‘Hold on, I’ll check …’
From the doorway opposite came the sound of a zip being undone. A knee-trembler in the alley behind a lap-dancing bar. Talk about romantic.
I stuck the phone against my chest. ‘Hoy, you two: get a room.’
‘Fuck!’ Frantic scrabbling, and one of the figures lurched out of the shadows. Andrew: the Silver Lady’s head doorman, hauling up his flies. ‘I was … We …’ He cleared his throat. Flexed his shoulders. Chin jutting out like a slab of freshly shaved granite. ‘You tell anyone about this and I’ll snap your bloody neck. Understand?’
He grabbed a bottle from one of the recycling bins. A sharp tap against the wall turned it into a multi-bladed weapon. ‘I’m no’ kidding, you hear me? One fucking word!’ Jabbing the broken bottle in my direction. Trembling.
I backed off a couple of steps, palms out. ‘OK, Andrew, I hear you. Our little secret.’
He licked his lips, glanced across at the shadowy doorway, then dropped the bottle and charged through the door, back into the club.
What the hell was that all about? Doormen got hand jobs from star-struck women every evening. Friend of mine once told me it’s the bow tie that does it: reminds the ladies of James Bond. But then he always was a bit of a prick.
Back to the phone. ‘Rhona?’
‘I was about to give up on you.’ She sniffed. ‘It’s not confirmed or anything, but we think number two might be Sophie Elphinstone, went missing from Inverness four years ago.’
‘They doing a dental chart match?’
A small pause. ‘Can’t. He tore all her teeth out.’ Another yawn.
‘Go home and get some rest. You’re no good to anyone knackered.’
I hung up, scrolled through my contacts list, and picked the number Dickie had texted me for Dr McDonald. Listened to it ring and ring …
On the other side of the alley, Andrew’s bit of stuff was getting restless. Feet shuffling in the darkness. Waiting for me to bugger off so she could slip back into the club unnoticed.
Tough. She could wait.
I let the phone ring through to voicemail, then tried again.
‘Mmmph? Lo?’ Not quite words, mumbled and fuzzy.
‘Dr McDonald, sorry to wake you, but—’
‘Ash … No it’s fine, I’m awake.’ A yawn. ‘Urgh … What time is it?’
‘We’ve found another body. Might be Sophie Elphinstone. We’ll talk about it in the morning. Sorry to bother—’
‘Sophie Elphinstone?’ Dr McDonald sounded a lot more awake. ‘Is she … Did he decapitate her?’
More shuffling from the doorway opposite.
‘He ripped all her teeth out instead.’
‘Isn’t that interesting: he decapitates his third victim, Lauren Burges, but he doesn’t decapitate his second or his sixth. Hannah Kelly and Sophie Elphinstone get to keep their heads …’
‘Maybe he goes through phases, and—’
‘It’s almost as if he’s experimenting. The normal pattern is to keep doing the same thing over and over, getting better at it every time, refining it, building up the fantasy, but it’s …’ A pause. ‘It’s as if he doesn’t really like what he does – he cuts Lauren Burges’s head off, but he can’t bring himself to do it again.’ A strange clicking sound came from the earpiece, as if she was banging the phone off her teeth. ‘When they examine the remains tomorrow, we need to get them to look for patterns of wounding – map the correlation points, see what else he’s tried and discarded.’
‘Yeah … OK.’ I hung up, slipped the phone back into my pocket and stood there watching a rat rip a hole in a bin-bag. He doesn’t really like what he does. Bollocks – if he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t keep doing it.
More shuffling from the other side of the alley.
‘Oh, grow up.’ I turned my back on them and hauled the door open. ‘I don’t care, OK? Shag who you want, where you want.’
Whoever it was cleared their throat behind me. ‘How long have you known?’
I stopped, one hand on the door, the music from inside getting louder. Licked my lips. Didn’t say anything.
‘Ash?’ Footsteps on the tarmac. ‘How long have you known?’
I glanced over my shoulder and there he was: DI Shifty Dave Morrow, sausage fingers fidgeting with his jacket buttons.
‘What? No, I can’t hear you …’ I peered into the gap between the bread and the glowing orange elements – the toaster hadn’t burnt it yet – my mobile pinned between my shoulder and ear, while I dumped teabags into mugs with my other hand. The kettle rumbled and rattled on the working surface.
Cold this morning. The window was a fogged-up slab of dark grey.
On the other end of the phone, Rhona yawned again. ‘I said, there’s been a complaint down the station.’
‘What time did you clock off yesterday?’
‘Didn’t pass my sergeant’s exams so I could be DC my whole life. Got to put in the hours or you don’t get the promotion. You told me that.’
True, on both counts. The kettle clicked, then went silent. ‘Yeah, but if you fall asleep on the job, or screw something up because you’re knackered, you can kiss three stripes goodbye.’
Boiling water into the mugs. Two slices of slightly overdone toast on a plate.
‘It was that cow Jennifer Prentice: said you beat up her photographer yesterday.’
‘Surprised she waited that long.’ A scrape of butter, followed by raspberry jam.
‘I told Dougie I’d take a look. You know, do some prelim before Professional Standards get hold of it?’
Two sugars in one of the mugs, then a good splosh of milk in both.
‘Where does she get off making accusations like that? So what if you thumped some paparazzi dickhead, sure you had a good reason, right?’
‘Something like that.’ Out in the hall, the sound of muffled snoring rattled the living room
