Murderabilia Page 2

  They hadn’t been able to back the train into Queen Street because there were other trains waiting to get out, so they went on to Bishopbriggs and got people off there. Some of them were treated for shock, but only once they got off their phones and social media.

  Was the body still swaying? She’d swear that it was. Either it was moving or she was. She wanted the poor sod cut down and covered as soon as possible. There was also no way trains could move down that track until it was done, and there was mounting chaos behind them.

  The first alert labelled it as a possible suicide but that just didn’t fly at all. One look and she knew that wasn’t the case. This was murder. Neither pure nor simple, but certainly murder.

  There was no obvious way back up to the bridge from the ground and it beggared belief that this young man had stripped there by the track, arranged his clothes into that weirdly neat pile, then somehow made his way, naked, up to the bridge and tied a rope round his neck.

  No, someone had done all that for him. They’d killed him in the dark of night and tied the body to the bridge before throwing him over the edge to hang there for the train to pass.

  There were probably hundreds of bridges in Glasgow but few of them would have left such a public viewing area. This was meant to be seen. That was the whole point. Jeez, those bloody mobile phones. It had been seen everywhere.

  Someone had put on quite a show.

  Giannandrea joined her again, shoving his phone back in his pocket and his face suggesting even more good news.

  ‘What’s up, now?’

  He breathed out hard, as if it would somehow help. ‘We’ve got an ID on the victim. Aiden McAlpine is the only son of Mark McAlpine.’

  ‘The MSP?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  They stood in silence for an age, both looking up, seeing the man and the rope and the bridge. Both joining dots and asking and answering questions in their heads. Both looking back down at the pile of clothing.

  ‘Why have his clothes been left like that, Rico?’

  ‘To freak us out. To add to the whole staging of it. And to make sure we know it’s not a suicide. Whoever did this was making sure he didn’t miss out on the credit.’

  She nodded without taking her eyes off the body.

  ‘Yes. It’s exactly that. It’s showing off. It is all staged. A bridge in front of a train-load of passengers. Daylight breaking. The clothing. Is there CCTV covering the bridge?’

  Giannandrea shook his head. ‘No. Nothing. There’s no shop or businesses up there that would have their own, either.’

  ‘Great. And something else about these clothes, Rico. What’s missing?’

  He looked again, trying to work it out. ‘There’s no underwear. No boxer shorts or socks. But he could just have gone commando and some kids still go sockless for fashion.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe. But the way these clothes are stacked? Someone’s taking the piss and I don’t like it one bit. Rico, Google something for me, will you? What time was sunrise this morning? Exactly.’

  Giannandrea worked his mobile phone and had the answer in seconds. ‘Glasgow sunrise, 05.56.’ He lifted his head and looked at her. ‘The same time as the train left.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  CHAPTER 3

  He had maybe twenty photographs he could have chosen from. Scene shots, body shots. Close-ups of the rope or the hands. A shot of the blood that had trickled down the torso. Maybe the horrified look on the faces of passengers or the studied shock of attending cops.

  Twenty photographs, but in the end the choice was easy. There is always one. The picture. This one was almost identical to six others but different enough that it stood head and shoulders above them.

  The words were the hard bit but, luckily for him, one good photograph was said to be worth a thousand of those. He wasn’t quite sure about the arithmetic but he was happy to go with the principle. One good photograph. Used big and bold and keeping the words to a minimum. Said it all.

  It was the clothes. The neat, folded clothing that Aiden McAlpine had been wearing before someone stripped him and murdered him.

  Winter had framed it carefully, probably just as obsessively as the killer who’d stacked it with hospital corners and military precision. He’d offered it to the picture desk who initially threw up their hands at the uselessness of it, hadn’t he got the body, then got more interested when they actually looked at it.

  They took it to the editor, Jack Hendrie, who was all over it in an instant. He decided to splash with it. Front page. Large.

  There it was, big as a house on the front page of the Standard. Almost life-size. Almost death-size. Winter guessed not everyone would have seen the shadow at first. The clothing itself grabbed your eye. The crisp pale blue of the shirt. The dark and faded blue of the denims. The white trainers with the flash of navy. The so-recently worn, the perfect folds and immaculate corners. All that took the eye away from the shadow. At first.

  Then when you saw it, your eyes grew wide with the dawning realisation of it. The unmistakeable silhouette of the hanging man, the macabre shadow posed perfectly across the clothes he’d been ripped from. His death painted theatrically across the remnants of his life.

  It showed the body in a way no direct photograph of it could. Not in a national newspaper at least. Nor on any news programme. It conveyed the horror of it without actually showing any. The world leapt on it, helped by the fact that Hendrie decided to put in on the paper’s online edition first.

  In the digital age, to wait was to lose. He couldn’t take the chance of being beaten to the punch with something similar, so got it out there fast. The picture went live before the first pint had hit the back of the first throat in the Horseshoe. All copyright The Scottish Standard.

  The other papers led with variations on the same headlines and the best pic they had available, which wasn’t much. ‘Sunrise Killer’, said the Sun. ‘MSP’s son murdered’, said the Herald. None of them could match the power of the Standard’s front page led by Winter’s photograph.

  The first request came from the Telegraph in London, quickly followed by its rival, The Times. CNN International wanted it and then so too did its senior partner in the US. The Standard’s newsdesk was swamped with requests. The BBC, ITV, Bild, the New York Daily News, ABC, Fox News, Le Monde. All willing to pay top dollar.

  Winter’s photograph had the unique stamp of being palatable yet shocking. Editors could pretend they were defending the sensibilities of their readers and viewers while simultaneously feeding their hunger for gore. It went global and it carried the murder of Aiden McAlpine with it.

  The Internet, quickly sated on the revulsion of the mobile phone pictures from the morning, fastened on to the clothing photograph as if it was some sanitised version that pardoned their own bloodlust. Facebook and Twitter gorged on it. It was shared and liked, tweeted and retweeted. Thousands of times every minute.

  The speed of it scared him a bit. Every use of the photo bred a hundred more, each of those hundred spawned a thousand. He’d never properly understood the word viral till then. If his picture had been a disease, the world would have been dead.

  The feedback came via the Standard’s Facebook page. Messages poured in. To the photographer, to the journalist, and to variations on ‘the scumbag who took that picture’:

  ‘Amazing pic.’

  ‘You should be ashamed of yourself.’

  ‘That creeped me out. But I liked it.’

  ‘Good job. Thank you.’

  ‘Gross. Cool but gross.’

  ‘Disgusting. Get a life.’

  ‘Spooky.’

  The worst if it was that he became part of the story and that had never been in the deal. The more impressions the photo made, the more people wanted to know who had taken it. His news editor, Archie Cameron, a twenty-year reporter who’d survived the culls and was now running the desk because no else remained who could do it, told him he’d had eight requests for an interview be
fore two o’clock.

  Winter flat out refused. He wasn’t the story. Aiden McAlpine was the story.

  Archie had sighed and told him he agreed, but that wasn’t the way the world worked any more. The Standard’s owners liked the fact they were the subject of global attention and they were very keen that Winter did the interviews. In the end, he didn’t have much choice but to agree.

  Everything about it left him feeling a bit dirty. It was his photograph but it was like he didn’t own it any more. It was out there, seen and devoured by the world. Sure, that was his job but he couldn’t escape a feeling of dread. He felt that somehow he was being used and that maybe he’d done the one thing that Aiden McAlpine’s killer wanted. More headlines, more exposure.

  ‘Good job. Thank you.’

  CHAPTER 4

  The message that a press conference had been called for three that afternoon had immediately made Narey uncomfortable. The presser was no great surprise given who Aiden McAlpine’s father was, and the timing was perfect for the TV companies, who’d be desperate for a teatime news slot. Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Crosbie, the lead for the Major Investigation Team, was fronting it up, but she wouldn’t have expected anything else. A high-profile case always suits the suits.

  Be there, was what she was told. Get your lippy on for the cameras. Press room. Three o’clock. That was it. She was bothered not by what had been said to her but what hadn’t. Sure, it had all been a rush job, so maybe she was worrying unnecessarily, but she didn’t think so.

  The press was there before she was and a couple of reporters who knew her by sight approached to try to ask her questions. She brushed them aside, telling them they’d just have to wait. She needed to talk to DCI Addison, to find out what the hell was going on, but there was no sign of him, and it was just a couple of minutes before the thing was due to start.

  She felt another hand at her elbow from the press pack and turned with half a mind to twist it up the perpetrator’s back. It was Winter.

  ‘Fancy seeing you here!’ He kept his voice low enough that his fellow journalists couldn’t hear. ‘Can you tell the Standard who the killer is?’

  ‘No comment. You know, I still can’t get used to you being here. Being one of them.’

  He laughed. ‘Well get used to it. It’s what’s going to have to pay our mortgage.’

  ‘The wages of sin.’ She spat it out but a hint of a smile played on her lips. ‘I don’t like the way this conference is going. I’ve a feeling you might have one pissed-off police officer to placate later.’

  ‘Why? What’s up?’

  ‘Maybe nothing. I’m not . . . Hang on, there’s Addison. I need to speak to him. Look, I have to go.’

  DCI Derek Addison was her longtime boss and a good friend of Winter’s. Thick as thieves, the two men were drinking buddies and football fans together. You’d think that might have cut her some slack as far as knowing what was happening in the station was concerned, but it didn’t seem to today. Addison’s lanky six-foot-four frame rose above most of the other cops in the media room and she’d spotted him the moment he entered.

  She managed to catch his gaze and made an exaggerated shrug of her shoulders to throw him the question. He immediately looked awkward and she could see him swear under his breath, fuelling her fears further. He started to make his way across the room towards her but, just behind him, Crosbie entered the room signalling the press conference was about to start and he had to abandon the move with an apologetic shrug of his own.

  Fuck it. Fuck it. She could feel the anger rise from her toes.

  There was a seat behind the desk with a piece of folded card in front of it with her name printed in bold letters. She manoeuvred her way behind the other seats and took her place. She had no sooner sat down than she wanted out, wanted to be anywhere else. She was trapped, though, stuck where she was in full view of the media and the cameras.

  All she could do was pick a spot on the far wall, somewhere just above the heads of the assembled reporters and other cops, and stare at it with as impassive an expression on her face as she could maintain. She fixed on that to the extent that, although she was aware of other people taking their seats beside her, she couldn’t see who they were.

  When Crosbie began to speak, she could register only every other word and phrase. All were delivered in that deadly sombre tone that comes only with media coaching. Crosbie could have been reading Billy Connolly’s greatest routine and it would still come out as if a little girl’s dog had been run over by a bus. No drama, no sensitivity, just a big dollop of gravitas.

  She knew where it was going and didn’t need to listen to it all. She kept her focus on the far wall and on looking nothing other than professional.

  ‘Officers were called . . . attended immediately . . . parents notified . . . greatest sympathy . . . understanding at this time . . .’

  Get to it. Ah, here we go.

  ‘Because of the high-profile nature of this investigation and of the extensive media exposure that it has already created and will continue to receive . . .’ Coming right around the bend. It needed just three words to put the tin lid on it: ‘Detective Chief Inspector.’ There we go, bingo, full house. ‘. . . Denny Kelbie will lead for Police Scotland on this case. He has already familiarised himself with the work done until this point and will waste no . . .’

  Kelbie. Of all people. The malevolent, incompetent little shite. Denny Kelbie. Oh just perfect.

  She didn’t need to look, didn’t dare to look, but she was sure he was there a few feet away, all five-foot midget of him, sitting next to Crosbie with his chest puffed out and the word ‘smug’ painted on his forehead. Anyone, anyone but him.

  She kept staring at the wall ahead, her face blank. Try as she might, though, she couldn’t escape the image of some ugly goblin standing at her side, ratcheting up the blood pressure on her wrist, tightening some spiked medieval instrument of torture that twisted her arteries to bursting point. An ugly goblin named Kelbie.

  She let her eyes drop just enough to look for Winter among the seated reporters. Sure enough, he was looking right back at her, one person at least who could feel her pain. He grimaced in sympathy but then he was signalling something else, motioning her back to the table. Focusing again, she could hear her name being mentioned but it came as if from an echo chamber and it took her a second or two to process that she’d been called on to speak. She saw that the rest of the assembled press corps was looking at her expectantly.

  ‘DI Narey,’ Crosbie was repeating. ‘Can you tell us what you found at the scene at Queen Street Station this morning, please.’

  Demoted to second chair but still called on to sing for her supper. Sure thing. She took just a breath to calm herself down enough to present a professional face then launched into it. She gave chapter and verse on the morning’s events, appealed for anyone in the area at that time to come forward with information, then sat back to take questions.

  ‘DI Narey, can you comment on the public nature of where the body was found, seemingly deliberately in front of the commuter train?’

  She’d formed the reply on her lips but didn’t get a chance to utter it. Kelbie leaned into the microphone in front of him and spoke across her.

  ‘That would require speculation rather than comment and DI Narey isn’t going to indulge in speculation at this stage. What we can say is that we are keeping an open mind on every aspect of the investigation.’

  Her ears burned at that. She would never indulge in fucking speculation and didn’t need to be protected from the question or told not to do so. She swallowed it and answered the reporter directly.

  ‘As DCI Kelbie has suggested, we will explore all aspects of both the timing and location of the victim’s body.’

  ‘Do you think that Mr McAlpine’s prominent position as an MSP is connected to his son’s death?’

  ‘Okay, let me take that,’ Kelbie said, stepping in again. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, let me be clear on one thi
ng. Aiden McAlpine’s death is a terrible tragedy and our sympathies are with his parents. However, we will investigate as we would any other victim of any other grieving family. Mr McAlpine’s public role will not change our efforts to bring justice in this case. We will be working diligently to find exactly what happened to Aiden McAlpine and will of course speak to his father as part of our enquiries.’

  Lots of words, little substance, little man. He knew nothing about the case but he liked the cameras, loved the spotlight. Kelbie was going to milk this for all it was worth.

  When the press conference was over and the reporters and film crews began to filter from the room, Narey let her blank expression drop and one of clear displeasure took its place. She stood and began to push her way out from behind the table. Addison saw the move and made his own way round from the opposite end of the table. Unfortunately for him, DCI Crosbie had the same idea and he was nearer to Narey. Addison was always a couple of strides behind and struggled to cut Crosbie off before he got to her. Or she to him.

  She saw them both approach and was content to have both in the firing line. Crosbie began to speak with his practised diplomacy.

  ‘DI Narey. I expect you will be—’

  ‘No one thought that maybe I should have been told this face to face rather than hearing it during a broadcast press conference? No one thought that would be courtesy to say the least, not to mention issues of professional standards and common decency? No?’

  ‘DI Narey,’ Crosbie persisted, becoming irritated, ‘I understand your frustration but—’

  ‘With all respect, sir, I’m not sure you do.’

  ‘Rachel!’

  ‘As I was saying, I do appreciate and understand your frustration, but time was very much against us here. Mr McAlpine’s status has drastically altered the clock on this. In an ideal world, we would have sat down and had a one-to-one before the press conference, but time simply didn’t allow for that. A decision’s been made and, while it may have been communicated better, it is no longer up for discussion. DCI Kelbie will be leading this investigation and you will be reporting to him.’