Killing With Confidence (3 page)

But at the end of the
initial binging, amazingly, Connor had actually made some huge
strides in his new field and managed to file some pretty impressive
page leads about ‘hits’ which had been ordered between rival gangs,
drug shipments which had been lost by the cops, and even his first
exclusive crime splash – front page – on an underworld
boss who was getting married to one of his fiercest rivals’
daughters. That had crime reporters in other papers desperately
scrambling around the day after for follow-ups, leaving Connor with
a smug, satisfied feeling inside.

But he knew his old
mentor Badger was a dinosaur who was about to become extinct. In
Connor’s short career he could see how reporting had changed out of
all recognition in the last decade. The unions had long been
crushed and left toothless, and with them old-school reporters like
Badger, who would merrily drink their way through morning, noon and
night shifts, at the same time hoovering up all the best scoops. He
was making way for a new breed of clean-living, ultra-professional
‘millennium reporters’, as Badger once called them, adding, ‘Boring
bastards, too, each and every one of them.’

These new reporters
certainly couldn’t match Badger for stories – personally or
professionally. He told of a sports reporter who turned up a week
late for work, the worse for drink, with a shotgun. Surprisingly,
this hadn’t sent his colleagues cowering in terror. Instead, the
sports editor shouted across the office, ‘Is that thing loaded?’ ‘I
don’t know,’ replied the sozzled reporter, swaying gently from side
to side. ‘Well, find out,’ replied his boss, which he promptly
did – by blasting the door to the editor-in-chief’s office
clean off its hinges. This had happened many years before Connor’s
arrival, but Badger swore the editor-in-chief emerged from his
gunsmoke-filled room and calmly asked, ‘Who’s there?’

The reporter’s
nicknames were fantastic, too. Besides Badger, who earned his
moniker because he would badger someone relentlessly until they
told him the story, there was the Bucket, thus named because of the
heroic quantities of drink he could sink – in an industry
drowning in alcohol quite a claim, although it never affected his
ability to work, or drive home for that matter.

Connor’s personal
favourite was the Brick, named not because he was a particularly
big, hard chap, but because he kept a solid brick in the top drawer
of his desk. This was only discovered when he removed it and
threatened to brain a little fusspot from payroll who had
innocently forgotten his wages one Friday afternoon – in the
days when journalists received weekly pay packets.

Connor had enjoyed a
stint as a showbiz reporter working for Piers Morgan on
the
Sun
’s Bizarre column in London in the 1990s. He’d
loved Piers’s cheeky style of writing; how he could gently
take the Mickey out of subjects he liked and absolutely slaughter
those he didn’t. It was something Connor took with him when he
moved into crime reporting, and it hadn’t taken Connor long to spot
the similarities between celebrities and organised criminals.

First, just about all
of them do drugs – great, huge snortfuls of the stuff. Second,
they’re both relatively young and rich, with fortunes no decent
working person would ever come close to. And, finally, they all
love being in the newspapers. While most celebrities claimed this
wasn’t the case, and he’d often read of some starlet bleating on
about ‘press intrusion’, Connor knew that take away the intrusion
and they’d be complaining that no one was interested in them any
more. Quite simply, they wanted stories written about their latest
squeeze or movie role – anything that added to their image and
kept them in the spotlight.

But the most striking
similarity between the showbiz and criminal worlds, Connor knew,
was that for the most part they both had extremely short careers,
the major difference being that while the stars drifted out of
favour, the criminals were likely to come a cropper thanks to a
lengthy prison sentence – or dying a very violent death.

But in the last week,
Connor’s life had been turned on its head.

Without warning, his
editor Danny Brown had taken early retirement – or was ‘kicked
out on his arse’, as he candidly told his staff – to make way
for Nigel Bent, an Englishman who clearly didn’t see the editorship
of the
Daily Herald
as the pinnacle of his career, merely a
stepping-stone to greater things. Of course, the problem with using
a job as a stepping-stone is that you tend to step on a lot of
people, too.

Badger had been the
first casualty, dismissed with a pay cheque before the new editor
had even taken the chair. Human Resources had obviously had their
eyes on Badger for a long time, but Danny Brown had protected him.
Without that shield, they thanked him for forty years of service,
misspelled his surname as ‘Blackdood’ on his farewell letter, and
told him to clear his desk immediately.

Connor was next to be
swept aside after the new broom Bent announced during conference
one morning that his ‘pet hate’ was gangster stories. Once an
editor made a public declaration like that, there was no going
back. So, gangsters, thugs and criminals would be sidelined, along
with Connor whose job it was to report them. He was summarily
dispatched to a new special investigations unit with April
Lavender, a batty old bird whom he’d heard had a drink problem.

5

An Enthusiastic Amateur

Osiris had
been highly critical of his fellow killer. The attack was certainly
violent enough, but way too scrappy. Too emotional. The attacker
had failed to distance himself from the victim and as a result the
frenzied assault was over too quickly.

Unable to help
himself he spoke out loud, ‘Slow it down. Savour the moment.’

The attacker froze.
Osiris cursed his own stupidity.

Seconds later the
murderer was gone, speeding off in his car. Osiris moved in to
inspect the recently deceased. She was tall, blonde and beautiful.
He snapped on a pair of surgical gloves he always kept to hand in
his car and lifted the vic’s head and laughed out loud. ‘That’s why
it was over so quickly, you broke her neck.’ He sighed. ‘What a
bloody novice. What a bloody waste.’ He made his way back to his
red Mondeo.

Like the blonde’s
killer, Osiris had also been watching her have sex in the Aston
Martin. He liked to trawl discreet car parks around the country
where, as a voyeur, you could usually spot some illicit affairs
going on. Occasionally, he’d got lucky himself when he was asked to
join in – dogging, as it was called in the tabloid press.

Osiris had watched as
the blonde and her would-be killer had a brief conversation. From
her demeanour it seemed as if she knew her attacker. Whatever she
said made him fly into a violent rage. She hadn’t even had the
chance to defend herself such was the ferocity of the attack.

Osiris now needed to
focus. He needed his self-help tapes. ‘Channel your energy,’ the
American voice intoned. ‘Remember, knowledge is power.’

Fate had handed
Osiris a crucial piece of information. He now just had to figure
out how to use it.

6

A Broom with a
View

The Weasel
took great delight in showing April and Connor their new Special
Investigations office, which had until a day ago been a broom
cupboard where the cleaners kept their mops and Hoovers, and by the
smell of things, also enjoyed illicit cigarettes.

‘Here we are –
the hub,’ the Weasel sneered. ‘The ideas factory, call it what you
will, but the company has gone to a lot of time and effort to set
this up, so we expect results.’

The Weasel had been
rehearsing his sarcastic little speech after snorting up a thick
five-inch line of cocaine through a rolled-up twenty-pound note.
He’d never normally needed such a big hit so early in the morning.
This new job of his was the loftiest position of his career,
however, an impartial observer may have concluded that he was way
out of his depth. But such ambitious people never realise it.

April’s instincts had
been right about the Weasel. He did want rid of her. Part of his
long-term game plan was to find a job for his mistress, who was
presently working for a struggling Edinburgh news agency. That way
he’d be able to co-ordinate their affair more effectively. At
present, he struggled to recall the last time they’d ‘done it.’ He
couldn’t even remember when they’d shared a line of coke.

But staff jobs these
days were hard to come by. Even when a journalist retired or was
fired, desk heads struggled to replace them as the newspaper
circulations continued their terminal downward spiral –
especially if the outgoing staff received huge pay-offs. The Weasel
had pleaded a very convincing case to his editor Nigel Bent to
install his lover in April’s place and promised to get rid of the
‘old dear on the cheap’. With his mistress in place this would also
allow him to spy on Connor, who, as far as the Weasel was
concerned, needed bringing down a peg or two. He’d been the
blue-eyed boy for too long.

The Weasel’s real
name was Gordon McGillivray. Throughout his career he had been the
complete antithesis of a blue-eyed boy, with his greasy lank hair,
skinny frame, red and perpetually dripping nose, sharp facial
features and unfortunate halitosis, which his staff would get an
unwelcome lungful of whenever he stood too close or bollocked
them.

He’d always resented
Connor’s type – the show ponies of newspapers – and
instead had connived and backstabbed his way into power. It also
helped that he knew something about his editor that no one else
did. He’d hinted as much to Bent, who received and understood his
news editor’s intentions when the topic had moved to retaining
April’s staff position for a ‘newer, younger, cheaper … and
more attractive female reporter.’

So, April Lavender
was not being paranoid. Her days were numbered. Soon the Weasel
would be back in the arms of his lover – the only person he
knew who enjoyed cocaine as much as he did.

‘I’ll leave you two
to get to know each other – but no shagging in here, please,
we’ve just had the place cleaned,’ he added with needless
crudeness.

‘Come on, let’s get
out of here,’ Connor said after the Weasel had left with a smirk on
his face. ‘I’m getting claustrophobic.’



Connor
ordered two lattes, only to be corrected by April, who wanted a
skinny latte with skimmed milk. Connor looked his new co-worker up
and down, from the blouse straining to contain her cleavage to the
two-tone shoes. This old bird was certainly a character, he thought
to himself.

Just as he was about
to pay, April blew her healthy lifestyle cover by asking for a
blueberry muffin, too. ‘I’m bloody starving,’ she explained. It had
just gone 10 a.m.

Connor dispensed with
the small talk and got down to the nitty gritty. ‘So our new editor
doesn’t like crime stories?’

April said, ‘That’s
strange, I heard it was human interest stories he didn’t like.
Well, that’s explains a lot – like why we’ve been lumped
together in a converted broom cupboard.’

They sat in silence,
sipping their coffees and contemplating their situation.

‘I’d rather they just
paid me off,’ moaned April.

‘If newspapers can
get out of paying you off they will. Gone are the days when they
waved goodbye to you with a big fat cheque. What they do now is
piss you off so much you leave. But where to? No one’s
hiring … well, not quite true, they’re taking on kids for a
third of our wages.’

‘Hmmm, so what should
we do? Get in touch with the union?’ April said.

‘The NUJ’s toothless,
bloody toothless,’ said a frustrated Connor.

‘Well, I’ve still got
bills to pay,’ added April needlessly.

A long period of
silence followed.

‘Well, I’ve never
given up without a fight,’ said Connor.

‘Me neither,’ said
April, ‘and I ain’t about to go with a whimper.’

7

The Vic

Selina Seth
was discovered not far from her final sexual encounter. Her
battered and broken body looked like it had been shaken to death,
with each limb twisted at an unnatural angle. Her killer had made a
decent attempt to conceal the corpse, but a dog walker discovered
the grim scene before the businesswoman had even turned cold and
immediately raised the alarm.

Although shocked by
the gruesome sight, with the victim’s hair matted to her head by
blood and mud, there was still something vaguely familiar about her
to the man taking his mutt for its morning constitutional. Later he
had asked the detective who questioned him, ‘Was she that jewellery
lassie?’

Detective Chief
Inspector David ‘Bing’ Crosbie surveyed the murder scene and
sighed. He knew Selina’s death would soon be common knowledge. He
could feel the excitement in the air and hear the murmurings of the
PCs manning the police line. Of course, Strathclyde had more than
its fair share of murders, but this was different – this was a
high-profile killing. It was certainly Crosbie’s first ‘celebrity’
case in the twenty years since he had joined the force.

He swore repeatedly
under his breath: ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, you stinking motherfucking
turd.’ Crosbie never cursed in front of fellow officers, but his
inner monologue seemed to suffer from Tourette’s Syndrome. It would
often let rip over everything from police incompetence to
politicians’ meddling in police matters, or how it was a cast iron
fact that his superior Detective Superintendent Cruickshank had
only been promoted because he was a member of the same masonic
lodge, golf club and gym as Chief Constable Ramsgate.