number thirteen … Thirteen thirteen-year-olds: that might be significant …’ Another swig. ‘Or it might not, I mean there was always going to come a time when he’d have killed thirteen girls, as long as he keeps doing what he’s doing and we keep not catching him, eventually he’s going to have nineteen victims, then twenty-one, then …’
The bread rolls were warm, I slathered one with butter. ‘Unless he’s escalating. Last year it was two victims, but this year it might be three, or four. Maybe he’ll go on a spree – wind up dead in a ditch with a shotgun in his mouth?’
Dr McDonald rubbed a hand up and down the sleeve of her stripy top. ‘The number is definitely significant, you don’t randomly pick a girl’s thirteenth birthday as the trigger-point for your abduction and torture fantasies for no reason, something must have happened to him when he was thirteen …’ This time, when she picked up the wine glass she drained it.
‘You’re going to be sick, you know that, don’t you?’
She peered at the bottle, licked her lips, then filled the glass up again. ‘Why isn’t it working?’
‘Oh … give it time.’
A lump of marinated herring wobbled on the end of her fork. ‘Or perhaps whatever happened … happened when someone else was thirteen and he was mush younger, which is more likely, I mean to develop a pathology like this you need to be in the early stages of sexual development, when your sense of right an’ wrong an’ good an’ bad an’ normal annn’ weird are still … still mall … malleable—’ The last word rumbled out on a belch that wafted alcohol and vinegared fish across the table. ‘Ooh, pardon.’ She reached for the wine and topped her glass up again. There wasn’t much left in the bottle. Her cheeks were a rosy pink, and so was the point of her chin.
I picked at my smoked salmon. ‘You might want to think about pacing yourself.’
‘I think … I think we’re looking for someone who was traumatized by a thirteen … thirteen-year-old-girl.’ Dr McDonald closed one eye and glugged Shiraz into my glass. Almost all of it went in, the rest making blood spatters on the white tablecloth. ‘Then again, who hasssn’t been traumatized by a thirteen-year-old girl at some … at some point. There was this horrible cow at Gordons called Clarissa an’ she used to say horridible things behind my back.’
I pushed the glass away. ‘Let me guess: you stood up to her, she realized she was just as scared as you, and you became bestest friends.’
‘No, she … she beat the crap out of me behind the bins at break time.’ Dr McDonald skewered a lump of black pudding with her fork, held it up and squinted at it. ‘Perhaps she sexually abused him, or he wan … he wanted her to and she wouldn’t but … but he loved her and it was all doomed … Doooooomed. You’re not dringing your wine, why are you not … dringing your wine?’
‘Yeah, sorry about that.’ I took my card out of the chip-and-pin thing, then dug out a twenty and handed it over too. A pretty generous tip, but then again, given the way Dr McDonald had behaved …
She was slumped forwards in her seat, arms folded in her Orkney fudge cheesecake, head on her arms, brown curly hair dangling in a puddle of spilled brandy. Singing quietly to herself.
That was the trouble with psychologists – too much time spent grubbing about in the minds of nutters, rapists, killers, and paedophiles, tended to rub the ‘sane’ off a bit.
I jammed the red plastic folder back in her satchel, hooked it over her head, then hoisted her up by the armpits.
She stopped singing. Frowned. ‘He wasss hurt by a blonde … thirteen-year-old girl. She broke … she broke his heart … An’ maybe his arm. Or a leg or something.’
‘You’ve got cheesecake all over your cheek.’ I let go and Dr McDonald wobbled a bit, took a step back – looked as if she was going to keep on going into the other table. I grabbed her again. ‘Top of your class, eh?’
‘Have you … you been … has a thirteen-year-old-girl ever broke … broken your heart?’
Oh, she had no idea.
‘Can you walk?’
‘I bet she did. Bet she snapped it in two and … and stomped on it, like a … like a bug.’
The sound of vomiting echoed out of the cabin bathroom. I lay back on my bunk, pillows folded behind my head, bare feet on the duvet, flicking through the photos in Dr McDonald’s folder. Tramadol and Naproxen wrapped their warm arms around me, more soothing than the ferry’s gentle rocking.
Another round of splattering heaves. Then a voice. ‘Ash … Ash … hold my hair back …’
‘No.’
McDonald’s printouts didn’t seem to be in any sort of order. The Hannah Kelly birthday cards were at the top, but right after those were Helen McMillan’s: the twelve-year-old from Dundee with thirty-two grand’s worth of signed first editions on her bedroom shelf.
She didn’t look much like the photo we’d found on her chest of drawers. The fairy princess outfit and the gap-toothed smile were gone; now her Irn-Bru hair hung in lank curls around a heart-shaped face and long, bruised neck. Freckles covered her nose and cheeks, a thin line of blood running from her nose. Too much eye makeup, the mascara smudged and tear-streaked.
The collar of Helen’s bright-green coat was torn on one side, the stuffing sticking out. Both arms behind her back, both ankles strapped to the chair legs, jeans dark around the crotch and thighs. A number ‘1’ was scratched into the top-left corner.
The photograph wasn’t a Polaroid like the ones on Rebecca’s cards, or any of the earlier victims. The Birthday Boy had finally moved with the times and got himself a digital camera. Well, it wasn’t as if he could take conventional film into the supermarkets and get them to process it for him.
I stared into Helen’s eyes. They were grey-green, surrounded by pink, shining where the flash bounced off her tears. The card only arrived yesterday, but she’d already been dead for a year.
‘Ash … Ash, I’m dying …’ More retching. ‘Oh no … There’s … there’s black pudding in my hair …’
Thank God the bathroom had an extractor fan that came on with the light: wheeching away the stench of a three-course meal, two whiskies, a brandy, and two bottles of wine. She’d better be getting it all in the toilet, because if not she could clean it up herself.
I put Helen McMillan’s card to one side and pulled out the next set: the girl from Cardiff. Then the one from Bristol. Aberdeen. Newcastle. Inverness. London. London again. Oldcastle, Glasgow … Ten victims – not counting Rebecca – going back nine years. Forty-two cards in total.
Amber O’Neil’s cards sat at the back of the pile. Abducted from the Princes Square shopping centre in Glasgow ten years ago, she was the first girl to catch the Birthday Boy’s dark little eye.
A mousy blonde, tear streaming down her pale face, nose a bit too big, lips drawn back showing off bloodied teeth. No gag. Not in the first couple of photographs anyway. He wanted to hear her scream, then changed his mind. Maybe it wasn’t quite as much fun with her roaring her throat raw as he carved shapes into her naked skin.
Blonde to
