The Relentless Tide

by Denzil Meyrick

  He resolved to abandon the race, wait a few moments, then take a walk further up the track to where the shallow graves had been discovered. He’d make some excuse about the half marathon being too much for him and beg a lift back from one of the forensic team, presumably still on site examining the crime scene. In reality, he’d have a poke about to see just who was up there and try to place that voice.

  Scott hoped something would jog his memory further than his legs had managed to take him.

  Glasgow, 1994

  As always after the act, the man was disgusted with himself. He stared at the naked corpse of the woman who lay face down on the lounge floor.

  He went to the kitchen and returned with some heavy, black builder’s film, walking back to where the pale young woman’s eviscerated body lay. He pulled thin rubber gloves from his pocket and began to unroll the film beside the corpse – as always, just over twice the length of the body, equidistant at either end.

  As he turned her over on to the plastic sheeting, it wasn’t the absence of life in her face that caught his attention, rather the gold locket that flopped on its chain between the cleft of her breasts, now bloody and mottled grey in death.

  As he made to grab it, three loud knocks sounded on his front door.

  He froze, panic making it difficult to breathe.

  Kinloch, the present

  Daley paced around his glass box. He bent over his desk again, checking the message on the screen once more. To add to the dental records, the DNA of the first set of remains had been identified. They belonged to Anne Marie McKean, divorced mother of two, who had been missing since 1994, one of the three missing women presumed to be the last victims of the Midweek Murderer.

  He sat down again, restlessly swivelling from side to side on his chair. Somehow, seeing her face again had been a shock. He’d always argued that she had been a victim of the Midweek Murderer. The three women had disappeared under exactly the same circumstances as those whose bodies had been discovered discarded around the city in ditches or lanes, or simply flung in the Clyde. The only difference was that while the previous remains had been carelessly disposed of, those he’d always reckoned to be the final three had never been found – until now. For some reason, the modus operandi had altered. Something had made the murderer change his approach.

  Daley swivelled round and stared at the large map of the area on the back wall of his office. Why did they end up here? Why Kintyre?

  He felt the same rush as all those many years ago. How ironic that he should end up here in Kinloch, less than a handful of miles away from the last victims of a killer whose case he had worked on for so long – the case that had nearly ended his police career almost before it began.

  Without the courtesy of a knock, Bobby Speirs burst into Daley’s office.

  ‘There, we have it now. No doubt possible, eh?’

  ‘You mean Anne Marie McKean’s DNA? Yes, I’ve just read the email.’

  ‘No’ sure if that makes you happy or sad, Jimmy boy,’ said Speirs, smirking.

  ‘Sad, obviously. A young woman lost her life, her children lost their mother – that will never change. We know now what we always suspected. Why on earth would the memory make me feel happy?’

  ‘Proves you right, son, does it no’? After all, you banged on about this for long and weary.’

  ‘Yes, and you weren’t listening, if I remember.’

  ‘Oh, come on, son, get off your fucking high horse! We were fighting a losing battle. We’d mair deid women than we could handle. You must remember that. Aye, and you were doing your best to add to that number.’

  ‘No one wanted to know.’

  ‘Is it any wonder? The way you were behaving wasn’t designed tae win friends and influence people, I can tell you that right now.’

  ‘But it’s not what you told me at the time, is it?’

  ‘Still at this – after a’ this time – I can hardly believe it. If you want some advice, leave the past be, Jimmy. You damn near went tae jail o’er it the last time round. Don’t make the same mistake again.’

  ‘Oh, Bobby, but you forget, things are different now. I’m not the rookie detective, wet behind the ears, and you’ve been put out to pasture. Your threats aren’t worth shit.’

  ‘Is that so? Why am I here, then?’

  ‘Good question. I have no idea. But I aim to make your stay as short as possible.’

  The door burst open, revealing Symington, this time in full uniform.

  ‘Gentlemen, please. I can hear you right down the corridor. I wouldn’t tolerate this type of behaviour from probationers, never mind two senior men. Enough!’ She stared from one to the other, imperious under her braided hat, her Yorkshire accent suddenly strong.

  ‘Och, ma’am, just a bit o’ banter with an auld colleague here. Is that no’ right, son?’

  ‘I may be an old colleague,’ replied Daley, his face still red with anger, ‘but I’m not your son. Just get out. I want to speak to the divisional commander in private.’

  Speirs snorted in derision. ‘Okay. You’ll remember that I don’t have to have any truck wae rank these days. Keep that in mind, son.’ With that he nodded to Symington and left Daley’s office.

  ‘And clean your feet before you come in here!’ shouted Daley at the closed door, looking down at the muddy footprints Speirs had left on the carpet. ‘What a bloody mess.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ said Symington, her eyes alight. ‘Now they’ve managed to harvest identifiable DNA from the victim, they’re hoping something in these graves’ll identify the perpetrator. We need to make progress here, Jim – and quickly. I’m sure we’d rather get a handle on this with the resources we have on the ground. You’ve no idea how many beans I have to count to justify our every move. This is good.’

  ‘I agree it’s good news, ma’am. But, how likely is it that the murderer’s DNA will have survived for more than two decades? Slim, I would say.’ Daley walked to his desk, taking a seat and keying his desktop computer. ‘I’ve been going through old files. They’ve been digitalised now, which is handy. Just got this from Gartcosh.’

  Symington stood behind his chair as Daley typed. A photograph of a woman appeared on the screen. Though the resolution wasn’t good, they could see she had an open, pretty face, a broad smile and blue eyes. Her hair was long; brown ringlets, with a touch of auburn. A link in the long gold chain she was wearing had caught the flash of the camera, twinkling as it held what looked like a locket in place between the cleft of her breasts.

  Anne Marie McKean held a wine glass up to the camera into which she was beaming. She would have passed for any age between twenty and thirty but for the lines on her forehead and crinkles around her eyes that placed her nearer to her fourth decade than her second.

  ‘One of the victims?’ asked Symington, her hand on the back of Daley’s chair.

  ‘Anne Marie McKean, almost twenty-nine when she was murdered. Had two small children – a girl and a boy, from memory. I’ll check.’

  ‘From Glasgow, I take it?’

  ‘Yes. Lived in Maryhill Road in the west of the city, ma’am.’ Despite Symington’s presence, something was working in his brain, telling him that this image was of significance. He stared again, trying to take in every part of the picture. His train of thought was interrupted by the chief superintendent.

  ‘And she ended up on a remote hillside near Kinloch in a shallow grave.’

  ‘Yes, she did,’ replied Daley with a sigh.

  ‘Listen, Jim. You’re not the only one who’s been reading up on this case. I knew you were involved the last time around, and I now know to what extent. If you feel this will be too traumatic, just say. Now we have a positive ID, we can import extra resources quite quickly.’

  ‘No, I’m fine, ma’am. One favour you could do me, though. This is no longer a cold case, is it?’ He nodded purposefully at the door.

  ‘Get rid of Mr Speirs? I don’t think that will be quite as easy, Jim.’

&n
bsp; 21

  Glasgow, 1994

  He had been going to read the letter from Ian Burns at home. But as Daley sat in his vehicle in the car park opposite Stewart Street, he decided he could wait no longer.

  It had been one of the saddest days of his life – one of the most traumatic. He’d learned that his old boss, mentor and friend had been brutally murdered, then faced the awful task of telling Burns’s widow. If that wasn’t hard enough, he’d travelled back to Glasgow convinced he’d lose his job, only to end up with a new posting and a change of rank, albeit temporary.

  He held the envelope bearing the familiar handwriting at arm’s length, propping it up against the steering wheel in the dim light. It was as though Burns himself was bursting to tell him something.

  Daley ripped open the envelope, removed the single sheet of paper within, and began to read.

  Dear Jim,

  It is with a heavy heart that I write these words. Heavy, because you must know that now you are reading them it is certain that I have failed miserably in my intentions.

  When I joined the old Glasgow police force so long ago, or so it seems now, I walked into a very different job when compared to the one I walked out of a few years ago. In those far-off days, most experienced police officers had served during the Second World War. They had seen and done things that even we as modern police officers couldn’t comprehend – were lucky that we never had to face.

  That horrendous experience brought out the best in many brave men, who fought and died to save our country, and our rights, and to preserve the way we live. It also engendered a strong camaraderie – an esprit de corps – that the many who swapped a military uniform for that of a police officer brought with them to their new job.

  Of course, in the main, this comradeship was a good, commendable quality; the forces of law and order require each officer to rely on his or her colleagues as they face the many challenges that are out there, as you well know. Sadly, however, in some cases it was taken too far, stretching the bounds of friendship and loyalty into another, much darker realm.

  You will be unaware that I have kept a close eye on matters involving my old department since I handed in my warrant card. We all know that my replacement isn’t up to the job, and so, through a small number of people I utterly trust, I have been able to help out in some of the more pressing cases with which you all have been involved.

  The Midweek Murders have caused me great concern. Not only because of thoughts of such horror being perpetrated on young women, but also from another worrying perspective.

  In 1963, as a young detective, I faced two murders bearing very similar hallmarks. Airdrie or thereabouts, I think it was. Two young women – late twenties, early thirties – out on the town in the middle of the week. Both had been strangled, and their sexual assaults perpetrated upon them near or after death. The resemblance to the Midweek Murderer case is striking.

  In those days, if we were unable to find a perpetrator within a few weeks, the case would be slowly wound down. We lacked the modern crime-solving techniques that will further improve and widen in scope as time rolls on. Never forget this, Jim. I’m willing to bet this part of our job will become more and more pivotal in the years to come.

  On a cold night shift though, only a few years later, some information came into my possession which implicated someone close to (or actually) a serving police officer in the murders of ’63. No name, just the suggestion that the case of the murdered women had been covered up. The bounds of comradeship had been taken too far.

  Of course, with the limited resources at my disposal then, I tried to make sense of what I had found and reopen the case. I came up against a formidable wall of silence and obstruction that stopped me in my tracks. Indeed, I had almost forgotten about the case until these poor, tragic women began disappearing in what had been my own patch.

  I will not commit the details of my theory to this page, but ask you rather to seek out ACC Taylor. He is a man you can absolutely trust. Like you, he was once one of my protégés. He has done well and is an honest man who shares the same aims for the modern police force as I.

  Who knows, if things have gone so badly that I cannot communicate this to you personally, maybe he has already made contact with you. He can provide all my case notes from 1963 to the present day, as regards this matter.

  Good luck, Jim. You are a good man, a clever, honourable young detective. The future of the job I love depends on men like you.

  No matter how tempting, never take the easy route. Always fight the darkness.

  Your friend, always,

  Ian Burns

  As Daley re-read the letter, it was all he could do to make out the words through the tears streaming down his face.

  He tucked the letter back into the envelope, then into his jacket pocket.

  Burns had been right – Taylor had made contact, and quickly too. Daley would meet the assistant chief constable the next day. He was the man who had apparently saved his career.

  He swore loudly, sitting at a traffic light on his way out of the city. If Burns had told him of his suspicions, the links to the threatening letters would have been obvious.

  But why hadn’t his old boss made him aware of his concerns? He had a feeling that Burns would have liked to alert him, but that the time had never been right. Daley honestly had had no idea his former boss had kept such a close eye on police matters after his retirement. Though, he reasoned, Burns had been so devoted to duty for almost forty years, it would have come to him as naturally as breathing.

  As the lights turned green and the cars in front of his began to move, he glanced at the file he’d laid on the passenger seat. He still had a lot more reading to do. Now, at least, he had some idea where he was going.

  Daley turned up the radio and drove from the bright lights of the city into the darkness of the countryside.

  Kinloch, the present

  The blue dome of the bright afternoon sky was now streaked with the purple clouds of evening as Daley and Scott trudged down to where two very different sets of people were busily at work.

  In the second and third of the shallow graves that had held the victims of the Midweek Murderer, SOCO personnel toiled under their familiar arc lights. Their white protective suits, hoods and masks gave them an ethereal, wraith-like appearance as they worked away in the artificial brightness. There was something otherwordly about the whole thing, thought Daley as he strode towards them.

  At the first burial site – the one nearest to the detectives – the rag-tag team of archaeologists were busy back-filling the grave with the small pile of earth that had hidden the remains for over twenty years. Even this material had been sifted through by the officers before being replaced, just in case there were some tiny pieces of evidence to be uncovered. Nothing had been found.

  ‘I’m wae you, big chap,’ said Scott as they neared the graves. ‘No way will they find the murderer’s DNA noo. I’m no expert, but it’s one thing getting that kind o’ evidence fae bone marrow or tooth enamel, and another entirely hoping some will be left behind on the remains. Pity the soil’s so acidic roond here.’

  Daley looked at his companion. ‘You’ve been spending too much time with Dunky Chisholm, Bri. I’ve never known you expostulate on the vagaries of forensic evidence before.’

  Scott thought for a moment. ‘See, if I understood what you just said, I would resign fae the polis right noo and get a job on the papers – or maybe the TV. I’m buggered if I know where you get a’ they words fae, Jimmy. You’ve always been the same.’

  ‘No leisure time tonight, Brian. We’ve got to interview the locals turned up by uniform. They’ll be reporting to the office in an hour or so.’

  ‘You mean the folk that were up and doon tae Glasgow at aboot the time o’ the murders? Reckon we’ll get any no-shows?’

  ‘Now that would just be too easy.’

  Scott sighed as they approached the first grave, where Professor Francombe was hefting a large shovel
as she helped with the task of backfilling.

  ‘Gentlemen, how nice to see you back at our little dig – well, the dig that was once ours,’ she continued, nodding across at the SOCO team. ‘No social call, I suppose, given the pressure you’re under from various directions, or so I hear.’

  ‘You’re well informed, Professor,’ said Daley.

  ‘Oh, one thing I’ve discovered since I’ve been in your small community, DCI Daley, is that there aren’t many secrets.’

  ‘Plenty secrets, Prof,’ replied Scott. ‘They’re the things you never hear aboot, mind.’

  ‘Which is why we’re here, in fact,’ said Daley. ‘I need your help.’

  ‘Fire away.’ She brushed a strand of hair from her forehead.

  ‘As part of our investigations into the missing district nurse you’ll have heard all about, we uncovered some items you may be interested in.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Rings, bracelets, bangles, neck chains – that sort of thing. Mostly gold, I think, but some other metals, silver, maybe. I’m no expert, but they all look quite old.’

  Francombe let the shovel fall to the floor, removed the heavy protective gloves she’d been wearing and rubbed her hands on the back pockets of her jeans. ‘I’m intrigued. So, you want me to have a look?’

  ‘Yes, please. I’m making no assumptions now, but I’m willing to bet there’s a chance these pieces have come into the possession of their owner feloniously. I’d very much value your opinion.’

  ‘Tell me where and when.’

  ‘Brian, could you see how DCI Chisholm is doing? Keep him up to speed with developments.’

  ‘Aye, nae bother,’ replied Scott, and plodded his way towards the men and women in white suits.

  ‘I’m convinced that the items are from around the period you’re looking for here.’

  Francombe shrugged. ‘But you’re not confident enough of that to speculate in front of your sergeant.’

  ‘No, not that. If I’m right, there are very few places where this little haul could have come from – get me?’