The Blood of Crows Page 7

  She took a sip of her tea, but it was stone cold. Yes, she could see how she and Anderson could be an irritant to the Strathclyde force. Some politician in Holyrood would be baying for blood – anything else would seem like a cover-up to the media.

  And Fairbairn’s lawyer was very media savvy.

  10.30 A.M.

  ‘So, what can I tell you?’ Dr Redman flicked a few sheets of A4 back and forth, with medically clean hands and short nails, before positioning himself directly in the path of the cool air from the fan. The side room in the hospital was small and windowless. ‘The boy was a mess when he came into A&E. Not so much the fall but the good kicking he received beforehand. And odd injuries that might indicate torture. Fingernails either were pulled out or burned.’ Redman got up and closed the door that had clicked open. ‘I’ve asked Professor O’Hare to come over and have a look. He’s been to a few war zones, he’ll recognize the injuries of torture – or “insults”, as he calls them. He’s helped us out before on injuries stuff like this.’

  Anderson leaned on the back of his chair. ‘So, the poor boy was thoroughly beaten and tortured before he went over the barrier. How did he come to this?’

  Redman raised an eyebrow and sighed. ‘Good question, especially as he is a well-nourished young man, his remaining teeth are in good condition. All dirt was superficial, he had good long-term hygiene – no nits, no fleas, good bone density, no yeast infections. The beatings had gone on over a period of several days. And he hadn’t eaten for a good while.’

  ‘So, what do you think happened to him?’

  ‘Well, kicked, as I said. Hit with a blunt instrument. One tibia with a spiral fracture; the bone was subject to severe torsional stress. Great strength would be needed for that, or something mechanical. Don’t ask, I have no idea what. He has a lot of lacerations from being rammed against a fixed object; you can still see the pattern. A prolonged interrogation session, I’d say.’

  ‘Any indication why?’

  ‘You need to find out who he is first. And the blood on him was not all his, the samples are at the lab. The way things have been going in this city recently, there’s probably a drug connection. He didn’t have a habit, but he might have known something that someone wanted to know. Otherwise, he’d just have been shot like those other three.’

  ‘Well, he didn’t get into that state overnight. But nobody has reported him missing. Any clues as to his identity?’

  The doctor sighed. ‘No major scars. We have X-rays of his remaining teeth. He has good dental work. There’s a torn piercing up here, on the cartilage of his left ear.’ Redman tapped his own ear.

  ‘Age?’

  ‘Seventeen, eighteen, somewhere around there. Older than the ambulance guys first thought.’

  ‘Still young, though.’

  ‘The strange thing is, he seems to have been engaged in sexual activity with men, or a man, over a period of time. But he’s not a run-of-the-mill rent boy. Maybe a high-class rent boy? To me the signs are consistent with consensual homosexual activity, then a more recent incident of rape. Thickening suggests a long-term consensual activity but the bleeding suggest a violent and –’

  ‘Yeah, we can ask O’Hare about that.’ Anderson was thinking about the boy – not a user, from a good home. It was a hard one to accept.

  ‘You know, there’s been a big increase in stabbings and shootings in the last few months. What are you guys doing out there?’

  Anderson shrugged. ‘Trying to get one step ahead.’ He paused. ‘Did you say the samples had already been sent to Forensics?’

  ‘No, somebody came to collect them.’

  ‘Any idea who?’

  Redman looked at him blankly. ‘Sorry, I thought you’d sent her. Definitely police special services. She carried ID. Small girl, brown hair.’ He shrugged. ‘Eager, young.’

  ‘Wasn’t Matilda McQueen, was it?’

  Dr Redman flicked over a few sheets of paper on his clipboard. ‘Indeed, M. McQueen picked up the samples at seven thirty this morning. Took them over to that lab at the uni, I presume.’

  Anderson nodded, he was getting the pattern. ‘Will he make it? Bridge Boy?’

  ‘One of those cases where we do what we can – we support body systems, keep his airway clear, give him blood, sew up what we can and then stand back and wait. If it goes well, so will he. If not, we could lose him at any stage.’

  ‘If he says anything –’

  ‘We’re keeping him unconscious most of the time – we can control the pain that way – but when he drifts back to reality he repeats a word, as if he wants to tell us something.’ Redman looked at the form again. ‘It could be “brawny”, or “Trelawney” – something like that. Does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘No, nothing.’ Anderson scribbled the words down, hearing again the barely whispered ‘Mamochka’. Images of limbs being tied, ankles bound, jostled disturbingly in his mind.

  Redman was fanning himself with a file. ‘How bloody hot do you think it’s going to get today?’

  ‘Far too bloody hot. Thanks for your time, doc.’ Anderson handed Redman a card. ‘There’s my mobile. Buzz me if anybody phones, or comes to visit, or shows any interest in him at all. Just remember, they might not be family; whoever did this wanted to know something. Even if he told them, they still might be bloody annoyed he survived.’

  ‘Hang on, somebody did phone. They refused to say if they were family.’ Redman reached across and pulled a Post-it note from the monitor screen. ‘Yip, they hung up the minute they were asked who they were, which means we would have told them nothing.’

  ‘Did anybody try 1471?’

  ‘No, we’re a hospital, we don’t tend to do things like that. But the nurse made a note that it was at eight this morning. Somebody reading the early paper, hearing the breakfast news, maybe?’

  ‘Was the caller male?’

  ‘According to this note, yes.’

  Anderson closed his notebook and left, casting a glance at the victim’s room as he left. There was little recognizable as a human being, just tubes and sheets and machines and wires. Anderson glanced at the framework over the bed, the cables connected to it, crocodile clips holding them in place, and the holes on the wall that held the framework.

  He had a flicker of recognition, something else to think about.

  1.30 P.M.

  By the time Skelpie Fairbairn crawled out of his bed, it was half past one. He belched loudly, scratching his fat belly, and wandered into the toilet. He peed and spent a couple of minutes looking at his face in the mirror, assessing himself. He’d put on weight while he was inside – no longer the Skinny Jim he’d been when he was first arrested. Tomorrow he needed to start getting in shape for his appeal and try to bear some resemblance to a responsible citizen. Good shave, haircut, take a bit of weight off, get some colour into his sallow skin, he could almost look trustworthy. He could look like an innocent guy who would buy a wee lassie an ice cream on a hot summer day.

  He went into the hall, and picked up the mail. The white envelope from Scottish Power he flung aside, and the one from 3 Mobile, but he eagerly opened the two DVDs he’d been sent to keep him entertained. He checked his mobile. No flashing light, no message yet that he could move on. So, he still had to sit tight in this social security hellhole. One of these days there’d be a phone call, and they would say the codeword which meant he could move on. If they didn’t say it, he wasn’t to go. But Skelpie was confident he was going to be looked after, and it would all look legit.

  He stamped on the cushion, making a comfy dent for his head, then flung himself bum first on to the brand-new sofa. He bounced slightly on landing, and heard the base of the sofa crack. Bit of cheap shite, so it was.

  Eyes on the TV, his hand scrabbled over the floor, doing a blind search through the grime and grease and dirt caught up in the fibres of the skanky carpet. A half-eaten KitKat, one fag packet empty and crushed, another fag packet half full, a bottle of Teacher’s. That would
do for his breakfast. Before starting his feast, he picked up the remote, pressed Play and waited for the DVD to load. He scratched himself with yellow fingernails, and bits of skin flaked into his belly button. Content now, he tossed his lighter from the back of his hand to his palm, catching it and then flicking it on. The click of the flame was echoed by that of the DVD player. He reached down and picked up the tinfoil tray from last night’s Chinky to use as an ashtray and balanced it on his thigh.

  Then he felt around on the carpet for the dregs of a can of lager and tipped that into the makeshift ashtray, to be on the safe side. Falling asleep while pissed and smoking equalled toast. As Billy the Bastard had found out. Skelpie would be more careful.

  He burped loudly and lifted his bum off the sofa to fart. It was good to be out after four years of being locked up twenty hours out of twenty-four. And God, was he out! He was free now, on a firm legal argument that he couldn’t make head or tail of – though he knew the word ‘disclosure’ came up a lot. Something the bastards at the fiscal’s office ought to have said, but didn’t. Something the cops should have revealed, but didn’t. He was letting Faulkner, his lawyer, do all the talking for him. The wee shite had been Biggart’s lawyer, and Biggart had footed the bill up front. But then Biggart, God bless his burned-out socks, had owed Skelpie big time.

  He wasn’t that innocent – he’d done plenty and got away with it – but it gnawed at him that he’d actually been banged up for something he hadn’t done. Though he knew who had.

  The story he’d given the cops was, for once, the truth. He was just the local bus driver, and he’d got caught up in a nasty situation. He knew all the local kiddies by name, kept an eye on them as they got on and off his bus. Wee Lynda Osbourne, a six-year-old with blonde pigtails, often got the bus to school with her granny. Then one day he’d left Hugh and Lenny in the pub and had gone up to the Botanics for some fresh air and a wee bit of business, intending to go straight back to the pub. It had been a hot day, like today, and he’d queued at the ice cream van. There was a summer fair going on, and the gardens were packed with parents and children; it was hard to tell which adults and children belonged together. He was already in the queue when he saw wee Lynda join the end. She seemed to have two older boys with her, but they started chatting to some friends, ignoring the wee girl. He had waved, offered to buy her a cone to save her waiting. He was just being nice; it wasn’t safe for kids to wait. She’d really wanted raspberry topping, but they’d run out, and she’d had a wee tantrum. So, the ice cream man gave her a double dollop of strawberry and everyone was happy.

  But that encounter had got him banged up for kiddie-fiddling. Fairbairn could remember the first time he met McAlpine in the dark stinking corridor at Partickhill Station; as soon as they laid eyes on each other there was a wee flicker, as one liar recognized another. Well, someone had terminated the wee bastard not long after. Good on him.

  Now Skelpie would just have to be a bit more careful.

  He didn’t want to end up back inside.

  But he had choices, and this time he had friends in very low places.

  He flicked through the DVDs from the rental company – Saw, Saw II, Saw III. His all-time favourites. But first he was going to enjoy this really good bit from another film.

  A man hangs in midair, huge metal hooks pulling the flesh of his back into sharp peaks as he winches himself up … to hover above the dead woman – the drowned dead woman – he is about to have sex with …

  Skelpie paused the action, so the drowned woman stared up at him with dead eyes, her short dark hair bordering her face like an ebony frame. He fancied a bit of that, if the truth be known. Not the hooks-through-the-skin bit – he was used to giving pain, not receiving it – but the shagging drowned women. Not drowned too long ago – he wasn’t a pervert – but a wee bit of recently drowned.

  Skelpie picked up a smart red envelope in the shape of a pillar box, sliding out another DVD, then he ejected the hanging man and the drowned bitch, got up and placed the new DVD into the slot before flopping down again. The camera wavered about a bit before ending up on the figure of a young girl; her company was a little present for him to celebrate his release from jail. He recognized the stupid tartan wallpaper above the bedhead. The camera pulled back, showing his upper forearm with its RFC tattoo and the delicate script of No Surrender underneath. That was bad; that should have been kept out of shot.

  Unconsciously, Skelpie reached for his forearm, scratching the tattoo.

  2.05 P.M.

  Vik Mulholland had been busy while Anderson had been at the hospital and now his constable was coming towards him, notebook in hand, with a focused expression on his face that had been absent since his demotion. Anderson was glad to see it back.

  ‘Colin? The tabloids have been on the phone asking for a comment on the Fairbairn affair.’

  ‘They can piss off,’ answered Anderson automatically.

  ‘And I’ve typed up this statement from Janet Appleby, the girl who –’

  ‘Yes, I know. Just read it out.’

  Mulholland cleared his throat and sat on the side of Anderson’s desk. ‘Name Janet Marion Appleby. Born on the 14th of November 1985, in Glasgow, single, moved into the first available flat in Apollo Court two years ago. She has the impression that she was not supposed to buy it, she thought the estate agent had his own ideas for it, but she was a cash buyer so he couldn’t really –’

  Anderson whistled through his teeth. ‘Stop right there. Where does her money come from for a flat like that?’

  ‘Dead granny, it’s legit, I’ve checked. She was in London when the fire happened, she didn’t like Biggart. I quote: “Just the way he looked at me.” He would make remarks about the fit of her uniform. She’s BA cabin crew, long haul. If she knew he was about, she wouldn’t go out into the corridor, she’d wait until he’d gone.’

  ‘But no direct threats or intimidation?’

  ‘Unfortunately no, but there have been a few offers to buy her out. She can’t recall the name of the company but she thinks it’ll be in the paperwork at her flat.’

  ‘So, they didn’t like her being there?’

  ‘Sounds like it. But she just thought he was a perv. She’s a bright girl. She had deduced he didn’t live there. She was always taking deliveries for him, PillarBoxFlix DVDs mostly, that was a pattern she did notice. A few people used to come and go, but not like a drug drop, not in and out. They stayed for hours – quiet partying, she said.’

  ‘Fits in with the findings in the flat, the big boys’ playground.’

  ‘Well, they were always men, and they never used the front door of the flats. But she would recognize some of the callers again – one she called the cute guy who had, and I quote, “big brown puppy-dog eyes” and another two who always came as a pair; one had a funny eye, with a white bit across the iris, as though he’d damaged it. And tattoos on his left wrist, a pattern she said looked like leaves or something intertwined. She’ll come in and look at pictures if we get any.’

  ‘A single girl, long-haul cabin crew with no home to go to? Bet she’s not going to be around much to interview, is she?’

  Mulholland shook his head with some regret.

  2.10 P.M.

  ACC Howlett squared the two buff folders on his desk, and placed the envelope with the photograph of DS Costello next to her latest welfare report from HR and every appraisal that she had had on a murder squad. The same three words kept appearing: intuitive, independent, observant. He set his fountain pen carefully to the side. He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. He was about to stake a lifetime’s reputation on a long shot, but time was running out – for him, and for them all. He dabbed the sweat from his forehead and tugged up his uniform trousers, cursing the unaccustomed slackness of the waistband, then sat down and composed himself to look the part. He retrieved the personnel file from the opposite side of the desk and took a brief glance at the photograph. It bore only a slight resemblance to the figure he had ju
st watched on the security camera, with its slightly unsteady walk, not unstable but uneasy, as if she needed to stretch her legs after a long journey. Slim, she wore a dark suit and neat shoes with a slight heel, and a silk scarf folded narrow and tied round her short brown hair. He knew what that was hiding.

  He pressed the intercom and asked Eilidh, his PA, to bring the woman in. He had kept her waiting ten minutes, long enough to test her nerve.

  ‘Coffee? Tea?’ Howlett asked after the official introductions had been made.

  His visitor shook her head and sat down without being asked.

  ‘Just a coffee for me, then,’ he said to Eilidh, while considering the way the woman had sat down.

  Heavily? With relief? No, as if she was tired. Her hands gripped the strap of her bag so tightly that her knuckles were blanched.

  Again, he inwardly questioned his decision. ‘I’d like to thank you for attending at such short notice.’

  ‘Not as if I had a lot else on, is it?’

  Ah, there it was, that vague insolence. He smiled at her. She smiled back briefly, looking at him intently – as if he was speaking a foreign language, and she was concentrating.

  ‘How are you keeping, DS Costello? I think your team are missing you.’

  ‘I’m sure they are. I’m keeping perfectly well, thank you. How are you?’

  ‘Er … fine,’ he lied, wondering if she had heard the rumours. Howlett smiled again, and reshuffled his papers. ‘Something has come to light. Something we think you might be interested in.’

  DS Costello did not respond by looking interested; in fact, she didn’t respond at all. All he got was that same steady, slightly insolent stare.

  ‘This job could be right up your street,’ he persisted. ‘A bit unusual, but it might just help with your rehabilitation, help you on your way back to work. But I do need your complete discretion, guaranteed. If you decide that you can’t help us out, then I ask that anything said or seen in this room stays in this room.’