‘Was it wet?’ Magnus asked in amazement.
‘Water wouldn’t do that. It has to be a chemical reaction.’
‘Drugs?’
‘Probably. A lot of notes in circulation have deposits of cocaine on them. But cocaine isn’t corrosive. More likely it’s crystal methamphetamine. The German Bundesbank had a problem recently with twenty- and
fifty-euro notes disintegrating on touch. Turned out crystal meth was the culprit. When a contaminated note comes into contact with human sweat, it produces an acid.’
‘But you’re wearing gloves.’
‘The reaction had already occurred. I just disturbed it.’ She told him about Chrissy’s explanation for the tweek marks on the victim’s arms and thighs.
‘Looks like she was right,’ Magnus said.
‘We’ll see once we get the toxicology results.’
‘So what happens about the fingerprints?’
‘I think we just lost them.’
When she finished with the skirt, Magnus asked to look at the bra and the stiletto. Rhona wasn’t ready to work on those yet, but she brought them out for Magnus to examine. He stood in silence, staring down at them, deep in thought.
‘Can I smell them?’
‘Provided you don’t make contact.’
Magnus picked up the bra with his gloved hands, held it close to his mask and breathed in.
Rhona’s initial reaction was surprise, then discomfort, as though she was observing a man indulging a sexual fetish. Then Magnus asked her to smell it too. Rhona decided to humour him. She took her time, breathing in, looking for something other than the scent of cheap perfume and deodorant. The result puzzled her. There was a scent, faint but unrecognisable.
‘You can smell him?’
‘I can smell something. I have no idea what it is.’
When Magnus left shortly afterwards, he gave her his card and asked for Rhona’s contact number.
‘When you’re not so busy, I’d like us to talk some more.’
Rhona told him her life would be like this for weeks, perhaps – God forbid – months. The lab would be working flat out, with help needed from other labs. Two deaths meant two separate enquiries. Another DI would be brought in to head another team, even though the deaths were related. When Magnus looked concerned, Rhona felt sorry for him and relented.
‘Do you know The Ultimate Jazz Club near Byres Road?’ Magnus nodded. ‘Chrissy and I will be there tonight around seven.’
Free of Magnus’s presence in the laboratory, Rhona continued her methodical study of the victim’s clothing. Back-to-back murders allowed precious little time to amass and study evidence, which meant they were always one step behind the killer. She needed to find something for Bill, before the killer struck again.
Glasgow Pussy – Internet Blog
Friday July 30th
Two mangy crackheads lying one on top of the other. One fresh meat, the other rotting. The police didn’t even know the rotting one was missing. Told you. No one gives a shite
.
BILL ESTIMATED LIZ
Paterson to be in her late fifties, with a Scottish accent he couldn’t place. She reminded him of a primary teacher he’d liked. Underneath the motherly exterior, Bill suspected the woman had nerves of steel. Serving free food every night to the underbelly of Glasgow, she’d need them.
Liz explained about Leanne and her concern for Terri. ‘They’re a couple. Terri was,
is
, determined to get them both clean – and she’s succeeding.’ Liz’s voice faltered. ‘They’re only seventeen.’
Bill absorbed this information in silence. In his experience, getting ‘clean’ was a promise seldom kept. Drug addicts were no longer in control of their thoughts, their lives or their souls. The devil Bill had been taught about as a child had adapted himself to the modern world. Now he acquired souls chemically.
‘And Terri disappeared last night?’
‘Yes.’
Bill began to explain the procedure Liz would have to go through.
‘It’s okay. I’ve done this before,’ Liz said grimly.
Bill left her in the viewing room while he went into
the mortuary. Sandra, the young assistant, greeted him in her usual friendly manner.
‘She’s all ready for you.’ She indicated a draped body lying next to the viewing window.
Someone had done a good job. The face was even younger now that it was cleansed of make-up. The pale, veined eyelids had been gently closed on the terrified eyes. The vicious marks on her neck were concealed by a white sheet. No matter how many times he’d stood in that place, Bill had never grown accustomed to this laundered image of death. Since news of Margaret’s illness, he’d sensed death stalking him, a dark shadow that loomed over his entire family. Something he could no longer leave at the office, or here in the chemical cleanliness of the mortuary.
‘Okay?’ Sandra nudged his arm.
Bill nodded and went through. He wanted to be beside Liz when she identified Terri’s body.
Liz stood very close to the glass as the curtain was drawn back. Bill heard her gasp when the face came into view, and his first reaction was to assume the worst.
‘I’m sorry,’ he began.
‘It’s not Terri!’ she said, a mixture of relief and sorrow evident in her voice. ‘It’s Lucie.’ She gripped his arm to steady herself.
Liz had obviously steeled herself for a particular outcome and had been completely thrown by this one. Bill guided the woman to a chair. She let go of his arm and sat down.
‘You know the victim?’
Liz’s face had drained of colour. ‘She came to the van sometimes with an older guy.’
‘Her pimp?’
‘Probably.’
‘Do you know his name?’
Liz was visibly trying to marshall herself. ‘Lucie called him Minty, I think.’
‘Craig Minto? Big guy, balding, with a tattoo on his cheek?’
‘He was bad to her,’ Liz growled.
‘Minty’s bad to everyone, except himself.’
This wasn’t the first time DC Janice Clark had visited the drop-in centre. Dressed in jeans and a loose top, if she didn’t blend in exactly, neither did she stand out. She was alone, which meant she was less threatening and more likely to get a positive response. The woman in charge was called Marje Thomson. Janice suspected Marje knew as much about life on the streets as her charges did, except she’d got away – at least as far as here. Marje recognised Janice immediately and gave her an appraising look.
‘You’ll never get picked up dressed like that.’
Janice pretended offence. ‘Why not?’
‘No flesh showing. The punters like to see what they’re buying.’
Marje laughed, a deep-throated rumble that betrayed a forty-a-day habit. She gestured Janice towards a back door, indicating her need to feed her nicotine craving. The exit led to a small paved courtyard littered with dog-ends, which the rain had mashed to a soggy thin carpet.
Marje lit up and took a deep drag, sending the smoke swiftly to her lungs. ‘We send these lassies out every night to get beaten, raped and buggered, but we can’t let them smoke on the premises because it’s bad for their health.’ She shook her head in disbelief and took another draw.
Janice waited until Marje had enough nicotine to relax, then said, ‘The female body found in the Necropolis has been identified as Lucie Webster.’
Marje looked shocked. ‘Wee Lucie?’
‘You knew her?’
‘She was a regular here. Not every night, but at least a couple of times a week.’ Marje looked puzzled. ‘The news said a young woman. It didn’t mention she was a prostitute.’
‘DI Wilson wanted it that way initially.’
‘Oh, I see. Get Joe Public on your side. The same public that heads here after dark looking for a cheap screw with some wee lassie barely out of school.’ Marje blew smoke fiercely into the air. The whites of her eyes were yellowed, the irises brown, flecked with gold. Her lip curled, and Janice thought she resembled a lioness furiously defending her cubs. She took another pull at the cigarette, her hand trembling.
‘There was a second body buried beneath Lucie.’
Marje’s face turned the colour of putty. ‘What?’
‘They think it’s been there at least a month.’
Marje’s shock was fast turning to outrage. ‘The bastard!’
‘Is there any other girl you haven’t seen for a while?’
Marje thought for a moment before answering. ‘It can’t have been a regular. Not if she’s been missing a month. Some turn up once or twice at the centre, then we never see them again. They head for bigger pickings down south. Newcastle. Birmingham, London.’
‘I’d like to talk to as many of the girls as I can. Warn them what’s going on.’
‘Sure.’ The forgotten cigarette dropped ash at Marje’s feet.
‘We need your help to get the man who did this.’
Marje scowled. ‘Like you got the other eight men who did the same thing?’
Janice knew better than to make excuses. ‘The safe area has helped.’
Marje dropped the dog-end and ground it underfoot. ‘Until now.’
The small room was home to a two-seater settee, a chair and a coffee table. A corner stand held an electric kettle, a tray with mugs, a jar of instant coffee, some milk in a carton and a pile of teabags.
Marje assured Janice the room would remain private to herself and whoever she was talking to. She was true to her word. Three girls trooped in one after another, accepted a cup of coffee and sat opposite Janice on the settee. If her mother had seen these poor souls she would have wanted to take them home, convinced that good food and motherly love would cure them of life’s ills.
Janice gave each of them the same story. They were being told the truth to keep them safe. The word ‘safe’
rang hollow in her ears each time she said it. To these girls there was nothing more frightening in life than not having the next fix. They would be out on the street tonight, like every other night, to make sure they got it. As to Janice’s enquiry about a missing girl, none of the three could offer an answer. They knew Lucie through the centre. They weren’t aware of anyone else going missing.
The fourth girl was different. She accepted the coffee with shaking hands, told Janice her name was Leanne, then burst into a terrified babble about her missing friend Terri Docherty. It took Janice ten minutes to get the whole story.
‘I thought it was Terri they found in the graveyard, but Liz went to identify the body . . .’
‘Liz?’
‘She works on the food van. I told her about Terri not coming home and she went to the police.’
‘And Terri’s been missing for how long?’
‘It was her night on. I was asleep. She’s usually home by two.’
‘So she’s been missing since two o’clock this morning?’
‘He’s got her. I know he has.’ Her voice rose in a wail.
‘Who’s got her?’
‘The man who killed Lucie.’
MAGNUS PEERED INTO
the shallow grave.
The light filtering through the tent made him think of camping with the cub scouts when he was eight years old. The acrid aroma of decomposition and raw earth smelt like the pit latrine they had laboriously dug. Magnus had been frightened of that pit. Frightened of falling into it in the dark. Of drowning in other people’s shit. All Magnus could remember about the weekend camp was the smell of those toilets. Now, no doubt, chemical toilets would be used. But not thirty years ago on Orkney.
Magnus breathed in, assimilating and separating all the various odours that occupied the tent. As a child, his father had declared his son to have the scenting capability of a bloodhound. The waves of nausea that often accompanied Magnus’s olfactory episodes had eventually lessened, and he’d grown able to concentrate on analysing and categorising the mix of scents that regularly assailed him. Gradually the smells of his island home became familiar and comforting, even at their strongest – a dead sheep in a field ditch, a rotting seal’s carcass on the shore.
When he’d moved to Glasgow to attend university, the city had bombarded him with scents of its own. As
an adult he’d learned, if not to turn off his intense sense of smell, at least to manage it by ignoring or tuning in to it at will. It was only while in a state of high emotion the full force of Magnus’s gift (for he now thought of it that way) showed itself.
Both bodies had been removed from the site. Magnus would have preferred to have studied them
in situ
. He’d surveyed the many photographs taken by the forensic team and the detailed video footage of the crime scene. None of these was as good as being present.
Magnus closed his eyes and put his hands flat against the headstone. The grey granite felt cool and solid under his palms. Many people were disturbed by cemeteries. Magnus had never felt that way. Coming from Orkney, where ancient burial sites were a familiar part of the landscape, Magnus felt at ease near the dead. Although this ostentatious graveyard bore no resemblance to the windswept clusters of carved stones that marked the end of life in Orkney.
Magnus felt a tingle begin in his hands, as the energy trapped in the stone transmitted itself to his body, then onwards and upwards until it concentrated in his lips. In this state of receptiveness, he allowed his mind to roam at will. The scents that surrounded him grew stronger and ever more pungent, hitting him in waves. When people spoke of smelling fear they were right. Fear smelt as individual as the human gripped by it; their natural scent mixed with terror-fuelled perspiration, sexual energy, the acrid aroma of urine and the stench of loosened bowels. Serial killers needed that
scent to feed their fantasies, just as vampires fed on blood.
The location chosen by an organised killer was as important as the modus operandi. But the signature of the killer was the most important aspect of all, and the two were not the same.
In each of the recent deaths, the victim had been strangled with her bra, knotted in a particular way. Then the bodies had been mutilated with the heels of their shoes. The modus operandi was strangulation. The signature was the knot and the mutilation.
Magnus imagined the feel of her bra in his hands, recalled the smell when he’d held it to his nose. The murderer’s scent was on that item. That, and the shoe. Both had become an extended part of the perpetrator’s being. Without a survivor to talk with, Magnus could never know the full narrative between the murderer and his victim. But the level of violence suggested an aggressive offender, who used the victim as a vehicle to reflect his own anger. And anger like that did not dissipate easily.