by Mari Hannah
So why did she feel so bloody guilty?
It got up her nose that two of the three people she loved most in the world – Hank being the other – would never get on. Or would they? Bright was making an effort tonight. If he noticed her studying him, he didn’t let on. Realizing that Jo hadn’t been party to his earlier insights on the case, he recapped on the chronology of Arthur McKenzie’s fall from grace for her benefit, underlining the most important details, that he was a hard-nosed thug and Brian Allen’s right-hand man when the two allegedly murdered Dougie O’Kane in 1993.
‘And after Brian disappeared to Newcastle with the family . . . ?’ Jo asked.
‘McKenzie assumed the mantle. He hung around, took over where Brian left off. For a while there were no challengers to get in his way, so he was top dog in town. But when the O’Kane boys grew into men, things started to go tits-up. Actually, that’s why I’m here. According to SOCA, McKenzie was on a hiding to nothing from the start – not as high up the pecking order of the Glasgow gangs as he thought he was. He had a lot of enemies.’
‘You said “that’s not all” before,’ Kate reminded Jo. ‘What did you mean?’
‘Sorry, I nearly forgot. The first time I rang Shotts Prison, the officer I wanted to speak to wasn’t on duty, so I called back. He told me that McKenzie survived a nasty assault by another inmate, a man named Wallace Whittaker—’
‘Let me guess,’ Bright said. ‘A buddy of Craig and Finn O’Kane?’
‘Correct. There’s no hiding place in prison, not unless you opt for solitary confine—’
‘Not Arthur’s style,’ Bright interrupted. ‘He likes to rule the roost.’
‘So I understand.’ Jo had more. ‘Prison officials couldn’t force him into solitary, so they had to protect him in some other way. If an inmate is targeted inside, it causes massive problems for staff because they dare not take their eyes off them, even for a second. In order to keep the lid on the problem, they moved him out of harm’s way, no doubt frustrating the O’Kane boys in the process. If they were, as you suspect, planning to avenge their father’s death, they would put feelers out for information.’
‘Prison grapevines extend across borders,’ Kate said.
‘Exactly.’ Jo paused, collecting her thoughts. ‘Inmates come and go. Believe me, they don’t miss a trick. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that Craig and Finn found out where McKenzie had been moved to, when he was being released, who his visitors were – all via word of mouth.’
‘I’m surprised they weren’t waiting for him at the gate,’ Bright said.
‘Maybe they were. But guess what?’
The detectives turned their eyes on Jo.
‘So was Theresa.’
There was still a long way to go, but the case was shaping up nicely.
29
Despite the fact that it was Sunday evening, Kate rang her counterpart in Strathclyde force, DCI Matthew Trewitt. She had no qualms about disturbing his day of rest: Senior Investigating Officers were on call 24/7, every day of the year, including Christmas Day.
He answered his mobile on the second ring.
Having identified herself, Kate explained that she’d got his number from the control room and was calling in connection with a current investigation on her patch: two separate linked murders by torture involving members of the same family. Very nasty offences. She didn’t go into too much detail on the phone, preferring to keep it brief.
‘We have reason to believe that Craig and Finn O’Kane may be responsible.’
‘Sounds right up their street.’ Trewitt’s response was immediate, his tone matter-of-fact, as if torture were an everyday occurrence in Scotland. ‘I hope you’ve got plenty of evidence, because they’re a couple of slippery customers.’
‘I can see that from their rap sheet,’ Kate said. ‘Tell me about them.’
‘Not to put too fine a point on it, they’re scum. They’ve been on the wrong side of the law since birth, just like their father before them. Minor thefts and assaults, graduating to drugs, prostitution and money-lending as they got older – for which they charge a massive amount of interest – and then some. Those who don’t pay end up in a very bad way.’
‘Anything recent?’
‘Aye, you could say that.’ Trewitt exhaled. She could tell he was smoking a cigarette, could swear she could actually smell it.
‘And . . . ?’
‘Thrown out, no case to answer,’ Trewitt said. ‘Happens all the time. They get as far as the court steps. Everyone bottles. Witnesses disappear. I’m sure I don’t need to draw you a picture. If memory serves, a couple of assaults remain on file for the Procurator Fiscal to consider. In fact, some sad bastard is still lying in hospital, too scared to give evidence. The O’Kanes like torture. Section 18 woundings are their speciality. Intent is their middle name.’
‘What kind of torture?’ Kate asked.
‘You name it, they’re into it: fingers, toes, kneecaps – and they especially like jaws.’
The word ‘jaws’ made her shudder.
Trewitt was still talking. ‘By the time they’re done, their victims either hobble everywhere or end up sucking their dinner through a straw. Sometimes both.’
Asking him to report any sightings of her two suspects immediately, Kate hung up. Too wired to go home, and with a lingering image of that gaping jaw, she remained in the incident room long after the others had gone home to spend a couple of well-deserved hours with their wives and families. Only DC Lisa Carmichael insisted on staying on.
With a magnifying glass each – looking like a caricature of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson – the two walked around the room, viewing the results of the team’s efforts that evening. As Kate had requested, frame-by-frame photographs had been posted round the walls with meticulous attention to detail. Each one had been labelled with the time and a list of anyone already identified.
Kate rubbed at her tired eyes. After a while, faces on the stills became indistinct blobs, each one merging into the next as she studied them, paying particular attention to anyone with red hair, a task made more difficult by lighting both inside the club and in the street directly outside. She took a break, suggesting Lisa do likewise. They made a cup of tea and then started again, prepared to work late into the night if necessary.
‘Where are you?’ Kate whispered under her breath.
Convinced that her targets were Craig and Finn O’Kane, and that their motive was revenge, she had the distinct feeling she was missing something that was staring her in the face, an impression she shared with her young DC.
‘Like what?’ Carmichael asked.
Kate shrugged. ‘If I knew the answer to that, I’d be home in bed and so would you.’
Walking across the room, she picked up a hard copy of Brown’s report that someone had discarded on a desk. She scanned the notes she’d made in the right-hand column. The bouncer was easy. Contacting the QC key-holder led to an immediate name and address. Brown had gone to see him and, together with other detectives drafted in to assist, he’d spent much of the evening piecing together evidence of who was who.
Information was sketchy. Some regular members the bouncer knew, others he recognized only by face. The team were lucky in one respect: professional doormen were paid to be observant. They were able to make associations between clubbers it would’ve taken the Murder Investigation Team months to establish. Who was friendly with whom in the queue to get in, who was passing drugs, who was trouble, who was canny. The bouncer had even given them information as to where some of the punters lived. In short, he knew the clientele inside out. Except – surprise, surprise – for John Allen, who, he claimed, just happened to be a member of the same gymnasium.
‘Our only contact outside of the gym was at the QC,’ he’d told Brown.
‘Yeah right,’ Kate muttered as she scanned the image in front of her, the two men’s hands frozen in a celebratory high five. ‘What was that all about then?’
; ‘You’re talking to yourself again,’ Lisa said.
Kate didn’t answer. She’d moved to another section of footage, her mind racing as she realized what she was looking at.
Stop, stop, STOP!
She’d prioritized the examination of CCTV from ten o’clock onwards around the hospital and Silverlink, based on the time Terry and John had left the club, and yet . . . Kate blinked, thinking that her eyes were deceiving her. Was she seeing things? She stared at the images again. ‘Jesus!’ she said under her breath.
Her exclamation brought Carmichael rushing from the other side of the room.
‘Find something?’ she asked, following her boss’s gaze.
‘I don’t know, Lisa. Tell me what you see.’
Carmichael raised her magnifying glass, studying the images. She pointed at some figures: John Allen, Terry Allen and a young girl already identified by her distinctive red dress – the blonde seen entering the club in front of Terry at ten past eight on Thursday night. Her name was Rose, although the team didn’t yet have a surname.
‘Anyone else?’ Kate asked.
Carmichael rechecked. ‘No.’
‘Look at the timeline.’
Lisa stared at the wall for a long time, then glanced at her boss as she realized what was so wrong about the picture. The frame they had been examining was timed at 1:06 a.m. It was clear to both detectives that at some point during the night they died, Terry and John had doubled back to the nightclub, which meant that the squad had been wasting precious resources on the wrong time frame.
‘We need to start again, Lisa. Find out when exactly they returned and, more importantly, when they left again. You up for it?’
It was a daft question.
30
This was no ordinary grey and rainy Monday morning. No amount of depression in the weather could dampen Kate Daniels’ spirits. She was on a roll, finally making headway, in possession of unequivocal proof that she was on the right track. Her discovery that Terry and John made not one but two visits to the QC club on Thursday, 23 August wasn’t the full story. With Carmichael’s help, she’d established that the brothers had re-entered the premises shortly before midnight; they then came running out again at eight minutes after two. John was screaming into his phone as they separated, legging it in different directions. A few minutes later, two men were seen climbing down the fire escape, coats over their heads in order to mask their identity – or their red hair.
Kate had slept for less than four hours. She didn’t feel tired – just depressed by the prospect of meeting Bethany’s grief-stricken parents, a task so grim the worry of it had deprived her of the little time she had to rest. Try as she might to imagine how they were feeling right now, in her heart she knew she wouldn’t come close. Pushing away that gloomy thought, she allowed the adrenalin rush she’d felt the night before to bubble to the surface, knowing from experience that it would carry her through until the Millers arrived.
CCTV sightings of the Allen brothers at the QC nightclub had cut the time frame down considerably, allowing her to target her enquiries more appropriately, leaving far less time unaccounted for than she had originally calculated between their exit from the premises and the discovery of their bodies at the RVI and Silverlink Industrial Estate.
Kate had issued a TIE action to trace, implicate or eliminate her suspects, Craig and Finn O’Kane. Her gut instinct was that they were responsible. The onus was on the Murder Investigation Team to find enough evidence to prove it in a court of law and she’d instructed the squad to do a job on them. An information gathering exercise to uncover recent photographs, current and past addresses, what vehicles they drove, who their associates were, what offences they were suspected of, details of significant others and current financial position.
‘Every scrap of intelligence is being checked.’ Kate was heading along the corridor with Jo towards the staff canteen, a chance to escape the mayhem of the incident room for a few minutes and talk without interruption. ‘Finding them is the hard part. They’re thugs, not down-and-outs living on the street. These men are clever criminals hiding behind reputable businesses in Glasgow, Edinburgh and other cities too.’
‘Can’t you put out a general alert?’ Jo asked.
‘You mean flash it all over the papers?’
They turned the corner, pushing open the door. Perfect: the room was empty. They got water from the machine and took a seat beneath the window, Kate telling Jo that it would be unwise to involve the media at this early stage. On the one hand they could be very useful – it would give her many more pairs of eyes if local people knew what the O’Kane brothers looked like – but the last thing she wanted was some have-a-go hero getting hurt tackling a pair of dangerous psychopaths.
‘I have to be so careful not to spook the public or drive the offenders underground,’ she explained. ‘Maintaining a silence means the O’Kanes won’t know what we know. I want to keep it that way.’
Jo fell silent, lifted her drink to her lips and sipped gently, leaving no lipstick on the white beaker. How the hell did she do that? How, despite the demands of her job, did she manage to turf up at work as if she’d stepped out of a photo shoot? Kate’s eyes travelled unashamedly over Jo’s pleated navy shirt, the alluring split at the neck, a tiny button the only thing keeping it from slipping from her shoulders.
‘I’ve contacted Strathclyde police,’ she said. ‘I’ve been very guarded, putting feelers out to find out what the tale is, but only with my operational equivalent. People talk. It pays not to trust anyone. The fewer people who know we’re sniffing around, the better. The O’Kane brothers have no idea our disqualified driver spotted red hair, or that Vicky told us where John was headed the night he died. They’ll be hoping that none of that information is available to us. Fortunately, they’re wrong.’
‘You think they’re still on the patch?’
Kate shrugged. ‘They could still be here, waiting for McKenzie to stick his head above the parapet. On the other hand, they may have gone off home until the heat dies down. Our lot are well briefed to keep a lookout. On the off chance they’re already across the border, the SIO up there has been primed to give me a shout.’
‘Did you find John and Terry’s phones?’
‘No, I didn’t. That reminds me, mind if I make a call?’
Taking her phone from her pocket, Kate dialled a number.
A woman answered. ‘CSI Northumbria.’
Kate grimaced. They were SOCO! What was with the fancy name? ‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Kate Daniels, Murder Investigation Team. I’d like to talk to the officer who inspected the burnt-out Range Rover in the East End . . . yes, part of the Allen enquiry. Quick as you can, please.’
The line clicked and a male officer picked up, identifying himself, telling her he’d completed his report and was about to call her.
‘Good. You have something for me?’
‘Negative. I’m afraid there’s no sign of any components of mobile telephones in the vehicle.’ Kate thanked him and hung up. It was not the result she was after.
31
‘Ha!’ Gormley chuckled. ‘Turns out the Essex Lion is no more than a large domestic cat called Teddy Bear.’ He was referring to reports of a wild animal roaming the tiny village of St Osyth. The news had taken the media by storm, triggering the involvement of experts from Colchester Zoo as well as police firearms teams. ‘Witnesses reported having seen and even heard the ruddy thing roar. Divvis!’
Kate grinned. It was much-needed light relief from the serious offences they were dealing with. She’d come from a fraught meeting with Bethany Miller’s parents, who, having formally identified their daughter’s body, had stayed in Newcastle overnight, insisting on speaking to the Senior Investigating Officer before returning home to Cumbria – as was their right. Kate had taken the opportunity to find out more about the girl, whether she’d been in touch, whether she had any friends she might have stayed in touch with. But the parents were vague – no,
more than that, they were downright evasive and uncaring – leaving her in no doubt as to why Bethany preferred prostitution on the streets of Newcastle to life with them. Maxwell was mistaken. There was little love in that family; no chance of Bethany patching things up and moving back in, with or without a baby. And now the Millers had the effrontery to demand justice for the poor girl.
Shame they hadn’t been so concerned when she was alive.
The rest of Kate’s morning was spent with her team, a recap of where they were at. The consensus of opinion was that the O’Kanes were unaware they were being hunted – or they didn’t care. The brothers’ arrival at the club did not feature in the frame-by-frame pictures on the incident-room wall, and all they had of their departure were shots of two figures leaving via the fire escape, faces obscured by their coats. Brown suggested the O’Kanes had sent someone ahead to open a toilet window on the ground floor so they could slip in unobserved. Security wasn’t foolproof by any means.
Kate looked out through the grubby window on to the street below, preoccupied with thoughts of Terry and John, particularly their missing phones. She needed to find them. Outside, the rain had cleared. The wind was getting up as people hurried along Market Street in their lunch break, passing a row of police vehicles parked all along the road. Getting out of an unmarked vehicle was a DS she’d had a brief fling with at training school.
Two-timing bastard.
The relationship was history, however, the recollection prompted a thought about cheating other halves. It made her wonder about Amanda – John Allen’s latest squeeze, according to the gossip Brown had overheard at Grant’s. She’d still not been located. SOCA didn’t have her down as one of his known criminal associates, so the connection had to be pleasure rather than business. CCTV footage showed that he’d called someone twice from the QC Club. If he was two-timing Vicky and it wasn’t her he was calling, maybe it was Amanda.