I smile behind my blue mask. Didn’t see this conversation coming. I expected to have that particular piece of information ignored, or at best, to be granted the sceptical eyebrow.
‘Not yet,’ I say.
‘I do not understand.’
‘I have a reputation.’
‘For getting women into bed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Including Chief Inspectors?’
‘I number one superintendent amongst my kills,’ I say. I mean, I say it drily, so that it’s delivered with immaculate self-deprecation, but who knows if that comes across?
‘And people say something about a sex video,’ she says, continuing with the blunt force trauma conversational approach, ‘though I have not seen it.’
‘Sex with a witness, filmed by the guy who... you know, it was just something that happened. There was a thing, and then... yeah, not much else to be said about it.’
‘Hmm,’ she says, the look of curiosity not yet leaving her face. ‘Why is it women want to sleep with you? I do not understand.’
Well, there we are. I probably ought to strike cuckolding her husband off my to-do list.
‘We should get on,’ I say, indicating the far end of the corridor.
‘Yes, of course.’
She walks on quickly, although she’s not done with the subject.
‘That seems unprofessional of the chief inspector to say that to you.’ A beat. ‘She is young,’ she adds, explaining it to herself.
‘WELL,’ SAYS FFORBES, ‘this is impressive, but what we have here is literally, literally and precisely, one thousand cuts. Lingchi, to give it its Sunday name.’
We’re looking down at the corpse, every bare inch cut and scarred. In three places pieces of skin have been pulled off, the torso flayed; in another, a large chunk of flesh has been removed.
‘He’d been injected with GHB,’ Fforbes continues. ‘So, he could’ve been awake, aware, but completely unable to do anything about it.’
‘Paralyzed,’ chips in Kallas.
‘Exactly. You can work out the chances of someone, an individual, being able to haul that kind of dead weight up into an attic. Seems unlikely.’
‘There was more than one killer, or Mr Lord was ordered up there under threat,’ says Kallas.
‘Or he went willingly.’
‘Yes. We do not have enough information at the moment. Speculation is useless.’
‘He had an average evening’s meal in there,’ continues Fforbes. ‘Steak and chips.’
‘Your chips, or frites?’
Your chips.
‘Frites. Good quality steak, too. So, if he didn’t eat at home, you’ll want to find one of the better quality eating establishments in the city. Unless he went to someone’s house, of course. Anyway, that’s for you people, and I’ll leave you to it... What else have we got? The man was healthy. I noticed that small gym set up next to the bedroom.’
‘Wife says he worked out at five-thirty every morning,’ I chip in.
‘It was working for him,’ says Fforbes. ‘As fit and healthy a fifty-seven year-old as you’ll find, outside of an ex-professional athlete. So, he ate dinner at some time between eight and nine pm. He drank maybe half a bottle of red wine. The drug was administered a little later. His wife was at home all evening?’
‘Out until just after ten,’ I say. ‘She thought he’d be in when she got home.’
‘There’s someone to vouch for her whereabouts?’
‘She says she was at the cinema, on her own. If it’s an alibi, it’s thin. We’re checking it out. When he wasn’t home, she texted, there were a few back and forth texts until just after eleven, and she went to bed.’
‘Hmm,’ says Fforbes. ‘Possibly he ate elsewhere, and then went home with his killer, and went up to the loft. Then the killer administered the drug. The first cut was made around about eleven pm, approximately two and a half hours before the final cut. It was a slow process. The cuts themselves, as you can see, come in a variety of sizes, depths, different methods of wielding the blade.’
‘The same blade?’ asks Kallas.
‘Yes.’
‘Any idea what kind of blade?’
‘A straight-bladed kitchen knife. That’s all I can do for you. Giving you the brand is out of the question. The blade, maybe six inches, narrow and sharp, very sharp. Could’ve cut a free-falling strand of hair.’
‘At what point would he have died?’ asks Kallas.
‘Haven’t pinned that down yet, but you know, close to the end. Maybe right at the end. The smallest cuts are the oldest. Many of them would have started to heal up long before the end came. The killer started out causing pain. Small cuts that wouldn’t necessarily have resulted in much blood loss, but which would’ve hurt. A lot of pain.’ Fforbes nods to herself. ‘Then he began... I’m saying he, but obviously...’ and she looks at Kallas, and together they silently agree that it’s all right for the moment to refer to the killer as male, while there will be no presumptions made, ‘he began to mix up blood-letting with pain, and on and on. This large chunk of flesh here, that’s from near the end. The three sites where the skin has been flayed, they vary in time. That’s obviously going to be very, very painful. Our killer made the most of these.’
‘A tortured, drawn out, excruciating death,’ says Kallas.
‘I’m afraid so. Our man was made to suffer, something that was obviously done with a lot of premeditation.’
Kallas nods, now reaches out as though she’s going to touch the body, instead running her hand the length of it, her fingers a couple of inches above the decimated skin.
‘Had he had the Covid infection?’
‘Yes, he had. Can’t put a timescale on it.’
‘Would he have shown symptoms?’
‘Possibly, but...’ and she finishes the sentence with her hands held apart.
‘OK, that is good,’ says Kallas, then she gives me a quick look. ‘You have anything else, Tom?’
Had kind of switched off, and it takes a moment for the words to reach me. A snap of the fingers, and I pluck them out of the air, where they’d been waiting for me. Lost briefly in the horror.
How mundane it seems, how ordinary, how quietly we stand here, looking at a body with this done to it, as though we’re discussing a dental patient with an abscess.
‘I’m good,’ I say.
‘Thank you, Dr Fforbes. You will keep us informed of any further findings.’
Fforbes smiles at the instruction/request, we share the familiar glance, and off Kallas and I go, back out into the antiseptic corridor.
‘You want to go home and get some sleep?’ says Kallas, as we’re halfway back to the car.
She’s been up the same length of time as I have and looks completely fresh. Of course, she possibly slept for a few hours before she had to get up.
‘I’m good, thanks,’ I say. ‘I’ll just make sure I get an early night.’
And that’s it for conversation, until we’re back at the station.
7
God, I’m knackered.
1:17. Lunch. Sgt Harrison and I sitting on a bench in the middle of the precinct. There aren’t many people around, but there are a couple of pigeons, and several seagulls looking at our sandwiches with some optimism.
There are only so many times it’s worthwhile telling a seagull to get to fuck. Eventually, you have to progress to drawing it in, then kicking it in the face, and if you’re not prepared to do that – and I’m not – you might as well accept you’re eating your lunch under the hungry gaze of a greedy-ass bird. Your only weapons are a firm grip on the sandwich, and a watchful eye.
‘The Chief told you not to even think about sleeping with her?’ says Harrison, smiling.
‘Yep.’
‘Holy shit.’ She laughs now. She’s got a great laugh. Light. Sexy as fuck. ‘I mean, this might seem like a stupid question given your history, but had you been thinking about sleeping with her?’
‘Surpri
singly no.’
‘But you are now?’
My turn to laugh.
‘Yeah, sure. Top of the list.’
‘She’s pretty fit, by the way,’ says Harrison. ‘I mean, does she have a pole surgically rammed up her arse? Why yes, she does. But she’s got something. Nice lips. Have you seen her lips?’
I smile.
‘I’ve seen her lips.’
‘They would be nice lips to kiss. Nice lips to feel on your neck, and down across your chest, small kisses across your stomach...’
She shivers.
‘Well, look at you,’ I say.
‘A girl can dream.’
‘My gaydar’s off,’ I say.
‘You don’t have a gaydar.’
‘Yeah, whatever. You think she’s gay?’
‘Ah, I don’t know,’ says Harrison, her voice almost wistful for a moment. ‘But she’s my type, I’m afraid, despite the pole/arse arrangement.’
We go quiet, and stare ahead, across the precinct. There’s no one about. Early afternoon, not another single person in the square. To our right, the thirteen stories of a residential tower block; straight ahead, up a level, Main Street, running through the heart of this end of town.
She glances at me, she rolls her eyes.
‘What?’
‘You’re imagining me and her together, aren’t you?’
‘Yep. You make a very attractive couple. When it happens, any chance there’ll be video?’
She elbows me.
‘Hey, at least she hasn’t already told you it’s not happening,’ I say. ‘So, you’re still in with a shout.’
‘The very fact she told you it’s not happening, means you’re in with more of a shout than me, my friend.’
We look at each other, two feet apart on the bench. A silent conversation, leading to a quick agreement. We lift our respective cans of Coke Zero and tinnily clink.
‘What are the stakes?’ she asks.
‘Just the glory.’
‘You’re on,’ says Harrison. ‘I don’t know that I’ll be trying desperately hard, I have to admit. Might have to wait until office Christmas night out. See what she’s like when she’s drunk.’
‘Doesn’t look like the kind of boss to get drunk at the office Christmas night out.’
‘Wait, what if she sleeps with someone else at the station before either of us?’
We look at each other, we turn and glance back at the station, we turn back, heads shaking at the absurdity of the conversation, and start laughing.
‘Fuck,’ I say quietly, as the laughter goes.
The silence of a lovely October afternoon settles upon us, for now no cars on Main Street. Blue sky up above, a moment’s reprieve before having to return to the fray.
We enjoy it while it lasts, and then a car appears, and another, as the lights up the road have changed, and then the silence is gone, and maybe we notice the silence wasn’t punctuated by birdsong, and maybe we don’t, and the return of the cars is enough to start the conversation off again.
‘How’s your murder case looking?’ asks Harrison.
‘You know. Brutal, bloody, violent, painful, horrific. Pick your adjective. A grotesque business, whatever it was.’
‘You all right?’
A beat. I smile, without looking at her.
‘Tickety-boo,’ I say.
‘Sure you are, cowboy. It’s perfectly all right not to be OK, you know.’
‘You’re right. Too early to say. Kind of on autopilot for the moment. Didn’t sleep last night anyway, had just dropped off when the phone rang. So, I’m operating off ten minutes’ sleep in the last thirty hours.’
‘That explains it. So you weren’t drinking last night?’
I give her a side-eye. I can hardly blame them, can I, the concerned women of the station? I brought this upon myself with my previous conduct. And by previous conduct, obviously I don’t just mean last Saturday.
‘No,’ I say finally. A moment. Try to recall what it was we were talking about before I stupidly turned the conversation onto myself, like some narcissistic man-baby. ‘This afternoon I’m just making calls. Got the wife’s alibi to check out, do a little bit of digging into her life. And the boss is in at St Vincent Street at the moment, talking to the victim’s colleagues. He was a member at Royal Troon, we’re going down there in the morning.’
‘Sounds like a one-man job,’ says Harrison, smiling.
‘Just doing what I’m told. Playing it straight down the line, this time, Sergeant, straight down the line.’
She smiles, pats me on the leg.
A seagull takes a step closer. I pop the last of the sandwich into my mouth and it looks at me the way my dad did when I got my ‘O’ level results.
8
Heading back to Cambuslang from the Vue cinema at Coatbridge.
Mrs Lord checked out. Was seen entering the cinema in time for Tenet, caught on camera leaving at the end. No sign of her nipping out in between. Not out of the question she tossed on a disguise and left, tossed on another one and came back, mask on the whole time, of course.
You never know how elaborate people are going to want to make it. Generally, of course, in real life people aren’t so elaborate. All the convoluted plotting usually comes in fiction. Real life murders are spur of the moment, or cases of fairly basic planning. Elaboration tends to come on the hoof, as a reaction to an unexpected twist. The cases of genuine, intricate, labyrinthine plotting are rare. If you’re thinking of an example right now, then we’ll call it the exception to prove the rule.
Still, I’ll give the CCTV to one of the constables whose name I will try to recall, and they can scan it more closely for any sign of our bereaved widow.
And now, always one of my favourite parts of an investigation, going to speak to the local minister. As good a place to start as any. Not as much fun as talking to a priest, of course. For a kick-off, priests are liable to know a lot more secrets they can’t tell. And they certainly act like it, even if the secret they’re protecting doesn’t amount to anything more than some guy pulling his pudding thinking about his best mate’s wife, or, I don’t know, one of those completely trivial pieces of emotional luggage Catholics find to toss to the Gods during confession.
Church of Scotland ministers just have church gossip, which they may or may not choose to share.
This one is relatively new, not long ensconced at St Stephen’s. It’s the 1950s shit-tip on Main Street, and, as it happens, a drunken piss up a wall away from the police station.
She’s waiting for me in the nave, sitting in the second row from the front, leaning forward on the back of the front pew, looking up at the muddy stained glass windows behind the altar.
Excellent. This conversation is going to be straight out The Untouchables. Might struggle to get some he pullsh a knife shtick into it, but I can give it a go.
God, I’m so moronic sometimes.
She turns as I walk down the aisle.
‘Reverend Goodbody?’
‘Detective Sergeant Hutton,’ she says, and we nod and I sit down a few feet away.
No unnecessary hand shaking these days, and for some time to come.
‘Thanks for making the time.’
She nods again. She looks grim. Tired, unhappy. Whatever solace she was searching for there, sitting in her church, communing with her God, it wasn’t working.
I guess she wasn’t seeking solace. Just waiting for her next appointment, while considering the awfulness of being a minister in twenty-first century Scotland, when more or less no one under seventy cares anymore.
‘What’s going through your head?’ she asks, though there’s little compassion in her tone, and I realise I’d been staring at her.
‘I’ve just got a few questions about Mr Lord,’ I say. ‘Shouldn’t keep you.’
‘It’s fine,’ she says. ‘Got all afternoon.’
The word fine may have crossed her lips, but it was not well meant. Her tone is short, busines
s-like, as though she’s had fifteen of these discussions already today.
‘Mr Lord was a regular?’
‘Every Sunday.’
First tick in the confirmation box with what his wife said. That one was pretty straightforward though.
‘And Mrs Lord?’
She makes the kind of disinterested face people make when you ask them if they like anal sex.
‘Not so much. She comes when... I don’t know what she thinks. Sometimes she comes, sometimes she doesn’t, that’s all. Maybe she has other things going on in her life.’
‘You don’t know them well?’
She holds my gaze. I know that look. There are things to tell, and maybe she’ll tell them and maybe she won’t. Sometimes people think these things through before the police interview, the getting the story straight of it, and sometimes they wing it. The Rev Goodbody is winging it. The plus side of that it she’s unlikely to be hiding anything.
‘Harry was good to us. The church, I mean, he was good to the church. He had the largest standing order, weekly donation I mean, amongst the congregation. If there were any supplemental things, I don’t know, the roof, the kitchen, the whatever, he was always willing to help out. Didn’t do much, didn’t get involved, but was always happy to provide funds.’
‘And what was the other thing?’ I ask.
‘What other thing?’
‘The thing you weren’t sure whether you should tell me or not. I don’t think it’s just that he was incredibly generous.’
Her face sours a little bit more, perhaps at the revelation she’s more transparent than she would like to be. She holds my gaze for a second, maybe two, then looks away.
Her eyes are dead, but she doesn’t look upset as such. Whatever it is that ails her, I’d say it’s ingrained, long-lasting. Not something that just cropped up today, like her lover turning up dead, body laid waste in his attic.
‘I shouldn’t tell you this, because I’d rather Victoria didn’t know, not that I really care. Really, it’s that I’d rather the parishioners didn’t know. But I realise in telling you anything, I can’t ask that you keep it to yourself.’
‘I won’t gossip unnecessarily. If it’s relevant, you should tell me.’
In My Time Of Dying: DS Hutton Book 5 Page 3
