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<h2>9</h2>
<p>"I don't have to tell you that I don't want a word of this
getting out yet," Jack said to the assembled men in the room just
down the corridor from his own small office.</p>
<p>"And that tape stays in the safe. Any bootleg copies and you'll
have me to answer to, as well as the Court of Session."</p>
<p>There was a general muttering. Some of them men turned to look
at their colleagues as if protesting their innocence, protesting at
the suggestion that they might even consider such a thing.</p>
<p>"We don't know if there <em>is</em> a connection, except that
we're fairly sure he was seen near the scene of Marta Herkik's
murder on the night in question, so I want you to get back round
the doors and ask some more questions."</p>
<p>Ralph Slater was sitting at the back of the room, his doleful
face in his hands.</p>
<p>"Right lads, back out in to the night, and see if you can bring
me something."</p>
<p>There was more general muttering as they moved out. Jack had
managed to borrow four other officers, two men and two women from a
neighbouring division, all of whom had worked or lived in Levenford
at some time. It made it easier when the police knew the ground. It
helped when you were looking for connections.</p>
<p>Jack motioned to Ralph Slater who was at the tail end of the
group leaving the room, then beckoned to John McColl..</p>
<p>"You wait on.There's a couple of things you might want a look
at."</p>
<p>Both men nodded agreeably and followed Jack back to the office
on the corner. On the way, John paused. "The superintendent's
looking for you."</p>
<p>"I know that. I'm busy."</p>
<p>"I'd watch him. He's a real bad bastard."</p>
<p>"Not as bad as me when I make my mind up to it," Jack responded
with a tight smile.</p>
<p>"He could break you, you know. Just a word of warning."</p>
<p>"I could give a damn. He's as useless as tits on a bull."</p>
<p>"Just thought I'd put my spoke in," John said. "The boys think
you're okay, despite the degree."</p>
<p>John was referring to Jack's accelerated promotion, something
that had come almost automatically after he'd gained honours in
criminology. The degree had helped in other ways. He'd made a very
helpful range of contacts at the university.</p>
<p>"Thanks for the vote of confidence. Tell them I appreciate it.
I'll tell them myself when I get the chance."</p>
<p>He opened the door and let them in before him, then crossed to
the television in the corner. A video recorder sat on top of the
set.</p>
<p>"Looks like another bummer as far as immediate forensics are
concerned," Ralph said. "I don't think there's ever been anybody in
that room but him. We've not checked the prints, but the ones we
have lifted seem to be from the same pair of hands."</p>
<p>"You can tell that just by looking?"</p>
<p>"Been in the game a long time," Ralph replied, taking the
compliment.</p>
<p>"What did you think of the set-up?"</p>
<p>"Bloody weird. Looks like a right nutter."</p>
<p>Jack went along with that, but there was more.</p>
<p>When he'd gone back down the narrow staircase to Simpson's
cellar, he'd had the same sense of <em>wrongness</em> that he'd
felt in the Herkik house. It was nothing that he could put his
finger on, just a feeling that prickled the hairs on the back of
his neck and scraped on his nerves like nails on a blackboard.
Maybe it was the sum total of many things.</p>
<p>The place had <em>smelled</em> like the Herkik murder scene. A
mixture of blood and dust. The only difference was, there was no
scent of charred flesh. The odour of faeces and urine had hung in
the air like a dirty mist, an assault on the nose, and underlying
that, a whiff of something rotten.</p>
<p>Simpson was turning slowly on the rope, his head to the side,
swollen and turning black, jaw jutting to the left, making his lip
pout like a man who's had a stroke. He was naked, apart from a pair
of Argyll socks and plain black shoes. His clothes were neatly
folded on the desk. Below him, saturated with blood, a pair of
small plain panties lay crumpled on the floor beside an equally
soaked handkerchief. The man's eyes bulged out from behind a small,
pink pair of glasses that looked incongruously childish on the
bloated face. One of the lenses was completely gone and through the
empty frame, Jack could see the dead man's eye socket was a mass of
blood. At first glance it looked as if there was no eye at all.</p>
<p>Jack walked slowly around the slowly turning cadaver. The stench
was overpowering. There was a mess on the upturned chair and on the
threadbare carpet on which it lay. The thick electrical flex had
been tied with a simple knot to a screw-in hook which had been
driven into the solid wood of the beam above. The noose was a
simple hitch loop, not the kind a hangman would have used. As he
moved around, Jack saw something pink lying on the floor. He
hunkered down, careful to touch nothing.</p>
<p>He peered closer and saw the little fingers splayed out and his
heart sank, his mind immediately conjuring up the baby picture
Cissie Doyle had given him of her missing baby. He breathed a sigh
of relief when he edged closer and saw that it was not a baby's
hand. The light above glinted on the smooth plastic of a doll's
arm, baby pudgy, its shoulder end red with congealing blood. He
drew a deep breath, thankful it had <em>not</em> been little Timmy
Doyle, though after five days, the hopes of finding the baby alive
in any case were fading to zero.</p>
<p>After a moment, he stood up again and continued his slow walk
around the hanging man. The desk, apart from the clothes, was
completely covered in ten by eight black and white photographs, all
of them showing children, some taken from odd angles. Over against
the wall, there was sink and a draining board bearing flat oblong
containers. These two held pictures. Jack could smell the fixer
fluid. One glance at the photographs floating in the discoloured
liquid told him there was something else very odd about the
Reverend William Simpson. He leaned over to have another look. The
first picture was very clear, a little girl lying on grass. The
second was, at first glimpse, a confusing jumble of lines and
shades. He shifted, cocking his head to the side, and then the
picture snapped into clarity. It was the same child, taken from a
different angle, much closer in. Jack could tell by the position of
the left knee which was slightly raised out from the body. The
close up shot angled between the pale thighs to a glistening dark
patch. As soon as the picture flicked into focus, Jack knew the
dark patch was blood.</p>
<p>An instant flash of memory hit him like a kick in the belly, and
on its heels a sudden surge of almost uncontrollable anger. He
turned away from the developing containers, feeling hot bile rise
in his throat and the muscles of his stomach clench and unclench.
Simpson's one eye glared at him from behind the child's glasses.
For an incandescent second he wanted to rip the corpse down and
kick it and not stop until there was nothing left. His fists balled
his knuckles white, but he pressed down on his anger, turning away,
continuing the round.</p>
<p>It was then that he heard the whispering whirr from the filing
cabinet directly opposite the hanged man. He moved forward
carefully, making sure he stood on nothing and leaned to the right.
The lens of the video camera was like a black eye inside the hood.
On the side of the camera, a small red light winked in the dark of
the corner.</p>
<p>"Jesus," Jack breathed. He was about to say something else, but
then he realised that if the tape was running, everything that
happened in the room would be evidence, faithfully recorded on
tape. He thought back to his anger bubbling up and a sick feeling
of relief welled up from the pit of his belly that he hadn't hauled
the dead man down and kicked the shit out of him. That would have
looked very bad in court.</p>
<p>He walked quickly past the blind eye of the lens, a blind eye
that was taking everything in, then turned to Simpson. He was now
facing straight at the policeman, head jerked to the side, face
black, chest matted with blood which had streaked down a protruding
belly and tangled in the grey pubic hairs. Between the legs, penis
and testicles were grossly swollen, as black as the face was.
Tightly wrapped around them was a black electrical cable.</p>
<p>And from the cable dangled the weight of an old pressing iron.
It knocked like a pendulum against the dead man's shins, pointing
to the ground like a ponderous arrowhead.</p>
<p>As Jack stood staring, footsteps thudded down he stone steps
outside the basement. The door banged open and the footfalls, now
louder, clattered towards the store-room. John McColl lowered his
head to save banging it on the lintel, came squeezing through the
narrow door, then raised himself up to almost his full height.</p>
<p>"Came as quickly as I..." he started to say, then saw the naked
and bloody apparition dangling from the beam.</p>
<p>"Jesus fucking Christ, Jack," he said before Jack could stop
him. "What the hell's going on here?"</p>
<p>Jack held a finger up to his lips. He was standing off to the
side, away from where the lens was pointing. He jerked a finger in
the direction of the camcorder and then made a sliding motion with
one finger across his neck.</p>
<p>"What's that?" Big John asked. His eye took in what Jack was
pointing at.</p>
<p>"Oh shite," the policeman said.</p>
<p>Two hours later Jack sat beside Ralph Slater facing the
television in the office.</p>
<p>He used a remote control to switch it on, selected a spare
channel, then used a forefinger to push the play button on the
camera which sat beside it, an umbilical cable connecting it to the
set.</p>
<p>"I've already had a look at some of this, but we'll take it
right from the start. We'll probably need batteries before the
night's out."</p>
<p>"We've got a cassette adaptor. It lets you use these things in a
recorder," Ralph offered,</p>
<p>"That would help," Jack agreed. "Now, are you sitting
comfortably?"</p>
<p>It was a poor attempt at levity, but the other two went along
with it. For the next hour, they sat, horribly fascinated, as they
watched the death of William Simpson in all its detail again and
again.</p>
<hr />
<p>It was the most appalling, most fascinating thing either of them
had even seen, and the most horrific Ralph Slater had ever
witnessed, chiefly because he was always on the scene after a
death, using his skills to work out what had happened. Now his
abilities, he thought, were redundant. There was no doubt about
what had happened to William Simpson.</p>
<p>It was not the worst thing Jack had ever seen, not by a long
chalk, because what was unfolding on the television screen was
happening to somebody he did not know, or particularly care about.
He cared even less after what he'd seen in the developing trays on
the draining board.</p>
<p>The screen ran blank for less than a second, then flickered to
life. Something blurred, casting a shadow, then pulled back,
focussing in to become the hand that had been used to press the
record button. The scene jiggled a little as the camera was moved
slightly, then went still. The focus was clear and distinct and
there was enough light from the overhead bulb to throw everything
into sharp detail.</p>
<p>Simpson leaned back, staring into the lens. His face held no
expression whatsoever. He stood like that, staring with dead eyes
right at the two policemen, and raised his hands up to pull his
dog-collar away from his neck. The sound came crisp and sharp. They
could even hear the rustle of the material. He turned and laid the
collar and the black front bib down on the table, then removed his
jacket and his trousers. He swivelled to face the camera again,
standing in his shirt and a pair of oddly bright boxer shorts. He
started removing buttons then slipped the shirt from his shoulders.
They were beefy and covered in hair. He laid it down with the rest
of his clothes, taking his time to fold it neatly, bent, grunting a
little, and removed the shorts before taking the belt from his
trousers and cinching it around his paunchy waist then turned to
stare once again, into the lens.</p>
<p>"Are you all sitting comfortably" he said. It gave Jack a
shiver. He hadn't watched the complete re-run. Simpson had said
exactly what he himself had asked Ralph Slater. It was almost like
<em>deja-vu</em>.</p>
<p>"Then I'll begin," Simpson continued. He had a strong, quite
deep voice, one used to preaching from the pulpit.</p>
<p>Just then, he smiled at the camera. The movement only
encompassed his mouth. His eyes did not smile at all. They looked
completely and utterly lifeless. It was like watching a rictus
develop on a corpse.</p>
<p>The man turned to the desk, opened a drawer and pulled out a
small box. He reached for his jacket, fished out a ring of keys,
slotted one into the lock and snapped it open. The lid rose with a
tiny squeal of protest. Jack thought it was like watching someone
perform a religious ceremony. It reminded him of catholic priests
he'd seen at the occasional funeral or wedding. They always seemed
to open something and bring out sacred objects. Simpson was
handling each of the articles and lay them down with a certain
decree of reverence. Jack recognised the little panties he'd seen
lying wet on the floor. The white square of handkerchief followed,
then the small pair of pink spectacles, then the doll's arm.</p>
<p>The minister lifted them all and placed them on a chair in front
of the camera, laying the cloth objects over the back. The
spectacles he slid over his nose, hooking the short, pliable legs
behind his ears with some difficulty, then stuck the doll's arm
under his belt, where it remained like a twisted pink handgun.</p>
<p>He moved away then returned, filling the screen. At first, none
of them could make out what he had in his hands, then the man moved
and they could see it clearly. The light glanced off the flat-iron
and beamed coldly into the screen. Simpson carefully mounted the
chair. They saw him first take the flex and loop it slowly around
his testicles. The erection started immediately. Another loop spun
round the rising penis, then three more, before, with a quick
movement, the man tied a quick knot and jerked hard. They all heard
the sudden groan of pain. The iron lowered slowly from his hands
and jarred to a stop when it reached the end of its travel. The
three of them groaned aloud, as Simpson had done, and
simultaneously crossed their legs, imagining the excruciating pain
they would have felt. The minister's mouth only twisted downwards a
little, but his eyes remained expressionless, and that was the most
awful thing about it. He looked like a man in a complete trance,
like a walking automaton.</p>
<p>Everything at the man's crotch swelled hugely, until both
observers thought they might burst, although they knew that had not
happened.</p>
<p>"For the love of God," Ralph muttered. It was the first word
either of them had spoken since the machine had started to
turn.</p>
<p>On screen the minister took the other piece of flex and tied it
carefully, near the middle of its length, on the hook close to his
head. The short end he roped twice around his own neck, then tied
the loose piece to the short length reaching to the hook, thus
securing the noose. It was pulled so tightly he was hauled up on to
the balls of his feet.</p>
<p>The back of the chair was just high enough for him to reach for
the little panties. He picked them up and ran them over his face,
snuffling at them like a pig rooting for acorns, like a dog
checking a bitch. When he drew it down again, they watched as he
slid his tongue over his bottom lip.</p>
<p>"Ha ha," he said. It was not a laugh. It was a statement. Jack
felt his hackles rise again. Beside him, John pulled himself back
slightly. The flat sound the man had made was cold as ice. His eyes
glared from the screen.</p>
<p>He rubbed the panties over his chest, then down his belly and
finally to his groin. He held the material over his swollen organ
and started to rub it slowly up and down.</p>
<p>"Suffer little children," he said, in a voice that was a dreamy
moan. "Better for thee that they put a millstone round thy neck and
cast thyself into the sea, than thou corrupt any of these, my
little ones."</p>
<p>Simpson grinned, though his eyes still glared, then the grin
faded. The man started out from the flat screen and the eyes lost
their hard, <em>mad</em> look. He reached out a hand towards the
camera, still holding the little panties. His face sagged, like a
child about to cry. They saw his lips move, trying to articulate
again. He mumbled something.</p>
<p>"What was that?" John asked.</p>
<p>Jack held up a hand and leaned forward to the screen, head half-
turned to listen.</p>
<p>The minister whispered again.</p>
<p>"<em>Help me</em>". Both of them heard the words. The man's eyes
rolled, as if he'd just awoken and discovered himself in danger.
Ralph looked at Jack, eyebrows raised.</p>
<p>Then in a flick, the expression changed again. The eyes went
stony and flat, as if a film of ice had frosted them over.</p>
<p>"No help. No help. None for the wicked." the hard voice, so
different from the pained whisper, snapped out.</p>
<p>"To be, or not to be. That is the question." Despite the
constriction of the rope, the words came out clearly
enunciated.</p>
<p>"That is the choice. Look at this vessel. This vassal. A man of
calling. He has been called, and he knows not what he does."</p>
<p>"What's that, the bible?"</p>
<p>Jack hushed him again.</p>
<p>Simpson snickered. There was no other way to describe the noise
that came from behind his teeth. His lips stretched back in a
grimace, but the eyes remained flat and dead.</p>
<p>He reached with he left hand and plucked the little doll's arm
from where it stuck out from the belt and held it up just in front
of his face. Both policemen could see that his cheeks were dark
red, dangerously purple. His temples looked swollen.</p>
<p>With a sudden jerk, he drew the arm down, shoulder end towards
him. A little spike of metal, what had probably been a hook to hold
the arm on to the rest of the doll's body, drove into the flesh on
the side of his chest, just above the flabby man-breast. With a
quick sideways movement which puckered the pale skin, he drew the
thing across for a couple of inches. Blood immediately welled from
the tear and flowed down in lines.</p>
<p>It happened so quickly that Jack had to replay the scene a
couple of times. As he rewound, he could see the hand jitter and
jerk, spasmodically as the man used the spike to tear at his own
flesh.</p>
<p>The cuts were not random. At the third viewing of that little
splice of the scene which unfolded before their eyes, Jack was able
to make out what was happening. Simpson was using the jagged metal
to <em>write</em> on his own flesh.</p>
<p>Two words, now obscured by blood. Jack hadn't noticed them when
he'd gone down to the cellar a second time. All he had seen was the
sheen of red that covered the man's entire chest and belly.</p>
<p>Two words. <em>The rose.</em></p>
<p>Jack stared. He remembered what Walker had said about the two
words written on Marta Herkik's walls. They could have been an
anagram. He'd plucked two out from the mix of the letters. One of
them had been just the words Simpson was scrawling on his own skin
as the blood blurted, gouging the letters with quick rips and pulls
in living colour, in dying playback.</p>
<p>When the man had finished, he reached behind him and plucked up
the tiny handkerchief. He slapped it to his chest and immediately
it turned dark red as it mopped up the fresh blood. He brought it
away from his chest and held it up, squeezing it in his hand so
that little scarlet drops dribbled from it sluggishly.</p>
<p>"And this is my blood, of the old and everlasting covenant, the
mystery of faith which has been be shared by many. I will take this
and I will drink it, all of it so that sins may be revealed."</p>
<p>"That's not right," McColl said. "That's not the words." John
McColl was a Catholic who attended St Rowan's Church every Sunday
and even now still ate fish on a Friday.</p>
<p>Jack ignored him, fascinated, though repelled, by the action on
the small screen.</p>
<p>Simpson held the bloody cloth up to his face and rammed it into
his mouth. Gurgling, sucking noises issued out of the speaker. It
had an eerie quality, like a ravenous dog wolfing food. The man
drew the cloth away, showing his face, bloodied and smeared from
nose to chin. He held the scrap up again, like a prize, then
dropped it to the floor, where it flopped wetly.</p>
<p>"Let the contest now begin," he said, then grinned again in that
dead cold rictus. Even his teeth were stained red. "The summons is
made, the vessel is empty. The challenge is thrown."</p>
<p>McColl squirmed in his seat. "Is this man a loony or what?"</p>
<p>On screen Simpson glared blankly at the camera, the deadly smile
fading. He opened his mouth, his face now swollen and purpling like
a beetroot.</p>
<p>"If I should die before I wake, I pray to hell my soul to
take."</p>
<p>Just at that instant, the flat expression left the man's face.
The eyes rolled wildly. He shook his head, left and right, as if
denying the words that had come out of his mouth. He raised a hand
to try to grasp the cable that suspended him from the hook on the
joist.</p>
<p>Then the chair flew away.</p>
<p>They replayed that few seconds over and over again, and neither
of them was able to say what had happened. The man was shaking his
head, reaching for the noose, face turning black, when the chair
simply kicked backwards and tumbled to the floor.</p>
<p>Simpson made a grunting sound, the kind of noise a man will make
when he slips on ice, taken by surprise. The hand, which was still
rising, up close to his face, jerked out spastically, almost rigid
in a grotesque salute. The eyes bulged behind the little kiddie's
lenses, then the hand came swinging back. Jack and McColl were
never able to work out whether it had happened deliberately, or if
it was just the flailing action of a dying man's hand. Whatever it
was, the arm snapped back and a thumb stabbed through the left lens
and right into the eye. There was a faint crackle sound and a
rubbery thud and blood blurted, forced by the pressure built up in
the man's swollen head.</p>
<p>Simpson coughed. The hand came flying out again, leaving a
ruined crater where the eye had been, then the whole body went into
a paroxysm of violent shivers. The taut cable squeaked in protest.
Just as that happened, the room went suddenly dark, not as if the
lights had failed, but as if a cloud of dense black smoke had
billowed from nowhere. The image fuzzed out on the screen, fading
to grey and then to black. The squeal of the cable noose was like a
mouse in the darkness, then, from the set on the filing cabinet,
came a roar which at first sounded like static, then sounded
nothing at all like electronic interference. Jack had heard it the
first time he'd played back the latter half of the scene, but
McColl rocked back in his seat.</p>
<p>The noise filled the room, a huge and utterly unnerving roaring
sound. It was the noise of a vast and irresistible wind, the sound
of an avalanche of rocks tumbling in a defile. It was the roar of
an immense, hungry and maddened animal. It went on for several
seconds, so deafening that Jack reached a hand to turn down the
volume. Just as his fingers touched the control, the noise stopped
and a dead silence rang in their ears. The screen began to lighten
as the darkness, whatever that darkness was, cleared away like a
mist driven by wind. As it dissipated, the shape hanging right in
front of the lens became clearer until they could again see William
Simpson hanging. The body was still trembling in tight little
spasms as the nerves twitched and jumped. His right eye, still pale
and bulging, was staring right at them.</p>
<p>The twitches continued for two minutes and then stopped. The
feet, now dangling straight down, several inches from the floor,
trembled a little for a while after that, then everything went
still. The minister hung, slowly revolving, his head cocked to the
side, while the blood began to congeal on his chest and face.</p>
<p>The video camera ran for another fifteen minutes. They sat and
stared in fascination at the dead man suspended from the hook until
a new noise came from the speaker, the light thud of feet somewhere
in the distance, then the tap of heels on the floor beyond the door
which was just out of sight until it swung open.</p>
<p>Young Fiona Simpson came slowly into the room. They could see
the edge of the door when it reached its full swing.</p>
<p>"Daddy?" she said, almost hesitantly. She repeated it again, and
came fully into the room, moving forward slowly.</p>
<p>For some reason, the dangling body did not seem to register with
her. She moved behind it, glanced at the pictures in the trays,
curiously at first, then her shoulders stiffened. She backed away,
hands held up un front of her, pushing at air. She bumped into her
suspended and bloodied father, turned round and her eyes registered
it then.</p>
<p>Her mouth opened in an instant wide circle which showed every
one of her top teeth. The scream went on and on and on.</p>
<p>It was the third time Jack Fallon had heard it. It didn't get
any easier to listen to.</p>
<p>More sounds, thumping of heavier feet. Jack coming into the
room, taking in everything with a sweep of his eyes. McColl watched
his superior officer swing his head round, for the first few
seconds, ignoring the piercing squeal after the first glance at the
girl. His eyes registered the body, the blood, the bloodied scraps
on the floor. He moved with an economy of motion, raising his hand
as he passed the chair, automatically avoiding laying any prints on
anything, his foot rising over the fallen chair lest he disturb it.
His right arm came up and looped round the girl's shoulders just as
the strength drained from her legs. He leaned her back, scooped her
with his other hand, then backed out of the door, his gaze fixed on
the hanged man.</p>
<p>Two minutes after that, the tape reached its end. The screen
flickered, went black, then hissed with electronic snow. Jack
reached forward and switched the machine off. John McColl let out a
long, slow sigh.</p>
<p>"Excuse me, boss, but what the <em>fuck</em> was that?"</p>
<p>Jack flipped open his cigarettes, offered one to the other man,
who took it in fingers that seemed to have been infected with the
tremor that had afflicted Simpson in his last dying seconds. Both
of them lit up and inhaled deeply. Ralph stoked up his pipe and
sucked heavily as he left the room, shaking his head.</p>
<p>"That's the original snuff movie," John said.</p>
<p>"That's why I don't want it out of the safe," Jack told him.
"Make sure the guys get the message. Anybody making copies of that
will be up for interfering with evidence. I don't want anybody else
even watching it."</p>
<p>"Can't blame you. I never want to see it again. Fair turned my
stomach."</p>
<p>Jack nodded. "Shame about the girl. At least it's a step in the
right direction." He rewound the tape and let John watch it
again.</p>
<p>Ralph came back some time later, still puffing on his pipe.</p>
<p>"I've got news for you. We can put Simpson at both
locations."</p>
<p>"Both?"</p>
<p>"Yes. Got dozens of them at the Herkik woman's. We got another
partial from the hundreds at Latta Court. Would have missed it if I
didn't run through them again and got a match. Palm print, no
fingers. From the inside of the broken lift."</p>
<p>"You think it was him?"</p>
<p>"Sure it was him, though how he got up to the Doyle level I'll
never know. He must have climbed somewhere. Maybe wore gloves."</p>
<p>"He could never have come from the bottom. Not the shape he was
in," Jack stated.</p>
<p>"I agree, boss. But there's more. I got a fax from Jim Jackson
at Lanark. Their files were all transferred to Regional HQ, but
they dug them out for me. Simpson's prints match that case I was
telling you about. The wee girl. Goes back a long time, but they
still have the evidence in storage. They wired me the photographs
and <em>bingo</em>. They've come up with the goods."</p>
<p>Ralph lit up his pipe while the others leaned forward
impatiently.</p>
<p>"We got a match on his prints from there. Plus the doll's arm.
It's a match for the missing one from the doll they found. But more
than that, the scene of death pictures are almost identical to the
ones in Simpson's developing tray. The only difference is that the
body had been moved. Can't say how far yet. But his happy snaps
were taken some time <em>before</em> the body was found."</p>
<p>He sucked hard on the stem and blew out a plume of blue
smoke.</p>
<p>"I think that wraps it up, and it gets Cowie off your back." He
looked at Jack. "I'd like to know one thing. What put you on to him
in the first place?"</p>
<p>Jack tapped his nose.</p>
<p>"Contacts. Old friends."</p>
<p>The two men left Jack's room. He rewound the video and forced
himself to watch it again before he switched everything off and sat
thinking. The unnerving scenes got no more pleasant with
familiarity.</p>
<p>He should have been pleased, but he was not happy. They had
enough to place Simpson at the two scenes. They had evidence to
show he'd been at the scene of another, years ago, and that one had
involved a small child who had been reported missing before being
found raped and dead in a patch of scrub-land fifteen miles south
of the city.</p>
<p>Yet something nagged insistently at him. It was too pat, too cut
and dry, and Jack had the experience to know that nothing was ever
so easy.</p>
<p>And there were other things. The words that Simpson had gouged
into his own chest. That had sent a deja-vu shiver right through
Jack. The man had stared, grinning into the camera, as he'd done
that. It was as if he was trying to tell Jack something, having a
joke at the policeman's expense. There was too much of a
coincidence with what the crossword-playing professor of languages
had said.</p>
<p>And there were the words written on Marta Herkik's walls, daubed
in those two paperless strips in the dead woman's viscid and
congealing blood. There had been no sign of how Simpson had managed
to do that, and Jack did not like that at all.</p>
<p>That Simpson had been a man with a terrible secret, he had no
doubt, but what he <em>did</em> have doubts about was how he could
have killed Marta Herkik so brutally, strip the paper from her
walls, rip up dozens of her books and all without leaving any
prints except on the table, on the fallen seat and on the
doorhandle.</p>
<p>He had doubts about how the man, in his sixties, corpulent and
unfit, had managed to get to the Doyle's balcony on a cold winter's
night, and without alerting anyone.</p>
<p>He flipped open Ralph Slater's scene of crime report, opened a
folder which contained his own paperwork, and started to write. All
they needed now was Timmy Doyle's body and they could close this
case. Close it officially anyway.</p>
<p>Jack Fallon told himself it was all over bar the shouting as he
wrote in his tight longhand. But the doubts crowded in like
mourners at a funeral. He hoped it <em>was</em> all over bar the
shouting.</p>
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