“Does this Harlequin guy have an I.T. background?” Elgar asked.
“No, he’s a medical doctor, he was a pathologist in fact.”
“He must have help from somewhere. This is the kind of stuff that only the best hackers on the planet would have, it’s not something you can phone up your service provider to set up for you.”
Russell was momentarily stunned; he had always felt the possibility was remote that the Harlequin would have help but now it was beginning to be a reality.
Alex said, “It makes sense, sir. Didn’t you say that he had posted pictures of one of his victims ten years ago?”
“Yes but it was nowhere near this level of sophistication.”
“Could the help come from another victim of the original prank?”
“Possibly. I’ll speak to Christine O’Donnell, she might know. What about the audio?”
“Stephanie,” Green said as he tapped her arm.
“Yes?” she removed her headphones and looked up. Russell could now see her delicately beautiful features and bright emerald eyes.
“Detective Russell was asking how the audio is going.” Green said.
“Slowly I’m afraid. It’s difficult to get it to the quality I need to do a proper analysis but I’m working on it. If we could get some more it might help.”
“Yes, but that might mean we’re watching someone die while we collect it.” Russell said acerbically.
The technician looked abashed as she said, “I know, I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. I know what you mean. Keep going folks and thanks for your help.”
He retreated to the peace and quiet of his own office where he brewed a coffee. He regretted his little burst of pique at the computer bods; they had their problems in the same way he had his. There was no one thing that was going to tell him where the three captives were being held, it was going to take good police work in multiple disciplines to pull it together.
Christine O’Donnell’s voice was filled with optimism when he rang her. “Have you got any news?”
“Not yet, I’m sorry. I’m looking for some help.”
The hope gone, her tone was one of defeat as she said, “What do you want?”
“The other two men who were the victims of the prank thirty years ago, were any of them involved in computers?”
“No, one went on to be a lawyer, the other was some kind of engineer. Why?”
“We think Dent has an accomplice, someone with real skill in I.T.”
“Oh. Are you any closer to finding them?”
“I’ve been out interviewing someone. I’m just about to be briefed about what progress has been made on how Joe and the others were abducted. I promise, I’ll let you know when we get him back.”
“If you get him back,” she said bitterly and hung up.
Russell sighed as he sunk his head into his hands. He knew exactly how she was feeling but he knew he couldn’t let her emotions or his own dictate what he did or let them stop him doing his job, even though it felt as if that was exactly what was happening.
Chapter 25
How had Karen and the rest ended up in the clutches of the Harlequin? That was Russell’s next priority. He called through to the main office and asked Frank Weaver to brief him with the details of what the teams had discovered so far. He gave the detective sergeant five minutes to collate the information.
Russell took those five minutes to still his thoughts and prepare him for the next part of the day. He had to draw his energy and resilience from deep within him but by the time Weaver arrived, he was ready to go again.
“Come in, Frank. What have you got for me?”
Weaver sat in the chair opposite the detective superintendent, thinking how haggard the other man looked. He could only imagine what Russell was going through. He consulted a bundle of papers that he had collected from the investigative teams.
“Who would you like me to start with, sir?”
“Hayley McLelland.”
He flicked through the papers before saying, “Miss McLelland received an e-mail yesterday allegedly from her father asking her to go to a church graveyard. I’ve spoken to former Chief Superintendent McLelland, who assures me that he didn’t send the mail and the I.T. guys have backed him up on that score; they say the e-mail was sent from a different computer. Mr McLelland said that he has been researching his family tree and that he could only presume that his daughter thought that he wanted to see her in connection with that subject.”
“So Dent or this fuckin’ accomplice hacks Mark’s account, sends the mail and grabs her. I take it this church is quite isolated?”
“Tucked away in a lane, sir.”
“What about Joe O’Donnell?”
“He received a text from a friend about a party in the West End, that the friend didn’t send. There was no party. As far as we can tell he left his student accommodation around nine but we can’t pick him up on any CCTV and there’s no record of a taxi picking him up, so we think he was taken soon after leaving the building.”
“And Karen?”
“Her company said they received a call last week from the representative of an Italian businessman who wanted to sell a property in Stirlingshire. Apparently, he asked specifically for Ms Russell. The appointment was for early yesterday afternoon, as the alleged businessman was only going to be in Scotland until Monday morning. We got the Stirling boys to take a run out there and they found her car, and one other set of tyre tracks. The forensics team is on its way but it doesn’t look as if there was much of a struggle. The officers at the scene think that bastard took her by surprise.”
“I don’t suppose she was expecting to be kidnapped.”
“No, sir.”
“What else if anything have we learned?”
He riffled the papers once more. “I think D.S. Craigan and the team might have made some progress with where Dent has been for the past ten years. His family has a place on the Isle of Man; they were loaded by all accounts. It would certainly have given him a bolt hole to hide in, somewhere far away from curious eyes.”
“Interesting, it would certainly explain how he’s stayed off our radar. I don’t imagine the Isle of Man will be short of cosmetic surgeons. Has D.S. Craigan had any luck finding anyone who might have worked on him?”
“Not as yet, sir.”
“He seems to know a lot about his targets. He must have been watching them for some time, particularly McLelland.”
“Will I ask Mr McLelland if he noticed anything? Someone following him maybe.”
“Possibly, but I think it’s more likely that it’s something to do with his computer.”
“I really don’t understand this guy. He’s killed the two people that were most responsible for the prank, why does he keep going?”
“Ego. He believed we would never piece it together. He thought he was more intelligent than us and now he wants to exact his revenge on Mark and I, as well as the one other person he blames for what happened to his career. There’s no point in trying to apply logic to a guy like this, there is none except inside his head.”
Russell looked at his watch, which told him there was only two hours before the games would start again.
***
Hayley McLelland was sitting shivering, not from the cold but from fear, an all-encompassing terror that had both absorbed and overpowered her. She could see no way that she was going to get out of this situation alive. When she was a teenager, she had seen what effect the Harlequin case had had on her father. At the time of the murders and for about six months beyond them he had withdrawn from the family, attempting to isolate them from his irritation and distress. Hayley was in her twenties before he opened up about what he had lived through and why he felt it necessary to protect his daughter and her mother from the horrors he had seen. He had worked some truly terrible cases but the
Harlequin had affected him more than any other, and that memory of his fear and frustration was what was now playing through Hayley’s mind.
Karen seemed to believe that the police would find them, and that the three of them would survive this ordeal to get back to some kind of normal life, but Hayley thought that her optimism was misplaced. With only a day to investigate, why would they be able to catch him today when they couldn’t catch him for twenty years?
She had no idea what time it was but she felt sure that four o’clock was approaching and that when that time arrived she would be vulnerable once more to the whims of the psychopath. The thought that she could be dead very soon brought on another shaking fit and her tears began to flow freely once more.
***
At ten minutes to four some of the detectives were congregating in the briefing room, trepidation and anxiety was written on every expression. The ex-husband in Russell felt sick and for a while he thought he wouldn’t be able to face this, but his self-control won out and he joined the team in the room.
He had spoken to both A.C.C. Baxter and Helen Paterson in the past hour. Baxter’s only concern seemed to be the political fallout and the image of the newly-formed force, rather than the lives of the three people involved. Russell’s temperament was pushed very close to the edge of a career-ending rant but somehow he restrained himself from saying what he was thinking. Baxter was in a new job, desperate to make a positive impression and the worst possible scenario had landed on his plate on the very first day. Russell held on to that thought as the only way he could cope with his overbearing superior.
Helen Paterson had called available colleagues into the press office, curtailing their Bank Holiday plans. She had won a fight with the television channels over the broadcasting of the Harlequin’s show. When she pointed out to them that they may be subjecting their viewers to both torture and murder at four o’clock on an Easter Monday, they came round to her point of view. Russell had thanked her on behalf of his team as well as the two parents who were dreading the next chapter in the horror story they were living through.
Alex joined him at the back of the room. “Roger and his team are still working on tracing the site, sir. Stephanie said she’s hoping to get a better audio feed this time.”
“Fine,” he replied although it was obvious he was distracted.
The projector was switched on and once again the Harlequin’s ‘logo’ filled the screen. As the clocked ticked over to four o’clock, the picture changed and there was the disturbing grin of the now familiar mask.
“Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to our second session. The next round of our Harlequin Carnival is called ‘From Russia with a bang” and I’m sure it’s going to be explosive watching.”
Russell’s sense of foreboding became even more acute as the killer unveiled his latest twisted game.
“Here are our contestants.” The camera panned to the right to reveal each of the three captives tied to a chair. They were arranged in a triangle, each of them facing one of the others about ten metres apart. The whole area was brightly lit and their faces were rendered flat and white.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, you may be familiar with the simple rules of our game. In my hand I have a revolver with a real bullet in just one chamber of the cylinder, all the other bullets are blank. I will spin the cylinder and our contestants will take it in turn to fire at one of their opponents. There is a one in six chance that they will shoot them, thus edging them closer to being the only survivor and winning the prize of release.”
“Shit,” Russell heard Frank Weaver say from the front of the room.
Alex was watching her boss intently but he seemed on the surface to be relatively calm or maybe he was just resigned to what was about to happen.
“Now one or two of our contestants may think it’s a good idea to turn the gun in my direction. I must warn them that I have a pistol with twenty-two live bullets in the magazine. Their chances of survival would be far lower than mine, so we’ll have no cheating from any of you.” He finished the warning with a cheery tone, as if they were playing a child’s board game.
“Now it is polite to allow a lady to go first, and as she is also at the bottom of our leader board, I’ll turn to Karen as our first contestant.”
He walked to where Karen was seated and spun the cylinder of the revolver, the sound echoed in the space and down through the camera. He handed the gun to Karen who had a fierce expression on her face. The Harlequin stepped behind her and Russell could see that Karen’s right arm was the only part of her not strapped to the chair. Dent had positioned himself in such a way that there was no way that she would be able to point the gun in his direction. Karen was facing Hayley McLelland who was now weeping and wailing. Russell watched as his ex-wife raised the revolver, her hand was shaking as she pointed towards the younger woman. There was a long pause where everyone in the briefing room seemed to hold their breath. Karen put the gun in her lap.
“No, no, no,” The Harlequin screamed. He walked to the chair pulled her hair to move her head backwards.
“There will be no cheating.” He pressed the pistol against her temple. “Do you understand what the consequences will be for you if you don’t pull that trigger?” he shouted into her ear.
“Yes,” she replied quietly.
Russell felt both shock and an incredible sense of pride in the courage that his ex-wife was showing. He would never have guessed that she had such a resilient spirit.
On the screen the Harlequin was saying, “Good. Now play nice.” He removed the pistol, leaving a visible red mark on her head.
When he had retreated Karen lifted the gun once again. As her hand continued to tremble, she took aim.
“No, Karen. Please Karen don’t.” The beseeching voice of Hayley McLelland filled the room.
There was a loud bang but there was no projectile. The hammer came down on a blank cartridge and there was an audible sigh from the group of detectives.
“April Fool!” the Harlequin squealed like some demonic schoolboy.
“Now, Ms McLelland.” He took the gun from Karen Russell whose strength seemed to have evaporated as tears of relief trickled down her face.
Hayley was now a complete wreck and the Harlequin said, “Remember the pistol, Hayley. All you’ve got to do is point the gun at Joe there and pull the trigger.”
After he had given the cylinder another spin, she lifted her hand to take it from him. The weight of the revolver seemed to surprise her and her arm dropped quickly.
Once again their tormentor had moved to a position of safety behind the contestant holding the gun. Hayley lifted the weapon in the direction of Joe O’Donnell who was gulping in a huge lungful of air. She closed her eyes and pulled the trigger.
This time the lack of projectile was greeted with cheers from the detectives. Russell didn’t join in their celebrations, he was wondering how long the three victims would have to play this game; was Dent waiting for the live round to be fired before this would end?
As he was considering what might happen, a female constable walked to his position at the back of the room.
“Sir, sorry to disturb you but there are two detectives from Dundee wanting to see you now. They said they are from Standards & Ethics.”
“You have got to be fuckin’ kiddin’ me. They’re not due until tomorrow. Tell them I’m busy.”
The woman looked nervous as she said, “They were insistent, sir.”
“Do you want me to speak to them?” Alex asked.
“No, it probably won’t do any good. I’ll go and face the music. Anyway, I can’t watch this any longer.”
He followed the constable out of the room as Joe O’Donnell was being prepared to take his shot at Karen. Russell paused to look at the screen, wondering if this were the last time he would see his ex-wife alive.
Chapter 26
Ther
e were two of them, a detective inspector and a detective sergeant. They were waiting for him in one of the secure interview rooms; this was not going to be an informal chat.
The D.I. was called Ian Dickson; a stern-faced Dundonian that Russell knew by reputation. He was infamous for a regard for the rulebook that was almost pathological. He had a shiny bald head; what hair he did have was cropped close to the skin. His grey eyes seemed cold and remote as he stared at Russell. He was dressed in an immaculate charcoal grey suit with white shirt and blue tie. On his fingers was a signet ring with a single black stone that seemed almost frivolous on this rigid and serious man. His D.S. was introduced to Russell as Lee Foster. He was smaller than his colleague with a slight, almost feminine stature. His black hair was cut short on top but shaved in at the sides, the cut favoured by many military personnel. His face wasn’t as stern as Dickson’s but nor did he look like he would be the life of a party. His suit was cut from a cheaper cloth than his boss but in a more modern way. Russell wondered bitterly where they sent these guys to turn them into traitors, was there a special facility where their humanity and sense of loyalty to other officers was removed?
“Sit, please,” Dickson commanded. He had warned the uniformed constable that they were not to be disturbed for any reason. There had been no handshakes between the men and as he placed himself on the edge of the chair across from them, Russell saw that they were going to make it a difficult examination for him.
Dickson made a show of opening a file in front of him to show Russell how important it was, and then turned on the tape recorder.
“It’s four-twenty p.m. on Monday, April 1st 2013. This is Detective Inspector Ian Dickson. I am in the interview room at Helen Street Station, Glasgow, with D.S. Lee Foster. We are here to conduct an interview with Detective Superintendent Thomas Russell in connection with the murder of two Serbian nationals in January of this year. This interview is informal but Mr Russell has the right to a representative of the Police Federation to be present. Mr Russell if you wished this interview suspended until such times as a Federation representative can be present, we will do so.”
The Harlequin Page 20