The Special Dead

by Lin Anderson

  The relief she felt at the prospect of company that didn’t involve work, surprised her. Or maybe McNab’s happy expression as he’d departed the Italian restaurant had inspired her to forsake the lonely menu, however tasty, and head for home.

  Hunger pangs had made her stop at the local chippie. There she’d chosen Chrissy’s favourite, a smoked sausage supper. She’d managed the sausage but not the chips. The resultant feeling of hunger unsatisfied made her wonder what Sean would bring with him in the way of food and wine.

  Rhona discovered soon enough.

  Sean arrived with a covered dish and asked her to put it in the oven for fifteen minutes at 180 degrees.

  ‘I could microwave quicker,’ she offered.

  The look he gave her silenced any other suggestions on that front.

  ‘A white for you. A red for me.’ He plonked the two bottles on the table. ‘It’s chilled,’ he added, also producing a French stick that smelt hot and very fresh. ‘The new bakery close to my flat. They try and catch the late-night brigade.’

  ‘Like us,’ she offered.

  He set the table, moving about the kitchen as though it were his own. Rhona had no wish to argue. Sean had come when she called, which put them on an even footing as far as she was concerned. He could use her kitchen as he wished.

  ‘Should be ready now.’ Sean swept the dish from the oven and placed it on the table. Peeling back the foil, he revealed three giant stuffed mushrooms oozing scents that Magnus would have loved.

  ‘Two for me. One for you. Or if you’re not hungry, three for me.’ Checking her expression, Sean scooped one onto her plate, then offered her bread to dip in the sauce.

  They ate in comfortable silence. At moments like this, Rhona wondered why she’d asked Sean to leave, but the truth was, she needed her own place free from emotional involvement and, she suspected, Sean needed the same.

  As he served them coffee, Rhona tackled one of the reasons she’d invited him here.

  ‘Danny Hardy was outside the flat when I came home earlier.’

  Sean looked concerned. ‘And?’

  ‘He told me things about the case, which I’ve duly told McNab,’ Rhona said. ‘However, I need to get a message to Danny from McNab.’

  ‘This isn’t a police trap to take Danny into custody?’

  ‘No. Quite the opposite,’ Rhona said.

  Sean raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘McNab’s playing off the park again?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  Sean considered her request.

  ‘Give me the message and I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Not quite.’

  Something had changed between them. The sands on which their relationship had been built had shifted. Imperceptibly perhaps, but Rhona had experienced a sense of it on the previous two occasions Sean had been here.

  And she felt it even more strongly now as she lay in his arms.

  She thought back to the beginning, when she’d been searching for her son. How Sean had gone to Paris, asking her to go with him, but she’d refused.

  She had eventually joined Sean there, when she had found her son, or when he had found her. Stepping off that train in Paris, her joy at seeing Sean had matched the intensity of her emotions at finding Liam. It had been a moment to savour and hold in her heart.

  Maybe this was how it could be?

  Rhona allowed herself a moment of happiness before she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  50

  The interview over and report written, McNab made for the coffee machine. Already one o’clock, he wondered if he should really visit Freya. Exhaustion had taken over from his earlier elation and his mind seethed with the story Mark Howitt had just told him.

  He checked his mobile but there was no response to his earlier message.

  He drank the espresso and pressed the button for another. When it failed to appear, McNab punched the machine in frustration.

  At that moment a uniform appeared at the door of the waiting room. McNab shot him a warning look, assuming his arrival had been occasioned by his argument with the coffee machine.

  It hadn’t.

  ‘Sir . . . can you come down to the cells?’

  McNab read his shocked expression. ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s Mark Howitt, sir. He’s dead.’

  I, Mark Howitt, confess to the killing of Leila Hardy, Shannon Jones and the barman Barry Fraser. I killed Shannon Jones and Barry Fraser because they could identify me as the man who left the pub with Leila that night. No one else will die now.

  McNab threw the confession down on DI Wilson’s desk.

  ‘This is shite, boss. Mark Howitt had sex with Leila Hardy, then ran away when he found her dead in that room. He didn’t kill her and he didn’t kill the others.’

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  McNab hesitated. He was sure, but it would take more than his word to prove it. ‘Forensic results should show he wasn’t in Shannon’s flat or anywhere near the body of Barry Fraser.’

  ‘What if that’s not the case?’

  A wave of anger broke over McNab. He’d chased Mark Howitt but had never caught him. Mark had given himself up in the end and last night had told his story. A story that had rung true to McNab.

  ‘The hand in the video wasn’t his,’ he said.

  ‘That doesn’t mean he wasn’t there,’ Bill countered, just as McNab had done earlier with Mark. ‘Way back when we discussed this, we contemplated that there might be two perpetrators involved. What about the friend?’

  ‘I ordered him to come in and give a DNA sample and a statement.’

  ‘Has he done it?’

  McNab ran his hand through his hair. ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  DI Wilson gave him a sympathetic look. ‘You’ve been here all night. Go home, Sergeant. Get some sleep.’

  McNab laughed. ‘Like that’s going to happen, sir.’

  ‘A death in custody is a serious matter, especially the death of the son of a prominent QC.’

  McNab grimaced. ‘Mark’s last words to me when I mentioned contacting his father were, “I’m dead to him now”.’

  The duty doctor examined the prisoner Mark Howitt and found him to be in good physical condition, although low in mood. He had not been put on suicide watch, although a police officer had checked him at half-hourly intervals. He had surrendered his valuables and had been deemed as having nothing on his person which might be used to harm himself or others.

  He had requested paper and a pen to write to his parents, which had been duly supplied. He had been seen shortly after this, writing at the desk. At the next check he was on his bed apparently asleep with his face turned to the wall.

  The next time he was checked, he lay in the same position but there was a smell from the cell which suggested that he may have soiled himself. On entering the cell the officer found that the prisoner had taken off his socks and wedged them deep into his throat. The doctor then called tried to resuscitate the prisoner but failed. He was pronounced dead at 12.55.

  Bill had phoned Mark Howitt Senior in person that morning to tell him the news of his son’s suicide in custody. Bill chose not to elaborate on the circumstances until he met him in person. He owed him that much at least.

  He and Mark Howitt Senior were friends from way back, when Bill had been at the police college and Mark a defence lawyer. They’d kept in touch over the years, although sporadically. As QC and detective inspector they did not move in the same social circles, but that didn’t mean they didn’t appreciate the role each of them played in upholding the law. Bill was aware that, though unsaid, Mark Howitt Senior had little time for Superintendent Sutherland, although they were often required to be seen together. In that, as in other things, they shared a common bond.

  Despite his exalted position and wealth, Bill regarded Mark Howitt as a man he could deal with. A man he could trust. A man who deserved to be told the whole t
ruth about his son, as far as Bill was aware of it.

  The formalities of the identification of his son over, Bill suggested they go somewhere quiet to talk.

  ‘I’d prefer outside the station,’ said the man who’d appeared to age ten years in the last half an hour. ‘I don’t want to be away from Sarah for long. I’ve chosen not to tell her. I hope I may not have to.’

  Bill had no words to say what he felt at this moment.

  ‘Can we talk somewhere in the open? A park perhaps?’

  Bill had led him to the nearby square and they were seated there now. The morning sun played on the trees that were already showing signs of autumn.

  Bill spoke slowly and quietly, aware that what he was about to say would be difficult to take in, even for someone of the intelligence and discernment of the man before him. He explained how Mark had come into the station and confessed to being the man who’d left The Pot Still with Leila Hardy on the night she died.

  ‘He admitted he was high on drugs and drink and had sex with Leila, but insisted he didn’t kill her. My detective sergeant believed him and there is some video evidence sent to Mark’s mobile which suggests he was being pressured into believing he had suffocated the girl. This has been proved false, although he could have been present when it happened.’

  The face before him had become etched in stone, each line deepened like scores on granite.

  ‘I suspected something was wrong when we met to discuss his mother. The news of her impending death was a shock to him. He wanted to come and see her but I forbade it. That was a mistake.’

  ‘Mark left a statement admitting to all three murders. He insisted that he killed Shannon Jones and the barman who served them that night, because they could identify him.’

  ‘Is that possible?’

  ‘It could be if we have forensic evidence to put him at those crime scenes.’

  Mark Howitt Senior stared straight ahead.

  ‘I don’t believe we should discuss this any more. I thank you for giving me the details of Mark’s death and the circumstances that led up to it.’

  He rose and held out his hand to Bill. The handshake was as firm as ever.

  ‘Let me know when I can have the body of my son.’

  Bill watched him walk away, a broken man who had lost his son and, it seemed, would soon lose his wife. But Bill had read something else on that granite face. His old friend had wanted to tell Bill something, but found he couldn’t. Or not yet, anyway.

  He brought out his mobile and called home. Margaret answered almost immediately.

  ‘Bill, what is it?’ she said, sounding worried.

  ‘Nothing,’ he lied, ‘I just wanted to hear your voice.’

  51

  McNab stepped into the shower and turned it to the power setting. The impact on his skull felt like a pneumatic drill pounding his brain. He stood like that for all of five minutes, then moved the impact to his neck and shoulders.

  After this he would eat, he promised himself, even if his stomach wasn’t asking for food.

  He stepped out after fifteen minutes, finishing with a blast of cold water. If he’d been asleep on his feet before, he was awake now.

  Dried and dressed, he went through to the kitchen and put on the coffee machine, doubling the required number of spoonfuls of fresh coffee for the amount of water he poured in.

  He’d purchased enough ingredients for breakfast in the local corner shop on his way home. He could have stopped at a cafe en route but feared that he would fall asleep, his face in whatever they served him.

  He fired up the gas and, adding oil to the pan, set about frying the big breakfast pack of sausage, bacon, black and white pudding. Once cooked, he slipped the slices into the oven to keep warm and fried himself two eggs to go with it.

  Once he began the process of eating, hunger took over and he demolished the food in record time. Wiping the plate clean with bread, he poured himself another coffee. Feeling human again, he said a silent thank you that he was not facing a hangover. He’d survived last night probably because he hadn’t taken to whisky.

  Opening the window wide, he stood in the draught of cool air and took a deep breath of Glasgow oxygen.

  Now he would go and see Freya. She had to be told what had happened last night that had stopped him going round there, and it was better he did that in person. Trying her number, he heard it ring out unanswered. Well past nine o’clock now, he told himself she would be at the university library, and that’s where he should head first. He left a message on voicemail to that effect, apologizing for not coming over due to an emergency at work, which he would explain when he saw her.

  McNab then put his dishes in the sink, ran some water on them, fetched his jacket and set off.

  The food and the shower had brought a clarity to his thinking that had escaped him in the long hours of the night. His gut feeling told him that Mark had lied. Not about the night he spent with Leila, but about his contact with the person who’d sent him the video clip.

  That someone had in some manner persuaded Mark to kill himself. ‘No one else will die.’ That phrase had jumped out at McNab. His own initial response to it had been positive, because he wanted to believe that now Freya would be safe. But who had said, ‘No one else will die’?

  McNab didn’t think those words had come from Mark, but from someone who’d persuaded Mark that if he confessed, that would be the case.

  Mark had sacrificed himself, but for whom and for what?

  The image of the Nine reared again in his head. Power, money, influence. That’s what the men Leila had performed sexual magick with all had.

  ‘Fuck them,’ McNab said out loud. ‘I’m going to fuck them, if it’s the last thing I do.’

  Rhona had risen to the drill of her mobile.

  Sean, on the other hand, slept on. This time Rhona didn’t resent his peaceful sleep but merely acknowledged it. She thought about placing a kiss on his forehead, but decided against it. He might stir and envelop her in his arms and she would succumb. She must save dessert for a later date.

  The caller was Chrissy, her voice high with excitement or shock.

  ‘Mark Howitt handed himself in and confessed to the three murders then suffocated himself in his cell.’

  A stunned Rhona asked Chrissy to repeat this more slowly.

  ‘A mate called me. When she went on duty this morning, the station was alive with the news. Mark Howitt, the QC’s son, gave himself up last night. Confessed to McNab that he was the man who’d taken Leila Hardy home. Then wrote a further confession in his cell. He claimed that he also killed Shannon and Barry Fraser to cover his tracks.’

  Rhona called a halt at this point.

  ‘We have no forensic tests to prove that the man with Leila that night was also present at the other crime scenes.’

  ‘Well, we’d better prove it or not, soon,’ Chrissy said in her usual forthright manner. ‘My bet’s on a false confession.’

  Rhona was inclined on instinct to agree.

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘He said that no more killings would happen,’ Chrissy told her.

  ‘Has this hit the news?’

  ‘Not so far. Want to take a bet how long it takes? Witch killer and son of QC confesses all, then commits suicide. He promises in his confession that no one else will die.’

  ‘You should be a reporter,’ Rhona said.

  ‘I’d write a damn good headline,’ Chrissy retorted. ‘But seriously, you need to get down to the mortuary.’

  There are some places in life that are necessary. There are places necessary for the dead too. A room full of drawers of dead people sounded like something from a horror film, yet here they were. As necessary as air was, to those who lived.

  The scent of death was masked in here by the presence of cold. Deep, penetrating cold that halted, or at least suspended, the organic disintegration of the human body that was both inevitable and essential.

  Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, or
rather decomposition, which didn’t sound so philosophical, but did sound less messy. In her time, Rhona had had her hands in gloop consisting of human remains, mud and blood, so looking on cold marbled bodies could be thought of as easy in comparison.

  Except it wasn’t.

  The young man before her was a perfect specimen of a male human body. Sculptured. Bone and sinew in complete harmony. Handsome even in death. The enormity of the loss of possibility was there to view.

  Mark Howitt had gone out for a night of fun. The penis that lay there cold and flaccid had driven him to pastures new. Excitement heightened by cocaine and alcohol. But at the end of the day he was driven by a male’s need to have sex. Primeval, maybe, but nevertheless the reason why humans continued to exist. Without that drive, there would be no future. No future generation.

  It seemed that Leila had responded to this need, matching it with her own desire. There had been no coercion, except perhaps on her part.

  Neither of those two young people had wished evil, but nevertheless it had been visited on them.

  An’ it harm none, do what thou wilt.

  How did following such a creed end in such evil?

  There would be a post-mortem, but the result was already known. Mark Howitt had died by his own hand. So determined had he been to end his life that he had stuffed his socks so far down his throat that it would have been impossible to stop his own suffocation.

  He had died as he thought Leila had died. A fitting retribution.

  Or was it?

  Rhona indicated that she’d seen enough and the mortuary assistant shut the drawer.

  Bill was seated in his usual place at the window, the mug of cold coffee or tea on the desk beside him. Rhona waited while he turned, the resultant girn sounding like an old friend reappearing in difficult circumstances.

  ‘You saw him?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I broke the news to his father. We know one another from way back.’ He halted for a moment. ‘It was Mark Howitt QC who I consulted about the denied access.’

  ‘My God,’ Rhona said.

  ‘Strange how circular life is.’