Deep and Crisp and Even

by Peter Turnbull

  The income of the McPherson household is derived entirely from statutory sources.

  PERSONAL HISTORY James McPherson (subject) was born in Greenock and moved to Glasgow with his family when he was seven. He attended local primary and secondary modern schools (where he received remedial education) and left at 15 years with no qualifications. He reports great distress at the death of his mother and says that this incident started his drinking which in turn led to his criminal career. The writer understands that his previous offences were all alcohol-related.

  Mr McPherson (subject) has a patchy work record. He worked as a van-boy with a bakery for three months before leaving it in favour of a job as a porter in the meat market. He was dismissed from this post but refused to give details about the circumstances surrounding his dismissal. His last job was that of a labourer, which he lost following his committal to the Young Offenders Institution eighteen months ago.

  THE OFFENCE The offence took place after a drinking session on a Saturday night. The company, of which Mr McPherson (subject) was a member, left the bar and went to a flat, which belonged to one of the group, in order to consume the carry-outs they had purchased. During the course of the evening one member of the group accused Mr McPherson (subject) of having homosexual leanings. Mr McPherson then produced a flick-knife and attempted to stab the person who made the remark. He had to be restrained until the police arrived.

  James McPherson (subject) related the incident in a quiet, matter-of-fact manner, and admitted that he would have killed unless prevented. Regrettably the writer was unable to detect any evidence of contrition on the part of Mr McPherson (subject).

  Peter Stringer Social Worker.

  'Got a temper, too,' said King and drained the coffee from his mug. He leaned forward and picked up the phone and asked for the computer terminal. He identified himself and asked, 'Anything for me yet?' What they had for him were eight unsolved murders of young boys in the west of Scotland over the last five years. King matched the time of each murder against McPhersons criminal record and found that he had been at liberty when five of the murders were committed. Of those five murders one boy was battered to death and a second had been poisoned (this death was query misadventure). These two varied in age by a factor of four years, one being ten and the other being fourteen. There was an interval of five years separating the two murders and a distance of two hundred miles separating the location of each murder. They were undoubtedly murdered by different persons.

  The three remaining murders interested King greatly. They were murders of boys who were of the same age; two were eleven and one was three months short of eleven. All three had been raped before or shortly after being strangled. The murders had taken place in the Glasgow area over a period of five years and King felt embarrassed for his profession that the pattern had not been noticed before. The press hadn't noticed either, but that, King felt, was cold comfort. There was a definite pattern: age, sex, method and location all pointed to the three boys being murdered by the same person. King checked the dates of the three murders against Jamie McPherson's file. The boys had each been murdered within six weeks of Jamie McPherson being released from custody.

  King closed the file and drummed his fingers on it. So far there was no evidence, not even circumstantial, that McPherson was the murderer. He saw no reason to bring McPherson in, no need to alarm him into flight, no point in allowing him time to fix an alibi. King knew that if he rushed this he'd have to wrestle it all the way to the Procurator Fiscal's office. There didn't seem to be a matter of urgency, either; if McPherson was true to his established pattern he wouldn't murder again until he was next released from prison. King reopened the file and recorded his suspicions and reasons for not moving directly against Jamie McPherson. He wrote a memo to Donoghue detailing the similarities of the three murders and his suspicion that they were all the victims of one man. He dropped it in the NON-URGENT typing basket. In the file on the McAlpine boy he wrote 'Cross refer—James McPherson— GPM 13271' for the collator. He returned Jamie McPherson's file to the basement, scored his name off the red card after replacing the file, and went to the incident room.

  There was a constable in the room manning the telephone, and he stood as King entered the room. King waved him down. On the table was a cellophane envelope containing six sets of fingerprints, marked A to F. Clipped to the outside of the envelope was an official compliment slip on which a round hand had written, A—Deceased; B— Cleaning lady; C,D,E,F—checked with National Police Computer—No trace; E—Bothwell. 'No trace,' said King. 'That's all we need.' It was just midday. He pulled on his coat and went out for lunch.

  At 2.15 that afternoon, Fabian Donoghue sat in front of a row of reporters and two television cameras. He wondered if this was going to be the one he was going to blow, the one he was going to learn from, and he felt his stomach tighten. He had chased men over rooftops in the moonlight, he had been held prisoner for hours with a shotgun held against his chest, he had jumped into a freezing river at dead of night to rescue a drowning child who on closer inspection revealed himself to be a half-submerged inner-tube, but the only situation which frightened him was that period just before a press conference. It wasn't so bad when he was in there and pitchin', it was those awful moments before the starting whistle. The constable on the door was looking at him, the reporters had stopped shuffling and were waiting, fingers poised over their cassette recorders. The camera crew had set the definition and the lens apertures. Twenty-five people waited for him to start the conference. He thought that it wouldn't be so bad if he didn't have to blow the damn whistle himself. Finally he raised his head and said, 'Thank you, Constable.'

  The camera crew bent forward, the reporters pressed buttons on their recorders and reached for their notebooks.

  'Gentlemen,' he began, 'thank you for coming. As you know, this conference concerns the killer known as Slow Tom and I have called this particular conference to keep you abreast of the situation. I'm afraid the news is not good. I'll take questions, but not until I have finished speaking, please.'

  He paused. But not long enough to overdo it.

  'The number of murders committed by the killer has now risen to five and we are no nearer to making an arrest than we were two weeks ago. We know nothing more about this man than we did a few hours after the murder of Patrick Duffy.

  'Last week a tape recording and photocopies of a letter were released to the press. These both came from a man who called himself Slow Tom and who claimed to be the killer. This enabled us to narrow the field of suspects considerably but subsequently this man proved to be a hoaxer.'

  The reporters groaned and talked among themselves. A few arms were raised but Donoghue held out his hand, palm outward. The arms retracted.

  'A man has been arrested and will appear before the Glasgow Sheriff tomorrow morning charged with wasting police time. The situation then is that we are at Square One again; we don't know what the murderer looks or sounds like, we don't even have the dubious comfort of a promise to stop at nine victims.

  'The killer's modus operandi has changed, probably in a response to our early warnings about not staying out late or going out alone, preferably not doing either. The killer has taken to pursuing his victims to their homes. The last two victims were ladies, both murdered in their homes, and in one case, that of a young woman whose body was found just this morning, we believe that the killer was actually waiting for her inside her house when she returned home late last night.'

  In front of him Donoghue saw heads sag forward. One reporter clutched his stomach.

  'I'm afraid I can't say anything else about his latest victim, I haven't yet heard whether the relatives have been informed. We believe that this particular lady kept her key under her front door mat; there's an obvious lesson there, so I won't labour the point, nevertheless I can't urge ladies strongly enough to have their boy-friends look around their flat before they say good night. If he stays the night so much the better. Most of his victim
s seem to be women and so a certain pattern is being built up, but the sadness of it is that women are not now safe in their homes. If a woman hasn't got anyone to go out with who will return with her, I urge her then to stay in. All adult women seem to be potential targets, the youngest victim was in her early twenties and the oldest in her sixties/

  He paused. He felt he needed the pause. He hadn't anything else to say anyway. The reporters didn't look eager; most had wide eyes and" hanging jaws.

  'I'll take questions, one at a time, please.'

  A reporter raised his hand.

  'Does this mean you'll be calling in Scotland Yard, Inspector?'

  'No.'

  A bearded man with a distended stomach asked, 'Does the Inspector agree with the view that the killer is an escapee from an institution for the criminally insane?'

  'No he doesn't,' replied Donoghue, shortly. It was a stupid question and he was irritated by its formality. 'Neither Carstairs nor Broadmoor have reported such a patient escaping within recent years. Next.'

  'In fact, what you're really saying, Inspector, is that despite five murders you know nothing about the killer save his hair colour and his type of overcoat and his blood group?'

  'In fact, yes,' said Donoghue. 'Next.'

  'What will your next move be, Inspector?'

  If Donoghue knew that he'd crack the case. 'We know little about this man,' he said. 'We are following any leads that we come across, even if they take us to a hoaxer. But the reality is that we have to wait for this man to make a slip, to leave a fingerprint, to be seen, that's the thing we really need, a sighting, we haven't had anybody come forward, despite five murders, who can say that they saw something and so we can't make up a photofit. All we can do at the moment is to play a defensive game. Make it hard for him. Don't go out alone, especially if you are a woman—but men are not immune either— scream and run if you are attacked, have someone come home with you to check your house. Don't go out at all if possible.'

  'Is your journey really necessary?' It was said by one of the reporters; he intended it to be a joke in a stressful situation, but no-one laughed.

  'That's about it,' said Donoghue, grimly.

  In fact the killer had been seen. Benjamin Strachan was a retired architect and he lived two houses down from Susan Smith's and on the opposite side of the road. A plumbline-stretch of one hundred yards from his front gate to hers. Benjamin Strachan was a man of habit and went to bed at 10.30 each night, no matter what film was on television, no matter what social function might require his attendance. His head would be on the pillow at 10.31 and his eyes would be shut at 10.45. He was a lifelong teetotaller and a lay preacher.

  He had 20:20 vision.

  At 10.15 he was standing at his bedroom window. The window was frosting over and outside the snow was driving down thickly. He glimpsed a black shape making its way diagonally across the front lawn of Susan Smith's house.

  He thought it was a large dog.

  The press conference made the later editions of the evening press and the 6 p.m. news on the radio and the television stations. Donoghue felt he needed to get out of the station, he just wanted out, he needed a brief respite before he could go on with banging his head relentlessly against a brick wall. He decided to walk up Sauchiehall Street and back. He winced as he passed the paper-sellers' stands and the newsagents' shops:

  Police say Slow Tom is a hoax Police say the game is defensive Police know nothing Take your man home, say police One man had a pitch at the corner of Renfield and Sauchiehall. He was standing in a plastic mackintosh, the snow melted on it, he had a hat and his papers were covered with a polythene sheet. He was standing in three inches of slush. Donoghue bought a paper from him so that the other people in the street wouldn't think that he was a policeman. He went back down Sauchiehall Street and stopped in at the 51st State Diner. He took a single table and ordered an American beer and what his daughter would call a 'double pigburger'.

  He missed his family.

  Donoghue read the paper while he waited for the girl in the red T-shirt and denim shorts to bring his meal to him. The pages were soggy and he had to peel them apart. On the inside page was an open letter from Bill Cowan, crime reporter:

  I'll call you Jim. I don't know what your real name is, but you know who I'm talking to, don't you, Jim? Listen, Jim, I'm on your side. I'm sitting up and I'm listening. I want you to tell me what you want to say because I think you've got something to say but you aren't doing it right.

  See, Jim, you've knifed four women—three of them were very young— and one man. What have you proved? What have you said? Tell me, Jim. Jim, you're ill. You need help. We know you exist, Jim, you've scared this city like nothing ever known, you've shaken us to our roots, have you been on the streets and seen the way strangers look at each other? All because of you, Jim.

  Jim, I want you to find a police station and walk into it. I want you to give yourself up so we can give you the help you need, and you need it desperately, Jim.

  This is for you and me, Jim. B.C.

  Donoghue thought it might even work; it certainly deserved to work. The waitress smiled and slipped Donoghue's meal in front of him. Donoghue needed that smile.

  Benjamin Strachan slept well the night he saw what he took to be a large dog crossing Susan Smith's lawn. The next day his suspicions were aroused when he saw men walking in and out of her house, an ambulance waiting at the kerb, the cleaning lady being helped into a car and at the end of it a solitary policeman in a cape standing at her door. Benjamin Strachan took an afternoon nap and missed the earliest bulletins at midday.

  The first he knew of the incident was when he watched the early evening broadcasts on the television which named the name and showed a picture of the house. He stood up, crossed his living-room, went into the hall and picked up the telephone. He dialled the number which had been flashed on his television screen.

  'I'd like to talk to someone about the murder,' he said. 'I have a bad chest and I can't leave the house this weather. Can someone visit me?' He gave his address. Malcolm Montgomerie was there in fifteen minutes.

  Benjamin Strachan's house was dark and calm and quiet and ordered. It made Montgomerie walk softly and talk quietly. Benjamin Strachan took Montgomerie's coat and hung it on the hall bannister. He led the way into the front room and indicated a deep and heavy armchair near to the hearth in which burned a small coal fire. The curtains were half-closed, the furniture was old and dark and the table was draped with a green velvet cloth. The room smelled of the solid smell which Montgomerie had come to associate with age and well-earned rest. The light came from a lamp which glowed dimly by the doorway.

  Benjamin Strachan left the room and Montgomerie heard the clatter of tea cups and saucers and a kettle whistling. It was obvious that Benjamin Strachan was going to dictate the pace of the interview and so Montgomerie relaxed and settled into the armchair. He noticed that the hearth was composed of pictorial tiles. When the man returned to the room he was carrying a wicker tray on which were two cups, sugar in a bowl and milk in a matching jug, and a small teapot covered with a knitted cosy. He asked Montgomerie if he took milk and sugar. Just milk,' said Montgomerie. He took the cup and saucer, raising himself slightly from his chair, and as he did so noticed that the old man's movements were as deft and steady as any twenty-year-old's. He was a tall, thin man with short grey hair and a lean face which seemed ingrained with wisdom and understanding. He wore a shaggy green pullover and Montgomerie imagined his arms to be strong and sinewy. Benjamin Strachan sat down effortlessly in the other armchair and Montgomerie wondered if the man had been an athlete in his youth.

  'I don't get a lot of visitors, young man,' said Benjamin Strachan. He had a smooth, easy-on-the-ear voice. 'So we are really helping each other.' He smiled.

  'How long have you been on your own, sir?'

  'My wife died six years ago. Our son lives in Canada. He's a senior partner in a Toronto-based firm of architects.'

  '
Really,' said Montgomerie and sipped his tea.

  'I have a few friends, in the church mostly, and some good neighbours. They send their children round to see me and to run errands for me. Things like that are touching to a man of my years. I'm eighty-three.'

  'Christ,' hissed Montgomerie.

  'I'm a lifelong teetotaller and non-smoker. Mind you, I did take a cigarette at the Armistice Party in 1918. I didn't like it. I was very young at the time, still at school, I believe.'

  'It certainly seems to have paid off,' said Montgomerie. 'I feel bound to say that you look remarkably fit.'

  'It isn't something to boast about, young man, more something to be thankful for, and I'm not sure it has paid off; my generation is dead, and I think you have to live and die with your own generation. I don't feel I belong any more. I've overstayed my welcome. I believe I know where we go when we die and I believe my friends and my dear wife are waiting for me. I shall see them some day.' The man stirred his tea, even though he hadn't sweetened it. 'But if you want longevity in your life, I advise no smoking or drinking and a good nourishing sleep. A healthy routine is the thing. I was at my routine when I saw the strange sight last night.'

  'Would you like to tell me about it, sir?' Montgomerie put his cup on the floor and took out his notebook.

  'I was looking out of my bedroom window as I always do before I do my exercises. My bedroom is the room above this one and looks out on to the road. The time was two or three minutes either side of ten-fifteen.'

  Montgomerie scribbled on his pad.

  'It was snowing thickly and my windows were rimmed with frost, nevertheless I could see Miss Smith's house very clearly and I noticed a black shape crossing her lawn.'

  'A shape?'

  'I took it to be a dog, it might still have been a dog, you understand, I am saying that I saw something which may or may not have been connected with the sad incident which took place last night, and which I only learned about an hour ago.'

  'I understand.'