“Now for the bad news. Anderson has something to report.”
The Sergeant stepped up to the front, and McKenzie made way for him.
“Early this morning a dog walker on Portobello Beach reported a body on the stretch of sand in front of the Portobello Baths. He’d been stabbed forty times. He was quickly identified as local thug William Thomson, who I know is well known to several of you. Time of death was estimated at about 3 a.m.”
“From the varied positions of the knife wounds, it’s already obvious that he was stabbed from numerous angles and positions, indicating multiple attackers. Thomson was found with two knives hidden in his shoes, but he hadn’t had time to extract them, so the attack seems to have happened quickly. When examined, his right hand was closed, and after opening it up, he was found clutching on to a card in his hand. It was the personal business card from Scott Davies, the Managing Director and owner of Portobello Plumbing.”
“Scott Davies?” Wishart exclaimed. “He was the No.1 bully in the school for years. Thomson was No.2. I’d say that Scott Davies would have to be the top suspect for this murder.”
“I actually saw them talking together in the bar last night. Davies was at the Reunion too.” Anderson added.
“Okay, we need to get Davies in for questioning. Wishart, can I ask you to take that one. Bring him in, question him. Get his story. This afternoon if possible.”
McKenzie walked across to the board and added the action to Wishart’s list.
He also noted down that Dean was liaising on the burnt out van.
“Thank you Anderson.” McKenzie nodded at the Sergeant, and took the floor again. “After this meeting, I’ll be heading down to the beach to look at the crime scene, and if Thomson’s body is still there, to check out the situation for myself. I know what you’re all thinking. At this stage I think we’ll have to assume that there could possibly be a connection to the Reunion last night, and possibly to the deaths here in this building. We’ll continue on that assumption. Which means that the killer’s note ‘One, two, buckle your shoes, Three, four look out for more’ could have been warning us about yesterday. In which case, as I said yesterday, no one here should blame themselves for this happening. I think we all did a sterling job last night. And there’s no way we could have known this would happen. For the record, I have to add that I personally spoke with Thomson last night, on two occasions, and I warned him to behave, just in case he had anything to do with anything.” McKenzie stopped and swallowed. “And I just want to say, that although we are proceeding on the grounds that Thomson’s death is connected, I am noting that the Sergeant is suggesting that initial investigations suggest he was pounced upon by a gang of at least several people. Which is probably not the same modus operandi as our two deaths here. My suspicion is that we are looking at one or two suspects behind the death here in the school, not a whole gang. Although I could be wrong. At this stage we simply don’t know. But I just don’t think we could have a gang running about this building without being spotted by Gary Bruce’s team.”
There were a few nodding heads.
“By the way, on Monday I’m hoping to get a proper office manager assigned from St Leonards so we can start managing all the assignment properly. This is all getting a bit ridiculous and old fashioned, so I apologise, but as I’ve explained, I’m doing my best to get more people. In the meantime, since we don’t have someone taking notes at these meetings, I have, just in case you didn’t notice, set up the audio recording system over there… I may be asking one of you to listen to the tapes and make notes later on.”
This time, there were a few moans.
“Don’t worry, once we have an office manager in place, they can assign all the action numbers to your actions, and then it’ll be down to you to keep the incident log updated as normal. Okay? Now… is there anything else? Anyone got anything to say?”
Anderson stood up.
“I’ve got the phone records and the phone mast data back from the phone companies for Weir and Blake’s phones.”
Everyone sat up. A ripple of anticipation ran round the room.
“Anything?”
“I took the data to the analysts in the office in St Leonards and they’ll do the usual analysis to see what info we can learn from usage patterns. I’m going to spend some time this morning going through the phone records and making a few calls to people in their recent contact lists. The bad news is that both phones are no longer active, presumably dumped in the sea or a river somewhere. We know when the last contact was that Weir’s phone made to a phone mast in Leith. It’s close to the river. I think that’s probably where his phone ended up. Likewise, we know when Blake’s phone also last established contact with a phone mast. The phone mast is on the edge of the Holyrood Park. I’m guessing the phone probably ended up tossed into St Margaret’s Loch. Maybe when the analysts have done their magic, we’ll be able to get a better picture of the last movements of Weir and Blake.”
“For now though, the time’s you just gave us did tell us the times the murderer finally had full control of each victim. We can probably assume the victims were snatched or captured, somehow, just before those times. That’s a big step forward. Excellent work. Thank you! And please let us know as soon as you have anything else back from the analysts that you think’s relevant.”
The Sergeant nodded.
“Fine, now… anyone else?”
There were no takers.
“Okay, we’ll be finishing up just now. If you’ve got actions you can pursue this afternoon, please do. Otherwise go home and rest. I think next week’s going to be full on once we start getting more information back from various people, and forensics. And just to let you know, the meetings will be here every morning at nine, then again at five. I may be away later today, or tomorrow. As soon as I can, I’m heading up to the Island of Coll to interview Daniel Gray, the old Headmaster from a while ago. If I’m not here, DI Brown will be in charge in my absence. I’ll be going to Coll by myself, since we’re so short staffed. And as soon as this meeting is finished, I’ll be sharing words with DCS Wilkinson. We have another death. And this team is understaffed. We warned her. Dismissed.”
McKenzie clapped his hands together, and everyone dispersed.
-------------------------
Sunday
Portobello Beach
11.00
McKenzie stood inside the tent which forensics had erected around Willy Thomson’s body.
It was a hot day already, and the heat within the canvas was building up.
McKenzie had got there just in time. They were about to remove the body, but McKenzie had requested a little time alone to review the crime scene and gather his own personal thoughts. Brown stood beside him. Silently.
McKenzie walked around the body, then bent down and looked into Willy’s face. Just last night he’d talked to him, warning him from doing anything silly. Then the incident as they left the Reunion venue, with the packet of cocaine.
What did Thomson mean when he handed it over to him? Was there a message there that McKenzie was missing?
Or was Thomson making a statement.
Had he given up drugs? Had he been selling drugs at the event, and that was the last packet left?
Had something happened at the Reunion that McKenzie and his team had missed?
And why the card from Scott Davies?
Was Willy trying to pass on a message about who murdered him?
Was Davies the gang leader behind Willy’s murder, and had Willy in actual fact been the victim of a gang attack?
Was there a connection to the deaths of Weir and Blake?
And thinking of the poem from the killer, was Thomson No.3 in the sequence, “One, Two, Buckle your shoe… ?”
“Thoughts, Guv?” Brown eventually broke the silence.
“Many. His death throws up a whole pile of questions, which we’re going to have to work through.”
“Are his parents alive?”
�
��I don’t think so. But can you please look into who the next of kin is? We’ll need to inform them. I’m heading off to Coll as soon as I can, so I might have to leave that one down to you.”
McKenzie adjusted the tightness of the plastic gloves on his hand, then lent forward and gently brushed away the hair from Willy’s forehead.
“Checking for any writing?” Brown asked.
“There’s none.”
“It’ll be interesting to find out if there is anything showing on David Weir’s head, if they’re able to determine that.”
“Agreed.”
McKenzie stood up.
“I think we’re done here. I just wanted to see him for myself.”
Pulling off the gloves from his hand, McKenzie looked down at Thomson for one last time.
“The guy was an absolute pain in the neck. To be honest, Portobello will probably be better off without him. But you can’t help but feel that he was still some mother’s child. And perhaps maybe somewhere along the line, the system let him down.”
“Guv, we all make our own choices. He made bad choices. Others suffered as a result. I certainly won’t miss him.”
“The sad thing is, few will.”
McKenzie pulled aside the curtain to the tent and stepped outside into the sunshine.
He blinked, held the curtain open for Brown and checked his watch.
“Time for lunch. I’m buying. How about the Espie in Bath Street?”
Wandering back to their car, they left the forensics team and local uniforms to get on with removing Willy to the morgue.
“Can you call me when you get the autopsy report, if I’m up north? I know the cause of death is obvious, but I’d be interested to see if there’s anything else to know…”
“Sure thing, Guv.”
As they approached the car, McKenzie glanced at the windscreen.
There was a piece of paper pinned behind the windscreen wipers.
“Oh dear, I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he said as he reached across and retrieved it.
It was a single sheet of paper.
Two lines of printed text.
“First three, then four.
It’s now the time to look for more.”
Chapter 25
Sunday
Operation BlueBuilding
Incident Room
Portacabin
11.55
McKenzie’s face was expressionless, but for those who knew him, they recognised that it was a mask which covered a host of emotions.
He clapped his hands together harder than normal as soon as the last of them entered the incident room and sat down, and immediately started the session.
“First of all, I’d like to welcome DI Dean, who is joining us for the first time. I asked him to drop everything and come straight over.” He nodded to DI Dean, but didn’t smile.
“There’s no pleasant way to say this, but I think we have a problem. DI Brown and myself were visiting the crime scene in Portobello, and when we came back to the car, I found another note on the windscreen.”
He held it aloft, although it was now in a protective plastic sheet.
“It continues on from the first note we received, and says, ‘First three, then four.
It’s now the time to look for more.’”
He let the words and their significance sink in.
“Does that mean that Willy Thomson’s death is now more likely to be from the same killer? Given that the note was placed on your windscreen immediately following your visit to the body.”
“For now, I think we have to treat it like that. However, I think you can read it two ways. My gut feeling is that Willy Thomson’s death is not by the same killer, although there may be a link. The timing and the placing of the note could be totally coincidental. The person who placed the note on the screen just followed me and took the opportunity to put it on the car. In which case we have a problem. The note seems to be telling us that there is another body. Even if Thomson’s is number three, there could be a number four. And if Thomson’s isn’t number three, then I think we have to start looking for another body now, with a very real threat that another one is already out there , or will be on the way, soon.”
Two of those sitting down stood up and started pacing the room. The others started talking to each other. The tension in the room went through the roof.
“Okay, simmer down. We’ve got to get on top of this immediately. We have to start looking for another body with the expectation that we’re going to find one. And we have to be very, very careful that one of us doesn’t become the fourth person in the poem.”
“Do you think it could be a hoax?” Wishart asked.
“I hope so. I fear it is not.” McKenzie replied monotonically.
“How about this? Is the killer trying to refocus our attention onto him? What if Willy Thomson’s death has nothing to do with the killings in the school, and the killer is trying to refocus our attention back onto himself?” Lynch suggested. “I mean, the killer took a huge risk in approaching your car and putting a note on it in broad daylight with so many other people and police around.”
“Interesting idea, but we haven’t even found another body yet, so let’s not go down that route just now. But if we find one, might we need to bring in the help of a criminal psychologist so we can begin to understand how they are thinking.”
“So where are we going to look for a body?” Anderson asked.
“Good question. We were really worried that something might happen at the Reunion. We thought we’d got away with it, but maybe we didn’t. No one has reported anyone missing, but it’s early days for people who live alone and attended by themselves. No one might miss them for days. So, I think we have to consider that something could have happened last night at the Reunion after all. We’ll need to have the school searched. All the classrooms and the grounds, just like we did here.” McKenzie said sternly.
“However,” he carried on, pausing, and then moving over to the window and looking out and up at the towering blue building above them, “my suspicion is that we’re most likely going to find something here. A continuation of the same series of deaths from before.”
The team all stood up and moved towards McKenzie and joined him looking out of the window at the old school tower.
“Have you contacted Gary Bruce? Can we go in alone, or do we need the armed response team to sweep the building first again?”
“I would say we should go in now - we can’t really wait for the armed squad - but the rules are clear. Theoretically they need to sweep the building and ensure it’s safe first. Then hand it over to us. I’ve called them and they’re due here in the next ten minutes. But I’m going to insist we go in together just like last time.”
“It’s going to take us hours again.” McLeish said, the frustration evident in his voice.
“Actually,” Lynch started to say something, then turned away from the window and went to the map of the school which had been pinned to the cabin wall. He raised a finger and put it against the fourth floor. “... actually, I think this may be quicker than we think. Has anyone been able to talk with Mark McRae yet?”
A round of ‘nos’.
McKenzie came across and stood beside Lynch.
“Why?”
“He’s on our list for both a possible victim and a suspect. If he’s a victim, then my money is on the fourth floor. It’s where the Chemistry Department used to be. McRae is a Chemistry teacher. It would fit the pattern established so far for murder locations.”
“I hope you’re wrong, but unfortunately, I think you may have just hit the nail on the head.”
There was a knock on the door of the portacabin, and Brown hurried over to open it.
“It’s the armed squad,” she said, turning in the doorway.
“Okay,” McKenzie instructed the team, “Wishart, I want you to carry on with tracking down Scott Davies and bringing him in. As soon as possible. The rest of you, everyone follow me
. Let’s go!”
Outside the portacabin, the team waited while McKenzie explained the situation and the plan and the seven-man armed squad prepared their weapons and adjusted their clothing: they would head straight to the fourth floor, the armed team sweeping ahead, with one of their team backing them up.
Regardless of what they found up there, the rest of the school would then have to be swept, but McKenzie’s team would leave the armed squad to do that.
“Three, then four,” the note had warned.
If they found a body in the chemistry department, there could be a fourth elsewhere.
Once again, the detectives found helmets and then put on hard-shoes to protect themselves from the needles.
Ten minutes later they assembled at the base of the middle stairwell, Stair B.
They moved up in silence until they got to the fourth floor, the Chemistry Department. The stairs ended here, with no further access upwards to the building above.
Here the leader of the armed team gave strict instructions for the detectives and uniforms to wait whilst his team swept the floor, handing McKenzie a radio and telling him to listen for instructions.
The armed squad then split into two, three men in each team, leaving one man behind to protect the detectives. Each group then disappeared into the corridor and the classrooms on either side of the stairwell. Within a few seconds McKenzie’s phone buzzed.
“One body. A male. Very cold. There’s no hurry. Stay put, we’re continuing the sweep.”
-------------------------
Sunday
The Chemistry Department
Portobello High School
Remember Me 2 Page 2