Lawless (21 page)

‘Great,’ McBride said.

‘Yes and no,’ she replied. ‘We know the source is the same but we’ve no idea who he is. He isn’t on the database.’

‘At least we’ll know him when we find him,’ McBride said.

‘Will we? We have three corpses, apparently linked in death. Each of them had sex before they died but, according to the checks we’ve run, not with the same man. Helpful, isn’t it?’

Neither of them spoke for a few moments.

McBride broke the silence. ‘You’re not going to like this,’ he said, ‘but a little theory has been pushing its way to the surface with me.’

‘And?’

‘And think about this – we’re not looking for one man but two or three, acting as a small team.’

He could hear the disbelief in the thunderous hush coming down the line.

When, at last, she did reply it was to ridicule him. ‘Get real, Campbell! You’re starting to grab at straws. A team? For God’s sake!’ She repeated it in capital letters. ‘A TEAM?’

‘Why not? And here’s something else for nothing – the team is made up of cops.’

McBride did not permit her an opportunity to mock him further. Before she could unleash another shaft of derision, he pressed on. ‘You guys always go about in pairs. You have to hold hands in everything you do. Gets to be a habit. Why not extend that to perversions? And don’t tell me none of you entertain impure thoughts when it comes to sex and violence. If you accept my scenario, it answers some of the questions.’

‘Such as?’ The detective inspector was unable to keep a scornful note out of the two words.

‘Such as the ease with which the killer seemed to get in and out of the murder scenes. When people are asked if they’ve seen anybody acting suspiciously, no one thinks of replying, “Oh yes, officer, it was that other nice officer I saw in the area.”’

She was not convinced – not nearly. ‘What else does it answer?’

‘Why they are all the daughters of policemen – that may be a big part of their perversion.’

‘What else?’ Petra asked, sounding as though she was doing nothing more than going through the motions.

‘It helps explain how they could have been admitted to the victims’ homes. If a cop comes calling, you’re happy to invite them in. You sure as hell don’t call the police!’

‘Oh, right – and then you ask them to sit down and have an expensive glass of wine with you? You’re in fantasy land, Campbell.’

‘Cops drink,’ McBride said defensively.

‘OK, if you’re right, we’ve got them,’ Petra said, her voice starting to mock.

‘How do you mean?’ He was wary.

‘All we have to do is take DNA swabs from every policeman in the country. Unless, of course, your team of perverts are just pretending to be cops – then we’re back to square one.’

McBride was deflated but not defeated. ‘So, smarty-pants Detective Inspector, what’s your theory? You’re not exactly Sherlock Holmes on this, are you?’

She ignored his petulance. ‘Unless you’ve forgotten, the first person to be swabbed in all of this is you. We need to eliminate you from any traces on the letter and envelopes collected by the warm-hearted Gavin Rodger, the detective sergeant with the impeccable taste in senior officers.’

The wind was blowing out of the west so McBride headed into it. He would fight it for a few miles then turn for home so it would be at his back just as fatigue was setting into his legs.

He decided against his familiar route along the edge of the river where the gusts were snapping the flags on the lifeboat shed and, instead, turned off the Esplanade and headed at an angle towards the main road taking the early morning traffic into Dundee. Even at 7.20 a.m., the cars from the eastern suburbs were hanging on to each other’s bumpers.

As he ran, McBride thought of two things. Why did so many people who drove off-road vehicles only ever use them to go to the office or supermarket? And why did a killer or killers take the lives of their victims by different methods? The whole point about sequential homicides was their similarities, not their differences.

He was no nearer a solution to either of the riddles when the mobile he carried in the front zipped pocket of his running jacket chimed rhythmically to life.

McBride did not carry the phone at that time of day to receive messages. He did not know more than a handful of people who would be conscious at that hour and none of them would be alert enough to want a conversation. He took the mobile with him in case he lost an argument with an off-road monster and needed to call an ambulance. Besides, he did not permit a wide distribution of his number. That someone should interrupt him in the middle of his training unreasonably irritated him. Every run he ever undertook, even the ones that did not matter, was precisely timed and the full details written into a running log. It was of no relevance that he never looked at the entry again.

He drew reluctantly to a halt and extracted the mobile, touching the green answer button and pressing a finger against his spare ear so he might have some chance of hearing the caller over the cacophony of traffic noises surrounding him.

The woman who spoke to him was unknown yet familiar. ‘Campbell?’ The voice was gentle, accent-less, enquiring. He wondered why so many people seemed not to expect the person who owned the mobile they were calling to be the person who actually answered it. It was another of life’s paradoxes. So, he reflected, was the fact that he could be at his most philosophical and fractious in the earliest part of the day.

‘Campbell who?’ he asked with mock awkwardness. It had the desired effect. Silence. He visualised the consternation on the face of the mystery caller.

After several moments. ‘Oh, McBride … Campbell McBride. Is he there?’ Her poise had vanished.

‘You’re in luck. This is he.’ He immediately felt guilty. ‘Sorry,’ he hurried, ‘just my little early-morning joke. Now, tell me who you are.’

‘Anneke … Anneke Meyer. We met at Next Generation. Petra Novak introduced us.’

McBride’s recall was instant. The face of the athletic blonde with the sensual nose sprang into his mind. He regretted his flippancy even more. He apologised again. As he gushed his words of contrition, he struggled to think of a reason she would be calling him and at 7.20 a.m. He knew it would not be for the purpose he might have wanted.

‘I need a sample – DNA. Petra gave me your number so we could arrange it,’ she said.

He had forgotten she was employed in the science lab of Tayside Police. ‘No problem. When? Where? I’m completely at your disposal.’ McBride grovelled in his attempt to atone for his off-putting levity at the start.

‘ASAP. I’m going out of town before lunchtime. That’s why I’m calling so early – sorry about that by the way but Petra said you were an early riser. Don’t know how she knows that. Not even exactly sure what she meant by it!’ Now it was Anneke Meyer who was being provocative.

McBride permitted himself a smile at how Petra might have reacted had she heard the last part of the conversation. He laughed at the thought and also at what he was about to say in response to her veiled enquiry. ‘Are you asking how I stand with Petra?’ This time both of them chuckled but it conveniently left the unasked question hanging in midair.

When Anneke spoke again, it was to arrange when she would enter his mouth with a swab. ‘Your place or mine?’ she offered. ‘Whatever is most convenient. I’m based at headquarters in West Bell Street but I can drop round to your flat if it’s better for you.’

McBride mentally debated the alternatives for one-tenth of a second.

‘Make it my place in two hours, then.’

All the way home, he thought about women. Even when he fought with the convoys of vehicles pouring through the confused Claypotts junction and its forest of traffic lights, he could not get three dead females and two very-much-alive ones out of his mind. The corpses should have taken up most of his deliberations but it was Petra Novak and Anneke Meyer who kept displacing them.

The two women were the same but different. Both magnetically attractive but one raven haired, the other blonde. Both athletic but one fragile like a ballet dancer, the other powerfu1l with a well-defined physique. Both successful in their careers but one vulnerable and sensitive. He was attracted to each of them but knew which he preferred. He also knew he would move for the other one.

He was still struggling to work out the logic of that contradiction when he passed under the 400-foot twin wind turbines powering the giant Michelin tyre plant at Baldovie. The two whirling brutes, the most massive in a urban setting anywhere in the world, were said to resemble graceful pieces of industrial sculpture. Fine if you only had to view them on the journey home, not so satisfactory if your home sat in their endlessly rotating shadows.

When McBride finally turned out of the wind, he allowed the breeze at his back to help him pick up his pace. He ran away from the factories on either side of him and set off along a narrow road dividing a patch of countryside. As he pushed up an incline that would soon take him back to his apartment on the riverside, he realised he was within the telescopic range of Adam Gilzean. Idly, he wondered if the man who had been responsible for bringing him back to live in the area had his eyepiece focused upon him. He lifted a hand and waved in Gilzean’s direction without knowing why.

When he was half a mile from home, McBride accelerated again, this time to raise his heart rate as close as possible to its maximum 190 beats a minute. The only other occasions when it reached such a level were when he was engaged in a different kind of activity and always with a woman. He thought of Anneke Meyer and the light sweat that covered his body and wondered whether he should still be in his after-shower towel when she arrived to sample him.

Such musings disappeared the moment he opened the front door of his apartment. Lying on the carpet was a long white envelope, of the identical type he had recently passed to Detective Sergeant Rodger. The neatly folded piece of paper inside bore only two computer-generated words: ‘Wrong library!’

This time he did not take the scenic route. He sped through the outskirts of the city behind the wheel of the Mondeo, unaware but indifferent that he passed the headquarters of the police traffic department at 20 mph above the speed limit in his haste to hit the motorway for Aberdeen. McBride may not have been a good driver but he was invariably a lucky one. Like every other occasion when he was in breach of the Road Traffic Act, which was most times he drove, he escaped a ticket.

His mind raced almost as swiftly as his driving. He could not believe his stupidity. Like a simpleton, he had naively believed the man he hunted would turn up on cue at the local library and walk straight into the arms of the detectives waiting in their disguises. Sure, he would show but not where he was expected. It was obvious now – just as it had been obvious to Petra that he wouldn’t appear.

But, as he cursed himself, McBride had the satisfaction of knowing he was almost certainly correct in his prediction that his quarry could not resist leaving another message. He was convinced it would be waiting for him where they filed the newspapers in the main public library in Aberdeen.

He had other reasons to regret his dash north. When Anneke Meyer called with her swabs, she had been inclined to linger. Wanted another coffee. Wanted to discuss his fitness. Wanted to touch him when they spoke. Wanted intimacy.

He had wanted it too – but not then.

When they parted she thanked him for his co-operation and bade him a formal goodbye. She also took a notebook from her briefcase and wrote quickly on a page which she removed and placed on the small table near the door. McBride knew without looking that it was her home telephone number.

When he reached the library, he did not waste time asking for the recent files of
The Courier
but instead asked to be directed to those of
The Press and Journal
, the morning paper for Aberdeen. He was starting to get inside the head of the person who had silently sent him there – local murder, local paper. It was a pity the logic had taken so long to penetrate.

All libraries look the same even when the decor and shape are different. But unlike Dundee, there were no stunning breasts to captivate or sweaty creep to aggravate him. Just a friendly woman in her middle years who took his arm and led him to where he wanted to go. She left him alone to make his discovery.

The report of the press conference given by Detective Chief Inspector James Brewster was impressively lengthy considering how little the gag-a-minute cop had actually disclosed to the assembled hacks. McBride did not trouble to read any of it. He was riveted by the gap in the text – it had been left by someone with an obsessive predilection for neatness, manipulating an exceedingly sharp blade. He had fully expected a passage to be excised yet, when actually faced by its absence, it still had the capacity to startle him. Once again he reluctantly admired the meticulous craftsmanship of the deadly hand which had removed the words. It was not something he dwelt on. Of much greater importance was the nature of the words themselves. He needed to know where the trail of death was heading and if the journey was nearly over.

McBride noted the paragraphs on either side of the missing passage so he could ascertain what had been cut out. Then he travelled across the city to the headquarters of
The Press and Journal
to purchase an undamaged copy of a paper of the same date. As he entered the two-storey block off the Lang Stracht, McBride remembered that, only a few months earlier, his old employers, DC Thomson’s, owners of
The Courier
, had purchased the rival Aberdeen Journals group in a £132-million deal that had taken the newspaper world by surprise. Not for the first time, he marvelled at the business acumen of the reclusive Dundee press barons who made little fuss but much money and still retained a contented and loyal workforce.

He had personal reasons for his sense of satisfaction at the takeover of the Aberdeen titles. As a junior
Courier
reporter, he had been sent as a one-man team into the disputed Mearns area to fight a circulation war with a rival six-strong pack of
Press and Journal
hacks.