Absolution (15 page)

McAlpine noticed an implied criticism. ‘I didn’t read that article.’ He moved along the wall, looking at a photograph of an owl. ‘What’s that?’

‘Scops Owl, photographed in Beith in 1995, very rare, not found on British soil much.’ Leask was rubbing the bridge
of his nose with each forefinger, as if he could easily have slipped his hands down to prayer. He changed the subject. ‘You have me thinking that maybe I should remember something, and I can’t.’

McAlpine let his eyes flit around the room, trying to concentrate. He eyed up the bookcases: some books in Gaelic, a selection on the flora and fauna of the British Isles, a fair smattering of science fiction and Stephen Hawking’s
A Brief History of Time.
The man of God reading the man of science. ‘You said, yesterday, that you didn’t know Lynzi. Could you clarify that? Are you sure you didn’t ever meet her? Here, perhaps? You know Ian well enough to feed his cat,’ he said casually.

‘I don’t
think
I met her.’

‘You would know, though. You have a good memory for faces.’

‘I knew of her, obviously, but I can’t recall ever setting eyes on her. But Ian has a photograph of her in his flat.’

Were she and Ian happy?’

Leask answered carefully, enunciating every syllable, letting his tongue roll on the
r
’s. ‘What there was of the relationship was happy. But – ’

‘But you couldn’t have agreed to it. It was adultery after all.’

Leask winced at the word. ‘I counselled him that maybe a woman who could leave her child wasn’t everything a woman should be. There are things a woman should not walk away from… marriage, a family, a child.’

‘But did Ian Livingstone not leave his wife – and two other wives before her?’ Costello put in quietly. She had come in uninvited, her boots leaving marks on the polished floor. ‘He sounds like a marriage wrecker to me.’

Leask’s face remained impassive. He watched as Costello
folded her arms and leaned against the doorjamb. There was silence for a moment, the only sound the gentle gurgle of the central heating. Leask turned back to McAlpine. ‘That was one of the things I tried to… to counsel him about,’ he said eventually. ‘But none of his relationships was what you would call
satisfactory.
Not honest women.’

And Ian Livingstone was in no way to blame, I suppose? Costello thought. But this time she kept her silence.

McAlpine’s eyes clouded over, wondering which woman Leask was actually talking about. ‘Are you here for a reason, DS Costello?’

‘I’ve just two questions. Mr Leask, is that your car in the second garage in the lane? Across Victoria Crescent?’ she added for emphasis.

Leask nodded. ‘It’s not my car, technically, but the red Punto is the car I use.’

‘You walk down the lane to get to this flat from the garage?’

Leask nodded again.

‘And you mentioned a “Tom” in relation to Elizabeth, at her parents’ house.’ She paused. ‘You were to tell him about Elizabeth, pass on the bad news? A boyfriend?’

‘Hardly. Tom O’Keefe is a priest. A colleague of mine,’ Leask said coldly. ‘The Fultons’ own minister is away, so they contacted me and asked if I would pass it on. At a time like this, the last thing you want is everybody phoning the house.’

‘I’m sure they’re grateful for that, Mr Leask. That’s all I wanted to know. I’ll leave you two to it, then.’ And she was gone.

McAlpine inwardly cursed Costello. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said.

‘Doing her job, I suppose.’

McAlpine changed the subject. ‘That your mother?’ He pointed at a collection of snapshots, one of Leask and an elderly woman sitting on a wall in a harsh bleak landscape. ‘Is that home?’

‘Stornoway, yes. My mother died recently.’ Leask’s voice was brusque. He turned away and sat down.

‘You must miss it, the island?’

‘I do. Glasgow’s noisy. And dirty. I still have family in Ballachulish, so I get up there as often as I can. I was there on Friday, but I came straight back when I heard about Elizabeth Jane.’

McAlpine looked at another photograph, faded with the passing years, of a family group posed outside a croft. He couldn’t help noticing there was no father in the picture. And a more recent one: a young Leask with an even younger boy. A broad italic hand had scribbled something on the mount, but it was too ornate to read. The two boys were fishing, standing with a small and extremely woolly sheep. McAlpine supposed every family had photographs like that. The McAlpine family version was him and Robbie in front of a snowman. They’d put their dad’s helmet on the snowman and warped the band… that got them kicked arses all round. The picture had stayed on the mantelpiece for years after the snowman had melted, and was still there when the priest came and told them that the water had taken Robbie. McAlpine brought it home the day his mother died. It had been waiting for him.

‘Who’s the other boy?’

‘My half-brother,’ said Leask, clipping his speech. ‘Brother.’

Recognizing a raw nerve, McAlpine turned to look at Leask. ‘He’s… passed away, then?’

‘Recently, yes.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. Had he been ill?’

‘A kind of illness, you could say. That’s Alasdair, there.’ Leask pointed to a silver-framed photograph on the side table, a young handsome man, his tight smile not quite managing to cover squint front teeth. A bare arm bordered one side of the picture: it looked as if somebody had been cut out. ‘As I’m sure you know, these things are not always the hand of God.’

‘In my experience, it’s more often the hand of man,’ said McAlpine.

‘Indeed. It doesn’t matter, not in my job. The Lord will repay, that’s all I need to know.’

McAlpine smiled. ‘It matters in mine.’

McAlpine was leaning over the sink, staring at himself in the mirror, realizing he had grown old without noticing it. Anderson inclined his head to check for feet under the remaining cubicle doors. They were empty.

‘How did it go with Leask?’ he asked.

McAlpine looked up. ‘Fine.’

‘You feeling OK? You were grumpy as hell earlier. Did you get a good night’s sleep?’

‘No, why do you ask? Spit it out.’

‘Helena thought you were unsettled. She thought you’d been…’

McAlpine was evasive. ‘She had too much to drink. I should have known. She was nice to me when I got home, a sure sign she’s had a dram too many.’ He changed the subject back. ‘Interesting guy, Leask. He sounded out OK about Ian Livingstone. I don’t think that’s an avenue worth pursuing. The alibi is watertight.’

‘Do you mean Leask or Livingstone’s not worth pursuing?’

McAlpine ignored him totally. ‘So, what’s he like, this profiler tosser?’

‘Thought you’d forgotten all about him.’ Anderson pursed his lips. ‘Not what I expected. Younger, no ponytail, no polo neck, seems OK. First question he asked me was where was a good place to get bevied.’

‘An alcoholic psychologist? Interesting.’ McAlpine plugged the sink and ran in some cold water, and an indistinct thumping echoed along the pipe. Anderson noticed the tremor in his boss’s hands was getting worse.

‘He says he can read people like he can read a book.’

‘Slowly? With his lips moving?’ McAlpine shook his head at the innocence of fools. Where did you say you left him?’

‘I dropped him off on the way to pick you up, so he’s been in your office for – what?’ Anderson flicked his eyes at his watch. ‘An hour? An hour and a bit? I told Wyngate to look after him. He’s requested the newspapers, to see how they’re carrying the story.’

‘All he has to do is shout out the window and ask them.’

‘Better get a move on. Leave him any longer in your office and he’ll have done a thesis on “The Effect of Macallan Malt on the Investigative Mind”.’

Dr Mick Batten got to his feet as McAlpine entered the office. The DCI was determined not to apologize for the mess of the place and was equally determined not to let it show that he was deliberately not apologizing. Batten looked like a football hooligan, hair all one length, cut blunt into his collar, unshaven beyond the point of designer stubble, and wearing ripped jeans and a rugby shirt from a country that McAlpine, a football man, couldn’t identify.

Batten, leaning on the filing cabinet, seemed comfortable in the silence. McAlpine gestured to him to sit down.

‘I’ll get somebody to get us a coffee.’ McAlpine looked round.

‘I already have one, I’ve been well looked after.’ Batten pulled a packet of Silk Cut from his jeans. ‘Am I right in thinking I’m not allowed to smoke in here?’

‘Only on the street, mate. The car park is quite sheltered.’

‘I’m on the patches, but I still need these to kick them in.’ He nodded at the picture stuck to the monitor. ‘Your wife do that?’

‘Yes,’ said McAlpine guardedly.

‘I thought so. Helena Farrell. She’s talented. There was an exhibition at the Academy in Liverpool a while back. My brother bought one of her paintings. He reckons it’ll be worth a bit one day.’

‘Indeed,’ said McAlpine shortly. ‘PC Wyngate was told to show you around. Is there anything else you want to see?’

Batten nodded. ‘ACC McCabe had everything sent on to me through Pitt Street. Gordon took me through the local papers. Always interesting to see how they’re carrying the story.’ His accent was pure Merseyside, and McAlpine found it difficult to take him seriously. The casual use of Wyngate’s first name didn’t escape him. ‘Do you allow feet up on your desk? I think better with my feet up on the desk.’

‘Please, go ahead.’ McAlpine said, his voice flat, aware he was sounding like his own father.

‘Thinking’s what I get paid for, so I try to do it well,’ Batten said, closing his eyes. He rubbed the threadbare denim that covered his knees absent-mindedly. When he spoke, his eyes screwed up. ‘I reckon you’re close to catching him, though, definitely close. Converging paths, I feel, you and him.’ He spanned his fingers. ‘Converging paths.’

‘Who?’

‘This Christopher Robin. I always call them by a name.
Helps me to focus on them as people. I don’t like the media calling him the Crucifixion Killer – makes him sound superhuman somehow. He’s human all right; he was a baby once, then a child, then an adult. If you lose sight of that, you’ll never find out why he is what he is, why he does what he does.’

McAlpine let all that pass. ‘My definition of “close” in this case would be a guilty verdict or a signed confession – either would do.’

‘Neither would guarantee you’d got the right man or that the killings would stop. You’ve a good team. Anderson is honest and loyal, a good man. Gordon Wyngate is a non-academic technophile who’s found his own niche. You’ve played him well, to your advantage.’

McAlpine ignored that, aware that it had been Costello’s idea.

‘Is this a young team? You’re – what – early forties? Anderson, late thirties? Wyngate’s just a boy.’

“We don’t lack experience, if that’s what you’re getting at,’ said McAlpine coldly.

‘Not at all. I’ve read all your records – exemplary. This Costello – a female from the look of the loopy handwriting – how old?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mid thirties? Maybe a bit less.’

‘Good. Nice to have a team whose average age is the same as that of the man we’re chasing.’ Batten was suddenly businesslike again. You’ve not established any connection between these women yet?’

‘Maybe,’ said McAlpine quietly. ‘But it’s tenuous. Costello is typing up a report for you. I think we’ve established a connection, but I can’t see the significance of it yet.’

‘I look forward to reading it.’ Batten examined his fingernails closely. ‘How are you coping?’

Why does everybody keep asking that?’

‘Because you can get drawn in.
When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
Robert Kessler, the man who coined the phrase “serial killer”.’

‘I think Friedrich Nietzsche said it first,’ said McAlpine blandly. ‘Unless I’m mistaken.’

‘Correct,’ Batten said, impressed. He moved the topic back a step. ‘I’ve been through most of your files, nothing in depth as yet but enough to hypothesize. I’d say the connection between the victims will be something non-tangible, something perceived. So when we learn to think like him, we’ll catch him.’

‘You make it sound so easy.’

‘In theory it is. The trouble is, the link doesn’t have to actually be there, it only has to be
perceived
to be there. Who did this report? Costello? Same handwriting.’ He flicked the page of a report to read the signature.

‘Yeah, she’s doing the report, like I said.’

‘It’s an interesting read with regard to Elizabeth Jane. An intuitive copper, Costello?’

‘Intuitive is one word for her.’

‘Meaning?’ said Batten.

‘Meaning nothing. She’s good, doesn’t always take the party line. What about her?’ McAlpine was defensive.

‘I’d like a word with her, that’s all.’

‘You have an idea?’

‘I’ll speak to her first. Firm up a few things.’ Batten put the report back on the desk. ‘I’d like a car and a driver. Just for a few hours, to take me round the loci.’

‘Ten minutes would do it, mate. By foot.’

‘That close together?’

‘As close as a gnat’s testicles, as the saying goes.’ He looked through the glass, indicating the map. ‘That covers two square miles at most.’

There was a gentle knock on the door, and Costello popped her head round. ‘There’s a taxi outside to take you to the Hilton, Dr Batten.’

‘And you are?’ asked Batten.

‘If you’re such a good profiler, you should have worked that out for yourself,’ said McAlpine, smiling.

‘DS Costello, I presume,’ said Batten, putting his arm out. He then walked out with Costello like a keen suitor at a prom.

McAlpine reclaimed his seat while shaking his head. Batten had spent twelve years at university only to go with female intuition. No wonder nobody took profilers seriously. Bloody waste of taxpayers’ money. He looked at his computer, then at his watch. It was time to open his email. He decided to open his mail instead.

There was a knock on the glass door of the gallery. Helena didn’t look round, continuing to direct the joiner, who was up a ladder. ‘Left a bit, left a bit.’ She waved her hand at the door irritably, but the knocking was insistent. She turned round to give the interrupter a mouthful, then realized it was her husband.