Easy Kill (31 page)

‘What if he’s already killed Lisa?’ Bill couldn’t believe those words had come from his mouth.

‘No,’ Magnus shook his head. ‘This is way too important for him. He wants you to squirm. He wants you to acknowledge his superiority. McNab told me how you were one step behind him at the marina, and the wealth of forensic evidence against him. He’s not willing to lose. His aim is to leave here and begin someplace else. His weakness is he can’t leave without this one last humiliation.’

Bill’s mind raced with a series of sickening images of his daughter being tortured by the killer. He staggered a little then felt McNab’s hand on his arm, steadying him.

‘Where would he feel safe, now that we’ve raided his underground lair?’ Magnus addressed the team.

‘Near water,’ someone shouted.

‘A boat.’

‘A yacht.’

A constable came in with a phone location. Lisa’s call had come from the area west of Glasgow Green, close to the river. A buzz exploded in the room.

‘Okay, timing is important,’ Magnus said. ‘
If
Lisa tried to make that call, then she was alive and still in the vicinity. If her abductor made the call, he wants to draw us there.’

Fear was hampering Bill’s ability to think. He shouldn’t be handling Lisa’s disappearance. He was too closely involved. Remember procedure, he kept reminding himself. Follow procedure. It was the only thing that kept you sane. But still he felt himself turning to Magnus like a drowning man.

Magnus stood in front of the wall map that stretched from Calton to Inverkip. Everything was on there. The location of the graves, the marinas, the Molendinar. A geographical profile of the killer.

‘Place is significant to him. He has never killed outside his zone. With access to the culvert gone, I believe he’ll go back to the Necropolis,’ Magnus said. ‘He will end where he began.’

The fleet of cars moved quietly, seeing only the remnants of late-night revellers and the occasional street prostitute still touting for business.

Magnus sat in the back, his face like stone, silent after his outpouring in the incident room. He’d borrowed a shirt from McNab. It was too small, and he hadn’t bothered to try to button it. His hair had been pulled back and secured with an elastic band, exposing the vivid wound on his forehead. When Bill had urged him to have it seen to, Magnus had refused, declaring it to be nothing. His hands were what concerned Bill most. They were swollen and black with encrusted
blood. One finger looked broken. Whatever pain Magnus endured was being masked by adrenalin, determination and rage.

The river police had been alerted to Lisa’s mobile location and were searching the stretch of water close by. Road blocks were set up surrounding the area. They were counting on the killer being inside the zone.

Bill hadn’t told Margaret about the latest development. It would be too cruel to give her hope, when the call might mean the opposite. He’d also chosen not to tell Nora Docherty that Terri’s body had been seen in the culvert. They would have to retrieve the two bodies and have them properly identified first. Bill had seen McNab’s footage and there was little doubt, but they had to be sure. If Nora’s link with her daughter was as strong as she claimed, she would know in her heart that Terri was dead.

The armed team circled the graveyard, planning their approach from all directions. Bill and McNab headed for the brewery car park south of Ladywell Street, entering without lights. As he climbed from the car, Bill felt as if the whole world was holding its breath.

Magnus was pacing up and down, tightly wound.

‘Okay, our man has a thing about burial, so we need to look for disturbed earth, anything that suggests he might have been there.’

Bill’s guts turned over. ‘You think he’s buried Lisa?’

‘If he took Lisa, this is different. It’s more about taunting you than his need to kill. Showing you what he can do. One man against authority and justice. Assumed invincibility is a trait of serial killers. He believes
he cannot be beaten.’ Magnus paused. ‘I think we should assume he’ll stay true to form. I think he’ll try and imprison Lisa underground, like he did Terri and Leanne. We have to find that prison while Lisa is still alive.’

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph.’

Magnus met Bill’s eye. ‘He hasn’t won yet.’

The first flush of dawn was visible to the east as they climbed the rear of the mist-swathed graveyard. Above them was the steady beat of the police helicopter. If the mist cleared, they would have an aerial view of any disturbed ground. The dogs would focus their search in the thirty-seven acres that constituted the Necropolis.

Magnus’s conviction had relayed itself to the entire team. He’d been closer to the killer than anyone, had been one of his victims. The Gravedigger had effectively ended his professional career. Now he was threatening Bill’s most precious possession.

RHONA OPENED HER
eyes. The first rays of dawn warmed the room. She was completely alone apart from the steady hum of a machine. For a moment she thought she was in the lab, but couldn’t imagine why she should be there at dawn, then in a rush, she remembered everything. From the moment she saw the man enter the old hotel, to shaking uncontrollably in the ambulance. And afterwards, weeping as the female police officer carried out the rape examination, and finally oblivion before they set her leg. Every part of her body ached with memory. She wanted to be asleep again, or dead, anything not to have such thoughts.

The door opened and someone entered, tiptoeing so as not to disturb her. Rhona thought it was a nurse, then recognised the rhythm of the walk and quickly closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see Sean, not yet.

She heard him pull his chair close to the bed and felt his warm hand enclose her cold one. She could sense his agitation through the pulse in his fingers. He was muttering something under his breath. It sounded like, ‘I’ll kill the bastard.’

Rhona opened her eyes.

‘Who?’

Sean started at her voice. ‘Thank God you’re conscious.’ His voice was thickly Irish with emotion. Rhona realised how terrified he must have been.

‘Who do you want to kill?’ Rhona repeated, knowing Sean wasn’t talking about the man they called the Gravedigger.

Sean didn’t answer.

‘You’re talking about Magnus.’ Rhona was suddenly afraid of the look in Sean’s eyes. A brutal, incensed gleam she’d never seen before. ‘Magnus Pirie saved my life in the culvert. I would have drowned but for him.’

‘It was his fault you were there. The fucking bastard!’ Sean’s face was livid with fury. ‘He put you in danger.’

Rhona clung to Sean’s hand, but he shook her free and stood up. ‘I was waiting for you to wake up. Now I know you’ll be all right,’ he said stiffly.

‘Sean, stay with me, please?’

‘Chrissy will be in soon.’

‘Sean, promise me you won’t go near Magnus.’

His eyes were like a stranger’s.

‘Why should you care what happens to Magnus Pirie?’

When she didn’t answer, he turned away. Rhona wanted to call after him, ask him to stay with her so she could tell him what had happened in the cellar. She wanted to share her fear and her disgust. She wanted his arms about her.

The door banged shut behind him.

Rhona rang the emergency bell. When a nurse arrived, she asked to make an urgent phone call.

MAGNUS STOOD MOTIONLESS
as the armed team moved silently among the headstones. Yards away, the team was almost invisible. But not their scent. Not to the dogs and not to him.

Magnus closed his eyes and concentrated. Sound and sight would be distorted in the mist, but his sense of smell was as acute as ever. The hot damp weather had caused an abundance of growth. Magnus sensed the earth writhing with life as the sun began to show its colours. He was seeking something else in the blanket of smells around him. Something different. Not the wall of decay he’d met on his first visit to the graveyard, but the scent of the killer. A scent he’d first breathed in at Rhona’s lab, and again in the vaulted space of the cellar. The scent he’d picked up from Rhona’s skin. The unique human scent everyone had. Like the dogs, Magnus knew he could find the guy in a crowded room, even though he’d never seen him clearly.

Every hair on Magnus’s body stood to attention. Each vein and artery pulsed with blood. He could feel each beat of his heart. He knew if he came face to face with the man they sought, he could kill him. All thoughts on the sanctity of human life had departed
him in those moments he’d watched the killer with Rhona.

If he could find and follow the killer’s smell, he would find Lisa. He was convinced she was here. They were both here. Soon Bill would receive a call from Lisa’s phone. The killer would reveal he’d tricked them. Laugh at them, revel in their despair.

But the game wasn’t over yet.

The men were fanning out over the hill. Magnus aimed for the lower mausoleums. Digging a grave in open ground would be difficult. A mausoleum would be better.

Three vaults lay embedded in the hillside. Large, rusting hazard signs forbade him entry through their gates, due to their crumbling state. Magnus sniffed each padlock, checking for oil, but there was nothing but the dust of corroded metal.

His breathing was matching his heartbeat, fast and furious. Magnus forced it to slow, and tried to gather his thoughts. He’d roamed this place at night and during the day, after their initial find. Then, he’d been seeking to understand the killer’s mind and his world. The map of the place was burned into his memory.

Magnus turned abruptly left and slithered down a grassy bank. Someone had been down here before him, while it was wet. In front of him were bent and broken branches.

Magnus let the smells wash over him. Gorse, the coconut scent of the flowers long gone, but the sharpness of the foliage still there. And something else.
Magnus smelt the killer; salt and oil and the scent of his skin.

The metal gate of the partially collapsed mausoleum was closed but not padlocked. Magnus pushed it open, his mind already computing the fact that the floor was stone and looked unmarked. Nothing had been buried there, but still Magnus was convinced the killer had been in, or near this building.

Magnus placed both hands on the wall. The stone was dry and surprisingly warm, as though it had been in full sun not long before. There was a rustling at his feet as a mouse, disturbed by his presence, made for the outside world. The crypt had been built with its gate facing east, so its occupants might see the rising sun and Jesus’s second coming. Already dawn was swallowing the shadows.

Magnus stepped outside and examined the outer wall. The northern section was partially collapsed, the roof fallen in, its exposed tombs reminding him of the burial mound of Maeshowe in Orkney, plundered by Vikings, who had written graffiti on its internal walls.

He went back inside, knowing there was nothing there, but unable to leave. The stillness of the night was being replaced by the energy of dawn, heralded by a blackbird’s bid to begin the chorus.

The rising sun now shone on the western wall. It was three tombs high, the divisions between them like a grid. Magnus saw the carving and knew he was in the right place. A full moon and a fish were scratched into the stone of the central tomb.

His fumbled attempts to open the sarcophagus lid were hampered by his swollen hands. Magnus gave up
in frustration and used the radio. Bill answered immediately.

‘The dogs found disturbed earth. We’re checking it now,’ Bill said.

Magnus gave his location and explained about the symbols. ‘I can’t get the lid off.’ Even to his own ears, he sounded desperate.

Bill was there in minutes. Magnus was aware he must look like a madman, tearing at the lid of a sarcophagus. McNab and Bill immediately joined him, their combined efforts freeing it to scrape across its base.

The escaping air was full of the scent of dust and disuse. Magnus knew before he looked in, the sarcophagus was empty. Inside his head, Magnus could hear the killer’s laughter. How many places had he scratched those symbols within the graveyard? Leaving his scent at each of them. He’d drawn them back here. Tricked them when they thought they were tricking him. Magnus could taste Bill’s anger and despair.

‘She’s here. I’m sure of it.’

‘Why?’ McNab said. ‘Why are you so fucking sure?’

Magnus concentrated on Bill. ‘He was watching you. He followed you home. He saw your family. He followed Margaret to Barrowland. Lisa looks like the others. His victims all look alike. I said that didn’t matter. I was wrong.’ Magnus turned to Bill. ‘Why would Lisa go with him?’

‘She wouldn’t.’

‘But if she did?’

Bill thought for a moment. ‘I’ve had police cars follow her before, when I knew she was walking home. I frightened her once. She didn’t realise who they were.’

‘Maybe he told her he was a cop,’ McNab came in. ‘That you’d sent him.’

‘A perpetrator wants to be part of the action,’ Magnus said. ‘What if he’s here with us now?’

Bill shook his head. ‘Impossible.’

‘Drivers?’ Magnus tried. ‘The guy who opened the gates?’

‘We checked out everyone who had a key.’

Bill’s look suggested he thought Magnus was rambling. ‘You need to get checked over at the hospital. Have those wounds seen to.’

Magnus didn’t argue. The adrenalin was draining from his body, leaving him weak and full of doubt. He’d been so sure he would find the killer, and save Lisa. A false belief, more about himself than the case.

McNab left them at the crypt to check out the road blocks. Magnus knew the sergeant’s anger was directed at him. McNab thought him a fool. McNab blamed him for what had happened to Rhona, and believed Magnus had increased the danger by responding to the auction. And McNab was right.

MCNAB STOOD ALONE
near the road block, thanking God he was no longer with his boss or Magnus. The DI’s fear was too raw for McNab to cope with, and McNab’s dislike for Magnus was too intense. McNab had secretly prayed for the Norse God to fail, but would never have wished for this to happen to Lisa.