by Lin Anderson
‘Well,’ the man mulled this over, ‘if you think something might be wrong with the bloke, I could use the pass key.’
‘Thanks.’
Mission accomplished, they proceeded to the glass lift which sped them swiftly skywards. The door opened with a swish and McNab was presented with a bird’s-eye view of the volcanic crag that was Arthur’s Seat. The view alone must have added a hundred grand to the asking price.
As the concierge unlocked the door and pushed it open, McNab took his arm.
‘If you could wait here, sir. Just in case.’
The concierge looked as though he might argue, so McNab added, ‘We were alerted to the fact that Mr Howitt was suicidal. Better that you should stay out here.’
The ‘suicide’ word did the trick.
‘I’m not supposed to leave my desk, officer. I’ll head back down. I hope the bloke’s all right.’
McNab waited until the lift sped downwards, then entered and shut the penthouse door behind him.
The smell of money was in here too, just like in the fancy clothes shop.
He stood for a moment admiring the wide open space that stretched from the glossy kitchen area to the floor-to-ceiling windows, which occupied three sides of the room. The furnishings were all black leather, the flat wall-mounted TV as big as a small cinema. Mark Howitt had the pad, all right.
McNab noted the whisky bottle and the glass on the granite kitchen surface. Next to which was undoubtedly a film of white powder. McNab rubbed his finger in it and tested it on his tongue.
So last time Mark was here, he’d indulged in some coke washed down with whisky.
Next stop, the bedroom.
Colours here were the same. Black bedding, leather headboard, white rug on the polished floor. Above the bed was a mirror, another on the ceiling, just like in Leila’s apartment. The doors stood wide on the wardrobe, a couple of the drawers disturbed, suggesting Mark had maybe packed for a journey.
McNab checked Ollie’s information for Mark’s work number and gave it a ring. There was only one way to determine if Mark was actually on a course and that was to ask.
It took a few minutes to get through to his department where the call was fielded by someone called Cameron. This time McNab didn’t mention police but just asked to speak to Mark Howitt.
‘He’s off sick, I’m afraid. May I help?’
McNab said he preferred to deal with Mr Howitt. ‘Any idea when he’ll be back?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
McNab thanked him and rang off.
So Mark Howitt Junior had definitely flown the coop and McNab suspected his hideout to be pal Jeff’s place. Jeff hadn’t come forward as a witness despite the nationwide appeals featuring the CCTV images, suggesting he and Mark had decided to keep quiet together.
McNab took a last look round, then exited and shut the door. Emerging from the lift, he bestowed a reassuring look on the concierge.
‘He’s okay?’
‘He’s been located in Glasgow,’ McNab said. ‘Thanks for your help in this. Much appreciated.’
‘You’re very welcome.’
Once back at the car, McNab retrieved the whisky glass with the nice clear fingerprint on it and popped it in an evidence bag, then he called Ollie and asked him to seek out one Jeff Barclay who worked for a big firm of Glasgow lawyers.
‘His home and work address,’ he said, then added ‘please’ as an afterthought, to keep the troops happy.
‘I take it this is about the Mark bloke?’ Ollie said.
‘He’s hiding out in Glasgow. You did a good job tracking down the girlfriend. Now I need you to track down the mate.’
42
The temple was laid bare, the mystical nature of it dispersed by the harsh entry of the arc lights. Rhona shivered a little, and wished she’d put another layer on under the boiler suit. The cellar wasn’t damp, not like the upper floors, but there was a definite chill down here which crept into your bones.
She’d called both Chrissy and Magnus, both of whom would appear shortly. In the interim she would take her own set of stills and a video recording, before embarking on a forensic examination of the room.
From the layout of the altar and the couch, this may have been the most likely place for the sex magick to occur. If that were the case then Leila’s encounter with the man in the bar seemed random and perhaps nothing to do with the Nine.
Rhona recalled McNab’s assertion that Danny had been filming some of the encounters in secret. If that was true, then here would be a better place to do it than Leila’s bedroom, but where exactly in this room might a camera or a person with a camera or camera phone be hidden?
It took her thirty minutes to work out what she believed was the best possible location. Once decided it seemed obvious. The altar under its long white tablecloth consisted of a circular stone tabletop balanced on a wooden frame. It stood tall enough for someone to crouch beneath.
When Chrissy and Magnus arrived, Rhona ran her theory past them. Chrissy’s response was that they should try it out.
‘If Danny or Barry took the video they would have to fit under there. Both of them are tall, maybe not as tall as Magnus . . .’ Chrissy eyed Magnus speculatively.
Under Chrissy’s intense scrutinizing gaze, Rhona could swear he winced.
Chrissy snatched Rhona’s mobile from her hand and gave it to a reluctant Magnus.
‘Okay, you get under the altar.’
Magnus, seeing he had little choice other than to agree, dropped to his knees and did as commanded. It was a tight squeeze for a man of his height and build, but he managed it.
‘Right, boss, now’s your chance with me on the couch,’ Chrissy said with glee.
After much laughter and many sexual innuendoes, the deed was accomplished.
Rhona played back the video. It was clear that the location under the table was a good vantage point should someone want to capture anyone using the bed for sexual magick.
With the fun over, Chrissy set to work on the room while Rhona and Magnus discussed the altar. Rhona explained her thoughts on the missing knife and the wounds on the most recent victim found in the lane.
‘There should be a yag-dirk here,’ Magnus agreed. ‘And it would be capable of inflicting damage like that, but there’s something else missing too.’
‘What?’ Rhona said.
‘Leila’s Book of Shadows. There’s a chance she might have brought it with her each time she came to the temple, but if that was the case, I assume you would have found it in her flat.’
‘What would it look like?’
‘It’s the Wiccan equivalent of a Bible. Witches will create their own. They’re often bound and very ornamental.’
‘There was nothing like that in her flat.’
‘Assuming Leila and Shannon were worshipping together here, the Book of Shadows would contain the rituals they practised and the spells they performed.’
‘Including the ones cast with the Nine?’ Rhona said.
Magnus nodded. ‘It might give you a clue as to what the Nine were involved in, and what their desires were.’
‘Which makes you wonder who removed it, and the knife?’ Rhona said.
‘From a profiler’s viewpoint, nothing feels right,’ Magnus said. ‘Leila met the main suspect for the first time the night she died. She took him home and they had sex. In her flat, not here. If he did kill her, the act would appear to have been random, perhaps fuelled by drink or drugs, or as a reaction to the idea that she was putting a spell on him via the cingulum. So why hang her on a hook in that room? Why not just get out of there and fast?’ He shook his head in consternation. ‘This isn’t the profile of a random killer. It does, however, fit the profile of a serial offender or,’ he paused here, ‘someone who is intent on wiping out everyone who might identify him.’
‘One of the Nine?’ Rhona said.
‘Or all of them. Killing as a group makes it far more difficult to pin the blame on anyone.’
/> ‘If Leila threatened to expose them,’ Rhona began, ‘or Danny tried to blackmail them with the videos he’d taken, and your theory is correct, then maybe McNab is right, and the latest victim is Barry Fraser.’
‘Which means Daniel Hardy is the only one left alive who’s able to testify to any of this.’
An uncomfortable thought reared up in Rhona’s mind. ‘Danny made contact with Freya Devine recently. It was Freya who suggested he look in the Goddess statue for the list.’
From Magnus’s expression he didn’t like that piece of information one bit. ‘I believe anyone who may have a link to this case will be considered a threat to the perpetrator or perpetrators,’ he said. ‘Can you ask McNab to keep a watch over Freya?’
43
‘He’s not here.’
‘I’d like to take a look inside to confirm that, sir,’ McNab said.
Jeff Barclay appeared about to refuse, then caught McNab’s eye and decided to back off. As a lawyer, he must have been aware how things would go if he obstructed a police officer in a murder hunt.
McNab was permitted to enter and the door shut behind him. No doubt Jeff didn’t fancy his neighbours knowing his business. He waved his arms in a dismissive manner. ‘Go right ahead, Sergeant. Search the place. He’s not here, as you’ll see.’
McNab soon did see. The place, though not as expensive a pad as Mark’s, was definitely upmarket. Situated in the Merchant City area of the city centre, McNab suspected this had been the place Mark had made his last call from. At the top of a renovated building, it had a view of Glasgow Concert Hall. With a similar layout to the penthouse, minus the floor-to-ceiling windows, it didn’t have many places to hide.
McNab checked them all and found nothing.
Returning to the kitchen, he spied a bottle of Russian vodka and two shot glasses standing next to the sink, one of which had traces of vodka in it. McNab pointed and asked who Jeff had been entertaining.
The response was swift. ‘My girlfriend, Carla.’
‘And where is Carla now?’
‘She left before you arrived.’
‘How soon before I arrived?’
‘Ten minutes.’
‘She didn’t finish her shot.’
‘She’s not a big drinker.’
It seemed to McNab that Jeff was growing more confident with every passing second, which suggested he felt safer now than when McNab had entered. McNab wondered why.
Then he saw the swift glance he wasn’t supposed to see, and knew.
McNab lifted the bottle and checked it out as though he recognized good Russian vodka when he saw it. Meanwhile he calculated how he planned to play this out.
The long window on the street side sported what appeared to be a narrow ironwork balcony only big enough to house a couple of pot plants. Then again, maybe not.
McNab set the bottle down, strode swiftly across the room and opened the window. Behind him, he could swear he heard an intake of breath, but no warning shout. So maybe he was wrong.
The glass door now open, the noise of the Merchant City swept in. McNab stepped out and took a look round. The railing was four feet high. Beside it was a drainpipe that ran up to a flat roof which was surrounded by a low stone facade. A fit guy could make his way up there, no problem.
McNab re-entered to find Jeff looking even happier.
‘I told you he wasn’t here.’ He could hardly keep the delight from his voice.
‘We have witnesses who saw you and Mark Howitt at The Pot Still the night Leila Hardy died. I don’t need to remind you that it appears you have been withholding information in a murder enquiry.’
Jeff’s smirk dissolved and he produced a concerned and earnest expression to replace it.
‘I was with Mark that night in the pub, but he left with a girl. I don’t watch TV and had no idea what happened to her until now. If I had, I would of course have gone to the police.’
McNab listened as the man before him slithered like a snake round the truth. Lawyers in his opinion could be very good at bare-faced lies, or telling the truth as their clients perceived it. McNab chose to nurse his anger. He would fan the flames when he was ready.
‘I want you down at the station to give a statement and a DNA sample. If Mark Howitt gets in touch, I want to know.’
Jeff gave a small smile of success. ‘Of course, Detective Sergeant. Now that I’m aware of the circumstances, I’d be delighted to help.’
McNab could have cheerfully spat in his eye, but he’d already decided to save Mr Smoothie for later. An hour in an interview room with Jeff Barclay was a prospect he would relish.
On exiting the flat, McNab fired his next shot.
‘I’d like to take a look on the roof.’
The satisfied smile slid from Jeff’s face.
‘That’s not possible,’ he said swiftly. ‘There’s no access.’
McNab pointed at the trapdoor in the ceiling above the top landing. ‘If we pull that down, there will be steps. You should have a pole with a hook on the end to do that.’
Jeff quickly shook his head.
‘I don’t have anything like that,’ he insisted.
‘Then bring a chair.’
Jeff took so long to comply with the request, McNab suspected the bastard was texting his mate, so he went for a look. It turned out Jeff had taken refuge in the toilet, obviously stalling for time.
McNab took a chair from the dining table.
As he suspected, the freed trapdoor revealed a set of pull-down steps.
In minutes he was on the roof. From this vantage point it was obvious that anyone emerging here could make their way along the building and choose to exit via one of the other stairways in the L-shaped block of flats. If Mark Howitt had come up here, he was long gone. McNab chose to walk the roof anyway, checking behind the redundant chimney stacks, just in case.
Ten minutes later he was back in the flat. Jeff had emerged from his sojourn in the toilet and awaited him, the self-satisfied look he’d worn earlier back in place.
McNab stood for a moment in ominous silence, then said, ‘Did you know that if someone drinks from a glass of water, by the time they’ve drunk two thirds of it, the remainder is pretty well all DNA from their saliva?’
Jeff blanched, having an inkling of where this might be going.
‘You made a statement to a police officer, captured on my mobile, that you had been entertaining your girlfriend Carla. Let’s see if that was true.’
McNab produced a pair of forensic gloves, two plastic evidence bags and a mouth swab. He donned the gloves, sampled the vodka with a mouth swab and, lifting each glass, placed them in a separate bag.
Jeff suddenly remembered he was a lawyer and began protesting.
‘Also,’ McNab interrupted him, ‘if you made a call to the suspect while in the toilet, our Tech team will have logged it.’
This wasn’t strictly true, but it was worth it to see the effect his announcement had.
McNab made that his parting shot, before he headed down the stairs.
44
Freya had been nervous and jumpy all day. Having spoken to Dr MacLeod and given the police her statement, she should have felt better by now, but didn’t. From her high vantage point by the window in the library, she watched as dusk fell over the university grounds and a grey mist crept in to envelop the towers of the main building.
Never did this ancient seat of learning look more like Dracula’s castle than it did at this moment.
Tucked in a corner, encircled by shelves of manuscripts and ancient tomes, her laptop open on the desk before her, Freya had written nothing. How could she think about anything other than the deaths of Shannon and Leila and what had happened between herself and Michael?
It had stung her that Michael believed she’d lied to him, but it stung even more that he had been right. When Grant had asked her to fetch the detective from reception, little did she know that the chance meeting would have such a profound effect on her life. At
first glance, she’d been intrigued by the tall, auburn-haired man with the bright blue eyes. It appeared to her that the interest had been mutual and she’d found herself flattered by that. He was both intriguing and scary, an exciting combination.
In the aftermath of Leila’s death, Detective Sergeant Michael McNab had also made her feel safe. So, when Shannon hadn’t turned up again for work, Freya’s first instinct had been to call him. Listening to the tone of his voice when he’d asked her not to go round to Shannon’s flat, she’d known something terrible had happened.
That’s when everything changed.
That’s when she’d forged the lie that had come between them.
She and Danny had never been an item, but she had met him before the previous night when McNab had seen him leave her flat. He and Leila shared many characteristics, to the extent that they might have been twins. Both extremely attractive, charismatic and openly sexual, it wouldn’t have been difficult to fall for Danny’s advances.
But she hadn’t, so in that McNab had been wrong. She should, of course, have told him the truth, but the hurt and suspicion that had radiated from him had stopped the words in her throat, so she’d chickened out and insisted she’d never met Danny in person before that night.
And once a lie had been told, it immediately multiplied.
McNab, good detective that he was, would discover that she’d met Danny before, because he would eventually meet up with Danny and he would simply ask him.
She recalled Dr Rhona Macleod’s quiet expression this morning as she’d listened to Freya’s tale. She hadn’t told the entire truth then either, although she’d hoped by explaining to someone McNab obviously trusted that she’d helped in some way.
And what of the key Rhona had taken?
‘Freya?’ A quiet voice brought her back from her tumultuous thoughts.
She looked up and found Grant standing there. ‘Sorry. I was miles away.’
‘How’s the thesis progressing?’ He eyed the pile of books beside the laptop, all of which were unopened.
‘Not so well,’ she admitted. ‘Can’t seem to concentrate.’