Billy smiled, reached inside his coat pocket and brought out a handful of Scottish notes. “There’s a ton Fraser. Now piss off and don’t tell anyone we’ve met.”
Before Fraser could even reply the smoke glass window was sliding up and the rear wheels were spinning and chewing up the loose gravel as the BMW lurched towards the main road.
* * * * *
Alistair McPherson stood at the front steps of Lauders bar tapping the filter of his cigarette on its packet before popping it into his mouth. He lit it in cupped hands; it was an old habit from his army days. He inhaled deeply and his chest shook sending out a spluttering cough. It lasted several seconds before he banged his chest and brought it under control.
Jesus these things are going to kill me one day.
He stood for a good minute taking in the sights and sounds of Sauchiehall Street; how it had changed over the years. It had gone upmarket since his time of working here. It was now a busy thoroughfare full of high-class shops and many of the gracious houses had been converted into offices. He stepped onto the pavement and began his steady meander home. He would pick up his fish supper on the way back he told himself. He turned the corner into Sauchiehall Lane, heading for the subway which would take him towards his home. As he did so he heard the car pulling up behind him; guessed it would be someone wanting directions; lots of tourists got confused by the traffic system. He stepped to one side, waiting whilst it drew level and removing the cigarette from his mouth he held it in one cupped hand. The electric window coasted down. Alistair turned sideways to talk to the driver but could only see his chest and shoulders. He slowly bent down to get a better view only to be met by a piercing stare from the scar-faced passenger leaning across the shaven-headed driver. There was something about that face that registered.
“Remember me Mr McPherson?” said scar-face.
The voice was deep and menacing and a wave of panic shot through Alistair.
* * * * *
The DOA — ‘dead on arrival’ call was logged at seven-fifty pm; discovered by a young waiter who had slipped out through the rear emergency doors of the restaurant into the derelict car park for a ‘smoke-break.’ He’d had the shock of his life when he had tripped over the crumpled mess. He thought at first it had just been a pile of rags; people were always dumping their rubbish here, but then he’d spotted the thick congealed blood beneath his feet. The sight of the mush, which had once been a head, had almost made him sick.
He had immediately dialled 999 on his mobile and asked for the ambulance service; because the body was close to the fire stairwell he had assumed that the dead guy had accidently fallen. Then he’d fled back inside the restaurant and dragged out his boss to bear witness to what he had found.
The ambulance crew who turned up, knew, from a brief examination of the deceased, that the horrific injuries inflicted upon the man’s head had not been the result of an accident, and they radioed in an immediate request to their control for police attendance.
The first officers on scene were there in a matter of minutes; Pitt Street police station was only three hundred yards away.
The uniform Sergeant stooped over the prostrate body trying to make out the facial features. There was little doubt the man had taken a severe hammering, his head and face was one mass of blood and his forehead had been caved in; he was barely recognisable.
“Looks like somebody’s tap-danced on his head,” he said, glancing at his colleague, whilst slipping on a pair of latex gloves.
He began to search through the dead man’s pockets. He had already determined that if they could get some form of ID it would be a start. He found the man’s wallet in an inside jacket pocket and began rummaging through the cards. In the back section he found a laminated National Association of Retired Police Officers membership card. It grabbed his attention. He stared at the name and then at the photograph. He shot a glance back at his team-mate, his face taking on a sudden look of disbelief.
“Bloody hell I know this guy,” the sergeant exclaimed. “He was in CID at Shettlestone nick.”
By eight-fifteen pm, the full length of Sauchiehall Lane had been cordoned off; a major enquiry was underway.
CHAPTER FOUR
DAY SIX: 29th August.
Barnwelclass="underline"
Grace took a final look over her notes and then scanned the faces of her colleagues seated around the room. MIT detectives were waiting for her input. She had been given centre stage this morning; Detective Superintendent Robshaw had been called into headquarters to liase with the press office; he had a meeting booked with the local press and regional TV news teams to give an overview of the murder investigation and make an appeal for witnesses.
Grace’s stomach turned. Pangs of nervousness drifted from her gut up into her throat. This was her first up-in-front briefing and she was outside her comfort zone. Her brown eyes jumped between Mike Sampson and Tony Bullars. They were giving her their thumbs up, a ‘you-can-do-it-girl’ signal. It made her realise how much support her two team mates had given her during her spell of acting Sergeant. She returned them a grateful smile.
The three of them had not stopped over the past two days in their attempts to identify the murder weapon. She’d carved up the jobs between them. They had searched the Internet, made dozens of phone calls, and finally they had teamed up to trawl the many and varied Asian artefact and martial arts shops in both South and West Yorkshire. Their efforts had paid off. Late the previous morning they had found their answer in Bradford, in a small warehouse that sold Asian ceremonial weapons; more for show than for use. Along with a brief history of its use she had watched in amazement as one of the young male storekeepers had given them a demonstration in its application. However, there it had ended. Grace had requested a list of people who had purchased such a weapon, but the owner had explained that they only dealt in cash and kept no till receipts. Even with Mike’s veiled threats of letting the tax man know of their accounting methods, it still hadn’t take them any further forward, other than to provide the stores distribution outlet over in Pakistan. Grace and her team settled on a free gratis replica of the murder knife and left.
One light moment in their exhaustive pursuit had been when they ran into DCs Andy France and Paula Clarke from the other MIT team who were also in Bradford making enquiries into the Asian rug into which the girl’s body had been bundled. Their bumping into one another resulted in a pub lunch in Holmfirth before driving back to the office. It had given them all a well-needed break from the stresses of the investigation. The conversation over lunch got around to Hunter and the hit and run involving his parents. As she had left the pub Grace had made a mental note to ring him later in the afternoon to check how his parents were getting on and to update him on the murder enquiry.
As she perched herself on the corner of her desk ready to feed her information into the morning’s briefing she remembered she still hadn’t made that call; it had completely slipped her mind because of her workload.
I’ll text him straight after briefing, she reminded herself.
She cleared her throat, picked up the replica murder weapon that had been lying on the desk beside her and began her input.
“A bagh nakh.” She held up the knife with its curved angled blade and two brass knuckles fixed into the hilt. Behind her pinned to the incident board were the scenes of crime photo of the weapon, which had been recovered with the girl’s body. Her replica was an identical match to the killing instrument on the photograph.
“An Indian hand-to-hand weapon designed to fit over the knuckles or concealed under and against the palm. This is a variant of the traditional weapon that consisted of four or five curved blades and is designed to slash through skin and muscle, mimicking wounds inflicted by a wild animal. As a matter of interest the bagh nakh features in many of the kid’s video games they play these days. It was originally developed primarily for self-defence, but in this case, as we know, it was used to attack and slit the throat of our young murder victim.” She explained how they had got hold of the replica. “Unfortunately even though this is a strange knife to our eyes amongst the Asian population it is not. There are a number of outlets for this weapon both in this country and abroad and at this moment in time we are unable to find out who purchased one. However the detective superintendent in his TV appeal will be showing this to see if it will jog anyone’s memory.” Grace placed the knife beside her on the table and went on to explain that they still had no positive identification of the body. She told them how she had gone back into the National Missing Persons database but such was the putrefied state of their victim that it was hampering the search parameters, and despite the DNA database having some six million indexes and the National Fingerprint Database having eight million individuals they still had no trace. “We can only hope that the Super’s TV broadcast will give us a lead,” she finished and dropped down off the edge of the desk and returned to her seat so that DS Gamble from the other team could finish off the mornings briefing.