Perfect Kill

by Helen Fields

  ‘Poor quality,’ she said. ‘They look amateur to me. Could we turn him over?’

  The pathologist manoeuvred the body for Ava to view the remaining skin. She sighed, unzipped her suit, put her gloved hand into her pocket and pulled out her mobile, stepping away from the body, mindful of contamination. She speed-dialled a number, putting the call on speaker phone.

  ‘Tell me I’m getting double time for answering a call at three a.m. when I’m not on duty,’ Lively grouched.

  ‘You can have this conversation from the comfort of your bed or you can get your arse to the mortuary,’ Ava replied. ‘Which would you prefer?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Lively replied. An abrupt click suggested that he’d woken up sufficiently to switch on a light.

  ‘A few years ago, we arrested several men for an attempted robbery of a bookmaker’s, remember? The prosecution didn’t stick because the defence argued serious failings with disclosing our information source, and we didn’t want to reveal that there was an informant.’

  ‘Yup. Right balls-up it was.’

  ‘One of the men we arrested was a standing joke around the station for months afterwards. He’d just had a baby, and had got the kid’s name tattooed on his back, only he’d spelled it wrong. Tiler with an “i” instead of a “y”, the trade not the name. His wife had thrown a fit about it and given him a black eye. Ring any bells?’

  Lively laughed.

  ‘I’d forgotten that particular muppet,’ he said. ‘Damn, that didn’t get old for a very long time. Finlay Wilson, what a tosser.’

  ‘Finlay Wilson, thank you, just couldn’t dredge the name out of my brain. You heard much about him lately?’ Ava asked.

  ‘Hasn’t been arrested that I’m aware of, kept his head down, but he’d have been running some scam or other. Vicious little bastard by reputation, served plenty of time on and off when he was younger but we never got him for anything major. He was connected though. Everyone knows him, plenty of people scared of him too. You need me to tap some sources and bring him in for a chat?’

  ‘Won’t be necessary,’ Ava said, peering at the ‘Tiler’ tattoo on the right-hand shoulder blade of the corpse. ‘He’s with me right now.’

  ‘At the mortuary?’ Lively sounded fully awake. ‘You mean he’s finally got his comeuppance?’

  ‘And then some. You can get searching for his head and hands if you like. They’re still currently at liberty.’

  ‘Fuck me!’ There was the sound of smashing glass and mumbled additional cursing.

  ‘You all right?’ Ava asked.

  ‘Spilled some water but it was worth it to hear that. Where was the body found?’

  Ava nodded at Pax Graham to fill in the remainder of the tale as he’d attended the scene two hours earlier.

  ‘The body fell out of the back of a moving van at midnight, in a quiet residential area. One of the doors had obviously not been secured and the body either rolled or slid, we think. It was wrapped in plastic sheeting. Cause of death was a fall.’

  ‘Did anyone get the licence plate?’ Lively asked.

  ‘Nope, the car behind was too busy avoiding the headless corpse that fell into the road in front of them,’ Graham explained. ‘The driver was elderly and is being treated for shock so we don’t have much to go on at the moment. He didn’t have a mobile and had to knock on doors until someone answered and called us.’

  ‘Who could someone like Finlay have pissed off sufficiently to end up like this?’ Ava asked.

  ‘You’ll have to give me the day to get out there and talk to some people. The field of candidates is pretty limited unless he tried to extend his area of operations outside of Edinburgh, but Finlay knew better than to set up on another player’s turf. Maybe there’s someone new we haven’t heard about yet.’

  ‘Whoever it is can’t get the help, if they forgot to lock the van doors,’ Ava said.

  ‘And the work is clumsy. It should have been obvious we’d make a DNA identification if he has multiple arrests on his record,’ the pathologist joined in.

  ‘Aye, well, chances are whoever cut off the wee git’s head wants word to get out. Couple of days’ delay just to make sure all the evidence is squared away, but after that there’s value in making sure no one else makes whatever mistakes Finlay made. Sends a message. God, I’m never going to get back to sleep now. I might as well starting making some calls. If I leave it until word gets out, it’ll be like getting blood out of a stone.’

  ‘You’re still not getting double time, you know that, right?’ Ava said.

  ‘Finlay bloody Wilson’s dead. I’d work for free today if I had to. It’s like a Christmas bonus.’ He rang off.

  ‘I need forensic results as soon as your computer can run them,’ Ava told the pathologist. ‘If it costs extra, MIT will foot the bill. I refuse to believe it’s coincidence that Finlay Wilson’s body’s turned up the same week three other corpses are turned into pig food, when we’ve got the Gene Oldman case still open. Get me something I can work with.’

  ‘Are you going to release a statement for the press?’ Graham asked.

  ‘I think that can wait a while. I’m in no rush for the decapitation jokes to start up again. Do you know how much street vendors made selling funny T-shirts the last time we found a body without a head?’

  ‘A killing?’ the deputy pathologist offered quietly as he washed his hands in a corner sink.

  Ava glared at him, considered an answer, and decided not to bother. Mortuary humour at 3.30 a.m. she could do without.

  Ava sat in Pax Graham’s car in the mortuary car park. There was a conversation she needed to have. It was bad timing considering the bodies that were piling up, and that she needed to dash back to Natasha’s to check on her friend, newly returned from the hospital, but it was her mess and she needed to clean it up.

  ‘Any movement on the Gene Oldman murder?’ she stalled.

  ‘We’ve got blood drips outside on the path. We’re assuming the woman was still bleeding when she left the property. It trails off pretty quickly though. The DNA is good quality. Doesn’t help progress the investigation. Still no information from anyone locally. No one liked the victim but no one had an obvious reason for killing him. What’s more interesting is what the woman was doing in his house. The fact that every single neighbour says they heard nothing and saw nothing means that they almost certainly did.’

  ‘Did the bullet that killed him come back as a match for a weapon used in any other offence?’

  ‘No. How’s the Malcolm Reilly investigation going in France?’

  ‘Slowly,’ Ava said. ‘My gut’s telling me that Bart Campbell has met the same fate, but there’s not one piece of hard evidence to back that up yet. They both had meetings with a woman who might have been married or pretending to be, then they each disappeared. We can’t get a clear picture of her other than thin and pretty with long brown hair. CCTV has a possible candidate leaving Malcolm Reilly’s gym but she was careful to avert her face, if it’s the right person. She wasn’t a member but could have signed in as a day guest using false ID and paying cash. We keep hitting walls.’

  ‘Have we hit a wall too?’ he asked, too fast for Ava to prepare for the bluntness of the question at that hour.

  ‘Yes,’ she responded. It was brutal, but easier that way. She’d taken advantage of him. The least he was owed was honesty.

  ‘For now, or for good?’

  ‘The latter,’ she said. ‘I’d say sorry only that doesn’t really do it justice. You’d be within your rights to make an official complaint. I wouldn’t fight it.’

  ‘As I recall I pestered you to go out with me, bought you drinks all evening, invited myself back to your place and kissed you first. I think it’s fair to say that any complaint I make that my superior officer seduced me might be met with a fair amount of disbelief.’

  ‘I think I’d feel better if you could just be a bit of a shit for a few minutes,’ she said.

  ‘You think I’m going to
let you off that lightly?’

  She shook her head, staring out at the sleet. It was freezing. Finlay Wilson had chosen a grim night to die.

  ‘Will it affect how you feel about working in MIT? I don’t want to lose you, but you should know that you’ll get nothing but the best recommendation from me if you decide you’ve had enough.’

  ‘I applied to MIT to work with the best officers in Police Scotland, primarily you. Not because you’re sexy or funny or to get you into bed. Is it so hard to believe that I want to carry on working with one of the most respected chief inspectors on the force? If it is, you need to have a think about your self-perception.’

  ‘So you’re going to torture me by being nice, and make me feel like even more of a jerk. Is that the strategy?’

  ‘That … and I’ll be taking my shirt off at every given opportunity. No harm in reminding you what you’ve rejected.’

  She opened his car door and slid out, leaning down to make herself heard against the howling winds.

  ‘It’s not about you, or your rank, or the complications of work. There’s someone I’m not over, and I lied to myself about it. I used you. I feel crap about it.’

  ‘That’s a lot of honesty,’ he said. ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself. I realised what you were going through and I still went to bed with you. I just hoped I might be enough to make you forget him.’

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, turning the engine over. ‘You called me Luc twice that evening, and you didn’t even realise you’d done it. I’ll see you at the station later. Drive carefully. The roads are treacherous.’

  Ava stood in the car park a while, wondering why her face was burning when it was being pelted with icy rain.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Alex the security guard greeted Callanach warmly at the door, and immediately offered to get him a coffee. Callanach accepted, wandering over to the machine with him and making small talk.

  Alex Quint, twenty-six years of age, had a clean driving licence and no criminal convictions. His parents came from Marseille, and he’d moved to Paris two years earlier, registering his address for voting purposes at that time. His mother was a chef and his father, now retired, had worked for a wine wholesaler. His only sibling, a sister, was studying modern languages. The classic French family. It had taken all of thirty minutes for Interpol to turn up the information from a combination of official records and social media. Alex Quint had worked other security jobs before this one, always for decent amounts of time, for some well-respected companies. He was never going to be a CEO or set the world on fire, but he did seem to be that rare millennial – someone who had no selfies whatsoever on their online profile. Callanach liked him all the more for it.

  ‘So who’s your appointment with today?’ Alex asked.

  ‘Bruno Plouffe,’ Callanach said. ‘I met him yesterday. He seemed nice.’

  ‘We have to call him Dr Bruno, as if he was a TV doctor, you know? The patients seem to like him though.’

  ‘No complaints?’ Callanach grinned. ‘Only I’d rather have a heads-up.’

  ‘Depends what you’re in for. I’m guessing the hypnotherapy patients can’t remember if it was actually helpful or not,’ he laughed. An administrator appeared from a doorway and called Callanach’s name. ‘Hey, take it easy. See you afterwards.’

  ‘Sure, and thanks for the coffee.’ Callanach gave him a wave and followed as directed into a corridor, then into another room. There was no sign of Bruno Plouffe so Callanach made himself comfortable in a huge chair that made him feel as if he was drowning in cushion. The room was being scented from a lit bowl that was changing colour and releasing a soft mist into the air. Dimmed lights made the room homely rather than clinical, and there was a soundtrack playing so low he had to actively listen to hear it properly. Waves crashed on some imaginary beach, and birds cried out to their mates. Every now and then a gust of wind sailed across the room, and branches rustled in a forest that was presumably carpeted with expanses of bluebells. Callanach reminded himself of just how ill he was supposed to be.

  Bruno Plouffe appeared five minutes later just as Callanach was beginning to feel sleepy.

  ‘Welcome,’ Bruno said. ‘I’m so glad you decided to give this a try. I think we can offer you some real emotional respite.’ He took an armchair at Callanach’s side, making himself comfortable. ‘We don’t record conversations or make notes. My focus will be on you the whole time. This is a confidential environment, so you can say or ask anything you like. Our only request is that you’re honest with us. It’s difficult to help when our clients try to put on a front, or to keep us at arm’s length.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Callanach said. The ambient soundtrack had turned into a ticking clock, and it seemed to be slowing down. More like a heartbeat. Or perhaps it had been that all along. It was hard to stay focused.

  ‘I thought we’d try some hypnotherapy as a starter,’ Bruno continued. ‘And please don’t worry about this. It’s nothing like they make you believe on the television. You won’t end up doing chicken impressions in the supermarket when the clock strikes twelve! In fact, you won’t lose consciousness at all and you’ll remain in control of the situation throughout. Nothing we do here is aimed at uncovering new information or accessing parts of your memory that might naturally be inaccessible. Our purpose is to allow you to take better control of your mind, to manage those moments where you feel stressed and panicked, and to find a happy place you can return to whenever you need it. It’s more like brain training than creating new pathways.’ Bruno leaned forward slightly, keeping his voice low and even as he spoke. He touched a dial on a remote control at his side and the lights dimmed further.

  ‘Feel free to close your eyes and we’ll begin. You shouldn’t have to concentrate on keeping them closed. Everything should feel natural and relaxed. I’m going to count down slowly from ten, and all you have to do is relax.’

  ‘All right,’ Callanach said. His own voice sounded distant to him now, and he realised the heartbeat he could hear was his own, regular and slow, dependable. Safe. He felt completely safe.

  My name is Luc Chevotet, he reminded himself, suddenly alarmed at how much he might give away during hypnosis. He should have researched it better, he realised. His breathing was slowing and deepening in response to Bruno’s commands, even though he could no longer really hear them.

  There was a series of questions he was supposed to answer with a single word, as quickly as possible. All about emotions. How he felt in certain situations. How he felt when he was alone, with family, at the hospital, as he went to sleep, when he woke up. He fought to try to give the answers he thought he should in the circumstances and given his cover story, but he’d already reacted before he could find the most appropriate response. Then Bruno was asking him about other times in his life when he’d felt scared, and times he’d been truly happy. He heard himself say Ava’s name, hoped he hadn’t given the context, then there was a floating white space and he knew he was supposed to be meditating. A picture grew around him, element by element, as if he were painting it himself, only he was in the middle of it too – a pretend god, building his own three-dimensional world.

  There was a winding road, and hills rising up around him, an expanse of water, greater than a river, surrounding a building. Not just any building – it was a castle, with a bridge to the land. The sun was setting, leaving a blood red sea beneath blackening silhouettes. He was sitting on a wall, his feet dangling over seaweed-strewn boulders, watching birds feasting on flying insects and hearing nothing. Then hands covered his eyes, fingers warm despite the chill of the air, brushing his eyelashes, the touch so soft it was silk on his skin. Laughter. He turned around and the scene reset to white and began to build itself again. Over and over, until finally the laughter became a man’s voice, and he was being told to come back into the room, back into the present.

  He didn’t want to. The place he’d found, the moment he’d constructed, was
idyllic. He was happy there. Truly happy. Content. He wanted to hide there among the rocks, never to be pulled back. He resented the man who was calling him, tried to tell him he wanted to be left alone. Then there was a chair beneath him. The sound of a clock ticking. More light in his eyes. Bruno Plouffe touched his hand fleetingly. Callanach opened his eyes. He took a few moments to ground himself.

  ‘It’s normal to feel a little disorientated,’ Bruno explained. ‘Don’t rush. You were very engaged. Some people are naturally more receptive to being hypnotised. Such a positive quality. It suggests an openness of spirit.’

  Callanach looked at the clock. He’d entered the room forty minutes earlier and the time had simply evaporated.

  ‘So we’ve established a safe place for you, somewhere you can always access for a sense of calm and well-being. Do you remember it?’

  ‘I do,’ Callanach said, trying to sit up, fighting the vast comfort of the chair. He knew exactly where he’d been in his mind. Eilean Donan Castle had been one of his first trips away from Edinburgh with Ava. They’d taken fishing rods and stayed in a hotel at Invershiel. It had rained on and off all weekend. They’d eaten fish and chips doused in a lethal amount of vinegar and salt, and drunk Glenmorangie from Ava’s hip flask. They’d sat and waited for the sun to set at Eilean Donan, the other tourists disappearing around them as the day had worn itself out. And Ava had sneaked up behind him, covering his eyes with her fingers, as if it could have been anyone else but her, laughing at her own silliness. That was his happy place. He’d had no idea just how deeply ingrained the image was in his memory until he’d been instructed to go looking for it.

  ‘Is there anything you want to tell me?’ Bruno Plouffe asked. ‘I mean, anything I don’t already know about your situation?’

  ‘Sorry, I don’t understand,’ Callanach replied. He hoped he didn’t understand. Plouffe was giving him a quizzical look that might all too easily translate into revelations that Callanach wasn’t ill at all, and that his entire persona was, in fact, a fiction.