Mungo Murdock's Murder, Mayhem & Mystery Tour (2/3)

DC Duncan Blane of Edinburgh’s South East branch was just finishing his breakfast when the team started filing into the briefing room. As usual, he’d left his morning meal to the last minute, grabbing it ten minutes before at the Tesco Express down the street.

“Sausage roll and a can of Diet Irn Bru, eh?” said DS Firth. “Heart attack waiting to happen. If it got out that the CID’s finest ran on that shite there’d be a public inquiry.”

Duncan looked resentfully at the young gym addict who loved to needle his superior about his less-than-ideal personal habits.

“Oh aye,” said Duncan, collecting the crumbs off his desk with a napkin and sweeping them into the wastepaper basket. “Well, it does the job.”

“Better off with porridge,” said Firth.

Blane made a face.

“He’s right, sir,” said DC Khalil, a serious young woman who, unlike Firth, was genuinely concerned about Blane’s health. “So your blood sugar doesn’t spike. Porridge can be quite tasty if you add things to it. I like to add chocolate chips to mine. And if you would like to lose weight I can recommend a teaspoon of vinegar in water once a day.”

Blane coughed.

“I thought this was the CID, not a convention of the Breakfast Nazis. How about you lot leave an old man to enjoy his few earthly pleasures?”

“Your funeral,” Firth shrugged.

“We just want you to be around to hug your grandchildren, sir,” said Khalil.

“I don’t have children, let alone grandchildren.”

“Well, grand-nieces and nephews then,” she smiled.

“Anyway,” said Blane, “Back to the business at hand, if I may. We’ve got a couple of murders to sort out. Let’s go over the basics, shall we?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right. We have two homicides that appear to be related. More of that later. For now, let’s review them separately.”

“First murder was that of Miss Athena Wright of Kansas City, Missouri. Thirty-two years old.  She was on the Darkest Edinburgh midnight walking tour, which started at 12am Saturday March 25. It was a party of sixteen. Her disappearance was noticed at 1.15am when she did not emerge from the Vaults with the rest of the group. The tour guide (a lady named Morag Monroe) returned to the Vaults to find her with her throat cut. Coroner estimates time of death somewhere between 12 and 1 am. The murder weapon was not found at the scene. What was found at the scene was a business card, as you can see on the screen, saying ‘Courtesy of the Grey Ghost’.

“Second murder occurred exactly one week later, in the early hours of Saturday April the first.”

“April Fool’s Day,” Firth noted.

“Victim is a 50-year-old male Korean national Han-Jae Park. He had also been on the midnight Darkest Edinburgh tour with Morag Monroe. She noticed his absence during a routine headcount done at the conclusion of a tour of Greyfriars Kirkyard. She then called the police, who immediately instituted a search. Park was found soon afterwards; his throat was also cut. Victim was unconscious but still alive when we got to him but expired before the ambulance arrived. Again, the murder weapon was not found but the Grey Ghost left the calling card.”

“As I said before, these crimes are clearly related.”

“Any chance the second one could be a copycat deal?” asked DS James Ross from the back.

Blane pursed his lips dubiously.

“I’m not ruling anything out at this stage. I’d say it’s unlikely but there were aspects of the first murder that were recreated: the way the throat was cut, the corny calling card, the tour guide’s name. Some of that was information known only to the police. To me, this suggests this was done by the same person.

“I’ll go further. The murders weren’t just done by the same person, they were done by someone with a particular character: a fantasist, who plans the deaths of human beings carefully and calmly and impersonally, as if it were a game and as if no one else mattered.

“Did the killer know the victims? It seems unlikely. Did the victims know each other? Almost certainly not. Han-Jae did not speak English. He had never left Korea before and he arrived in Scotland on the Thursday before he was killed, by which time Athena had been dead for six days.”

“They might have known each other though,” said Firth. “On some kind of internet forum. That’s how my mate met his wife. She couldn’t speak English. They used some kind of app to communicate. Amazing what you can do now.”

“Maybe,” said Blane. “Like I say, I’m not ruling anything out at this stage. But my sense is that the victims meant nothing to the killer as people. They were simply unfortunate enough to have become separated from the tour group.

“It’s my belief that this killer was very impersonal about this. They chose a ‘type’ of victim (in this case a ghost-tourist), a type of setting (a ghost tour), a method of execution (cutting the throat from right to left, probably from behind). But that’s not enough for this kind of character. Oh no, your so-called criminal mastermind has to add an incredibly gratuitous self-own, the ‘look-at-me’ touch. In this case, it’s the business card.”

“Couldn’t they have just printed it at home?” Khalid asked. “Why is it such a tell?”

Blane handed her a small Ziploc bag containing one of the business cards.

“Handle it carefully. As you can see, it’s holographic. Changes from a pretty girl to a skeleton when you tilt it.”

Khalid grimaced and handed the bag on.

“It was custom printed. We’ve canvassed all the UK places that do this sort of thing, no luck.”

“Well,” Firth shrugged, “They probably ordered it online. Could’ve had it done in China.”

“Looks like that probably was the case,” said Blane.

“So why is it a self-own? I mean, it’s going to be bloody hard to trace it if that’s the case.”

“Just because of the character angle,” said Blane. “We know we have a very specific sort of personality on our hands. They planned this, elaborately. They invested some capital in it.”

“Serial killer, you mean?” Khalid asked.

“Bingo,” Blane pointed at her.

“Technically though,” said Firth, “A serial killer has killed three people at least. We’ve only got two so far.”

“Those two last words being instrumental, I think you’ll agree,” said Blane. “It’s our job to make sure there is no third death.”

“How about the guide—Morag Monroe?” Asked James Ross. “Seems that she can be placed at both crime scenes. She had the opportunity.”

Blane nodded.

“Only problem is that there are 28 witnesses—15 in the first tour and 13 in the second—who say she did not leave the group—until she went looking for the missing tour members, of course. It would have been difficult for her to pull it off. Of course, it’s always possible she had an accomplice. Hard to see a motive, which is not to say there isn’t one, of course. She seems quite upset about the whole thing—just quit her job and she’s had it for 13 years.”

“Maybe she got bored of doing the same tour every night for 13 years?” Firth suggested.

Khalid glared at him.

“What?” Firth asked.

“Speaking of the tourists’ testimony,” said Blane, “There’s one other thing that crops up in their testimony, and that’s an eerie sound.”

“What, like a ghost?” Firth spluttered and rolled his eyes.

“Aye,” said Blane. “Some of them describe it that way. Some of them said it sounded like a steam train whistle in the distance, or a wolf howling or the wind in pines or a woman weeping in an attic. Only problem is, discounting for the moment the existence of ghosts, none of those explanations are remotely plausible.”

“Couldn’t it have been the tour company playing a recording, for atmosphere?” Firth asked.

“I looked into that. Monroe says no, the tour company doesn’t do that.”

“Is it still going ahead with these tours?” Khalid asked.

“I’ve persuaded the owner of Darkest Edinburgh, Jock McIntyre, to desist with the midnight tours until we can get some clarity on the case. He was reluctant to halt them—they’re a good earner for him—but seeing as Morag Monroe just quit and she was his star guide…well, he agreed to put them on ice for now.”

“This Jock is a suspect too, I’m assuming?” Firth said.

“Everyone’s a suspect at this point, that’s the sad truth,” Blane said. “McIntyre is a gambler. He had debts. It’s possible this was some harebrained scheme to drum up more business by creating more local mystery to exploit. Somehow I doubt it but…well, keep an open mind. ‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, that are dreamt of in your philosophy.’..”