by Ed James
‘More or less.’
‘I’ve told this story so many times that it feels like it happened to someone else.’ She stared up at the ceiling, arms folded. ‘I used to be in denial about it, about what he did. We had this big house up on the hill in West Ferry. Six bedrooms. Huge garden. Had to sell it to pay for his criminal defence. Big fancy firm from Edinburgh.’ She walked over to the cupboard and tipped a scoop of leaf tea into a metal pot. ‘Not that it was worth it.’
‘So you were well off?’
‘Ish. Jim worked in oil. He wasn’t an exec or anything, but he was based up in Aberdeen and earned good money during the boom. We were both from the Ferry. I didn’t want to move and he didn’t mind the drive. Back then, he had a carphone so he could keep up with work on the way up there. And he used to go to conferences a lot all across the country.’ She poured water into the kettle, shaking her head. ‘It’s how they think he picked his victims. He used to see a lot of people at these functions in the bars, sleeping around.’
‘Any idea why he didn’t approve?’
‘Jim hated adultery. Couldn’t abide it. His father was a minister, a hardcore Calvinist full of fire and brimstone and all that, and he drilled it into him. We met through the kirk. My brother had an affair and Jim disowned him.’
‘But he didn’t kill him?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, he killed all these people across the country but not your brother.’
‘No.’
The TV noise swelled and footsteps thundered along the hallway. A man appeared in the doorway. Tall, bearded, with a distant look in his eyes, and a dog collar on his maroon jumper. He held a phone to his ear. ‘Yes, the Dundee to Aberdeen train. I presume both tonight and tomorrow are at the same time?’
Ann smiled at him. ‘You want a cup of tea, Francis?’
‘That’d be smashing.’ Whoever he was, Francis was mid-thirties if a day. A new husband seemed stretching it a bit so he must be the son. ‘And that stops at Broughty Ferry? Just Arbroath? Excellent. Okay, well thank you.’ He ended his call and looked right at Vicky. ‘Francis. Nice to meet you.’
‘Vicky, sir.’ Mindful of Ann’s doorstep inspection, she flipped out her warrant card. ‘I’m a detective sergeant. Can I take your full name?’
He was transfixed by her card. ‘Francis Sanderson.’ He held out a hand for her to shake.
She took it, and he was gripping it tight, so she responded in kind, exactly like she’d been trained by her old man. ‘Which faith are you?’
‘Church of Scotland. I’m the minister in Carnoustie.’ Where Vicky’s mum used to go until she just stopped attending one day. ‘Just like my grandfather.’
Vicky frowned, confused. As far as she knew, Ann and Jim only had one son, James Jr. ‘Right. So you’re Ann’s son?’
‘Correct.’ He grimaced. ‘James Francis Sanderson, the fifth. I’m sure you can understand why I might not wish to take my father’s name.’ A statement, not a question.
‘I get that.’
‘I hated him for what he did.’ Francis stood in the doorway, eyes shut. ‘He got what he deserved. Dying in prison like that.’ He opened his eyes again, full of the fire and brimstone he’d been raised to believe in. ‘No, he deserved worse. They caught him when I was nine. Have you any idea what that was like growing up? At high school, I…’
‘I understand.’
‘Do you?’ He laughed. ‘Nobody can know what it’s like to grow up as the son of a serial killer.’
‘I grew up the daughter of a cop.’
‘Well. Look at us, two sides of the same coin. The Lord works in mysterious ways. The daughter of George Dodds interviewing the son of James Sanderson.’
Vicky got that creepy feeling in her neck. They were looking for a copycat, someone taking on the mantle. What better way to prepare for that than being the son of the original? Who knew how he’d suffered, what he’d learnt from his old man, how it had all twisted up inside that head? ‘Can I ask you for your movements on Saturday night?’
‘This is about that killing near Carnoustie?’
The creepy feeling just got worse. Vicky held his gaze, matching his fire with ice. ‘Let’s start with four o’clock until midnight, shall we?’
‘You can’t honestly expect that I know anything about it.’
‘Just give me your movements and we’ll be out of your hair.’
‘So let me get this straight. You believe that, because my father was a murderer and I’m his son, that I’m also a murderer? Despite my upbringing, my distaste for what he did, my revulsion at what he represented and my abject horror for those involved? You really think that, because I share half my DNA with him, I should fall down the same wretched path?’
‘That’s not—’
‘No? Is your past so pure and clean that you can come in here and accuse me like this? Perhaps your DNA makes you as inept as your father.’
‘Sir, I’m serious. If you don’t give us your movements, then I’ll have no option but to take you to a police station for questioning.’
‘Francis, for goodness sake! Just tell her!’
But he stepped out into the hallway with a disappointed look on his face. ‘I’ll fetch my jacket, while you reflect.’
26
It would’ve looked a lot cooler to have taken Francis Sanderson up to Dundee, and certainly would’ve been nice to have him stew in the back of her car for fifteen minutes. But Broughty Ferry’s police station was just two blocks along Brook Street.
A quaint police lantern, more decorative than functional these days, sat outside a squat Victorian building, almost hidden between a much larger place, probably an old hotel from when this town was a resort, and next to the Ashworth’s supermarket. Vicky remembered it being a Safeway before they went bust, and it might’ve been something in the interim. Needless to say, her mother spent a lot of time and money in there.
And just one cheeky civilian bugger in the police spaces outside, so Vicky pulled up and killed the engine, looking at Karen. ‘Can you get us a room?’
‘Sure thing.’ She got out and entered the building with a swipe of her ID.
Vicky sat and looked at Sanderson in her rear-view. Not the first time she’d had a church minister in the back of a car awaiting interview, but certainly the creepiest.
He was just sitting there, eyes shut, like he was praying.
But it was his preying she was interested in. Was he really a serial killer? And what did a serial killer look like? Anything from Ed Kemper’s six foot nine down to Charles Manson’s five-seven or five-two, depending on who you believed. Fred West to Harold Shipman.
It was what was inside that counted.
The station door opened. Karen appeared, accompanied by a pair of uniforms, and beckoned them inside with a grim expression on her face.
THE INTERVIEW ROOM WAS PERFECT, with some historic renovation making the space feel even smaller and more like a holding cell.
But Francis Sanderson wasn’t responding to it. He just sat there, eyes focused on Karen.
She held his gaze. ‘Sure you don’t want us to get you a lawyer?’
‘I can handle you all by myself.’ Sanderson rasped out a sigh. ‘Do you know what my poor mother has endured over the years?’
‘I have a good idea. But the person doing anything to her is you. Not me. If you’d just give us an alibi for Saturday and for—’
‘I’d be happy to, Victoria.’
Now she had it, Vicky held his gaze for a few seconds. ‘Go on.’
‘But I shouldn’t have to. I’m a man of the cloth.’
‘Who also happens to be the son of a serial killer. Surprised they let you join.’
‘I paid for the sins of my father many times over.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And what does your father do? Oh yes, he was a cop. And it doesn’t appear to be okay for me to tar you with the same brush as him, does it?’
‘Most people do.’
‘Do you alwa
ys try to brush everything off like that?’
‘A lot of the time it works.’
‘I’ll let you know when it starts to, Victoria, I am a patient man.’ Sanderson sat back and rested his hands behind his head. He sat there, just looking at her.
Vicky wanted to jump in, but all her training and experience screamed out that that was the wrong thing to do. She needed to let it play out, let Sanderson fester in here, let him crave freedom.
Karen flipped over the page in her notebook. ‘I don’t understand something.’
That made Sanderson frown.
‘If you didn’t do it, you should just say so and stop wasting time so you can be eliminated from our investigation and we can move on to a more suitable suspect. Unless of course you did it.’
‘Because I don’t have to prove anything. You do.’
‘Another thing. If I was the child of a serial killer and the cops had brought me in to question me about copying his MO, then I’d do everything I could to disabuse them of that notion.’
It seemed to be getting at least some of the way through his defences.
‘Doesn’t us accusing you of copying your father disgust you?’
‘Of course it does.’
‘But you’re still not going to tell us where you were?’
‘It disgusts me at how absolutely inept the pair of you are.’
Vicky nudged Karen’s knee with her own, indicating she was taking over. ‘Mr Sanderson, I need to understand something.’
He switched his gaze to her, like a raptor surveying a field for mice. ‘Okay.’
‘Do you believe your father killed those people?’
Sanderson jerked forward in his seat. ‘Excuse me?’
‘In your heart of hearts, do you believe your father was the serial killer known as Atreus.’
He didn’t speak.
‘Do you believe he murdered ten people?’
Sanderson rested his elbows on the table, running his hands through his hair. ‘You just told me your father is a cop. I presume during your career that you learnt things about him?’
Vicky gave him a shrug. ‘Maybe.’
‘Well, can you imagine what it must be like, then, from the age of ten to hear everywhere you go, to school, to church, to Boys Brigade, everywhere, that your father is the living embodiment of true evil? Can you imagine what that feels like?’
‘I sympathise with your situation, Mr Sanderson.’
‘Anyone can sympathise, Victoria, but perhaps you can empathise?’
‘It can’t have been easy at all. Especially when your father denied it all.’
‘Right.’ He sat back and shut his eyes. ‘The hardest thing I’ve had to do in my life is to accept that I might be descended from that.’
Vicky waited for him to open his eyes and look at her. She felt him reaching out to connect with her, meeting her and readying himself to open up. ‘I can only imagine.’
‘You ask what I believe, well, I don’t know what I believe, if you can imagine a man of faith without any. It’s been—’
The door burst open and Forrester appeared, jabbing a finger at Vicky then out into the corridor, then disappeared again.
Perfect bloody timing.
Vicky leaned over the table. ‘Interview paused at two forty-three.’ She flashed her eyebrows at Karen, then left.
Forrester was pacing around the corridor. He stopped and waited for the door to shut. ‘What the hell are you playing at?’
‘Interviewing a suspect.’
‘A suspect? Him?’
‘He won’t give us an alibi for either murder.’
‘For crying out loud. And is he likely to?’
‘Don’t think so. He’s just a smug wanker.’
‘Okay.’
‘Did you get anything else out of Syd Ramsay?’
‘Nothing much.’ Forrester’s shoulders deflated. ‘I just suddenly needed to spend time with the guy.’
‘You’ve been avoiding him?’
‘Ever since I heard about the “Big C”. Your old boy’s been a rock for him. Sees him twice a week. Drives him to his chemo…’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘And after all Syd has done to him.’
‘Look, there’s a suspect in that room who refuses to give an alibi. If you want to help, you’re more than welcome to.’
‘Explain your logic.’
‘I have. Son of a serial killer, tortured by twenty-five years of knowing his dad’s the devil. Thought he could control it by becoming a minister, but he couldn’t. Now he’s doing the same thing.’
‘That’s all bollocks, Vicky.’
‘Okay. It might be. But let’s see if we can eliminate him.’
‘Fine.’
So Vicky went back into the room.
Karen was writing, and Sanderson was staring up at the ceiling. Nobody was talking.
Vicky pressed the recorder button and checked the clock on the wall. ‘Interview recommenced at two forty-five. DI David Forrester has entered the room.’ She took her seat again, still warm.
Sanderson looked down and gave Forrester a brief nod, then went back to staring upwards.
‘Nice to meet you, Mr Sanderson.’ Forrester stayed by the door and started rolling up his sleeves. ‘But I’m a bit dismayed to find out that you’re not co-operating with my officers. Anything I can do to help?’
‘Well, you can let me go.’
‘You know you’re here for a reason, right?’
‘I’d assume I was, yes.’
‘Look, we need to know your movements on Saturday evening and again this morning. You give us them, we’ll check them, then you can get on with your day.’
‘I know I’m in here because of what my father did. I don’t envy the role of a police officer, you know. You’re so full of suspicion and darkness. It must be difficult for you to see people as they really are.’ He smiled. ‘It’s not often I quote something other than the good book, but sometimes Nietzsche is all there is to explain this. “Whoever fights with monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster in the process. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.” Sound familiar?’
‘If you won’t give us your movements, we’ll have to identify them ourselves. That’ll take a lot of manpower. It’ll probably mean bringing your poor mother in for questioning.’
But he just shook his head again.
Vicky got his attention. ‘Why won’t you talk to us?’
‘Because I’ve spent my entire life denying who my father was. All that time, I told people that he wasn’t Atreus. But he was.’
‘So just tell us, and it’ll all be hunky dory.’
‘You want to know where I was?’ He swallowed hard. ‘Are you your father, Victoria?’
This again? She sighed. ‘No, I’m not.’
‘But what darkness did you inherit from George Dodds?’ He sat back and stared at her like he was in the pulpit, channelling the Holy Ghost. ‘Are you inept, are you weak, do you hate?’
Sod it. She needed to play him at his own game. ‘Of course I do. Everyone does. Your dad did, my dad still does. Did you kill them?’
‘Three weeks ago was the anniversary of my father’s death. Someone stabbed him in jail while he awaited trial. Just a random act. Maybe targeted. Who knows. But I find it very hard every year. All that stuff about him comes up. Legal fees, losing the family home to pay bills and find some form of income. The strain it put on my mother. And at the heart of it, if my father is evil, then I’ve got to be too. I’m his flesh and blood, after all. There’s no amount of praying will save me.’
‘Save you from what?’
‘From seeing the world in a certain way.’
‘Which is?’
‘I’m having a crisis of faith.’
‘A crisis of faith?’
‘It’s taken a lot of time to unravel this, but I don’t have what it takes for this.’ He tugged at his dog collar. ‘I’m not a ministe
r, not in any meaningful way. Not in any way that can service my community. My heart’s not in it any more. My soul is more philosophy than religion. And I didn’t want to admit it to anyone, least of all my mother, but I don’t think I can keep doing this. So on Saturday night, I drove up to Aberdeen to speak to the deacon. I wanted to quit, but he persuaded me to think on it.’
Vicky looked over at Forrester and got a nod. ‘Sir, I wish you’d told us that earlier. I’ve lost an hour.’
‘And I’ve lost twenty-five years of my life.’
‘Okay, once we’ve validated your movements you can go. Next time the police show up, I suggest you be honest, aye?’
‘The deacon should be able to provide suitable accountancy of my actions. But you might wish to speak to him, Victoria, since your heart is so dark.’
27
Vicky stepped out in the smoggy heat. Whatever the station had going for it, which wasn’t much, it at least had air conditioning. Out here, it just felt so ugh. She looked over at Karen. ‘Are you able to get on with checking Sanderson’s alibi?’
‘Sure.’ She didn’t look pleased at the prospect of a drive up to Aberdeen. ‘Maybe I can finish that podcast while I head up to sheep-shagging country.’
Forrester was staring at his phone. ‘What podcast?’
‘The one our second female victim recorded?’
‘Oh, that. Right, aye, good luck.’
Karen shook her head all the way to her car. One last look at Vicky and she got in, then tore off into traffic.
Forrester put his phone away. ‘So?’
Vicky leaned back against her car. ‘I was convinced it was Sanderson Jr. Still am.’
‘Just because you’re ashamed of your father doesn’t—’ He sighed. ‘Sorry. That’s not funny. This is just bringing up a load of crap in my head.’
‘Mine too. You heard him in there. We’re both sides of the same coin.’
‘And you’re not doomed to make the same mistakes as George. You can rise above it.’
‘You sound just like him.’
Forrester shrugged. ‘You honestly think he’s lying to us?’
‘What his father did has clearly fucked him up. If he’s innocent, then he’s got my sympathy. But if he’s not, well… we’ve got our explanation.’
