8
Irvine felt cold in spite of the sun overhead as she walked along the riverside towards the small crowd gathered behind the yellow crime scene tape. She saw uniformed officers standing around looking bored and Scenes of Crime staff in the full regalia: white overalls, hoods, masks and booties.
The sun was clear in the sky, only wisps of cloud spoiling the blue canvas. Irvine knew that it was her core temperature that had dropped, not the heat of the sun.
When she reached the crowd, Irvine eased her way through, showing her warrant card to a uniformed officer who stepped up to block her. She saw two thirty-something men in dark suits with SCDEA gold shields fixed to their jackets. She could almost feel the sense of entitlement radiating from them.
She approached the two men and introduced herself. They did the same: Detective Chief Superintendent Eric Thomson, head of operations at the SCDEA; and syndicate leader, Detective Inspector Bryan Fraser. Irvine didn’t know the jargon.
‘What’s a syndicate?’ she asked.
‘What we call our investigation teams,’ Thomson told her.
Irvine wasn’t really sure what was wrong with the word ‘team’, but said nothing. She was here to make friends.
Thomson was a short man with a neat beard and square-rimmed glasses. It looked to Irvine like he took some care over his appearance. Fraser was much taller — over six feet — with hair gone prematurely grey.
‘What’s the story here?’ Irvine asked.
She looked past the two men at a white-suited technician on hands and knees going over the ground inch by inch for evidence.
Fraser turned in the direction she was looking.
‘Young girl found this morning,’ he said. ‘Face down in the water.’
‘How old?’ she asked.
‘Eighteen or nineteen, we think.’
Irvine winced.
‘Where’s the body?’
‘The pathologist was here with the shell a half-hour ago.’
Irvine knew the jargon this time: ‘the shell’ was the name given to the unmarked van that ferried bodies to the mortuary.
‘What do you want me to do?’
Fraser didn’t answer this time, looked at Thomson instead.
‘You should speak to the DG,’ he said. ‘And Kenny Armstrong. They’re around somewhere.’
He swivelled his head, scanning the crowd.
Irvine had seen photographs of the Director General — Paul Warren. He liked being high profile and was often front and centre when a big arrest was made.
‘Here they are,’ Thomson said, waving at two men making their way through the crowd.
Warren was in his early fifties and wore a charcoal-coloured suit. He had short, greying hair and a narrow face. The man with him was about Irvine’s height with heavy stubble and close-cropped hair. His clothes looked like they had seen better days: stained jeans, a V-neck jumper and a black leather jacket.
Thomson made the introductions. The man in the leather jacket was Detective Sergeant Kenny Armstrong.
‘Sorry about this,’ Armstrong said, looking down at himself as he shook Irvine’s hand. ‘I’ve been out all night on this and didn’t get the chance to change.’
Irvine noticed that he had a bit of a Highland accent.
‘No worries,’ she said. ‘I know what that can be like.’
‘Kenny’s been working hard on this the last couple of weeks,’ Warren said. ‘Since it started.’
‘Not that it’s got us anywhere,’ Armstrong said, rubbing his hands over his face.
‘Since what started?’ she asked.
‘Sorry,’ Warren said. ‘We need to get you up to speed, don’t we?’
He turned to Armstrong.
‘Kenny, can you get some steer from DC Irvine on working the scene and we can meet back at Pitt Street later today with the full team for a briefing. I’ll call you and let you know what time.’
He told Irvine it had been nice to meet her then moved away with Thomson and Fraser in tow.
‘Not sure how I can steer you until I know what this is about,’ Irvine told Armstrong. ‘I mean, I’m a little in the dark.’
‘Welcome to Operation Red Square,’ Armstrong said flatly.
9
‘CID are the experts,’ Armstrong said to Irvine as he walked with her to the top of the concrete embankment leading down to the river’s edge. ‘I mean, on murder investigations. It’s why we asked for your input.’
They stopped at the top of the embankment. Irvine saw another of the forensic technicians being helped down the embankment wall to the muddy river’s edge. She turned to face Armstrong.
‘You’ve had more than one body?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And the reason CID haven’t been called in before is that you didn’t think they were murders. Am I still on track?’
Armstrong nodded. ‘You’re good,’ he said, smiling for the first time.
‘How many?’ Irvine asked.
‘How many what?’
‘Deaths.’
‘This is the fourth.’
A line creased between Irvine’s eyes. ‘You’re saying you have four murders?’
‘Well, we’re not sure if they’re all murders.’ He opened his hands.
‘Okay,’ Irvine said, feeling more confused now than when she had arrived. ‘Let’s deal with what we have here then we can talk about the rest. What was it about this girl’s body that made you think someone killed her?’
Irvine looked down at the technicians working in the shallow edge of the river, water halfway up their boots.
‘We’re not certain that she was killed,’ Armstrong said. ‘Not in the way you mean. By someone doing violence to her.’
‘But this one is different to the first three?’
‘Yes. The girl was naked.’
‘And who goes out at night in Glasgow like that before taking a swim, right?’
‘That’s what we thought.’
‘So at the very least someone was with her when she died. Stripped her and dumped her here.’ A further thought occurred to Irvine. ‘Why do you think this is linked to your operation? I mean, what’s the connection to the other bodies?’
‘We don’t know for sure that she is connected,’ Armstrong said. ‘I mean, the other deaths were overdoses so far as we can tell. But there are needle tracks on this girl’s body and no immediate signs of any other cause of death.’
‘Seems a bit of a stretch.’
‘You’re right. But it makes sense to treat it as potentially connected for now so that we can get a head start on working the case. If we’re wrong, we’ve lost nothing. You’ve got to understand that with three bodies already
