13
The Second Vic
While Martin Seth was being taken into custody, Crosbie was speeding towards another crime scene. The body of a middle-aged female had been found in deep undergrowth near the New Lanark turn-off on the M74. Crucially, it was within a five-mile radius of the Seth murder scene. Crosbie hoped and prayed they weren’t connected.
A motherfucking serial cunting killer, his inner monologue screamed out, that’s all I horse cocking need.
The blue lights flashed and the siren blared from the top of his police car, but inside Crosbie sighed. He really needed a holiday. He’d just turned forty, which had made him acutely aware that there was less life in front of him as there was behind him, and he was also well aware that the average age a police officer survived after retirement was a measly five years. If Crosbie got out at the earliest opportunity, at forty-eight, that would give him just thirteen more years of life.
The cunting trick then, fanny face, is not to retire then.
Oh great. His alter ego had now taken to insulting him. At this rate he’d be lucky to make it to forty-one in the force before he had a full nervous breakdown. Was it any wonder, really? He was just about to witness his forty-third murder victim and yet again have reaffirmed that humans can indeed do the most awful things to one another.
There was a nip in the air as Crosbie stepped out into the September sunshine. Forensics gave him their initial report, which was pretty much what he knew already, with one added fact: the victim’s neck had been broken. Crosbie let out a heavy sigh. Even his inner monologue had the good sense to stay quiet. The detective knew the press would immediately link the two murders before forensics had had a chance to even get their samples off to the laboratory, and would splash that a violent serial killer was on the loose. He hated the term ‘serial killer’ as it made his life a whole lot harder. Apart from the public hysteria, which would be whipped up into a frenzy by the media, he believed it would cloud the investigating team’s judgment. They would look for links that weren’t there.
The same thing had happened in Glasgow in the 1960s, when three women who had been to the city’s popular Barrowland Ballroom had been strangled. The killer had been dubbed Bible John by the press because a tall, fair-haired, bible quoting man had allegedly been witnessed leaving the nightspot with one of the victims.
Bible John was never caught. For a year and a half – from his first victim to his third – the city had been gripped by fear. Then suddenly he stopped. Rumours circulated of Bible John’s true identity, from a criminal who’d been jailed for another crime to a rogue policeman and a cover up by the force.
Crosbie, too young to remember the case, always believed his colleagues of old had simply botched the original investigation. He’d spent hours going through the case files – with the murders unsolved they were still active – and could almost feel the hysteria screaming from the formal reports. Everyone working that case was looking for a serial killer.
Of course, the original investigation team didn’t have the benefit of DNA evidence, but the modern police force did, and in 1998 they exhumed the body of a prime suspect. At the time Crosbie was new to CID but even as a rookie detective he suspected this was an unwise move from a glory-seeking top brass, and unfortunately he was proved right. The DNA from the dead murder suspect did not match the evidence left at the scene of the crime. Crosbie believed that the mysterious Bible John had killed just one, perhaps two, of the three unfortunate girls whose night on the tiles ended in violence.
And he certainly didn’t believe that the same hands which had killed Selina Seth had killed the battered prostitute in front of him. By the positioning of her limbs, twisted into the same shape as Selina’s corpse, someone clearly wanted him to believe that, but this copycat killer must have seen Selina’s last moments as the crime scene picture of her body had never been released. He now needed to catch two killers.
Martin Seth was calmness personified as he sat by himself in Maryhill nick, sipping coffee from a plastic cup and flicking through a copy of Metro. It was an old one – no mention of his dead wife. He looked at the date at the top of the page: 5 September. That was just three days ago. Before his world had been turned upside down. Before Selina’s death. Before he’d become a prime suspect. He’d like to think that on 5 September life had been comparatively normal, but that wasn’t true.
Being married to Selina these past few years could never have been described as normal. She hadn’t bothered covering up her affairs or, to be more accurate, her one night stands. Arriving home at dawn, drunk, underwear in her handbag, had almost become the norm. Martin had even learned to accept it. With his self-esteem at rock bottom he hadn’t even felt humiliated any more. It was trying the keep the business afloat that had really taken its toll.
A picture in his study at home showed him posing with his five-a-side football side. He looked at least ten years younger. But the photograph had been taken less than two years ago. Now his hair and skin were greying, his face heavily lined from worry and a permanent frown. He no longer played football, he just didn’t have the energy, and his sex drive was in his boots, which might have explained why his wife played away.
Every waking minute of every day was spent with his head in the company’s books. They were actually making money thanks to Martin’s hard work, but jewellery is an expensive game with a lot of overheads. Cash flow was the main problem. The retailers would take an age to pay and gold traders don’t take IOUs.
Then there was Selina. The businesswoman who lived like a pop star. Although she was barred from making the company’s most crucial decisions on her own, she was still the face of Seth International and refused point blank to rein in her spending. She’d taunt Martin during their many furious rows that he was ‘just an accountant’ and she was the ‘creative one’ in the partnership. She did have a point. And it was also true that she had to entertain department store head buyers, but Selina’s ‘entertaining’ usually moved quickly from bottles of Bollinger to the bedroom.
Lately, she’d spent a lot of time romancing a big player at Tesco. Her credit card bills for expensive London restaurants and hotels had been mind-boggling, but Martin knew only too well that the account could have been the answers to their prayers.
It’d been close, too, before she died.
DCI Crosbie entered the room having come straight from his second murder scene in two days. He sat down wearily and looked at the widower and his female lawyer. Crosbie was the first to speak. ‘Hello, Martin, I’m Detective Chief Inspector Crosbie, but if you’re a good lad, you can call me Bing. Now listen, I’m very tired, and I can’t be arsed trying to coax information out of you. You’re an intelligent man, so how about you just tell me the truth and nothing but the truth?’