Killing for Keeps (12 page)

H
er words had been necessarily harsh. Bereaved or not, the DCI was sick of dancing around Vicky Masters. The threat of showing her a photograph of her tortured boyfriend had
been merely a ploy to get information, a tactic designed to scare her. Kate had no intention of carrying out the threat. In fact, the snap she’d taken from her pocket was of Jo. In the end,
she’d wasted her time. The girl refused to cooperate.

With the Murder Investigation Team assembled, Kate took the floor in the crowded incident room. There was much to discuss. Maxwell kicked things off; he had no further information about
Terry’s antique ring, but on the plus side he had made a positive ID on Sky, a development Kate invited him to share with the others.

‘Sky’s real name is Bethany Miller.’ Maxwell could hardly look his colleagues in the eye. ‘She’s fifteen years old, from Barrow-in-Furness; an only child, according
to the Cumbrian officer who visited her parents to break the news. They threw her out in January following an argument over money she’d spent on a bloody mobile phone. The parents are en
route to the morgue to make a formal identification. It’s a given, unfortunately. She gave her real name and former address to the hospital that scanned her. Sounds like she had plans to go
home and patch things up with her folks.’

‘If only she’d gone sooner,’ DS Robson said.

The temperature seemed to drop a few degrees.

Kate cast her eyes around the room. The death of any child had a sobering effect on the team. She couldn’t afford to let their heads go down for a second. To avoid them dwelling on
Bethany, she moved on, singling out Lisa Carmichael, who had news the DCI felt sure would lift morale. The nervous joyrider who’d been interviewed by Division had been invited into the
station for further questioning. On Daniels’ say so, Lisa had informed him that they’d overlook the Driving Whilst Disqualified offence he’d committed in exchange for information
that might assist with a more serious enquiry she was dealing with.

‘He responded to that,’ Lisa said. ‘He told me that the Range Rover he’d seen in the early hours of Friday morning had “shot out of Silverlink like a bullet”,
crossing the roundabout on the wrong side of the road, heading straight for him.’

‘Go on,’ Kate said.

‘The driver and passenger apparently laughed as the kid swerved to avoid them, narrowly missing the offside of his car, nearly wrapping him round a lamppost in the process.’ Lisa
Carmichael’s exuberant tone was an indication that there was more to tell – a potential leap forward that enthused everybody present. ‘That roundabout is well lit,’ she
continued. ‘The lad got a good look at the idiots in the Range Rover, good enough to see that one of them was ginger.’

The squad began to mutter among themselves. It was the first clue to the identity of one of the offenders they were seeking. Across the room, Bright raised an impressed eyebrow, congratulating
Lisa on her contribution. She sat down, chuffed that the head of CID had been in attendance when she broke the news – knowing it wouldn’t be forgotten.

Maxwell was pulling a face.

For her part, Kate had enjoyed the exchange. Their former guv’nor had tipped Lisa for the top, as he had
her
years ago. No wonder: Lisa was both intelligent and conscientious, two
attributes that went hand in hand. Without one, the other was useless. His endorsement was totally justified. The opinion of such a senior officer carried a lot of weight in Northumbria force.
Right now though, Kate’s own wisdom was kicking in. Like the ball on a roulette wheel, something inside her head whizzed round and round and fell neatly into place on a winning number.

Shutting her eyes, she dragged a memory up from the depths of her subconscious, a snippet of information she’d filed there long ago. She had no idea where it came from. Only that it was
important. Scotland had the highest proportion of redheads in the UK. Around four out of every ten Scots carried the redhead gene.

‘Kate?’ Bright’s voice cut through her thoughts. ‘You want to carry on?’

She dropped her head to one side. ‘Guv, what colour hair did Dougie O’Kane have?’

‘What?’

‘Was he a redhead?’

His answer came in a smile.

This new snippet of information galvanized the Murder Investigation Team. They couldn’t yet prove it, but the consensus among them was that one or both of Dougie O’Kane’s sons
was reaping revenge for their father’s death. Unless they were a mile wrong, Craig and Finn O’Kane were gunning for Arthur Ross McKenzie, taking out anyone and everyone who was stupid
enough to get in their way.

‘Have you all got a copy of Andy’s report on the QC Club?’ Kate asked.

Some detectives did, some didn’t.

Instructing them to share, she stepped forward. ‘The last action I raised on there was to establish who it was that Terry was looking at as he left the premises. We think we know who it
might be. I want the footage re-examined from that point on in order to ID as many clubbers as humanly possible, especially any that have red hair. For argument’s sake, let’s call this
new action “Sequence of Events – QC”. Everyone clear on that?’

There were nods of confirmation.

‘I want frame-by-frame photographs of every movement to run all the way round the incident room where you can all see them. I want times, names, the whole nine yards. Bearing in mind the
fact that John and Terry left early, I appreciate that it’s a massive undertaking. It’s necessary though, and I’m confident you’re up for it. Whoever killed them – and
possibly Bethany too – I honestly believe is in this club.’ She pointed at the murder wall, a frozen image of Terry Allen looking over his shoulder. ‘He’s bloody scared. In
my humble opinion, he’s looking at the man or men who assaulted him six weeks earlier on the thirteenth of July.’

The team agreed with her assessment.

‘If we’re on the right track, Craig and Finn O’Kane will be on that footage somewhere. Only a halfwit would risk chasing someone out of a club in full view of CCTV. A
sophisticated prig would mingle, bide their time, walk out with a crowd. These people are professional criminals, organized and savvy.’

‘In that case, they would make straight for the nearest fire escape, wouldn’t they?’ The suggestion had come from Jo Soulsby.

‘We have it covered, Jo. Andy recovered CCTV from all exits.’ Kate could feel the excitement building in the room as she focused on Brown. ‘Same goes then,’ she said.
‘I want frame-by-frame shots running right up until the last man or woman out of the QC turns the key in the damned lock. Let’s get moving.’

T
wo hours later, Kate raised her head to a tap on her office door.

‘Got a minute?’ Jo walked in and sat down without waiting for an invitation. ‘You keeping out the way?’ She thumbed over her shoulder. ‘There’s a mass
wallpapering project going on out there.’

‘How are they getting on?’

‘Wonderfully, by the looks.’

Kate glanced at her watch: 20:10. ‘Thought you’d have been long gone. Can I help you with something?’

‘Other way round. I think I can help you.’ Stretching her legs out in front of her, Jo placed her hands loosely in her lap. ‘I just got off the phone with the Scottish prison
service. Arthur Ross McKenzie was apparently a model inmate at Shotts. He was moved for his own safety in 2007. I asked why not to another prison north of the border and met a brick wall, so I rang
Acklington, the receiving prison, or HMP Northumberland as it’s now known. They told me that special permission was sought to move him south from the Scottish system. And guess what else? In
the last few months of his sentence, he had a visitor.’

‘Theresa?’ It was an educated guess.

Jo grinned. ‘And that’s not all—’

‘What did I tell you?’ Bright breezed in through the open door. ‘Theresa was always a piece of work. She’s been a pathological liar since the day she was born.’ He
nodded a hello to Jo and then focused on his DCI, resenting the fact that the profiler had got to her before him. ‘What does she look like these days anyway? Still good enough to
eat?’

Kate made a face. ‘Depends how hungry you are, guv.’

They all laughed.

The good humour was welcome relief from the seriousness of the offences they were dealing with. It helped to displace the elephant in the room that seemed to appear each time these three were
together. Before his wife died, Kate had supported her boss through some difficult times. The two had become very close. In a brief moment of weakness – Kate would say madness –
he’d let it be known that he wanted more than a working relationship with her, altering the dynamic between them for ever. It was ridiculous on two counts. First, Kate had only ever seen him
as a mentor and father figure. Second, she was still in love with Jo – a state of affairs that he was unaware of.

When Bright had made a play for her, he’d been ignorant of her feelings for women – for Jo in particular. He’d taken the news on the chin, but there was a residual resentment
over the relationship that hung like a dark cloud over them all. Kate regretted how the news had come out: an anonymous letter sent by an offender stirring up trouble. It wasn’t as if
she’d plotted to make a fool out of her former guv’nor – although sometimes it felt like that. She’d merely been keeping her sexual preferences to herself, as she was fully
entitled to do.

So why did she feel so bloody guilty?

It got up her nose that two of the three people she loved most in the world – Hank being the other – would never get on. Or would they? Bright was making an effort tonight. If he
noticed her studying him, he didn’t let on. Realizing that Jo hadn’t been party to his earlier insights on the case, he recapped on the chronology of Arthur McKenzie’s fall from
grace for her benefit, underlining the most important details, that he was a hard-nosed thug and Brian Allen’s right-hand man when the two allegedly murdered Dougie O’Kane in 1993.

‘And after Brian disappeared to Newcastle with the family . . . ?’ Jo asked.

‘McKenzie assumed the mantle. He hung around, took over where Brian left off. For a while there were no challengers to get in his way, so he was top dog in town. But when the O’Kane
boys grew into men, things started to go tits-up. Actually, that’s why I’m here. According to SOCA, McKenzie was on a hiding to nothing from the start – not as high up the pecking
order of the Glasgow gangs as he thought he was. He had a lot of enemies.’

‘You said “that’s not all” before,’ Kate reminded Jo. ‘What did you mean?’

‘Sorry, I nearly forgot. The first time I rang Shotts Prison, the officer I wanted to speak to wasn’t on duty, so I called back. He told me that McKenzie survived a nasty assault by
another inmate, a man named Wallace Whittaker—’

‘Let me guess,’ Bright said. ‘A buddy of Craig and Finn O’Kane?’

‘Correct. There’s no hiding place in prison, not unless you opt for solitary confine—’

‘Not Arthur’s style,’ Bright interrupted. ‘He likes to rule the roost.’

‘So I understand.’ Jo had more. ‘Prison officials couldn’t force him into solitary, so they had to protect him in some other way. If an inmate is targeted inside, it
causes massive problems for staff because they dare not take their eyes off them, even for a second. In order to keep the lid on the problem, they moved him out of harm’s way, no doubt
frustrating the O’Kane boys in the process. If they were, as you suspect, planning to avenge their father’s death, they would put feelers out for information.’

‘Prison grapevines extend across borders,’ Kate said.

‘Exactly.’ Jo paused, collecting her thoughts. ‘Inmates come and go. Believe me, they don’t miss a trick. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that Craig and
Finn found out where McKenzie had been moved to, when he was being released, who his visitors were – all via word of mouth.’

‘I’m surprised they weren’t waiting for him at the gate,’ Bright said.

‘Maybe they were. But guess what?’

The detectives turned their eyes on Jo.

‘So was Theresa.’

There was still a long way to go, but the case was shaping up nicely.

D
espite the fact that it was Sunday evening, Kate rang her counterpart in Strathclyde force, DCI Matthew Trewitt. She had no qualms about disturbing his day of rest: Senior
Investigating Officers were on call 24/7, every day of the year, including Christmas Day.

He answered his mobile on the second ring.

Having identified herself, Kate explained that she’d got his number from the control room and was calling in connection with a current investigation on her patch: two separate linked
murders by torture involving members of the same family. Very nasty offences. She didn’t go into too much detail on the phone, preferring to keep it brief.

‘We have reason to believe that Craig and Finn O’Kane may be responsible.’

‘Sounds right up their street.’ Trewitt’s response was immediate, his tone matter-of-fact, as if torture were an everyday occurrence in Scotland. ‘I hope you’ve got
plenty of evidence, because they’re a couple of slippery customers.’

‘I can see that from their rap sheet,’ Kate said. ‘Tell me about them.’

‘Not to put too fine a point on it, they’re scum. They’ve been on the wrong side of the law since birth, just like their father before them. Minor thefts and assaults,
graduating to drugs, prostitution and money-lending as they got older – for which they charge a massive amount of interest – and then some. Those who don’t pay end up in a very
bad way.’

‘Anything recent?’

‘Aye, you could say that.’ Trewitt exhaled. She could tell he was smoking a cigarette, could swear she could actually smell it.

‘And . . . ?’

‘Thrown out, no case to answer,’ Trewitt said. ‘Happens all the time. They get as far as the court steps. Everyone bottles. Witnesses disappear. I’m sure I don’t
need to draw you a picture. If memory serves, a couple of assaults remain on file for the Procurator Fiscal to consider. In fact, some sad bastard is still lying in hospital, too scared to give
evidence. The O’Kanes like torture. Section 18 woundings are their speciality. Intent is their middle name.’

‘What kind of torture?’ Kate asked.

‘You name it, they’re into it: fingers, toes, kneecaps – and they especially like jaws.’

The word ‘jaws’ made her shudder.

Trewitt was still talking. ‘By the time they’re done, their victims either hobble everywhere or end up sucking their dinner through a straw. Sometimes both.’

Asking him to report any sightings of her two suspects immediately, Kate hung up. Too wired to go home, and with a lingering image of that gaping jaw, she remained in the incident room long
after the others had gone home to spend a couple of well-deserved hours with their wives and families. Only DC Lisa Carmichael insisted on staying on.

With a magnifying glass each – looking like a caricature of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson – the two walked around the room, viewing the results of the team’s efforts that
evening. As Kate had requested, frame-by-frame photographs had been posted round the walls with meticulous attention to detail. Each one had been labelled with the time and a list of anyone already
identified.

Kate rubbed at her tired eyes. After a while, faces on the stills became indistinct blobs, each one merging into the next as she studied them, paying particular attention to anyone with red
hair, a task made more difficult by lighting both inside the club and in the street directly outside. She took a break, suggesting Lisa do likewise. They made a cup of tea and then started again,
prepared to work late into the night if necessary.

‘Where are you?’ Kate whispered under her breath.

Convinced that her targets were Craig and Finn O’Kane, and that their motive was revenge, she had the distinct feeling she was missing something that was staring her in the face, an
impression she shared with her young DC.

‘Like what?’ Carmichael asked.

Kate shrugged. ‘If I knew the answer to that, I’d be home in bed and so would you.’

Walking across the room, she picked up a hard copy of Brown’s report that someone had discarded on a desk. She scanned the notes she’d made in the right-hand column. The bouncer was
easy. Contacting the QC key-holder led to an immediate name and address. Brown had gone to see him and, together with other detectives drafted in to assist, he’d spent much of the evening
piecing together evidence of who was who.

Information was sketchy. Some regular members the bouncer knew, others he recognized only by face. The team were lucky in one respect: professional doormen were paid to be observant. They were
able to make associations between clubbers it would’ve taken the Murder Investigation Team months to establish. Who was friendly with whom in the queue to get in, who was passing drugs, who
was trouble, who was canny. The bouncer had even given them information as to where some of the punters lived. In short, he knew the clientele inside out. Except –
surprise, surprise
–
for John Allen, who, he claimed, just happened to be a member of the same gymnasium.

‘Our only contact outside of the gym was at the QC,’ he’d told Brown.

‘Yeah right,’ Kate muttered as she scanned the image in front of her, the two men’s hands frozen in a celebratory high five. ‘What was that all about then?’

‘You’re talking to yourself again,’ Lisa said.

Kate didn’t answer. She’d moved to another section of footage, her mind racing as she realized what she was looking at.

Stop, stop, STOP!

She’d prioritized the examination of CCTV from ten o’clock onwards around the hospital and Silverlink, based on the time Terry and John had left the club, and yet . . . Kate blinked,
thinking that her eyes were deceiving her. Was she seeing things? She stared at the images again. ‘Jesus!’ she said under her breath.

Her exclamation brought Carmichael rushing from the other side of the room.

‘Find something?’ she asked, following her boss’s gaze.

‘I don’t know, Lisa. Tell me what you see.’

Carmichael raised her magnifying glass, studying the images. She pointed at some figures: John Allen, Terry Allen and a young girl already identified by her distinctive red dress – the
blonde seen entering the club in front of Terry at ten past eight on Thursday night. Her name was Rose, although the team didn’t yet have a surname.

‘Anyone else?’ Kate asked.

Carmichael rechecked. ‘No.’

‘Look at the timeline.’

Lisa stared at the wall for a long time, then glanced at her boss as she realized what was so wrong about the picture. The frame they had been examining was timed at 1:06 a.m. It was clear to
both detectives that at some point during the night they died, Terry and John had doubled back to the nightclub, which meant that the squad had been wasting precious resources on the wrong time
frame.

‘We need to start again, Lisa. Find out when exactly they returned and, more importantly, when they left again. You up for it?’

It was a daft question.