Buried Secrets (DCI MacBain Scottish Crimes Book 1)

by Oliver Davies

  I sighed but decided to phone her. I owed her a call anyway since we hadn’t seen each other since the beginning of the month. She picked up after the third ring.

  “Callum! Did you learn anything?”

  “No, Sam,” I said, trying to keep the exasperation from my voice. I wasn’t terribly successful. “These things take time, and Martin has his real job to take care of, too.”

  “Right. Duh. Isn’t it exciting, though?” I could hear traffic in the background of the call, and Sam’s voice sounded a little far away as if she were using the speaker in her car. “I was looking through Dad’s briefcase because I was thinking about stealing it for my portfolio, and the photo was hidden in this secret pocket on the bottom. I found it totally by accident. Crazy, right?” Sam always talked like a racecar zipping around a track, and half the time, her mouth couldn’t keep up with her brain.

  “Sure, crazy,” I agreed to appease her. “Sam, it doesn’t mean anything. You know that, right? It’s just a photograph.”

  “It’s an undiscovered picture of Nessie!” She honked her horn twice and cursed at the driver in front of her, and I was very glad I was not currently in the car with her. “Maybe Dad found something he shouldn’t have, or maybe someone wanted to steal his discovery for themselves, so they nabbed him.”

  “Just because your mum and brother work for the police doesn’t mean life is a spy movie,” I pointed out. “Dad left us, Sam. He wasn’t taken.”

  “Yeah, sure, whatever.” Sam couldn’t believe our father abandoned her. Acknowledging that would break her, so she chose to believe these outlandish theories about the Loch Ness Monster and some kind of shadowy Illuminati organization that she made up. I worried about what these fantasies would do to her, especially if she suddenly realized the truth, so I tried to nudge her gently towards the right path while also humouring her investigation. It was a hard line to walk. “You’ll let me know what Martin finds?”

  “Of course. Just don’t be too disappointed when there’s nothing there.”

  “Ye of little faith. Okay, I have to go. Say hi to Mum for me when you see her.”

  I dropped my phone to my desk, on top of the Wair case file, then closed my eyes and tipped my head back, letting the harsh light of the overhead lights seep through my eyelids. Some days, I wished I could believe my family’s theories so that thinking of Alasdair MacBain would hurt just a little less. But I’d called him the night before his disappearance, needing to talk about how I was struggling at uni, and you’d think he would’ve told me if something were wrong. Instead, he disappeared, left me right when I needed him most, and I simply couldn’t forgive him for that.

  Six

  I met Fletcher at the Gellions Pub, though we arrived too late to speak with Lena Taggert before the gig began. I did that on purpose, though I wouldn’t tell Fletcher so. I wanted to sit in a dark pub with a drink and listen to some music for a while before jumping back into work. So we found a miraculously empty booth, ordered drinks from the bar, and settled in just as the musicians filed onto the makeshift stage.

  The Gellions Pub was one of those old school pubs, full of scratched and tarnished wood. The booths all had dark leather backs that reflected the candles and the dim, yellow overhead lights. Bottles of every shape, size, and colour filled the shelves behind the bar, stretching far above the reach of the bartender, though most of the bottles that high up were expensive and simply there for show. Pictures of famous people seated in booths and at tables hung from the walls, the oldest of them black and white and a little grainy. Tonight, the place was packed, the heat of so many bodies raising the temperature inside to an almost uncomfortable level.

  The guitar player began to speak into the microphone, but I was too busy studying the people on stage with him to listen. The piper looked a little put-out as if offended that she couldn’t bring her bagpipes into such a crowded pub. Still, she had a set of six flutes and whistles of varying sizes arrayed around her, adjusting the head on one of them as she chatted quietly with the fiddler. He had a pickup plugged into the fiddle’s body, but he seemed to be having trouble finding the right position for the cord when he placed the instrument under his chin.

  But it was the bodhran player that really caught my eye. Where the others were dressed in dark colours or flannel, she wore a brilliantly patterned floral dress, its green colour bright in the stage lights. Her blonde hair fell in easy ringlets to her bare shoulders, framing her round face. She held her drum easily, testing it as the guitar player continued to speak, and the double-headed stick danced in her slender fingers.

  The guitar player finished his preamble, and the band launched right into their first tune, fast and free and utterly in sync with each other. Traditional Scottish music was all about freedom. It was improvisation and exploration, and it was the joyous discovery of a culture that stretched back as far as history could remember. It was haunted graveyards and ancient moors and all the sorrow of people lost before their time. It was community, and it was one man lost within the mist, and it was an impossibility written amongst the stars.

  The band held the pub in thrall. How could they not? The guitar player’s voice was earthy and deep, like a bard freed from the bound pages of a book, and the whistle floated over the churning fiddle, the bodhran a constant, ever-changing rhythm beneath it all, the drummer drawn so deep into the music that she couldn’t help but sway and dance her feet across the floor in front of her chair, and I couldn’t help but stare at her, enraptured by her joy.

  When the band broke for a short break, I was left stunned and a little out of it. Fletcher nudged me out of the booth, and I shook my head, focusing back in on the task. We were there for the job, not to stare at pretty women in dresses. I approached the guitar player as he was settling his instrument carefully onto its stand.

  “We’re looking for Lena Taggert?” I asked.

  He nodded towards the bodhran player.

  Lena Taggert heard her name and looked up, meeting my gaze. There was a light sheen of sweat across her face, and her cheeks were a rosy red. She stood, setting her instrument on her chair, and approached Fletcher and me, her steps a little hesitant.

  “Can I help you?” She smiled at us despite her nervousness, and it was the sort of smile you couldn’t help but return.

  “My name is DCI MacBain. We’d like to talk to you about Finn Wair. He’s in your Tuesday music class.”

  “What about him?” she asked, brow furrowed in confusion as she took a sip from her water bottle.

  “He’s missing,” I said.

  “Last seen headed to your class on Tuesday,” Fletcher added.

  Her expression crumbled even further, eyebrows drawing together, the corner of her mouth folding down. “Missing? I don’t understand?” Her voice wavered just slightly, knuckles white around her water bottle.

  “He was seen leaving school. Did he make it to your class?” I asked. I kept my voice professional even as I wanted to smooth out the worry on her face with my thumb.

  “No, he didn’t.”

  I shared a look with Fletcher. That left us with a very small window of time for Finn’s disappearance. “What time does your class start?”

  “3:30. Finn usually came right after school and did homework. But he didn’t show this Tuesday. I thought maybe he was ill.” Lena forced herself to loosen her grip on the water bottle, leaving dents crinkled in the weak plastic, and she smoothed the front of her dress though I couldn’t see a wrinkle there.

  Primary schools usually let out at half-past two. That left us with an hour of missing time during which Finn could have gotten lost or, more likely, taken. The real question was why. Why kidnap a seven-year-old kid? What did they want with him? There were several very dark answers to that question, and I hoped none of them was true.

  “Listen, we’re about to jump back into things,” Lena said, gesturing to her band as they gathered their instruments and moved back into place. “Would it be okay if I came to the station
tomorrow to give a full statement?”

  I nodded. If she did know something, we wouldn’t be able to do anything with it this late at night. I handed her my card. “Ask for me when you arrive.”

  Her fingers brushed mine as she took the slip of paper, warm and soft and a little electric as if they were still charged by the beat of the music. She smiled at me and settled back onto her stool as Fletcher and I returned to our booth. I drained the rest of my drink and headed to the bar for another.

  Fletcher followed, leaning up against the counter beside me. “Listen, I’m meeting someone here, so I’m going to ditch you for the night if you don’t mind.”

  “We’re done for the day, so go. Have some fun.”

  “Great, because she just walked in. I’ll see you tomorrow, MacBain.” Fletcher winked at me, and I watched her hurry to meet the short-haired woman who’d just walked in the door. Fletcher greeted her with a light kiss, and then the two of them moved to claim the booth she and I had just exited.

  I spun my stool around to face the band, thanking the bartender for the whiskey he’d just placed by my elbow. The fiddler opened the first set, but I watched Lena Taggert play. With each beat of the drum, her face smoothed out, the worry and fear I’d brought her draining away. her passion for the music utterly consumed her.

  I wished I had something like that. My father was enraptured by the Loch Ness Monster, my sister her art, my mother bird watching, of all things, but being “consumed by my work” just made it sound like I had no life at all, which was true if I thought about it too hard. It had been different when Reilly and I were partners… we went fishing together on weekends… but since he’d left, I hadn’t found something of my own to fill that time.

  I had four whiskeys but was only lightly buzzed by the time Lena’s band finished for the night, and I waved her over once she finished packing up her drum.

  “Buy you a drink?” I asked.

  She smiled, rested her case on the stool beside me. “Is that standard procedure?”

  “No, but I won’t tell if you don’t.”

  “Alright then, since you’re buying.” She sat down and scooted closer to the counter, flagging the barman down to order a gin and tonic. “Where’s your partner?”

  “Abandoned me for her date.”

  “Her mistake.”

  “Yeah, I’m definitely not her type.”

  “More for me then.” Lena’s face flushed, and she took a huge gulp of her newly arrived drink as if she couldn’t believe she’d just said that.

  I changed the subject for her. “How long have you been with the band?”

  “Five years now. I’ve been playing the bodhran for about twenty.” Her face brightened at the mention of her music. “Do you play?”

  “No.” I was the rare Scot who didn’t have at least some connection to music.

  “Must be hard to find time for much else with your job.” She managed to hit the nail right on the head.

  “Good thing I like my work then,” I said.

  “What’s it like, working for the police?” Lena asked. She swivelled her stool, so that she faced me more fully, and her knee knocked against mine for a second, a jolt racing through me at the contact.

  Everyone asked that question. They wanted to know about the excitement of chasing bad guys or firing a gun, or they wanted to hear about grisly murders and convoluted cases. But I didn’t think that was what Lena meant. Something in her eyes told me she was genuinely curious about what it was like for me, specifically.

  “It’s boring most of the time,” I admitted. “Lots of paperwork. Lots of waiting for a case to get dropped in your lap. And it’s also surprisingly disappointing.”

  Her face furrowed curiously, delicate eyebrows drawing together. “What do you mean?”

  I sighed. It was something I’d often thought about but never put into words. “Every kid thinks being in the police means helping people, but once you get there, that’s not really true. Who does a parking ticket help? What good is an unsolved theft or break-in or mugging? What good is arresting a kid for a minor drug offence?”

  “So why do it?” Lena asked softly, curiously.

  “Because of cases like this. Because of the tangible difference solving this will make.”

  Something in Lena’s face twisted just slightly, but she looked down on her drink before I could decipher it.

  “My mum was a police officer, too, before she retired,” I continued, the words drawn out of me by some kind of force held within her silence. “But that wasn’t why I joined.” And it wasn’t because of my father’s disappearance, either, despite popular belief amongst my family. “I don’t really know why I decided to join. It just sort of... felt right.”

  She smiled at that, tilting her head to look at me again, and I was glad to see it. “I get it. Music just felt right to me, too.”

  Her phone buzzed then, and her face fell as she checked it, clouds descending over her eyes faster than a storm appears over the ocean. “I’m so sorry, but I have to go. Thanks for the drink. I’ll come by the station tomorrow morning.”

  “Bye,” I said, startled by her sudden shift in tone. She jumped up from her stool and gathered her things. She gave me one last smile and then rushed for the door, leaving her half-finished cocktail behind.

  I watched her go then downed the last swallow of my own drink. There was no reason for me to linger in the pub any longer, not unless I wanted to begin my descent into middle-aged alcoholism. I’d already paid my tab, but I waited another minute before I left so it wouldn’t seem like I was following Lena, although I was curious why she had to take off in such a hurry.

  The night air hit my face like a door bouncing closed too quickly, and I flipped the collar of my duster up, tucking myself inside. As I walked to my car, pausing on the pavement to allow a delivery van to ease down the narrow street, I spotted Lena at the mouth of the alley to the left of Gellions Pub, having a low conversation with a man in a tweed cap. She had her arms wrapped protectively around her drum case, her shoulders hunched under her coat. I couldn’t understand what they were saying or see the man’s face through the darkness, but the hairs on the back of my neck prickled.

  Before I could do anything, though, the man nodded, turned, and disappeared into the shadows of the alley, and when Lena stepped back into the light of the streetlamp, her gaze caught on me standing in the parking lot. Her eyes widened, and then she turned and fled into the night.

  Seven

  Part of me didn’t expect to see Lena Taggert the next day, not after I caught her speaking to that strange man in the shadows the night before, but she showed up at ten a.m. sharp, asking for me by name at the front desk. The officer there pointed her in my direction, and I shoved Fletcher’s boots off my desk as she approached.

  “Is now a good time?” Lena asked with a small, nervous smile.

  “Of course,” I said as I stood. “If you would follow us.”

  Fletcher and I took Lena to one of the interrogation rooms. Before we entered, I motioned for one of the nearby constables to bring us some coffee. We seated ourselves around the table, the red light on the camera in the corner blinking red as it began to record. Fletcher took out her notepad as I set the case file down in front of us, and then we dug in.

  “How long has Finn been in your class?”

  Lena set her purse down in front of her, though she kept hold of the strap, her fingers running up and down the same inch of leather. “A year, maybe.”

  “Has he missed class before?”

  “A couple of times, I guess. I don’t know how many times exactly without checking my records. But Ms Wair usually emails me if he’s going to be absent.”

  “And she didn’t this time?” Fletcher asked.

  Lena shook her head. “No, but I assumed she forgot, or something came up last minute.”

  “Had Finn been acting strange at all in the previous weeks?”

  “No, everything was normal.”

 
; I watched Lena closely as she spoke. Every line in her body was tense, and her eyes flicked continuously back and forth between Fletcher and me, but that was a normal response for a person suddenly pulled into police questioning. I’d be more worried if she actually seemed relaxed. The officer arrived with three styrofoam cups of coffee, setting them down in front of us. I thanked him, and he scooted out of the room once again.

  “What about strangers poking around the church?” I continued.

  “People come in and out of the church all the time,” Lena pointed out.

  “I know. I mean people interested in your class or in Finn.”

  She continued to worry at the strap of her purse as she thought about the question. “There was one man,” she said slowly. “I saw him in the parking lot after class a couple of times, though I wasn’t totally sure if he was watching the kids or looking at the church. But, I think it was sometime last month, he came up and tried to talk to Finn.”

  “Did you hear what he said?”

  “No, I was standing by the doors, and they were halfway down the parking lot,” she explained, eyes flicking away from mine. “It didn’t seem like Finn wanted to talk to the man, though. He kind of shook his head and hurried away. Then the man got in his car and drove off in the opposite direction.”

  “What did the car look like?” Fletcher cut in. “Did you see a licence plate?”

  “It was small and black. I’m sorry. I don’t know much about cars. I was too far away to see the licence plate, and I doubt I’d remember it if I did.” Lena looked distraught that she couldn’t provide more information, and I was sure she was going to wear right through her purse strap with the way she kept rubbing it.