Driftnet

by Lin Anderson

  Rhona felt the shiver of pleasure she always got when the pieces of the jigsaw began to fit together. The DNA lab could derive a profile from a single human hair. That and the semen might be all they would need to place a murderer at the scene of the crime.

  The DNA profile would be sent to the Scottish National Database in Dundee. If they didn’t find a match, then it would be sent south to the National Database. If the murderer wasn’t on either of them, they would have to find him some other way.

  It would be difficult to pinpoint the exact time it happened. Probably there wasn’t an exact time at all. Lots of times during that hour, as she pored over her microscope, the thought flirted with Rhona, that somewhere out there she had a child. A son. A boy of her own. Like the wee boy in the museum. The wee boy with the blonde hair. But no, she reminded herself. Her son wouldn’t be his age. Her son wouldn’t be writing about dinosaurs in a jotter in large round letters and running to show his teacher. Her son had done all that years ago. That was all gone. Seventeen years of a life, somewhere. A life she had missed. Her son was almost a man.

  Rhona left the microscope and went over to the bench where Chrissy had spread out the photographs from the murder scene like a bizarre tablecloth. She picked one up and stared at it. It was a close up of the welts on the neck. The lens had caught the curve of the cheek and the right eye. The eyelashes seemed improbably long and curled, a dark blonde fringe above the empty stare.

  The Sergeant had said the boy looked so like her, he might have been her brother. Maybe even her son? Rhona selected the photographs that contained his face and placed them in a row to study them in more detail, trying to ignore the grotesque pose, the patchwork skin, the blank eyes. Would her son look like the boy in the photo? They would be about the same age. He would have blonde hair, (she and Edward were both blonde), possibly curly, like hers. He would be tall, his eyes blue, the lashes darker than the hair. She imagined his face. Longish. A smile like Edward’s, but true. A smile that would shine in his eyes. Rhona pushed the photographs to one side.

  The telephone shattered her mental image of her son’s smiling face. It broke into fragments, then reformed, but this time it was the other face, the one that lay on the dirty pillow, twisted sideways, the blonde hair damp against the forehead, the blue eyes wide and cold, the neck a welt of pain.

  She made herself lift the phone.

  ‘Rhona. Is that you?’

  It was Sean. She heard her voice methodically answer his questions. Yes she was fine. Yes she would come to the gig tonight if he really wanted her to. Anything would be better than being left alone to think.

  ‘You sure you’re okay?’ he asked again.

  ‘Of course, I’m fine. I’m sorry Sean, I’ll have to go.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up at five then. We can eat out.’

  ‘No. I can’t. I mean, I don’t know when I’ll get finished here,’ she lied. ‘We’re short-staffed.’

  Sean sounded disappointed and Rhona immediately felt bad. Guilt was her middle name, she thought harshly.

  ‘I’ll see you after, then,’ Sean said.

  ‘Right.’

  She put down the receiver.

  That was the problem, she thought. The problem with Sean. She didn’t tell him anything. Well not anything important. What she really thought. What she really felt. Oh, he knew her. Quite well in fact. He knew her moods. Sean was good with moods. He could spot them from a great distance and adjust himself accordingly. He altered his pace, padding noiselessly about her at her worst times, making her laugh when she was mad or sad. Unlike her, Sean was never in a mood. Or he was always in the same one.

  She should have agreed to let him come at five. She glanced up at the clock. No. It would have been too soon. She wasn’t ready to face him. She wasn’t ready to face anyone yet. She couldn’t think about Sean just now. There was too much to do. When she was working, she didn’t have time to think about anything, except samples. Samples of other people’s lives, other people’s mistakes, other people’s crimes.

  Chrissy did not come back all afternoon. She phoned at four o’clock to apologise and ask if she could come in late next day.

  ‘I know it’s a bad time, I wouldn’t ask but…’

  Something was obviously still wrong at home. Since Patrick moved out, Chrissy had carried both the financial and the emotional burden of her family. And if her father had his way, Patrick would never come back, even to visit. But Chrissy knew that would break her mother’s heart, so at home she was forever smoothing troubled waters.

  ‘It’s okay. It’s time I did some of the work myself. I’ll see you sometime tomorrow.’

  Chrissy murmured her thanks and hung up.

  Rhona worked until seven then tidied up the lab and left. Outside it was tipping down. She headed for the front of the Gallery, hoping to spot a taxi near the Kelvinhall. She put up her umbrella but within minutes her legs and feet were soaked and drops fell heavily from the spokes, whipping back into her face. There was one taxi at the taxi rank and she ran for it, dodging cars. A bus, its windscreen wipers battling with the onslaught, braked as she darted in front of it. From the corner of her eye Rhona saw the driver’s mouth open in a curse. Her dice with death was pointless. When she got to the other side, the taxi had already taken off, swooping round in a wide circle to answer a wave from behind.

  Rhona swore loudly. She was on her third staccato ‘Fuck’ when the taxi drew up beside her and the door swung open.

  ‘Need a lift?’

  Rhona glared into the cab. The taxi driver grinned out at her, as did the man in the back. A flush began to creep up her neck. Rhona was horrified. She hadn’t blushed since she was eighteen.

  ‘Sorry. I just wanted to get home.’

  The man’s smile grew wider. ‘If you don’t mind sharing we can give the driver a double fare.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He held the door open for her while she got inside. She sat the dripping brolly between them, then felt guilty when she noticed his wet trouser leg and shifted it to the other side. They moved a little closer together. She could smell him now. A mixture of damp wool and aftershave.

  ‘Where to?’ he asked.

  ‘Atholl Crescent.’

  ‘Right.’

  He leaned forward and spoke to the driver, who seemed to find the whole thing amusing. Rhona surreptitiously wiped her nose on her sleeve.

  ‘We’ll drop you first then,’ her fellow occupant suggested, and she nodded.

  They drew to a halt at a set of lights and she took the opportunity to have a better look at her rescuer. He was tall. She was conscious of the length of his legs beside her. His hair was blonde, darkened by the rain. He knew she was looking at him and he turned and smiled.‘Water all over the road,’ the driver informed them. ‘The gutter can’t take this amount of rain.’

  ‘Typical Scottish summer,’ her companion remarked.

  Rhona nodded and leaned back against the seat. The rain was sweeping across the Victorian facade of the university and lightening forked above the Philosophy Tower,

  ‘The Hammer House of Horror,’ her rescuer suggested mildly, following her gaze.

  ‘That’s where I work.’

  ‘Oh, sorry.’

  Rhona shook her head. ‘It is the Hammer House of Horror at times,’ she said.

  He inclined his head as if he was going to ask her what she did and then seemed to change his mind. So she volunteered the information herself. He didn’t make a funny remark. She liked him for that.

  ‘So you work with the police department?’ he said.

  She nodded.

  ‘That’s funny. So do I. Different area, of course. Computing.’

  When the taxi finally drew up in front of her building Rhona didn’t want to get out. She felt relaxed sharing a taxi with a stranger, painting a picture of her life that sounded interesting, that contained none of the awkward bits, the bits that needed explaining.

  ‘Well here we are,’ he sa
id and leaned over to click open her door. The sleeve of his jacket brushed against her and she smelt again the comfortable smell of wool and aftershave. She climbed out and opened her bag, searching for her purse but he held up his hand.

  ‘No. Let me. It was on my way anyway.’

  He looked at her for a moment and their eyes held.

  ‘See you,’ he said.

  ‘See you.’

  The door slammed behind her. She didn’t bother putting the brolly up and by the time she crossed the pavement and got to the front door, her hair was soaking. She rummaged in her bag again, this time for her key, but before she could put it in the lock, the buzzer went and the door was free.

  ‘Saw you from the window,’ Sean’s voice came from the speaker.

  Rhona pushed open the door and went inside.

  Chapter 6

  It all sounded too far fetched and Bill Wilson couldn’t get his head round it at first. The woman who was talking to them seemed genuine enough, but Bill had long experience of social workers and he didn’t like them on principle. It wasn’t anything personal. He just got fed up with the excuses. Excuses why people did this and didn’t do that, as if no one was responsible for their own behaviour anymore. It seemed people did bad things nowadays because they were unhappy as children. Bill Wilson thought that was a load of shite. When he was wee, children had had plenty to be miserable about, if money had anything to do with it. Money had been the scarcest commodity on his street, but hard graft and hard knocks hadn’t turned people into the creeps this woman was talking about.

  The course had been going on all afternoon. When Bill got the call from the Superintendent he said he was too busy to go and suggested he send two of the team along instead. But the Super had said no. He had to go himself. Something this woman was going to say might help with the latest murder and he wanted Bill there.

  The first hour had been all the routine stuff on sexual abuse a rookie needed to know. Bill had heard it all before. It didn’t upset him the way it had his neighbour. He guessed Constable McPhail must have a young child. By the end, she had a look on her face that said, ‘I just want to go home and hold my kid.’

  For the last hour they’d moved upstairs from the conference room to a computer lab. There were three people working in there, a woman and two men. Bill had the feeling that if the Constable felt bad before, she was going to feel a whole lot worse after this session.

  The project had been going for about three months, the child abuse worker explained. It was pretty easy to find porn on the internet but it was harder to track down where the material was coming from. Then there were the chat rooms. Most of them were no worse or better than the telephone chat lines advertised in a lot of newspapers. These weren’t their main concern, either.

  In the space of seconds, the woman was saying, you could look at anything that took your fancy. And she gave them a demo just to show them what she said was true. The photos that appeared on the screen were high resolution. Clear pictures of the frightened faces of children forced into an ugly adult world they should have been protected from.

  Bill took a look at his neighbour. Constable McPhail looked almost as frightened and bewildered as the children in the pictures, but the child abuse worker never flinched. She walked between the consoles, pointing out references and web addresses, linking the patterns to show how the threads that made up the awful net of corruption wound straight back to Scotland.

  They believed there were three paedophile rings operating in Glasgow, she explained. All three were separate but in contact with one another. New technology offered a fast track to new recruitment.

  Imagine a child at the computer, she said. A quiet child, perhaps a bit of a loner. An adolescent boy. This boy liked using the Internet. He could talk to others with the same interests as himself, without ever having to meet them. He could be a bit more open than usual in these electronic conversations, a bit more adventurous. He could give himself a new name, a new persona. It was every awkward child’s idea of heaven. Not that different from ringing up a sex line number, she said and there was an uneasy laugh from a couple of men at the back. Bill didn’t join in and neither did Constable McPhail.

  It didn’t take long for a paedophile ring to compile a list of possibilities and then the courtship began. Much like any other courtship. Just friendly at first, finding a mutual interest to talk about. There were lots of chat rooms on the Internet, the woman explained, and for good measure she showed them one.

  The name of the chat room generated some tentative laughter. Bill could see the guys were uneasy at being reminded that 95 per cent of all sexual abuse was perpetrated by men.

  Fortunately Busty Blondes turned out to be a joke for most of them. It centred mainly on pictures of Pamela Anderson’s tits and what you thought about them, in minute detail. The likelihood was, the woman was saying, that someone was wanking off to this right at this minute. There was no shortage of customers. This particular chat room was full.

  Once a child was identified, they got started in earnest. Kids logged on at night or in the early hours of the morning when their parents were asleep. After the ‘I am your friend’ conversations, the pictures would arrive. Not bad at first, the usual girlie stuff. She gave the room a look that said, just like the ones we’ve all just laughed at. The sort of stuff it would be embarrassing for an adolescent to buy over the counter. If the kid responded, then the next set would be more horny, might shock them a little, but always the reassurance that there was no harm in it. After all it was on the television all the time.

  There were a few uncomfortable blokes in that room by now. Bill could sense them. No one liked the idea that anything they did or watched or looked at, led to this.

  Then the next set of pictures would arrive. Things the boy might have thought about but never dare ask to see. Things that shocked but made you go back for more. If the kid stayed on line, the paedos were made. If the kid logged off, then it wasn’t over yet. There was always the threat of blackmail. They would send some of the messages to the child’s parents, maybe some of the pictures. Either way, they had the child hooked.

  The next step was the meeting. Then the abuse could begin in earnest.

  Bill stood on the steps of the university and took a deep breath. He wanted to clear his head of the stink. Constable McPhail was coming down the steps behind him. She gave him a look that said she’d had enough for one day and headed for her car. His was in the university car park but he took a split-second decision not to go back to the office right away. He needed fresh air, the normality of people walking about, shopping, living. People who couldn’t do things like that to children. He turned and walked towards the park. The trees were fresh green, the delicate green you get in Scotland in early summer. The rain had washed the street and the deep gutters were running with water from the heavy showers. He walked at a steady pace, planting his feet firmly as if there had to be something in this life that was solid and believable. Just as he passed Gilmorehill the big double doors swung open and the students poured out, desperate to get out of the exam hall and away. Some were talking excitedly, hysterical with the need to unburden how bad it had been. Others couldn’t talk about it at all.

  Bill was not a man to talk for the sake of it either. There were bits of today he would rather forget. He headed down through the park towards the River Kelvin. A wee girl was playing all alone on the grass. She must have been about eight. He walked more slowly, hoping her mother would appear, or a big sister or brother. He hesitated when the path remained empty, wondering whether he should go over and ask her where she lived. He sat down on a bench and waited, suddenly conscious that he looked like a loiterer himself. A middle-aged man sitting watching a wee lassie playing on the grass. At last a woman came up the steep path from the river and shouted crossly, grabbing the girl by the hand and wrenching her off. Bill breathed a sigh of relief.

  He knew all about this. The heightened awareness, the worry. After every murder or viol
ent crime it was the same. For a while he desperately wanted to protect all the vulnerable and the innocent.

  He suddenly realised how close he was to Rhona’s lab. He hadn’t spoken to her since he’d warned her about the press. Now he could maybe tell her a little more about the victim. At least they had a distinguishing mark now.

  Chapter 7

  The flat was big and friendly. Rhona had fallen in love with it three years ago and when she moved in, she spent the first three weeks saying out loud, ‘I love this flat’. There had been no one there to hear her or to think she was going mad. Just the cat, and the cat didn’t listen to her anyway. When the woman had opened the door the night she went to view, Rhona had known right away that this was going to be her home. Not even the dreich Glasgow night had dampened her enthusiasm. She had vowed to herself and the cat that she would allow no one, no one to encroach on their living space. And she had kept her word, until Sean.

  The early evening light was entering the kitchen, touching the worktops with a warm golden glow. The golden colour came, Rhona had informed the disinterested cat, from the convent tucked behind them, its carefully tended garden a tribute to order and faith. Tonight the toll of the bell for worship only reminded Rhona that she had no faith, in God or in herself, any more.

  She had come home as soon as DI Wilson left the laboratory. There had been something achingly sad about his pleasure in revealing the information on the birthmark. She could feel her face freeze as he explained that it was just a raised area on the boy’s inside right thigh. But when he was a baby, he said, it would have been more obvious. It might help them identify him.

  The silent scream was still there. Seventeen years on and it was still there. All that time. Rhona sat on the bus hearing it echo through her brain. They stopped at a set of traffic lights for what seemed an eternity and she actually began to shake with the effort of keeping it in her head, until the woman beside her asked what the problem was and whether she needed a doctor.