunching the snow and the background crackle of his radio it was the only sound he could hear.

  Buchanan Street marked the centre of Hamilton's patch and at the bottom he could turn either left or right. Right was Anderston Cross, the motorway, some old buildings, a lot of new buildings, two building sites. He went left. Left was Argyle Street pedestrian precinct. He began to walk down the north side and planned to walk to Glasgow Cross. Then it would be a secluded place for a quick fag, and after that back up Buchanan Street, by which time it would be nearly six, end of the shift, and home. He tried the door of each shop as he passed it. He liked working in the centre of the city because there was action and pace from ten to midnight, but after midnight the city calmed and the action moved to the schemes. The early morning in the schemes was the time for battles, stabbings, gouged eyes and broken heads. The time for breaking into houses, not through a window but a dozen guys knocking down the front door and smashing the place to hell. Phil Hamilton liked to work at the beginning of the shift and relax at the end. He liked it especially when it was ten degrees below freezing because then there wasn't much work at the beginning of the shift either. He felt he had the city to himself, and stopped at a shoe-shop window. He was looking for a pair of fur-lined boots because he couldn't feel his feet.

  He first saw the man when he was two hundred yards away from him. The figure staggered from the shadows on the north side of the street and fell in the snow. Hamilton walked towards the man without altering his pace but without taking his eyes off him. The man didn't move and Hamilton decided he had a drunk on his hands, a drunk who had collapsed, a drunk who couldn't be reasoned with, who couldn't walk home. A 'drunk and incapable'. So far this had been an uneventful shift; the cold had kept most folk at home and the police had, by working together, been able to stop any battles from starting by keeping a high profile. By 3 a.m. he'd come to regard sleep by 7 a.m. as a dead cert. Now there was a black heap in the snow which meant sleep by eight if he was lucky.

  At 6 a.m. he would report off duty and at 6.05 he would fill out the charge sheet. Under the Criminal Procedures (Scotland) Act, 1975, in the Sheriff Court of North Strathclyde at Glasgow the Complaint of the Procurator Fiscal against Black Heap in the Snow. The charge against you is that on the sixteenth of January in the forenoon in Argyle Street, Glasgow, being a public thoroughfare, while under the influence of alcohol you did conduct yourself in a disorderly manner. This being an offence of drunk and incapable.

  If the heap in the snow proved to be argumentative Hamilton would lay the second charge; that on the same day and in the same place you did shout, bawl, curse and swear, and commit a breach of the peace. This being the offence of breach of the peace.

  And if the man threw a punch Hamilton would lay the third charge; that on the same day and in the same place you did punch PC P246 Hamilton about his body all to his hurt and injury; this being the offence of assault. Hamilton didn't know what he was walking towards, but thought he had better start the procedure. He turned his head to the left and spoke into his radio and asked for the Land Rover to assist him. He was told he would have to wait.

  The man was lying on his back and Hamilton knelt beside him and, slipping his glove off, picked up the man's wrist. He couldn't feel any pulse. He wasn't surprised; his fingers were already numb; they were coarse at the best of times and curled more readily round a truncheon than they did round a limp wrist. Hamilton's wife was a nurse with long spindly fingers who had patiently tried to teach him to take a pulse, but he never could, he hadn't the sensitivity. He felt at the side of the man's head, he knew there was a pulse there, somewhere near the ear. But he couldn't feel a pulse at either side of the head. He slipped his hand inside the man's coat and felt something wet. He winced and withdrew his hand momentarily as he imagined his fingers sinking into the man's vomit. He couldn't feel a heartbeat and took his hand away from the coat and looked at it. He gripped his radio and said, 'Poppa Control from 246. Cancel the Land Rover. Ambulance to Argyle Street, urgent, man with stab wounds,' and heard the affirmative reply. He wiped the blood off with snow and slipped his numbed hand back inside his glove. He stood and looked about him. The snow lay in an even mantle, disturbed only by his footprints, and the reflected lights enabled him to see a long way. He could see the name over a shop at the far end of the street and even fancied that he could pick out individual bolts in the Central Station railway bridge and, turning the other way, he could make out the blue of the clock face at Glasgow Cross. It was very still and very quiet and the only people there were himself and the dead man.

  An ambulance with snow chains drove along the street and turned in a wide circle and stopped next to the body. The crew nodded to Hamilton.

  'Stab wounds?' said the driver.

  'Looks it.' Hamilton took his note book from his breastpocket. 'Can I take your name, Jim?'

  'I'm McFadgen, he's McArthur. Unit 3.'

  Hamilton scribbled in his book. McFadgen and McArthur lifted the man on to a stretcher and slid him into the ambulance. 'We're taking him to the Royal,' said McFadgen, swinging himself into the cab. It was just another body, all in a night's work. He didn't bother to switch on the blue flashing light as he drove away.

  Hamilton watched the ambulance go. Fifteen minutes earlier Argyle Street had been smooth and white; now, with footprints, ruffled snow and deep tyre-tracks, it seemed to Hamilton that a virginity had been taken, and taken violently. There was even the blood left behind on the crumpled sheet.

  He waited at the scene and couldn't think why he had grown to feel possessive about the snow. He was twenty-four, married, wanted to start a family, snow had ceased to hold a magic for him eighteen years ago, yet there was something about the snow that night. He'd seen it disturbed by things which had come to govern his life, footmarks, violence, blood, ambulances and bodies.

  And later, whe
n a second vehicle turned into Argyle Street, Hamilton added senior officers to the list.

  Sussock stopped his car beside Hamilton, got out and said, 'Right, laddie.'

  'Sir?'

  'Well what have you got, laddie?'

  'Not a lot, Sarge. One man, middle-aged, stab wounds, probably, came out of there.'

  'I can see. Why haven't you been in?'

  'No need. It's a blind alley, Sarge, only one way in or out. Looks like only one man's come out since the snow stopped, and he's in an ambulance.'

  Sussock looked into the alley. It had no lighting as such, but the same play of lights on the snow which illuminated the length of Argyle Street enabled Sussock to see twenty feet down it. He grunted.

  Sussock and Hamilton walked into the alley. It was narrow and dark, staircases and turrets. A part of nineteenth-century Glasgow that is within a stone's throw, or a stagger, of multinational chain stores, gloom and damp lying within the spill of sodium lamps. They followed the man's last footprints until they stopped, or started, against a wall. He had staggered from side to side down the alley, probably clutching the walls for support, and, when there were no more walls to clutch, had fallen in the snow. Hamilton shone his torch around the alley; waste-bins and damp cardboard boxes. He shone the beam up the rusting staircases, carefully picking out the long-since bricked-up doors.

  A vehicle drew up at the end of the alley. Sussock and Hamilton turned. It was a white Transit van with an orange stripe down the side and blue revolving light on the roof. Half a dozen police officers spilled from the back doors and trampled the snow. Hamilton flashed his light in their direction and scanned the waste-bins again. He didn't care about the snow any more, he no longer felt the city belonged to him. He was another uniform again.

  Sergeant Rafferty approached Sussock and ignored Hamilton, who stepped backwards.

  'Knifing,' said Sussock. He looked at the footprints which started against the wall and he looked at the stairs. 'Search it,' he said. 'Inch by inch, stair by stair, go through the rubbish and search the snow even if you have to shovel the stuff away and sift it.'

  'What are we looking for?'

  'I don't know. A knife would be helpful but I don't think you'll find one. Just search the alley and don't ask questions.'

  Rafferty swung on his heels, presented his back to Hamilton and yelled, 'Right, lads!'

  Sussock went back to his car because his ears were cold and there was a pain in his chest. Winter was always a pain in his chest. His wife was a pain, his son was a pain, being called from the sofa in the front room was a pain, and right then he couldn't use a murder. He told Hamilton to follow him.

  They sat in the car and Sussock turned on the heater. 'Tell me,' he said. Hamilton told him and Sussock wrote some of it down.

  Hamilton left the car and returned to his beat. He went to find somewhere quiet. He wanted to see some undisturbed snow.

  Clues and evidence disappear from the scene of a crime at a rate which is directly proportional to the time between the commission and the discovery of the offence; and they continue to disappear after the discovery of the offence, and so detection is often a race against time. That is why half a dozen police officers crouched in an alley prodding the snow, and searched through rubbish; and it was why Janet Reynolds had her sleep disturbed. It wasn't the phone call that woke her, it wasn't her husband's voice talking softly into the mouthpiece, nor was it the slight movement of the bed as he slipped from under the sheets. She heard water running in the bathroom and opened her eyes at the sound. She turned and found she was alone in the bed and saw her husband's pyjamas on the floor. She glanced at her watch; it was five minutes after 4 a.m. Outside it was quiet. She knew that her husband had risen as quietly as he could and so she turned and laid her head back on the pillow and pretended that she was asleep.

  Her husband came back into the bedroom and finished dressing, quickly and quietly, and went downstairs, switching off the light as he left the room. She heard him leave the house and start the car and listened as the sound of the motor died away. She switched on the dim light by the bed and pulled on her dressing-gown, and went downstairs to make some coffee. She was reading an historical romance: perhaps she could finish it before the children had to be up.

  The body had been declared dead on arrival at Glasgow Royal Infirmary and it awaited Dr Reynolds in the mortuary in the basement of the building. It lay on a marble slab with a brick under the head and a label with a number on it tied round the big toe of the right foot. Also in the room was Detective-Sergeant Sussock and the mortuary attendant, a small man with glasses, who wore his hair plastered to his skull. There was a gleam in the attendant's eyes which Sussock found disquieting.

  In fact, he found it very disquieting, and his eyes were drawn to the tall silver-haired pathologist as the only healthy thing in the room.

  The room was cold.

  'Well,' said Reynolds, peeling on his surgical gloves, 'We have a male, European extraction, apparent age about forty-five, height…' he stretched a tape measure, 'Five ten. Weight about twelve stones.'

  The mortuary attendant scribbled notes on a pad.

  'Do you know who he is, Sergeant?' Sussock shook his head. 'No identification,' he said.

  'Well, anyway,' Reynolds looked at the body, 'slight contusion to left forehead, abrasions to left cheek. Particles of grit in the abrasions. Very bad teeth, no apparent treatment for some years. Some very old fillings and one or two extractions, no there's no recent treatment and he was probably in some discomfort because of it. Dental records might be able to help your quest, Sergeant. Birthmark left lower leg. No other significant marks.

  'Wounds to upper left chest, abdomen and upper abdomen in the area of the pancreas. Upper left chest, linear cut, five inches long, superficial, but would have bled a lot. Seems to have been caused by a downward stroke from the shoulder towards the centre of the chest, probably a failed attempt to stab at the heart. The two stab wounds in the lower body seem to have deep penetration.'

  Reynolds patted the man's stomach. 'Bloated, might be beer, but let's take a look anyway.' He smiled.

  Sussock found it a healthy smile, unlike the sinister look in the attendant's eyes.

  The tall lean man took a scalpel and drove a long incision from the top of the man's stomach to the bottom. Blood flooded onto the marble slab and spilled on to the floor.

  Sussock felt his own stomach convulse and his gorge began to rise; he looked at the ceiling and managed to keep the contents down. Neither Reynolds nor the mortuary attendant flinched.

  'Bled internally,' announced Reynolds in a flat voice, and, thought Sussock, needlessly. Then he noticed the attendant scribbling and reproached himself.

  'Time of death, sir?' asked Sussock.

  'All in good time. You know it amuses me that there are almost an infinite number of places in the human body where you can stick a knife without doing a great deal of damage, yet the attackers always seem to know where the vulnerable points are—the shoulder, the neck, two lovely arteries there, the heart, or at the bottom of the rib-cage like our friend here. People who often have no knowledge of anatomy do a perfect job. It must be intuition.

  'This man bled to death following three stab wounds, one to the chest and two in the general abdominal area. My guess is that the wound in the upper abdomen did the trick, the other two wouldn't have caused death if he could have been hospitalized soon enough. Time of death? Not long ago—about an hour.'

  Sussock already knew the time of death; sixty-five minutes earlier PC Hamilton had seen the man fall in the snow; but Sussock wanted to say something, because he still wanted to retch, and he felt that by speaking he would somehow placate his stomach. The question came automatically, as part of the murder routine. What he really wanted to know was the time of the attack. He asked it then.

  'It could have been anything up to an hour and a half before he died. Certainly it was after he bought a fish supper for his tea.'

  'W
hat about the attacker; are there any indications you can give about him, sir?'

  'Or her, Sergeant. Well, it's hard to say. The lower wounds have a horizontal plane but the gash on the chest seems to have been delivered from above.' He made a downward movement of his right fist. 'That sort of way?'

  'The attacker was a right-hander?'

  'Probably—you can see for yourself that the chest wound is a cut stretching from the left shoulder to the centre of the chest, and it was cut in that direction, shoulder to chest, because the tissue is torn in a downward direction. The lower wounds were probably caused by a quick stab, like so,' he jerked his hands backwards and forwards at the level of his thigh.

  'Did he put up a fight?'

  'Let's have a look. No abrasions or contusions to the knuckles. He didn't hit his attacker. Plenty of grease and muck under the fingernails, which might contain something which would be of interest to you, Sergeant. We might as well take them off now.' He made an incision at each side of the finger- and thumbnails and then prised each one away with a pair of tweezers and dropped them into a glass jar. 'We'll send these to the lab, you'll get the results sometime this morning with a full post-mortem report.' He handed the nails to the attendant, who wrote a label and stuck it on the jar. 'The instrument which did the damage is a very thin piece of metal about eight inches long. Or, who knows in these days of advanced petrochemicals, it might be a piece of very hard plastic'

  'A stiletto, perhaps.'

  'That sort of thing.'

  Sussock knew the medical profession to be notoriously non-committal, and he had worked with Dr Reynolds before and knew that 'that sort of thing' was one of his most-used phrases. Would you say that the hole in the man's head with burn marks round it was caused by a revolver being fired at very close range? Oh, that sort of thing. He also knew that Dr Reynolds would supply a very thorough post-mortem report, but at that moment he knew better than to press the pathologist for supposition.