Killing With Confidence (10 page)



At that
moment, another forceful Yankee drawl was speaking in a car only a
few miles from April. And Osiris was letting every positively
charged word of encouragement sink in. He knew time was short. His
next moves would have to be swift, which meant risk, but he knew he
could do it.

‘Visualise your
goal,’ whined the nasal voice of the life coach, ‘so that you can
almost reach out and touch them. Think of nothing else but
success – failure is not an option – then go for it. You
will succeed only if you have no doubt in your head.’

The CD ended. Osiris
gripped the steering wheel of the Ford Mondeo and stared longingly
into the distance. Like a light switch being flicked on it became
clear to him exactly what he must do next.

19

Old Jeannie

April took
the lift to the twenty-third floor of the Red Road flats – the
towering 1960s monstrosities that dominated the skyline of the
city.

Glasgow City Council
was slowly trying to make amends for this social housing experiment
borrowed straight out of the handbook of Stalinist Russia. It was
rehousing the residents of the twenty-four-storey vertical housing
estates, with plans to eventually pull down the concrete
monoliths.

But old Jeannie was
staying put. Despite the lifts rarely working, which meant she was
virtually a prisoner in her own home for most of the week, she
didn’t seem to mind, as long as she had her Sky telly, her soaps,
and her weekly dance at the nearby Alive and Kicking social club,
where pensioners got a boogie and a free lunch. In fact, the only
time the council got an ear-bashing from old Jeannie was when the
lifts failed on a Wednesday lunchtime forcing her to miss her
weekly social encounter.

The
eighty-two-year-old had three children to three different men and
used to joke she was ahead of her time from all the young single
mums pushing prams around the estate. But she had outlived two of
her kids including her eldest son who had drunk himself to death
four years previously and now her only daughter, who had been found
murdered just days ago. That left her youngest son Colin, who had
been a constant source of worry to her all his life. And with good
cause.

Colin Harris had
rarely been out of trouble. She had lost count of the number of
times he’d turned up at her door as a young man, covered in blood.
She always kept a wardrobe full of spare clothes for him, knowing
he’d need to burn the ones he’d arrived in to destroy the
evidence.

She had frowned and
voiced her extreme displeasure each time he’d asked her to ‘look
after something’ for him. That something usually being a handgun.
But she told herself that it wasn’t her precious Colin’s fault. The
other boy must have been asking for it. Or attacked him first. All
her life she’d been making excuses for her son. She knew he was
smart, very smart; it was just unfortunate that his temper got the
better of him at times.

And don’t get her
started on ‘the polis’. They were always on his case. Taking him in
for questioning about this that and the next thing. But that was a
long time ago. Her Colin was a businessman now and very successful
he was, too. She hated the newspapers for always branding him a
‘gangster’ or a ‘gun runner’ or that horrible nickname ‘The
Hitman’. And why did they always have to drag up his past when he’d
been acquitted of the murder of Ferguson Junior? Didn’t that fat
bastard have it coming anyway, the way he always used to bully her
son and call him names and batter him? Ferguson Junior used to
strut around the area as if he owned the place just because of who
his dad was. But Colin Harris was afraid of no man, just as Jeannie
had raised him to be.

April knocked again
on Jeannie’s door. She could hear the telly on so she knew someone
was in.

Eventually a croaky
voice demanded, ‘Whit dae ye want?’ from behind a reinforced door
that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a bank vault.

April got into gear,
pleading, ‘I’m here to speak to you about your daughter, Mrs
Harris. I’m a reporter and I want to help find her killer. I really
need to talk to you. Tell me what she was like. Tell me so someone
will read about your loss and will shop the bastard who did this
terrible thing to your wee girl.’

April may have had
many faults, but she knew how to talk to a grieving mother. She’d
been one herself, although she never revealed anything more than
the fact that she’d lost a son. A female doctor had once told her
she needed to ‘open up’ and ‘get her feelings out in the open’.
April had replied, ‘I can only function by keeping it bottled, you
daft bitch.’ But her loss gave her a kinship instantly recognised
by other grieving mothers.

The two women
remained silent, separated by a few inches on either side of the
door. The deadlock was broken by a strange muffled sound. April
tilted her ear towards the door. The sound she could hear was of an
old woman crying, followed by the heavy clunks of numerous
locks.

April had succeeded
once again. She was over the threshold, albeit unwittingly aided
and abetted by the ruthless Colin Harris, who’d called Jeannie half
an hour before the reporter had arrived, telling his mum to ‘let in
the crazy old cow’ when she came knocking at the door.



The
Daily Herald
front page headline read:

HITMAN HARRIS – I’M
COMING TO GET YOU

Gangster’s chilling threat
to serial killer.

Exclusive by APRIL LAVENDER
and CONNOR PRESLEY.

And underneath:

FEARED gangster Colin
Harris last night promised to avenge the death of Jackie McIvor
after revealing the murdered prostitute was his half-sister.

The street worker’s
body was found just five miles from the body of jewellery tycoon
Selina Seth this week, sparking fears that a serial killer is on
the loose.

But Harris – one
of Scotland’s leading underworld figures – has vowed to find
his sister’s killer BEFORE the police.

Harris –
nicknamed The Hitman – said: ‘My Jackie had her problems. I
tried everything I could to get her off the drugs. But no one
deserves to be attacked like that and dumped by the roadside like a
dead dog. Whoever did this better hope and pray the police find
them before I do.’

On the first two
pages inside were similar threats by Harris, followed by a round-up
of the case so far from Selina’s death, her husband Martin’s failed
suicide attempt, the discovery of Jackie McIvor’s body and DCI
Crosbie’s insistence that he was not after a serial killer and was
treating the murders as two separate cases.

But it was April’s
interview with old Jeannie which stole the show. The pictures of
the old woman, floods of tears streaming down her wrinkled face,
while clutching a picture of her dead daughter, would have touched
the coldest of hearts.

April expertly told
Jeannie’s story, that of an uneducated woman born into poverty, who
had tried her best to raise three children and was now left with
only one. Jeannie mentioned nothing of her years helping to cover
up Colin’s crimes. Instead, Jeannie had made Colin out to be the
victim and insisted he was only trying his best for a better life.
She brushed aside his violent nature with a memorable quote: ‘It’s
dog eat dog around here – only the toughest survive.’

As for Jackie,
Jeannie spoke about her lifelong battle with drugs. How she had
‘leathered her’ after catching her smoking a joint at the tender
age of nine. ‘But no matter how many times I battered her, Jackie
just couldn’t stay away from the drugs. In the end I just let them
do them at home. I’d rather she did drugs under my watchful eye
than in some drug den.’

April’s report gave
the readers a snapshot of a world many had never experienced and
would never want to. It gave perfect balance to the chilling threat
from Colin Harris on the front page. April and Connor’s reporting
had wiped the floor with the opposition. They may have been a
generation apart, but the reporters had gelled into one formidable
unit.

This was not what the
Weasel and Bent had planned at all.



Osiris was
not in a positive state of mind.

He had just read
Connor and April’s exclusive, which contained a threat directed
towards him. ‘Who the hell does this Colin Harris think he is?’ he
thought to himself. ‘Another self-styled hardman gangster?’

But his bravado
didn’t match the true way he was feeling. Osiris was worried. The
serial killer coverage gave Osiris a mystique he didn’t truly
deserve. He was a most efficient killer all right, but a cowardly
and opportunistic one. His victims were the vulnerable: nearly
always prostitutes high on drugs. Some even let him strangle them
to begin with, as many of their clients liked that sort of thing.
By the time they realised this customer planned to be their last,
it was usually too late.

But Osiris did not
like tackling men. He had murdered one male – a skinny little
runt he’d met in a bar in London’s Soho. Like many homophobes,
Osiris thought he despised gay men, when really all he was doing
was attacking his own inner turmoil. The weakling had been easily
strangled, but Osiris hadn’t even bothered to add him to his kill
total, because he’d tried to bury the memories of their sexual
encounter. He’d also been very drunk at the time – the early
1980s, long before the days of CCTV. He couldn’t even remember
where he’d left the stranger’s body, but it was most probably in
the lane where they’d had sex.

But that was the old
Osiris. The new Osiris was a professional killer – and ultra
careful. For his next move, he had no choice but to throw caution
to the wind. Unplanned kills left a lot to chance and exposed him
to the very real risk of being caught. That’s why his job, which
involved long periods travelling around the country, was ideal for
his nocturnal pursuits. But the next stage of his plan made him
nervous as hell as he planned to meet Selina Seth’s widower.



‘Why the
fuck didn’t we know that dirty prossie was Harris’s half-sister?’
squawked the Weasel later that morning. The editor was in his usual
pose, fingers resting on his chin in a V-shape, scowling at April
and Connor. ‘I mean, someone must have known. How are we only
finding out now?’ he prattled on in mock outrage.

April and Connor knew
the bollocking was manufactured, an attempt to make them look bad.
April decided to go for it. ‘Jackie didn’t trade on her brother’s
name as she was scared it would scare punters off. Who’d want to
have sex with the sister of one of Glasgow’s most notorious
gangsters? Anyway we’ve found out now, before every other paper. At
least Jackie turned tricks for money, what was Selina’s excuse?’
she added pointedly.

If the editor heard
her, it didn’t seem to register. ‘Well, I think we should stay on
Harris’s case, stake him out, as he’ll have more chance of finding
his sister’s killer than the Keystone Cops. I’ll organise the
stakeout.’

And with that it was
clear the meeting was over. It was also apparent that the Weasel
was taking over the running of the investigation. He couldn’t risk
the dynamic duo hitting the jackpot again. With no thank-you and no
meaningful direction as to what Connor and April should do next the
pair were dismissed.

Back in the broom
cupboard, Connor moaned, ‘Colin Harris had the best surveillance
units from Strathclyde Police on his tail for months before his
trial for murder and even they couldn’t keep tabs on him. But now
the Weasel thinks a scribbler and a snapper will be able to follow
him about in a car as he tracks down a serial killer? I tell you,
papers aren’t what they used to be.’

‘Spoken like an old
pro,’ observed April.

‘But it’s true. It
used to be alcoholics and mad men – often both – at the
top of the tree. They were insane but they were newspapermen at
heart. They knew what they were doing and more importantly knew
what their readers wanted. This new breed act the part, but if you
look at the Weasel’s role during this case from start to finish
he’s contributed absolutely nothing.’ Connor could tell by the
faraway look in April’s eye that he’d lost his captive audience of
one. ‘Hungry?’ he enquired, already knowing the answer.

‘Bloody starving,’
she replied.

‘Come on then, lunch
is on me. Then I really need to buy myself some running gear for
the weekend.’

20

Fighting Fit

April
normally found herself at a loose end at the weekends. She would go
and see her daughter and granddaughter on Sundays, but today she
planned to get in some serious selling on eBay. Her daughter had
introduced her to it. Being what was termed a Type A personality,
April instantly became hooked. She’d even forgiven Jayne for the
username she’d given her, ‘oldsoak69’ and the password
‘gordonsgin’.

April had never
thought of herself as a woman with a drink problem. She didn’t
crave it in the mornings, and she didn’t suffer from hangovers,
although Connor insisted that was because she was permanently
pickled. But April enjoyed a ‘good drink’, which in Scotland meant
downing enough to fell an elephant.

She wasn’t too fond
of beer, but everything else was most definitely on the drinks
menu: wine – red/white/rosé, she wasn’t fussed. Whisky –
any cheap supermarket blend would do. And gin and tonics had gone
from being an exclusive summertime drink to an all-year-round
tipple. The same for Pimms. And she quite liked a Bacardi Breezer
of an evening, or a rum and Coke. And a cheeky wee voddie and fresh
orange also went down a treat. So, really, with all that rattling
around her well-stocked drinks cabinet she really couldn’t object
to the username.