Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

Victim three appeared. Her caramel skin was thick with bruises across one side, her slack face staring up from a ditch, both arms up above her head, one leg twisted to the side. She’d been dressed in another white nightdress, torn on one side and drenched almost black with blood. In the other photo she was frozen at what looked like a birthday party, laughing, her red silk dress swung out as she danced. ‘Holly Drummond, twenty-six. Nurse at Castle Hill Infirmary. Emergency Services got the pre-recorded nine-nine-nine call at half-two in the morning. Voice was the victim’s. She was pronounced dead at the scene.’

Holly Drummond was replaced on the screen by another sheet from a legal pad. ‘This arrived at the paper the day we found her body. He’s getting into his stride now: telling us all about how powerful and clever he is, and how we’ll never catch him. From here on, all the letters are much the same.’

Victim four was a large woman in a strapless dress and mortarboard. Then face down at the bottom of a railway culvert, her nightdress scrunched up around her waist, pale buttocks on show. Skin flecked with green and black. ‘Natalie May, twenty-two. Nurse at Castle Hill Infirmary. No call this time. She was found by a railway maintenance team who were out replacing a section of cabling.’

Click, and another letter filled the screen. ‘It complains that she was, and I quote, “not pure enough to receive his bounty”.’

Pause.

The screen went black. ‘And then we got lucky.’

Laura Strachan’s broad smiling face appeared, freckles glowing on her nose and cheeks, a Ferris wheel in the background. The other photo was her being lifted into the back of an ambulance, face slack and waxy, freckles partially obscured by an oxygen mask.

Ness pointed at the picture. ‘Our first survivor. Call was made from a public phone in Blackwall Hill. They had to start her heart twice on the way to the hospital and she came this close,’ Ness pinched two fingers together, ‘to bleeding out, but they saved her.’

Ness clicked the remote again and Marie Jordan’s face filled half of the screen. On the other side she lay in a hospital bed, wires and tubes connecting her to about half-a-dozen bits of machinery. ‘Marie Jordan, twenty-three, nurse. Another pre-recorded call. Found wrapped in a sheet just off the road in Moncuir Wood. There was a bit of brain damage caused by hypoxia and blood-loss, but she lived. The letter compliments her on being a “good girl”.’

Pause.

‘Final victim.’ Click. And there was Ruth Laughlin, sitting on a stationary bicycle in her shorts and sweaty T-shirt, both hands up as if she was crossing the finishing line. A circle of people cheered in the background, beneath a ‘TURNING MILES INTO SMILES!!!’ banner. Must have been taken the day she took care of me.

The day I let the Inside Man get away.

‘Ruth Laughlin, twenty-five, paediatric nurse. No call this time because he didn’t make it past the initial incisions. Far as we can tell he was disturbed during the operation, ran off and left her to die.’

All because she stopped to help me.

‘Settle down.’ Ness pointed off to the side. ‘Dr Docherty?’

‘Thank you, Detective Superintendent.’ Fred Docherty had changed his look a bit since the initial investigation. The concrete-coloured suit was gone, as was the curly hair. Now he sported a sharp black Armani-looking number with a red shirt and white tie, his hair short and straight, swept back from his forehead. The boyish looks and nervous voice had been replaced by a strong jaw and stainless-steel gaze. No trace of a Glaswegian accent.

He paused, letting everyone get a good look at him.

Alice grabbed my hand and squeezed. ‘This is so exciting…’

‘Ladies and gentlemen, let us consider Unsub-Fifteen. He’s clearly… Yes, Inspector?’

Shifty had his hand up. ‘Aye, who’s “Unsub-Fifteen” when he’s at home?’

‘An excellent question. “Unsub” means “Unknown Subject” and “Fifteen” differentiates him from the fourteen other active homicide investigations currently underway in Oldcastle. I think it’s unwise to give the target of an investigation like this what might be considered a,’ Docherty stuck his fingers in the air and mimed quote marks, ‘“cool nickname”. It can contribute to their perception of themselves as something apart from, and above , the norm. Something to live up to. And, as we’ve yet to confirm a connection between Unsub-Fifteen and the offender known as the Inside Man, I want us to clear our heads of any preconceptions about what’s going on here.’ A smile. Bright, but not cheesy or sarcastic-looking. ‘Does that help?’

Shifty shrugged.

‘Good. Now, having reviewed the evidence, I’m pegging Unsub-Fifteen as being in his mid-to-late thirties. Chances are he’s had a string of mediocre jobs and never really excelled at anything. He’ll have been in your cells before, probably more than once and probably for petty crimes. A little wilful fire-raising, perhaps vandalism. Possibly cruelty to animals. Certainly we should be checking out anyone with a history of mental illness.’

Docherty folded his arms and tilted his head to the side, eyes narrowed. As if all this was just coming to him as he spoke. ‘He’s come from a close family — that’s a definite — but chances are that he’s all alone now. His mother probably abused him emotionally rather than physically, belittled him, criticized him, controlled every aspect of his life. That’s the source of his rage against women. When we find him, everyone will be surprised that he’s been capable of this kind of horrendous act. And they’ll describe him as introverted, someone who kept himself to himself and never caused a fuss.’

Docherty nodded towards a short stack of paper on the table at the front. ‘I’ve made up a list of the kind of red-flags you should be looking for, and a couple of follow-up questions you can ask to narrow the field.’ The smile was back. ‘And speaking of questions: does anyone have any?’

Sitting near the front, a hand appeared above the rows of heads. The voice that went with it was flat, and nasal, and instantly recognizable: Rhona. ‘How come he never sent a letter after Doreen Appleton?’

‘Well, that’s actually more about the offender known as “the Inside Man” than Unsub-Fifteen, but it’s still valid. He didn’t send a letter because she was a trial run, a warm-up. She doesn’t count. He hasn’t quite worked out what it is he wants yet. So, he dumps her body, doesn’t use the nine-nine-nine call he forced her to record, and moves on to Tara McNab. That’s when it really begins.’ Dr Docherty nodded, agreeing with himself. ‘Anyone else? Don’t be shy.’

Alice’s hand shot up, fingers splayed, waving slightly. ‘Me, me!’

‘Yes…? I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’

‘Alice McDonald. First: huge fan, I thought you were great in that documentary about the Tayside Butcher.’ She still had her hand up.

Docherty preened. ‘Oh, you saw that. Great. Thanks. So, what’s your question … erm … Alice?’

‘You say he’s attacking women as sublimated revenge against an emotionally manipulative mother figure, but that doesn’t explain the significance of the dolls, does it?’

‘Well, that’s another good question, you see-’

‘By stitching the dolls into their abdomens, the Inside Man is making them pregnant, isn’t he? Literally putting a baby into their tummies…’ She wrapped one arm around her middle, lowered her hand and twisted the fingers through her hair. ‘Of course then he muddies the water by dressing them in white nightgowns which are clearly symbolic of innocence and virginity, but if this is revenge against an unloving mother, why is he trying to impregnate her? I mean I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, I helped Northern Constabulary catch someone who did just that, then stabbed her sixty-four times in the throat, her head nearly came off when they tried to load her into the body-bag, the pictures were really quite disturbing.’