Girls Of The Dark (19 page)

Chapter 48

T
he weather didn’t even have the decency to be bad. A piercing autumn sun was spilling over the mountains of Bute and making the water in the bay sparkle.

              The police launch had been powering along the straights for some time. They’d passed through the remote waterways of Loch Ruel and Loch Riddon. This was territory that Dani had not entered into before.

              She glanced at Alice sitting beside her, wrapped up in her padded coat and life jacket. The young woman’s wide eyes scoured every contour of this jagged coastline, only breaking the search to look down every so often at the map, protected by a plastic sleeve and gripped firmly in both her hands.

              ‘We’ll find it,’ Dani said quietly.

              ‘I wish we could have made her come with us, to point out exactly where the place is.’

              ‘She was never going to last that long. It’s a miracle she ever told us about what Gregory said to her all those years ago. Lisa Abbot had no conscience to speak of. That’s down to you.’ Dani rested her hand on Alice’s arm.

              The young sergeant shrugged off the praise. ‘You or Andy would have done the same.’

              Dani gazed out at the dark silhouettes of the hills, with the bright sun framed behind them. ‘I’m not so sure about that. You found a way to get through to Lisa. She opened up to you like no one else.’

              ‘I’m not convinced that’s a virtue, Ma’am.’

              Dani smiled but said nothing.

              The boat seemed to have entered some kind of swell. There was barely any wind so it had no obvious cause.

              ‘Is everything okay up there, Tam?’ Dani called to the Skipper.

              ‘Aye, we’re just entering a stretch of water where the currents are notoriously strong. Think of it as like your Grannie stirring her porridge.’

              Dani gripped the gunwales as the launch pitched from left to right. Despite the instability of the boat, Alice suddenly leapt to her feet. ‘I think it’s over there Ma’am.’ She pointed towards a rocky headland to the west.

              ‘Can we reach it, Tam?’

              ‘I’ll do my best, but these swells wouldn’t make it a likely tourist spot.’

              ‘That’s exactly the kind of location we’re looking for.’

              Eventually, Tam brought the launch into a tiny cove. There was nowhere to tie up. He recommended they get as close as possible to the shore and wade in from there.

              The DCI nodded her agreement.

              Alice, Dani and a DC from Tighnabruaich made their way steadily towards the cliffs. They had torches and ropes, which the DC secured to a boulder before they began to investigate the cave system itself.

              The tide was low enough for them to splash through the main cave to reach a smaller opening at the back. ‘We’re going to have to crawl in,’ Dani instructed her colleagues, who were taking up the rear.

              With her torch held out in front, the DCI led the way along a smooth, damp tunnel. The gradient abruptly shelved and she found herself deposited unceremoniously on the hard shingle in a smaller, darker cave which lay beyond. A few minutes later, Alice dropped down beside her.

              They allowed their torches to travel across the sides of the cavern. Dani took a couple of steps further inside, pointing the beam into a scooped out section of rock, its ceiling lower than the rest of the chamber.

              Dani gasped. The light revealed the glint of metal.

              Alice jogged over to take a closer look. ‘They’re chains, Ma’am.’

              They both fell deadly silent as they surveyed the full scene, perfectly aware of exactly what they were looking at; piles and piles of jumbled, discoloured, but perfectly intact, human remains.

              Dani felt the bile rise to the back of her throat and the tears sting her eyes. ‘We got it wrong, Alice. For
forty
fucking years we got it so wrong.’

Chapter 49

D
ani stood side by side with DCS Douglas, watching the interview through the wall of glass.

              ‘This is big, Danielle. Totally fucking huge.’

              She’d never heard Ronnie Douglas swear before. It almost made her laugh out loud. ‘Compensation will have to be paid to Calvin, certainly. It could run into the millions.’

              ‘It’s not just that. This guy,’ he pointed a long finger at the man seated directly ahead of them. ‘Has friends in very high places. Some extremely important people are going to look like fools when this gets out. That’s not good news for the rest of us.’

              ‘But think of the families, sir. We’ve got at least seven missing persons, including Sarah Martin in 1978, who’s bodies can be returned to their parents. I’m convinced there was another victim between Kirsty Glendinning and Debbie Cane. The gap between the two killings was just too large. It didn’t fit the perpetrator’s established pattern.’

              ‘Then we’re talking about victims going back forty years who may never have been reported missing. It’s a massive task for the forensic pathologists.’

              ‘And my team will assist them all the way.’

              Douglas turned to face her. ‘I want you to handle all the media interviews related to this. You’re going to make up for the colossal cock-ups of the past.’

              ‘Of course, sir.’

              Dani silently observed Alice and Andy at work. They were delivering the evidence the team had mounted against this man piece by tiny piece. The DCI could see Gregory Suter’s smug face slowly crumpling as he absorbed the inevitable truth. They’d got him.

              ‘So Calvin never knew about his father’s family?’ Douglas said quietly.

              ‘No. Calvin’s dad was a Scottish businessman who was based in Jamaica for a few years in the 1950s. According to our research, Billy Suter had illegitimate children dotted around the globe. He had a weakness for
exotic
women. All the time, he had a respectable family back in Glasgow that he eventually returned home to. Suter provided Calvin’s mum with money for a while, but it soon petered out.’

              ‘How did Gregory find out about Calvin?’

              ‘Professor Morgan believes that Gregory always knew about his father’s behaviour. It would explain his murderous hatred of those he considered to be
loose
women.’

              ‘The women who he felt were to blame for enticing his father to betray his mother and ruining their family life, destroying his father’s ‘good name’.’

              ‘Gregory would have despised their illegitimate offspring even more. They diluted what he considered to be special about his privileged family unit – they might even have threatened to take
his
place in his father’s affections.’

              ‘Calvin never set out to do any of those things.’

              ‘That’s right. Gregory was a young man, starting out in his father’s business back in the seventies. But he already possessed his perverted and murderous urges. Gregory was a regular client of a taxi driver for Princely Cars called Rick Hunter. He paid Hunter to do various tasks for him, including allowing the man to use the blue Ford Anglia to pick up his victims.’

              ‘I thought the car was unreliable. Couldn’t Hunter have done better?’

              ‘Not really. Any other of the cars would have been immediately missed. The Anglia sat in the garage most of the time. None of the drivers ever wanted to take it out. The problems started for both men when the police received the witness statements identifying the car at the scene of two abductions. It turned the spotlight on the employees at the firm, including Hunter. This was when the police surveillance started.’

              ‘So Hunter pointed the finger at Calvin, instead. He gave a sworn statement to the police saying it was Calvin who usually drove that car. It was a fabrication, but Hunter had no obvious reason to lie. He had an alibi for all the murders.’

              ‘Do we think that Gregory instructed Hunter to frame his half-brother?’

              ‘I believe it’s very likely. Calvin told Hunter about the caves in Ayrshire. Hunter passed the information onto Gregory who used them as his murder site. Then they had the extraordinary good fortune of Calvin leading the police to the bodies. They must have been rubbing their hands with glee. Calvin would get the blame and Gregory would simply find another place to take his victims.’

              ‘What was in it for Hunter – did he play a part in the raping and murdering of the girls?’

              ‘I think for him it was about the money. He turned a blind eye to everything else. But Hunter’s dead now, so we’ll never know.’

              ‘It was Gregory Suter’s wealth and connections that kept him undetected for so long. He had Hunter in his pocket forty years ago and he’s still doing it now. He bought off that cabbie in Fullarton and employed those thugs to burn down the garages and destroy crucial evidence for him. Just who the hell does he think he is?’ The DCS brought his fist down hard against the frame of the window. The vibrations seemed to rock the foundations of the building itself.

              Dani considered her boss’s words for a moment. She stared levelly at the seated figure of Gregory Alan Suter, 68 years of age, dressed in a dark grey suit with a striped shirt underneath and a college tie at the neck.

              Douglas was right. Who was this man? Because to Dani, he looked pretty damned ordinary.

Chapter 50

F
or a man who was instrumental in solving one of the biggest cases in Scottish history, Dani didn’t think her colleague looked very happy.

              She slapped him on the back. ‘Come on Andy, drink up. I want to get another round in.’

              ‘I’ve had enough, thanks.’ Andy let his gaze drop to the bottom of the beer glass.

              Alice nudged his elbow. ‘We should be celebrating. The evidence bag that you searched police storage rooms the length and breadth of western Scotland for has come back from forensics with a match. Gregory Suter’s DNA was all over Cheryl Moss’s clothes. That’s the clincher. Even the best lawyers money can buy can’t wriggle him out of that one.’

              ‘Aye, it’s good news.’ Andy downed the remainder of his pint.

              ‘Then why do you look like you’ve picked up a penny and lost a tenner, eh?’

              Andy eyed each of his colleagues in turn. ‘Because I’ve worked out what happened to the Kerrs, that’s why.’

              Alice stopped smiling. ‘We know what happened. Lisa told them about her cancer and Nick McKenna gave them all the gory details. They couldn’t take any more of the pressure for money and the pair took their own lives. It was awful, but nothing’s changed.’

              ‘Everything’s bloody changed.’

              Dani leant forward. ‘What are you thinking, Andy?’

              He sighed. ‘The crime scene and pathologist’s report never really made sense to me. But I can see it all now, in full bloody technicolour.

              Lisa calls Ray and tells him she’s going to die without getting thousands of pounds from somewhere for the newest treatment, right? Ray’s a simple soul and he loves her. He never had the slightest inkling she was a fraud. So he’s brooding on this piece of information for another twenty four hours. Then laughing boy turns up at the door claiming to be Lisa’s doctor.               He lays it on with a trowel about her needing this specialist treatment. Ray’s going to be pretty distraught by this point, yeah? But his mum? I reckon Janet’s had enough of it. She’s been getting it in the ear from her sister and hasn’t the slightest intention of parting with her life savings for a scrag-end like Abbot.’

              ‘Oh God.’ Dani rested her head in her hands. ‘After McKenna had gone, Ray begged his mum to give him the money for Lisa’s treatment. But she said no. In fact, she was adamant - Lisa Abbot wasn’t going to get any more money out of them, especially her husband’s compensation.’

              Andy nodded grimly. ‘In a fit of grief, anger and frustration, Ray held his mother’s arms and poured bleach down her throat. He restrained her until she struggled no longer. Those bruises on her skin weren’t from the coffee table at all. They were caused by her son.’

              ‘And like a child, he quickly recovered from his tantrum and realised what he’d done. He took some barbiturates which he had in the bathroom cabinet to help him sleep and swallowed the rest of the bleach himself.’

              They sat in silence for a while, listening to the cheerful chatter of their fellow drinkers.

              Then Dani spoke. ‘It may not have happened that way. We can’t be certain.’

              ‘
Oh
it did, Ma’am. We all know it.’

              Alice narrowed her eyes so the pupils were like tiny black dots behind her lashes. ‘If Lisa Abbot wasn’t already dead and buried, I’d ring her flaming neck.’