Witness the Dead (17 page)

A few times, when the monotony of the electronic paperwork got the better of him, he’d brought up photographs from the two cemeteries onto his screen, fighting off a fit of guilt as he did so. There was no sense of titillation or rubbernecking. Instead, it further tested his admittedly skewed theory that there was a beauty in death. Two young women, having done nothing more than go for a night out, brutally murdered. How could there possibly be any beauty in that?

Winter’s unknowing mentor was the Mexican tabloid photographer Enrique Metinides, the man who had spent fifty years taking extraordinary pictures on the violent streets of his capital city. Metinides chased police cars, ambulances and fire engines to capture the results of shootings, road accidents, suicides and stabbings. Despite the inevitable horrors that he had to photograph, Metinides contrived to show a grace and dignity in the bleak. His work was unsettling, intimate, and had an exquisite, irresistible attraction. Death isn’t beautiful but it can be made to look that way.

Metinides once said that he ‘got to witness the hate and evil in men’. That was what Winter was seeing when he viewed his own photographs of Kirsty McAndrew and Hannah Healey. Not beauty but hate.

He shook the images from his head as he headed down Bath Street to walk the bridge across the M8 towards Berkeley Street, the domed splendour of the Mitchell Library on the other side and nose-to-tail traffic on the motorway thirty yards below. He glanced at his watch and made an instant decision to have a quick one in the Black Sparrow before going up to his flat. The pub was only yards from him but he didn’t drink in it too often. It was a cracking little boozer but, if anything, it was just
too
close to home.

Tonight, however, it did the job just fine. A pint of heavy was in front of him within seconds and he savoured the sight of it for as long as he could bear before washing the dust of the day down his throat. Winter looked around, happy not to see anyone he recognised in the bar, but observing that one or two others had already assumed the position of solo drinker. He joined them in their splendid isolation.

Of course, the beer wasn’t capable of washing away thoughts of the Necropolis or its southern neighbour and, if anything, standing drinking alone simply gave him more time to contemplate it. Addison had hit a nerve when he had accused Winter of relishing the prospect of having plenty of sick pictures to take. Winter wanted to think that his mate was wrong but he couldn’t easily convince himself that that was the case. If there were more killings, God forbid, then he knew he’d want to be at the front of the queue to photograph them. It was the way he was made.

This wasn’t doing him any good. He forced the remainder of the pint down his neck and made for the door. He was bad enough with one drink inside him and more was only going to make matters worse.

It was a murky night and the gloom was already beginning to settle as he pushed his way back onto North Street, ignoring the spicy temptations of the Koh-i-Noor, and ambled the last few yards towards his flat. At the corner, he was struck, not for the first time, by the sandstone splendour of the Mitchell Library and the contrast with his own modern apartment block directly opposite. The Mitchell was lit up in its evening finery, making the Berkeley Street building seem even more clinical in comparison.

Winter let himself in and took the stairs up to his flat, the weight of his camera reassuringly heavy on his shoulder and every whack against his side an urgent reminder to download what was inside. As he reached his landing, he threw the camera bag onto his other shoulder and reached for the lock with his key, only to stop dead in his tracks. The door was closed over but already open.

He froze, his heart clattering into his ribcage as he came to a sudden halt. He pushed gently at the door with his fingertips, feeling it float away from him. He was as sure as he possibly could be that he’d locked it that morning before going to meet Rachel in Hyndland. His mind raced up and down the stairs, wondering about the noise he’d made climbing them, wondering whether there was someone inside who may have been alerted by the clang of his feet.

The only thing that he had that resembled a weapon was the bag on his back. He’d often carry a tripod that would have delivered much more of a blow, but that lay in his office back in Pitt Street. If he needed to, he’d have to rely on the bag plus the staple Glasgow stand-by of fist, feet and head. He feathered the door open and stepped inside, cursing the squeaky laminate flooring as he did so.

One more step and he was on the silent safety of the hallway rug, the strap of the bag gripped tight and ready to be turned as shield or blunted sword. His breathing was loud in his ears, drowning out even the pounding in his chest. Conscious of leaving his back unguarded, he pushed open the door to the living room and stepped inside, seeing no one and nothing out of place. Wait. There was a coffee cup sitting on the table in the middle of the room. He knew it wasn’t his, because he never drank the stuff and kept the cups only for the very occasional guest.

He turned so as to avoid backing out of the room and stood in the hallway again, listening and looking. The door to the bathroom was open and that, as best as he could remember, was the way he’d left it. The kitchen door was closed and that, too, was how it should have been, even though the rogue cup gave the lie to the suggestion that it hadn’t been entered. The spare bedroom, the room whose walls were lined with his photographs, was also ajar and there was a light on inside. He never left the door open in case he returned with an unexpected visitor. The wall was his own business and not something he wanted to share. The light he couldn’t remember leaving on or not.

There was a pool of shadow visible on the floor inside, something he’d never remembered seeing before. Shit. Whatever he was going to do, this was the time to do it. He slowly took the bag from his shoulder and placed it in front of his chest. His plan, such as it was, was simple. He was going to barge the door and, if there was someone standing inside, hopefully it would take them clean off their feet. He braced and breathed deep, taking a step back, ready to put everything he had into the door frame. As he did so, a familiar deep and gruff voice came at him from the other side of the bedroom door.

‘You really are one sick puppy, Tony. How the hell can you sleep at night with this stuff on your wall?’

The air leaked from Winter like a punctured tyre, relief and nerves escaping through his lips.

‘Uncle Danny, what the fuck are you doing in here? And how the bloody hell did you get in?’

Winter pulled back the door and saw Danny standing with his back to him, his gaze fixed on the wall of framed photographs.

‘Are you supposed to have these in here? Silly question: of course you’re not. The book might have closed on most of them but they will still be the property of the Fiscal. Or whatever police authority you worked for when you took them. Not yours, though, son, not yours. What’s with this picture of a decapitated head? Not very nice, is it?’

‘How did you get in, Dan? And why?’

‘Getting in was the easy bit. You know me: picked up a few tricks in thirty years on the force. As for the why, well, I wanted to see these.’ Danny turned and Winter saw that he was holding a collection of A4 prints in his hand. Winter knew what they were even before Danny fanned them out like a pack of playing cards.

The Necropolis. Kirsty McAndrew. Caledonia Road. Hannah Healey. Strangulation. A battered head. Witnessing the hate and evil in men.

Danny held them out for Winter to see as if they were somehow making his point, justifying his actions.

‘You’ve no right doing this, Danny. No right at all. Breaking into my flat, for God’s sake.’

Neilson waved a hand airily in front of him, dismissing the accusation as irrelevant.

‘Good photographs, these, Tony. Bad, bad stuff but good pictures. There’s no—’

‘Danny, are you just going to carry on as if you’ve done nothing wrong here?’

‘—no doubt in my mind now, son. None at all. This is him. This is
definitely
him.’

Winter just looked at Danny, sensing that any more questions about right and wrong were a waste of time. The eyes looking back at him were angry and resolute, not for being argued with. Winter hesitated, getting the unmistakable sense of being about to open a door that couldn’t be closed again.

‘Okay, why are you so sure? How can you be?’

A light switched on inside Danny and he flashed a grim smile. ‘Come and sit down. This might take some time. I’ve already had a coffee while I waited on you but I wouldn’t say no to a beer. You’ve got some Peroni in the fridge.’

Winter shook his head ruefully as he went to the kitchen, pulled back the fridge door and pulled out two bottles of beer, swiftly ripping the heads off them with a bottle opener. When he got back to his living room, Danny was sitting on one side of the table with six of Winter’s photographs laid out in front of him. The coffee cup that had looked so out of place before had been relocated onto the floor.

‘I know you well enough, son,’ Danny began as Winter took his seat opposite him. ‘You’ll have looked at these pictures more than once. Studied them closely, I’ll bet. But there’s always things you won’t see if you don’t know what you’re looking for.’

Winter said nothing but couldn’t hide a feeling that was creeping over him, a familiar sense of anticipation that was as much eagerness as dread.

‘See the way the first girl is laid out on the flat gravestone? How her hands are positioned before her? Read this.’ Danny dug a sheaf of papers from his inside pocket and leafed through them before shoving a clipping into Winter’s hands.

In each of the so-called ‘Red Silk’ murders, the perpetrator left the victim arranged in a manner that was almost ritualistic. These included, in the case of Brenda MacFarlane, her arms being outstretched as if in supplication on the cross. Criminal psychologists believe that the killer was displaying overt power over his victims by asserting his ability to make them at his mercy.

‘And this.’

Danny handed over another piece of paper, this time a faded sheet torn from a notebook. Winter recognised the handwriting immediately.

The killer has some kind of God complex. Lays them out as if they are praying to him. Or as if to prove he can do what he wants with them. He arranged Brenda M as if she was praying to him. It’s more than just the killing for him. He enjoys the power.

Winter looked up from the paper, seeing Danny eager for a reaction. The dawning of some acceptance in Winter’s eyes seemed to be enough.

‘That was Brenda. Now read this about Mary Gillespie.’ Another time-soiled sheet was handed over, Danny’s handwriting again. He pointed at a section halfway down the page.

Mary G had her head resting on a low wall. It was like she was resting on it or laying her head at his feet. He wants us to find them like that. He’s playing with us.

‘We managed to keep this stuff out of the papers even though the press were all over this story for months on end. Nobody else knew.’

Winter pushed himself back from the table and exhaled hard, still saying nothing.

‘I know the guy, Tony. I chased him for two years. I know what he did to these girls. I know what he did to women elsewhere. This has got his prints all over it. These pictures prove it. You see that, don’t you?’

‘Maybe. Tell me more. I know the story but only what I’ve read in the papers. I wasn’t born then, remember.’

Danny sighed. ‘Oh, I remember, son. Brenda MacFarlane had been dancing at Klass on a Friday night in June 1972 with her sister Frances. Brenda was nineteen and Frances was a year younger. Their parents thought they were both at a friend’s house but they’d hidden away their going-out clothes and got changed in a pub toilet, then hid their gear, aiming to pick them up and change back after the disco.

‘Disco was the new thing. The dance halls were still going but, for the younger crowd, it was disco. They could still dance but there were live bands as well. This was the music that was in the charts and the bands that played it. You wouldn’t believe how many of them came up to Glasgow to play at a disco like Klass. Slade, Bowie, Status Quo, Elton John. They were all there around this time. So all the old “are ye dancing?” stuff still held good: you could go out and still get a slow dance at the end of the night.

‘At some point on that night, Frances MacFarlane got dancing with a boy. She ended up snogging him but says she came up for air long enough to see her sister dancing with some guy wearing a black velvet suit with what looked like a red silk handkerchief in the top pocket. She looked again and the two were chatting away. When Frances eventually surfaced after the lumber number – the last slow dance – Brenda was nowhere to be seen. She figured her sister had got off with the guy in the velvet suit and didn’t think too much about it. But when she was outside, and Brenda didn’t turn up to get their other clothes and catch the last bus to Partick Cross, she began to worry.

‘Brenda was found the next morning. Raped, strangled. Her clothes around her waist and her arms stretched out wide. Her sister screamed, then cried for a month. She became an alcoholic and looked fifty by the time she was twenty-five.

‘The next night, the Saturday, police were all over Klass. Interviewing everyone there and asking what they’d seen the night before. The place was still open, though – best way to make sure potential witnesses were in the one place. Slade were playing and they were massive in Scotland at the time so they weren’t easy to cancel. One of the customers was a girl called Isobel Jardine. She went home on the last bus to Govanhill with her pal. They parted at Allison Street and Isobel walked the rest of the way home herself. She was found the next morning in Govanhill Park. Raped and strangled, half dressed, crouching on her knees and leaning against the building that was the old bandstand.

‘All hell let loose then. When it was realised that she had been at Klass the night before, then all bets were off. Isobel’s pal, Meg Johnstone, didn’t remember any guy in a black velvet suit but said the bus back from town was pretty full and there were too many people to remember who was on it.