‘That’s not why I picked her. Not why I messaged her.’
She leaned across the desk and laughed in his face. ‘Sure, you keep telling yourself that.’
He exploded, words tumbling out of his mouth, every other one a fuck, barely coherent as they were strangled by his anger. Spitting words at her like arrows.
His crazed laughter was replaced by fury. The rage of the entitled who don’t get their own way. In that moment, his eyes burning, face twisted, hands forming claws, she saw what Eloise must have seen. What Brianna Holden must have seen. Ellen Lambert. Stuart McLennan. Kris Perera. Chrissie Ramsay. Irene Dow.
She saw a homicidal madman.
And she saw her chance.
‘Is this how you were when you killed Eloise and the others? So riled up with rage that you couldn’t control yourself?’
‘I was in control. I killed that stupid bitch the way I wanted because I wanted to. Don’t think you know me. Don’t think you have any idea how I think or why I do anything. I made all that happen. I’m in control. I’m in control!’
‘Yes. Sounds like it. You’ve admitted to killing Eloise Gray, why stop there? Keep going, Fraser. Keep going.’
*
Later, Narey and Giannandrea stood in the corridor outside the custody suite, a quiet calm finally enveloping them. It lasted all of thirty seconds before being crashed by a chirpy voice floating towards them.
‘Great work, boss. I loved the sound of that bastard squealing as you took him out on the lawn.’
Kerri Wells was walking with a ten-pound note held out in front of her and a wide smile on her face.
‘Don’t say I don’t honour my debts. Ten pounds for the winner of the Matthew Marr Sweepstake Challenge.’
Narey managed a laugh. ‘Put that away before someone sees it. You’ll have me up in front of the chief. I’m not actually going to take money for a lucky guess on a murder suspect.’ She stopped and hesitated, looking at them both. ‘Oh fuck it. You know what? Yeah, pay up. A tenner each.’
Wells grinned and Giannandrea shook his head as he too handed over his ten pounds.
‘Okay, come on. Let’s go see what we can buy in the Station Bar for twenty quid. I think we could all do with a drink.’
CHAPTER 58
It was four in the afternoon in LA, midnight in Glasgow. Just as it always seemed to be.
Maybe it should have been too late for wine for one and too early for the other, but Narey and O’Neill were enjoying a glass together an ocean apart thanks to the wonders of modern communication.
Celebrating wasn’t the right word. Job done was more like it. Relief for sure. Tired for certain. There was undoubtedly an element of personal satisfaction, but people were still dead, people were still grieving. It wasn’t a time to have a party, not a public one anyway.
The two cops were separated by five thousand miles but connected by the devices in front of them and everything they’d been through. It took one to know one.
Rachel was the only person still up in the house on Belhaven Terrace, her husband and daughter asleep after they’d properly enjoyed each other’s company as a family for the first time in what seemed an age but was only a week. She was curled up on the sofa, legs tucked underneath her, wind rattling at the windows, glass in hand and O’Neill a few feet away on the screen.
Cally was in her apartment in Willowbrook, blinds closed to keep out the fierce late-afternoon sun. The next few days were going to be filled with endless interviews, forms, lawyers and unhappy cops. She and Salgado now had more cases than days in the week so when her lieutenant offered her the chance to go home early before the onslaught began, she jumped at it.
A glass of red was raised in Glasgow. It was matched with a chilled white in LA. They sipped, and breathed, nodding at each other without the need for words. Rachel was first to break the contented silence.
‘So how is Dylan Hansen doing?’
O’Neill closed her eyes and exhaled hard. ‘He’s going to make it.’
‘Thank God. You really had me worried.’
‘Yeah. Sorry for scaring the shit out of you when we found him.’
‘Ha. It’s cool. The strange thing was, even though we knew you were going to say he was dead whether he was or not, I still couldn’t tell if you were faking it. It was because we’d no idea what you’d find. You did too good a job of acting.’
O’Neill grinned. ‘I was only partly acting. When I found a pulse, it was actually easier to be mad at that bastard on the other side of the camera. My rage was real.’
‘When you came up with the plan, I wasn’t sure about it, but it certainly worked. It convinced Marr . . . Anderson, I mean . . . that Dylan was dead and it was his turn. It flushed him out.’
‘Yeah, well, it was risky. Especially when you were putting yourself on the line. And without a gun. I don’t know how you guys do that.’
Narey shook her head. ‘And I don’t know how you guys can carry one. I’ve been doing this job for years and I’ve never felt the need for a gun. It would scare the shit out of me to have one, and to think that the bad guy had one too. Is Hansen able to talk?’
‘Not yet. All he’s been able to do is nod, but he’s let us know he’s aware he was held hostage, doesn’t know where, didn’t see the face of the person who took him. We’ve shown him a photograph of Garland, but it meant nothing to him. He’s taking liquids intravenously, but the docs are hopeful he’ll be feeding himself in a week or so. He’s very disorientated and we haven’t told him the full story yet.’
‘He’ll make a full recovery?’
‘Hopefully. In time. The docs were very worried about brain damage, but he’s come through the tests they gave him and they’re much more optimistic. What it will do to him emotionally is another matter, but they’re going to be working on that from the start, so he’ll have the best chance of recovery.
‘He suffered kidney failure and they’re worried about his heart and liver. They all took a severe pounding. He’s looking at dialysis or a transplant for the kidneys. But it could have been much worse. One of the specialists said that if we’d been as little as six hours later, then brain damage might have been irreparable. If we’d been twelve hours later, he’d have been dead. We got lucky.’
Narey disagreed with her. ‘Like I told someone yesterday, you make your own luck. You got that info from Garland’s ex-wife because you put the work in, you asked the right questions and eventually you got the right answers. It had nothing to do with luck.’
O’Neill smiled. ‘Yeah, you’re right. And if you want to email my captain and tell her that then I won’t stop you. So, do you think it was luck – good or bad – that Garland and your man Anderson found each other?’
Narey sighed and tipped her glass towards the screen. ‘That’s a big question for a second glass of wine. You can believe it was fate or just the simple practicalities of two psychopaths inevitably going to the same twisted forum on the same twisted subject. But given that Garland was convinced his father was Elizabeth Short’s murderer, it makes most sense that their mutual interest in the Black Dahlia brought them together. But I’ll get it out of Anderson.’