Witness the Dead

by Craig Robertson

‘No. I mean yes. I asked him but he didn’t tell me. He did talk about Melanie but—’

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth he regretted them. There was no way he could tell the woman what Atto had said about her daughter. He saw a light of hope go on in her eyes and he cursed himself.

  ‘What? What did he say?’

  Winter’s brain scrambled.

  ‘He… didn’t say where she was buried. He did say…’ — shit, he was digging another grave of hope for the poor woman — ‘that he might tell me. But he likes to play games. You must know that. I have no idea if he was being truthful and whether he will.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Winter, you can’t know how much that would mean to me. It would… it would be everything I could hope for.’

  ‘Mrs Holt, I don’t… I can’t be sure he will tell me. You know how often he’s strung people along before, promising details, then changing his mind. I don’t want you to get your hopes up. This could mean nothing.’

  Eleanor Holt nodded vigorously but he could see that she wasn’t buying any of his attempts to downplay her expectations. Marjorie Shillington edged apologetically in front of her friend, looking up at him with a mixture of hope and fear.

  ‘Mr Winter, did he say anything about my Louise? Did he… did he say he might tell you where she is?’

  He hesitated, the pause generated by the fact that Atto had not detailed his taking and killing of Louise. Winter’s mind prompted him to tell the woman that she should be in some way glad that he hadn’t said anything about her. Instead, she interpreted his indecision as a ‘no’, her brittle faith crushed by nothing at all, and she shrank back behind her companion again.

  ‘No, it’s not that.’ He dug himself deeper. ‘He just didn’t talk about her. When he said he might tell me — and he only said he might — he meant both girls. Both.’

  Marjorie brightened again, cautious optimism holding her up. She and Eleanor exchanged a long look, sisters of sorts after all they’d endured, before turning back to Winter.

  ‘We can’t thank you enough, Mr Winter. We’ve waited so long for this and we thought it might never happen. We owe you so much.’

  ‘No… You don’t have anything to thank me for.’

  ‘Oh, but we do. If you can get him to tell you where they are…’

  ‘No, but that’s not what I’m—’

  ‘Here. Take these. Please.’

  Eleanor Holt thrust something towards him and forced it into his hands. Paper. No, photographs. He reluctantly turned them over to see the faces of two young girls staring back up at him, one with long blonde hair and a fair complexion, the other darker. Both gazed straight into the camera. Straight at him.

  ‘Take them, Mr Winter. We want you to know what our girls looked like. So you know that they were real. Not just some statistic lost in all the crimes Archibald Atto committed. They were our girls.’

  Melanie Holt was in a school blazer with white blouse and striped tie loose at her neck, a broad smile on a pretty face. There was something mischievous about the way she looked at the camera, maybe as if someone else was making a joke within earshot and trying to make her laugh. She looked the kind of girl that would have a load of friends and be as popular with the girls as with the boys. A lifetime of possibilities in front of her.

  Louise Shillington was also in school uniform but seemed less happy about having her picture taken. She was an attractive girl too but lacked the confidence that Melanie had, an obvious shyness holding back the smile and diffidence in her brown eyes. Winter immediately imagined her as more bookish, not necessarily through a love of studying but because it meant not having to make conversation or let people in.

  How long had it been after these photographs were taken that Atto had ended their lives? Was it just a matter of months before they were committed to the shallow grave that he left them in? And where were they now?

  He dragged his gaze away from the girls before he could hear their voices beginning to reach out to him, imploring him to help. He looked up and saw their eyes in their mothers’.

  ‘Will you help us, Mr Winter?’

  He heard a voice saying ‘Yes’ and realised that it was his.

  Chapter 46

  Saturday afternoon

  Getting out of the lift onto the eighteenth floor of the Caledonia Road flats afforded Narey a panoramic view across the Southern Necropolis below. She could easily pick out the spot by the White Lady where Hannah Healey’s mutilated body was found. How many times a day, she wondered, did the poor girl’s mother have to stare out onto the same view? Would she ever be able to stop herself from doing so?

  The view east over the city was as bleak as the afternoon sky. Everything wore that particular shade of grey that Glasgow dressed itself in most days. In the distance, the Campsie Fells were draped in dreary wet cloud, mourning in sympathy with the metropolis laid out before it.

  She’d ignored Addison’s directions and left Toshney in the car, knowing that his usual level of subtlety was not what was required in the visit she was about to make. She took a final deep breath and walked along the corridor to the door with the nameplate HEALEY on it and knocked.

  The ghost that answered the door was even more ashen-faced than when Narey had interviewed her before, washed out from crying and beyond caring for the superficial support of make-up. Mary Healey hadn’t even been allowed the luxury of burying her only daughter and, with the investigation far from finished, it would most probably be some time before she could.

  ‘Mrs Healey, I’m Detective Sergeant Rachel Narey. Remember me? I wonder if I might come in and ask you a few questions.’

  A weak sigh escaped from Hannah’s mother, another breath of life that she’d never get back, but she nodded and softly managed, ‘Yes, please come in.’

  Mrs Healey offered Narey a seat with an exhausted wave of her hand and the two women dropped into chairs opposite each other.

  ‘Mrs Healey, there was something else I hoped you could help us with.’

  ‘Of course. If I can.’

  ‘You know that the handbag Hannah had with her on Saturday night hasn’t been found. We believe that the person who harmed her has it. It would help us if we knew what the bag looked like. I know you’ve been asked before and couldn’t remember but I need you to try again.’

  The woman just looked back, her eyes narrowing in confusion.

  ‘We’ve spoken to her boyfriend but he can’t remember. He’s sure she had one because he remembers her taking her phone out at one point, but he doesn’t know what it looked like. You know what men are like with these things.’

  Mrs Healey nodded, almost attempting a faint smile at Narey’s remarks but quickly giving up on the idea.

  She got up and scrambled towards the hallway, almost tripping over her own feet in her anxiety to do something, anything, that might be worthwhile. ‘She keeps them all in her bedroom, very particular about them.’

  Mrs Healey led the way into her daughter’s room, pausing for a reluctant second before she stepped inside. The room was a typically young woman’s bedroom, whites and pinks and acceptably messy with a few framed photographs sitting on the wooden shelf near the bed. The neatest part of the room by far was on the left-hand wall, where two rows of handbags were neatly shelved and evenly spaced like trophies, larger ones in the middle and smaller ones to the outside. Narey had the familiar feeling of intruding on someone else’s grief.

  ‘These are her bags,’ her mother explained unnecessarily. ‘She only kept this many and if she got a new one then she’d force herself to give one to the charity shop or maybe to one of her friends. She used to joke that it was like giving up one of her children…’

  Mrs Healey faltered and nearly choked at the realisation of what she’d said.

  ‘We’re doing everything we can to find out who did it,’ Narey reassured her. ‘And we are getting closer.’

  The woman nodded, perhaps unconvinced that catching the killer would make things any better. Nare
y thought in her case she was probably right.

  ‘Can you tell which one isn’t here? The one that she had with her that night?’

  ‘I… I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s difficult, I know, but perhaps if you think of ones that you know she had. Favourite ones, maybe, that she used a lot. Maybe ones that you bought her for her birthday or that she treated herself to.’

  ‘I can’t… Oh, God, I’m sorry. I can’t be sure.’

  ‘It’s okay, Mrs Healey. I don’t need you to be certain. Not at this stage. I’m just following up a line of enquiry. A hunch, you might say. Just something I think might help the investigation.’

  The woman edged backwards until she rested against the far wall facing the two shelves of bags and stared at them, running her hands through her hair and concentrating for all she was worth. She nodded to herself a couple of times, then got up and walked over to the bags, touching one, then another, talking under her breath as if counting out loud but not wanting anyone else to hear.

  Returning to the opposite wall, she looked at the bags again.

  ‘There’s one… Her uncle got her it for Christmas. She really liked it. It’s not here. Unless she…’

  Mrs Healey hurried over to the other side of the bed and looked there, then under it. ‘No it’s not… and anyway she wouldn’t… Hannah was very particular with her bags. It’s definitely not here. I think it must be the one.’

  Narey nodded and breathed deep.

  ‘Okay, can you describe it for me, please, Mrs Healey?’

  For some reason, of the four of Kirsty McAndrew’s friends she’d interviewed, Narey knew it was Lindsey Dornan she wanted to speak to first. Kirsty had left the Merchant City early after a row with Lindsey, a brash brunette who now blamed herself for her friend getting killed. Lindsey had been a pain in the bum but also the most likely to be able to keep a cool head and not turn into an emotional mess at the questions Narey needed to ask.

  She had an address in Garnetbank for her and considered getting Toshney to drive them both over there, but thought better of it. She had a mobile number for the girl and, if her intuition was correct, it needed only a two-minute phone call. She made Toshney sit and shut up while she called. Lindsey picked up on the third ring.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Lindsey? This is DS Rachel Narey. We spoke last Sunday evening.’

  ‘Yeah. I’m hardly likely to forget, am I?’

  As charming as ever.

  ‘No. I don’t suppose you are. I need to ask you a couple of other questions. Have you got time to do that now? It won’t take long.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got to… On the phone? Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘Okay, good. The shoes that Kirsty was wearing on your night out before she was killed, do you remember them at all?’

  ‘Her shoes? I don’t… Yes, yes, I do remember them. They were new and she kept going on about how much she liked them.’

  ‘What do you remember her saying?’

  ‘Well, just how great they were. They’d cost a fortune, so she said. She kept admiring them and making us look at them too.’

  ‘Lindsey, do you remember what colour the shoes were?’

  ‘I don’t understand. What’s—’

  ‘Lindsey, this is important. What colour were they?’

  ‘They were red. Bright red.’

  Chapter 47

  Addison had rounded up Detective Sergeants Teven and Giannandrea plus three DCs: Galbraith, McTierney and Bryant. He’d also collared Kelbie’s DS Ferry while DCI dog runt himself was returning from Atto duty at Blackridge with Winter. Narey and Toshney had been excused on account of their secret mission, a.k.a. the wild-goose chase.

  ‘I want bodies in here,’ Addison explained. ‘Anyone and everyone who is on our list of suspects. I don’t give a fucking monkey’s for possible cause. Think of something and haul them in. And I also don’t care if they’ve been ruled out by an alibi unless it is absolutely rock solid.’

  ‘Who do you want, sir?’ Ferry clearly hadn’t quite listened.

  ‘Every fucker,’ Addison reiterated. ‘If he’s locked up in here then he can’t be killing someone out there tonight. So you lot tell me: who have you got? Andy, you first.’

  ‘Robert Wylde. Kirsty McAndrew’s ex. I know Rachel thought he had nothing to do with it but—’

  ‘Fine. Bring him back in. I’m taking no chances. Rico?’

  ‘Stevo Barclay, the guy from the tattoo parlour. He did Kirsty’s tattoo and has no alibi for the night she was killed other than being out of his skull in the boozer.’

  ‘Yeah, I want him definitely. Anyone else, Rico?’

  ‘Yeah. The other guy from the tattoo shop, Ritchie Stark.’

  ‘What have we got on him?’

  Giannandrea shrugged. ‘I don’t like the look of his face.’

  ‘Good enough for me. Haul his arse in here as well. Ferry?’

  The New Gorbals DS produced a piece of paper from his inside pocket. ‘I’ve got two possibles. Both violent rapists, both with a history of attempted strangulation. Don’t have anything on them other than them fitting the general MO, so we haven’t done anything more than question them. Their alibis are all pretty weak.’

  ‘Names?’

  ‘Barry Holden. John ‘Jocky’ Summers.’

  ‘I know of Summers. Complete scumbag. Bring them both in. Anyone else? Galbraith. What you got?’

  The DC looked a bit embarrassed and shuffled slightly on the spot. ‘I was going to say that Ritchie Stark guy as well. I was there with DS Giannandrea and there was something about him I didn’t like.’

  Addison sighed. ‘Well, thanks for the confirmation. I’m sure Rico is delighted. It’ll be like a blessing from his bishop. Right, anyone else got any other names?’

  No one had.

  ‘Okay, have them in here around one o’clock. That will allow us to hold them until one in the morning, although I can hopefully get that increased on “cause shown”. Separate cells, obviously, and co-ordinate with each other so you don’t arrive at the same time. I don’t want any of them to know that the others are here.’

  Narey had hoped to get Addison on his own but he’d left one meeting and was on his way to another with Shirley at Stewart Street alongside Kelbie. When she’d phoned he’d asked if she had got her half-arsed theory to check out and when she said she had, rather than ask what it was, he told her to join them. He said it was probably going to be the only positive thing to come out of the meeting.

  Toshney had twice asked her what the phone call to Lindsey Dornan was all about and what the colour of the shoes had to do with anything, but she’d told him just to concentrate on the road. He drove but retaliated with intermittent whistling and attempts at inane chatter, which were both met by hostile glares on her part. When he tried sensible, case-related conversation, he fared little better.

  ‘What’s going on, Sarge? Has there been some kind of breakthrough?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. Detective Superintendent Shirley’s called a meeting. That’s all I know for now. DCI Kelbie and DI Addison will be there too. It must be important if they’ve dragged the DCI back in from Blackridge.’

  ‘And us?’

  ‘No, not us. Me.’

  Toshney pouted at that and finally shut up, pointing the car back towards the station. He parked in the Stewart Street car park and she was out of the door and on her way inside before he’d got the keys out of the ignition. Toshney scrambled for the door and hustled across the tarmac at her heels, finally catching her just after she pulled the door back and stepped inside.

  ‘Oh, come on, Sarge. Surely I should be—’

  ‘No. This is a meeting for the big boys and girls. Sit. And don’t play with anything you shouldn’t.’

  She knocked on the door of the meeting room and was greeted immediately by a barked ‘Come in’ that she recognised as being Shirley’s stressed voice.

  The three men were standing: Addison and Kelbie with thei
r backs to the door and Shirley facing it and them. He looked over to make sure it was her and beckoned her in with a lift of his head.

  ‘No… of course I can’t be sure,’ Addison was saying. ‘But everything points to it and I think we have to work on the basis of it being his most likely next move.’

  ‘It’s speculation, sir,’ Kelbie argued. ‘I can see where the DI is coming from but I’d suggest it would be foolish to concentrate all our resources on Janefield Cemetery when we can’t know what his intentions are.’

  ‘Nobody said anything about putting all our resources, there.’ Addison sounded exasperated by Kelbie, as if he’d had to make this argument more than once. ‘I’ve already made plans to bring every potential suspect on our list into custody to limit the chances of anything actually happening in the first place. But if — and I stress if — he strikes again, then we have to cover every bloody cemetery in the city. But the blindingly obvious place is the Eastern — Janefield.’

  ‘Maybe it’s too obvious,’ Kelbie growled. ‘He’s luring mugs into thinking that’s what he’s going to do so he can get a free run at somewhere else like Sandymount, Tollcross or Cardonald.’

  ‘They aren’t bloody necropolises. He’s left bodies at three of them and there’s four in the city. The guy’s a grade-A crazy but there’s a method to his madness. His plan is to kill and dump his victim at the Eastern. I’d bet on it.’

  ‘That’s a big bet.’

  ‘Okay, that’s enough, Kelbie. DS Narey, what do you think?’

  Oh, great, she thought. Thanks for the poisoned chalice.

  ‘I can see the logic in DI Addison’s argument. I’d say, given the little we know, that the Eastern is the most likely place he’d leave another body. Assuming, of course, that we don’t stop him in the first place.’

  Kelbie offered something between a sneer and a glare; Addison smiled approvingly at her but glowered slightly at her pointed remark about stopping the killer; Shirley, she was gratified to see, nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘Okay, I agree. Derek, seeing as this is your call, what do you suggest we do?’