Eighty-six
‘You should have told us about that dead cat right away,’ said Mario McGuire.
‘I know,’ Alex replied hoarsely, ‘but when I agreed to let my dad put the phone tap back in place, I thought that was enough. I thought that the cat was just an ugly, perverted stunt.’
‘No, it was a marker: it meant “You’re next.” If Neil or I had known about it we’d have moved you right out of there and put an officer in your place.’
‘Who? Griff in a wig?’ She began to laugh, but stopped abruptly, wincing from the pain in her throat.
‘We might have been a bit more subtle than that. All kidding aside, the fact that DC Montell just happens to live next door to you was an enormous stroke of luck. We’d never have known either, if he hadn’t happened to mention it to Stevie Steele. He noticed your name on the letterbox and, like any good copper, wondered if there was any link to the DCC.’
She smiled. ‘The sod played his part well. He acted all surprised when I told him who my father is.’
‘Good for him,’ said Neil McIlhenney. ‘When we set up the surveillance Stevie took him off normal duties and told him to stay at home for a few days, keeping an eye on you. We guessed you’d have thrown a moody if we’d told you that you had a bodyguard, so we kept it to ourselves.’
‘If you’d told me it was that particular bodyguard,’ Alex croaked, ‘I might not have minded.’ She pulled herself up against the pillows, and reached for the glass by the side of her bed. When she had been examined after the attack, the police doctor had insisted on hospitalisation: McIlhenney had arranged for her to be admitted to the very discreet Murrayfield Hospital rather than the Royal Infirmary, where the media would have been able to identify her without difficulty. He had been doubly careful: as extra insurance of privacy, she had been admitted as ‘Mrs Louise McIlhenney’. She had spent most of the previous twenty-four hours asleep, and still felt woollen-headed from the sedative that the admitting doctor had insisted on giving her.
‘Suppose you had moved me out,’ she asked, ‘what would you have got him for? Nuisance calls and housebreaking, that’s all. The way it worked out, you’ve got him for attempted murder, and for hitting Griff’s knuckles with his head, if you want to throw that in as well.’
‘Actually,’ McGuire told her, ‘we think we’ve got him for a hell of a lot more than that. However, we don’t need to go into it now. This is an unofficial visit from two friends: the formal stuff can wait until tomorrow, or even later, when you’re rested and ready for it.’
‘I’m ready for it now,’ she insisted. ‘I’d rather know than wonder about it.’
The detective looked at Sarah, who was standing by the window of the small room. ‘What do you reckon, Doc?’
‘I reckon she’s okay,’ she replied. ‘When you arrived we were debating whether she should stay here for another night or come home to Gullane with me.’
‘Well, if you’re sure, Alex . . .’
‘I’m sure, Mario: get bloody well on with it! What else has he done?’
‘Relax, then, and try to stay calm as I’m telling you. Once we had him charged and locked up at Fettes, we ran a check with the National Criminal Intelligence Service: it’s automatic now in a case like this. We discovered that there are three unsolved murders down south, two in London and one in Birmingham, each bearing striking similarities to the attack on you. The victims were all women in their twenties. They were all murdered in their homes, and in each case they had been receiving nuisance phone calls, although only one of them had reported the fact to the police. The investigating officers found out about the others from their friends. There were also a couple of incidents where dead animals were found near the victim’s home.’ McGuire paused. ‘Do you want me to stop?’
‘No; carry on.’
‘Very well. In each case, the police are looking for a man who was in the victim’s life but has disappeared. The names he used are Barry Richards, William Dell and Bernd Schmidt, but we know from DNA that they’re all the same man. All three identities were borrowed for the purpose, from real and wholly innocent people, just as your attacker borrowed Guy Luscomb’s name and professional background. When you were attacked, the real Mr Luscomb was at home in Suffolk with his wife and two children. The man we’re holding is called Willis Gannett; a series of comparisons are being done even as we speak, but we’ve no doubt that what we have from Gannett will be a match for the other three cases.’
As the reality of what had happened to her hit her for the first time, Alex stared straight ahead, looking in the direction of the picture on the wall opposite, then at Sarah, but not focusing on either.
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ McIlhenney asked anxiously.
She nodded uncomfortably. ‘Why me?’ she whispered.
‘You seem to fit the physical and social type he goes after,’ he told her. ‘Attractive, young, single, white, professional and successful: two of the other victims were solicitors and the third was a doctor.’
‘Has he confessed?’
‘We haven’t put the other cases to him yet. That won’t happen until we’ve got the DNA match, and when it does it’ll be done by the investigators in each case. But he’s told us everything about the attack on you.’
‘Did you give him any option?’
‘We offered him the choice of being interviewed by your dad when he gets back. He didn’t fancy that. In fact it made his memory crystal clear. He didn’t chuck the cat across the river, Alex; he planted it on your balcony. When you invited him to your flat, he watched you set the alarm as you left, and cancel it when you got back. Next morning when you were in the shower, he stole your spare keys . . . for future reference, hide them, don’t leave them somewhere obvious . . . had them copied, and put them back. He made all the calls from Edinburgh, and when you and Gina were in together last weekend, he was watching you from the other side of the river.’
‘But he went back to London. I phoned him there.’
‘No, he didn’t. Your call was diverted automatically on to his mobile. He moved out of the George, that was all, and into Jury’s Inn, where he registered under his own name.’
‘So he had access to my place all that time?’
‘Yup. First to return the keys, then to plant the cat. He really doesn’t like cats, by the way; that seems to be part of his ritual.’
She shuddered. ‘I’m going to look a real idiot in court, when all this comes out in evidence.’
‘It may not get to court,’ said McGuire. ‘The English murder charges will take priority; he’ll get three life terms, probably with a full life tariff. The Lord Advocate may well decide to let your case remain open . . . unless you insist on prosecution, that is.’
‘I’ll have to think about that. My dad may insist on it, though. Does he know yet?’
‘He knows there’s been an arrest,’ McIlhenney replied. ‘I called him on his mobile. But I didn’t give him any of the detail, or any of the other stuff. That can wait till he gets back, by which time I hope to hell we’ll have turned Mr Gannett over to the people from Scotland Yard, and he’s well out of his reach.’
‘Forgive me, Neil, but the way I feel, I’d like my father to have some time with him.’ Her face twisted into an unattractive grin. ‘About thirty seconds would be enough: that’s all he’s good for.’
Eighty-seven
He had thought that there would be elation, but as the weekend had played itself out, he had found that the opposite was true. As in many of life’s facets, the thrill was in the chase, not in its sad, squalid conclusion. For all his colleagues’ congratulations, ultimately, he asked himself, what had he done? He had discovered three unknown, decades-old crimes, and in the process he had disturbed two graves. But that was all: he was no closer to the perpetrator than he had been when he started on his silly, selfish quest.
‘Supercop my arse,’ he whispered, as he gazed out of his window on to the frost-covered sports field outside.
The ringing telephone broke into his thoughts with the insistent sharpness of a dentist’s drill. He picked it up. ‘ACC Allan, Strathclyde, sir,’ Crossley advised him. ‘And Detective Superintendent McIlhenney’s on his way up.’
‘Put Max through, then send Neil in when I’m finished.’ He waited for a few seconds.
