the ranks of Strathclyde Police I was nothing. They knew me, they wanted me but no one else gave a damn.
A cop got into the back of the cab just days after Tierney. Saw him for polis right off. The clothes, the hair, the way he carried himself, all off-job casual but couldn’t have been anything else. Polite enough but no chat, which obviously suited me just fine. Gave me an address in Millerston, couple of streets back from Hogganfield Loch, and settled back in the seat. We had driven maybe five minutes when his mobile rang.
‘All right, Gavin? How you doing?’
Pause.
‘No, heard nothing. She’s keeping it all to herself. Asked around but no one knows what’s going on.’
Pause.
‘Aye, I know. Place is going mental.’
Pause and a narrowed glance at my eyes in the rear-view. I watched the road.
‘I don’t know how she expects to keep a lid on this for much longer. Three of them for fuck’s sake. One was bad enough but three? Shit’s going to hit the fan big time when this comes out.’
Long pause.
‘She doesn’t have a clue. Not a Scooby. Neither of them do. Miles out her depth. Fucking drowning in it she is. Serves the bitch right.’
Pause.
‘No, no way. Sorry but all she has to do is hold her hands up and admit she’s not up to it. Should have it taken off her. Fucking three of them. Fucking unbelievable.’
Pause.
‘No, I don’t.’
Pause.
‘That’s no the point. Nothing to do with it.’
Pause.
‘No, I don’t know either. No idea. Some sick joke. But it shouldn’t matter. Nothing to do with it, certainly no reason for her to run with this.’
Pause.
‘Aye well, we’ll see soon enough. Fuck knows what’s going to happen if there’s a fourth.’
Very short pause.
‘Well, you can hardly rule it out.’
Pause.
‘I’m just saying. This is out of hand already, Gav. Way out of hand. Three of the fuckers.’
Long pause.
‘Yeah, but he doesn’t know that, does he? So he’ll think what he wants, do what he wants.’
Pause.
‘Oh no. No chance. That’s her call. No one talks about it, she says. Her call.’
Pause.
‘Not our problem. Our problem is what happens when this comes out. We’ll all be right in it then. Way she’s going it’s her mess. Let her lie in it.’
A long pause then a laugh. A harsh, crude laugh.
‘Aye, course I would. Am no denying that. So would you. Not the point though. Like I said, it’s way out of hand already. Fuck knows how this is going to pan out but I can’t see how it’s going to be good.’
Short pause.
‘Aye. Too right. A fucking nightmare. Shit! We should be all over this. Blasting it from the rooftops, not this softly, softly pish.’
He breathed out hard.
‘No, nor me, mate. All right. Speak to you tomorrow. Cheers.’
He snapped his phone shut with an angry click. At the sound of it shutting, I looked in the mirror and caught him glancing at me. He glared back, challenging me. My eyes went back to the road. Nothing to do with me, guv.
Maybe it was nothing to do with me. Maybe I was paranoid but it didn’t seem likely. I made him for a cop and was sure that every cop in Glasgow was talking about me. As much as no one else knew I existed, I must have been number one topic of conversation for the police.
I knew I was gripping the steering wheel a bit harder than I should have been the whole way through his chat. The chat that might have had nothing to do with me. I was cool. I was detached. I was compartmentalizing. But I knew it was having an effect. My heart was beating just a bit faster. My blood was hotter. The he and the she of his talk with the Gavin guy were reverberating round my head. I was thinking, calculating, considering. I think I might even have been sweating just a bit more than I should. I was aware of my pulse.
Suddenly I was aware of traffic lights changing above me as I drove along Cumbernauld Road into Stepps. Fuck, fuck fuck. I slammed on my brakes just after amber had become red. Fuck. Streets and windows and signs jolted into my head and it was like my ears had popped on an aeroplane. I slid to a halt a few feet beyond the line and realized I hadn’t noticed much except his voice since some time back when we were on the bypass.
He shot forward a bit in his seat and swore.
‘Fuck’s sake.’
‘Sorry. Sorry about that. Changed on me.’
‘Aye. So I saw.’
He glared at me again in the rear-view.
I tore my eyes from his before I could glare back at him. So tempting but that would have achieved nothing and might have done a whole lot of harm. Heart beating fast. Pulse throbbing. I had a long game to play.
I breathed and I waited. Tried to make a point of not holding the steering wheel too hard. Long game. Big move still to come. Cool your blood.
The red ticked away like a stopped clock. Tick, tick, tick. Changed. Red. Red and amber. Green. Took my time. Eased away.
He glared at me again. I looked back blankly.
‘Fuck’s sake.’
Like it was all my fault.
He was just one cop. One polis man among eight thousand. One man among a million in Greater Glasgow. What the fuck did his opinion matter? He obviously didn’t know what he was talking about. Didn’t know anything about anything.
I was on edge. Didn’t realize it until then. Had wanted people to talk about me, about it, about them, but as soon as one did I got edgy. Not good. There were big things about to happen. The most important thing. Not the time to get anxious.
I didn’t look in the rear-view mirror again. Eyes front. Didn’t look at him again, didn’t breathe until we had gone onto Royston Road and it was time for the turn onto Mossbank Drive.
‘This one?’
‘Aye. Then first left.’
I turned right. I turned left. He said twenty yards. I stopped. He got out. He left a shit tip. Closed the door behind him without a word.
He was nothing. I breathed. Big city, small village. He knocked on the door of a house which opened and closed behind him.
I breathed and drove off. I drove on.
His conversation might have had nothing to do with me. I didn’t care. I knew what I had to do. I knew what was going to happen.
CHAPTER 16
I’d read about serial killers. I would look in bookshops and in the local library. Never bought a book, never
