The office cleaner left at ten pm and Alice breathed a sigh of relief. No more intrusive questions about her love life to be deflected, as if her nightly presence in the office until the woman’s shift had ended was not sufficiently eloquent evidence of her unattached, unloved status. And, yes, she was aware of the ticking of her biological clock and yes, she did want kiddies but, she wanted to shout, being a little bit particular about the genetic make-up of my non-existent children, I can’t just rush out to the nearest bar and get myself laid. Finding a suitable man is not easy, even if the alarm’s gone off.
Feeling unsettled and humiliated, she collected her coat and began to search for her bag. The phone rang as she was doing so, and she knew immediately, instinctively, that it would be to tell her that the killer had struck again. Sure enough, Inspector Manson broke the news. The body was in the Meadows.
The car journey there took Alice less than ten minutes, despite the downpour soaking the city. She left the dry warmth of her vehicle reluctantly, setting off on foot for the large public park. When, for the second time, the wind tried to force her umbrella out of her hands, she pulled it closer to herself, aware that it afforded little protection from rain that changed direction with every gust, but reluctant to abandon its shelter altogether. Another strong blast and it had been turned inside out, the fabric flapping noisily from exposed spines, leaving huge raindrops to fall, freely, onto her head. Exasperated, she flung it down and began to run, turning right down Jawbone Walk, drawn to the arc lights and striped tape that delineated the boundaries of the scene. She could feel cold water streaming down her face and neck, dripping from her hands, splashing her unprotected legs, chilling her to the bone.
Uniformed officers, moving slowly in the bitter wind, were trying to erect a screen around the corpse, simply to shield it from the curious eyes and intrusive cameras of the press. She reached the body and looked down at it, conscious that she was panting loudly and that water was cascading off her raincoat, mingling with the pool of blood surrounding the prostrate figure and sending up little pink splashes with each drop. The man was lying spreadeagled on the ground, face and throat uppermost, revealing a hideous, crescent-shaped gash that ran from ear to ear like an extra, gaping mouth. Dark blood had pooled in an eye socket, making a huge black orb. The uncovered body was soaked and a strand of hair moved continually, caught in one of the rivulets created by the downpour. No one had been assigned to arrange shelter for the corpse, so Alice took the task on, knowing that she would be unable to concentrate properly until it was completed, not that his flesh could feel anything now. He had been robbed of his life and all dignity; a dead dog in a gutter would have had more.
While she was preoccupied, fretting about the victim’s vulnerability to the elements, she busied herself attempting to reattach a sheet of awning to the makeshift screen it had freed itself from. DC Ruth Littlewood came to assist, and together they managed to subdue the billowing canvas and tether it to the frame, finally creating some kind of temporary refuge from the weather for themselves and the body at their feet. Ruth wiped the rainwater from her eyes with a tissue, and then passed an opaque little polythene bag, sealed at the neck, to her superior.
‘Another note?’ Alice asked, knowing the answer already.
‘Yup. Found it in the bloke’s left hand pocket. Blue biro this time, and the word’s “misleading”. It’s on stiff paper, more like card or something.’
‘Who found the body?’
‘A girl, a student at the University. She’s called Jane Drummond. I’ll go and get her for you shall I?’
‘Where is she now?’
‘Sheltering by the pavilion. DC Porter’s with her.’
‘I’ll go there. The photographers will need this space soon and the presence of the body won’t help the witnesses’ concentration.’
Under the eaves of the boarded-up pavilion a girl was standing, shivering with cold, trying unsuccessfully to light a cigarette despite the wind and lashing rain. She looked up on Alice’s approach and started to return the damp cigarette to its packet, but her hand was shaking violently, making the manoeuvre unusually difficult. Tears were falling down her already wet face.
‘Jane, there are just a few matters I need to talk to you about, can you manage?’ Alice enquired.
‘Yes,’ the girl answered in a whisper.
‘I’ve been told that you were coming from the Meadow Place side of the park and heading towards the old Royal Infirmary when you came across the body, is that right?’
‘Yes,’ another faint reply.
‘Can you tell me when that was?’
The student sniffed, cleaning her eyes with her fists like a small child, before composing herself and answering in a near-normal voice, ‘I think it would’ve been at about a quarter past nine. I looked at my watch when I was waiting for the ambulance, the police, and it was about twenty past then. I found him and phoned almost immediately.’
‘When you found him, was he already dead?’
‘As far as I could tell, yes,’ she gulped, ‘not moving, with that huge slash on his throat. He didn’t say anything, his eyes were shut, blood everywhere. I didn’t take his pulse, if that’s what you mean. Should I have?’
‘No, no, don’t worry,’ Alice reassured her. ‘There was nothing you could have done. Truly. Before you found him, did you see anyone else in the area?’
‘No. I had my head down because of the rain. I wanted to get back to the flat as quickly as possible. I only saw the poor guy because I practically tripped over his bike. It was lying right across my path and there he was, right next to it. If I’d been a few feet further to the left or right I would have missed him completely.’
‘When you were phoning or waiting with the body did you see anyone?’
The girl hesitated, before responding, ‘I think there was a cyclist… Sorry not to be sure, but I got such a shock… It’s difficult to recall… I just keep seeing that awful cut…’
‘A cyclist?’
‘Yes, going across the grass on the right-hand side… A good distance from me, though. I couldn’t even say if it was a man or a woman. Whoever it was had their head down and their bum high off the saddle, like, trying to get out of the wet.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Certain?’
‘Certain as I can be, but I wasn’t looking. I was just standing by that poor man, praying for the ambulance, the police, anyone to come and help. His head was practically off…’ The sentence remained unfinished, as the witness suddenly covered her mouth with her hand, before doubling up and vomiting copiously onto the tarmac at her feet.
Alice left the pavilion and returned to the body of David Pearson. In the little crowd assembling behind the boundary tape, she recognised a couple of unwelcome faces, James Mitchell from the Scotsman, unmissable as ever in his black fedora hat, and the red-lipsticked giantess from the Evening News. Wherever blood had been spilt they were to be found, like sharks, honed by evolution for their unsavoury task, single-minded and transfixed by the newest death. Mitchell, spying her, tipped the brim of his hat and she managed to smile at him. In the past he had helped her, and maybe would again. No point in alienating an ally, particularly a ruthless predator like him.
Manson, raincoat flapping open and belt whipping his sides, approached the giantess. Another of the strange symbiotic relationships created as a result of a murder, she thought. Sheltering beneath the policeman’s umbrella, the journalist appeared rapt by whatever information she was receiving, apparently memorising everything, notebook closed in her hand. Manson would, no doubt, be favouring her with his drugs theory, imparted earlier to Alice on the phone and as quickly dismissed by her. Dr Clarke, a medical practitioner, would have access to drugs and might have gone ‘rotten’; Sammy McBryde could hardly have lived where he did and not been a user, possibly even a dealer; and Pearson, a Queen’s Counsel, would know half of the drugs barons in central Scotland, no doubt having saved their poxy skins and earned their undying gratitude.
Thursday 8th December
The squad meeting, held at nine am precisely, was packed. Detective Superintendent Brunson was seated beside DCI Bell and Charlie Whyte, the press officer from HQ at Fettes, was standing, coffee cup in hand, by the door. As soon as DCI Bell rose the chatter in the room ceased, replaced by an attentive silence, as all eyes focused upon her. Her voice was still husky, unnaturally low, and any address would have to be given without frills or she’d be reduced to a whispering wreck again.
‘All of you will be aware, by now, that our killer has struck again. Identical M.O., knife or whatever across the throat, and another little piece of paper. The word this time is “misleading”, and it was found in one of the victim’s trouser pockets, the left one. Different paper, unlined, and different ink, blue on this occasion. The locus of the killing was the Meadows. The victim, David Pearson QC, was crossing them some time between about eight-forty-five pm and nine-fifteen pm. We know he left the Faculty of Advocates in the High Street at eight-forty-five pm as he clocked out then and filled in their register. He was found dead by a witness, Jane Drummond, some time around nine-fifteen pm. Uniforms are already doing further door-to-doors around Bankes Crescent, Learmonth Terrace and the Medway, and we’ve added all addresses about the Meadows onto their list. The post mortem on Pearson is at twelve today and I want Alastair and Alice to attend. I need Sandy and Ruth to oversee the search of the Meadows and its surroundings and DCs Irwin and Sinclair can assist the Dog Section.’
A muffled ‘woof, woof’ could be heard from Colin Irwin and Graham Sinclair’s direction, followed by a spontaneous chorus of ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’, sotto voce and inaudible to Elaine Bell. Unaware of the squad’s antics she continued: ‘This type of attack, throat-cutting with a sharp instrument…’. She stopped in mid-sentence as Laurence Body, Assistant Chief Constable, entered the room. He acknowledged his Chief Inspector and took a seat at the back beside a group of individuals that had not formed part of the squad before. Bell picked up her thread and persevered, ‘…as I was saying, this type of attack, throat-cutting with a sharp knife, is not common. There are two men in Barlinnie who favoured such a method of killing and a couple of loons in Carstairs but, so far, we haven’t found anyone out and about who’s known to wield knives, or whatever, in this way. All the mental hospitals are being checked and I’d like DCs MacDonald and Lindsay to go this morning to Stratheden to enquire into a possible candidate. The manager’s expecting a visit. They’ve got all the records there and the pair of you can get details of what precisely we’re looking for from Sandy. He’s just been accessing Holmes…’ DS Sandy Moray gave a thumbs up sign to no-one in particular.
Alice’s attention had begun to drift away from the meeting. She was vaguely aware of the DCI introducing the new members of the squad-presumably the individuals seated beside ACC Body-just a list of names, Travers, Carter, Cockburn, going on and on. In her mind she had already reached the mortuary and was standing outside a white door, waiting to go in, steeling herself for the awful sights she expected to see, the awful scents she expected to smell. The clicking of Alastair’s fingers before her eyes returned her to reality, the interruption softened by a proffered cup of tea.
‘What did you think of Manson’s little surprise on Thursday?’ he enquired, sipping his coffee.
‘Ian Melville’s fingerprints in Dr Clarke’s flat?’ she replied.
‘Yes.’
‘Well… I suppose it tells us as a minimum that Melville wasn’t telling us the truth and that Mansons don’t change their spots? If Melville was involved in Dr Clarke’s death, he must have had an accomplice.’
‘Yeh,’ he agreed, ‘the two identical sets in Bankes Crescent and Granton would have to be those of his accomplice, eh? Melville might or might not have been present in McBryde’s place. He could have been careful in Granton but have slipped up in Dr Clarke’s flat.’
‘Mmm, that’s what I thought too. We’ll need to check on that woman who answered his phone, too. Have you seen Roddy Cohen yet?’
‘No, the sod had gone out. I never got a chance to speak to him. I’m going to try again today.’
David Pearson lay on the trolley, naked, exposed to the gaze of all, waiting to be manhandled onto the table. Alice was astonished by his hairiness; he was like a chimpanzee, and an instant image of him wearing a party hat and sipping tea with other chimps flashed into her mind. Appalled by the picture she had involuntarily created, she dragged her thoughts away from the tea-party scene and back to the immobile, hirsute form now on the table. The surreal sound of bodily fluids being tapped became audible and she looked away from the body, resting her eyes on a collection of silvery scalpels arranged by size in a basin. Aware of a strange organic smell, she fought against the impulse to clamp her hand over her nose and mouth and concentrated instead on counting the metallic tools in the dish. The odour was becoming overpowering, and the hum of the saw, buzzing angrily, changed as it made contact with the scalp. A strange popping sound accompanied the removal of the top of the cranium, like the noise when a cork is extracted from a bottle. It’s just a film, she thought, not reality. I could walk out at any minute, I don’t have to stay if I don’t want to.
Her strategy for coping was destroyed by the sound of an irate voice close to her ear, ‘Sit down, Sergeant. There’s a chair over there.’ Thinking the remark had been addressed to her, she began to move away from the table, only to hear a thud as Alastair seated himself at the pathologist’s desk. He had his head in his hands, elbows on his knees, and was retching dryly into a bowl held by an assistant, also clad in green scrubs. Some time soon, please God, their ordeal would be over, everything weighed, measured, bagged and labelled, and the desecrated body returned to the fridge. Feeling slightly faint, she inadvertently caught the eye of the principal pathologist, and he winked at her through his half-moon spectacles. Noticing tiny spots of yellow fluid on his lenses, her legs gave way beneath her and she slumped, senseless, to the floor.
Friday 9th December
No birdsong in the winter, just the sound of the traffic starting up in the city, gears being changed, exhaust fumes being pumped out. Seven am and the din made by the alarm by her bed was augmented by the unwelcome tones of the telephone. She turned over and fumbled for the receiver.
‘Alice?’ It was Inspector Manson’s voice.
‘Yes, Sir,’ she responded thickly, as if unused to speech.
‘Can you meet me in the station in half an hour?’
‘Of course, Sir.’ Pointless to enquire why; Alice knew she would not be wanted if anyone else was available. By the time she reached St Leonard’s, ten minutes late, the Inspector was sitting in Alastair’s chair with his feet up, reading a copy of Ian Melville’s statement. He folded it as she entered the room, collected his jacket and did a revolving gesture with his fingers to tell her to retrace her steps and leave the building. On the way to see Melville, or ‘the perpetrator’ as the Detective Inspector had taken to calling him, Manson explained that he would handle the interview in its entirety; she should take no part in it due to its sensitivity. Alice was not sure whether this observation was intended to provoke, or whether the man truly believed that only his discriminating handling would be appropriate. Let it pass.
One parking space was available in the Colonies, so they took it, and walked back across the Water of Leith to St Bernard’s Row. Ian Melville was up and dressed, and answered the knock on his front door himself. Alice scrutinised his face as he took in her presence. No sign of fear or even anxiety, although he had lied to her and was intelligent enough to know that this follow-up visit was probably attributable to his deception. As Inspector Manson began to enter the flat, Melville politely requested the policeman to put out his cigar. Manson gave one last, exaggerated draw and then dropped his Havana onto the sanded boards, grinding it under his heel messily, and all the while staring into Melville’s eyes. Flashing his identity card, he walked into the kitchen and, uninvited, sat in one of the wooden chairs flanking the table. He was like a terrier, excited, eager to break the back of the rat. No need for any preliminaries, best clamp the jaws round the rodent’s spine, shake, and quickly dispatch.
‘You lied, Mr Melville. Not a wise thing to do.’
‘In what respect, Inspector?’ Melville did not appear perturbed by the accusation.
‘Your prints… They were all over Dr Clarke’s flat.’ A clear exaggeration, and Alice crossed her arms and leant back in her chair, unconsciously distancing herself from her superior.
‘I was Dr Clarke’s boyfriend for quite a long period. I tended not to wear rubber gloves all the time.’ Melville’s emerging disdain for his interrogator was unmistakable.
‘These prints… on a glass… are recent. Dr Clarke had a cleaner. She washed her employer’s used crockery, and glasses, every day, first thing.’ Manson spoke slowly, enunciating each word, apparently savouring the killer blow as he landed it, not bothering to hide the smile of triumph that had crept over his face.
‘I didn’t tell the sergeants the whole truth,’ Melville said, glancing at Alice apologetically. ‘I did see Elizabeth on Thursday night. I went to her flat after I left my studio. I wanted to find out if we could be friends. I thought maybe if she’d let me be a friend again, then we’d have a chance of getting back together. I’ve never made any bones about the fact that I loved her, to you. She allowed me in, and that was an improvement, as she’d slammed the door the last time I went to her house. I brought her flowers, freesias, I think. I just wanted to see her, to talk to her, to be in the same room, but she didn’t want anything to do with me, really. She gave me a glass of wine, but never poured out one for herself, so I knew I wouldn’t be there long. She was polite, she kept apologising, saying that she had an important medico-legal report to prepare, but I reckoned that she simply didn’t like having me anywhere near her. She wouldn’t look me in the face, or meet my eyes, kept looking into space, and the only time our eyes did meet, she flinched. If you know somebody well they don’t have to say much for the message to get across…’
‘And then what?’ Manson interrupted.
‘And then nothing,’ Melville replied coldly. ‘I left. End of story.’
‘You expect me to believe that!’ Manson expostulated.
‘No. Precisely because I did not expect your kind to believe “that” I omitted “that” and my expectation has not been exceeded. A woman is murdered, one I loved. The woman who killed my child and I fell out with. The woman seen by me on the night of the killing. Ergo, plod, I done it. I knew that’s how it would seem to you, and lo and behold, that’s how it does seem to you.’
‘I think,’ the Inspector leant over the table in his eagerness to express his theory, ‘that you went to Dr Clarke’s flat, you were determined to re-establish your relationship with her, and when she refused, you lost it, you killed her…’
‘You didn’t need to tell me that, I knew that’s what you’d think. But we live in different worlds, Inspector. Yours drips with blood wherever you look. Mine’s different. In mine, people in love don’t kill each other. I have loved before, you know, I have lost before, you know. No, I haven’t had my unborn child killed before, but I know Liz saw things quite differently, she’s a gynaecologist, for Christ’s sake. She had performed countless abortions. I loved her and so I forgave her. Once she’d loved me, then she didn’t. It happens, it made me sad, not mad. I wish she was still alive, I wish I’d never seen her that night, I wish I had an alibi, but I don’t, and that doesn’t make me her killer, whatever you may think.’
Undaunted by Melville’s impassioned speech, the terrier clumsily attempted to corner his prey again.
‘We know you take drugs, no point in denying it. Did Dr Clarke supply you with them?’
Melville was unable, or unwilling, to conceal his contempt any longer, and shook his head with disbelief before answering.
‘As I said, we live in different worlds, on different planets, in different bloody universes. In my twenties, like nearly everyone else I knew, I took drugs. Since then I’ve taken nothing, so I have no idea, I repeat NO IDEA, where you got your inaccurate, half-baked information. The idea of Elizabeth supplying them…’, he laughed mirthlessly, ‘…is so preposterous as not to deserve an answer. Her entire career was devoted to improving people’s health. Why not go the whole hog and accuse your own Chief Constable of peddling? He’d be as likely, actually, quite possibly more likely. If these are the sorts of flights of fancy you engage in for the purposes of your investigation, Inspector, Elizabeth’s murderer will be at large for ever, laughing at you as you reach out for the next red herring or wild goose. Maybe you should try and keep your big feet on the ground, stick to the facts…’
‘We don’t need any instruction in detection from you, Melville, and you’d better tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth from now on. I’ve met your smart-arse type before…’
Disobeying the express command she had been given earlier, Alice broke into the duel between the two men. ‘The woman who answered your phone on Tuesday, who was she?’
‘Must have been Paula.’ Evidently all co-operation had now been withdrawn, even monosyllables would have to be teased out.
‘Paula, who?’ she persisted.
‘Paula Carruthers.’
‘And your relationship with her?’
‘Occasional sleeping partner.’ Melville had chosen his words carefully.
‘Not a girlfriend then?’
He smiled wearily before answering, ‘No. For me there’s a difference. You asked me, last time, about girlfriends, and I said I’d had none since Liz. I was telling you the truth, although you may think I’m lying. Liz and I were lovers and friends, we didn’t just have sex with each other. Since we broke up I have slept with other women, but I haven’t loved any of them, had any kind of lasting relationship with them or even wanted to. Paula’s no different. The answer I gave you originally was completely accurate by my lights. Anything else?’
As Inspector Manson said ‘No’, Alice said, ‘Yes. Can you tell me what time it was when you left Elizabeth Clarke’s flat?’
‘About eight o’clock,’ he replied.
Alastair had left the draft post mortem report on David Pearson up on the computer screen and Alice glanced at it:
‘External examination-the body was that of a middle-aged white male, measuring approximately six foot one inch in height and weighing approximately eighty kg. The head hair was dark brown, streaked with grey, of moderate length and straight. The eyes were brown. There were no petechial haemorrhages, there was no jaundice. The mouth contained natural dentition in a reasonable state in both the upper and lower jaws. There was no evidence of injury within the mouth…’
She flicked, idly, to the post mortem reports for Elizabeth Clarke and Sammy McBryde, all equally impersonal, couched in the same clinical language; cold, objective, as if describing a cut of meat. Like a painting by Lucien Freud, accurate to the nth degree, but shocking, as if executed by a member of another species, an alien intelligence incapable of perceiving anything beyond the flesh and bones.
‘Imagining your own post mortem report?’ Alastair broke his companion’s concentration…
‘It will state,’ she replied airily, ‘the body was that of a woman in her prime, measuring approximately six foot in height and of appropriate weight for a wonderfully slim build. The head hair was a dark, glossy chestnut, curled luxuriantly and naturally. The eyes were of hazel surrounded by thick, upturned lashes… the full lips contained regular, pearly white teeth…’
‘Internal examination’, Alastair interrupted ‘…the soul, on close inspection, was found to be completely black.’ The phone rang. It was DCI Elaine Bell, croaky as ever and crunching in between sentences another cough sweet. Montgomery, in his caravan at El Alamein, could not have pushed himself harder than the ill little policewoman. They were to go, first thing the next day, to speak to Pearson’s widow. Kid gloves were to be worn and no feathers ruffled as the ACC (Crime) knew her family and was positively chummy with her mother. The press had already been making nuisances of themselves, staking out the place, and if they were still present, as seemed likely, they were to be provided with no titbits whatsoever, however innocuous they might seem. The words ‘serial killer’ had already appeared in an article in one of the tabloid papers, even though nothing had been officially provided by anyone from Fettes HQ suggesting that such a creature was at large. Manson’s report on the Ian Melville interview was now on Holmes, and the suspect already under surveillance.