Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

Here we go.

‘ In my hotel room. I ran a bath and read through the case notes on a rape-murder in Birmingham I’m consulting on. Watched a little TV to unwind, then went to bed about … eleven thirty? ’

Jacobson sat back. ‘ So, when Laura Strachan and Ruth Laughlin were abducted, you were in your room, alone, in bed. ’ He put a finger on the sheet of paper and shoogled it from side to side. ‘ Really? Don’t want to think about that a little more? ’

Detective Superintendent Knight was on the phone, hunched over a notepad, doodling gothic skulls-and-crossbones across the paper. ‘Uh-huh… Yes… No, sir, I understand, but it wasn’t my… Yes… No, I suppose it wasn’t…’ A red tidemark throbbed above his collar, stretching up his neck and into his cheeks. He stopped doodling and ran a hand across his bald head. ‘Well, with hindsight… Yes, sir.’

Alice stopped scrawling boxes and lines on the whiteboard to take a sip of the twelve-year-old Glenfiddich I’d confiscated from the CID office. Then went back to her marker pens.

I leaned on the conference table, stared up at the screen. ‘Stop sodding about and burst him.’

Jacobson made a big show of writing something down. ‘ Half eleven… And you’re sure? ’

‘ That’s where I was, Detective Inspector, right through till my alarm went off at six this morning. ’

‘ Because we’ve got a witness who says you weren’t in your room at midnight. In fact, your bed was still made and there was no sign of you. ’

Docherty pursed his lips.

His lawyer placed a hand on his arm. ‘ I really must insist on that break. ’

Ness stared at the ceiling for a moment, then looked at Jacobson.

‘Why not.’ He reached for the recording equipment. ‘ Interview suspended at sixteen-o-five. ’

Ness slumped into the chair behind her desk, scrubbed her face with her hands. Sighed. ‘Docherty’s not going to pop. He’s been on our side of the fence too often — he knows how it works.’

The walls were lined with faces — head-and-shoulder shots of people smiling at weddings and parties, on the beach, birthdays, holiday snaps… Never the same person twice.

Alice peered at one of a man standing behind a BBQ, ‘SNOG THE CHEF’ on his apron, tongs in one hand, a beer in the other raised in salute. ‘Isn’t this Tony Hudson? Dismembered body washed ashore at Cullen?’

Jacobson slouched in one of the visitor’s chairs, hands clasped over his belly. ‘We’ll find out where he’s got them sooner or later. Going to be much worse for Docherty if it’s later and they’re dead.’

I settled into the chair opposite. Stretched my leg. ‘In the old days-’

‘These aren’t the old days, Ash.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘The eyes of the world are watching. If renowned psychologist and TV personality, Dr Frederic Docherty, starts falling down the stairs, people are going to notice. We’ll all be out of a job.’

‘I’d rather be out of a job than let Ruth Laughlin, Laura Strachan, and Jessica McFee die because we let the bastard wait us out. Ten minutes, in a room. I won’t leave a mark on him.’

Ness gave a snort. ‘And then what — watch the case collapse and him walk free because we violated his human rights? No thanks.’ She blinked a couple of times, then stuck her hand over her mouth, covering a cavernous yawn.

Alice moved on to a woman in a trench coat: blonde, big all over, mouth wide as if she was singing. ‘And that’s Rose McGowan. Abducted, raped, and strangled.’ Alice pointed at a framed picture of three kids in swimsuits grinning in a paddling pool. ‘Liz, Janet, and Graeme Boyle. Stabbed by their mother… They’re all victims, aren’t they?’

Ness let her head fall back, arms limp at her sides. ‘Did you get anything from Docherty’s “insights” into the Inside Man?’

Alice did the hair-twiddling thing; leaned back against a filing cabinet, frowning at the walls of the dead. ‘Many points correlate with his own childhood: the abusive mother, the distant father, the trips to hospital; lashing out by burning things, a major arson event in the pre-teen years… He deviates when he talks about Tim having an unskilled job, but then he says he’s got low self-esteem, which would tie into the private persona, not the “Dr Docherty” he presents to the world.’

‘Anything that’ll help us find where he’s keeping them?’

‘I’m sorry.’

Ness covered her face and groaned.

‘I mean, if the teams can come up with some viable addresses we can run them through what he’s told us, but it’s not enough right now to point at somewhere…’ Alice cleared her throat. ‘Sorry.’

Jacobson dunted the toe of his shoe against the desk’s modesty panel. ‘Any reason our illustrious colleague Knight’s not here?’

I didn’t bother hiding the smile. ‘Detective Superintendent Knight has been summoned to a telecom with the SCD and the top brass. Apparently hiring serial killers as consultants is against official policy.’

Jacobson’s lips pinched, cheek muscles twitching. But at least he didn’t laugh. ‘What a shame.’

‘Yes, well,’ Ness let her arms fall limp again, ‘we’re in no position to gloat. The Chief Constable has taken an interest in Virginia Cunningham and Charlie Pearce.’ She blew out a sigh, then sat forwards. ‘Mr Henderson, did you do “A Song for the Dying” in school? No? It’s a poem: William Denner, I think it is. “The raven folds his blood-black wings, and struts before what darkness brings, to feast upon the dying breath, and murder sacred things…” Why does that make me think of you?’

‘We didn’t know Charlie was there. We couldn’t know.’

She reached into a drawer and pulled out an evidence bag, snapped on a single blue nitrile glove, and tipped the mobile phone into her palm. Thumbed the screen a couple of times, then held it out so Jacobson could see.

The sound of Virginia Cunningham singing the ‘Bravery Song’ came from the little speaker.

When it was over, Ness slipped the phone back into the bag and sealed it.

Jacobson blew out a breath. ‘That’s … bad.’

I poked the desk. ‘What else could we do? We didn’t have powers to search the place, and-’

‘I know, I know.’ Ness shook her head, snapped off her glove and dumped it in the bin beside her desk. ‘It’s going to kill Charlie’s parents when that gets played in court. Not to mention the lawsuits. And someone’s bound to call for a public enquiry.’

Alice tucked her hands in her pockets. ‘Maybe I could speak to Virginia Cunningham? I mean it’s obvious she did it — she filmed herself killing him — but perhaps we can find out why she did it and maybe give Charlie’s mum and dad some closure?’

‘Well … I suppose it couldn’t hurt.’

As soon as the door closed behind Alice, Ness sagged back in her chair again. Let another yawn ripple through her. Blinked at the piles of paperwork on her desk. ‘We’ve got nothing: no witnesses, no victims, the forensics are compromised, and unless he confesses, all we can do him for is theft and attempting to pervert the course of justice. He’ll be out in four years. And we’re back where we started.’

Jacobson slapped his hands against his knees. ‘No, we’re not. We’ve got the bugger in custody — that’s something. We keep at him, we apply for a detainment extension, and we find his operating theatre. In the meantime,’ Jacobson stood, ‘I think the team needs to blow off a little steam. We caught him.’

‘I’m sorry, Bear, but I don’t think that’s really appropriate. We’ve got three women out there who’re going to die if we don’t find them.’