‘You doubt me, Anthony? If I was to tell you that I know you drink in a pub called the Station Bar, would that help change your mind? Or that I know your uncle lives in a flat in Grovepark Street?’
Winter wasn’t sure if his heart slowed, stopped or quickened. Atto savoured the effect.
‘Do you doubt me, Anthony?’
‘No, I don’t doubt you.’
Atto gave a lopsided smile and softened. ‘Good. I like you, Anthony. I feel we’ve got to know each other and have a lot in common. For that reason, I want to help you. Will you let me help you?’
Winter hated the hold that he felt the man putting on him but couldn’t break it.
‘I think I might have to.’
Atto’s mouth turned up at both sides. ‘I want your mobile phone number.’
‘What? No way.’
Atto’s eyes furrowed in irritated disappointment. ‘I’m trying to help you, Anthony. To let me do that, you must trust me. I wouldn’t want my child to hurt you. Your uncle I don’t care about. You . . . you, I want to talk to more. When he gets in touch again, I may have information that I can pass on. Information that won’t wait.’
Winter felt the hold tighten, squeezing more firmly round his throat so that he could barely breathe. He gave Atto his number.
Chapter 54
Saturday evening
Addison was driving towards the Eastern Necropolis, or Janefield Cemetery, as it was also known, thinking that there was no more he could have done in terms of preventing something happening on the city streets that night. They had the entire place on full alert and there had been cops in and around the Eastern since mid-afternoon. Every cop who had a uniform and those detectives who didn’t were patrolling either the city centre or the cemeteries; and the Eastern was the graveyard of choice for most.
Every television news bulletin and every radio station, both local and national, and every news website had carried the story the way they wanted it: the killer was intending to strike again; the killer was intending to dump victim number four at the Eastern; the cops had it surrounded; don’t bother wasting your time.
As he made his way along the Gallowgate, the cemetery only a quarter mile or so away, he became aware of increasing footfall on the pavements and what seemed to be crowds up ahead. The closer he got, the thicker the throng became. By the time he was a couple of hundred yards away, he could clearly see the turning on the right into Holywell Street leading to the scrub-ground car park on Janefield Street where he’d sometimes parked for the football. It was thick with people, cops in hi-vis dotted among many more in plain clothes.
‘Holy shit,’ he muttered out loud. ‘What the hell . . .’
Some of the crowd went into Holywell Street and others continued down the Gallowgate side of the cemetery. Addison pulled over onto the pavement and parked there, waving his ID at an eager-beaver constable who came running over to tell him to move.
‘I’m parking there, so don’t waste your breath. And keep a bloody eye on it. You see anyone go near it you arrest them on the spot.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What the hell’s going on here?’
‘I’m not sure, sir. They all just started turning up. There’s . . . hundreds of them. Say they’re not going anywhere and that they will stay out here all night if they have to.’
‘What? How long have they been here?’
‘Some of them arrived about an hour ago. But there’s been more and more of them arriving all the time. I think it’s to do with the news, sir. About the cemetery killer going to put a body in the Eastern.’
‘It’s the Gorbals fucking Vampire all over again,’ Addison realised.
‘The what, sir? A vampire. I don’t—’
‘Never mind, Constable. Just you keep an eye on my car. What’s your name?’
‘McArra, sir. PC John McArra.’
‘Very good, McArra. If there’s a single bloody scratch on that car then you’re in trouble. Understood?’
Addison began to march along the Gallowgate, not needing to look back to know that the constable would be saying yes.
There were indeed hundreds of them. Men mostly, which made sense given the nature of the beast that they were guarding against, patrolling the perimeter of the cemetery, some sitting on the head-high wall that ran the length of the Necropolis along that part of the Gallowgate. It was an incredible sight: grim-faced vigilantes stalking an invisible prey under a threatening sky, clouds heavy with rain hanging ominously over the top of the Celtic Park stand that loomed behind the acres of graves.
Those who sat on the wall were just a couple of feet from time-toppled headstones or monuments to the departed, framed with trees bent by generations of wind. They were flinty-eyed guardians of the graveyard, looking left and right even though they couldn’t have known what they were looking for.
Others were milling one way and then the other, rebels in search of a cause. People determined to do the right thing even if they didn’t know what that involved. There were local neds, teenagers in their best tracksuits, older guys wearing anoraks and student types smoking roll-ups. The crowd seemed to be multiplying with every passing moment, a human ring round the old cemetery.
Addison went up to a couple of those on foot, two broad and bulky guys with close cropped hair who could have been on their night off from bouncer duty in a city nightclub. They eyed him suspiciously as he approached and moved together as if to block his path. For once, the production of his warrant card made members of the public relax their antagonism towards him.
‘All right, guys? Listen, I don’t have a problem with you being out here but I’d like to ask you a couple of questions. Okay?’
They both nodded – an instinctive reticence to talk to the cops.
‘What’s going on here? Is this something organised?’
The two guys looked at each other and made some unspoken deal about who would talk to him. The shorter of the two fired a look in both directions before leaning in and whispering hoarsely.
‘We’re kinda guarding the place. We all saw what was said on the telly an’ that. How the bastard was going to kill another girl an’ that. Dump her body here. Well, we were like, “No way, man.” It could be my wee sister or something.’
‘Couldnae just sit in the hoose and dae nothing, could we?’ his pal added.
‘So is someone organising this?’
‘Naw, naw. Well, aye, a wee bit, like. We were coming doon anyways after seeing the telly but we’ve heard that there’s loads of talk aboot it on Facebook and that Twitter. You know, like telling guys to come here and make sure nae cunt gets in.’
‘No that we’re saying the polis cannae dae their job but you cannae be everywhere at once like.’
‘But is there anyone down here in charge? Someone maybe talking to the polis about what’s happening?’
‘Naw. Well aye. There’s a guy roon on Janefield Street near the stadium. Dinnae ken his name but he was telling folk to go here and there like he wis somebody. Wisnae polis, like, just wan o’ us.’
Addison frowned but nodded his thanks to the two of them. ‘All right, lads, you’re doing a good thing, but watch yourselves, eh? There’s a proper nutcase out there. And make sure you don’t get yourselves arrested. The polis tell you to move, you move.’
The bouncer boys didn’t look too impressed at being told what to do but they shrugged a tacit agreement and resumed their watch duties as Addison turned and hurried back to the Holywell Street junction on his way to Janefield Street on the other side of the cemetery. As he hustled along, he pulled out his mobile and called Superintendent Jason Williams, the senior officer charged with overseeing the uniformed presence round the Necropolis.
‘Superintendent Williams? It’s DI Addison. I’m on the Gallowgate side of the cemetery, sir. I see we’ve got a fair bit of unexpected back-up.’
‘Yes, we have. I can’t believe how many of them there are. I’m trying to clear them from this side first but they’re arriving quicker than we can get rid of them.’
‘I wouldn’t do that if I was you, sir. If you don’t mind me saying.’
‘Not get rid of them? Addison, how am I expected to protect the cemetery when there are so many members of the public milling around? It’s chaos out here.’
‘Then let’s organise the chaos, sir. We’ve been worried all day that we don’t have enough cops to protect a place of this size, so now we have all the bodies we need. And it might just be enough to make sure that we don’t get one body extra, if you see what I mean. Let’s get them on our side. Anyway, if you try to clear them out of the area you might end up with a riot on your hands, and that’s hardly going to help.’
There was silence on the other end of the line as Williams digested what had been said. Addison didn’t wait for a reply.
‘I’m on my way over to you now. I understand there’s someone claiming to be acting on behalf of the people that have turned up?’
Williams sighed. ‘Yes, there’s some self-appointed leader of men who thinks he’s liaising with us. He’s getting right on my tits, to be honest.’
‘I’ll be there in two minutes. Can you get one of your guys to keep a hold of him for me?’
‘Will do. I have to say I don’t like this, Addison. I don’t feel we’ve got control of the situation.’
‘I know the feeling, sir.’
The crowd was sparser on Holywell Street because it didn’t border the cemetery, but there were still plenty of bodies walking along, presumably heading for a vantage point on Janefield Street. The familiar red railings that ran along the left-hand side of the road reminded Addison of so many walks along there en route to Celtic Park, the stadium large in the near distance. He’d gone that way as a kid with his old man and then later with his pals, taking up a spot on the terracing known as the Jungle before it was replaced by the towering North Stand.
Memories flooded back of dodgy pies from the stall in the top corner near the Celtic end, everybody smoking, cans of McEwan’s Export and finding yourself twenty yards away from your mates after a goal was scored. And the noise. Jesus, he remembered the noise. So much of that died when they knocked the Jungle down.
The rear of the North Stand and the border wall of Janefield Cemetery stood back to back, so much so that the top eleven rows of the stand were cantilevered over the cemetery. This led to the bizarre situation of Celtic having to buy the air over the graveyard from the council after locals complained about the shadow cast over the Necropolis. It cost the club £10,000 in compensation because those buried there had the right to free air space ‘from the centre of the earth to the sky’. Only in Glasgow.
The left turn into Janefield Street was always the one that gave him goosebumps when he was a kid, the sight of the stadium and the massed ranks in green and white outside. This time it was slightly different. There wasn’t a Celtic scarf in sight. Instead there was a mass of grey humanity, a well-meaning mob. He made his way along to the centre of the crowd, seeing them lined up along the low cemetery wall on the scrubland to his left, the sprawling green expanse of the graveyard beyond.
He couldn’t see Williams but grabbed the first cop he came across and asked where the superintendent was. The constable looked and pointed and Addison saw Williams’s tall frame about forty yards away through the failing light, a couple of other officers at his side. It would be dark within twenty minutes and at that point the natives were likely to get increasingly restless.
‘Addison.’ Cruikshanks sounded weary and wary. ‘Good of you to join us. Tell me again why it’s a good idea for us to have all these mentalists running round the place.’
‘Look, I know it’s not ideal, sir, but they can do a job for us. Have you seen the size of that cemetery and how much boundary there is to cover? And you’ve got how many officers?’
‘Not enough. I know that and it’s been bugging me all day. You’ve been nearer to this than I have – you seriously think this guy will try and leave a body in there? He’d have to be off his head?’
‘I generally find that’s the case with most psychotic serial killers, sir. But, yes, I do think he’s going to try to do that. This rent-a-mob might be our best chance of stopping him.’
Cruikshanks shook his head despairingly. ‘Okay, tell me what you want and I’ll get it done.’
‘There’s a bunch of them sitting on the wall on the Gallowgate side and we need to get them down and keep them down. If they protect the perimeter, then fine, but if they infiltrate it then they become a threat. We also need to make sure none of them is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Your guys need to keep an eye on them, big time. They will also need to cover the end next to the creamery building on Holywell Street, as that’s the only bit of boundary wall that can’t be accessed from the road. No one is getting in here unless they parachute off the roof of the fucking stadium.’
Williams and Addison turned and looked up at the roof of Celtic Park as it peeked down into the cemetery below, and both wondered just for a second if that was actually a threat before shaking their heads at each other and returning to the equally ridiculous situation in front of them.
‘Where’s this seeker of truth and justice that reckons he’s speaking on behalf of the mob?’
Williams pointed. ‘The guy over there with the ponytail. His name’s Callum McGann and he’s a pain in the neck.’
‘Well you know what they say. Under every ponytail, there’s a horse’s arse. I don’t suppose that goes for schoolgirls but it sure as hell goes for guys old enough to know better. I’m going to speak to him.’
Mr Ponytail had a uniformed cop either side of him but it didn’t stop him from directing human traffic this way and that, lording it with personal bodyguards courtesy of the Force. He was about five foot ten, lean and wiry, dressed in blue jeans and a brown leather jacket. The ponytail itself was black with a hint that it might have been dyed. The guy was in his early to mid-forties without a hint of grey.
‘Mr McGann? I’m Detective Inspector Addison. Can I have a word?’
The guy looked pained at the interruption, the way Michelangelo must have done when he was trying to paint the Sistine Chapel and people kept asking for his autograph. ‘Can’t it wait? This is important.’