then heading out to interview people.
Where am I ever going to find someone who distrusts the police and the media? Apart from on every street corner, in every pub, in every work place and in every house.
Ultimately it's not about finding a list of names, it's about prioritising and guesswork and hoping that the combination of the two pays off. And, of course, we're going to be covering much of the same ground as the Edinburgh lads. Trying to identify potential suspects working from no clues whatsoever was one of the mainstays of their investigation. They, very obviously, got nowhere. So with every name we pull out of a hat, there's a reasonable chance that they got there first and already crossed them off a list.
Maybe this new spirit of cooperation will allow us to talk to each other about it. I'll just hold my breath for that one, then see you in Hell.
*
We finish work just after 11:30. Taylor goes first, and then Gostkowski and me. We barely speak to each other, my buddy and me, and she follows me back to my place again. We do the same as the previous night, shower then bed, although this time we start in the hallway before we get to the shower.
And at the end of it she kisses me on the cheek, goes to the bathroom, then leaves with a nod and a slightly crooked smile.
I might allow myself the thought that she's almost the perfect woman, except that would be outwith the terms and conditions of the relationship. Instead, I don't think about anything, not even crows and trees, dark and foul deeds, before I fall asleep and dream of nothing.
29
'That was ballsy.'
Seventh interview of the morning. Decided to take a cup of coffee from this guy, because I was desperate. Six brief interviews, the time taken driving around, as usual.
I start off every interview with the same view. This is the guy. This guy sitting right in front of me. It's him. Guilty until he persuades me otherwise. Might as well. I'm not wandering around presuming innocence; where did that ever get anyone? We're not randomly interviewing people off the street, we're talking to people who are at least in the ballpark of suspicion, and although there's still going to be an element of stumbling across the right person by accident, it's not as much of an accident than if we bumbled around Buchanan Street bus station testing people to see if they were handy with a bone saw.
Of course, I usually change my mind in about five seconds. Most people have
Started with the first guy on the list. It's not going to be him, though, is it? Not the first guy you speak to after having come up with a new line of enquiry. He was arrested for the rape of a young girl outside a night club. And when I say young, she was seventeen and pished out her face. Nevertheless, there was no question she was raped. The newspapers picked it up because his dad's been on the telly a bit. Nothing major, but it doesn't take much for a tabloid to decide you're worth putting on the front page. So overnight the whole country thinks he's a rapist. Then the DNA test falls flat on its face. It wasn't him. Some other fucker with short hair, a tattoo and his jeans round his ankles. He wasn't charged, off he goes.
The following day the newspapers carry banner headlines about how he's not a rapist.
Ha! As if. The following day the newspapers have moved on. Most of them don't even mention his release, and if they do, it's buried somewhere beside an advert for 2-for-1 at Iceland on page 57.
At some stage he picks up meagre compensation from a variety of sources, but the damage is done. Everyone thinks he's a rapist, and he has to live with it.
I spoke to him for ten minutes. Still wore the chip on his shoulder, still blamed everyone else. The girl, the police, the media, his parents. At no point had he ever asked himself whether he could have avoided any of it. Living in a reasonable house, with a reasonable car out front, and a wife and kids that he managed to hang on to despite the rape allegation, you'd think that maybe he would just move on. But he hadn't.
He stayed on the list.
Then there was the ex-footballer whose career frittered to a halt after being done for drink driving three times. Of course, it would be the police's fault he was done for that, and for driving without a licence. Perfectly reasonable for him to hate us, and not to blame himself in any way. His slow walk into the arms of disgrace, despite the fact that he played for a shitty wee team that was neither Rangers nor Celtic, nor even the great Partick Thistle, was well documented by the newspapers.
He lived in a squalid basement apartment in Dalmarnock. Miserable little shit more or less ranted the entire time at me for my part in his downfall.
He stayed on the list.
And now this guy. Comfortably middle class, living in a large house on the north side of the city. A Lexus in the driveway. No more than ten minutes drive from the hills and trees and the great outdoors. Similar to the first bloke. Wrongly accused by the police, wrongly arrested, name in all the papers. This one for the murder of a schoolgirl who lived on the same street as him. Several years ago now, but people hold grudges all their lives.
Unlike the earlier guy, this one was on the front pages for days. You know the thing they do, where they get the creepiest photograph they can find and splash it as big as possible? They can't say he's guilty, they can't say,
And worse for this bloke, even though he was ultimately released, even though it was proven that he hadn't killed her, the real killer was never caught. There was never anyone else splashed all over the front pages. The story was celebrated enough that the guy did get front pages to announce he'd been released, but you know what the public are like. No one believed it.
'What?' I ask.
'The press conference you gave yesterday afternoon.'
'You saw that, did you?'
This bloke reminds me of a businessman who's all smiles, and who you know is going to ram you up the arse just as hard as he can. As soon as your back is turned, obviously.
'You seemed to be offering yourself up as his next victim.'
'I don't think I was doing that,' I say, despite the fact that that's exactly what I was doing.
'Clearly you were,' he says, leaning forward and popping two sugar cubes into his cup. 'I wonder if you have some great plan to fall back on, or whether you think you're just going to be too strong for him. Was it intelligence of some sort, Sergeant, or were your words dictated by some misplaced bravado?'
'Tell me about your arrest,' I say. I'm not here to talk about me. And even if he hadn't come across as some dodgy fucker, turning the conversation away from himself is exactly the kind of thing that's going to make me suspicious.
'Are you looking for people with a grudge, Sergeant?'
They all ask that. It's fair enough. We can hardly sneak up on them.
'Tell me about your arrest,' I repeat.
He smiles, slurps at his coffee in an almost affected manner. I'd say he was gay, except for the photographs of the two children all over the place and the wife he's mentioned about four times. Maybe he's in denial. Maybe I haven't a clue.
'It was a long time ago, Sergeant. 2001. You must be really scraping the barrel. Desperate, are we?'
'The killer is working meticulously. So are we.'
'Well, you have to, yes. That'll be why your colleagues were here two months ago.'
Fuck. Inevitable. Bloody Edinburgh. I immediately want to ask him who he spoke to but I don't want him to know that I'm in a left-hand-knows-fuck-all-about-the-right-hand situation.
