Glasgow Noir Box Set

by Gavin Graham

  He hadn’t been in Germany.

  He hadn’t even left the country.

  The swine.

  The bloody liar.

  He checked the photographs attached and found one that confirmed it was him, a grainy CCTV shot that showed Jimmy ‘The Swede’ in a very different light, looking over his left shoulder, like a man with something to hide, a man perhaps with a string of murders on his conscience, a man who’d been getting away with it for too long and who was intent on killing again, on playing some kind of a sick game.

  Was that really it?

  Was Jimmy Glasgow’s Satanic killer?

  He didn’t want to believe it. But, it made perfect sense, actually, as he’d always made these little comments over the years, about how certain people were deserving of death, that people should be granted the will to kill and throw out the stinking garbage as they saw fit, that sinners were destined to dangle from the gallows, to hang, to burn, to feel the wrath and the fury of justice by whatever means necessary.

  He’d shown sympathy, even, for the demonic psychopath that was John Moffat: “He clearly had his reasons, I mean with parents like that, he was destined to fall into criminality. He had every right to do it, too, killing his father the way he did when he was beating his poor mother to a pulp…” Mac had always been left a bit speechless by his apparent sympathy for such evil monsters. Not saying a thing, he’d always just let him speak, to implicate his own moral standpoint and show his true colours as a man and as a Detective.

  He had it in him too, a temper, and he was capable of extreme levels of violence. Mac was too, but it was a bit different with Jimmy, more spontaneous and malicious, with explosive and psychotic fits of rage that could erupt from nowhere. He didn’t have the ‘off-switch’, so when he started to fight, to attack a man, he wouldn’t stop until someone stopped him, or the person he was hitting lost consciousness, or even died. He’d single-handedly stopped a samurai-word wielding assailant who’d been suffering from chronic mental illness. The guy had slashed a woman’s face on Argyle Street and half-lobbed the arm of a fifteen-year-old school kid. Jimmy took him on and invited the steel of the blade, a gutsy but hasty move. He got cut-up, badly, needing thirty stitches down the front of his left-shoulder. He got close-in and took the sword from him – went to town – smashed the guy’s nose to bits with brutal head-butts before dragging him up a back alley. He wasn’t going to call it in, or radio for back-up, it was just a one-on-one annihilation. Shoppers and lunch-goers stood at the opening of the wee back-street and watched the copper as he savagely beat the bi-polar lad, barely a day older than seventeen, relentlessly. He’d been banging his head and fists into the boy’s skull until he was barely recognisable, just a bloody pulp of red mush. The vicious attack continued until two ‘uniforms’ ran to the scene and dragged McGhee off the near-dead body. The swordsman survived, but if the uniformed officers hadn’t turned up, he would have killed him and left his body there to bleed in the gutter. Jimmy was cleared of any misdoing, having been almost killed himself, and claimed that he was in fear of his own life and that the swordsman had displayed unquestionable intent to kill. It was concluded that he showed bravery, courage and was fearless in the line of duty and in the face of death.

  That day, when he got cleared, Mac recalled seeing this smile on his face; it was wrong.

  McGreavy remembered too how Jimmy had gone through a phase of listening to Satanic music – death metal – and had a framed poster of a band called Slayer on his living room wall. He remembered it vividly, it featured a pentagram just like the one that was drawn at the murder scenes, exactly the same, and it had words that appeared to be written in blood – HELL AWAITS.

  “Jesus Christ,” he thought, feeling stupid, Professor Sinclair had been right once again, it was a bloody copper he should have been looking at. “Why didn’t I put Jimmy in the picture before?” he thought.

  Suddenly, he could see it all so clearly.

  Chapter 61

  Secrets of the killer-elite, the monsters who never get caught

  Murder is a business, of sorts, so if it’s done by the book, you stay off the hook…

  If anyone could kill and get away with it, it would be him – Jimmy – he was an instinctive and intuitive Detective at any crime scene and if he had to cover his own tracks he would know exactly how to do it. His knowledge of forensics and crime scene analysis was profound, so for all intents and purposes, he could be the perfect killer. Mac remember how he used to stare at the bodies, the blood, the mutilated corpses, the only one on the team who never got a turned stomach, never flinched, he sometimes even looked like he was getting excited and aroused by it all, never wanting to leave a room where a dismembered body or rotting corpse could be found; yes, Jimmy was a sicko.

  “Thing is Mac,” The Swede had once commented in passing one night over a vast amount of beer and whisky, “about all these serial killers, over here, and the ones in America that get profiled by the FBI, you know, the ones they make shows about on Netflix…”

  “Aye, with those behavioural science experts and whatnot, go on…” he’d said, that way that he often did, almost conspiratorial, hunched over the table with a moustache of beer-froth doused around his intoxicated lips, eyes glazed.

  “Thing is, they’re not actually fit for profiling, the proper ones,” every now and then he got that weird arrogance about him, something in the tone of his voice, a darkness, an alter-ego that was the true hidden genius of his intuitive policing prowess, a secret knowledge and understanding of serial killers that only a serial killer could have.

  “Proper ones?” Mac did enjoy the good old crime-chat, the Police banter of the pub, on the lash with a fellow hunter like McGhee, such a talented Detective; but, how naïve he’d been about his true nature.

  “The ones that got caught were the dumb ones, the clever ones never get got, they hunt till they die, Mac, and there are many of them out there, right now, at large, hunting their prey. You have to be highly intelligent, see, to commit such perfect crimes over-and-over and keep getting away with it. The elite, killing hundreds if not thousands of innocents each year, under the radar, they stay invisible, the smart ones, cold, calculated, undetectable…”

  “You make it sound like some kind of intellectual challenge, Christ sake.”

  “It is Mac, it is, and that is why the overly egotistical ones get caught, they feel this need, always, to increase the stakes, to up the ante…”

  Is that what Jimmy actually was?

  Was he one of those elite serial killers?

  Was he upping the ante, in his own way, playing this game of Satanic cults and buddying up with The Casanova Killer?

  So many moments and comments like these were now passing through his thoughts and it frustrated him that he was just putting it together now. He felt sick, like he wanted to vomit. He’d had a secret, unsung affinity with them for so long, that he’d embraced his destiny to join in their ranks. That was why he’d named himself The Unsung Satanist, it was all so crystal clear now.

  One thing he couldn’t understand though – what was it that led him to make contact with Moffat? Was it to understand him? Establish a friendship? To ask him how many he’d really killed? Was it a case-study for him just to get inside his head and analyse his mistakes, mock his lack of competence, perhaps show his own elitism to a fallen would-be hero of that shadowy and dark world? Did he want to tell him how he should have done it, slaughtered all those innocent women, how he could have gotten away with it? Was he going there to gloat and to educate him and further establish his own justification as a contender in the killing game? To show him that he, in fact, is a much more rounded and proficient killer than the great Casanova?

  It was a devastating revelation, beyond comprehension, should it turn out to be true.

  If he was the killer, why and how had he picked his victims, so specifically?

  They were all members of the Church, but there was no other known connection between
them, so what grudge did he hold against them, on a personal level, that was strong enough to drive him to this?

  It appeared, at each murder scene, that there was a personal aspect to the killings, yet the motive or justification remained unclear. Perhaps, there was no motive, perhaps that was Jimmy’s secret of invisibility and elusiveness, as the perfect killer, the uncatchable, undetectable killer, that he should always remain motiveless. Because, with no motive, no body, no forensic evidence, and with such a careful and well-planned execution, there was nothing for them to work with and well Jimmy would know that.

  It was time to take Jimmy down and stop him once and for all.

  When the young Shona woke-up, in a hungover and drugged state, her haggardly father-figure of a haunted lover would be nowhere to be seen…

  Chapter 62

  Porn stars & underground fight clubs

  The ghost in your head and the lover in your bed; never the twain shall meet…

  Tam ‘The Tornado’ Kelly won a one-round knockout in the Octagon that night.

  The Swede had him down as a sure-win from the outset, he was an animal of a boxer, not so handy when it came to grappling and ground-work but a Hell of a puncher on his feet. At five-to-one odds he’d felt confident enough to put down a grand, because the man he was up against, although a known bare-knuckle boxer from the gypsy community, had an actual record of wins that was nothing to write home about.

  Five-grand.

  Cash.

  Easy money.

  The tough copper was a known face around Glasgow’s underground fight scene, where men like Kelly made a name for themselves as formidable opponents in the ring. It was mixed martial arts (MMA), supposedly, but these lads had learned to fight the grass-roots way, in street scraps on the schemes, going up against gangs and rival ‘hard men’ from other areas. So, the bouts often went into melt-down, bloodshed would ensue, referees would allow it, elbows, head-butts, getting the crowd riled, and the fighters would be left to do it the old-fashioned way – gloves off, gum-shields out, no-holds-barred.

  He got front-row tickets and had invited Helen Robertson, a glamour model who’d worked as both a high-class escort in Manhattan and a porn star in Holland. She was blonde with an incredible body, like a girl you’d expect to see in a James Bond film, a real head-turner. He was pumped like hell, drinking like a man who had the constitution of an ox, numerous bottles of expensive champagne down the hatch, dressed in an azure-blue Armani suit and flaunting a gold Rolex that he’d won in a poker game. He was like a celebrity, not so much like a copper though, more like an old-school gangster.

  He collected his winnings and it was a clear call for celebrations back at Jimmy’s flat.

  “We’re not exclusive, are we?” that’s what Siobhan had said, her words, not his. He’d driven himself crazy, looking at her profile on Instagram where she’d come to be a thing of modest celebrity on an international scale, although her account was under a false name. Men worshiped her and with sound reason, although they never knew what her real profession was, it was all a low-key affair. She was taking it too far though, flaunting her body in seductive lingerie, it was delving into the erotic, becoming vulgar and pornographic. He knew, too, what a high sex-drive she had, she had an animal lust when it came to her bodily needs, the type of woman he feared for whom one man could never be enough, ever. “You can enjoy my body, Jimmy, but know this: other men will enjoy it too.” It had been like a real slap to the face when she said that, she knew how to wind him up, but there was more to it, it was almost as if she took sadistic pleasure in hurting him like that, as she could have a deeply vindictive streak to her personality at times.

  “C’mon darling,” Jimmy got the blonde model into his apartment and had her up against the wall, her skirt up around her waist as she wrapped her legs around his and gripped his wide neck as they kissed with tongues and drunken moans of physical surrender – pure sexual need. Jimmy had his hands down at her behind and was pulling her in-close to his crotch, her mink coat reeked of perfume and cigar smoke, her wet mouth tasted of booze, all a haze of cheap drunkenness and bodily desperation. They both wanted it, she’d been after him for some time, always eyeing him up when he was there at a venue, even when she was with another man she’d be giving him the eye, the bedroom eye, the ‘come hither and fuck me’ eye. He’d always return the gaze as he sipped on his whisky, like he was some kind of a movie star. “Just you wait, sweetheart, your time will come and I’ll give it to you just the way you want it,” is what his sly glare had always told her.

  She always knew he was a dangerous man, a violent man, a killer as well as a cop.

  There she was, now, in his arms, in his apartment and very soon to be in his bed.

  They gripped and grappled as they side-stepped to the bedroom and he’d pulled her skirt all the way up to the waist, slipping his hands beneath her lace panties and getting a solid grip on her fleshy butt. She squealed and moaned with excitement as he man-handled her and put his tongue down her throat.

  She was already opening her legs for him even as they stumbled into the room and her mink coat fell to the floor and she stalled him for a brief moment to unzip her dress at the back.

  The Swede caught his breath and unbuttoned his shirt, watching her as she unclipped her bra at the back and peeled her panties all the way down to her ankles. She was fully naked and jumped onto the bed, laid back, on her elbows, looking up at him with sultry eyes as she slowly opened her legs wide open to show him her v-shaped blonde bush.

  Indeed, she was a thing of pornographic exoticism, a thing of beauty and glamour.

  “Wow,” was all he could say, for she had a body that men only dreamt off, or lusted for as they watched high-end porn or lurked anonymously on those adult web forums. She was incredible, and he was hard for her, wanting her now like nothing else.

  He switched on the stereo and put a Spotify mix to shuffle – ‘sex tunes’ – the smooth rhythm of a Michael Bolton track came to the flow: “Can I touch you there,” one of his favourite songs for putting the erotic action into flow. He took a moment to pour a glass of Glenmorangie, as he always had a bottle of malt in the room, he fancied a bit of cocaine too but opted just for a dram, a large one, and he knocked it back in one as the woman on his bed began to touch herself, caressing her own stomach and breasts, with closed eyes, getting into the music. “Good old Michael Bolton,” he thought to himself. “Always gets them in the mood.” He went to the bed and kneeled between her legs.

  She reached down with a hand to caress the lower parts of his naked body. “Give it to me, Jimmy, fuck me…”

  He wasn’t going to indulge in the delicacies of foreplay, no, because she was there for one thing only and she wanted it hard – a straight fix. He lowered himself down onto her and eased himself into her warm, glistening sex.

  She gasped and let out a long gritty moan. “Ohhh, Jimmy, oh yeah…”

  “Oh God, I love you Siobhan,” he said and frowned into her eyes.

  “What the fuck?” she yelped back up into his face. “Who is Siobhan?”

  Bang!

  Thud!

  Crack!

  A whopping sequence of splintering wood resounded over the music as Jimmy’s front door got busted in. “Police!”

  In a sexual clutch of embarrassment and confusion, confused frowns turned to wide-eyed terror, as they both looked to the bedroom door that was left ajar and the arresting party stormed Jimmy’s abode.

  Chapter 63

  A mysterious figure in black

  Innocence is leverage to the disgusting deed, The Devil’s creed, the demon seed…

  The park was just to the rear of their house and the kids were allowed to play alone, all by themselves, unaccompanied. The mysterious figure in black knew this and a van was parked at the cul-de-sac next to the house where a gate gave access to the park.

  Two children were on the merry-go-round, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy named Cruz and a girl named Star. They wer
e brother and sister, twins of the modern IVF, just five years old and change. They loved the freedom of games in the park after school, still in uniform, shirt tails hanging out, they’d get an ice-cream cone each and go to play on the spinning roundabout, spinning and spinning until they got dizzy and would jump off and try to talk around, staggering like drunken ‘oldies’. “Just like Daddy on a Friday night,” Cruz would say. The spinning had barely lifted pace when they saw the black figure, leather-clad with a black snake-like head. They just kept position, crouched on the wheel, holding onto the rusting framework. They watched as the person approached, scowling suspiciously with deep-set frowns, the way children do when they see something or someone that they don’t trust.

  The visor came up and the figure spoke. “You kids want a couple of puppies? I’m giving them away.”

  The children looked at each other and smiled. Daddy had promised them a puppy for Christmas. These ones were going for free, so if they took them home Mummy and Daddy would be super-happy, and they would get them something else for Christmas, maybe an Xbox. “Are they really for free?” Cruz asked.

  “Of course, I’m giving them away, they’re gorgeous they are too, come and have a look, they’re just there in the back of my van. It’s just there,” the figure pointed to the grey vehicle.

  For a split-second, Star thought it strange that someone driving a van would need to wear a motorcycle helmet, but she was too busy thinking about puppies and an Xbox to split hairs.

  The kids took off excitedly to the van; easy pickings, as the wicked say.

  Chapter 64