Absolution

by Caro Ramsay

  ‘But all this … all that’ Anderson pointed at the photograph of the room – ‘suggests preparation, a method, organization. He turned up at that flat knowing exactly what he was going to do. He let her make him a cup of coffee, but he didn’t touch it. He didn’t touch anything.’

  ‘There’s no doubt he knows what he’s doing,’ said Costello, as she checked her notes. ‘O’Hare has done the prelim, puts death at around eight last night. We know she was alive at quarter to six, because she was helping with cashing up at the bank. But there was no answer when her mother phoned her at her flat just before nine. Same MO as Lynzi Traill: chloroformed, from behind, no struggle.’

  ‘I’ve heard that chloroform doesn’t knock you out instantly,’ said Anderson. ‘So why no struggle? No disruption?’

  ‘He’s bigger? He can hold them until it takes effect?’ suggested Costello. ‘They were both – what? – under ten stone? Probably lighter than he is … but they were short, which means he gains a totally controllable victim.’ She folded her arms, her point made. ‘Who was checking up on the chloroform?’

  ‘Me,’ said Mulholland. ‘I’ve rechecked all the sources listed locally; no reported loss or theft. I’ve alerted HOLMES for a nation-wide check, but all registered sources have come up with a big zero.’

  ‘Exactly what DCI Duncan found,’ muttered McAlpine. ‘Damn!’

  The soft Hebridean accent of DC Donald Burns came through the darkness. ‘That one single cut, right up the front, no messing around – there’s strength in that.’ The quiet lilting voice was authoritative. ‘The leather belt has been nicked by the blade, and that takes a strong knife, moving with control and strength. And a bloody sharp blade.’

  ‘And he knows how to use it, where to use it,’ said Anderson. ‘Do we have a field for that in the system?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll see what I can do,’ Wyngate said, scribbling it down.

  ‘Get it in: people who are good with knives. Butchers?’ said McAlpine.

  ‘Surgeons?’

  ‘Farmers? Slaughtermen? Chefs, I suppose,’ offered Costello.

  McAlpine’s voice cut through the dark. ‘I want that flat vacuumed and the dust gone through. We need some physical evidence of whoever she let in. If there’s so much as a speck of dandruff, I want it. And try to think like Elizabeth Jane. Think precise, think pernickety, and then think who you would open your door to. Knives, small-minded women, sensible knickers … you get my drift.’ McAlpine went to stand up, then paused. ‘Tell us about Traill now.’

  Costello looked round. ‘Me?’

  McAlpine nodded. ‘Just to make sure Anderson, Mulholland and I are up to speed.’

  ‘Lynzi Traill, as I understand her …’ Costello idled, then closed her eyes as she clarified her thoughts. ‘Aged thirty-four, housewife, body found in Victoria Gardens.’ She indicated the location on the map with the point of a pencil. ‘The gardens are kept locked. Ian Livingstone’s house – he’s the boyfriend – is here, in Victoria Crescent, overlooking the gardens. The fence is too high to punt the body over without leaving traces, and she was hidden in the bushes, so her killer must have had a key. And all known keys were accounted for?’ Her voice faded on the query.

  ‘Yes,’ said Littlewood wearily. ‘You know we spent days on that.’

  ‘Yes, I do know.’ Costello paused, recalling. ‘Anyway, the distance between the two sites isn’t much. Wyngate timed it as seven minutes’ walk. Lynzi was last seen at eleven o’clock on Saturday, the 16th. Here she is, caught on a CCTV camera at Glasgow Central after a visit to the theatre with her friends.’ The spotlight moved to a grainy coloured image of a crowd of people, Lynzi Traill just visible among them, her head turned animatedly to one side. Whoever she was talking to was obscured by a much taller man. ‘They told us they were all going to travel back to Paisley Gilmour Street together. They said somebody – they assumed it was a man, but the station was busy, and they didn’t see who it was – called to Lynzi, and Lynzi disappeared off to talk to him, while they waited. A minute or two later she waved across to her friends to indicate that they should go on without her; they assumed she was getting a lift.’ Costello pointed at the peppered image. ‘This friend – ’

  ‘Annette Rafferty?’ asked Mulholland, flicking through a sheaf of papers.

  ‘That’s right. Annette says she knew that Lynzi was having an affair – the only other person who did know, by all accounts – so she thought Lynzi had bumped into the boyfriend and decided to stay, and persuaded the others it was OK. But it wasn’t OK. A local resident walking her dog found Lynzi’s body in the early hours of Sunday, the 17th, chloroformed, ripped from pubis to sternum.’ Costello asked to have the spotlight moved to a picture of Traill’s wound. In black and white, the carnage was highlighted by the brightness of the flash. ‘Same injuries, same pattern as Elizabeth Jane Fulton, but not so severe. Lynzi was posed, as Elizabeth Jane was. Exactly. O’Hare says she was alive when her killer left her. He … just left her to die in the rhodies.’

  Someone muttered, ‘Where she gave the old dear and her Westie the fright of their wee lives.’

  Costello continued, ‘Lynzi would probably have had you believe she was happily married. Her parents and her sister, all her friends except for Annette, believed – or wanted to believe – that she and hubby were still together, but that she’d just moved out for a rest, because she was finding it so difficult to cope. She was living in a flat in Paisley.’ Costello tucked her hair behind her ears, a sure sign she was anxious about something. ‘Stuart Traill apparently went along with this, thinking she was having an early mid-life crisis. Their little boy, Barry, was told his mum was looking after a sick friend. Lynzi was there when the wee lad went to school in the morning; she was there when he came home. But in between times, despite telling people she was working at the charity shop and looking after a sick friend, she was having an affair. And she was totally oblivious to the fact that the neighbours were amusing themselves with her comings and goings at all hours of the day and night.’

  A question was fired at her from the darkness: ‘So what were the mechanics of that?’

  ‘She kept her mobile phone switched off; she did a voluntary job with no pay and no regular hours; Annette may have fibbed for her … It’s not that difficult. Lynzi’s parents, sister, brother, the hubby’s family, they all swear they had no idea what was going on. But I can’t believe that …’ Costello ran out of steam.

  ‘So where is the boyfriend in all this?’ asked McAlpine, pointing at the map.

  ‘As I said, Ian Livingstone lives here, in Victoria Crescent. But both he and Mr Traill have been turned inside out. Clean.’

  ‘Are we satisfied with that?’ asked McAlpine.

  We’ve checked them again and again,’ Costello insisted. ‘Triple-checked. Neither was alone for a minute between the time Lynzi was recorded at Glasgow Central Station and the time her body was found.’

  ‘And Livingstone was really upset, absolutely devastated,’ said Burns.

  ‘Guilty,’ muttered Littlewood.

  ‘Nobody could have faked that. He asked for the minister to come from next door.’ Burns shook his head. ‘They even said a prayer together.’

  ‘Definitely guilty, then.’

  ‘He’s been nothing but cooperative,’ Irvine volunteered. ‘And he seems a nice guy. Well, that’s my opinion … for what it’s worth.’

  ‘So what about the husband?’ asked Littlewood.

  ‘At work. He worked nights, and his shift covered both ends of the time scale.’

  ‘Bloody convenient. Check it again,’ McAlpine persisted. Costello sighed inwardly.

  ‘The son? Wee Barry?’ Littlewood again.

  ‘Home alone. And not for the first time.’ Costello’s tone of voice indicated exactly what she thought of that.

  ‘There’s that element of trust again, though, isn’t there?’ said Anderson. ‘Elizabeth Jane let someone into her flat, someone she knew and trusted. A
nd Lynzi left Glasgow Central, at night, again with somebody she knew and trusted, but not the husband, not the boyfriend.’

  McAlpine stood up, his hand on Costello’s shoulder. ‘So we keep digging. This second killing means the location is important.’ He paused and looked round the room again. ‘Lynzi lived in Paisley, but she spent a lot of time here in the West End. The boyfriend lived here. She worked in a charity shop in Byres Road, she shopped here. But the charity shop and the boyfriend are her only real connections with this area. So there must be some connection between them and Elizabeth Jane. There has to be. So we get working on Lynzi Traill’s connections in the West End. Who’s in the shop, for instance? Try to crack those alibis. And get working on Elizabeth Jane’s new-found freedom. Her flat was a recent refurb; she’d been in it for only a few months, first time she’d been away from her parents. What was she getting up to? The MO’s being circulated nationwide, and so far we have nothing that comes close. So this is on our doorstep and nowhere else. Costello, you’re coming with me for the tea-and-sympathy bit. The rest of you, get on with it.’

  There was a murmur of assent, as the migration for the coffee machine started. It was going to be a long day.

  It took a good two or three minutes’ discussion before Sean McTiernan got what he wanted, and by then the mid-morning queue of Saturday shoppers behind him was stretching out to the street. The menu said ‘Coffee Latte Light with Wings.’ He didn’t know what that meant.

  It turned out to be bog-standard white coffee with a prong stuck in it that pulled the dark brown of the coffee through the white of the milk to form a pattern. It was, he presumed, supposed to be the Ashton Café logo. Or was there a ‘right way up’ to drink it?

  He proffered a pound coin. The bored waitress with the plaits didn’t look up. Her outstretched hand hovered in mid-air as the other pulled the receipt from the chattering till. A foreigner in his own city for a moment, he looked again at the price list and gave her another pound coin. The waitress flicked it over before depositing it in the till and scooping out some change with long red nails. She dumped the coins on his tray and walked away.

  The only empty tables were at the back of the café. Sean chose a seat in the corner, his back against the wall and his eye on the door by force of habit. He moved the coffee cup back and forth under his nose, enjoying the aroma, trying to see the Betty Boop watch of the peroxide blonde sitting in the booth opposite. He couldn’t make out the time. It must be nearly half eleven, and Nan believed there was an eleventh commandment … thou shalt not be tardy. He was about to lean over and ask Peroxide the time when a man slid into the other seat at her table. Sean glanced at the man’s watch, its larger face easier to read backwards and upside down. Five to. He caught sight of white cuffs and a dog collar as a piece of paper passed from him to her. Peroxide looked at it, puzzled. The dog collar seemed to explain something, and she nodded. Then there was an abrupt goodbye, and he was away. The blonde crumpled up the paper and threw it dismissively across the table. For a minute she was lost in her own world, then she caught Sean looking and smiled alluringly, curving her wide red lips over a cup of espresso. He caught the scent of her musky perfume, cheap, too strong.

  He didn’t smile back.

  A week to go. Seven days of being out more often than being in, a phased return to the community.

  A week to go … and he would be with her again. Seven days of waiting. But he had waited four years. Seven days made no difference. He dipped his spoon into the coffee, drawing the black liquid at the bottom through the white foam, making patterns of his own. The last time he had seen her, she had been stomping down the road in a bomber jacket and baggy jeans, her blonde hair dyed black, cut short and spiky, looking like any Scottish teenage boy. He would never have recognized her, so what chance would anybody else have had? He remembered standing at the window of the dark green bedroom in the flat in Petrie Street, with the ceiling he never got round to painting, the bed still warm from their bodies, watching her go to the bus stop, carrying a bin bag full of her life, kicking it as she went. He had felt tears prickle at his eyes then.

  He felt them again now.

  He sipped at his coffee. It smelled better than it tasted. It tasted like cow piss.

  Two weeks ago he had been released into the care of Martin the social worker, an anaemic-looking Geordie who walked down Sauchiehall Street dressed for the north face of the Eiger. Martin had never cautioned Sean to assess the psychological parameters of his crime, never asked him why he had kicked Malkie Steele to death with such prejudice he had burst his liver. Martin had simply asked if he preferred McEwan’s or Tennent’s, and had given him his own set of keys. All he had to do was take time to adjust.

  In prison Sean had evolved an acute sense of when he was being observed; he knew Miss Peroxide with the red lips was looking at him, waiting for him to meet her eyes again. It was the same game he played. He knew he was good-looking, and inside or out it was something to trade.

  He looked round the café, letting his eyes pass over the blonde without stopping. She was looking at him through the peroxide wire that covered her eyes. Her features were too heavy to be beautiful, but she was carefully made up, with an oriental tilt to her eyes, a wide nose, her lips beautifully painted pillarbox red.

  Sean let a smile soften his lips. Soon he would be home; he would go running every morning, running every night, along the beach from the white cottage under the shadow of the castle, along a beach that went on and on and on … to a beautiful blonde witch, waiting with her familiar.

  Miss Peroxide smiled across at him. He smiled back, then looked away, noting the miniskirt, the chunky legs in green ankle boots.

  She was far from perfection.

  But after three and a half years she didn’t have to bother to look decent. The fact that she was a female with a pulse was enough for him. She would have a comfy bed, clean sheets, a duvet, nice toilet paper.

  He looked at her face again, giving her his James Dean smoulder, then let his eyes linger a little longer on her thighs.

  ‘Aye!’ A thin old woman dumped a plastic shopping bag on the table in front of him, sending a tidal wave of expensive coffee over the rim of his cup, obliterating the Ashton Café logo.

  ‘Hello, Nan, how are you doing?’ He stood up, planting a kiss on her cold bristled cheek, embarrassed to feel a tear in his eye.

  Here was his Nan, miserable as usual, with her thrawn smile. The turquoise butterfly glasses had been changed for small gold rims, but the mole was hairier than ever, standing to attention on her top lip. She pulled her grey crocheted hat further down over her lank straight hair, then, just in case anybody thought she was enjoying herself, she began cursing under her breath about his choice of meeting place, the mole hairs twitching as she muttered.

  Miss Peroxide, still watching, still interested, shot him a look of amused sympathy. The pigtailed waitress came over with a cup of tea.

  ‘I told them you’d get it,’ Nan said.

  Sean paid, pushing the waitress’s hand away, telling her to keep the change.

  Miss Peroxide twisted her head slightly, the three gold chains round her neck narrowing down her cleavage, and crossed one chunky leg over the other. There was a lot of flesh between the top of her ankle boots and the bottom of her skirt. She raised her cup to her lips, smiled at him again and turned away.

  Nan blew her nose on a napkin, giving her nostrils a good clear out. That brought back memories to him, memories of the kids’ home, of paper hankies like steel wool and a hard slap every time he used his sleeve.

  ‘You’ve lost weight,’ she said. ‘I’ve made you soup.’

  ‘Oh, ta, what is it?’ Images of home-made Scotch broth boiling away on his Baby Belling.

  ‘Good for you, that’s what it is. Better than that.’ She pointed at Miss Peroxide. Nan never missed a trick.

  ‘She’s nothing,’ he said quietly. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Who listens to me if I complain? Twe
nty minutes to wait for a train, I’m telling you, ma boy – ’

  ‘What else’s in the bag?’ He peered in the top.

  ‘Soup, tablet, chocolate crispies. Where are you staying?’

  ‘Just up the road.’ He kept it vague.

  ‘Good, good,’ she said. She wasn’t daft. ‘Is it near Cleopatra’s Disco?’ She said it as though she had been rehearsing it.

  ‘Everywhere in Partickhill is near Clatty Pat’s.’

  ‘You should go there.’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Sunday night’s good in there. Older folk like you.’ She gave him a hard look, telling him something.

  His heart began to thump against his chest. He had been prepared to wait; she wasn’t.

  ‘You look awfy peaky, you should get out more.’ Only Nan could say that to someone who had been out of jail for a matter of hours.

  ‘How are things?’ he said, keeping his voice low and steady. It had been four long years since he had hatched the plan, and a faint flicker of doubt passed through his mind for the first time.

  Nan nodded. ‘All is fine.’ Uneducated she might have been, but she was shrewd, very shrewd. ‘And business is very well, very smooth,’ she said, opening her palm on to the tabletop and looking down. ‘Paintings are selling well. The staircase is just as you left it. Do you want to see the house?’