by Helen Fields
‘How long have you been in there?’ Callanach asked.
‘Longer than I should’ve. Bunny needed someone to talk to,’ Ava said. ‘I tried calling.’
‘It’s been a busy day.’ Callanach unlocked his door. ‘I take it you’re coming in.’
Inside, Ava loitered near the door. ‘I’ve called a press conference,’ she said. ‘I wanted to talk you through it and when I couldn’t get hold of you I was concerned.’
‘You could have called DS Lively. I was with him most of the afternoon.’
‘You left the station later on without notifying anyone of where you were going. You are accountable, you know. Your squad may be experienced but they still need visible leadership,’ Ava said, feeling the tension between them rising again. They couldn’t be in one another’s presence these days without an argument kicking off. ‘Luc, I didn’t come here to give you a lecture.’
‘What did Bunny tell you?’ Callanach asked. He’d wanted to shout the question at the two of them as they’d come out of Bunny’s door, furious that Ava could have invaded his privacy so brazenly. Was it possible that she’d been persuaded to spy on him by DCI Edgar? Callanach walked into his bedroom, throwing off his clothes as he went, leaving her standing in the hallway.
‘Why are you so concerned? Is there something you want to tell me?’ Ava asked, following him.
‘Are we discussing my private life?’ Callanach asked. ‘Only you might want to be a bit more worried about the choices you’re making at the moment.’
‘Don’t make this personal,’ Ava said. ‘Bloody hell! Look at the bruises on your ribcage!’ She walked towards him, stretching out her fingers, running them along the red-black lines on his torso. He’d forgotten what a mess his body still was. His face had recovered faster. He’d never meant her to see it. ‘What sort of trouble have you got yourself into, Luc? Please talk to me. Whatever it is, I can help.’
Callanach caught her fingers in his hand, holding them as she stared at his body. He wanted to confide everything. To explain exactly what her fiancé was capable of. But there was a chasm between them and they both knew it.
‘You don’t need to worry about me,’ he said, releasing her hand. ‘And your fiancé probably wouldn’t appreciate you being in here with me half-naked.’
Ava clinched her jaw and looked away.
‘There’s been a complaint,’ she said. ‘I don’t know the specifics. Overbeck was asking what you’d been up to. I told her I didn’t know.’
‘Thank you,’ Callanach said.
‘Don’t thank me. It’s the truth. I haven’t a clue what’s going on with you at the moment.’
It was strange having her in his bedroom. All the times she’d been in his apartment – for meals, meetings, to borrow or deliver things – but never as close to him as this. He changed the subject, uncomfortable with the way he was feeling. ‘What’s the press conference about, Ava?’ Callanach asked.
‘I believe the man who killed Helen Lott and Emily Balcaskie is Slovenian. No criminal record, but Interpol has his DNA on the international database in relation to another murder. No one was ever arrested.’
‘That’s progress,’ Callanach said. ‘Now can I take my shower?’
‘I’m not stopping you,’ she said, crossing her arms. That was the old Ava. Too proud and fierce to be dismissed.
Callanach unzipped his jeans.
‘Fine,’ he said, stripping off the denim. Ava just stood there, staring at his face, immovable. He walked into the bathroom, letting the door swing half shut, throwing his underwear to the floor and getting into the shower.
‘You think I’m going to run away like some stupid girl because you’re naked? We’re in the middle of a conversation,’ Ava said, leaning against the bathroom doorway.
Callanach stared at the wall, letting the water calm him. He wanted Bunny not to have told Ava about their disastrous evening, not that it should matter what Ava knew or thought. Especially when he had so many more pressing problems.
‘Why didn’t you call me to the Julia Stimple crime scene? It’s as if you’re actively excluding me. Is this about my engagement to Joe?’ Ava asked eventually.
Callanach laughed, switching off the shower and grabbing a towel. Ava turned to look down at the street from his bedroom window as he dried himself.
‘You seem a bit distracted at the moment,’ he said, selecting clothes from his wardrobe. ‘It didn’t need two of us. Why do you want to follow me around?’
‘I’m not following you around. Since you joined Police Scotland we’ve shared every investigation willingly, to help each other and because it’s easier with someone on your side. Now, when we really need to communicate, you’ve completely stopped.’
Callanach threw his towel down and began to get dressed. He could see the rise and fall of Ava’s shoulders with each breath, her nails digging into the backs of her arms, wrapped around herself. He pulled on his uniform, did up his shirt and sat on the edge of his bed.
‘Ava,’ he said. ‘I have a contact who could hurt you. Not physically. I mean your career and everything that goes with it.’
She turned to face him, her arms dropping to her sides.
‘If your contact can hurt me, he can hurt you too. Is that what Overbeck was talking about?’
‘I don’t know,’ Callanach said. ‘This is what’s going to happen. I’ll tell you what you need to know, but stay away from me until this is over. I’m not trying to hurt you.’
She sat down next to him, playing with a loose thread that was hanging off her shirt button.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘And you can be happy for me, right? The engagement, Joe? I need to know you’re all right with it.’
‘Why?’ he asked.
She shrugged. He watched as she bit her lower lip, her hands still fiddling nervously, her shoulders uncharacteristically hunched.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’m happy for you. Which is more than Overbeck will be if we don’t get moving. I’ll drive. We’ll call in at yours and grab your uniform. We can figure out what we’re going to tell the press on the way.’ He stood up.
She reached out a hand for him to pull her up, grinning.
‘I’m sorry I invaded your bedroom,’ she said, trying not to laugh. He could have kissed her then. ‘But the next time you get cocky enough to take off all your clothes in front of me, I’ll arrest you.’
‘You should be paying me, not arresting me,’ Callanach said, grabbing his car keys.
‘If I want to pay for a good laugh, I’ll go to a comedy club,’ Ava said.
‘I’m not sure what you’d find there to stare at,’ Luc smiled.
‘I’m so glad you managed to get a grip on your massive ego all those years ago,’ she said, pushing past him and marching down the stairs as he locked up.
Chapter Thirty
Sem Culpa heard her mobile ping a notification alert, ignored it while she filed her nails, then heard it go off again and again. She had set up programmes to notify her whenever the Sim Thorburn or Michael Swan murders were mentioned. All of a sudden, Swan’s name was everywhere. She sat down to read the first report, delighted that her kill, which had received so little detailed attention, was once again headline news, until she realised why.
Her eyes swam over phrases – ‘did not suffer’, ‘instantaneous’, ‘unconscious throughout’, ‘body found on floor’ – and she screamed. It did not matter that she was in a hotel, that other guests could hear, that she was causing a disturbance that might well end up recorded somewhere.
She had been fucked over!
Flicking through each report in turn, she found the same source named. Detective Inspector Luc Callanach. He knew what he was saying wasn’t true, so he could only be trying to call her out. After every precaution, the pride she took in her no-trace crime scenes, her skill at changing her own appearance, he actually thought she would reveal herself now? It was more than just insulting. It was disrespectful.
; She grabbed her laptop and encoded a message to the moderator. Then she picked up her drawing pad and pencil once more, shifting her head forward and back, side to side, to ease the tension in her neck, and began to sketch.
Grom was sick of the old woman. She had done nothing but moan and piss for two days. Now she was hungry. He would have thought that eating would be the last thing on her mind. She should have been terrified. He’d even shown her the photos of Emily Balcaskie’s body. Her response had been to request a cushion. He hadn’t understood at first. She’d shouted ‘piles’ at him repeatedly until he’d been forced to look it up on the translator. The lollipop lady disgusted him. He couldn’t understand why she had been chosen as a target. Helen Lott had been a nurse, that was a fair kill, someone worth the effort. And Emily Balcaskie in her scout uniform had been delicious. He was sure she’d been a virgin, too. A virgin in her twenties – you didn’t come across those very often. She’d pleaded, tried to reason with him, begged him to stop. Then Emily had asked him if he wanted to talk. For the briefest, most perfect moment, that had made him love her, not to mention getting him off as he’d killed her. She was immaculate, caring, understanding, beautiful throughout. And she had been entirely his. Emily had stopped breathing in his arms, her windpipe crushed like a bird’s. He’d tried to make it slower, to savour the moment, but the power he possessed had been unstoppable. After she’d passed, Grom had allowed himself the dangerous pleasure of sitting with her in his lap, crouched in the bushes, and he had trembled. The scarf given by her pupils had been a prize, and it had been meant for him.
He fired up his laptop and waited for the latest Police Scotland announcements. They had a press conference planned, which was always helpful for figuring out how close they were getting.
The woman in charge was skinny, tall and resembled Grom’s idea of a fetish dominatrix. The sign on the desk in front of her proclaimed her to be Superintendent Overbeck. She had dark lipstick, the kind he liked to mess up and rub over women’s faces. He turned up the sound.
‘… the missing woman is confirmed to be one of Edinburgh’s lollipop ladies. We have reason to believe that the man responsible is Slovenian. We are appealing for anyone aware of a Slovenian male matching the description given to contact the police. He should not be approached or tackled. We must stress how dangerous he may be.’
Grom slammed his foot on the wooden floor. How could they have his nationality? He hadn’t left a trail. There were no convictions in his home country. He’d never been arrested, and another man had been convicted of that murder in Paris.
He put his head between his legs and breathed deeply. He needed to be calm. There was no trace of him here. He’d travelled under a false passport which gave his nationality as Romanian. And he hadn’t exactly been socialising in Edinburgh. He bought food from large supermarkets late at night, always with his hood up. He hadn’t used his real name at all. Which begged the question of how the police knew.
They had begun taking questions at the press conference, hands raised, like mutts begging for a scrap of meat from the table.
‘Things seem to be moving very slowly, Superintendent, with minimal information being released. Do you now foresee a faster resolution?’ one journalist asked.
‘I accept that one could describe the progress as piecemeal,’ the uniformed dominatrix said, scowling at the officers to her side, ‘but that is due to the nature of this case. Police work is not always easy. These murders have proved particularly challenging.’
She stood up, revealing her full height and a spectacular figure. Grom thought he would enjoy meeting her in person very much indeed. In the dark. Just the two of them. He would even play with her a while before destroying her. It was entirely possible she would enjoy it. He’d seen that supercilious look on other women’s faces before, and every one of them had confessed to wanting him before he’d finished with them.
As the police officers filed out, Grom returned to his translation dictionary and looked up the word piecemeal. It meant a quantity taken one section or particle at a time. He liked the idea. That would get their attention. Sem Culpa would be all but forgotten.
He strode over to the lollipop lady who had ceased her chatter. Something about his demeanour had finally shut the old bitch up. She looked up at him, sneered, then spat in his face. This time he didn’t mind. She would apologise for her behaviour soon enough. The saliva dribbling down his face was a symptom of her fear.
Grom grabbed her hand. She did her best to pull away, but no amount of resistance could have altered his chosen course. Pushing her hand down firmly onto the table, he drew a knife from his pocket and began to cut.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ben had had a busy afternoon. Polly at the Below Par Cafe had been right. When he’d returned to work, the police had been there. Not DCI Joseph Edgar, of course. He was way too important to dirty his hands with preliminary enquiries.
Ben had wandered in carrying a takeaway coffee and bagel, looking as surprised as he could bother to pretend being about the kerfuffle. It was old-school tactics – ask the boss a few barely coded questions about various employees, make the atmosphere strained, raise the spectre of rogue employees. Word about the police interest would get passed around faster than a joint in a prison cell. Even now CyberBallista’s account handlers would be phoning their substantially powerful and influential clients to explain the situation. In turn, those client companies would be phoning their own lawyers to make sure none of their information was in danger of being accessed. The irony was that the multi-billion pound banks and investment companies who had insisted on DCI Edgar’s investigation were the same ones who wouldn’t want their private information made public in a court case, which made CyberBallista the safest place for Ben to work.
It had taken exactly three hours before Ben was back at his desk working on a new computer while his manager checked the old one for any unusual activity. He swung by Below Par on the way home to thank Polly who, in the tradition of their budding relationship, had good-naturedly refused his daily attempt to lure her out for a drink or some food.
‘Got to wash my hair. You know I like to look my best for the early morning coffee customers. Off you go, back to your man-cave.’ She said the same thing every day.
Ben had been working in Edinburgh since January. A friend from Glasgow had tipped him off about Below Par. Polly had begun working there three months ago, quick-witted with an acid tongue and the sort of sense of humour that could get you in trouble if it was expressed publicly. Ben liked her. The tough girl London twang, the steady appraising eye and her hatred of all things establishment. If he’d been asked to state his gut feeling he’d have said she liked him too, but try as he might, she would not go the way of dating. Some days he’d ask and there would be a sigh before her refusal, a soft smile that gave him hope. He wouldn’t give up. The right woman was worth a million rejections.
Ben had finalised Rory Hand’s application to the webmaster whilst drinking coffee at Below Par and contemplating Polly’s habitual rebuff. It hadn’t taken long before an answer arrived. He had clicked the link the webmaster had sent, knowing it would allow access to Hand’s computer. Nothing to fear there. The deviant would have exactly the sort of material the webmaster was expecting to find.
An email from Lance warned him to keep an eye open for a response to their falsified account of Michael Swan’s death. What arrived as a result was both exactly what Callanach had been hoping for, and way too much more. Ben dialled Callanach’s number.
‘Get online somewhere fast,’ Ben told him.
‘Ava, I’ve got to take this call. I’ll be in my office,’ Callanach said, muffling the speaker. In the background, Ben could hear another mobile ring tone followed by a woman’s voice. She had a similar accent to Polly, definitely English, but all round vowels and crisp consonants. It had to belong to DI Turner.
‘Is that a second mobile ringing in your pocket?’ she asked.
Callanach mu
mbled a response, then Ben heard the echoing slap of footsteps, an opening and closing door.
‘What’s going on?’ Callanach asked. ‘I’ve literally just stepped out of the press conference.’
‘Michael Swan’s going to be the big headline tomorrow. Whatever you’ve just been talking about will be irrelevant,’ Ben said, his blood pumping audibly in his ears as he enlarged the downloaded images on his screen. ‘They were sent in the same way as the photos of Emily Balcaskie, via a link that destroys its own pathway as soon as it’s opened. I’ve taken them from Lance’s email already. If the other journalists are still travelling back from your press conference then you have about ten minutes to prepare a statement, but this is bad. Really fucking bad. I’m emailing you the link now.’
Callanach waited a few seconds, then clicked. The email came with four documents attached. He walked briskly to his door, locked it, then took his seat before opening the first.
It was a sketch, pencil-drawn then photographed, and the artist was as accomplished as she was deranged. There was no doubt in his mind that the artist was the same person as had conceived and executed the murder. The perspective was much the same as the first view Callanach had of Michael Swan from directly below, looking up into the face that was no longer a face, from which a bloodied swathe of skin swung. Even in black and white, this was a masterpiece of horror. Swan’s face was enlarged within the frame, giving the impression that it was hanging towards you. Even the detail on the ceiling had been included, to leave no doubt as to the position of the body. Callanach cursed his own ingenuity in deciding to announce that the body had been left on the floor.
‘Callanach, are you there?’ Ben’s voice sounded tinnily from the mobile. Callanach had forgotten that he was still on the line.
‘Give me a moment,’ he replied. Callanach unlocked his door and put his head out into the corridor. ‘Tripp, get me a lawyer in here now!’ he shouted. He didn’t wait for a response, returning to open the second attachment. This was another drawing, but a close-up of Michael Swan’s face partway through the skinning. It showed the tears in Swan’s eyes, his muscles contorted, the pulling of flesh and seeping of blood an agony to see. It was no leap of the imagination to hear the sounds that must have accompanied those moments. Callanach wanted to look away, found that he couldn’t, and finally became aware of Tripp peering over his shoulder.