invulnerability and his desire for publicity. He believes he is untouchable but moreover he wants everyone to know about his power. ‘These particular murders are unusual because they are crimes with no obvious indication or links as to why they would happen. In most cases there are clear connections but not in these. ‘I have to say that police are at the stage where they have exhausted all logical lines of possibility and are simply hoping that something will turn up or that the killer will make some fundamental mistake. There are no worthwhile leads and they are praying that one surfaces before he strikes again.’ Dr Crabtree, who was brought into the investigation after the third murder, that of Thomas Tierney, has been critical in the past of the force’s reluctance to use forensic profiling techniques. There have been persistent rumours of friction between Dr Crabtree and DS Rachel Narey, the officer in charge of the investigation. Sources suggest that the two have argued in front of other officers on many occasions with DS Narey openly critical of the psychologist’s assessments. It is thought that she disagrees with his opinion that there is no connection between the victims. While not confirming those suggestions, Dr Crabtree said that there had been some disagreements over strategy. ‘Differing members of an investigation team often take differing approaches,’ he said. ‘This is not unusual and may even be seen as constructive. It is important that everyone keeps an open mind on all avenues that may be conducive to bringing this case to an end.’
CHAPTER 32
A time will come when a person will be declared insane when they believe that ‘I am he who is X, Y and Z, and X, Y and Z only.’
It’s a line from a book called The Dice Man by a guy calling himself Luke Rhinehart. It was a cult novel written at the height of the hippy revolution and featured free sex, rape and murder. The dust cover said it was subversive, controversial, and dangerous. Banned in several countries, it promised to change the reader’s life whether he liked it or not. It was about a bored psychiatrist who spiced things up by letting his entire life be ruled by the roll of the dice. No going back, no changing the rules, just follow the dice and let chance sweep away what he said were the illnesses of reason and seriousness created by modern society. It championed freedom over free will, chance over choice. It took away the moral or ethical responsibility that came with choice and replaced it with risk, variety and impermanence. You couldn’t be held accountable for something that happened at random and there was no point in worrying about the consequences of any action when the next throw of the dice took you in an unrelated direction.
It was of course a massive piss-take.
All that mattered though was the premise and the premise was simple. The dice decide. Or the die decides. Die is the singular of dice. Die, die, die. For my purposes, it was all rather neat. The die decides who dies. Homicidal tongue-twisters r us.
The line about he who is X, Y and Z means that it’s crazy to believe a person is just what he is and nothing more or less. We are all more than we seem, even to ourselves. We are all capable of much more than we or others might think.
None of us can be sure of who we are or what we are, far less of what we might do. One event, one roll of the dice, one chance happening, one flutter of a butterfly’s wing and all that we think is set and sure is suddenly very different. Your world is arse over tit just like that. Chaos rules. Your X, Y and Z is gone and you find that you are X, B and W. You are more and you are less.
My instruments of chance were a pair of dice liberated from an old Monopoly set. Rhinehart’s nonsense is no way to live a life but it seemed a perfect way to orchestrate a random death.
The dice man cometh.
I split Glasgow into two areas, north and south of the river. An odd number meant north, even was south. A four and a six. South.
Wikipedia lists sixty-two districts south of the Clyde in alphabetical order from Arden to Tradeston. I split them into five groups of twelve with two left over. I threw a single die and threw a one.
That left me with Arden, Auldhouse, Battlefield, Bellahouston, Cardonald, Carmunnock, Carnwadric, Castlemilk, Cathcart, Corkerhill, Cowglen and Craigton.
Leafy suburbs, skyscraper hellholes, Victorian villas, tenement graveyards and conservation villages. Rat runs, estates, schemes and bombsites. Someone in one of them would fall into in the crosshairs of the dice.
I’d need to throw a pair of dice so that left only Arden as being safe. Perhaps a first for anyone living there.
I threw some practice dice in my head. Think of a number.
Eight. Castlemilk. Chateau Au Lait or Castlemanky depending on your point of view. It had one pub and seven hundred hungry weans testifying that you couldnae fling pieces oot a twenty-storey flat. If it was butter, cheese or jeely, if the bread was plain or pan, the odds of it reaching earth were ninety-nine to wan. Numbers everywhere.
Ten. Corkerhill. Home of the Paka, a canal or train stop for Paisley, refurbished commuter land and not half as bad as it was painted or as it used to be.
Seven. Carnwadric. Another tweeny war housing scheme on the fringes of civilization, east of safe Arden and north of Thornliebank. I’d say it was a shithole but that would hardly distinguish it from so many of the badly thought out schemes thrown up to take the spillover from the old slums.
I threw the dice for real.
A two. A three.
Five. Cardonald.
I knew there was the college, a cat and dog home, the Bute and Cumbrae multis and not much else of note except the bus into town. Cardonald it was.
Random step number two.
I opened an email account in the name of Wayne Wayne. Wayne. wayne@live. co. uk. I then opened a Facebook account in the name of Wayne Wayne. As good a name as any, better than most.
Wayne is the most common middle name of America’s most prolific murderers. It’s all big John’s fault. Over 150 of the USA’s most vicious serial killers had the middle name Wayne. John Wayne Gacy, 36 victims. Elmer Wayne Henley, 27 victims. Conan Wayne Hale, Jimmy Wayne Jeffers, Robert Wayne Sawyer.
Blame the parents. Give a kid a name like that and don’t be surprised if he grows up just a little more aggressive and macho than you expected. Wayne Wayne it was.
Facebook search engine. Type in the word Cardonald and hit enter.
Top of the list of over 500 names was Lara Samoltowski, the unwitting victim of the social networking revolution. It was all Google’s fault for opening Facebook up to their search engine and so opening her up to me. She really ought to have listened to those warnings on privacy settings.
A look at her profile told me a lot. Where she studied. What bands she liked and so what concerts she might go to. Where she liked to eat. Where she liked to drink. Where she liked to shop. The lack of a boyfriend. Her vulnerability.
So much networking. So much information.
I was the most patient of impatient killers. It took three meals at Gambrino on Great Western Road. It took three times of wandering carefully through Zara, H amp;M and Oasis. It took four fairly uncomfortable visits to Oran Mor and the pubs of Ashton Lane before I saw the face from Facebook.
It was in Jinty McGinty’s on Friday 3 April that I eventually saw her. She was sitting at a table in the corner with three other girls. I knew them immediately. Maz, Christine and Ash. Her Facebook friends, her best pals. Fellow students who didn’t know how lucky they were. But they would.
Maz was a hotshot netball player, had a thing for guys with glasses and the only thing she loved more than vodka and cranberry was Ugly Betty. They all thought Christine was the best-looking girl in college. Chrissie had loved Take That since she was seven but now she was big time into the Chemical Brothers and missed her dog Robbie who was at home in Elgin. Ash was a party girl, hated studying but loved Greggs steak bakes, Pinot Grigio and tablet.
Then there was Lara. She wasn’t one of the new Poles who had flooded into Scotland since EU expansion. She was fourth generation. Her dad couldn’t even speak Polish. Lara wanted to save the planet, the environment,
