Witness the Dead (32 page)

When the door slid back to let Winter and Walton back into the outer room, it must have sent a spark of electricity among the waiting group, because they all snapped to attention and were staring at the door as the two men emerged. Winter was trying, but largely failing, to keep his face expressionless, while the governor looked shell-shocked.

It was Alex Shirley who took a step ahead of the pack. ‘Well? What happened?’ he demanded, the unease clear for all to see and hear.

Winter’s eyes closed over and he blew out hard, his knees ready to give way beneath him as he lost the adrenalin that had been holding him up. He fell back into the nearest empty chair and took the time to compose himself before giving them what they wanted.

‘C’mon, son.’ Danny was as anxious as the rest.

‘Aye, okay, Danny. Give me a minute. That wasn’t easy in there.’

It was Rachel who came over to him, a glass of water in her hand. She let her fingers brush against his as she handed it over, and it felt good. A hug would have been better, but he’d settle for that and wonder just what it meant.

‘Okay,’ he sighed, long, deep and weary. ‘The bottom line is that the person who killed Kirsty McAndrew and Hannah Healey is Atto’s son.’

None of them said anything. Shirley, Addison, Kelbie, Rachel and Danny all stood and looked back, not trusting their own ears. After a few seconds, Kelbie spun on the spot, turning himself away from the news; Addison’s hands came to his head; Shirley stood stock still in something approaching shock; and Danny nodded soberly at the confirmation that he’d been right. Rachel looked at him as if wondering what he’d been through.

Then they all had questions at once, bombarding him from every angle, tripping over each other, each more desperate than the others to get an answer. How does he know? Who is he? Where is he? Is Atto going to help?

‘Enough!’ Shirley declared. ‘Just shut up and let me speak. Okay, Winter, tell us what he said. And tell us how sure you are that he’s telling the truth. Christ, this is going to have the press going ballistic if they find out.’

‘Atto has something, probably a dongle or the like, which allows him to connect a computer to the Internet. He was contacted by someone saying they’re his child. His “spawn” was how he put it. He says the mother was a rape victim of Atto’s and only told him on her deathbed. Now the kid is following in the father’s footsteps and copying the Red Silk killings. Which means he isn’t finished. There are two more to come. And our time is running out.’

‘Shit, shit, shit!’ Shirley looked ready to burst. ‘We’re going to have to go public with this. We can’t take the risk of people not being warned about what he’s planning to do. We’ll rightly get crucified if another two girls get murdered.’

‘They won’t. Not if I have anything to do with it.’ Addison was the defiant one. ‘What else did he say? You need to be as precise as you can, Tony.’

‘I can’t be because Atto wasn’t. He says he deleted the emails as soon as he’d replied to them. They’ll all be recoverable somewhere in the cloud but it’s going to take time you don’t have. Atto says the son’s never revealed his name, never said where in Glasgow he is, who his mother was. Atto says he’s raped so many that he couldn’t think who she might be.’

‘Well, that bastard might not be able to remember, but the police national computer can. Its memory isn’t so conveniently forgetful.’

‘That might not help. I got the impression from Atto that it wasn’t reported.’

‘Yeah, well, impression isn’t good enough and I can’t take the chance you’re wrong. Rachel, tell Andy Teven I want him to go through every rape case that was linked to Atto, every rape case that fitted his method, every rape where there was an attempted strangulation. Get him to cross-check the victims against recent deaths, say in the last year to eighteen months. Get him to chase them down and tell him if he wants to moan about it then he should come and see me.’

‘Now hang on,’ Kelbie interrupted, trying to assert some authority. ‘I think we should—’

‘And we’re going to need to pull every file on the Red Silk cases,’ Addison said, riding right over him. ‘Lay it all out, separate the myth from the truth and look at it from scratch. Whoever did the two cemetery killings knows this case inside out and we have to make sure we know at least as much about it as he does. Sir . . .’ Addison turned to Alex Shirley. ‘I want Danny Neilson on the inside on this. He knows stuff the case files won’t hold because he was there first time around. We need him.’

‘Agreed. Mr Neilson, you’ll help us?’

‘Yeah. I will. You better believe it. I want to catch this guy as much as anyone does.’

‘Okay, Danny, good. Sorry for doubting you.’ Addison got a nod in return, cop to cop, no more needed to be said. ‘Now, Tony, we need more from Atto. Much more. Is he still communicating with this psycho? Never mind wondering how the hell he was able to do it in the first place.’

Tom Walton blanched at the barb but Addison wasn’t expecting any kind of excuse or apology. There wasn’t time for that.

‘Yeah, he is. But he’s going to wring as much out of this as he can. He’s already hinting that there’s more he can tell us. We’ve set up another interview for the same time tomorrow. And he’s also said to send a not-very-subtle message about the dongle. Basically he says you won’t find it and, even if you do, you’d be better leaving it where it is or else he won’t be able to keep in touch with the son.’

‘Oh, does he? Well, that wanker’s got another think coming. Can I suggest that DCI Kelbie gets IT all over this? I don’t know how the hell it works but Atto must need some kind of Internet service provider to do this and there has to be a way of monitoring these emails. Doesn’t GCHQ do this sort of thing? It needs someone of the DCI’s rank to get people’s arses into gear.’

Kelbie regarded him suspiciously, lips curling back. ‘You throwing me a bone, Addison?’

‘Yeah, there’s a good dog. Fetch.’

‘Addison!’

‘Sorry, sir. That was uncalled for. But may I suggest that DCI Kelbie does that and does it fast? If this kid is copying his father, then my money would be on him trying again this weekend. Tonight or tomorrow, maybe both. That would fit with the 1972 killings, wouldn’t it, Danny?’

‘Yeah. That would be my guess, too.’

‘Okay, that means we’ve got around twelve hours before this bastard intends to kill again. But we’re going to stop him.’

Chapter 39

August 1972

The undercover job at Klass had gone on for three weeks now. Whether it had been successful or not rather depended on how you looked at it. They hadn’t caught the man the papers were calling Red Silk but, then, he hadn’t killed again, either.

The long, endless nights were taking their toll on him and, although he’d see it through to the end, whatever the end might be, it had better come soon. Every shift was becoming more difficult than the last, both in the disco and at home.

He’d told Jean, his wife. In the end he’d had no choice even though he knew full well that she’d be less than pleased about it. Night after night going out dressed up to the nines – it was hardly surprising she was getting suspicious. He couldn’t blame her for that.

He’d borrowed a life lesson from one of his favourite films,
The Secret of Santa Vittoria
, which he’d seen a couple of years earlier. Anthony Quinn plays a drunk called Bombolini, who becomes mayor of the town just before the Nazis move in to take all of Santa Vittoria’s million bottles of wine. Bombolini persuades the townsfolk that they have to let the Germans find enough of the wine to convince them that they have it all. The message was the benefit of admitting a small lie to cover up a bigger one; the moral was to give up something small to save something greater. Both of which were fine as long as you could work out which was which.

The girl, Jenny, had been in Klass a few nights a week. Sometimes he couldn’t make his mind up whether he’d rather she’d been there more than that or less. He knew that he’d started to look out for her as much as he did the man he’d been sent to catch. He was still doing his job, no less determined to get the man, but he knew his mind wasn’t always where it should be.

He thought maybe others had noticed that too. Billy Moffat and Geordie Taylor had started giving him knowing glances, sly little smiles that said, I know, and you
know
I know. Liz Grant had done the same and he was sure Moffat had filled her head full of gossip. That was why he’d had the three of them shifted back onto days. He’d convinced his DI that the same faces were becoming too well known and that it was time for a change in the Disco Dancing Division. He, Brian Webster and Alice McCutcheon stayed and were joined by three more: Kenny McConville, Colin Black and Sheila Mottram. The new Triple D Squad.

He’d only danced with Jenny once more since that last time. She’d been getting hassle from a wee hard nut in a black pinstripe, the kind who wouldn’t take no for an answer. He’d watched her dance with the ned once in the hope that would keep him happy. It didn’t, and he kept coming back for more, and it was easy to see she was getting sick of it. He’d stepped in, knight-in-shining-armour style, and asked her to dance. The guy was far from happy and you could see he was thinking of squaring up and staking his claim, but he was giving away six inches in height and two or three stone in weight, so wisely thought better of it.

He liked to think that she’d been pleased to see him and not just because he’d scared off the pest. She’d smiled and said ‘Hi’ even though she knew he wouldn’t hear her above the music. They danced and then danced one more just to be sure. When they were particularly close, she’d shouted and asked how he’d been. He’d said fine and asked the same of her. She’d laughed and said she was fine too. When the second song finished, she’d looked at him expectantly, but he managed only an awkward smile and a bit of a shrug before turning away off the floor. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to.

She’d left early that night, slipping off with her pals just before the food was laid out, signalling the last hour. Maybe she wasn’t hungry; maybe she had somewhere better to go. Either way, she’d left without a glance over her shoulder. The last he saw of her was her red tresses snaking through the crowds and then disappearing from sight.

That was nearly a week ago, and he’d looked out for her every night since, half glad when she hadn’t shown, knowing it kept them both safe, albeit in very different ways. He’d been a grouchy, stalking presence in the disco, his mood scaring off would-be dancers even when the slow number came on at the end. Alice McCutcheon had been on duty with him twice and had sidled up to him on the pretence of chatting him up to ask what the hell was wrong with him. He’d said he was just fed up with the dancing routine and that he had been arguing with his wife. Admitting a small lie to cover up a bigger one.

The baking summer, the hottest and longest spell anyone could remember, had continued without a drop of rain or a drop in temperature. Klass continued to swelter. He’d ditched his tie that night and opened a couple of buttons on his plain, white, cotton shirt but it still didn’t let in anywhere near enough air. Either the disco was having more oxygen sucked out of it with every passing night or else he’d simply been there too long.

This night was different from the others, though, and he wasn’t sure how comfortable he was with it. He was standing in the queue to go upstairs and into the disco with Frances MacFarlane at his side. Brenda’s sister, the one who had seen her dancing with the bloke wearing the black velvet suit with a red silk handkerchief in the top pocket, was shaking. If it hadn’t been so hot or you hadn’t known what she’d gone through, you’d swear she was shivering because she was cold. She’d agreed to go back to Klass for the first time since her sister was murdered, but it was clear she was thinking better of it. The girl was terrified.

He put his arm round her, not certain how she would react to it, but they were there on the pretence of being boyfriend and girlfriend, so at least it would look natural to anyone watching. His first touch seemed to produce an electric shock as she nearly jumped out of her skin, but then she sank against his arm and then in close to his side. She still shook but the tremblings were beginning to subside.

Frances was a small girl, slim and barely five feet tall, with mousy brown hair and large green eyes. He guessed she’d be very pretty if she smiled, but there didn’t seem to be much hope of that any time soon. When they’d spoken about her going in with him to try to identify the man who had danced with her sister, she’d done little other than sob while saying that she’d do anything they wanted, anything that might help. The poor girl was eating herself up with guilt at being the MacFarlane daughter who had walked away from the disco alive.

She’d put on a check, flared mini-dress and enough makeup to cover the tears, and had screwed up whatever courage she had left, making him promise that he’d never leave her side. Not that he had any intention of doing so. He hugged her slightly tighter, feeling her relax as he did so. It was for him as much as for her: he had his own guilt at being part of putting her through this.

Frances had somehow managed to evade the newspaper photographers who had wanted her picture for their front pages and had told the police that neither she nor Brenda had known many people who went to Klass, so the chances were good that she’d go unrecognised inside the disco. Whether she would recognise anyone there was the question that was keeping them all awake at night.

The bouncers gave them the nod, their eyes on Frances, who could only look at her feet, finding fascination in her platform sandals. They crossed the threshold into Klass, the stifling heat immediately a contrast to the relative cool of the stairs, yet it set off another bout of trembling, and Frances tottered into the disco supported by his arm.

Her eyes were wide, trying to take everything and everyone in at once. For a moment he thought she might back out again, but there was stern stuff inside her tiny frame, even though she announced that she needed it fortified by something else.