By the time the train from Oban pulled into Queen Street Station, Pete Johnston had less than fifteen minutes to get to Glasgow Central to catch his connection. He hurried along the platform, across the concourse, and down the flight of stone steps into George Square. The pavement was crowded as he weaved his way down the side of the square and turned into St Vincent Street. He glanced longingly at The Drum and Monkey as he rounded the corner into Renfield Street, then broke into a trot as he crossed Gordon Street and hurried through the main entrance to Central Station.
Johnston stood with his right hand on his knee, bent almost double, breathing heavily as he scanned the large, electronic departures board, searching for the platform number for the twelve o’clock train to London. When he found it, he hurried to the platform. Having memorised his carriage and seat number, he saw he was in the second carriage from the ticket barrier. Clambering on board, he collapsed into his aisle seat in the middle of the compartment, panting for breath. He balanced the attaché case on his knees and leaned back in his seat, breathing in and out deeply as he heard the guard sound his whistle. He felt the shuddering motion as the train started to trundle forward.
Ten minutes out of Glasgow, a tall, bearded figure, carrying a small suitcase, came through the door from the rear compartment. Adjusting his black-framed spectacles, he tugged the peak of his baseball cap low over his eyes as he made his way up the aisle, swaying from side to side with the rocking motion of the train. When he was level with Johnston’s seat, he barged into his shoulder.
‘Go easy, mate,’ Johnston said, holding out a steadying arm.
‘Sorry!’ Grabbing hold of Johnston’s wrist, he thrust a folded slip of paper into his hand before moving on quickly towards the front of the carriage. With a puzzled frown, Johnston unfolded the note. The message was typed in capital letters.
INSTRUCTIONS FROM HASSAM SALMAN.
THERE’S BEEN A CHANGE OF PLAN.
FOLLOW ME TO THE TOILETS.
I HAVE THE KEYS FOR THE HANDCUFFS AND I
WILL NOW TAKE CHARGE OF THE BRIEFCASE.
Johnston’s eyes flicked up from the page, but the man had already disappeared from sight. His mind started to race. What was going on? Was this some kind of trick? Should he go after him? He licked hard at his lips and read the note again, trying to figure out what to do. How could it be a con? The man knew Hassam Salman’s name. He knew about the briefcase and, if he had the keys for the handcuffs, surely it had to be genuine? Deciding he needed to find out what was going on, he stuffed the note into his anorak pocket and pulled himself to his feet, steadying himself with his right hand against the sides of the seats as he swayed his way up the aisle towards the front of the compartment. When he passed through the narrow corridor leading to the adjoining carriage, he saw the toilet door was swinging on its hinges.
‘In here!’ the insistent voice urged. ‘Quickly.’
As soon as Johnston had lurched into the cubicle, the door was slammed shut and the bolt rammed home. There was barely room for both of them to stand upright in the cramped space. The man facing him was now wearing an ankle-length, black, plastic mackintosh and his hands were encased in thin rubber gloves. His baseball cap was twisted round backwards.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Johnston pulled the note from his pocket and waved it in the taller man’s face. ‘Who the hell are you and what’s all this about a change of plan?’
‘You got the message. You’ve to give me the case.’
Johnston glared at him. ‘If I’ve to give you the case, mate, where are the keys for the fucking handcuffs?’
‘I’ve got them here,’ he said, reaching into his pocket. Johnston’s bloodshot eyes went out on stalks when he saw the glint of steel and the startled look remained frozen to his features as the stiletto blade was plunged deep into the pit of his stomach. Johnston clawed at his bleeding paunch with his right hand. The blade was wrenched out and driven again and again into his guts, jets of warm, crimson blood splattering against the walls of the cubicle.
When Johnston tried desperately to twist away, the knife was pumped several times into his kidneys. Within seconds, he passed out. There was no room for him to fall to the ground and he slumped forward against the wash hand basin, blood still seeping from his wounds.
Propping the lifeless body in a sitting position on the toilet seat, the assailant took a thin hacksaw blade from his suitcase and used it to saw through Johnston’s left wrist, the brittle bone splintering as a fountain of blood cascaded from the lanced arteries and spurted in all directions.
When he’d sawn through the wrist, he tugged off his bloodstained mackintosh and wrapped it around the severed hand. Taking a zip-up, plastic freezer bag from his suitcase, he inserted the still-oozing parcel, then sealed the freezer bag before placing it inside his case. He slid the handcuff over Johnston’s dismembered wrist and placed the attaché case, with the handcuffs still attached, inside his case.
He checked his watch. The whole operation had taken less than four minutes – comfortably within his schedule. He picked up the note Johnston had dropped onto the cubicle floor and then went through Johnston’s pockets methodically, removing all his possessions and his rail tickets, as well as the ticket stub for the Mull ferry. Tugging off his blood-soaked gloves, he dropped them into his suitcase. He took a long scarf from his case and wrapped it around his neck, using it to cover his nose and his mouth, then he twisted his baseball cap round and tugged the brim low over his eyes. He snapped his case closed and wrenched open the opaque toilet window to check where they were. As the train started slowing down on the approach to Motherwell station, he slid back the bolt on the cubicle door to the accompaniment of the complaining squeal as the engine’s brakes started to be applied. Waiting until the train had come to a juddering stop, he picked up his case and stepped out into the corridor, pulling the toilet door closed behind him. He moved quickly through the forward compartment until he got to the far end of the carriage. Opening the door, he stepped down onto the platform and he kept his eyes cast down as he hurried towards the exit, his suitcase tucked firmly underneath his arm. Outside the station, he got into the back seat of a black Ford Focus that was waiting there.
‘Did you get it?’ the driver asked, as he accelerated away.
‘Everything went according to plan.’ When they were clear of the station, he carefully peeled off his false beard and removed his spectacles. Taking the attaché case from his suitcase, he slipped it under the passenger seat. ‘You know where to drop me off?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’
The man in black, who had been sitting a few rows behind Johnston, had started to become concerned about the time Johnston was taking in the toilet. As the train rumbled to a halt in the station, he got out of his seat and made his way up the aisle. When he reached the corridor he saw a trickle of blood seeping from under the door of the nearest cubicle. He kicked hard on the toilet door and, as it swung open on its hinges, he was confronted with the gruesome sight. Swearing under his breath, he yanked the door closed and moved quickly up the train, following the trail of bloodstained footprints until they petered out near the open carriage door. He yanked on the communication cord before getting off the train. Hurrying towards the station entrance, he pulled his phone from his pocket and clicked onto a number. He spat out his matchstick as soon as the call was answered.
‘This is Farrell,’ he snapped. ‘I need to speak to Kenicer – right now!’
‘Hold on, I’ll get him for you.’
‘What’s the problem?’ Mitch Kenicer asked when he came to the phone.
‘They got Johnston.’
‘Fuck! Where?’
‘On the train – at Motherwell Station.’
‘The consignment?’
‘Gone.’
‘How the hell did they manage to get it?’
‘They chopped his fucking hand off.’
‘Shit! Where are you now?’
‘I’m at the station.’
There was a brief pause. ‘Are the police involved?’
‘Not yet – but they will be soon.’
‘Make yourself scarce. Call me later.’ The connection was broken.
The guard, who had gone to investigate why the communication cord had been pulled, threw up when he opened the toilet door.
Mitch Kenicer made a call via a radio link to a fishing boat in the North Atlantic.
‘What are you playing at?’ he demanded.
‘What seems to be the problem?’ Roman Bespalov asked, a smile on his lips.
‘You know very well what the problem is. Someone took out the courier on the train.’
‘Did they really?’
‘I suppose it must have been our Irish friends.’
‘Which “Irish friends”?’
‘The Fermanagh Freedom Fighters.’
Kenicer snorted. ‘The FFF? How the hell would they be in a position to do that?’
‘They bought the same information you did – for the same price. I can only assume they managed to organise something.’
‘Our deal was that we would take care of Johnston and Salman when Johnson got back to London,’ Kenicer snapped.
‘Our deal was that I would provide you with the details of the Iraqis’ courier, his itinerary and his schedule. We had no agreement about me not providing the same information to someone else.’
‘For fuck’s sake! Do the FFF have the combination to open the attaché case?’
‘Not yet. But I agreed to sell it to them, if and when they managed to get their hands on the case.’
‘You’re a bastard, Bespalov!’
Bespalov laughed out loud. ‘As a matter of fact, Kenicer, that happens to be correct.’
It was just after one o’clock when Charlie Anderson left Pitt Street by the main entrance and made his way down the hill, stretching and twisting his spine in a figure of eight as he went. The sun was struggling through the high clouds and he could feel the warmth on his face. When he got to the junction with Bath Street he pressed the button on the pedestrian crossing. Waiting until the traffic lights changed in his favour, he crossed the road and headed towards Sauchiehall Street, crowded with shoppers and office workers on their lunchtime break. He joined the queue outside Greggs’ the bakers. No matter what time of day, there always seemed to be a queue. It reminded him of something he’d heard on a television programme recently – that in current Glasgow parlance: “Is there a queue at Greggs?” had replaced “Is the Pope a Catholic?” as a statement of the blindingly obvious.
The queue moved quickly – it always moved quickly. When he got to the counter he ordered a cheese and tomato sandwich on wholemeal bread and a bottle of mineral water.
Charlie munched on his sandwich as he walked along the pedestrianised stretch of Sauchiehall Street, mentally compiling a list of everyone who might consider they had a score to settle with him. A few obvious candidates immediately sprang to mind – guys he’d been instrumental in putting away for long jail terms. When he reached an intersection he dropped his sandwich wrapping paper into a waste paper bin and, as he turned the corner, his eye caught an off-licence. On a sudden impulse, he went in and bought a half-bottle of The Famous Grouse and on his way back to Pitt Street, he stopped off at a chemist’s and picked up an aerosol of Gold Spot breath freshener.
Charlie collected a black coffee with extra sugar from the vending machine before heading along the corridor to his office. Closing the door behind him, he took a few sips of coffee, then unscrewed the cap from the bottle and tipped a generous measure of whisky into the plastic cup. Spinning the cap back on as he walked across to the metal filing cabinet by the window, he secreted the bottle behind the last hanging file in the bottom drawer.
Charlie turned round with a start when he heard the buzz of his intercom. Crossing to his desk, he pressed the button to make the connection.
‘Pauline here, sir. Superintendent Hamilton would like to see you straight away.’
‘Isn’t this my lucky day?’ Charlie muttered to himself. He took a few more sips of coffee before making his way along the corridor, stretching and twisting his neck in an attempt to ease the dull ache at the base of his spine. Glancing over his shoulder as he tramped up the flight of stairs, he took the Gold Spot from his pocket and surreptitiously sprayed it around the inside of his mouth.
When Charlie walked into the office, Hamilton was sitting with his back to him, working at his screen.
Charlie stood just inside the door. ‘Pauline said you wanted to see me.’
Hamilton spun round in his swivel chair. ‘What’s this about another amputated hand being delivered here last night?’
‘We don’t have anything to go on at this stage.’
Hamilton brought his fist hammering down on the desk. ‘Why wasn’t I informed?’
‘I didn’t see any point in disturbing you at home.’
Hamilton’s cheeks flushed. ‘The Chief Constable phoned me at home last night,’ he said, his voice reverting to its customary, measured delivery. ‘As you may know, he’s on holiday in Austria. He heard about a body being recovered from the Clyde on Sky News. He wanted to be briefed.’ Hamilton’s tone became the epitome of sanctimonious reasonableness. ‘Now how am I supposed to brief the Chief when I haven’t been informed that a second amputated hand was sent here yesterday?’
‘I was waiting until we had something tangible before I got you involved.’
‘How was it delivered?’
‘In the same kind of shoe box as before. This time, a guy in Sauchiehall Street paid a kid to bring it here. He told him to say it was a present for me.’
‘Which confirms that you’re definitely the focal point for this nutter. Don’t you have any idea who could be doing this?’ Charlie shook his head. ‘This is serial killer country, Anderson. You have to get Doctor Orr involved straight away. We need to use her profiling expertise.’
‘She’s involved already. I had a meeting with her this morning. She’s going to analyse the data we have to see if she can come up with anything that looks like a pattern.’
Hamilton stood up and strode towards his office window, gazing out. Charlie recognised the signal that he was being dismissed. ‘I need to be kept abreast of all developments,’ Hamilton stated without turning round. ‘Phone me at home as soon as anything breaks – any hour of the day or night.’
Charlie checked his watch as he trudged back down the stairs. Seeing it was almost two o’clock, he hurried to his office where he found O’Sullivan and Stuart waiting for him.
‘Did you find out anything worthwhile in Port Glasgow, sir?’ Tony asked.
Charlie took off his jacket and draped it over the back of his chair. ‘I spoke to the last person to see Irene McGowan alive – apart from her murderer, that is. A guy called Archie Carter. He told me he saw a man going into Irene McGowan’s caravan around eight o’clock on Monday morning.’
‘Was he able to give you a description?’ Malcolm asked.
‘He only saw him from a distance – and his eyesight is dodgy at the best of times. The one thing he did notice was that the guy was wearing a cap, on backwards.’ Charlie let out a heavy sigh. ‘How did you make out at the post office, Tony?’
‘I didn’t actually get there.’
Charlie’s brow furrowed. ‘Why not?’
‘It was weird. I’d arranged to meet Renton in St Vincent Street at half-past nine, but just before I set off from home I got a call on my mobile from Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock – from a Doctor Wilson. He told me my Mum was in a coma after a hit and run.’
‘Jesus – Tony…’
Tony held up a hand. ‘She’s fine, sir, she’s fine. It’s all been a –I don’t really know. Doctor Wilson told me that a Mrs Dympna O’Sullivan had been brought into A&E, the victim of a hit and run accident, and she was in a coma. They’d got her name and address from the driving licence in her handbag, and they’d found her address book. My Dad’s mobile was the first number in her book, but they hadn’t been able to get in touch with him. I was the next “O’Sullivan” in her book, so they tried calling me. When I confirmed Dympna was my mother, the doctor asked me to come to the hospital as soon as I could. I phoned Renton and asked him to handle the post office interviews on his own, then I drove down to Kilmarnock like a bat out of hell. But – and this is the bizarre part – when I got to Crosshouse, there was no Doctor Wilson – and no record of my mother having been admitted to A&E. I got the receptionists to phone all the other hospitals in the area that had A&E departments, but no one knew anything about a hit and run accident. Then I called my Mum – and she told me she’d been at home all morning.’
‘Any idea who could’ve been playing games?’ Charlie asked.
‘Not a clue,’ Tony said.
‘There are plenty of morons out there who get their kicks out of wasting police time,’ Malcolm suggested.
Charlie shook his head in frustration. ‘Did you at least get the lease for your flat sorted out, Malcolm?’
‘No problem on that front, sir.’
‘Did you find out anything about the significance of nine of diamonds?’ Charlie asked.
‘There’s a lot about it on the Internet,’ Malcolm said, ‘but nothing that strikes me as being in any way useful. As you know, it’s called ‘The Curse of Scotland’ because of the role it played in the Glencoe Massacre in 1692, and the ongoing feud between the McDonalds and the Campbells at the time.’ Malcolm referred to the Wikipedia article he had printed out. ‘The McDonalds had looted the Campbells’ land and stolen their livestock, so, when the Campbells were billeted in Glencoe, ostensibly to collect taxes, they were out for revenge and they murdered thirty-eight members of the McDonald clan in their beds.
‘There are two theories about the nine of diamonds. The popular one is that the order to carry out the massacre was written on the card itself, the other one is that the coat of arms of the Earl of Stair, the Scottish Secretary who ordered the massacre, bears a close resemblance to the nine of diamonds. But what connection either of those theories could have with the murder of an old woman and a young girl is beyond me.’
‘I got the initial forensic report on the second victim this morning,’ Charlie said indicating the document in his in-tray. ‘This time it was a particularly violent attack, though there doesn’t appear to have been a sexual motive.’
‘Any chance of a DNA identification from the victim’s body or her clothes?’ Malcolm asked.
‘We’ll have to wait for the post mortem for confirmation, but as the body was in the Clyde for more than twenty-four hours, I wouldn’t pin my hopes on it,’ Charlie said. ‘She shared a flat in Hill Street with her boyfriend, but the uniformed boys haven’t managed to track him down yet. Handle this between you. Start by checking out her apartment. The report says her house keys were in her handbag, so you’ll be able to pick them up from the mortuary. While I remember, Tony,’ Charlie said, ‘did the forensic boys manage to come up with anything on the shoe boxes?’
‘Both as clean as a whistle. Identical boxes – Clark’s, size nine, men’s slippers – no fingerprints. I asked a salesman in the Sauchiehall Street branch if anyone had been in asking for old shoe boxes or buying up slippers in bulk. He took me out back and showed me the bins behind the shop. They were piled high with empty boxes waiting to be collected for recycling. Anyone could have helped themselves.’
‘And the playing cards?’
‘Bog standard. Literally dozens of outlets in the city.’
‘Document everything you’ve got and send a copy to Doctor Orr,’ Charlie said.
‘How did your meeting with her go?’ Malcolm asked.
‘She seems a nice enough wee lassie – and very keen to help. She’s gone off with a pile of data to analyse, but I wouldn’t bet my pension on her coming up with anything worthwhile. We have to keep her in the loop, but first and foremost we need to –’
Colin Renton’s rap on the door interrupted Charlie’s flow.
‘Any joy at the post office, Colin?’ Charlie asked as Renton walked in.
‘Not a lot, sir. I spoke to all the counter staff who were on duty on Monday morning, but no one remembers taking the parcel.’
‘Hardly surprising,’ Tony said. ‘They must handle dozens of packages like that every day.’
Charlie’s desk phone rang and he picked up.
‘News just coming through from Motherwell Station, sir,’ the duty officer said. ‘A man has been murdered on the Glasgow to London train. His left hand has been cut off.’