Driftnet (16 page)

‘Yahs,’ Neil
muttered under his breath.

‘They’re just
walkers like us.’

‘They folk
think they own Scotland.’

‘Maybe they
just like it here.’

‘Aye. And
they’d like it a whole lot better if none of us lived here.’

He walked off
ahead. The encounter had rattled him and he didn’t want her to
know. But it was too late.

She could tell
he was thinking about the men who had arrived at the flat to
‘discuss’ the little problem of some photographs. Photographs Neil
had sworn he didn’t have. Photographs that could incriminate a
number of prominent citizens. The same photographs Chrissy had
collected and brought here with her. His safety net, Neil called
them. If anything happens to me, he’d said, those photos get
published. That’s why they won’t do any more than threaten me. But
they came to the flat, they knocked you about, she said. And that’s
why I came here, he replied. Out of sight, out of mind. I’ll go
back once things blow over.

For all his
confident talk, he was very much on his guard. He had made sure he
knew everyone on the site and if anyone new booked in he found out
about them. They hadn’t gone to the pub in the village. Neil bought
cans of beer at the camp shop and they drank them in the tent.

‘Awful pants he
had on, eh?’ she said to make him laugh.

‘You were
looking at his dick.’

‘Mmmm,’ she
leered at him.

‘Well if that’s
what you want.’ He made a show of pulling down his zip and she
grabbed his arm.

‘Don’t you
dare.’

‘You’ve got ten
minutes, then it’s coming down whether we’re at the tent or
not.’

She pushed past
him and ran down the path, giggling.

****

He knew she had
to catch the eight o’clock bus. After they’d lain in the tent and
talked and made love he stirred up the fire and cooked sausages and
beans. She said she would come back next weekend.

‘No.’

Chrissy felt
her stomach lurch.

‘But...’

‘Things’ll have
blown over. I’ll be back in Glasgow by then.’

‘Back to the
flat?’ She was incredulous. ‘But they’ll know you’re there.’

‘I can’t afford
to miss my regulars.’ He avoided her eyes.

She tried to
disguise her sense of horror.

But he drew
back, defensively.

‘Look. This is
what I am,’ he said sharply.

‘But what about
the man who tried to...’

‘Things got
heavy. It happens sometimes.’

‘You’ve got to
stop this Neil. It’s not only what you’re doing to yourself. I
can’t get the sight of the marks on your neck out of my mind.’

‘It’s nothing
Chrissy. They do that all the time.’ He was trying to convince her
and maybe himself. ‘It’s the only way they can come.’ He turned
away. ‘It’s pathetic.’

She felt
sick.

‘Then stop
it.’

He touched her
cheek. ‘You want me all to yourself.’

‘I want you to
be safe.’ Her voice had dropped to a whisper.

She heard his
intake of breath.

‘I am safe. HIV
negative with money in the bank and,’ he patted the photos in his
jacket pocket. ‘This is my insurance policy.’

‘Look Neil.
You’re on a major self destruct. It’s killing me to see you like
this.’

She turned away
from him and crept into the tent to get her bag. When she came back
out, he behaved as if nothing had happened. He was too good at
that, she thought.

‘Right then?’
he said.

She nodded,
feeling defeated.

‘You’re
crazy,’she said.

‘You like
crazy,’ he answered.

There were
people at the bus stop and they couldn’t talk. His face was a mask.
Her chest hurt at the thought of leaving him. Before she climbed on
the bus, they kissed hard.

‘I’ll phone
you, right?’ he said.

On the way home
she tried to work out when it had happened. When having sex had
turned into making love. For all his talk about shagging, Neil had
always taken his time, fine-tuning her. She had thought cynically
that was because h’d had so much practice. Now she felt sure that
had nothing to do with it. No one takes such care of something that
has no meaning.

Chapter
23

‘We’ll have to
tell Bill, Chrissy.’

‘I can’t.’

‘But it could
be the same man. He could kill Neil?’

‘Don’t!’

Rhona had never
seen Chrissy vulnerable like this before. They had both arrived at
work early on Monday morning. One look at Chrissy’s ashen face and
she had shunted her into the back lab and shut the door.

‘Bill is a
decent man and a good policeman. He would protect Neil.’

‘No!’ Chrissy
was adamant. ‘I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone.’ She was close to
tears. ‘I should never have told you.’

Rhona took
Chrissy’s hand in hers. ‘You were right to tell me. You were braver
than me, anyway.’

‘What d’you
mean?’

‘I’ve got a few
secrets of my own. I didn’t go to Paris with Sean. I was here all
the time.’

‘What
happened?’

‘Things are,
well, awkward. I saw him in the Art Gallery with a woman. I asked
him if he was sleeping with her.’

‘What did he
say?’

‘He told me it
didn’t matter if he was.’

‘That doesn’t
mean he’s...’

‘Well, why
didn’t he just say no?’

‘You wouldn’t
believe him anyway.’

‘Then
Edward...’

‘Edward?’

So Rhona told
her everything.

‘He asked me to
keep quiet because of the by-election.’

‘The slimy
bastard!’ ‘And he comes over so charming.’

‘Oh Edward’s
charming,’ Rhona assured her, ‘as long as he’s getting his own
way.’

‘I hope you
told him to get fucked.’

‘Not exactly.’
Rhona almost smiled at Chrissy’s indignation. ‘I kept thinking
about it.’ She looked desperate. ‘And then there was the murder.
The boy had a birthmark just like Liam’s.’

‘Christ! You
don’t think?’

The words came
pouring out now. How both the doctor and the Sergeant had commented
how the boy looked like her, and then Bill, and the birthmark being
in exactly the same place.

‘Your own DNA,
you could check it against...’

‘Everything’s
recorded, you know that. How do I explain checking my own DNA?’

‘So what did
you do?’ Chrissy asked.

‘Edward made
all the arrangements at the time. I phoned him and told him I
wanted to know where our son was.’

‘I bet he shat
himself.’

Rhona managed a
laugh.

He sent me
Liam’s adopted name to prove it wasn’t the dead boy.’

‘If I was you,
I’d tell the newspapers. They’d love a story like that.’

‘I
couldn’t.’

‘No you
couldn’t. The same way I can’t say about Neil.’

‘This man who
hurt him. What if he’s the killer?’

‘Neil says it’s
all part of the game. It’s what they pay for.’

‘Did he say
anything else about this man. What he looked like? Anything that
might link him to the investigation?’

‘No. Only that
the guy had money. When I asked him to report it Neil said the
police wouldn’t believe him. They have marked him down as low life.
That’s what he said.’

Rhona spent the
rest of the day concentrating on the fibres found on the jeans,
while Chrissy worked on the curtain, looking particularly for
traces of the previous victim.

‘It’s a long
shot, she told Chrissy, but if the killer used the curtain in his
routine, it’s a chance. If we can match the first victim’s DNA
profile to the samples we’ve collected from the curtain, bingo.

Under the
microscope the fibres from the jeans turned out to be of two types.
One was easily identifiable as dark blue wool. The dye would take
spectrometry or chromatography to identify. The remaining fibres
were also natural. The boy was wearing cotton jeans and a
tee-shirt, but these fibres were silk, cultivated silk. Rhona
looked up from the microscope, a picture of the killer forming in
her mind.

He had money.
He liked natural fibres next to his skin. He bought silk shirts and
ties; pure dark blue wool jackets or trousers. He wore expensive
cologne. He could be blonde or dark. For him, sex had to be
violent. How many men in Glasgow matched such a description,
assuming he even lived within the city boundaries?

‘Rhona. I think
you’d better have a look at this.’

The large sheet
of filter paper they’d covered the curtain with had a number of
purple patches on it, each identifying a semen deposit.

‘The curtain’s
had a busy time of it.’ Rhona said.

‘I’ll cut out
the relevant bits and make extracts.’

‘What about old
blood?’

Chrissy pointed
to two dry filter papers. Each had been activated by the reagents
phenolphthalein, alcohol and hydrogen peroxide to produce a pink
coloration.

‘The spotting
was small apart from the blood stains left by Jamie Fenton’s
injuries,’ said Chrissy. ‘If the violence is escalating as you
suggest, the spots may have come from previous small lacerations,
caused by flaying, scratching, that sort of thing.’

‘The curtain
seems to have been important to the killer. Why did he leave it
behind?’ Rhona said. ‘He must have known it might hold clues to his
identity.’

‘Something or
someone disturbed him?’

It seemed
logical. Men who kill during or after sex usually have a routine. A
structure they keep to. Their victims mere commodities. More
expendable than a piece of material, thought Rhona. The killer
would not have left the material behind unless he had to.

‘Oh, and the
chemical analysis came through on the paint flake I found inside
the boy’s pocket. It came from layered paint, the older leaded
type. Maybe he had been somewhere where old domestic paint was
being stripped down?’

‘That could
apply to any number of student flats,’ Rhona said despondently.

‘What about the
curtain tie-back?’

‘Trace elements
of the dead boy, flakes of skin and sopts of the victim’s blood.
Nothing else.’

‘Without a
suspect, we’re working in the dark,’ Chrissy said.

‘I know and I’m
already getting grief about the extra time we’re spending on this
case. Nobody wants to foot the bill for it.’

‘Does Bill know
that?’

No. And I don’t
plan to tell him. He’s already got the Super on his back since the
newspaper exposé. He doesn’t need to know they’re squabbling over
who pays the forensic bill. Let’s just hope Bill can trace the
curtain, and soon.’

The rest of the
day passed uneventfully. Tony didn’t seem to notice his colleagues’
preoccupation, his own mind being obviously elsewhere. At lunchtime
he went off to meet his Mexican girlfriend for a walk in the
park.

Immediately he
left, Chrissy began to probe again.

‘So, Rhona.
What are you goin to do about your son?’

‘I’ve told
Edward I’m going to find Liam.

‘What did he
say?’

‘He kept on
about the by-election. He’s got a good chance. It was a safe Tory
seat before the general election and nobody expected it to swing to
Labour. And he’s got big backers. He mentioned Sir James
Dalrymple.’

Rhona also
described how she had met Gavin and how he had helped her.

‘This Gavin
thing. It’s not serious is it?’ asked Chrissy suddenly.

‘What Gavin
thing?’

‘You haven’t
slept with him?’

‘Chrissy!’

‘Just asking.’
Chrissy gave Rhona an appraising look. ‘But you’ve thought about
it. Right?’

She waited for
an answer and when none came she didn’t lay off. ‘What about
Sean?’

Rhona shrugged.
It was possible to put Sean out of her head when he wasn’t around.
If they split up, he would survive. There were plenty others
waiting to take her place.

‘I think you’re
wrong about Sean,’ said Chrissy. ‘Okay he does like women. But the
way he looks at you is different.’ Chrissy searched for words.

‘Well?’ said
Rhona.

‘Don’t take
this the wrong way.’ Chrissy hesitated. ‘It looks to me like you
don’t want anyone to come too close. Like you don’t trust anyone
except yourself.’ She looked apologetic, but she carried on. ‘I
used to think it went with the territory. You had to behave like
that, to be taken seriously in this job. Maybe you take that
through into your life. Or maybe it’s just the way you’re
made.’

‘That’s great,
coming from you!’

Rhona got up
and walked over to the window, her hands clenched by her side.

‘I know,’ said
Chrissy quietly. ‘Maybe it’s because I know what it’s like to be
like that,’ her voice tailed off, ‘I can see you doing it too.’ She
came over and stood beside Rhona. ‘Neil’s a bit like Sean. Thinks
he’s God’s gift. But he makes me laugh and he doesn’t ask me for
anything.’

The phone rang
in the background and Rhona dragged her thoughts back to other
things.

It was Gavin.
Would she like to come round for dinner that evening? He had
something to show her. Something important.

Chapter
24

When Rhona
arrived at Gavin’s flat at eight o’clock, she got no answer from
the buzzer. She stepped back from the front door and looked up at
the second floor window, wondering whether she was too early. The
curtains were closed on the big bay windows and the electric light
was on, despite the summer evening. Gavin was there alright.

Rhona buzzed
again, and this time he answered right away.

‘Come on up.
But be warned. I’ve just got out of the shower.’

Rhona stepped
into a hallway filled with the delicious smell of garlic, olive oil
and warm French bread. Instantly her mouth began to water and she
realised with a pang of guilt, that she hadn’t opened the door to
such a delicious smell since Sean left. When Gavin’s voice shouted
to her to come on through to the kitchen, it made the feeling
worse.