Rhona was back. ‘Your van was officially scrapped three years ago. Last registered to a Kenny James, deceased.’
Figured.
I wedged the crowbar’s hook into the gap between the wooden door and the frame.
Rhona shifted her feet. ‘Guv, don’t we need a warrant?’
One hard shove and the wood cracked and splintered around the lock. One more and it gave way with a pop. ‘It was like this when we found it. Wasn’t it, Alice?’
A nod. ‘Must’ve been vandals.’
That’s my girl.
Inside was a bare room with a raised area off to one side. Dark.
Music coiled out through the opened door – something upbeat and poppy, with lots of snare drums – followed by a sharp whiff of pine disinfectant and bleach, underpinned with dirty mildew.
The crowbar’s tip crunched against the painted floor as I limped over the threshold.
Light seeped under a door ahead, but this one wasn’t locked. The handle clicked in my hands. I pushed it open and the music got louder.
It was a wide corridor, with a wall of cages on one side – some small enough for a cat, others big enough for a deer hound. One was occupied.
Alice wrapped her hands around my arm and squeezed. ‘Is she dead?’
Laura Strachan lay on her side in the biggest cage, curled up in a ball, elbows resting against the swell of her pregnant stomach. Fiery red hair hung limp across her face. Her wrists were held together by a thick band of silver duct-tape, ankles too. A strip across her mouth for a gag.
Rhona groaned. ‘Sodding hell…’
Alice knelt in front of the cage, reached a finger through the wire grille and poked her on the forehead.
Laura’s eyes snapped open. ‘Mmmmmmnnnnghghnnnph!’
Alice scrabbled backwards, landed on her backside and kept going till she hit the wall, eyes wide. Then a trembling breath, and she was back in front of the cage again. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry, are you OK, I mean obviously you’re not OK, but it’s all right we’re here and you’re safe and don’t worry we’ll get you out of here.’ She reached for the hasp holding the door shut.
I grabbed her hand. ‘No.’
‘But—’
‘And keep your voice down.’
Rhona squeezed forwards. ‘Are you mad, we need to get this woman to—’
‘Shhh…’ I pointed at Alice, kept my voice low. ‘Stay with her. Wait five minutes, then get her out the back. Quietly.’ I peered into the cage.
Laura Strachan glowered back at me, mouth working behind the gag. ‘Nnnnngh mnnnf gnnn, ynnnnn ffgggnnnnr!’
‘I’m sorry, but you’re safe. Now stop making a bloody racket, before the whole world hears you.’
‘Bloody hell…’ Rhona fumbled her Airwave handset out again. ‘I’ll call it in.’
‘Do it outside, and tell them if I hear sirens I’m going to ram my crowbar down their throats. Understand? Silent running.’
Four doors led off the corridor ahead. I tried the first one: empty store cupboard.
‘Guv?’ Rhona grabbed me, her voice a harsh whisper. ‘Maybe we should wait for them to get here. What if Docherty’s accomplice turns violent? What if they kill Jessica McFee?’
‘It’s got nothing to do with Docherty. He’s a dirty raping bastard, but he’s not the Inside Man.’ Door number two: a bare room with a work surface and floor units down one wall.
Now it was Alice’s turn. ‘What do you mean, he’s not…’ Her eyes widened. ‘Oh… Right.’
The next door opened onto a small reception area. With the windows boarded up, the only light in the room came from the corridor behind me. A chair lurked in the gloom behind the desk, a twirly display stand rusted in one corner, a crumpled pile of plastic sheeting slumped in the middle of the floor.
That left door number four.
I gave Alice a poke. ‘I told you to stay with Laura, remember?’
She blinked at me. ‘But I want to stay with you.’
Of course she did.
I glanced back down the corridor, towards the cages. Laura had managed to wriggle onto her hands and knees, still duct-taped together. I put a finger to my lips.
She glared back.
Right: door number four.
The music got louder as I eased the door open a crack. Then reached a happy-clappy finale and stopped.
‘Isn’t that great? I love that. Anyway, you’re listening to Castlewave FM, I’m Mhairi Rimmington, this is the Evening Show. Remember, the lines are open and we’re talking about the shocking news that TV’s Dr Frederic Docherty has been arrested for sexual assault. But first, it’s Colin with the weather…’
I pushed, and the door swung open.
A wheeled table, like a porter’s trolley, sat in the middle of the room, beneath an array of blinding lights.
‘… bit of sunshine for a change?’
Took a couple of blinks to get the room into focus.
‘Sorry to disappoint you, Mhairi, but it looks as if this area of high pressure’s with us till the weekend.’
A woman lay on top of the trolley – the breathing mask over her nose and mouth hooked up to a canister on the floor. She was flat on her back with one towel draped over her thighs and upper legs, and another over her breasts. The stomach in between was distended. Lumpen. Smeared with orange iodine. A line of puckered skin ran across her torso, just below the ribs, another straight down the middle. Both were held together with black stitches, the knots like tiny bugs, frozen on her skin.
Too late.
‘But that’s all set to change on Saturday – we’ve got freezing arctic air on the way, that’ll ramp the temperatures right down and we might even see a touch of snow on the hills…’
The only other person in the room stood with their back to the door, washing their hands in a stainless-steel sink. Green hospital scrubs, white clogs, surgical cap covering their dirty blonde hair.
‘Urgh, that sounds horrid, Colin. So, let’s cheer ourselves up a bit with REM and “Shiny Happy People”…’
I stepped into the room. Reached out and clicked the radio off.
The person standing by the sink stiffened. Then finished up. Dried their hands and turned. Stared at me.
‘Hello, Ruth.’
Silence.
Then the bells of the First National Celtic Church rang out the quarter hour. One bar of four notes, peeling out from the jagged blood-coloured spire. Just like on the audio files. God’s ringtone.
She licked her lips. ‘You can’t come in here, it’s a sterile environment.’
I limped forward anyway, circling the operating table. ‘Is she…?’
Ruth’s hand crept out – the fingers wrapped themselves around a scalpel’s handle. She frowned. ‘I…’ Bit her bottom lip. ‘I told you they should’ve let me die.’
‘I finally figured out what was bugging me about the footage of you on the bike. The timestamp on the clip said twelve-past-two. Over an hour after I staggered in covered in blood. You were dripping with sweat, but you hadn’t even been on the bike by then, had you? You were sweaty from running away. You lied to me.’
‘I saved you.’
Alice inched in through the doorway. ‘It’s all right, Ruth. You’re safe, remember?’ Her voice dropped in tone and volume. ‘Warm and safe, and everything’s all right and you’re comfortable and safe…’
I waved her back. ‘What did you do, dump the tracksuit in the bin? Stuff it in someone’s backpack? Hide it in the toilets?’ Another step. Getting closer. ‘And who else knew where Laura Strachan lived? You did – we took you there. And she wouldn’t see you as threatening, would she? Just an old friend, another one of the Inside Man’s victims.’
‘I told you…’ The scalpel came up, gleaming in the bright lights.
‘You worked at the hospital, had access to drugs, knew all the victims, and when they locked you up in the psychiatric wing the Inside Man st
opped doing his thing.’
‘They should’ve let me die.’
‘There’s us, looking all over the city for home-made operating theatres when you had a perfectly good one, right here, all along. Volunteering at the vet’s. That’s why you always dumped the bodies in the wee small hours – you had to wait till everyone else went home before you could operate.’
Clattering sounded in the corridor, then Rhona lurched into the room. ‘Backup’s on the way.’
Ruth pressed the tip of the scalpel against her own throat. Tears shone in her eyes, bright as the blade. ‘Don’t!’
A pause, then Rhona put the Airwave handset away. ‘OK, let’s not do anything stupid here…’
‘All I ever wanted was to be a mother. To have something of my own to love.’
My crowbar-walking-stick boomed down on the stainless-steel work surface, setting it ringing, leaving a dent in the metal. ‘THEN YOU SHOULD’VE GOT A BLOODY CAT!’
She flinched back, and a little bead of blood formed on the tip of the scalpel.
‘Ruth?’ Alice appeared on the other side of the operating table, hands out – palm up. ‘It’s OK, you don’t have to do this. Laura’s safe, and so are you, and there’s still time to get Jessica to hospital.’
‘I didn’t mean…’ She bit her bottom lip.
‘It’s OK. I understand. Shhh…’ Alice’s voice got lower and quieter again. ‘Warm and comfortable and safe.’
‘I just wanted a baby of my own.’
‘I need you to put the scalpel down. Can you do that for me, Ruth?’
Her other hand pressed against her stomach, following the line of hidden scar tissue. ‘A baby in my tummy…’
‘You put the scalpel down and we can sit and have a nice cup of tea – all warm and comfortable and safe – and you can tell me all about it.’
The hand holding the knife jerked out, blade stabbing at the operating room door. ‘Why did it work for her? Why didn’t it work for me? I practised. It should’ve worked…’
‘Wouldn’t you like that, Ruth? To finally tell someone everything? So it’s not just you any more?’
‘By rights, that’s my baby. Mine. I made it. I put it in her tummy. It belongs to me.’ Her chest swelled as she dragged in a huge breath. ‘THAT’S MY BABY, YOU BITCH!’
‘Shhh… Just put the scalpel down. Everything will be OK, you’ll see.’
Ruth’s hand trembled. She let it fall to her side. ‘It’s my baby…’
‘I know.’ Alice nodded. Smiled. ‘But it’s over now. You’re safe. No one’s going to hurt you.’
She put the scalpel down on the work surface. ‘Mine.’
I gave the nod and Rhona pulled out a pair of cuffs. ‘Ruth Laughlin, I’m arresting you for the abduction of Laura Strachan and Jessica McFee…’
Thursday
52
‘… because it was my fault.’ On the screen, Ruth reached up and scratched her nose. Tilted her head to the side until her ear touched her shoulder. ‘I was a … difficult birth. If I hadn’t broken her inside she could’ve had more babies. Better babies than me.’
Alice nodded. She was sitting with her back to the camera, a line of paperwork laid out in a neat row in front of her. Making notes in a pad. Whatever she was writing, it wasn’t visible from the downstream monitoring suite. ‘They weren’t very nice to you, were they?’
‘I deserved it. I broke her. I was always clumsy. Walking into doors and cupboards. Falling down stairs…’
Sitting next to me, Detective Superintendent Ness sighed. ‘We pulled her medical records. Had to dig a bit, but she’s got more X-rays in her file than any kid under nine should ever have. Arms, legs, ribs, collar bone, dislocated fingers.’
‘And no one bothered to call Social Services?’
‘But you were going to be a better mummy, weren’t you?’
Ruth sat forward. ‘I was going to be a great mummy. I was going to love my baby all the time and cuddle them and never make them sit in baths of ice-water because they cried at night. It was going to be so lovely…’ Her face fell. ‘Then he came.’
Ness took a sip of tea. ‘You never said how you found her.’
‘She used to volunteer at a vet’s. There was an abandoned one five minutes from her house. Operating facilities.’
‘Was that the man you told us about? The man who raped you in the alley by St Jasper’s?’
‘I should’ve kept the baby, why didn’t I keep the baby?’ Her hands came up to her face, shoulders trembling. ‘I should’ve … should’ve…’
Ness leaned forward in her seat, closer to the screen. ‘Consultant botched the abortion. Got struck-off eight months later for attacking a patient. Cocaine.’
‘Shh… It’s OK, Ruth.’
‘I should’ve kept him. He would’ve been my little angel…’
‘So, what are you going to do after this?’
I shrugged. ‘No idea.’
‘Jacobson tells me you’re a free man. Well, as long as you see your parole officer every week.’
‘Ruth, I want to ask you about the letters you sent to the newspapers.’
A frown. ‘Letters?’
Alice pulled one from the ordered stacks of paper. ‘“Tell them to stop calling me the Caledonian Ripper, it’s disrespectful, they don’t understand how important my work is.”’
A small shake of the head. ‘No. That’s… I didn’t write any letters.’ She reached across the table and took Alice’s hand. ‘Why would I write letters? I just wanted to be left alone so I could have my baby.’
‘Oh…’ Alice leaned forward and checked her notes. ‘Ruth, was someone helping you at the hospital?’
‘Hospital?’
‘Where did you get the drugs from? The antihypertensives and the anaesthetics and the wound glue? How did you get the contact details for Jessica McFee’s patients?’
Ruth shrugged. ‘I just walked right in and used my old ID card. I thought they would’ve changed the locks, but… Do you think they’ll let me die now?’
Ness stared at me for a bit.
‘What?’
‘You bear watching, Mr Henderson.’
Alice sagged in the passenger seat, hands in her lap, arms hanging limp. ‘Pffff…’
I took a left onto Thornwood. The windscreen wipers made lazy arcs across the glass. ‘I think Detective Superintendent Ness was trying to chat me up back there.’
‘Good.’ Another sigh. ‘You know, it’s not her fault.’
‘Didn’t think I was so irresistible.’
That got me a scowl. ‘Not her, Ruth. When she was four, her father explained to her where babies came from by sticking a plastic doll up her mum’s jumper. Told her that’s how it works.’
The traffic was thickening, like a blood clot. A long queue stretched back from the roadworks outside the Shell garage, the rain turning the car tail-lights into angry red eyes.
Alice let her head tilt sideways until it was resting against the passenger window. ‘Three weeks later, her mother was sleeping in the lounge. Ruth took her plastic baby doll and slipped it in under her mum’s cardigan. Said she wanted mummy to have another baby so she could be happy.’
I took a shortcut down the side of the baker’s and out onto Patterdale Row. ‘Well, that’s—’
‘She broke three of Ruth’s fingers and dislocated her shoulder.’
Maybe Sarah Creegan had the right idea – some people didn’t deserve to be parents. And some parents deserved to die.
Alice’s head fell back against the headrest. ‘Her mental state’s probably been pretty precarious from the start, but maybe she could’ve coped – could’ve struggled on – if it wasn’t for the rape. After that there was no going back.’ A shrug. ‘The other women were just practice. She wanted to make sure she could do the operation properly before she tried it on herself. Got started, then found out it wasn’t as easy to cut open your own stomach…’ A
lice turned in her seat. ‘I thought we were going to the hospital, this isn’t the way to the hospital…’
‘Got a quick stop to make.’
Half the newsroom’s desks were empty – their occupants either off chasing stories, or, more likely, out grabbing lunch. Putting the business of filling the Castle News and Post with lies on hold for an hour.
Micky Slosser sat frowning at his screen, pecking away at the keyboard with one finger, a filled baguette in the other hand. Chewing.
He looked up as I knocked on his desk. The frown got even deeper. ‘We had a deal. You gave your sodding word I’d get first crack at—’
‘Remember these?’ I slammed the printouts he’d given Alice down on his keyboard.
Micky sat back in his chair. ‘I remember being nice enough to give you copies, and I remember you promising—’
‘The Inside Man never wrote these. Because the Inside Man was never the bloody “Inside Man” in the first place. Was he?’
A couple of Micky’s colleagues poked their heads over their cubicles. Scenting a fight, or a bit of gossip on the air.
He looked away, put his sandwich down. ‘I’ve got no idea what you’re on about. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a deadline, and you can— ulk…’
I grabbed his tie and hobbled past, dragging the wheelie office chair with me. His hands scrabbled at the noose around his neck, eyes wide, face purpling.
Good.
‘Do you have any idea how much time we wasted on those bloody letters? How much time we could’ve spent finding the killer instead of chasing after someone who didn’t even exist? How much damage you did?’
More heads appeared above the grey parapets.
‘Ack… Get off! Security! SECURIT—’
I slapped a hand over his mouth. ‘Alice?’
Nearly everyone was on their feet now. The nosier ones moved in to get a better view.
Alice squatted down, until she was eye-to-eye with him. ‘Of course, it was really clever the way you managed to get the letters to look like they were posted before each of the victims were found. Clever, but really simple, right? All you had to do was post an envelope to yourself every day. If a body got discovered, you wrote a letter claiming to be the Inside Man, dated it the day before, and told everyone it came in the envelope delivered that morning. If there’s no body, the envelope goes in the bin, and no one’s the wiser.’ She smiled. ‘Very clever.’
A Song for the Dying Page 44