Ingram Street on a cool, damp morning in May. Tourists wrapped up in jumpers and waterproofs, locals dressed in T-shirts. Cars crashing through puddles, pedestrians jumping. Buses spewing out exhaust fumes, a sharp wind chasing litter down the street. People hurrying to nowhere. A nowhere paved with dog shit, chewing gum and paper bags from Greggs.
Glasgow unchanged.
The Cutter had gone away and in two minutes flat it was as if he had never been there. And maybe he never had.
I still walked among them, untouched, unknown, uncaught. Blown past them in the wind, only seen out of the corner of a bleary eye, half-glimpsed, soon forgotten. There was a cup final coming on the telly and no time to talk about a man who was no longer there. Part of me wanted to stop someone, all of them, and tell them it was me. I did it. I was the one. I wanted to scream it out because the way it was, it just didn’t work.
Revenge, even when served cold, doesn’t taste as sweet as you hoped. A sour taste left in my mouth and a deep-seated certainty of something missing. A hollow, aching lack of satisfaction.
Wanted to tell everyone, couldn’t tell anyone. That would have been sure to spoil it all. The best-laid plans would have gang very agley. Imrie would be seen as innocent when he was as guilty as the most grievous sin. And worse, much worse, I would have ruined my wee girl’s memory. Her dad was a taxi driver. Not a killer, never that.
It rattled inside me, like a key in a biscuit tin, clanging against the few remnants of conscience. A man who wants to scream out his darkest secret to the world will never know peace.
Ingram Street on a cool, damp morning. Accusing looks from those who knew nothing, brushing by their empty stares, pushing past their pointing fingers and pointed indifference. Either they were ghosts or I was. How could they not see? How could they fail to notice my guilt, fail to hear my silent screaming?
I was ready for them though. When they saw me for what I was and what I had done, I had all the answers that were necessary. They couldn’t fail to understand. The parents among them would appreciate it for sure. They would have done the same as me. Maybe not all of them but some, the driven and the guilty.
But they could never know. My wee girl’s dad had to be whiter than white. She deserved a dad like that. Like Jack the Ripper fading back into the mist of old London town, I had to get away with it. Job done. The screaming had to stay silent. The rage had to simmer inside me.
Jack got away with it. The single most famous serial killer in history yet still unknown. Outstanding. Some people thought they knew who Jack was but they didn’t. They couldn’t know. Outstanding.
Ditching the taxi and walking to clear my head wasn’t working. A head so full of things was going to take a long time to clear. I’d need to walk to Hell and back not just the length of the Merchant City. The high, stone-blasted buildings were already closing in on me. I was so wrapped and trapped in their prison walls that I didn’t notice her. I had walked two steps past before she stepped out of the shadow of the shop front and called out my name. It stopped me in my tracks. Nearly stopped my heart too. In the time it took me to turn round I had rearranged my face.
She was dressed in the dark suit I’d seen her wear for a television interview. Her hair tied back, white blouse crisp. Very businesslike. She was looking at me for a reaction. She wasn’t getting one.
‘DS Narey. Doing some shopping?’
‘Sort of, yes. I’m on the hunt for something special. Something I’ve been looking for for a while.’
‘Oh well. Best of luck.’
I was tempted to turn and go at that but it wouldn’t have got me anywhere. She would have followed. That was the way she was.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m hunting for?’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘Thought you might be curious.’
I held her gaze for a while. Weighing options. Making decisions.
‘I’m curious why you are playing games, DS Narey. If you want to tell me something then tell me. If you want to ask me something then ask me. Stop messing me about.’
She smiled. Smiled as if she had scored a point.
‘I know how it works. I’ve been doing this for a while.’
She left that hanging there. Still smiling. Trying to make me think she knew something. She knew nothing. Some people thought they knew who Jack was but they didn’t. They couldn’t know.
After an age, she spoke.
‘Why would you think I was messing you about?’
‘Well, for a start, you are doing it again now.’
‘Am I?’
‘Fuck off, DS Narey. Where is your fat friend DC Whatsisname anyway?’
‘Day off. We don’t go shopping together.’
‘So are you working, shopping or hunting?’
‘Bit of all three. We never rest.’
I could feel it inside me. The rattling key, the aching lack of satisfaction, the thing that was missing, all wrapped in the need to get away with it. Wanted to tell her, couldn’t tell her. Silent screaming.
‘What do you want from me?’
‘The truth.’
Tell her. A child’s voice came at me. My wee girl’s voice. Tell her. No. Tell her. No. Can’t. Ruin everything. You want to. I know but I can’t. Clang, clang, conscience, clang.
No.
‘You can’t handle the truth. That’s the line from the film, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, I can handle the truth. That’s not the problem. The problem is when people want to unburden themselves of the truth but don’t.’
She is right, said my wee girl. Tell her. No. No. No.
‘No fucking games, DS Narey. If you are still on about me killing Wallace Ogilvie then your information is out of date. Don’t you read the papers?’
She was smiling at me again. Rattled me and knew it.
‘Well, I never mentioned you murdering Ogilvie. Or anyone else. But seeing as you mentioned it… Yes, I read the papers. Don’t believe everything I read in them though. Told you that before.’
Still smiling.
Me saying nothing. Thinking. Deliberating.
‘For example. I have to wonder how Keith Imrie would have the first clue how to electrocute someone. Or how he could have got to Baillieston to kill Spud Tierney just half an hour after his shift at the Record finished. Or why he would have been so stupid as to go to the Tesco when Fiona Raedale died. And I really have to wonder why some of the stuff we found in Imrie’s flat like the business card, the betting slip and the ashtray didn’t have his fingerprints on them.’
‘No idea.’
‘That’s it? The best that you can do? No idea?’
‘Not my job to explain what you can’t, DS Narey. What the fuck do I know about that scumbag and what he could or couldn’t have done?’
‘Scumbag?’
Step too far. Think.
‘Yeah, scumbag. He murdered six people. Whole country knows it.’
She looked doubtful.
‘Well, the papers say it. That’s true enough.’
‘Strathclyde Polis too. The rest of your lot have no doubt. Seemed quite pleased with themselves. No doubt whatsoever.’
‘Between you and me?’ She had lowered her voice in mock conspiracy. ‘Some of my colleagues are fucking idiots. Believe what suits them.’
That hung between us. So did the voices that said yes and no to me. To give her what she wanted, to run, to finish it. She knew nothing. She couldn’t know.
‘We have been through this, DS Narey. Nothing to do with me. You have followed me. You have interrogated my wife. You have searched my house. You have taken my computer away. Nothing to do with me.’
‘Oh aye. Your computer. Funny thing that. Nothing had been installed or downloaded onto your PC any longer than six months ago yet it was four years old. Never use it much till recently?’
Pause. Just a heartbeat.
‘I had a couple of viruses. Had to wipe the computer to get rid of them.’
‘That must have been very inconvenient.’
‘It happens. Didn’t lose anything important.’
‘Ah you never know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Never know what’s important.’
This bitch was starting to annoy me.
She never took her eyes off mine. Never was going to take her eyes off me.
‘This is fucking harassment.’ I was shouting now. Anger was justified in an innocent man.
‘I’ve told you till I am sick of it. I am not a fucking serial killer. The man who was responsible is dead. Everyone accepts that except you.’
‘Yes, convenient that, wasn’t it? That Imrie wasn’t able to deny being the random killer of six innocent people. Well, five innocent people and Wallace Ogilvie.’
Yes, very convenient, DS Narey. Fuck you. Fuck you. Silent screaming at full blast. Fuck you.
‘Fuck you!’ I was shouting again. ‘It has nothing to do with me if it was convenient for anyone else or inconvenient for you. Leave me alone and go and catch some criminals. That’s what you are paid for.’
She smiled. I so wanted to wipe that smile off her pretty face.
‘You’re right. That is what I’m paid for. Although some of them I’d happily catch for nothing.’
She let that hang there. Challenging me. She knew nothing. She couldn’t know.
‘Go do it then. Come talk to me again when you have something to say.’
‘I’ll do that.’
‘Fine. Now fuck off.’
She looked at me. Those hard brown eyes burrowing into me. She knew something that she couldn’t know.
Then with one last smile, she gave a slight nod, spun on her heels and left me standing there.
As I watched her back disappear into the Merchant City shadows, I knew what had to be done. There was no choice.
Sweet Rachel was too close, too smart, too persistent.
There had to be one more death.