by John Carson
The bungalow was in a nice part of town, in a street with other decent houses. They trudged through the snow, glad to see somebody had been out shovelling.
Shug answered the door. ‘Come away in. The kettle’s on.’
They cleared their boots as best they could before going through to the living room. A gas fire was working in tandem with the central heating.
‘David likes it a bit cooler, but I can’t sleep in a cold house,’ said Shug. ‘He even has a fan on in the winter. I think he was conceived in an igloo.’
David was on his computer in a small dining room off the living room, next to the open-plan kitchen.
‘Shug and I are at opposite ends of the scale when it comes to hot and cold,’ he said.
‘Go on, tell him, it’s best to be warm in the winter,’ Shug said.
Sensing a domestic might break out, Harry walked over to David. Then he turned to Shug. ‘You said the kettle was on? I like my coffee with just a small dash of milk.’
‘Nae bother. You two?’
‘Same,’ Dunbar said. He’d been to some houses where he would rather drink the toilet water, but this was a decent place with friends.
‘Well, make yourselves comfortable.’
They sat down on chairs and the settee where they could see David.
‘We were hoping you could help us out with some history of the murders,’ Dunbar said. ‘If you have all the background collated.’
‘I was putting everything together this morning,’ said David. ‘I was up late doing some research and found out some stuff that may be on the border between fascinating and total crap.’
‘Let’s hear it, son, and we’ll decide. Give us what you’ve got.’
Shug came in with the coffees and they listened to what David had to say.
‘I got all this stuff from news archives. Thirty years ago, the Christmas Land market opened up and it was a hit with all the skiers and visitors to the area. It’s gradually expanded over the years. Started by the Blair family.’ David turned to look at them. ‘Did you know the town was started back in the early nineteen hundreds by two men, Blair and Gowan?’
‘We do now,’ Dunbar said. ‘Were they a couple of psychopathic killers?’
‘Alas, Jimmy, I don’t have the answer to that. However, I was reading about Caitlin McGhee, the eighteen year old who went missing thirty years ago. She was a local. But she wasn’t the only one who went missing. Two young women went missing at the same time.
‘The two women were last seen together, going to a Christmas party. Susan was nineteen at the time. Anna, eighteen. They were supposedly meeting a group of friends, and later on, when questioned, all the friends said they never turned up. The police searched for them, but no trace of them was ever found. Their bank accounts were never used and they left behind their belongings. And now we know that Caitlin was murdered. Or at least buried. We have to assume the fate of the other two was exactly the same.’
David turned from his computer and drank some of the coffee his husband had made.
‘Can you check and see how many women have gone missing from around here over the years?’ asked Dunbar.
‘I already did. I was doing research to see whether a true crime book would be viable and I came across something interesting. No more women went missing, but plenty have died in the region. And I don’t mean from natural causes as such. There have been horrendous accidents.’
‘This place seems to be the accident capital of Europe, by all accounts,’ Harry said.
‘Plenty of people die on the ski slopes, and the amount of car crashes is ridiculous. Britain doesn’t want to spend money on motorways or even dual carriageways. If you look at a map, you’ll see there isn’t a direct motorway link from the capital of Scotland to the capital of England. The government doesn’t want to spend the money to upgrade the roads…but don’t get me started on that.’
David drank more coffee and Dunbar hoped it was decaf.
‘Okay, so plenty of people have died in the region over the years. But I started making a table of young women who died aged between fifteen and twenty-five. There have been twelve. In groups of three. I mean, it’s not definitive, but it stood out.’
‘How did they die?’ Evans asked.
David turned back to his computer. ‘Let’s take a group at random. Twelve years ago, a girl was found impaled on a branch on a hiking trail. Another girl drowned in the river, just outside of town. A third was found with her neck broken, her head lying against a rock at the bottom of a hill. All three of them had a high blood-alcohol level in their system. All of them worked at Christmas Land.’
‘What did the pathologist at the time rule the deaths?’ Dunbar asked.
‘Accidental. I looked at their death certificates online. I had to pay for them, of course, because Scotland charges to look at records, but it was worth it.’
‘And there’re more like that?’ Harry said.
‘Oh, yes,’ said David. ‘A girl found at the side of the road, dead. It was ruled accidental after they figured she’d been involved in a hit-and-run.’
‘Alcohol in her system?’ Dunbar said. ‘Worked at Christmas Land?’
‘Yes and yes.’
Harry sat up. ‘Now we have two girls who were murdered six years ago and one who got away when someone tried to abduct her – and now she’s dead too. Why has he changed from making it look like an accident to outright killing them?’
‘The only different factor I can see here is Martin Blair. I think he’s the key,’ Dunbar said.
‘Plus girls have been listed as missing over the years,’ said David. ‘Not all at the same time, of course. And since there are so many foreign visitors to the area, who’s to say he didn’t take foreigners from here?’
‘Can you bring up a map of this area?’ Harry said.
‘Absolutely.’ David googled a map of Scotland and zoomed in when it came up.
‘Can you find the Blairgowan estate on there?’
He moved his fingers on the trackpad and then they were looking at a satellite view of the town of Blairgowan.
‘The estate is right there,’ David said, tapping the screen with a pen. But it had a little symbol that Google had put on the image, indicating the where the estate was.
Harry looked at the image. ‘I just want to see where the big house is in relation to where Carol was found hanged. And what’s beyond it.’
He pointed his finger at the screen without actually touching it. He saw the house, the back lawn behind it. The pathway went into the woods and he lost the exact spot. But there was a hiking trail that came out on the other side. Across the hill would be the car park. When they had found blood on the trail where Carol was hanged, the uniformed sergeant had said footprints went over the hill towards the car park. The same car park where the uniforms were last night, where they started chasing the hearse from.
He traced the road with his finger in the air. There were more hiking trails that ran near a small loch. The road went up and around, and there were houses and he saw the funeral director’s garage.
‘He stole the hearse and coffin from this point here,’ Harry said, pointing with his finger. ‘He crashed down here, at the site of the old church. Somewhere in between these two points, he dug up Caitlin’s corpse.’ He turned to Dunbar. ‘We don’t know where. It isn’t obvious.’
Dunbar stood up. ‘Show me where the garage is on the map.’
David scooted his chair back to let the detectives have a closer look.
‘There’s the garage,’ Harry said, pointing again.
‘He went there and choried the hearse, then for some reason came booting down…from where?’ said Dunbar.
‘We’ll ask around, see if anybody has any ideas.’
Harry turned to David. ‘Thanks for your help, David. I hope you can get this new book off the ground.’
‘I already have, Harry.’
‘I think we should go and talk to the Blair family again,’ Du
nbar said. ‘I want to know why somebody chose their property to hang young girls on.’
‘Meet you over there,’ said Harry.
They left the house and drove off under a broken sky that was spilling snow down onto them.
Twenty-Four
Muckle McInsh was getting ready to go downstairs with Sparky to let him burn off some steam when he happened to look out of his window onto the back lawn.
His room was small, although there were plenty of empty rooms that were bigger than his. He supposed this was where the staff had stayed back in the day, and he couldn’t complain because he was getting it rent-free and they let the dog stay with him. He wouldn’t have taken the job if he couldn’t bring Sparky. Besides, the dog was earning his keep, patrolling the shitey market stalls.
Something caught his eye. Movement, on the edge of the property, near the trail that led into the woods.
He took out a pair of binoculars – the perv glasses, Shug called them – and focused them on the woods.
A man with a beard was standing there.
The killer returning to the scene?
He picked up his phone and called Vern. ‘Where are you?’ he asked her.
‘Down in the kitchen. Why?’
‘Beardy’s creeping about near the path on the other side of the lawn.’
‘What? Our killer?’
‘Could be. I’m coming down with the boy. Just getting his jacket on.’
‘I’m going to check it out.’
‘Not without me, Vern! Stay there!’
But she had hung up.
‘Fuck.’
Sparky sensed something was going down and for once he didn’t make an arse of himself but stood still while his K9 jacket was put on.
Then he went berserk.
Twenty-Five
Vern looked out one of the many kitchen windows and just saw the back of the black coat disappearing from view into the woods.
Technically, being private security, they weren’t allowed to carry weapons, but it was alright for politicians to say that from the comfort of Holyrood while they had police protection outside.
Vern had an extendable baton acquired through a friend, handcuffs and gloves that had weighted knuckle joints. Plus she knew how to fight.
She ran across the snow on the back lawn. There was no way to conceal her movements, so the next best option was speed.
Her breathing was faster as she entered the woods, jogging up the hiking trail. If he saw her, then too bad. She couldn’t conceal the fact that she was security, but she tried to stay as close to the tree line as possible.
She reached the point where the young girl had been hanged and stopped, looking around her. The trees were thicker here, blocking out a lot of the light. She stood and listened, but there was only the sound of the wind blowing the snow.
She was about to walk forward when she heard a foot crunching snow behind her.
He was good, she would give him that.
He had got to within six feet of her before she heard him. He was good. Just not as good as she was.
She turned round fast. He had reached a hand out to grab her. She grabbed it, twisted it and kicked his leg out from beneath him.
He yelled and fell on his back.
‘Fackin’ ’ell. Let me go!’ The accent was pure East London.
Vern stood up when she heard her two boys coming.
The man with the beard rolled onto his back and was greeted by the sight of a snarling German shepherd inches from his face.
‘You fucking move and you’ll wish you’d been the one who was hanged!’ Muckle shouted at him.
‘Roll on your front,’ Vern instructed him, bringing out her handcuffs.
‘This is not what it looks like,’ the man said, but he rolled over anyway.
Twenty-Six
‘He is who he says he is,’ Harry said, throwing the man’s driving licence down on the kitchen table.
‘Means fuck all,’ Dunbar said.
Gary Whitman sat with a mug of coffee, still shaking from being barked at by Sparky, who was sitting close by, next to Muckle, itching to have a real go at the man who had been shouting at his dad.
‘Listen, I know what this all looks like. It ain’t anything like it. I used to be one of you lot until I retired.’ Whitman looked at Vern. ‘Yeah, you ’eard right, retired. I don’t do much fightin’ these days. Bit long in the tooth for that.’
‘You were spotted at a murder scene where a young lassie was hanged. I don’t know what you do about that down where you come from, but we’re no’ quite as lenient as you, pal.’ Dunbar leaned on the chair, and Evans was standing off to the side, like he was about to get free and fancy with some clever footwork should the older man start to cause a rumpus.
‘Let me explain, alright? Before you dish out some vigilante justice. And if we can all sit down, this will go a lot easier.’
‘You try and run for it, pal, and my dug will have chewed you a new arsehole before you get close to the door.’
Whitman held up his hands. ‘I’ve got a bad back, son. I ain’t runnin’ nowhere, trust me.’
They sat down round the table, Dunbar, Evans, Vern and Harry. Whitman reached into an inside pocket.
‘You keep your fucking hands where we can see them,’ Dunbar said, and Sparky stood up, growling.
‘I was searched for weapons and I don’t have any. What I do have is my old warrant card.’ Whitman brought it out and showed it to Dunbar.
Dunbar looked at it: DCI Gary Whitman, with the word ‘retired’ stamped over it. He handed it back.
‘Not your usual neck of the woods, is it?’ Harry asked.
‘No, it’s not. I’m here because I knew there was going to be another death. And I was right.’
‘How did you know that?’ Dunbar said. ‘Because you’re a killer?’
‘No. I knew it was going to happen because I’ve been tracking the killer for the past ten years. I retired two months ago, but I knew that bastard was still out there. I’ve never been able to track him. He’s very clever, this guy.’
‘What guy?’ Dunbar asked.
Whitman looked at them before answering. ‘He doesn’t have an official name. But I call him Infinity. And he’s been killing for thirty years.’
‘How can he have been killing for thirty years and got away with it for so long without getting caught?’ Evans said.
‘He’s very clever,’ Whitman said again. ‘Now, I don’t have any definitive proof that he’s been killing for thirty years, but it’s a theory I’ve been working on for years.’
Harry picked up the warrant card and walked away with it to call David again.
‘What made you first think this?’ Dunbar said.
‘It was thirty years ago. A friend of my guv’nor’s came in and I heard them talking. His daughter had been up here with friends on a skiing holiday and she’d disappeared. He was going off his head. He called your lot up here and they did a search. She was found dead, a needle in her arm. She’d never done drugs in her life, her father said. And guess where she was found.’
They all looked blankly at him.
‘No takers? In the cemetery where the hearse crashed.’
‘They wrote it off as an accidental overdose?’ Evans said.
‘They did indeed, my friend. This bloke, the friend of me boss, he swore blind she wouldn’t do that sort of thing. Turns out, her and her friends were smoking weed, but they all said she wouldn’t take the hard stuff.’
‘It’s hardly conclusive, pal,’ Dunbar said.
‘Wait. I haven’t finished. They were packing up, getting ready to come home, when one of the other girls went off on her own. They found her hanging in the cemetery where the first girl was found. They said she blamed herself for supplying the drugs. There was a note found. Scrawled, written like she was drunk. It was ruled a suicide.’
‘You don’t think it was?’ Harry said.
‘I wouldn’t have thought otherwise, but th
is friend of me boss was adamant. He was convinced. Me boss asked me to look into it. When I did, I discovered that after the hanging, a young girl was found dead inside the church. She’d been drinking. There was an empty bottle of whisky by her side. She’d choked on her own vomit. The thing was, there was a tablet found nearby. A sleeping tablet. There were none in her system, and it was shrugged off. They didn’t connect it to the girl.’
‘Maybe that was his Plan B,’ Dunbar said. ‘He could have forced her to drink, trying to make her vomit. He could have put a hand over her nose and mouth. If she didn’t vomit, he’d have forced the pills down her throat.’
Whitman pointed a finger at him. ‘I would have liked you on my team, my old son. Exactly that. He would have forced the pills down her throat. I looked at the pathologist’s report, and it was noted that she had a broken front tooth, but he reckoned she was drunk and broke it herself.’
‘Sounds like he forced the bottle down her throat,’ Evans said.
‘Yes, it does. Which means there were three deaths, all in the local vicinity, all in December 1990.’
Dunbar looked over at Harry. Should we share info with him? Harry nodded. If Whitman hadn’t been a retired detective, they wouldn’t have.
‘We were reading reports from around here. Twelve women were found dead over the years. Maybe they’re women who this guy abducted.’
‘Why do you call him Infinity?’ Harry asked.
Whitman looked at him. ‘Anybody got a glass of water? I take medication. Bloody heart problems.’
Vern got him a glass. ‘Sorry about throwing you around.’
Whitman took out a small orange container, popped a tablet and washed it down. ‘Don’t worry about it. You thought you was dealing with a psychopath.’
They waited for him to carry on.
‘It was just a name I came up with on my own. Nobody else knows I call him that. It all came about when I was looking at the photos of the dead women. The local plod took photos, thank God, and I requested to see them. And they accommodated me. The more photos I looked at, the more I saw a pattern emerging. Round the hands.’