The kettle clicked off and Williams made tea, passed a cup to Susie then retreated to the chair behind his desk. He pulled a file from a small in-tray, examined it, then slid it across the otherwise naked desktop to Susie.
“Interesting one, this,” he commented, the hot tea smudging the lenses of his glasses with clouds of steam.
“How so?” Susie asked, glad he had already carried out the post-mortem. After everything else that had happened, the last thing she needed was to watch that.
“Hmm?” Williams said, as if to himself. “Oh. Oh yes, sorry. The Leith body, interesting case. I mean, pretty obvious what killed him, but there’s a methodology to some of the wounds that is striking.”
“In what way?” Susie asked, looking at the file on the desk. She didn’t want to open it, see the pictures she knew were inside, the silent screams of torn flesh and splintered bone, testament to man’s talent for brutality.
“The victim…” He looked up slightly and Susie shook her head. No luck with an ID. Yet. “Well, he died from massive trauma. There’s evidence on the body that he was strung up and then beaten with something like a baseball bat. Kidneys and liver were badly bruised, both lungs collapsed, internal haemorrhaging caused his chest cavity to fill with blood.”
A thought of Redmonds shot across Susie’s mind. Chest cavity filled with blood. That’s what happened to him as well. She pushed the thought down, not wanting to think about…
that image. Doug seeing that image
…Redmonds at the moment. Focus, Susie. Focus.
“Sorry, I don’t follow, how is that interesting? He was beaten to death. Nasty, but not something we’ve not seen before.”
“Quite right. But there’s an exactitude to the injuries this young man suffered that I’ve not seen before. For example,” – he splayed one long thin hand out on the table in front of him – “every finger on both hands has been broken. And I don’t just mean once. I mean at every knuckle. Then the wrist, the ulna, the elbow. Shoulder was then dislocated, collar bone shattered. It must have been agonising.”
Susie swallowed, not tasting her tea, felt a chill that was nothing to do with the cool of the morgue. “So somebody went to work on him, broke every bone in his hands and arms? What about other injuries? The initial report said there was evidence of a bladed instrument being used on his upper body and face?”
“Ah, yes, that. Curious, actually. Seems like that was done post-mortem. Blood pooling certainly indicates that.”
Susie nodded. Strange, why disfigure a body after death? If they were trying to hide the identity, there were better ways than carving the face up. “Any indication of what type of weapon was used?”
“A knife most probably,” William said, his voice as flat and antiseptic as the strip lights that glowed dully from the ceiling. “Blade’s probably about eight to ten inches long, serrated edge. Maybe something like you see in the windows of the hunting shops and, ah, other establishments down Leith Walk. All big blade and attitude, there to scare. Make a statement.”
Susie chewed her lip. Looked at the file. There was no way she could avoid it. She flipped it open, doing her best to look casual, relaxed. “Anything else you can tell me? Any trace materials on the body that could indicate where he might have been before he was dumped?”
“Well, we’ve pulled the usual fibres from the body, looks like he was bundled up in something oily either before or after death. And there are abrasions on the feet consistent with him being dragged across stone or tarmac barefoot.”
Susie took another gulp of tea. Forced herself to look down. “Any useable…”
Her voice died in her throat as she looked at the post-mortem pictures. The face looked like it had been split open, the wound running up from the chin and over the lips, the nose gaping open like a fillet of raw steak, glistening pink and bluish in the harsh flash-light. The eyes were, mercifully, closed, a green and purple wash of bruising glistening on the waxy skin. On the right temple, just above a cut that was gouged into the eyebrow, there was a small mole that almost looked like a question mark.
A mole Susie had seen before.
Williams was droning on, his voice fading into the background as Susie pulled out her phone. She opened up the internet app, found the page she had been looking at earlier. A hot bristle of electricity caressed the back of her neck.
She had seen that mole before.
She held her hand up, silencing Dr Williams. “Sorry,” she said as she found Eddie’s number and hit dial, “but I really need to make a call.”
She waited for a moment, unable to tear her eyes from the pictures on the table as she listened to Eddie’s phone ring. It seemed to take an eternity for him to answer. It took four rings.
“Boss? How was the morgue?” he asked. “Listen, I –”
“Eddie,” she cut him off, “you have any luck speaking to Brian Coulter this afternoon?”
“That’s what I was about to tell you,” he said, unable to keep the tang of petulance from his voice. “I called to make an appointment but they said he hadn’t been in the office all day. Tried his mobile, no answer. Was just about to head to his place, see if I could catch him there.”
Susie swallowed down something rancid. “Do me a favour, swing past the lock-up and get me on the way, will you?”
“Aye, no problem,” Eddie said. “But what’s up? Thought you said –”
“I’ll tell you when you get here. And make it quick, Eddie, will you?”
He grumbled a reply then clicked off. Susie flipped back to the web app on her phone, studied the page there. She had looked it up after Burns had given her the break-in case, finding the Docking Station website with no problem. She had arranged to meet the owner, Brian Coulter, and, out of curiosity, she had clicked on the Meet our team tab. Found his name, opened the bio. He was a small guy with a big smile and hair that had gone out of fashion in the Eighties. His face had been what Susie would have described as plain, average. Apart from one distinguishing feature.
A small mole. Just above his right eyebrow. Shaped, she thought, a little like a question mark.
32
Rebecca sat at her desk, squinting at the press release she had written to go with the call notice she had just put on the wires. She crunched down on another Rennie as a wave of indigestion clawed its way up her throat, let out a sigh that was part frustration, part anger, then clicked on the Send button, pinging the press release to the Chief Constable for approval.
Cameron Montrose had only taken over as Chief Constable three months ago, which made Montrose’s decision to come to Edinburgh and hold a live press conference in time for the 6pm news understandable. Totally fucking stupid, but understandable. Two violent murders in two days, one of them a former senior officer with a less-than-spotless reputation. He wanted to be seen to be taking charge, leading from the front. Reassuring the public.
Rebecca had tried to talk him out of it, tried to tell him that holding a live broadcast press conference when no significant breakthroughs had been made in either case – which Montrose was tacitly acknowledging were linked by holding the press conference in the first place – was only asking for trouble.
“Nonsense, Rebecca,” he had said as he picked non-existent lint from the shoulder of his impeccable uniform. “We need to be seen to be taking action here. Showing we are doing everything we can to address these heinous crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice.”
Rebecca smiled at him then, taking in the glow of his ruddy cheeks from the shave he had had that morning, the perfectly coiffed and trimmed hair and the uniform that was obviously just back from the dry cleaners. She wondered how long he had been practising that line – and how grateful he was that two “heinous crimes” in two days had given him the perfect platform to introduce himself as the Chief to the public.
Now she sat at her desk, waiting for his comme
nts on the press release, knowing that, no matter what he said, the press conference was going to be a disaster. The only small sliver of comfort was that at least Doug wasn’t going to be there.
She felt a twist of guilt at that thought, but couldn’t bring herself to ignore it. It was, after all, the truth. A live-broadcast press conference was bad enough, but one with Doug McGregor there, treating it like sport, cheerfully eviscerating anyone who didn’t have a quick and articulate answer for him, was asking for trouble.
At least it used to be. These days, she wasn’t so sure.
She sat back, toying with her phone, unlocked it and looked at the picture she had set as her home screen. She and Doug smiled out from behind a curtain of app icons; a selfie taken on a day out to St Andrews not long after they had started dating. She was leaning back onto his chest, him holding the phone out with his right hand, his injured left carefully kept out of sight. He was smiling in the picture, but looking at it now, she could see the fragility in the smile. It was the same brittle pretence that she had seen this morning, him smiling sheepishly after she woke him on the couch, the bottle of whisky sitting beside the laptop on the coffee table.
She loved him. She knew that. The quick humour, the mind that was always three steps ahead, the ability he had to know what she was thinking. He could be, by turns, charming and disarming, thoughtful and spontaneous. And she wanted him. Even though, from the start, she had felt he had seen sex as another distraction, like the whisky or the work, she couldn’t help wanting him. She still did. But now, there was something else. It had been building for months – as his hand had refused to heal and the pain had ground down on him like a weight, he had seemed to withdraw from her, increasingly seeking comfort in his work or in the whisky he insisted on having at the end of every night. He began to spend less time at her place, even when she offered him a key to try and make him feel more at home, preferring instead to stay at his place and drink alone. Or with Susie.
And there was another problem. Susie. Oh yes, she and Doug had both been at pains to underline how they were just friends, that the thought of anything else was utterly revolting. Why then, did she feel herself bristle with jealousy when Susie had mentioned she had gone to Doug when she heard about Redmonds? Why did tendrils of panic reach into her chest and squeeze? She knew, on one level, it was understandable. They had worked together on two very intense cases, the violence and trauma they had seen and experienced forging a shorthand between them that seemed to exclude everyone else.
And that was the heart of it, wasn’t it? Exclusion. Even when she and Doug were together, Rebecca felt alone. There were still sparks, like a dying flame getting a breath of oxygen and flaring back into brief life, but they were becoming further and further apart. She wanted to help him, needed to, but it was as if he had shut the door on what had happened to him, as if talking to her about it would make it real, force him to confront it.
And as much as she loved him, Rebecca knew she wouldn’t wait at the other side of that door forever.
She blinked away the sudden tears that stung her eyes, blurring the image of the picture in front of her. She swallowed back another acidic burst of indigestion and crunched down another Rennie.
On impulse, she tapped in a text message to Doug: Hope the flight was okay. Tell Colin and Hal I say hello. Hope you find what you need. Here when you need me. Bx
She hit Send, read back the text. Waited for the small speech bubble to pop up showing that he was typing a reply.
Waited.
Waited.
33
Doug arrived at London City airport on the 16:30 flight, fighting against the tide of suits heading the other way, bound for flights home after a day of relentless capitalism in the City. Wandering through the terminal in his jeans and trainers, suit jacket over an old jumper, he half-expected to be grabbed by a security guard and huckled out of the building. “Sorry, sir, we have a dress code here. Smart suit, over-expensive watch and an expression of bored arrogance are mandatory. Sucking on marbles and speaking to everyone as though they are beneath you is voluntary, but encouraged.”
He headed for the Docklands Light Railway, planning to take a train to Bank and meet Hal. He was walking past the customer service desk on the way to the platform when a thought struck him and he stopped. Turned to head for the kiosk, and almost collided with a man who was walking behind him.
“Sorry,” the man grunted, accent deep Ayrshire somewhere, the vowels flattened and elongated. Something flashed in his eyes, not quite anger, and Doug stepped back a little. It wasn’t that he was physically intimidating; he was small, squat, almost a foot shorter than Doug, with a gut that seemed to be trying to burst out of his trousers. But there was something about the man – a denseness, a bluntness of purpose in those eyes – that put a less evolved part of Doug, the part that still feared fire and ran through the forests, on edge.
“Nae bother,” Doug said casually, eyes darting over the man’s face. “My fault, shouldn’t have stopped so quickly. Forgot to get my ticket.”
The man nodded something and plodded away, shoulders hunched, head down. Doug watched him for a moment, then shrugged, headed for the kiosk to buy a ticket. It was understandable, he told himself. After everything that had happened – the confrontation with Redmonds, the break-in at the flat, telling Susie everything – it was only natural that he was on edge. But he was safe here, surely. The only people who knew he was in London were Hal, Colin, Susie and Becky. Whoever was looking for him, or the laptop, was back in Edinburgh. Nothing to worry about at all.
He bought his ticket and jumped on the train to Bank, joined the herd as they made their way up the stairs, emerging into a day that was starting to dim and cool. After a five-minute walk, he came to a glass-fronted skyscraper set back slightly from the road, creating a paved courtyard that had a huge stone-sculpted wing erupting from the pavement. He smiled despite himself. Hal had only said he was doing some corporate work for some City clients, mentioned nothing about them being in the beating heart of corporate London, in the wealthiest square mile in the country. He made his way inside and found a receptionist so poised and styled that she could have been ripped from a TV make-up advert. She looked up at him and gave a smile that showed off perfect teeth but no warmth, did well to keep the disdain in her eyes from contorting her features.
“Can I help you, sir?” she asked, the thick London accent shattering the illusion for Doug.
“I’m here to see Hal Damon, he’s working with City Consolidated. My name’s Doug McGregor.”
She nodded and peered into a screen set into the lip of the reception desk, fingers gliding across a keyboard. Doug leaned on the desk, turned away to take the place in as she worked. Double-height ceilings, tasteful works of art positioned along the marble walls. Leather couches dotted the reception area, lined up against the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the bustle of the street. Hal had offered him a job before, but if working in a place like this was the price to be paid, Doug didn’t want it.
The receptionist cleared her throat, demanding his attention. “Here you are, sir,” she said, passing him a small pass the size of a credit card. “Just swipe that at the security gate to get through. Lifts are round to your right. Mr Damon is on the 23rd floor.”
Doug took the card and nodded his thanks. Adjusted the laptop bag across his shoulder and turned towards the security gate. As he swept his gaze back across the reception area, he felt a sudden jolt, as though he was being…
hunted
…watched. Stopped dead, eyes darting around, heart hammering in his chest.
Nothing there. Just the same bustle as before, the tide of City workers being washed home or to the pub. He grunted a small laugh, embarrassed at his paranoia, then headed for the security gate.
Outside, a small man in a grey suit watched him walk towards the lift. Cursed under his breath, then reached fo
r his phone.
34
For a man who spent his life advising people on projecting the right image or delivering a line with conviction, Hal Damon didn’t hide his emotions very well. As soon as Doug stepped out of the lift, shock and concern flitted across Hal’s face, lips pulling tight and accentuating his already high cheekbones, eyebrows rising up his forehead, escaping from the confines of his dark-rimmed glasses.
“Douglas,” he said, offering a hand, “glad you could make it.”
Doug took Hal’s hand, found himself pulled into a warm, strong hug. Hal was a lithe man, obviously no stranger to the inside of a gym, and Doug could feel the strength in the hug.
They broke after a moment, Hal keeping an arm on Doug’s shoulder, eyes skimming across his face. “You alright, Doug?” he asked, his voice neutral, eyes conveying the concern. “Seems like you’ve lost weight. Again.”
Doug smiled, ran a hand through his hair, embarrassed for the first time about his choice of dress. He didn’t care what other people thought, but he didn’t want to make Hal look bad. Especially here. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just been a rough couple of days, Hal.”
All the Devils Page 14