McBride took the coast road home. The route followed the very edge of Scotland and swooped and turned like a bird of prey in flight as it hugged the shoreline. It attracted the tourists with time on their hands who didn’t want to join the racetrack of the inland motorway. It didn’t matter that it would add half an hour to his journey. McBride needed to think. Not about Kate Nightingale, whose scent still lingered, but about Claire Bowman, whose last smell to the world would be the anonymous, undignified mix of disinfectant and chemical preservatives. The softness of her body that, in life, would have pressed gently against a man, just as Kate’s had done to him hours before, would, in death, be hard and unyielding. On the pathologist’s slab she was no longer a woman – just a carcass to be sliced apart and stitched together again. She was also an enigma.
If he was right, she was the third victim – at least – of the same killer. Yet nothing, apart from how her father earned his living, appeared to connect her to her sisters in death. Nothing to say they’d ever met. Nothing unique but the same. Different cities, different friends, different backgrounds but inextricably bound, he believed, by the greatest similarity of all. Each of them would have gazed in terror into the same set of eyes before taking their unwanted leave of earth.
Maybe he’d got it wrong. If Double Dick’s information was accurate, Claire Bowman’s exit from life was a significant departure from the kind of fate experienced by Alison Brown and Ginny Williams – ‘brutal sex killing’ did not seem to be part of the deal. But what was the deal? It was three dead women. Three women who lived alone. Three women of the same approximate age. Women carefully selected by someone who wanted to drink with them before taking away their existence. Nobody said it had to be neat. That each of the pieces had to dovetail smoothly. There was just one small issue that needed resolving. Why?
McBride pulled into a lay-by just south of Stonehaven and used his mobile to call Detective Inspector Petra Novak. He told her where he was and where he’d been but not with whom. He said he thought his killer had moved north to Aberdeen.
She did not react as he had expected. ‘Absolutely wrong,’ she said as soon as he stopped speaking.
‘Why?’ he asked, surprised.
‘Different modus operandi. Claire Bowman would probably have been very pleased to have been strangled instead of dying the way she did.’
‘And how was that?’
‘Long story. But you’re off beam. This guy was a sadist.’
McBride could barely contain himself. ‘Give me chapter and verse.’
‘Too busy. There’s a three-line whip on it up in Aberdeen and it’s about as bad here. There’s also a big security clampdown. Very little is being put out.’
‘The last bit I know. Can we meet when I get back to town?’ he asked, working hard at keeping urgency out of the question.
‘Too busy,’ she said again. ‘I could be here all night.’
He pressed her. ‘Don’t you want to know why I think you’re looking at the same person for all of them?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Too busy,’ he replied, laughing softly. ‘If you make time, I will.’ He knew she would be unable to resist questioning him.
She thought about it for at least a second. ‘I’ll need to eat in a couple of hours,’ she said, trying to inject resignation into her voice. ‘You can buy me a cup of coffee.’
‘Where? The Overgate Centre?’ He had chosen the nearest place to police headquarters in the hope that she would disagree. Their presence there would run the risk of being observed by other officers and he knew she would not linger long or have much to say if they went there.
‘No.’ She paused, considering an alternative. ‘Make it three o’clock in the Bell Tree.’
‘Great,’ said McBride. They rang off. He was delighted. The place she had named was a restaurant next to a Premier Travel Inn just outside of town where he’d eaten several times since moving from London. The food was good but not expensive and the surroundings were pleasant, if unoriginal. But he knew that was not why Petra had chosen it. The seating arrangements in the Bell Tree were discreet and the tables separated by enough distance for conversations to remain private. It was easy to enter and exit and, on a weekday afternoon, there would be few locals eating there. The other diners would nearly all be businessmen breaking their journeys to or from Aberdeen and other points north.
McBride sat for a few minutes in the lay-by, watching as a rush of North Sea white horses crashed on to an outcrop of rocks extending into the water from a small patch of beach. Contentment washed over him. He was confident the divine Petra had something she wanted to disclose.
He was not wrong. She arrived precisely on time and barely glanced at the menu before ordering an omelette without chips.
‘OK, you first,’ she instructed, ‘then I’ll tell you why you’re mistaken.’
McBride gave her a rundown on his theory that he had received a coded message hinting that the killer’s next victim could be in Aberdeen. ‘His phrasing – “just one more on the list. Another much further away” – didn’t make all that much sense at the time but, if you read it as meaning Aberdeen, it hangs together perfectly,’ McBride said. ‘Give me a better explanation. And tell me why I’m mistaken.’
Petra took a long breath before she answered. ‘She wasn’t strangled like the others,’ she said, speaking very quietly. ‘Claire Bowman was murdered by someone who had completely lost the place – a pervert who gets his jollies from brutalising women. The place was like an abattoir. If he hadn’t already killed her by what he did, she would have bled to death.’
It was not what McBride had anticipated. He said nothing for a few moments while he wrestled with the mental images her revelations conjured up before he finally asked, ‘So, what did he do?’
Petra pushed away the half-eaten omelette. She took another breath. ‘He knocked her unconscious then penetrated her repeatedly using the same weapon. They’re still trying to count but they reckon he’d thrust it into her vagina at least a dozen times – maybe twice that.’
McBride looked stunned.
Before he could reply, Petra spoke again. ‘He did the same in her rectum.’ She was starting to stumble with her words. ‘They’re not sure of the exact point at which she would have died – probably halfway through the ordeal.’
The detective inspector’s poise was disappearing with every word. Her eyes were starting to mist. She was the schoolgirl who needed protection again. He covered the back of one her hands with his own.
She spoke once more but, this time, so softly that her words were only just audible. ‘She wouldn’t even have been able to cry out in her agony. The bastard had made sure of her silence by putting a scarf round her mouth first. So, you see, Campbell, strangulation would have been an act of mercy.’
McBride felt her hand tremble. He had no idea how to respond. He was torn between spitting out his disgust and reaching out to take the crestfallen woman opposite in his arms. But he had no opportunity to do either. Before he could speak, the silence was broken by the muted ringing of what sounded like an old-fashioned phone.
Petra reached into the bag at her feet and picked out her mobile. She checked the caller’s identity, pressed the talk button and spoke quickly. ‘Novak.’ The authority in her voice took McBride by surprise. Her composure was back. She listened for several seconds then said, ‘There was? What kind? Expensive?’ Another pause while she received an answer. ‘Any request to send someone up?’ Pause. ‘OK. I’ll be back inside an hour.’ She rang off and placed the BlackBerry back into her bag. McBride was impressed – both by her recovery rate and her choice of mobile.
She was first to speak. ‘I may have humble pie for dessert,’ she said with what seemed like sheepishness.
McBride gave her a questioning look.
‘Seems Claire Bowman and her killer probably did share a bottle of wine. My sergeant doesn’t know if it was expensive but he says he’s never seen it in Tesco so it probably is.’
McBride was on the point of delivering his gem about the occupation of Claire Bowman’s father but did not get the chance.
She spoke again. ‘I’m going to tell you something which I know you’re going to ask me but which you must promise not to write about.’ It was a question as well as a statement.
He nodded his acceptance of the condition.
‘The weapon – it was a police baton.’ She watched his face for reaction.
He did not disappoint her. His mouth opened almost as wide as his eyes. ‘Give me that again. A baton? A police baton?’
‘Yes, an ASP retractable, the kind practically every force in the country uses.’ She was almost apologetic, as though she was personally responsible for the choice of weapon the monster had used.
McBride whistled silently. He remained silent for several seconds then said, ‘There’s something else – Claire Bowman’s father was a police chief inspector. Three dead women, all the daughters of police officers.’ Before Petra could speak he added, ‘And don’t say “coincidence”.’
She stared back, shook her head. ‘No – I don’t think so either.’ Bewilderment filled her face.
McBride paused and then, as much to himself as to the watching woman sitting opposite, he said, ‘We’re into a different ball game. Are we looking for a killer cop? Is that why the bastard always seems to be one jump ahead? Or are we after someone who just happens to hate them?’ They weren’t really questions.
Petra didn’t try to provide answers. She lifted both shoulders in a shrug. She wasn’t indifferent. Just baffled – like him.