Dark is the Day

by Tana Collins

  Christ, thought Fletcher. This woman is a mind reader. She then felt guilty at the unkind thoughts that had been going through her head.

  Alison gave Fletcher an encouraging smile. ‘Tell me how you’ve been feeling.’

  ‘I’m okay, unless it’s a really sunny, warm day. I used to love the sun and heat. But now–’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Now I hate it.’

  ‘Can you explain why?’

  ‘Well, it brings the families out. The kids. And happy parents. I can’t stand it. It feels like it’s being thrown in my face. It reminds me of the family life I’m never going to have. I know I’m being over-sensitive but that doesn’t seem to help. I just want to run away and hide.’

  ‘But you don’t?

  ‘No, I don’t. I’ve got a job to do.’

  ‘And I know how important your work is to you.’

  ‘Yes, it’s the only place I feel I can really make a difference. When I’m at work I feel as if I belong.’

  ‘And the rest of the time?’

  Fletcher shrugged. ‘Sometimes I’m okay.’ She felt tears prick her eyes once more. She had never seen herself as an overly emotional person before, but now? Everything had changed since she had had her miscarriage.

  ‘And at other times?’ Alison reached over and pulled a tissue out of the box and handed it to Fletcher.

  Fletcher dabbed the corners of her eyes. ‘Other times I’m not. I was wondering if I’m suffering from spring depression. I googled it and it exists.’

  ‘Yes, it does exist, although it’s not so well known about. Perhaps you should go back to your GP? Get a proper diagnosis?’

  Fletcher shrugged.

  ‘It’s going to take time to get over the shock and pain of what happened.’

  Fletcher folded her hands in her lap. ‘You going to tell me time is a healer?’

  Alison smiled. ‘It’s true. Time is a healer. It’ll never go away. Not totally. But the pain will lessen. You’re still young.’

  ‘Meaning I can still have a family?’

  ‘If you want to.’

  ‘That’s the problem though, Alison. I can’t. I can’t have a family. I’m never going to be a mum. When I had my miscarriage, the medics told me they were really surprised I’d managed to carry as long as I did. I’ve been told I’m very unlikely to be able to carry to full term. You’re the first person I’ve told. I haven’t been able to face talking about it. Not even my parents know. I just have to be strong and deal with it.’

  Alison’s face tilted towards her; a sad look in her eyes. ‘Are there any friends you can confide in about how you’re feeling?’

  Were there? When she’d joined the police force she’d lost touch with a lot of her friends, and since she’d been in CID, well, when was there time to socialise? Fletcher thought about the close working relationship she had with Carruthers but somehow, she didn’t want to confide in him. At least not yet. Briefly her thoughts turned to her boss. And in that moment, she understood why he didn’t want to open up about how he felt about seeing his ex-wife again. Some things were just too raw. Too painful. In that instant she realised something about her boss. He still loved his ex-wife.

  Chapter 15

  ‘We’ve finally managed to unlock Rachel Abbie’s phone.’ Fletcher walked over to Carruthers’ desk. ‘The good news is that she wasn’t great at deleting messages or texts. There are scores of them. No details yet but we’ve got Speccie Tecchie on the case,’ she said, referring to their resident IT expert, John Forrest.

  ‘That’s great news, Andie. I’ve got a feeling that what’s found on her phone could be important to the case.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’

  ‘You seem a bit brighter. Did it help going to the counsellor?’

  ‘Do you know, I think it did. I think it’s something to do with talking to someone who doesn’t know you and won’t judge. It’s like, well, a weight off your chest.’ She smiled.

  ‘You can always talk to me, you know,’ said Carruthers. He felt a moment of sadness that he could offer a heart-to-heart to Fletcher so much more easily than to his own brother.

  Carruthers stood up and grabbed his jacket. Fletcher looked up at him questioningly.

  ‘I’m heading across town. I think it’s high time I had a chat with John Campbell.’

  ‘Ooh, do you want me to come with you?’

  ‘No, no,’ Carruthers answered hurriedly. The last thing he wanted was an audience when he talked to Campbell about his ex-wife.

  ‘Okay, well in that case I’ll stick around here. I’m interested to see what Forrest uncovers. I’ll ring you if we find anything.’

  Carruthers stood waiting for John Campbell outside the philosophy department, breathing in the salty sea air. As he waited, he looked at the gothic building with its two blue doors. It took him back to the early days of courting Mairi. Hanging around outside her department like a lovesick puppy. He thought of the girlfriend of the dead squaddie he had met on a previous case. Siobhan Mathews had also studied philosophy. She had reminded him of his wife. He wondered where she was now.

  Suddenly the doors of the department opened and a knot of students burst out chattering. Carruthers spotted John Campbell immediately. Tall, dark-haired, broad-shouldered.

  ‘Mr Campbell?’ Carruthers started to walk towards the group. The students had separated, going in different directions, leaving Campbell alone looking at his iPhone.

  The student looked up, frowning. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’d like a word. Please.’ Carruthers brought out his police ID badge and flashed it in front of the startled student’s face.

  ‘What’s this about?’

  Carruthers sized Campbell up, noting his unreachable blue eyes and thin mouth. He knew the lad had form but could he see him as The Student Strangler, as the papers had called the murderer? He wasn’t so sure.

  ‘I need to have a bit of a talk with you.’ Carruthers gestured for Campbell to follow him to a bench across the road from the philosophy department. It was the same bench that Carruthers used to sit on to wait for Mairi to finish her lecturing.

  ‘We’ve received a complaint from a member of the public to say you’ve been harassing her.’

  Campbell turned beet red but said nothing.

  He knows what I’m talking about, thought Carruthers, and he knows he’s in the wrong.

  ‘Who?’ said Campbell, sitting on the bench and splaying his legs.

  ‘Have you been harassing more than one woman?’

  ‘I haven’t been harassing anyone. Who’s the complaint come from?’

  ‘My–’ God, he’d nearly said ex-wife. Carruthers corrected himself in his momentary error. ‘My information is that you’ve been pestering one of your professors – Mairi Beattie.’ He almost stumbled over the surname. He was so used to thinking of her as Carruthers.

  ‘No.’

  Carruthers looked at Campbell’s face. The expression on it was unreadable.

  ‘In fact, she says that you’ve threatened her.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me what’s been going on.’

  Silence.

  ‘Can I ask you where you were between one-thirty and three-thirty Tuesday afternoon and between ten and twelve last Friday?’

  ‘You talking about those women who got attacked? You’re not going to pin that on me just because–’

  ‘Because you’ve got prior form you mean, or because you’ve threatened your philosophy lecturer?’ finished Carruthers. ‘I’ve seen your record, John. I know you assaulted a female student at the University of East Anglia. You broke her collarbone.’

  ‘That’s not how it happened. We were horsing around. You make it sound like I’m some sort of nutter.’

  ‘And you’re not, of course. She made a complaint?’

  ‘Which she later withdrew.’

  ‘So, you’re sticking to your story of it being a bit of horseplay that got out of hand.
I’ve never broken someone’s collarbone in a bit of horseplay. If she made a complaint against you then she didn’t see it as a bit of fun.’

  A moment of doubt entered Carruthers’ head but he didn’t voice it. It was possible that a bit of horseplay could result in a broken collarbone. His mind went back to an incident that had occurred on the football pitch when he was at school. A player had broken the collarbone of a teammate while celebrating his friend’s goal. However, if it had really been the case of just a bit of horseplay, why would the female student in question report it? No, the simple truth of the matter was Carruthers just didn’t believe Campbell, although he would like to get to the bottom of why the young woman had withdrawn her complaint. For that there was one obvious answer.

  ‘Like I said, she withdrew her complaint.’

  ‘Threaten her, did you?’

  Carruthers observed Campbell as he got out a packet of Marlboro from his jacket pocket. The student took a lighter out of his jeans pocket and lit the cigarette. The only sign that he was rattled was that he was sucking on the cigarette in short bursts.

  ‘Let’s start with your philosophy lecturer, Mairi Beattie,’ said Carruthers. He winced as he said her maiden name. ‘Why would she accuse you of threatening her?’

  The boy went red. Still staring at his shoes, he said, ‘So the complaint came from her.’

  ‘You’ve got a crush on her.’

  Why on earth does this twerp think he has a chance with Mairi? She is totally out of his league. And he is, well, still a boy, really.

  Not for the first time Carruthers wondered whether Mairi was seeing someone. Had she dated since she’d left him? She must have done. It had been over three years. Carruthers felt a stab of jealousy somewhere in the region of his heart. Not good. Not for the first time he found himself wishing she’d never got in touch with the police.

  ‘It’s more than a crush.’

  God, he’s got it bad, thought Carruthers. ‘So, when she turned you down you got angry?’

  The student whipped his head up, swivelled round and stared Carruthers straight in the eye. ‘She didn’t turn me down. She said yes.’

  Carruthers was incredulous. ‘So, you’re telling me you’ve been having a relationship with Mairi Beattie?’

  ‘Yes, and she’s spoken about you, you know. I know you used to be married to her.’ It was Carruthers’ turn to redden. The wee scrote could have found that information out from anywhere, but still, it was worth mentally noting that he’d gone to the trouble of finding out about Mairi’s exes. John Campbell had a nasty smile on his face. ‘She said she couldn’t wait for the divorce to come through and to get her maiden name back.’

  The wee prick. He’s enjoying this. Why the hell would my ex-wife be interested in a waste of space like you? thought Carruthers. But a little warning voice in his head asked him how the student knew so much about his ex-wife.

  ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ He moved closer to Carruthers. The detective could smell his smoker’s breath. ‘I’ve got proof.’

  ‘What proof?’

  ‘That I’ve been having a relationship with your ex-wife. I’ve seen the birthmark she’s got on her left buttock. Now how would I know that unless I had seen her naked?’

  Carruthers thought of the last time he’d seen the birthmark. It was a long time ago now. He looked at Campbell through narrowed eyes. He knew the boy was lying. He had to be. There was no way Mairi would have an affair with one of her students, least of all a nasty piece of work like John Campbell. The boy was clearly a fantasist. There must be some other explanation of how he knew of her intimate birthmark.

  ‘Do you know Rachel Abbie?’

  Campbell looked confused. ‘Not personally, no. I mean, I know her in passing. We’re in the same department and the same tutorial group but we’re not friends.’

  ‘If you’re in the same tutorial group you obviously know her a bit more than just in passing.’

  The student shrugged.

  ‘Have you ever met up socially?’

  Campbell shook his head. ‘No.’

  Carruthers stood up. ‘I’ll be in touch. And John?’ Campbell looked up. Carruthers leaned in to him and hissed, ‘Leave my ex-wife alone.’

  ‘Or what?’

  Carruthers didn’t dignify that with an answer. Instead, he looked skywards as the rain came on.

  Fletcher looked up as Carruthers marched into the office and stood by the side of her desk. ‘What are you doing at the moment, Andie? Any joy on Rachel Abbie’s mobile phone front?’

  ‘Still waiting for John Forrest to get back to me. I’m currently trying to find out if there’s a link between the two girls. I can’t yet find anything that connects them though. Rachel was studying philosophy and Serena history of art. We’ve started to interview friends of the girls but it doesn’t look like they did know each other.’

  He leant over her desk. ‘Do something for me? Get hold of the mobile number of that wee scrote from the philosophy department, John Campbell, and check it against the numbers on Rachel Abbie’s phone.’

  ‘What’s got you so riled? Bad interview?’

  How Fletcher would love to know what John Campbell had been insinuating about his ex-wife. But there was no way in hell he was going to tell her. What would she make of Campbell knowing about Mairi’s birthmark? And he still didn’t understand how the boy could know about it. It’s not like his ex-wife would tell him. He could just see it now. ‘Okay, so today we are going to talk about the pre-Socratic philosophers and by the way, I have a birthmark on my left buttock.’

  The point was though, how the hell did he know about it? All sorts of thoughts were racing through his head. None of them good. In the end he concluded that the most likely scenario was that somehow Campbell had seen his ex-wife naked in the shower. And unless he was in there with her, which frankly was laughable, then he had been stalking her and knew where she lived.

  He looked Fletcher square in the eyes before answering. ‘I don’t trust Campbell.’

  Mairi let herself into her cottage in Ceres, thinking about her meeting with Jim. She hesitated at the door then locked it behind her. She put her back against the doorframe and expelled a long, deep breath. When she closed her eyes, she could still see Jim’s face. He looked the same. Well, no, that wasn’t quite true. Same blue eyes, same shaped face. Perhaps he’d put on a little bit of weight. His hair was slightly greyer and he had a few more wrinkles, but he suited them. She had to admit he had been looking good. She’d worked hard at putting her relationship with Jim behind her, had even started dating other men, but she’d never managed to totally get him out of her head.

  She walked to the living room window, looked out and, seeing nothing but her neighbour, Malcolm, working in his garden, pulled the net curtain tightly shut. She took the stairs to her bedroom but just as she was about to dump her shoulder bag on her bed, she pulled up short. There on her pillow was a single, long-stemmed red rose. Her breath caught in her throat. Somebody had been in her bedroom.

  Rooted to the spot, she looked around her. Nothing else looked out of place and yet, what was that? A cigarette butt had been stubbed out on a glazed ceramic dish she kept for her earrings on her bedside table. She sniffed the air suspiciously. Yes, there was a faint smell of cigarette smoke which she hadn’t noticed when she’d first set foot in the room. She strained to hear any noise but the only sound, other than birdsong, was Malcolm’s voice as he talked to his wife. Mairi ran down the stairs to the back door but it was still locked securely. Had she left a window open? Is that how the intruder had got in? She went in and out of all the rooms but when she walked into the bathroom, she found the window ajar. She didn’t remember leaving it open but she must have done.

  She cursed under her breath and ran down the stairs to the front door which she unlocked and opened. She popped her head round.

  ‘Malcolm?’ she called.

  Malcolm Duggan, who was leaning over his flowerbed, straightened u
p and turned round, smiling. Seeing her face, he frowned. ‘What’s wrong, hen?’

  ‘I think someone’s been in my house. Have you seen anyone hanging around?’

  Malcolm leaned heavily on his hoe and shook his head. ‘No, I havenae. Have you been broken into?’

  ‘I think they may have got in through the bathroom window. Looks like I might have left it open when I left the house this morning. But they don’t seem to have taken anything. Someone’s definitely been in though.’ She kept quiet about the long-stemmed rose. It just seemed too weird to mention.

  Malcolm laid the hoe down and hobbled over. ‘Do you want me to come and look round the house for you or call the police?’

  Did she? And did she really want the police involved? Who could have been in the house? Could it be John Campbell? It didn’t really seem his style leaving roses on pillows.

  ‘No Malcolm, thanks, but that won’t be necessary. I’ll phone the police myself.’

  ‘If you’re sure, hen, but I’d be happy to help.’

  ‘No, thank you all the same.’ Mairi turned away from him and hurried inside to make the call.

  Chapter 16

  Saturday

  Carruthers checked his watch. Mairi was late. He started to strum his fingers on the table in impatience. He only had an hour before he needed to be heading back to the station.

  Had he made a mistake by agreeing to meet up? He’d offered to go round to her house last night, but she’d insisted she was okay, so they had agreed to meet the following morning. In all actuality it wasn’t his place as a member of CID to attend a break-in, but then again, he wanted to talk to her about John Campbell and the boy’s accusations, and it was more than likely she felt the break-in was connected to her recent claims of being followed.

  He checked his watch again just as there was a rush of cold air. The front door of the pub opened and in walked his ex-wife. She had insisted on meeting here rather than at her home. Carruthers didn’t want to start analysing why. She had been adamant. It would, of course, make more sense to meet at her home but if that’s what she wanted… She came hurrying over to his table, dumping her briefcase on the floor by his feet. He recognised it straightaway. It was the expensive slim, black briefcase he’d given her for her thirty-eighth birthday.