Lawless (17 page)

Petra absorbed every word, nodding occasionally. When McBride stopped speaking, she remained silent for some time, looking deeply into her nearly full glass of Guinness.

It was only after two hyper children had shrieked their way to the games room that she finally spoke. ‘You know you’re putting me on the spot, don’t you? If there
is
someone out there who’s killed two people, I have to do something about it. I can’t pretend it hasn’t happened.’ She looked concerned.

McBride was prepared for her conclusion. ‘In your own words – show me the money,’ he said. ‘Where’s the proof? All we have is some madman sending me notes. He could be stringing me along, just making the whole thing up. Having a quiet laugh. What’s to pass on to your superiors? They already have someone banged up for one of the killings.’ He smiled at her, delighting in playing her at her own earlier game.

Petra did not return his smile. ‘You don’t believe a word of that.’

‘No – but that’s not really the point, is it? That’s how it stands. You’re the one who dismisses hunches and wants evidence. And meantime, there’s very little of that.’ McBride wanted to put an arm round her. She looked confused and unexpectedly defenceless. She was no longer the confident, high-flying police officer on accelerated promotion. She was the uncertain teenager visiting London for the first time. ‘Look,’ he went on, ‘if I’m right, this isn’t going to go away unless something chases it. Let’s play it out my way and see what happens. No need for the cavalry just yet.’

She gazed back at him, anxious for reassurance.

He provided it. ‘OK, think about this. The messages are being sent to me. There’s nothing that says I have to pass any of this on to the police, for the reasons I’ve just given you. It’s my ball and, unless we play by my rules, I can just go away and play by myself. Then where would the police be?’ McBride knew the logic of what he had just said was undeniable.

It was also the clincher she desired. Her expression changed to relief. ‘Makes sense,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘So, where do we go from here?’

‘We look for what links the two victims, that’s where,’ he responded. And we look for what links them to the last person they ever saw on this earth.’

McBride toyed with the remnants of his coffee. He stirred the last half inch in the cup for the third time and pondered over his next move. It was still early evening, Petra’s hair had dried and the scent of her perfume drifted over him. He wondered what her plans were for the rest of the night and whether he should become part of them.

It wasn’t the first time he had entertained such thoughts and the dilemma was the same. If he blundered in without finesse, he would probably be dismissed as some kind of prick-in-hand merchant – a sexual opportunist with testosterone for brains. Although it might have been a fair description of his approach in other liaisons, it didn’t altogether fit with the way he viewed the detective inspector – not that he was entirely certain of the exact shape of that. What he was convinced of was that he wanted to do nothing to jeopardise the relationship – personal and professional – that was developing between them. The truth was that he was also growing afraid of getting too close.

Life after Caroline had been complicated but simple. Lots of women attracted him but he pursued the ones who shared his needs. Some company. Some conversation. And sex, always sex. But no commitment, never commitment. Easy come, easy go. The guys who marked him down as having a high success rate didn’t understand the game. The trick was to know when a woman was interested. That way you didn’t waste time. Funny thing was that some of the women who wanted the same didn’t know it or wouldn’t admit it to themselves. It was easier for them to pretend their desires were less basic.

McBride was not required to wrestle with his thoughts for long. As he lifted his cup to drain the dregs, a voice sounded behind him. It was quiet, feminine and warm and the accent was neutral. It made a statement and asked a question at the same time. ‘You’re here – and with company,’ it said, the last three words an enquiry.

He turned to look into the face of a blonde who was speaking to Petra but gazing directly back at him. She was about the same age as the policewoman but taller. Her hair was not wet but blow-dried and carefully brushed back. She was wearing an Adidas stretch top and expensively cut casual bottoms that did everything for her athletic figure. If she wasn’t one of the club’s tennis pros, she worked out and regularly, McBride thought. Either way, he was impressed. He was invariably drawn to women who looked after their bodies – for what they achieved as well as what the discipline said about them. When they also possessed neat noses with nostrils that flared, McBride liked them even better.

Anneke Meyer did not play tennis but she most certainly worked out. Two evenings a week, after thirty minutes on a treadmill and a session with loose weights, she attended body combat sessions. Petra was among her classmates but that was not their only contact. Anneke Meyer’s day job was in the laboratory of Tayside Police where she was a senior forensic scientist. Beauty, a little brawn and brains – like a moth being pulled towards the flame, McBride found himself irresistibly drawn.

He was pleased when she accepted Petra’s invitation to join them, sitting on his other side in the curved dining booth and ordering mineral water and a smoked salmon sandwich.
A sandwich
– McBride repeated the word to himself and smiled inwardly. That was how he felt. In his occasional dreams, he’d imagine himself as the filling in an American sandwich, when he would be placed in bed between two outstanding examples of the female form. It had happened only once, in Northern Ireland, but that didn’t count because the amount of drink the three of them had consumed to get them there had produced only incompetence, impotence and somnolence. Now, seated between two perfect specimens, he pondered on how differently he would react if given a second opportunity – in his dreams.

The conversation he had with the two of them was light, impersonal and sporting. They spoke of a forthcoming 10k women’s road race and the closest they came to mentioning a threesome was when Petra and Anneke discussed the viability of them joining with a third runner to form a team. When more water was ordered, he knew it was time to depart with his fantasies intact.

He took his leave with the promise to Petra that he would follow up on their earlier dialogue and hoped she would do the same, trying to sound vague enough not to prompt interest from Anneke.

McBride was barely past the reception desk on his way out when the exchange between the two women swiftly altered direction.

‘Nice.’ The body combat instructor nodded her head in approval as she watched his retreating figure.

‘Him or his bum?’ Petra asked, light-hearted but curious.

‘Both.’

Petra smiled but made no reply.

‘So, what’s the state of play between you? Sorry if I broke something up by gatecrashing your meal.’

‘No – nothing like that. Just a kind of friend,’ Petra said by way of explanation. ‘I’ve known him since I was at school – sort of.’

‘And?’

‘And nothing. That’s it. He’s come back to town and we’ve met up a couple of times. No more – zero, zilch.’

‘Whose idea is that?’

Petra felt her cheeks flush once more, this time without the assistance of a gym workout. ‘Mine … his … both of us, probably. He’s just a friend. Besides, he’s a serial shagger.’ She surprised both of them with the strength of her comment.

‘Oh, like that, is it?’ Anneke laughed, loudly enough to attract glances from a group of silver-haired aqua-aerobic enthusiasts in the adjoining booth. ‘Is that a complaint or a compliment?’ She giggled again.

Petra’s flush deepened. She struggled to find a suitable response but failed. Her customary poise had disappeared.

‘OK, relax. Just wanting to know how interested you are. Wouldn’t want to tread on any toes.’

The news bulletin washed over McBride. More terrorist activity in Iraq … a drive-by drugs shooting in Manchester … four dead in a motorway pile-up … the usual stuff. Sure, it was serious but who really cared except those involved – and their families? For the rest it was acoustic wallpaper. Two minutes after the car radio got back to playing music, you’d forgotten all about it.

Not that day. The tailpiece item jerked him into full consciousness.
Police in Aberdeen are investigating the death of a thirty-year-old woman who was found dead in her home earlier today. She was said to have been the victim of an assault.
The voice of the female announcer was flat, unemotional. She might have been running off the local fish prices.
It is thought Claire Bowman, a lecturer at Aberdeen University, may have known her killer. A police spokesman said there was no evidence of a break-in to her ground-floor flat and nothing appeared to have been stolen. She may even have shared a drink with the person responsible.

McBride felt hairs start to straighten on the back of his neck –
shared a drink … thirty years old …

The ‘message’ about the murder of Ginny Williams that had been left in the library for him to find roared into his head –
… just one more on the list. Another much further away.
So did the note in the white envelope sent to his flat –
You will need to pay attention to the news
. The writer of the letter could not have been more explicit. He had promised another victim and had just delivered it. McBride did not entertain a single doubt that he was correct.

He pulled the Mondeo into the kerb and waited for the traffic to clear. Then he swung round in a tortuous U-turn and headed back to the apartment he had left ten minutes earlier. Inside, he went straight to the bathroom where he shaved and brushed his teeth once more. He dressed quickly, this time in a shirt and tie and suit that needed pressed.

Before leaving the house, he slipped his tape-recorder, a notebook and ballpoint into his jacket pockets, before checking the battery level on his mobile. Then he hurried downstairs and jumped back into his car. The entire operation had taken four minutes.

McBride drove above the speed limit as he cleared the suburbs. That was his usual practice and he never attempted to justify the fact that he consistently broke the law because he imagined all drivers did the same, except the slow ones who got in his way. But the journey he was embarking on called for haste, he told himself. He turned on to the motorway taking him north to Aberdeen and pressed the accelerator pedal further to the floor. An hour later, he drew into the car park of the headquarters of Grampian Police.

Instead of entering the building, he noted the force’s telephone number from an information board outside, rang their switchboard and asked to be put through to their press office. An officious constable informed him curtly that the next press conference about the murder was due to be held a short time later. McBride congratulated himself that his instincts had not let him down. Unless a suspect is detained within the first few hours, the police invariably lean heavily on the media to broadcast appeals for assistance. They saw no irony in the fact that, at other times, they treated reporters like pariahs. That afternoon they would be anxious to make the teatime radio and TV bulletins. Unless Grampian Police were different from their colleagues nationwide, they would seek much but offer little in return.

So it turned out. When the media assembled in the badly ventilated room hurriedly pressed into service for the occasion, they were addressed by a detective chief inspector with the name J. Brewster on a chest badge who looked as though he wished he was anywhere else but there. He was starting to sweat under the white lights of the TV cameras even before he began speaking. After three mouthfuls of water, he read a prepared statement, using the ponderous phrases that only police are capable of. McBride stifled an urge to laugh. Why did police speak in public in a manner they would not contemplate in private?

‘At approximately zero nine forty hours today, the body of a female was found in a house at 21a Park Avenue,’ the chief inspector intoned. ‘She has been identified as the occupier, Claire Inglis Bowman, aged thirty years. Her death is being treated as suspicious. There is no evidence that the house had been entered forcibly. We are interested to hear from anyone who may have seen any person or persons entering or leaving the house at 21a Park Avenue between approximately twenty-one hundred hours last evening and zero eight hundred hours today. We would also be interested to hear from anyone who was aware of any kind of disturbance or noise coming from the house in Park Avenue between these hours.’

The police officer finished reading from the official printout and sat down, clearly relieved to have concluded his message. He drained his glass of water in a single gulp then patted his shining forehead with a handkerchief taken from a trouser pocket. He did not seem to be aware that the cameras were still running.

A chorus of questions rang out from the two rows of reporters seated in front of him. Most of them asked the same thing. How did Claire Bowman die and what did he mean by ‘suspicious’?

The detective chief inspector looked uncomfortable. He struggled with his words. ‘We are awaiting the result of a postmortem but her death may have been the result of an assault upon her. That is why it is being treated as suspicious.’

The journo sitting directly opposite the DCI was forced to state the obvious. ‘So, if the PM shows the assault killed her, it’s murder, isn’t it?’

‘It would be fair to say that,’ the policeman replied, his serious expression unchanging.

The reporter continued to press him. ‘What kind of assault was it?’

The sweating cop shook his head. ‘We’re not prepared to disclose that at this stage.’

And so it went on.

‘Was anything stolen?’

‘Not that we’re aware of.’

‘Did she have any enemies?’

‘Well,
somebody
obviously didn’t like her.’

‘Any suspects?’

‘No comment.’

‘Is an arrest imminent?’