A Song for the Dying

11

‘Settle down.’ Ness pointed off to the side. ‘Dr Docherty?’

‘Thank you, Detective Superintendent.’ Fred Docherty had changed his look a bit since the initial investigation. The concrete-coloured suit was gone, as was the curly hair. Now he sported a sharp black Armani-looking number with a red shirt and white tie, his hair short and straight, swept back from his forehead. The boyish looks and nervous voice had been replaced by a strong jaw and stainless-steel gaze. No trace of a Glaswegian accent.

He paused, letting everyone get a good look at him.

Alice grabbed my hand and squeezed. ‘This is so exciting…’

‘Ladies and gentlemen, let us consider Unsub-Fifteen. He’s clearly… Yes, Inspector?’

Shifty had his hand up. ‘Aye, who’s “Unsub-Fifteen” when he’s at home?’

‘An excellent question. “Unsub” means “Unknown Subject” and “Fifteen” differentiates him from the fourteen other active homicide investigations currently underway in Oldcastle. I think it’s unwise to give the target of an investigation like this what might be considered a,’ Docherty stuck his fingers in the air and mimed quote marks, ‘“cool nickname”. It can contribute to their perception of themselves as something apart from, and above, the norm. Something to live up to. And, as we’ve yet to confirm a connection between Unsub-Fifteen and the offender known as the Inside Man, I want us to clear our heads of any preconceptions about what’s going on here.’ A smile. Bright, but not cheesy or sarcastic-looking. ‘Does that help?’

Shifty shrugged.

‘Good. Now, having reviewed the evidence, I’m pegging Unsub-Fifteen as being in his mid-to-late thirties. Chances are he’s had a string of mediocre jobs and never really excelled at anything. He’ll have been in your cells before, probably more than once and probably for petty crimes. A little wilful fire-raising, perhaps vandalism. Possibly cruelty to animals. Certainly we should be checking out anyone with a history of mental illness.’

Docherty folded his arms and tilted his head to the side, eyes narrowed. As if all this was just coming to him as he spoke. ‘He’s come from a close family — that’s a definite — but chances are that he’s all alone now. His mother probably abused him emotionally rather than physically, belittled him, criticized him, controlled every aspect of his life. That’s the source of his rage against women. When we find him, everyone will be surprised that he’s been capable of this kind of horrendous act. And they’ll describe him as introverted, someone who kept himself to himself and never caused a fuss.’

Docherty nodded towards a short stack of paper on the table at the front. ‘I’ve made up a list of the kind of red-flags you should be looking for, and a couple of follow-up questions you can ask to narrow the field.’ The smile was back. ‘And speaking of questions: does anyone have any?’

Sitting near the front, a hand appeared above the rows of heads. The voice that went with it was flat, and nasal, and instantly recognizable: Rhona. ‘How come he never sent a letter after Doreen Appleton?’

‘Well, that’s actually more about the offender known as “the Inside Man” than Unsub-Fifteen, but it’s still valid. He didn’t send a letter because she was a trial run, a warm-up. She doesn’t count. He hasn’t quite worked out what it is he wants yet. So, he dumps her body, doesn’t use the nine-nine-nine call he forced her to record, and moves on to Tara McNab. That’s when it really begins.’ Dr Docherty nodded, agreeing with himself. ‘Anyone else? Don’t be shy.’

Alice’s hand shot up, fingers splayed, waving slightly. ‘Me, me!’

‘Yes…? I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’

‘Alice McDonald. First: huge fan, I thought you were great in that documentary about the Tayside Butcher.’ She still had her hand up.

Docherty preened. ‘Oh, you saw that. Great. Thanks. So, what’s your question … erm … Alice?’

‘You say he’s attacking women as sublimated revenge against an emotionally manipulative mother figure, but that doesn’t explain the significance of the dolls, does it?’

‘Well, that’s another good question, you see-’

‘By stitching the dolls into their abdomens, the Inside Man is making them pregnant, isn’t he? Literally putting a baby into their tummies…’ She wrapped one arm around her middle, lowered her hand and twisted the fingers through her hair. ‘Of course then he muddies the water by dressing them in white nightgowns which are clearly symbolic of innocence and virginity, but if this is revenge against an unloving mother, why is he trying to impregnate her? I mean I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, I helped Northern Constabulary catch someone who did just that, then stabbed her sixty-four times in the throat, her head nearly came off when they tried to load her into the body-bag, the pictures were really quite disturbing.’

‘I see.’ Docherty’s smile chilled a good five degrees. ‘So in your opinion my profile is wrong?’

Alice tilted her head to one side, mirroring his. ‘I didn’t say it was wrong, I just don’t think it’s entirely right.’

On the other side of Alice, Dr Constantine’s voice was barely audible. ‘Fight, fight, fight, fight…’

Docherty’s jaw worked from side to side, chewing on something bitter.

‘No offence.’ Alice pressed a hand against her chest. ‘Like I said, big fan. Huge.’

Ness stood. ‘Perhaps it would be more productive if Dr Docherty and…’ she checked her notes, ‘Dr McDonald could take this discussion offline and report back to their team leaders with the outcome. In the meantime: I find myself having to remind you all that there is a strict media blackout in force. The Powers That Be are not happy someone broke the moratorium and told the press about Claire Young. I don’t care who you are, or who you report to, the only information that gets out of this investigation is in the official press briefings. Are we all clear on that?’

Some shuffling from the crowd.

Superintendent Knight stood, wearing his dress uniform at half seven in the morning, as if that was going to impress anyone. ‘On that note, one of my team from the Specialist Crime Division, DI Foot, will be inviting certain of you to assist him in uncovering who was responsible for feeding details to the Daily Record yesterday. I expect honesty and integrity. And if I don’t get it there — will — be — trouble.’

Ness nodded. ‘Right, that’s it, people. Individual team meetings commence in five. Grab a cigarette or a cup of coffee if you can. It’s going to be a long day.’

‘… looking good, my man.’ DS Brigstock patted me on the back, grinning with his mouth open, cheeks and forehead stippled with impact-crater acne scars. ‘Don’t he look good, Rhona?’

Rhona smiled at me, exposing a mouth full of thick grey teeth. ‘Great to have you back, Guv.’

Half of Ness’s Major Investigation Team had stayed behind, while their SCD rivals bustled out to cram in a quick cigarette or get something from the vending machines.

Jacobson’s team had drifted apart: PC Cooper off running an errand; Dr Constantine on the phone in the corner; while Huntly was having what looked like a very intense conversation with a tall thin man in a grey suit — one of Superintendent Knight’s SCD lot. The discussion all big arm gestures and hissing whispers.

Rhona stuck her hands in her pockets, hunched her shoulders. ‘Listen, Guv, I was thinking of throwing a wee party, you know to celebrate? And-’

‘I’m not sure if we’ll have time, will we, Ash?’ Alice stepped in close, slipped her arm through mine, and smiled at Rhona. ‘I’m really glad I was able to arrange his release, I mean you wouldn’t believe the hoops I had to jump through at the prison, but there was no way I was going to let him rot away in that place.’ The smile got sharper. ‘That would’ve been horrible, wouldn’t it?’

Rhona squared her shoulders. ‘We did our best.’

‘Yes, I know. Still, never mind, he’s out now.’

Not this again…

‘I didn’t see you visiting him every week.’

Alice raised her eyebrows. ‘Didn’t you? Well, they don’t give members of the public access to the official-’

A jagged Aberdonian accent cut across the room. ‘DS Massie, Brigstock: you heard the Super. Team meeting starts at eight, sharp.’ It didn’t look as if Smith’s people skills had improved any in the last two years. He made a big show of pulling back the sleeve of his grey Markie’s suit and checking his watch. Wrinkles stood out in thick stripes across his forehead. Big nose twitching. Close-cropped hair. A chin so small it was barely there.

Brigstock’s face curdled for a second, then his voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Why did they have to make the sheep-shagging bastard a DI?’ Then louder: ‘Yes, Guv.’

‘Now, Sergeants.’

Rhona didn’t move. Just stood there staring at Alice. ‘Yes, Guv.’ Then she turned her back. ‘Come on, Brigstock. And the rest of you — backsides in gear. You heard DI Smith!’ She shepherded the rest of the team towards the front of the room, where Ness was fiddling with her remote again.

Smith stared at us, then marched over, back straight, shoulders back. ‘Do I need to remind you, Mr Henderson, that you’re no longer a serving police officer? You have no powers in Oldcastle, or anywhere else. And if I hear you’re throwing your weight around, I’ll come down on you like a ton of broken glass. Are we clear?’

I took a step closer, shutting down the gap till we were almost touching. ‘You think you’re a big man because they made you a DI, don’t you? Think that makes you invulnerable. Well, that massive nose of yours will break just as easily as a detective sergeant’s.’

He took a step back. ‘Threatening a police officer is a criminal offence and-’

‘DI Smith?’ Ness’s voice came from the front. ‘We’re ready to start.’ She pressed a button and the screen behind her filled with a map of Oldcastle, a red circle marking a patch of ground behind Blackwall Hill. She nodded at Jacobson. ‘Simon, your team’s welcome to join us if you like?’

‘I appreciate the offer, Elizabeth, but there’s a couple of things that need our urgent attention.’ He flicked his arm out and peered at his watch. ‘And if we don’t get a shift on, we’re going to be late.’

‘Can’t feel my toes…’ Dr Constantine stomped her feet. She had her scarf wrapped around her neck and mouth, woolly hat pulled down over her ears, Parka coat zipped up to her chin.

Jacobson leaned against the waist-high wall, hands in the pockets of his brown leather jacket, breath streaming out in a line of fog. ‘It’s good for you. Builds character.’

Kings Park stretched away on both sides of us, the grass crisp with frost. Blue shadows reached down from the granite wedge of Castle Hill, the ruined battlements jagged against the pale sky. A blade of sunlight pierced the gloom — serrated around the edges where trees gouged it — making the Kings River sparkle.

The smell of onions frying in grease oozed through the cold air, thick and sweet and dark, spreading out from the burger van at the edge of the car park. PC Cooper had almost made it to the front of the queue.

Huntly stood with his back to the rest of us, staring out across the river, arms folded, camelhair coat wrapped around him, polished brogues sticking out at ten-to-two. Sulking.

Jacobson turned to Alice. ‘Well? What do you make of our Dr Docherty?’

‘He’s a lot shorter than he is on TV.’ She wrapped one padded arm around her padded waist, the other hand fiddling with her hair where it poked out from the hood of her Arctic jacket. ‘On the basis of what we know so far, it’s reasonable to be cautious and say this might not be the Inside Man. The papers are full of Laura Strachan’s impending “Miracle Birth” — maybe someone saw that and it sparked a fire inside them, I mean if you’re sitting at home full of rage and impotence and looking for some way to vent everything on a world that hates you, and then you see all this stuff about the Inside Man and maybe you think: that’s what I’ll do, I’ll be just like him only better, and it’ll make the angry things in my head leave me alone for a while…’

She turned, eyes narrowed, mouth pinched. ‘But it’s not going to work because this isn’t my fantasy, this is someone else’s, but until I try I don’t know what I really want, and maybe there’s something about it that makes me feel powerful and in control and aroused for the first time in years and I take that one thing and I relive it over and over in my mind till it’s polished sharp, and I go out and I do it again, only properly this time.’ She let go of her hair, looked up at me. ‘I mean, if it was me, that’s what I’d do.’

I nodded. ‘So you’re saying it isn’t him?’

‘That depends on the next body. If it’s someone else the MO will diverge as he experiments, trying to find his personal groove. If it stays consistent it’s probably him.’ She turned to Jacobson. ‘At the press conference Detective Superintendent Ness wouldn’t answer the question: did he send a letter about Claire Young?’

‘Well … yesterday was Sunday, so if he posted it after he killed her, it wouldn’t get collected till today, and it won’t be delivered till tomorrow. If we’re lucky, we’ll find out before the paper prints it.’

Alice shuffled closer. ‘Superintendent, can I speak to the original survivors and review the victimology reports? I want to look at the Inside Man letters too. The photocopies in the case file are barely readable. I’ll need access to the originals.’

He patted her on the shoulder. ‘For you, anything. And please, call me Bear.’

Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have laughed. ‘Seriously? Thought that was meant to be a joke. You want us to call you “Bear”?’

‘Dr McDonald has pleased me by putting that jumped-up publicity-hungry TV tart in his place this morning. Bernard?’

Professor Huntly kept his gaze on the water, still sulking.

‘You made the boy from SCD who asked about the phone call look like a moron. So you’re forgiven for yesterday.’

Huntly raised one shoulder, stared at his shoes. ‘Thank you, Bear.’

Jacobson poked me in the chest. ‘So far all you’ve done is limp about, taking up space and eating Sheila’s pizza. You can call me, “Sir”, “Guv”, or “Super”.’

One step forward and I was inches from his nose, looming. ‘How about I call you-’

‘Ash…’ Alice tugged at my sleeve. ‘Remember what we talked about? Going to see the deposition scene? I think we should really go now, don’t you, I mean there’s a lot to get through today and we all want to do our best for the investigation so we can stay out of prison, don’t we? Please?’

And miss a chance to rip the little git’s face off and…

Don’t be so bloody stupid.

Blink. Step back. Deep breath. ‘Right.’ I forced a smile into place and patted Jacobson on the shoulder. ‘Sorry, still getting used to not being inside. You know.’

Jacobson tilted his head back, grinning up at me. ‘And you can take Bernard with you. He doesn’t drive.’

Huntly cleared his throat. ‘Can we at least wait for my sausage sandwich?’

‘… quite ridiculous, surely it’s appropriate to observe a decent period of mourning.’ Sitting in the back seat, Huntly took another bite of his sausage buttie, tomato sauce oozing out of the roll and onto his fingers. He chewed, with his mouth turned down, as if it was full of ashes. ‘You didn’t see me jumping into bed with the first person I saw, did you? Civilized people just don’t do that.’

Alice clicked on the car radio. ‘Maybe some music will cheer you up?’

‘… have confirmed that the family of four found dead in the wreckage of their burning home in Cardiff on Wednesday were subjected to a brutal hammer attack. Local news now, and the search for missing five-year-old Charlie Pearce continues as police-’

She switched the thing off again. ‘Maybe not. We could play I-spy?’

Outside the Suzuki’s window, Oldcastle ground its way through the rush hour. Cars, vans, and buses crawled along the streets in a slow-motion metal conga line, blaring horns making a post-dawn chorus.

Huntly gave a big, theatrical sigh. ‘I spy something beginning with bleakness, darkness, and lonely crushing cold. Give up? It’s the rest of my life.’

I ground the tip of my cane into the passenger footwell. Gritted my teeth. ‘How about we all just sit in silence till we get there?’

Alice looked across from the driver’s seat and grimaced at me, both eyebrows up.

He shifted, leaning forward until his head poked through the gap between the seats. Enveloping everything in his sausagey breath. ‘Have you ever loved someone, Henderson? I mean, really, really loved them? And then … then they’re just gone, and there’s nothing you can do to bring them back?’ He grabbed my shoulder and squeezed. ‘God: the agony.’

Alice stared at me, mouth hanging open. ‘Err… Actually, maybe we should-’

I slammed my hand on the dashboard. ‘Bus!’

‘Eeek!’ She stamped on the brakes, wrenched the wheel to the right, nearly battering into a taxi coming the other way. We screeched to a halt in the middle of the road.

An old woman with a tartan shopping trolley stopped on the pavement to gape, her Westie terrier barking at the car — tail stiff and upright.

The taxi driver wound down his window and belted out a mouthful of expletives, before sticking up two fingers and heading off.

Alice puffed out a breath. ‘Right. Let’s try that again.’ She eased past the bus and back onto the left side of the road. ‘Sorry.’

Huntly gave my shoulder another squeeze. ‘Women drivers, eh?’

‘If you don’t get your hand off me right now, I’m going to tear your fingers off and ram them down your throat till you choke.’

He let go, licked his lips, then settled back onto his seat. ‘I was only joking.’

‘And no more talking either.’

Silence.

Go on, say something. Anything.

But he didn’t. Not as thick as he looked after all.