Read Killing With Confidence Page 21

29

  A New Man

  DCI Crosbie sat at his desk, looked at the mountain of paperwork and chuckled to himself. Before the session with Watt Wilson, his inner self would have been cursing profusely at the amount of work he had to get through. But the foul-mouthed fury within remained silent. That’s why Crosbie could afford a smile. ‘It worked. It actually worked. The old fraudster has cured me. In just one session – incredible.’

  ‘Talking to yourself is not a sign of a sane mind,’ Crosbie’s senior officer DS Cruickshank said as he entered his office, taking Crosbie by surprise. ‘Are you feeling alright? I’m worried the stress of the inquiry is getting to you.’

  Crosbie leapt to his feet and chirped, ‘I have literally never felt better, sir. And it’s inquiries, sir – two of them. Selina Seth and Jackie McIvor.’

  ‘Ah yes, the prossie,’ Cruickshank snorted.

  Crosbie deplored the way that society – including the police – never seemed to give a damn about streetwalkers. As far as Crosbie was concerned Selina Seth was the real prostitute. She didn’t have to sleep with the various rich businessmen whom Crosbie’s team were currently in the process of tracking down for questioning, but she did so. And willingly. Albeit not for fifty pounds a shag, but it had become clear from his inquiries that Selina definitely slept with men to help secure contracts for Seth International. In Crosbie’s book that definitely made her a bigger ‘whore’ than poor Jackie who had simply slept with punters to feed her drug habit. From what Crosbie had learned, Jackie been a loyal and loving girlfriend before meeting the wrong man.

  ‘Well, what’s the update, Crosbie?’ Cruickshank demanded.

  ‘As you know, we covertly recorded an interview with Selina’s husband Martin, after you obtained a warrant, sir, but it’s thrown up more questions than answers, to be honest.’

  ‘Like what?’ Cruickshank said in an impatient tone.

  ‘Well, like the way he claimed he’d strangled his wife,’ Crosbie replied nervously.

  ‘You mean to say that after I arranged to obtain a warrant to record Martin Seth, having to jump through hoops with a prickly judge to do so, you get a full confession yet don’t bring the murder suspect in for questioning for one of the highest-profile murder cases the Strathclyde Force has had to handle in years? Am I actually hearing this correctly?’

  Long, rambling, rhetorical questions were Cruickshank’s speciality. But Crosbie stood his ground. ‘Yes, sir. But he’s lying, sir.’

  ‘A hunch, DCI?’ Cruickshank mocked.

  ‘A fact, sir. We tracked his mobile phone signature to his parents’ home at the time of Selina’s death. We have collaborative alibis from his folks and his kids, including the six-year-old son. As you’ll be aware, sir, a six-year-old is incapable of keeping a secret. Look at those weather balloon pranksters in America, sir.’

  In 2009 a couple of reality TV wannabes staged the disappearance of their son, saying he’d been holding onto a weather balloon when it soared miles into the sky. The boy was later found, safe and well in their family home. When questioned by a TV crew, he immediately blurted out how his folks had told him to hide in the garage while they pretended he’d flown away.

  The balloon analogy seemed to resonate with Cruickshank, as his tone audibly softened. ‘Okay, so what next, Crosbie? The pressure I’m getting to solve this case is unbelievable.’

  Crosbie explained the case so far. ‘Forensics have several DNA samples from the crime scene. There’s the usual contamination with DNA from a couple of police officers and a paramedic who were first on the scene, but two unidentified male samples, too. I also want to bring Seth in again. There are a few questions I’ll make sure he’s asked, that I’d like to hear his reaction to. Whoever did this, sir, we will get him.’

  Cruickshank instructed Crosbie to keep him informed ‘every step of the way’ then turned on his heels and left.

  DCI Crosbie smiled to himself again. ‘I didn’t even call him a cocksucker. I really am getting better.’ He picked up his BlackBerry and called his new recruit – the formidable April Lavender.

  30

  Borrowed Trousers/Borrowed Time

  April’s mobile rang once more. She’d been ignoring most calls since her suspension, talking only occasionally to Connor. She hadn’t even bothered telling her daughter what had happened. Jayne was always too busy with her own life to be concerned with her poor, old, mad mummy, April thought in a moment of self-pity.

  April believed that, on the whole, she’d been a good mum. She would occasionally have to work late, and when a big story like the death of Princess Diana broke, she’d disappeared at short notice to the coastal town of Oban to try and interview Frances Shand Kydd, Princess Diana’s mother. April had spent a week on Scotland’s west coast not getting anywhere near Shand Kydd’s front door, which was being protected round the clock by uniformed officers.

  As she’d left in a hurry, she’d had to borrow a photographer’s waterproof trousers, normally used by snappers at football games. She’d worn the plastic attire for three straight days, before she and some fellow female reporters had gone foraging into town for new clothes and knickers. There had been a real camaraderie between all the hacks on that job since it became apparent on the first day they wouldn’t be getting any chats with the grieving mother. But since this was the biggest story in the world at the end of September 1997, they had all been ordered to stay put.

  April’s daughter had been seventeen at the time and had just started dating her first ‘serious’ boyfriend, which was a polite way of saying they were having sex. Maybe it had been a familiar look in her teenage daughter’s eyes, but shortly before she lost her virginity, April had marched her down to the family doctor and insisted she was put on the Pill. Jayne was mortified, but April wouldn’t take no for an answer, saying, ‘You are not going to end up in the same shit as me. Pregnant, no job, no man – no way.’

  But for one glorious late summer week, she got to escape all that. It was red wine and à la carte meals every night in the best restaurants Oban had to offer with the rest of the press pack. There had even been some time for a fling with one of the snappers. She’d never coughed to his identity, but he’d appreciated the return of his waterproof trousers with interest.

  That all seemed so long ago now. When she looked in the mirror, an old woman stared back. An old woman who’d just suffered the indignity of being suspended from her job. But an old woman Connor had made promise not to give up. Together, he assured her, they’d find the truth.

  DCI Crosbie’s named flashed up on her mobile. This was one call she would not ignore today.

  

  Connor arrived at Gartnavel’s Beatson unit in a hurry. He’d received a distraught phone call from Badger’s wife Rita, saying her husband didn’t have long to live. As he approached Badger’s bedside, he could see there had been some sort of incident. His wife was in tears and a medical team were wheeling away various pieces of equipment, with his old mentor clearly in distress.

  Badger soon settled after a massive dose of morphine. He opened his eyes and stared at Connor. ‘I thought that was me gone there, son. A heart attack, they reckon. A bit of a scare, to tell the truth. They zapped me with their doodahs there. That seemed to do the trick. But not long to go now, Connor. Not long at all.’

  It was the first time in years Badger had used Connor’s real name. He sat beside his mentor’s bed, and without warning clasped Badger’s hand, waited for the dying man to snatch it away and tell him to get lost. He didn’t. Instead, the older man squeezed back.

  Badger ordered his wife to, ‘Go and get the boy a cuppa coffee, for god’s sake – he must be gasping. I’m fed up with all your snivelling, anyway.’ It was his way of telling his wife to take a break after the shock of seeing him nearly die before her eyes.

  A nurse approached, and still Badger didn’t let go of Connor’s hand.

  ‘How you doing, Nurse Ratchet?’ Badger asked playfully.
r />   ‘Now then, Mr Blackwood, you know very well my name is Miss McFarlane,’ she responded.

  ‘Aye, so you keep saying, but you’re as sadistic as that Nurse Ratchet from One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, always poking and prodding me. Never giving a dying man a moment’s peace.’

  A dying man. Never a truer word spoken in jest, Connor thought. Badger was dying. This could be the last time Connor ever saw him.

  ‘And who’s your young friend?’ Nurse McFarlane enquired with the hint of a twinkle in her eye. She was about Connor’s age and attractive even in her unflattering striped tunic and shapeless blue trousers. Connor also noticed she wasn’t wearing a ring on her wedding finger, although that was no guarantee she wasn’t married, as many nurses in high dependency units removed all jewellery while on shift.

  ‘You’re in there, Elvis. This could be your Priscilla,’ Badger beamed.

  Both Connor and the nurse blushed slightly.

  ‘I am not fourteen years old or whatever ridiculous age Priscilla was when she started dating Elvis,’ Nurse McFarlane retorted.

  ‘It’s better if you just ignore him,’ Connor interjected. ‘That’s what I always do.’

  ‘Cheeky cunt,’ Badger said in a mock sulk.

  ‘Now don’t make me get a swear box for you again, Mr Blackwood,’ Nurse McFarlane said as she finished taking her patient’s observations. She smiled briefly at Connor before leaving the two friends by themselves once more.

  Badger nudged Connor. ‘You’re in there, lad. Gagging for it. I can tell. I’ll get her number for you. Just leave it to your old man here – although I better make my move quick. I could be dead by teatime,’ he laughed.

  Connor thought to himself how no one would have known Badger had just had a heart attack and was riddled with cancer, as he sat in his deathbed teasing and joking while playing Cupid. Badger hadn’t complained about his lot once. He’d accepted his fate with a bravery Connor doubted he’d ever have.

  ‘Before I forget,’ Badger said changing the subject, ‘I’ve had loads of cunts coming up to see me. Sends Nurse Ratchet and her cronies mental. But I had a visit from plod – the CID boys, old-school, mind. Your man DCI Crosbie came up. My guys reckon he’s a bit of a nutter. Caught the top brass’s attention, and not in a good way. Watch yourself with that one, Elvis. A shifty bastard by all accounts.’

  ‘They can talk,’ Connor thought to himself. He’d met Badger’s CID crowd and they were as shifty as they came. They were the sorts who thought nothing of planting evidence and beating up a few suspects every now and then.

  He could imagine DCI Crosbie despising them with his morals and principles. In return, he would have made powerful, resentful enemies. They would go out of their way to soil his name as he kept ascending the career ladder. Connor didn’t share his thoughts with old Badger, promising only to ‘bear that in mind’.

  Rita returned to the bedside with cups of coffee. She smiled at the sight of her husband still clasping Connor’s hand. Badger had never been the emotional type, but it pleased her to see he was letting his tough guy facade slip, showing in his final moments the man she always knew him to be.

  He finally let go of Connor to take his coffee. ‘Thanks, Rita babes, proper coffee, too, clearly not from this dump,’ Badger said a little too loudly, earning glances from the relatives of the three other patients in the ward.

  ‘Right, you better be offski, sunshine. Don’t give those cunts at work any ammo to get shot of you,’ Badger ordered, not so subtly indicating visiting time was over.

  Connor stood to hug Rita goodbye. He then negotiated the various tubes and wires to do the same with his mentor. ‘You’re simply the best, Badg,’ Connor whispered in his mentor’s ear.

  ‘On your way, Elvis,’ Badger said, this time with tears filling his eyes. ‘On your way, lad.’

  31

  The One that Got Away

  April and Connor sat in Crosbie’s office telling the detective about April’s suspension and how she feared her days at the paper were numbered. Connor said, ‘So, you see, Detective, the Daily Herald’s Special Investigations unit has been split in half because of you – I think April will be putting in a claim for police compensation.’

  Crosbie looked genuinely sorry about April’s plight. He said, ‘Would it help if I called this Weasel fella and explained that I put you in an impossible situation.’

  ‘No, no,’ April replied boldly, ‘I’m a big enough girl to be able to look after myself. I’ve never allowed myself to be pushed around by any man – copper, editor or husband. I really don’t know what happened to me yesterday. It’s not like me to bury my head in the sand.’

  Crosbie placed a hand on her shoulder and said quietly, ‘We’ve all done it. A crisis of confidence. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and don’t know who I am.’

  April thought to herself, ‘I bet you don’t with that split personality.’

  The detective changed the topic by studying a transcript of April’s interview with Martin Seth once more. ‘There’s something missing here,’ he said, ‘and I don’t know what it is.’

  The three of them ran through various motives Martin might have for wanting his wife dead, from her numerous affairs to her constant over-spending and scant regard for the precarious financial situation her company found itself in.

  ‘All of these are reasonable enough, but there’s something else. Some other piece of the jigsaw which will link it all together,’ Crosbie stated. ‘I need you to interview Martin again,’ he said directly to April. ‘I need you to ask some other questions for me.’

  Connor liked Crosbie the more he met him. He liked the fact that he had his detractors amongst the ranks. In many ways that meant he was doing his job properly and didn’t need to resort to pinning everything on ‘the local loony’ as forces up and down the land were guilty of doing time and again. Even though he was seen as a new breed of high-flier in the force, in Connor’s book he was an old-fashioned copper. He didn’t leap to conclusions. He’d been as sceptical of Martin Seth’s murder confession as April, even though it would have meant major Brownie points for both if they’d just taken Seth at his word. Connor saw a lot of himself in Crosbie. He was someone he not only admired but could easily see becoming a friend.

  April agreed to do a second round of interviews with Seth, confident within herself that he was no killer.

  Crosbie added, ‘I was going to bring him in again myself. But he won’t tell us anything under caution with his lawyer there. I have a hunch he may be ready to spill his guts to you though.’

  

  Martin Seth looked like he’d come to the end of the line. He had visibly aged since April had seen him last, and had lost so much weight he looked deathly ill. He somehow seemed to have shrunk, too. His six feet two frame, now bent double, no longer filled the room.

  ‘Where are the kids?’ April asked, sparking a flicker of emotion in Martin’s dead eyes.

  He mumbled, ‘With their nana and papa. It’s better they stay with them. Safer. More secure. They’ll be well looked after. Selina and I have some very decent life assurance policies, so we’ll be leaving them a good chunk of change.’

  April rummaged around in her bag for her tape recorder, as she could sense Martin was about to unburden himself. To confess. Maybe she’d even get the truth this time. He took no notice as she placed it on the coffee table between them, with its red light indicating it was recording. She then said softly, ‘Go on, Martin. Get it off your chest. I know you didn’t kill your wife. But I think you know who did.’

  

  Connor waited down the private lane outside the Seths’ home to allow April to interview Martin by herself. His car was concealed behind a hedgerow in a space used for turning on the narrow road. He got out for some fresh air. From his vantage point, he could make out part of the Seths’ front gate.

  Connor was just about to check his BlackBerry for emails when he caught a glimpse of a h
ooded figure darting to the Seths’ entrance. He felt a surge of panic. He immediately dialled April’s mobile as he dashed towards the gate. He was about to leap over the wrought-iron entrance when he was struck from behind.

  Before his lights flickered out, Connor berated himself for thinking the intruder was working alone when it was clear he had back-up. His last thought before he passed out was of poor defenceless April. He felt his BlackBerry being prised out of his hand as his attacker pressed the disconnect button. It wouldn’t have made any difference anyway as Connor’s call had gone straight to voicemail. As a rule, April always switched off her mobile while interviewing people. She considered it bad manners to be interrupted by it.

  But Martin Seth had his mobile on. It rang, playing a tinny-sounding version of ‘Flower Of Scotland’. April remembered that Martin was a huge rugby fan. And all Scotland rugby supporters loved the country’s unofficial national anthem, especially the verse about sending the English King Edward’s army home to think again.

  ‘Look, I told you no,’ Martin told his caller. ‘What do you mean this is my last chance? What are you going to do? Kill me? Well, I’ve got news for you, buddy. I’m already dead.’

  He hung up and stared at April offering no explanation. He then said sternly, ‘You should go. Go now. It’s not safe for you here.’

  April knew the confessional moment had been lost, but she went for it anyway. Speaking in her softest tone and touching his wrist lightly she whispered, ‘Tell me who killed her, Martin.’

  He averted his eyes, pulled his hand away from hers, and said, ‘She killed herself. She killed both of us. You should leave now. I have business to attend to.’

  April packed away her notepad and recorder, and made her way to the door, pausing to try one last time, even though she knew it was futile. ‘Are you sure you don’t have anything you want to tell me, Martin?’

  But his mind was elsewhere now. He gestured with his hand for her to leave, and she obeyed, showing herself out through the dimly lit hall and to the front door, which she noticed was slightly ajar.

  April suddenly felt an animalistic fear, but just a fraction too late. A pair of rough hands grabbed her from behind, restraining her wrists, while a rag was stuffed into her mouth. She tried to grapple with her assailant, and stamped her high-heeled shoes, slamming them down on one of his big toes. ‘Aargh, ya fucking bitch,’ he moaned. But it was her last act of self-defence, as a builder’s sack, made of tough white nylon, was pulled over her head to her waist. It was then bound tightly, and April felt two sets of large hands lift her up before throwing her onto what she suspected was the chaise-longue she’d spied in the hall.

  ‘She weighs a fucking ton,’ said one of her attackers.

  ‘Aye, you could do with losing a few stone, missus,’ the other one shouted in her direction.

  They both had broad Glaswegian accents. But the fact they’d been joking amongst themselves meant April no longer felt she was in any great danger. She couldn’t move, but she could breathe, and apart from being manhandled, she hadn’t been hurt. Her attackers hadn’t come for her. It was Martin they were after. She suddenly felt afraid for him.

  She could hear doors opening and slamming shut all over the house as the assailants looked for Selina’s husband. Heavy footsteps then thudded down the hall stairs and past April towards the front door. One of the men joked again, ‘Try WeightWatchers, love, because that seafood diet you’re on isnae working.’

  ‘Aye, the see food and eat it diet,’ the other quipped.

  They were clearly a double act – but they had also failed to get their man. Martin had escaped. April began to wonder if she’d get that confession after all.

  If only she could escape. ‘It’s alright,’ she thought, ‘Connor will be along soon.’ Suddenly a feeling of dread swept over her. ‘Oh my, I hope Connor’s alright.’

  

  Connor frantically untied the rope that bound the builder’s bag. He said, ‘Without trying to offend, you look like a big sack of rubble. There’s bits sticking out everywhere.’

  April replied with a mumble, which sounded suspiciously like, ‘Fuck you.’ She was from Ruchazie, after all, one of Glasgow’s rougher districts.

  Connor took pictures with his BlackBerry, which made a fake shutter sound with every snap.

  The sack moved around with a string of more mumbles.

  ‘It’s evidence, my dear, in case we need it. It’s also a damn good story,’ Connor added as he lifted the sack from April’s body.

  Even the hallway’s dim light made her blink as she adjusted to her newly restored vision. She could also see Connor was in pain as he grimaced with every movement. The flash went again followed by the shutter sound. He clearly wasn’t sore enough to stop taking pictures, she thought.

  Connor looked at her sitting there, her ankles still bound with plastic ties and her mouth gagged with a cloth and gaffer tape. He said, ‘Hey, you might finally lose some weight like this.’ He took another photo for good measure, then with a deftness of hand, so April wouldn’t expect it, he ripped the tape from her face.

  April’s eyes widened with the pain. She then spat the saliva-soaked rag from her mouth like a champagne cork from a bottle, and yelled, ‘Owwwww!’

  Connor inspected the sticky side of the tape, which was now covered with April’s fine facial hairs, and laughed, ‘Well, at least it’s saved you getting your moustache waxed for a while.’ He then sat down heavily on the chaise-longue beside his colleague and gingerly touched the back of his head.

  April asked, ‘Are you alright?’ before wrinkling her nose and saying in an accusatory tone, ‘Have you been drinking?’

  Connor managed a half smile. ‘I’ll live – and I wish. About fifteen minutes after you went in, I saw someone leap over the gate and ran down to see who it was. But someone else was waiting for me, and all I remember was a whack to the back of the head before waking up slumped in the back seat of my car covered in booze. They’d doused me in whisky in the off chance I was discovered by cops or someone who would think I was just sleeping off a heavy night. Which makes me believe it was a pro who whacked me.’

  April said, ‘Well, the two goons who grabbed me were a right couple of gorillas. They wouldn’t have been able to leap gazelle-like over any gates.’

  A light came on in Connor’s eyes as he said, ‘Then it was the goons who carried me back to the car.’

  They both said simultaneously, ‘Harris.’

  Connor continued, ‘It was Colin Harris I saw leaping over the gate. He’s small, wiry and athletic. He also doesn’t go anywhere without his two heavyweights. The question is did they get what they were coming for?’

  April said, ‘I don’t think so. The time they spent scuffling with me gave Martin the chance to escape. I guess he knew they were coming as he took a call just as I’m sure he was about to confess. He told the caller that there would be no deal and then ordered me to leave because it wouldn’t be safe. I dragged my feet a bit just in case I could get that confession from him but the moment had gone. When I got to the front door I was jumped.’

  Connor began tapping furiously on his BlackBerry sending the text, Did u gt him?

  A few seconds later the BlackBerry’s red light began to flash indicating Connor had received a message. It simply read, No.

  He replied: Betta luck nxt time. PS where did u gt a gag to fit April’s big gub?

  Colin Harris texted back: LOL.

  Connor showed April his reply.

  She said, ‘Did you know for years I thought LOL meant ‘lots of love’ instead of ‘laugh out loud’. I used to get quite worried when I’d get texts or emails from guys in the office. Why don’t people just write texts properly and grammatically correct. It would save a lot of misunderstanding in the world.’

  Connor replied, ‘LOM.’

  With a quizzical look April said, ‘LOM?’

  He laughed. ‘It’s your new acronym – Lots Of Misunderstandin
g.’

  ‘Now I’ve got a splash to file.’

  32

  Dim and Denser

  April sat in the Tesco café at Craigmarloch near the Seths’ family home. Connor had bought her a large tea, a roll and sausage covered in brown sauce with a Danish pastry to help her recover from her ordeal. He sat across from April and urged her to be quiet while he filed his copy.

  April was amazed how Connor could write thousands of words from his tiny hand-held BlackBerry. She could barely read the screen unless she was wearing her extra thick reading glasses. As he sat watching him tap, tap tapping away at the miniature keyboard, she thought of how she’d learned to type at De’meers secretarial college, under the auspices of Miss Denser. She had spent a year there, all for the dubious honour of graduating from De’meers college as a Denser student.

  Miss Denser was a Miss Jean Brodie type, an old spinster who looked as though she’d never cracked a smile in her life, never mind slept with a man. The school specialised in taking the dim-witted daughters of rich businessmen and teaching them secretarial basics, so that they could get a job in a large company and go on to marry other rich businessmen.

  April had got in on a local authority bursary, the only one to do so in her class, and Miss Denser had made sure she knew it. She tried to make April feel as if she had no right to be mixing with the upper crust of society, or wealthy halfwits as April referred to them.

  ‘Miss Tarte,’ she’d bellow, for that was April’s maiden name, one she’d been desperate to ditch for as long as she could remember, ‘you’ve done it wrong again.’

  A phrase that would follow April throughout her life.

  ‘You’ve done it wrong again’ could apply to her doomed marriages and to her decidedly dodgy IT skills. Hardly a day went by without Connor shouting the same phrase across the broom cupboard office as she attempted to use the online archive or their desktop publishing system Hermes – nicknamed Herpes by long-suffering staff.

  ‘You know they’re talking of replacing Herpes,’ Connor had casually mentioned one morning.

  Any technological changes brought April out in a cold sweat. Whenever she felt she had mastered an operating system, and by mastered she meant she could successfully log on and limit her calls to the IT department to just a few per week, then the company would replace it.

  Technology completely baffled her. She had no idea how the words Connor tapped into his BlackBerry would appear ‘as if by magic’, as she once let slip, in the following day’s newspaper.

  Connor had taken her by the arm and pointed to the sky and said, ‘See that big silver bird? We call that an aeroplane. An aer-o-plane.’

  After that she had kept her ‘as if by magic’ observations to herself.

  Miss Denser aside, the truth was, she had actually enjoyed De’meers college as most of the girls were all right. April made friends with a couple of them. She had forgotten their names now, but she did enjoy taking Daddy’s little princesses to rough pubs they would never have dreamt of frequenting, then laughing as they would get sozzled and snog the faces off apprentice tradesmen instead of the rugby captains they were being groomed for.

  But word of one of these little nightly excursions somehow slipped out and Miss Denser was furious. With a face like thunder, she made an attempt to address the class but it was abundantly clear her poisonous words were directed solely at the young freckle-faced girl from the wrong side of town.

  ‘I am told, from a very reliable source, that certain De’meers college students have been frequenting the Jacobite licensed premises.’ Miss Denser couldn’t bring herself to use the word ‘pub’. ‘Let me make one thing absolutely clear,’ she prattled on, ‘the Jacobite is not an establishment fit for a student of De’meers college, to be seen laughing, joking and drinking with young men. Now I know some of you may not have a reputation to uphold, but De’meers college most certainly does. And young ladies from De’meers college are representing our fine school at all times.’

  April could barely contain her tears of laughter. She loved the way Miss Denser saw no irony in the name De’meers college, but she simply couldn’t help herself when she decided to play along. April piped up in the style of Rumpole of the Bailey, ‘Miss Denser, these are very grave accusations, very grave indeed. I myself would never dream of entering such a tawdry establishment, but I have passed it once or twice and observed that there is frosted glass on all the windows and doors. So, I have come to the conclusion that your very reliable source, who allegedly witnessed students from De’meers college drinking and cavorting or whatever else – must have been inside the said Jacobite licensed premises at the time.’ April finished triumphantly. ‘Perhaps your reliable source could elaborate more and help us identify who these alleged students were?’

  You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife as Miss Denser looked as if she was about to spontaneously combust. The other students could barely stifle their giggles as they sat eyes down and waited to see what on earth would unfold next.

  Miss Denser marched to April’s desk and stuck her index finger in her face. ‘You, young lady,’ she spat, ‘are a bad egg.’

  The truth was, Miss Denser had been rumbled by April. Every week she’d let down her tightly wound grey bun, swapped her matronly grey suit for more casual clothes, donned some make-up and headed to the Jacobite for some very large whiskies.

  April and her friends wouldn’t have recognised Miss Denser even if she’d joined their company. They certainly wouldn’t have equated her with the ageing flirt at the bar pinching the backside of a married plumber.

  April was wrong about Miss Denser on one account though. She had slept with a man – just about every regular in the Jacobite as it happened.

  Connor snapped her out of her reverie. ‘Copy all done and filed. Come on, let me drop you off at home.’

  EXCLUSIVE by CONNOR PRESLEY

  THE WIDOWER of murdered jewellery tycoon Selina Seth was in hiding last night after a failed kidnap attempt.

  Martin Seth, 39, fled the family home in Dullatur, Cumbernauld, after three men broke into the £1.5 million mansion in a bid to abduct him.

  Daily Herald crime reporter Connor Presley was attacked during the botched raid.

  Connor, 39, was knocked unconscious by one of the assailants and a 58-year-old woman at the property – who refused to be identified – was bound and gagged.

  Both were taken to hospital before being released.

  Martin Seth’s whereabouts is unknown.

  It is believed a notorious crime lord was attempting to buy a share of Seth International – the multi-million pound company Martin co-owned with his late wife – even though the firm is said to be in financial difficulties since the brutal murder of Selina, 38, two weeks ago.

  Last night DCI Crosbie said: ‘We’re keeping an open mind.’

  33

  Payback

  ‘Fifty-eight! Fifty-bloody-eight!’ April remonstrated.

  ‘Well, none of us is getting any younger, my dear,’ Connor said, patronising his older colleague.

  ‘I am fifty-six, you moron,’ April seethed. ‘I know it’s a laugh to you, but management will look at the age fifty-eight in the paper and think, “Jeez, it really is time we got rid of old April. Look, she’s pushing sixty. Time to put her out to pasture.”’

  ‘Should have been done years ago,’ Connor coughed and muttered under his breath. ‘Look, it’s been a tough couple of weeks for you. You need to relax a little, you’ve aged terribly,’ Connor added, clearly enjoying his little wind-up, ‘and anyway, how do you know it was me? Maybe the subs changed it. Yeah, must have been the subs.’ He laughed, using the age-old reporter’s get-out clause.

  ‘And I take it the Weasel made you take out my name?’ she said.

  ‘Yip, I argued like fuck for it. Glad to see many others in the newsroom did, too, but he said it was company policy while someone was suspended … blah, blah, blah,’ Connor explained.

  The
piercing ringtone of Presley’s BlackBerry brought their conversation to a halt.

  Someone other than April was not happy with the article. Colin Harris was attempting to keep his temper – and failing miserably. ‘Connor, now everyone will think I murdered Selina. The fucking cops have been all over my pad this morning,’ Harris roared down the phone.

  ‘Consider it payback for the knock to my noggin,’ Connor replied in an attempt to keep the conversation jovial.

  ‘I may be a lot of things, but I don’t go around murdering women,’ Harris spat, getting angrier with every breath.

  ‘I know that, Colin. And the cops know that, too. You’re top dog around these parts, but you’re not the law. You can’t go around trying to kidnap legitimate business people who won’t do deals with you or assaulting journalists just because you feel you can. You have to stick to dealing with scumbags. That’s the natural order of things. The serious crime squad will see through any attempt by you to go legit. They’ll shut you down, Colin. Repossess everything. You’ll be fighting them in court for years.’ Connor concluded his lecture.

  There was silence at the other end of the line until Harris whispered menacingly, ‘Everything was going to plan before you blew it with these accusations.’

  Connor sighed. ‘Colin, think about it. You’re a clever man and more streetwise than I’ll ever be. Did you honestly think you could abduct the widower of the most famous murder victim in the land without it going unnoticed? It’s the Icarus effect, Colin. You started flying too high and now the heat is melting your waxwings. But you’ll survive and bounce back, a bit like Lazarus. You always do. This is just a little glitch.’

  ‘If you’re finished with your ancient analogies, this is more than a little glitch. It’s a fucking shit storm,’ Harris said through gritted teeth.

  Connor reluctantly admired the way Harris was well read. Despite leaving school unofficially at fourteen, he had made a point of reading many of the masters during his frequent bouts of incarceration, while his fellow inmates’ literary scope stretched no further than that week’s new wank mag.

  ‘Colin, we’ve always been as honest as we can with each other, so I’m telling you straight: we have pictures of the cops raiding your house from this morning. Just to let you know.’

  Harris swore under his breath before hanging up.

  

  The photos looked great, thanks to DCI Crosbie waiting until there was enough light at daybreak for some decent shots by two Daily Herald snappers.

  Unfortunately for Crosbie his alter ego hated early rises. He struggled to keep his inner monologue silent, attempting to cover up the odd ‘cock suckers’ and ‘motherfucker’ with a series of little coughs. But the rank-and-file officers were starting to gossip about their commanding officer being ‘a bit of a nutter’.

  Crosbie looked around Colin Harris’s plush home. ‘Tacky as fuck,’ his inner self said out loud. Crosbie couldn’t help but agree. From the white shagpile carpet to the white grand piano, a bit like John Lennon’s in his iconic ‘Imagine’ video. Crosbie took a step closer to read a plaque on the piano lid. It wasn’t like the Lennon piano – it was the Lennon piano.

  ‘Fuck me,’ Crosbie and his inner self said in unison.

  ‘Did you say something, sir?’ an officer behind him enquired.

  ‘Yes, be careful with that piano. It’ll make us a lot of money,’ Crosbie ordered.

  The detective was enforcing the Scottish government’s Proceeds of Crime Act, introduced in 2002. It had proved to be a useful law enforcement tool as the police could seize the assets of known criminal gangs with the onus on the suspect to prove that their BMWs, giant plasma screen TVs and homes had been purchased with legitimate money. Since most of the criminals rarely paid tax it was usually an open-and-shut case.

  But Colin Harris was no ordinary criminal. He insisted he had earned the bulk of his earnings from a series of bestselling books about his early crime career and claimed to have gone straight. In truth the paperbacks had sold a fraction of what Harris had said they had. However, it had allowed him to plough his profits from drug dealing into a series of legitimate businesses. His major problem was that his legitimate businesses grew at a much slower rate than his criminal enterprises, which is why he had been so keen to buy into Seth International. Although an ailing company in decline, thanks to its late co-owner’s lavish lifestyle, it was still a household name, and it would have provided Harris with the perfect platform to launder his illegal money. If it had all gone to plan, it would have made him a very, very rich man.

  Of course, the one thing many rich men fear is that someone will one day take it all away. It was the only thought that truly worried Harris. The eventual outright acquisition of Seth International would have allowed him to sleep more soundly at night.

  As John Lennon’s piano was carefully wrapped and wheeled into the back of a Pickford’s removal van, DCI Crosbie gave a wry smile. But his cheery mood soon disappeared as his other half made another appearance. ‘You should have kept the piano for me, you stupid cunt – I play like Liberace.’

  At around about the same time Colin Harris was being arrested by two detective sergeants on suspicion of attempted kidnap and assaulting two journalists. As he was read his rights and informed that anything he said may be taken down and used against him in a court of law, Harris muttered something under his breath. Even if the officers had heard him, they wouldn’t have understood what Harris had meant as he quietly whispered, ‘I owe you one, Elvis. I owe you big time.’

  34

  Jigsaw Pieces

  ‘Okay, what have we learned so far?’ Connor said as he began scribbling on a giant flipchart in the broom cupboard.

  April grinned. ‘Oh, this is exciting. It’s like being in a lecture. Not that I ever went to university. I would’ve loved to have been a student. Cost me enough to put Jayne through university, mind you. Not that she ever seems in the least bit grateful.’

  Connor interrupted, ‘April, focus!’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, I’m a terrible rambler. Please continue,’ she beamed with a flash of her gold incisor tooth.

  ‘I would never have known,’ Connor sighed. ‘Right. Selina Seth was brutally murdered by person or persons unknown. At the same time, we have a predatory, commuting serial killer on our hands. Coincidence? Or connected? Secondly, who would want to kill Selina?’ His red felt-tip pen scribbled furiously. ‘Martin Seth remains the prime suspect.’

  ‘Ach, I don’t know. I just don’t think he’s got it in him,’ April interjected through a mouthful of biscuit.

  ‘Your ample gut instinct aside,’ he said, pointedly removing his packet of biscuits from the desk and locking them in a drawer, ‘Martin Seth is still the main suspect. A crime so violent is usually one of passion. He’s been her human punch bag for years, putting up with her drug-induced mood swings, her clamour for the limelight and her celebrity lifestyle, while he’s left holding their business and family life together. My guess is he snapped. Maybe he followed his wife to that car park and saw her go down on god knows who. Whatever it was, Martin is in the frame. Then we have the prostitute Jackie McIvor, who unfortunately for the killer, was also the sister of Colin Harris, resident violent gangster of this parish. Harris is now hellbent on finding his sister’s killer, and I have a funny feeling he’ll beat the police to it. If that happens we’ll never see the killer brought to justice.’

  ‘Some might say justice will have been served,’ April pondered.

  ‘Maybe so, but god help us if we start turning to Harris and his type for their style of rough justice. You know he once burnt a man’s genitals to a crisp with a blowtorch, only to later admit he’d tortured the wrong man … We can also throw Chantal into the mix. Selina’s fake-tanned, boob-jobbed, drug-dealing, blackmailing former employee who was feeding her boss’s drugs’ habit directly from Harris.’

  ‘How do you know it was Harris?’ April enquired.

  ‘He told me. We
have a no-bullshit relationship – or at least we had. What he didn’t tell me was why he stuck Chantal in it. It must’ve been Harris who told Selina her dog’s body was skimming off five hundred pounds every week for herself. He probably leaned on her. Told Chantal not to talk to the press. But there had to be a reason. It wouldn’t have made any difference to Harris, as he got paid either way. He obviously wanted something from Selina, and I think I know what.’

  ‘Sex,’ April said with a glint in her eye, unable to contain the excitement in her voice.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. He can get that on tap from Chantal and her like. He’s a bad boy with money and power, and they seem to be an aphrodisiac to some women. I think Harris wanted in on Selina’s jewellery business. What better way to launder his drug money, than through a high-profile, celebrity-led business? I bet he even used Chantal’s blackmail case as leverage – possibly even encouraged the little trollop to threaten Selina. Then he could say to her, “If we were in business together, you wouldn’t have to go through Chantal’s type to get your gear.” ’

  ‘Oooh, this is great fun. What else do we know?’

  ‘Well, we don’t know who killed the prostitute.’

  ‘Couldn’t the prostitute killer also have witnessed Selina’s little tryst in the car park, then pounced when she returned to her car? I’m really getting into this detective stuff, I feel like Miss Marple.’

  ‘Missing marbles more like. But you may be onto something. Maybe the serial killer was in that car park, but I don’t think he killed Selina. Murderers like that don’t tend to stray into different social groups. He’s a prostitute killer. Someone like Selina is out of his league. Also he’d know that the cops’ investigation into a prostitute murder wouldn’t be of the same scale as that of a rich businesswoman like Selina. But I think you may be right. Maybe he was in that car park and witnessed Selina’s real killer. So what would a lowlife like him do with that sort of information?’

  April put her hand up as if she was in class. ‘Oh, oh, I know this – go to the police.’ She then berated herself before Connor had the chance. ‘Sorry, no, that was stupid. He’d blackmail Selina’s killer …’

  ‘Maybe, Miss Marbles. That would mean Selina’s real killer would have to be worth blackmailing. With knowledge brings power. If he hasn’t already, I have a funny feeling that Martin Seth will meet our serial killer. I’d love to be there when he does.’

  35

  A Highland Retreat

  Martin Seth had fled to the Highlands to take refuge in the family’s lodge. Now front-page news, the police, the press and his own family were all desperate to reach him, but they had little chance. He’d removed the battery from his phone and left it at home.

  He’d headed north to Rothiemurchus and the place he called his refuge. The Seths had spent some of their happiest times there. As winter approached, there was a permanent nip in the clean air, and the lodge offered a breathtaking view of the Cairngorms, whose rounded black peaks looked like a school of humpback whales.

  Martin loved the area for its miles of cycle tracks, which had taken the family on many adventures. Sometimes they would stop for a picnic by a stream on the sprawling Rothiemurchus estate or take a break in the Glenmore café, a rickety wooden affair on stilts, decorated with old postcards and skiing posters, where their children would shriek with excitement as the red squirrels, finches and occasional pine marten came down to the deck to feed on the ready supply of nuts.

  But best of all, it was in this romantic heart of the Highlands where Martin had felt close again to his wife. He had been besotted by Selina the moment he saw the tall, confident blonde at high school. She could have had the pick of the best-looking boys in her year, but for some reason she choose him. From that moment on, no matter how badly she treated him, he had always felt lucky that she’d chosen him.

  They fell in love together, although he always knew he loved her more than she loved him. They had lost their virginity with each other, and they became unplanned parents when Selina fell pregnant at just seventeen years old. This had not been part of her master plan. She refused to be yet another young, single mum from a Glasgow housing estate. Selina made sure that Martin quickly proposed before booking the first available date at the registry office. She would later claim she became pregnant on their short honeymoon then lie that the baby had arrived early.

  Selina had greatly resented being home alone with the child while Martin had scraped a living at the family garage. ‘This is not our future, Martin,’ she had once berated him. ‘I’m not going to stay at home cooking all day and changing shitty nappies as you work all hours for a crappy twelve grand – no way.’

  Selina was stretching the truth as usual. She was a terrible cook and barely knew how to turn on their cooker. Martin prepared most of the meals when he eventually got home shattered from fixing cars. As for changing nappies, he couldn’t recall how many times he’d walked through the front door to find a full nappy hanging off their toddler, while Selina sipped white wine and flicked through the latest celebrity gossip magazine. But, to her eternal credit, she did come up with a lucrative business idea, after studying the jewellery worn by the stars in her beloved mags.

  At first she unashamedly ripped off the designs, making her own copies on a DIY jewellery set at home. Her first efforts instantly sold out to her friends, who read all the same trashy mags and envied the same celebs as Selina. Then she advertised the designs online with the promise that you could ‘wear the same jewellery as the stars for a fraction of the price’.

  Selina was doing such a roaring trade making the jewellery at home she found looking after their toddler a major inconvenience. The baby was despatched to a childminder by day as Selina started working round the clock. By her third month of trading she had made Martin’s annual salary and ordered him to quit the garage to help her.

  Things were going well, until one of the major jewellery designers spotted the Seths’ cheap rip-offs on the net and threatened serious legal action. Selina quickly closed down the site and decided to go legit. She had always been a quick learner and soon came up with her own designs. Martin found his own role making everything tick behind the scenes, but it was his wife’s ambitious streak which continued to give the company momentum.

  Even falling pregnant again hadn’t slowed her down. Martin only prayed the second child was his, knowing full well his wife had started playing away from home.

  Soon television came calling. Selina was an ideal candidate for the daytime shows, as a successful businesswoman, wife and hard-working mother. The truth was, a nanny and grandparents now raised their children and there wasn’t a week that went by when she wasn’t in the arms of some man who wasn’t her husband.

  Just the thought of his wife kissing another man brought Martin out in a cold sweat. But here, at their lodge, with its spa pool on the wooden decking, its walls decorated with antlers from the estate’s reindeer herds, and its woodburning stove, there were no other men. Just the love they had once shared together as a family.

  Martin stood in the empty, dusty lounge and wept for the past, when his children still had a mother and he still had a wife.

  The only person to witness Martin’s distress was Osiris, standing in the fading autumnal light outside the lodge, enjoying the misery that was unfolding within. The killer had found it easy to pursue Martin, after he had seen him fleeing from his family home to head north. He smiled to himself. ‘Your day is about to get a whole lot worse.’

  36

  Cool Customer

  Colin Harris could be charm personified when he chose to be. Today was not one of those days. He sat alone in the interview room at Strathclyde Police headquarters waiting for DCI Crosbie. One of the overhead fluorescent lights flickered intermittently. Harris had never thought of himself as being photo-sensitive, but the strobe-like effect was making him feel physically sick.

  Crosbie stood outside the interview room quietly chuckling to himself as he watch
ed Harris’s obvious discomfort through the one-way observation hatch. He loved how even the hardest criminal would be left squirming under the faulty bulb’s insanely annoying flicker. ‘Who needs waterboarding when a dodgy light will do,’ he thought. ‘Time we went in and put Mr Harris out of his misery.’

  ‘Good morning, Colin,’ Crosbie said cheerfully.

  ‘It’s Mr Harris to you, where’s my lawyer and sort out that fucking light?’ Colin demanded.

  ‘Your lawyer is on the way and, oh, has that bloody light gone again? It’ll take me three memos before maintenance are dispatched – I may as well break a few Health and Safety rules and do it myself.’ As he climbed onto a chair beneath the offending light, Crosbie said, ‘That reminds me of that old joke, “How many policemen does it take to change a lightbulb? None – it turned itself in.”’ Crosbie laughed just a little too heartily at his own joke, before placing the fluorescent tube on the table and taking the seat opposite Harris.

  ‘Don’t mind if I wait here until your lawyer gets here, do you?’ Crosbie asked, not really caring what the answer would be. He was staying put.

  ‘My lawyer is going to free me and get all the stuff you’ve nicked back. And your plods better not have scratched my Ferrari,’ spat Harris.

  Crosbie chuckled to himself again, infuriating Harris even further. Truth was, the gangster’s £250,000 sports car was sitting in Crosbie’s parking space outside. He planned to drive it himself until he was told otherwise by his superiors.

  He could feel his inner self take over when he looked Harris straight in the eye and said, ‘The thing is, Colin, I don’t give a fuck what you do to journalists. Like taxmen they serve a purpose but it doesn’t mean we have to like them.’ Crosbie could hear the words tumbling from his mouth but knew he was powerless to intervene. The DCI’s ‘dark side’ continued: ‘But I do have a problem with you trying to muscle in on a dead woman’s business. What an arrogant prick you really are.’

  Harris opened his mouth to protest then thought better of it.

  ‘To think you could lean on Martin Seth when his wife is at the centre of a major murder inquiry. Well, this shit storm I’ve brewed up for you is a little reminder, Colin, that you don’t operate above the law. I can fuck with you whenever I like. And I like it, Colin. I like it a lot because I am a bad motherfucker.’

  Harris knew a fellow psycho when he saw one. He wasn’t scared – he never was – but he also knew just how unpredictable they could be.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Before Crosbie got up to let the lawyer in, Harris stared at the detective and said, ‘That may be so, but I’ll still catch my sister’s killer before you do.’

  37

  An Unexpected Guest

  ‘Hello,’ Osiris said without emotion, as Martin opened the lodge door to him. ‘We need to talk.’

  Martin said nothing and calmly closed the door behind the killer. It was almost as if he’d been expecting this moment. ‘Tea? Coffee? Something stronger?’ he asked his uninvited guest.

  Osiris stood casually by the woodburning stove, an elbow on the old railway sleeper that had been converted into a mantelpiece. His right hand was thrust deep inside his waterproof jacket. He stood poker straight. His thin build and posture made him look taller than his five foot eight frame. He never once took his eyes off Martin, who was slumped exhausted in the couch facing him.

  Osiris wasn’t an emotional being, certainly not in the conventional sense at least. He had feelings, but for all the wrong things. He loved being in control, having the power to manipulate people and their circumstances. He thrived on having the choice over life and death, but he had a use for the broken shell of a man who sat before him, who barely had the energy to make eye contact.

  Martin would either agree to his proposals or die right here tonight in the lodge. As far as Osiris was concerned, it was a no-brainer. He hoped Martin wouldn’t force him to kill him, but he had a feeling Seth might choose death as the easier option.

  38

  The Pussy Cat

  April was exhausted. Everything from being bundled into a builder’s sack to her suspension was beginning to take its toll. But it was the thinking, the constant whirring of her brain as she tried to work out who did what and what to do next that really drained her. She often wondered what it would be like to have a simple job like a shelf-stacker where she wouldn’t have to engage her brain.

  April had once made the mistake of expressing this to Connor, who had snapped back, ‘Working in Asda wouldn’t have bought you your big house.’ Of course, he was right.

  Whenever she was feeling down she would visit her rich friend Flo, who lived in Bearsden, one of Glasgow’s more salubrious suburbs. Like April, Flo had been married and divorced a number of times, too. Her last one hadn’t been a total disaster though. Her husband owned a substantial steel company and had cheated on her with his secretary. Unfortunately for the wayward husband, new divorce laws had seen partners entitled to not only fifty per cent of previous earnings, but of future earnings, too.

  Flo’s £17 million divorce settlement had set a Scottish record. As she had said to her ex as they left court, ‘Your secretary was one expensive fuck. I hope she was worth it.’

  Since then Austrian-born Flo had turned into a Cougar – a mature, rich woman who pursued younger men. She had loved the freedom her independent wealth had brought her and enjoyed clubbing and having sex with men who were often younger than her sons. As she had once said to April, ‘I don’t feel guilty at all, darling. Men have been screwing woman half their ages since time began. It’s time we caught up.’

  Flo looked fabulous. She had an air of someone with money. She was slim, trim and toned from gruelling sessions with her personal fitness trainer – ‘Both in and out of the gym, darling.’ She had new breasts and even a ‘designer vagina’ she had once shown April with pride.

  April had never thought front bottoms were particular attractive, her own especially, but she couldn’t help but admire Flo’s. ‘That is one perfect pussy,’ April had observed before they dissolved into fits of laughter.

  Although their lives were now worlds apart, the pair had remained firm friends for over thirty years.

  As Flo opened a second bottle of chilled Chablis, April poured her heart out about work, being suspended and then bound and gagged.

  ‘Oh, I knew I had something to tell you, darling,’ Flo suddenly remembered. ‘Selina was screwing your boss.’

  ‘What!’ April spluttered.

  ‘Ya, your editor. Fair hair, side parting, slippery sort – married, of course, can’t remember his name, such an inconsequential man.’

  ‘Nigel Bent?’

  ‘Ya, that’s him.’

  ‘Flo, are you absolutely sure? This is serious.’ April was back in professional mode.

  ‘Yes, darling. I met them at some function. They were trying their damnedest to ignore each other so people wouldn’t suspect, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her. I think the poor man was in love. I was sitting next to Selina. She’d drunk a fair bit and she told me. She was like that, you know, very boastful. Frankly, I didn’t see much to boast about. But, as we all know, love is blind.’

  April took a while to digest all this information – she knew it was dynamite. ‘I need more drink, more nibbles, Flo. Come on, make with the nibbles. I need brain food,’ she demanded.

  ‘Oh, you’re such a glutton, my chubby little darling. But I do love you,’ Flo grinned as she headed to the kitchen. She always made sure she was well stocked when April came to visit.

  39

  The Angel of Death

  Wanting to die is a very strange feeling. Martin didn’t want to share his suicidal feelings with anyone because he knew what their advice would be: see your doctor, get a course of antidepressants, talk about it with a counsellor. Martin wanted none of these things. The thought of taking ‘happy pills’ just depressed him more and he was never the ‘Let’s get your feelings out
in the open’ type either.

  It wasn’t a cry for help. Martin really did want to die. He was a shell of a human being. Where there had once been love, hope, ambition, excitement, there was now nothing but apathy and failure. He had failed hopelessly at being a husband. He had failed to fight to save his marriage, allowing his wife to come and go as she please with whomever she wanted.

  He’d often wondered how it had all come to this. They had once been so in love. Now he was a widower he couldn’t even face up to being a parent and all the duties that went with it. He didn’t want to think about his kids, painfully aware that he planned to leave them orphaned.

  But he could feel Osiris’s eyes boring into him and somehow felt the stranger was looking directly into his soul.

  ‘I know who killed your wife. I saw him with my own eyes,’ Osiris said, staring straight at Martin.

  Martin momentarily lost his dead-eyed look. There had been a flicker of light as his old confident self tried to resurface. Osiris knew he was taking a gamble, but he’d calculated it was worth it. His self-help guru had encouraged him to make a ‘life plan’. He could hear the whining American voice say, ‘If you don’t know what you want in life, then how the hell will anyone else?’

  How ironic, he thought, that he was now using these mantras for evil. But with a steady income from Seth International for professional services rendered for the revenge killing of Selina’s murderer, Osiris would be free to roam and kill around the country at will. He would no longer need to lead his double life as a transport manager by day and serial killer by night.

  And if Martin said no? He’d hang him from the rafters of this very chalet, as who in their right mind would think it was anything other than the suicide of a guilty man. ‘So, what’s it going to be, Martin? Stick or twist?’ Osiris felt a little corny trotting out such a phrase but it seemed to fit the moment. ‘Are we going into business? You, the widowed entrepreneur. Me, the silent partner. Or silent assassin if you like.’

  But Martin’s eyes had returned to their trance-like state. The man simply wasn’t capable of bouncing back off the ropes. In Osiris’s dark heart he realised the man who stood before him must truly have loved Selina, even though Osiris had seen for himself the slut she really was.

  He gently placed the noose over Martin’s head. The widower didn’t even flinch, almost welcoming the actions of his angel of death. This would most definitely be a mercy killing. But, all the same, Osiris would still enjoy watching him die.

  

  Out of all the hundreds of erroneous pieces of information Colin Harris had received, he finally took the call he had been waiting for.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said, trying to contain the excitement rising in his voice. ‘Where was it and what did he look like?’ Colin jotted down the details. ‘And the car? I need to know what he was driving.’ His face fell. ‘What d’you mean you can’t remember what type of car it was? Come on, think. You must recall something about it.’ A smile slowly crept across the face of one of Glasgow’s most feared gangsters. ‘Yeah, I guess that’ll do instead,’ he said, chuckling to himself as he wrote down the full licence plate number the caller had memorised. The tip-off would cost him £100,000 if it led to his sister’s killer, but for Harris to have his revenge it would be worth every penny.

  The money he spent keeping one of Scotland’s leading lawyers on a retainer was also worth its weight in gold. He was out on bail after being charged with the attempted kidnap of Martin Seth. It meant Colin Harris was once again a free man. But now he was angry. And when he was angry, he was even more dangerous.

  40

  An Indecent Proposal

  April had just enjoyed a long, leisurely lunch at Risotto, an easygoing Italian restaurant where she often spent entire Sunday afternoons. Sometimes she would take Jayne, but they would usually end up bickering. Therefore, if she truly wanted to relax, eat and read the Sunday Times over a bottle of wine, then she went to Risotto alone.

  April knew the owner Luigi well. Sadly, Luigi’s wife had died six months ago from cancer. April had lent a sympathetic ear on her regular weekend visits, hearing in minute detail how the aggressive form of lung cancer she’d contracted had rampaged through her body. She could always connect with other people’s sorrow, as she had suffered too with the loss of the child she never, ever talked about to anyone. That’s what made her writing so heartfelt.

  Luigi pulled up a chair and sat down next to April. He had aged terribly over the last year as his beloved Maria had fought in vain against the disease. He now had sad, baggy eyes. The twinkle had long gone out of them. ‘Aw, April,’ he sighed, ‘Am-a feeling right sorry for masel, so am are.’

  Luigi’s accent was a curious mix of strong Napoli Italian and broad Glaswegian. Sometimes he’d switch between the two mid-sentence.

  April put a consoling hand on his knee and said, ‘I know, Luigi. You’ll never forget Maria, but it will get better. And she would hate to see her Luigi so depressed.’

  He managed a half smile. ‘You’re right. She’d say to me, “Hey, Luigi, your-a face is scaring all the customers away – now cheer-a up-a.”’ He changed the subject. ‘Now, April, tell-a me. How is the hunt-a going for this-a mad-a-man you are writing about in the news-a-paper?’

  April actually hated talking about stories in her time off – more so now she was suspended from duty. She was an old-school journalist in that when something was written and filed, it was instantly forgotten about. She didn’t even like recalling stories for people socially. All the detail had gone into her copy, and she actually couldn’t recall most of it, even if she’d wanted.

  On more than one occasion April would take a call from someone and it would be clear that she didn’t have a clue who they were. When they explained they were the subject of April’s centre spread that day, the penny would finally drop. ‘Oh yes,’ she would lie, ‘of course. I know who you are.’

  The fact was, April had written the story a week before it made the paper and it was long gone from her mind.

  Luigi continued, ‘I may-a have-a some-a news for you. My cousin visits the red-a light-a district. He likes-a the whores. He’s an arsehole. But he-a saw something one-a night that might be useful to you. He cannae go to the cops, of course. His-a wife would a kill him. And no bloody wonder.’

  Luigi told April that his randy cousin had witnessed a prostitute being attacked in a car then dumped in the street. It was important enough for April to fish out a dog-eared notepad from her handbag and jot down some shorthand.

  ‘That’s very interesting. Very interesting, indeed,’ April told him truthfully.

  ‘It’s-a even better, my dear. He has this …’ Luigi showed April his mobile phone. After rooting around in her handbag she eventually found her reading glasses and could see the image he was trying to show her.

  The information which had cost the ruthless gangster Colin Harris £100,000 April had just got for free.

  ‘There’s-a something else, April,’ Luigi said, suddenly looking sheepish. ‘Will you marry me?’

  

  It had barely gone nine o’clock on Monday morning when Connor received his first text message of the day: B R N jst a month. Tel Marvel 2 gt back on on ;). He loved trying to decipher April’s text messages. They were a typical mix of abbreviations and emoticons, some of which he was convinced were just typos, but what made them so unique was that April had been unable to switch off her mobile’s predictive text option. Unfortunately, there was no software, however advanced, that could predict what April was thinking.

  Connor had got pretty adapt at working them out all the same.

  B R N jst a month. ‘Easy,’ he thought to himself, ‘Be there in just a mo,’ as the predictive text always turned mo into ‘month.’

  Tell Marvel 2 get back on on ;). Well, since they had arranged to meet in the Peccadillo, Marvel would be the waitress Martel. And the back on on had to be ‘the bacon on’.

 
Some folk had their crosswords or their Suduko. Connor had April’s texts. The Enigma code breakers at Bletchley Park could not have done better.

  He texted her back in plain old-fashioned English: Try to be a bit quicker than a month, you BOC (that’s Batty Old Cow), and I’m sure MARTEL already has the bacon on.

  April was soon tucking into a Peccadillo breakfast special. Connor opted for a simple bowl of muesli.

  He studied her with a wry smile as she told all about Luigi’s unexpected marriage proposal in between great mouthfuls of food. Connor fully expected her to die this way, inhaling a whole link sausage during a long, inane explanation about hanging baskets or whatever else had happened to her that weekend. Like a pensioner having a heart attack on a golf course, at least she’d pass away doing what she enjoyed the most.

  Suddenly, Connor’s mind clicked into focus, and it had nothing to do with the lecherous old Italian trying to get his end away. ‘Did you say Luigi’s cousin might have seen our killer?’

  ‘Oh yes, I almost forgot, after he got me all flustered with asking for my hand.’ April rooted around in her handbag, ‘Here it is,’ she announced, producing the old notepad and studiously flicking through the pages. ‘A red Ford Mondeo. And its licence plate.’

  ‘Are you sure, April? Are you sure that’s the number plate?’ Connor asked emphatically.

  ‘Oh yes, look,’ April said, shoving her mobile phone in his face. There was a grainy picture of a Red Mondeo, with its fuzzy number plate. ‘Bluetooth,’ she announced triumphantly, ‘Jayne showed me how to switch it on and Luigi just transferred his cousin’s photo to my phone.’

  ‘Wonders will never cease,’ Connor said with a touch of pride. ‘You may be a BOC but you always come up trumps.’ He kissed her affectionately on the forehead.

  ‘Luigi kissed me there as well, but the dirty old bastard also managed to cop a feel of my tits, too.’

  ‘Who said romance was dead?’ Connor grinned.

  

  Colin Harris was also having bacon for breakfast. He had tucked a linen napkin into his collar to prevent any grease dripping onto his expensive Gucci suit.

  He was no stranger to fine wining and dining. Glasgow’s famous seafood restaurant Rogano’s, nestled between Royal Exchange Square and Buchanan Street, could always find a table for Colin Harris even at their busiest times. In fact, he’d worked there on his bestselling autobiography, A Matter of Life and Death, with his biographer Big Mac. But this morning it was in the dank basement under the floorboards of the Portman bar that Colin found himself, dictating to three monstrous men who sat around the scruffy wooden table, lifeless pints of Tennent’s lager in their massive hands even at this early hour.

  Harris said, ‘We know the number plate was false’ – the gangster had discovered that information illegally from a ‘contact’ who had access to the vast database at the DVLA in Swansea – ‘but that doesn’t matter as we know the car and have an accurate description of our man. Now we’ve got to have our peelers out everywhere to catch him. He will surface again, twats like that are incapable of lying low, and when he does, I want him alive. Understand? No one is to touch him until I get there.’

  Harris gave each of the three goons a bulging envelope, adding, ‘That’s five grand each, another five when you nail him.’

  Tracking down Osiris had cost Harris heavily so far, what with the reward money he had to pay his informant, the £10,000 each for his heavies, and the £5,000 sweetener for his DVLA mole. But he would have paid ten times that to catch his sister’s killer.

  ‘Happy hunting, guys,’ Harris said with a sadistic grin as the monstrous men headed for the steep steps that led from the basement to a trap door behind the Portman’s bar.

  None of the regulars batted an eyelid as the three gorillas squeezed themselves through the narrow service hatch and headed for the exit. The same way the regulars never saw a thing when the heavies would occasionally bundle a stranger through the same trap door to the hell that lay beneath.

  41

  A New Recruit

  DCI Crosbie was now working on a triple murder inquiry. He knew every detail of the deaths of Selina Seth and the prostitute Jackie McIvor, but this morning he was staring at a new autopsy report – for Martin Seth.

  Martin’s death fell under the jurisdiction of the Northern Constabulary, since his body had been discovered at the Seths’ family lodge near Aviemore, but as Martin had been the prime suspect in the murder of his wife, Crosbie had been asked to work with his Highland colleagues on the case.

  In the usual non-emotional and clumsy writing style of the head pathologist, the autopsy papers detailed how Martin had been killed: ‘Death by restriction of the airway caused by hanging. But it is the view of this pathologist that the euthanasia had been staged as the overturned chair was a foot too short for the height required for the deceased to place his head through the noose, meaning he either expertly jumped from the chair, placing his head in the noose, then was able to tighten it mid-air – which is theoretically possible – or that his head was placed in the noose at ground level and he was hoisted by assailant(s) unknown into a hanging position.’

  Crosbie smiled to himself. ‘Typical pathologist, always covering their arses. Of course it’s “theoretically possible”. It’s theoretically possible I could shag Claudia Schiffer but it ain’t going to fucking happen.’

  So, someone killed Selina Seth. Someone else murdered Jackie McIvor. Colin Harris tried to either kidnap or blackmail Martin Seth – or both – and now Martin was dead.

  DS Cruickshank burst into the room. ‘Any leads, Crosbie? Anything at all? Or will we wait until the killer keeps on killing until we catch the fucker red-handed? What the fuck is going on, Crosbie? What the fucking hell is going on?’

  Crosbie had never heard Cruickshank swear before. He feared it would spark off a response off the Richter scale from his inner self, however, he remained eerily calm and in a measured, assured tone, replied, ‘Just one more day, sir, and I’ll know where we’re going and start making arrests. I need just one more day.’ This statement was said more in hope than anything. Now he desperately needed to hire an ageing new recruit.

  

  The staff rep Davie Paterson was as gruff as usual when he called April. ‘How you getting on, old yin? Got your head screwed back on yet?’

  April sighed but didn’t give much away. ‘Yeah, hanging in there, thanks.’

  Paterson lowered his voice as if making a confession. ‘Look, I’ve been asking about, to get a feel for what the company really want from this whole disciplinary nonsense, and it’s not looking good, April. They want you out.’ He let the phrase hang there, to allow it time to sink in, before continuing, ‘It looks like you’ve made an enemy of the Weasel, and Bent has no intention of calling off his Rottweiler. You’re screwed, my dear, unless you have a joker up your sleeve. If not, then it’s a case of getting as much out of them as possible. They’re trying to wriggle out of giving you the full amount, with this gross misconduct rap. But that won’t stand up in a tribunal when you say they put you under undue pressure. By my calculations you’ve been here twenty-five years. You’re due a month for every year’s service, plus your three months’ service and anything else we can try to lob in. You should be walking out that door with about two and a half years’ wages, but these two cunts just aren’t playing ball. They want to sack you. We could claim anything from sexual harassment to age discrimination. No hang on, you’re mad as fuck, right? Have you ever had that properly checked out? If a kind doctor would go on record to say you have early-onset Alzheimer’s, then that would go down as a disability. And if they discriminated against a disabled person then, Jeez, April, the sky’s the fucking limit. Screw the thirty-one months’ pay-off, we could be looking at three years. That’ll give you a nice little retirement pot, eh?’

  April broke into her customary throaty laugh, thanked Davie for his help and encouragement and hung up. Sh
e then dried her eyes and cheeks of the tears that had been streaming down her face. He’d hit a nerve. Early-onset Alzheimer’s was a fear she lived with every day. Both her folks had suffered with it. They had not only forgotten each other’s names, but even the fact that each other had even existed. When they were put into separate nursing homes, both would regularly be found in other patients’ beds, thinking that was their partner.

  Connor called a few minutes later, sending April off on one again. She sobbed how she feared she’d end up like her parents. But if she expected to hear sympathetic words down the line then she should have known better. Instead, Connor chuckled then said, ‘Ach, what are you worried about? You’d be none the wiser. And anyway, think of it like this – with Alzheimer’s, every day would be like an adventure with all those new people to meet. It wouldn’t be any different from how you are now – you can’t remember anything from the day before anyway.’

  Connor made April laugh. She appreciated his easy ability to put life into perspective. She’d always been a mad old bat. Last week she’d even forgotten it was Jayne’s birthday, which had led to a week of frostiness. When her daughter finally confronted April about her forgetfulness, she’d laughed it off as not being important because ‘it’s only your twenty-ninth birthday anyway’, only to be informed that it had actually been her milestone thirtieth.

  ‘Right, have you stopped all this self-pity pish?’ Connor said, ‘Because we have work to do.’

  

  Connor had also made a call to a contact who had instant access to the DVLA computer and asked him to run a check on the registration number April had got via Luigi’s kerb-crawling cousin. Ironically, it was the same ‘mole’ who had charged Harris £5,000. But it would cost the reporter next to nothing, except perhaps a few pints in the pub, as his contact was also his cousin Robert.

  Robert said, ‘It’s a false plate, Elvis, but listen, someone else called in that exact number, too.’

  Connor now knew for certain he was on the right track. Getting caught acquiring the services of a prostitute wasn’t nearly as serious as driving around with a fake set of number plates. Obtaining fake plates was far more difficult these days since new government regulation meant you had to produce a vehicle registration form along with proof of identity and address. That meant the driver of the red Mondeo had probably had his false plate – or several plates – made up for a while. It also meant he was a professional. The fact that Colin Harris was on the case too only confirmed it.

  Connor could do one of two things. He could tell the Weasel and his editor Bent everything he knew. They would then splash something along the lines of ‘The red Mondeo Suspect’ and every unfortunate middle-aged man driving a red Ford would be pulled by the police or open to vigilante attacks. Or, he could use the information to actually catch the bastard. Connor chose the latter.

  He could not mobilise the same number of street contacts as quickly and as efficiently as the gangster but he could get access to the city’s extensive CCTV network via DCI Crosbie.

  Now he knew the make, model and colour of the car he was after, even if the killer changed the fake plates again, they would still be able to nail him, and quickly. But he needed bait. He knew the killer was not particularly fussy. If it was the same man who had been carrying out attacks over the years then he had targeted the young, old, skinny and fat. Dominating his victims and inflicting fear and pain were the name of his game.

  Connor knew a woman who had the guts and wherewithal to act as bait. A very big piece of bait to catch a ferocious predator. He phoned April again. ‘Sorry to interrupt you while you’re no doubt eating, but I need you to be a streetwalker for the night.’

  ‘Sure,’ April said without pause, ‘maybe I’ll bump into Luigi’s cousin, the dirty bastard.’

  

  ‘Hmmm,’ DCI Crosbie pondered out loud, ‘I hope you know, you’ll be taking one big tit fucking risk.’

  ‘Well put,’ April smiled.

  Crosbie ignored her, letting his foul mouthed stream of consciousness continue, ‘It’s just a twating hunch, but I think Connor could be right that our prostitute killer prefers older streetwalkers. Jackie McIvor was just a murder of convenience. There have been many older sex workers killed or badly assaulted down south over the years. Some have been linked, most haven’t, but I’ve got a feeling the English killer has been moonlighting north of the border. I’d prefer to use a policewoman, but I think it’d be better if I used your services. Our killer will be able to spot an undercover policewoman at one thousand yards. Don’t ask why but they can always smell a copper. Using you also means I don’t have to run it past my dog wanking superior Cruickshank, who’s on my case night and day. Not that I have much choice. Elvis here told me in no uncertain terms I was only getting the photo of a suspicious car with the dodgy licence plate if you were both involved in the case.’

  ‘That’s all well and good, but what, exactly, is in it for me?’ April asked.

  ‘Well, maybe if you help catch one of the killers you’ll keep your job,’ Crosbie said.

  ‘And …’ April demanded.

  ‘And … I’ll run a background check on the Weasel for you. Deal?’ he said hopefully.

  ‘Ach, what else have I got to do with my time anyway? I’m suspended. And if I get the sack, at least I’ll have a head start going on the game.’

  42

  Cut and Thrust

  The broom cupboard was pretty lonely without the constant chatter from across the desk. Connor missed April’s ramblings. He could still recall a recent conversation about her kitchen saga. Before he had barely been able to take his coat off one morning, April had been in full flight. ‘Do you know Liz Cowley from advertising? Of course you do, big, hefty lass with too much make-up. Well, her best friend Heather is going out with a joiner who’s just got her pregnant. Well, I got him to fit my kitchen units, and what a mess, by the way. He’s made a total pig’s ear of it. Everything’s skewiff.’

  Connor had laughed as April retold this tale while wearing a pair of squint, mangled glasses she’d obviously sat on for the umpteenth time. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, barely pausing for breath, ‘I went right through him for his shoddy workmanship, and do you know what he did?’

  ‘Shat himself?’ Connor asked hopefully.

  ‘Almost as bad – he cried. Seriously, stood their bubbling like a big baby. I told him he’d need to pull himself together now he’s going to be a dad. What a mess to get himself in getting Liz Cowley’s best friend Heather pregnant and mucking up my kitchen units.’

  The memory evaporated as the broom cupboard door flew open and the Weasel strode in. ‘How’s one half of Scotland’s best crime-fighting duo this morning?’

  ‘Fine,’ Connor replied straight-faced, ‘and how’s Scotland best ever news editor?’

  The Weasel chose not to reply to the quip. Instead, he hit Connor with his morning mantra of, ‘What have you got for the schedule?’

  ‘I could do you a cutts job on Scotland’s unsolved murders if that’s any use? Because apart from that I have nothing else on,’ Connor smiled, just to make sure he got right up the Weasel’s nose.

  The news editor’s beady little eyes narrowed. If Connor had been a junior reporter, he’d have bawled him out across the editorial floor and then called him at midnight to demand he do an early morning stakeout, a tactic he had used all too often to erode the fragile confidence of those starting out in the business. Instead he decided to bide his time and snapped, ‘Cutts job it is, and since you’ve no real stories you can rewrite a press release, too,’ before tossing a sheet of A4 onto Connor’s desk.

  Connor’s heart sank. Press release rewrites were the bane of a journalist’s life, usually government surveys or private sector research which tried to present itself as hard news facts in return for a plug in the paper. They were mostly dubious at best – the condom makers who claimed their brand was used more often in Scotland per head of
population than anywhere else in the world. The helpful PRs even supplied headline suggestions, adjusted to the style of the papers they targeted, so the red tops would receive Randy Scots Are Top Of The Bonks while more upmarket publications would receive Scots Are Top Of The Love League.

  It was all nonsense as far as Connor was concerned. But desk heads loved these press releases because they were cheap, filled a space and gave them something for their schedules. ‘And they wonder why circulations are plummeting,’ thought Connor. He turned to the copy and deliberately misspelled the name of the contraceptive brand throughout in the hope that it wouldn’t get picked up by the subs and make it into the paper.

  It had just gone 11 a.m. and he’d already done his work for the day. It would buy him some much needed time to execute the plan he had hatched with April and DCI Crosbie. But first he needed to visit an old friend.

  

  April had decided to treat her daughter Jayne to lunch in Windows restaurant on the top floor of the Carlton George Hotel. April loved the place. It was so intimate and sunny, with views across George Square and the city’s rooftops.

  She had done many interviews there over the years, before the Weasel had banned ‘entertaining’ on expenses. That had been like having a limb cut off. If a journalist couldn’t entertain on company expenses, then they were immediately at a disadvantage, as far as she was concerned. Sure, the system had been battered and abused over the years, mostly by newspaper executives who didn’t think twice about adding bottles of champagne to the bill, but meanwhile foot soldiers like April sweated over ordering a couple of cappuccinos.

  A good lunch never failed to get a good interview. When people were relaxed they revealed things they’d never told the press before.

  Then there had been the time April had recommended this same hotel to the head PR at Camelot, who ran Britain’s National Lottery. They would bring their jackpot winners to the boutique hotel to meet the press, and the PR would make sure she gave April a little titbit or two more that’d give her a better angle than the rest of the press pack.

  April loved Lottery winners. Factory worker syndicates always looked so uncomfortable in their new suits and frocks, and whenever the photographers asked the winners to give a cheesy kick for the cameras, the labels from their newly purchased shoes would be clearly visible on the soles.

  April often thought of journalism as acting. Each story was like a different role. One day it would be health, the next a death knock, or a showbiz sit down. The job certainly had its moments, but the highs were fewer and more far between than the day-to-day drudgery. She would be acting out a new role tonight and was beginning to feel a little anxious about her stint as a hooker. What if she was picked up by this psycho? What if he killed her? Crosbie had assured her she would be safe, but what if something went wrong? And what legacy would she leave behind if she were murdered? Would people say she’d been a good journalist but a bad mother?

  That’s why she had decided to call Jayne. After they had ordered, Jayne had asked her what was up. April had welled up and eventually told her daughter everything, from being suspended and how her mean bosses were trying to get rid of her on the cheap to tonight’s dangerous mission. The two women had talked for hours, the first time they had spoken to each other so honestly and openly in years.

  At the end of their lunch Jayne had kissed her mum and hugged her tightly. April Lavender no longer felt like a useless mother. Jayne had said, ‘Sometimes we all just need a hug.’

  April now had her fighting spirit back. And she was ready to catch a killer.

  43

  Farewell to a Friend

  Badger looked terrible. His face was gaunt and his skin so grey it was practically transparent. He was lying on top of his sheets, with a pair of paper trousers barely covering his modesty. His face lit up when he saw his protégé. He uttered, ‘Elvis, how you doing?’ before his voice was replaced by a hacking cough.

  He wasn’t able to speak again for several minutes. He tugged at the knees of his paper trousers. ‘Pretty snazzy, eh? I was thinking of going jigging in them later on. Give it some of my John Travolta moves.’ He was on a roll now. ‘The beauty with these is, if you shit yersel, they just tear them off and give you a new pair. I wish I’d known about them years ago.’

  They both laughed which sparked off another prolonged coughing fit for Badger. When his chest finally calmed down, they sat together with smiles on their faces.

  It was Badger who spoke first. ‘So, how’s old April shaping up?’

  ‘Not so great, Badg, but she’s a tough old burd,’ Connor told him before silence ensued again.

  Badger sighed. ‘Newspapers are not what they used to be, Elvis. I’ve worked under my fair share of editors, many of them drunks and hotheads, but, boy, they were good. They knew instinctively what their readers wanted, what was a Daily Herald story. They worked you hard but you always wanted to go the extra mile for them. And they’d always buy you a pint afterwards. But this new breed are not only vindictive, they’re fucking hopeless. Can you imagine someone like Danny Brown treating April this way? No chance. If she fucked up, Danny would be the first to bollock her, but then that would’ve been it. End of story, the next day it would all be forgotten – the way it should be. Now we have a little cunt like the Weasel terrorising his staff, psychologically wearing the poor bastards down, going out of his way to end careers, and for what? His own pleasure, the twisted little fuck. I just can’t understand their mentality. How does a frightened, demoralised staff produce exciting stories? They don’t, then year in, year out the quality of the papers drops as fast as their circulation.’

  Badger realised he was ranting and gave a shrug. Connor had a slightly more pragmatic view. He believed many journalists did have a sell-by date. He hated the old codgers kicking around newsrooms, boring everyone with their tales from their glory days. That sort of banter was fine for the boozer but not when everyone else was trying to work.

  Badger had been different. He had continued to produce the same stunning range of stories and investigations until the day he’d been forcibly retired. He had called it his ‘freelance mentality’, explaining to Connor, ‘Treat every working day as if you’re a freelance – no stories, no pay. Too many of these staff cunts think they can cruise by on a story or two a week. Hell’s teeth, in the old union days with overstaffing some writers didn’t bother their typewriters for months on end. But who the hell wants to sit around doing nothing? Not me.’

  He concluded their chat on an upbeat note. ‘Look, the industry has changed. People now read their news on their bloody smartphones rather than on newsprint, but remember, Connor, good writing, however it’s delivered, will never go out of fashion. And you’re good. In fact, I don’t think you know just how good you are. So don’t let the bastards grind you down.’

  With that he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

  Connor kissed his mentor gently on the forehead and said his goodbyes for the last time.

  

  DCI Crosbie was tentative when speaking to anyone now that his inner monologue was fully unleashed. He hoped for the sake of his career it would stay quiet while he spoke to his superior, Cruickshank.

  ‘Making progress, Crosbie?’ Cruickshank enquired.

  ‘Yes, sir. Anticipating some developments tonight, sir,’ he replied, trying desperately to keep his answers as short and formal as was politely possible, in case any expletives escaped.

  ‘Oh, Crosbie, just to let you know, if we don’t see some positive results as you keep promising then DCI Creaney shall be taking over the case.’

  Crosbie flinched at the mere mention of Creaney’s name. In every area of working life, there is always someone you cannot stand the sight of and someone who feels exactly the same way about you. This was the case with Creaney and Crosbie.

  Beads of sweat gathered on the detective’s forehead as he struggled to contain the urge to give a full and frank account of
what he thought about Creaney. Somehow he managed to keep his alter ego at bay. He’d got away with it. He really needed to take himself up a big mountain and scream obscenities at the top of his voice as Watt Wilson had recommended. That would give him renewed confidence about staying on top of his split personality.

  However, Cruickshank was feeling a lot less confident about the investigation’s progress as he left Crosbie’s office. ‘Unless I’m very much mistaken,’ the DS later told the Chief Constable during a briefing, ‘DCI Crosbie concluded our meeting by calling me a cocksucker.’

  44

  To Catch a Killer

  Connor and April entered DCI Crosbie’s Pitt Street office to find the detective sitting behind his desk looking the perfect picture of authority – until he opened his mouth.

  ‘It’s fatso and cunty, how are you twatting on?’ he said offering a friendly handshake.

  ‘That doesn’t even make sense,’ Connor replied sternly, refusing to shake Crosbie’s hand.

  It was April who broke the tension. ‘Now, now, David, remember what I said about keeping that potty mouth of yours under control. I think you need a few more sessions with Watt before you end up in hot water.’

  ‘You’re right,’ he replied looking suitably chastised. ‘You’re cunting right as friggedy fuckety usual, cow face,’ he added, realising with horror that he’d started making up swear words that he’d never heard of.

  ‘You,’ Connor growled, pointing directly at Crosbie, ‘are a fucking nutter.’

  Even Crosbie’s inner self realised it had gone too far. He desperately tried to regain his composure. ‘Okay, Miss Lavender, fancy being a washed-up old hooker tonight instead of a washed-up old hack?’ The detective surprised himself with the last statement. He was pretty sure he’d made it himself, without the foul-mouthed interjection of his ‘dark side’.

  

  April considered her transformation into an old streetwalker. It had all been a bit too easy. The only major adjustment she’d made was to tie her hair back and put on a short summer skirt she hadn’t worn in years, with a pair of high-heeled shoes. The plunging top was one she regularly wore on a rare night out. As for the make-up, there wasn’t much extra she could slap on her face. Connor would joke how she virtually put the stuff on with a trowel anyway, the older and craggier she got.

  Right now, she’d give anything not to be standing on a freezing street corner just off Blythswood Square. A couple of potential punters had just driven slowly by, inspecting the ‘goods’ and thought better of it despite April’s best efforts to tempt them, leaning forward provocatively so that her ample chest nearly spilled out of her top. Each time a kerb crawler sped off she’d chuckle to herself ruefully, ‘I can’t even tempt the pervs any more.’

  Crosbie’s surveillance team were stationed directly opposite April’s ‘patch’, with an officer happily photographing the number plates and occupants of every car that approached her. The two officers had been given an intense briefing by DCI Crosbie, who had strenuously warned them to be on full alert, saying, ‘I want pictures of everyone, but even more importantly than that, do not, whatever you fucking do, cunting lose sight of April Lavender. We’ll be in enough shite if this cocking operation goes tits and fanny up for using a civilian as bait in the arsing first place, never mind the pissing crap the Daily Herald will pour over us.’

  The surveillance team had sat slack-jawed throughout Crosbie’s expletive-ridden briefing. Afterwards one of them had remarked, ‘Do you think he’s alright? He doesn’t half swear a lot.’

  But they had remained alert as instructed, with the 35mm lens of a Nikon camera trained on April’s feeble attempts to drum up custom. A bin lorry was slowly working its way down the road, warning lights flashing, while its ‘sanitation officers’ collected the blue wheelie bins stuffed full of paper for recycling from the numerous city centre offices. It wasn’t long before the lorry’s giant yellow frame filled the lens of the Nikon, as the bins were loaded and lifted mechanically, and the contents dumped into the rear of the machine. The lorry then rumbled on noisily.

  The photographer put his eye to the viewfinder before gently swivelling it left and then right. He then peered out the back of the unmarked van with the one-way glass to look at April’s street corner with the naked eye before turning to his colleague in a state of mild panic and swearing, ‘Oh fuck – she’s gone.’

  45

  Raw Fear

  April had known her fair share of men. She’d been married three times and had several lovers before, after and occasionally during her marriages. April had considered the Pill one of the greatest inventions ever made, believing the claims that it was empowering and had given women control of their bodies and their lives. But she would later scoff at these opinions. Women could still contract sexually transmitted diseases, many of which were far more serious for a woman than the male carrier.

  It also didn’t stop certain men from forcibly having sex when they wanted. Nowadays that was rightly called rape. But when April was first married it became a normal part of her relationship. Her husband would come back from the pub drunk, and whether April was sleeping or watching the telly, they would have sex. How did the Pill empower women to prevent that happening? The truth was, it didn’t.

  April began to think that the only people that the Pill truly benefited were men. She had sometimes been slightly scared when her first brutish husband had been in one of his moods. She could sense what was coming. Mercifully, he wouldn’t hit her, although that was only after she learned not to resist. But the middle-aged man who had just picked her up truly terrified her. There was something primitive and powerful about his whole demeanour and even his musk.

  He had been perfectly polite to begin with, explaining, ‘I’m a stranger in this town, so I didn’t know where to come, if you know what I mean. But then I saw you standing on the corner and thought, bingo! Yip, as soon as I set eyes on you, I said to myself, “So this is where they keep the disease-ridden, filthy old slags.”’

  His smile had remained fixed at first, making April wonder if she had really heard what he’d said. But she was left in no doubt, when he turned to face her while driving, with raw hatred in his eyes, and said coldly, ‘I’m right, aren’t I? You’re a filthy old whore?’

  April knew her ‘client’ was deliberately working himself up into a fury. She attempted to steer the conversation away from the dangerous ground it was heading and shrugged, saying mildly, ‘Well, we’ve all got to earn a living, haven’t we, love?’

  The chummy chat wrong-footed Osiris momentarily before he regained his focus. He had expected April to be rigid with fear after his cold threat. All the others had been. Instead, she had acted as if she had misheard him at first – which wasn’t uncommon where April was concerned – then nonchalantly given a banal response as if defending her profession on some tacky daytime talk show.

  Osiris hadn’t planned to take another victim. But, still excited by the thrill of leaving Martin Seth swinging from the rafters of his lodge, he simply couldn’t suppress his bloodlust when he spotted the opportunity to pick up the ageing streetwalker.

  The killer calmly took control of the steering wheel with his left hand, before throwing a short, powerful right jab across his body which caught April squarely on the jaw, instantly knocking her out.

  Osiris said, ‘Am I making myself loud and clear now, bitch? You are going to die.’

  

  DCI Crosbie had also briefly lost sight of April as the bin lorry passed. But he had been quicker to respond than the surveillance unit, slipping his unmarked BMW into gear and moving into the unusually heavy traffic to follow the dark red Mondeo in front.

  He could clearly see a blonde-haired woman in the passenger seat beside the male driver. ‘I cunting know this is my motherfucker. Who else but a crazy serial killer prick would go to the red light cocksucking district when he knows the coppers will be trawling the joint?’ Crosbie cau
ght sight of his own gleeful expression in his rear-view mirror and moaned, ‘I don’t have a clue who I am any more.’

  The man in the mirror smiled back. ‘Don’t worry arsehole – together we’re going right to the top. Imagine the fucking fun, frolics and damage we could do as Chief Constable. Jeez, it’d be a laugh – and we’ll get there by catching this twathead.’

  Crosbie picked up his radio to speak to the controller, ‘I need a number plate checked out. It’s ‘SC08 TWF – that’s Shit Cunt Zero Eight Titty Wank Fuck. Did you get that?’

  ‘Er, yes, DCI Crosbie,’ replied a twitchy controller, ‘we’ll get that checked out right away.’

  

  Connor was also finding the traffic tricky to negotiate. The Daily Herald photographer in the passenger seat urged the reporter to drive closer to the red Mondeo. ‘Come on, Elvis, I can’t get any snaps from this distance,’ Jack Kennedy complained.

  No matter how meticulous Crosbie, Connor and April had been plotting their streetwalker sting, it had still managed to implode over an unexpected bin lorry and heavy traffic from a concert at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre.

  Connor suddenly felt the need to quote the Bard, Rabbie Burns: ‘The best-laid plans o’ mice and men. Gang aft agley.’

  

  DCI Crosbie had the Mondeo in his sights. After April had got in at Blythswood Square, the car had hung right into Hope Street and headed towards Charing Cross, where it could join the M8 motorway in either direction. Crosbie knew he’d need to have his wits about him. The traffic was almost gridlocked around the junctions thanks to the concert at SECC, with 8,000 music fans all heading over at the same time.

  The red Mondeo was waiting at the lights. Crosbie focused on his prey as he sat just three cars behind. He could see the heads angled slightly towards each other – maybe April was still negotiating a price. ‘Or maybe the dirty bastard is trying to get some discount after seeing the goods.’

  Crosbie’s alter ego let out a cackle that made his skin crawl. His inner self both appalled and impressed him. He hated his callousness but loved his confidence. He could actually feel the self-belief coursing through his veins when his alter ego asserted himself. It felt dangerous but invigorating at the same time – as if he could tackle anything.

  Right now he was confident he had a serial killer in his sights. This was a murderer of prostitutes the length and breadth of the UK – someone who had always managed to evade the long arm of the law since god knows when. It just had to be him. The car’s description matched the grainy photo supplied by the cousin of April’s friend. This multiple murderer would be unable to ignore his urge to kill. DCI David ‘Bing’ Crosbie finally had him in his sights.

  ‘You won’t be a DCI for much longer when you feel this cunt’s collar,’ his inner self cackled once more. But, like many over-confident people, Crosbie’s split personality was also arrogant.

  His smile cracked when the Mondeo suddenly indicated and pulled out of the queue of traffic for the motorway. He had no choice but to break cover and follow the target along Argyle Street into Anderston district, where the car indicated right and performed a U-turn. Any last pretence of following discreetly would be blown if Crosbie performed the same manoeuvre. Instead, he waited until the car passed him on the opposite side of the road, when he took a very clear mental picture of the driver, before performing his own U-turn and following.

  The target was driving back towards Blythswood Square. Maybe he wasn’t horny any more after just five minutes in April’s company. Crosbie scoffed, ‘I know how you feel, pal.’ He reckoned listening to the ageing hack prattling on would have the most law-abiding person in a homicidal rage. ‘Come on, man – don’t chicken out. Do her!’ Crosbie screamed at his windscreen. He could still bring him in for soliciting even if he didn’t actually attack April.

  The Mondeo pulled up outside the plush boutique hotel Malmaison on West George Street. Alarm bells started ringing in Crosbie’s ears. ‘This can’t be right – no murderer would take a manky old hooker into such a posh hotel.’

  Crosbie parked across the street just as the driver stepped out of his car. He was tall, well built, wearing jeans, a bomber jacket and trainers more suited to a man at least half his age. His frame obscured Crosbie’s view of April as she got out of the car. A concierge appeared as the driver shouted in a loud American accent, ‘Jeez, buddy, this place is hard to find, especially when you make me drive on the wrong side of the road.’

  Crosbie felt sick to the pit of his stomach. The big Yank moved to the boot of the car to retrieve his luggage, giving Crosbie a clear view of his passenger. The peroxide hair and stature were all the same – but it was most definitely not April Lavender.

  46

  Death Becomes Her

  After gagging April and restraining her hands behind her back with plastic ties, Osiris had heaved her unconscious, bound body into the back seat of the Mondeo. He had ripped open her blouse and pulled up her bra. ‘Just look at your saggy old tits. You disgust me,’ he snarled, before slapping her hard with the back of his hand.

  The car was parked in a deserted street in Glasgow’s Kinning Park, outside a plumber’s merchant. He had chosen his spot days previously, noting how the street had little traffic, no CCTV and was long enough to easily spot anyone approaching at a distance in either direction.

  Satisfied he had prepped properly, he congratulated himself on following his American life guru’s advice to the letter. ‘Make a plan, work out every little detail and just do it, people! What are you waiting for? Do it, do it, do it!’ The studio crowd had reached fever pitch, screaming, ‘DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!’

  If only they all knew what they were just about to encourage Osiris to do.

  He ripped April’s underwear off. The reporter came to, with fear and confusion in her eyes. Osiris was unbuckling his trousers. He grabbed her painfully by the throat and told her, ‘I am going to fuck you and kill you at the same time, you fat old whore.’ He smashed his fist into April’s face, before punching her body repeatedly.

  The pain was excruciating. April could hardly breathe. She knew death was upon her.

  Suddenly, a female voice shouted, ‘Aye, that’s the cunt, alright!’ before 50,000 volts from a Taser stun gun coursed through Osiris’s body. He had never felt pain like it before. After the sharp jolt the killer lay paralysed and helpless as his hands and feet were bound with plastic ties, similar to the ones he’d so often used on his own victims.

  Osiris was then hauled to his feet by three men the size of gorillas. He looked at the face he’d just smashed to a pulp in his red Mondeo. Blood was splattered all over the inside of the windows. His victim had been a gusher, probably because she was on medication for high blood pressure, he guessed. It had happened to him before with the older ones.

  Scottish newspaper legend April Lavender was now barely recognisable. Her battered and bruised body lay crumpled in the back of Osiris’s car.

  A whiny female voice said, ‘Look at the state of that poor auld burd. That’s whit he’d huv dun tae me, the fucking beast. I hope youse fuck him up good.’

  In what felt like slow motion Osiris turned his head and managed to focus on the source of the most guttural Glaswegian accent he’d ever heard – which was quite something in a city where it seemed everyone spoke their own version of English. It was a girl. Or, to be more accurate, the prostitute who had given him oral sex two nights previously, before he’d stuffed money into her mouth and chucked her out the car.

  She looked at him with pure venom in her eyes, then hawked up something from the deepest regions of her throat and spat in Osiris’s face. ‘Aye, that’s the cunt, alright.’

  Osiris needed to focus. What would his self-help guru say now? ‘Evaluate the situation then rise above your problems. Only then will everything come clearly into focus.’ But everything was already clearly in focus, and Osiris didn’t like what he saw. He could not turn his
head far enough to the side to see the slabs of muscle holding him upright. For whenever he tried to move, they tightened their grip. He knew any notion of escape was futile. Even if he managed to break free they’d zap him with that Taser again.

  Then, a much smaller figure emerged from the shadows, his face partially illuminated by the cigarette burning in his mouth. Although around half the size of the men who were gripping Osiris with their shovel-sized hands, the man who approached looked somehow more intimidating. Osiris’s deep animal instincts could sense danger.

  The mysterious figure got so close Osiris could feel his hot breath on his cheeks. Then he spoke, ‘So you’re the guy who murdered my sister?’

  Osiris gave an involuntary shrug. It could be any number of victims this cool customer was talking about.

  Colin Harris said, ‘Not too bothered? Oh, you will be. The thing is, you may have been able to give the cops and the reporters the slip, but not me, pal. Takes a killer to know a killer.’

  Harris produced a knife, and held it glinting in the moonlight.

  Just the sight of it made Osiris Vance, mass murderer, terroriser and killer of women the length and breadth of Britain, copiously urinate himself. This was true fear. He could feel the same panic he used to see in his victims’ faces.

  He was dragged to a waiting car and sandwiched in the back seat between the two gorillas.

  Harris threw his cigarette butt into the bushes and took his place in the driver’s seat, joined in the front by the girl. He calmly handed the prostitute a thick envelope and said, ‘That’s £100,000. Enough money for you to get clean, off the streets and start a new life with your kid, okay?’ A part of Colin Harris genuinely wished she would start afresh, but he knew it was more likely she’d waste it all on heroin, bought from his suppliers, and probably be dead within weeks.

  That was the last humanitarian thought Harris would have that night. His mind turned to much darker matters as he glanced towards Osiris in his rear view mirror.

  47

  Busted Flush

  Osiris decided to use the only trump card he had left. ‘I know who killed that rich bitch, Selina Seth.’

  Harris scoffed, ‘What, poor Martin? No wonder he killed her, she was screwing anything that moved. Tormented him over it, too. I told him he should just admit it. He’d easily have got a diminished responsibility rap. Seven years for manslaughter. Out in three and a half. Then the daft bastard killed himself … or was it made to look like suicide?’

  A thought suddenly occurred to Harris, ‘Maybe you had a hand in that too? Probably thought you were onto a good thing, eh? Maybe you decided to blackmail him so you’d end up on the company payroll? That well and truly fucked up one of my better business plans, so that’s something else I owe you.’

  ‘No, not him. It wasn’t Martin who killed Selina,’ Osiris protested.

  Harris was silent for a long time, as he listened to what Osiris had to say. Eventually he said, ‘Interesting, very interesting,’ his mind already whirring at the possibilities of how best to use this new crucial information.

  Sensing a bargaining tool, Osiris continued, ‘He’s crazy. I’ve seen him in action. He set about that rich cow like a maniac.’

  Harris scoffed, ‘At least he’s smarter than you. You’ve just shown your hand. Cashed in your chips, buddy. You have nothing else in the kitty.’

  The colour drained from Osiris face as the realisation set in – he’d blown it. He should have bargained for his life with the only piece of information he had left. Instead, he’d given it up all too willingly. It was only then that Osiris realised his self-help gurus had been a complete waste of his time and money.

  They did nothing but spout clichés, bluff and hot air, and only benefited the gurus themselves. Like leaders of some religious cult they sold ideas to the needy and the weak-minded, like snake oil salesmen of old.

  Harris’s car came to a halt in a darkened street. Moments later the goons hauled Osiris from the back seat. ‘Fancy a drink?’ Harris said with a sinister smile as Osiris was frogmarched through the entrance of the Portman bar. The trap door to the cellar was already open, and the last of the regulars were stumbling out at closing time. No one even gave Harris and his men a second look. They knew better.

  The gruff barmaid was collecting the last of the glasses. She asked Harris if he wanted a glass of his usual Chablis.

  ‘Aye, better make it the whole bottle, darling. And my blowtorch too, honey. It’s going to be a long night.’ He gave her a friendly wink.

  Harris turned to face Osiris and lit the nozzle of the blowtorch with a lighter, adjusting the sputtering yellow flame to an angry-looking blue point. ‘Now, how do you like your genitals? Well done? Or burnt to a crisp? I think we’ll go for the latter, shall we?’

  48

  Carry On Living

  April could hear the voices in her head. Barely audible at first, they were growing louder and louder, and they were talking about her.

  ‘The big yin’ll be raging she’s missed her breakfast again.’

  ‘Aye, she’s fading away tae a mountain.’

  She didn’t recognise her mockers. Who were they? And more to the point where the hell was she? She managed to open her eyes for a brief moment.

  One of the voices spoke again. ‘She’s awake, better get the nurse.’

  Nurse. Hospital. Wards. April’s mind wandered. She thought of her favourite Carry On film: Kenneth Williams fending off the attentions of Hattie Jacques, an even larger lady than herself, and a craggy-faced Sid James in constant pursuit of sexy nurse Barbara Windsor. April remembered getting into a heated argument with her friend Flo, who’d insisted the films were nothing but sexist old drivel and complained that the Royal College of Nursing was still trying to rid itself of Barbara’s image forty years on.

  Why did people have to dissect everything? April wondered. And why was she in hospital? She remembered speaking to Detective Crosbie, then pulling on clothes which were far too tight for her and finally Connor wishing her luck. But wishing her luck for what?

  April broke out in a cold sweat and her heart began to race, sounding off some alarm by the side of her bed. Another voice filled her head that made her jump: ‘I’m going to fuck you and kill you.’ Her arms flayed wildly and she let out a long, anguished scream.

  ‘You’re all right, Miss Lavender, you’re safe now. You’re safe.’

  April opened her tear-filled eyes to see a sweet, young nurse smiling down at her. ‘Am I . . . did he . . .’ she stuttered, before breaking down in gut-wrenching sobs.

  ‘I’ll get the doctor to speak to you,’ the nurse said before she whispered in April’s ear, ‘but, no, he didn’t. You had a lucky escape.’

  It was all April wanted to know. Whoever he was had beaten her badly but by some miracle hadn’t raped her. Lucky escape? April pondered. There was no way she could have escaped given the state she’d been in. She shut her eyes tightly and thought hard. Plastic ties had been around her wrists. She remembered the searing pain of being repeatedly punched in the face, the smell of coffee and stale cigarettes on her attacker’s breath, and his powerful hands ripping at her clothes before tightening around her throat. Then there had been a jolt, like an electric shock. Voices. Different voices. And that was all she could recall.

  ‘Good morning, April. I’m Doctor Crawford.’

  April looked up to see another fresh-faced young woman who wouldn’t have looked out of place in a school uniform.

  ‘You know you’re getting old when the doctors and nurses look so young,’ April croaked.

  ‘Well, it’s nice to finally meet you,’ the doctor said, pulling up a chair. ‘You’ve been staying with us for a couple of nights, so it’s good to hear you talk, however you sound.’

  ‘I sound bloody awful,’ April said. ‘Like I’ve smoked a thousand fags.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. You’ve had a fair bit of trauma to your head and neck. There’s still quite a lot of bruising, so
you might not want to enter any beauty pageants for a while.’

  April liked this doctor. ‘Do you know what happened? And where am I, incidentally?’

  Doctor Crawford apologised. ‘Sorry, I should’ve said. You’re in the Royal Infirmary. But as for what happened we don’t really know a lot yet. You came in as an emergency. Someone called 999 and you were found in a car. That’s the sum of my knowledge, I’m afraid. But the police can tell you more.’ The doctor glanced towards the door.

  April narrowed her eyes, attempting to focus without the aid of her glasses. She could make out a uniformed policeman standing outside her room. ‘I take it my attacker hasn’t been caught?’ she asked gloomily.

  The doctor shrugged. ‘I don’t know. What I can tell you for certain is you’re going to be all right. You’ve been through the wringer, but the X-rays show nothing’s broken. And there are no signs of sexual assault.’

  ‘Not for a long time,’ April joked, trying to bluff her obvious relief. Her eyes settled on a nearby table festooned with Get Well Soon cards and bouquets of flowers. She reached out and picked up the nearest one, recognising Connor’s scrawl. ‘Being choked half to death is no excuse for not filing your copy on time.’

  ‘Cheeky bastard, but he does make me smile,’ April said.

  The policeman opened the door to announce, ‘You have a visitor, Miss Lavender.’

  ‘Talk of the devil,’ April croaked.

  ‘My, what a lovely singing voice you have!’ Connor quipped, placing a tinfoil-covered plate on the table beside her. ‘I thought I better buy you something from Peccadillos. They’ve nearly gone out of business since you’ve been in here.’

  The doctor excused herself.

  Connor slumped into the chair and moaned, ‘Jeez, between you and Badger, I feel like I’m never away from hospitals.’

  ‘How is he?’ April asked.

  ‘Ach, not great. Rita’s been texting me, but he could go at any minute. With all that’s happened I haven’t really had a chance to see him again,’ Connor said quietly.

  ‘He’d understand more than anyone – the story always comes first,’ April assured him.

  ‘Anyway, how are you feeling?’ Connor said.

  ‘I’m fine. Just pleased to be here.’

  ‘Jayne’s practically been keeping a bedside vigil, but you’ve been out of it, snoring your head off as usual. And everyone at work has been asking for you.’ Connor smiled.

  Not everyone, I bet, April thought to herself, with the mere mention of work blackening her mood. She shuddered at the humiliation of being suspended by the Weasel. ‘Just look at the state of me, Connor. Beaten to a pulp trying to save my job. And where did it get me? A hospital bed and police protection from some lunatic trying to bump me off.’

  ‘Actually, I’ve just heard some news on that front. Our killer’s bumping-off days are firmly behind him.’

  But the news of Osiris’s death fell on deaf ears. ‘I’ll be out of work shortly and probably dead a few years after that and I’ll ask myself, What the hell was all that about? Soon no one will even remember me. Maybe a great-great-grandchild will be a writer one day and her parents won’t even know it was in her DNA. And even if someone does recall me, what’s my legacy? A trail of broken marriages. Oh, and a serial killer almost strangled her to death. Big wow, huh?’

  ‘Come on, April, you’ve had an incredible career. And it was your bravery that helped to catch the crazy bastard. And what about Jayne? What about your grandkid? You’re lucky to have a legacy like them to leave behind.’

  But April was having none of it. ‘And as for newspapers, they’re doomed – yesterday’s news printed on dead trees. Soon people won’t even believe they were bought in their millions every day. They’re finished, Connor. The internet wins. And I’m finished, too. It’s someone else’s turn to toil.’

  Connor let her get the rant out of her system, before appealing to the part of April he knew he could get through to – her stomach. ‘So, are you going to eat this or what?’ he said peeling back the tinfoil from the plate. ‘I asked Martel to make you the lunchtime special. Two Scotch pies and beans, especially for you.’

  April’s mood instantly lightened. ‘Well . . . it does smell marvellous.’

  Connor watched with morbid fascination as she tucked into the pies. ‘It’s just gone nine and here you are having lunch. You’re as happy as a pig in shit, aren’t you?’

  His words went off like a firecracker in April’s head, forcing her to drop her knife and fork on the table. ‘Nine o’clock? Lunch? That bastard didn’t meet her for lunch the day before she was murdered. He met her the morning she was murdered.’

  Connor knew April well enough to expect the unexpected, but the sudden outburst even wrong-footed him. He looked puzzled.

  ‘Don’t you know what this means?’ April asked rhetorically, her voice growing in volume and confidence. ‘It means I’m not the one who’s finished. He is.’

  Connor stared at April. ‘Have you had a wee stroke this morning?’

  ‘Ooh, matron,’ she replied in her best Kenneth Williams’s voice, ‘I haven’t had a wee stroke in years.’

  49

  Throwing out the Trash

  April gingerly entered Bent’s office without knocking. Her right arm was in a sling, and her face was still puffy and bruised after her brutal attack. She had spent just four days in hospital as her injuries had been mostly flesh wounds with no bones broken. The doctor had told her that her ‘excess baggage’ had saved her from any real damage – a polite way of saying she was fat. April had beamed when Connor came to visit her that night saying, ‘Ha! Who said over-eating is bad for you?’

  Bent was clearly in the middle of a personal call, feet up on the table, a rosy glow to his cheeks, and speaking in hushed, flirtatious tones. April thought the editor looked like a dirty sleazebag. He looked up, and immediately swung his feet off the desk, like a teenager caught with their trainers on their mum’s coffee table. Or a man who’d just been caught red-handed flirting with another man’s wife, which was probably more accurate. His tone changed. ‘I’ll call you back, something’s come up.’

  Bent regained his composure and glowered, ‘If you need to see me, you should make an appointment with Grace.’

  ‘Ah, and I distinctly recall you saying you were the “my door’s always open” type when you arrived here,’ April said coolly as she took a seat opposite him.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to speak to you anyway,’ Bent replied, trying to regain the upper-hand. ‘I’m thinking that the long love affair between you and the Daily Herald has come to a natural conclusion. Even though you sustained injuries while on suspension, I have still decided to put together a compromise deal, which I hope you find acceptable,’ he added with a smirk, failing to enquire how April was keeping since the attack and knowing that his compromise deal fell well short of any redundancy package she would be due after such long service.

  He continued with an idle threat, ‘It’d also save you leaving here with nothing, if the disciplinary panel found in our favour.’

  ‘That doesn’t bother me at the moment,’ April lied. ‘Right now I want to speak about another love affair, the one between you and Selina Seth.’

  ‘What did you just say?’ Bent growled, gripping the sides of the desk until his knuckles turned white.

  ‘Please spare me the mock outrage,’ April replied with composure. ‘You were with her the morning of her death. In fact, you were there in the car park with her. You were the last one to see her alive. You withheld vital information to help catch her killer, but like a coward you kept quiet to protect your own name and your precious career.’ April’s voice grew louder and louder. ‘You’ve been withholding information from a major murder inquiry. Yet all the time you and your attack dog saw fit to have me on some trumped-up charge just because I had a crisis of confidence. There is no way back for you now, Bent. Not only will you have to leave this newspaper, I’d leave
the country if I were you. Blocking a police inquiry is still a serious offence in anyone’s book – no matter how important you think you are.’

  Like the thousands of articles she’d penned over her thirty-year career, April knew when to stop, but not before delivering her stinging pay-off line. ‘Put it this way, Bent, if you don’t leave my newspaper I’ll make sure Mrs Bent and all the little Bent children know what a sleazy, spineless coward you really are. I think I’ve made myself clear.’

  Bent slowly picked up a letter from his desk, and stared at it for a moment. Eventually, he said, ‘I was going to turn this down. It’s a formal job offer for a deputy editor post at the Toronto Star. Didn’t really fancy the cold. But it suddenly seems a lot more appealing now.’

  ‘I’m sure it does,’ April said. ‘And I think you should take your news editor, too. A man on the make in a new country will need a loyal lieutenant.’ She hated to impose the Weasel on other journalists in another country, but experience had taught her that their type usually got their comeuppance.

  April rose. It took some effort with the pain she was still in. She hobbled out without saying another word, leaving Nigel Bent to clear his desk.

  

  Later that day April sat in Luigi’s restaurant in front of a steaming, oversized bowl of pasta and meatballs, done in a tomato and roasted garlic sauce. It was delicious.

  Luigi fussed over his favourite customer. ‘Here-a, I have-a bib for you – I don’t-a want-a you making a mess of such a lurv-erly blouse,’ he said, tying a knot in a starched white napkin behind April’s neck, before patting it flat down her ample bosom, letting his hands linger too long as usual.

  April knew his game alright, but let it go. She was too hungry and sore to protest.

  ‘Now-a, have you thought-a about my proposal,’ Luigi asked, his bushy eyebrows arched in anticipation.

  April gave him the brush off. ‘I haven’t had time to think of anything, Luigi. As you can see, I’ve been busy.’

  ‘Well-a, my-a proposal still stands-a. You need-a someone to look-a after you. To keep you safe from the mad-a-men. You only have to say-a the word and it shall-a be done,’ he said before disappearing off to another table.

  April looked at Luigi’s squat, chubby figure oozing out in all directions from under his kitchen whites. There was a time she wouldn’t have looked twice at an old lech like him. But then again, that was when she was young, svelte and pretty. She looked down at the makeshift bib that Luigi had fashioned for her, now splattered with tomato and roasted garlic sauce. Her flabby belly was in three folds, two of them resting on the table.

  She glanced at her reflection in the restaurant window and saw only an old woman looking back, with a ridiculous mop of harsh yellow hair. It would have been enough to put many women off their food, but not April. Eating and drinking were all she had left now she wasn’t officially allowed to smoke any more.

  Maybe she should just give in. She wouldn’t just be marrying an old Italian; she would be marrying a great cook. They could grow old and fatter together. She would never have to worry about her backside being as wide as the Clyde, as Connor had once put it. And she’d have a companion. Maybe they’d even be happy together. It would certainly give Jayne one almighty shock. She could see her daughter’s look of disapproval right now. ‘Married? Having sex at your age? It’s disgusting.’

  ‘Yes, I plan on having lots of disgusting sex,’ she chuckled to herself a little too loudly, catching the attention of some nearby diners and the proprietor.

  ‘Hey, what-a you find-a so funny? You laughing at Luigi’s meatballs?’

  The image made them both laugh.

  With a snap of Luigi’s fingers, a young waiter brought April another bowl of meatballs to replace the empty one while Luigi topped up her glass of Chianti. He then grasped her hands tightly and said, ‘You make-a my heart sing-a, April, because my-a food make-sa you so happy.’

  She couldn’t help noticing how his hands once again ‘accidentally’ brushed against her nipples. It felt quite nice, really. Maybe she would marry the old lech, after all …

  50

  Visiting an Old Friend

  The next few days passed in a blur. April eventually wearied of all the congratulatory messages and calls of concern she had taken from her colleagues over the attack by Osiris and the sudden departure of Nigel Bent, who had been followed sharply out the door by his equally loathed news editor, the Weasel.

  ‘What the fuck did you say to him?’ Connor had asked with a mixture of admiration and wonder.

  ‘The truth, Connor, just the truth. I always find that does wonders in my line of work.’

  ‘But how did you know?’ Connor asked still amazed.

  ‘It suddenly came to me lying in my hospital bed. Bent was twitchy as hell because he hadn’t met Selina for lunch the day before. He’d met her the morning she was murdered. I also had a very good source,’ April said feeling pleased with herself.

  ‘Who?’ Connor asked.

  ‘Now, now you know a good journalist never reveals their sources,’ she replied with a sly smile.

  ‘Yeah, but who said you were a good journalist?’ Connor quipped.

  ‘I asked his secretary Grace. We’re old smoking buddies. She confirmed he hadn’t been to lunch with anyone the previous day but had been unusually late on the morning of Selina’s death.

  ‘So I took a gamble and fronted him up. I just did my job basically.’

  April wondered how she had managed to work full-time for most of her adult life. There didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day. Like most folk in their fifties, she had begun to dream of the Utopia of retirement. Taking time to really browse through the shelves of IKEA. Leisurely weekday lunches instead of just at the weekend. Visiting the Burrell Collection – a museum she had lived nearby for the last twenty-five years but never once stepped foot in. But between the constant phone calls from her colleagues and her ardent suitor she didn’t seem to have any time for herself.

  Today would be different. She would make the time to visit Watt Wilson. She knew he was an old chancer, but he had the patter and the ability to make April, and his clients, feel a lot better on the way out his door than when they stepped in. In truth, she thought, therapists told you what you already knew. If you were overweight, it was because you put too much in and didn’t burn up enough. But somehow listening to someone give you a rationale for binge eating – stress at work, relationships and so on – shifted some of the blame, so it wasn’t entirely your fault.

  April liked that about Watt. Of course, she also had an ulterior motive. Being a busybody, she wanted to ask Watt how he was getting on treating DCI Crosbie’s Tourette’s. Normal doctors would have been bound by the Hippocratic oath, but Watt wasn’t even a doctor. He just acted like one, as if it was another role from his failed stage career.

  She had tried calling ahead, but she kept getting his answering machine, which was so full it had stopped taking messages. April thought it strange he hadn’t returned her calls – he always had before. She was pretty sure Watt had a little crush on her, or he had twenty years ago when she was a lot slimmer and better looking. She decided to pay him a personal visit instead, which would give her the motivation to get dressed today.

  She pulled on her trousers and blouse, both of which felt tight, and let out a moan. ‘I’ve just bought these and they’re already too small.’ She left the house in a glum mood. Hopefully, the old mind man would make her feel better.

  April arrived at his door twenty minutes later and rang the bell. There was no reply. She didn’t know why she did it – instinct, she would later guess – but after trying the front door, which was locked, she peered through Watt’s ground-floor window.

  His front room doubled as his therapy room, and as she shaded her eyes from the sunlight, she was able to focus on its dimly lit interior. There was Watt’s well-worn couch, which April had lain on periodically over the last two decades. She th
en let out a small but clearly audible gasp as she spotted the twisted, bloodied and battered figure, which lay motionless and quite dead on top of it.

  Watt would not be helping out April, or anyone else for that matter, ever again.

  51

  Black & White

  Always eager and keen to learn, the young PC on guard duty at Watt Wilson’s front door asked his sergeant who was the DCI assigned to the murder case.

  The old copper began singing in a sweet voice that belied his gruff looks, ‘I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.’

  The young PC looked utterly mystified.

  Slightly annoyed with his underling’s lack of musical knowledge, the older cop said, ‘Bing Crosby, son? White Christmas? Bob Hope? All the great black-and-white movies they did? Road to Bali. Ah, Jeez, son, he’s only the greatest singer who ever lived. Sinatra wasn’t fit to lace his shoes.’

  The young PC’s brain was tied up in knots. His utter confusion showed in his vacant expression.

  The sergeant swore under his breath, then as if speaking to a child, said loudly and slowly, ‘I’ll spell it out for you. The guy we’re getting today is Bing Crosbie.’

  The young PC had barely understood anything his old sergeant, who clearly liked a drink, had been banging on about. Was he really saying a famous singer would be investigating this murder case? He thought to himself that the old boy had flipped his lid.

  DCI David ‘Bing’ Crosbie had overheard their entire conversation as he approached the murder scene. It was now impossible for him to differentiate between the good and bad side of his split personality, but he clearly heard one of the voices inside his head say, ‘I don’t know about White Christmas, but this murder investigation is going to be one big wanking whitewash.’ He began happily humming the tune to the old festive favourite. There was a spring in his step as there was now no conflict in his mind whatsoever.

  For evil had overcome good. His bad side had won the internal power struggle and was now fully in control of this fiercely ambitious DCI who was determined to rise through the ranks.

  He stepped jauntily over the threshold into Watt Wilson’s house where he found the old stage hypnotist exactly where he had left him three days before. He remembered in minute detail how the old ham had pleaded with him for his life, before desperately trying to defend himself by striking the detective with the silver pocket watch he had kept on a chain for over thirty years.

  It was now in the possession of the murderer. Crosbie checked the time on Watt’s prized watch, which he now kept in his top pocket, as he stood overlooking his victim’s body.

  The forensic team gathering evidence in Watt’s front room would collect a small DNA sample that would perfectly match that of DCI Crosbie. It would later be dismissed as erroneous after Crosbie’s assignation to investigate Watt’s murder. He would receive a verbal rebuke from his superior DS Cruickshank for contaminating a crime scene for which Crosbie would apologise profusely then mutter under his breath, ‘You don’t know the half of it, dickhead.’

  In a few months’ time he would receive a promotion for his work in solving the murder of Selina Seth, concluding that her late husband Martin had killed her after witnessing his wife having sex with persons unknown. Crosbie had managed to convince his superiors to take the ‘theoretically possible’ option, that the widower had committed suicide, from Martin Seth’s autopsy report. Eager to bring the high profile case to a speedy conclusion, they readily agreed.

  In actual fact, Crosbie had killed Selina. Aroused by watching her liaison with cheating Daily Herald editor Nigel Bent, he had approached Selina on her way back to her own car and asked if she fancied another shag. She had looked him up and down and dismissed him with the remark, ‘Well, certainly not with you again – I only shagged you last time to get off with my speeding ticket.’

  It had been Crosbie who had pulled Selina over all those years ago, and it had been Crosbie who later had sex with her in the back of her Jaguar in the Lidl car park. He recalled how his uniform had turned Selina on and how she had even insisted he wear his hat as they ‘did it’. He had been fixated with her ever since that moment.

  In his head, she’d held a candle for him after all this time. He’d followed Selina in his spare time, like an obsessed stalker, and watched how she would wine and dine with powerful businessmen before disappearing off to expensive hotels to spend the night. But finally witnessing ‘his Selina’ have sex with another man then so ruthlessly reject his advances, as if he had meant nothing to her, had been too much to bear.

  His attack on her had been a crime of passion. He was a man whose love for Selina had been a one-way street, just like her husband’s Martin, on whom, with no remorse, he would later pin the crime.

  Crosbie had wrapped up his next case when he found the mutilated body of Osiris Vance, which forensics confirmed was linked to the death of the streetwalker Jackie McIvor. Osiris was also wanted in connection with a dozen other cases of murdered prostitutes in England and Wales, dating back to the 1970s. He had killed twenty-one women in his lifetime, but he would only be linked officially to half that number. The total fell well short of Osiris’s ambition to be the UK’s most prolific serial killer. That dubious honour would remain with Doctor Harold Shipman, who murdered over two hundred of his patients.

  Osiris’s family chose to cremate the killer. Ironically, something similar had already happened to his genitals, which the autopsy report had simply stated as ‘missing’.

  Hiding in the shadows as usual, the serial killer had witnessed DCI Crosbie’s violent attack on Selina. His ego had got the better of him, and the copycat killing of Jackie McIvor had been his downfall. Osiris had bargained neither on Selina’s killer being a psychotic, high-ranking police officer nor on Jackie’s brother being far more intelligent, dangerous and ruthless than he could ever hope to be.

  Crosbie had received a tip-off about where to find Osiris’s body from one Colin Harris, who also had a number of other interesting propositions for the rising DCI that he could hardly refuse. Harris knew Crosbie had murdered Selina Seth, and he had the DCI in his back pocket … for now.

  Crosbie had crossed a line. He could never go back to being his old pathetic, insecure self. That man was dead. The DCI felt reborn. And this time he was ready to have some fun with his newfound lease of life.

  Epilogue

  April had promised herself she wouldn’t do it. In fact, she had promised several people, including her eternally disapproving daughter. But as she stood sheltered from the elements in a cigarette butt-littered lane outside the Daily Herald, she lit up and drew deeply on her Menthol Light. It felt like the embrace of an old friend.

  Four whole years of being an ex-smoker had gone up in a puff of smoke.

  The world had changed since April had last smoked. There was now a smoking ban in public places, which meant smokers now huddled in groups outside their favourite pubs and restaurants like social lepers. But the lure had always been there, pulling April in like a magnetic force, until she could resist no more.

  She could almost hear in her mind the interminable lecture Jayne would give her if she was ever caught. She already had her excuses ready. Being attacked by Osiris … Discovering Watt’s dead body … Not to mention the stress of being suspended, confronting her boss and seeing two of the most hated men in the Daily Herald’s history off the premises.

  But in truth April began smoking again because it made her feel very, very naughty – like a teenager again.

  ‘Hey, maybe smoking will help me lose some of this excess weight I’ve been carting around,’ she said aloud. She took another deep drag, savouring every moment, before staring at the glowing tip of her cigarette.

  There had been a time when April had smoked at her desk, with an overflowing ashtray spilling over everything. With hundreds of hacks puffing away at the same time, it had been hard to see from one end of the newsroom to the other through the fug of smoke.

  ‘Imagine that no
w?’ She laughed to no one in particular. ‘Smoking at your desk? You’d be frogmarched out the building.’

  Even when the company had built an ultra-modern, steel and glass, air-conditioned office block next to their crumbling old one, staff were still allowed to smoke at their desks, such was the power of their unions. But when the government’s smoking ban was finally made law, smokers were banished outdoors to converted bus shelters that did little to protect them from the relentless Scottish weather.

  April smoked her ciggie right down to the butt then crushed it under the ball of her foot. She took great pleasure swivelling her shoe from side to side as she mashed the evidence into the ground. But her moment of immense self-satisfaction was short-lived.

  With a heavy heart, April made her way slowly back to her office, her wide hips swaying from side to side like a duck’s bottom. For the second time in recent memory Scottish newspaper legend April Lavender had gone to work wearing a pair of mismatched shoes.

  Matt Bendoris has worked in the newspaper industry since 1989 when he began writing a pop column for the Glasgow Guardian. He soon made the leap into national titles before moving to London where he was hired twice by Piers Morgan. Matt first worked under Piers at the Sun before joining the showbiz team at the Mirror under Morgan’s editorship. There he became deputy to Matthew Wright, currently a morning host on the Five TV channel.

  In 1996 he returned to Scotland as Chief Feature Writer for the Scottish Sun where he continues to interview subjects from celebrities and politicians to the occasional serial killer. During that time he ghost-wrote two autobiographies, the Krankies’ Fan-Dabi-Dozi and Simply Devine: The Sydney Devine story.

  When his office was relocated to Glasgow city centre, Matt began commuting by train and wrote Killing with Confidence on his battered old BlackBerry to pass the time on the short journey between Croy and Queen Street station. He lives in Kilsyth with his wife Amanda and their two children Andrew and Brooke.

  Copyright © 2013 Matt Bendoris

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the copyright holder.

  The right of Matt Bendoris to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset by Park Productions

  Cover design by James Hutcheson

  Cover picture copyright: Paul Gooney/Arcangel Images

  Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net
Share this book with friends