Death at the Sawney Bean (3/3)

Detective Ailish Inch had interviewed each one of us. We were all suspects by default and Inch requested we stay at least one more night—a request that was clearly understood to be a demand.

Being living organisms, we had to eat but the kitchen was off-limits and eating a non-chef’s food was a sobering prospect. We ordered takeaway from the only food place nearby—a Chinese chippy. Then we sat together around a table, trying to behave normally and falling well short of the mark. For one thing, it was difficult not to remember that one of us was very possibly a cold-blooded killer. For another, the food was really atrocious, much worse than even we had expected, and we had no illusions about British fast food. It was oily, smudgy, half burnt and half undercooked. The only flavour I could make out was recycled vegetable oil.

“This food,” barked Yoshio, “Even worse than yours!” he held his stomach and laughed uproariously at his own joke.

“Tadger,” I muttered.

Antonio was very quiet and focused on looking at his food, though he didn’t bother to touch it. He didn’t look at anyone or say anything.

Artyom looked relaxed and even a little bit happy. He was the only one of us cheerfully shovelling the swill into his face.

“What are ye smiling about, then?” I asked him.

“Reminds me of some good times in Chechnya,” he said enigmatically. “Camaraderie, delicious food, beautiful weather…” he gestured at the window, where a gale was blowing bucketloads of cold sleet down on the loch.

“Oh, I can’t stand this. Why don’t we do something to get our minds of it?” Billie said, waving her arms around and making her little charm bracelets tinkle and her silky sleeves float charmingly.

“Wha’, like Pictionary or something?” I guffawed.

“Why not?” she said. “It’s a great idea.” She sounded like a presenter off children’s TV.

“Get away, I was joking.”

Nina suddenly threw back her head, a cascade of blonde hair falling down over her back, and laughed long and loud. The sound was unnerving, like the urgent honking of a goose in caught in a fence. We all looked at her in consternation. The word ‘hysterical’ is out of fashion these days, but it looked like she was a bit that way.

“Nina!” Artyom growled in a harsh voice that was abrupt enough to shake the Sicilian out of her trance. She looked at us all with a blank, wondering expression.

“You know about me?” she asked us in a husky voice, her eyes shining strangely.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“This was meant for me.”

“What she say?” Yoshia asked.

“No one wants to hurt you, darling,” said Billie in a gentle maternal way.

Nina slammed a fist on the table with such force that we all jumped except for Artyom who just looked at her with an amused expression.

“It’s the family of my husband. For years he has chased me. And now, finally…” she clenched her hands into fists so that her knuckles went white. “They have found me.”

“Hold up,” I said. “What are you taking about?

Nina sighed.

“My husband is Albanian. He came from a clan that is involved Mafia Shqiptare—smuggling, narcotics, other things. When we married, I said to him: ‘You have to give this life up, it doesn’t go well for me. I grew up seeing the mafia strangle my country, like a poisonous weed. You must have a backbone!’ He agreed. We left our house in Tirana because it was clear his family would chase us. ‘You cannot leave’—that is what the clan always said. We told no one where we were going. My mother is English so I have a UK passport. We came here two years ago. Last week, I got threats from my brother-in-law. Now this!” She shrugged.

“You’re saying your in-laws found out you were at this chef’s conference?” I asked skeptically. “How would they have known that? There was nothing online about it.”

“You don’t know what they’re like!” she moaned. “They have their tentacles everywhere.”

“Did you tell Detective Inspector Inch about this?” I said.

“Yes, of course!” she said. “But she doesn’t take it seriously. She thinks the Albanians don’t know how to get to Glasgow. Ha! They have bases everywhere, even on the Isle of Wight!”

Artyom coughed.

“For me, I do not believe this is credible, excuse me,” he held up his hands to stave off the dirty look Nina was giving him.

“You think I tell the lies?” she said quietly, with dark-eyed menace.

“No, no, of course. I am sure your family hates you, as you say. However, there is an explanation that is more close. We do not need to look at Albanians.”

“Oh? And what is your explanation?”

“What do we know, for sure?” said Artyom in a pedantic voice. “We know that the knife that was used to kill Andrea is Japanese. An expensive brand of sushi knife.”

Yoshio looked at Artyom with heavily-lidded contempt, as if he were feeling sleepy. He said nothing but let a low growl rumble in the back of his throat.

“I think that Yoshi,” Artyom continued, “Is a crazy man.”

The two stared each other like feral cats for a breathless minute, before bursting into laughter and slapping each other on the back.

Nina stood up, shaking her head, enraged.

“Deficienti.”

She stormed out of the room. Still giggling, Yoshio and Artyom went out the dining-room door to go have a smoke on the patio. It was just me, Billie and Antonio left at the table.

“Awright, Antonio?” I was worried because he was still silent and even trembling a little.

“Not good, my friend,” he shook his head. Beads of sweat had formed on his forehead.

“Are you sick?” Billie asked, concerned. “I know a lovely barley-lemon drink that’s good for the ‘flu.”

“Thank you,” Antonio smiled weakly. “I think I will be better soon.”

She reached over to pat his hand. He staggered to his feet.

“I will go to my bedroom. Maybe to lie down will help.” He left, walking like a man in a dream.

“Poor guy,” I said, watching him go. “This is getting to him worse than the rest of us.”

“Maybe it’s PTSD?” she murmured.

“Maybe, he saw some combat, he was telling me about some of the stuff he’d seen.”

“What kind of stuff?” Billie leaned forward eagerly.

“It’s not for a lady’s ears, is it? Better to talk about nicer things at the minute.”

“I wouldn’t have picked you for the chivalrous type,” she teased.

I grinned.

“I’ve got a queasy stomach myself, if you must know.”

“What do you think happened?” She said, thoughtfully tracing the rim of her glass.

I blew out a breath.

“Hard to say. Must be one of us, mustn’t it?”

She shuddered.

“I suppose so. Do you think it really was Yoshio?”

“He has a temper, that’s clear. On the other hand, Artyom is a pretty cold-blooded guy. Then, Nina and Antonio both seem a little unhinged.”

“And me?” she raised a beautifully shaped eyebrow.

“Well, I wouldn’t rule it out,” I grinned. “All chefs are mad, aren’t they.

She folded her arms.

“Harsh.”

I don’t know if it was partly the atmosphere of tension, but there was a definite something between us. Despite (or perhaps because of) the hellish circumstances, it felt enjoyable to be chatting to her like this.

“You were close to Andrea?” she asked.

“Friends, yes,” I said. “We met in Spain. About ten years ago, I was wandering around Madrid, completely starving and totally lost and suddenly I come across a little hole-in-the-wall place. I went in and there was a woman who looked like the personification of Carmen. Beautiful, dark-eyed, the ultimate Spanish type, you know. I ordered the Tortilla de Patatas. My god, when I bit into it, it was as if I’d been transported to Olympus in a winged chariot. She had a gift, a real gift.”

“Sounds wonderful,” said Billie, looking abstractedly at a vase of flowers.

“Did you know her at all before this trip?” I asked, aware that I’d been talking at length.

“We’d met once or twice,” Billie said. “But tell me, do you think we’ll be able to go home tomorrow?”

“Hope so. But who knows? I’ve never found myself in a situation quite like this, have you?”

“No, never,” she said, biting her lip. “I’m so afraid, isn’t that ridiculous?” She laughed a little but looked very pale and glanced at me with an expression of fear and, almost, pleading.

I swallowed.

“Listen, if you’re worried about being alone, I can sit up with you.”

She reached over and squeezed my hand.

“Thanks, Gordon.”

“Hell, I’ll even play Pictionary if you like!”

She laughed.

“I appreciate that, but…” she let out a shaky voice, “But I think what I’m going to do is take a sleeping pill and just seek a refuge in oblivion.”

I nodded and watched her leave, knowing that she knew that I was watching her. It felt like a moment of true connection, and it left a sweet aftertaste. Unfortunately, that sweetness was not to last very long.

I went to my room and watched some football before falling into a light doze. Before I knew what was happening, I heard a blood-curdling scream and sat bolt-upright in the bed as if given a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart. There was a sound of something falling over and doors opening and voices, then more screams. I jumped up and went to look down the corridor and saw the others looking down on the floor. I looked down myself and realized what they were seeing. In front of me, pointing at my door, was a dismembered finger. It looked very like one of Andrea’s.

Outside each of the other doors was another finger.

Nauseated, I thought for a moment that I was going to lose consciousness. At that moment, I saw a looming figure striding down the corridor. It was Detective Inspector Ailish Inch, with a thunderous expression on her face.

“This ends here,” she said. “Wilhelmina Prendergast, I’m arresting you for the murder of Andrea Caballero.”

The next few hours I spent in a kind of daze—I can hardly remember anything of them.

The next morning, Ailish Inch visited the hotel and spoke to us all, explaining what happened, a kind of courtesy debriefing I guess you could call it.

Long story short, it turned out that it was rather appropriate that we’d been staying at the Sawney Bean. I don’t know if you know of the legend?

Sawney Bean, with the help of his wife and family, was one of the most prolific serial killers of Scottish history. He was born to a family of tanners in the late 15^th century. No one knows where he was born exactly but as a young man he moved to Ayrshire, married a young woman from that area and set up house in a cave. He made a living for himself by attacking travellers, killing them and robbing them.

‘Waste not, want not’ was his watchword and he decided he could maximize profits by converting victims into food. His wife, fatted up as she was, produced 14 healthy children. They started saving some of their food by pickling and curing body parts. Unfortunately, as the cave was frequently flooded, some of these parts floated out to sea and turned up on the shore, confusing locals.

Eventually Sawney Bean and his clan killed so many people that the list of missing persons grew extremely long and the need for finding the culprit so pressing that the matter was taken to King James I. His men arrived with hounds and conducted a massive manhunt, which took them to Sawney Bean’s cave. His clan, now numbering 48, was taken to Edinburgh and killed in a way commensurate with the heinousness of their crimes.

What did this have to do with Billie?

In short, she’d been kidnapping children from a posh school near her home in Greater London, luring them into her garden with sweets then dispatching of them in order to get their meat. Needless to say, she had a screw loose and the twisted idea she’d conceived was that young humans would have a particularly tender and delicious taste. A raid on her home found a grisly cellar full of cured limbs.

I could hardly believe it when I heard it.

And how did Andrea come into it?

One of Billie’s victims was a little Spanish girl, the daughter of one of Andrea’s friends. Andrea began to investigate the case in a quiet way, and suspected Billie of being involved. The night of the cocktail party, she recognized that Billie had used some of her ‘special meat’ in the ‘duck’ wraps. Antonio, also, having had experience in eating people, had recognized the ingredient. I remembered that he had been on the verge of telling me his suspicions when Nina and Billie came into the room, when he’d broken off abruptly.

Anyway, Billie had seen Andrea slip the wrap into her handbag and heard her tell me she was going to get it ‘analyzed’. She must have panicked and decided that Andrea had to be silenced once and for all. She’d invited Andrea into the kitchen to see her ingredients—perhaps Andrea hoped to get a bigger sample. And there, Billie had used Yoshio’s knife to kill Andrea.

She grabbed a handcart and wheeled the corpse out to the carpark (right next to the pantry door) and loaded it into Andrea’s own car—she’d found Andrea’s carkeys in her handbag, along with the duck wrap. She drove the body out to the loch, weighted it with stones and left the car, with the keys inside for anyone to find. Some teenagers did find it, took it for a joyride and then (possibly noticing a lot of blood on the backseat) decided to burn it up rather than incriminate themselves. Meanwhile, Billie had walked back to the hotel, snuck in and got her beauty sleep.

What I keep coming back to is the question of 'Why'. I talked it over with Detective Inspector Inch, she said that some people are just funny in the head. There's not always a good reason for it. Sawney Bean had nothing against his victims, they just had something he wanted. Billie was one of those.