‘Okay. There’s plenty. First of all though, the list is split into two. Roughly half in italics and half not. Was that your marking or his?’
‘His. All his.’
‘That makes sense. I have information on all the non-italic names but only have something on one on the other half of the list. Again, that’s a direct link to my own case.’
She watched the two Americans look at each other and instinctively knew what they were feeling and thinking. She knew the rush of excitement tinged with fear, knew their pulses would be quickening, their minds racing. She felt the same.
‘Brianna Holden was a twenty-seven-year-old mother of two from Shawlands on Glasgow’s south side. She was murdered three years ago, found strangled on the outskirts of Pollok Park. A man, Kevin Monteith, went to trial, but the defence came up with a cast-iron alibi. Next—’
‘Sorry. How did you say she was killed?’
‘Strangled. My accent?
‘Right. Yeah, sorry.’
‘Next, Stuart McLennan. Thirty-three years old. Drowned after falling in the River Clyde while heavily intoxicated. No witnesses. Ruled as accidental death. There was discussion of the possibility of suicide, as he’d been having marital problems, but nothing more to support that. Ellen Lambert was a name I knew. She was killed in her home in Kilmarnock – a town about twenty-five miles south of here – early last year, severe blunt force trauma courtesy of a poker from a fireplace set.’
‘Nice. Who else do you have?’
‘Kris Perera. Sri Lankan doctor, lived in Scotland for five years after graduating here. Murdered in what was seen as a racially motivated attack. His presumed attacker, a Barry Leitch, was found not guilty at the high court. Leitch was a member of right-wing groups and became a bit of a tabloid villain, but always swore he had nothing to do with the killing. We also have Chrissie Ramsay from Hamilton, thirty-two years old, drowned in the bath by her husband after he discovered she was having an affair.’
She looked up from the sheet of paper in front of her and saw the Americans staring back at her, tight-lipped, intense, knowing that they were secretly jumping for twisted joy inside. From the corner of her eye she was aware of Addison edging closer, leaning as far forward in his seat as he could.
‘So, bottom line, all the names on the non-italicised side of your list are dead. All murdered or the victim of misadventure. All except two.’
‘And those two?’
‘Emily Dornan from the East End of Glasgow. Attacked while walking home from a night out with friends. She matches the description in the profile, so little doubt it’s her. She was being strangled after being assaulted from behind, only survived because two guys were passing and chased off the attacker. One of them ran after the guy but he was never caught. The one left is Stefan Kalinowksi. Luckily for us, if not for him, it’s a pretty unusual name. We’ve tracked down one person of that name and we’re set to question him later today. I’m obviously going to speak to Emily Dornan too.’
Cally O’Neill had one arm propped up by her elbow, her hand covering her mouth and her eyes on the desk in front of her. When she looked up, she took her hand from her face and pulled it through her long auburn hair. ‘Well . . . it looks like we came to the right place.’
Narey liked her. ‘It looks that way. But it’s about the only thing I’m sure of. The other half of the list, the names in italics . . . as best as we can work out, they don’t exist. Any of them.’
Salgado shot forward in his chair. ‘They don’t exist?’
‘Nope. I don’t think they’re real. We’ve chased down the list – Danny Cook, Greg Hurst, Ben Greaves, Alice Harper, Kelly Stein, Jamie Stark – and while we’ve found a few matching the names, none of them match the descriptions from the profiles. Not even close. Not the jobs, not the physical descriptions. Certainly, none of them are victims in the way that the others were. But . . . there’s one of the names, real or not, that we know very well.’
‘Go on.’
‘Eloise Gray had told friends that she’d met someone she really liked. A schoolteacher named Jamie. We never knew a surname, but she’d told people he was six foot, blue eyes, fair-haired, thirty-two years old. He liked dogs, hill-climbing, old movies and Oasis.’
‘Fuck.’ Salgado spat the word out.
‘Yeah. Fuck. Your Jamie is our Jamie. He was Eloise’s Jamie and he is probably the person that killed her. And he doesn’t seem to exist.’
‘Sweet mother of mine,’ Salgado was sitting back in his chair, his hands behind his head. ‘What the hell is this?’
‘A mess,’ Narey replied. ‘Your guy Garland didn’t have a passport so presumably didn’t leave the US, so he can’t physically have been involved in Eloise’s murder. What can you tell us about this Matthew Marr?’
‘Not a lot yet,’ O’Neill chipped in. ‘We’re in conversation with him and trying to get whatever we can. He says he’s in Glasgow and we have to believe him till we know otherwise.’
‘How is this conversation happening? And why? Why is he even talking to you?’
‘We’re using the same secure chat system he used to talk to Garland. And he’s talking to us because he’s getting a kick from it. And because we’ve agreed to run the video feed of the kid and let him see it.’
Narey couldn’t believe her ears. ‘You’re letting him watch this guy die?’
‘It’s the price we’re having to pay to keep him on the line. We’re not happy about it but if we switch it off, he disappears, and we’ve got nothing.’
‘Right. Okay, I see that. Can I get transcripts of the conversations? See if there’s anything I can pick up on.’
O’Neill smiled. ‘We’ve included transcripts in the report we emailed to you. But we’d like to go a step further and have you talk to him directly. We figure you might get more from him, being local. Maybe trip him up and get us some kind of breakthrough. You up for that, Rachel? I can call you Rachel, right?’
‘Of course you can. And I’m definitely up for that. Whatever it takes.’
‘Good. For one thing we won’t have to get up in the middle of the night to talk to the guy. Not that we’re getting much sleep. Matthew Marr is our best hope, maybe our only hope of finding this kid before it’s too late. Our tech guy is working on the router and he figures he can let you access it within a couple of hours.’
‘Okay, good. That will give me time to read through what he’s said so far.’ She hesitated, filling the gap with a heavy sigh. ‘You’re sure your guy has killed five people?’
‘At least five, yes. We’ve already found one of his victims and we’re working on the others. Rachel, I know what you’re thinking and the thing you need to know is that the first line we had from Marr, who thought he was talking to Garland, was that the kidnapped male ought to be dead by now. Marr also said it was Ethan’s turn. Those were his very words. His turn.’
Narey’s stomach flipped.
‘Jesus. If they were taking turns . . .’
‘Yeah.’ O’Neill let the thought sink in. ‘We think your guy is doing the same as ours. We think Garland and Marr are two of a kind. We’d been working on that basis but what you’ve told us about the names on that list kinda seals it. This isn’t two cases, it’s one.’