The coverage of Winter’s murder-scene pic had made Archie as happy as Archie was likely to get, but it had left the paper’s owners ecstatic. Their happiness was pound-shaped.
Archie drummed his fingers on the desk as he thought. ‘What’s the lead?’
‘Can’t say.’
‘Can say.’
‘Can’t.’
‘You’re the can’t, Tony. You know how strapped I am for staff. If you’re buggering off leaving everyone else to fill the paper, then this better be good.’
The Standard office used to be a big building in the Merchant City, home to forty-odd journalists plus another dozen office staff. Now all Archie had were five reporters and a secretary in a modern block in Anderston plus four freelance subeditors on the other end of a fibre-optic connection in Wales. The days of the Raj were long gone.
‘It will be good, Archie. Promise.’
‘Promise? I can’t print fucking promises. Fine, go follow this lead. But you come back to me with a good story or start looking for a new job. Okay?’
‘Okay.’ Winter knew Archie didn’t mean it but the game was they’d both pretend that he did.
‘I haven’t finished. There’s an antiwar march in George Square tomorrow. With a bit of luck someone will start a fight or attack the polis. Get me pics and words on that.’
‘Will do.’
‘And there’s some exhibition opening about shipbuilding on the Clyde. It sounds dull as fuck but it will fill a space. Cover that too.’
‘Cheers, Archie.’
‘Piss off.’
Winter had the time he needed to look into the stack of Aiden McAlpine’s clothing, but he had one slight problem. He didn’t have a clue where to start. His promises to Archie were as hollow as a banker’s conscience.
His gut told him Rachel was right about its being the key to understanding the boy’s murder, but that didn’t mean he knew how to do it. He was going to need help.
His mum had always told him, if you’re in trouble, call the police. He pulled out his mobile, found the number and punched it. Addison answered right away.
‘Hey, wee man. How’s Rachel?’
It was a good question.
‘She’s doing okay, Addy. Bored out of her skull and getting more bad-tempered by the day. But she’s all right and the baby’s all right. I’ll settle for that.’
‘Glad to hear it. Tell her I was asking for her. What about you? I saw your photograph everywhere. Nice work. Must have bought you a million brownie points in the gutter press.’
‘I wish. Yesterday’s news, tomorrow’s chip wrapping. I’ve promised them a follow up on the McAlpine kid but truth is I’ve got nothing.’
There was silence on the other end of the line as Addison digested that.
‘And you’re telling me this, why?’
‘I was wondering if you . . .’
‘It’s not my case. Not that I’d be telling you anything if it was. It’s Kelbie’s. That little shite will be desperate to get himself in front of the cameras somewhere. If only he was as keen to get himself in front of a speeding train. Sorry Tony, I can’t help you.’
‘Come on. It’s not your case but that doesn’t mean you don’t know things. There’s nothing going on that you don’t know about. Give me a break here, will you? I can just ask you a couple of questions and you can just say yes or no. How does that sound?’
Addison grunted. ‘Listen, wee man. Are you trying to trick information out of me to make DCI Kelbie’s case look bad? To con me into telling you things he wouldn’t want revealed to the press?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay, good. What do you want to know?’
CHAPTER 9
She was trapped.
Trapped in a four-bedroom Victorian conversion that had appeared huge when there was just the two of them rattling around in it, but now seemed tiny. It had shrunk to one bedroom and the occasional, although ever-increasing, use of the bathroom.
She used to love this room. They’d redecorated when they’d moved in just under a year ago and she’d been so happy with what they’d done to it. Now? Now she was wondering why they’d ever bothered.
She was trapped.
Trapped with a creature growing inside her. A little human being who’d moved in without asking and had turned her life upside down. An invader. An asylum seeker. Not a refugee. Not yet. It was still awaiting her approval for that status.
She hadn’t planned to be pregnant. She hadn’t asked for any of this. She had a career that she’d worked bloody hard to advance in and be respected in, and all that was in danger of going down the pan because of a design fault in her body. She could just imagine all the male cops, all the amateur glaziers who had helped fit that glass ceiling, pissing themselves laughing. Told you, they’d be saying, nudging their Neanderthal mates; told you she couldn’t hack it without having a sprog. That’s her finished. That’s that stuck-up bitch done.
It wasn’t being pregnant that was bothering her. Not really. She’d been happy, they both had after the shock. They’d been open-mouthed and scared and really happy. But then there was the whole falling-on-her-arse-and-passing-out thing. That had scared the shit out of her and it had been embarrassing and given those wankers all the ammunition they needed to say they’d been right about why she shouldn’t have been promoted. She passed out for chrissakes. In front of them.
So she resented the growth inside her. She hated herself a bit for doing so but couldn’t deny it. Application for refugee status denied. For now.
Trapped. Trapped in a king-size bed with four walls to look at and just the sounds of the street for music. Sure, he’d brought in speakers so she could play tunes from her phone but she couldn’t be arsed. She’d rather be an angry frustrated martyr with the noise of Great Western Road as a backing track. The more she had to complain about the better.
There was just ten yards or so from the front of their house on Bellhaven Terrace to the crazy traffic on GWR. She’d made him crack the bedroom window so she could hear the world, shooing away his motherly worries about the cold or someone breaking in. She wanted to hear. If she couldn’t see anything or speak to anyone, then at least let her ears do some work.
There were buses all day long, the squeal of air brakes driving her a bit demented, but at least lassoing her to some reality. At rush hour, there was regular blasting of horns as cars snuck into the bus lanes and the drivers played horn tag to see who had the biggest.
At mornings, lunch and tea she’d hear high-pitched teenage chatter as the schoolkids made their way to and from Notre Dame or the primary school. At lunch she knew they’d be queuing up in Churchill’s Convenience store and munching on rolls and crisps and whatever fizzy drink floated their arteries.
They were the sounds of her unseen West End. She hated it and loved it and hated it.
They’d bought this house with the idea that her dad would live there with them, at least part of the week. Him and a room for his carer, Jess, for when she and Tony were both working.
Dad had been in his nursing home for too long. Him trapped there the way she felt now. Him trapped in his own head most of the time. Alzheimer’s. Such a horrendous thing for a man like her dad to have.
So Tony had suggested they buy this monstrosity of a place so that her dad could stay. She’d loved him for it and for a while it worked. Tough, very tough, but easier on her conscience than having him in that home.
Then came the invader and they just couldn’t do it any more. Another reason to resent her own baby and to wallow in double guilt.
The extra three bedrooms laughed at her now that they’d both gone. Hollow, empty rooms that rang with malicious amusement above the buses and the schoolkids. Still, one would hopefully be for the asylum seeker. God, she so hoped it would be. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing him or her. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than losing her little refugee.
All she could do was lie there. Lie there and plot.
CHAPTER 10
Winter didn’t have much. Even with the little he’d persuaded Addison to give up, he barely had enough to fill a second lead. It was far from what he’d promised Archie Cameron but he’d decided to file it along with disclaimers about its being a holding story until the real thing came along.
Any story about Aiden McAlpine was a story, though. In many ways, he was the only story in town. Being a prominent MSP’s son would have been enough. Being hanged in front of the dawn train would have been enough. The double whammy made it huge.
Still, Winter was ready for Archie to jump all over his story with boots on. He’d see it for the threadbare half-story it was. But, this week being Aiden McAlpine week, it might just be good enough.
Archie had his head pressed against the screen of his computer. For a second, Winter thought he was sleeping against it but then realised it was the more common occurrence of Archie trying to put his head through the monitor so it would magically cure whatever the problem was.
There were slight bumping motions against the screen that were getting progressively louder and Archie had to be saved from himself.
‘Boss. Archie.’
Cameron looked up and didn’t seem to be made any happier at seeing him standing there.
‘Make it good and make it fast.’
He took a deep breath and began the pitch. ‘The clothes that were left at the scene of Aiden McAlpine’s murder? The ones I photographed.’
Archie shook his head slowly. ‘The pic that went worldwide? I vaguely remember, yes. Get the fuck on with it.’
‘Right, sorry. Those clothes. Some of them were missing.’
Archie was almost interested. He sat back and ran his hand through his thinning locks. ‘Missing? What kind of missing? How?’
‘Missing in a way the cops haven’t admitted. Missing in a way they haven’t told Mark McAlpine.’
Archie smiled, an increasingly rare occurrence these days. ‘Tell me more. And please tell me you have this locked down.’
‘I’ve got it from cop sources. Impeccable sources.’
‘Nice. Sources that will be quoted?’
‘No.’
‘Of course not. So, these clothes went missing after you photographed them?’
‘Um, no. Before. They weren’t put there with the others. That’s the point. They’ve been taken by the killer, and the cops have refused to tell anyone this.’
‘Taken by . . . You’re pishing on your own chips here. Why don’t you just tell what you think has happened here?’
‘Okay, so there was no underwear among the clothes. No shorts, no socks. Possibly Aiden McAlpine wasn’t wearing any but more likely he was. So either the killer had dumped them or he’s kept them. It’s a story either way.’
‘So you don’t actually know what happened? Fuck’s sake, listen to me. It’s not a story. Aiden McAlpine might not have been wearing socks. That’s your story? Geez peace!’
‘No, he was wearing them and underwear, but they’ve gone missing. I think they’ve been taken as a trophy by the killer. And the cops are keeping it quiet. Surely that’s a story. And we have the pic to prove it.’
The trophy bit came out of his mouth before he knew it had been in his head. It might have been better if he’d thought this through. Archie made a face as if he were chewing bleach.
‘I don’t know. What do you mean the cops are keeping it quiet? They’re whispering it?’
‘They’re refusing to confirm what was or wasn’t among the clothing. They’re claiming the information could be evidential and won’t be released. Come on, Archie. It’s a story, you know it is.’
‘Don’t tell me what I know! You’ve been doing this for less time than it takes me to process a chicken Balti so don’t tell me what I know. Go write it up and let me see it. Then I’ll decide.’
‘It’s a story, Archie. A front-page story.’
‘Yeah, maybe. If it runs at all it’s going to need Betteridge.’
‘Who?’
‘See what I mean? Less time than it takes me to get a good curry through my system. Go fuck off and write it.’
Archie had had the piece for half an hour, all of which he’d spent with his door closed and resisting any attempt by Winter to find out what he was thinking. Finally, he emerged far enough to look over to Winter’s desk and motion him inside with a brusque nod of his head.
By the time he got there, Archie was already back behind his desk, staring at his screen.
‘This is all you’ve got?’
‘Yes but—’
‘And you haven’t got a quote from the cops or McAlpine?’
‘Not yet, I wanted—’
‘And you can’t actually prove these clothes have gone missing?’
‘No but—’
‘And yet you expect me to run this as it is? And you think management aren’t going to crap themselves when they hear about it? And you think the lawyer will okay it?’
Winter digested all of that. ‘Yes. No. Yes.’
‘Aye, that’s what you hope the answer is, not what you think it is. There’s no way I’m running this without comment from Police Scotland or McAlpine.’
‘So you’ll run it if I get those?’
‘I might.’
‘Fantastic. I—’
‘Haud your horses, I haven’t said yes. Best I might do is some kind of “Have MSP’s son’s murder clothes gone missing?” With a question mark.’
‘Okay. Well—’
‘No, it’s not okay. That bring us back to Betteridge. Have you had a chance to Google it yet?’
‘I’ve been a bit busy writing a page lead. Who’s Betteridge?’
‘Betteridge’s law of headlines.’ Archie muttered. ‘It says that any newspaper headline that ends in a question mark can be answered with no. Basically it means the story is bullshit. The reporter knows it’s bullshit and the sub knows it’s bullshit. Bang a question mark on the end and you might just get away with it.’
‘And you think that’s what this is?’
Archie shrugged. ‘If it can’t walk like a duck and can’t swim like a duck and can’t quack like a duck, then it’s probably a pile of duck shit. But today it happens to be the best bit of duck shit we’ve got. So you’re getting the Betteridge question mark. And that’s the best I can do for you.’
‘I’ll take it.’
‘Like you’ve got a choice.’
CHAPTER 11
Nathan had read quite a bit about other people like him. Or people who were possibly like him – he had no real idea of what they were like. Probably what he really meant was people who did the same thing he did. Kill.
For a long time, it didn’t make any difference to him. He did it. He had the taste for it and he wanted more. That was all he knew or cared about. Why anyone else did it? He couldn’t care less.
Then, after a while, and on one of his periods of downtime, he started to wonder. He wasn’t even sure if he was wondering about them or about him. Maybe if he could work out why they did, he’d know why he did.
He read psychology books, watched documentaries and looked up all he could find online. It gave him a bit of a hard-on, if he was honest. There were theories on prefrontal cortices, something called the amygdala, and how that meant killers didn’t give a fuck about anything and that’s why they just did what they wanted. Others argued about upbringing, nurture rather than nature and all that, how most killers had been sexually abused. Then there was shite about evil. How you were just born bad.
He read about people whose names he’d known but little else. Macy. Dahmer. Nilsen. Bundy. Charles Ng. Otis Toole. David Berkowitz. Peter Manuel. Tommy Lyn Sells.
He read about kidnappings, serial killings and spree killings. Bodies dumped, mutilated and buried. Decapitations, heads as trophies, body parts stuffed in drains. Mutilation. Torture.
There was a thrill he hadn’t expected. A second-hand excitement that heated his blood and gave him ideas.
All that fro
m reading about people like him. Except they were known and he wasn’t. Everyone knew their names. No one knew his. Not yet.
What he really wanted to know from those like him was how they felt. After. Not before. He knew how they felt before. How did they feel after they’d done it? Come to that, how did he feel?
It varied. Elated. Jumping. Buzzing. Or else down, dirty, as if he’d given in to it again. Worst was if he felt indifferent. As if it hadn’t done anything for him. That made it seem like a waste of time.
Mostly, he felt like he imagined an animal did after it had caught and killed its prey, like a lion bringing down an antelope or a wolf a deer. Sated. Fulfilled. Excited in its skin. Belly full and nerve ends jangling. Alive.
There were other kinds of killer, too, ones that he knew were nothing like him. Guys who got drunk and beat their wives to death. Nothing like him. Robbers who clubbed security guards over the head. Nothing like him. People who lashed out or killed for revenge or in self-defence or in anger. Thieves who killed for money. Nothing like him.
Those people did it once. Maybe twice if something strange happened. They didn’t set out to do it and probably wished they hadn’t. Nothing like him.
Because, if there was one thing he’d learned from reading about Dahmer, Bundy and the rest, it was that he was like them in one way more than any other. The why. He did it because he wanted to, because he had to. Above all, he did it because he liked it.
CHAPTER 12
A week. She’d been at home for a week. A long week of seven long days.
Don’t think a day consists of only twenty-four hours. Most of the preceding seven had run to thirty or forty hours each. Each of those hours easily ran to eighty or one hundred minutes. Each and every day of drudging tedium had lasted an eternity and yet the week itself had gone in an instant and she’d done nothing, achieved nothing and been worth nothing. She’d got a week fatter and a week duller, but that was it.
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