The Less Dead

by Denise Mina

  ‘Honestly –’ Diane throws her hands up in surrender–‘we don’t know.’

  ‘Why didn’t you investigate?’

  ‘Look, we had no evidence that the letters were related to the murders. It was ten years after the Yorkshire Ripper. We didn’t want to make the same mistakes as West Yorkshire because they’d squandered half of their resources finding the author of hoax letters and cassettes. They interviewed Sutcliffe nine times but let him go because he didn’t have the same accent as the man on the tape. Three more women were killed by Sutcliffe after they decided to let him go. It was disgraceful, it was inept, there was nothing to link the correspondence to the murders. We were determined not to do that. People write these sorts of letters.’ She opens her hands helplessly. ‘We don’t know why but they just do.’

  ‘I wondered: could the letters have come from another cop?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How could you know that?’

  ‘I just do.’

  Diane gives her a reprimanding stare and Margo buckles and hides her face in her tea.

  ‘You know,’ says Diane, ‘when I started there were very few women officers. Rapes and assaults of street women were almost never prosecuted. Once, very early in my career, I was on my beat, just starting my shift, and I stumbled on a woman who’d been badly assaulted, lying in a lane. Her face was beaten to a pulp and her leg was broken. She told me that she’d managed to flag down a cop car three hours before I arrived, but they told her that she’d got no more than she deserved. A cop said that to her. They drove off and just left her there. The old guard, they called those women “street furniture”. Getting them to care, it was like turning a tanker around. It was never going to be instantaneous and the drug aspect made everything harder. It was rough on the Drag before but now it was chaotic and busy and really messy. Intravenous… A lot of blood and needles. Heroin can make you –’ She winces and makes a vomit gesture with her hand. ‘Very intense, physically challenging for men who were still shocked if a woman burped in public.’

  They smile at each other about that.

  ‘It’s important to be ambitious in policing but,’ she says, ‘we mustn’t let perfection get in the way of a lot better.’

  ‘Robertson sent me McPhail’s current address.’

  ‘Yes, the one in High Blantyre.’ Gallagher gives her a long stare that says she’s keeping an eye on him too.

  Margo wonders how many women are watching McPhail, tracking him, waiting for him to die before they breathe out.

  ‘OK. The letters could have been from a cop. Susan was washed with bleach,’ says Gallagher, ‘that was a detail we didn’t release to the press. She smelled very strongly of it when we found her. That was mentioned in one letter to Nikki, I remember, but I don’t want you to think McPhail could have killed her because he was in hospital at the time. But, I must admit, the letters could have been from him or another officer. We’re people too.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell the press that?’

  ‘Help us sieve out those false confessions.’

  ‘Was Barney angry that she was planning to leave him?’

  ‘He didn’t know until after she died. He actually found her savings hidden in the house and brought it into the station. Thought it was a clue, God help him. Load of greasy fivers and tenners in a Presto’s poly bag. He thought she was blackmailing a punter and he killed her, but we’d heard from other women that she had plans. No one wanted to tell him, he was so broken already. We drew lots and the loser had to go in and tell him Susan had been saving up to leave him. Had to make him take the money back. Poor Barney. I swear he was two inches shorter when he left the station that night. He was obsessed with solving her murder. It was Barney who came up with the idea that it was a serial killer, then he decided it had to be a cop, that’s where Jack Robertson got it from.’

  She glances at her watch and Margo apologises for taking up so much of her time.

  ‘Not at all. Some things are just too painful to accept. Those women were killed by lots of different men: fathers, brothers, husbands, neighbours, and we didn’t get most of them. They’re still out there. I saw one suspect on telly the other day in a football crowd, holding up a Palestinian flag. They’re still out there. That’s on me.’

  ‘I saw you in the papers, threatening to turn up at people’s doors. Did you really know who was around that night?’

  ‘Yes, we knew. We were down there night after night, recording car registrations and faces. We knew it would happen again. But once we weeded out the sex offenders, the gawkers and the family, what you’re left with is a cast of fairly ordinary men.’

  ‘The family?’

  Diane hums. ‘Family members would come down and visit the women during their shifts. You can’t walk around with money on you, not there.’

  ‘What do you mean by family though?’

  ‘Husbands, kids, mums.’

  ‘Mums?’

  Gallagher nods. ‘Addiction is intergenerational. One boy I knew, an addict, he used to come to the Drag and get his cash twice a night from his mum. She was an addict and felt responsible–didn’t want her boy having to do sex work. He OD’d, that boy. So did she, a few months later. I think of her often. It’s a kind of heroism. I couldn’t do that for my children.

  ‘That case the other day: we never even had Moorov in the frame at the time. His name never came up. He wasn’t in trouble for twenty years afterwards and then got DNA-tested for something else. Serious Crime database matched him to that murder and only that one. He’d been married in the meantime and had three kids. He’s a good dad. You surprised by that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  As Diane talks the weight of it all seems to suck the colour from her.

  The tea is finished and Gallagher isn’t going to offer any more. She glances at the clock, signalling that she wants Margo to leave.

  ‘I’d better go,’ says Margo, ‘I’ve taken up enough of your time.’

  ‘No,’ says Gallagher, getting to her feet to show Margo out, ‘not at all.’

  At the door on the way out Diane holds Margo by the shoulders and says nice things about Susan. She uses some of the very phrases she said to Jason: not the manner of her passing, given a difficult hand. And although it’s a repetition, and Margo thinks Diane has said these things many times to many different families, they touch her very much.

  She gets into her car, starts the engine and drives away.

  The sun is setting as she crests the hill. She imagines, for a moment, the multitude of mourners, all the friends and children and family and social workers and cops, lives ruined by the loss of those women. She thinks of the men who inflicted it, men blind to the worth of the people they hurt and killed. And she thinks about how many of them there are like Moorov, how many of them did those things and then got married, became fathers, uncles and co-workers. She realises that they’re everywhere.

  33

  SHE’S PULLING INTO MARYWOOD Square, slowing down to park, when a car drawing into the street behind her catches her eye. It’s old for the area: a boxy Honda saloon in green. It’s not old in a cool retro car way, it’s just old. It doesn’t fit here. It looks as if someone is in the front seat and they’re facing Janette’s house. It looks like the car from the Mitchell. She can see the driver is a slim figure, sitting in the shadows of the deep, boxy cabin.

  The likeness makes her uneasy enough to pull in and let the car cruise past her, watching from the corner of her eye to see who’s driving but the sun visor is down again just like it was outside the library. She can see the shadow of a face and hands on the wheel. The old car passes quickly and then draws in eight parked cars ahead.

  Margo pulls out and drives up to it, acting normal, keeping her speed steady as she passes. It might be innocent, it might mean nothing at all. She keeps her eyes forward, playing the part of an ordinary person who forgot something at the shop, maybe, and realised just as she pulled in and–my
goodness! She’d better just pop back to the supermarket and get that thing. But just as she passes, and her shoulder eclipses the driver, the head turns to look straight at her. She speeds up, turns at the corner and follows the one-way system to the main road. She doubles back to Janette’s street but the weird old car is gone.

  Margo draws into the space the green car was parked in. What the fuck is going on? It feels threatening but she doesn’t even know how she would describe that to someone. A car was parked? A car moved? A driver looked at her?

  The sun is setting and Janette’s house looms, dark and cold. Someone is in there, she’s sure of it. She steps out of the car, tries to call Lilah but her phone is turned off.

  Suddenly convinced the green car is behind her, Margo startles and swivels on her heels, sees that no one is there. It’s dark, the street lights are bright on the main road but not on in this street yet.

  In a panic she gallops up the steps and opens the front door, turning on the lights before she gets inside. She doesn’t know whether to shut the door or leave it open. She can’t decide. She stands looking at the door, trying to do nothing but she can’t do nothing. Doing nothing is leaving the door open, doing nothing is doing something.

  She stands still and the smell of Dettol hits her.

  She doesn’t know how they got in. She doesn’t know if they’re in here now. But she can’t move. She’s too frightened of doing the wrong thing.

  The terror rises up through the floorboards, she’s powerless. It comes in heavy black waves that stun and drown her, dragging her down to a frozen place.

  She stands by the open door for a long time, unable to move. Twice she tries to sit down but her body doesn’t obey.

  Time stretches, the seconds drag out so far that the end of each is lost to view. She stands there until her ankles ache and the night falls in through the open door.

  Her uterus twinges, as if someone is poking her side. Even as she stands here, frozen, life is growing. It makes her think of Susan, who was afraid when she was asleep, who couldn’t get any more scared so she did what she wanted.

  Then Margo moves.

  Moving like a stranger in her own body, she packs a bag and gets into the car, starts the engine, pulls on her seat belt and pulls out.

  It takes her a while to even notice that the Honda is following her.

  34

  THE JUNCTION TO THE main road is busy with traffic. Margo is driving strangely, she needs to take her time because she’s finding it hard to concentrate. All she can think about is Janette, the absence of her, how wrong that feels. She glances in her rear-view to see if anyone is waiting behind her, hoping there isn’t anyone so that she can be careful and take her time without making them angry.

  A windscreen fills her mirror, a car is right behind her, too close to see. The pine tree air-freshener swings from the mirror slowly: they haven’t just zoomed up behind her. They’re in no hurry and it’s an old car, probably an old person’s car. She pulls out cautiously, taking a right turn towards Shawlands.

  She stops at a set of lights on Pollokshaws Road, pulls right at the lights, forgets where she’s going and why, turns left into a quiet side street to remember, slowing and glancing up to check her mirror.

  Isn’t it the same car? A car that looks the same is still behind her which is weird. The mood starts to lift. It’s getting easier to breathe again. She takes a left into another narrow street of parked cars and that’s when she concentrates and sees that it’s the Honda. It’s following her, hanging back, trying not to draw her attention.

  Margo slows down. The Honda stops. Margo takes another right to the junction with a busy road. She stops and watches the Honda crawl slowly round the corner, stopping when it finds her waiting. Then it starts to crawl towards her, gathering speed.

  Margo shoots forward, taking an uncharacteristically reckless turn into fast traffic, scraping into a space between two cars. She’s barely thinking about Janette at all now and doesn’t care how this ends. She speeds up and pulls out, overtaking a bus pulling into a stop. The Honda is still there, quite far behind but still there.

  She gets onto a broad, straight road leading to the motorway and speeds up, driving fast, checking her mirror so often that she’s basically trusting the traffic ahead to take care of itself. The Honda follows. She can’t see the driver’s face, just slim hands and a slim chin, because it’s dark and the car is well behind but it is there. She stops at the lights and sees it pull in four cars behind.

  She knows that speed and swerving are not the answer–she’s seen enough crash trauma victims to know that. She should drive somewhere busy, get among a lot of people and stay visible until she can work out what is going on.

  The lights change. Cars in front draw languidly onto the motorway. Margo is trembling but breathes deep, holding her breath to stop herself hyperventilating. She’s tailgating the car in front of her, symbolically nudging it down the slip road to the motorway. Traffic is light but steady: four lanes of cars and trucks weaving gracefully in and out of one another, anticipating the fork up ahead.

  Margo stays in the second lane from the left. The Honda follows, staying back, straddling the first and second lanes uncertainly, watching for a cue from her.

  Margo has done this drive many times. She knows that the fork up ahead bifurcates the motorway: two lanes slope left onto the M74, two head right over the river on the Kingston Bridge. She stays to the left and the Honda copies her, Margo on the second lane, the Honda on the inside. At the very last moment Margo ducks across the chevrons, changing to the cut-off for Kingston, ducking between two lorries. The Honda glides past her on her left, slowing, knowing it has lost her.

  She drives over the Kingston Bridge, breathing deep, her heart in her throat.

  They have been waiting, watching, coming into the house. Questions tumble over each other in her racing mind, her heartbeat pounds in her neck and sweat prickles her forehead.

  The M8 slip road to the city rises from the bridge, rising like a stunt driver’s ramp and then sweeps right. She is driving with her arms locked straight, wired and terrified and aware of her limitations, talking herself down like a passenger-hero left to land a plane. Brake-brake-brake, she stops at the lights. Check mirror, change gear, thank you, ground control.

  She needs somewhere she can defend, somewhere that she can get out of quickly. She drives down to the Squinty Bridge. There are hotels here, lots of hotels.

  This hotel is new and shiny and it seems safe. It’s free-standing in the middle of an enormous car park, has cameras everywhere and is surrounded by roads that lead to the motorway, to the town, across the river.

  She calls Lilah and leaves a voicemail: ‘I’m at the Radisson Red. I’m about to ruin my career. Can you come?’

  35

  SHE PARKS THE MINI round the back of the building in a private car park that isn’t attached to the hotel. It’s out of sight of the road and, even if they find her car, it won’t automatically lead them to this hotel.

  She hurries inside.

  Maybe someone famous is staying here because excited teenagers are standing out in front and a photographer is loitering inside. Everyone in the foyer seems mildly startled and a bit pleased. On the right of the foyer a casual restaurant is screened off by a giant white plastic room divider but she can see in. The tables and bar stools are full of drunk people. Everyone is animated and talking and laughing too loudly.

  At the desk Margo asks for a room and the receptionist explains that it’s very busy tonight: someone she’s never heard of is playing at the Hydro, but he can offer her a half-price discount on a suite below the SkyBar because of the possibility of unbearable noise. The after-party is there. It’s still three hundred pounds more than she can afford.

  Margo takes it. No, she says, she won’t be getting room service, she doesn’t want to give him her credit card.

  He hands her a key card for the door and the Wi-Fi password. She takes the lift up to the seventh
floor.

  It’s a disorientating design. The corridor is red, the walls, ceiling and carpet the same shade of crimson. Only the doors are white.

  Margo finds her room door and swipes herself in. It’s a corner suite with a corner of glass and a view of the river and the city.

  She lets her coat drop from her shoulders to the floor, takes out her laptop and

  does something she would never have done a week ago. She signs into the NHS Electronic Health Records database and accesses Martin McPhail’s patient file. It takes her a while to find it. She has to use his address to narrow down the search. The system gives her the chance to do the right thing: asks her several times if she is entitled to access these files.

  She lies, scrolls through until it asks if she is ‘giving support and advice to a current professional who is involved with this care’. She says yes, knowing that a senior nurse was sacked for doing this very thing three months ago. Anyway, she’s in.

  What she finds is an enormous file. McPhail has been in fights and had a lot of illnesses and accidents, often broken bones, and had several concussions.

  Most recently he’s been going to hospital a lot, taking his medications well, attending outpatient appointments. He has Parkinson’s, diagnosed four years ago, glaucoma and COPD caused by smoking.

  In his newer notes there’s a handwritten Statement of Lasting Care, instructions about how McPhail wants to be cared for if he’s unconscious and admitted to hospital. He does not want to be resuscitated. He wants all the drugs they can give him. When he dies he wants his ex-wife to look after his dog. It’s handwritten, scanned in and his writing is big and tremorous, jagged. He didn’t write the letters. She searches through the files, going way, way back, and finds an admission slip to Hairmyres Hospital. Patient admitted with collapsed lung. It’s dated four months after she was born.

  She stands in the dark at the floor-length windows. Lights in the windows of the flats directly across the road illuminate snapshots of lives: eating alone, watching TV, working at a dining table while someone plays video games in the next room. Behind her the bed is stay-puft huge and white; the smell of a jasmine air-freshener creeps from the bathroom. Night hangs softly over the river. She watches a slow stream of red tail lights on the high Kingston Bridge and realises that this is the old dockland, the roughest part of the old town. She can see the Drag from here. Just beyond the Kingston Bridge is Washington Street, where Susan was taken, where nine women lost their lives.