Copyright

Harper

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www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

Copyright © Stuart MacBride 2014

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Type style by Blacksheep

Cover photographs © David Augustin/Getty Images (landscape); Shutterstock.com (birds)

Stuart MacBride asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

This is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental. The only exception to this are the characters Liz Thornton, Alistair Robertson, Millie Rose Stephen, and Julia G. Nenova, who have given their express permission to be fictionalized in this volume. All behaviour, history, and character traits assigned to their fictional representations have been designed to serve the needs of the narrative and do not necessarily bear any resemblance to the real person.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007344338

Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2014 ISBN: 9780007344321

Version: 2020-10-27

Dedication

For Lorna, Dave, and James

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Without Whom

the end is nigh

Chapter 1

Six Years Later

Chapter 2

Eighteen Months Later

Chapter 3

Now (Six Months Later) Sunday

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Eight Years Ago

Monday

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Tuesday

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Wednesday

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Thursday

Chapter 52

Six Months Later

Chapter 53

Keep Reading

About the Author

By Stuart MacBride

About the Publisher

Without Whom

As always I’ve received a lot of help from a lot of people while I was writing this book, so I’d like to take this opportunity to thank: Ishbel Gall, Prof. Lorna Dawson, Prof. Dave Barclay, Dr James Grieve, and Prof. Sue Black, for all their forensic cleverness; Deputy Divisional Commander Mark Cooper, Detective Superintendent Martin Dunn, Detective Sergeant William Nimmo, Sergeant Bruce Crawford, Police Dog Handler Colin Hunter, and Constable Claire Pirie, without whom I would’ve been lost about the change to Police Scotland; Sarah Hodgson, Jane Johnson, Julia Wisdom, Louise Swannell, Oliver Malcolm, Laura Fletcher, Roger Cazalet, Kate Elton, Lucy Upton, Sylvia May, Damon Greeney, Victoria Barnsley, Emad Akhtar, Kate Stephenson, Marie Goldie, the DC Bishopbriggs Wild Brigade, and everyone at HarperCollins, for doing such a stonking job; Phil Patterson, Isabella Floris, Luke Speed, and the team at Marjacq Scripts, for keeping my cat in shoes all these years.

A number of people have helped raise a lot of money for charity by bidding to have a character named after them in this book: Liz Thornton, Alistair Robertson, and Julia G. Nenova.

And saving the best for last – as always – Fiona and Grendel.

the end is nigh

The time has come, the Raven said,

To close your eyes and hang your head,

And walk with me through barren fields,

To stand among the dead.

William Denner

A Song for the Dying (1943)

1

‘Now I’m no’ saying he’s gay – I’m no’ saying he’s ho-mo-sexual – I’m saying he’s a big Jessie. No’ the same thing.’

‘Not this again …’ A crescent moon makes a scar in the clouds, glowering down at them as Kevin picks his way through the frost-crisped grass, breath streaming out behind him. Nipples like little points of fire. Fingers aching where they stick out past the end of his sleeve, wrapped around the torch. The legs of his glasses cold against his temples.

Behind him, the ambulance’s blue and white lights make lazy search beams, sending shadows creeping through the trees at the side of the road. The headlights glint back from a bus shelter, the Perspex blistered and blackened where someone’s tried to set fire to it.

Nick clunks the ambulance door shut. ‘I mean, seriously, look at him: could he be any more of a Jessie?’

‘Will you shut up and help me?’

‘Don’t know what you’re so worked up about.’ Nick has a scratch at his beard, really going at it, like a dog with fleas. Tiny flakes of white fall from the face-fungus, caught in the glow of his torch like dying fireflies. ‘Just going to be another sodding crank call, like all the rest of them. Tell you: ever since they found that woman with her innards all ripped up in Kingsmeath, every time-wasting tosser in the city’s been on the phone reporting gutted women. Listen to them, the bloody place should be knee-deep in dead tarts.’

‘What if she’s lying out there, in the dark, dying? Don’t you want—’

‘And do you know why Spider-Man’s a big girl’s blouse?’

Kevin doesn’t look at him, keeps his eyes on the grass. It’s thicker here, the broken-glass stems dotted with rusty spears of docken and dead thistles. Something out there smells musty, fusty, mouldering. ‘What if it’s real? Might be still alive.’

‘Aye, you keep telling yourself that. Fiver says she doesn’t even exist.’ His fingertips scrabble through the beard again as he kicks through a pile of crackling leaves. ‘So, Spider-Man: action is his reward, right? Total Jessie.’

Two more hours till the shift’s over. Two more hours of inane drivel and bollocks …

Is something sticking out from underneath that whin bush?

The long dark seedpods clatter like a rattlesnake as Kevin pokes at the branches.

Just a plastic bag, the blue-and-red logo glittering with frost.

‘See me? See if I save some hot bird from a burning building? I’m expecting cash, or a blowjob at the very least. When did you last see someone going down on Spider-Man? Never, that’s when.’

‘Nick, I swear to God …’

‘Come on, if it was you or me running about in our jammies, squirting random strangers with our sticky emissions, we’d end up on the sex-offenders’ register, wouldn’t we?’

‘Can you not shut up for, like, five seconds?’ The tips of Kevin’s ears burn, like someone’s stubbing a cigarette out on them. Cheeks are going the same way. He sweeps the torch beam back and forth. Maybe Nick’s right? This is a waste of time. They’re out here, sodding about in the freezing cold, on a Thursday night in November just because some rancid wee sod thought it’d be funny to report a woman’s body dumped at the side of the road.

‘He’s not a superhero: he’s a pervert. And a Jessie. Quod erat demonstrandum.’

A hundred and fifty thousand people have a stroke every year, why can’t Nick be one of them? Right now. Is that really too much to ask?

The hairy git stops rummaging in his beard and points. ‘Aye, aye, looks like someone’s been getting lucky. Found a right nest of condoms here …’ He pokes the toe of his boot into it, rummages. ‘French ticklers from the look of it.’

‘Shut up.’ Kevin chews at the skin on the side of his index finger, breath fogging up his glasses. ‘What did they say?’

Nick sniffs. ‘Woman, mid-twenties, possible internal bleeding, A-Rhesus negative.’

The tarmac scrunches beneath Kevin’s feet as he picks his way around the bus shelter. ‘How did they know?’

‘That she was here? Suppose—’

‘No, you moron, how did they know what her blood type was …?’ Kevin stops dead. There’s something behind the shelter, something person-sized.

He lurches over, feet slipping on the icy tarmac. But it’s only a hunk of carpet, the faded green-and-yellow swirly pattern, spotted with darker stains. Dumped by some dirty scumbag who couldn’t be arsed going to the council tip. What the hell was wrong with people these days?

It wasn’t like …

There’s drag-marks in the grass, leading away from the carpet.

Oh God.

‘And don’t get me started on Superman!’

Kevin’s voice cracks. So he tries again. ‘Nick …?’

‘I mean, what kind of pervert goes to work wearing blue tights—’

‘Nick, get the crash kit.’

‘—bright red pants over the top? Could he be any more, “look at my crotch, for I am the Man of Steel!” And he’s faster—’

‘Get the crash kit.’

‘—speeding bullet. What woman wants—’

‘GET THE BLOODY CRASH KIT!’ And Kevin’s running, slithering through the grass at the side of the bus shelter. Crashing through the whip-fronds of dying nettles, following the drag-marks.

She’s lying on her back, one leg curled under her, the other pale foot smeared with dirt. Her white nightdress has ridden up around her thighs, a yellow cross staining the fabric across her swollen abdomen – distorted by what’s been stitched inside. Scarlet blooms through the nightdress: poppies, dark and spreading.

Her face is bone-china pale, freckles standing out like dried bloodstains, coppery hair spread out across frost-sharpened grass. A golden chain glints around her throat.

Her fingers tremble.

She’s alive …

Six Years Later

2

The wall hit me between the shoulder blades, then did the same to the back of my head. An explosion of yellow light. A dull thunk deep inside my skull. A grunt broke from my throat. Then again as ex-Detective Sergeant O’Neil slammed his fist into my stomach.

Glass rippled inside me, tearing, shredding.

Another fist cracked my ringing head to the side, sending fire burning across my cheek. Not O’Neil this time, but his equally huge mate: ex-Constable Taylor. The pair of them must’ve spent most of their sentences in the prison gym. Certainly would explain how they managed to hit so bloody hard.

Another fist to the guts. Jerking me against the corridor wall.

I lashed out with a right, the knuckles screaming as they tore into O’Neil’s nose. Flattened it. Snapped his ugly, wedge-shaped head back. Painted an arc of scarlet in the air as the big bastard staggered away.

Right. One not so much down as on hold. A couple of seconds would be enough …

I threw an elbow at Taylor’s big round face. But he was fast. A lot faster than someone that size should have been.

My elbow cracked into the wall.

Then his fist smashed into my cheek again.

THUNK – my head battered off the wall. Again.

This time my elbow caught him right in the mouth, an electric shock charging up my funny bone where it mashed through his top lip and teeth. More scarlet in the drab corridor. It dribbled down the front of his prison-issue sweatshirt, spreading out like tiny red flowers on the grey fabric.

He backed off a pace. Spat out a couple of white lumps. Wiped a hand across his mouth, smearing the blood. The words came out all wet and lispy through the gaps where those teeth used to be. ‘Oh, you are tho dead.’

‘You really think two against one is enough?’ I flexed my right fist. The joints stabbed and screamed, every movement like someone was digging burning needles through the cartilage and into the bone.

Then O’Neil bellowed. Charged. Face a streaked mess of crimson and black.

CRACK I hit the wall again, all the breath abandoning my body in one tearing groan. A fist in the face. Vision blurred.

I swung, but it went wide.

Again.

O’Neil landed another one, and a choir of vultures screeched in my head.

Blink.

Stay upright. Don’t let them get you on the ground.

I wrapped my hand over his face and dug my thumb into what was left of his nose. Gouging into the warm slippery mess.

He screamed.

Then it was my turn as Taylor stamped his size elevens down on the bridge of my right foot. Something inside tore. Scar tissue and bone parted. Stitches ripped free, wrenching open the bullet hole. And all plans to stay upright disappeared in a wave of raw throat-tearing agony.

Like being shot all over again.

My right leg gave way. The granite-coloured floor rushed up to greet me.

Curl up. Make a ball of arms and legs, protect the vital organs, cover the head …

Feet and fists battered into my thighs, arms, and back. Kicking, punching, stomping.

And then, darkness.

…

‘… in’t de … with …?’

‘… bloody n … se, f …’

…

‘… n, he’s coming roun …’

A sharp jolt to my cheek.

Blink.

Blink.

Cough … It was like someone had taken a sledgehammer to my ribs, and every jagged heave from my lungs just made it worse.

O’Neil stood over me, grinning down with his blood-smeared face, nose skewed off to the left. Voice all bunged up, like he was doing an advert for decongestant. ‘Wakey-wakey, princess. Bet you thought you’d never see me again, eh?’

Taylor had a mobile phone to his ear, nodding while he explored the gaps in his teeth with his tongue. ‘Yeah, I’ll put you on thpeakerphone.’

He pressed something on the screen, then held the thing out towards me.

Fancy new phone. Definitely not allowed in prison.

The screen flickered, going from washed-out brightness to a close-up of someone’s face, the features all blurry. Then whoever it was moved back and the whole thing slithered into focus.

Mrs Kerrigan. Her brown hair was piled up in a loose bun on top of her head, the roots showing streaks of grey. A pinched face, with bright red lips and sharp little teeth. A crucifix floating in her cleavage. She pulled on a pair of glasses and smiled. ‘Ah, Mr Henderson … Or should I be calling yez, Prisoner Henderson now?’

I opened my mouth, but O’Neil placed his right foot on top of mine and pressed. Shards of burning glass dug into the skin, turning the words into a high-pitched hiss between clenched teeth.

‘Here’s how this works. Mr Taylor and Mr O’Neil here will be payin’ yez a little visit every now and then, and batterin’ the livin’ shite out of ye. And every time yez are coming up for review – ye know, when they’re thinkin’ of lettin’ yer sorry arse back out on the streets? Every time that happens they’re goin’ to give ye another doing and tell everyone ye’re the one who started it.’

O’Neil’s grin got wider, a dribble of bloody spittle snaking out from the corner of his ruined mouth. ‘Every time.’

‘This is what ye get for sticking a gun in my face, ye wee gobshite. Yez’re now my pet project, I’m going to screw with ye till I get bored of it, and then I’m goin’ to have ye killed.’ She leaned forward, out of focus again, till her red mouth filled the screen. ‘But don’t worry, I don’t bore that easy. I plan on screwin’ with ye for years.’

Eighteen Months Later

3

‘Sadly, we continue to see a deplorable level of violence perpetrated by Mr Henderson.’ Dr Altringham rapped on the table with his knuckles, as if it was a coffin lid. He blew the floppy grey fringe out of his eyes. Adjusted his glasses. ‘I really can’t recommend release at this date. He represents a clear and continued danger to the general public.’

Twenty minutes of this and I still hadn’t climbed out of my seat, limped over to where he was sitting, and battered his brains out with my cane. Which was pretty good going, given how ‘dangerous’ I was. Perhaps it was Officer Barbara Crawford’s calming influence? She stood at my right shoulder, looming over me in my orange plastic chair, her thick knot of keys an inch from my ear.

Babs was built like a fridge freezer, tattoos sticking out from the sleeves of her shirt, wrapping around her wrists and onto the backs of her meaty hands. Barbed wire, flames. ‘FAITH’ on one set of knuckles, ‘HOPE’ on the other. Her short hair stood out from her head in tiny grey spikes, dyed blonde at the tips. Very trendy.

They’d done their usual and arranged the furniture so the big table faced a single chair in the middle of the room. Me and Babs on this side, everyone else on the other. Two psychiatrists; one threadbare social worker with big square glasses; and the Deputy Governor, dressed as if she was on her way to a funeral. All talking about me as if I wasn’t even there. Could’ve stayed in my cell and saved myself the aggro.

We all knew where this was going anyway: release denied.

I leaned forward in my chair, ribs creaking from yesterday’s beating. Every time, regular as clockwork. The only thing that changed was the cast and crew. O’Neil got himself shanked in the showers four months ago. Taylor got released after serving half his term. Then it was two different Neanderthal bastards ambushing me in the corridors and delivering Mrs Kerrigan’s ‘messages’. And two more after them.

Didn’t matter what I did, I always ended up back here, bruised and battered.

Release denied.

Even managed to track down the guy who replaced O’Neil. Caught him on his own in the prison laundry. Broke both his arms, left leg, dislocated every finger he had, and his jaw. Mrs Kerrigan just got someone else to take his place. And I got an extra, unscheduled, arse kicking.

The Deputy Governor and the psychologists could hold all the review meetings they liked, the only way I was getting out of this place was in a body-bag.

I closed my eyes. Let it burn.

Never getting out of here.

The walking cane was cold between my fingers.

Should’ve killed Mrs Kerrigan when I had the chance. Wrapped my hands around her throat and throttled the life right out of her. Eyes popping from the sockets, tongue swollen and black, hands scrabbling against mine while I squeezed and squeezed. Chest heaving on air that wasn’t there …

But no. Couldn’t do that, could I? Had to play the good guy. The bloody idiot.

And what did that get me? Stuck in here till she got bored and had someone slit my throat. Or stab me in the kidneys with a home-made chib, sharpened on a cell wall and smeared with shit for a nice infected wound. Assuming I survived the blood loss.

No more stupid review meetings, just a trip to the infirmary, then on to the mortuary.

At least I wouldn’t have to sit here, listening to Altringham’s lies. Telling everyone how violent and dangerous I was …

I ran my fingers up the cane till they got to the handle. Tightened my grip. Pulled my shoulders back.

Might as well live down to his expectations and remodel his smug lying face a bit. Could do some serious damage before they dragged me off. Had nothing to lose anyway. And at least I’d get the satisfaction of—

Babs’s hand landed on my shoulder, her voice barely loud enough to count as a whisper. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

Fair enough.

I let my shoulders slump again.

Dr Alice McDonald – psychiatrist number two – held up her hand. ‘Now hold on a minute: the murder charge was dismissed.’ Her curly brown hair made a loose ponytail at the back of her head, a few stray wisps breaking free to glow in the overhead lights. Pale-lilac shirt cuffs poked out of the sleeves of her pinstripe suit. ‘Mr Henderson didn’t kill his brother, the evidence against him was fabricated. It’s a matter of record. The appeal judge—’

‘I’m not talking about his brother’s murder. I’m talking about this.’ Altringham plucked a sheet of paper from the table in front of him and waved it. ‘In the last eighteen months, he’s assaulted and seriously injured seventeen other inmates. Every time he gets anywhere near being released, he attacks someone.’

‘We’ve been over this, it’s—’

‘Yesterday, he broke a man’s nose, and left another with a fractured cheek!’ Altringham knocked on the coffin again. ‘Does that sound like the actions of someone we should be unleashing on an unsuspecting public?’

Yeah, I got in a couple of good punches, till they forced me into a corner. Grinning and laughing. Letting me swing at them, so it’d look better when they made their formal complaints. But what was I supposed to do, stand there and take it?

Even after all this time …

Alice shook her head. ‘It’s hardly Mr Henderson’s fault that he keeps being attacked. If the prison did a better job of managing inmate interactions, maybe he wouldn’t have to defend himself the whole time.’

The Deputy Governor narrowed her eyes. ‘I resent any implication that this institution isn’t doing its duty where custodial safety is concerned.’

Altringham blew out a breath. ‘No one’s safe where Mr Henderson’s concerned. He’s pathologically incapable of—’

‘That’s not the case at all, there’s a clear pattern to the attacks against Mr Henderson that—’

‘Yes, and that pattern is his self-destructive personality! This is nothing more profound than a simple need to punish himself due to survivor’s guilt. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s simple psychology and if you were able to see past your personal bias on this case you’d know that.’

Alice poked Altringham in the shoulder. ‘I beg your pardon! Are you suggesting that I’m incapable of—’

The Deputy Governor slammed her folder down on the tabletop. ‘All right, that’s enough!’ She glared at Alice, then turned and did the same to Altringham. ‘We’re here to discuss Mr Henderson’s release, or continued incarceration, like professionals. Not bicker and quarrel like small children. So, moving on.’ The Deputy Governor held out a hand. ‘Dr McDonald, you have your report?’

Alice pulled the top sheet from the leather folio in front of her and passed it over.

The Deputy Governor frowned at it for a bit, then turned it over and did the same with the back. Then placed it on the table. ‘And Dr Altringham?’

He slid his along to her and she frowned at that for a while too.

Officer Babs leaned in, her voice still an almost-whisper. ‘How’s the arthritis?’

I flexed my right hand, the knuckles all swollen and bruised from breaking ex-DI Graham Lumley’s cheek. ‘Worth it.’

‘I keep telling you: lead with your elbows, or only punch the soft bits.’

‘Yeah, well …’

The Deputy Governor put Altringham’s report down on top of Alice’s, then sat up straight. ‘Mr Henderson, after careful consideration—’

‘Don’t bother.’ I slouched further down in my plastic seat. ‘We all know where this is going, so why don’t we just cut to the bit where you send me back to my cell?’

‘After careful consideration, Mr Henderson, and having reviewed all the evidence and expert analysis, it is my belief that your continuing use of violence necessitates your retention in this facility until a full investigation can be carried out into the events of yesterday.’

So, same as usual then.

Stuck in here until Mrs Kerrigan finally got bored and had me killed.

Now (Six Months Later) Sunday

4

‘… more from the scene as we get it. Edinburgh now, and the family of missing six-year-old Stacey Gourdon have issued an appeal, asking her abductors to return her remains …’ The TV in the rec room was mounted in its own tiny cage, high up on the wall, as if the prison thought it was as likely to do a runner as all the other inmates.

Ex-Detective Superintendent Len Murray picked up a plastic chair and stuck it down next to mine. Settled into it, a smile distorting his Robin-Hood-style grey goatee. The strip-lights glinted off his bald head and little round glasses. A big man with a big rumbling voice. ‘You’re going to have to kill her. You know that, don’t you?’

In her private cell, the woman on the television gave a grim nod. ‘Stacey Gourdon’s bloodstained dress and trainers were found by officers searching woodland in Corstorphine …’

I stared at him. ‘Don’t you have something better to do?’

‘Ash, the bog-hopping bitch is going to keep you in here till you top yourself, or she sends someone in to do it for her. Time to be proactive.’

‘I mean, you’ve got what, four more years to serve? You should take up a hobby. Woodwork. Or learning Spanish.’

The picture changed to a run-down two-up two-down in a manky council estate, a scrum of reporters jostling for position as the front doors opened and a hollow woman stared out with dead eyes and trembling fingers. A fat bloke just visible over her shoulder: bloodshot and sniffing, biting his bottom lip.

The woman cleared her throat. Looked down at her shaking hands. ‘We …’ Another go. ‘We just want her back. We want to bury her. We want the chance to say goodbye …’

Len leaned back in his seat and slapped a hand down on my shoulder. Squeezed. ‘I know a couple of lads who’ll do the job for two grand.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘They’ll go up against Andy Inglis for a measly two thousand pounds? Are they mad?’

‘They’re not local. And they need to get out of the country anyway. Besides: who’d know?’

‘… please, she’s our little girl … Stacey was everything to her dad and me …’

‘I’d know.’

Palm it off to some pair of idiots? No chance. When Mrs Kerrigan died, it would be with my hands around her throat. Squeezing …

Assuming I ever got out of here.

I turned back to the screen, where Stacey’s mother was collapsing, every sob caught in the strobe of camera flashes.

Back to the studio. ‘… with any information can call the number at the bottom of the screen.’ The newsreader shuffled her papers. ‘Oldcastle Police have confirmed that the woman’s body, discovered on waste ground behind the city’s Blackwall Hill area in the early hours of yesterday morning, belonged to Claire Young, a paediatric nurse at Castle Hill Infirmary …’

Len shook his head. ‘The trouble with you is you think revenge has to be up-close to be personal. You never did learn to delegate properly.’

‘I’m not delegating that bitch’s—’

‘What does it matter who does it, as long as she’s dead?’ He shook his head. Sighed. ‘You can’t kill her yourself if you’re still stuck in here. And you can’t get out of here till she’s dead. Catch twenty-two. And for two grand, you can make it all go away.’ Len cocked an imaginary pump-action shotgun and shot the newsreader in the face. ‘Think about it.’

‘Yeah, because I’ve got two thousand pounds burning a hole in my pocket.’

‘… appeal to the media’s conscience to respect her family’s wish for privacy …’

Good luck with that.

‘Could always borrow it?’

‘That’s how I got into this mess in the first place.’

The door to the rec room thumped open and a hard voice cut across the TV. ‘Henderson!’

I turned, and there was Officer Babs. She jerked a thumb. ‘You got a visitor.’

A man in a brown leather jacket sauntered into the room, hands in his pockets. He was at least a head shorter than Babs, hairy, with thick sideburns.

He wandered over till he was standing between me and the television.

‘Here’s the sport now, with Bobby Thompson …’

Hairy Boy smiled. ‘Well, well, well, so you’re the ex-DC Henderson I’ve heard so much about?’ His accent was obviously Scottish, but indistinct, as if he didn’t really come from anywhere. ‘So … tell me about Graham Lumley and Jamie Smith.’

‘No comment.’

Officer Babs appeared at his shoulder, dwarfing him. ‘Detective Superintendent Jacobson is having a squint into what happened outside the laundry a fortnight ago. So don’t be a dick: cooperate.’

Yeah, right. ‘A full Detective Superintendent? Investigating a fight in a prison corridor? Are you not a bit overqualified?’

Jacobson tilted his head to one side, staring at me. Eyeing me up and down like he was about to ask me to dance. ‘Official report says you attacked the pair of them. Shouting and swearing and crying, like a … Hold on, let me get this right.’ He pulled out a small black police-issue notebook. Flipped it open. ‘“Like a big-Jessie escaped mental patient.” That Graham Lumley’s got a way with words, doesn’t he?’

Len crossed his arms across his big barrel chest. ‘Lumley and Smith are lying wankers.’

Jacobson turned a bright, shining smile in Len’s direction. ‘Lennox Murray, isn’t it? Ex head of Oldcastle CID. Eighteen years for the abduction, torture, and murder of one Philip Skinner. Thanks for playing along, but I’d like hear what Mr Henderson has to say. OK? Great.’

I copied Len, arms folded, legs crossed. ‘They’re lying wankers.’

Jacobson dragged a chair over, then sank into it. Scuffed it forwards a couple of feet till his knees were nearly touching mine. A chemical waft of Old Spice drifted out from him. ‘Ash … I can call you Ash, can’t I? Ash, the head psychologist here tells me you’ve got a self-destructive personality. That you sabotage yourself by picking a fight every time you come up for review.’

Give him nothing back but silence.

Jacobson shrugged. ‘Of course Dr Altringham strikes me as a bit of a tit, but there you go.’ He raised a finger, then pointed it over his shoulder in the general direction of the television. ‘Did you see the story about the nurse they found dead behind Blackwall Hill?’

‘What about her?’

‘Dead nurse. Dumped in the middle of nowhere. Ring any bells?’

I frowned at him. ‘You have any idea how many nurses go missing in Oldcastle every year? Poor sods should get danger pay.’

‘Smith and Lumley really did a number on you, didn’t they? Yeah, there’s the bruised cheek and the squint nose, but I’m guessing all the real bruising’s confined to the thighs and torso, right? Where it won’t show?’ Another shrug. ‘Unless you strip off, of course.’

‘I’m flattered, but you’re not my type.’

‘Claire Young: twenty-four, brunette, five seven and a half, about eleven stone three. Pretty, in a big-boned kind of way.’ He held his hands out, either side of his lap. ‘You know, childbearing hips?’

I looked over at Babs. ‘Ever fancy a career as a healthcare professional? Bet no one would dare jump you.’

She smiled back at me. ‘Might have to – cutbacks. They’re talking about voluntary redundancies.’

Jacobson stood. ‘I think I’d like to see Mr Henderson’s cell now.’

It wasn’t exactly a huge room – the set of bunk beds just fit and no more. You could reach out and touch the institution-grey walls on either side with a bit of a stretch. Small desk at the far end, a chair, a sink, and a sectioned off bit for the toilet. Officially large enough for two fully grown men to share for four years to life.

Or one fully grown man who really didn’t like having a cellmate. Funny how they all turned out to be so accident prone. Falling down and breaking things. Arms, legs, noses, testicles …

Officer Babs filled the doorway, arms folded, legs apart, face like a slab of granite as Jacobson stepped into the middle of the cell, hands out as if he was about to bless it.

‘Home sweet home.’ Then he turned and squeezed up close to the desk, leaning forward, peering at the single photograph Blu-Tacked to the wall above it: Rebecca and Katie on Aberdeen beach, grinning for the camera, the North Sea glowering in the background behind them. School jumpers on over orange swimsuits. Buckets and spades. Katie four, Rebecca nine.

Eleven years and two lifetimes ago.

His head dipped an inch. ‘I was sorry to hear about your daughters.’

Yeah, everyone always is.

‘Can’t have been easy – having to grieve for her while you’re stuck in here. Fitted up for your brother’s shooting. Getting the crap pounded out of you on a regular basis …’

‘There a point to this?’

He reached into his leather jacket and pulled out a copy of the Castle News and Post. Dumped it on the bottom bunk. ‘From last week.’

A photo filled most of the front page: a close-up of a chunky woman’s face, framed with ginger curls, a thick band of freckles across her nose and cheeks like Scottish war paint. A couple of photographers were reflected in her sunglasses, their flashes going. She had one hand up, as if she was trying to shield her face from the cameras, but hadn’t quite made it in time.

The headline stretched above the picture in big block capitals: ‘“CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!” BABY JOY ON THE WAY FOR INSIDE MAN VICTIM’.

Dear God, now there was a blast from the past.

I hooked my cane onto the bunk bed’s frame and sat on the mattress. Picked up the paper.

EXCLUSIVE

The Inside Man’s fifth victim, Laura Strachan (37), has some wonderful news. Eight years after she became the first woman ever to survive being attacked by the twisted sicko who killed four women and mutilated three more, plucky Laura is expecting her first baby.

Doctors thought there was no chance she’d be able to conceive after the injuries she received when the Inside Man cut her open and stitched a toy doll inside her stomach. A source at Castle Hill Infirmary said, ‘It is a miracle. There is no way she should have been able to carry a child to term. I am so pleased for her.’

Even better, it looks like the bundle of joy will be an early Christmas present for Laura and her husband Christopher Irvine (32).

Turn to Page 4 for full story

I turned to page four. ‘Thought she was all broken inside.’

‘You were on the original investigation.’

I skimmed the rest of the article. It was light on fact, padded out with lots of quotes from Laura Strachan’s friends and a competition to guess what the baby’s name would be. Nothing from Laura or the father-to-be. ‘They didn’t bother talking to the family?’

Jacobson settled back against the desk. ‘Her husband lamped the photographer, then threatened to shove the camera up the reporter’s backside.’

I folded the paper and placed it beside me. ‘Good for him.’

‘It took two years of corrective surgery and a monster lump of fertility treatment, but she’s seven and a bit months gone. Should be due last week of December. Some fine upstanding member of the press got hold of her medical records.’

‘Other than being a heart-warming story of triumph over adversity, I don’t see what this has to do with me.’

‘You let him go: the Inside Man.’

My back stiffened, hands curled into fists, knuckles aching. Spat the words out between gritted teeth. ‘Say that again.’

Officer Babs shook her head, voice low and warning. ‘Easy now …’

‘You were the last one to see him. You chased him, and you lost him.’

‘I didn’t exactly have any choice.’

The corners of Jacobson’s mouth twitched up. ‘It still eats you, doesn’t it?’

Laura Strachan grimaced at me from the front page of the paper.

I looked away. ‘No more than anyone else we couldn’t catch.’

‘He killed four women. Then Laura Strachan survives. Then Marie Jordan. And if you’d caught him when you had the chance … Well, you’re lucky he only mutilated one more woman before disappearing.’

Yeah, Lucky was my middle name.

Jacobson dug his hands into his armpits, rocked on his heels. ‘Ever wonder what the bastard’s been up to? Eight years and no one’s heard a peep. Where’s he been?’

‘Abroad, prison, or dead.’ I uncurled my fists, held them loose in my lap. The joints burned. ‘Look, are we finished? Only I’ve got things to do.’

‘Oh, you have no idea.’ Jacobson turned to Officer Babs. ‘I’ll take him. Get him tagged and his stuff packed up. We’ve got a car waiting outside.’

‘What?’

‘We’ve not made it official yet, but the paediatric nurse found dead yesterday had a My First Baby doll stitched into her innards. He’s back.’

My fists curled again.

5

A cold wind grabbed a handful of empty crisp packets and sent them dancing across the darkened car park, pickled onion and prawn cocktail performing an eightsome reel six inches above the tarmac, before disappearing into the night.

Jacobson led the way between rows of vehicles to a big black Range Rover with tinted windows. He opened the back door and gave a little bow. ‘Your carriage awaits.’

The radio was playing, a BBC-style received-pronunciation voice drifting out into the cold night air. ‘… siege enters its fourth day at Iglesia de la Azohia in La Azohia, Spain. Cartagena Police confirm that one hostage has been killed …’

I climbed inside and dumped the black-plastic bag containing pretty much everything I owned in the footwell. Paused for a quick scratch at the ankle monitor weighing down my left leg.

‘… by three armed men as worshippers held a candlelit vigil …’

A uniformed PC sat behind the wheel. His eyes flicked up to the rear-view mirror, checking me out as Jacobson scrambled into the passenger seat.

‘… bringing the death toll to six—’

Jacobson clicked the radio off. ‘Ash, this is Constable Cooper. He’s one of your lot. Hamish, say hello to Mr Henderson.’

The PC turned in his seat. Thin with a long hooked nose, hair cut so short it was more like designer stubble. He nodded. ‘Sir.’

Been a while since anyone had called me that. Even a sour-faced git like Cooper.

Jacobson pulled on his seatbelt. ‘Right, Ash, I’ll tell you what I told Hamish when they seconded him to us. I don’t care how much history you’ve got with your Oldcastle Police buddies, you report to me, no one else. I get so much as a whiff of you blabbing to any of them, and you’re going right back where I found you. This is not a jolly, this is not an opportunity for sabotage or personal glory, this is a team effort and by Christ you will take it seriously.’ A smile. ‘Welcome to Operation Tigerbalm.’ He reached across the gap between the two front seats and thumped Cooper on the shoulder. ‘Drive. And if I’m not there for eight, you’re screwed.’

The constable eased the Range Rover out of the prison car park and out onto the street. I swivelled around in my seat to watch the place disappear through the tinted rear windscreen. Out. Free. No more review meetings. No more random beatings.

No more bars.

So much for Len’s catch twenty-two.

My hands around her throat, squeezing …

I caught the grin: stopped it before it could spread. Settled back into my seat. ‘So, what, they’re reinstating me?’

Jacobson gave a half-laugh half-snort. ‘With your record? No chance – there isn’t a police division in Scotland that’d touch you with a stick. You’re out because you’re useful to me. Do well, help me catch the Inside Man, and I’ll make your release permanent. But any screwing up, any dicking about, any sign that you’re not giving one hundred and ten percent, and I will drop you like a radioactive jobbie.’

Lovely.

He popped open the glove compartment and pulled out a manila folder. Passed it back between the seats as Cooper took us around the roundabout onto a quiet country road with streetlights at the end of it, glittering in the darkness.

‘Conditions of release?’

‘Case file on Claire Young. Read it. I want you up to speed by the time we hit Oldcastle.’

Might as well. If playing along kept me out of prison for long enough to get my hands on Mrs Kerrigan …

I opened the folder. Inside was a list of statements and some crime-scene photos. ‘Where’s the post-mortem report? Identification Bureau stuff – physical evidence, fingerprints, DNA, that kind of thing?’

‘Ah. That’s a bit …’ He made a little circling gesture with his hand. ‘Complicated. For reasons of potential investigative bias, we’re not taking access to those.’

‘We’re not? Why? Are we thick?’

‘Just read the file.’ He faced forwards again, shoogled his shoulders from side to side against the seat, then reclined it a couple of notches. ‘And do it quietly. I’ve got a press conference when we get back: one of your idiot mates in Oldcastle blabbed to the Daily Record. I need my beauty sleep.’

The A90 rumbled beneath the Range Rover’s tyres, while Jacobson rumbled in the passenger seat, mouth hanging open, a little dribble of drool shining in the dashboard lights. PC Cooper kept his eyes front, hands at ten to two on the steering wheel. Mirror, signal, manoeuvre.

Behind us, the bright lights of Dundee faded away into the distance.

The crime-scene photos were all pin-sharp, caught in the flashlight glare: Claire Young lying on her back on a crumpled sheet, the sides folded in around her legs and chest. One arm was curled above her head as if she was just sleeping – but her eyes were open, staring blankly into the camera. Some swelling around the left side of her mouth. A bruise the size of a saucer spread out across her right cheek.

The left side of the sheet was crumpled back, exposing the pale nightdress beneath. Two lines of stains marred the fabric, like a lowercase letter ‘t’. A crucifix without the Jesus. Black, fringed with scarlet and yellow. The nightdress bumped beneath the stain, swollen and distorted by what was stitched inside. A close-up of her palm had what looked like bite marks in the middle of it, an arc of dark purple that curved from the middle finger to the base of the thumb. No blood.

I went back to the statement again.

A woman parks her car at the edge of Hunter’s Thicket, lets her Labrador out of the boot, and goes for a walk. She’s an insomniac, so it’s not that unusual for her to be out walking Franklin at three in the morning. That’s why she got the dog. Didn’t want some weirdo attacking her. Only Franklin runs off barking into the bushes and won’t come back. She wades in after him and finds him tugging at Claire Young’s outstretched palm.

She panics for a bit, then calls 999.

Claire Young’s mother isn’t much more help. Claire was a wonderful girl, everyone loved her, she was their world, lit up every room … Pretty much the same thing every bereaved parent said when their child turned up dead. No one ever complained about what a pain in the arse they were, or how they never did a bloody thing they were told. How they were sleeping with some bastard called Noah even though they weren’t even thirteen yet. How you never really knew them at all …

I blinked. Let out a long shuddering breath.

Put the statements down.

Then slid the whole lot back into the folder.

It looked like him. The cruciform scar, the doll stuffed inside, the body dump …

‘Cooper, how come there’s nothing in here about the abduction site?’

In the rear-view mirror, the constable’s eyes widened. ‘Shhhhh!’

‘Oh, don’t be such a big Jessie. Why’s there nothing in here about where he grabbed her from?’

Cooper’s voice hissed through, as if he was deflating. ‘I’m not waking the super up. Now sit still and shut up before you get us both into trouble.’

Oh for God’s sake. ‘Grow a pair.’

‘You think I don’t know who you are? Just because you chucked your career down the toilet, doesn’t mean—’

‘Fine.’ I picked up my walking stick, pressed the rubber tip against Jacobson’s shoulder and jabbed it a couple of times. ‘Wakey, wakey.’

‘Gnnnfff …?’

Another poke or two. ‘Why’s there nothing about the abduction site?’

Cooper found his voice again, only a whole octave higher than normal. ‘I tried to stop him, sir, I did, I told him not to disturb you.’

‘Nnngh …’ Jacobson rubbed his face with his hands. ‘Time is it?’

I poked him with the rubber end again and repeated the question.

He peered back between the seats at me, face all puffy and pink. ‘They haven’t found it yet, that’s why, now can I—’

‘One more question: who’s following us?’

His mouth hung open for a moment. Then he narrowed his bloodshot eyes and tilted his head to the side. ‘Following us?’

‘Three cars back. BMW – black, four-by-four. Been with us since Perth.’

He looked at Cooper. ‘Really?’

‘I … Er …’

‘Take the next right. That one: Happas.’

Mirror. Signal. Manoeuvre. Cooper pulled the Range Rover into the turning lane and we rolled to a halt. Waited for a gap in the Dundee-bound traffic. Then pulled smoothly across the dual carriageway and onto the country road. Trees hulked on either side of the potholed tarmac, jagged silhouettes in the darkness.

Jacobson peered back towards the rear windscreen. Then smiled. ‘That’s prison for you. Paranoia is …’ The smile faded. He faced front again. ‘Keep going.’

Through a patch of forest, the pines sharp and silent, then out into bare fields, cast grey and black in the light of a clouded moon. Stars twinkled in the gaps. Farm windows glowed like cats eyes off to either side.

Cooper cleared his throat. ‘They’re still there.’

I passed the folder back to Jacobson. ‘Of course they’re still there. Where else are they going to go? We’ve not had a turn-off yet.’

A thin band of trees loomed like a wall in front of the car, then past into more fields. We drove through farmland bordered by another line of pines, then Cooper took a left. The headlights behind us did the same. Then a hard right.

Through a tiny village, to the junction. Left at the primary school. And we were heading back towards the A90. Soon as we were through the limit end, Cooper put his foot down, the Range Rover’s engine bellowed, smearing the fields past the windows.

The car behind us did the same. Keeping pace as the needle crept up to eighty.

I clipped in my seatbelt. No offence to Cooper, but he looked about twelve years old. ‘Either whoever’s tailing us is really crap at it, or they don’t care if we see them or not.’

‘Hmm …’ Jacobson shoogled his shoulders in the seat again. Settling in. ‘In that case, it’s either those dicks from the Specialist Crime Division, or your halfwit Oldcastle mates. Keeping an eye on the competition.’

I checked back over my shoulder as we roared through the underpass, then left. The tyres screeched, the back end kicking out for a moment, then we surged up the slip road and onto the dual carriageway north again.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six …

The other vehicle’s headlights appeared behind us again, falling into place three cars back.

Specialist Crime Whatsits, Oldcastle CID, or something much, much worse.

Cooper pulled the Range Rover up to the kerb, opposite a boarded-up pub on the eastern fringes of Cowskillin – where it merged into Castle Hill.

No sign of the black BMW.

‘Right,’ Jacobson turned in his seat and pointed a hairy finger at me, ‘you go in there and you wait till I get back from this sodding press briefing. Remember, you’re on an investigative team now, not sharing a shower with some hairy-arsed rapist from Dunkeld. Try not to hit anyone.’

I clunked open the rear door and eased out onto the pavement. Bloody right foot ached, like the tip of a red-hot knife was being slowly driven through the bone. That’s what I got for sitting in the one position in a warm car for nearly two hours. The walking stick had to take a bit more weight than normal. ‘What makes you think I won’t just do a runner?’

He buzzed down his window and winked at me. ‘Honesty, integrity, and the fact that there’s a GPS locator built into your ankle tag.’ He popped open the glove compartment again and came out with a little plastic box fitted with an antenna. Pressed a button on the matt black surface. It bleeped. ‘There you go: all paired up. Now, if you try to tamper with the thing, or it registers a gap of more than one hundred yards between it and the one your sponsor’s wearing, all hell breaks loose.’

‘Sponsor?’

He chucked the remote into the glove compartment. ‘Go inside and all will be revealed.’

I closed the car door, limped away a couple of paces. Cooper indicated, pulled out from the kerb and drove off into the night. Leaving me all alone with my bin-bag. And my ankle monitor.

One hundred yards.

So what was to stop me going inside, battering my ‘sponsor’ unconscious, hotwiring a car, chucking him in the boot, and heading off to pay Mrs Kerrigan the kind of late-night visit that would’ve given Jeffrey Dahmer nightmares? They could send me back to prison for as long as they liked after that. Who’d care?

Not like I’d have anything left out here …

I creaked down and picked up the bin-bag, hoisted it over my shoulder.

The Postman’s Head nestled between a closed-down carpet place and a vacant bookshop with ‘FOR SALE OR LET’ signs in the window. Behind it, the granite blade of Castle Hill reared up into the dark-orange sky – winding Victorian streets lit by period lanterns, the remains of the castle at the top bathed in harsh white spotlights. From down here the ruins looked like a bottom jaw, ripped from its skull.

An old-fashioned wooden sign hung outside the pub – a severed head wearing a Postman-Pat-style hat. Sheets of plywood covered all of the windows. The paintwork was peeling off the door.

It sat opposite an abandoned building site, the chipboard barrier smeared with graffiti and warning notices. A sign with a faded artist’s impression of a block of flats: ‘LEAFYBROOK SHELTERED ACCOMMODATION OPENING 2008!’ The padlock and chain dripped rust smears down the painted wooden gates. Probably hadn’t been opened for years.

A spot of water landed on the back of my hand. Then another one. Not big drops, just tiny flecks. A prelude to drizzle. Can’t remember the last time I actually felt the rain on my face … I stared up into the sky. Clouds heavy and dark, reflecting the streetlights’ sodium glow, a faint mist of rain growing heavier with every passing second.

The wind got up too, whipping down the street, rattling the corrugated metal fence running down one side of the road, fluttering the ‘CONDEMNED ~ WARNING KEEP OUT!’ notices stuck to it. Creaking the postman’s severed head sign back and forth.

Sod this.

I hobbled across the road, grunting with every step, and tried the pub’s door. It opened onto a small airlock. Light came through a pair of frosted glass panels in the inner doors. I pushed through.

God knew when I was last in the Postman’s Head. Probably when we had to kick our way in to arrest Stanley-Knife Spencer. Took fifteen of us, six of whom spent the rest of the night in Accident and Emergency, getting their faces stitched back together.

Place was a hovel then and it was even worse now. Two walls were stripped to the bare brick, batons of wood bristling with rusty nail-heads – some of them still clutching little chunks of plasterboard. The scarred bar stretched the length of the room, dotted with stacks of paper, the pump handles sticking up at random angles. A small pile of tools – screwdrivers, spanners, a hammer – lay next to a delicate china mug with the Rangers logo on it.

Someone had heaped up most of the old wooden chairs and tables in the corner by a dead fruit machine, leaving a handful of them behind – arranged in a semicircle around a pair of easels. One held a whiteboard, the other a flipchart, both of which were covered in bullet-points and arrows.

Head-and-shoulder shots of all seven original victims were pinned up by the toilets. Above six of them was a grainy photocopy of a handwritten letter. No white on the sheets, just grey and gritty black. They’d been copied so often that the handwriting was fuzzy, the letters bleeding into each other. A shiny flatscreen TV was mounted above the cigarette machine, little drifts of plaster dust on the floor below.

No sign of anyone.

I dumped my bin-bag on the nearest table. ‘SHOP!’

A voice rolled up from somewhere behind the bar, thick and plummy. ‘Ah, perfect timing. Be a dear and pass me the adjustable spanner, would you?’

A dear?

I stepped up to the bar and picked the spanner from the pile of tools. Hefted it in my right hand, smacking it against the palm of my left. Good as anything for giving someone a concussion. Have to get to him first though.

I put my good foot on the metal rail and levered myself up. Peered over the edge of the bar into the space behind.

A long man lay on his back on the floor, crisp white shirt rolled up to his elbows, pink tie tucked into the gap between two buttons. Dust smudged the black pinstripe trousers, took some of the shine off the leather brogues. He raised a hairy gunmetal eyebrow at me – it went with the short-back-and-sides and military moustache. ‘You must be the ex-Detective Inspector we’ve heard so much about.’ He sat up and brushed his hands together, then held one of them out. ‘I believe you’re the chap who let the Inside Man get away?’

Cheeky bastard. I didn’t shake it, stuck my chin out instead, pulled my shoulders back. ‘I’ve not crippled anyone for days, you volunteering?’

‘Interesting …’ A smile. ‘They never said you were touchy. Tell me, were you always like this, or did losing your daughter to the Birthday Boy do it? Did you get worse every time another card plopped through the letterbox? Seeing him torture her to death, one photo at a time? Is that it?’

I tightened my grip on the spanner. Forced the words out through a clenched jaw, tendons tight in my neck. ‘You my sponsor?’

Please say yes. It was going to be a pleasure caving his head in.

6

‘Your sponsor?’ He laughed, letting it fade into a chuckle. ‘Oh, dear me, no. Tell me, ex-Detective Inspector, do you know anything about beer pumps?’

‘So who is?’

‘You see, I’ve never really had much to do with them before – more of a gin-and-tonic man myself – but I like to think I can turn my hand to anything. So, did you let him go on purpose, or was it just a bit of incompetence?’

Right, that was it.

And then a voice behind me: ‘Ash?’

Alice. She’d ditched the suit for a grey-and-black stripy top and black skinny jeans, a pair of bright red Converse trainers sticking out of the ends. A leather satchel, worn courier style, at her hip. Her curly brown hair, freed from its ponytail, bounced as she charged across the room and jumped at me. Wrapped her arms around my neck. Buried her face against my cheek. And squeezed. ‘Oh, God, I’ve missed you!’ Tears damp against my skin.

Her hair smelled of mandarins. Just like Katie’s used to …

Something clicked deep beneath my ribs. I closed my eyes and hugged her back. And whatever clicked, spread out across my chest, making it swell.

The git in the shirt and tie tutted. ‘You know, if you’re going to fornicate I’d really rather you didn’t do it here. Nip upstairs and I’ll get the video camera.’

Alice pulled her head back, grinned at me. ‘Ignore him, he’s only trying to get a reaction. Best bet is to let him get on with it till he bores himself.’ She planted a huge kiss on my cheek. ‘You look thinner. Do you want something to eat, I mean I could get something, like a takeaway, or we could go to a restaurant, oh no we can’t, Bear wants us to wait here till he gets back from the press conference, I’m so glad you’re out!’ All done in a single breath.

She gave me one last squeeze, then let go. Pointed at the guy behind the bar. ‘Ash, this is Professor Bernard Huntly, he’s our physical evidence man.’

Huntly stiffened. ‘Physical evidence guru, I think you’ll find.’

Her hand was warm against my cheek. ‘Are you OK?’

I spared Huntly a glare. ‘Getting there.’

He leaned on the bar. ‘Mr Henderson and I were just enjoying a robust philosophical exchange about his daughters and the Birthday Boy.’

Alice’s eyes went wide. Looked from Huntly to the spanner clenched in my fist, and back again. ‘Oh … No. That’s really not a good idea. Trust me, there’s—’

‘You never answered my question, Mr Henderson.’ The creases at the corners of his eyes deepened. ‘Why did you let the Inside Man get away?’

Alice prised the spanner from my hand and placed it on the bar. ‘Professor Huntly thinks being rude to people makes them reveal their true selves, I mean it’s nonsense of course, but he refuses to accept that reactions under stress aren’t indicative of our inner cognitive—’

‘Blah, blah, blah.’ Huntly disappeared back down behind the pumps again. ‘What’s your opinion of psychology, Mr Henderson? Airy fairy nonsense, or load of old bunkum?’

Bunkum?

Alice climbed onto a creaky barstool. Then pulled up the left leg of her jeans a couple of inches. A thick band of grey disappeared into a blocky plastic rectangle, about the same size as a pack of playing cards. My sponsor. ‘You’ll be staying with me, obviously, I mean it wouldn’t really work if you had to live on the other side of the city, what with the hundred-yards thing. I’ve got us a flat and it’s not great, but it’s OK and I’m sure we’ll be able to make it cosy …’

That complicated things a bit. No way I was going to crack her skull with a spanner. Why couldn’t it have been Huntly?

The breath hissed out of me, and my chin dropped an inch.

Probably for the best. Keep a low profile. Be a team player. At least until Mrs Kerrigan was sprawled in a lake of her own blood.

Alice patted the seat next to her. ‘Did Bear bring you up to speed on the details?’

‘Who the hell is “Bear”?’

A frown. ‘Detective Superintendent Jacobson. I thought you knew.’

Bear? Seriously?

Lunatics and idiots.

I sat. ‘He showed me the deposition scene photos and a couple of statements. Said we weren’t bothering with the post-mortem and forensic results.’

A clunk from behind the bar. ‘There we go, that should do it.’ Huntly stood, then placed a bucket underneath the middle pump. ‘Fingers crossed.’ He hauled on the handle and air hissed from the nozzle. ‘The press conference should be starting about now: the remote’s on the table if you want to do the honours?’

I picked the thing up from the table, pointed it at the TV, and thumbed the power.

The screen flickered, glowed blue for a second, then filled with a grim-faced woman in a tight blue suit. ‘… just as the school opened, leaving six dead and thirteen injured. Police marksmen fired on the gunman who is believed to be in a critical condition at Parkland Memorial Hospital …’

Huntly gave another haul on the pump and water sprayed into the bucket. ‘Success. Now all we need to do is clean out the pipes and get a barrel hooked up.’

‘… candlelit vigil on Wednesday. Glasgow now, and the hunt is on for three men who abducted and raped paralympian Colin …’

Alice swivelled her seat from side to side. ‘I still don’t understand why they didn’t take you with them?’

He stiffened for a moment. Then untucked his tie. ‘Mr Henderson, there’s a very good reason why we’re not using the operation’s forensic and post-mortem results: investigative bias. It’s our job to remain objective, independent, and unsullied by operational preconceptions. I would’ve thought that was obvious.’

I smiled at him. ‘Let me guess, you’re not allowed in front of the press, in case you come off as a pompous, arrogant, condescending arsebag?’

‘… are appealing for witnesses.’

‘There are three Major Investigation Teams attacking the Inside Man problem. One from Oldcastle Division, one from the Specialist Crime Division. And we,’ he swept a hand across the bar, indicating the mothballed pub, ‘are the Lateral Investigative and Review Unit.’

‘… in Oldcastle today. Ross Amey is there for us now. Ross?’

A big man with long hair and a microphone appeared on the TV, the sign outside Oldcastle Force Headquarters just out of focus behind him in the dark. ‘Thank you, Jennifer. They call him “the Inside Man” …’

‘Seriously? Three separate investigations?’

‘Au contraire, Mr Henderson. Things have changed since you went inside to pleasure Her Majesty – there is no Oldcastle Police Force, there is only Police Scotland. Technically all the MITs are supposed to work together, but in real life Operation Tigerbalm is one big bun-fight between Oldcastle and the Specialist Crime Division to see who has the largest penis. Look on it as the joy of being all one big happy family now.’

‘… discovery of a woman’s body last night by ambulance services.’

‘And you lot?’

‘No, not “you lot”, Mr Henderson, “us”, “we”. You’re part of the team now.’

‘Whether I like it or not.’

A lopsided shrug. Then Huntly pointed at the TV. ‘Behold: the lies begin.’

The screen filled with a long desk. An array of officers – some in their dress uniforms, the others in suits – sat ramrod-stiff behind it. The only one with all their own hair was a woman, blonde curls raked back from her forehead, what looked like a permanent frown tattooed on her face. A caption flickered beneath her chin: ‘DETECTIVE SUPERINTENDENT ELIZABETH NESS, OLDCASTLE CID’.

She cleared her throat. ‘First I have to say that our thoughts and prayers are with Claire Young’s family at this harrowing time. They’ve asked me to read you the following statement. “Claire was a sparkling person whose loss will haunt us forever …”’

Alice wrapped her arm around herself, one hand fiddling with her hair, eyes fixed on the TV. ‘Have you worked with Detective Superintendent Ness before, I mean is she going to be someone that’s receptive to input from other—’

‘No idea. Must be new.’

‘“… ask that you allow us the time and space to grieve for our beautiful Claire …”’

The pub’s inner door clunked open and a thickset woman in a vast padded jacket staggered in, laden down with pizza boxes. She had a woolly hat jammed down over her ears, face half-hidden by a knitted scarf. A plastic carrier-bag hung from one hand, swaying from side to side as she heeled the door shut behind her. ‘Did I miss it?’

Huntly pulled a pinstriped jacket from the back of a chair and slipped it on, completing the suit. ‘Statement from the family.’

Onscreen, Ness swapped one prepared statement for another. ‘Three twenty-three yesterday morning, an ambulance responded to a nine-nine-nine call near Blackwall Hill …’

The woman in the padded jacket lurched across the room, the contents of her carrier-bag clinking against her leg. ‘It’s OK, I don’t need any help …’

‘Sheila, my dearest lady, allow me to assist.’ Huntly took the top box off the stack and carried it over to the bar. Popped it open. The heady scent of garlic, onions, and tomato fluttered out, swirling through the air like trapped starlings. His shoulders dipped a notch. ‘Oh. This one’s vegetarian.’ Then he shut the box again.

‘… pronounced dead at the scene. That’s all I’m able to say at the moment, other than investigations are ongoing with assistance from our colleagues in the Specialist Crime Division and a team of independent experts.’

Alice reached across and slid it down the bar towards herself. ‘Thank you, Doctor.’

Sheila lowered the remaining pizza boxes onto one of the tables and hauled off her gloves. Slipped her hands in between two of the cartons. ‘God, it’s perishing out there …’ A shiver. The scarf drooped, revealing a pair of round shiny cheeks and a small button nose. Then she stuck a hand out at me. ‘Sheila Constantine, pathologist; you must be Henderson. Welcome aboard. You owe me twelve pounds sixty-three.’ She turned a scowl in Huntly’s direction. ‘Everyone owes me twelve pounds sixty-three.’

‘… will now take questions.’ Ness pointed at someone off camera. ‘Yes?’

A man’s voice: ‘Are you treating this as a copycat case, or is the Inside Man back again?’

Huntly opened the next box in the stack. ‘Are these all vegetarian? Because I specifically asked for a meat feast.’

Sheila struggled her way out of her coat. ‘That’s enough about your private life, Bernard, we’re about to eat. And before you ask: no, I won’t take an IOU this time.’

‘… not willing to be drawn into speculation about who’s responsible before we’ve investigated …’

I stuck my hand in my pocket. Looked at the boxes, then at Alice, then at the boxes again.

A little line appeared between her eyebrows. She nodded. ‘I’ll pay for Ash, as I’m his sponsor, or maybe we should all chip in as a sort of welcome to the team and—’

‘Ah, yes of course.’ Huntly slapped a hand against his forehead. ‘Mr Henderson is just out of prison. He’s financially embarrassed. How very insensitive of you, Sheila. We shouldn’t be speaking of money at a time like this!’

‘Detective Superintendent, who’s running the investigation here, you or Superintendent Knight? Doesn’t the Scottish Chief Constable trust Oldcastle to—’

‘It’s standard operating procedure to have multiple Major Investigation Teams working together on a case like this, and I for one welcome any assistance offered when young women’s lives are at stake. Do you think we should refuse SCD’s help out of some twisted sense of pride?’

‘I … Well, no, but—’

‘I will pursue and exploit every avenue available to me if I think it will help catch the person responsible for Claire Young’s death. Next?’

Huntly moved on to another pizza. ‘Ah, finally. Something with salami on it.’ He dumped the box on one of the pub tables and settled into a chair. He pulled a triangle of dough, cheese, and greasy meat from the carton and pointed at Ness with it. ‘Good, isn’t she? Promoted and transferred up from Tayside. Giving the local bumpkins a shake-up by all accounts.’ He stuffed a mouthful in and chewed. Eating with his eyes fixed on the screen. Then dabbed at the corner of his lips with a handkerchief. ‘I did a case with her, back when she was a DS. Serial rape, very nasty … You wouldn’t think it, but she’s quite the femme fatale when she’s not wearing her game face.’

‘Has the Inside Man sent another letter?’

‘Let me repeat myself: we’re not speculating about who’s responsible. Next?’

‘Yes, but has a letter—’

‘Next?’

Dr Constantine pulled out a chair and sank into it. The thick layers of her padded jacket ballooned out around her. ‘I’ve checked with Ness and Knight – we can have the deposition scene first thing tomorrow morning, and the body any time after two.’

‘What kind of doll was it?’

‘We’re not releasing that information. Next?’

Huntly took another bite. ‘When do I get at the physical evidence?’

Sheila scowled at him. ‘Not till you pay for that pizza.’

‘Oh for goodness’ sake …’

‘Was it a Tiny Tears, or a Baby Bunty doll?’

‘I’ve already answered that question. Next?’

‘These independent experts, do they report to you, or SCD?’

Ness looked off to the side. ‘Detective Superintendent Jacobson?’

‘Ah.’ Huntly plucked the remote from my fingers. ‘Here we go.’ He turned up the volume.

The briefing room smeared across the screen as the camera turned, and there was Jacobson, standing off to the side, staring out into the pub. He’d put on a brown tie, but hadn’t bothered with a suit, sticking with the tan leather jacket instead. ‘My team are all at the very top of their field, each one hand-picked for their ability to bring decades of experience and a unique perspective to any case.’

A moment’s silence. Then whoever asked the question in the first place tried again. ‘Yes, but do you report to Oldcastle CID, or the Specialist Crime Division?’

‘An excellent question.’

More silence.

‘Er … Would you like to answer it?’

‘The Lateral Investigative and Review Unit will feed its results, through me, to whichever Major Investigation Team is best suited to act upon them.’

Alice sooked the grease from her fingers. ‘And now everyone thinks we’re in charge.’

Sheila nodded. ‘You were right. Good suggestion.’ The camera swung back for a reaction shot from the top brass: cue coughing and spluttering.

Then Ness pulled on a hard smile. ‘Having worked with Detective Superintendent Jacobson on several investigations, I’m pleased to welcome his LIRU team onboard.’

The Superintendent sitting next to her stuck his chest out. It was covered in silver buttons, a row of multi-coloured ribbons above his left pocket: Golden Jubilee medal, Diamond Jubilee, and a Long Service & Good Conduct. All of them awarded for nothing braver than just being in the job long enough, but there he was, wearing them with pride. That would be Superintendent Knight, then. He jerked his chin up, the strip-lights flashed off his bald head. ‘The Specialist Crime Division is also pleased to work with Detective Superintendent Jacobson’s team.’

Ness knocked on the tabletop, taking control of the briefing again. ‘Next question?’

Huntly jabbed the remote at the screen and the volume ticked down until it was barely more than a mumble. ‘Excellent. That’ll put the felis catus amongst the columba palumbus. Deserves a celebratory drink, don’t you think, Sheila?’

A sigh. Then she reached into the carrier-bag and came out with a bottle of red wine and one of white. ‘That’s an extra fiver each.’

Huntly jumped up and produced a half-dozen dusty glasses from behind the bar. Huffed a breath into each, then polished them with his pink tie. Lined them up on the bar.

Sheila handed me a pizza box, the DinoPizza’s T-Rex logo speckled dark with grease. ‘Don’t worry about the money. I’ll get yours off Bear. Now, would you like a glass of wine?’

‘Can’t: pills. But thanks.’ I opened the box. Mushrooms, ham, sweetcorn, and pineapple. Still, it could have been worse.

Huntly clapped his hands. ‘That just means more for us!’

Tiny white dots curled into the pub airlock as I stepped outside and thumbed Detective Inspector Dave Morrow’s number into Alice’s mobile phone. I pressed the green button and listened to it ring, breath billowing out in a pale grey cloud where it caught the streetlight. Say what you like about prison, at least they keep the place relatively warm …

A rough voice crackled out of the earpiece. Slightly breathy and clipped. ‘Alice, this … this really isn’t a good time.’

‘Shifty, it’s me. You OK?’

A pause. ‘Bloody hell, she actually did it. When did you get out?’

‘Couple of hours ago. I’m going to need a favour.’

He sniffed. ‘You know I’d have done Mrs Kerrigan if I could, right?’

‘I know.’

‘Last thing I need is Andy Inglis coming after me. Specially with the Rubber Heelers on a mission. Otherwise she’d be the filling in a shallow-grave buttie …’

I stepped out into the evening chill, taking a few lumbering steps away from the pub door. Glanced back to make sure no one was listening. ‘Tonight: you, me, gun, her. Better get some petrol and a couple of shovels too.’

A pause. ‘Ash, you know I’d—’

‘You’re wimping out?’

‘Am I buggery. You know what Andy Inglis is going to do when he finds out you’ve topped her though, don’t you?’

‘He’s not going to find out.’

‘Oh come on. You get out of prison and the very same night she gets shot in the face? How long’s that going to take him to work out?’

True.

Another couple of paces, looking up at the billboard on the other side of the road with its never-to-be-built retirement home. ‘So I don’t hang around afterwards. I kill her, we burn the body, and I get out of Oldcastle. Hop a boat to Norway. You still friends with that fish guy in Fraserburgh?’

‘Passport up to date, is it? Cos I kinda get the feeling the Border Agency will be keeping an eye out for you.’

A clunk behind me. I turned and there was Dr Constantine, all bundled up in her padded jacket, a cigarette clamped between her jaws. She sparked it from a lighter, then waved.

I waved back. Pointed at the phone against my ear. Turned away. ‘What about Biro Billy?’

A sigh. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Detective Superintendent Jacobson shrugged his way out of his leather jacket. A thin dusting of white flakes clung to the shoulders and the top of his head, melting away in the warmth of the defunct pub. He hung the jacket on the back of a chair. ‘Well?’

Huntly swept his arms out, as if he was going to hug him. ‘You were magnificent!’

‘Don’t push it, Bernard, you’re still in my bad books after this morning.’

‘Oh …’ He dropped his arms.

‘Any pizza left?’ Jacobson crossed to the bar, opening and closing the grease-speckled boxes. ‘Crusts, crusts, crusts …’

Sheila pointed to the stack of chairs and tables in the corner. ‘I hid yours over there, so the human waste-disposal-unit couldn’t find it. It’ll be cold though.’

He pulled out the box, opened it, scooped out a slice and shoved one end in his mouth. Closed his eyes and chewed. ‘Ahh … That’s better. They never put on anything decent at press conferences any more. It’s all bottled water and horrible coffee. What’s wrong with a plate of sandwiches?’

Huntly poured red wine into a tie-polished glass. ‘Speaking of the press conference …’ He cleared his throat. ‘Was Donald there?’

Sitting back in her seat, Sheila groaned. ‘Not this again.’

He stiffened. ‘There’s no need to be like that.’

She put on a posh plummy accent. ‘Was Donald there? Did he ask about me? Did he look like he’d been crying? Has he put on weight? Is he seeing someone?’

‘There’s no need to be homophobic.’

‘I’m not homophobic, I’m grown-men-acting-like-jilted-teenage-girls-ophobic. And you still owe me seventeen pounds sixty-three.’

Jacobson took the glass of red and wolfed half of it down in one go. ‘Donald wasn’t there. Superintendent Knight’s put him in charge of finding out which of Ash’s ex-colleagues tipped off the press about the Inside Man killing Claire Young.’

Bet that went down well. Some tosser, from another division, investigating Oldcastle CID for misconduct? They’d have closed ranks so fast you could hear the sonic boom in Dundee.

The rest of Jacobson’s wine disappeared down his throat. He held the glass out for Huntly to refill. ‘I had a chat with a couple of guys from uniform. Seems Claire set off for work at seven fifteen on Thursday night, and never turned up. Her flatmates reported her missing Friday afternoon when she didn’t come home. The geniuses at Oldcastle Division only took it seriously when Claire’s body turned up yesterday morning.’ He took a sip, swooshing the red back and forth through his teeth, then nodded in my direction. ‘That’s going to look great when the papers find out.’

I crossed my arms, staring at him. ‘Why me?’

‘Why you, what?’

‘If Oldcastle CID’s full of corrupt morons, why am I here?’

He smiled. ‘Now that’s an excellent question.’

But he didn’t bloody answer it.

7

We stopped off at the twenty-four hour Tesco in Logansferry, Alice scurrying away into the aisles to buy breakfast supplies while I headed for the electronics bit. One dirt-cheap mobile handset and three pay-as-you-go sim cards. All paid for out of the hundred-quid sub I’d got from Jacobson.

On the other side of the checkouts I dumped the phone’s packaging in the bin and tore open the cardboard and plastic entombing one of the sim cards. Popped it in. Clicked the cover back on. Powered it up and punched in Shifty’s number.

Listened to it ring as I limped out into the car park.

The snow hadn’t come to anything more than a thin crust of ice on the windscreens and a sheen of water on the salted tarmac.

A suspicious-sounding voice came on the line. ‘Hello? Who is this?’

‘How you getting on with that gun?’

‘God’s sake, Ash, I’m on it, OK? Give us a chance – not like I can just waltz down to the nearest ASDA and pick one up, is it?’

‘We’re going to need a car too. Something flammable.’

Silence.

‘Shifty? Hello?’ Only just bought the damn phone and already it was—

‘What do you think I’ve been doing while you’ve been sodding about with your new mates? Got us a Mondeo. One careful owner, who’s got no idea it’s missing.’

Ah … ‘Sorry. It’s …’ I rubbed a hand across my chin, making the stubble scratch. ‘Been a while, you know?’

‘This isn’t my first rodeo, Ash. We’ll be fine. Trust me.’

Alice struggled half a dozen carrier-bags from the back seat of the tiny red Suzuki four-by-four. The thing had a big dent in the passenger-side door and looked more like a kid’s drawing of a car than an actual real-life vehicle. Drove much the same way too. She’d parked it beneath one of the three working streetlights, between a rusty white transit and a sagging Volvo. ‘Mmmnnnffffnngh?’ She nodded at the Suzuki, the keys dangling from the leather fob gripped in her teeth.

‘Yeah, no problem.’ I got the last of the shopping, and the bin-bag they’d given me when I left prison, then took the keys from between her teeth and plipped the locks.

‘Thanks.’ Her breath streamed out in a thin line of mist. ‘We’re just there.’ She nodded towards a front door two-thirds of the way down the terrace.

I shifted the bags from one hand to the other. Leaned on my cane.

Ladburn Street had probably been attractive once – a cobbled road lined with tall trees and cast-iron railings. A sweeping row of proud sandstone homes with porticoes and bay windows …

Now the trees were blackened stumps, surrounded by litter and vitrified dog shit. The houses all converted into flats.

Three buildings on this side were boarded up; four on the other, their gardens thick with weeds. Rock music belted out of somewhere down the row, a screaming argument a few doors up. Sandstone turned the colour of old blood. Railings blistered with rust.

Alice shifted from foot to foot. ‘I know it’s disappointing, I mean let’s be honest it’s not far off being a slum, but it was cheap and it’s pretty anonymous and we can’t stay with Aunty Jan because they’re having all the wiring ripped out and—’

‘It’s fine.’

Her nose was going red. ‘I’m sorry, I know Kingsmeath’s not great, but it’s only temporary and I didn’t think you’d want to stay in the hotel with Professor Huntly, and Bear, and Dr Constantine, and Dr Docherty, and—’

‘Seriously, it’s OK.’ Something scrunched beneath my shoes as I limped up the path towards the house. Broken glass, children’s teeth, small animal bones … Around here, anything was possible.

‘Right. Yes.’ She lumbered along beside me, the bags banging against her legs. ‘You see, a lot of people think Kingsmeath was thrown up in the seventies, that it’s one big council estate, but there’s bits of it go back to the eighteen-hundreds, actually, until the cholera outbreak in 1826, this would have been all sugar barons, of course the whole industry ran on slave labour plantations in the Caribbean, and can you get the lock, it’s the Yale key.’

I leaned my cane against the wall, picked my way through the keys. ‘This one?’

‘No, the one with the red plastic bit. That’s it. We’re on the top floor.’

I pushed through into a dim hallway that had the eye-nipping reek of a pub urinal. A small drift of leaflets, charity letters and takeaway menus spread across the cracked tiles from behind the door. ‘CAMMYS A WANKA!!!’ scrawled in magic marker on the peeling mildewed walls.

Not far off being a slum?

The stairs creaked beneath my feet all the way up to the third floor, walking cane thudding on the mangy carpet.

Alice dumped her carrier-bags on the floor and took the keys back, working them through her fingers like a string of rosary beads. Then undid each of the door’s four security locks – their brass casings all shiny and un-scratched. Newly fitted.

She tried on a smile. ‘Like I said, it’s not exactly great …’

‘It’s got to be better than where I’ve been for the last two years.’

Then she opened the door and flicked on the light.

Bare floorboards stretched away down a short corridor, lined with gripper rod, little tufts of blue nylon marking where the carpet had been, exposing a dark brown stain that was about eight pints wide. A single bare lightbulb hung from a flex in the ceiling – surrounded by coffee-coloured blotches. It smelled meaty, like a butcher’s shop.

Alice ushered me inside, then closed the door behind us, locking and snibbing each of the deadbolts. ‘Right, time for the tour …’

There wasn’t enough room for both of us in the kitchen, so I stood on the threshold while Alice clattered and clinked her way through making a pot of tea for two. Cardboard boxes formed a wobbly pile next to the bin – one for the toaster, one for the kettle, another for the teapot, cutlery …

She unpacked two mugs from a box and rinsed them under the tap. ‘So, is there anything you want to do tonight, I mean we could go to the pub or the pictures, only it’s a bit late for the pictures, unless they’re doing a late-night showing of something, or there’s some DVDs I could put in the laptop, or we could just read books?’

After two years of being stuck inside, in a little concrete room with the occasional accident-prone cellmate, there should’ve been no contest. ‘Actually … I’d rather stay in. If that’s OK?’

The living room wasn’t exactly huge, but it was clean. Two folding chairs – the kind sold in camping shops – sat on either side of a packing crate in front of the fireplace. She hadn’t taken the price-tag off the rug, leaving it to flutter like an injured bird in the draught of a small blow heater.

The curtains were a washed-out blue colour that still wore the chequerboard creases from when they were in the packet. I pulled one side back.

Kingsmeath. Again. As if last time hadn’t been bad enough.

Mind you, it didn’t look quite as awful in the dark, just a sweeping ribbon of streetlights and glowing windows stretching down to the Kings River – the train station on the other side of the water shining like a vast glass slug. Even the industrial estate in Logansferry had a sort of fairy-tale mystery to it. Security lights and illuminated signs. Chain-link fences and guard dogs.

To be honest, most of Oldcastle looked better at night.

And then a trail of gold streaked into the sky. One … Two … Three … BANG – a glowing sphere of red embers punctured the night sky, throwing a pair of gravestone tower blocks into sharp relief, washing them with blood.

It slowly drained away until everything was in darkness again.

Alice appeared at my shoulder. ‘They’ve been letting them off for a fortnight. I mean don’t get me wrong I love fireworks as much as the next person, but it’s nearly a whole week after bonfire night and soon as the sun goes down it’s like Beirut out there.’

Another firework burst in a shower of blue and green. The change of colour didn’t improve anything.

She handed me a cup of tea. ‘You know, it might help to talk about what happened to Katie and Parker, now you’re not inside, because you’re safe here and you don’t have to worry about being recorded or people—’

‘Tell me about Claire Young.’

Alice closed her mouth. Bit her lips together. Then sank into one of the folding chairs. ‘Her mother blames herself. We’re not making it public, but she’s on suicide watch. Tried it twice before, apparently and—’

‘No, not her mother: Claire.’

‘OK. Claire.’ Alice crossed her legs. ‘Well, she’s definitely in the target range of the previous Inside Man victims – nurse, mid-twenties, very … fertile looking.’

The tea was hot and sweet, as if Alice thought I was suffering from shock. ‘So if it is him he’s still hunting at the hospital. Security tapes?’

‘Claire didn’t go missing from work. As far as we can tell, she never made it further than Horton Road. With any luck they’ll let us have the security camera footage from the area tomorrow.’

I turned back to the window. Another baleful red eye exploded over the tower blocks. ‘Is it him?’

‘Ah …’ Pause. ‘Well, that really depends on what happens tomorrow. Detective Superintendent Ness thinks it isn’t. Superintendent Knight thinks it is. Bear’s sitting on the fence till we’ve had a chance to examine the body and the physical evidence.’

‘That why we’re here: to decide if he’s back or not?’

‘No, we’re here because Detective Superintendent Jacobson is empire-building. He wants the Lateral Investigative and Review Unit to be a full-time thing. This is his test case.’

I pulled the curtains closed. Turned my back on the world.

‘So … What DVDs have you got?’

‘No, you listen to me: we’re going to fight this!’ She stops, shifts her grip on the holdall, and stares up at the dark-grey ceiling. Her hair’s like burnished copper, a dusting of freckles a cross her cheeks and nose. Pretty.

A fluorescent tube clicks and pings above her head, never quite getting going, making strobe-light shadows that jitter around the underground car park.

No place for a woman to be walking alone in the middle of the night. Who knows what kind of monsters might be lurking in the shadows?

Her breath plumes around her head. ‘We won’t let them compromise patient care to save a few grubby pounds.’

Yeah, right. Because that’s how it works.

Whoever’s on the other end of the phone says something, and she stops for a moment, surrounded by manky vehicles, parked in miserable rows of dents and chipped paint. Raises her chin. ‘No, that’s completely unacceptable.’

That’s when the music starts – violins, low and slow, marking time with her footsteps as she walks towards her car: an ancient Renault Clio with one wing a different colour to the others. ‘Don’t you worry, we’ll make them rue the day they decided people didn’t deserve their dignity. We’ll …’

A crease puckers the gap between her neatly plucked brows. Her eyes are bright sapphire, set in a ring of ocean-blue.

There’s something wrong with the passenger window of her car. Instead of being opaque with dried road spray, it’s a gaping black hole, ringed with little cubes of broken safety glass.

She peers inside. All that’s left of the stereo is a handful of multi-coloured wires, poking out of the hole where it used to be.

‘For goodness’ sake!’ The phone gets clacked shut and stuffed back into her pocket. Then she stomps round to the Renault’s boot and hurls her holdall inside.

Footsteps sound somewhere behind her, echoing back and forth as she stands there trembling and spiky. Some other underpaid nobody, making for their crappy car so they can go back to their crappy flat after a crappy day at their crappy job.

The violins get darker, joined by a minor chord on the piano.

She roots through her handbag, then pulls out a jangling mass of keys more suited to a prison officer than a nurse. They fumble through her fingers and tumble to the damp concrete. Cling-clatter their way under the car.

The footsteps are louder now.

She thumps her handbag on the bonnet and squats down, reaching into the oily blackness beneath the patchwork Clio, searching, searching …

The footsteps stop, right behind her.

Dramatic chord on the piano.

She freezes, car keys just out of reach.

Whoever it is clears his throat.

She lunges for the keys, grabs them, holds them jagged between her fingers like a knuckle duster, then spins around, back against the driver’s door …

A man frowns down at her, with his big rectangular face and designer stubble. ‘Are you all right?’ He’s wearing a set of pale-blue nurses’ scrubs, his top pocket full of pens. Castle Hill Infirmary ID tag hanging at a jaunty angle. Broad-shouldered. His blond hair, gelled into spikes, glints in the buzzing strip-light. Like something off Baywatch.

The grimace dies on her face, replaced by a small smile. She rolls her eyes, then sticks out her hand so he can help her up. ‘Steve, you frightened the life out of me.’

‘Sorry about that.’ He looks away, deeper into the fusty gloom, eyebrows knitting. ‘Listen, about this meeting tomorrow: Audit Scotland.’

‘My mind’s made up.’ Laura picks through her keys, then unlocks the car door.

Seems like a waste of time, when she could reach in through the broken passenger window and open the thing, but there you go.

‘I want you to know that we’re all behind you, one hundred percent.’ He doesn’t just look like something off Baywatch, he sounds like it too.

‘Thanks, Steve, I appreciate that.’ She brushes broken glass from the driver’s seat, and climbs in.

Steve pulls his shoulders back, chest out. ‘If there’s anything you need: I’m here for you, Laura.’

For God’s sake, who actually talks like that?

‘They’ll have to give us more staff. Decent equipment. Cleaners that actually clean things instead of moving the filth around. And I’m not going to give up until they do.’

He nods. Poses for a second more. ‘I’d better get back. These sick people aren’t going to heal themselves.’ He turns and struts away into the shadows, shoulders swinging like John Travolta.

Brilliant. Oscar-winning stuff.

Laura jiggles the keys in the ignition and cranks the Renault’s engine into life. Then she pulls on her seatbelt, checks the rear-view mirror and—

She screams.

A pair of dark eyes glitter back at her from the rear seat, staring.

It’s a big blue teddy bear, wearing a red bow around its neck, cradling an oversized card with ‘HAPPY 6TH BIRTHDAY!’ on it.

The air hisses out of her as she slumps back in her seat, arms loose in her lap.

Jumping like a frightened schoolgirl; it’s a sodding teddy bear, not Jack the Ripper.

Idiot.

Then someone knocks on the car roof and the pale blue of a nurse’s scrubs fills the driver’s side window. Probably Steve, back to mangle some more dialogue.

She presses the button and lowers her window. ‘Can I help—’

A fist slams into the camera and the screen goes dark.

Alice hit pause. ‘I’m going to make another pot of tea, do you want some, or there’s juice, and I got biscuits too, do you like custard creams or jammie dodgers, stupid question really, who doesn’t love jammie—’

‘Surprise me.’

She nodded, collected the teapot and headed off to the kitchen.

The DVD case lay on the makeshift coffee table, beside her laptop: ‘WRAPPED IN DARKNESS ~ ONE WOMAN’S JOURNEY TO HELL AND BACK!’ The subtitle was about as melodramatic as the reconstruction.

Obviously the director really wanted to make a feature film of the story, but didn’t have the budget, or talent, to pull it off.

OK, so he’d got the idea more or less right, but the details? If Laura Strachan and her mate Steve had actually talked like that the day she went missing I’d eat my chair.

I fast-forwarded through some beardy type talking in front of a whiteboard while the kettle rumbled in the kitchen. Never trust a man with a beard – sinister devious bastards the lot of them.

Army ants marched in a line around the top of my left sock.

Bloody thing. I pulled my trouser leg up and raked my nails back and forward along the lip of the ankle monitor, scrabbling at the plastic edge. Blessed relief.

Alice emerged from the kitchen with the teapot and a plate of assorted biscuits. ‘You shouldn’t scratch it, I mean what if you break the skin and it gets all infected and then—’

‘It’s itchy.’ I pressed play again.

Laura Strachan – the real one, not the actress playing her in the reconstruction – has her hands dug deep into her pockets, the wind whipping her curly auburn hair out behind her, ruffling the ankle-length coat as she picks her way along the battlements of the castle. She pauses, looking down the cliff, across Kings River towards Montgomery Park and Blackwall Hill beyond. Sunlight glints on the broad curve of water, turns the firework trees into explosions of amber and scarlet.

Her voice comes in over the background music, even though her lips don’t move.

‘From the moment I was attacked, to the moment I woke up in Intensive Care, everything was a blur. Some fragments are clearer than others, some just … it was like peering into the bottom of a well, with something sharp glinting at the bottom. Sharp and dangerous.’

She leans on the battlement peering down. Then the camera switches so it’s looking back up at her.

The scene jumps to a bright white room, lined with what looks like clear plastic sheeting. It’s hard to tell – they’ve sodded about with the picture, making the highlights stretch vertically across the screen, as if everything’s in the process of being beamed up. The room throbs in and out, then lurches to one side until a large stainless-steel trolley sits in the middle of the shot, with the younger, prettier, actress version of Laura lying on it. Her hands and feet are tied to the trolley’s legs, two more bands of rope – one across her chest, under her armpits, the other across her thighs – hold her tight. Naked, except for a pair of strategically placed towels.

‘I remember the smell, more than anything else. It was like detergent and bleach, and something … a bit like hot plastic? And there was classical music playing.’

Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata fades up.

‘And he …’ Her voice breaks. A pause. ‘He was wearing a white apron, on over … Over … It might have been surgical scrubs. I can’t … It was all so blurred.’

A man walks into shot, dressed exactly like Laura described him. His mouth is hidden behind a surgical mask, the rest of his face blurred – reduced to an unrecognizable mess by the video effect.

Then a close-up of a syringe, the needle huge as it moves towards the camera. Fade to black. Then we’re in what looks like a private hospital room.

‘The next thing I know, it’s four days later and I’m lying on a bed in intensive care. And I’m choking on the ventilator, and I’m wired up to half-a-dozen monitors, and this nurse is running around screaming that I’m awake.’

Alice poured the tea.

‘All my life, ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to have babies. A family of my own to love and cherish the way my father never did for me.’

I helped myself to a custard cream.

‘But the doctors said it wasn’t possible any more. The Inside Man took it away from me when he … When he ripped me open.’

Cut to a posh-looking office, lined in wood, with a heap of framed certificates on the wall. A thin balding man sits behind a big oak desk. He’s wearing a dark-blue suit and a bright-red tie. A caption scrolls across the bottom of the screen: ‘CHARLES DALLAS-MACALPINE, SENIOR CONSULTANT SURGEON, CASTLE HILL INFIRMARY’.

His voice is all public school pomp and barely concealed sneer. ‘Of course, when Laura came to me her insides were a mess. It’s a miracle she didn’t exsanguinate in the ambulance.’ A tight-lipped smile. ‘That means, “bleed to death”.’

Really? Wow, hark at him with his posh-boy big words.

‘Luckily, she’d had the good fortune to be on my operating table. Otherwise—’

Three short thumps broke in on Dr Patronizing’s monologue.

Front door.

Alice flinched. ‘Are you expecting someone, because I don’t—’

‘I’ll get it.’

‘—shudder to think. You see, her uterus was—’

I closed the lounge door behind me. Limped across the hall’s stained floorboards, walking stick clunking with every other step. Peered out through the peephole.

A bald head filled the lens with a swathe of pink and grey.

I undid the four security locks and opened the door. ‘Shifty.’

He’d obviously not shaved his head for a bit: a fringe of gunmetal stubble stuck out above his ears. More stubble shaded his collection of chins. Folds of skin drooped beneath watery bloodshot eyes. A bruise rode high on his left cheek. The smell of aftershave oozed out of him, mingling with the rotten oniony whiff of the day’s sweat.

A couple of orange carrier-bags sat on the floor by his feet.

Shifty blinked at me a couple of times, then a massive grin split across his face and he lunged, wrapped his arms around me, pinning my arms to my sides, and squeezed. Laughed. ‘About bloody time!’ He leaned back, lifting my feet off the floor. ‘How’ve you been? I’m gasping here. Any chance of a drink?’

Couldn’t help but smile. ‘Get off me, you big Jessie.’

‘Oh, don’t be so repressed.’ One more squeeze, then he let go. ‘Thought we’d never get you out of there. You look like crap, by the way.’

‘Did you get it?’

He reached into his crumpled jacket and came out with an envelope. Handed it over.

OK. Unexpected.

I tried again, nice and slow. ‘Did – you – get – the – gun?’

8

Shifty dragged a hand down his face, pulling it out of shape. ‘Alec wouldn’t sell it to me, said it’d be bad karma.’

I opened the envelope. It was stuffed with creased tenners and twenties. Had to be at least three, maybe four hundred quid. Not bad at all. Shifty’s shoulder wobbled when I patted it. ‘That’s a lot of walking around money. You’re—’

‘Don’t be a divot. It’s for the gun. Alec won’t sell it to me, but he’ll sell it to you. He’s got bloody weird since he came down with Buddhism.’ One podgy hand went back in Shifty’s jacket and came out with a yellow Post-it note. He stuck it to my chest. A mobile phone number in scratchy red biro. ‘But it’s going to have to be tomorrow. Now are we having that drink or not?’

‘Tomorrow? I wanted—’

‘I know. It’s not that easy finding someone who’ll sell a gun to a cop, OK? Alec’s a pain, but he’s discreet.’ Shifty pulled his shoulders up to his ears. Let them fall again. ‘We’ll do her tomorrow. I promise.’

Well, after two years was one more night really going to make that much difference? So she got another twenty-four hours, so what? She’d still end up dead.

Fair enough.

I nodded back towards the flat. ‘Tea?’

‘You’re kidding, right? Tea? When you’ve just got out of the nick?’ A wink. Then he dipped into one of the carrier-bags at his feet and came out with two bottles. ‘Champagne!’

He followed me into the flat, standing in the hallway while I snibbed all the locks again then showed him into the living room.

Alice was out of her chair, standing like a fencepost, all pulled in and straight. She smiled. ‘David, how nice to see you again. Is Andrew well?’

‘I know we said tomorrow, but I couldn’t wait.’ He loomed over her, leaned in, and gave her a peck on the cheek. Then plonked one of the champagne bottles down beside the laptop and started picking the foil cap off the other. ‘You don’t have any decent glasses, do you?’

‘Ah, yes, right, I’ll see what I can dig up, sure there’s something lurking in the cupboards …’ She pointed at the kitchen, then disappeared through the door.

Shifty worked the wire cage off the cork, pacing as he did it. Never standing still. The floorboards creaking and groaning away beneath his feet.

Silence.

He stared at the laptop screen, where Laura Strachan was frozen halfway down a flight of stone steps, the pause icon overlapping her feet. ‘I … went round to see Michelle.’

‘Did you now?’ Two years, and not a single visit from her. Not so much as a letter.

‘She came to the door and she was all …’ He wiggled one hand beside his head. ‘You know? Hair all over the place, really pale and thin, bags under her eyes. Been drinking.’

I sank back into my camp chair. Folded my arms. ‘So?’

‘She’s got the house up for sale. Big sign in the front garden. Moving down south to be with her sister.’

Yeah. Well … she was a grown woman. Not as if we were married any more, was it? Could do what she liked. Didn’t have to tell me. ‘There a point to this?’

‘Just thought you’d … I don’t know.’ He stared down at the bottle in his hands. ‘Andrew threw me out. Apparently it’s not him, it’s me. Says I’m suffocating him.’ Those fat fingers tightened around the neck of the bottle, squeezing until their joints were pale as bone. ‘I’ll bloody suffocate him …’

Alice appeared in the kitchen doorway, carrying three generic wine glasses. ‘Who’s getting suffocated?’

‘Shifty’s boyfriend’s chucked him out.’

His bottom lip popped out an inch, then he shook his head.

‘Oh, David, I’m so sorry.’ She patted one of the camping chairs. ‘Here, you have a sit down and tell me all about it.’

Oh God, here we go.

‘Maybe later.’ He twisted the cork in one meaty paw, pulled and – it poomed out from the bottle bringing a coil of pale gas with it. He filled two of the glasses, then dipped back into his plastic bag and handed me a can of Irn-Bru.

Fair enough. I clicked off the tab and filled my glass with fluorescent-orange fizzy juice.

Shifty raised his. ‘A toast – to Ash, to friends, and to freedom.’

To revenge …

We clinked glasses.

He knocked back a mouthful. Sucked in air through his teeth. Gave a little shudder. Then sank into the chair. Slumped. ‘Sodding Andrew. Two years. Two sodding years. I came out for him.’

‘No … No, this’ll … this’ll be ffff … be fine.’ Shifty blinked one eye at a time, then wobbled down into a squat, falling forward so he was on his hands and knees. Arse up. Wearing nothing but a pair of black Calvin Klein pants. He wobbled a bit more, then half lowered himself, half collapsed onto his side. It was just a sheet laid out on top of the new rug, but it was going to have to do. At least he had a pillow. Throw in a couple of bath sheets for blankets, and …

Well, it wasn’t great, but after all the booze the pair of them had put away, he wasn’t likely to notice.

The sound of retching echoed out of the bathroom, amplified by the toilet bowl.

Shifty twitched a couple of times, then let out a long, low groan. Followed by a pause. A snuffle.

I draped another towel over him then picked up the two empty champagne bottles and what was left of the supermarket whisky. Took them through to the kitchen and ditched them next to the kettle. Grabbed the washing-up bowl from the sink.

By the time I got back to the living room he was flat on his back, snoring hard enough to make the air vibrate. His towel-blankets were all rucked up on one side, exposing a hairy expanse of pale belly. The rumbling drone stopped for a couple of beats … Then he grunted something that sounded like a name, and went back to snoring again.

‘Silly sod.’ I tugged the towels into place. ‘Try not to choke on your own vomit in the middle of the night, OK?’ I turned out the light. Closed the door. Left him to it.

The toilet flushed. Then gargling. Spitting. And finally Alice lurched out into the hall.

She’d done her tartan pyjamas up wrong, the left side one button out of synch with the right. Hair sticking out in a tangled mess. ‘Urgh …’

‘Come on: bed.’

She clasped a hand to one side of her face. ‘Don’t feel so good …’

‘Well, whose fault is that?’

Her bedroom door opened on a small room with a single bed, a flat-packed wardrobe, and a small bedside table. A Monet poster dominated the room, all greens and blues and purples.

She clambered into bed, hauled the duvet up around her chin. ‘Urrgh …’

‘Did you drink a pint of water?’ I put the washing-up bowl on the floor by her head. With any luck there wouldn’t be sick all over the floor in the morning.

‘Ash …’ She smacked her mouth a couple of times, like she was tasting something bitter. ‘Tell me a story.’

‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘I want a story.’

‘You’re a grown woman, I am not reading—’

‘Pleeeeeease?’

Seriously?

She blinked up at me, grey bags under her bloodshot eyes.

Sigh. ‘Fine.’ I settled onto the edge of the bed, taking the weight off my right foot. ‘Once upon a time, there was a serial killer called the Inside Man, and he liked to stitch dolls into nurses’ stomachs. But what he didn’t know was that a brave policeman was after him.’

She smiled. ‘Was the policeman’s name, Ash? It was, wasn’t it?’

‘Who’s telling this story, you or me?’

Eight Years Ago

I hit the door hard, battering it open. Dodged a crowd of old fogies in their dressing gowns and slippers, surrounded by their own personal fog-bank of cigarette smoke.

Where the hell did he …

There – on the other side of the low wall that separated Castle Hill Infirmary from the car park. A pregnant woman screaming abuse, banging on the window of an ancient-looking Ford Fiesta as it roared away from the kerb.

More swearing erupted behind me as PC O’Neil staggered through the OAP smokers, his face flushed, sweat glistening on his cheeks. ‘Did you get him?’

‘Do I bloody look like I got him? Get the car. NOW!’

‘Oh God…’ He lumbered over the low wall – making for our rusty Vauxhall, parked on the double yellows.

The pregnant woman stood in the middle of the road, sticking two fingers up at the back of the Fiesta as it fishtailed out through the hospital gates and onto Nelson Street. ‘I HOPE YOU CATCH AIDS AND DIE, YOU THIEVING BASTARD!’

I staggered to a halt beside her. ‘Did you get a good look at his face?’

‘He stole my bloody car! Did you see that?’

‘Would you recognize him if you saw him again?’

‘My dog’s in the boot!’ She cupped her hands around her mouth. ‘COME BACK HERE, YOU WANKER!’

The pool car screeched out from the kerb, coming to a stop in a squeal of brakes on the wrong side of the road, opposite us. O’Neil buzzed the window down. ‘He’s getting away.’

I pointed the woman at the hospital. ‘You don’t go anywhere till someone’s taken your statement, understand?’ Then I ran around to the passenger side and clambered in. Slammed the door. Slapped O’Neil on the shoulder. ‘Put your foot down!’

He did, and the Vauxhall surged forward in a squeal of tyre smoke.

Left onto Nelson Street, just missing a Mini, the driver leaning on his horn, eyes wide, mouth stretched in horror.

O’Neil got the slide under control, both hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel, teeth biting down on his bottom lip as the car raced up the hill. Newsagents, carpet shops, and hairdressers streaked past the windows.

I scrambled into my seatbelt, then flicked the switch for the blues and twos.

The pool car’s siren wailed above the engine’s bellow, forging a path through the lunchtime traffic.

We screeched up the hill while I pulled out my Airwave handset and called it in. ‘Charlie Hotel Seven to Control, we are in pursuit of the Inside Man. Eastbound on Nelson Street. Get someone out there blocking the road. He’s in a brown Ford Fiesta.’

A pause, then a hard Dundee accent came on the line. ‘You been drinking?’

‘Get backup out there now!’

The Vauxhall cleared the brow of the hill, flew for at least ten feet, then slammed back down onto the tarmac. O’Neil had his shoulders curled forwards, arms locked straight ahead, as if pushing the steering wheel would actually make the car go faster.

‘There he is!’ I jabbed a finger at the windscreen.

The Fiesta disappeared into the underpass.

We were there less than thirty seconds later, the dual carriageway rumbling above us as O’Neil kept his foot to the floor. The siren echoed back from the concrete. Out into the daylight again. ‘Almost there …’

Couldn’t have been more than four seconds between us now.

The Fiesta jumped the lights where Nelson Road cuts across Canard Street, narrowly missing a woman on a bicycle, and right into the path of a bendy bus. It ploughed straight into the Fiesta, grabbing the front passenger-side and wrenching it three feet into the air, spinning the whole thing around and into a streetlight.

‘Shite!’ O’Neil stamped on the brakes. Hauled the wheel left, sending the back end squealing out across the cobbles. And everything slipped into slow motion. All the colours and shapes bright and sharp in the thin December light. A woman with a pushchair, mouth hanging open; a man up a ladder outside Waterstones, painting over graffiti; a little girl coming out of Greggs, frozen mid-pasty. A Transit van, the driver leaning on his horn as we slammed into him.

The bang was like a shotgun going off – cubes of safety glass exploded across the Vauxhall’s interior. The car kicked up on my side, hurling me into the seatbelt as the airbags detonated. Filling the world with white and the stench of fireworks. Then down again, bouncing, safety glass pattering against my skin like rain. Nostrils filled with the smell of dust and spent airbag and petrol.

Everything clicked back to normal speed.

O’Neil hung forward against his seatbelt, arms dangling at his sides, blood seeping down his face from the gash in his forehead and broken nose. The Transit van’s radiator blocked his window.

I fumbled with the seatbelt, a high-pitched ringing filling my head.

Out … I shoved open the door and stumbled into the road, holding onto the pool car’s roof to stay upright.

Someone screamed.

The Fiesta was bent around the lamppost, the passenger side all buckled in. The lamppost hadn’t fared much better. It was bent and twisted, the glass head dangling from a couple of wires.

Yellow and black dots swirled around me, dimming the street.

I blinked. Shook my head. Cracked my jaw. And the ringing dropped from deafening to just painful. Christ, what a mess…

Glass crunched under my shoes as I picked my way across the road.

Whimpering came from the back of the Fiesta – a pair of brown eyes stared out at me, wet nose pressed against the cracked hatchback glass. Then the driver’s door creaked open and the bastard fell out onto the road: baggy blue tracksuit, trainers, big woolly hat pulled down over his ears. Couldn’t see his face, just the back of his head.

‘You! You’re under arrest!’

And that was it. He was up on his feet like he was on springs, not looking back, arms and legs pumping as he sprinted towards the blue-and-white monolithic Travelodge on Greenwood Street.

No you bloody don’t.

I lurched after him, dragging my handset out again. ‘I need an ambulance to the junction of Canard, Nelson, and Greenwood. Officer hurt. And get the Fire Brigade too – there’s a dog trapped in the wreckage.’

Moving faster, pulse thudding in my throat, roaring in my chest.

Around the corner of Greenwood. The train station loomed ahead – a big Victorian upturned boat in wrought iron and glass, with a blocky 1970s concrete portico stuck on the outside for taxis and smokers to loiter under.

I shoved my way through the main doors, into a din of people shouting and pounding music. The interior was one big open-plan space, with walkways arching over the tracks, connecting the half-dozen platforms. Light filtered down through the dirty glass roof.

Someone had set up a big tent-stage thing by the ticket office – the Castlewave FM logo emblazoned on either side with ‘TURNING MILES INTO SMILES!!!’ in the middle. A table at the front was draped in black, a pair of tossers standing behind it clapping their hands above their heads in time to the music, still holding their microphones.

A sea of bodies clapped back at them, shoulder to shoulder, crowded into the concourse.

‘Ha, excelente mi amigos!’ The music faded out. ‘What’s the total, Colin?’

‘Well, Steve, we’re all the way to Calais in France already, how cool is that?’

‘Megatastic coolio!’ Followed by a grating honk from an old-fashioned horn.

Where the hell was he?

No sign of anyone running, or of anyone getting up, swearing, shaking their fists because they’d been knocked out of the way.

‘You’re listening to Sensational Steve and Crrrrrrrazy Colin. It’s five past one, and we’re live, live, live from Oldcastle train station in Logansferry!’

The crowd roared out a cheer.

Had to be here somewhere…

‘You’re not wrong there, Steve, and we’re here cycling all the way to the Philippines to raise money for the victims of Typhoon Nanmadol! Six thousand, six hundred and seventy-four miles!’

I pushed into the crowd. There – blue tracksuit. ‘You! Don’t you dare run!’

‘That’s a lot of miles, Colin.’

‘It’s a lot of miles, Steve!’

People complained as I shoved them out of the way and grabbed the guy by the arm. Spun him around… Only it wasn’t a he, it was a she. A lumpy woman with a short haircut.

She wrenched my hand from her arm. Glared at me. ‘What the hell is wrong with you? Get away from us, you freak!’ She backed up a pace, baring her teeth. ‘God, what happened to your face?’

Sodding hell. There was another woman in a blue tracksuit over by the automatic ticket machines. And a couple of men too – all wearing blue tracksuits with the Oldcastle Warriors logo stitched onto the left breast. Bloody local football team colours.

‘So if you’re listening at home, why not come on down to the train station and take a turn on one of our stationary bicycles? Help us turn miles into smiles for those poor Philippine people!’

‘Guv?’

I turned.

Constable Rhona Massie had her hands in her pockets. Blue tracksuit top on over a sweat-stained red T-shirt and a pair of stonewashed jeans. The bags under her eyes were shiny with sweat, cheeks hot-pink against her long pale face. ‘You OK? Jesus, what happened? You’re bleeding …’

What? I put a hand against my forehead, it came away red. That’s when it started to sting. And not just my head, a wave of aches and pains rolled up my right side, crashing at the base of my neck. Something sharp throbbed deep inside my left wrist. ‘Where is he?’

‘Right, time for another stellar tuuuuuune. I want to see everyone getting their funky thang on for Four Mechanical Mice and their “Anthem for a Shining Girl”!’ A big wobbling piano chord blared out of the speakers.

Rhona grimaced, showing off a row of perfect white teeth. ‘You look like you’ve been in a car bomb, or something!’

‘A guy, ran in here a minute ago. Woolly hat, white trainers, blue tracksuit.’

She stepped closer and brushed a flurry of safety glass off my shoulder. ‘We need to get you a doctor.’ She turned. ‘I NEED A DOCTOR OVER HERE! SOMEONE’S HURT!’ Then back to me. ‘You’re probably in shock.’ She held up a hand, the fingers splayed. ‘How many fingers am I—’

‘Get that out of my face.’ I slapped her hand away. ‘I want all the exits sealed. No one in or out. Get everyone in a blue tracksuit rounded up. And why aren’t you in uniform?’

‘She’s incandescent, she’s all ablaze…’

Rhona stared at me. ‘It’s my day off, I’m down raising money for the typhoon victims.’

‘She is the sound of a million glass grenades…’

‘Not tomorrow, Constable, now!’

‘Yes, Guv.’ She turned and ran off to the front entrance, waving her arms at a couple of guys in fluorescent yellow waistcoats with ‘SECURITY’ printed across the chest.

‘She is the shattered dawn, tearing round the world…’

Knots of broken concrete rolled their way through my spine. Jagged bars of rusty iron jabbing through the base of my neck. My knees refused to hold my weight.

Bloody Rhona. Felt fine till she started rabbiting on about how battered I looked.

‘She’s dark and light and home tonight, cos she’s the Shining Girl…’

I sank down, till my backside was on the cold tiled floor. Curled my throbbing wrist against my chest.

God, everything ached…

A circle of people formed around me, all of them staring. A couple had their mobile phones out, filming me sitting there, covered in broken glass and blood. Then someone shouldered their way through the cordon.

‘Come on, give the man some room to breathe. Back up.’

‘Who died and made you God?’

‘I’m a nurse, you moron, now back up before I put you on your arse in front of all your friends.’

I blinked up at her. A familiar face: broad forehead, small eyes, hair in a ponytail – blonde wisps sticking to her shiny face. A T-shirt with sweatmarks under the arms and between her breasts, white shorts and trainers. Wide hips and thick legs. A ‘TURN MILES INTO SMILES!!!’ towel draped around her neck.

She blinked back. ‘Inspector Hutcheson? Bloody hell… What happened?’

‘Henderson. Not Hutcheson.’

‘Of course, yes, sorry.’ She knelt on the ground beside me. Took my head in her hands and stared into my eyes. ‘Are you experiencing any nausea? Dizziness? Ringing in the ears? Headache? Confusion?’

I grabbed her hand. ‘Who are you?’

‘OK, that’s a yes on the confusion. It’s Ruth. Ruth Laughlin? Laura Strachan’s friend? You came to the flat after they found her, remember? Talked to all the nurses?’

‘She’s still alive.’

‘Of course she is. They let her out of hospital two weeks ago.’ Ruth shifted herself around, placed one hand on the back of my neck, pressed her other against my chest. ‘Come on, let’s get you lying down… There we go. You know, you’re lucky I was here. Concussion can be very serious.’

A distorted voice burbled from the station’s loudspeakers. The words echoing back and forth until they were little more than a smear of syllables fighting against the song. ‘… the train now departing from platform six is the one seventeen to Edinburgh Waverley…’

For God’s sake – why didn’t Rhona tell them to cancel the trains? Fifteen minutes from now he could be in Arbroath. Dundee in twenty-five.

Not too late – call Control and get patrol cars to the nearest station. Have the bastard picked up right off the train…

‘Inspector Henderson?’

Bloody fingers wouldn’t work, Airwave handset was all slippery…

The wail of sirens cut through the end of the announcement. That would be the backup I called for. Late as always.

‘Hello?’

Yellow and black dots bloomed in the siren’s wake, growing, spreading, blanking out the glass ceiling behind Ruth Laughlin’s head as she frowned down at me. A halo of darkness.

‘Inspector Henderson? Can you hear me? I want you to squeeze my hand as hard as you can … Inspector Henderson? Hello?’

Monday

9

I eased Alice’s door closed and crossed the corridor to my own room. It was small, but functional, just big enough for the double bed against one wall, the chest of drawers, and wardrobe. A pair of dark-blue curtains that still had the same creases as the ones in the lounge. A cheap-looking alarm-clock radio on the floor beside the bed, glowing 00:15 at me.

My cell was bigger than this.

An old-fashioned brass key sat on top of the duvet, with a cardboard tag attached to it by a red ribbon. Spidery handwriting: ‘THOUGHT THIS MIGHT COME IN HANDY’.

Ah …

I turned. There was a lock fitted to the bedroom door, specks of sawdust dandruffing the floorboards underneath it along with a few quavers of shaved wood. The key slipped right in, and when I turned it, the bolt slid home with a clack.

After two years inside, it was strange how comforting that sound was. Especially combined with the muffled rattle of Shifty’s snores coming through the wall.

The laptop went on the bed, while I stripped, folded all my clothes, and placed them in the chest of drawers. Old habits.

I took out my shiny new mobile phone and thumbed in the number on Shifty’s Post-it note. It rang, and rang, and rang …

Crossed to the window, eased one side of the curtains open a couple of inches. Just concrete, gloom, and streetlights. Someone crept their way across the garden opposite with a torch. Good luck finding anything worth stealing around here.

Then a click, and a muzzy voice crackled from the earpiece. ‘Hello? Hello, who’s this?’

‘You Alec?’

Some rustling, a hissing noise, then a clunk. ‘Do you have any idea what time it is?’

‘I need a piece. Tomorrow. Semiauto—’

‘There must be some mistake. I offer spiritual guidance to wayward souls. Are you a wayward soul in need of guidance?’

Ah. Right. Cautious. Probably a good trait in a gun dealer. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think … I think that you’re on a dangerous path. That your life hasn’t turned out the way you hoped. That darkness surrounds you.’

Why the hell else would I need a gun? ‘So, what now?’

‘I think you should come see me. We can meditate on your predicament. Drink some herbal tea. Find a core of peace within you.’ A muffled yawn. ‘Now, do you have a pen and paper?’

I stuck Shifty’s Post-it to the windowpane. Went back to the wardrobe and pulled a pen from my jacket pocket. ‘Go.’

‘Thirteen Slater Crescent, Blackwall Hill, OC12 3PX.’

‘When?’

‘I shall be available for spiritual guidance between the hours of nine and five tomorrow. Well, I might head out to the shops around lunchtime, but other than that …’

‘OK: tomorrow.’

‘Peace be on you.’ And he was gone.

A rogue firework screamed up into the sky from a couple of streets over, booming and crackling in a baleful eye of scarlet.

Peace wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

I let the curtains fall closed, slipped in beneath the duvet and powered up the laptop. Propped it up on my chest and settled back to watch the rest of Wrapped in Darkness.

Laura Strachan picks her way along the High Street, ignoring the olde worlde charms of the surrounding buildings – now converted into charity shops, bookies, and places you could get a payday loan or pawn your jewellery. ‘What happened to me that night, and over the next couple of days … it’s slippery – difficult to hold onto. Like … Like it never really happened to me. Like it was happening to someone else, in a movie. All larger than life and shiny and fake. Does that make sense?’

Which might explain Baywatch Steve and the cheesy dialogue.

‘I wake up some mornings and I can almost taste the operating room. The disinfectant, the metal … And then it fades, and I’m left with this feeling like something’s crushing my chest.’

Then the scene shifts to the briefing room at Oldcastle Force Headquarters – the old one with the sagging ceiling tiles and sticky carpet. Before the refit. Journalists pack the seats, cameras, microphones and Dictaphones bristling towards the four men sitting behind the table at the front. Len’s at one end – bald even then – in his ancient double-breasted black suit. Next to him is the Media Liaison officer, ramrod-straight and sweating. And next to him …

Something popped deep inside my ribcage, letting out a little grunt of pain.

Dr Henry Forrester stares out of the laptop screen at me. He’s got more hair than he did at the end. More life about him. Before his cheeks sunk and the wrinkles stopped looking distinguished and started looking haggard. Before the guilt and the grief and the whisky hollowed him out.

‘Henry. You silly, silly bastard …’

The man sitting next to Henry – the last person on the table – can’t be much older than twenty-four. Slope-shouldered, a fringe of curly brown hair hanging over his eyes, a nimbus of it fluffing out around his head, coiling over the shoulders of a grey suit, shirt, and tie. Get a sensible haircut and he would be invisible.

A voice-over talks above the muted babble of questions and answers. ‘But while Laura was struggling to come to terms with the horrific events that had left her stricken with nightmares and scar tissue, the operation to catch the Inside Man faced struggles of its own.’

Cheesy, but correct.

A reporter sticks his hand up. ‘Detective Superintendent Murray, is it true you’re bringing in a psychic to help kick the investigation back to life?’

Someone else’s voice cuts in before Len can answer. ‘Think they’ll be able to contact your career?’

Laughter. Swiftly brought to a halt as Len hammers his fist down on the table. ‘Four women are dead. Three others will be scarred for life. Exactly what about that do you find funny?’

Silence.

Len jabs a finger at the crowd. ‘Any more of that and I won’t just clear the room, I’ll have you all barred. Are we clear?’

No one speaks.

The footage jumps forward, and someone else is having a go. ‘Is it true you almost caught him, but let him get away?’

Len’s face darkens. ‘No one “let him get away”. An officer was forced to abandon chase due to serious injuries sustained during the pursuit. If I see anything in print suggesting we “let the Inside Man go”, I will come down on you like the wrath of God.’

The scene cuts to wobbly mobile-phone footage of a large man slumped to his knees on a tiled floor, surrounded by a cordon of legs and mobile phones. Blood makes a red smear down the left side of his face, oozing out of gashes in his scalp and forehead, darkening his collar and suit jacket. Then a woman pushes into shot and takes his face in her hands. Lowers him down to the ground. Folds a tracksuit top and puts it under his head. Makes him comfortable.

Whoever’s doing the voice-over says something, but it’s just noise …

Did I really look that awful? No wonder Rhona wanted to call an ambulance.

I rewound a bit.

‘… down on you like the wrath of God.’

It’s not surprising I couldn’t stay upright – it looks like someone’s taken a baseball bat coated in broken glass to my head. Then Ruth Laughlin appears in her shorts and T-shirt and makes me lie down before I fall down.

Poor bloody woman. If I hadn’t let him get away …

‘Details are thin on the ground about what actually happened that day in Oldcastle, but what we do know is a high-speed chase across the city ended in a near fatal collision. Detective Inspector Ash Henderson pursued the Inside Man into the train station, but collapsed from his injuries and was rushed to Castle Hill Infirmary suffering from concussion, two cracked ribs, a broken wrist, and whiplash. The irony is that the woman seen helping him is Ruth Laughlin, who went on to become the Inside Man’s final victim.’

Because I didn’t stop him.

The mobile-phone footage is replaced by something slightly more professional with the Oldcastle Fire Brigade ident in the top-left corner. One team’s cutting the driver’s door off the battered pool car, while the other is spraying water on the burning Fiesta. ‘The driver of the unmarked car, Police Constable O’Neil, suffered a broken arm and a fractured skull.’

There’s no mention of what happened to the dog in the Fiesta’s boot.

Another jump and we’re back at the media briefing. Another question. Another angry answer from Len.

And then the voice-over oils in over the top: ‘With the investigation floundering, they went public with their psychological profile …’

The guy with the grey suit and perm looks at Henry. Henry nods.

A caption appears on the bottom of the screen: ‘DR FRED DOCHERTY – FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST’.

Dr Docherty clears his throat. ‘Thank you.’ He’s obviously trying to sound posh, but those two words are carved in the sandstone of a Glaswegian tenement. ‘We believe the person responsible for these crimes is in his late twenties, probably an unskilled worker who’s got difficulty holding down a job. He was very close to his mother, who’s probably died recently. His hatred of women stems from her smothering influence. He’ll be dishevelled in his appearance, and most likely has a history of mental illness, so we expect him to have been through police custody at some point in his life.’

Which didn’t exactly narrow the pool. Not in Oldcastle.

The rest of the DVD was a bit of a let-down. The police can’t catch the Inside Man, blah, blah, blah. The Crown Office refuse to release the first four victims’ bodies, so the relatives have to have a symbolic burial and wait for the investigation to be finalized.

Poor sods were probably still waiting.

Dr Docherty reappears for a follow-up segment on Laura Strachan. He’s fidgeting in a big leather armchair, eyes flicking to a spot just left of the camera, as if he’s looking for approval from whoever’s standing there. His Glaswegian burr is slightly less pronounced than it was at the press conference. He’s obviously been practising. ‘Of course, it was an intensely traumatic experience for Laura. We have weekly sessions exploring her feelings and helping her come to terms with what happened. It’s a long path to wellness, but she’s getting better.’

An off-camera voice: ‘And do you think she’ll ever be normal again?’

Dr Fred Docherty goes still in his seat. ‘Normal is a relative concept that has no value in psychology. We’re all individuals – there’s no such thing as “normal”. What we’re trying to do here is help Laura get back to a state that’s normal for her.’

‘And what about Marie Jordan?’

His fingers pick at the seam of his trousers. ‘Sadly, Marie isn’t responding quite as well. As I said, everyone’s different, we all cope differently.’

‘She’s been committed to a secure psychiatric facility, hasn’t she? She’s on suicide watch.’

‘The human mind is a complicated animal, you can’t just …’ He looks down, into his lap. Stills his hands. ‘She’s getting the care she needs. As is Ruth Laughlin.’

Cut to CCTV footage of a woman collapsing in a supermarket’s fruit-and-veg section, arms wrapped around her head, rocking back and forth while people steer their trolleys around her, not making eye contact.

Voice-over: ‘Unable to cope with the nightmares and anxiety attacks following her abduction, Ruth Laughlin had a nervous breakdown in the Castleview Asda and is currently receiving treatment at the same facility as Marie.’

And the Inside Man is still at large.

Not exactly an upbeat ending.

Welcome to the real world.

10

‘… and that was Mister Bones with “Snow Loves A Winter”. You’re listening to Jane Forbes, holding the fort till Sensational Steve kicks off the Breakfast Drive-Time Bonanza at seven. Stick around for that, it’s going to be … awesome!’

I blinked at the ceiling. It wasn’t the right shape, the light was all wrong. Why the hell was …

A breath shuddered its way out of my chest and the thumping in my ears faded, slowed. Another breath.

Right. Not in a cell any more.

‘We’ve got the news and weather coming up – spoiler alert, it’s going to be a wet one – but first here’s Halfhead, with their Christmas single “Sex, Violence, Lies, and Darkness” …’ The sound of distorted piano and mournful guitars oozed out of the radio alarm clock’s speakers.

The lead singer’s voice was like barbed wire dipped in molasses. ‘Bones in the garden, they sing like an angel …’

I rolled over and checked: quarter past six. What was the point of getting out of prison if you couldn’t even have a lie-in? Bloody Jacobson.

‘The shadows are sharp and they burn deep inside …’

Morning prayers at Force Headquarters. That was going to be fun. Perhaps I’d get lucky and not have to break anyone’s jaw …?

Keep it calm today. Nothing rash. No lashing out. Nothing that could get me sent back to prison before Mrs Kerrigan could meet with that unfortunate accident.

‘Her body is cold, her voice hard and painful …’

No hitting anyone. Eyes on the prize.

Come on, Ash. Up.

In a minute.

I spread out beneath the duvet, taking up the whole double bed. Just because I could.

‘A knife-blade of bitterness, spite, and hurt pride …’

Then the pressure in my bladder had to go and spoil everything. Groaning, I levered myself up, swung my legs out of bed, sighed. Rolled my right foot in small circles from the ankle. One way, then the other. Flexing the toes. Making little blades of hot iron grate along the bones – scraping away beneath the puckered knot of scar tissue the bullet left. A metaphor for my whole bloody life, right there.

‘Sex, lies, and violence, a love filled with sharpness …’

No point putting it off any longer. Up.

I limped over to the chest of drawers.

‘Stoking the fires to stave off the darkness …’

A brief search turned up a couple of big towels in the third drawer. I wrapped one around my waist, grabbed my cane, then unlocked the bedroom door as the song headed into an instrumental break. All minor chords and misery.

The sound of someone murdering an old Stereophonics tune rattled down the corridor, with a boiling kettle as backup. Shifty poked his head out of the living room and grinned at me. His eyes were all shiny and bright, despite the fact he’d put away enough champagne and whisky last night to fill a bathtub. He’d even shaved. ‘Hope you’re hungry, we’ve got enough here to feed a family of six. Breakfast on the table in five, whether you’re there or not.’ And then he was gone again.

‘Morning, Shifty.’ I tried the bathroom door handle. Locked.

Alice’s voice came from inside, the words all muffled and rounded as if she had her mouth full. ‘Hold on …’ Then some spitting and a running tap. The bathroom door opened and there she was, wearing a fluffy bathrobe, a towel wrapped around her head. A cloud of orange-scented steam billowed out behind her. ‘Are you not dressed yet, only we’ve got the morning briefing at seven and it’s—’

‘What happened to the hangover?’

‘Coffee. Coffee’s great it really is and it’s just, like, pow first thing in the morning and I think I got up in the middle of the night to drink some water, I was having the strangest dream and I was in a car crash and there was a dog and I’m chasing someone into the train station only it turned into a rock concert and there was a woman in a blue tracksuit and everyone was all sweaty, isn’t that weird?’ She squeezed past, and opened the door to her room. Froze on the threshold. A crease formed between her eyebrows. ‘Maybe it was the pizza, probably shouldn’t eat a quattro formaggio that close to bedtime, only it wasn’t really bedtime was it, it was a slightly late dinner, and I like cheese, don’t you, it’s—’

‘OK.’ I held up a hand. ‘No more coffee for you.’

‘But I like coffee, it’s the best, and Dave brought this little metal teapot thing with him that you put on the cooker and coffee goes in one end and water in the bottom and you get great espresso—’

‘Shifty says breakfast’s in five minutes.’

‘Oh, right, better get dressed and really you should try his espresso it’s terrific, it—’

I slipped into the steamy bathroom and locked the door behind me.

Alice leaned in close, her voice cranked right down to a whisper. ‘So it wasn’t a dream?’

The briefing room must have been given a coat of paint recently, the cloying chemical smell still coiling out of the walls. Uniform and plainclothes had arranged themselves in a semicircle of creaky plastic chairs around the table at the front of the room, the distance between them marking out the individual tribes. Front left: the men and women who’d have to go out and patrol the streets. Front right: the boys and girls from the Specialist Crime Division, looking prickly in their sharp suits. Behind them: Oldcastle CID, looking like a riot in a charity shop. Everyone with their pens out and notebooks at the ready.

And at the rear of the room: Jacobson’s Lateral Investigative and Review Unit, all in a line: Jacobson, PC Cooper, Professor Huntly, Dr Constantine, and Alice. I’d grabbed the seat next to her, on the outside. Right leg stretched out, walking stick hanging on the back of the chair in front as the duty sergeant monotoned his way through the day-to-day assignments.

‘… car thefts up fifteen percent in that area, so keep your eyes peeled. Next, shoplifting …’

I shifted in my seat. ‘Of course it wasn’t a dream, you wanted a bedtime story so I told you one.’

Alice looked up at me. ‘You did? That’s so sweet.’

‘About how the Inside Man got away.’

‘Oh.’ The smile slipped a bit. ‘Still, it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it. So you really did round up all the people in blue tracksuits?’

I nodded. ‘Rhona got all nine of them. Two hours earlier and there would’ve been dozens – the whole sodding football team came down to ride on the bikes. The Super checked everyone’s stories and alibis. Nothing.’

She glanced at the front of the room.

The duty sergeant was still droning on: ‘… break-in at the halls of residence on Hudson Street …’

‘What about the train to Edinburgh?’

‘Just missed it at Arbroath, but they were waiting for it at Carnoustie. No one in a blue tracksuit. But the in-carriage security camera caught someone matching the description getting off at the first stop.’

‘… to remember, that just because they’re students it doesn’t mean you can treat them, and I quote, “like workshy sponging layabouts”. Fitzgerald, I’m looking at you …’

‘It was him, wasn’t it?’

‘We put out an appeal, got an ID, and did a dawn raid. Turned out it was a religious education teacher up to do the charity cycle.’

‘Oh.’

Professor Huntly leaned over, glowered past Dr Constantine, teeth bared around a hissing whisper. ‘Will you two shut up?’

‘… Charlie went missing sometime between half eleven last night and six this morning. He’s only five, so keep your eyes peeled. He’s run away twice before, but his mum’s still frantic. Best efforts, people.’

I stared back at Huntly until he licked his lips and looked away. Sat back in his seat.

Should think so too.

I leaned into Alice again. ‘But we searched his house anyway. Came up with a stash of child pornography and an unlicensed firearm. I think he’s on life-support now – someone cracked his head open on a washing machine in the prison laundry.’

‘… but not least: lookout request for one Eddie Barron. He’s got form for GBH and assault with a deadly, so don’t say I never warned you …’

On the other side of Alice, Dr Constantine sat up. ‘Oh-ho, here we go.’

At the front of the room, the duty sergeant brought things to a close. ‘Right, if you’re not on Operation Tigerbalm, you’re excused.’ He held up a sheet of paper with ‘HAVE YOU SEEN CHARLIE?’ in big letters above a photo of a wee dark-haired kid – sticky-out ears, a squint smile, and a face full of freckles. ‘Pick up one of these, then get your backsides out there and catch some villains.’

Half the room shuffled out, Uniform and CID moaning about being told to sod off, bragging about their weekends, or muttering dark curses about having to support Aberdeen or Dundee now the Warriors were gone. The duty sergeant marched after them, arms full of paperwork.

Detective Superintendent Ness took the floor. ‘Someone get the lights.’

A couple of clicks and gloom settled into the room. Then Ness pointed a remote at the projector mounted on the ceiling, and two photos appeared on the screen behind her. The one on the left was a painfully pale woman on the beach at Aberdeen, grinning away in a green bikini and goose pimples. The other was the same woman, curled on her side in a thicket of brambles. Her white nightgown had got caught up on their barbed-wire coils – riding up to show off the purple slash across her belly. The wound’s sides held together with crude black stitches over the distended skin.

‘Doreen Appleton, twenty-two, the Inside Man’s first victim. Nurse at Castle Hill Infirmary.’

Ness jabbed the remote again. Doreen Appleton was replaced by a happy brunette in a wedding dress, and the same woman lying flat on her back in a lay-by. She was dressed in a similar white nightdress to the first victim, the fabric stained with blood all across her swollen abdomen. ‘Tara McNab, twenty-four. Victim number two. Nurse at Castle Hill Infirmary. Someone called nine-nine-nine from a public phonebox a mile from where she was found …’

Click, then a hissing old-fashioned audio-tape noise, and a man’s voice filled the room, clipped and professional. ‘Emergency Services, which service do you require?’

The woman who answered sounded as if she’d been caught in the middle of a two-day bender, the words thick and slurred. Distorted. ‘A woman’s been … been dumped in a lay-by, one … one point three miles south of Shortstaine Garden Centre on the Brechin Road. She’s …’ A small catch in her voice, as if she was holding back a sob. ‘She’s not moving. If you … hurry, you can save her. She’s, very weak, possible internal bleeding … Oh God … Blood type: B-positive. Hurry, please …’

‘Hello? Can you tell me your name? Hello?’

Silence.

‘Sodding hell.’ A scrunching noise, as if the controller had put a hand over the microphone on the headset, muffling his voice. ‘Garry? You won’t believe what I’ve just—’

Ness held the remote up. ‘Ambulance crew arrived fifteen minutes later, but she was dead when they got there. Audio analysis showed that the voice on the nine-nine-nine call was hers.’

One of the Specialist Crime Division team stuck his hand up. ‘She made the call herself?’

There was a pause, then Ness pulled her brows down, bit her lips together. Closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Does anyone want to take that?’

Professor Huntly laughed. ‘How, exactly, do you imagine a woman with extensive blood loss and internal trauma managed to make a call from a public phone box, then walk a mile to the bus stop where she was found? It was obviously taped prior to her being dumped there. He drugs them, then makes them record their own SOS before he cuts them open.’

The guy from SCD put his hand down. Cleared his throat. Fidgeted. ‘Perfectly valid question …’

Ness pointed at the photo of Tara’s body. ‘Original investigation tracked down the nightdresses: all from a stall down at Heading Hollows Market. Three for a fiver. The stallholder had no idea who he’d sold them to or when.’

She pressed the remote and victim number two was replaced by a sheet of paper from a yellow legal pad. Blue ink scrawled along the lines, the handwriting barely legible. ‘Two days after Tara McNab’s body turned up, this letter was delivered to Michael Slosser at the Castle News and Post. In it the writer complains about the papers calling him “the Caledonian Ripper”, says there’ll be more bodies to come, claims the police are powerless to stop him, and signs off as “the Inside Man”.’ She raised the remote again. ‘Next.’

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.

11

‘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.’

‘I see.’ Docherty’s smile chilled a good five degrees. ‘So in your opinion my profile is wrong?’

Alice tilted her head to one side, mirroring his. ‘I didn’t say it was wrong, I just don’t think it’s entirely right.’

On the other side of Alice, Dr Constantine’s voice was barely audible. ‘Fight, fight, fight, fight …’

Docherty’s jaw worked from side to side, chewing on something bitter.

‘No offence.’ Alice pressed a hand against her chest. ‘Like I said, big fan. Huge.’

Ness stood. ‘Perhaps it would be more productive if Dr Docherty and …’ she checked her notes, ‘Dr McDonald could take this discussion offline and report back to their team leaders with the outcome. In the meantime: I find myself having to remind you all that there is a strict media blackout in force. The Powers That Be are not happy someone broke the moratorium and told the press about Claire Young. I don’t care who you are, or who you report to, the only information that gets out of this investigation is in the official press briefings. Are we all clear on that?’

Some shuffling from the crowd.

Superintendent Knight stood, wearing his dress uniform at half seven in the morning, as if that was going to impress anyone. ‘On that note, one of my team from the Specialist Crime Division, DI Foot, will be inviting certain of you to assist him in uncovering who was responsible for feeding details to the Daily Record yesterday. I expect honesty and integrity. And if I don’t get it there – will – be – trouble.’

Ness nodded. ‘Right, that’s it, people. Individual team meetings commence in five. Grab a cigarette or a cup of coffee if you can. It’s going to be a long day.’

‘… looking good, my man.’ DS Brigstock patted me on the back, grinning with his mouth open, cheeks and forehead stippled with impact-crater acne scars. ‘Don’t he look good, Rhona?’

Rhona smiled at me, exposing a mouth full of thick grey teeth. ‘Great to have you back, Guv.’

Half of Ness’s Major Investigation Team had stayed behind, while their SCD rivals bustled out to cram in a quick cigarette or get something from the vending machines.

Jacobson’s team had drifted apart: PC Cooper off running an errand; Dr Constantine on the phone in the corner; while Huntly was having what looked like a very intense conversation with a tall thin man in a grey suit – one of Superintendent Knight’s SCD lot. The discussion all big arm gestures and hissing whispers.

Rhona stuck her hands in her pockets, hunched her shoulders. ‘Listen, Guv, I was thinking of throwing a wee party, you know to celebrate? And—’

‘I’m not sure if we’ll have time, will we, Ash?’ Alice stepped in close, slipped her arm through mine, and smiled at Rhona. ‘I’m really glad I was able to arrange his release, I mean you wouldn’t believe the hoops I had to jump through at the prison, but there was no way I was going to let him rot away in that place.’ The smile got sharper. ‘That would’ve been horrible, wouldn’t it?’

Rhona squared her shoulders. ‘We did our best.’

‘Yes, I know. Still, never mind, he’s out now.’

Not this again …

‘I didn’t see you visiting him every week.’

Alice raised her eyebrows. ‘Didn’t you? Well, they don’t give members of the public access to the official—’

A jagged Aberdonian accent cut across the room. ‘DS Massie, Brigstock: you heard the Super. Team meeting starts at eight, sharp.’ It didn’t look as if Smith’s people skills had improved any in the last two years. He made a big show of pulling back the sleeve of his grey Markie’s suit and checking his watch. Wrinkles stood out in thick stripes across his forehead. Big nose twitching. Close-cropped hair. A chin so small it was barely there.

Brigstock’s face curdled for a second, then his voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Why did they have to make the sheep-shagging bastard a DI?’ Then louder: ‘Yes, Guv.’

‘Now, Sergeants.’

Rhona didn’t move. Just stood there staring at Alice. ‘Yes, Guv.’ Then she turned her back. ‘Come on, Brigstock. And the rest of you – backsides in gear. You heard DI Smith!’ She shepherded the rest of the team towards the front of the room, where Ness was fiddling with her remote again.

Smith stared at us, then marched over, back straight, shoulders back. ‘Do I need to remind you, Mr Henderson, that you’re no longer a serving police officer? You have no powers in Oldcastle, or anywhere else. And if I hear you’re throwing your weight around, I’ll come down on you like a ton of broken glass. Are we clear?’

I took a step closer, shutting down the gap till we were almost touching. ‘You think you’re a big man because they made you a DI, don’t you? Think that makes you invulnerable. Well, that massive nose of yours will break just as easily as a detective sergeant’s.’

He took a step back. ‘Threatening a police officer is a criminal offence and—’

‘DI Smith?’ Ness’s voice came from the front. ‘We’re ready to start.’ She pressed a button and the screen behind her filled with a map of Oldcastle, a red circle marking a patch of ground behind Blackwall Hill. She nodded at Jacobson. ‘Simon, your team’s welcome to join us if you like?’

‘I appreciate the offer, Elizabeth, but there’s a couple of things that need our urgent attention.’ He flicked his arm out and peered at his watch. ‘And if we don’t get a shift on, we’re going to be late.’

‘Can’t feel my toes …’ Dr Constantine stomped her feet. She had her scarf wrapped around her neck and mouth, woolly hat pulled down over her ears, Parka coat zipped up to her chin.

Jacobson leaned against the waist-high wall, hands in the pockets of his brown leather jacket, breath streaming out in a line of fog. ‘It’s good for you. Builds character.’

Kings Park stretched away on both sides of us, the grass crisp with frost. Blue shadows reached down from the granite wedge of Castle Hill, the ruined battlements jagged against the pale sky. A blade of sunlight pierced the gloom – serrated around the edges where trees gouged it – making the Kings River sparkle.

The smell of onions frying in grease oozed through the cold air, thick and sweet and dark, spreading out from the burger van at the edge of the car park. PC Cooper had almost made it to the front of the queue.

Huntly stood with his back to the rest of us, staring out across the river, arms folded, camelhair coat wrapped around him, polished brogues sticking out at ten-to-two. Sulking.

Jacobson turned to Alice. ‘Well? What do you make of our Dr Docherty?’

‘He’s a lot shorter than he is on TV.’ She wrapped one padded arm around her padded waist, the other hand fiddling with her hair where it poked out from the hood of her Arctic jacket. ‘On the basis of what we know so far, it’s reasonable to be cautious and say this might not be the Inside Man. The papers are full of Laura Strachan’s impending “Miracle Birth” – maybe someone saw that and it sparked a fire inside them, I mean if you’re sitting at home full of rage and impotence and looking for some way to vent everything on a world that hates you, and then you see all this stuff about the Inside Man and maybe you think: that’s what I’ll do, I’ll be just like him only better, and it’ll make the angry things in my head leave me alone for a while …’

She turned, eyes narrowed, mouth pinched. ‘But it’s not going to work because this isn’t my fantasy, this is someone else’s, but until I try I don’t know what I really want, and maybe there’s something about it that makes me feel powerful and in control and aroused for the first time in years and I take that one thing and I relive it over and over in my mind till it’s polished sharp, and I go out and I do it again, only properly this time.’ She let go of her hair, looked up at me. ‘I mean, if it was me, that’s what I’d do.’

I nodded. ‘So you’re saying it isn’t him?’

‘That depends on the next body. If it’s someone else the MO will diverge as he experiments, trying to find his personal groove. If it stays consistent it’s probably him.’ She turned to Jacobson. ‘At the press conference Detective Superintendent Ness wouldn’t answer the question: did he send a letter about Claire Young?’

‘Well … yesterday was Sunday, so if he posted it after he killed her, it wouldn’t get collected till today, and it won’t be delivered till tomorrow. If we’re lucky, we’ll find out before the paper prints it.’

Alice shuffled closer. ‘Superintendent, can I speak to the original survivors and review the victimology reports? I want to look at the Inside Man letters too. The photocopies in the case file are barely readable. I’ll need access to the originals.’

He patted her on the shoulder. ‘For you, anything. And please, call me Bear.’

Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have laughed. ‘Seriously? Thought that was meant to be a joke. You want us to call you “Bear”?’

‘Dr McDonald has pleased me by putting that jumped-up publicity-hungry TV tart in his place this morning. Bernard?’

Professor Huntly kept his gaze on the water, still sulking.

‘You made the boy from SCD who asked about the phone call look like a moron. So you’re forgiven for yesterday.’

Huntly raised one shoulder, stared at his shoes. ‘Thank you, Bear.’

Jacobson poked me in the chest. ‘So far all you’ve done is limp about, taking up space and eating Sheila’s pizza. You can call me, “Sir”, “Guv”, or “Super”.’

One step forward and I was inches from his nose, looming. ‘How about I call you—’

‘Ash …’ Alice tugged at my sleeve. ‘Remember what we talked about? Going to see the deposition scene? I think we should really go now, don’t you, I mean there’s a lot to get through today and we all want to do our best for the investigation so we can stay out of prison, don’t we? Please?’

And miss a chance to rip the little git’s face off and …

Don’t be so bloody stupid.

Blink. Step back. Deep breath. ‘Right.’ I forced a smile into place and patted Jacobson on the shoulder. ‘Sorry, still getting used to not being inside. You know.’

Jacobson tilted his head back, grinning up at me. ‘And you can take Bernard with you. He doesn’t drive.’

Huntly cleared his throat. ‘Can we at least wait for my sausage sandwich?’

‘… quite ridiculous, surely it’s appropriate to observe a decent period of mourning.’ Sitting in the back seat, Huntly took another bite of his sausage buttie, tomato sauce oozing out of the roll and onto his fingers. He chewed, with his mouth turned down, as if it was full of ashes. ‘You didn’t see me jumping into bed with the first person I saw, did you? Civilized people just don’t do that.’

Alice clicked on the car radio. ‘Maybe some music will cheer you up?’

‘… have confirmed that the family of four found dead in the wreckage of their burning home in Cardiff on Wednesday were subjected to a brutal hammer attack. Local news now, and the search for missing five-year-old Charlie Pearce continues as police—’

She switched the thing off again. ‘Maybe not. We could play I-spy?’

Outside the Suzuki’s window, Oldcastle ground its way through the rush hour. Cars, vans, and buses crawled along the streets in a slow-motion metal conga line, blaring horns making a post-dawn chorus.

Huntly gave a big, theatrical sigh. ‘I spy something beginning with bleakness, darkness, and lonely crushing cold. Give up? It’s the rest of my life.’

I ground the tip of my cane into the passenger footwell. Gritted my teeth. ‘How about we all just sit in silence till we get there?’

Alice looked across from the driver’s seat and grimaced at me, both eyebrows up.

He shifted, leaning forward until his head poked through the gap between the seats. Enveloping everything in his sausagey breath. ‘Have you ever loved someone, Henderson? I mean, really, really loved them? And then … then they’re just gone, and there’s nothing you can do to bring them back?’ He grabbed my shoulder and squeezed. ‘God: the agony.’

Alice stared at me, mouth hanging open. ‘Err … Actually, maybe we should—’

I slammed my hand on the dashboard. ‘Bus!’

‘Eeek!’ She stamped on the brakes, wrenched the wheel to the right, nearly battering into a taxi coming the other way. We screeched to a halt in the middle of the road.

An old woman with a tartan shopping trolley stopped on the pavement to gape, her Westie terrier barking at the car – tail stiff and upright.

The taxi driver wound down his window and belted out a mouthful of expletives, before sticking up two fingers and heading off.

Alice puffed out a breath. ‘Right. Let’s try that again.’ She eased past the bus and back onto the left side of the road. ‘Sorry.’

Huntly gave my shoulder another squeeze. ‘Women drivers, eh?’

‘If you don’t get your hand off me right now, I’m going to tear your fingers off and ram them down your throat till you choke.’

He let go, licked his lips, then settled back onto his seat. ‘I was only joking.’

‘And no more talking either.’

Silence.

Go on, say something. Anything.

But he didn’t. Not as thick as he looked after all.

12

A ribbon of blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape twisted in the wind, growling like a finger dragged across the teeth of a comb. Scrubland surrounded the deposition site on three sides, a patch of wood reaching up like a dark green wall behind it. The sky was a solid swathe of granite. The long grass whipping in a frigid wind.

I turned my back on the gusts and jammed a finger in my ear. ‘No, not … Look, all I want is access to the Inside Man letters. How hard can it be?’

A loud sigh came down the phone. ‘Seriously? Come down here and take a look; it’s like a bring-and-buy sale for cardboard boxes down here. You know that bit at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark? That.’ Another sigh. ‘Did you check with the Major Investigation Teams?’

‘Come off it, Williamson, who do you think put me on to you? They haven’t seen them.’

One of Oldcastle’s collection of dented and scarred patrol cars blocked the path down to the scene, a pair of uniforms guarding the place by sitting on their backsides inside, out of the wind.

‘Well, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I’m not Santa. I can’t just magic up a set of letters if I’ve no clue where the damn things are.’

‘So go ask Simpson. He’ll know.’

‘Look, I’m telling you there’s—’

‘Hold on.’ I pressed the phone against my chest and rapped on the driver’s window.

The guy behind the wheel puffed out his cheeks, then buzzed the window down. He didn’t look old enough to vote, never mind arrest anyone – with a threadbare moustache and a scabby pluke on his forehead. Bored eyes and a droopy mouth. Crumbs and flakes of pastry all down the front of his stab-proof vest. He took another bite out of whatever was wrapped in the paper bag from Greggs, talking with his mouth full. ‘Sorry, mate, this bit’s shut. Gotta go walk somewhere else.’

I leaned on the roof. Stared down at him. ‘First off, Constable, I am not your “mate”.’

He obviously recognized the tone of voice from previous bollockings, because he sat bolt upright in his seat and dropped the paper bag into the footwell. A blush erupted across his face, flushing his cheeks, making the tips of his ears glow. ‘Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean—’

‘Name?’

‘Hill, sir, erm … Ronald. I didn’t—’

‘Second: I don’t care how long you’ve been sitting here, you’re a bloody police officer, so try to look like one. You’re a disgrace. Third,’ I pointed at Alice and Huntly, ‘get your arse out of this car and show these people the deposition scene. Now, Constable.’

‘Yes, sir, sorry, sir.’ He scrambled out of the car, ramming his peaked cap down on his head. ‘This way, and—’

‘Check their bloody identification first!’

Alice looked over her shoulder. ‘You enjoyed that, didn’t you?’

I turned. Constable Hill was standing to attention with his back to us, guarding the path down to the deposition scene as if his life depended on it.

‘Might have done.’ I might not have been a police officer any more, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have fun putting the fear of God into lazy PCs.

The Scenes Examination Branch had laid out a common access path, marked off with more blue-and-white tape, the jaundiced grass crisp with frost and trampled flat. The path curled around the scene, looping back on itself towards an inner cordon of yellow-and-black tape: ‘CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS’. A handful of triangular yellow flags punctuated the undergrowth, all of them marked with a letter and number.

Huntly stood, chest out, shoulders back, nose swinging left to right as if he was scenting the place. ‘I see …’ And then he was off, working his way along the trampled path. Sniffing as he went.

I stuck my hands in my pockets. ‘They’re having difficulty locating the original Inside Man letters. Apparently the archives are a mess. No one knows what’s in what box. Sure you can’t make do with the photocopies Jacobson gave you?’

She curled her top lip. ‘They’ve been copied so many times they’re barely legible. I need to see the originals. I want to feel the ink on the page, see the weight he’s put behind the words, the scratch of the pen, I want to touch something he has. Something that didn’t end up dead or damaged.’ She turned, her eyes following Huntly as he ducked under the inner cordon. ‘Did you get anything off them eight years ago?’

‘We ran every test we could on the letters and the envelopes, but there was nothing. All six were postmarked Oldcastle. The only fingerprints we could lift belonged to the journalist he sent them to. All that’s left is the words.’

For a moment, it looked as if she was about to say something. But she dug into her leather satchel instead and came out with a manila folder and a carrier-bag. She jiggled the folder. ‘Photos.’ Then held up the bag. ‘And this is your investigation kit. Dr Constantine made one for everyone.’

I took the bag. Rummaged through the contents. A decent-looking camera – small but high-res, large memory card. Five or six pairs of blue nitrile gloves in individual sterile packages. A handful of evidence bags. A ruler. A notepad. A sheet of instructions. And a smartphone. I pulled it out, turned it over in my hands. ‘Let me guess: it’s all monitored and GPS tracked so they know where I am and what I’m up to?’

Alice just looked at me. Then, ‘No, it’s a phone. It’s for making calls and uploading stuff to the LIRU server, see there’s a slot in the side that’ll take the camera’s memory card? They’ve got the ankle monitor if they need to find you.’

Good point. I distributed the investigation kit between my pockets.

Huntly’s voice brayed out from the other side of the crime-scene tape. ‘I do love a good deposition scene. But this isn’t one of them. I mean look at this, honestly.’ He swept his arms up and out. ‘Everyone and their rancid mother’s picked the place clean, leaving dirty big footprints everywhere. And why, oh why, oh why, didn’t they put down a walkway? It’s all compromised. How am I supposed to work like this?’ He turned around, doing a slow one-eighty, left the cordoned-off area, then stomped and crackled away into the woodland.

So much for Jacobson’s hand-picked, decades of experience, top of their game, experts.

I ducked under the tape marking off the access path and scrunched through the knee-high grass towards the inner cordon. Stopped. Looked back to where Alice was standing with her arms wrapped around herself. ‘You coming?’

‘Aren’t we supposed to stick to the authorized path?’

‘You heard Huntly. Operation Tigerbalm have tromped all over it with their size elevens. There’s nothing left to compromise.’ I went back to wading through the frosty grass. Paused at the line of tape. Opened the folder and pulled out the photos.

They were the same ones Jacobson had given me in the Range Rover, the colours a lot more vibrant in the daylight.

It took a little back and forth, but eventually I found where the photographer must have stood to take the first couple of shots. I stood in the same place, holding the pictures out.

Claire Young’s head lay pointing back towards the path we’d started on, her skin pale and veined like marble.

‘She died somewhere else …’

Alice hadn’t moved, still hiding behind the blue-and-white line. ‘What?’

‘I said, she didn’t … Will you get your backside over here?’

I pointed as Alice picked her way across to the deposition scene. ‘There’s not enough blood. He slit her open, stitched a doll inside, and sewed her up again. Ground should be saturated with it. And the positioning’s wrong too.’

‘But we know the Inside Man has an operating room, it was on the DVD and—’

‘Supposed to be keeping an open mind, remember? And Unsub-Fifteen didn’t drag her here from the car park either, he carried her. Otherwise there’d be drag marks on the path.’ I planted my feet apart and hefted an imaginary Claire Young’s dead body up onto my shoulder. ‘So: you’ve got her in a fireman’s lift. You stagger down the path, till you think you’ve gone far enough that no one will see you from the car park. You don’t dump her at the side of the path, do you? No, you strike out at ninety degrees, put some distance between you and the path. Then you dump her.’ I mimed it, tipping the body off my shoulder and onto the grass. ‘Her head would be pointing that way, towards the woods, not away from them.’

‘Well … maybe he turned around and then dumped her body?’

Possible.

Then again, we’d already established that Professor Huntly couldn’t be as daft as he looked.

He was still crashing about out there, breaking branches and singing what sounded like opera to himself.

Alice picked at her satchel. ‘Ash, the big car chase … You ended up all covered in glass and blood and you broke your wrist and your ribs – I looked it up in the case file – but it doesn’t say why the Inside Man wasn’t all bashed up in the crash.’

‘Luck? Angle of collision? Not having a moron like O’Neil behind the wheel? How should I know?’ I put the photos back in the folder. ‘Listen, once we’ve dropped Rain Man back at the Postman’s Head, I need to run a little errand.’

Alice took a sudden interest in the path. ‘Oh.’

‘Nothing important. Just need to pop in on an old friend.’

‘Right …’

‘You can stay in the car if you like, I probably won’t be long.’

‘Ash, do you think we could talk about what happened with you and Mrs Kerrigan, I mean I know you’re not—’

‘There’s nothing to talk about. What happened, happened; there’s nothing I can do to bring Parker back.’

‘Ash, it’s perfectly normal to—’

‘She had him shot twice in the head, then framed me for it. What’s normal about that?’

Nothing.

Silence.

And then Huntly was back, stumbling out of the woods a good twenty yards further down than where he’d gone in. ‘Behold!’ He held a small digital camera aloft. ‘The Mighty Bernard Huntly has returned.’

Oh, lucky us.

He turned back towards the woods. Then froze. Looked over his shoulder at me. ‘Well, don’t just stand there – come, witness my brilliance.’

‘Gah …’ Alice stumbled, staggered forwards a few paces and thumped into a tree. ‘This is stupid.’

The forest floor was rutted, littered with roots and fallen branches. Dark with rotting pine needles and the brittle bones of dying ferns. Heady with the smell of earth and decay. Cold enough to make our breath fog as we picked our way deeper into the woods.

Huntly kept going, ducking under the jagged thicket of branches. ‘On the contrary, it’s infinitely sensible.’

She lowered her voice to a mutter. ‘Infinitely stupid, more like.’ Then back to full volume again. ‘There’s no way the killer came this way – there’s no path. How would you carry a body through all this? It’d get snagged in the branches, you’d drop it, you’d leave a big trail of snapped stuff and my hair keeps getting caught on these horrible twigs. Gahh!’

Huntly smiled back at her. ‘You are, of course, perfectly correct. We’re wading through the thicket here precisely because Unsub-Fifteen didn’t. There’s a track, ten foot to our right, that we’re walking parallel to. I don’t want either of you treading in any evidence.’

He shoved his way into a clump of broom and disappeared. The gap snapped closed again, dark green tendrils shivering behind him, seedpods rattling and angry.

Alice stopped. Stared at the bushes. Then stared at me. ‘I’m not a violent person. But if I look the other way, can you break his legs for me?’

I hauled a handful of broom back, making a gap. ‘Put your hood up, it’ll be fine.’

She did. Sighed. Then lowered her head and pushed her way into the bushes, setting the rattling going again.

Three, two, one. The branches snatched at my hair and shoulders, as I clambered in after her, ducking and weaving through the thicket, following the sound of swearing.

More rattling, and the bush opened out at the bottom of a ditch. Damp earth squelched beneath my feet, slippery as I scrambled up and onto a grass verge.

A road stretched away left and right, disappearing into the woods. Ten or twelve yards from where I’d emerged was a bus shelter, alien and battered beneath the reaching claws of more pine trees. Graffiti tattooed the phone box next to it – a sickly, twisted thing with a buckled door and half the Perspex missing. Snakes of soot curled up the remaining panes, the plastic warped and pitted by heat.

Huntly stood in the middle of the road, hands on his hips, a grin stretching his stupid little moustache wide. ‘Well? What did I tell you?’

Alice pulled a burr of pine needles from her hair. ‘… just washed it this morning …’

I stopped, twenty feet from the bus shelter. ‘So you’re saying the killer took the bus here, hauled the dead girl over his shoulder, and stomped off into the woods? Do dead bodies have to pay full fare, or do they count as luggage?’

A sigh. ‘You may mock, but what about this …?’ He made his way around to the back of the bus shelter, giving the side a wide berth, and pointed. ‘See?’

I followed, placing my feet in his footsteps, minimizing disturbance to the scene. A single smear of red-brown ran for six inches along the shelter’s bottom edge, just above the grass.

‘See? How much would you like to wager that it’s a DNA match with our victim?’ He moved over to the left, peering at a flattened patch in the scrubland. The grass was stained and darkened. ‘She probably died here. There’s not enough for a full bleed-out, but I imagine a lot of it would have clotted inside the body cavity by the time she got here. Hence the relative cleanliness.’

Alice hadn’t moved from the roadside. ‘Why bother though?’ She curled an arm around herself, the other hand playing with her hair again. ‘I mean he could’ve just left her there, behind the bus shelter, why pick her up again and carry her all the way through the woods to the bit of waste ground where she was found, doesn’t that seem like a bit of a waste of time?’

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pair of gloves from Dr Constantine’s investigation kit. Tore open the sterile packaging, and snapped them on. Scuffed through the weeds and grass to the far side of the flattened area – taking the long way around to avoid treading on any evidence. ‘Have you got a photo of this?’

Huntly sniffed. ‘Of what?’

‘Syringe.’ It lay in a clump of dockens, lined with frost, its yellow cap about a foot away.

‘Ah …’ He followed the path I’d made, his digital camera at the ready. ‘Say cheese.’

Alice still hadn’t moved. ‘Unsub-Fifteen tried to save her. He got Claire all the way out here, then he takes the cry for help he made her record and goes to call an ambulance, but she crashes. She’s not breathing. So he gives her … maybe something like adrenaline? Tries to start her heart again. He doesn’t want them to die, he wants us to get to them in time, like Laura Strachan, Marie Jordan, and Ruth Laughlin. Claire was meant to live. This was a failure.’

Huntly took another couple of shots. ‘And he didn’t want us to connect her body with this place, in case he’d left something of himself behind. So he moved the remains.’ The digital camera went back into Huntly’s pocket. ‘Of course, he didn’t reckon on tangling with someone of my calibre. They never do.’ He grinned. ‘Here’s a fun fact for you: one of the ambulance men who saved Laura Strachan, himself went on to become the last ever victim of another serial killer: the Nightmare Man. Personally, if I lived in Oldcastle, I’d move.’

Damp grass scuffed around my ankles as I made for the telephone box. The door squealed as I dragged it open. A new-car stench of burnt plastic slumped against me, underpinned with a bleachy tang. The phone itself looked reasonably intact, under all the black-marker swear words and cocks scratched into the metal. I picked the handset up and held it so the mouthpiece was nowhere near my lips. The dialling tone burred in my ear.

Still working. I punched in 1471, looking for the last number dialled, but the LCD display came up ‘— BARRED NUMBER —’ The handset went back into its cradle then I stepped out into the unburnt air again. Pulled out my new official phone and powered it up. It’d been pre-programmed with a half-dozen numbers, ‘~ THE BOSS!’ sitting at the top of the list, above ‘ALICE’, ‘BERNARD’, ‘HAMISH’, ‘SHEILA’, and ‘X – DOMINO’S PIZZA’. My finger hovered over the first entry. Of course, by rights it should be Control, not Jacobson getting the first call. Then again, Control couldn’t send me back to prison.

And there was no way I was risking that. Not when I was so close …

The phone rang for a bit, then Jacobson picked up, listened while I filled him in. Then, ‘Excellent. Bernard might be a pain in the arse, but he’s worth it. Get as many photos as you can, then call Ness – get her to send out a Scenes Examination Branch team. I want that scene cordoned off and picked over with an electron microscope. Tell them Bernard’s in charge, and if they give him any grief I’ll have them. OK?’

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