Blood Red Roses (2 page)

Tracey was defiant. ‘He wanted Donna to change. I liked her the way she was.'

‘Did Donna take her drink to the toilet with her?' Rhona asked.

Tracey looked puzzled. ‘Why would she do that?'

‘Was she asthmatic?'

‘What?'

‘Did she have asthma?'

‘Not that I know of.'

‘Are any of you asthmatic?'

They shook their heads.

‘Fucked up, yes,' Tracey said. ‘Asthmatic no.'

Rhona opened her forensic bag and set about taking samples. The girl's body was already showing signs of rigor mortis. The muscle stiffening and the macabre grin suggested poison, probably strychnine. But finding the cause of death was the pathologist's job. Hers was to find traces of the attacker.

There was no evidence of violent or sexual assault, apart from grazed skin from the broken bottle. Rhona sampled the lips and bagged the gloved hands. Then she set about picking up the glass.

The pathologist arrived as she was finishing. Dr Sissons gave her a weary look.

‘Drugs or drink?'

Rhona shook her head. ‘At a guess, strychnine poisoning.'

Now she had his interest. Poisonings were not the usual manner of violent death in Glasgow on a Friday night.

When Rhona got back to the flat, dawn was streaking the sky with red. Her cat, Chance, ran towards her, looking for food. She smelt coffee, then heard Sean humming. Naked, he smiled as she entered the kitchen.

‘Okay?'

She nodded, unsure whether she wanted him there or not.

He tipped a measure of whisky in the coffee and carried it into the bedroom.

‘Want to talk?'

‘No.'

‘Good.'

When he moved against her she forgot the blue lips and twisted limbs. She forgot death and celebrated life.

 

Bill was seated in his favourite chair. It looked out of place in the modern office. Old leather, with a girn that could not be oiled into silence, it gave him a place to think.

‘Poison,' he shook his head. ‘It's like an Agatha Christie novel.'

‘Strychnine. She died quickly, if horribly.'

‘Jonny, the fiance, is a fireman.'

‘A suspect?'

‘How many husbands-to-be kill their bride on her hen night?'

‘We've had weirder murders.'

Bill shook his head. The world of murder was as strange as it had been when he started in the force thirty years before.

Detective Constable Janice Clarke stuck her head round the door.

‘Car's here, sir.'

‘Ready?'

Rhona nodded.

Donna Steven's flat was in a block on the lower end of Maryhill Road, minutes from Charing Cross. Bill left the driver with the car to safeguard his tyres.

A team was already there. Three white suits greeted Rhona as she entered from the walkway.

The flat was tiny. A kitchen-living room, a bedroom, cramped hall and bathroom. In the bedroom an ivory wedding dress hung on a wardrobe door. On the dressing table sat a fairytale veil. Rhona fingered the dress material, recognising the smooth feel of expensive silk.

She tried to imagine what Donna had been thinking and feeling the last time she was in this room.

‘Civil wedding. A small guest list but no expense spared,' Bill told her.

‘What did she do for a living?'

‘Worked in a newsagent, Tracey says'.

Rhona glanced again at the wedding frock. ‘If she didn't have a family...'

‘I take it the dress is expensive?'

‘Silk. A couple of thousand I would say.'

‘Bloody hell!'

Bill had a teenage daughter and a son. Chances were he would be counting the cost shortly himself.

‘So where was the money coming from?' Bill said.

‘The husband-to-be?'

‘The guy's in shock. I'll interview him later.'

‘Can I take a look at the room... by myself?'

Bill nodded. ‘Be my guest.'

Rhona's mentor in the early days had been Dr Fields, or Eagle-eye as he was fondly known. He did everything. Medical, fibres, fingerprints, all the branches. He taught her how to get results from what was called reticent evidence. Evidence not willing to give up its secrets. One thing more he'd taught her. Forensics can help, but only if you know what to look for. To know that, you have to get to know the victim.

The wedding dress dominated the room. Below it was a pair of matching silk shoes. A wave of emotion swept over Rhona. Donna wanted to get married. Did someone poison her to stop that
happening?

Beside the shoes sat a small wastepaper basket. Below a couple of makeup tissues was a single red rose, wilting from lack of water.

Rhona carefully removed it and slipped it in a forensic bag.

Fifteen minutes later Bill was at the door. ‘Find anything?'

‘Small spots of blood on the bed cover. And some hair samples from the pillow that don't look like Donna's.'

She showed him the rose. ‘And this.'

Bill sniffed. ‘Shop roses don't usually have a scent.'

‘Is Jonny a gardener?'

‘He lives in a flat above the fire station. Anyway, garden roses don't flower in November, do they?'

Bill dropped her off at the forensic lab, promising to get in touch after he'd interviewed Jonny Simpson.

Rhona loved the view from her laboratory window, even now in November. She looked down on Kelvingrove Park, the Art Gallery and
Museum in the distance. The museum had been her favourite haunt both as a child with her father and later as a student studying at Glasgow University.

Chrissy appeared from the back lab and gave Rhona a look.

‘What?' Rhona played the innocent.

‘Was it the saxophonist?'

Rhona laughed.

‘I knew it. And?'

‘And what?' said Rhona, putting on her lab coat.

Chrissy pulled a face. ‘You're not going to tell me, are you?'

Rhona shook her head.

‘Must have been good.'

‘Chrissy,' Rhona warned.

‘Okay, okay.' Chrissy took the hint.

Rhona began unpacking her forensic bag.

‘The bride in the toilet?'

‘I went to her flat with Bill. There was a very expensive wedding dress hanging in the bedroom...'

‘Poor cow... '

‘And this...'

Rhona showed Chrissy the rose.

‘Maybe she had another admirer. One that Jonny didn't know about,' Chrissy suggested.

‘Or one he found out about...'

 

Jonny Simpson sat with his head in his hands.

DI Wilson had seen all kinds of grief in thirty years as a policeman. It always left its mark. And you had to be careful. Genuine grief didn't always look the way you thought it should.

‘Okay Mr Simpson. Tell me about the last time you saw Donna.'

Jonny lifted a white face.

‘I haven't seen Donna since Wednesday night. I've been on call.'

‘Did you speak to her?'

‘We sent texts.'

‘And what did she say in these texts?'

Jonny's face flushed. ‘Just private stuff.'

Bill was familiar with the world of text messaging, due to his two teenage children. Text was like email. You could write things you might not say.

‘Tracey says Donna didn't have a family.'

Jonny's face clouded over. ‘Donna was brought up in a children's home. She only had me.'

‘Where did you two meet?'

Jonny hesitated for a second or two. ‘In the newsagent where she works. I get my paper there.'

‘Getting married is an expensive business,' Bill said.

Jonny glared at him. ‘If you mean the dress, Donna's been saving for it since she was sixteen. I don't care about all that, but it was important to her.'

Bill decided to get to the point.

‘Did you give Donna a rose?'

‘What?'

‘We found a red rose in the wastepaper bin in her bedroom.'

Jonny tried to mask the quick look of jealousy that flashed across his face.

‘I don't remember.'

‘Try.'

‘These folk come round the pubs, trying to sell you a rose. Donna was soft. She made me buy them sometimes.'

It was a good answer. Bill almost believed him.

‘Why are you talking to me anyway? Why aren't you out there catching the bastard that killed Donna?'

‘We'd like you to provide a DNA sample, Mr Simpson.'

‘You think I killed her?'

‘We need to eliminate you from our enquiry.'

Jonny took a look at Bill's calm face and relaxed.

‘I'll do whatever it takes to catch him.'

‘Donna had an admirer,' Bill told Rhona later. ‘Or Jonny suspects she did.'

‘Someone who might give her a rose?'

‘Remember the murderer we got because he shared an orange with his victim?'

‘Just what I was thinking,' Rhona said. ‘The drops of blood on the coverlet weren't Donna's.'

‘What about Jonny?'

‘We're checking. We've also identified three types of head hair from the pillow. One is Donna's. The other two are likely to be men. We have roots so a DNA analysis is possible. We'll check them against Jonny. Chrissy's taking a look at the sheets for semen.'

‘You think Donna was playing away?'

‘Could be. And there were traces of salbutomal on her hair.'

‘So someone asthmatic was close to her before she died?'

Rhona considered this. It wasn't uncommon for rapists to take a shot of an inhaler before making their move on a victim. They were so worked up that an asthma attack could be on the cards.

‘There was no evidence of sexual assault,' Bill reminded her.

‘Maybe watching Donna die was thrill enough.'

A smiling Chrissy left the lab at six to meet PC Williams, the young constable she had met the evening before. Rhona stayed on to work on the Bacardi Coke bottle. On arrival that morning, she'd filled an empty bottle with a mixture of plaster of Paris, stuck a thin wooden rod down the neck and set it to harden.

Now, using the rod as a handle, she took a small hammer and gently tapped the side of the bottle until it cracked in several places. Then she
held it over the waste bin and gave the bottle three short sharp knocks. The glass fell away in dozens of shards.

Now she had a plastic replica of the bottle, she could start putting the murder weapon together again. Chrissy had laughed when Rhona produced the Bacardi Coke bottle that morning. She laughed even harder when she heard Rhona's plan.

‘No chance,' had been Chrissy's expert opinion.

Rhona suspected Chrissy was right, but she had to give it a try.

She arranged all the pieces she'd picked up on a tray. She would start the long slow process of fitting the jigsaw together tomorrow.

Outside, Rhona shivered in the raw night air. She hadn't brought the car. She could have tried for a taxi but decided to walk. Walking helped her think.

Street lights threw pools of yellow on grey puddles. The rain had dwindled to a faint mist that masked sound. Cars swished past throwing water in her path. Rhona strode on too absorbed to notice. In her head she was replaying the scene
that had ended in Donna's death.

Donna had been given a Bacardi Coke outside the ladies toilet. There were no signs of force so Donna took the drink willingly. But that didn't mean she knew her murderer. Rhona hoped she did. If they were dealing with a psycho who had no link with the victim, it would be even more difficult to find him.

Bill had questioned Donna's mates. They insisted Donna was seeing no one but Jonny. They also said they had seen nobody they knew on the night of the hen party. Only Tracey seemed wary. Wary and scared, according to Bill.

 

‘Where the fuck is she?'

Tracey couldn't tell him the truth. ‘She's not well.'

Belcher's fat sweaty face grew redder.

‘Tell her she's fired if she doesn't turn up tomorrow night.'

He shoved a rose at Tracey. ‘You do it. Room five and make it good.'

The green baize walls and heavily carpeted hallway smothered all sound. Tracey passed four doors and stood outside number five, waiting for the double vodka to swim through her blood stream.

There were four of them. Spiked hair, designer stubble, muscled bodies under patterned short-sleeved shirts. A stag night maybe? Or just guys who liked getting off on girls like her.

‘Hi Rose. Come on in.'

They were seated round a circular table, three champagne bottles in the middle. One of them handed her a full glass and watched her drink it in a oner.

The music came on. She started on the blonde one with the pale eyes because he looked harmless. She unbuttoned his shirt and with the rose in her mouth traced his smooth chest, lower and lower until she reached his hardening crotch.

The others yelled in delight.

Jonny came in at midnight and took a seat at the bar. Tracey had finished her stint with the four guys and badly needed a drink. She didn't see Jonny until it was too late.

He grabbed her arm and forced her onto the stool beside him. His face was a mask of hate.

‘She was still doing this, wasn't she? That's how she was paying for the fucking dress.'

Tracey didn't answer.

‘It's your fault she's dead. You and the rest of her fucking friends.'

He was right. She had told Donna to stay on at the club. The money was good. She could buy the dress she wanted. She'd persuaded Donna that
what Jonny didn't know couldn't hurt him.

‘Some bastard gave her a rose. I want to know who it was.'

Tracey recoiled as though she'd been punched.

‘What?'

‘The police found a red rose at the flat. They think I gave it to her, but I didn't, did I, Tracey?'

Tracey couldn't speak. She was thinking about the dance she'd just performed. Rose's dance.