Craig Robertson - Snapshot

There was a greenish-blue tinge to McKendrick’s head and neck, large blisters were starting to form on his skin from the gases below, he was beginning to bloat, rigor had been and gone, fluids were beginning to seep from all visible orifices and he smelled. Really bad.

McKendrick wasn’t killed in the last few hours, he hadn’t been killed in the last twenty-four. Winter’s guess, his very educated guess, was that he’d been dead for two days, more likely three. Days. Before Addison was shot, before Forrest, McConachie and Johnstone were killed, before those four guys were tied to chairs and tortured to death.

Whatever Winter thought he knew, he clearly didn’t. This guy hadn’t shot Addison. But someone had and someone had also killed McKendrick. And what was he doing down here if he wasn’t the Dark Angel?

Winter took a deep breath then quickly lifted McKendrick’s shirt to see that there were dark red-purple pools across his back, meaning he’d been moved after he was dead. The dark pools were lividity. When the heart no longer pumped blood around the body then gravity caused the heavy red cells to sink through the serum. If McKendrick had been killed where he lay then the hypostasis would have settled more on his side.

Winter didn’t think he could have been moved too far. Ryan was too heavy to carry any kind of distance – unless it was more than one person – and manhandling him up and down the narrow staircases seemed a big job. His guess was that he was killed down there but maybe out in the main passageway then dumped in the storage cupboard a few hours later.

The Dark Angel or killed by the Dark Angel? Hero or villain? Or both?

Winter reached, almost self-consciously, into his back pocket and drew out the compact camera that was tucked in there. It was beyond him why he felt at all bad about it but he knew this was a different kind of death, more real. More frightening.

The compact had twelve megapixels and a decent flash yet it fitted into the palm of his hand. Which suddenly struck him as ironic because what he was about to do was some form of photographic masturbation. Maybe Rachel had been right, maybe it was necrophotographilia after all.

He stood with his back to the wall, letting as much light in as possible and also because he was scared of what might creep up behind him. He flicked the zoom up then down again, focusing and framing as best he could, aware of the tremble in his fingers and took a full-frame shot of McKendrick’s hunched body.

What a mess the nasty little fuckers had left him in. The thought hit Winter that he was glad Ryan’s mother couldn’t see him now. Poor tortured Rosaleen had suffered enough already and no mother should ever, ever see what was in front of Winter at that moment. Chewed, eaten, bitten, gnawed. None of that was what had killed him though. Not unless rats had learned how to break a man’s neck. The tortured angle of his head to his body left no doubt. Winter’s guess was that the blood that matted his hair could have been from another blow before he was snapped or as he fell to the ground.

Mouth open, lips ashen, his one good eye rolled back and distant. Limbs tucked beneath him in an unnatural fashion where rigor had set in then reversed itself. The splashes of blood were far from being red, they were carmine, almost maroon, dirtier than rust and just as uninviting. His skin was purple and tight, his nails white, his clothes dirty. That poor wee woman could never see this.

Winter had photographed more than his fair share of death but this was horrific. He was normally there when they’d just gone, when they had one foot in the grave and one in the gravy. McKendrick was long gone and although that was hardly a first for Winter, the mess he was in made it so much worse. Cold compassion wasn’t the option it might otherwise have been.

He zoomed in as much as the compact would allow him and photographed McKendrick’s blotchy, algae-green neck. Snapped it. The ugly bulge of the broken vertebrae under the discoloured skin. He moved to his other wounds, the ones caused by the rats, and photographed them too. The position of the body, its place in the room, the blanket, the shelves, the printed photographs and the boxes. Everything from every angle. He had no idea how or if this could ever get to court without landing him in deep shit but he knew his job.

Having done it, he looked through what else there was in there. All the time with an ear to the door and the corridor, waiting for footsteps, either on two legs or four. A corrupted line from Animal Farm flooded his mind. Four legs bad, two legs worse. Whatever happened to McKendrick, someone had taken the trouble to move him and cover him up yet hadn’t taken away the stuff in the cupboard. That someone could be coming back.

The cardboard box held the remains of packets of energy bars, chocolate, brown biscuits, cheese and meat spreads, instant coffee and water purifying tablets, instant soups and oatmeal block. Some were intact; some had been ripped open and eaten, probably by the rats. They were survival rations but hadn’t allowed for the eventuality of a broken neck.

Winter fingered open the boxes marked Naval Issue, lifted up the cardboard flaps and peered inside. Ammunition. Lots of it. He took out a single bullet and felt the weight of it in his hand, coming to the conclusion that it was heavier than whatever it measured in grammes. Mindful of not leaving any more traces of himself than was strictly necessary, he wiped the bullet on his shirt and popped it back into the box still clutched in the cotton. Mindful too that it was probably a complete waste of time.

They were obviously the bullets for the L115A3. Three of the boxes were full, the other one less than half so. There was no knowing if there had been other boxes or if the someone who had killed and covered up McKendrick had taken away a box or two of ammo. One thing was certain, there was no sign of the rifle itself. He’d looked everywhere, including under the body, but could see nothing. If it had been here, and his betting was that it had, it was gone now. Which had to make him wonder if it was being used. There would be no point in taking it out of this perfect hiding place for no good reason.

He knew he’d been avoiding the stack of photographs on the shelf, leaving the best or worst to last. He picked up the top one, annoyed at the obvious tremble in his hands, and began to study it. It was printed on plain paper in black and white, straight from a computer by the look of it. Right away, he knew where it had been taken. Smeaton Drive in Bishopbriggs, recognizing it immediately from the television pictures when they covered the Johnstone shooting. He could make out Alex Shirley and Baxter, then there was a bunch of indistinct figures in bunny suits.

He placed the print down next to the pile and lifted another one, his eyes growing wide. It was taken at Dixon Blazes and Rachel and McConachie could just be made out looking at each other in disbelief. He worked his way through the photos, fingers and eyes moving faster. Harthill Services. Glasgow Harbour. Central Station. Smeaton Drive. Kinnear Road. Location photos taken with a zoom. Some had been taken before the killings, either reconnaissance or trial runs with the camera rather than the gun. Others were taken after. He’d gone back, somewhere, somehow, and photographed his hunters. Or were they the hunted?

There were groups shots of the Nightjar team. There were some individual pictures too, some close enough and over-extended enough that you couldn’t see where or when they were taken. Alex Shirley looking furious. Addison pissed off. Jan McConachie worried. Colin Monteith transfixed. Winter himself, busy. Baxter serious. Cat Fitzgerald detached. Rachel.

Rachel.

She was in a white coverall at Central Station, standing over the body of what he knew to be Cairns Caldwell. Winter’s throat choked with the bile of trapped anger. He swallowed it back down just as he fought the urge to kick McKendrick’s corpse or throw something. He suppose he should have expected a close-up of her too but the sight of it still hit him hard. Rachel. Christ.