Текст книги "In Place of Death"

Автор книги: Craig Robertson

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Chapter 3

There’s a phenomenon in astronomy called light echo. When a rapidly brightening object such as a nova is reflected off interstellar dust, the echo is seen shortly after the initial flash. It produces an illusion, of an echo expanding faster than the speed of light.

Tony Winter didn’t know all that much about astronomy but after years of photographing dead bodies, he knew all about the differences between light and dark.

The echoes of the flash from his camera bounced from wall to wall in the close confines of the Molendinar Tunnel, reverberating from brick to opposing brick in a heartbeat. Even if he cared, he couldn’t tell which flash was a reflection of the other. All he knew was that they were lighting up death and giving its ugliness a sheen of undeserved beauty.

The tunnel was bathed in it, the bricks glowing golden and warm and making the corpse with the wide, empty eyes seem even colder by comparison. Winter was tight against the bricks now, feeling their rough edges against his skin and clothing as he fought to get enough room to capture the body from every angle he could without disturbing it. The head, what was left of it after the tunnel creatures had gnawed and nibbled, filled his viewfinder. Dead for a month or so, he guessed. A patchwork face of pale purples and washed-out reds on a canvas of dirty beige. Most definitely not a pretty sight but an irresistible one.

The gaping, festering wound to the throat had been a clean cut once. A sharp blade had let life rush out, just as surprise had escaped from the mouth and terror from the eyes. Whoever he was, he quite literally hadn’t seen this coming. There was something else about him though, something that Winter couldn’t quite . . .

‘What do you see, Tony?’

The shout from twenty yards or so behind him came from Rachel. Newly promoted Detective Inspector Rachel Narey. His significant other. His girlfriend. His partner. Rachel.

They both had new jobs, on paper at least. She’d become part of the West’s Major Investigation Team while his paymasters had been rebranded from the Scottish Police Services Authority to the snappier Forensic Services. The truth was that this brave new world was much the same as the bad old one. She investigated murders, he photographed them.

The difference for Narey was that killer-chasing was now more of a full-time occupation. The MIT was part of Police Scotland’s newly formed Serious Crime Division and they’d taken responsibility for all homicide inquiries. There would still be other crimes on the sheet but the murders were theirs.

There was an average of a murder a week in the West of Scotland, more than enough to keep a squad on its toes. If they got backed up then the new regime meant MITs could be brought in from the other two Scottish areas to help out with cases. Inevitably, those being shipped in were about as welcome as a clown at a funeral. This time though, it was as local as it could get. It belonged to Glasgow, dear old Glasgow toon.

Narey and Winter had been meant to be going out for dinner before the call came in. It was to have been a rare and, for him, encouraging venture out together as a couple. She still wanted their relationship to be kept from her colleagues in the force but she was less agitated about that than she had been. He wasn’t what you might call an expert on relationships, particularly his own, but he was sure they were in a good place. Well, they were but for the fact they were in a damp tunnel in the dark. No one could say he didn’t know how to show a girl a good time.

Her voice came to him again, sharper this time. ‘What do you see, Tony?’

‘Just what the uniforms said. Dead guy. Throat cut.’

‘Hurry up, will you?’ The more distant voice was the pathologist, Angie Morton. ‘I don’t want to be down here any longer than I need to be.’

It had been like the start of a very bad joke. A cop, a photographer and a pathologist go into a tunnel. The difference was everyone knew the punchline.

Normal procedure hadn’t been an option. There was no way a team of forensics could have gone in there and done their stuff. Instead it had been decided to send in a mini task force of talents instead. They were to do what they could and then get the body the hell out of there.

Winter had gone first, as was always the way. At any crime scene, photographs had to get done before anything else. It had to be recorded as was. Not as was after forensics had brushed, scraped, daubed and dusted. The photographer’s work was always primary but in Winter’s case it was also primal.

‘I’ll be as long as it takes.’

His voice rolled back down the Molendinar towards where Narey and, a bit further back, Morton were waiting, obviously impatiently, to take their turn. He had to do his job first though and do it thoroughly. It was down to him to record the scene and take it back above ground so that it could be re-created by everyone that needed a bit of it.

‘Yes, well, don’t enjoy yourself too much. Get your snaps and get back out.’

Enjoy yourself. The jibe hurt more when it came from Rachel.

Winter’s liking for his work was well known and not particularly approved of by the cops. He had an enthusiasm for it that they and forensics regarded as unhealthy. Or else they just thought he was weird. Maybe he was but they didn’t get it because they simply didn’t understand.

Maybe he didn’t either.

He’d been trying to change, trying to be less . . . less like he was. Or at least be less obvious about it, he wasn’t sure which. He’d never shake it but he could handle it better.

How could you not find this interesting though? He had been buzzing with anticipation from the moment the tunnel walls had started to shrink in on them. Dead. Down here. Throat cut. It set off old feelings and memories that ran deep.

They’d tried to keep the darkness at bay with jokes as they’d walked, the kind of whistling through the graveyard stuff that was the default for those who had to see and do things that most would run a mile from. Through all the nonsense, Winter’s nose had twitched. He doubted the other two were so different though. You couldn’t, wouldn’t, get into the game if crazy stuff like this didn’t get your blood flowing. Winter’s arteries had a tsunami pumping through them.

The wide-eyed screamer in front of him was perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties. So difficult to tell beneath the decay. The damp denims that held his legs in place were soaked from the knees down and looked set to disintegrate. He wore a light blue cagoule over a white T-shirt and a navy-blue fleece, decent walking shoes on his feet, and a backpack that threatened to pitch him head first into the burn. His scalp, scarred with tracks and bites, was visible below dirty reddish-blond hair.

Winter stared at him, his mind itching with something he couldn’t place. Dots were joining somewhere deep inside him and he didn’t like it. He swore under his breath, telling himself to get on with it, and edged back to fire off a succession of closing shots. The poor bastard, sitting in his own River Styx waiting for a call that had already come. He doubted that there was a coin to be found in the man’s mouth, no payment for the ferryman.

‘Okay. I’m finished.’ He shuffled backwards down the tunnel, Narey and Morton doing the same until the space was large enough for all three to stand, crouching slightly, under the ceiling. The two women looked at him but he just nodded in return as he spoke behind the protective mask on his face. ‘Job done.’

Angie Morton blew out air anxiously. ‘How bad is it down there?’

‘The space or the body?’

‘The space. I’m hardly going to be bothered by the body. That’s my job.’

‘Pretty tight. I didn’t know you were claustro phobic.’

‘Neither did I till now. Okay, wish me luck.’

She ducked and crept forward warily, her back receding into the near distance until Winter and Narey were left standing alone. His hoarse whisper was tinged with annoyance.

‘Don’t enjoy myself too much?’

‘Sorry. It just came out. Old habits. You know I didn’t mean it, right?’

‘Right.’

She lifted her face mask from her mouth and did the same with his. Raising her head, she leaned forward to kiss him firmly on the lips. ‘Am I forgiven?’

‘You are. Are you not taking a chance on being seen or heard? Angie’s not far away.’

She shrugged. ‘I’ll live dangerously. Anyway, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. You look hot without a mask.’

‘Careful, Rach. You almost sound like someone who could deal with this the way normal people would.’

‘Oops, my mask slipped.’ She eased the protective cover back down over her mouth. ‘You had your chance . . .’

He grinned at her, liking it. Claustrophobic tunnel or not, they were in a good place.

She smiled back with her eyes then snapped into professional mode. ‘What did you make of the victim?’

‘What’s left of him? Looks like he was set for a day on the hills. No sign of his hands having been tied. No obvious injuries at all except the cut throat.’

Narey shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance it could have been suicide?’

He laughed. ‘Can’t see it. There’s no knife lying around for a start. And anyway, why would you? Come down here to kill yourself, I mean.’

Narey looked round. ‘Why would you come down here to kill? Or be killed? Or at all? I mean, look at this place.’

‘Wherever there’s places other people won’t go, there will always be people who want to go there.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Did you get that from an episode of The Twilight Zone? Or somewhere even darker? Like inside yourself?’

‘One of those. Getting this guy out is going to be a barrel of laughs. He’s ready for falling to pieces.’

‘So is Angie,’ she grinned wickedly behind her mask. ‘I’m betting this will be the shortest examination she’s ever done. We’re going to have to get a team down here and do an inch by inch of the tunnel once we’re finished. Ha. Here she comes now.’

Morton was lifting and wriggling her shoulders. ‘That freaked me out. It was the thought of getting stuck there even though I knew I wouldn’t. It’s beyond me why anyone would choose to come down here.’

Narey looked at Winter and raised her eyebrows. ‘Ask Tony. He’ll get all deep and meaningful about it. Anyway, my turn.’

With that she made her way further down the tunnel, the plastic covers over her shoes singing dolefully as they slipped through the shallow water of the burn.

‘Does nothing bother her?’ Morton was looking at Narey’s retreating figure with what seemed to be a mixture of respect and irritation.

Winter hesitated. Rachel had seemingly given him some hint that maybe their relationship didn’t have to be as secret as she’d previously demanded. At least he thought she had. Still, he knew better than to answer anything other than carefully. Not too defensively or protectively.

‘Plenty, I’m sure. But not enough to stop her doing her job. I guess she just shuts out what she needs to.’

‘Well I get that. You have to when you’re dealing with the dead. Unless you’re you and actively enjoy it.’

Winter groaned loudly. ‘Give me peace. Did you go through his clothing?’

Morton shook her head. ‘Too risky. I’ll do it once I can get him laid out in the morgue. We will be able to move him easily enough. Hopefully it won’t be in bits. Will you do it?’

‘What? That’s not exactly . . . You’re kidding me, right?’

‘There’s only room for one person down there and I’d really rather it wasn’t me. You’ve just got to—’

‘Yeah I know. We’ve been through it. You could ask Rachel.’

‘I’d rather not. Please.’

Winter breathed out hard. ‘Yeah, okay. Just don’t make any crack about how it’s going to be some kind of fun.’

‘I won’t. I know it’s not.’

Fun was the last thing it was going to be. Rigor had been and gone from the victim’s body, leaving it as limp as he was when his lights and his life had been turned off. There was still enough density in the bones to keep him upright but whether that would stand the test of movement they’d only know when they tried. When he tried.

The plan was to ease him back onto the light stretcher they’d brought with them, hopefully causing as little damage as possible, then float him back down the burn until the ceiling lifted again. Then they’d carry him the rest of the way. More like Baby Moses on bulrushes than a corpse ferried from the battlefield.

He looked up from his thoughts to see Narey beginning to stand up from the crouch that had carried her back through the lower part of the tunnel.

‘Anything?’ Angie Morton asked her.

Narey shrugged. ‘Whoever he is, he was left here thinking that he’d never be found. No attempt to hide him. No point when the body’s already well out of sight. The killer must have thought this guy would be dust by the time anyone found him. If anyone ever did.’

‘Maybe that’s why he was here in the first place,’ Winter suggested.

‘Maybe,’ she agreed. ‘But came here or brought here? And why would you come to a place like this with someone who might do that to you?’

‘Do you have an answer?’

She shrugged again. ‘No but I did find this.’

Narey held up a blue-gloved hand and they strained to see what it was she was holding between finger and thumb. It was wooden and rectangular, the size of a matchbox but thinner with a metal ring on the end.

‘What is that, Rachel?’

She held the object slightly higher so they could see. ‘A key ring. With . . .’ She held it higher. ‘The letters RH on it.’

Chapter 4

Remy watched four men in white paper suits, the hoods over their heads, pitching a tent near the fence where the body would come back up. How the hell were they going to get it out of there without destroying evidence? Evidence. The word hit him over the head. It wasn’t just that the dead guy’s DNA was on him. His DNA, his clothing fibres or whatever, were all over the dead guy.

He wanted to step backwards like he did in the tunnel. But he couldn’t. There was a whole new lot of people in behind him. He was trapped just like the dead guy. It felt claustrophobic all of a sudden and he wanted to tell them all to get the hell out of his way. They just kept talking, leaning into him to get a better view, crowding him.

He could smell them, their sweat and their curiosity. Blood lust, that’s what they had. They wanted to see the body, wouldn’t leave till they did. He’d seen it though and could tell them it wasn’t nice, not nice at all. What’s going on? someone near him shouted to the cops. His some’dy been shot? Huv they?

The tent that the forensics had put up was near the fence but not right at it. So when the first two heads appeared over the rise, the area lit up by temporary floodlights, the whole crowd saw them at once. Two cops at the head of a stretcher, others coming in to help to make sure it got over the fence safely, another two holding it at the back. The body was on its side; he could see that under the paper blanket that covered it. Probably with his DNA all over it.

There was a surge behind him as the crowd wanted closer and he let them slip past, a flood of the nosy bastards going by until he was at the back. All he could see above their heads was the gloved hands of the cops by the tape, telling them to stay where they were. Even if they hadn’t seen enough, he had.

He turned away, collar up, weaving his way through some new arrivals. Back to the car, opening the door and slipping inside. He sat in the dark for another five minutes, wondering how he was going to explain to his old man how he was this late in making his dinner for him.

His dad lived in a faded tenement in Adelaide Street, part of the East End’s changing landscape south of Duke Street and north of the Gallowgate. Like in many industrial cities, the East End of Glasgow was where the poor and the huddled masses traditionally lived, yearning to breathe free. Instead, they breathed in the pollution that blew in on the westerly wind from the factories and the yards in the city centre. It was their lot.

A whole slew of Adelaide Street had disappeared over the past few years and there was more still to go, maybe all of it. Its problem, apart from rising damp and a lack of decent heating, was that it was on the battleground where the money men were looking to expand their borders, creeping east when they thought no one was watching.

The East End was to become the new West End. That’s what they were trying to tell people. Remy took it to mean it was going to become too expensive to live in.

They hadn’t actually come out and said they wanted to demolish the whole area and build new houses that only those with good jobs could afford to buy but nobody doubted that was what they were up to. Remy’s dad wasn’t for moving though. As far as Archie Feeks was concerned, the only way they’d be getting him out of there was in a box.

There had been another letter from the company that owned the building, turning up the heat a few degrees as they pushed to get him out. Apparently, Mr Archibald Feeks was holding back the redevelopment of the entire East End and preventing his neighbours from enjoying the fruits of regeneration. Yeah, like his dad or his mates had any use for coffee shops or craft breweries or cafés that sold pulled pork served by bearded hipsters. Or rents that they couldn’t afford.

Not that Remy understood his dad’s attachment to the place. For a start, the stairs weren’t ideal for someone with a chronic lung disease but then again, neither was breathing. It was just something that had to be done.

He’d stopped at the Merchant Chippie on the High Street and picked up fish suppers for both of them. Cooking wasn’t an option now and this was the simplest thing. Anyway, some hot battered fish wrapped round Remy’s heart might just slow it down enough for him to talk.

He knocked on the front door then let himself in. He was greeted by the sound of the television coming from the front room and shouted out to his dad, ‘It’s me. Sorry I’m late.’

‘In here.’

His old man was sitting, as ever, in his favourite chair about five feet from the TV. He didn’t take his eyes off the screen as Remy came in the room but his nose twitched and his eyes slid over.

‘Here I was thinking that you’d fallen and broken your watch again. But you might be forgiven. That’s the smell offish and chips.’ He sniffed again. ‘Merchant Chippie, I’d say. And . . . wait a minute, there’s pickled eggs in there too.’

‘Brilliant, Dad. You should go on Britain’s Got Talent.’

‘Son, my lungs are worth tuppence ha’penny but there’s nothing wrong with my nose. Or my memory. It’s what you usually get. Come on, get them open. I’m so hungry I could eat a scabby-headed wean.’

Remy’s dad was a big little man, the kind that Glasgow specialized in. He carried himself like he was six foot two and no one had dared to tell him he was really only five foot five. It was all about the size of the fight in the dog. The toes of the slippers on his feet were pointed as ever at the television, like they were praying to his own Mecca.

Archie Feeks, former foreman and welder, built ships on the Clyde the same as his dad before him, but retired through ill health before he was sixty. The frustration of that was choking him but he wouldn’t let himself become a moaner. He knew the fault was his own. No one else had forced that cigarette smoke into his lungs.

Remy grabbed a couple of plates from the kitchen and set the fish suppers on them, handing one to his dad and sitting in a chair with the other. He was hoping the food would occupy his dad’s mouth enough that he wouldn’t have to answer any questions. He should have known better.

‘How come you’re so late? You been seeing that wee lassie of yours?’

‘She’s not my . . . No, I haven’t been seeing her. I was just in town with a couple of pals. Lost track of time.’

His dad’s head slowly turned, eyes narrowed. He’d always been able to tell when Remy was lying and he’d obviously not lost the knack. It was probably because Remy was so bad at it. He looked at him for a bit then glanced down, seeing that he hadn’t eaten any of the fish supper.

‘Not hungry, son?’

He was. He was starving but he just couldn’t touch it. He’d gone into the toilets in the Star & Garter and washed his hands before going for the chips but it still didn’t feel right. He wasn’t sure it would ever feel right again. He stood up.

‘Yes, they’re just a bit hot. I’ll give them a minute. Forgot to wash my hands.’

His old man looked doubtful. ‘Okay . . .’

Remy walked into the kitchen and turned on the hot tap, letting the water nearly scald him. He fired soap onto his hands, washing-up liquid too, and slathered them together. He stood in front of the sink with his eyes closed, screwed tight shut, and wished it all away. He dried his hands on a tea towel and took a fork out of the drawer.

Of course, his dad was all over the fork like an interrogation officer as soon as he saw it.

‘A fork. You become posh or something? Hands not good enough for you?’

‘I told you, they’re too hot.’

‘Too hot to touch but not too hot to eat?’

‘’Sake, Dad. Can I just eat it, please?’

They watched the news, Remy in silence barely noticing it, and his dad providing a running commentary.

‘What’s the world coming to, son? Killing kids with missiles? They should be ashamed of themselves and so should anyone that’s not stopping them. And how can kids still be dying in Africa just because of a drought? We should be sending our money over there, not arming people to bomb weans. Who said they could sell off the NHS? Tell me, who? Flogging it off to their mates so they can have even more money. It’s disgusting. Wouldn’t have happened if we’d voted Yes.’

He liked hearing his dad rant, showed there was still plenty of fight left in him, but the normality of it freaked him out. It was like nothing else had happened that night. How could the world just turn the same?

There was nothing on the news about Glasgow though, not that he expected there to be. Not quite yet and not on the national programme. Maybe on the regional news.

When it came, it mentioned the closure of a factory that had been making baths for a hundred years, sparking another rant from his dad.

‘We used to make things here, son. Ships, trains, carpets, engines. Now we just eat things, use things, buy and sell things and throw them away. Same with people. Use them up and throw them away.’

And finally, news just in. Police say the body of a man has been found in the Molendinar Tunnel which runs underground through the East End of Glasgow. Police are still at the scene and the area has been cordoned off while investigations continue. The man, thought to be in his early thirties, was found earlier this evening. It is not yet known whether his death was suspicious. Now here’s Eleanor with the weather . . .

That’s it? That’s all they’ve got? Didn’t know if his death was suspicious. Yeah, right. They knew. They would know much more than they were saying.