by Lin Anderson
‘I’d rather do it myself.’
‘We haven’t tracked down all the members of the ring. If he survived your attack and the fire at the cottage, he had contacts that would help him.’
‘I know.’
‘Let’s hope it’s him then.’
She nodded. ‘I’m going to drive through to Edinburgh.’
‘Thought you might,’ he smiled. ‘Best of luck.’
City of Edinburgh Council had tidied up the housing scheme twice in the past ten years. It had been a waste of time. New paint and pointy roofs couldn’t cover the rot inside. The face was improved but the soul had already departed. The wide streets could have housed an articulated lorry either side. Residents of the more salubrious parts of Edinburgh would have given their eye teeth for the hundreds of parking spaces that lined the grid of houses. An attempt had been made to install a heart when it was first built, with a block that held a cinema, a church, a couple of shops and a bookies. The cinema had turned into a bingo hall, the shops shut except the post office and one determined butcher, who had obviously been made of strong stuff, repainting his graffiti-covered walls regularly. Rhona could make out the sedimentary layers of expletives under the thin white paint.
If MacFarlane was surprised to see her he didn’t show it. When he emerged from the burned out building, Rhona fully expected MacRae to follow him. She had steeled herself for it. But MacFarlane was alone.
‘I take it the body’s gone?’ she asked.
‘An hour ago.’
‘I’ll call in at Pathology then.’
‘Suit yourself. You know the Doc though. Not too keen on the West poking its nose in our affairs.’
‘We’ve had similar cases. It might help. Is MacRae involved with this one?’ The words were out before she could stop them.
MacFarlane’s face was impassive. ‘Sev’s taking some leave.’
So Gillian got what she wanted.
‘Want to take a look inside?’
At least MacFarlane took her seriously, Rhona thought, then felt bad. MacRae had taken her seriously. They’d just sparked off each other like a tinder box and dry paper. Together they could have started a fire in a damp room.
There wasn’t much left of this room. In a corner lay half a dozen cans and what looked like the remains of bedding. There was an old-fashioned stuffed armchair and the blackened bits of a kitchen table. Rhona stepped round the charred remains.
‘Where did you find the body?’
‘Over there.’
MacFarlane pointed at the far wall. The SOCOs had drawn the body outline halfway up the wall, as if the victim had been propped against it. The wall was heavily smoke marked and soaking wet from the deluge of water but here and there lurid purple wallpaper was still visible.
‘Did you find the remains of any pictures?’ Rhona said.
‘Pictures?’
‘That might have fallen off the wall,’ she tried again.
MacFarlane shook his head uncomprehendingly.
‘I just wondered what these were for.’
The nails were six inchers. Big enough to support Salvador Dali’s Christ of St John of the Cross. They stuck out rigidly from the wall, three feet apart.
‘Did you see the victim’s hands?’ Rhona asked. She dropped her forensic bag beside her and flipped it open.
‘Hands?’ Obviously MacFarlane wasn’t sharing her thoughts. ‘The body was badly burned. That’s all I know.’
Rhona pointed to the wall near the nails. ‘Did your forensic team sample the wall here?’
‘I don’t know. I’d have to check.’
Rhona rubbed a filter paper round each nail then dropped on the reagents. She showed MacFarlane the pink result. By the look on his face, MacFarlane was catching up.
‘I think he was crucified before the place was set on fire.’
MacFarlane hitched a lift back with her. She suspected he wanted to talk or maybe make sure Dr MacKenzie would give her house-room at the post mortem. MacFarlane’s excuse was he was short of squad cars and wanted to leave two for the constables doing the rounds asking questions of the residents.
‘I don’t like my men in there without a getaway vehicle,’ he said.
He wasn’t joking.
Rhona swung out onto the main road, which had been traffic calmed with crazy paving and big ugly bollards. A few struggling trees survived inside their mesh cages. Yet the housing scheme’s setting couldn’t have been better. Easy access to the ring road, an established shopping mall nearby, a short car journey through Holyrood park to Scotland’s parliament building and the city centre. Private housing was already encroaching from the east, neat semis, toy houses in red brick with pseudo Georgian entrances.
MacFarlane took his time. They were nearly at the Pathology Lab before he asked her why she’d come back.
She told him about her conversation with DI Wilson, the contaminated cocaine and the burn marks on the Glasgow boy’s wrists.
‘So we go one better, and nail ours to the wall?’ MacFarlane said grimly.
‘Edinburgh always has to go one better. It’s traditional.’
MacFarlane looked thoughtful. A spate of drug-related deaths linked by fire. But nothing to do with the city centre fires, which were potentially more disastrous. Rhona asked who was dealing with them.
‘No one. Sev’s off and Gallagher’s still in hospital.’
‘So why was I sent away?’
No answer.
She pulled over on a double yellow line.
‘It was MacRae, wasn’t it?’
MacFarlane hesitated. ‘Sev thought you’d be safer in Glasgow.’ He looked uncomfortable.
‘I would never have left if I’d known.’
‘That’s why he did it.’
They were causing a traffic jam on the narrow road. She indicated and drew out.
‘What happens now?’
‘We continue our enquiries and hope we’re wrong about the timing.’
‘You’ll let the Hogmanay party go ahead?’
‘We have no choice.’
It seems you didn’t cancel the biggest New Year Party in the world on the strength of a unsubstantiated threat. Rhona changed tack.
‘What made MacRae think I was in danger?’
‘There was a letter after the fire at his house. It mentioned your name.’
A fleeting picture entered Rhona’s brain. A single red rose. A place setting. The song on the ansaphone.
‘You okay?’ MacFarlane looked worried.
‘Of course I’m okay,’ she said shortly. ‘What about Amy?’
‘Gillian took her up north to her mother’s for a while.’
‘So what’s MacRae doing with his leave?’
MacFarlane made a face. ‘Probably drinking.’
The Pathology Unit loomed up in front of her. Rhona drew into a reserved space and switched off the engine.
The pathologist’s voice had a war weary tone. Heat contraction of the skin of a corpse often produced splits which might be interpreted as tears or cuts inflicted during life, he told her. The distinction between burns inflicted during life and burns inflicted on an already dead body could be difficult, if not impossible to detect at autopsy.
‘So you don’t think he was nailed to the wall?’ Bluntness seemed Rhona’s only instrument.
MacKenzie’s pale blue eyes rolled upwards as if she had just committed a social gaffe. ‘I didn’t say that.’
Rhona sought refuge in MacFarlane’s encouraging look.
‘Dr MacLeod took samples from around the nails we found in the wall,’ he said. ‘If this body wasn’t nailed to the wall, then someone else was.’
The pathologist turned his blue stare on MacFarlane.
‘The hands could have been injured prior to death.’ The tone was grudging, but the words were enough.
‘Do we know how he died?’ Rhona asked.
‘Come and have a look.’
MacKenzie waved them over to the body. Rho
na followed him with MacFarlane a foot behind.
‘The thoracic and abdominal walls are partly burned away, but the viscera are largely intact and show no evidence of natural disease.’ MacKenzie pointed at a basin. ‘Our victim’s last meal. The usual healthy diet, pie beans and chips. Oh and there was vomit in the oesophagus. The larynx, trachea and bronchi contained a large amount of soot and the lungs and major blood vessels were bright red.’
MacKenzie moved further down the body with Rhona following. MacFarlane stayed where he was.
‘As you can see, the testes and external genitalia are burned away, but the presence of a prostate and seminal vesicles confirm the body is male.’
‘Age?’ Rhona said.
‘The medial epiphyses of the clavicles were almost completely fused so twenty-one or more. The lack of atheroma in the coronary arteries, aorta and other major vessels suggest he was certainly under forty. A young adult male.’
‘Death by smoke inhalation?’
MacKenzie nodded. ‘Most likely.’
So whatever torture he’d been through didn’t mean he escaped the terror of the fire.
‘Any clue as to his identity?’ she said.
‘The body is too badly charred for visual recognition. However there were some surviving items that might provide a clue.’
The pathologist left the table and brought over a small metal tray for inspection. The smell in the room was becoming oppressive. Much more of this and barbecues would permanently lose their appeal.
‘Would it be possible to establish the presence of thallium in the body?’ Rhona asked.
The pathologist was simultaneously evaluating the possibility of meeting her request and the reason for it. ‘In a similar case in Glasgow, there was some evidence to suggest the boy had been poisoned with thallium,’ she enlarged.
‘Really? God forbid that we should be following in Glasgow’s footsteps.’ It was an attempt at humour, at least.
The pathologist motioned them over to a side room to examine the contents of the tray and left them alone. When the door clicked shut behind them, MacFarlane’s sigh of relief matched her own. Rhona laid the tray on the work surface and perched on the stool beside it while MacFarlane tried to suck air in from the air conditioner that whined above them.
‘Last time we met it was me being sick,’ she teased.
‘And me taking the Mickey.’
They exchanged smiles.
‘Shall we take a look at the victim’s prize possessions?’
Two small earrings and a key with a metal tag lay on the tray.
‘Probably a front door key,’ she suggested.
‘Not a yale.’ He picked it up and turned it over in his hand. ‘There’s something scratched on the tag.’
The word looked like ‘Robbie’. A name that meant nothing to either of them.
Later, as they drove away, MacFarlane asked if she’d had any luck with the semen found in the female victim.
‘It didn’t match the letter,’ Rhona told him.
‘And we have no way of knowing if it was rape or not.’
She shook her head. ‘I’d like to see the letter with my name in it.’
MacFarlane looked uneasy at the change of subject. ‘Forensic has it.’
It looked like MacFarlane had been planning a visit to Forensic, but definitely not with her in tow. It was obvious he was uncomfortable about her being there at all. Severino MacRae had a lot to answer for.
Rhona tried to look on the bright side. Hopefully the threatening letter had reached Forensic without a sojourn in MacRae’s stale glove compartment.
Chapter 15
MacRae hadn’t moved from the flat in the last twenty-four hours.
Jaz glared at the first floor window then headed to the corner café with the dog at his heels. It had been a waste of time giving MacRae the drawing and telling him about wee Mary. MacRae hadn’t done a bloody thing since he’d seen him in the pub, except go on a bender.
Jaz bit at the pie the waitress brought him and took a slurp of tea. He was losing income arse-ing about outside MacRae’s flat waiting for him to come out and get on with the job. He broke a piece of the pie and dropped it under the table along with a handful of chips. There was a scuffle then a wet tongue licked his hand. It was expensive feeding Emps. Karen must have spent most of her earnings on the dog, Jaz realised.
He spent the rest of the morning selling the Big Issue and deciding what to do next. He could take his drawing and description to the police station. Ask to speak to MacFarlane. He didn’t hold out much hope there. He would be lucky to get past the Desk Sergeant. As far as the police were concerned, he was a low-life and always would be.
A woman was headed up the steps from the station and for a moment he thought it was the lady scientist. When she got nearer Jaz realised his mistake, but it gave him an idea. If MacRae wouldn’t do anything, maybe she would. Jaz shoved the remaining magazines in his bag and set off along Princes Street towards the West End.
When Rhona called Greg at work, he told her there was no problem about staying at the flat again. He wouldn’t be back that night, so she would have the place to herself. She planned to call Chrissy and bring her up to date, but decided not to mention the threatening letter that MacFarlane had allowed her to photocopy, against his better judgement.
At Greg’s, she poured herself a glass of wine and ran a bath. She would have to seek out MacRae, persuade him to come back on the case, Rhona decided. MacFarlane had been loyal enough not to confess how worried he was. MacRae might be the only hope of outmanoeuvring the arsonist before he struck again. Lying in the bath, Rhona re-read the photocopied letter.
The contents showed a strong link between fire and sexual excitement. The author also hated women. Karen’s genitalia had been burned before the fire started. The arsonist had moved on. Setting a building alight was no longer enough.
This was why MacRae hadn’t wanted her around, she thought. Why he’d tried to get rid of her at their first meeting. Why he’d got MacFarlane to recall her to Glasgow.
She examined the text of the letter again. The words were all written in lower case except for an occasional capital letter. The capitals didn’t make a word, but they did look familiar. With a flash of insight and excitement, she realised why.
Out of the bath and dressed in Greg’s bathrobe, Rhona fetched her laptop, powered up and opened her anonymous email. The letters were in a different order, but they were definitely the same as the capitals in MacRae’s letter..
I C H B U N R T E B T H
The more Rhona stared at the characters, the more she realised this couldn’t be a co-incidence.
She began by isolating the three vowels. She would assume there were at least two words, maybe three, each with a vowel. She made up ‘BURN’ , then concentrated on the other letters. Once she separated the word ‘THE’, it was easy.
BURN THE BITCH.
The person sending the emails was the person writing the letters.
The sharpness of the buzzer interrupted her. When she answered it, the male voice on the intercom was a mixture of belligerence and apology.
‘It’s Karen’s friend. I need to talk to you about MacRae.’
‘Come up.’
He stood in the hall taking in the polished French tiles, the glistening glass chandelier, the deep rug. Rhona wanted to tell him she felt the same when she saw Greg’s flat for the first time, that her flat was a mess of cat hair and forensic journals. Instead she pointed the way through to the even more palatial sitting room.
Jaz’s jacket was damp across the shoulders and the dark pony tail glistened with rain. The dog looked equally drenched.
‘Can I get you a coffee? Warm you up?’
Rhona thought he was about to refuse then he seemed to relax and nodded, rubbing his hands together in front of the fire.
‘Yeah. That would be great.’
When she returned from putting the kettle on, Jaz was sitting on the couch, the d
og sprawled at his feet.
‘Some place.’
She smiled. ‘Yes, but unfortunately not mine.’
‘Oh.’ He looked perturbed. ‘I thought...’
‘I live in Glasgow,’ she explained. ‘This is a friend’s place. He lets me stay when I come through.’
‘Good friend.’
‘Yes, he is.’
Rhona went back to the kitchen to make the coffee. Through the open door she observed his profile, almost feminine with the ponytail hanging over his shoulder. Rhona wondered if she had been wise to let him in, especially when Greg wasn’t here. There were a lot of things lying about the place, things that could be slipped into his pocket, sold later for drugs or drink. Rhona chided herself as she poured the coffee. Just because Jaz was homeless didn’t make him a criminal.
She brought through the coffee.
‘The night after we talked about Karen, were you hanging about outside?’
Belligerence was back in his reply. ‘Aye, I was. I’ve been watching MacRae too. Waiting for him to do something about Karen. I even gave him a copy of this.’
He handed Rhona a drawing of a man. Rhona studied it.
‘This is very good.’
‘I used to be an art student.’ Jaz’s voice was bitter. ‘Before I screwed up.’
Rhona wanted to ask him what had gone wrong with his life, how he had ended up on the street. Instead she asked why the person in the drawing was important.
‘I think he killed Karen.’
‘Then you should show the police the drawing. Tell them why you think he’s the killer.’
His face darkened. ‘Yeah, right.’ He took the picture from her, stuffed it in his pocket and stood up. ‘Thanks for the coffee.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Not to the fuckin police anyway.’
Rhona caught his arm. ‘Don’t leave yet. I’m sorry... I don’t know your name?’
‘Jaz,’ he said relenting. ‘My friends call me Jaz.’
‘Well, Jaz. I think it’s time we talked properly, don’t you?’
When Jaz left, Rhona went through to Greg’s office and faxed the drawing to Chrissy and asked her to look through all the fire video footage they had. Some fire raisers liked to watch the results of their exploits. Maybe there was a face in a crowd that fitted. She would check the Edinburgh footage herself.