Driftnet (14 page)

But had there
been anything to notice? Chrissy had generally been her usual self,
except for the day her brother had come looking for money. Rhona
cast her mind back to the meeting outside the lab. Patrick was the
only one that was half-way sound. Patrick must know what was going
on. She hesitated. Chrissy wouldn’t like it. If there was a problem
at home, she would want to sort it out by herself.

The post and
the newspaper arrived while Rhona was in the shower, still mulling
over her next move. She carried them through and laid them on the
kitchen table. The postcard showed the Sacré Coeur bathed in warm
sunshine.

Dearest
Rhona,

Good food, good
wine, great music.

Missing you.
Phone soon.

Love S.

Her hand was
shaking as she put the card down. Sean hadn’t given up on her. Not
yet anyway. But then he didn’t know the truth about her, any more
than she knew the truth about him.

Rhona opened
the newspaper to find Edward smiling smugly above a full page
interview. He was full of plans for law and order.

‘Edward
Stewart, the acceptable face of new Scottish Conservatism,’ Rhona
muttered. Even Jim Connelly hadn’t cracked the carefully
constructed facade. At least Edward wasn’t the main headline and
that would definitely piss him off.

She glanced
over the paedophile allegations, then laid the paper down. She
wasn’t in the mood to think about the horrors in that story. Then
she noticed Bill Wilson’s name and picked it up again. This time
she read it properly.

Chapter
20

Bill Wilson’s
anger had left him drained. Somehow, this time he had internalised
the anger, personalised it, and it wasn’t good for either his
stomach or his heart, or so Margaret had informed him. He knew it
himself. He also knew he could do nothing about it. The death of
this particular boy in these particular circumstances was as near
to home as it had ever been and he couldn’t explain why. As well as
putting his own blood pressure up and his wife’s, he had also
rubbed the kids up the wrong way.

‘We can’t live
in a prison,’ his daughter had said after the last row. ‘You’ll
have to let us go back out sometime.’

And she was
right.

As soon as the
exposé on paedophiles hit the newspapers, the cyber sleuth team,
headed by Gavin MacLean, started reporting problems mapping
relevant sites in the investigation. It was as if they had never
existed. And they were no further forward on the murder
investigation either. There had been plenty of leads about the
curtains, all of them false. No one had reported seeing Jamie in
the hours before his death, no one in the close had seen anything.
Since most of the occupants were avoiding the law themselves, that
wasn’t too surprising.

Bill pressed
the buzzer for Janice and told her he was going down to the
canteen. He had promised Margaret he would eat regularly if he was
going to spend so much time at work.

‘I’ll come down
with you. I could do with something myself,’ she said. Bill
realised that the young constable had been putting as much time in
on this case as he had and that was a hell of a lot.

‘Right. My
treat tonight,’ he said and Janice groaned.

‘Some
treat.’

They carried
the canteen’s attempt at vegetable lasagne over to a table and sat
down.

‘Sir.’

Bill looked up
from his gloomy study of the contents of his plate to his Junior
Officer. When he was her age, most people had never heard of
paedophiles. Now every second week there was a story of abuse. It
had been going on all the time. In the old days the kids just
didn’t tell anyone, because they didn’t think anyone would believe
them. And they were right.

‘Sir?’

‘Sorry. What
were you saying?’

‘We had a phone
call from Childline. It came in about five minutes ago.’

‘Is this going
to put me off my lasagne Janice?’

‘Probably.’

Bill pushed the
plate away.

‘Okay. Let’s
have it.’

‘They’ve had a
call from a boy, Sir. Says he’s mixed up in this paedophile
ring.’

‘Was it
genuine?’

Janice nodded.
Childline had been sure of it, she said. The boy said he had been
recruited by email and he couldn’t get out. He had been threatened
that pictures of him would be sent to his family if he told
anyone.

‘The boy
sounded pretty desperate, Sir.’

‘Have we any
idea where he was calling from?’

Janice shook
her head.

‘Did he give
any clues to the identity of any of the men?’

‘No. He said
they would kill him like the last one, if he gave them away.’

‘Bastards.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

Bill pulled his
coffee towards him and took a gulp. He needed one lead, just one
real lead to get close to these animals. Then he would get
them.

‘Phone Gavin
MacLean and see if we can home in on these email connections.’

Janice rose to
go, leaving her lasagne to congeal on the plate. Bill looked at her
tired face and made her sit back down.

‘Eat your food
first, Constable. And that’s an order.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

He stood up.
‘I’m going out for a while. I’ll be back in an hour.’

The underground
car park was almost empty. His dark blue Rover was alone in the far
corner. The early shift were all away home. He turned the dial on
the radio until he found some background music, then started her up
and headed out the gate into the early evening light.

At first he
just drove around aimlessly. Driving helped him think. He liked the
way both sides of his brain worked at once. One half concentrating
on the road, the other busy unpicking knots in the case.

Since
Connelly’s article on paedophiles, there had been an outcry. It had
been what the Super called, ‘a good public response’. A lot of folk
just didn’t like their neighbours and would report them for
anything. And some people had it in for gays, whether they lived
decent lives or not.

The catalogue
of complaints had led them nowhere. Whoever the real predators
were, they had covered their tracks very well indeed.

Bill took a
left into Maryhill. The traffic was heavy here, all out of town and
into the outlying estates. The residents of Maryhill were enjoying
the late afternoon sunshine, at least the ones who had no work, and
that seemed to be most of them. When he reached Erskine Street, he
pulled over and stopped at number 11, scanning the tenement for the
window on the second floor. The window was bleary with grime. In
the sunshine, the ragged bit of net that covered the bottom half
was the colour of a rainy day.

It was on a day
like this, also in June, that he’d left this street for good. His
mother had come to that window and waved, determined not to betray
a trace of distress. It was what she wanted for him. She’d raised
four fine sons in that wee tenement flat, instilling them with a
fierce sense of right and wrong. His brother John was in Canada in
the police there. William, the clever one, was a lawyer in
Edinburgh, as far away from this place as it was possible to
imagine. The second youngest, Kenny, had gone to sea like his
father. And then it had been his own turn to leave.

Bill turned
round. A wee figure had come out of the close and was eyeing him up
and down. The boy was streetwise, six going on thirty. When Bill
didn’t roll down the window and say anything, he ran at the car and
spat on the window, shoving one finger up in the air.

When Bill’s
mother got ill, she refused to leave Erskine Street and come and
stay with Margaret and him, so he got her a home help and they went
to see her as often as they could. Bill would sometimes get the
police car to go and check on her and she would ask the officers in
for a cup of tea. On more than one occasion, weans as young as this
one had removed a wheel or a wing mirror while his men sat indoors
eating shortbread biscuits.

Bill started
the engine and the kid ran up a close, the single finger still
waving defiantly in the air. Bill took one last look and drove away
from the broken kerb, glad his mother had never seen things come to
this.

He drove back
into town. This time he headed for the Art Gallery. The car park
was full so he parked on the long leafy avenue instead. He used to
come here all the time. The park and the Art Gallery. The Gallery
was traditionally a haven for kids with no cash for going to the
cinema.

He walked down
towards the river. At times like this it was impossible to think
straight in the office or at home. This was the place he always
came when he wanted to climb into someone else’s mind; when he came
back out, he wanted to be somewhere that reminded him the world
wasn’t all bad.

Men who killed
like that never stopped with one. The likelihood was the urge had
developed over a period of time, satisfied at first by small acts
of violence; then, as it became stronger, the sexual act was only a
part of the pleasure; the satisfaction from the violence was the
whole. He knew he was already waiting for the next one. Of the four
deaths this year, the last two were unsolved. Martin Henderson the
student found in the park, and Jamie Fenton.

Bill ran the
first incident over in his mind.

Martin had been
seen leaving the Union alone about ten o’clock. The doctor put his
death at about midnight. That left two hours unaccounted for. There
had been signs of homosexual activity and violent assault. Death
had come from a blow to the head, possibly from a blunt instrument,
or he could have hit a rock when he fell. They never found the
instrument or the rock.

By the time the
body was found next morning, the river through the park was topping
its banks. Rhona and the scene of crime team had drawn a complete
blank. They reached the conclusion that the victim had been
cruising for sex and had been jumped. But Rhona had put forward the
idea that he might have arranged to meet someone in the park; that
the one he had sex with was the one who killed him.

‘Remember the
thong with the cross on it?’ she had said.

‘The Doc said
they pulled his head back with it.’

‘Yes. He didn’t
die of asphyxiation, but there was bruising on his neck consistent
with having the thong tightened.’

‘So if it’s the
same murderer, why didn’t he bite?’

‘You and I both
know how these acts tend to go through an escalating sequence.
Maybe now he needs more.’

‘We got nothing
on that last one, no trace evidence at all?’

‘Only a small
amount of the victim’s seminal fluid. Nothing from the
assailant.’

‘If they were
having sex that’s unusual.’

‘That was my
argument last time, Bill. No trace evidence. No sexual encounter. I
reckon the boy’s seminal fluid was ejaculated at the moment of
death. We both know that’s not unusual.’ She paused. ‘But now I’m
not so sure. When I examined Jamie Fenton, most of the seminal
fluid was low down on the thighs. The mouth showed small traces. Dr
Sissons said the oesophagus was clear and he found next to none in
the rectum.’

‘So?’

‘Maybe the
murderer has problems climaxing. If it’s the same man, maybe he
didn’t reach a climax at all the first time. Maybe that’s why he
lost it.’

‘And with
Jamie?’

‘I think he
strangled Jamie to help him reach a climax and when that didn’t
work, he bit him.’

‘You’re
beginning to sound like a Forensic Psychiatrist.’

She was silent
for a moment. ‘We have to try and understand why, Bill. It’s the
only way we’ll get him, before he does it again.’

Neither of them
needed a Forensic Psychiatrist to tell them that. They both knew
the next murder could happen soon. That would be a typical pattern.
Both victims had been students. That could be their link. There was
little else left to check out.

When the
university authorities got back to him, they told him that Martin
henderson had also been a regular in the computer lab.

He walked on,
letting the sound of the river drift through his mind. Then he went
back to the car and drove to the Station.

Janice was
waiting for him. Something had happened. A raid on a local
pornographic video dealer had thrown up an unexpected clue. While
the team were going through the routine of observing the stuff and
noting down any faces they recognised, they’d found a clip
featuring Jamie Fenton. Tied to a four-poster bed, his wrists held
by a blue plaited cord with tassels hanging from the end.

In the
background hung familiar curtains, swirling with colour.

Chapter
21

Just as
Jonathan pulled the front door shut, the phone rang. He swithered
on the step, then went back in. If his parents were coming home
early, it was better to know.

He picked up
the receiver.

‘Jon?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Hey. It’s
Mark. Doing anything tonight?

‘Can’t. I’m
going out.’

‘Who with?’
Mark sounded slightly incredulous.

‘Sorry, I’ll
have to go or I’ll be late.’ For once it was Jonathan’s turn to
keep Mark guessing.

Jonathan
laughed at his mental picture of Mark’s face.

On the road to
the bus stop he passed Susan Wheatley. She said said Hi and looked
as if she might stop and speak to him, but he walked on. On another
day he would have been over the moon to be singled out by Susan
Wheatley. But not today. Today he didn’t need Susan Wheatley.

The vodka he’d
downed before he left made him feel he didn’t need anyone.
Everything was perfect. The parents wouldn’t appear before tomorrow
night. Morag was supposed to be in charge, but she was far too busy
being shafted by her new boyfriend.

Jonathan sat
upstairs on the bus, wishing he’d had a smoke on the way to the
stop. He wondered if Simon smoked. He’d never said. He didn’t even
know what age Simon was. But he wasn’t old, that was for sure.