Deep and Crisp and Even Read online

  'Can I have your brother's address in Corby, please, Mr Ferguson?'

  The man reeled off an address and King wrote it in his notebook. 'Do you know of anyone who was holding anything against Lynn McLeod?' asked King.

  'No, no, sir. She was a fine lassie.' The woman in the bed croaked.

  In the car King radioed in to P Division and asked that a request be sent to the Northamptonshire Police that Tommy Ferguson of 12a The Knoll, Corby, be brought in for questioning in connection with the murders of Lynn McLeod and Patrick Duffy. He started the car and drove back to the city via Royston because he wanted to avoid the congestion on the Edinburgh road. It was four o'clock and it was dark enough to need headlights. He drove through poorly gritted streets, narrowed with snow, past rows of crumbling council houses, and dim side-roads full of abandoned cars. Streets where he had sworn at policemen, attacked dogs with sticks and thrown rocks through windows. He saw two figures on the roof of Royston Baptist Chapel.

  He slowed to a stop and reversed. The chapel was set back in the road and the two figures were kneeling on the roof tugging at the lead. King presumed it was the lead they were after. He couldn't see anyone tugging at the slates. He turned off the engine and switched off the headlights and radioed for discreet assistance. He left his car and walked to a 15-cwt van which had been parked at the gates of the chapel grounds. It began to rain, and visibility was almost nil. Inside the van was a collection of jemmies and lengths of rope.

  He took a match from his pocket and pressed it into the valve of the front off-side tyre. The valve hissed and a stench like rotten fish filled his nostrils. If the van belonged to the two guys on the roof then it was okay; if not, then kids did it, didn't they? He went back to his car and lit a cigarette.

  A panda car pulled up behind him. The driver got out and sat next to King, who told him about the figures on the roof and the van with the jemmies and lengths of rope in the back. King offered the constable a cigarette; he declined and produced a pipe with a metal stem.

  'Foul night,' said the constable. It was the extent of their conversation.

  King watched the figures work their way across the roof. They worked methodically and efficiently, and half an hour after King had stopped his car the figures lowered a heavy canvas holdall to the ground and then slithered down a drainpipe. King and the panda car driver got out of the car and waited for the two figures to approach. They came out of the gloom and became two teenagers, walking towards the van. King turned and opened the boot of the car.

  'Evening, lads,' he said. 'Just put it in here, please.' The two boys glanced at each other and then walked towards the car and dumped the holdall in the boot. The car's suspension sagged.

  'Right, lads,' said King, shutting the boot lid. 'One of you with me, the other one with this gentleman.'

  They drove in convoy to Royston police station and King left the charging to the constable. He drove back to P Division and walked into the incident room at 6 p.m.

  Constable Shepherd was on duty. King nodded to him.

  'Northamptonshire police already have Ferguson in custody, sir,' said Shepherd.

  'Already! Why can't we respond like that?'

  'No, I mean already, sir.' Shepherd blushed slightly. 'They already had him in custody when you called in.'

  King took his coat off and slung it on a chair back. Water dripped from it on to the floor. 'Why?' he asked.

  'He assaulted a police sergeant, sir—pushed a broken beer-glass into his face during a pub brawl. They want to know if you still want to question him.'

  'When did they take him into custody?'

  Shepherd glanced at the notepad next to the telephones. 'On the fourteenth of this month, sir.'

  'Ask them to ask him if he knows of anybody who would want to kill his girlfriend; other than that they're welcome to him.'

  King took his coat and walked through the station to his office. He would type out his report, then it would be a quiet bar for a quick drink, and I mean a quick drink, then home to Cathcart, his lovely wife and lovely children.

  Then he thought about the letter that must be on its way to Mr and Mrs Ferguson of Easterhouse, and decided to extend his stay at the bar.

  Ray Sussock got a negative response from the National Police Computer when he requested information about 'Lissu'. 'No data' read the printout, and that in itself held some significance, so he recorded it. His obligatory eight-hour duty had stretched to fifteen, there was no work coming in, nothing pressing for him to attend to, and he felt he had no choice but to sign out. He was paying a mortgage on a modest house in Rutherglen, and he drove there, leaving his car in the street, parked in the snow at the kerb.

  'Oh, you're back,' said his wife. She was a small woman with a wrinkled face, who moved with quick jerky movements. She got up as soon as he entered the room and began to pace the floor with tiny, hurried steps. 'It's been fine all day without you, hasn't it, Samuel; now I suppose it'll be arguments, arguments, arguments.'

  Sussock hadn't even taken his hat off yet.

  'You are never here. When you are it's just fights. Anyway, you've missed your tea. We didn't know when you'd stop catching robbers so we ate it; Sammy was hungry. I dare say you can take yourself to the corner and get a fish supper. We won't mind, will we, Sammy?'

  Sammy sat on the sofa. He was wearing tight black trousers and his legs were crossed. There was a ring in his left ear and he had taken the hair from his hands with his mother's lotion. He gave his father a transparent smile. 'We won't mind, Daddy.'

  Sussock turned and left the house, pulling the door shut behind him. He heard the bolt being thrown across the door as he walked down the driveway towards his car. Wasn't it the male partner who determined the sex of the offspring? If he had run to a girl child would it then have been all right? Sussock drove to Langside because he didn't understand the world and needed solace.

  The murderer's third victim saw her murderer before he saw her. She glanced at the man briefly and then lowered her head. The time was just before midnight on the seventeenth, the place was University Avenue, the visibility was poor, the thaw which had brought the drizzle was turning the snow into deep slush. The girl was walking up the hill, slipping in the slush, with her head bowed against the rain. The murderer slipped his right hand up the coat-sleeve of his left arm and gripped the wooden handle of the knife. He sat on a low wall and waited for the girl to reach him.

  CHAPTER 3

  Ray Sussock awoke in the small bedroom of a room-and-kitchen. The room-and-kitchen is as much a part of Glasgow as is John Brown's, the Railway Workshops, the River, and George Square itself. In the 1920s a popular type of tram was nicknamed 'a room-and-kitchen'. A room-and-kitchen is just that, one small room and one smaller kitchen, and an outside toilet shared with another family. A room-and-kitchen could be home for a family of ten, six room-and-kitchens to a stairway, sometimes nine to a stairway, each with a family. The Glaswegians used to live like mice in a haystack.

  A room-and-kitchen had been Ray Sussock's introduction to the world, sharing a bed with his four brothers, pretending to be asleep while his mother and father bounced and snorted in the next bed. Stepping over the blood on the stairs and the vomit in the gutter. Lying awake one night listening to screams coming up the stairs, the screams which seemed to last all night, and the next day the stairway, the street, and the whole of the Gorbals learned that the woman had been murdered. Sussock rarely talked about the incident, but the screams had stayed with him and occasionally plagued him during a sleepless night. Sussock couldn't use any Gorbals nostalgia, he was glad to see them come down, and wouldn't walk where they had once stood unless he was compelled to.

  The room-and-kitchen he awoke in on the morning of the 18th of January was the home of one person only. This seemed to make the room-and-kitchen just right; exactly the size needed for a single person living alone and with the occasional overnight guest. Sussock had known the owner of this room-and-kitchen (the scullery of which ha
d been turned into a bathroom) for two years but had been sharing her bed only since the previous November. She was twenty-nine years old, a tall and shapely blonde with firm breasts, strong thighs and a flat stomach. She was lying next to Sussock, sleeping.

  The room was warm and comfortable, there was a chest of drawers in the corner, a bookcase, a deep carpet, a portable television in the corner and a Van Gogh print on the wall. Through a chink in the curtain he saw that there had been a fall of snow during the night. He rolled over and rested his hand across her thigh and nestled his head against her breasts. She stirred slightly. He felt his stomach protruding and resting against her and he wished he had not let himself go. Not for his sake, he didn't matter, but for her, the beautiful Norse goddess, who deserved better than him.

  She had an alarm radio. At 5 a.m. it came to life; popular music, tinny and shallow, invaded the room, and Sussock wished it was 9 p.m. again, her smile, her arms around him, the intimacy, her understanding while they lay side by side, talking afterwards. He didn't want the day, he didn't want to be fifty-four years old, he didn't want a snow-covered city, he didn't want murders, he didn't want to be a plain-clothes policeman—a policeman in shabby plain clothes. He wanted her, her youth and beauty, he wanted the bed, just her and him.

  She stirred and opened her eyes and smiled at him. He felt her eyes smiling too, and telling him to get up to dress, to go and do his duty. Sussock ran his hand over the stubble on his chin and felt unkempt. He managed a smile in return but knew his eyes betrayed his true feelings.

  She left the bed, naked, and walked across the room and switched on the electric heater. Another smile and she left the room and Sussock heard her washing in the cubicle. She returned to the bedroom and dressed.

  Sussock was itchy and sweaty in an empty bed.

  'Up!' she said, no longer smiling. She left the room again and Sussock heard her in the kitchen, water gushing into the kettle and bread being sawn. He rose reluctantly and washed. Even a thorough wash and a close shave could only go so far to alleviate the feeling that he was second-hand, some way inferior. His legs were thin and his stomach touched the wash-basin as he leaned forward to shave.

  In the kitchen a mug of tea and two slices of toast sat waiting for him on the red Formica table-top. He sat and ate and sipped. He didn't speak because he knew that they were both waking up. She drained her mug and went back to the bedroom and moments later he followed. She was standing next to a stool in front of the dresser and held a hairbrush in her hand. She smiled again and Sussock sat on the stool and bowed his head and she began to run the brush across his scalp. When she had finished she bent forward and kissed his head, 'Pretty boy,' she said.

  The woman finished dressing, black boots, black cape and white cap; and became WPC PI37 Elka Willems. Sussock drove her into the city, dropping her near P Division station so that she could walk the last few hundred yards by herself.

  'He struck again last night,' said Donoghue as Sussock entered the incident room. 'He's a nutter, no mistake, same method of attack, the lassie had only been in Britain for thirty-six hours. Left the same note; it was "for Lissu".'

  Sussock noticed that Donoghue had stubble on his chin and was bleary-eyed. He also noticed that the usually impeccably dressed Donoghue had trapped half his shirt collar under his tie. That couldn't happen to Sussock; like all policemen and prison officers who are likely to get into fights he wore a tie with an artificial knot which clipped over the top button of his shirt and which would come away in the hand of any thug who tried to garotte him.

  'A lassie, you say?' said Sussock, feeling very uncomfortable.

  'A German, came over the day before yesterday to visit her sister. The sister is under sedation at the Western Infirmary. They went on the town last night and got split up and the Jungfrau, hereinafter referred to as the deceased, was walking back to her sister's flat on Byres Road.'

  'Any information?'

  'She is nineteen. Was nineteen. Stab wounds to stomach and throat. Found by a motorist at 12.30 a.m., or thereabouts, she's being chopped up at the moment; the good Doctor Reynolds has had a busy time lately. Did you have a pleasant night, Ray?'

  'I am sorry, sir.'

  'They tell me they phoned your home and your wife didn't know where you were.'

  'Yes, I…'

  'So they had to call me, Ray. I'm a DI, Ray. My days of being called from my bed are over.'

  'I'm sorry.'

  'I live in Edinburgh, Ray, and the motorway is damn near blocked.'

  'I know, sir.'

  'I appreciate you have problems at home, Ray, and I'm sorry, but we need to know where we can reach you. Is there an alternative phone number you can let us have?'

  'No, sir.'

  'An address, then? So we can send a car for you.'

  'I couldn't give it: it would compromise the other party.'

  'Ray, you've reached retiring age but you've got enough in to opt for extended service. I know you are thinking about it. Whether you get it depends on current performance as well as record.'

  'I understand.'

  'Give it a thought, Ray.' Donoghue sat back in the swivel chair and relaxed his body tone. Sussock too felt himself relax, the inquisition seemed over. 'Anyway, now that we have a headbanger on our hands I've given instructions that I'm to be called first and immediately there's another stabbing. I will need you, though, Ray, so I'll probably drive round to Constable Willems's flat myself.'

  'How did you know?'

  'I didn't until just now.' Donoghue grinned. 'I'm surprised you fell for that, Ray. You shouldn't look at her so much and hang around after conferences when she happens to be the minute-taker.'

  Ray Sussock was stone-faced. He didn't see the joke. In fact, he felt pretty stupid. It was Spot the Loony time. 'I'd appreciate it if you'd keep it under your hat, sir. My missus is off her head and I don't think I'll be living with her much longer. I just can't, and my son just isn't my son, if you see what I mean?'

  'I don't, but then in the kindest possible way I don't want to know. I appreciate that you don't want it broadcast about you and WPC Willems, but I don't make empty threats, Ray, and now I know where to get hold of you I shan't hesitate to come round and hammer on her door, and if I can't make it I'll send the nearest car. Buy her a telephone as a late Christmas present.'

  'I'll come up with something, sir,' said Sussock, nodding. He thought it was one hell of a way to come to the end of an unchequered career and begin late middle age.

  Press conferences are delicate operations. Donoghue had held them before, and, far from getting used to the ordeal, he found each one harder than the last. With each one there seemed to be the increased chance that this was the one where he'd blow the gaff, give away a vital piece of information about the commission of the crime which would lead to a spate of 'ghost' crimes and so cloud the central inquiry. Press conferences are as much about the withholding of information as they are about the giving. The policeman holding the press conference has to give what he intends to give and nothing more, he has to be on his toes continually. Newspaper reporters are not renowned for dim-wittedness and the police statement must be carefully checked, rechecked and rehearsed.

  Donoghue was a frightened man. He was a firm believer that men learn from their mistakes and as he had never yet made a mistake at a press conference he felt that he had yet to learn how to handle them. He sat at the table in the rented room above the McLelland Galleries in Sauchiehall Street, under the glare of the television arc lamps, with Ray Sussock by his side and a tumbler of water in front of him. He sat still, staring straight ahead as reporters from the Scottish nationals and the local press filed clumsily into the room and sat in the tubular steel and canvas chairs which had been arranged in a line in front of the table. Behind the chairs were the television cameras and the recording technicians from the radio stations. Donoghue had shaved and had readjusted his tie and wore a three-piece suit with his gold hunters chain looping across his waistcoat. His ha
nds rested at either side of the typescript he was to read out.

  He felt so sick with fear that he wanted to leave the room.

  The reporters sitting in front of him were all men. One or two were middle-aged but the majority seemed young. A few had beards, neatly trimmed, and all looked to be very fit on crime reporting. Donoghue was amused to see that the reporter's traditional pad and paper seemed to have been relegated to a subsidiary role in favour of portable cassette recorders which the reporters held on their laps. They looked to Donoghue like a row of mothers cradling their infants.

  Control, he thought, must be the cornerstone of a successful press conference. Establish control at the beginning and half the battle is won. He raised his head slightly and said, 'Thank you, Sergeant.' The door at the entrance to the room was shut, young men in army surplus pullovers activated the cameras, tape recorders began to spin.

  'Gentlemen,' said Donoghue, fighting the urge to clear his throat, 'I am going to read a prepared statement, copies of which will be made available at the table by the door at the end of the conference. I will answer questions at the end of the statement, but only if I think fit. If you should have a question, please indicate, and only ask once I have nodded in your direction.' He hoped it didn't sound as contrived as he felt it was.

  'Gentlemen,' he said, focussing his eyes for the most part on a point just above the door at the back of the room, and only occasionally glancing down at the script, 'in the last three nights three people have been murdered, all in or near the centre of the city…' He went on to read a brief and censored account of the murders and summed up with the belief that the murderer was criminally deranged '…And what we know about the murderer is very little; he's male, probably wears a donkey jacket or duffle coat, has AB-negative blood, is probably right-handed and has light-coloured hair.