Watch Him Die

by Craig Robertson

  ‘Nope.’

  *

  The detective in charge of the investigation had been named as Dave Norrgord. Salgado already had his cell phone out and the number called up on his screen.

  ‘Dave? It’s Salgado. You got a minute?’

  O’Neill could only hear one side of the conversation but read Salgado’s face for clues as to the answers he was getting.

  ‘It’s about a case you worked back in 2012 . . . Yeah, seriously. A kid named Adrian Mercado was found dead and naked in a lane behind the Vista . . . Yeah . . . Mutilated, yeah . . .Yeah, that’s the one. You put away a kid named Jamarco Freeman for it . . . Uh huh . . . No, just listen. Can you remember the details of the killing? Anything.’

  O’Neill saw Salgado listen, no doubt having to hear Norrgord grumbling. She saw pictures being drawn in his mind then, abruptly, saw his eyes widen.

  ‘Yeah? You sure? . . . Okay, okay. No, that’s good. Just what I wanted to hear. Listen, I’ll fill you in later, okay . . . No, later Dave. I gotta run.’

  Salgado ended the call and breathed out hard.

  ‘Mercado had his throat and wrists slashed and was left to bleed to death. The details of that were never released to the press and weren’t disclosed in open court.’

  ‘Yet Ethan Garland knew all about it?’

  ‘Right. And the Vista is on Sunset, less than a mile from Garland’s home.’

  CHAPTER 22

  Narey made sure she was in the incident room at Dalmarnock before anyone else. She wanted to have time to compose herself, work through what she was going to say and have answers for the questions that she knew would be coming her way.

  She wanted the room as she wanted it. Her at the front, screen behind her, electric pointer, a seat for Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Crosbie, the lead for the Major Investigation Team, at her side, a dozen chairs ready in front. Printed handouts ready.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at it all. There were some heavy hitters on their way in and most of them were not going to be at all happy with what she was about to tell them. More than anything, she wanted to establish control, and she needed them to know she was running the show. If they didn’t like it, and they sure as hell wouldn’t, then they could do one. This was hers.

  She swore under her breath and, with a glance at the door, she advanced on the chairs, shoving each of them back another three feet.

  She stood back again. Deep breath. Nerves puffed out. Ready.

  They shuffled in and they strode. Indifference taking a seat between bristling machismo and overflowing resentment. She knew all the faces, even the ones twisted with bitterness, and had known most of them for years. Friends, foes and fellow travellers. None of them had been told the reason for their requested attendance beyond the case that it related to, and that a potentially major development was to be discussed.

  DCI Jim McMurray looked particularly pissed off, like there was a bad smell under his nose and it got worse every time he looked at her. The Ellen Lambert case had been his and he’d got promoted from DI largely on the back of it. He’d held out for the neighbour from the off and took his entire team down the pub when they nailed David McLean on the strength of a shirt that was smeared with Lambert’s blood and local gossip that he’d been having an affair with her. McMurray wasn’t the sort to like losing face.

  Another DCI, Denny Kelbie, sat two chairs to McMurray’s right and was just about the last person she would have wanted to be there. Kelbie was a nasty little shit, the kind who carried grudges against people he’d never met but saved special hatred for those who he felt had crossed him. That included almost everyone but most certainly included Narey. Kelbie had arrested the white supremacist Barry Leitch for the murder of Kris Perera and had taken it personally when Leitch got off with it. She could see the snarl already forming in the corner of his mouth and took some small satisfaction in knowing she was going to ruin his day.

  Others didn’t arrive displaying their prejudices so obviously, and that gave her hope. DS Mo Darwish was there for the McLennan case, the supposed drunk who’d fallen into the Clyde near the Broomielaw. He looked interested rather than aggrieved, and the same seemed true of DI Kathy Tait, who’d headed up the investigation into the murder of Brianna Holden without success.

  Rico Giannandrea was there too, as was her old boss DCI Derek Addison. Superintendent Jason Williams and Chief Inspector Tom Cowie were both from uniform, and there were representatives from Scenes of Crime, including Campbell Baxter. The gang was all there. It was, potentially, exactly the sort of case that the Major Investigation Team was set up to handle. All she had to do was convince them all of that.

  She reached for the PowerPoint clicker and brought up the main image. Holden. Lambert. McLennan. Perera. Gray. It was enough to bring the assembled mob to a reluctant, staggered silence.

  DCS Crosbie took his cue from the five photographs and got to his feet. The man had all the charisma of an iron lung but his rank was enough to ensure everyone listened.

  ‘Thank you all for coming at such short notice. Time is very much of the essence in the matter we’re about to discuss and we’re grateful you all managed to arrange your undoubtedly busy schedules to accommodate it. I can assure you it is of the utmost importance. I am here in a supervisory capacity and am going to hand you over to DI Narey who is leading on the matter at hand. For those of you who have rank issues, put them aside. Your cases are still your own but there is something new at play here that requires a cumulative effort. DI Narey, if you please.’

  She saw it. The widening of eyes and the shifting of mouths when Crosbie said she’d be leading. That didn’t please most of them, but it amused a few – Kathy Tait and Addison mostly.

  ‘Thank you, DCS Crosbie. Thanks to everyone for coming along and apologies for the lack of information beforehand. This is extremely time-sensitive, plus we want to limit the number of people knowing about this for as long as is possible.’

  She saw that the perfunctory introduction had told them nothing and served only to put a heat under simmering preconceptions of resentment and curiosity. There were a couple of sighs and some restless shifting in seats.

  ‘These five people represent four distinct murder investigations and a case of accidental death. At least that was how they were perceived until this morning. New information that has come to light leads us to believe that they may all be the work of one previously unknown perpetrator.’

  She had their attention now and laid it all out before them.

  Speaking for just under ten minutes, she told them about Garland, about Salgado and O’Neill, about the kidnap victim, and about the list of names that had led the Americans to Glasgow. She then went through each case for those that weren’t familiar with them.

  ‘There may be more, but these are the victims we can be confident are linked to the unknown associate of Ethan Garland. We’re going to revise everything we have on all five of these cases. As the investigating officers, you need to talk to each other, flag up anything of interest and see where the connections are.’

  ‘Bullshit!’

  It was Denny Kelbie, perhaps inevitably, that led the resistance. ‘I don’t see it. Barry Leitch murdered Kris Perera whether that jury said so or not. He was guilty. You don’t know anything about the case.’

  Narey resisted the temptation. ‘That’s why I’m here. To learn about your case. That’s why we’re all here. To learn from each other.’

  ‘Well I’m listening, even if no one else is.’ Kathy Tait was on her feet, looking around daring anyone to challenge her. ‘If your minds aren’t open to what she’s saying then maybe you shouldn’t be here. If there’s anything at all here that gives me an in on the Brianna Holden case, then I’m all ears.’

  Jim McMurray scowled. ‘Of course you’re going to want to hear what she says, Kathy. You’ve got nothing. But I’ve got someone doing life in Peterhead for killing his neighbour. Case closed. Why the hell are we hearing about th
is now?’

  ‘Because now is when it’s happening.’ Narey heard her own voice, louder than before, but didn’t care. She saw Crosbie glancing up at her and couldn’t be sure if he was approving or not. ‘No one is doing this to you, Jim. This isn’t about your case. Or Kelbie’s or Kathy’s. It’s about all of them.’

  ‘Mostly about yours though, right?’ Kelbie could never let it go. ‘We’re told you’re leading this because it’s your case that it’s come out of, right? And it’s DCI Kelbie to you.’

  ‘No, it’s not mostly about my case. It’s mostly about a young man in Los Angeles who is going to die unless you and everyone else in this room, me included, puts their egos aside and accepts that maybe we haven’t always got everything right and some sick bastard has been playing us like a fiddle. All of us.’

  Kelbie readied himself to speak but she talked over him. ‘And if someone dying in another country isn’t enough for any of you then we have to face the prospect that this guy calling himself Matthew Marr has killed here and is going to kill here again. We’ve got a serial killer on our patch. He knows we’re on to him, he knows he’s running out of time and that’s going to make him desperate. But he’s not running out of time as fast as we are. Listen, the Americans have been talking to the guy in Glasgow and he’s practically admitted that he and Garland have been working this together. They’ve been taking turns to identify potential victims and then somehow sharing in the thrill of the kill. It’s sick, it’s twisted, it’s outrageous. And it stops now.’

  Tom Crosbie stood. He waited until the hubbub from the front row had dissipated and spoke quietly but firmly. ‘What DI Narey wants, she gets. Get this done and get it done quickly.’

  This time, no one argued.

  CHAPTER 23

  Narey had one computer screen in front of her and one a couple of feet away to her right. She moved her gaze from one to the other and breathed out slowly. She’d been there for five minutes, thinking through what she was going to say and readying herself as best she could.

  The screen in front of her was the one that she was going to have to deal with but the other kept drawing her away. The young man. The chains. The radiator. The inescapable sense that she was watching him die.

  His head had lolled forward so that his face was hidden by his dark hair. Occasionally, the head would lift slightly, as if trying for umpteenth time that day to give a reminder to himself, and anyone that might be watching, that he was clinging to life.

  She blinked and turned her head away, back to the screen lit only by the green dot that showed the man she needed to talk to was online.

  She realised she was nervous, a state that confounded and bothered her, and that she wasn’t used to at all. She’d spoken to murderers before, sometimes knowingly and sometimes not; that was the nature of her job. But this, this was different. Preparing to talk with someone she knew to be a murderer yet whose real identity was unknown to her was something she was struggling to get her head around.

  Sitting to her left, and riding shotgun on the conversation to come, was Lennie Dakers, a criminal psychologist employed by Police Scotland. Tom Crosbie hadn’t given her any choice in the matter but Narey was glad of the support, even if Dakers’ presence only added to her unaccustomed bout of nerves. A legion of others had wanted to sit in with them but Narey had insisted they kept the numbers in the room to the bare minimum. This wasn’t a spectator sport.

  ‘Strange one, Inspector. Don’t you think?’ Dakers asked mischievously. ‘It’s like waiting for Christmas dinner but knowing the turkey is laced with cyanide and your gran has already licked all the Brussels sprouts.’

  Narey smiled despite herself. ‘I can’t stand sprouts anyway, Lennie, so that wouldn’t make any difference to me.’

  Lennie Dakers was in his late fifties, casually dressed as always in jeans, canvas shoes with no socks, and a shirt that hung loose over his waist, wearing a single silver earring that matched his hair and designer stubble. Narey had little doubt that he had a joint or two in his jacket pocket but was hoping he’d resist the temptation until he left the station. Dakers was there to glean whatever he could from the man they were about to talk to, to read between the lines and produce a profile that might help them catch him.

  ‘Okay, just remember that you’re not interrogating him. You’re talking to him. You’re primarily trying to get him to speak about himself rather than admit to something. He is going to lie to us. And he’s going to tell the truth. It’s our job to work out which is which.’

  Narey shook her head. ‘Oh, I think that’s your job.’

  ‘Let’s call it teamwork. You get him talking and I’ll try to make some sense out of what he says, and what he doesn’t say.’

  ‘So, you have a plan?’

  Dakers shrugged. ‘Sort of. This is not how I’d normally go about getting a read on a suspect. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it’s done on crime scene behaviour. But other than the photographs from the Highland Fling, I don’t have that to work with. Nor can I see him to look for physical tells. So, I need a language-based strategy and am going to use something called SCAN, which is scientific content analysis, or statement analysis.’

  ‘And that’s going to tell you whether he’s lying or not?’

  ‘Hopefully. It’s not universally accepted, simply because there’s not been enough empirical research done on it. But a lot of practitioners swear by it. The underlying principle is that the instinctive human reaction is not to lie.’

  Scepticism spread large across Narey’s face. ‘You need to get out more. I could introduce you to a few that lie for a living. And I don’t just mean lawyers.’

  Dakers shook his head. ‘No, that’s just it. When most people are guilty of something, they don’t tell you the truth, but that’s not the same as lying. They will talk round it in circles, they will avoid talking about it, they will leave out crucial details that incriminate them, they say they don’t remember or they’re not sure. They don’t want to lie in case it sounds like a lie, in case they say something that can be disproven.

  ‘I’ll spare you the technical stuff but I’m looking for inconsistencies in what this guy says and how he says it. I’m looking for pauses, for details, for qualifying phrases, avoidance, all indicators of deception. But I’m also looking for things that can be judged to be true.

  ‘Also, as this is effectively a written statement, we must look at the response times, judge whether he’s planning what he says, or perhaps editing. It might be simply that he’s choosing what and what not to reveal, But they’re all potential indicators of truth or deception,’

  ‘And this works?’

  He smiled. ‘Some call it pseudoscience. I call it the best chance we’ve got.’

  ‘Fair enough. What about for now though? You’ve seen the Highland Fling photos and you’ve read the transcripts of the conversations with the Americans. So, what can you tell me about this guy, Lennie? Otherwise, I’m going in here unarmed.’

  ‘My initial feeling is that he’s a compulsive narcissist. More than that, he’s a vulnerable narcissist. He’s willing to put himself at risk to get this experience. He came back online to talk rather than doing what you and I might think is the sensible thing and disappearing back into whatever hole he came from. That makes him more dangerous, but it might also make him easier to bait.’

  ‘So how do we make that work for us?’

  ‘Well, being a compulsive narcissist means he likes to feel superior, so you should play dumb, be obtuse, misunderstand him. We need to look for inconsistencies, gaps, changes in tense, vagueness, things like that. But let him think that the power differential advantage is on his side, because then he’ll let down his predatory guard. The idea is to get him to think he’s safe because he’s smarter, and then get him to lose control. That will most likely happen through anger or with him thinking he can take potshots at you. You’re going to need a thick skin.’

  ‘I’m a cop. In Glasgow. They issue thick
skins first day in primary school.’

  ‘Fair enough. You ready for this?’

  ‘No. So let’s do it.’

  She breathed deep one last time and began to type.

  I’m Detective Inspector Rachel Narey of Police Scotland. We need to talk.

  She saw that her opening line had been read but had to wait for a reply. She guessed he’d been taken by surprise.

  Where are the Americans?

  In America. You’re talking to me now.

  Only if I want to.

  No. Only if you want to continue viewing the video feed. The deal’s the same. The person on the other end of the line has changed but nothing else has. Talk or it gets switched off.

  Okay. What do you want to know?

  I assume you know why I want to talk to you. There was a list of names found in Ethan Garland’s computer. Many of those names had connections to Scotland, to the west of Scotland in particular. Do you know why Garland had those names?

  I might.

  Do you know the names I’m talking about?

  Maybe

  Let’s say that you do. Do you know why Garland had that list?

  Ethan was very interested in people. Maybe that’s why he had it.

  Did you know the names of the people on the list? Do you now know the names of the people on the list?

  I think some of the names might be familiar to me.

  I haven’t told you them yet.

  Maybe I know more than you do.

  Narey swore, already frustrated at the responses. Dakers stepped in, sensing her growing anger.

  ‘It’s okay. This is good. He’s using equivocation to avoid directly answering an open-ended question. Maybe. Might. I think. That strongly suggests he’s trying to deceive us. Ask him something direct.’

  She typed.

  I’m sure you know more than I do. That’s why I want to talk to you. But I need you to give me something. Call it in good faith for you being able to watch the video feed. Tell me something about one of the names on the list. Will you do that?