by Grace Monroe
‘On each occasion, each discovery, the police received an anonymous call telling us where the body would be found. Bear in mind these girls had never been reported missing–or, at least, we didn’t think they had.’
It didn’t make sense. Bodies are usually found by neighbours complaining of strange smells, or by dog walkers. Killers ordinarily take great care to conceal the evidence of their crimes.
‘Arrogant bastard isn’t he?’ Glasgow Joe sounded angry. ‘Why couldn’t he hide the body, the bodies, like any normal murderer?’
I didn’t let myself wonder how many bodies Joe had disposed of in his time.
‘I’ve thought about this for six months,’ said Fishy, ‘and it actually seems pretty clever to me. He controls the discovery of the body and he knows exactly what evidence we have and what state it’s in.’
‘Very Masonic of him…’
We both turned to look at Glasgow Joe.
‘Well, it is,’ he brusquely defended his position. ‘I might not have a degree like you pair, but I do know crime, and the murderer wants to keep his identity a secret, like murderers tend to do, so he’s hiding it in plain sight…like the Masons. All their secret symbols are there to be read–if you know what to look for. It’s a basic rule–you want to hide anything well, do it in the open.’
Fishy ignored Glasgow Joe. ‘When I was sent the album out of nowhere, I asked my superiors to reopen the cases.’
‘You didn’t tell them about this album did you?’
Glasgow Joe was worried on principle. His basic philosophy was never volunteer information and it had kept him out of Barlinnie on at least one instance that I knew of.
‘No…thank God. They asked me why I was suddenly interested in these cases. The last one happened while I was still at school. I just said I’d heard a rumour in Leith.’
‘You weren’t quick enough–or quiet enough,’ Glasgow Joe admonished him.
‘It pains me to say it, but you’re right,’ admitted Fishy. ‘Within an hour I was transferred out of Leith into the traffic division. I’ve been working the graveyard shift since then, chasing fixed penalty dodgers.’
‘Anything else?’ asked Joe.
‘I was meant to get a promotion, and it’s been stalled.’
‘Still got your bollocks though? You’re lucky they’re just trying to bring you to heel. If you step out of line and let them know you’re still interested in these cases…you’re up shit creek.’
Fishy sighed, rubbed his eyes, then decided more drink was needed. Watching him rub shoulders with half-naked dancers with highly unlikely breasts, I felt frumpy and knackered.
‘That wee bastard’s hiding something,’ interrupted Joe.
Standing at six foot one inch, no one else called Fishy small, but Joe belittled him at every opportunity. I was sure he was wrong–Fishy wouldn’t hold out on me.
‘Kailash thinks it might be a killing team,’ I told Joe.
‘Does she now? That changes things. If that’s her opinion I’m with her, no matter what Sherlock Holmes over there says.’
Fishy was weaving his way back to the table; it was taking him a long time, as the Rag Doll regulars were making the most of an opportunity to nudge the local police. Fishy thumped the drinks tray down onto the table.
‘Not missing anything am I?’ he asked.
‘That’s exactly what I wanted to ask you,’ said Joe.
Rifling in his pocket, Fishy pulled out another photograph and placed it on the table.
‘I think I’ve found out the identity of one of the girls. Her grandmother has been looking for her since 1990. Meet Laura Liddell. This was taken that year at a Church of Scotland outing for under privileged inner city kids to Gullane.’
The faded colour photograph was quite different from the others, it curled up at the edges and I smoothed it out to get a better look. Laura Liddell smiled out at me from a sunny beach; her bikini strap had slipped from her shoulder showing the redness of her chest, which promised her a painful evening. Squinting her eyes to smile into the camera, her light brown hair hung around her shoulders in ringlets formed by the salt water. Even in this photograph there was an air of doomed predestination about her. I was almost more bothered by this picture than the others.
Childhood memories flooded back, times of running through an abandoned graveyard with Joe, where one old stone always made me want to cry.
Here lies the body of a child who died
Nobody mourned–Nobody cared
How she lived–How she fared
Nobody knows–Nobody cared
It might have been written for Laura–but her body wasn’t in a marked grave. Her existence had been erased. No face, no memories, no identity.
At school we were taught the Westminster Confession of Faith: By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory some men and angels are predestined into everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.
Had Laura, and others like her, been predestined for torture? And now, did the killer think I was like her, like them? What was my future–was I predestined for hell too?
SEVENTEEN
Icy water ran in rivulets down my neck and back, waking me up. Standing under the power shower, leaning against the large limestone tiles I watched my hands turn a shade of blue.
I needed this time to think. I had to consider what I knew–or didn’t know–so far. I wasn’t being allowed to get out of this case; a case in which my client had specifically asked for me as representation despite our past history. I couldn’t get the image of Kailash out of my mind as she stood in court, eyeballing Sheriff Strathclyde–but I had even more difficulty with why he had reacted the way he had. For now, I was going to ignore Jack’s conspiracy theory and his witterings about the Enlightenment Society, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that the black saloon that knocked me off my bike at Dunsappie Loch was the same one that I had seen outside Lord Arbuthnot’s house in Heriot Row–minutes before Lord MacGregor arrived at his dead son’s house to meet with Moses Tierney. I also had to face up to the fact that whoever had clobbered me could very well have done so with a walking stick–and with that I was right back, full circle, to Moses and the Dark Angels yet again. What the hell was going on? What was I caught up in, and why had someone decided that this needed to get personal? I felt that there were so many clues wafting around, but maybe the knock I’d taken when I was attacked was just making me a bit more stupid than usual (although I know there would always be some who would say it was often my approach to things involving my own safety). I knew without a shadow of a doubt that the car was the same. I knew that I had seen the grieving father talking with Moses Tierney, and I knew that the Dark Angels were caught up in this somehow. But what was I missing? What if the baseball bat marks on my back were from a different source? What if they were cane marks as Malcolm had suggested? A blatant calling card of the Angels, but why would they do that to me when I had never really had that much to do with them? More confusingly, why would they attack me after making such a public display of their–perhaps feigned–worship outside the Court?
Ever since the post-mortem, the facts that Patch had uncovered had been spinning round my head. Not so much the information about Lord Arbuthnot’s long-term drug abuse, but the image of the brand on his arse. The condolence I got from Patch’s raising the possibility of accidental death only offered a glimmer of light. There was too much darkness coming from other aspects of this case to make me feel much hope.
What sort of warning was I being sent by my attacker? And why wouldn’t they tell me what I had to do to avoid further attacks? My heart told me this all had something to do with the super-imposed photograph that Kailash had shown me, but to make the leap from that to the notion of a serial killer team who were now out to get me, seemed ludicrous. My stomach didn’t seem to recognise the ridiculous nature of the premise though–it had been churning for ages now.
Why was Fishy being dragged into all of this? How had m
y attacker got his mobile number, and who had sent him the photograph album six months ago? The same person? I didn’t know where the four body in the bag murders fitted into all of this, but now that we had a name for one of the victims there was at least one lead to go on. And it was closer to home than I had ever realised.
As the shower trickled to an end, I pulled myself away from considering things I could do nothing about, to get back on track. I am a creature of habit–every morning at school, I was woken at six, forced to have a cold shower and then run ten miles. I find it hard to break this Spartan routine; I’ve even learned to enjoy it. It seemed I was alone in this.
‘For Christ’s sake, Brodie–is this necessary?’ Glasgow Joe was an unwilling participant in my early morning habits, even though he’d chosen to be there.
‘No one asked you to come.’ I reply tersely, still fighting a hangover. The first twenty minutes of any run are difficult, your legs are heavy and your body does everything to make you stop. It was the first time I had been out running since the assault, and I didn’t want to have to deal with Joe’s whinging too.
‘You know that I can’t leave you on your own. Your safety equals my bloody torture.’
We left the flat, and his face was already puce and sweaty as we started down Dundas Street. Glasgow Joe wasn’t built for speed–not in these circumstances. The roads were almost deserted; a solitary early morning cleaner passed us on her way to work. We had passed the longest day and the morning was as bright as noon as we turned into the cycle path that leads down to the Water of Leith. I felt as if we were the only two alive. The ground was flat, and because of Joe we took an easy pace. In spite of the pain, I increased my speed, leaving Joe struggling in my wake as he ran over the cobbled bridge. Swans swimming in the dirty, litter strewn water, greeted him, as if acknowledging his endeavour. Sensing that his last burst of effort had knocked the resistance out of him, I slowed down and allowed him to catch me.
‘I take it you recognised her?’
As soon as he spoke, I felt sadness overwhelm me and it was difficult to keep moving.
‘Of course I recognised her–that photograph…Laura looks like it was yesterday.’
I was still reeling from the shock of what I had quickly realised. Joe and I had gone to primary school with Laura Liddell, and when I saw the picture of the little girl smiling on the beach, it was disturbing. She looks the dead spit of her mother too–I always found it hard when we were all at primary school together to imagine Shirley as a Mum. She didn’t seem like any of the other ones. Didn’t seem the type to have a child weighing her down.
‘Half the time she didn’t know she had one,’ muttered Joe.
We were at the door of the Rag Doll. Joe’s pub stood on the corner, opposite the old tea factory I had been named after. Looking down the narrow street, the skyline was dominated by the high-rise flats where I had spent the first years of my life. Squinting, I could see the yellow balcony on the thirteenth floor, where I had spied on the other children who were playing street games.
‘Maggie still lives there. I’ll phone her after breakfast…she’s getting on a bit now,’ said Joe as he opened up the pub. I was immediately assaulted by the smell of stale fag smoke and spilled beer. Standing in the middle of the empty bar it looked even tattier than it had the night before.
‘God, Joe, this place is a tip.’
‘The regulars like it like this–it discourages the wrong type,’ he said.
‘What? Folk that have baths?’
‘Aye–Edinburgh ponces,’ he smiled back at me.
I followed him through to the back of the pub. The window had bars on it; an unnecessary precaution I would have thought. There wasn’t a smack-head or nutter around who would mess with Joe. He put the kettle on and I took the opportunity to nose around. Joe lived on the premises in what was basically a bedsit. In sharp contrast to the front of house, his private quarters were austere; they took minimalism to new heights. The kitchen contained a white enamelled cooker that was only on display in one other place–a museum. As Joe supervised the sizzling sausages and bacon, I considered the monastic air of the place, spoiled somewhat by the enormous Victorian wrought iron bed. Joe was a wealthy man and the only place it showed was here. A goose feather quilt with an embroidered white linen cover lay on the bed: it was spotless. Piled high with pillows, it was the sort of bed that Goldilocks would have chosen. At the foot of the bed a white fur cover was neatly folded. The thick original floorboards were polished and covered in part by a sizeable rug from the rare brown Orkney Jacob’s sheep. The bed was reflected in an outsized white French antique mirror that leaned against the wall. Joe wasn’t vain, so I had to shake my head to dispel thoughts of why it was there.
The smell of bacon lead me back to the kitchen, and I could hear Joe singing ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ from the shower. Even with the enhanced acoustics of the water he sounded like Shrek on a bad day. I felt better for my run too; stronger, less afraid.
Wandering in with a large white bath towel wrapped round his waist, Joe turned the sausages.
‘I’ve left some gear for you in the bathroom.’
Glasgow Joe had once been a member of an infamous Hell’s Angels chapter and yet was anally retentive about cleanliness. I knew he wouldn’t let me eat until I had washed again, so I headed off to the shower.
Until Joe bought the place, it was still serviced by an outside loo. Long and narrow, the high cistern toilet was now at one end of the tongue and grooved room; a long cast iron bath filled one wall.
To shower, I had to step into the bath and pull a curtain round. A wicker basket on the floor contained a large selection of exclusive Swiss products that I knew could only be bought in Harvey Nichols–after I had stayed at Joe’s one night when locked out of my flat by accident, I had complained about the cheap shower gel and supermarket shampoo on offer. I’d bunked down at his many times since then, and had never had cause to complain again. He took good care of me, did Joe.
After rubbing the skin rejuvenating cream into my legs, I slipped my feet into the clean cashmere socks provided. It was like being in a health spa, not the back room of one of the scummiest pubs in the city. Recalling Malcolm’s admonitions. I rubbed the black birch oil which Malcolm had given me into my wounds, conditioner into my hair, and shaved my legs. I may not be Kailash’s ‘girl’, but my appearance and health could do with a bit of a helping hand just now. I wasn’t going to willingly put leeches on myself–not all of Malcolm’s advice was quite so easy to take. Struggling into the spare jeans and t-shirt that I always left there, I wondered about Joe’s private life. Did he ever bring anyone back here? And, if he did, what did they think about the signs of me that littered the place?
Joe came in just as I finished.
‘I phoned Maggie–she’s expecting us.’
He handed me two filled rolls, and headed for the door. Evidently, we would eat our breakfast on the hoof. We took our time to walk the short distance from the pub to the flats and by the time we got there, I was on my second roll. I didn’t want to risk my mouth being filled with the smell of piss if we used the lift, so we started the climb to the nineteenth floor. I tried to ignore the graffiti, which had always been there, but the place had definitely deteriorated in the last ten years.
Joe rang the doorbell, and I could hear Maggie Liddell shuffling inside. It took some time before the door was opened and a morbidly obese woman peered out. Her life had been hard, and her commitment to food was understandable. She had given birth to six children, and only one of them was not HIV positive. Maggie was a good woman who had done her best as heroin swept through Leith like wildfire.
‘My God, son,’ she shrieked at Joe, ‘you’re making an old woman very happy–you look good enough to eat.’
Maggie clasped him to her enormous bosom–it might have been my imagination, but I thought I saw him quake. He was probably regretting wearing his kilt by now. I barely received a nod. It was generally perceive
d by the red Leithers where I had been raised that I had sold out and forgotten my roots. I’d certainly tried to–yet now that I was in trouble, it was the first place that I had come running.
It was like stepping back in time, from the orange swirly carpet to the copy of Gainsborough’s Blue Boy that hung above the gas fire. The fire was on full blast, and the room was stiflingly hot. Maggie’s chair was placed next to it. I could see that her legs were badly mottled with fireside tartan.
‘So, son–you’re here about Laura. Do you have news for me? Is she safe?’ Maggie Liddell knew the truth, but Joe had told me that for years she had fooled herself that Laura was in London, alive and well.
Glasgow Joe shook his head and Maggie began to cry; long, heart rending sobs as she rocked back and forth letting her grief pour out.
‘Aw, son, I can hardly believe it. That wee lassie. That wee bairn. I should have saved her–I knew she was in trouble. I went to the polis, I honestly did, but they didn’t believe me–respectability counts for a lot.’ She spat out the word ‘respectability’ as if it had nothing to do with morality or decency.
‘You told them she was missing?’ asked Joe.
‘Oh aye, was at their door every day. Laura was my youngest grandchild–and after the bother I had with my six…I was already looking after three grandchildren and with my diabetes and my arthritis–I couldn’t take another one. I knew she was in trouble, and I thought that the polis would come through for her.’
I had heard that Maggie had taken some of her children to court to assume parental rights of her grandchildren. An ardent activist, she had mobilised a group of grandparents in the area to assume responsibility for the offspring of their wayward, HIV positive children.
‘What do you mean she was in trouble?’ I asked.
Maggie did not lift her head to look at me. Her hands covered her face and the folds of flesh on her arms wobbled as she continued to rock back and forth.