Alex Gray - A Pound Of Flesh

A sudden sigh came as Helen James recalled one of her favourite detective sergeants, a blonde lass with a sharp wit who had been hounded out of the force some time back by the antigay brigade. A high-profile case had resulted and Helen had been unable to do anything but watch helplessly from the sidelines. Claire had won it hands down but had then left in disgust. Such a waste of a good polis, she thought, shaking her head. Claire would have made senior rank no bother. Och, well, at least some of her officers were being usefully deployed with Lorimer. And being introduced to Solomon Brightman. Helen smiled suddenly. Perhaps being at home wasn’t such a bad thing if it brought the opportunity to discuss a case with the celebrated professor.

Vladimir Badica slammed the metal door behind him, creating a draught of frozen air in the vast space that housed his fleet of cars. The weather had brought a spate of cancellations and as a result this side of his business was deathly quiet. Not so the concrete garage that lay beneath the Glasgow streets: the sound of metal banging against metal and rap music from a transistor radio drew his eyes to the mechanic under one of the luxury cars. All Badica could see was a pair of stout black boots sticking out from under the chassis but he knew those feet.

His hands twitched by his sides as he listened to the man whistling tunelessly to the music. If he could grab hold of those boots, pull him out and … and what? What would he really be able to do to this man who had brought such grief into his life?

Badica clenched his fists, struggling to control the urge to do damage to the young man below the car. Better to leave it. He was a good mechanic, he thought grudgingly, watching as the feet shifted under the car; knew these Mercs inside out.

The Romanian shivered suddenly, but it was not a sensory reaction to the cold outside but a chill that came from deep within his heart.

‘Thanks for these,’ Helen James said, sipping her coffee and eyeing the lovely M amp;S chocolate biscuits that the professor had brought with him. Should she try one? Would it hurt her delicate insides? The district nurse had urged Helen to try different foods bit by bit to see if things were back to normal. Sod it, she thought, picking up her favourite cream-filled biscuit, might as well enjoy it while I can.

‘You’re all right now to eat them?’ Solly asked anxiously, noting the police officer’s hesitation.

‘Och, why not,’ Helen replied, grinning and biting into the biscuit with relish. ‘Right, professor, nice of you to visit but I’m sure you have lots of questions for me, eh?’

‘I want to ask you about the prostitute murders,’ Solly said.

‘Of course you do, professor. Who else would you come to?’ she replied, still smiling. But the smile did not reach Helen’s eyes as she regarded the psychologist thoughtfully.

‘I visited the parents of Carol Kilpatrick,’ he began, looking at her intently. Helen nodded and grimaced as if to show she understood what his reception had been like.

‘It was hard to fathom such animosity, especially now that she is dead,’ he ventured.

‘Aye, they were bitter, bitter people, those Kilpatricks,’ Helen admitted. ‘Couldn’t hack the fact that their wee lassie swung the other way.’

‘ That ’s what it was all about,’ Solly said and heaved a sigh.

‘Aye, Carol was a lesbian long before she went on the game. Parents kicked her out and she found some friends who made her feel better about herself. In a chemically induced way,’ she added, her voice laden with sarcasm. ‘The parents can’t accept that they were in any way to blame for their girl becoming a druggie.’

Solly looked away, saddened that such a thing could have happened, yet telling himself that it happened all the time. And this policewoman with anger in her eyes knew all the background of stories such as Carol’s. Could she help him to join up the dots in these four murder cases?

‘Miriam Lyons and Jenny Haslet do not at first appear to fit any kind of pattern,’ he began slowly. ‘But I did wonder what you thought about their deaths.’

‘I know what you’re asking, professor. Do I think the same person killed all four of my girls? Well, the MO might be different but each of them was brutalised by someone. Some man who overpowered them.’ She paused, her eyes dropping to a point somewhere on the carpet. ‘All of them are … were … extremely vulnerable young women, but there was a toughness about Tracey-Anne … ’ Her voice tailed off and Solly saw her biting her lip as though to conceal some emotion.

‘She put up a fight, didn’t she?’ Helen asked at last, her eyes boring into Solly’s own, defying him to deny it.

‘The post-mortem suggests as much,’ he said, nodding. ‘Dr White’s report includes details of defence wounds.’ The psychologist blinked, trying hard to blot out the memory of those photographs of slash marks on the young woman’s arms, images that could make him feel distinctly queasy.

‘What I don’t understand,’ Helen said slowly, ‘is how anyone could have got to Miriam and Jenny.’

Solly frowned, unable to see where she was going with this. ‘But if they were as vulnerable as you say they were…?’

‘Aye, they were, but if my information about them is accurate they were also both off the streets by the time of their deaths.’

‘But I thought…?’

‘You assumed they were all working the drag, is that right? Well,’ Helen pointed a hectoring finger at the psychologist, ‘those two girls had been working in a sauna for weeks before they were killed. And there was no sign of them back out on the streets. That,’ she said firmly, ‘is something they had in common, even if their deaths were different.’

‘So, you saw no pattern linking all four of the women, then?’ Solly asked after a moment’s consideration.

‘I wish I had,’ Helen replied. ‘There was something wrong with it all,’ she added with a frown. ‘Carol’s death was a shock to everyone. So brutal, so … ’ She searched for the right words to describe the girl’s murder. ‘So vicious . Look, we all see terrible things in our line of work, but that was the worst any of my team had ever experienced. How she stayed alive for those few hours, only God knows. Then when Miriam was found in the Clyde … well she’d been strangled and dumped, you know that, yes?’

Solly nodded as she continued.

‘Maybe it was because her murder was different, but I felt at the time that it could have been the same person who killed them both. George Parsonage, the Glasgow humane society officer, told me at the time that her body was probably pushed into the Clyde near the city centre. He knows all there is to know about tides, currents and stuff,’ she added.

‘And Jenny Haslet?’ Solly prompted.

‘Aye, wee Jenny. Poor wee lassie. Had been trying to get off the drugs with help from the folk in the Big Blue Bus. You’ve heard of that, I assume?’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘As I said, Jenny and Miriam had both found jobs in a sauna. Same one as it happens. Place called Andie’s. We thought we’d found a link at first.’ Helen shrugged. ‘But nothing came of it. Owner told us later that Jenny had simply failed to turn up for work one day. Seems their girls can be a bit unreliable that way,’ she grimaced.

‘And Jenny Haslet was strangled, like Miriam,’ Solly said slowly.

‘Aye. Not far from where she lived in Govanhill. If any of them was the odd one out then it would’ve been Jenny. Away from the city centre, maybe pulling punters near where she lived. Who knows? Forensics found she’d been choked to death with her own black tights. Someone had raped her first. Some big ugly brute, if the pathologist’s report was right. Hey, hold on,’ she said suddenly. ‘That was Dr Fergusson, wasn’t it? Your … ’