‘I often think to myself how lucky it was that we’d made it that far along Princes Street. I’d have hated the poor wee bugger to go through life called Littlewood McIlhenney!
‘How about you, sir? How many kids have you got?’
‘Jane and I have four,’ said Donaldson. ‘Tony’s seven, like your lad, then there’s Janet, she’s five, Stephanie, just turned four, and Ryan, eighteen months.’
‘You should be on schedule for another quite soon,’ said Martin, grinning.
‘Don’t joke,’ muttered the Superintendent, sleek-haired and well-groomed even though it was just after eight o’clock on a Saturday morning. ‘Jane’s expecting in three months. Another boy, we’ve been told.’
‘Maybe you should call this one Luke,’ said McIlhenney. His companions stared at him, puzzled. ‘As in “Luke, enough’s enough, okay!”’
‘So it is,’ said Martin, laughing and shaking his head. ‘Now down to business.’ He glanced around the mobile incident room in which they sat. It had been set up in the car park alongside the block of flats in which Carl Medina had died. The Chief Superintendent looked across the table at the fourth man in the room. ‘Arthur, would you give us a summary of what you found at the scene, please.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Inspector Dorward. ‘First of all, as you supposed, Medina was overwhelmed at once by an unexpected, violent attack. The post mortem is being held this morning, but that’s just a formality.
‘We’ve established that just before midday an old lady on the top floor answered a buzzer call from someone saying he had come to read the electricity meters. She let him in, but he never arrived.’
‘Did anything strike you about the style of the attack?’ asked Martin. ‘Was there any trademark, any sort of signature?’
‘No, sir. There was no frenzy about this attack. It was cold, calculated and very efficient. The perpetrator went there specifically to kill Carl Medina. After the killing the flat was searched. There were traces of the victim’s blood all around, transferred by the plastic bags which the killer wore on his hands and feet.
‘The search was concentrated in a specific area, among papers and notes kept by the victim. They had been ransacked. Of course, we have no way of telling whether or not the killer found what he was looking for.’
‘Did our man leave any forensic traces?’ asked Donaldson.
Dorward smiled. ‘We went over that house all night, and didn’t find a thing. Not a scrap.’ He paused, as if for effect. ‘Then we looked at the inside of the binliner. Nothing.
‘Finally we looked at the four Safeway bags. Inside one of them, we found a fifth bag. It had eye-holes cut in it, making it clear that the killer wore this bag as a hood. Attached to it, on the inside, we found a single strand of hair.
‘We’ve established already that the strand didn’t come from the victim, or from his girlfriend. We’ve no way of establishing where it did come from, short of possibly testing every Safeway checkout person in Edinburgh.
‘Right now, we can’t tell whether the hair came from our killer. But when we find him, if it’s his, it’ll help put him away for life.’
Martin smiled. ‘Wonderful, Arthur. We’ve actually got some evidence; good old-fashioned evidence for your new DNA technology to work on.
‘Arthur, you and I will go together to obtain hair samples from Jackie Charles and Dougie Terry. We’ll promise them if we have to that if the tests prove negative the samples will be destroyed afterwards and that no DNA information will be retained.
‘There isn’t a cat’s chance that we’ll get a match from either, but let’s do it just to keep the pressure on them.’
He leaned back in his hard chair. ‘The Boss gave Jackie a good going over last night, but he still couldn’t get near him.’ He paused. ‘In fact, the wee bugger almost had me believing that he didn’t know a thing about Medina’s death. That reminded me that we mustn’t put all our eggs in one basket in this investigation.
‘Where’s the girl Muirhead?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Pamela Masters took her to a friend’s place in Learmonth Terrace,’ said Donaldson.
‘Okay, you and Neil go along and interview her,’ said Martin. ‘As gently as you can, but keep it formal. You don’t need to pull her in to St Leonard’s, but make it clear that it’s more than just a sympathetic chat. Ask her to tell you everything she knows about Medina. Then lean on her just a wee bit.
‘You never know, Medina might have had a rival, someone who fancied Ms Muirhead, with or without her encouragement. And maybe, that rival . . .’
‘Cut up rough, sir?’ said Neil McIlhenney.
30
Alex awoke with a start. The room was hot and clammy from the Cannon Gasmiser, although it was burning only at medium output. The heavy curtains were drawn, and the reading lamp shone over her shoulder, its beam focused on the volume in her lap.
She shook her head, completely disorientated and still slightly woozy, and blinked hard. She looked up at the clock on the wooden mantelpiece, and saw that it showed five minutes before nine.
She stared at the curtained window, her confusion turning into slight alarm. Quickly she put the book to one side, rushed to the window, and threw the curtains wide. She cried out with relief as the light of the Glasgow morning flooded in. ‘Thank the Lord for that. I thought I’d lost a day.’
And then the memories of the night before came flooding back. Supper with her father, the shock of the cine film, his presentation of the trunk . . . and her mother’s diaries.
She jumped as the phone rang. For a moment she thought of letting it go unanswered, but finally she picked it up.
‘Alex?’
‘Andy! Morning, love. Where are you?’
‘I’m at work. I thought you’d have stayed at Bob’s last night. I just called his number, but there was no answer.’
‘No, I decided to come through here.’ She hesitated. ‘I’ve got some studying to do, some intensive reading. I thought I’d tackle it in a one-er over the weekend. You don’t mind, do you? If it’s any consolation, I’ve got my period.’
He laughed. ‘After the conversation I’ve just had with McIlhenney and Donaldson that’s a big consolation, believe me. Look the fact is, I’m going to be tied up for longer than I thought. Maybe I could come through there when I’m finished. You’re alone, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, but . . .’ she hesitated. ‘I really have a lot of studying to do. I think I’m better left on my own. You go out with the lads, or whatever you used to do before you had me hanging around. Er, no. On second thoughts don’t do that!’
She heard him laugh. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll get by, don’t worry. I’ll see you when you’re finished.’
‘Okay. Bye. Love you.’
She put the phone down and wandered through to her small bathroom, peeling off her stale clothes as she walked. She brushed her teeth, and gargled with a blue mint mouthwash, before stepping into a lukewarm shower. Under the strong spray, she hunched her shoulders to send the water cascading down her back, then leaning back she pressed her arms together to channel it to where she felt most sticky.
Fifteen minutes later, in a clean white tee-shirt and panties, and munching a micro-heated croissant, she felt more or less refreshed. She settled back into her chair, and picked up the diary which she had been reading when she fell asleep.