2

The weather is Glasgow-grey with added smirr. The tall buildings on either side of the narrow lane crowd down on me. There’s enough space for one vehicle to drive along here, with a pavement that could take one weak-shouldered man either side. A single yellow line tells any driver there’s no stopping.

This lane and many others like it lining the city centre are a continual subject of debate. Poorly lit and just feet away from busy thoroughfares, they offer a combination of good hiding places and easy pickings for the ill-intentioned.

A tall figure, full-bellied in a white body-suit, walks towards me. Martin Pierce. Normally nothing alters the stretched, laconic features of his face. He can talk about the weather and a corpse with the same low-level enthusiasm. With twenty years in the job, he’s seen it all, but this girl has clearly affected him. His eyes dart from place to place. Muscles bunch in his jaw.

‘Just a wee lassie.’ He shook his head slowly when he saw me. ‘Whole life in front of her and some nasty little prick…’ I remember that Martin has two teenage daughters.

‘Can you tell if anything’s been stolen? Any sign of sexual contact?’ I needed to know what I was dealing with here. An extreme mugger, murderer or a killer with a kink? And Martin needed to regain his focus.

‘Can’t say for sure at the moment,’ answers Martin. ‘She is fully clothed, but there are some stains of what could be semen on the front of her shirt and jeans.’

‘So,’ I think out loud. ‘He kills her and then masturbates over the body?’ I look over Martin’s shoulder. All I can see of her are her feet and legs up to the knee as they jut out from her final place of rest.

‘Or something that starts as consensual and then turns horribly wrong,’ Martin replies.

Small feet, in red high heels. Something about them gives me the notion of a young girl playing at dress-up. One foot is pointing skywards. The other leg is at an angle with the toe of the shoe pointing straight at me like an accusation.

I wonder if they were her favourite pair. She’s in her best gear and out for a night with her pals when everything is brought to a juddering end. All for a cheap thrill. What a waste. I’ll never get used to this. I swallow down any emotion that’s threatening to surface. I’ve a job to do.

‘Any other obvious wounds on her?’ I ask.

‘Only the trauma at the side of her head. The post mortem will let us know whether that happened before or after death. A couple of false nails have broken off. Hopefully she gave him a bit of a clawing.’

Good girl, I thought. Didn’t go down without a fight. Hopefully there’ll be some tissue from the killer under her nails and he’ll have a torn face.

Martin looks over his shoulder and then back at me. ‘Her handbag is by her side. One of these giant leather jobs. Size of an elephant scrotum.’ He aims for humour, and it falls flat. ‘Got my lassies one each at Christmas. Enough room for a kitchen sink, but all they carry is make-up and their iPhones.’

‘They’ve both got iPhones?’

‘Aye.’ Rueful grin.

‘You make too much money, mate.’ Pause. Enough with the chat. ‘Has anyone managed to log the contents of her bag yet?’

‘Not yet, Ray,’ he shrugs. ‘We’ll dust everything for prints and get it to you asap.’

* * *

DC Harkness is sitting in front at that morning’s muster. He’s eying me as if he’s about to get his smart-arse on.

‘Sir, you’re putting on the beef. Does that mean you’ve been dumped again?’

‘Aye, his Thai bride’s gone back to her parents,’ Daryl Drain jumps in before I can respond. ‘She cannae stand the miserable sod a minute longer.’

‘Shut up, the pair of you.’ I’m tired and feeling a little sick after my alarm call. But, I remind myself, the humour in the room is there to remind me that we’re not all monsters. Besides, we’re working on a strong solve rate. As a team we are in a relatively good place.

‘This is not the kind of behaviour we want to show the new members of our team.’ I look at the two new recruits sitting either side of DC Rossi. One male, one female. Both clean out of uniform, both fresh to my murder squad and both so earnest they almost gleam. Makes me feel old. Was I ever that keen?

‘Sir, perhaps our new team members can tell us a little bit about themselves?’ Harkness suggests. Less from a sense of curiosity than a need to take the piss.

‘All you need to know for now, Harkie,’ says Alessandra Rossi, ‘is that new boy detective’s name is Nick, and new girl detective is Way Out of Your League.’ Laughter bounces round the room, including, to her credit, new girl detective. Late twenties, blond scraped-back hair and sporting a sturdy build we do so well in Glasgow. It’s all those deep-fried Mars bars and Buckfast, don’t you know.

‘My name’s Kate. Kate Harper,’ she adds when the noise abates. I offer her a smile of welcome.

‘Welcome, Kate Kate Harper,’ I say. She’ll do fine. I’m not so sure about Nick. Looks like he shaves once a month, and he’s so lean that from the side all you’d see is a drain-pipe with a nose and a sharp Adam’s apple. An Adam’s apple that is bobbing up and down his throat with nerves.

Nick opens his mouth as if desperate to make his mark on the meeting. Then he closes it again. A deep breath, a forced grin, and his testosterone levels take over.

‘My name is Nick James, and I’m an alcoholic.’ He rubs his hands together, places them on the table in front of him, then changes his mind and crosses his arms, all the while wearing that awkward please-like-me grin.

Harkness and Drain hoot.

‘You’ll do fine, buddy,’ Drain adds.

Alcohol. The Scottish social adhesive. Show you’re up for a few jars and acceptance comes that much more quickly.

‘Right, people.’ I clap my hands, a sharp noise that gets everyone’s attention. ‘Enough with the nicey-nicey. We have a bad man to catch.’

‘There’s been a murder?’ Harkness rolls his “r” at the end of both syllables like he’s a cliché on Taggart. His smile freezes on his face when he reads my expression. This kind of humour is fine after a few whiskies at the end of a case, when the killer is waiting for the Queen’s justice. In fact, it’s not just fine, it’s a requirement. Helps to put the boogieman to the furthest recesses of your mind if you can laugh at him.

However, when a body is cooling in the morgue and a photo of her lifeless face is in the file in front of me, it’s bang out of order.

‘Time and place, D.C. Harkness, and this is neither.’ I raise an eyebrow telling him he should know better. Rossi is staring at him as if she wants to knee him in the groin. He sits back in his chair, crosses his arms and mumbles, ‘Only having a wee joke.’

He’s a good cop, works hard and has strong instincts. But he’s the class clown and often doesn’t know when to rein it in.

‘Tell it to Aileen Banks’s grieving parents.’ I pull her photo from the file and hold it up for everyone to have a look at. ‘See how funny they find it.’

‘What do we know, Ray?’ asks Daryl Drain, who then mouths “fanny” at Harkness.

‘Cause of death has not yet been established. Time of death, the early hours of this morning. Body found in West Regent Lane propped up between two red dumpsters. Like she was sleeping…’

I realise that everyone is staring at me. I cough and point to the table in front of me where an evidence bag lies, containing the dead girl’s handbag.

She had been carrying an iPhone, a couple of tampons, a small make-up bag – with a mirror, lippie and mascara – a leather purse with one of those wee dog tags containing £23.15, a pair of black socks, an e-reader, a set of house keys on a Mickey Mouse key-ring and a matriculation card for Glasgow University.

‘The uniforms were out first thing, giving the news to her nearest and dearest.’ Everyone squirms with relief. No one likes that job. ‘Alessandra, you come with me and we’ll speak to her parents. Daryl, you and Nick go and study the CCTV cameras for that area and see what you can come up with. Harkie, you take Kate to the university. Speak to lecturers, friends, canteen staff. Find anybody who knows her.’ I hold the photograph up one more time. Hold it there for a good, long minute. I check that everyone is looking at it. They need to remember this isn’t just a case.

‘Let’s get to it, people.’

The team files out of the room, heads down, minds full of the girl’s death mask. I study the paraphernalia of her life, now strewn across the desk in front of me. This is what her twenty-one years amounted to. The Mickey Mouse key-ring a small, fun-shaped reminder that for Aileen Banks, childhood had been just a few short years ago.