Watch Him Die

by Craig Robertson

  ‘Yep,’ Durrant agreed. ‘It was always Uncle Zac with him. Always his dad rather than his mom. The two of them were thick as thieves. They’d go on these long walks and I think Zac just talked and talked, filled Ethan’s head with whatever he wanted to. If Zac said the moon was made of cheese, then Ethan would ask for a giant pack of crackers. He hated Aunt Veronica because Zac told him to.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Marianne said sorrowfully. ‘Ethan had memories of his father hitting his mother, slapping her around, throwing cups of hot coffee over her, verbally abusing her and constantly running her down. But all of those acts were, in Ethan’s mind, the result of his mother bringing it on herself. She’d hector his father, always be on his case when he’d only been out working hard, trying to do his best for his family. That’s how his dad had explained it to Ethan. No action without a reaction, that’s what his father always told him. If she acted, she had to expect him to react.

  ‘Mike’s right. Ethan idolised his dad. Probably in the way that you can when the object of the worship disappears before his faults can be revealed.’

  ‘He died in a small city outside Lansing, right?’

  ‘Yes, when Ethan was twelve. It was all very mysterious, it seems. I don’t know what Mike knows about it but Ethan’s dad was supposedly found after being run over by a garbage truck while lying in the road.’

  ‘Supposedly?’ O’Neill picked up on it immediately. ‘I read the report. That’s what it said.’

  Marianne sighed. ‘There were seemingly strong hints that he was already dead when the vehicle hit him.’

  ‘How did Ethan react to the news?’ Salgado leaned closer as he asked the question.

  ‘I think it devastated him. He rarely talked about it but if it ever came up, he’d go very dark and disappear inside himself for days. Even though his dad left, and he hadn’t seen him for a few years, the impression I got was that his death floored Ethan and changed him.’

  ‘For the worse?’

  ‘I’d say so, wouldn’t you?’

  They went on and on, digging deeper into Ethan Garland’s life, getting dirtier and grubbier. And getting maybe half a heartbeat closer to finding the young man that was chained somewhere in the city and dying of thirst.

  CHAPTER 41

  The time of day had ceased to matter. There was no start or finish, no shift pattern, no clocking on or off in either Los Angeles or Glasgow. Time difference made no difference.

  It was ten at night in LA and six in the morning in Scotland. One in darkness, the other in daylight, both at work.

  The folder on the six released patients from Carstairs made grim reading. There was nothing hugely off the scale in terms of what the men had done – they wouldn’t have been put back on the streets if there had been – but it still held the power to shock.

  Narey was huddled in an incident room along with Giannandrea and DC Kerri Wells, each of them taking a file at a time and making notes before comparing. Photographs of the six men were pinned to whiteboards and the detectives occasionally scribbled notes under them.

  Derek Solomon was admitted to the State Hospital in 2012. He’d been arrested following a disturbance in a pub in Balornock. The then thirty-seven-year-old had got into an argument with two men over football, the city’s most clichéd reason for a fight, and had bitten off one of the other men’s ears. When police turned up, he hurled pint tumblers and tables at them, produced a knife and launched himself at the three coppers, stabbing two of them.

  Colin McPake was referred to Carstairs by social workers and police after what was described as extreme antisocial behaviour. He had a habit of wandering around the streets near his Rutherglen home in bare feet and stripped to the waist, intimidating anyone who came across his path, including noising up the local dealers and calling them out by name. When he was taken in and referred for tests, he’d gone willingly, telling psychiatrists that he wanted to know what was happening in his head.

  John Paul Kepple was a thirty-two-year-old electrician who walked into a Catholic church in Bishopbriggs north of Glasgow in 2005 and demanded to speak to the priest, threatening to burn the church to the ground if the priest didn’t come. When Father Thomas Kiernan entered the chapel, along with two police officers, they found Kepple sitting surrounded by debris – smashed pews, broken chairs, a hacked-down pulpit, torn curtains, relics torn from the walls – and the caretaker lying face down next to him. Kepple gave himself up to the officers without saying a word, just glaring at Father Kiernan as he was led away.

  Fraser Anderson was an IT consultant in the summer of 2012, a man with a flourishing career, a wife and young family. His life seemed perfect until he learned his wife Erin was having an affair with his best friend. Anderson went to the home of his friend Alastair Drummond and beat him with a baseball bat until he knocked him out. He then held Drummond hostage for eighteen hours, waking him up, hitting him again, over and over. Police were finally alerted by neighbours, who heard Drummond’s moans. It transpired that his belief of Drummond’s infidelity with his wife was completely delusional.

  When the social work department denied him access to his children on his release two years later, Anderson orchestrated a service attack against the city council’s computer system, forcing it to crash on several occasions and earning him another year inside as he completed his sentence.

  Martin Geir killed cats. Dozens of them. After a year-long killing spree which captured the attention of the press, Geir was finally caught on CCTV in 2006, crushing the skull of a ginger tabby with a brick. He admitted the other killings, many of which he couldn’t deny after the remains of ten cats were found buried in the garden of his Bridgeton home.

  He’d poisoned some, trapped and strangled others. He never tried to justify it other than by saying that a cat had been shitting on his lawn and he was getting his own back. He’d been unable to identify the culprit so killed every cat he could find. He was ordered to serve at least part of his eighteen-month sentence at the State Hospital.

  Ian Bryce had been an accountant working for Glasgow City Council. His colleagues had always identified him as a loose cannon and there had been several complaints about his workplace behaviour. In March 2011, the thirty-three-year-old got into an argument with his line manager about signing off a head of department’s expenses. It started out as something routine and within minutes escalated into Bryce smashing every computer screen in the room, assaulting five people and holding two others hostage using a taser he’d bought online and hidden under his desk.

  He was admitted to the State Hospital and stayed there for three months before responding well enough to treatment that he was released, initially on parole. He was last known to be working for a charity in the city centre delivering meals to the elderly.

  ‘So, who do you like best?’ Kerri Wells asked, a mischievous grin on her face.

  Narey and Giannandrea knew it was a facetious question, but it was as good an opening gambit as any. Rico went first.

  ‘Kepple. the guy who tore up the church. There’s something more than sinister about what he did, and how he did it. There was a coldness, a restraint before the destruction that chimes with me for Marr.’

  ‘I like the accountant,’ Wells pitched in. ‘The guy knew he was going to explode and bought a fucking taser. Smart enough to prepare, crazy enough to actually do it. He gets my vote.’

  Narey nodded, seeing arguments for both. ‘We’ve no grounds to pull them but let’s pay them a visit and ask some questions.’

  ‘What about you, boss?’

  ‘I’m not a big fan of guessing. But maybe Anderson, the IT consultant. Delusional but functioning. Obviously intelligent. Capable of extreme violence. The service attack on the council’s computers suggests a tendency for risk and a public display of power.’

  Giannandrea smiled. ‘You’ve been spending too much time with Lennie Dakers, boss.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘So, should we put our money where our m
ouths are?’ Wells grinned. ‘A test of intuition. A tenner a head?’

  Narey gave her a disapproving frown but the DC was irrepressible. ‘Come on, boss. Just a bit of fun and no one else need ever know. God knows we need something to lighten the mood.’

  ‘Oh, go on then. But obviously if anyone senior hears of this then we all deny it completely. And if they can somehow prove it happened then I throw you two under a bus and keep the money anyway.’

  ‘Goes without saying, boss.’

  ‘Okay, okay. Let’s get moving and find these guys this morning.’

  CHAPTER 42

  Salgado had left O’Neill with Ziegler and Durrant while he awaited the imminent arrival of Howie Kelsey. The detective had phoned ahead saying he had some information on the lead they’d given him into the Black Dahlia case.

  Salgado was staring out over 1st Street, allowing himself a moment to take in the lights on the towering white walls of City Hall. Dylan Hansen was out there somewhere, one of four million, but the one that needed their help.

  From behind him, he heard footsteps and knew it was Kelsey.

  ‘You want coffee?’

  Salgado turned around in time to see Kelsey make a face. ‘You got LAPD coffee, or your own supply?’

  ‘Government issue.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll pass. You got a line on your guy yet?’

  Salgado sighed heavily. ‘No. We’re closer to understanding the guy that took him and that might get us somewhere, but right now, we have no idea where he is. But you’ve got something on the Dahlia case?’

  ‘Well . . . let’s see.’

  Salgado caught something in the way Kelsey said it and the hairs on the back of his neck bristled.

  ‘Okay, so there’s about six thousand pieces of paper in the Elizabeth Short file. Most of it was collated following the murder but it’s added to every time some nut comes forward with a theory or a confession or, occasionally, when something new turns up.’

  ‘Like Garland owning the purse.’

  ‘Like the purse. Maybe. The point is that there’s a lot of it and I’ve been wading through the swamp trying to catch a break on this line through the Frankie Wynn character to Delmonico’s to Ralph Asdel’s report and to the Dahlia.’

  ‘And you got something?’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe. You tell me.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘So, I wanted to find some other mention of Frankie Wynn or of the restaurant. Sure, it might have gone nowhere but your guy that died seems to have owned some very genuine shit so why should the Dahlia purse be any different, right? So, I set out to trace back the enquiry that was made into Wynn’s confession. Two detectives, Jack Mortimer and Artie Crouch, took a statement and followed through on it. Like I said, they went to Delmonico’s, where Wynn said he worked, and the manager said no one of that name worked there or had ever worked there. So, I figured that if there was no Frankie Wynn then Mortimer or Crouch might have at least taken a note of people who did work there so they could rule this guy out.’

  ‘And they did?’ Salgado could hear the excitement in his own voice.

  ‘They did. It took a lot of searching but I found it.’

  He reached into his bag and produced a sheet of paper in an evidence bag, holding it out so Salgado could read the typed names. There were around twenty of them.

  Giulio Argento, manager. Vincenzo Pacitto, assistant manager. Angelo Dionisi, mastro di cantina. Gianluca Ricci, head chef. Marco Manfredi, chef. Domenico Sciarra, waiter. Anthony Giordano, waiter. Serena Sciarra, waitress. Viola Facci, waitress. Chiara Tassinari, waitress. Louis Smith, waiter. Katherine Joyce, dishwasher. Francesca Domenici, dishwasher.

  Salgado looked up from the list, seeing Kelsey looking at him expectantly. After the managers and waiters, after the waitresses and the dishwashers, there were listed three busboys.

  ‘No fucking way.’

  It was like all the clocks had stopped. Salgado needed confirmation that the world was still spinning.

  Zachary Garland, busboy.

  ‘Now,’ Kelsey continued. ‘Obviously, I know that your dead guy who owned the purse was named Garland. Seemed too neat to be a coincidence. And I’m guessing by the way that you have stopped breathing that it ain’t.’

  ‘It ain’t,’ Salgado echoed. ‘Zachary Garland was our guy’s father.’

  *

  When Kelsey left the office, Salgado spent some time trying to make sense of it before deciding that he couldn’t. Not on his own, at least.

  ‘Cally? You got Mike Durrant with you still? He said before how Zac Garland used aliases when he was chasing women. Ask him if he knew or remembers any of them.’

  ‘What’s this about, Salgado?’

  ‘I’ll fill you in after you’ve asked Durrant.’

  The wait was less than a minute but seemed much longer. O’Neill’s voice betrayed her surprise.

  ‘Salgado? He remembers one name, says his dad used it to wind his uncle up. Says his old man used it in front of Zac’s wife as he knew Zac couldn’t call him on it.’

  ‘The name?’

  ‘You ready for this?’

  ‘I think I might be.’

  ‘Frankie Wynn. Frankie fucking Wynn.’

  CHAPTER 43

  The report on Bruce Devlin, the first of Brianna Holden’s ex-boyfriends, was quick but largely unhelpful.

  Kayleigh McGrath had been right about him joining the army. Devlin had done a tour of Helmand province in 2009 but was out and back in civvies by early 2010. The reasons were unclear but the suggestion was there had been mental health issues and a compromise had been made to get him out as quickly as possible.

  He’d come back to Glasgow but, perhaps because of lasting damage from his time in Afghanistan, he couldn’t get a job and ended up homeless. He got support from Glasgow’s Helping Heroes, the serviceman’s support organisation in Govan Cross, and they were helping him for a while before he simply stopped coming back. They looked for him, but he was nowhere to be found. They were worried about him, describing Devlin as ‘extremely volatile’.

  Wells got a surname for the French guy who Brianna had dated, Martin, and who’d had a fight with Kevin Monteith in Sweeney’s pub on Pollokshaws Road. The incident log had him named as Martin Grenier. Neither of the men were charged, not even with good old breach of the peace, but they were both barred from the premises.

  Grenier had been a student, studying English literature at Glasgow University and working part-time in a restaurant on St Vincent Street. He’d left Scotland for Lyons in 2016 and a check with authorities there confirmed he was employed as a teacher and hadn’t left France in over a year.

  Lee Fairley lived in a tenement in Newlands on the south side and a warrant card got Narey and Wells inside the door. The front room had barely a square foot of carpet to be seen under a sea of papers, books, shoes, cushions and dirty plates. A man living alone.

  ‘I work from home.’ He waved his arm aggressively across the room as if somehow explaining the carnage. ‘What’s this all about?’

  ‘We’re trying to locate a man named Matthew Marr. We thought you might be able to help us find him.’

  Fairley shoved his bottom lip forward. ‘Never heard of him. What makes you think I might know who he is or where he is?’

  ‘He used to date Brianna Holden. We’re talking to other people that she dated in an effort to find him.’

  Fairley’s eyes widened, and his lip curled in distaste. ‘I wouldn’t know anyone she dated. And I wouldn’t want to. I’ve done my best to forget Brianna Holden and everything that went with her.’

  ‘You were pretty angry back then though, weren’t you? Called her every name under the sun and said you hoped she walked in front of a bus. That’s what we’ve been told.’

  The man flushed again. ‘I was angry, but I wouldn’t wish anyone any harm. I’m not like that.’

  Wells made a show of producing her notebook. ‘Your record says that you are like that. Two convic
tions for assault. It seems you’ve got a bad temper, Mr Fairley.’

  Fairley said nothing but glared at Wells.

  Wells raised her eyebrows sceptically, raising Fairley’s blood pressure along with them.

  ‘You’re still working in IT?’ Narey nodded at the desk and the oversized computer that took pride of place on it. ‘What if I got a search warrant and came back to have tech support look through that computer?’

  Fairley shrugged, his face sour. ‘Well, first I’d wonder on what grounds you possibly got a warrant. Second, you’d be wasting your time. I’m a computer programmer. If I wanted to hide something on there, you’d never find it. Third? If you want to look at it, feel free. I’ve got nothing to hide.’

  Narey nodded. ‘I’m curious, Mr Fairley – not once since we’ve been in here have you mentioned that Brianna was murdered. But you undoubtedly know that she was. Not once have you asked if we’re looking for Matthew Marr in connection with that murder.’

  Fairley’s temper had been boiling and now it burst.

  ‘Get the fuck out of here. If you want to come back and talk to me then bring a warrant. Get out of my flat. Now.’

  *

  Narey was back in her car, Wells beside her, when her mobile rang. The screen showed the caller to be Kayleigh McGrath.

  ‘Inspector, you said I should call if I remembered anything else. Or anyone else. It’s about the guy whose name I couldn’t remember. The one that Bri got off with one Saturday night when she was going out with Bruce Devlin? Well, his name was Andy. It came to me when I was watching the telly. There was some guy in the programme I was watching called Andy and . . . well, I just knew.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you remember a surname?’

  ‘No, sorry. I don’t think I ever knew it. I know that sounds terrible. He was older than her, I remember that much. She’d been out with pals in the Social, and was a bit pissed. I don’t think she’d have gone for him otherwise, not from what she told me. She saw him two or three times after that but he wasn’t her type, so she told him and finished it. She wasn’t really dumping him though, as they were never really going out, if you know what I mean. Anyway, a month or so after that, she started going out with Graeme Holden and they got married about a year later. Out of the frying pan, into the fucking fire.’