Birthdays for the Dead (23 page)

I stopped. ‘You think he’s the Birthday Boy?’

The little shite…

She kept going, still skipping, holding the bear by the arm, swinging it back and forwards. ‘Steven Wallace is a narcissist, no one else matters but him, he’s lived there since he was a little boy so he knows the area and the park, and he’s got the perfect vehicle for transporting unconscious teenaged girls, why do you think I got him to give us a tour of his house?’ Dr McDonald stopped, the bear hanging limp at her side. ‘It’s a shame there wasn’t anything there…’

We cadged a cup of tea in the marquee-sized SOC tent. A diesel generator droned in the far corner, powering the floodlights that lit the place like a cold summer’s day, meaning the lumpy-nosed woman in the white coverall had to shout. ‘We think we’ve got another body: that’s six.’

Five more to go.

Warmth prickled at the back of my head. What if it was Rebecca? What if they’d finally found her… My stomach clenched. There was still time: she wasn’t on the list of victims, it’d take longer to identify her remains.

Sensational Steve Wallace – it wouldn’t take much to make him talk. A hammer, a pair of pliers, one of those little crème brûlée torches like Ethan had…

And then what? Torture a confession out of him and the defence would tear us apart. Steven Wallace would walk out of court a free man with a big wad of compensation in his pocket.

‘…Guv?’

I blinked.

The SEB tech frowned at me, then pointed over her shoulder at a fresh cordon of yellow-and-black tape. ‘I said the ground-penetrating radar’s acting up – we’ve been giving it a bit of a hammering since we found the first one – so we can’t be sure till we excavate.’

Something in my throat. ‘Get digging: I’ll square it with Weber.’

Dr McDonald wrapped her hands around the chipped mug, steam curling out into the tent. ‘Imagine lying here, buried in the cold ground for eight years, alone and afraid…’

‘Right…’ The woman took a step back, one eyebrow up, the other down. ‘Well, I suppose these remains aren’t going to dig themselves up.’

I looked out across the floodlit clumps of yellowy grass. ‘Soil samples back from Aberdeen yet?’

A shrug. ‘You think anyone would tell us?’ Then she picked up her trowel and stomped away, ducking under the cordon.

Dr McDonald slurped her tea, watching me out of the corner of her eye. ‘Do we suspect something?’

‘Steven Wallace had the whole house remodelled eleven years ago. One year later the Birthday Boy snatches Amber O’Neil. If you wanted to build yourself a hidden room to torture twelve-year-old girls to death in…?’

A frown. ‘The wine cellar. But we would’ve seen—’

‘For all we know, there’s a whole Josef Fritzl Bat Cave hidden behind the merlot.’ I pulled out my phone, called DCI Weber and asked him about the soil samples.

‘
How would I know? Dickie and his Party Crashers have muscled in, we’re nothing but bloody support staff now. And before you ask: they’re all off at the mortuary, playing doctors and cadavers, so if you want to beg for scraps, you know where to go.
’

‘Who pissed in your tea?’

‘
Who do you think: that slimy arselicker DS Smith and his new best friend ACC Drummond.
’

‘So give Smith something crappy to do and don’t let him dump it on one of the DCs. Tell him he’s the only one you can trust. He’ll love that.’

‘
Hmm… You want that friend’s number?
’

Seven thousand, one hundred pounds. ‘Maybe. You know anywhere good to hold a kid’s birthday party?’

Chapter 29

The mortuary rang with the sound of refrigerated drawers being clunked in and out of the wall. ‘Sorry about this…’ Alf the Anatomical Pathology Technician ran a hand along his ponytail then tried another drawer. ‘I know they’re in here somewhere.’

A small set of speakers dribbled boy-band blandness into the room – the tiled walls and floor making the noise echo out of phase with itself. It complemented the eye-nipping stench of bleach.

‘Where are you…?’ Another drawer. ‘Nightshift did a stocktake yesterday – took everyone out, cleaned the drawers, and put half the buggers back in the wrong place. Ah-ha! Here we go.’

The drawer was full of paperwork, boxes of pens, and packs of Post-it notes. Two bottles of what looked like vodka clinked at the back. ‘Used to keep it all in the office, but the cleaners kept nicking stuff. Least this way we can lock it up, eh?’ He selected a blue folder from the pile and handed it to me. ‘One forensic report.’

Dr McDonald stood in the middle of the room, staring at the empty cutting tables, both arms wrapped around herself. ‘What happens to the girls now?’

‘Long-term storage; got a deep-freeze facility on this industrial estate in Shortstaine. Can’t release them for burial till there’s a trial – defence’ll want to do their own post mortem.’

‘That might be years…’

A shrug. ‘Kinda depends on how long it takes you lot to catch him.’

I flicked through the chilled paperwork. A preliminary soil analysis was covered in graphs and tables of numbers. The bit at the back was in actual English. ‘Says here that there’s soil particulates recovered with the body that don’t match the substrate it was buried in.’

Alf nodded. ‘Means they were killed elsewhere and dumped in the grave.’

I stared at him. ‘Yeah, because we couldn’t tell that from the photographs on the birthday cards.’

Pink rushed up his cheeks. ‘Well… I was … ahem. Do you guys want a tea or coffee or something?’

Dr McDonald walked over to the wall of refrigerated drawers, and put her hand on one of the stainless-steel doors. ‘All that time in the cold ground, and they still can’t go back to their families.’

Just a little longer,
please
. Just long enough to get Steve Wallace. After five years, a couple more days wouldn’t make any difference…

I cleared my throat, stuck the report back in the folder and returned it to Alf. ‘If we can get a soil sample from the murder site they’ll be able to match it. All we need’s a warrant.’ I pulled out my phone. The network icon blinked at me: no signal.

Alf shoved the drawer back into the wall. ‘It’s all the metal and pipes and fridges and being underground and that: plays hell with the signal. There’s a sweet spot right outside the doors though.’

Nothing, nothing … then the mortuary doors closed behind me and I had four bars.

DCI Weber wasn’t picking up, and neither was Rhona, so I tried Sabir instead. ‘Need you to do a PNC and full background on one Steven Wallace, eighty-six McDermid Avenue, Oldcastle, I.C.One male, early to mid forties.’

‘
PNC me arse, did I not tell youse the internet was where it’s at?’
A rattle of keystrokes in the background. ‘
Don’t mean to geg, but who’s this Steven Wallace when he’s at home whackin’ one off?
’

‘Depends what you find, doesn’t it?’

‘
…OK. This on the record, or off?
’

‘Like I said: depends what you find.’

The door opened behind me, and Dr McDonald slipped through into the gloomy corridor. ‘Do you want to—’

I held up a finger and pointed at the phone in my other hand. ‘I need enough to go in there and turn his house upside down, drag him into the station, take DNA, full body-cavity search, the lot.’

‘
Leave it with us. Gonna cost youse a bevvie though, right?
’ Sabir hung up.

I slid the phone back in my pocket. ‘Sorry: business.’

‘Do you fancy dinner tonight? I mean a carryout or something, Aunty Jan’s off to Glasgow to see
My Chemical Romance
, and she’s staying over with friends so I’m going to be on my own and maybe we could talk about the case or something. Or we could watch a film…’ She bit her bottom lip and took a step back, staring over my shoulder.

I turned. There was someone on their knees in the shadows – big shoulders, grey boilersuit, scuffed trainers. The Rat Catcher. She was stroking something, holding it to her chest. One of the big plastic traps lay empty in front of her.

Dr McDonald stepped closer, tugging my sleeve. ‘Is that a rat, I mean is she
actually
cuddling a dead rat?’

The Rat Catcher must have heard her, because she looked up and stared at us.

My mobile rang – the harsh noise cutting through the hum of the hospital above.

Mrs Rat Catcher didn’t move.

I answered. ‘Michelle, this isn’t really a good—’

‘
The school just phoned.
’

Something heavy dragged a sigh out of me. ‘What’s she done now?’

‘
Katie’s been in a fight – they’re keeping her in the office. Someone has to go round there and speak to the headmistress.
’

Silence.

‘And?’

The Miss Jean Brodie voice came out full bore. ‘
Well,
I
can’t do it, can I? I’m stuck in a meeting till seven.
’

‘Yeah, well you know what: I’m trying to catch a serial killer who kidnaps and tortures young girls. You think your meeting’s more—’

‘
Oh, don’t give me that. You had plenty of time to sneak off with your reporter whore when you were on duty, didn’t you? Katie’s only ever your daughter when it’s convenient!
’

‘That’s not—’

‘
They’re talking about
expelling
her, Ash. I’m stuck here till seven. Go be a father for a change.
’ And she was gone.

I closed my eyes, leaned back against the wall and banged my head off it a couple of times.
Thank you, Ash, you’re my saviour.

A hand on my arm.

I looked down and Dr McDonald was staring up at me. ‘Are you all right?’

Boom. The door clattered open and Alf appeared from the mortuary, shoving a big metal gurney in front of him. ‘Beep, beep: mind your backs.’ The door swung shut again. ‘Got a client to collect from Oncology.’ He stopped for a moment, banging one wheel of the trolley up and down on the concrete floor. ‘Bloody thing never goes in a straight line…’ He peered down the corridor. ‘That you, Lisa?’

The Rat Catcher stared back, clutching the dead rodent against her chest.

Alf smiled. ‘How you doing? Everything good? Yeah, perfect with me too. Keeping busy, you know?’

Blink.

‘Well, better get back to it, right? No rest for the wicked.’

She stood, opened the cage mounted into her trolley and placed the rat’s body inside. Her Oldcastle accent was thick and gravelly. ‘Keeping busy.’

‘That’s the spirit.’

Lisa the Rat Catcher hunched over her trolley and scuffed away through the on-and-off patchwork of light and shadow.

Dr McDonald shuffled her feet. ‘She’s very… Erm…’

‘Nah.’ Alf gave his gurney’s wheel another couple of dunts. ‘Don’t worry about Lisa, been working here longer than I have. Not the sharpest hamster in the cage, but she’s all right. You OK to see yourselves out?’

‘The school day finished a quarter of an hour ago, Mr Henderson.’ The headmistress stood with her back to the room, looking out of the office window at the dirty rectangular blocks that made up Johnston Academy, classroom lights glowing in the darkness. Surveying her domain.

Her office wasn’t like the ones on the telly – no wooden panelling and large teak desk with matching trophy case. Instead it was crammed with filing cabinets, in-trays and piles of paperwork. Cracked magnolia walls and a scrawl-covered whiteboard, a corkboard littered with pinned-up notes.

Two chairs sat in front of the desk. A balding man perched in one of them, wearing a corduroy jacket and a frown, hands knotting and unknotting themselves in his lap.

I sank into the other seat. No point waiting to be asked: headmasters were like detective chief inspectors – you couldn’t let them get above themselves. ‘You do understand what I do for a living, don’t you, Mrs…’ There was a wooden plinth in the middle of the cluttered desk with a brass nameplate on it. ‘Elrick. We are
rather
busy trying to catch a killer.’

Her back stiffened. ‘I see. Yes … well. We need to talk about Katie.’

Captain Corduroy shifted in his chair, hands working overtime. ‘Yes, we definitely do, it’s simply not acceptable.’

‘Your daughter is a disruptive influence, Mr Henderson. I’m afraid I have no option but to request that you make alternative arrangements for Katie’s education.’

‘It’s simply not acceptable…’

I stared at him and he closed his mouth with an audible click.

‘She’s a bright kid: she’s bored having to go at the slower kids’ pace, if you lot—’

‘Please, Mr Henderson, spare us the delusional parental ramble—’

‘She’s a bright kid.’

‘No, she isn’t: that’s the problem.’ A long sigh. ‘Mr Henderson, your daughter isn’t acting out because she’s not being challenged intellectually.’ The headmistress shook her head – still staring out of the window with her back to me, as if she couldn’t be arsed going through the motions again. ‘Sometimes that’s the case, but Katie’s academic track record simply doesn’t support that. She underperforms in nearly every subject. Perhaps you should look on this as an opportunity to move her somewhere she can get more … individual attention.’

Corduroy nodded. ‘And it’s not as if we haven’t tried: we’ve been incredibly patient with her behaviour, given her family situation, but it’s simply not—’

‘What “family situation”?’

He flinched. ‘It … coming from a broken home, her sister going missing, you being a police officer.’

That was it, I was going to knock the wee shite’s teeth down his throat. ‘You listen up, you jumped-up—’

‘Mr Henderson, we’re not talking about a little backtalk, or running in the corridors. In the last six weeks Katie has been in my office twenty times. And given her attendance is appalling, that’s something of a record. Quite frankly—’

‘So she’s a little high-spirited…’

The headmistress kept staring out of the bloody window, as if I was a badly behaved child.

I stood. ‘Are you actually going to have the common courtesy to look at me when I’m talking to you?’

Mrs Elrick turned around. She was older than she’d seemed from the back: a used-looking face lined with creases, a long nose, her hair thinning at the front. A bruise stretched its way across her left cheekbone, half an inch higher and it would’ve been a black eye. Scratches marred her neck – four parallel lines, red against the pale skin. ‘For the last three years we have put up with your daughter’s lying, and cheating, and coming in reeking of alcohol – when she bothers to come in at all – the fighting and the stealing, because we know she’s been struggling to cope with her sister’s disappearance and your divorce. But today I found out she’s been bullying the other children. Not just her peer group: the first years too.’

‘That isn’t true, the other kids are lying. Katie wouldn’t—’

‘When I tracked her down she was forcing a girl half her size to eat a handful of mud.’ The headmistress raised her chin, showing off the scratch marks. ‘This is what happened when I tried to stop her.’

Captain Corduroy nodded like a dashboard ornament. ‘It’s simply not acceptable.’

I grabbed the arms of his chair. ‘SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!’

He jerked back, hands covering his face.

The headmistress folded her arms. ‘Well, now we can see where she gets it from.’

‘It’s not true, Daddy, they’re
lying
!’ Katie clutched her schoolbag to her chest like a dead rat. She’d dyed her hair again – jet black and straight, tucked behind her ears, her big blue eyes puffy and pink, a metal crucifix around her neck. Her white shirt was rumpled and stained, the green-and-yellow school tie at half-mast.

‘Get in the car.’ I wrenched open the passenger door.

‘How can you take their word over mine?’

‘Get in the bloody car, Katie.’

Dr McDonald peered out from the back seat. ‘Is everything OK?’

Katie slumped into the passenger seat, then turned her smile on the psychologist. Stuck her hand out. ‘Hi, I’m Katie, Ash’s daughter, really nice to meet you, I love your hair, it’s great.’

‘Thanks, I like yours too, it’s very goth.’

‘You wouldn’t believe what’s happened – the teachers never liked me in that place, it’s a factory for churning out brain-dead drones – it’s like a
complete
misunderstanding.’

I thumped myself in behind the wheel and slammed the door. Stabbed the key in the ignition. ‘Seatbelt.’ The headlights cut through the darkness.

‘Honestly, Daddy, I didn’t
do
anything, it’s all—’

‘You beat up a girl two years younger than you. Seatbelt!’

‘It wasn’t like—’

I stamped my foot on the accelerator and jerked the Renault out onto the road. ‘Is that what we taught you? To pick on people smaller than yourself? Is it?’

‘I didn’t…’ Deep breath. ‘OK, yes, I got into a fight, but you should’ve
heard
her, she was going on about how all the police are fascists and racists and corrupt and why can’t you catch proper criminals instead of victimizing real people. And I know for a fact it’s because her dad got done for drink driving last week. I was only sticking up for you.’

‘You made her eat dirt.’

Round the roundabout, leaning on the horn to shift a flat-cap-wearing corpse in his bloody Volvo.

Katie was staring at me, I could feel it.

‘
What
?’