Murderabilia

by Craig Robertson

  ‘Yes, well, I’ll look at it. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Of course. Yes. Okay.’

  He hung up and glared at Winter. ‘What the hell do you want?’

  ‘Nice to see you too, Archie.’

  ‘No. You see, here’s where you’re going wrong. To have any chance of coming in here and being a smartarse and getting away with it then you need to be actually contributing something to the paper. Like, say, a story now and again. Or some photographs. Or maybe even, God forbid, the front-page story you promised me. But, if you sit on your arse all week doing sweet fuck all and then try to be funny, I’m more likely to take a baseball bat to your head.’

  This was going well.

  ‘Right, sorry. I know I said I’d have something for you and I thought it would be before now but—’

  ‘I don’t want to hear any more buts.’

  ‘But I’ve got it now.’

  Archie looked sceptical. ‘Now. Like now now? Like front-page now? Because I need front-page now.’

  ‘I think it’s front-page now. Well, front-page-in-about-two-hours kind of now. I haven’t actually written it yet.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake! Okay, what is it?’

  Winter made his pitch.

  ‘And you’re sure about this. All of it?’

  ‘Certain.’

  ‘And this person that you’ve quoted, the source close to these kids, it’s someone real, right? Not just some shit you’ve made up, as I believe happens occasionally.’

  ‘The person is real and so’s the quote. But I can’t name them. That’s a deal breaker.’

  ‘Deal breaker? We’re not making a deal: I’m making a decision. Okay, here’s how it’s going to go. You get quotes from Mark McAlpine. And you make sure he’s shouting from the rooftops. He’s not going to be happy about the cops not knowing about this connection, so get him to say so. Okay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’ll need a quote from the cops, too. They will look stupid and they hate that, so make sure you phone them five minutes before we press the button on this. I don’t want to give them the chance to kill the story or hand it elsewhere as a spoiler.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘You do that and we run it on the front page. If it turns out to be right you get a gold star and a pat on the head. If it’s wrong you pack your bags and I’ll boot your arse on the way out of the door.’

  Mark McAlpine didn’t let anyone down.

  Winter managed to get a call through to his office at the Parliament and, after a few minutes’ wrangling with the MSP’s assistant, McAlpine himself came on the line. Winter was in no doubt that it was in order to give him an earful, but that didn’t matter. All he needed was the chance.

  ‘Yes?’ The tone was immediately confrontational.

  ‘Mr McAlpine, It’s Tony Winter of the Standard. I wanted to—’

  ‘You’ve got a nerve. How dare you phone me and presume I’ll give you my time?’

  ‘I think it’s something you’ll want to hear. And something you ought to know.’

  ‘Unless it’s an apology, I don’t think I want to hear it. And, unless you’re going to tell me who murdered my son, then I don’t need to know it.’

  ‘It’s neither of those things but it might help us find out who did kill him.’

  The was a lengthy pause on the other end of the line before Winter finally heard a sharp burst of breath.

  ‘Okay, but this better be good.’

  He was in. ‘You’ll have read about the body found floating on the mattress on the Clyde. The young man named Calvin Brownlie.’

  ‘Yes, of course. What about him?’

  ‘He and your son were friends. Very close friends.’

  McAlpine’s voice was smaller now. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Aiden and Calvin were a couple at one point. Boyfriends. I think they were killed by the same person.’

  ‘My son wasn’t . . . How do you know this? Who told you this?’ There was an accusation inherent in the question, as if he had a very good idea who’d told him.

  ‘Someone who knew both of them. I won’t say who. But I talked to Calvin before he was killed and I know it’s true.’

  ‘You knew this and the police didn’t?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘If you’re wrong about this, I’ll have you fired.’

  ‘And if I’m right?’

  ‘I’ll have someone else fired.’

  McAlpine then duly went apeshit on the record and Police Scotland were called every name under the sun, in particular Detective Chief Inspector Denny Kelbie.

  Winter had his story.

  CHAPTER 54

  Death is a strange thing. Very few people get an insight into it, not the way Nathan had. Others get to see it just once, and even then only very briefly before they slip into whatever hell they endure for eternity.

  Nathan didn’t really know if there was some kind of hell. He didn’t believe in God but he could easily be convinced about the existence of the Devil. And it stood to reason that, if he was real, then he had a place to live. And one thing was for certain: if there was a hell, then Nathan would be going there.

  He’d sent many people on the road to death, taken them by the hand and shoved them through the door of no return. For him, much of it was about the look on their faces as they realised it was over. They’d be surprised or terrified, confused or hateful. Sometimes they were pleading, sometimes defiant. Sometimes they knew nothing about it until it was too late.

  He’d learned that you never knew how it was going to be. The ones you expected to react one way would just as easily do something different. The big guys who would whimper for their mammy. The little women who stared back at him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing them beg. It didn’t matter to him either way.

  He was fascinated, too, by the switch-off. Life to death in the blink of an eye. Blood and colour draining from them, brain a goner, organs beginning to rot. From this to that in a split second. Sometimes, though, you’d be sure they were done but a rogue electrical impulse still flickered somewhere and they’d kick out or throw a hand. That was weird.

  He didn’t know what happened after that but he wanted to. Lately, he’d wanted to know more than ever. Even if there wasn’t a hell, was there a soul inside each of us? Or something else, some thing that kept going after the physical stuff had ended? Could we see, hear, think, feel, suffer?

  He supposed people had always wanted to know but he’d never given it much thought until recently. Now, he needed to know. He’d stare at those he’d killed, looking for signs. All he ever saw, though, was the light going out and the body starting to decay. Every single time.

  He found himself hoping for more but never getting it. So he’d do it again. Like a scientist. Like a doctor. Like an explorer.

  He’d taken the subway to Hillhead and got out onto Byre’s Road. It was a Saturday afternoon and he emerged into a tidal wave of people, deliberately standing still so the wave had to break round him, pissing off as many people as possible.

  Quite a few turned round to glare or to mouth off, but that didn’t bother Nathan much. He didn’t care what they thought or said. More than that, the bigmouths and the hard men often changed their minds when they looked into Nathan’s eyes. Whatever they saw there, they didn’t like it much. He was used to seeing them lose their convictions, and he enjoyed that.

  Maybe it was his ability to think how these people would look if they were dead. They could sense he was thinking it and it scared the shit out of them.

  This street was just annoying. Too many people. None of them doing anything worthwhile. Shopping and eating, buying clothes and growing beards, drinking and drinking. Too many students, too many middle-aged teenagers, too much money and not enough sense. Stupid middle-class wankers looking for stupidly expensive coffees and cakes and coke.

  He started past the whitewashed walls of the Curler’s Rest, then McColls, people streaming by him, past the banks and the chip shops, t
he jewellers and the phone shops, past the library and the pastry places. Past people and their things.

  Nathan walked slowly because no one else did. They were all hustling and harrying, hurrying to their next mocha choca or noseful of adrenalin. He walked slowly so they’d either have to avoid him or bump into him and apologise. Maybe it would make him stand out, but he wasn’t worried about that, not today. Today was just for looking.

  Death concentrated the mind. He knew that much for sure.

  He’d watched people say prayers, sometimes silent and sometimes screaming, making their peace and their too-late apologies for past wrongs. He’d seen them mumble and wonder, Why them? What had they done? Truth was, they’d most often done nothing except stumble into Nathan’s path. Sometimes they’d have the fear of the abyss written all over their faces, the terror of knowing they’d be making the jump but having no idea what was down there.

  He’d strolled as far as Oran Mor and waited for the lights to change so he could cross over and walk down Great Western Road, away from town. Waiting, he stared up at the spire of the church that had become a pub and wondered if there had once been answers in there.

  He’d believed when he was a kid, or at least was told that he did, which was much the same thing. That didn’t last long, though. As soon as he realised what life was like, what people were like, he gave that nonsense up. It had crossed his mind again of late, whether the God people really knew something. Time would tell.

  From the very moment he crossed and made his way onto Great Western Road, the number of people dropped off as though someone had closed a door in their faces. And that was a good thing. There was still plenty of traffic chugging by, but that didn’t bother him. Machines were okay. Humans weren’t.

  He walked parallel to Grosvenor Terrace, just a few feet the other side of the hedge, where the big beige Hilton was. He’d walk back that way but walking it only once was the better idea. Grosvenor became Kew Terrace, another expensive leafy strip with barely room for cars to negotiate, a line of trees separating them from the commuter drag. After Kew was Bellhaven Terrace but that too would wait till the return trip.

  He walked in the shadow of the bus lane, coughing at the endless exhaust fumes that smoked him as he walked. Not that he’d need to worry. He was dying anyway and a hail of carbon dioxide bullets couldn’t make it any worse.

  His illness did make him think differently about death. No less curious but definitely more fearful. It was the not knowing. He understood now that was what freaked people, not having a clue if there was a heaven or a hell, some endless drudge in between, or just immediate nothingness.

  Cancer.

  Cancer was a bastard. Something he couldn’t fight, couldn’t kill. Something he couldn’t kneel down and beg to, even if he wanted. It was stronger than he was, more evil and more indiscriminate, too. It scared him and nothing had scared him in a long time.

  When he reached the point of the road where Bellhaven Terrace was visible over the hedge and though the trees, he tried not to look but couldn’t help himself. A grand line of houses, Victorian sandstone and a thousand windows onto the world. Stop looking, he told himself. Do it on the way back, shielded from the road by the greenery.

  He turned left at the crossroads onto Horselethill Road, which climbed towards Dowanhill, walked past the entrance to Bellhaven Terrace without so much as a sideways glance, and walked another thirty yards or so to Bellhaven Terrace Lane, which ran behind the houses. It was one of those strange little thoroughfares that the West End had so many of. It was a long, narrow cobbled lane that could as easily have been in the countryside.

  Gated doors led to backyards, bushes bloomed and odd wee cottages sprouted up where you’d least expect them. This was the back way in and he needed to check it out. The houses on Bellhaven Terrace looked bigger and taller from this side, scruffier, too, as if all the tarting up had been kept for people driving past the front.

  He’d stand out on the lane if he was seen, though, he knew that. It was a bit of a worry but not what it might have been before. He’d come to understand the beneficial aspect of dying. Death was so frightening that there was nothing else to be scared of. It freed him from other concerns.

  He retraced his steps to Horselethill and then on to Bellhaven Terrace itself. Posh people’s houses, even the bits that only half peeped up from below the street level. He imagined they were maybe servants’ rooms back in the day. Now, they let anyone in there.

  Main door off the street leading to other doors inside, blond stone, big bay windows some with Mackintosh friezes, flowers everywhere. Yeah, it was a nice place for sure. He could see why they’d moved in here.

  He walked slowly. Not getting in people’s way this time. Just looking. Just checking things out.

  He was going to die but he wasn’t the only one.

  CHAPTER 55

  Denny Kelbie maybe wasn’t the smartest cop since Sherlock but he was a street fighter. He’d been dragged up in one of the rougher of the east end’s rough areas and knew how to kick and gouge in the mud and the blood and the beer. If he was going down, he’d be going down swinging.

  Narey sat up in bed, propped up on two pillows, and marvelled at the man’s performance on the evening news. Caz Denton had her microphone thrust into Kelbie’s face but, rather than duck away or admit that he’d messed up, he came out punching.

  ‘DCI Kelbie, would it be fair to say Police Scotland are embarrassed about the revelations of the relationship between Aiden McAlpine and Calvin Brownlie?’

  ‘No, Caroline, I wouldn’t say that at all.’

  ‘But surely the police should have known before it was revealed in a national newspaper that two such high-profile murder suspects were involved together. Is that not an embarrassment?’

  Kelbie snarled and smiled at the same time. ‘Caroline, let me make it clear that what Police Scotland let it be known that they know and what they actually know can often be two quite different things. The fact that this newspaper claimed to have revealed something certainly doesn’t mean that we were unaware of it.’

  ‘So you did know that Aiden and Calvin were once lovers?’

  ‘Caroline’ – he affected a small laugh that couldn’t have been any more patronising if he’d patted her on the head with it – ‘I am running a murder investigation here. That comes with responsibilities and with tactical decisions that go way above the needs or indeed the understanding of the media. There are things I will reveal when the time is right and will keep secret when it is in the interests of the case to do so.’

  There was a pause and Narey knew it was Caz Denton trying to decide whether to shove her microphone somewhere her viewers wouldn’t hear it. She wouldn’t, but she sure as hell wanted to.

  ‘With all respect, Chief Inspector, that isn’t answering the question. Did you know of the relationship between the two victims before it was published in the Scottish Standard?’

  Kelbie’s face tightened and Narey was sure he was pushing himself up on his toes the way he did when he wanted to look taller and more intimidating. ‘It answered your question, Caroline. I’m sure your viewers understood that, even if you didn’t. There are operational reasons for not revealing case detail and this instance falls firmly under that. Moreover, there are sensitivities owed to the victims’ families and we have respected that even if the newspaper in question hasn’t. The sexual preferences of these two young men have been dragged through the press in an unseemly manner that was quite unnecessary.’

  He was on a roll now, blustering his way into living rooms across the country.

  ‘The murder of Calvin Brownlie reinforced our belief that the murder of Aiden McAlpine was one of homosexual prejudice. Our enquiries continue with that in mind while not ruling out other avenues of investigation. Caroline, when we identified the tragic young man floating on the mattress on the Clyde, it would have been the easy thing for me to immediately go on national television and boast about how we’d been right in ou
r thinking about the murder of Aiden McAlpine. We did not do that because that is not the way we conduct our business. We leave such cheap and nasty theatricals to the press.’

  Caz was probably standing open-mouthed at the man’s brass neck but still managed to thank him for his time, sign off and send it back to the studio. There would have been a cigarette in her mouth and a two-fingered salute raised to Kelbie by the time the studio presenter appeared.

  Narey almost admired it. Almost. He’d had to go on TV to defend his own incompetence but left boasting about how he’d been right all along and having a potshot at Tony for having the cheek to know something he didn’t.

  The wee shite had got away with another one but he wouldn’t for much longer. He was wrong and she was sure of it. Kelbie couldn’t sort this mess out. Only she could and that thought scared her as much as it excited her.

  CHAPTER 56

  Nathan hadn’t always read the papers or watched TV to see what had been said about the things he’d done. The thrill had been in the doing, not in the retelling, not in glorying in cold leftovers. He was happier when nothing was written and no one knew.

  It changed, slowly. He took to looking, more out of self-protection than excitement. If he knew what was being said, then he’d know if he needed to run or hide, whether he’d need to dig and rebury. Once he started reading and watching the news for mentions of himself, his other self, then he couldn’t stop.

  It amused him when they were wrong, like way wrong. He’d read cops being quoted or see them talking to cameras and laugh at out loud at how far off they could be. He supposed they had to give the media something, anything, to make it seem they knew what they were doing, so ordinary people could sleep at night.

  It was like when he’d taken the girl who’d been walking the Telegraph Road into Longriggend. Sandra Gillespie, that was her name. That road is long and as straight as an arrow so you can see anyone on it from a distance away and nothing but empty fields on either side. By the time he’d got close to passing her, he’d already made his mind up. He stopped and got out of the car with a map in his hand, making like he needed to ask for directions. She was bundled into the back of the van and never seen again.