9
‘CID are the experts,’ Armstrong said to Irvine as he walked with her to the top of the concrete embankment leading down to the river’s edge. ‘I mean, on murder investigations. It’s why we asked for your input.’
They stopped at the top of the embankment. Irvine saw another of the forensic technicians being helped down the embankment wall to the muddy river’s edge. She turned to face Armstrong.
‘You’ve had more than one body?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And the reason CID haven’t been called in before is that you didn’t think they were murders. Am I still on track?’
Armstrong nodded. ‘You’re good,’ he said, smiling for the first time.
‘How many?’ Irvine asked.
‘How many what?’
‘Deaths.’
‘This is the fourth.’
A line creased between Irvine’s eyes. ‘You’re saying you have four murders?’
‘Well, we’re not sure if they’re all murders.’ He opened his hands.
‘Okay,’ Irvine said, feeling more confused now than when she had arrived. ‘Let’s deal with what we have here then we can talk about the rest. What was it about this girl’s body that made you think someone killed her?’
Irvine looked down at the technicians working in the shallow edge of the river, water halfway up their boots.
‘We’re not certain that she was killed,’ Armstrong said. ‘Not in the way you mean. By someone doing violence to her.’
‘But this one is different to the first three?’
‘Yes. The girl was naked.’
‘And who goes out at night in Glasgow like that before taking a swim, right?’
‘That’s what we thought.’
‘So at the very least someone was with her when she died. Stripped her and dumped her here.’ A further thought occurred to Irvine. ‘Why do you think this is linked to your operation? I mean, what’s the connection to the other bodies?’
‘We don’t know for sure that she is connected,’ Armstrong said. ‘I mean, the other deaths were overdoses so far as we can tell. But there are needle tracks on this girl’s body and no immediate signs of any other cause of death.’
‘Seems a bit of a stretch.’
‘You’re right. But it makes sense to treat it as potentially connected for now so that we can get a head start on working the case. If we’re wrong, we’ve lost nothing. You’ve got to understand that with three bodies already and now this one, it’s at the top of the list of priorities.’
‘Okay, I can see some sense in that. Anything else to go on? I mean, do we have an ID on the girl?’
‘One of the uniforms that responded to the call recognised her. She’s a working girl with a record for possession. Don’t have a name yet.’
‘We’ll need to speak to the uniforms.’
Armstrong nodded.
‘Why strip her?’ Irvine asked. ‘I mean, if none of the other victims was stripped?’
‘I don’t know.’
Irvine thought about that. It was a significant departure if this was connected to the earlier deaths.
‘Maybe because whoever she was with didn’t want to be connected to her,’ Irvine said. ‘It’s a way of trying to obliterate evidence.’
One of the Scenes of Crime team working down on the bank picked something off the top of the mud and slipped it into an evidence bag.
‘Okay,’ Armstrong said. ‘I can see that could be it.’
‘Which might mean different things,’ Irvine went on. ‘I mean, a celebrity or a politician would want to avoid a scandal.’
‘Or someone in the supply chain who might not want to be connected to the drugs that have killed these people.’
Irvine looked at Armstrong again.
‘That’s the link?’ she asked. ‘The same bad drugs?’
He nodded.
‘We can fill you in on all of that at the briefing later today.’
Irvine peered across the river, squinting at sunlight reflected on the surface of the water. The crowd behind them started to thin as it became clear that there was nothing much to see any more except a bunch of cops going about their painstaking business.
‘This is your investigation now,’ Armstrong said to Irvine. ‘So, what’s the plan?’
‘Work the evidence. We want to get the ID on the girl and information on other girls who know her. Interview them and her family too, if she has any here. Check CCTV as well: see if we can track her movements yesterday.’
Armstrong took out a notepad, flipped it open and made some notes as Irvine spoke.
‘If we know who she is, then we can check where she lives. Speak to anyone who lives with her.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Find her clothes. Or maybe what’s left of them. If I know criminals, the first thought is usually to dump them or dump and burn them. Probably won’t be too far away either. Something like this, they like to get it over with fast. We might get some residual evidence from that – hair, fibres or fluid samples. And we need to ask the pathologist to look out for that kind of thing during the post-mortem. She might have had sex before she was killed.’
‘Should we find out who she bought her regular supply of drugs from as well? And who her regular customers were.’
‘If we can. The other girls might know.’
Armstrong wrote in his pad some more.
‘It’s always personal,’ Irvine said.
‘What?’ Armstrong asked.
She looked at him and shook her head, she had been talking to herself more than anything.
‘I mean, that’s pretty much the rule in CID on murder investigations. It’s usually someone that the victim knows.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘So I’d bet whoever dumped her here had met her before today. And that’s how we break this case.’