Thursday legends

5

It did not occur to either of them that they might make love. They simply lay together in the king-size, pine-framed bed, Karen dozing on her side with an arm thrown across his chest, Martin, on his back, stared at the ceiling, seeing nothing but the gutted, tortured body of Alec Smith.

He tried to chase the vision, but it would not go away. He closed his eyes, but still he saw the shape swinging gently in the half-light as he touched it. The smell stayed in his nostrils, unforgettable for that time at least. The Chief Superintendent was renowned for his calmness — privately he prided himself on it — yet he feared that somewhere, a scream, his own, lurked close.

He looked at Karen, thankful for his instinctive refusal to allow her further into the room, guessing what Maggie Rose might make of it, but not caring. He reached out and traced his finger very softly round the line of her jaw, and was glad when she smiled, fitting his touch into whatever dream she was having.

Knowing that sleep was not an option for him, he fought the horror by becoming a policeman, rather than a terrified onlooker. As a rule, he tried at every crime scene to imagine it being committed; coldly, dispassionately, professionally. That skill, learned from Bob Skinner, had been beyond him in the house at North Berwick, but there, in the night, he used it as a weapon.

Alec Smith had been a big man and had been known, even in the no-nonsense world of the police, as a hard man, too. Yet he had been subdued, stripped, strung up and gutted like a fish. How many people had it taken to do that, for God's sake?

In his mind's eye he looked around the big room, developing the subconscious snapshot which his mind had taken at the scene, using his photographic memory to recall details. The first and strangest thing: there had been no signs of a struggle. The room, expensively furnished, everything in its place. Smith's clothes; not thrown about the room, but laid across an armchair, almost neatly. A bottle of whisky, on a table positioned against the wall on the right of the room. A telescope, on a stand in front of the window to the left. And another stand, a tripod, unadorned. Beside it on Smith's desk, which he had set under the window, a big, expensive-looking 35mm camera, and a video camera. Shit! The table, the table. Two glasses. For the killers? Or one for the victim and an expected guest? Or left from earlier — Smith and someone else altogether? Prints will tell, Andy, prints will tell. Back to the desk! The cameras. A hobby? Photographing, filming shipping moving in and out of the Firth of Forth? Or put to more recent use? No! No?

Martin lifted Karen's arm gently from his chest and laid it on the duvet, then slipped quietly out of bed. Naked, he crossed the hall to the living room of the small flat and picked up the phone, which lay on the sideboard. He dialled 192, asked for and was given Alec Smith's telephone number, then called Shell Cottage.

Detective Inspector Dorward answered. 'Arthur. DCS Martin here. There are two cameras on the victim's desk, yes? Still and video?'

'Yes, sir.'

'I want to see what's in them, if anything. If there's a film in the camera, have your photographer develop it. If there's a cassette in the camcorder, play it back. Just in case, you understand.'

'Of course, Boss.' Dorward sounded slightly wounded.

'Sorry, Arthur. I'm sure you'd have done that anyway.'

'It's the thought that counts, sir,' the mollified Inspector chuckled. 'Hang on and I'll look at the video camera now.' There was a pause; in the background, Martin heard mechanical sounds. 'There's a tape in it, sir.' said Dorward. 'I'll run a few frames back and replay it through the viewfinder.'

'Okay.' He waited, taking care to stand clear of the yellow light which flooded through the living room window from the street lamp outside. As he stood there, Karen's arms wound around his waist. He felt her heavy breasts press against his back as she hugged him.

'I'm cold,' she murmured. He gasped as her hands slid downwards, and reached down to stop her.

'Shh.' He waved the phone in the air, so that she could see he was on a call. As he did so, he heard a cry from the handset.

'Fuckin' hell!'

'What is it, Arthur?' he asked, although, instinctively, he knew.

'It's him, sir; Smith. The camera's right in his face. He's alive and he's got no eyes!' *Oh Christ.' Karen was standing beside him now, looking at him anxiously. 'Maggie will have the mobile HQ unit on its way to the scene, if it isn't there yet. Lock that camera in there. I'll be back out in the morning, probably with the big man.' He glanced at his wrist, but his watch was on Karen's bedside table. 'What time is it?'

'Quarter past five.'

'Okay. I'll be there before nine.'

He hung up and ushered Karen back through towards the bedroom. 'They filmed him,' he told her. 'The bastards filmed him as they killed him.'

'God! Why?'

'Crazy people don't need reasons,' he answered as they slid back into bed. 'That's the only thing I know for sure about this enquiry; we're looking for a complete fucking lunatic'

Not for the first time that night, he shuddered; he felt himself on the verge of losing it again. She held him, drawing him to her. 'Andy,' she whispered. 'Shut it out. Shut it out.'

He tried; they both tried, in the only way they could.