The Mermaids Singing

by Val McDermid

  Carol did as he asked. As they cruised round the square, Tony gazed out intently, swinging round in his seat a couple of times to snatch a second look. When the car stopped, he got out. Without waiting for Carol, he crossed to the pavement and prowled round the edge of the square. Carol got out of the car and followed in his wake, trying to see what Tony saw.

  Neither the murders nor the freezing weather had changed the habits of those who frequented Temple Fields. Doorways and basement areas still held grunting couples, heterosexual and homosexual alike. A few froze momentarily at the sound of Carol’s heels on the pavement, but most ignored it. A great place to hang out if you were into voyeurism, Carol thought cynically.

  Tony reached the end of the houses and crossed the street to the shop and bar fronts. Here, there were no copulating couples. The city’s crime rate dictated heavy shutters and grilles for windows and doors. Ignoring them, Tony looked over towards the gardens in the centre of the square, matching what he’d seen on the photographs with the reality. There were no bushes on this side, only the low wall. He barely noticed two men walking past, wrapped round each other like competitors in a three-legged race. He wasn’t interested in anyone else but Handy Andy.

  ‘You’ve been here,’ he said to himself. ‘This isn’t a place you just happened on, is it? You’ve walked this pavement, watched these parodies of love and affection that people pay for. But that’s not what you were after, was it? You wanted something different, something a lot more intimate, something you didn’t have to pay for.’ How had they felt, those voyeuristic adventures of Handy Andy? Tony concentrated.

  ‘You’ve never had a normal relationship with another person,’ he thought. ‘The prostitutes don’t bother you, though. Or the rent boys. You’re not killing them. You’re not interested in what you can do with them. It’s the couples that get to you, isn’t it? I know, you see, I know that for myself. Am I projecting? I don’t think so. I think you’re looking for coupledom, the perfect relationship, the one where you can be yourself, the one that will value you as highly as you think you should be valued. And then it will be all right. The past won’t matter. But it does matter, Andy. The past is what matters most of all.’

  He was suddenly aware of Carol standing by his side, looking at him curiously. Probably his lips were moving. He’d better be careful, or she’d be consigning him to the bin marked ‘nutter’ too. He couldn’t afford that, not if he was to keep her on his side long enough to achieve the result he needed.

  The last building on that side was an all-night diner, its windows opaque with condensation. In the bright light inside, shapes moved like creatures of the deep. Tony moved forward and pushed open the door. A handful of customers glanced up at him before returning to their fry-ups and chat-ups. Tony stepped back on to the street and let the door sigh shut behind him. ‘I don’t think you go in there,’ he decided. ‘I don’t think you want to be seen to be alone in a place that’s meant for companionship.’

  The third side of the square consisted of a couple of modern office blocks. In the doorways, a clutch of homeless teenagers slept, bundled in clothes, newspapers and cardboard boxes. By now, Carol had caught up with him. ‘Have they been interviewed?’ Tony asked.

  Carol pulled a face. ‘We tried. My dad used to do a bit of folk singing. When I was a kid, he used to sing me a song with the chorus, “Oh, but I may as well try and catch the wind.” Now I know what it means.’

  ‘That good, eh?’

  They crossed to the houses on the fourth side of the square, passing a pair of hookers on the corner. ‘Hey, gorgeous!’ one of them shouted. ‘I could give you a better time than that tight-arsed bitch.’

  Carol snorted with laughter. ‘Now there’s a triumph of hope over experience,’ she said wryly.

  Tony said nothing. The words had barely penetrated his reverie. He continued slowly down the pavement, pausing every few steps to drink in the atmosphere. Conflicting music filtered out faintly into the night from the flats and bedsits. The smell of curry wafted on the breeze that rustled the litter and sent polystyrene fast-food trays tumbling along the gutters. The square was never entirely empty, he noted. ‘You despise their messy lives, don’t you?’ he said to himself. ‘You like things clean and neat and orderly. That’s partly why you wash the bodies. That’s at least as important to you as erasing the forensic traces.’ He turned the final corner and walked across to the rear of Carol’s car, feeling the first stirrings of confidence that he was capable of mapping this complex and fatally skewed mind.

  ‘He probably had to sit here for a few minutes to make sure he wasn’t being watched,’ Tony said. ‘Depending on what kind of vehicle he’s using, it could have taken as little as a minute to get the body out and over the wall. But he’d want to be sure no one was watching.’

  ‘We did a full door-to-door across the street, but nobody admitted to seeing anything out of the ordinary,’ Carol replied.

  ‘Let’s face it, Carol, when you look at what’s ordinary round here, it leaves plenty of scope for a serial killer. OK, I’ve seen enough. Shall we go?’

  Cross bounded into the squad room, surprisingly light on his feet as fat people often are, as if somehow moving lightly negates the bulk of their body. ‘All right, then, where is the scumbag?’ he bellowed. Then he caught sight of the thin figure leaning against the wall, his conversation with Kevin Matthews interrupted by Cross’s entrance.

  ‘Sir?’ Cross said, stopping in his tracks. ‘I wasn’t expecting you in.’ He threw a look of pure venom at Kevin Matthews.

  Brandon straightened up. ‘No, Superintendent, I don’t suppose you were.’ He took a couple of steps towards Cross. ‘I left instructions with the control room that if any arrests were made in connection with the serial killings I was to be informed at once. This is going to be a high-profile case when it comes to court, Tom. I want us to be seen to be squeaky clean.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Cross said mutinously. However Brandon dressed it up, what he was saying was that he didn’t believe Cross was the man to make sure that over-zealous detectives didn’t go too far. With Brandon pacing the corridors, no serial-killer suspects were going to have unfortunate accidents in custody. Cross turned to Kevin Matthews. ‘What exactly happened?’

  Kevin, so pale with tiredness and stress that his freckles stood out on milk-white skin like some vicious pox, said, ‘As far as we can make out, Don Merrick came out of the Hell Hole with some bloke. One of the back-up teams saw them. Don switched his radio on to transmit, so we’re assuming he wanted this bloke picked up for questioning. They were heading for the all-night diner in Crompton Gardens, according to the back-up boys. There’s an alley that’s a short cut through to the gardens, and they went down there. Next thing the back-up hear is a scuffle going on. They leg it round there and find Don on the floor and two blokes slugging it out. They arrested the pair of them and they’re kicking their heels in the cells.’

  ‘What about Merrick?’ Cross demanded. For all his faults, Cross was a copper’s copper. His men were almost as important to him as his own career.

  ‘He’s down Casualty getting stitches in a sore head. He came round in the ambulance. I’ve got one of my lads down there with him taking a statement.’ Kevin glanced at his watch. ‘He should be back any time now.’

  ‘So what are we looking at here?’ Cross demanded. ‘Have we got a suspect, or what?’

  Brandon cleared his throat. ‘I think we can assume that Merrick thought the man he was with was worth a chat. As for the man who attacked them, I suspect we’ll need to wait for Merrick’s statement. I suggest Inspector Matthews and one of his team talk to the attacker while you and I have a preliminary chat with Merrick’s target. That OK with you, Tom?’

  Cross nodded, disgruntled. ‘Yes, sir. And as soon as your lad gets back from Casualty, Kevin, I want to see him.’ He moved towards the door, looking over his shoulder expectantly at Brandon.

  Brandon said, ‘Before we go, Tom, I think we need In
spector Jordan and Dr Hill in here.’

  ‘With respect, sir, it’s the middle of the night. Do we really need to bugger up the man’s sleep?’

  ‘I don’t want to get into questioning anyone about the murders until I’ve had the chance to take Dr Hill’s advice about how the interview should proceed. Besides, the two of them are probably still out working. DI Jordan was planning to show Dr Hill the crime scenes tonight. Can you fix that, Inspector?’

  Kevin glanced at Cross, who nodded slightly. ‘No problem, sir. I’ll page Inspector Jordan right away. I’m sure she’ll be delighted to lend a hand.’

  Brandon smiled and walked past Cross into the corridor. ‘Just shows what happens to your bottle when you get behind a desk,’ Cross muttered, shaking his head in mock-sorrow. ‘You get so’s you need a bloody psychologist to tell you how to interview some scumbag off the streets.’

  Canal Street was still busy. People came in and out of clubs, taxis dropped off and picked up, couples shared their kebabs and chips on street corners, rent boys and hookers watched the slow-moving traffic, pouncing on the least opportunity. ‘Interesting, isn’t it, how areas become defined?’ Tony said to Carol as they walked briskly along the street.

  ‘You mean this is the zone for public encounters, while Crompton Gardens is for the dark side?’

  ‘And ne’er the twain shall cross over,’ Tony said. ‘It’s really quite lively for the time of night, isn’t it? Are Monday nights quieter?’

  ‘A bit,’ Carol said. ‘A couple of the clubs shut on Mondays. And one of the others has a women-only night.’

  ‘So there’s probably not as much street traffic,’ Tony mused. As they’d driven round the streets, speculating on Handy Andy’s approach route, Tony had been struck by how very public an area he’d chosen for his first two victims. Almost as if he were setting himself challenges. Now, at the corner of the alley leading to the side door of Shadowlands, he looked along the street and mused. ‘He’s desperate to be the best,’ he said softly.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Handy Andy. He just doesn’t go for the easy options. His victims are all in the high-risk category. His dumping grounds aren’t obscure, deserted hiding places. The bodies are cleaned of forensic clues. He’s smarter than us, he thinks, and he has to keep proving it to himself. I’d hazard a guess that the next body’s going to be dumped somewhere very, very public.’

  Carol felt a shiver run through her that was nothing to do with the cold. ‘Don’t talk about the next body as if we’re not going to find him before then,’ she pleaded. ‘It’s just too depressing to think about.’

  Carol led the way into the short dark cul-de-sac. ‘Now, the second body, Paul Gibbs, was found just down here. All there is down here is the fire exit for the Shadowlands club.’

  ‘It’s dark enough,’ Tony complained, stumbling over the edge of a disintegrating cardboard carton.

  ‘We did suggest to the manager that a security light would be a good idea, if only to prevent him being mugged when he’s locking up at night, but you can see how seriously he’s taken the idea,’ Carol replied, raking through her handbag to find her mini-torch. She snapped it on and the narrow beam revealed Tony silhouetted against a hooker in a red rubber dress giving a blow-job to a bleary-eyed businessman in the fire-exit doorway.

  ‘Hoy!’ the outraged man shouted. ‘Bugger off, Peeping Tom!’

  Carol sighed. ‘Police. Zip your dick or you’re nicked.’ Before she’d even finished the sentence, the hooker was on her feet and heading for the mouth of the alley as fast as her stilettoes would let her. Realizing it wasn’t worth arguing now the whore had gone, the man quickly fastened his trousers and pushed past Tony. As he turned the corner, he shouted, ‘Frigid cunt!’ back at her.

  ‘You all right?’ Tony asked, his genuine concern obvious.

  Carol shrugged. ‘When I started in the job, it really shook me when punters abused me like that. Then I realized it was them that had the problem, not me.’

  ‘The theory’s sound. How does it work in practice?’

  Carol pulled a face. ‘Some nights I go home and stand in the shower for twenty minutes and I still don’t feel clean.’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean. Some of the messy heads I have to poke about inside leave me feeling like I’ll never have a normal relationship with another human being again.’ Tony turned away, not wanting his face to betray him. ‘So this is where you found Paul?’

  Carol moved forward to stand beside him. She shone her torch into the doorway. ‘He was lying there, with a couple of bin bags tucked around him so he wasn’t immediately obvious. Judging by the condoms lying around, the working girls had been screwing the night away smack bang next to a corpse.’

  ‘I take it you’ve talked to the girls?’

  ‘Yes, we’ve had them all in. The one that scuttled out of here like a cockroach when the light goes on uses this spot most nights. She says she had a punter some time around four in the morning. She knows it was then because this bloke is a regular who comes off his shift at the newspaper-printing plant about then. Anyway, she was going to bring him down here, but there was a car in the way.’ Carol sighed. ‘We thought we’d cracked it, because she could remember the make, model and the numbers on the licence plate, because it was the same as the number of her house. Two-four-nine.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. Let me guess. It was Paul Gibbs’s car.’

  ‘Got it in one.’

  The insistent bleep of Carol’s pager cut into the conversation, demanding as a baby’s cry. ‘I have to find a phone,’ Carol said.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘One thing you can always say for sure,’ Carol said, hurrying back out of the alley. ‘It’s never good news.’

  ‘Look, I’ve told youse all I know. I’d just met this guy Don in the Hole, we was going for a cup of tea and suddenly there’s footsteps and Don hits the ground like Vinny Jones just tackled him and I turn round and there’s this bampot with a brick. So I give him the citizen’s arrest with the left hook, and that’s when your boys turn up mob-handed, and here I am.’ Stevie McConnell spread his hands out in front of him. ‘Youse should be giving me a commendation, no’ the third degree.’

  ‘And you expect us to believe this…’ Cross consulted his notes. ‘This Ian attacked this Don just because he’d turned him down earlier in the evening?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it. Look, this Ian, he’s known about the town. He’s a heidbanger. He gets out of his brain on speed and thinks he’s God Almighty. This Don gave him a right showing up, you know, made him look like a big jessie instead of macho man, so your man was for getting his own back. Look, you gonnae let me go, or what?’

  Cross was spared from replying by a knock on the door. Brandon shrugged away from the wall he’d been leaning against and opened the door. He exchanged a few murmured words with the constable outside then came back in. ‘Interview suspended at 1.47 a.m.,’ he said, leaning past Cross to turn off the tape recorder. ‘We’ll be back shortly, Mr McConnell,’ Brandon promised.

  Outside the interview room, Brandon said, ‘Inspector Jordan and Dr Hill are upstairs. And DS Merrick has come back from Casualty. Apparently, he says he’s well enough to run through the evening’s events himself.’

  ‘Right. Well, we’d better hear what he’s got to say, and then we can have a proper go at Jock.’ Cross marched upstairs to the squad room, where a concerned Carol was hovering over Merrick. Tony sat a few feet away, feet propped up on the rim of a wastepaper bin.

  ‘Bloody hell, Merrick!’ Cross roared, seeing the dramatic bandage that turbanned his head. ‘You’ve not turned into one of them bloody Sikhs, have you? Christ, I knew it was a risk sending a team into poofterville undercover, but I wasn’t expecting religious mania.’

  Merrick smiled weakly. ‘I figured that way you couldn’t send me back into uniform for cocking up, sir.’

  Cross gave a grudging smile in return. ‘Let’s be hearing it, then. Why have
I got a bolshie little sporran-sucker in my nick?’

  Brandon, standing a couple of feet behind Cross, interrupted. ‘Before DS Merrick runs through the evening’s events for us, I just want to explain to Dr Hill why we’ve dragged him in here at this time of night.’ Tony straightened up in his chair and pulled a sheet of paper towards him. ‘When you were giving your lecture the other day,’ Brandon continued, moving past Cross and sitting on the edge of a desk, ‘you mentioned that psychologists can often give pointers to detectives about interview approaches. I wondered if you could apply that to this situation.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ Tony said, uncapping his pen.

  ‘How do you mean, interview approaches?’ Cross said suspiciously.

  Tony smiled. ‘A recent example from my own experience. A force I’d been advising had arrested a suspect in two rape cases. He was the macho type, all bluster and muscle. I suggested that they send in a woman CID officer to interview him, preferably a small, very feminine woman. That made him angry right from the start, because he held women in contempt and thought he wasn’t being treated with the appropriate respect. I’d briefed her in advance to suggest in her line of questioning that he couldn’t possibly be the rapist since, frankly, she didn’t think he had it in him. The result was, he blew his stack and coughed to the two rapes they had him in the frame for, as well as three other offences they didn’t even know about.’

  Cross said nothing. ‘DS Merrick?’ Brandon asked.

  Merrick took them through his experiences in the bar with frequent pauses for thought. At the end of his recital, Brandon and Carol looked expectantly towards Tony. ‘What do you think, Tony? Are either of them a possible?’ Brandon asked.

  ‘I don’t think Ian Thomson is a starter. This killer is far too careful to get involved in something as ridiculously high profile as a street brawl. Even if Don hadn’t been a police officer, the chances are that Thomson would have ended up in trouble for going after someone with a half-brick. Even in a city where attacks on gays are not noted for their high priority in policing terms,’ he added drily.