by Gavin Graham
“What the fuck is that!?”
A speaker crackled and a raspy voice spoke over an address system. “Boo!” the voice taunted Mac before chuckling in such a way to cause distortion over the sound system. “It’s me, Detective, should I still call you that? Or, are you now some kind of advisor, I never quite got to learn what was to become of you after the grand media circus that surrounded your departure from the force. It was quite a show, yet, here you are. I’m so happy that we could do this together.”
McGreavy winced with disgust as he took in his surroundings and the burnt corpse that was attached to some macabre looking wheel of death.
“Is it bothering you? That I killed the Professor’s little princess?”
“Why would you do that?”
“To make it personal.”
“Personal? Do you know me?”
The metallic voice laughed and more distortion shrilled across the speakers.
“What was it? I got you on a rape charge? Something like that? Maybe I had you do some time in Barlinnie? Did the big boys show you a bit too much hard love?”
“You are quite the card, Detective, quite the card.”
“My curiosity is peaked.”
“The corpse doesn’t bother you, because, you are just like me. Death doesn’t bother you even when emotion comes into play, you block that out, you embrace death. You’re in your element.”
“Oh, really? And what comes next? You will say that we are alike in so many ways? You’re a coward, Son, a measly woman killer who doesn’t have the balls to face me like a real man.”
“You’ll have to catch me first.”
“I’m not like you!”
“You are worse than me, Detective, you have indirectly sponsored so many deaths in this city that it is simply not acceptable! It is you who must also suffer!”
“What are you talking about? Are you insane?”
“I won’t make it that easy for you, you need to solve the puzzle for yourself, and then you’ll be one step closer to catching me.”
Chapter 54
The car in the ditch
Mac’s radio crackled and Jimmy’s voice came over broken but audible. “Boss,” the voice spoke.
“Go ahead.”
“We have the car, Boss, took out the tyres. The vehicle is sideways in a ditch and I have the suspect in front of my eyes.”
“Do what you have to do, Jimmy, good work.”
“The game’s up, Spector…”
“Ohhhhh, I’m shaking in my boots,” the killer laughed again. “Come and get me, Detective, come and bring me in…” he continued to chuckle like a crazed lunatic.
He pressed down in the transmit key. “Jimmy! Is it him?”
“No, Boss, it’s the son. He can barely speak, he’s just weeping on the steering wheel, an emotional wreck. He keeps on saying he never wanted to do any of it and that The Devil made him do it…”
“Bring him in. We’ll squeeze what we can out of him.”
“Yes, Boss…”
“You hear that, Spector? Your own lad refers to you as The Devil…”
“He’s not my flesh and blood…”
“Oh, well, what a conciliation that is.”
“No family is perfect, Mac, you’re the most unstable and fucked-up character around. Look how your lad ended up, eh? Drugs? Your wife? Suicide? That tramp of a slut you had as a lover? Drugs, again? What about your lovely daughter?”
“Don’t you dare talk about my daughter…”
“The only reason I didn’t kill her is because there was an angel protecting you…”
“What? What the fuck do you mean by that?”
“I must dash, Detective, The Candy Man’s work is never done! I have another girl to kill. I’m sitting outside her house right now!” the speaker squelched off and a heavy mechanical sound resounded like a gear-lever unlocking against frictional steel. Next Mac heard a droning hum as the steel walls were raised and he was released from ‘lockdown’.
The real fun was just about to start…
Chapter 55
The Devil’s Queen
The wife was taken for interview and was a willing talker. “When I met Spector, I wasn’t long separated from my husband, an alcoholic and a nasty one with it. He was still trying to control my life. He taunted me with insults and violent threats, sending e-mails, even though he himself had a new hussy in his life. I wasn’t bitter. I just wanted to move on. Spector got very angry when I told him about Ron. “You’re a good soul,” he used to tell me. “You’re not a slut and he shouldn’t be aggravating you. He was nice to me but he always talked about his ex, he hated her, said that she was a vile piece of excrement and the only place for her was a plastic bag as a coffin and a shallow grave.”
“How did you meet him?”
“We met over the telephone. I still recall the evening as it rained heavily and the nightfall came with thunder and lightning. It was Friday the 13th. I worked for a mental health call centre and when I took his call he was just breathing down the line. He said he’d done it again. I asked what it was that he’d done and he just said that the world was a bad place and that certain things would only ever get fixed if brave men took a stand. The way he spoke somehow had me entranced. My world at that time was a bad place too. I needed a bold man to help me fix things. That’s what happened.”
“What made him want to protect you?”
“Spector is a man of principle and he was sympathetic to my position and the manner in which my relationship had fallen apart. I fell pregnant and my partner was forcing me into a termination. I gave him the freedom to walk away and told him that I didn’t need nor want anything from him. I was a stubborn woman and it was my downfall. I was desperate at the same time and needed a man to save me. Spector agreed to be a father to my children and said that I didn’t have to worry about Ron because he’d take care of it.”
“What happened to him?”
“He disappeared.”
“You think Spector killer him?”
“I suspect so.”
“This didn’t bother you?”
“Spector was wild. He was dangerous. You see a man like that and you just get so lost in his intensity. He said that he loved me, that I belonged to him, and that he’d kill for me. I had always suspected that he had some kind of a secret life, but, I accepted whatever it was because I knew that as long as he was around that me and the boys would be safe. But, he was violent, deeply violent…”
“How so?”
“We’d lay in bed at night and he’d put his hand around my throat. He told me not to fight back.”
“He tried to strangle you to death?”
“He always stopped just as I was on the verge of passing out. He said that the man who has the power to kill you also is the one who allows you to live.”
“Did it scare you that he was that way?”
“Yes.”
“Why did he do it? Did you ask him?”
“Yes. He said that it made him feel powerful.”
“But, you were willing to accept whatever sinister darkness was festering within him because he also made you feel safe?”
“A wild dog can be a savage but if it is loyal to the owner then you will keep it and love it. I knew he was a snake, but, he was our snake. Many people keep snakes and the like, do they not?”
“So, you decided to ignore the reality of the fact that he was holding female prisoners in your basement, torturing them, killing them, knowing as you read about The Candy Man in the local papers all along that you were harbouring a serial killer under your own roof?”
“I didn’t know what he was doing down there and I didn’t know that he was the one they spoke of in the papers. Spector is a good man.”
“It wouldn’t take a genius to work it out, Miss, you’ve been complicit in the murder of numerous women. You understand what I’m saying?”
“If they hang me, let them hang me, then you’ll see two boys without a mother or a fath
er. Will you feel satisfied then?”
“That’s not something for me to concern myself with, dear, that’s something you should have thought about whilst innocent women were being slaughtered beneath your beautiful family home.”
She started to weep uncontrollably into a tissue.
“Oh, and, you won’t hang,” the Detective added. “That kind of thing went out with the dark ages, but, we’ll see to it that you do prison time…”
“What about my boys?”
“Well…we’ve yet to talk to them…so as yet we can’t determine the extent of their actual involvement either…”
“They’re innocent, leave them out of this, I beg you please…”
“This interview is over, Miss…”
Chapter 56
A boy called Sam
The boy in the car had been a decoy. The cops fell for it although it hadn’t been a fruitless endeavour. He was a wreck. It was like an emotional bomb had gone off inside him and it had been ticking away for years.
The driver wasn’t fit for interview, but the other son was.
“Come clean about everything and we’ll do what we can to make sure the big boys in Barlinnie don’t take too much of a shine to you. Do you know what I’m trying to say?”
The young man was agitated and appeared eager to get things off his chest. He huffed and puffed as though he knew he was defeated.
“When did it start?”
“It was Ricky’s sixteenth and Dad suggested we get him a girl. A prostitute. You know? I picked her up round Anderston way, gave her the cash, and drove her back to the house. Ricky had sex with her. That was how he lost his virginity, he was happy, but we told him to stay quiet and keep his mouth shut in case Mum found out. From that night, I guess, we were like partners in crime. We felt like a gang, a brotherhood, based on secrets. We felt like Alpha Males. You know?”
The interviewer nodded, taking notes.
“Anyway, Dad said he’d drive her to the train station,” the boy called Sam spoke quickly as though getting relief from the confession. “What I can remember is that instead of taking her to the car he told her that if she joined him for a wee drink down in the basement that she’d get more money. Me and Ricky just had a laugh and let him get on with it, we were already buzzing, Ricky couldn’t keep the stupid grin off his smug face. We were all drunk. It was just one of those things, like we thought it’d be a one-off, you know?”
“But, it wasn’t a one-off, was it?”
“No.”
“What happened to the prostitute?”
“We don’t know what happens down in Dad’s basement. They go down, and, we presume that at some point they leave. Dad is very discreet about his business.”
“So, the women that went down there, you assume they left, yet you never actually saw them leave?”
“Not exactly. I saw the hooker’s picture in the paper a few weeks later, she’d gone missing. I asked Dad about it and he just shrugged and said she was a druggie, that druggies went missing all the time, that nobody would miss a drugged-up old whore.”
“You never suspected that your father was a killer?”
“Yes. I mean, I suppose I suspected something like that, I just didn’t want to believe that it was true. It’s weird, certain things like that are just so monumentally huge that you just start to see your life like a movie, you know? It’s like nothing is real anymore and you just go along with it and play your part.”
“You didn’t talk to your mother about it?”
“How could I? I solicited a prostitute for my wee brother to have sex with, he wasn’t even of legal age, so that was never going to be an option.”
“If I ask you a very serious question, now, I want you to give me a serious answer. OK?”
Sam nodded and huffed again; it was exhausting for him.
“How many people do you think that the man you call your father has killed?”
“I don’t know an exact number. Hundreds, maybe?”
The male interviewer had his eyes clenched and was pinching his nose as the boy spoke. “Sorry?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe less. Maybe more.”
The interviewer couldn’t breath and wasn’t even aware of the fact that he was staring at the boy with wide eyes and an open mouth.
It was then that a very uncomfortable truth was realised.
Spector Gladwell wasn’t just a serial killer who killed a string of women in his basement, no, there was much more to this man and the crimes he’d committed.
They hadn’t even scratched the surface.
The reality of it was, they may never get remotely close to even beginning to comprehend the true extent of his slayings, and even if they caught him the man himself would likely remain an enigma. That was the real fear - catching a man for four or five murders whilst the public are left knowing that he’d actually been active for years and had remained undetected - stalking and killing in vast numbers.
The prospect was terrifying and unfathomable.
Chapter 57
Killer parties
The word on the street was that Vlad The Russian had been no stranger over the years to lavish parties in Las Vegas mansions. He rubbed shoulders with major drug cartel leaders, human traffickers, gun runners, pimps, boxing promoters and those types of people. He also was connected with the most powerful mob bosses in America.
Why did they gravitate to him?
He was a gangster’s gangster in the sense that he lived by a strict code, looked after his own and when it came to committing violent acts against his enemies he truly relished the moments of killing. He didn’t just enjoy murdering his foes, he loved it, was creative about it and admired those who were of a similar ilk.
No matter where we go in the world, no matter what your interest is, be it Hitchcock movies, Hemingway novels, BDSM sex scenes, or, in Vlad’s case ‘killing as a matter of principle’, you’ll find your people. There is a circle for all tastes unless you’re socially anxious or obsessed by being alone, it’s the law of universal energy, you can’t hide who you are and a killer can normally recognise a fellow killer.
Vlad had friends in some of the major crime families from New York. They were wise guys like the gangsters of old. The parties they hosted were special, not just because of their mansions, hosting nightclubs, massive swimming pools, million-dollar wine cellars, lap-dancing venues, fancy dining rooms, and of course garages filled with Ferraris and Rolls Royce vehicles both classic and new-age.
No.
It wasn’t just about their homes or the sex, drugs and champagne. Getting an invite to one of those parties was also like playing Russian Roulette because it was a well-known fact that at some point in the wee hours of the morning a man or woman would be clubbed on the back of the head and dragged into the house where they’d be tortured and killed in one of the rooms.
Guests would have two choices: they could leave, or, they could follow on to the room where the murder would take place and they could watch. Taking photos and making videos was strictly forbidden but guests were welcome to have sex as they watched, even as the body was being dismembered and gutted.
Vlad loved those parties and they only fuelled his obsessions with death even more.
When he settled in his spot as the premiere crime boss of Glasgow he made an offer to the wife of Arthur McConnell, the Godfather, who’d been killed by the psychotic hitman ‘Mad Dog’ Murdoch, to buy his famous mansion. After all, Vlad hadn’t been the one to crucify the old man, and the frail and ghostly widow simply needed the money.
Vlad too had flamboyant parties back home, and, murder was also a focal point of many a bash. In fact, on one particular evening a special guest was delivered to Vlad’s Glasgow residence – The Candy Man – who’d been captured whilst attempting to abduct another one of his victims.
The black van rolled up the driveway and a man in a balaclava led the nude figure of the ‘guest’ by a chain that was attached to a dog collar. The naked ma
n crawled on all fours, like a dog, up to the main door of the house where Russian rap music was booming from expensive German speakers. Inside the house a discrete party was being hosted for all of Vlad’s top men and all of his girls were in attendance to entertain his men exclusively.
There were no outsiders.
It was strictly a ‘syndicate’ party.
The men were sozzled on champagne and whisky and the girls were wired on cocaine.
The lighting was dim and figures were barely visibly as they sat in shadowy corners, each man with a girl on his lap, eyes glazed and half-closed as tongues swirled and sexual acts were performed with the stoned sultriness that came with heavy intoxication.
As the door opened all eyes turned to the man on his hands and knees in the middle of the floor. The man in the balaclava kicked his knees so that he was spread-eagled on his face. He kicked his legs wide apart and looked to the staircase as the enormous figure of a naked black man ran down to meet them.
Julian ‘Black Bean’ McDonald had been released from prison just two days ago and Vlad’s men had paid him a visit to say that a little ‘party’ had been arranged for him so he could get a little piece of what he’d missed whilst serving his time in jail. He was well-known in Glasgow as being a violent homosexual and had been inside for raping men so hard that their internal organs were damaged and they were left hospitalised for months.
His hard penis was inhumanely long and grotesquely thick, it sparkled in the dim lighting, like a massive instrument of torture.
All the men smirked and laughed as Black Bean approached the live body of a man he’d get to use and abuse. The women gawped at the dark specimen, open-mouthed, as though staring at an exotic beast in the zoo.
As the serial killer looked up at the giant man he began to weep and beg for his life.
The gangsters laughed as the beastly gent dove upon the man’s back and forced himself inside so hard and deep that the thrust of his sex was to instantly bludgeon his bowels.