by Dan Laughey
He never relished intruding on relatives so soon after the loss of their loved ones, but now was not the time to dwell on his conscience. He made up his mind. He’d visit Claire as soon as he was done with Wisdom. Putting off the meeting would only make the anticipation of it gnaw away at him.
Sant put his thoughts to one side and tried to replay the shootings in his head. ‘So the gunman fired twice. Made certain Dryden stood no chance.’
‘Exactly,’ Wisdom said. ‘Wound A was more than sufficient to end Dryden’s life. Wound B effectively crossed a “T” when all that was needed was an “I”.’
‘What’s your take on it being an assassination?’
Wisdom removed his glasses, lodging them into his breast pocket. ‘I don’t usually comment on theories. Scientific facts are my line of work. But given how close to home this feels… Dryden was murdered. The killer was ruthless, knew what he was doing.’
‘What about the other victims? Same bullets?’
Wisdom nodded. ‘Ballistics at the National Firearms Centre have ascertained that the projectiles located in Dryden’s skull are consistent with those found on the driver and the other passengers. They’re all Remington nine-millimetre and the external markings are identical. It’s the same bullets shot from the same semi-automatic handgun, no question.’
‘Any idea what the murder weapon is?’
‘Still waiting for the NFC to report back, but strictly off the record, it was probably a Glock, because a Glock 17 has a seventeen-round magazine – no other handgun has that sort of capacity – and at least twelve spent cartridge cases have been accounted for. Glocks are popular with the military, the police, and more to the point, professional hit-men, because a lot of rounds can be fired quickly and accurately without the need to change the magazine. They’re also in plentiful supply on the black market. Hundreds were brought back as battlefield souvenirs after the Gulf War. You can pick one up for a couple of grand if you know where to look.’
They walked in single file along a narrow corridor. Wisdom signalled Sant into one of numerous breakout rooms marked out by windowless doors. The tiny room served as his office, where they loomed over a comb-bound report. The sketch covering the entirety of Wisdom’s miniature desk was identical to the one Holdsworth had used in her summing up of the bus victims earlier that morning, except this version was so scribbled over with red lines it bore a striking resemblance to the Mr. Men character Mr. Messy.
‘What’s the most puzzling aspect of this entire affair, my boy?’
Sant responded automatically. ‘Why choose a bus to carry out a mass shooting spree?’
‘Exactly. And the explanation?’
‘The gunman panicked.’
‘Indeed. Something occurred that triggered a bout of panic. Our perp was almost certainly shadowing someone. Probably Dryden. But either the sergeant or another passenger recognised him.’
‘And threatened to blow his cover.’
‘Exactly. What we will never know is the precise playing out of these cat-and-mouse shenanigans. By the same token, those traces of the past are never entirely obliterated.’
Sant looked thoughtfully at the pathologist. ‘Meaning?’
Wisdom circled Mr. Messy with the palm of his hand as if performing a magic trick. ‘The positions of the bodies on the upper deck are misleading. They assume a static situation. The scene of crime, after the event it must be stressed, appears to tell a story of innocent passengers quietly going about their journey until, that is, they have the misfortune of encountering a raving lunatic with a fully loaded handgun.’
‘You’re suggesting a non-static situation?’
‘Without a doubt. Nothing else explains the choice of murder weapon and location.’
‘The gun… the bus.’
He pointed at Sant. ‘Our perp was cornered – and he knew it.’
‘Someone confronted the killer?’
‘Almost certainly.’
Sant pinched his rugged nose. ‘Surely not Dryden. He was at the front of the bus, oblivious to what was happening behind him. He was caught unawares. So why rush in to kill a defenceless cop in front of the other passengers?’
Wisdom brushed back his white hair. ‘You’re right in everything you say, except we have to assume we’re dealing with an experienced gunman and not some lout whose training in firearms derives from shoot ‘em up video games. When we think of the absence of a clear motive or network of established relationships between the perp and any of his victims, this crime had to be premeditated. He planned his attack carefully. Yet he was forced to act sooner than he wished. Plan B was forced upon him before Plan A could be executed.’
Sant felt the hairs tingling on the back of his neck. ‘So what was Plan A?’
‘Gunning down seven people on a moving bus it was not. The likelihood is the perp wanted to shadow a passenger, probably Dryden, for longer than actually materialised.’ Wisdom patted the laminated cover of his report. ‘My guess is he planned to follow Dryden off the bus before confronting him at gunpoint down some quiet alley away from passers-by. To force information out of him – before, possibly, taking Dryden’s life.’
Wisdom’s version of events was chiming with Sant’s own.
‘The gunman must’ve been confident Dryden was oblivious to being shadowed.’
‘Indeed.’
Sant followed Wisdom’s line of thinking to its natural end. ‘Which means another passenger suspected trouble and forced the killer’s hand.’
‘Precisely.’
‘All of this is plausible. What traces of the past support it?’
Wisdom pointed again at the sketch of the upper deck. ‘The wounds to the head of the young male victim, sat next to his girlfriend, are peculiar.’
‘You mean Callum Willis?’
‘It’s to do with the angle at which the two bullets penetrated his brain. Assuming the assailant was himself located on the top deck. The angle of the bullet wounds inflicted on the young female passenger, as well as the first bullet to hit Dryden, indicate a projectile trajectory that accords to the victims being seated at moment of entry.’
‘But Callum wasn’t sitting?’
Wisdom nodded. ‘The angles of the wounds to Callum Willis’s head are less acute. In fact, the bullet wedged in his brain came to rest in a slightly upright position. The victim was tall – six feet and two inches – which means he must have been standing when he was shot.’
‘Why would he stand?’ And then Sant knew the answer. ‘He was intervening – Callum was warning Dryden to expect the worse.’
‘Either that or he intended to walk to the front of the bus and warn him in a more discreet fashion, but the assailant clearly anticipated the move and stopped him in his tracks.’
‘Which explains the panic theory nicely.’
‘Correct, my boy. It’s the only explanation for why the murders took place how and where they did.’
Sant mulled over this new information. ‘So let’s imagine Callum had no connection to Dryden or the gunman; that he and his girlfriend were just random passengers.’
‘No need to kill them.’
‘But how did the gunman suspect a connection between the young couple and his quarry?’
Wisdom smiled. ‘That’s for me to speculate and you to find out. Which throws up a further question: who was tailing whom?’
Sant took a betting-shop pencil from his shirt pocket and jabbed it at Mr. Messy. ‘The logical answer is that Dryden was being shadowed by his assassin at the same time as Callum Willis and Kate Andrews were shadowing him, or Dryden, or both. Which means the four of them – Dryden, Callum, Kate and the killer – all got on at the same bus stop and followed each other to the upper deck?’
‘Bravo!’ cried Wisdom, momentarily losing his measured composure. ‘Your next task, my boy, is to identify the right bus stop and have my hard-nosed team of forensics search for clues in its vicinity.’
‘I think we can narrow that one down, Grant
.’
‘Come again?’
‘The panic theory,’ the inspector explained. ‘If your version of events is accurate, things must’ve unfolded quickly; in a matter of seconds. Four passengers hop on the bus at the same time, all climbing the stairwell to the top deck, and Dryden apart, the other three – all of whom are shadowing him – become suspicious of each other, triggering the gunman into action long before his planned attack.’
Wisdom gave a thumbs-up sign. ‘It makes sense. Plan B may have been the last resort, but forced into it, the assailant would act sooner rather than later.’
‘Which means our focus should be on the bus stops near the crash site. A single ticket was issued by the driver at 23.33. It wasn’t issued to Callum or Kate as they had student passes. And my bet is it wasn’t Dryden’s either.’
‘The 23.33 passenger’s your man, my boy.’
‘My thoughts exactly.’
‘Let’s hope he retained his ticket,’ the pathologist added with a titter.
‘Not much chance of that, but we’re closing in. Can I suggest, Grant, you focus your technicians in the search area around Kirkstall Abbey?’
‘Ah, but I only receive orders from Gilligan and Hardaker these days,’ grinned Wisdom.
Sant returned the grin, not a trace of annoyance at Wisdom’s gibe etched on his face. Quite the opposite; he was smiling wider than he’d smiled for some time.
8
Weeping widows are never a sight to behold, but as he stared into the penetrating blue eyes of Claire Dryden, made sapphire blue by teardrops of grief, he couldn’t take his mind off the physical charm confronting him. Her perfect oval face, pale skin and shoulder-length blonde hair gave the woman an eerily symmetrical quality, like a sculpture carved from marble by precision tools.
Sant offered his condolences, noting a half-empty bottle of vodka and several empty cans of Diet Coke on the kitchen Formica. ‘We’re trying to get to the bottom of Liam’s death,’ he said. ‘Did your husband talk to you about the cases he’d worked on lately?’
‘Only after they were solved,’ she said, wiping more tears away. ‘He was a professional in that sense. Sometimes I would ask, but he’d never let on. I’ve always been a nosy parker, not that it got me anywhere.’
‘How about the last few weeks? Did you notice anything different about Liam?’
‘What do you mean?’
Sant knew he had to tread carefully. ‘It could be any detail, big or small. Perhaps he changed his routine in some way, or his mood changed?’
Claire Dryden fidgeted. Her left hand did its best to smother a ball of Kleenex.
‘Something changed a month or two ago,’ she said after a long silence. ‘It’s not a subject I find easy, you know, to talk about.’
Another lengthy silence. Sant waited and finally intervened. ‘I appreciate how difficult this is for you, Mrs Dryden.’
‘Please, just call me Claire.’ A couple of tears fell from her sapphires as she looked at him; through him. ‘No need for formalities among friends.’
Unsure at first… he made up his mind. Moving slowly towards her, touching and then holding her, he stroked her wet hair as the tears flowed. Several grief-stricken minutes passed before the sobs softened and he slowly released his clasp.
‘Claire, you knew your husband better than anyone – ’
‘But that’s just it. I’m not sure if I did know him. I certainly didn’t understand him, not after…’
More silence.
‘Go on.’
‘As I was saying, a couple of months ago our sex life took a turn for the… well’ – she laughed – ‘worse or better, depending on one’s point of view.’
‘More or less sex?’ he asked tentatively, never one to dwell on private matters.
‘More. Much more! All the bloody time!’
Taken aback by her bluntness, at the same time Sant felt grateful for the leeway to probe further.
‘Changing routines?’
‘Absolutely. Not to beat about the bush, our normal routine was to make love once a week. Twice on special occasions. And that was fine as I far as I was concerned. For me, it’s not about… the sensuality. A hug and a kiss are just as satisfying.’
‘I understand,’ he said. The woman’s forthrightness pleased and troubled him at the same time.
‘I doubt you understand. You’re a man.’ This was followed by another uncomfortable silence which Sant held back the urge to break. ‘It was late summer,’ she went on eventually. ‘Liam, all of a sudden, took on a new lease of life. We had that hot spell, yes, but I doubt if the seasonal warmth suddenly transformed his libido. I mean, he wanted satisfaction every time we got in bed.’
‘Intercourse?’ Claire nodded. ‘New positions?’
‘Absolutely. He wanted to experiment, and not always in bed either. We tried it in the shower, on the stairs, the Formica. He even… at one stage he even wanted to make love out of the window.’
Claire laughed, hiccupped and then broke into another tearful fit, Sant using the time in-between to let her words sink in. They didn’t sink far. He poured water from the kitchen tap into a vodka-scented glass and offered it to her.
‘Sorry, Claire, can you explain – ’
She snapped at him. ‘What is there to explain? He wanted me to hang out of the window, for Christ’s sake!’ He took cover as she hurled the glass of water at the far wall, shattering it into a million pieces. ‘He wanted to grab a hold of my legs and bang me while I dangled out of the bedroom window, clinging on for dear life! Do I make myself clear?’ He stood and stared into her beautiful blue eyes. The pause could stretch as long as it needed. He was expecting more sobs but Claire composed herself, keeping back any tears she might have left to cry. ‘I refused point-blank. I mean, it wasn’t exactly safe sex.’
The double-meaning didn’t register on either of their faces.
‘Was Liam angry when you said no?’
She went to sweep up the broken glass but he held her arm; told her he’d get the officer on front-door duty to clean up.
‘He was a bit annoyed,’ she snuffled. ‘Actually, now I recall, we did… do it out of the window eventually. I insisted on a downstairs room of course.’ She laughed a little more. ‘He enjoyed it. For me it wasn’t pleasant. We didn’t try that method again. I made sure of it.’
‘What caused him to experiment?’
‘Perhaps it was a new thrill for him. I don’t know. Perhaps you can fathom it out, being a male of the species. What drives a man sexually?’
Sant took Claire’s question rhetorically, intended or not. ‘Did he go in for – how shall I say – bondage?’
‘I’m not sure if bondage is the word for it. Handcuffs and blindfolds, now and again. Nothing hard core.’
Surely handcuffs counted as bondage, Sant thought, but he was in no mood to judge a woman who’d just suffered the ultimate loss.
Now for the most awkward question.
‘I’d rather not ask this, Claire, but I’m duty-bound. Did your husband ever hurt you – physically?’
She shook her head emphatically. ‘Not really. He frightened me at times, I’ll confess that, and he liked it when I expressed fear. But he did love me, always, to the end. There was never any abuse.’
‘But sometimes – you found his sexual habits unpleasant?’
‘That’s right. It was him getting the satisfaction most of the time. Lately we were making love ten times a week, but I’d only feel satisfied here and there, which was fine by me. I was hardly a frustrated lover if that’s what you think.’
Sant didn’t think that, but he did wonder about the imbalance in sexual gratification. She started to well up once more, those moist sapphires directed straight at him. He moved close to her again and placed his hand on her shoulder, wary not to invade personal space. But then she drew tight to him and rested her face in his chest. She jerked upwards to his neck and pressed her nose and then her lips against his shaven skin. He could feel
an erection coming on, willed his emotions not to take over. Hard though it was to refuse Claire’s warmth, he kissed her compassionately on the forehead and gently pulled away.
A uniform came and swept up the shards of glass strewn across the kitchen floor. A million pieces of finest crystal, one for every personalised truth swimming around Sant’s confused head.
After speaking to an expert in sex-offender profiling – and being told that the change in Dryden’s sexual behaviour could be explained by the introduction of a new and exciting love object in his otherwise steady-going marital life – the rest of the afternoon passed remarkably uneventfully for Sant.
He joined the rank and file of Leeds District CID crowded into a squash court in Kirkstall Leisure Centre, within shouting distance of the Abbey Road crime scene. The squash court served as an ideal makeshift murder room as it was walled throughout in thick glass. Not much chance of the press and their stray microphones picking up anything intelligible therein. Besides, the whole of the building was closed to the media and the public, inciting a small army of disgruntled leisure members to demand a refund on next month’s direct debit.
Despite their isolation from the outside world, Hardaker communicated instructions to the detectives at his beck and call in low-key fashion. No stirring address or call to arms. That wasn’t the superintendent’s style. CC Lister, on the other hand, had nothing but self-declared talent as an orator, and as for ACC Gilligan’s squeal, that was even harsher to the ear. Given a choice, Sant would rather listen to Hardaker’s softly spoken tones every time.
The instructions over, Sant took the effort to go and see the Chiefman one on one. It was time to put in an appearance.
‘How’s progress, Carl?’ Hardaker’s tone was calm but insistent.
Sant looked from left to right, conscious of colleagues watching on. ‘Slow, but steady,’ he said. He filled Hardaker in on his interview with Claire Dryden, leaving out the bit about the erection.
‘I want regular updates in my role as your coordinating officer. Things are critical right now. The assistant chief constable is putting the heat on me.’