Jenny shifted her shoulders as though something inside was itching, but in truth it was nothing more than an overburdened conscience.
Connor Duffy, aged five, she began to type, immediately deleting the words as she sought a better beginning. Jenny shook her head at the waste of such a young life, refusing to let her thoughts dwell on how awful it must be for the parents.
Angela Duffy stared at the ceiling, her head throbbing. Was she ill? Was that why she was in this room with the blinds drawn against the daylight outside? She tried to swallow, feeling her throat thick with mucus. There was a metallic taste in her mouth that was unfamiliar. Had she been given drugs of some sort?
Gradually the reason for her presence in this hospital bed came back to her and with it the awful realisation that she would never see Connor again.
The mewing sound that came from her throat rose to a crescendo like an animal being tortured.
Angela was oblivious to the door being pushed open, the nurses scuttling to her bedside or the needle being inserted into her arm. All she could feel was the searing pain of guilt and rage and loss.
NEWS: In Brief
A young boy who died on Wednesday after falling into water at Whitemoss Quarry in Inverclyde has been named as Connor Duffy. Emergency services were called out after a passing cyclist found the body. A report has been sent to the Procurator Fiscal.
So now he had a name. I shrugged. It wasn’t as if I was keeping a diary of my exploits, but it was reassuring to see it written there in inky newsprint: Connor Duffy. I even had a modest walk-on part in the drama: the passing cyclist who calls out the police to tell them what has happened. Except I didn’t, of course. I would never tell them how I had swung the child’s hand up and down as we’d sung songs strolling over the rough stones. Swinging his hands had given me the idea. He’d giggled then chuckled as I’d picked him up, grasping one hand and one foot, swinging his arms and legs round and round. It was a good game, that, I could tell. Someone else had swung him like that before, up and down as if he were a small flying bat, his shirt tails billowing in the breeze.
The look of surprise on his face when I let him go was almost comical. It was as if he didn’t know how to change that stupid grin into something more appropriate. Perhaps when he hit the water his mouth had contorted into an expression of fear. I don’t know, because he was turned away from me. But I did see his wee face bobbing up and down, gasping fish-like for air, his eyes goggled with terror. And that did reward me with some satisfaction. I could stand there watching his final moments, seeing him slip under the surface until the bubbles finally ceased and I knew for certain that he was dead.
The first two had been easy, though I’d had to plan meticulously, of course. Leaving things to chance was never my forte. The old woman hadn’t understood what was happening and the itinerant was so greedy he was gagging for breath almost as soon as he’d taken that first bite.
Deciding to kill a child had been something of a challenge. It would test my powers of resolve, diminish any residual sentimentality and provide me with an opportunity to be at the scene when the police arrived; the innocent bystander doing the right thing. But I’d wanted to see the kid’s face when they pulled him from the water, make sure that he was as dead as I’d supposed. Those huge blue eyes gazing into mine, the trustful little hand letting me lead him over the hill and down to the quarry; he’d never look into anyone’s eyes again. If he even reached the pathologist’s table, all that would remain would be twin orbs of viscous jelly.
I’d passed my own test then, I decided. I was capable of killing anyone I wanted. And that little thought led me to ask the question: of all the people in my world, whom exactly did I want to kill?
CHAPTER 6
Mike Reynolds gave a deep sigh. It had been a long day. The flight up from Heathrow had been delayed and the interminable wait for another aircraft had made the jet lag kick in worse than usual. He was accustomed to the transatlantic crossing and normally managed to be home by early evening, but occasionally something like this happened and he ended up in the back of a taxi, limp with fatigue. It was the deep darkness of midwinter, only the headlights from the Skoda showing the ribbon of road as it snaked through the countryside above Port Glasgow. Another few minutes and they’d be around the last bend and seeing the lights of Kilmacolm. God, how he longed to be home and into his own bed!
Suddenly the car swerved then came to a bone-juddering stop as Mike felt his shoulder hit the hard glass of the window.
He had an impression of a dark figure speeding into the night, two wheels disappearing behind them.
‘Jeez! What a wally! Idiot could have got himself killed. No bloody lights! What does he think he’s playing at?’ The taxi driver added more imprecations under his breath as he drove the Skoda back on to the road.
Mike nodded his agreement, too shocked to speak. What if…? No, that didn’t bear thinking of. The cyclist hadn’t come to any grief or the chap wouldn’t have been so quick off the mark. He found his hand grasping the handle above his head, steadying himself as if there could be another hazard round the next corner.
But Mike Reynolds was driven safely home to Lochwinnoch Road at the other end of the village, the incident quickly forgotten.
It would be weeks before it came to his mind again, the tragic events of that same night overshadowing their near miss with the crazy cyclist who been riding along without any lights.
‘I’m glad your name’s not on this one,’ Maggie told Lorimer as she glanced up from the early evening news. ‘What a horrible thing to happen!’
Detective Superintendent Lorimer nodded his head. He’d already heard about the case from a colleague in K Division. There was some speculation that the house fire out in Kilmacolm had been deliberately started. And the two charred bodies within might well have been the victims of someone with a warped sense of retribution. That was the current internal gossip, anyhow. Lorimer watched as the camera panned around the scene, sitting up suddenly as he recognised a familiar white-suited figure. So, Rosie Fergusson was involved, was she? Rosie Brightman, he corrected himself, though in truth he knew that the pathologist was retaining her maiden name for work. It must be her first major case since arriving back from honeymoon in New Zealand, Lorimer thought, stroking his chin. And the first since she’d been off on sick leave last year. Well, what a baptism of fire, he told himself, then groaned slightly as he realised the irony of his own unspoken thought.
‘You okay?’ Maggie asked.
‘Look, it’s Rosie… oh, you missed her,’ Lorimer said as the news reporter came into the full frame of the TV screen.
‘Rosie? Oh!’ Maggie seemed deflated as she realised that she had failed to see their friend.
They listened as the TV presenter turned to a woman at his side. Lorimer made a face: what had he said? Was she a neighbour? A friend? The clipped English accent made him wonder. Kilmacolm was so like a small English village that it attracted lots of affluent incomers from South of the Border, but the victims had certainly been Scottish. Sir Ian, the woman was saying, in the hushed deferential tones reserved for the newly dead. But it was rather more than that, Lorimer thought: she was speaking about him now as if he had been someone rather special. And certainly Sir Ian Jackson had made a considerable name for himself during his lifetime. The financier was numbered among Scotland’s top ten in the Rich List after many successful years as a merchant banker. The woman’s voice tailed off as the newscaster addressed the viewers once more, one hand waving behind him at the scene of the tragedy.