Whisky From Small Glasses (22 page)

Campbell explained: ‘I’m afraid that we can’t lash her right to our side, as we’ll end up doing damage to both vessels. Do you follow?’ Daley nodded. ‘What I recommend is that you watch me and then try to replicate what I do.’ With that he made his way to the lifeboat’s safety rail, stiffly hefted his left leg over it while leaning on a stanchion, then with equal lack of poise repeated the process with his right leg. ‘Now,’ Campbell said hesitantly, as he stared at the gap with concentration, perched on the narrow ledge between the safety rail and oblivion. ‘One judges the pitch and roll . . .’ He leaned forward, hand outstretched towards the grim-faced lifeboat man below. ‘And . . . off !’ He jumped clear of the lifeboat, while making a desperate attempt to grab the hand of his crewman below. Unfortunately, he misjudged his jump, the rapidly rising swell having propelled the smaller vessel upwards and towards him more quickly than he had
anticipated. Despite the valiant attempts of his colleague to arrest the fall, Campbell’s large bulk hurtled onto him with some force, ending with both lifeboat men writhing on the deck clutching various parts of their anatomy, to many grunts and oaths.

‘Fuck me.’ Scott eyed the scene with a furrowed brow. ‘I’m no’ in a hurry to replicate that. If that’s the best he can dae, how the fuck am I goin’ tae manage?’

‘Are you OK, Mr Campbell?’ Daley enquired of the stricken coxswain, who was now being helped to his feet by his unfortunate crewman.

‘Ah, harrumph.’ He brushed himself down. ‘Well, you get the general idea. Who’s next?’ He looked up at the policemen.

Jim Daley was not one to shirk the responsibilities of rank, so he stepped over the rail, positioned himself on the ledge, and looked down at the ever-changing gap. It reminded him of the penny falls he had played at the fair when he was young. Trying to calculate the optimum time to insert a two-pence coin in order that it would fall at the back of the pile, prompting the outpouring of financial reward. He had always been quite good at it. He held his hand out towards the crewman and took the leap of faith.

He had always prided himself, despite his size, on being relatively graceful; he was a good dancer and golfer, and motor skills picked up during these pursuits saw him land squarely on the deck. He breathed out in silent relief.

Fraser managed the jump with some aplomb, judging the rise and fall of the vessels relative to each other perfectly. He landed on deck sure-footedly, barely requiring the assistance of the crewman.

Next, Scott. Daley caught him muttering something about Fraser being more like Rudolf Nureyev as he concentrated on the job in hand. ‘Are yous ready?’ He turned to Gareth, who was giving advice at his side, and then, without warning, he jumped. Not the exaggerated stride that the others had executed with varying degrees of success, but a full-blown spring, head first, towards the smaller boat. He landed, somewhat fortuitously, on the large bulk of the coxswain, and for the second time in a couple of minutes, the corpulent solicitor struggled on the deck of the cruiser, Scott on top of him muttering a sentence devoid of anything but expletives. ‘Well done, Detective Sergeant Scott. You reminded me a bit of a Rangers striker there – beautiful dive.’

Campbell, now back on his feet again, gave the remaining lifeboat crew the thumbs up and surveyed the deck of the cabin cruiser. ‘Typical of its class, Chief Inspector. This is the flying bridge.’ He gestured at a level above the main deck, which housed a large wheel and was bordered on three sides by a slanted windscreen, giving it the look of an expensive open-top sports car. ‘Now, here’ – he pointed at a low door located on the base of the bridge – ‘is the access to the lower cabins: heads, bunks, galley, that sort of thing.’ He pushed at the door with the toe of his boot. It swung open with a high-pitched squeak to reveal a precipitous set of steps leading to the inner cabin, which was out of sight. ‘Be my guest, officers.’ Campbell made a sweeping gesture with his outstretched hand, as though showing them into his own home.

Daley grabbed the handrails and gingerly lowered himself down the steps, the unfamiliar footwear making his descent difficult. Already, a sixth sense was telling him all was far from well. A few steps on, he realised why.

The body of a woman was slumped forward on hands and knees over a table which was bolted to the floor. She was kneeling on an upholstered bench that served as a dining chair. She was naked apart from a bra, which had been torn in two and hung from her shoulders by its straps. Daley noticed her hair was tied back in a ponytail with a thick white bobble.

The cause of death was sickeningly obvious. The handle of a stout wooden walking stick protruded from her anus, and had been inserted there with such force that a huge amount of dark congealed blood was visible down the backside and legs of the victim, and also in pools on the bench and the cabin floor below. Daley reckoned that the walking stick had been forced almost two feet into the body of the dead woman.

‘Only police officers down here, please,’ Daley shouted. He didn’t want Campbell and the crewman to witness or trample over the gruesome scene with their big boots.

‘Have you found something? What the fuck?’ Scott was now just behind his boss.

‘Careful, Brian. Archie, come down here, will you?’ The DC was descending the stairs. Fraser looked at the woman’s body, and then he and Daley edged around the pool of blood on the floor to look at her face. Her head was left-side down on the Formica table, her eyes wide open in an expression of abject horror; more dark thick blood issued from her mouth and pooled on the table.

‘Sir, that’s Janet Ritchie.’ Fraser was as white as a ghost.

‘Are you sure, son?’

‘Yes, no doubt.’ He turned away from the scene, desperately trying to swallow down the gag reflex.

‘Go back up and get yourself a breath of air.’ Daley nodded
to the DC. ‘See if you can get a mobile signal and let me know. Don’t tell our lifeboat friends anything right now, or news of this will be back in Kinloch before we’ve had a chance to speak to the office. OK, on you go.’ He watched Fraser make his way back up top.

‘Fuck, Jim, that’s some mess.’ Even Scott, the hardened detective, was horrified by the level of violence on display.

‘I’ve a feeling there’s more. Come on, Brian.’ The two detectives walked towards a narrow wooden door. Daley took a hankie from his pocket and turned the handle. They found themselves in the sleeping cabin. On a double bed with raised sides lay the body of a man, stripped to the waist. His left arm had blackened due to a tourniquet having been applied just above his elbow. A large hypodermic syringe was still attached to his forearm, its needle thrust deep into the darkening flesh.

Peter Mulligan. It was not the first time either of the officers had attended a heroin overdose victim, but it still shocked. The man’s bowels had emptied, and his head lay in a pool of his own vomit – the normal physical manifestations of a body desperately attempting to rid itself of the poison destroying it. A raw black gash ran along the neck of the victim. The corpse had been decapitated, then the severed head put back in place as a macabre resolution.

‘It doesna’ get any prettier, Jim.’ Scott held his hand over his nose. ‘What are these marks?’ He pointed to the victim’s chest, where the man’s chest hair had been singed away, leaving small brown burns to the skin.

‘Taser.’ Daley bent down low over the victim, without touching him. ‘He’s been tasered. I remember being on a tactical weapons course a few months ago, and they asked for
volunteers. You know that bastard Phil Anderson from the crime squad?’

‘Aye, he’s a right prick.’

‘Well, they asked for volunteers, so he stuck up his hand and they tasered him. Took him the rest of the day to recover. He had two wee marks exactly the same as this on his stomach where the electrodes had attached themselves. Our man here’s been tasered, then the overdose has been administered, no doubt about it.’

Scott peered at the corpse. ‘They’re no’ long deid, either o’ them. Whit dae you reckon, Jim? A few hours?’

‘Something like that. Late last night maybe.’ He stood up, almost hitting his head off the low cabin ceiling. ‘We’ll have to get forensics down here pronto and secure the crime scene. How the fuck do we do that out here?’

‘Can these bastards in the launch sail oot the Clyde? I’ve never heard aboot it if they have.’

‘I’ll have to get a hold of the supreme leader – he’s going to love this. Give Fraser a shout, Brian. See if he’s managed to get a signal.’ Scott ascended the steps gingerly, to be met by coxswain Campbell at the top.

‘Just what’s going on, Sergeant? This boy won’t tell us anything. I have a right to know. After all, I’m still in charge of this little party. So come on, spill the beans. If it’s legal consequences you’re worried about, remember I’m a lawyer.’

Scott looked at him unimpressed. ‘The
boy
you’re referring to is a detective constable, and your being in charge has just come tae an’ end. Have you got a signal, Archie?’

Fraser, still looking green, was making his way towards them from the stern. ‘Aye, comes and goes a bit, but it’ll do.’

‘I have a satellite comms link back on board. You can use
that, but first you must tell me what the fuck’s happening.’ Campbell was doing his best to sound emphatic.

‘This boat’s a murder scene.’ Scott suddenly looked weary. ‘For the time being, however, I don’t want anyone from your lifeboat phoning hame tae tell the missus – is that clear? The chief inspector will take charge from here.’ Scott looked to the heavens. The weather was deteriorating fast. His face was already soaking and the cabin cruiser was beginning to pitch and roll alarmingly, despite now being tethered at both bow and stern to the much larger lifeboat. ‘What’s the likely forecast, Mr Campbell?’

‘Grim, Sergeant. I’ve just had an alert from Clyde Coastguard – we’ve got a storm warning. I strongly advise we tow this vessel back to Kinloch before it becomes a Herculean task. Do you understand?’

Scott went back below. ‘The weather’s getting bad. Yer man says we’ve got a storm on the way, and he’s advising us tae head back tae Kinloch wi’ this little boat o’ horrors in tow. What dae ye think, boss?’

Daley thought for a moment. It was unlikely that there would be anything gained by maintaining the vessel in her current location. Even from his limited knowledge, he realised that the evidence would be at risk with a storm brewing. ‘OK, Brian, tell him to make arrangements to tow us in as soon as possible. I’ll need to get a hold of Donald, and we’ll have to get Flynn to find us a berth somewhere on the harbour where the whole of Kinloch can’t see what’s going on. We’ll have to have somebody down here for the duration too.’

‘Young Archie says he’s got an intermittent signal on the blower. Campbell’s got a satellite phone.’ Scott shrugged. ‘Your call, James.’

Daley chose the satellite phone on the lifeboat, and after another undignified scramble from one vessel to another, made the relevant calls.

Flynn, back in Kinloch, assured him that
Russian Gold
would be away from prying eyes on the second pier where the lifeboat itself was moored, which was currently closed to the public for health and safety reasons. The harbour master told him that the Royal Navy sometimes used the berthing for dignitaries coming ashore from warships moored further out in the loch and that the health and safety notice was merely a ploy – ‘anything to keep the locals at bay’. The harbour master also promised to provide plastic sheeting to cover the boat and help to preserve the crime scene.

With that in mind, Daley, having failed to get hold of Donald despite numerous attempts, alerted forensics. They were going to send a helicopter to Kinloch within four hours. As an afterthought, he contacted the PR department. After the disastrous press conference, he would have to grasp the nettle and face the cameras himself. The brutality of these killings, plus the link with the existing inquiry, would ensure that this would be a national story.

He rubbed his eyes wearily; he was still standing on the lifeboat bridge, while her crew prepared to tow
Russian Gold
back to Kinloch. The sea was swollen, but steady. The storm that Campbell had predicted had not yet materialised, though the sky to the west looked dark and forbidding, reflecting the detective’s mood.

One murder could be anything: a personal vendetta, revenge of a cuckolded partner, or, as was often the case, pure bad luck on the part of the victim, caught up in a whirl of fatal circumstances, without premeditation. The brutal
killing of three people with close personal ties was another beast entirely. Ritchie and Mulligan had not just been killed, they had been slaughtered. It was not impossible that sex had been the motivation, although even in this sordid world the level of violence shown in these murders was exceptional.

There was a cold, professional feel to what had taken place on the boat, which chilled Daley to the core. These murders could be the work of one sick individual, or a clear warning sent out by organised crime – signals that did not require too much interpretation. The connections to drugs and the underworld were already there.

‘OK, Chief Inspector, we’re ready to get under way.’ Campbell was at his side. ‘Let’s hope the weather holds.’ He gave a few orders, and the powerful engines throbbed into life.

14

‘Can you tell us how the couple on the boat died, Chief Inspector?’ The reporter held a large microphone to his face, with what looked like a dead hamster affixed to the end.

‘No comment, at the moment.’ Daley was flustered, and not just by the reporters who swarmed around him as though he was a hunted celebrity. No, he was furious that within an hour of their arrival at Kinloch with the cruiser
Russian Gold
, the press had begun to descend on the town’s police office. Someone had talked. The reporters were all aware that two bodies had been found on the vessel, and they were pressing Daley to confirm that they were those of Janet Ritchie and Peter Mulligan, which, because he had not had the chance to contact the next of kin, he steadfastly refused to do.