Читать книгу Absolution - Caro Ramsay - Страница 11

Saturday, 30 September

Elizabeth Jane Fulton had not been beautiful in life.

Death did her no favours either.

Detective Chief Inspector Alan McAlpine paused as he entered her sitting room, letting a thin stream of rainwater finish its meandering path down his back. He knew it was going to be bad, so he crossed himself and said a quick prayer.

Elizabeth Jane lay on her back, crucified against the soft scarlet wool of her living-room carpet, the deeper stain of her blood sinuously shadowing the curve of her body. She lay with her legs together, stockinged feet crossed at the ankle, arms outstretched, hands palm upward and fingers slightly curved in cadaveric spasm, the index finger of her left hand pointing, her head tilting, the roll of dead eyes looking at the door as if watching for Nemesis.

In the harsh light the skin of her face was waxy and blue, and McAlpine recognized the blistering of chloroform round the mouth and nose.

He wiped wet hair from his forehead, taking a closer look at her uniform: navy blue skirt, the matching neckerchief still round her neck. He couldn’t quite place where he had seen it before. Bank? Hotel? The anonymous uniform of the professionally uninterested. The skirt had been pulled down to straighten the pleats, tan-coloured tights shrouding her legs, the toes stained blue with dye from her shoes. All the clothes over her stomach had been ripped apart as the knife ploughed its indecent path through skin and soft tissue. The leather of the thin belt had held, dragged upward, framing the dark epicentre of the gaping wound. A fine dark line ran down from her sternum, opening out where the viscera nestled in the gentle arc of her hipbone. McAlpine couldn’t help looking, trying not to breathe in the heavy mineral stench of blood.

The SOCO with the video camera stopped filming as Professor O’Hare stepped forward. He sideshifted his grey fringe with the back of his forearm, a dark smear of blood visible on his protective gloves, before he spoke. ‘That’s part of her intestine, DCI McAlpine. Little trick of Jack the Ripper, that one. Except he used to put them over the victim’s right shoulder.’

‘Thanks. I really needed to know that, Professor.’ McAlpine glanced at the dead woman’s left hand. The fingers were bare.

‘In this case, I’m not sure it was intentional. I think he just cut the mesentery.’ O’Hare tutted. ‘I’ll let you know ASAP. I heard last night you’d been put in charge; glad to have you on board.’ O’Hare smiled slightly as he recoiled from the body, pulled the gloves from his hands, turned them inside out and placed them in a plastic bag. ‘Don’t drip on anything. Here.’ He handed McAlpine a paper towel. ‘How is DCI Duncan?’

‘The bronchitis turned out to be chronic heart failure. He’s stable, but that’s all they’re saying. At least he’s not suffering the stress of this any more. I guess that’s my job now.’

‘He looked dreadful last time I saw him. When did you get the call to take over?’ asked O’Hare.

‘Thursday night. Duncan wasn’t going to let go until they dragged him away in an ambulance . . . and in the end that’s exactly what happened.’

‘That’s what the job does to you. Pass on my regards if you see him.’

‘Will do.’ McAlpine mopped the water from his hair, looking directly at Elizabeth Jane’s open wound. ‘Oh, the mess of her. Fucking bastard.’

They stood in silence, hands on hips, listening to the drumming of the rain on the window, and staring at Elizabeth Jane, who lay on the floor between them like some recalcitrant child exhausted at the end of a tantrum.

‘Can we move her now?’ the SOCO asked.

The pathologist and McAlpine stood back as the body was lifted, ready to be turned on to the white plastic sheet. A gloved hand steadied the loose intestine as the body moved. The camera clicked, catching everything, the bloodstained underskirt slipping over Elizabeth Jane’s thigh to reveal fresh carpet underneath. The smell intensified as the body rolled, and McAlpine turned away, holding the paper towel to his nose, grimacing and cursing like a trooper.

The SOCOs held her, half turned, one leg balanced on the other, their plastic slippers crunching on plastic sheeting as they moved closer. Elizabeth Jane answered them with a slow exhalation, like a deflating tyre. Nobody spoke.

O’Hare bent to check her back, looking at the bruising. Then he nodded, the bodybag was zipped, and Elizabeth Jane disappeared.

‘Same as Lynzi Traill?’ McAlpine knew the answer before he asked.

‘The pose, the cutting, the chloroform burns on the face? The wound’s a bit deeper, but apart from that it’s a carbon copy.’

McAlpine sighed. ‘I’m only twelve hours into the Traill case, and this happens. What about chloroform – how easy is that to get hold of?’

‘DCI Duncan asked the same question. It’s a controlled substance. I know he had a check done, and none had been reported stolen recently; that was the last I heard. But I’ll say to you exactly what I said to DCI Duncan about the Traill murder: efficient and confident use of a knife. This guy knows what he’s doing.’

‘Wish I did,’ McAlpine sighed, looking at the exposed carpet outlined by the tidemark of drying blood. ‘Nothing tasty about the knife?’

‘Not yet.’

‘But the same one?’

‘Nothing tells me it’s different,’ O’Hare answered cautiously. ‘Best of luck.’ He touched the smaller man on the shoulder on his way past.

McAlpine wound the paper towel round his knuckles, tearing it as he flexed his fingers; it was damp but comforting. He scanned the walls around him. The TV, small and functional, a DVD player underneath, its clock reading 5.17, the figures flashing at him and reminding him how tired he was. He picked up a couple of family photographs from the wooden unit. One of the deceased at some grand function, grinning in glad rags and clutching champagne, her mother on one side, her dad on the other, their smiles broad for the camera. The other was of Elizabeth Jane with another girl, a sister or cousin from the look of her, with the same dark-rimmed eyes and serious expression. He put the photographs down, scanning the bookcase: DVDs of David Copperfield, Upstairs Downstairs and the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice. The books were all much of a muchness: Steel, Vincenzi, Taylor Bradford. A pile of magazines was stacked near by on the bottom shelf, topped by two sudoku booklets, one open with a pen attached.

One china coffee mug, half empty, sat on the pine mantelpiece; its partner was on the small table beside the sofa. He kneeled down. The second cup was still full, with a white and greasy film of floating milk.

McAlpine was thoughtful. Her number was ex-directory, and the name plate downstairs simply said FULTON, no Miss, no Mrs. The front door said E. J. FULTON. The car had a Stoplock and a gear lock on it. She was a careful woman... as the previous victim, Lynzi Traill, had been, from the accounts he had read. He walked to the window, pulling the curtain back slightly, looking through the net.

Elizabeth Jane Fulton had known her killer.

‘Prof?’ he called.

A reluctant shadow appeared at the door.

‘What’s the parking like out there?’ McAlpine asked, flicking the net and wiping the condensation from the glass. A hive of activity in the dead of night, two police cars blocking Fortrose Street, another three up on the pavement. He watched as an officer, clipboard over his head to protect him from the rain, directed two others up the street, while another, half hidden behind the car, was bending over retching up the contents of his stomach, clearly finding the whole thing a trial by fire. Squad car 13 reversed to park between them, yellow light oscillating, highlighting the double curve of the digit 3 with every turn.

‘It’s busy. Permit parking only. A strange car might have been noticed, heard. Might be worth a shot,’ O’Hare answered.

McAlpine looked up Fortrose Street, at the trees at the Wickets Hotel, the lights in the upper rooms making comets in the rain. Up the hill, turn right, ten minutes’ walk, five if you hurried, and there was Victoria Gardens, where they had found Lynzi Traill. So close.

‘Time of death?’ he asked.

‘At this stage, I’d plump for early last night. One of those mugs was half empty, so if it was hers, the coffee will still be in her stomach . . . if the stomach wall hasn’t been punctured and leaked the –’

‘Spare me, please.’

O’Hare smiled; he liked seeing hard-bitten detectives go green. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Helena sent me an invite to the exhibition, so I’ll see you there if not before.’

It took McAlpine a little while to think what he was talking about. ‘Yes, of course. It’s sometime at the end of the week – Friday, isn’t it?’

‘Saturday,’ corrected O’Hare.

The Professor departed, dipping his head by force of habit as he went out of the door. McAlpine stood in the perfectly square entrance hall, with its floor of cheap laminate, every door white-stained colonial. The only slash of colour was the mock-Persian rug, now littered with the machinery of investigation: lights, cameras, cases, everything covered in clear polythene. The two SOCOs, still in their plastic-coated paper suits, were packing up.

McAlpine opened the bathroom door. The ventilator purred into life with the light switch, wafting the scent of lavender through the air. All was pink. Wrapping his fingers in a piece of pink toilet roll, he opened the cabinet. One tube of toothpaste: Macleans’ fluoride. One deodorant spray: Marks & Spencer’s Peaches & Cream. One folded face cloth: pink. One shampoo: anti-dandruff. One conditioner: for dry, fine, flyaway hair. One Marks & Spencer body lotion, Peaches & Cream again. Not much else.

No contraceptives. No headache tablets. No hangover cure. He shut the cabinet door.

The bedroom was the same nauseating pink-with-a-hint-of-vomit. Even the teddy bear on the pillow was two-tone pink. McAlpine opened a few drawers, his fingers still curled in the tissue. The top drawer was full of very sensible underwear. Either Elizabeth Jane had no sex life or she went to hospital a lot. On a pink satin chair was a pile of clothes folded with army precision, blouses with sleeves tucked in, a jumper and cardigan to match her uniform. The few prints on the wall were from the same Marks & Spencer colour coordinated range as the wallpaper, the bed linen, the dressing gown and the teddy. More camouflage than coordination.

McAlpine turned back to the pristine white kitchen. Only Nescafé and the kettle on the worktop. The cupboard revealed a range of tins, all stacked label-side out, most of them WeightWatchers’. An open sachet of cat treats, carefully folded at the top, sat to one side. He looked for a water dish or litter tray, but couldn’t see any. So – no resident cat. He opened the fridge: low-fat spread, skimmed milk, plenty of fruit and veg that all seemed fresh. He flipped open the bin. The only thing in it was the white bin liner.

The SOCOs said their goodbyes, wedging the door open as they left with their equipment. McAlpine saw a small black cat with a white kipper tie shivering with fear behind the cheese plant on the landing, its fur glittering with rainwater. McAlpine walked out into the hall and picked it up. ‘Hello, little fella. I don’t think you live here.’ The cat regarded him with saucer eyes, then stared back at the white-suited men walking about his domain. ‘Anybody know where this wee guy belongs?’ asked McAlpine. Without waiting for a reply he put the cat into the hands of a SOCO who was coming up the stairs. ‘Find out and give him back, will you?’

The SOCO took the cat in an outstretched arm as if it were a bomb. ‘It lives in the next-door flat, I think. She’s terrified it’ll get out and run over by a police car. Wouldn’t be the first time.’

‘Make sure she keeps him locked up.’

‘We’ve handed it in twice already; it escapes every time the nosy cow opens her door.’

‘Well, tell her to lock him in the bathroom.’ The DCI glanced at his watch. ‘For the next twelve hours at least.’

McAlpine shivered himself in the draught that raced up the stairwell and bit at his legs. He entered the comparative warmth of the flat again, and went back into the kitchen for a look at the cork noticeboard and the plans for a future life that would never be: a wedding invitation with the ubiquitous Rennie Mackintosh rose motif and, clipped to it, a card with a date for a dress fitting. He opened the invitation with the tip of his pen. Mr and Mrs Vincent Fulton request the pleasure . . . That was a request for deaf ears now. Below it was a folded registration card for a Samsung 200 mobile purchased two days before; he made a note of the number. There were two more phone numbers written in the same neat disciplined hand, a list of three complaints about the flat and a note to phone the factors about a joiner.

McAlpine started opening and shutting cupboard doors again, searching.

He found no cigarettes, no alcohol, no chocolate.

He decided he would not have liked Elizabeth Jane Fulton.

McAlpine lingered for a long time over his last cigarette in the car park at the back of Partickhill Police Station, leaning against a battered old Corsa, letting the nicotine soothe his lungs. It had been six months since the Scottish Executive had banned smoking in all public buildings, and standing in the rain had become a popular pastime on the basis that pneumonia killed quicker than lung cancer. The police station was a long-lost friend he wasn’t sure he wanted to know again. Working out of Stewart Street, he’d been able to pick and choose what station within the Glasgow Central and West Division he wanted to run an investigation from, and there were always a hundred and one perfectly valid reasons for it not to be Partickhill. Built in a gap in the tenements created by the Luftwaffe, it had come about by chance, not design. It fitted the space but was too small to do the job; the canteen was a joke, the car park was tiny, the lane too narrow for the meat wagon to get up. But the powers that be had decreed that what DCI Duncan had started, DCI McAlpine would continue. So here he was. How could he argue? He lived less than five minutes from the place.

He sighed and stubbed his cigarette out underfoot. Taking a deep breath, he closed his mind to the memories and walked up the hill to the entrance.

He nodded at the desk constable on his way past but kept moving, getting it over with. He went up the stairs of Partickhill Station for the first time in twenty-two years, wiping cold sweat from his upper lip, images best forgotten already flashing in his mind. The stairs were carpeted now. The window was new but still draughty; the filing cabinet had gone but a photocopier was parked in its place. A curled Post-it note was stuck to it, dated two years before.

He walked quickly through the doors of the main incident room, glancing up at the clock. That was new too but still told the wrong time. He checked his own watch, his gold-faced Cartier. It was ten to seven, ten minutes before he would know the first outcome of the silent conversation between O’Hare and Elizabeth Jane at the mortuary. He hoped it had been fruitful.

He strolled round the CID suite, watching the squad assemble. Some had been pulled from their beds; others had been here all night. Some wiped sleep from their eyes; others were chewing gum to stay awake. As he walked past a bank of computer screens, familiar faces looked up at him, arms stretched out to say hello and welcome, and there were a few pats on the back, a show of faith. McAlpine nodded back, saying hello here and there, nice to work with you again; glad you’re on the team. He took his time to familiarize himself with twenty-odd years of change. The incident room still smelled the same: stale sweat and yesterday’s coffee.

Memories were already stretching and yawning, uncoiling from sleep, memories of things he had never known, a voice he had never heard, a smile unfurling from lips he had never gazed at. Had never kissed.

A beauty he had never seen.

But it still felt like a reunion; even through the reek of staleness he could smell her in the air, in the scent of bluebells. The scent of her.

He closed his mind to the past and concentrated on the present.

The main room was a sea of desks and printers. He kicked a few cables with his toe on the way past; he would get them taped down. Dead coffee cups were piled up in pyramids; intrays and out-trays spilled over with printouts. DS Little-wood’s tattered leather jacket was lying over his desk, and the early edition of the News of the World was open at Page Three. His tray was topped with the remnants of yesterday’s bacon sandwich. McAlpine had met burglars who were tidier.

He stopped at the cork-board displaying the scene-of-crime pictures and pulled a piece of luminous orange card saying wall of death, crushing it with one fist and throwing it across the room. He didn’t look round; he didn’t want to know who had written it. He detested victims being treated with disrespect. He looked at Lynzi Traill, killed fourteen days before. Not a particularly attractive woman, with her round tanned face and eyebrows plucked to extinction, but there was nothing particularly unattractive about her either. She was neither fat nor thin, tall nor short; she worked part time in a charity shop; she had a lover. She had left her boring semidetached, left her boring hubby and left her child.

Left her child.

McAlpine looked closely at her wound, somebody’s hand pulling the branches of a bush to the side, revealing hatred.

‘Hello, DCI McAlpine,’ a girl introduced herself. Her pulled-back tightly clipped hair was a sure sign she was just out of uniform. ‘DC Irvine.’

‘You have a first name, Irvine?’

‘Gail.’ She smiled, dark eyes twinkling. ‘Professor O’Hare rang through just now. He says the preliminary examination has revealed no obvious forensics at the site. He’s looking for trace evidence, but that will take some time.’

‘Did he say anything about the scene-investigation report?’

‘On its way, sir.’

‘Good, good,’ said McAlpine, looking over her left shoulder. DCI Graham’s room, as such, was gone, and he was trying to figure out where the missing wall had been. The doorway had been moved from the hall to this room, a glass panel in place so the senior officer could survey the troops. The incident room was now twice the size, with a plastic concertinaed door folded to one side at the halfway point. He noticed that one door to the corridor was marked EXIT. So he had walked in through the out door.

So be it.

He continued his slow walk round the main room, breathing in the subdued tension, looking at the maps, the statistics, the duty roster. The fluorescent lights were humming exactly a semitone lower than the computers. There was the odd tap of a keyboard but mostly the squad were reading, a steady flick of paper, waiting. Two cops were debating why the coffee always tasted like chlorine.

McAlpine opened the door to Graham’s old office. There it was again . . . that memory . . . Graham’s old office. No, it was DCI Duncan’s office. He shivered slightly; it was his own domain now. The room had two desks, two filing cabinets, one with a drawer missing, the compulsory computer monitor chasing a message from right to left, three dead plants and a memo from Assistant Chief Constable McCabe, asking him for a meeting to discuss the budget, details were on his email. His reputation for ignoring emails, and budgets, had clearly preceded him.

He reached into his pockets for a biro, finding his Marlboros. Something hard in his jacket pocket jabbed his fingertips. It was a small card, a hand-drawn caricature of himself in a deerstalker with a huge magnifying glass. He opened it.

Catch him!See you when I see you,Happy Anniversary,All my love,H.

She had slipped it into his pocket as he slept. He raised the card to his lips. It smelled of graphite, turpentine, pencil eraser and a touch of the Penhaligon’s Bluebells he always bought for her. He smiled. The drawing of him was good; she had even been kind enough to remove a few wrinkles. He hadn’t remembered their anniversary. He never did. He thought there was supposed to be a dinner party but couldn’t recall when. He made do with sticking the card up against the computer, obscuring the monitor.

He gazed out at the main office, then turned his back on his observers, the leather chair squeaking as it swivelled, and tore open the envelope of preliminary photographs. His breathing quickened as he flicked through grotesque images of Elizabeth Jane, the sheen of mesentery covering her exposed bowel, mucosa glistening in the flash of the camera. For a moment he looked closely at it, fascinated by its rich colour and gentle folds, then he remembered what he was looking at and shoved the prints back into their envelope.

He pulled out the small picture of Elizabeth Jane and held it up. From the corner of his eye he could see Lynzi’s face looking at him through the glass, his eyes moving from short to long focus as he compared them, tapping a biro against his teeth and swinging on his seat, getting into a rhythm. To his untrained eye, it looked as though Elizabeth Jane’s body had suffered the greater injury. Lynzi Traill, thirty-four, dark haired, dark eyed. Elizabeth Jane Fulton, twenty-six, a shy bank teller, slightly overweight, medium-brown hair. Both Ms Average. Both chloroformed, ripped open and left to bleed to death. No forensic evidence found at either site.

Lucky? Or clever? Efficient and confident use of a knife. O’Hare’s phrase. Not many people could calmly push a blade into soft live flesh till blood ran like warm olive oil.

McAlpine looked at his watch. Three hours to the main briefing. He needed something to give them. And he needed nicotine and caffeine. Decent caffeine. He wondered where Anderson was . . . he needed somebody to talk to. He looked at the photographs again. The direct comparison told him the attack on Elizabeth Jane had been more ferocious than that on Lynzi. Instinct told him that was not a good sign. Two post-mortem shots, a close-up of each wound with O’Hare’s gloved hand in the frame, holding a rule, a scale to show how long, how deep, how brutal. Through the glass he could see Irvine bisecting the wall with a piece of orange gaffer tape, a half-legible case number on the second half. He could hear her chattering away about the previous night’s Coronation Street. McAlpine scribbled on a piece of A4 paper and went out to hand it to Irvine.

‘Type that out and put it up there. Her name was Elizabeth Jane Fulton, that’s her date of birth and that’s the date of her death. She is not a number.’

McAlpine walked on, not waiting for an answer. One step through the folded doors and he was back to 1984, memories crowding round him. He pulled the doors closed behind him. Alone, he stood, feeling the chill in the air, looking at the wall covered with a mosaic of pictures: Lynzi, her husband, her boyfriend, her son, the Glasgow Central train timetable, Victoria Gardens, a close-up of a single brass key. But all he could see was a black-and-white photograph of a blonde woman on a beach, her head flung back, smiling at the sun. It was quiet in here. He could almost hear the sea in the photograph, taste the salt on his lips. She was walking over his grave; he could feel that kiss, the soft brush of her lips against his. A smile that had never quite...

The door behind him bumped, and he closed his eyes, killing the memory.

‘Roll, fried egg, potato scone, no butter, brown sauce, one coffee, no milk. Did I get it right?’ Detective Inspector Colin Anderson tried to elbow the door open holding two brown-paper bags and balancing a cardboard tray with two cups. ‘How many sugars?’

‘Three.’

‘But I didn’t stir it. I know you don’t like it sweet.’

‘The old jokes are the best. Good to have you back, Colin. DI Anderson now, I believe. Two years without me holding you back and you’re promoted. Well, well. Congratulations.’ McAlpine slapped him on the arm. ‘How was life in the frozen east?’

Anderson grimaced. ‘Thanks for the reference; it helped me get the job. But – well, it wasn’t quite the job I expected.’

‘Yeah, but you had to do it to find out, or you would have spent the rest of your career wondering otherwise. I debated whether to call you in on this, but I thought, what the hell – six months into a two-year secondment? You’ll be pissed off with the driving already.’

‘I was pissed off the first morning it took me forty minutes to get through the Newbridge Roundabout.’ Anderson held out the roll, double-wrapped in a napkin. ‘Eat it while it’s hot, it’s straight from the University Café.’ He took a bite out of his own white roll – sausage, tomato sauce – and proceeded to talk with his mouth full with such relish McAlpine presumed he got a row for doing it at home. ‘Edinburgh was shite; the office was too warm. After years of 23-hour shifts you think a nine-to-five will be fun.’ He downed a mouthful of hot coffee. ‘But it’s boring. I couldn’t settle. I’m glad to be back. Edinburgh’s full of traffic lights and tourists. Bunch of chancers.’ He pulled a face. ‘The potato scones are iffy. There’s a hill with a castle on it, a high street with no lamp-posts, and that’s about it.’

‘I can tell you were impressed. My mum always said you get more fun at a Glasgow stabbing than an Edinburgh wedding. Complaints and Investigations, wasn’t it?’

‘Yeah, but it’s not real police work,’ Anderson swirled his coffee. ‘And I missed this, I really missed it. So how do we come to be here?’

‘There were rumours DCI Duncan was struggling, then I was pulled into the office to be told he’s in a high-dependency unit, and I’m being transferred to take over the Traill case. And they wanted it to be run from here.’

‘You worked out of this place before?’ Anderson looked round, staring at the ceiling. ‘Small, isn’t it?’

‘Years ago, as a cadet,’ McAlpine said bluntly. ‘Anyway, next thing I know, I’m being dragged out of bed at five in the morning for victim number two.’

‘Any ideas about what’s behind all this?’

McAlpine looked round to see who was listening. ‘None that go anywhere,’ he said quietly. ‘Colin, I’m a bit uneasy about this, and I’m not sure why.’

Anderson stuck the last bit of roll in his mouth. ‘You’ve a hundred per cent record. Why shouldn’t you get the case? Surely it was down to you or DCI Quinn. I tell you, if she’d been on the case, I’d have stayed in Edinburgh.’ He sensed further disquiet. ‘What’s up?’

As McAlpine took his cigarette packet from his pocket, Anderson noticed the tremor in his hand. Sharp resolution came back to his voice. ‘It’s a difficult situation for us all. It’s a tight squad; they know each other much better than they know me. Or you.’

‘But Costello’s been on the team right from the start, hasn’t she? Has she any ideas?’

‘I phoned her from the scene this morning. I wanted her here before the others. But the lock’s jammed on her car, she says, and she can’t get into it. She’ll be here soon.’ McAlpine was walking up and down, looking at the photographs, like a sergeant major inspecting his troops. He stopped in front of Lynzi’s face.

Anderson followed discreetly and took another mouthful of his coffee. ‘How’s Costello doing?’

‘Sounded her usual self.’ McAlpine inhaled deeply. ‘Breathing fire and brimstone, champing at the bit. Relieved it wasn’t Quinn taking over. You know a chap called Viktor Mulholland?’ he asked sharply. ‘That’s Viktor with a k? He’s being wished upon us from on high.’

Anderson shook his head. ‘He a fast-track?’

‘Talented, seemingly. But I’m out of touch, I don’t know about him. A case like this, he’ll sink or swim.’

‘Pair him with Costello. She’ll keep an eye on him,’ suggested Anderson.

‘Of course. I should have thought of that.’ McAlpine sighed.

Anderson retreated round the partitioned wall and sat on the edge of the desk, rolling his empty coffee cup in the palms of his hands, his eyes passing over Lynzi and resting on Elizabeth Jane, looking at the arrangement of their feet, left over right. ‘Sinister over dexter,’ he mused. ‘Do you think there’s a religious thing behind all this? It’s a bit precise, isn’t it, the arrangement of the limbs?’

‘Which means we have a psycho, and...’ McAlpine turned, catching something said just out of earshot. ‘Sorry, Col, I’m wanted on the phone. I’ll take it on the moby and go out for a fag. See you in the office in a minute? Oh, and as I’ve been up since five, I’m going to nip home and have a shower before the briefing.’ He looked at his watch. ‘You can run me back in.’

The fried-egg-and-potato-scone roll with brown sauce still lay on the desk, one bite taken out and the rest untouched. Some habits did not change.

DS Costello caught her toe on the step of Partickhill Police Station, as she had done every working day for the last six years.

‘Enjoy your trip?’ PC Wyngate asked, as he did every time he witnessed it.

Costello rolled her eyes and forced herself to remember that she was actually fond of young Wyngate, whose endless willingness and sheer bloody niceness made up for his not being the brightest. ‘It’s Baltic out there.’ She pulled down the hood of her cream duffel coat, running her fingers through unruly blonde hair, and shivered in the warmth of the station, wishing her shoes didn’t let water in. ‘Briefing at ten?’ she read off the board.

‘Yes. I think that new guy wants you to do something first; you’ve to go up straight away.’ He leaned over the desk. ‘Guess what?’

‘What?’

‘I was there, at the scene. I was on the tape, then I started the door-to-door,’ he said smugly, stirring his tea with deliberation, clinking the spoon repeatedly against the side of his Partick Thistle mug.

‘I thought you were taken off the tape because you were spewing your guts on the pavement? Using the tape to keep yourself upright, in fact.’

‘Oh, who told you?’

‘It’s on the noticeboard, Wingnut. You should be flattered, shows some kind of popularity.’

Wyngate could never quite tell when Costello was joking, so he shrugged. ‘You going upstairs?’

‘Yeah. Main incident room, is it?’

‘You take these up with you, some more stuff about last night. That’s the prelim report from the scene through already. Traill all over again,’ Wyngate stated baldly.

‘The same?’ asked Costello, as she took the envelope of photographs.

‘Exactly.’

‘Oh . . . right,’ said Costello cautiously. She turned round, tapping the envelopes on the counter, feeling them surreptitiously. The report was only one page; the other envelope had the stiff cardboard backing of photographs, the number code telling her these were the second batch to come through. God, how quick had they been with the first? She allowed herself a smile – DCI McAlpine was in charge, things were moving.

‘So who else is up there?’

The stirring resumed. ‘Vik Mulholland’s not in yet.’ Wyngate sniffed the air. ‘You can always tell. No aftershave, therefore no Mulholland. Is he gay, d’you think?’

‘No, but he helps them out if they’re busy. Who else is up there?’

‘A tall fair-haired bloke in a Barbour, polite, looks stressed.’ Wyngate was looking down a list of names. ‘Would that be DI Anderson?’

‘Yeah, Colin Anderson. He’s been dragged back from Edinburgh. Nice guy,’ Costello said, smiling to herself.

Wyngate consulted a piece of paper. ‘Was he not seconded from the L and B?’

‘No, they seconded him from us, and we are having him back. Is McAlpine already here?’

‘DCI McAlpine? Small, dark-haired bloke?’

‘Yip, that’ll be him,’ said Costello, giving him a sweet smile, her sharp features blending into prettiness for the briefest of moments. She looked at the clock: it was going on seven.

‘He wasn’t fast-tracked, was he?’ asked Wyngate.

‘He made DCI at thirty-five. That’s talent, not fast-track,’ Costello whispered, letting him into a secret. ‘He’s good; you should watch and learn.’

‘Yeah, right.’ He dropped another two reports on the top of her pile, spinning round to talk to an old couple and a tartan-coated greyhound that had just walked in. ‘Can I help you?’ he said, tapping a keyboard, happy with his computer.

Seconds later Costello was taking the stairs two at a time up to the incident room. Every murder inquiry McAlpine had been on, he had called for her. Every time she met him again, she hoped she would feel different, that he would somehow be different. The door to the DCI’s office was closed, but she could see them through the window, sitting close together, Anderson talking, McAlpine with his back to her. She took a deep breath, hoping again that time had caught up with Alan McAlpine: that the almond eyes had faded, the burnt umber had dulled to sepia, the beautiful profile had wrinkled with age. That maybe his seductive smile had been softened by the passing years. She felt her stomach twist.

She opened the door, her feet squelching. McAlpine and Anderson were deep in discussion. It was a while before McAlpine turned, flicking his hair from his face before his eyes met hers.

His face was just as it had ever been.

Perfect.

Winifred Prudence Costello had suffered many misfortunes in her life, not least of which was being named after both grandmothers. Another was the ability of her cars, like her men, to let her down just when they were needed. Like at six that morning when she’d been in a hurry, but the Toyota was more impregnable than Alcatraz, leaving her standing in a puddle and making her late for the meeting. The DCI, being his usual self, had got straight to the point.

‘Glad to see you, Costello. Get your skates on and check this out.’ He had handed her a piece of paper with Elizabeth Jane’s neighbour’s statement. There were a few too many vague comments in the initial interview, and he wanted it cleared up before the briefing at ten. The good news was that he trusted her to get the job done properly.

The bad news was she had to take Vik Mulholland with her.

McAlpine had spared her the embarrassment of explaining about her car by ordering Mulholland to take her in his. She was the senior officer, so she should be the one driven. That had gone down like a lead balloon.

She checked her watch. Mulholland had said he would be out in two ticks, and that was ten minutes ago. She began to stamp her feet, the water in her shoes warming nicely to skin temperature. Plunging her hands deep into the pockets of her duffel, she pulled her neck tight into the collar, humming ‘A Policeman’s Lot is Not a Happy One’ to herself. All the time her fingers caressed the soft leather of her warrant card, the evidence of her promotion, to Detective Sergeant Winifred Prudence Costello.

She gestured through the doors of the station, tapping her fingertip on the face of her watch. Wyngate shrugged his shoulders at her; Mulholland was nowhere to be seen. Costello sniffled and looked up Hyndland Road. Brenda Muir was having an autumn sale, 50 per cent off. There was a dark green cocktail dress in the window, the colour of avocado skin. Who was she kidding? She never went anywhere, except work. If she wore good clothes, she looked as though she’d stolen them. She stamped her feet a little quicker, watching a piebald collie investigate a wheelie bin. She looked at its feathered tail rippling in the wind, letting her mind run. First Lynzi, now the Fulton girl. She shivered, nothing to do with the chill of the morning. The collie teased a chip paper from the bin and began to worry it, pinning it to the pavement and taking great delight in ripping the newspaper to shreds, which the wind promptly dumped in the gutter.

The rush hour had started, and cars were snaking up to the junction with the Great Western Road, amber and red lights smudging in the rain. Up there too stood the elegant four-storey terraces of Kirklee, one of the most prestigious addresses in Glasgow, a five-minute walk from the police station but socially a million miles distant. The McAlpines had lived there all their married life, in Helena’s family home.

Still no sign of Mulholland, and Costello was getting impatient. Vik Mulholland was the new kid on the block, still had to prove his worth. The old musketeers were back together again. For the last ten years their careers had crisscrossed each other’s like the weave of a hunting plaid. Costello herself had always been at this station or at Divisional HQ less than a mile away since she graduated from Tulliallan Police College. McAlpine lived at the top of the hill. Anderson had done the rounds of the division like a good detective should as he climbed the career ladder. They all knew this area like they knew their own faces, but Mulholland was a south-sider, and a posh one at that. He might just find himself a fish out of water. The thought pleased her.

The collie trotted off, a pie crust in its teeth as a prize. Costello began to pace back and forth, counting to ten before each turn. She knew this city and the people in it better than she had known her own mother, and it gave her an edge over the others. Mulholland was welcome to his designer suits and blind ambition. McAlpine had his handsome face, his aggressive genius, his electric charm and his beautiful wife; Anderson had a troubled marriage and two adorable kids . . . Costello stopped pacing, halted by a thought. Over the years she’d been aware that Anderson had a great fondness for the Boss’s wife. Not that there was anything in it – of course there wasn’t – but Costello had always wondered. Then a sudden gust of rain stung her in the face, putting an end to her romantic notions.

She gestured impatiently through the door of the station again and breathed deeply as she looked up the street, the centre of the West End, the creative heart of the city, her city. She had an instinct for the place and its people, had always felt safe in its streets. The only move she had made in her life was from the south side of the Clyde to the north. Glasgow had warmth, and the humour of hard-working people. It was an in-your-face kind of city but one with a soft centre. But now her home town was keeping a secret from her, and she didn’t like it.

Her foot came down in a puddle, and ice-cold water invaded her sock again. She had hoped she wouldn’t still feel the same about McAlpine, but she did. She reminded herself that the way she felt about McAlpine was probably the way Anderson felt about Helena. The McAlpines were a difficult couple to dislike; she was rich and successful with an easy grace that put everybody at ease; he was . . . well, he was himself, and that was enough.

The rain didn’t look like giving up, so she pulled her hood right up over her head, tucking her hair underneath in an attempt to keep it dry. The sky in the east was slipping from dark to light grey, but it wasn’t going to clear. A van pulling in to overtake on the inside went right through a puddle, and dark murky water splashed with uncanny accuracy on her cream chinos.

A black shining Beamer pulled out of Clarence Lane, stopping the traffic. Vik Mulholland leaned over to open the door for her. ‘Don’t get the upholstery wet, will you?’

‘I’ll hover in mid-air, will I?’ she said. Mulholland looked very smug in his cashmere Crombie. He always looked immaculate, one of the many things about him that annoyed Costello. She fastened her seatbelt and nodded at his expensive overcoat. ‘Sorry, did I interrupt you working as a body double for Johnny Depp? Or was it a photo shoot for Versace today?’

‘Nice, isn’t it?’ he said, smiling imperturbably. ‘So we have another one to add to our workload.’ Mulholland indicated right. The traffic always stopped for the cop cars. ‘He has a bit of a reputation, this McAlpine, but I didn’t think much of him. Seems a bit soft.’

‘You reckon? Underestimate him at your peril,’ Costello muttered, pulling her coat beneath her. ‘It should mean something to you that he’s allowed you to stay on the team. What he says goes . . . or who he says goes.’ She smiled at her own little witticism.

‘Really? So why are we doing this routine stuff? Inappropriate use of resources. This is uniform.’

‘It means he has a hunch about something.’

‘About what?’

Costello sighed. ‘The Boss isn’t happy about the body being found by somebody looking through a letterbox at three this morning. Wants to know more.’

‘Why would anybody be looking through a letterbox at three in the morning?’ asked Mulholland, smoothing his eyebrow in the mirror.

‘Exactly.’ She leaned forward, sticking a Post-it note with the address on the dashboard and turning off some operatic warbling from his CD player. ‘Take a left when you can.’ She started scribbling in her notebook. ‘I’ve phoned ahead; they’re not going out till we speak to them.’

‘But why are we doing it?’

‘Because,’ Costello said, with consummate patience, ‘it’s our job.’

‘Can I give you a hand with that?’

Helena McAlpine was trying to manoeuvre a flat wooden crate out through the front door of the house in Kirklee Terrace. ‘My God, that’s a rarity – a policeman when you need one. How are you, Colin?’ She smiled at Anderson. Her arms outstretched, leaning on My Brother in Palestine, she gave him a hug and a light kiss. Then she sideshifted a swathe of red hair from her face and smiled mischievously. ‘How was Edinburgh?’

‘Best forgotten. Do you need a hand with that?’

‘It got delivered here last night, rather than to the gallery, and I have to be there to open up.’

Anderson twisted his wrist and looked at his watch. ‘You’re supposed to open at nine?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’d better get a move on, then.’

‘My lord and master has been getting in my way since he came back. Can you lift that end?’

‘This has a dent in it,’ Anderson observed, lifting the crate and carrying it easily down the steps, reassured to feel needed in these days of equality.

‘Yeah, your boss gave it a kicking when he eventually came home from the office last night. He said it was because it was blocking the hall, but I think it was more of a comment on the state of modern art. It’s only worth about twelve grand.’

Anderson automatically tightened his grip. ‘I’ll just drop it here,’ he told her and lowered the painting delicately to the pavement. ‘We need the keys . . . to open the boot...’

Helena looked at him, hands on hips. ‘Keys . . . yes, they would help, wouldn’t they? Can you give me a clue where that cantankerous old bastard I married might have put them?’

‘He had on his leather jacket earlier this morning, the black one, over a dark blue suit, if that’s any help.’

Anderson watched as Helena dashed up the stairs, her lion-red hair cascading down the back of a huge black jumper he was sure was one of Alan’s.

She reappeared, keys in hand. ‘Got them: leather jacket, just as you said. I told him you were here. He’s on the phone, swearing at some poor minion. Does ‘‘effing profilers’’ mean anything to you?’ She rolled her eyes and sighed as she opened the boot of the Five Series BMW.

Anderson smiled and hoisted the crate on to the bumper, watching Helena’s fingers as they wrapped white cloth round the corners. Long strong fingers, a single wedding band and the light catching the single blue diamond above it.

‘How are the kids?’ she asked.

He winced as a splinter jammed in the skin of his thumb. ‘Bloody skelf!’ He lifted it to his mouth and sucked the blood. ‘Expensive, cheeky. But not at the devious lying stage – yet.’

‘Wait till Clare’s out at night with unsuitable men. Sleepless nights for you then.’

‘I’ll be working. At the moment I’m psyching myself up to sit and watch two hours of six-year-olds doing ballet without falling asleep.’

‘Tough,’ agreed Helena. ‘You’ll come to the exhibition, you and Brenda? I know it’s not your thing but . . . Alan...’

‘Free champers and raw fish. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’m going to sell you some of wee Peter’s paintings, people with big heads and no keeping within the lines.’

‘You’ve been peeking at My Brother in Palestine,’ she teased, tapping the crate. ‘It’s by a Canadian artist, very experimental.’ She eased the boot shut and flicked her hair back, making the sun spark on the copper. That flirtatious smile again, looking at him as if he was the only person that mattered. ‘God! It’s cold!’

Alan McAlpine appeared at the door, and Helena’s expression softened a little, as if she had warmed as she looked towards the house. Then McAlpine disappeared again, having forgotten something.

Helena turned back to Anderson. ‘He’s had about two hours’ sleep, so you’re working with Mr Grumpy today.’

‘No change there, then. It’ll get worse before it gets better.’

‘Look after him, will you? Somebody has to.’ Helena’s head tilted to one side, her love for her husband silent on the upturn of her lips.

‘Do you want us to follow you to the gallery and take this out for you? We’ll have time before the briefing.’

‘No, we won’t,’ said a voice behind them. ‘Goodbye, dear.’ McAlpine kissed his wife on the cheek. Anderson watched her incline her head towards him, eyes closed. More a promise than a kiss.

‘You don’t have time, apparently,’ said Helena sweetly.

‘Well, if you need a hand, let me know.’

‘Ta! It’s good to use other people’s husbands. Mine’s useless. Remind him he has a date with his wife tonight.’

‘Got you.’ Anderson tapped the side of his head as McAlpine got into the car and slammed the door.

‘See you, Helena.’

‘Bye, Colin. Thanks.’

Anderson pulled into the street, and in the driving mirror watched the wind blow fire into her hair as she waved.

Anderson walked into the chaos of the murder room, keeping four paces behind the Boss. By the time the clock had wound itself round to ten, thirty-three officers were busy chatting, reliving old glories and mistakes. They sat, they stood, they leaned against monitor screens and filing cabinets, they drummed fingers along the sides of polystyrene cups, they tapped pens off the top of clipboards, they paced the floor like condemned men.

Coffee cup in hand, Anderson picked his way through them to the back, aware that he was regarded as McAlpine’s golden boy, conscious of not wanting to step on any toes, physically or metaphorically. He caught their whispers as he passed . . . maybe we’ll get something moving now – should have been on the case from the start. It was natural; they wanted a second chance and new lines of investigation, something a fresh eye, a younger eye, could bring to the case.

McAlpine walked to the front. Everyone turned to look, conversations halted in mid sentence. The DCI was the smallest man in the room, but one flash of his almond-shaped eyes across the squad and the ruffle of noise was silenced. People shifted in their seats to get a better view. There was an air of expectation.

Vik Mulholland handed McAlpine a piece of paper and went to the back, looking around for a spare seat. Finding none, he wiped a desktop beside Anderson with the palm of his hand, tugged at the knees of his Versace trousers, then sat down.

McAlpine read the note, twice, his eyes narrowing before he looked up and settled on Mulholland. ‘What the fuck does that mean – System’s gone down?’

‘If it’s too busy, it collapses. It’s done it four times so far.’

McAlpine dropped his forehead into his hands. The squad waited for a vitriolic eruption. It never came.

‘Sir?’ Costello spoke quietly, raising a tentative hand.

He opened his eyes and looked at her, tired already. ‘Yes?’

‘Wyngate, sir, he has a degree in IT. If it’s true that upstairs aren’t going to shell out for an expert, maybe we should use what we have. He’s not much use at anything else, sir,’ she added, with an affectionate grin at Wyngate.

McAlpine had to nip a smile, searching for the name. ‘Wyngate? Gordon, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir.’ PC Wyngate pulled on his over-large ears, more nervous than he looked.

‘You recovered from last night?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Fancy the job?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Get to it. I’m not having that heap of shite jeopardizing the investigation.’ McAlpine turned at a sudden draught and asked for the window to be closed. Ostentatiously, from the back of the room, Mulholland started fanning with an empty file. ‘What do you need?’ McAlpine asked Wyngate.

‘More bandwidth. The system’s slowing down.’ Wyngate spoke directly to McAlpine, keeping his voice low and respectful. ‘We’ll be in trouble if it crashes completely.’

McAlpine turned to look at the volume of paper, his face impassive. ‘We have no budget for it. Do the best you can.’

‘Well, maybe you could ask them not to pour coffee over the keyboards,’ DC Irvine interjected.

‘It’s all our coffee’s good for,’ muttered Anderson, passing the paper cup under his nose, trying to identify the contents.

Wyngate turned to walk away, twisting around DS Littlewood, who was blocking his path between two desks. As he went past, Littlewood pulled on his own ears, like a schoolboy impersonating Dumbo. The smatter of laughter died at the DCI’s expression.

‘For those that don’t know, I get called many things but my actual name is Detective Chief Inspector Alan McAlpine, and I’m in charge. DCI Duncan is doing well; he thanks you for your kind thoughts and the presents. He can’t think of a use for the blow-up woman yet, but give him time.’ A ripple of applause went round the room.

Anderson watched his boss carefully, hardly listening to what he said. He saw tension in the corner of McAlpine’s lip, a nervousness in the fingers as they rippled his hair, the same edginess he had noticed that morning. Not quite the same old confident guv he knew.

McAlpine said, ‘Stepping into another’s shoes is never easy, but we just get on with it. Reviewing a case always implies criticism. But let’s think of it as a chance to explore areas previously unexplored.’

‘You think DCI Duncan was wrong?’ asked Littlewood, chin up, arms folded, the challenge in his posture unmistakable.

Costello and Anderson exchanged glances: if he carried on like that, DS John Littlewood would be issuing parking tickets in Blythswood Square before nightfall.

‘I’m the Senior Investigating Officer now,’ McAlpine emphasized calmly. ‘And I don’t think Duncan was wrong. End of story. As you know, our friend struck again last night. The press had already christened him the Crucifixion Killer after Traill. Nice. We could do without it, but it happened.’ He got up, perching on the side of his desk. ‘We’ll give you the latest on Fulton, and by the end of today I want the name of the guy who found his way into her flat. She was an ultra-careful woman, but she wasn’t surprised when her doorbell went. So who was he?’ He tapped the desk with his fingertip. ‘Somebody offered Lynzi Traill a run home, and she took it. Two sensible women. Two dead women. Forensics are drawing a blank, so we need to review the circumstantial.’ McAlpine rubbed his chin. ‘By five this evening I want both their lives, inside out, upside down. Something will – must – connect one with the other.’ He turned to Costello. ‘So what was the script at three this morning? Why was somebody looking through Elizabeth Jane Fulton’s letterbox?’

‘To see if her cat was there.’ Costello tucked her hair behind her ears.

‘Cat?’ asked Littlewood.

‘Little black guy with a white chest?’ McAlpine nodded to himself. ‘Go on.’

‘Kirsty Dougall looked through the letterbox of Elizabeth Jane’s flat at three o’clock this morning to see if Mowgli the cat was there,’ said Costello slowly, as if speaking to a simple child. ‘The cat had been causing aggro. Well, Mowgli was fine. Kirsty told the officers at the scene that it was Elizabeth Jane who was causing the aggro, trapping the cat in her flat and then complaining.’

‘She had catnip treats in her cupboard,’ said McAlpine. ‘Was she causing trouble deliberately?’

‘It would seem so. The neighbours said a similar thing. And I expect we’ll hear more of the same when we interview them properly. I’ve already rung her employers at the bank, and it seems she could be awkward at work too. She was the type who’d clype on her colleague for using the office printer to print a personal letter, for being five minutes late back from lunch –’

‘For farting without permission. I know the type,’ said Littlewood. He shot a look at Costello, who fired it back again.

‘She was described as a narrow-minded perfectionist by someone who said they liked her and as a petty-minded bitch by someone I’d say didn’t. Not a popular girl. So,’ Costello went on, ‘when Kirsty looked through the letterbox, she saw Elizabeth Jane’s hand on the floor, and she dialled 999. Lights out, please!’

On cue, darkness fell, and the glare from a single spotlight dropped from the ceiling, casting harsh shadows on the wall. Costello pinned up pictures as she spoke. The photographs showed a young woman, her face running to fat already, her smile framed for eternity in brown curls and pearls. She had made an effort to look nice.

Costello spoke. ‘Elizabeth Jane – she didn’t like being called Liz – aged twenty-six, single, bank teller for the Bank of Scotland, living up in Fortrose Street, no boyfriends we have discovered, kept herself to herself, non-smoker, non-drinker, went to church a lot, sang in the choir. Elizabeth Jane’s cousin Paula is getting married soon, and apparently she asked the girl next to her in the choir to go to the wedding meal with her, so maybe she had no really close female friends either. Her idea of a great night out was an evening class in accounting, which raises the question: who was it at the door?’ Costello’s hand, ghostly in the projected light, smoothed down another photograph. There was a ripple of movement as the team shifted to view the obscene image: Elizabeth Jane lying, arms out, legs crossed, dressed in her work uniform, her abdomen ripped open like a ripe fruit. ‘Her mobile was a new one, and the phone records are being checked. We’re waiting for a call back.’

‘But all this . . . all that’ – Anderson pointed at the photograph of the room – ‘suggests preparation, a method, organization. He turned up at that flat knowing exactly what he was going to do. He let her make him a cup of coffee, but he didn’t touch it. He didn’t touch anything.’

‘There’s no doubt he knows what he’s doing,’ said Costello, as she checked her notes. ‘O’Hare has done the prelim, puts death at around eight last night. We know she was alive at quarter to six, because she was helping with cashing up at the bank. But there was no answer when her mother phoned her at her flat just before nine. Same MO as Lynzi Traill: chloroformed, from behind, no struggle.’

‘I’ve heard that chloroform doesn’t knock you out instantly,’ said Anderson. ‘So why no struggle? No disruption?’

‘He’s bigger? He can hold them until it takes effect?’ suggested Costello. ‘They were both – what? – under ten stone? Probably lighter than he is . . . but they were short, which means he gains a totally controllable victim.’ She folded her arms, her point made. ‘Who was checking up on the chloroform?’

‘Me,’ said Mulholland. ‘I’ve rechecked all the sources listed locally; no reported loss or theft. I’ve alerted HOLMES for a nation-wide check, but all registered sources have come up with a big zero.’

‘Exactly what DCI Duncan found,’ muttered McAlpine. ‘Damn!’

The soft Hebridean accent of DC Donald Burns came through the darkness. ‘That one single cut, right up the front, no messing around – there’s strength in that.’ The quiet lilting voice was authoritative. ‘The leather belt has been nicked by the blade, and that takes a strong knife, moving with control and strength. And a bloody sharp blade.’

‘And he knows how to use it, where to use it,’ said Anderson. ‘Do we have a field for that in the system?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll see what I can do,’ Wyngate said, scribbling it down.

‘Get it in: people who are good with knives. Butchers?’ said McAlpine.

‘Surgeons?’

‘Farmers? Slaughtermen? Chefs, I suppose,’ offered Costello.

McAlpine’s voice cut through the dark. ‘I want that flat vacuumed and the dust gone through. We need some physical evidence of whoever she let in. If there’s so much as a speck of dandruff, I want it. And try to think like Elizabeth Jane. Think precise, think pernickety, and then think who you would open your door to. Knives, small-minded women, sensible knickers . . . you get my drift.’ McAlpine went to stand up, then paused. ‘Tell us about Traill now.’

Costello looked round. ‘Me?’

McAlpine nodded. ‘Just to make sure Anderson, Mulholland and I are up to speed.’

‘Lynzi Traill, as I understand her...’ Costello idled, then closed her eyes as she clarified her thoughts. ‘Aged thirty-four, housewife, body found in Victoria Gardens.’ She indicated the location on the map with the point of a pencil. ‘The gardens are kept locked. Ian Livingstone’s house – he’s the boyfriend – is here, in Victoria Crescent, overlooking the gardens. The fence is too high to punt the body over without leaving traces, and she was hidden in the bushes, so her killer must have had a key. And all known keys were accounted for?’ Her voice faded on the query.

‘Yes,’ said Littlewood wearily. ‘You know we spent days on that.’

‘Yes, I do know.’ Costello paused, recalling. ‘Anyway, the distance between the two sites isn’t much. Wyngate timed it as seven minutes’ walk. Lynzi was last seen at eleven o’clock on Saturday, the 16th. Here she is, caught on a CCTV camera at Glasgow Central after a visit to the theatre with her friends.’ The spotlight moved to a grainy coloured image of a crowd of people, Lynzi Traill just visible among them, her head turned animatedly to one side. Whoever she was talking to was obscured by a much taller man. ‘They told us they were all going to travel back to Paisley Gilmour Street together. They said somebody – they assumed it was a man, but the station was busy, and they didn’t see who it was – called to Lynzi, and Lynzi disappeared off to talk to him, while they waited. A minute or two later she waved across to her friends to indicate that they should go on without her; they assumed she was getting a lift.’ Costello pointed at the peppered image. ‘This friend –’

‘Annette Rafferty?’ asked Mulholland, flicking through a sheaf of papers.

‘That’s right. Annette says she knew that Lynzi was having an affair – the only other person who did know, by all accounts – so she thought Lynzi had bumped into the boyfriend and decided to stay, and persuaded the others it was OK. But it wasn’t OK. A local resident walking her dog found Lynzi’s body in the early hours of Sunday, the 17th, chloroformed, ripped from pubis to sternum.’ Costello asked to have the spotlight moved to a picture of Traill’s wound. In black and white, the carnage was highlighted by the brightness of the flash. ‘Same injuries, same pattern as Elizabeth Jane Fulton, but not so severe. Lynzi was posed, as Elizabeth Jane was. Exactly. O’Hare says she was alive when her killer left her. He . . . just left her to die in the rhodies.’

Someone muttered, ‘Where she gave the old dear and her Westie the fright of their wee lives.’

Costello continued, ‘Lynzi would probably have had you believe she was happily married. Her parents and her sister, all her friends except for Annette, believed – or wanted to believe – that she and hubby were still together, but that she’d just moved out for a rest, because she was finding it so difficult to cope. She was living in a flat in Paisley.’ Costello tucked her hair behind her ears, a sure sign she was anxious about something. ‘Stuart Traill apparently went along with this, thinking she was having an early mid-life crisis. Their little boy, Barry, was told his mum was looking after a sick friend. Lynzi was there when the wee lad went to school in the morning; she was there when he came home. But in between times, despite telling people she was working at the charity shop and looking after a sick friend, she was having an affair. And she was totally oblivious to the fact that the neighbours were amusing themselves with her comings and goings at all hours of the day and night.’

A question was fired at her from the darkness: ‘So what were the mechanics of that?’

‘She kept her mobile phone switched off; she did a voluntary job with no pay and no regular hours; Annette may have fibbed for her . . . It’s not that difficult. Lynzi’s parents, sister, brother, the hubby’s family, they all swear they had no idea what was going on. But I can’t believe that...’ Costello ran out of steam.

‘So where is the boyfriend in all this?’ asked McAlpine, pointing at the map.

‘As I said, Ian Livingstone lives here, in Victoria Crescent. But both he and Mr Traill have been turned inside out. Clean.’

‘Are we satisfied with that?’ asked McAlpine.

‘We’ve checked them again and again,’ Costello insisted. ‘Triple-checked. Neither was alone for a minute between the time Lynzi was recorded at Glasgow Central Station and the time her body was found.’

‘And Livingstone was really upset, absolutely devastated,’ said Burns.

‘Guilty,’ muttered Littlewood.

‘Nobody could have faked that. He asked for the minister to come from next door.’ Burns shook his head. ‘They even said a prayer together.’

‘Definitely guilty, then.’

‘He’s been nothing but cooperative,’ Irvine volunteered. ‘And he seems a nice guy. Well, that’s my opinion . . . for what it’s worth.’

‘So what about the husband?’ asked Littlewood.

‘At work. He worked nights, and his shift covered both ends of the time scale.’

‘Bloody convenient. Check it again,’ McAlpine persisted. Costello sighed inwardly.

‘The son? Wee Barry?’ Littlewood again.

‘Home alone. And not for the first time.’ Costello’s tone of voice indicated exactly what she thought of that.

‘There’s that element of trust again, though, isn’t there?’ said Anderson. ‘Elizabeth Jane let someone into her flat, someone she knew and trusted. And Lynzi left Glasgow Central, at night, again with somebody she knew and trusted, but not the husband, not the boyfriend.’

McAlpine stood up, his hand on Costello’s shoulder. ‘So we keep digging. This second killing means the location is important.’ He paused and looked round the room again. ‘Lynzi lived in Paisley, but she spent a lot of time here in the West End. The boyfriend lived here. She worked in a charity shop in Byres Road, she shopped here. But the charity shop and the boyfriend are her only real connections with this area. So there must be some connection between them and Elizabeth Jane. There has to be. So we get working on Lynzi Traill’s connections in the West End. Who’s in the shop, for instance? Try to crack those alibis. And get working on Elizabeth Jane’s new-found freedom. Her flat was a recent refurb; she’d been in it for only a few months, first time she’d been away from her parents. What was she getting up to? The MO’s being circulated nationwide, and so far we have nothing that comes close. So this is on our doorstep and nowhere else. Costello, you’re coming with me for the tea-and-sympathy bit. The rest of you, get on with it.’

There was a murmur of assent, as the migration for the coffee machine started. It was going to be a long day.

It took a good two or three minutes’ discussion before Sean McTiernan got what he wanted, and by then the mid-morning queue of Saturday shoppers behind him was stretching out to the street. The menu said ‘Coffee Latte Light with Wings.’ He didn’t know what that meant.

It turned out to be bog-standard white coffee with a prong stuck in it that pulled the dark brown of the coffee through the white of the milk to form a pattern. It was, he presumed, supposed to be the Ashton Café logo. Or was there a ‘right way up’ to drink it?

He proffered a pound coin. The bored waitress with the plaits didn’t look up. Her outstretched hand hovered in mid-air as the other pulled the receipt from the chattering till. A foreigner in his own city for a moment, he looked again at the price list and gave her another pound coin. The waitress flicked it over before depositing it in the till and scooping out some change with long red nails. She dumped the coins on his tray and walked away.

The only empty tables were at the back of the café. Sean chose a seat in the corner, his back against the wall and his eye on the door by force of habit. He moved the coffee cup back and forth under his nose, enjoying the aroma, trying to see the Betty Boop watch of the peroxide blonde sitting in the booth opposite. He couldn’t make out the time. It must be nearly half eleven, and Nan believed there was an eleventh commandment . . . thou shalt not be tardy. He was about to lean over and ask Peroxide the time when a man slid into the other seat at her table. Sean glanced at the man’s watch, its larger face easier to read backwards and upside down. Five to. He caught sight of white cuffs and a dog collar as a piece of paper passed from him to her. Peroxide looked at it, puzzled. The dog collar seemed to explain something, and she nodded. Then there was an abrupt goodbye, and he was away. The blonde crumpled up the paper and threw it dismissively across the table. For a minute she was lost in her own world, then she caught Sean looking and smiled alluringly, curving her wide red lips over a cup of espresso. He caught the scent of her musky perfume, cheap, too strong.

He didn’t smile back.

A week to go. Seven days of being out more often than being in, a phased return to the community.

A week to go . . . and he would be with her again. Seven days of waiting. But he had waited four years. Seven days made no difference. He dipped his spoon into the coffee, drawing the black liquid at the bottom through the white foam, making patterns of his own. The last time he had seen her, she had been stomping down the road in a bomber jacket and baggy jeans, her blonde hair dyed black, cut short and spiky, looking like any Scottish teenage boy. He would never have recognized her, so what chance would anybody else have had? He remembered standing at the window of the dark green bedroom in the flat in Petrie Street, with the ceiling he never got round to painting, the bed still warm from their bodies, watching her go to the bus stop, carrying a bin bag full of her life, kicking it as she went. He had felt tears prickle at his eyes then.

He felt them again now.

He sipped at his coffee. It smelled better than it tasted. It tasted like cow piss.

Two weeks ago he had been released into the care of Martin the social worker, an anaemic-looking Geordie who walked down Sauchiehall Street dressed for the north face of the Eiger. Martin had never cautioned Sean to assess the psychological parameters of his crime, never asked him why he had kicked Malkie Steele to death with such prejudice he had burst his liver. Martin had simply asked if he preferred McEwan’s or Tennent’s, and had given him his own set of keys. All he had to do was take time to adjust.

In prison Sean had evolved an acute sense of when he was being observed; he knew Miss Peroxide with the red lips was looking at him, waiting for him to meet her eyes again. It was the same game he played. He knew he was good-looking, and inside or out it was something to trade.

He looked round the café, letting his eyes pass over the blonde without stopping. She was looking at him through the peroxide wire that covered her eyes. Her features were too heavy to be beautiful, but she was carefully made up, with an oriental tilt to her eyes, a wide nose, her lips beautifully painted pillarbox red.

Sean let a smile soften his lips. Soon he would be home; he would go running every morning, running every night, along the beach from the white cottage under the shadow of the castle, along a beach that went on and on and on . . . to a beautiful blonde witch, waiting with her familiar.

Miss Peroxide smiled across at him. He smiled back, then looked away, noting the miniskirt, the chunky legs in green ankle boots.

She was far from perfection.

But after three and a half years she didn’t have to bother to look decent. The fact that she was a female with a pulse was enough for him. She would have a comfy bed, clean sheets, a duvet, nice toilet paper.

He looked at her face again, giving her his James Dean smoulder, then let his eyes linger a little longer on her thighs.

‘Aye!’ A thin old woman dumped a plastic shopping bag on the table in front of him, sending a tidal wave of expensive coffee over the rim of his cup, obliterating the Ashton Café logo.

‘Hello, Nan, how are you doing?’ He stood up, planting a kiss on her cold bristled cheek, embarrassed to feel a tear in his eye.

Here was his Nan, miserable as usual, with her thrawn smile. The turquoise butterfly glasses had been changed for small gold rims, but the mole was hairier than ever, standing to attention on her top lip. She pulled her grey crocheted hat further down over her lank straight hair, then, just in case anybody thought she was enjoying herself, she began cursing under her breath about his choice of meeting place, the mole hairs twitching as she muttered.

Miss Peroxide, still watching, still interested, shot him a look of amused sympathy. The pigtailed waitress came over with a cup of tea.

‘I told them you’d get it,’ Nan said.

Sean paid, pushing the waitress’s hand away, telling her to keep the change.

Miss Peroxide twisted her head slightly, the three gold chains round her neck narrowing down her cleavage, and crossed one chunky leg over the other. There was a lot of flesh between the top of her ankle boots and the bottom of her skirt. She raised her cup to her lips, smiled at him again and turned away.

Nan blew her nose on a napkin, giving her nostrils a good clear out. That brought back memories to him, memories of the kids’ home, of paper hankies like steel wool and a hard slap every time he used his sleeve.

‘You’ve lost weight,’ she said. ‘I’ve made you soup.’

‘Oh, ta, what is it?’ Images of home-made Scotch broth boiling away on his Baby Belling.

‘Good for you, that’s what it is. Better than that.’ She pointed at Miss Peroxide. Nan never missed a trick.

‘She’s nothing,’ he said quietly. ‘How are you?’

‘Who listens to me if I complain? Twenty minutes to wait for a train, I’m telling you, ma boy –’

‘What else’s in the bag?’ He peered in the top.

‘Soup, tablet, chocolate crispies. Where are you staying?’

‘Just up the road.’ He kept it vague.

‘Good, good,’ she said. She wasn’t daft. ‘Is it near Cleopatra’s Disco?’ She said it as though she had been rehearsing it.

‘Everywhere in Partickhill is near Clatty Pat’s.’

‘You should go there.’

‘Should I?’

‘Oh, yes. Sunday night’s good in there. Older folk like you.’ She gave him a hard look, telling him something.

His heart began to thump against his chest. He had been prepared to wait; she wasn’t.

‘You look awfy peaky, you should get out more.’ Only Nan could say that to someone who had been out of jail for a matter of hours.

‘How are things?’ he said, keeping his voice low and steady. It had been four long years since he had hatched the plan, and a faint flicker of doubt passed through his mind for the first time.

Nan nodded. ‘All is fine.’ Uneducated she might have been, but she was shrewd, very shrewd. ‘And business is very well, very smooth,’ she said, opening her palm on to the tabletop and looking down. ‘Paintings are selling well. The staircase is just as you left it. Do you want to see the house?’

He cast his eyes left and right before nodding.

‘I’ve photographs.’

‘Not a painting, then?’

‘Not too old for a slap, son.’ She handed over a Kodak envelope.

He opened it, fanning out the fresh prints. A photograph of a dog, a huge silver husky, its intelligent blue eyes black-rimmed in a white mask.

‘Gelert,’ he said.

‘By name and nature.’

‘The brave and faithful hound. That was always my favourite story, you know. You used to tell it to us –’

‘In the cleaning cupboard, aye.’ Nan gave him a rare smile. ‘He’s a big dog now.’ She tucked a roll of used twenty-pound notes into his fist with covert skill. ‘Next one shows how far we’ve got with the veranda.’

A whitewashed cottage on a beach, the seaweed scar of the high-tide line black against the sand, big windows, a half-built wooden veranda bleached blond by strong west winds and weak Scottish sun.

The house looked exactly the same; so did the beach and the castle. Only the husky lying on the front step had grown.

He stared at the picture for a long time, aware that Nan was waving her fingers at him, wanting the photographs back. Two minutes and a quick trip to the toilet later, the money had been folded into his shoe.

‘I’ll see you around.’

‘I’m sure you will.’ Suddenly he wanted her to stay. ‘Pass on my . . . regards.’

‘Get that soup in you.’ She ruffled his hair with her hand; she had been doing that since he was four years old, and she used to check him for lice. And then she was away, the photographs leaving with her.

He lifted his cup, looking at the milk separate on the top of the coffee. He leaned back, relaxing. It was all so close. He was happy. Miss Peroxide said something. Maybe if he closed his eyes...

‘Excuse me,’ Miss Peroxide repeated, ‘do you have the time?’

Prettier with her mouth shut. He looked across to her table. Her Betty Boop watch was gone.

Fair enough. He thought about his nice new bedsit, with its hot running water and crisp white sheets. He’d done enough time at Her Majesty’s pleasure. He wanted some of his own now.

McAlpine hated doing this. I’m sorry, it’s about your daughter. ‘Ready?’ he asked.

Costello had been checking out the street. Affluent, middle class. She had no problem placing Elizabeth Jane here. ‘Ready,’ she agreed.

The door was opened by a squat gargoyle of a woman, blazing with anger, gold chains on her wrists rattling as she waved them away. ‘Enough, I’ve told you. Enough already!’ The closing door halted as she caught sight of two warrant cards. ‘Oh, I am sorry,’ she said, her eyes darting from one to the other. ‘We’ve had reporters, knocking at the door, standing in the drive. No respect, some people.’

‘It’s a very difficult time,’ Costello agreed, smiling her charming smile.

The gargoyle nodded, smiling too now. Not the mother, then. ‘Oh, it’s been a terrible day,’ she said with thinly disguised relish. ‘A terrible day. I mean – you never think, do you? Not someone you know, not in their own home. Do come in.’

They followed her into a large hall, terracotta-tiled floor, a winding staircase overhead. Elizabeth Jane’s parents were not short of a bob or two.

‘Betty and Jim are in there. The minister is with them.’ She looked at her watch, a copper-brown fingernail tapping the face as if she was timing the visit. ‘He hasn’t been in very long.’ She seemed reluctant to interrupt them.

‘And you are?’ asked Costello, sensing McAlpine’s impatience.

‘Isabel Cohen. I live next door. Twenty years I’ve known that girl, twenty years . . . since she was knee-high to a grasshopper.’

‘It must be very difficult for you, Isabel. Do you mind if we...’ Costello opened the door without waiting for an answer and then stood to one side, letting Mrs Cohen go through first. A smile passed between the two women. Clearly there was plenty Mrs Cohen could say, but she was too well brought up to say it.

‘Betty?’ she inquired quietly round the door. ‘Some more police, detectives. They want a word.’

McAlpine and Costello walked into a room that was as sterile as an operating theatre, three brilliant white walls, the fireplace wall a deep cobalt blue. Only one picture broke the colour, a professional portrait of Elizabeth Jane above the fireplace. On the mantelpiece below it an array of photographs of her throughout her life was lined up with regimental precision, a shrine to an only child. In the middle sat a gold anniversary clock, its weights spinning this way and that. Incongruously, behind it, McAlpine noticed, someone had propped up an invitation to a wedding. He was sure it was the same one that Elizabeth Jane had had; it bore the same stylized Mackintosh rose. He inclined his head to read covertly inside: Mr and Mrs Vincent Fulton ...