‘Sir?’ Sussock looked at Donoghue. ‘Odd, sir?’
Donoghue nodded towards the cassette player on his desk. ‘The voices, the voices of dead people. Toni Durham had been dead for ten days by the time Stephanie Craigellachie made her last call.’
‘It is an odd sensation,’ agreed Sussock. ‘Myself, I was struck by the emptiness of Toni Durham’s life. Even ten days after he was murdered no one, not even her parents or sisters, thought she might be dead. It gives some indication of the length of time they went without seeing each other, I mean given that they live in the same city. Other than her family, the only people to phone her in those ten days were the garage, the travel agent, the man who was to kill her and somebody called Sonia. And of course the desperate and frightened Stephanie Craigellachie. Imagine all that wealth and a cavernous flat in Westbourne Gardens and no one to enjoy it with.’
‘You ran the video tapes through?’
‘Not all of them, sir, just a random sample. Just what you’d expect: ham-acted, hard-core pornography. We’ll have to sit through all of them—’
‘We’ll sit through none of them.’ Donoghue said sharply. ‘I intend to hand the whole cache over to the Vice Squad. I have an appointment with Vice later today, I’ll let them know what’s coming their way. We’ll let them know what and who we’re interested in and hopefully they’ll edit it out and pass it back to us.’
‘Well, that’s a relief,’ said Sussock. ‘There must be over a thousand hours of the stuff.’
‘It’s where they go when they get too old to work the street.’ Donoghue opened the file that Sussock had laid on his desk, the contents of which were the result of a productive graveyard shift. Sussock saw Donoghue wince as he took out the photograph of Toni Durham’s corpse. Donoghue looked at the photograph, once, briefly. It was enough. ‘Did you see her in the video tapes?’
Sussock shook his head. ‘No, but we did see Stephanie Craigellachie and another girl. Just by chance, I was fast-forwarding and stopping at random and found a scene, some scene, there they both were together deshabille, on the same bed with a handsome toyboy and giving him one hell of a good time.’
‘Good for him,’ said Donoghue drily. ‘So what’s to be done? A warrant for the arrest of Jimmy “the Rodent” Purdue would be a good start. So you know him from way back, Ray?’
‘From way back indeed, sir. He’s one of those overgrown neds that surfaces from time to time, no real style, no skills, no organization. Just downright vicious. Keep him humoured and he might, just might, not chib you. Rattle his cage and you’re dead. Toni Durham’s death has all the hallmarks of Purdue’s style and it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that Elliot Bothwell found Purdue’s paw prints in his victim’s blood. He’s a messy worker, Purdue, I mean. About twenty years ago—well, close on—he went down for the murder of a lassie, came out after ten years and disappeared. I assumed that he had burnt out or “matured”, which I believe are the official terms given to psychopaths who no longer kill or maim without evident cause. Obviously I was wrong.’
‘Well, so it seems, Ray. He seems to have submerged himself into Glasgow’s other film industry and has done very well by all accounts, the Mercedes and stylish clothes, I mean. Did he always have this passion for females?’
‘Apparently.’ Sussock shifted in his seat. ‘I heard a story from when he was wee, about ten years old, he had his sister of thirteen on the ground, he had a blade at her throat and was pawing her with his free hand. His sister was rigid with fear, and he was discovered by his mother who quite literally had to knock him out with a length of timber before he’d let go. They took him unconscious to the Vicky—they used to stay next to the Victoria Infirmary—and told the staff he’d fallen downstairs. He was kept in for observation but woke up, demanded his clothes and swaggered out of the hospital as though nothing had happened. He wasn’t out for revenge or anything, he just wanted a blade for one hand and a lassie for the other. The story goes that the kids on the south side all knew him, especially the girls; there would always be one of them not allowed to join in the fun, that one had to stand and keep the edge for Jimmy Purdue. He could clear a park or play area in fifteen seconds just by being seen walking towards it. In the end he resorted to creeping up on his victims commando-style, then rushing out of the bushes or from round the corner or whatever, grabbing his victim and paw, paw, paw. Anybody that tried to interfere would get ripped with his blade.’
‘I think I’ve heard tales of him.’ Donoghue sipped his coffee. ‘Part of the rich folklore of our city.’
‘You would have done, sir,’ Sussock said. Donoghue noticed a hardness entering Sussock’s voice. ‘He grew up to get away with murder. Literally. And he did so, times without number. There were knifings aplenty south of the water that were all down to him, we knew that, but see getting a witness to testify? Impossible. Worse than that, there was often some poor sucker who’d be willing to take the rap. God knows what Jimmy Purdue had to hold over them but not a few times some big softy said, ‘Yes, I did it,’ when we knew fine well it was Purdue’s doing. He’s a pure animal. I said it before and I’ll say it again. He’s a State Hospital number. He needs a single to Carstairs Junction.’
‘Certainly sounds like it.’ Donoghue reached for his pipe and spent what for Sussock was an annoyingly long time lighting it. It was Donoghue’s first pipe of the day and Sussock knew that from this point on the Detective-Inspector would be surrounded with a haze of blue tobacco smoke. ‘So,’ said Donoghue sucking and blowing, ‘Jimmy “the Rodent” Purdue, public enemy number one, where is he?’
Sussock made a don’t-ask-me gesture.
Donoghue smiled. ‘Where do we begin to look for him? What are his haunts, his natural habitat?’
‘Again, I don’t really know, sir,’ said the older cop, and once again Donoghue noticed just how tired Ray Sussock was looking these days. ‘If you’d have asked me that twenty years ago when he went down for murder, I’d have said any one of three bars in the Saltmarket, tough, seedy bars, closed up now, wine and spirit bars, strictly men only, the sort of places where blood was left lying if it didn’t come off with the first swipe of the mop. But as you said, he seems to have come up in the world and seems to have grown to like money. Before he went down he just lusted after women and power, so long as he had enough doh-ray-me for a night’s bevvying then he was happy, he could sink a good bucket, mind you, so one night on the bevvy was a costly operation, but nevertheless power, not money, was his vice. Today who knows?’
‘All right. Let’s look at it from another angle. Where does he fit in with Toni Durham and Stephanie Craigellachie? What was the connection between those girls?’
‘Well, going by their respective lifestyles, Abernethy’s report, the content of the recorded phone calls, I’d say that Toni Durham was up to her oxters in porno movies and heroin, I’d say that she stole heroin from Purdue, I mean a good lump of it and told Purdue that Stephanie Craigellachie nicked it. Maybe she had a motive, maybe it was just pure spite.’
Donoghue nodded in approval.
Sussock continued. ‘I’d say that Toni Durham lured Stephanie Craigellachie into the movies with the promise of easy money and lots of smack. Stephanie started talking, she might have had a bit of a loose tongue. So Purdue filled in Toni Durham for bringing a nuisance into the company, then he went looking for the nuisance, who had gone to ground until she had filled herself with the heroin that Toni Durham had given her.’
‘He must have known that sooner or later she would have to come back to the street, sooner or later she’d get strung out and need money for another fix.’ Donoghue tapped black ash from his pipe into the huge ashtray which stood on his desk. ‘The fact that he killed Toni Durham is significant, given her lifestyle. What I mean is that he was not in any way in her pay, or dependent on her, and since she was comfortably off, he must be equally so. It’s my guess that Purdue and Toni Durham were business partners, until Purdue saw fit to make his business
partner a permanently sleeping partner.’
‘And then he went looking for Stephanie Craigellachie with the same murderous intent. She gets it in the neck, literally, but he doesn’t pull her skin from bone as he would normally have done, he seems to have been disturbed. He even left the knife sticking in her throat.’
‘Be handy if we could find out who disturbed him,’ said Donoghue. ‘Make a very handy witness. Anyway, there’s a lot for the day shift to worry away at. I’ve a meeting with Chief Superintendent Findlater later this morning to apprise him of progress to date, so let’s kick it about. What’s to be done?’
‘Well, we have to find Jimmy “the Rodent” Purdue,’ said Sussock, feeling too tired to kick anything about.
‘Yes.’ Donoghue nodded. ‘We’ll certainly have to make that our number one priority. I’ll get a warrant for his arrest sworn as soon as I can. You have no idea of where we can start looking, Ray?’
‘He’ll be known to the underworld,’ Sussock ventured. ‘We can ask questions.’
‘Montgomerie’s got a useful snout, Wednesday Lunchtime…’
‘Tuesday Noon.’
‘Tuesday Noon,’ Donoghue repeated. ‘Montgomerie’s on day shift today. He’ll be at his desk at the moment so I’ll see him immediately after this discussion. Now I don’t want to let go of this character Dino—you remember he has the dubious accolade of having his name tattooed on Stephanie Craigellachie’s most private or private parts? I don’t want to chase a red herring, but I still feel that Dino is a stone worth turning over.’
‘We’ll also have to inform Toni Durham’s next of kin.’ Donoghue nodded. ‘I was forgetting that, Ray, thank you.’ He scribbled on his pad. ‘At least we’re sure of her identification, so we can spare them the ordeal of having to view the body. Never easy for anyone, but in this case it’s not an experience to be chased.’
‘Certainly isn’t,’ said Sussock, rising from his seat and placing his mug on Donoghue’s desk. He sensed the ‘kicking about’ to be over, having been thankfully brief Donoghue strode down the corridor to the detective-constable’s room. Montgomerie was there, clean cut and well dressed, sitting at his desk, browsing through the day’s edition of the Glasgow Herald.
‘No work to do, Montgomerie?’ said Donoghue.
Montgomerie shut the newspaper and slammed it into his in-tray. Just about to start, sir.’
‘Good. Well, before you do whatever you are going to do, I’d like you to hunt down your informant, Tuesday Noon.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. We’re anxious to trace a felon by the name of Jimmy “the Rodent” Purdue.’
Montgomerie glanced questioningly at Donoghue. ‘That name rings bells,’ he said. ‘Can’t place it, though.’
‘He’s part of the city’s folklore, leastways the underside of the folklore. His is a name that will have cropped up in conversation with your mates from time to time. He’s a knifeman. Tuesday Noon will certainly know of him, hopefully he’ll know where to find him. Don’t approach him. Have a look at the file on Toni Durham, by way of caution.’
‘Who?’
‘Toni Durham. She was murdered ten days ago and her body was found last night. She’s linked in with Stephanie Craigellachie. Glance at the file and apprise yourself and look at the photographs of her body. It’s as well to be aware of the sort of mess that Jimmy “the Rodent” Purdue can make of his victims in case you may feel inclined to feel his collar on your own. Where’s King, do you know?’
‘Came in and went out again. Said something about having to trace a scratcher.’
‘Ah yes.’ Donoghue smiled. ‘Good man is King, doesn’t hang about. Well, I’ll let you get back to your newspaper, Montgomerie.’
Malcolm Montgomerie stood and reached for his jacket.
‘Aye, I remember that one,’ said the scratcher, holding the photograph at arm’s length. ‘I really mind that one. How could I forget a job like that.’
‘How indeed?’ said King drily, though he was pleased that the scratcher seemed serious. A flippant attitude would have been hard for him to take. ‘When did you do this?’
‘See, it’s July. It was the winter, say about six months ago.’ The man was in his fifties, thought King, probably older, but had retained a trim figure. It was his bald head and silver hair just above each ear that dated him. The scratcher handed the photograph to King, who slipped it in the orange internal mail envelope he used to carry the print.
‘It was when there was snow and ice about, say February.’
‘Six months,’ King repeated. In his experience six months was a convenient time period and had in the past been used when six weeks or on one particularly memorable occasion eighteen months would have been more accurate reporting. But on this occasion. King reasoned, the unsolicited reference to the weather at that time leant a certain credibility to the man’s statement.
‘About that,’ said the man, the scratcher. His studio was at the rear of a house in Bridgeton, dimly lit and smelling of damp. In the studio was a chair evidently for the tattooist, a reclining chair for the customer, a fearsome-looking antique drill and a table on which lay pots of dye. The cloth on the table was badly stained with the spillage of dye over the years and the pots themselves were caked with dried colouring. King felt that the whole room must be crawling with AIDS and Hepatitis B virus. It would be a quick and a telling phone call to the Environmental Health Department when he got back to the office, no matter how cooperative was the scratcher.
‘Did she come alone?’
‘Yes.’ The man seemed to be reliving the memory. ‘Had to do it on the floor, you know, the tattoo, had to have her lie down. It was cold then, wintertime, she shivered and seemed uncomfortable when the drill began to bite, but she stuck it out. She said she wanted “I belong to Dino” tattooed right here—’ the man laid the edge of his hand on his groin —‘and that’s what she got. Never forget that, bonny-looking lassie, comes in out of the rain and says what she says. I couldn’t believe it. When do you want it done, says I. Right now, says she. I’ll need your clothes off, hen, says I, bottom half anyway, so she steps out of her jeans and briefs calm as you please. I put an old coat down on the floor, best I could offer, and I says, you’ll need to lay down, hen, so down she went. She shivered a lot and made a wee cry out now and then, tattooing can be painful and where she had it done, well, it had to be uncomfortable to say the least.’
‘To say the least,’ King echoed. ‘How long did it take?’
‘Best part of two hours.’
‘Brave girl.’
‘She was that,’ said the scratcher. ‘She had a lot of grit about her.’
‘How much did you charge her?’ It occurred to King that Stephanie Craigellachie hadn’t got a large amount of cash to spare, and that a tattoo is a luxury for anyone.
‘Funny you should say that,’ said the man.
‘Oh?’
‘She didn’t.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning I finished it, I examined it, said it was good, said that it would be fifty quid.’
‘Fifty?’
‘Well, I have to meet my overheads.’
‘So then what?’
‘So then she says I haven’t a penny. She said that, I haven’t a penny, sorry sir, I haven’t a penny.’
‘And what did you do?’
‘I was ready to give her a good doing. Anyway, she says, I can pay you in kind, that’s how she put it. So I looked at her, she was a bonny girl, so we struck a deal, she was to come round one night a week for three weeks and stay for an hour each time. Well, I stay alone, I never married and a lady from time to time is nice. She leaves, she pulls her jeans on and leaves. I’m not daft, I think I’ve been had and I don’t expect to see her again, but the next night she’s at my door at seven o’clock and stayed until the back of eight and it was a good sixty minutes, she put everything into it. She came round twice more after that, good as gold she was, honoured her word and paid her deb
t. I didn’t get to know anything about her, but she was a person of quality—a lady underneath those clatty clothes. It didn’t seem to fit.’
‘How so?’
‘Well, somebody that has herself tattooed like that, I’d say they were a bit dotty, soft in the head, not the sort of person to honour their word.’
‘She probably was a little mad,’ said King. ‘The integrity of the mentally ill is a well-documented phenomenon.’
‘Was?’
‘Was,’ said King. ‘I’m afraid she was murdered just the other day there.’
‘Oh my.’ The man sank back against the table. ‘So young.’
‘Did she say who Dino was?’
‘No, never mentioned him, just spelled out his name so I got it right.’
‘So she told you it was the name of a man?’
‘Yes, she said “his name”.’
‘I see,’ said King. ‘She didn’t say why she was doing this?’
The man shook his head. ‘Really, she didn’t.’ The man paused. ‘No, sir, she didn’t.’
‘Mr King or “Officer” will do,’ said King, who hated being called “sir”.’
‘Well, anyway she didn’t. Never talked about him or about herself for that matter. She talked about what was going on, asked about my business—polite lassie, never spoke about herself or her background, never said where she stayed, just came out of the night, kept her word, and went back into the night. Nice girl. She had a strange lost look about her. Sad eyes.’
‘Sad eyes?’
‘See, me, Mr King, I’m like you, I’m in the people business. My business is direct contact with people, see all types in here, from hard men to totty wee boys just finished school, and I’ve had hard eyes, cold eyes, sad eyes, happy eyes, warm eyes and that girl had sad eyes. I don’t know who Dino is or was but that was a lonely lassie, Mr King, a very lonely lassie.’
Big Jim Loughram worked Vice. He enjoyed a handsome, balanced face, his hair was beginning to thin, a ‘beer gut’ was just developing but he still cut a dash in pinstripe. He had eyes which said he knew of the ugliness of life, but his manner, Donoghue found, was the manner of a gentleman.
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