Witness the Dead

by Craig Robertson

  According to Rico Giannandrea, Ritchie Stark had continued to stay silent since the moment he had a swab taken from him to be profiled for DNA. He hadn’t been a happy bunny at all at having the sample taken, and had struggled, forcing them to hold him tight and his jaw open until they could wipe his gums with the cotton stick.

  When Narey went into the interview room with Giannandrea, she found Stark stripped to the waist and staring at the far wall. She hadn’t particularly expected that, and nor, once she had walked round to face him, had she remotely expected to see his torso to be emblazoned with a large, thick, red triangle.

  She raised her eyebrows accusingly at Giannandrea, pointedly saying, Thanks for the warning, Rico.

  Stark continued to stare ahead. His skinny white arms — the one heavily tattooed with the spider’s web and captured angels like the wall of his bedroom, the other unblemished — were crossed over his triangled chest. His eyes were focused and grim.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Stark.’

  Not a flicker.

  ‘Do you wish a lawyer present, Mr Stark?’

  Nothing.

  ‘We’ll take that as a no, then, shall we?’ Still nothing.

  ‘You’re in a bit of trouble, Mr Stark. You do know that, don’t you? This is not looking good for you at all. You could spend the rest of your life in a room no bigger than this. Let out once a day to take your chances in the showers with men twice your size.’

  Stark persisted in staring through the wall in front of him.

  ‘I would seriously suggest that you speak, because, if you do not state your case, then you cannot defend yourself. And you will need to do that. You said that you didn’t meet Kirsty McAndrew when she had a tattoo done at your shop. Is that correct?’

  Still nothing. Narey needed a reaction. She got close, standing inches away from his naked and inked torso, the spiders and angels clinging to his arm and the triangle decorating his chest like a warning signal.

  ‘Interesting tattoos, Mr Stark. Just like the ones on your bedroom wall…’

  The man’s eyes widened then tightened but he didn’t move or speak.

  ‘Who did your tattoo, Mr Stark?’ Rico asked. ‘Because when I first interviewed you you told me that most tattoo artists don’t ink themselves. Don’t get the same quality of work, you told me. Did your friend Mr Barclay do that for you? The friend that you lied for and gave a false alibi for murder. If so, I think we might need to have another word with him.’

  Stark said nothing.

  ‘What do you make of him, Rico?’ Narey asked when they were safely on the other side of the door.

  ‘Do I think he’s a killer? Maybe. He ticks a lot of boxes, that’s for sure.’

  ‘He certainly does. I better phone Addison. He’s going to love this.’

  ‘You think? Stark’s playing us, Rachel. He thinks he’s in control of what’s going on simply by sitting there saying nothing. It’s like Archibald Atto. Behind bars but still pulling all our strings. We should be in charge of this game, not him.’

  Chapter 58

  The hastily assembled spotlights inside the forensics’ pop-up tent flooded the ruptured turf in Janefield Cemetery and left the shape of the recently dug grave easily defined. Under the white treated canvas, Williams, Addison, Teven, Narey and the crime-scene manager, Campbell Baxter, stood back and watched while two forensics officers carefully began to dig into the sodden ground. Narey had arrived in tow with the rest of the scenes-of-crime officers who were outside, waiting their turn.

  The only other person to work was Winter. He shot frame after frame while the SOCOs dug, one of them giving reproachful sideways glances at being photographed but unable to say anything with the senior officers present. Winter’s lens almost resented the flash lighting that they had installed, preferring to have done the job itself but grudgingly grateful for the vivid green tones of the grass, the dark browns of the freshly turned earth and the reddened glow of the cop’s cheek.

  Williams and Addison were grim-faced, their jaws set firm, perhaps in an attempt to convince themselves that they were hardened professionals able to deal with this. Rachel didn’t feel the same need to make some macho statement and her emotions were there for all to see: fearful, caring, tired. She twisted strands of hair between finger and thumb, a sure sign of anxiety or annoyance, her eyes rarely leaving the bump of earth that was being slowly stripped before them. If they did move, it was to the scarlet dress that had been laid out on sheeting at the side of the tent as if ready to be worn to a prom or a wedding.

  The spotlights gave it a surreal, wholly incongruous air of glamour, memories of Hollywood starlets and red-carpet chic. Rachel’s couture critique was that it was made up of a bodice, laced at the front, then tumbling into a wide, full-length ballgown style. Size 10, good label, reasonably expensive, not the kind of thing you’d wear for any old night out. It lay just a yard or two from a body-shaped bruise in the earth of similar dimensions.

  The two forensics had been digging tentatively, unsure of how deep down anything was and fearful of slicing steel blades through flesh or bone. After removing perhaps six inches of soil, they paused to look at each other and nodded, an unspoken decision made. They put the spades aside and knelt down to begin clawing at the loose earth with their gloved hands.

  It turned out to be a sound decision for, just moments later, Winter’s lens caught the first glimpse of porcelain white against the dark grains of brown. He immediately zoomed and focused, aware of one of the forensics stopping as if he’d been stung. The flesh that filled his lens, an inch or two of ankle, was barely grubby as the other officer’s hand instinctively reached out to brush dirt from it.

  He looked up and saw Rachel’s eyes on his. A silent conversation passed between them, seeking confirmation that the other was okay. The forensics worked on swiftly but carefully, taking handfuls of earth at a time and revealing bare feet and legs, working their way from toe to top. It quickly became obvious that the body was both female and naked as they exposed pale, white thighs, then hips, the officers briefly leaving a mound of dirt over and around her vagina out of misplaced sensitivity until Addison softly reminded them that there wasn’t room for such niceties. The taller of the two brushed away the earth with as much sensitivity as the situation and Addison would allow.

  It revealed bruising at the very top of her thighs, tell-tale red and blue marks that meant the injuries had been inflicted before death rather than during whatever manipulation it took to place her where she now was.

  They continued to undress her, stripping her of an ill-fitting gown of dirt. Her waist and stomach emerged, the word ‘SIN’ inevitably and sickeningly scrawled there in a familiar hue. Her ribs and breasts emerged, dappled with dried blood that trailed from her neckline and splashed across to slim shoulders, the heaped earth being inexorably replaced with undue humiliation.

  The men gently fingered soil away from neck and jaw, then, using the kind of brush they might employ to dust a surface for fingerprints, they inch by inch uncovered an open mouth, lipstick peppered with dirt, a slim nose and high cheekbones. The two officers, one tall and broad, the other heavy-set, whispered against her skin as if it were a butterfly’s wing, easing her free of her unwanted earthen mask. Winter caught the sensitivity and the hint of a tear on the stockier of the two, knowing right away that he had a photograph to keep and swallowing the pang of guilt at doing so.

  They feathered away the earth from her eyes, clear blue orbs open and staring up at them accusingly. Light-blue eyes like an early morning in May. They were lifeless but still angry, furiously glaring at the person who had been there and hurt her but who had now stolen into the night.

  They blew the soil from her forehead, revealing it high and lightly mottled with freckles, as were her cheeks, strands of brown hair straying onto her temples, but the rest swept behind her, still encased in a shallow tomb of cemetery earth.

  Feeling suitably mortified, Winter took a final round of frames of th
e girl’s now fully naked body. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection into eternal life. Winter remembered the words but had long since lost the capacity to believe in them. He looked at the girl and hoped he was wrong.

  Winter stood and slunk back from the girl, leaving others to work and sensing their urgency to do so. He had feasted on the corpse and duly hated himself for it.

  ‘Your turn, Mr Baxter,’ he heard Addison mutter bitterly. ‘Get us everything you can. But she wasn’t murdered tonight, was she? That poor cow was killed last night and buried in here before we even got the chance to work it out.’

  Baxter, his heavy grey beard and plunging jowls making his face suitably mournful, offered a deepening grimace. ‘You know I won’t say anything remotely official until I fully carry out the necessary tests, Detective Inspector, but, yes, my initial assessment is that you are quite right. This young lady died around twenty-four hours ago. I will of course deny that evaluation if questioned.’

  Addison nodded curtly, expecting no more or less, and turned to Narey.

  ‘Rachel, you may as well get ready to add another strike to that list of sexist behaviour. As the resident woman in this tent, would you say that red dress over there belonged to her? Would it fit her?’

  Narey didn’t need to look at the red dress again: she’d been unable to stop herself from mentally fitting it to the girl’s body as every successive inch of it appeared.

  ‘It would fit her like a glove. It’s just not who I expected it to fit.’

  Chapter 59

  ‘You thought it would be Faith Foster?’

  ‘I thought it might be.’

  ‘So where is she?’

  ‘I have no idea. Maybe there’s another body in here somewhere. Apart from the old ones, before you say it. I think we need to talk to Stark again. You got my message about his flat? The crazy murals and the triangles?’

  ‘Yeah.Puts him right in the frame. We’ve had him locked up all day but this was done last night. He’s been one fucking step ahead of us. But, if he is, then he’s not on his own. Some one threw that dress out of a van while he was in Stewart Street.’

  Addison fished his mobile from his pocket and punched in an address from the contact book. It rang for an age before finally being answered.

  ‘Sam? I was hoping you’d still be up… Yes, I know it’s my fault that you’re still working. Have you— No, I know what you— Right, okay, okay.’

  The DI ended the call and looked up to see barely concealed amusement on the faces of those around him.

  ‘You people not got jobs to do?’

  Addison’s phone rang again, just a minute or two after Sam Guthrie had aborted the last conversation. It was her. Fearing he was going to get his bollocks chewed off in public for a second time, he moved off away from the other cops into a quiet patch of ground under the stadium roof and steeled himself.

  ‘Addison.’

  ‘I don’t like being rushed and I particularly don’t like being rushed in the middle of something that is already a rush job. Some things deserve to be taken slowly and being fast isn’t always good. Don’t you agree?’

  She had a way of making him think that he was always hearing innuendo in whatever she said. And, although he was thinking it, he was pretty sure she was making him think it. He just didn’t know how.

  ‘Um, yes. I do agree. What about this particular job? When might it be finished without any extra rush on your part?’

  The noise on her end of the line might have been a sigh or a laugh at his expense; as usual, he couldn’t be sure.

  ‘Well, if I were needing to finish both profiles to get a positive match from either of them, then it would probably take me a further two hours. As it is, I can give you an unofficial but assured response right now. Unless you want to wait the extra two hours, of course.’

  ‘Yes. I mean no. I don’t want to wait. What do you mean if you needed to get a positive match? Surely that’s what we want.’

  It was definitely a sigh this time.

  ‘Yes, Detective Inspector. I am sure that’s what you want. But, you know, you can’t always get what you want. Neither DNA sample is a match to that found at Caledonia Road. Neither Stark nor Barclay.’

  ‘Shit! You sure?’

  ‘I did say it was unofficial but assured, didn’t I? Look, as I’m sure you know, we target ten specific parts within the DNA known as short tandem repeats. If we get a match on all ten points then the odds of it not being the same person is one in more than one billion. I’ve been through seven of the STRs and can tell you already that neither of them match. Stark isn’t Atto’s son and neither is Barclay.’

  ‘Shit, shit, shit. Okay, thanks. Um… why couldn’t you have just told me this in the first place?’

  He thought he could hear her smiling on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Sometimes, Detective Inspector, the longer you have to wait for something, the more you want it and the more worthwhile it is. Don’t you think?’

  ‘How well do you know Ritchie Stark, Mr Barclay?’

  ‘Reasonably well. We work together. We’re pals.’

  ‘Well enough that you can ask him to provide you with an alibi for a murder and he will oblige?’

  ‘Sergeant Giannandrea! My client has already explained his reasons for asking Mr Stark and Ms Foster to cover for him.’

  ‘Indeed he has, Mr McEwan. And that has got him into serious trouble. It is up to him if he is able to get himself out of it. Answering my questions might allow him to do that. Can we continue?’

  The solicitor nodded grudgingly towards his client. Barclay had lost much of his earlier fury and was now looking scared.

  ‘Mr Barclay, I’ll ask again. How well do you know Ritchie and Faith?’

  ‘We go out for a drink now and again. Maybe listen to music together. That sort of thing.’

  ‘You trusted them. You must have done to put something like that in their hands.’

  Barclay scowled. ‘Yeah. I did.’

  ‘You went to their flat in Tobago Street, didn’t you?’

  ‘I’ve told you. Yes, a couple of times. Why?’

  ‘Just curious. You ever been in the bedroom?’

  ‘What? We weren’t close like that! What are you suggesting?’

  ‘Nothing at all. Wouldn’t be that odd, would it? Anyway, have you ever been in the bedroom?’

  ‘No. Never.’

  Giannandrea paced round the room a bit, hands in his pockets, thinking.

  ‘Strange place to live, though, don’t you think? If you move up to Glasgow from Nottingham and choose to live in that bit of the East End. Not particularly close to your shop — must be a mile and half away.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘You suppose… Did Ritchie ever tell you why he wanted to live in that particular street? Was it significant in any way?’

  Barclay’s eyes furrowed in confusion. ‘Significant? No. It was just a flat. He didn’t particularly like it but it did him okay. Anyway, it kept Faith happy, so he went along with it.’

  ‘What do you mean it kept Faith happy?’

  ‘It was her idea. She told Ritchie that it would be a great place to live. That she’d always wanted to stay there.’

  ‘You’re sure about this?’

  ‘Positive. Remember thinking that it was a bit odd. Hang on… where are you going? Mr McEwan, where’s he going?’

  Giannandrea’s phone call to Narey ended almost at the same time as Guthrie’s to Addison. She walked over to find him looking ready to spit nails, Winter following on behind her.

  ‘It isn’t Stark,’ he told her as she got nearer. ‘That’s the DNA results back and Stark isn’t Atto’s son. It isn’t Barclay, either. We’re back at square one.’

  ‘Not quite. I think we’ve been looking at this wrong the whole time. Tony, think back to what Atto told you when he said he’d been emailed by his child. Can you remember exactly what he said?’

/>   Winter puffed out his cheeks, trying to remember as accurately as possible.

  ‘Atto said that he’d received the email out of the blue. He said, “The gist of it was that he was my child.” And then he said, “Well, ‘your spawn’ was the exact phrase used.” He said the son had never said what his name was, or the mother’s name.’

  ‘What’s your point, Rachel?’ Addison asked.

  ‘The point is that the child didn’t say he was Atto’s son. Atto assumed that. We all assumed that. In the email the person simply said they were Atto’s spawn. That was Rico on the phone. He’s interviewed Barclay again and asked him if he knew why Stark chose the flat in Tobago Street. He says that Stark didn’t pick it: his girlfriend did. Faith Foster was the one that wanted to live there.’

  Addison’s eyes widened. ‘You’re fucking kidding me!’

  ‘No, I’m not. I think Faith Foster is our killer.’

  * * *

  Addison sighed as he hit the buttons on his phone. Sam Guthrie picked up immediately.

  ‘You just can’t stay away, Detective Inspector, can you?’

  ‘Seems that way. Sam, you said that the sample from Caledonia Road was very poor quality, right?’

  ‘Yes but not so poor that I can’t be certain it isn’t Stark or…’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I get that,’ Addison interrupted. ‘But was it so poor that a gender test couldn’t be done?’

  Guthrie hesitated, thinking. ‘I wasn’t involved at that stage but yes, looking at the case notes, they weren’t able to establish that. Given the circumstances, I think perhaps some assumptions were made or at least uncertainty not flagged up.’

  ‘Jesus. Thanks, Sam.’

  ‘Derek?’

  ‘Later.’

  * * *

  Addison nodded at Narey, confirmation that she was right. Winter stole a glance at her, a sudden need to hug her. A sense of pride that he wasn’t entitled to any more. Addison, however, had more questions.

  ‘Wait a minute, Miss Marple. That’s all very well but those girls were raped. I’m not sure if you remember your school biology lessons but—’