Jill French and Jack T’Baht were both deep in thought. French appeared to be doodling but her thoughts were anything but wandered. She was focused on her own theory and what she had just heard galvanised her thoughts.
‘Ma’am, could I put forward something?’
‘Yes, Jill. What’s on your mind?’
‘Well, to be honest, it’s just a theory, probably nothing, bit off the wall maybe.’
Healy groaned. French remained unaffected, even drew some spirit from Healy’s disdain.
‘Well, it’s just that I’ve always wondered about the Tunstall necklace found on Kate Turner. What did it mean? Where did it come from? None of her friends or family could throw any light on it yet she was clearly happy to wear it. What if it was the killer who gave her it?’
‘What if it was? What would that mean or prove?’ Matt Healy asked.
‘Tunstall is clearly a name. Google it and KT Tunstall, the singer comes up. KT......Kate Turner.’
‘And?’ it was Caldow who spoke. He was clearly interested.
‘Well, I just thought it was a coincidence but not now.’
‘Why not?’
‘The writing on Jean King’s living room wall.’
‘Rowling,’ said Healy.
‘JK,’ said Dornan.
‘Exactly, ma’am,’ said French.
‘Shit’ said Healy.
DC Paul Allan’s concentration was interrupted by the phone ringing on his desk. He left the main group and went over to answer.
‘DC Allan speaking.’
‘Hi. This is Yvonne Chambers. I’m the Receptionist at The Cathedral House Hotel. I’m sure it’s nothing but we have an unclaimed suitcase that we have just uncovered, and I’m pretty sure it dates back to the time that Spanish women went missing and the police were checking all the hotels.’
‘Did you say Cathedral House Hotel?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll be right over.’
Allan catches Dornan’s attention.
‘Yes, Paul.’
‘Ma’am, when we were going around trying to find out where Kate Turner and perhaps a man friend might have been staying, the girl on reception at the Cathedral House Hotel said it wasn’t as unusual as you might think that people booked into hotels and just didn’t come back in. Leave clothes behind and everything.’
‘And?’
‘Well, she’s just called me to say they just found a suitcase that they think was left from the weekend Kate Turner went missing.’
‘OK, Paul, well done. Go back to the hotel and get the suitcase and check out the hotel’s register for the weekend of Kate’s murder.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
***
Allan parked in a side street opposite Glasgow’s Museum of Religion. Every time he saw the museum he reminded himself of two things. Firstly, that he must visit the museum some time and secondly, that the museum was built of the wrong stone. He knew he was no designer or architect but he did know when something just didn’t look right and this was certainly one of those times.
We always seem to cock things up. Christ knows what kind of mess we’ll make of the Commonwealth Games. Discus in Dalmarnock !!, fuck me.
‘Hi Yvonne, DC Allan, we spoke on the phone.’
‘Yeah, hi.’
‘You’ve got a suitcase? Have you opened it, tried to trace the owner?’
‘I haven’t. I can’t speak for anyone else but I wouldn’t imagine so. It’s just not something we do.’
‘Can you get me it?’
‘Sure.’
Paul Allan put the case into the boot of his Mondeo and decided he’d grab a sandwich before going back to HQ, hopefully with Max if he was free. ‘Hi, Max. It’s Paul Allan. You free for a coffee in the city centre, by any chance? I’ve a free half hour.’
‘Yeah, great. Meet you in Dino’s in ten minutes or so?’
‘Sounds good. See you then.’ Paul Allan was a very happy man.
Max Kermack too was a happy man as. He was happy to mix business with pleasure and in actual fact felt that he might quite like Paul Allan; but he had to remember his primary goal in cultivating the friendship.
‘Come on, Paul. I can’t believe you’re just an office worker; too sharp’ said Max.
Paul Allan liked a compliment.
‘Well, you might not like the truth!’
‘Oh I don’t think you could put me off, dear.’ Max replied, his best, exaggerated camp mode to the fore.
Allan laughed, he really liked this guy.
‘I’m a copper.’
‘How fantastic, a police woman!’ Max shouted.
Allan laughed again, despite himself.
‘Watch it or you’re nicked.’ he replied.
‘You know something, Paul, this is really great. In my spare time I’m trying to write a detective story, a murder. You could be a great help.’
‘No problem, Agatha, no problem at all.’
They both laughed. They were both happy.
For now anyway.
Chapter 11
Joe Turner was sitting having a meal. He couldn’t taste the food. He had gotten drunk the night before. Couldn’t even remember where he had ended up. He had a vague memory of the red mist descending, walking down a gravel drive way. The surroundings being unfamiliar. Paying thirty pounds for a taxi to take him back to Partick.
Christ, must have been well out in the sticks.
Peter Harris was also having a meal. Both men were oblivious to each other and the strands that connected their past, and their futures. Both were, however, having similar thoughts about themselves. Joe Turner knew that, given the right set of circumstances, the boxes that triggered his anger duly ticked; he acted as though outwith his own body, almost able to look on as “another” person acted out his thoughts. He thought of Julie Connor. He thought of the possibility of his guilt.
Peter Harris on the other hand had always felt a bit of an outsider, someone who needed to be part of something but who never quite managed to be appreciated for what he was. He did not have a group of friends or, in fact, any friends. People had tried to form friendships with him but he always felt that, as they didn’t know the real him, the person inside, it was best to keep them at arm’s length. He had, however, always found it easy to get girlfriends. He now had had two wives but neither of his marriages had fulfilled him. Neither had been to Kate. He too pondered his guilt.
***
That evening Healy and Dornan sat in Cafe India. They had both ordered chicken korma with chapattis, mango chutney and poppadum. Neither of them liked wine with Indian food, “just not right” and had elected for a pitcher of lager. They had gone over both of the day’s events but still couldn’t agree. To Dornan’s mind everything had changed. The Azrael cards, French’s initials theory, what the profiler had said. They were looking at a serial killer. Healy pointed out that there was no card or “initials thing” connected to the Julie Connor killing. Turner was a definite for that and if he could kill with such impunity once, he could do it twice. Maybe even three times if they could link him to Jean King.
‘Sorry, Matt. It’s too much of a long shot.’
‘Fine, but let’s get him in, anyway. Rattle him.’
‘OK.’
‘Oh, and remember, we still have that week-end in Marbella riding on this.’
They left the restaurant and wandered up past the city’s Mitchell Library that, when illuminated at night, would not look out of place in Florence or Rome. They were headed back towards Headquarters to collect their cars but decided to pop into one of the budget hotels that had sprung up around the area for a nightcap. They sat in a darkened booth in the corner watching the other patrons, silently guessing about their reasons for being there, their true relationships. They watched a young man’s lumbering attempts at courtship towards an older woman who may or may not have been his boss; a squeeze of her hand, a stroke of her arm, the exaggerated laugh at her, to them, unheard comments. Healy looked
at Susan Dornan.
‘I’m going to book a room.’
Susan Dornan looked down at her glass, swirled the golden liquid around, looked back at Healy…said nothing. Matt Healy got up and walked over to the reception desk.
***
Jack T’Baht and Paul Allan were in the squad room early the next morning. Neither Healy nor Dornan were in yet but that made no odds to either of them. They were both driven by their own thoughts of how to move the investigation on. Allan glanced across at T’Baht. He couldn’t quite fathom him out, what drove him and, if truth be told, he didn’t like him. T’Baht on the other hand neither thought nor cared what Allan or anyone else in this “Godless” country thought of him. He only knew it had lost its way, with women openly flaunting themselves on a daily basis, established churches allowing them to be priests and whatever and, now, his own boss was a woman. However, he was confident that he would soon move up from this squad. He wasn’t talking about that idiot Jill French’s theory about the victim’s initials. He alone knew what was driving the killer. He alone realised the significance of Azrael. He couldn’t go as far as saying he agreed with what the killer had done but he could sympathise. What did this country expect? Could it not see the ruinous road it was taking despite the warnings? Like everyone else he had watched with a kind of sick fascination when two brave doctors had driven a bomb-laden Range Rover into Terminal One at Glasgow’s International Airport the year before. But, unlike everyone else, he could not condemn them; he understood what they were doing, their righteous motivation.
Doctors, not terrorists or gangsters, doctors! Instead of killing and imprisoning them, would it not be better to sit with them and learn from them? Learn the only true path?
He had pulled the file on the death of Colin Bank’s mother which he had found out had been classified as suspicious at the time but no further action had been taken. He knew that only a well read, educated man would know of Azrael’s righteousness and Professor Colin Banks was that if nothing else. The so-called Profiler was wrong on that aspect at least.
Jill French had also come into work early and was sitting staring at a piece of paper with various sets of initials written on it. Even using Google she couldn’t come up with anything that would help her pinpoint who the perpetrator was.
Frame and Brown slumped into the room and headed for the coffee machine. John Frame was asking Rab Brown why the space between a woman’s breasts and her hips was called a waist.
‘Don’t know,’ said Brown rather reluctantly.
‘Because you could easily fit another pair of tits in there, Rab. That’s why.’
Paul Allan was on the phone to the lab people in what he knew was a futile attempt at getting them to speed up the DNA results from the Jean King killing.
‘Do you know how many crimes are committed in Glasgow, detective constable?’ the distant but cultured voice at the other end of the line asked.
‘Crime is dropping according to the latest Government figures,’ Allan ventured, tongue in cheek.
‘Less of them are fiddling their expenses perhaps but that’s about it. Look, we’ll be as quick as we can.’
Allan hung up. He wasn’t too bothered, if truth be told, as he was so happy with his life since Max came into it that nothing seemed to faze him anymore. Max still pestered him for access to the “criminal world” and Allan did think every day about how he was going to manipulate an opportunity; but he was also aware of the repercussions if he got caught, so he was making sure that the circumstances were just right before he organised anything.
Susan Dornan and Matt Healy hadn’t said much that morning. Neither knew what to say really. They weren’t kids, weren’t going to come out with any “love” rubbish and weren’t sure anyway what word could be used to describe their relationship. They had ordered up room service for breakfast, exchanged some small talk and even smaller glances. Since the hotel was so close to the police station, they made sure they left separately…..each as confused as the other.
Despite his conviction that Joe Turner had killed both his wife and Julie Connor, Healy didn’t really feel that the Jean King killing could be attributed to him. He also knew that he had far too easily dismissed the Azrael card at two different crime scenes. He could, at least, be honest with himself and stick to his own belief that coincidences in different murders didn’t exist. He arrived at his desk and started reading a book he had bought the day before about the investigation into a serial killer of women. He hoped to get some insight into the mind of a man who killed women. Women he didn’t know. He was reading a passage where the killer is quoted as saying “Women are like a soufflé; when they are fresh from the oven, they are crisp and fresh outside, but the filling isn’t yet mature and is hard to digest. When they become older, the crust may not be so pretty, but then the filling develops. There is an age at which a woman must be beautiful in order to be loved, and there is an age at which a woman must be loved in order to be beautiful.” Healy would not have been able to put it so eloquently and, although he slightly despised himself for admitting it, he tended to agree: ‘Did Dornan need to be loved?’ he wondered.
***
I had taken a day off work, “working from home”; and sat trying to comprehend day-time TV. Lorraine Kelly was commiserating with, and appeared to be in tears over, a guy who had been kicked out of X Factor the previous weekend despite the fact that his wife had died six months earlier giving birth; this tragedy apparently qualifying him as a great singer. She then quickly ran through an appeal for the thousands who had lost their lives that same weekend in the floods that were decimating the Far East. No tears necessary here apparently.
I wandered through to the kitchen where coffee was brewing and thought over how well things with Susan had gone up to now, despite the strain of the other night. She had made it obvious she liked me; and I was definitely going to call her for another date, but I’d leave it for a few days.
No point in scaring her off. My phone rang. Maybe she didn’t believe in waiting.
‘Ray, it’s me, Joe.’ My heart sank.
‘Joe. How are you? Everything OK?’
Jesus, what a stupid question, Ray.
‘Cops want to see me again. Will you meet me there?’
‘OK. But put it off till tomorrow. Tell them you want your lawyer present but that I can’t make it today. Ten tomorrow morning, tell them.’
‘OK.’
‘OK. See you tomorrow.’
‘Right. Ray?’
‘Yeah?’
‘When we were in the bedsit in Partick did you see a train ticket?’
The phone pips went. I laid the phone on the kitchen counter and held my head in my hands. I eventually pulled myself together. I needed to get some fresh air, maybe a pub lunch, and then phone Susan Dornan. My dilemma was beginning to crush my spirit.
***
Azrael liked Glasgow. He walked around the city centre admiring the architecture and browsing in the shops. He always felt a slight sense of wonder that a city that was built on heavy industry, and that had such a reputation for crime and “hardness” could produce such beauty. He thought of his calling. He remembered he had promised a barmaid, Janet, a meal a while back, and he always kept his promises. Lunch would be nice.
‘Hi, Janet, remember me?’
Janet was surprised, but really pleased, that this particular stranger had come back into her bar.
‘No.’ she said making sure she put just enough of a smile on to let him know she was teasing.
‘Oh well, in that case I’ll go. It’s just that I was hungry and thought of you.’
‘You saying I’m fat, Azrael?’
‘Thought you didn’t remember me?’
‘It came quickly. Hope you don’t. What’s your full name, anyway?’
‘Azrael, just Azrael. Yours?’
‘Janet Rice, Janet Rose Rice to be precise but I keep that to myself obviously.’ Janet laughed.
‘Ah,’ exhaled Azrael,
‘what time do you finish?’
***
Dornan was headed for the exit. She had managed to avoid Healy all day and was hoping to get away for the evening without having to deal directly with the previous night’s events. Healy too had been happy to stay well clear of Dornan during the day. Get his head together, but followed Dornan out, hoping to catch up with her in the Car Park. Maybe go for a drink? He was only a few feet behind her when her mobile rang.
‘Hi, handsome.’
Healy could see an unmistakable look of pleasure cross her face.
‘Yeah. Tonight? That would be lovely. I’m on my way home now. Yes, eight o’clock would be fine. See you then. Looking forward to it too.’
Mercifully, as far as Healy was concerned, Dornan hadn’t realised he was behind her. He let her walk on to her car and drive off before he went to his own car. He drove home; his anger and resentment growing and festering all the way there.
***
Azrael looked around Janet’s flat. He hadn’t been expecting luxury but he was pleased to see it was at least clean and tidy. He was especially pleased to see a hi fi system sitting in the corner. ‘Not surround sound, but adequate.’ He didn’t see any books. Mindless magazines detailing imaginary truths about the lives of Z list, so-called celebrities, but no books.
The Initial Blow Page 14