Witness the Dead

by Craig Robertson

  The rap of Kelbie’s fingers on the wooden table echoed round the room, marking the beat for their shared tension and impatience. ‘C’mon to fuck,’ he finally muttered, his digits digging harder into the tabletop. They must have been the magic words because the door slid at last and Atto walked through it, a prison officer at his back.

  Atto looked at Kelbie and Ferry, obvious disappointment on his face and seemingly undecided whether to take a seat at the table. He stood there, slowly studying the men in front of them before eventually, reluctantly, easing his way into the chair with barely a sound. He let his eyes drop and fiddled with his navy jumper, rearranging the position of it and pulling at his trousers until he was fully comfortable.

  ‘Atto, I’m DCI Kelbie and I’m here to talk to you’ — Atto’s gaze swung towards Ferry, completely ignoring the man who was talking to him — ‘about the murders of Kirsty McAndrew and Hannah Healey. I believe you have already indicated that you…’

  Atto was staring unblinkingly at Ferry, locking into his eyes and shutting Kelbie out of his view. Ferry turned his head to look at the DCI talking and saw the annoyance on Kelbie’s face as he spoke without any response from Atto.

  ‘That you were aware of the deaths of these two women and that you had some knowledge of what happened to them. I want you to…’

  Ferry thought he could feel Atto still staring at him but was convinced that it was just paranoia on his part. He’d been looking at Kelbie for long enough and surely Atto must have had enough of whatever game he was playing by now. He didn’t turn his head but let his eyes swivel quickly to his right towards Atto and saw immediately that the man was looking straight into his eyes. He dragged his own gaze back to Kelbie.

  ‘… tell me everything that you— Will you look at me when I’m talking to you!’ Kelbie’s hair-trigger temper had shot its bolt but it did nothing to make Atto shift his eyes.

  ‘Atto! Mr Atto, I want you to tell me everything that you know about the murder of Kirsty McAndrew and Hannah Healey. We have reason to believe that you are directly connected to this investigation. Are you fucking listening to me?’

  Atto didn’t move his head from the direction it was facing but let it slowly bob up and down, showing agreement. Ferry could see by the look on Kelbie’s face that Atto had reacted and turned to see the prisoner’s eyes still boring into his own.

  ‘Okay, good,’ Kelbie growled, his jaw tightening in frustration at the lack of control he had over proceedings. ‘Now tell me what you know. We know you like your name all over the papers, so why don’t you buy yourself a few front pages and tell me what you’ve got to do with this?’

  Again Atto continued to look straight towards Ferry, but this time his head swung slowly from side to side, in the laziest, most casual shakes of dissension, saying nothing.

  ‘Stop fucking looking at him and look at me! And talk to me! We have a DNA match to you that was found at the scene where one of those girls was attacked. How do you explain that?’

  For the first time, Atto blinked. He turned to look at Kelbie, his nondescript features showing mild interest in the DCI for the first time, cogs clearly turning behind his sleepy, dark eyes. It didn’t last long, though, and after just moments he let his head and his stare swing back to Ferry.

  ‘Yeah, you heard right. DNA found at the scene where the girl was assaulted before she was murdered. Your DNA. Don’t turn away from me. The evidence is quite clear. Don’t you want to claim another victim? Another notch for your belt?’

  Atto didn’t look, didn’t answer, didn’t shake his head. Instead, he looked at Ferry, the DS twitching under his relentless staring, his eyes betraying him and regularly flickering back to his tormentor.

  Kelbie was fit to burst, his irritation ready to let loose like the storm clouds that were gathering over the prison’s roof. His fingers thumped onto the table in front of him, banging out a tune that Atto refused to dance to or even pay any attention to. Frustration boiled over into desperation.

  ‘If you don’t talk to me I will have no alternative but to arrest you in connection with these two murders. Are you listening to me? We have your DNA from the scene. Fuck you. Archibald Atto, I am arresting you in connection with—’

  A high-pitched chuckle escaped from the side of Atto’s mouth, a barely suppressed but lopsided smile appearing on his lips. His eyes never left Ferry but he let the irregular smirk spread across his face until it was a full sneering smile.

  ‘Do you think this is some kind of joke, Atto? Because let me—’

  Atto’s grin disappeared and his head rolled round to face Kelbie. He stared at him contemptuously for a few moments, before finally speaking for the first time in a low voice that demanded to be heard.

  ‘He’s not finished.’

  ‘What? Who’s not—’

  ‘Your killer. He’s not finished yet. Get me Anthony Winter.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I will speak to Anthony Winter. And no one else.’

  Chapter 35

  Thursday afternoon

  Mr Grey turned out to be Mr Brown. Brian Brown, a car mechanic by trade and currently shit scared by nature. He trembled as he sat in front of Narey, hands shaking and eyes darting nervously left and right.

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ he said for the fifth time since she’d sat down in front of him. ‘I promise you I didn’t.’

  ‘Promises aren’t good enough, Mr Brown. I need you to prove that you didn’t. Tell me all about you and Hannah Healey.’

  Brown looked to his solicitor, a fresh-faced kid who looked about fourteen, and received a nod in return.

  ‘Hannah Healey was my hairdresser.’

  Narey sighed. This part of the investigation was already looking much less fruitful thanks to the revelations about Atto, and she didn’t have time to waste being pissed about.

  ‘Mr Brown. We know Hannah was your hairdresser. We need you to tell us more than that.’

  The man was still shaking but he let his eyes linger on Narey as he thought about his reply. Her skin crawled.

  ‘I liked her. So I went there for a haircut. Nothing wrong with a man fancying a girl. All it was.’

  ‘Is that right? And yet, when the officers entered the salon on Hope Street, you ran. Why was that?’

  The man squirmed. ‘I read about what had happened to Hannah. Terrible. I couldn’t believe it. And I knew people might think I had something to do with it.’

  ‘Why would they think that?’

  Brown glared. ‘Because people are suspicious. And because…’ He glanced at his solicitor. ‘Because maybe I fancied Hannah a bit too much. But I wasn’t even in Glasgow the night she was killed.’

  Narey already knew. She’d felt it. Brown was a certifiable sleazebag but nothing more. The development with Atto made it seem certain she’d been chasing the wrong lead with this one and the vibes coming off Brown confirmed it.

  ‘So where were you?’

  ‘Edinburgh.’

  ‘You can prove that?’

  Brown looked to his brief.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Narey, my client visits a hotel in Edinburgh on occasion. He pays in cash and there will be no paper or electronic confirmation of his visit. The owner ought to be able to identify him and corroborate the time of his stay there.’

  Narey laughed. ‘Your client’s alibi is a stay in some backstreet knocking shop where rooms are rented by the hour from someone who is going to be far from keen to speak to the police? Try again, Mr Martin.’

  Even as she argued, she wanted out of there. She knew this lowlife wasn’t the man they were after. She’d make sure he was done for something but it wouldn’t be what they wanted.

  ‘Mr Brown, your alibi is next to worthless. Your motives are clear. Your character is repellent. We have a string of people who will testify to your habits while having your hair cut. Is there anything you want to tell me?’

  Brown and Martin put their heads together. The conversation was brief and had clearly
already been had.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Narey,’ the solicitor piped up again. ‘My client is willing to make a statement confirming that he behaved inappropriately on occasions while within the confines of the Scissor Sisters establishment. We stress that this behaviour fell short of public indecency but we would be prepared to accept that it may have constituted a breach of the peace.’

  As the solicitor spoke, Brown stared at Narey, seemingly fascinated by the configuration of her buttons.

  ‘Mr Martin, I believe your client just made another breach of the peace. Mr Brown, you look down my blouse again and I’ll make you wish you’d been born without sight. You understand me?’

  Brown’s eyes immediately fell to the table and he nodded furiously.

  ‘How many places do you regularly get your hair cut?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Six. Lorraine, Tracey, Libby, Sarah, Angie and Hannah.’

  Narey shook her head wearily as she looked at the solicitor. ‘That’s six counts of breach of the peace. I want names and places and a signed confession. And he’ll voluntarily sign an ASBO that bars him from entering any of those salons. You need to buy yourself a hair trimmer, Mr Brown.’

  Brown’s mouth formed a protest but he opened and closed it without saying anything.

  ‘Mr Brown, in your time in Hannah’s salon or when you were hanging around outside it, did you ever see anyone else acting oddly, perhaps keeping an eye on Hannah?’

  The man looked up rather indignantly, as if peeved that some other perv might also have had designs on Hannah. ‘No. No one.’

  ‘That’s a pity, Mr Brown. You might have been able to do something useful rather than just being a waste of DNA.’

  Chapter 36

  Friday morning

  Maybe arranging to meet in the Botanic Gardens in April wasn’t the best idea Danny had ever had but the rain was holding off for now and Chloe said it was fine by her. He’d been encouraged by the cheerfulness in her voice when she’d phoned, and allowed himself the luxury of thinking she was actually looking forward to it as much as he was.

  He was hoping to find a parking spot somewhere on Queen Margaret Drive; she was going to meet him there. Danny had always had a bit of a soft spot for the junction immediately outside the gates to the Botanics — if you could ever have such a thing as a favourite set of traffic lights, then this was his. With the converted church of Oran Mor on the left, the Victorian gatehouses at the entrance to the park on the right and the tree-lined splendour of Great Western Road up ahead, it made for an agreeable place to be stopped.

  He particularly liked it in summer, when the lights at the crossroads all turned to red and a mass of humanity suddenly, if briefly, reclaimed the streets on their way to sunbathe in the gardens or to shop and sup on Byres Road. There was also the Maggie, the world’s best burger van, permanently parked outside the Botanics and serving up grub till three in the morning at weekends.

  Car safely parked, he walked over to the entrance gates and stood there, rather fretfully, looking left and right. Danny wasn’t a man usually given to butterflies in his stomach while waiting for someone to appear but he was trying to net an entire kaleidoscope of them at that moment. Their previous meeting had gone okay but he was beginning to doubt that he could be that lucky twice.

  Looking at his watch, he saw that he was almost ten minutes early, shaking his head at himself for being so obviously determined to make a good impression. He was fairly sure that Chloe would be coming up Byres Road from Hillhead subway station, so concentrated most of his anxious watch in that direction. With still five minutes before they were due to meet, he saw her in the distance, a couple of hundred yards away on Byres Road, her flame-red hair making her an easy spot even among the crowds. She spotted him, too, just before she reached Oran Mor, and waved happily.

  He’d been thinking how he’d greet her when she arrived and still hadn’t quite made his mind up by the time she was crossing at the lights. If Chloe had the same doubts, then she hid them well, slipping an arm round him and kissing him on the cheek.

  ‘Hi, Papa.’

  ‘Hi, Chloe. Good to see you again.’

  ‘You too. Glad you didn’t thank me for coming this time.’

  Danny blushed slightly, hardly believing that he did so. Chloe laughed and took his arm, guiding them into the gardens between the West Lodge on one side and the East Lodge on the other. At the fork in the path where you could go right to the glass dome of the Kibble Palace or left deeper into the gardens, she chose left. They sauntered on, past the large expanse of lawn in front of the Palm House which on rare warm summer days would be packed with people determined to redden their pale northern bodies.

  ‘Were you working last night, Papa?’

  The use of the name tugged him in different directions, the newness of it still being slightly odd but warming him inside.

  ‘Yeah. Finished about three. Quiet night, though. Only about half a dozen proper maniacs, and only two of those tried to punch me.’

  ‘I hope you tried to punch them back.’

  ‘Ha. I’m not allowed to do that. Not supposed to, anyway. And, like I said, they tried to punch me; they didn’t manage to do it.’

  She looked at him curiously, a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. ‘I bet you can look after yourself, Papa. If I was a guy I don’t think I’d want to mess with you.’

  Danny shrugged off the awkward compliment, not sure if he wanted his granddaughter thinking of him as some kind of hard man. The fact that he could handle himself wasn’t a necessary part of running the taxi lines but it did prove useful on a regular basis even if only as a deterrent to drunken misbehaviour. Plenty of guys saw an old man until they got up close and changed their minds.

  ‘Tell me more about your uni course. You still enjoying it?’

  She giggled. ‘Yes I’m still enjoying it. Haven’t changed my mind since Tuesday, Papa. Sorry, I’m teasing you.’

  ‘It’s okay. Stupid question. I just want to get to know you better. Well… I want to get to know you.’

  She pulled him tighter, clutching his arm. ‘Then don’t ask about my course. Ask about me if you want.’

  The suggestion stumped him a bit. He wasn’t exactly used to asking people about themselves and it was a long time since he’d had the chance to ask Chloe’s mother anything at all.

  ‘Okay, um, why do you like your course?’

  Chloe laughed. ‘Good question, Papa. I like it because I’m into words and expressing myself and I’m fascinated by how other people are able to do it so well in books, plays and films. I’m interested in the world, I guess. And the journalism… well it sounds kinda corny but I believe in truth and justice. Actually, it sounds very corny.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound corny at all. If you don’t believe in truth and justice at your age then you never will. Although how much of that you will find in journalism is anyone’s guess.’

  ‘So cynical, Papa.’

  ‘Yeah. And if I don’t get to be cynical at my age then I never will.’

  ‘True enough. Okay, ask me something else.’

  ‘Boyfriend?’

  ‘Oh, killer question right out of the box. No, not at the moment. I had been seeing someone but it ended a couple of months ago. Actually, my mum didn’t even know about him. There you go, Papa, you know something she doesn’t.’

  An answer to that sprang to mind, but he left it unsaid and went for the banal instead.

  ‘What kind of movies do you like?’

  ‘Really? It’s like one of those pop quizzes you get in celeb magazines. Next you’ll be asking me what my favourite colour is or whether I’m in Team Edward or Team Jacob.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a Twilight thing. And I don’t like those films, before you ask. I like comedies, preferably intelligent ones. Action thrillers, too. None of that chick-flick stuff. I like Italian food, maybe Chinese if I’m in the mood. I prefer cats to dogs.
I like clubbing. Ed Sheeran, Emeli Sandé and Take That but don’t tell anyone. My favourite colour is blue. Usually. Sometimes I spend all day in my pyjamas and I still have a doll from when I was about three. And I cannot stand beetroot. Yuk.’

  She twisted her mouth over to one side in thought but shrugged, not thinking of anything else. ‘I think that covers the vox-pop stuff. Did I miss anything?’

  ‘Um… no.’

  ‘Okay. My turn. Why do you and Mum not talk to each other?’

  He almost stopped in his tracks but forced himself on again mid-stride, wishing that he’d never started this whole question nonsense in the first place. As he struggled for an answer, they both felt the first drops of rain splashing down on them through the overhanging branches of the trees. They looked up and saw the clouds, dark and threatening overhead. Even as they stared up, the drops became heavier and fell more quickly. They looked at each other and came up with the same response.

  ‘Kibble Palace. Run.’

  ‘I’ll run as fast as I can but you go on without me if you want.’

  ‘No way, Papa, We’re in this together. But hurry!’

  They hustled back along the path, the Kibble’s domes in sight but the rain splattering down. He laughed and she giggled as they ran.

  Chloe reached the door of the Palace first, pulling it back wide, and they both dashed inside, shaking themselves dry and immediately feeling the blast of warmth from the giant glasshouse.

  She was looking around wide-eyed and Danny couldn’t resist laughing. ‘You never been in here before?’

  ‘I think I was, when I was a kid, but I don’t really remember it. It’s incredible. It’s like a jungle in here.’

  The Kibble was a forest of ferns, every shade of green under the sun, and many of them reaching as high as the Palace’s large domed roof. Some had thick, prickly-looking trunks, the fronds springing improbably from the top of them. Others were black or burnt orange, tall and slender with light-green fronds hanging down to say hello or stretching to the sky. There were new otherworldly ferns with stems that rolled up at the end like a wizard’s walking stick, strange Catherine wheels of botanical wonder. As they walked they came upon an oasis of space centred on a brilliantly white marble statue of Eve, her near-naked form on a tall plinth with a semicircle of vividly scarlet flowers lined up at its base and beyond.