by Liz Mistry
Ignoring the discomfort, he slid his legs round until he was sitting on the edge of the bed and tried to keep his voice down so as not to wake Alice in the next room. ‘Yeah, Gus McGuire, what can I do for you?’
The voice on the other end of the phone was garbled and for a moment Gus didn’t recognise it, then it came to him. It was Jerry, one of the two homeless men he saw regularly at Lister Park. Breathing a little easier now he knew his parents were okay, he suspected something had happened to Dave, Jerry’s friend. He resigned himself to jogging over to the park to help out when he thought of something else. What if Jerry had seen Zarqa again? What if something had happened to her? Gus ran his fingers through his dreads and stood up, speaking quietly into the phone, as he paced the room. ‘Calm down there, Jerry, I can’t hear you properly. You need to hold the phone closer to your mouth.’
Two small taps on his bedroom door and the door opened. Alice poked her head through, and he shrugged in response to her, ‘Who’s that?’ and flicked the phone to speaker.
‘Jerry, slow down. Take a deep breath and tell me what’s happened… is Dave okay?’
A different voice came on the phone and Gus recognised it as belonging to Dave. ‘I’m okay, Gus.’
Gus raised an eyebrow. This Dave sounded comparatively calm, which was unusual as Jerry was normally the leader of the two of them. ‘You okay, Dave? Jerry okay?’
Not one to mince his words, Dave got straight to the point before hanging up. ‘Get yourself over here. Botanic Gardens. Dead kid.’
Gus stared at the silent phone for a few seconds and then blinked. Shit. Dead kid! Fuck, could it be Zarqa?
Alice prodded his arm. ‘Dead kid, Gus, Botanic Gardens, chop chop. I’ll phone it in, you phone the team.’
‘What if it’s Zarqa?’ He hadn’t meant to speak, hadn’t wanted to put voice to his greatest fear, but the words wouldn’t remain unsaid.
Alice looked at him, her expression puzzled. ‘Why would you think it might be Zarqa? Why would it be?’
Shrugging, Gus shook his head as if to clear his mind and began to pull on a pair of jogging bottoms. ‘Just me being daft. Not proper awake yet.’
Alice’s eyes narrowed and he suspected she wasn’t wholly convinced by his response. Her next words confirmed that. ‘Seems like I’ve missed a lot in the last six months. Now we better get a wriggle on.’
Gus pulled a T-shirt on as his friend walked towards the bedroom door and as his head popped out the top, he said, ‘But what if it is, Al?’
She paused and stood with her hand resting on the door handle for a brief moment before turning around to meet his eye. ‘Then, we’ll deal with it… and we’ll be there for Mo and Naila.’ Her voice hardened, became brisker as she added, ‘But what the hell’s got into you? You need to get a grip, Gus. Move it!’
Walking through Lister Park, mere minutes later, the air was filled with the warm mulchy smell of vegetation after the earlier rainstorm. As they approached the Botanical Gardens with their decorative bridges, Gus saw two figures crouched on the ground. ‘Dave, Jerry, that you?’
One of the two figures stood and turned towards them. Gus recognised Dave. Jerry remained crouched. As he and Alice neared the two men, Gus could hear the sounds of sirens approaching. Just in case, they’d alerted emergency services and requested an ambulance as well as police units to come. In the distance, to the right of the gardens, he heard voices and called out, ‘Who’s that over there?’
A disembodied voice floated through the air. ‘Police. Identify yourself.’
Gus shone his torch towards the voice and saw two uniformed officers approaching down the hill from the North Park Road entrance. ‘Stop where you are. I’m DI Gus McGuire with DS Alice Cooper. Wait there until I’ve established what’s happened. Make sure no other units come any closer okay?’
Hearing a ‘Yes, sir,’ followed by the mumble and crackle of police radios, Gus was reassured that his instructions were being taken care of. Approaching the two men, Alice following in his tracks, he said, ‘You said there was a dead kid, Dave?’
Gus’ heart was hammering and the feeling of foreboding hanging over him seemed to get heavier with each step he took. Directing his torch light at an angle so as not to blind the two men, Gus studied them. Why was Jerry not standing up? Why was Dave doing all the speaking?
‘Yep, a girl.’ Dave’s eyes remained on his friend’s hunched-up figure as he spoke.
Gus’ step faltered and then, pulling himself together, he moved closer. Dave was pointing to an area of shrubbery to the right and Gus, deliberately slowing his breathing, moved over, casting his torch light on the body of a young girl. Almost sagging with relief, he closed his eyes when he realised it wasn’t Zarqa lying there. This was followed almost immediately by guilt, because whoever this girl was, she was someone’s daughter, sister, friend. He edged closer to the girl, registering the similarities between this and Pratab’s crime scene. Hoping for a miracle, but expecting none, he extended two fingers and felt for a pulse. Nothing.
Alice had waited on the path so as not to disturb the area any more than was necessary. Gus retraced his steps back onto the path and was already on the phone directing his team and giving directions for the CSIs as well as the pathologist. For once, he hoped his dad was the pathologist on call. It would be better to have the same pathologist do both post mortems, since the two crime scenes indicated the same perpetrator.
Between them, he and Alice established an inner cordon around themselves and Jerry and Dave. All they could do now was wait for the crime scene investigators. He was glad that the two older men had had the presence of mind to move away from the body. This would minimise cross contamination. As he walked over to them, Dave spoke, his voice a little higher, a little more agitated, than it had been on the phone earlier. ‘Soon as we saw her like, Gus, we backed off and phoned you. Jerry’s not right good. Got a shock like… daughter that age himself. Fainted… cracked his head on summat… bleeding… bleeding. Needs help, he does.’
Shit. He hadn’t stopped to question Jerry’s huddled position on the ground. Had been too keen to make sure the dead girl wasn’t Zarqa. Gus hadn’t known Jerry had a daughter, never mind one so young. Truth was, he’d put him at being in his late seventies and hadn’t given much of a thought to the two men’s backgrounds. Now, he was angry with himself for being an idiot. Of course, these two men had had a life other than the one they lived now.
He kneeled down beside Jerry, cursing himself for not realising sooner that Dave wouldn’t have been so vocal had Jerry been well. ‘Don’t worry, Dave, I called for an ambulance.’ As the sirens got louder, he continued, ‘You can hear it now, yeah?’
Ignoring the overpowering smell of unwashed clothes, Gus concentrated on the Jerry. A trail of blood smeared across his forehead, coming from a gash just beneath his hairline. He must have cracked his head on a rock or something when he fell. The bleeding had slowed to a trickle and Gus suspected that it was shock rather than his injury that was affecting Jerry. Behind him, Dave fidgeted, moving from one foot to the other in a sort of nervous shuffle. Jerry was pale, but conscious. ‘In my pocket, Gus. Dave’s meds. Was gonna give them him.’
Overcoming his distaste, Gus rummaged in the man’s pockets until he found a box with blister packs of Clozaril in.
‘Just one. Give him one.’ Jerry’s voice was a whisper and Gus had to lean in to hear it.
With a nod, Gus turned to Dave. ‘Here, Dave, Jerry’s fine. Just needs a couple of stitches. He says you’ve to take this.’ And he held out the blister pack. Obediently, Dave held out a hand, and when Gus popped a pill onto his palm, Dave threw it into his mouth and dry swallowed, opening his mouth immediately to let Gus see it had gone.
Ignoring the wave of halitosis that wafted out, Gus smiled. ‘Great. That’s great. Now here’s the ambulance. You need to go with Jerry, okay? He needs you to look after him. I’ll come and find you at BRI later on.’
Gus yelled up to th
e uniformed officers at the top of the hill. ‘I need one of you to accompany my friends to the hospital.’ When an older officer approached, Gus moved to meet him and spoke in a low voice. ‘Go with them. See what you can find out. If they saw anyone hanging about or anything. But don’t frighten them. Dave in particular is a bit fragile.’
The officer nodded, switched on a smile, began to help Jerry to his feet and said, ‘Looks like we’re getting a ride in an ambulance. Come on. I could do with a cup of tea and last time I was at the BRI they had some hot chocolate in one of the vending machines too… Galaxy hot chocolate, no less.’
CHAPTER 48
Zodiac
R eally wanted to stay. Couldn’t have planned it better if I’d tried. Just as well we’d finished though. Those two smelly old dumbasses turning up was bloody brilliant. Pisces and Leo – shit! Should’ve seen their faces. Nearly shat themselves. Then we were off, running… running like the wind. I nearly yelled at the top of my voice, ‘Run, Pisces, Run! Run, Leo, Run!’ Like in that stupid film my mum made me watch the other week, Forest Gump or something… box of chocolates indeed… life’s more like a pile of crap than a box of chocolates… unless of course you make your own box of chocolates. Maybe that’s what Gump did. Maybe he made his own box of chocolates and maybe that’s exactly what the Zodiac Club are doing… creating our own chocolate fillings… blood and murder and revenge.
We’d no idea the tramps were about. By the time Leo had convinced her to meet us and she’d downed the drugged booze and smoked half a spliff, we were at the point of no return. It’d been easy to convince her to skip out. Leo was very persuasive. I’d listened in on the conversation.
‘Please, you got to come. With everything that’s happened recently, I need a friend… someone who understands the sort of shit I’m going through.’
Pure genius. Leo went well up in my estimations… played a blinder there. Pisces, not so much. Wittering on, moaning. Wanted to slam a punch into that pock-marked face… only the thought of pus splattering all over my fist stopped me in the end. That and the fact that I knew the best way to get Pisces onside was to be sympathetic. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that keeping them off-balance is the best control there is… sympathise one minute, then admonish them, a little bit of guilt tripping, a few hours of ghosting… A fine art, polished over years of practicing with equally gullible idiots.
Betsy was an easy target. A bit rushed in the end, but enjoyable, nonetheless. Just got to dump the phone and it’s done.
It never ceases to amaze me what you can make people do… with the correct nurturing that is.
As we skipped, I heard the old guys whispering. One of the minging idiots fell over trying to get away from the body. Weeping like a fucking wuss. Then they’re whispering like an old couple,
‘What should we do?’
‘It’s that Snapchat Killer innit? Bet that’s who’s done this.’
‘Yeah, but should we phone Gus?’
‘Maybe just leave it. Someone else’ll find her soon enough. They’ll think we done it if we phone.’
‘Gus won’t. He won’t. I’m phoning him. Help me phone him, Dave. That’s someone’s wee girl there.’
Idiots! I’d have loved to have stayed. Seen Gus’ reaction first-hand. That’d have been cool as crap. Too risky though. Never mind, I’ve other things to do… important things. It’s all part of the plan. I’ll be in touch with DI McGuire again before too much longer. I can hardly wait.
CHAPTER 49
B y the time Dr McGuire arrived, an outer cordon had been established surrounding the Botanic Gardens as far as the Emm Lane park boundary and swooping around the park as far as Cartwright Hall. Hissing Sid had set up a crime scene tent and his CSIs were combing the immediate vicinity. Despite their disagreement at the previous crime scene and the fact he’d been called out in the middle of the night, Sid seemed in good spirits.
Dr McGuire, dressed in shorts from which two sturdy, hairy legs protruded, tackled the hill from the boating lake up to the Botanical Gardens. A mega sized T-shirt, under which his man boobs wobbled distractingly, finished off his ensemble. Gus watched his dad struggle up the slight incline with a frown. The doc’s red face and heaving chest told Gus just how out of condition his dad had become in recent months. His hair, sticking up like two demon horns at either side of his skull, indicated how quickly he’d responded to Alice’s call.
Gasping to catch his breath, Dr McGuire stopped and when he recognised Alice, now suited and booted up, his eyes widened. ‘Aw, yer back, Alice. It’s grand to see you and looking so fit too.’
Alice grinned as Dr McGuire shimmied into his XXXL crime scene suit and pulled the hood over his errant hair. ‘You’re looking grand yourself, Doc.’
And, when he was fully suited, she went over and was enveloped in a bear hug.
Gus tapped his toe in an exaggerated fashion. ‘Time’s a ticking, you two.’
The whole greeting had taken two minutes, but prior experience told him that if he didn’t nip it in the bud pronto, his dad would start a full investigation into the last six months of Alice’s life. Time for that later.
Opening the tent door, Gus ushered his dad through, with Sid following.
Sid was the first to speak, ‘You notice?’
Gus nodded. ‘The phone?’
‘Exactly.’ The CSI moved closer. ‘No phone anywhere, but mark my…’
At that moment Gus’s mobile rang and seeing it was work, Gus held up a gloved finger and answered. ‘Yep, Hardeep?’
‘Just texting you a photo, boss. A Ms Reavley just come in saying her daughter’s missing and… well, you know?’
Gus did know. No such thing as coincidence. ‘Good thinking.’ His phone pinged. ‘It’s arrived… I’ll let you kn—’
‘That’s not all… the boss came in five minutes ago and…’ Hardeep paused.
Keen to get him off the phone so he could crack on with things here at the crime scene, Gus interrupted. ‘Nancy? Did you tell her what’s gone off?’
‘Eh, no. Not Nancy…… it was the big boss.’
‘Bashir?’ Gus was puzzled. What the hell was the DCS doing at this time of the night in The Fort?
‘She’s with her daughter. The girl’s in bits. Says she got a Snapchat…’
Fuck! Gus had been expecting that. He just hadn’t expected his boss’ daughter to be the recipient.
‘…she says, the boss’s daughter, Mehmoona that is, that it’s from her friend Betsy Reavley.’ He paused a moment and Gus heard him inhale sharply before continuing. ‘She’s a smart girl that Mehmoona. When she saw the Snap the first time, she realised what it was and so managed to screenshot it when she viewed it the second time. Lucky for us. It’s the same girl, boss. Ms Reavley’s a single mum – she came in on her own.’
Gus’ heart sank. He understood what Hardeep was telling him. The victim’s mum had no one to support her and she was going to be given the worst possible news any parent could ever receive. ‘Right. Okay. Keep both parties in separate rooms. Brief Taffy and get him to sit with Ms Reavley. Tell Bashir I’ll be up as soon as I can, but in the meantime ask for Mehmoona’s phone and get Compo working on that.’
‘Should Taffy tell the mum?’
‘Look, let me see for myself if the photo matches. I’ll be as quick as I can.’
Gus accessed the photo quickly and sighed. Turning it round he showed it to the other three. ‘Looks like we’ve just ID’d the victim. Alice…’
‘I’m on it. I’ll head up now and inform the mum and get what I can from her.’
Gus spoke onto his phone. ‘You get that, Hardeep? Alice is on her way. Tell Taffy to just stay there. Alice will help him with the death notice.’
If there was anybody best suited to breaking the news to a mother that their teenage daughter was dead, it was Alice. Gus just hoped it wouldn’t put too much strain on her. Although she’d put on a brave face, Gus had heard her pacing the house
in the early hours of the morning for the past two nights. He wasn’t surprised she chose to roam the entire house. After her spell in prison, the confined space of a bedroom probably conjured up too many bad memories for her. Maybe what she needed was a distraction. Maybe this investigation would take her mind off her own demons.
As Alice left the tent, Gus looked at Sid. ‘So, if a Snapchat photo was sent, that begs the question… where’s the damn phone?’
Sid spoke into the walkie talkie. ‘We suspect a phone may have been ditched nearby, extend the initial bag and grab area keeping a special lookout for a dumped phone.’ He turned to Gus. ‘We may need to consider trawling the lake in case it’s been dumped there. Wonder why it was taken this time?’
Dr McGuire looked up from his kneeling position next to the teenage victim. ‘Well, that may be a change in MO, but my initial examination says that most other things are consistent with the previous murder. Again, the jugular has been stabbed, although this time it looks like they took a couple of attempts to get it just right. The hands are positioned in the same way and there’s evidence of cable ties.’
‘Yep, we found those thrown in a bush,’ Sid confirmed.
‘A bit of bruising to the head, again as if someone yanked it in position and held it steady. I’ll confirm at the PM.’
As his dad struggled to his feet, Gus stepped forward and lent his arm. ‘Will you be able to prioritise this?’
Doc McGuire nodded. ‘Yes. I’ve got a non-suspicious death – probably a heart attack which I’ll do first thing and then get cracking on this one by ten. That suit you?’