Siren Song

by Jo A. Hiestand

  After washing and drying the wound, he pulled a bottle of astringent, a sterile gauze and some adhesive plaster from the bathroom cabinet. He swore as the liquid touched his raw flesh, but vigorously dabbed the wound with another dose. He then covered the wound with the gauze, sticking it to his neck with long strips of the adhesive. When he had finished with his neck, he washed his arms and hands, and rubbed more of the antiseptic over the cuts.

  He shed the rest of his clothes in the bathroom, leaving them on the floor, and walked into his bedroom where he slowly dressed in shorts and an oversized tee shirt. Then he walked barefoot into the front room, switched on a table lamp, unlocked the front door, and eased down onto the couch.

  While he waited for Jamie, he tried to remember the fight, tried to recall anything about his attacker. He sank back into the cushions, letting his head rest against the back of the couch, and stared at the wall, seeing only the short walk from his car to the kitchen door.

  It had been dark, with no light coming from the house except the table lamp in the front room and a smaller lamp on the kitchen table. But even the kitchen light had not illuminated his attacker, who must have hidden behind the large shrub rose near the door. There was no other place. He’d transplanted or uprooted the boxwoods and peonies shortly after moving into the house, thinking he was one up on crime prevention, eliminating favorite ambush spots. He had left the rose because it had been a small bush. And because he couldn’t fathom any burglar willingly lurking behind such a jumble of thorns.

  Despite the pain of his jaw, McLaren smiled, thinking his attacker was tending to his own scratched skin. He had to have been marked. The rose had grown nearly to the roof’s gutters, a dense shrub leaving little space between it and the house wall. Yes, the bastard had to have scratches on him.

  But what had he used for a weapon?

  McLaren closed his eyes, focusing his mind on the appearance of his wound. As a copper, he’d seen drunken fights with broken beer bottles, seen the injuries those weapons had inflicted. His wound looked like those.

  His throat and stomach muscles tightened and he stared at his shaky hands. What was happening? Was he imagining all these beer bottle episodes, or did they have a meaning?

  The house was uncomfortably warm in the early evening, having trapped the heat of the day. McLaren was too tired and hurt too much to get up and open windows. So he lounged on the couch, listening to the caw of the rooks in the oak tree near his front door and tried to think.

  Beer had to be the link, the clue to his attacks and the police stop and the theft of the bottles in his car. If it were just bottle-related, any type of bottles would have been used. Yet every one of these episodes included beer bottles. What was the significance?

  The rooks took flight in a squawking, dark mass as McLaren thought through every confrontation, every fight he had ever had. Most of the episodes had been while he was in the job, and the majority of those had been drunken brawls in countless pubs. No one fight stood out from the hundreds he’d been involved in. Even then, he’d been included merely as an outsider, as a copper doing his job. He’d lectured no one; he’d taken no one’s side. He didn’t remember the parties’ names or faces and he’d received no threats before or after seeing them into jail cells. No, these beer bottle incidents were personal, as though he should know a name or recall a major incident.

  His eyes strayed to a tiny photo on the wall. It hung between the bookcase and a large, antique map of Derbyshire. It was a photo of Dena, encased in an oval, wooden frame. Funny he hadn’t seen it when he’d removed the other traces of his life before he left the job. Maybe the light from the table lamp brought it out of the shadowy recess. I hardly ever sit here… He muttered something beneath his breath as he stared at the oval shape. The photograph was too small to make out facial features at this distance but he knew her expression, knew the tint of her eyes and the way his camera had caught on the light on her cheek and the wind-blown hair. He cursed his forgetfulness from his house cleansing. When he felt better he would box it up with the rest of the remnants from that life. He had no desire to remember last spring.

  Last spring. Last May. There was something else about that time. He struggled into a sitting position, his heart pounding in his chest. A name and scene flashed across his mind’s eye. He slowly leaned forward, forearms on his thighs, breathing coming faster as the face of Charles Harvester danced before him. Charlie Harvester. The colleague who had tried to arrest McLaren’s friend Nigel for attacking the burglar invading his pub. The burglar had lunged at Nigel with a broken beer bottle before Nigel fought back with a fireplace poker. Defended himself and his wife, McLaren remembered, the anger he thought he’d buried now filling his heart. Was the burglar out of prison? Was this some nasty taunt to tell McLaren he was free and had revenged himself? Some sick warning? Or had he enlisted the aid of one of his toe rag mates to harass McLaren?

  Or had someone overheard him and Jamie talking in the pub last night? Was Marta Hughes’ killer telling him, not too subtly, to back off the case? But had beer anything to do with her murder? For, as McLaren reasoned again, sinking back against the couch cushions, a beer bottle had to mean something, had to be associated with his recent attacker or with someone he had wronged in the past.

  Neither Linnet nor the cashier at the casino had mentioned that alcohol had been a concern the night of Marta’s win. Had there been an altercation at the casino, possibly between a drunken roulette player and Marta, and this was the man’s revenge for McLaren taking the case? But that suggested the casino customer knew McLaren was working on the case. And knew where McLaren lived.

  He exhaled slowly, the back of his hand massaging his forehead. There were several possibilities, but which was the correct one? He got to his feet and, again using the furniture as handrails, lumbered into the kitchen. Standing at the end of the worktop, he stared at the fridge. How badly did he want a drink?

  The ringing doorbell interrupted his mental debate. Yelling that the door was unlocked and for Jamie to come in, McLaren trudged back into the front room.

  “Come and get it while it’s hot.” Jamie set the bags of fish and chips on a magazine laying on the coffee table. “No mushy peas. They were out of them. I know you won’t mind. Hey, you here? You really should lock your door, Mike. Any hooligan could barge in. You could be—God! What the bloody hell happened to you?” He stared open-mouthed at McLaren as he inched up to the table.

  “Now you give me advice about that hooligan. Some friend.”

  One of the bags of food fell onto its side but Jamie didn’t notice. “You want a doctor? You okay? God, you look like hell. Those bruises… What happened?”

  McLaren turned toward the kitchen. “You want a beer?”

  “Sit down. I’ll get it. You look like you shouldn’t even be walking.” He stayed until McLaren was seated in a straight-back chair, then darted into the kitchen. Minutes later, he returned with a tray loaded with plates, utensils, beer and glasses. When he’d poured out the beer and handed the glass and a plate of fish and chips to McLaren, he sat on the couch. “Now.” He swallowed a few chips, then said, “Let’s have it. What the hell happened?”

  McLaren rested the glass on his thigh. “You won’t believe it. Even I can barely believe it.”

  “I won’t know if I believe it or not until I hear it. Give.”

  “There’s not much to tell, actually. It happened too fast.”

  “You sound like a ruddy victim in a police report.”

  “I feel like one.”

  “Fine. I sympathize. What happened?”

  “When I left you at the pub and drove home I parked the car in my usual spot—”

  “Where it is now?”

  “Yeah. I got out, locked it, and walked up to the kitchen door. I don’t recall being aware of anything unusual. I had no sixth sense that something wasn’t right. I got my key out to unlock the door and that’s it.”

  “What does that mean?”

&nb
sp; “All I remember is walking up to the door and then waking up on the kitchen floor.” He flexed his jaw. “I’m a mess, aren’t I?”

  “You must have unlocked the door before you were jumped,” Jamie said, ignoring the question, “and crawled inside sometime later. I can’t see your assailant graciously carrying you inside. From the looks of you, he wanted to kill you.”

  “Bloody nice thought. Thanks.” He chewed on a chip as Jamie rambled on.

  “You probably blacked out from the exertion of getting to the kitchen. When did you regain consciousness?”

  “Not long ago. When you rang.”

  “What time? I’ve called a few times today. Wanted to astound you with my sleuthing.”

  “I don’t know what time. Yeah, I do. Seven something. The last time you called. When I asked you to come over with dinner.”

  “Little after seven, then. So you were out nearly twenty-four hours. God, I’d hate to see the bloke you tangled with.”

  “I probably got the worst of it. He wasn’t lying on the ground outside, was he?”

  “I came in the front door.”

  “Right.”

  “I’ll ease our minds.” Jamie jogged to the back door, opened it, looked around, then closed it and returned to the front room. “No one outside.”

  “I didn’t think so, but thanks for checking.”

  They sat, eating their dinner, each trying to make sense of McLaren’s attack. As McLaren took a swallow of beer, Jamie said, “Do you know what he hit you with? Had to have been more than his fists. You’re cut.” He nodded at McLaren’s arms.

  “I’ve my theory, but give me your opinion—if you’ve the stomach for it. Or perhaps it’s bad timing.” His fingers went up to his bandaging as he waited for Jamie’s answer.

  Jamie put his plate and glass on the table and came over to McLaren as he pulled off the gauze. Angling his head slightly to get a better look at the wound, Jamie said, “Beer bottle. Or something round and that size. But I’d say beer bottle. Nice jagged rim to gouge you with.” He sat back down and picked up the beer glass. “Do we agree?”

  “Yeah, but there’s no prize for guessing correctly.”

  “Don’t need one, Mike. Just having you still in the Land of the Living is my prize.”

  McLaren avoided his friend’s eyes, suddenly embarrassed. He flashed Jamie a quick smile before relaying his theory.

  “Do you know if Tyrone Wade Antony is still in the nick?” Jamie asked on hearing McLaren’s idea of the pub burglar.

  “Haven’t had time to check. This only occurred to me a half hour or so ago.”

  “I can find out. Did you look outside to see if this yobo left anything? You know,” he added as McLaren frowned. “Torn off button, house key, wallet, blood spotting.”

  “My blood’s probably the only thing out there, but have a look if you want to play detective. I’m not up to crawling around. Especially not in the rose bush. I think that’s where he hid.”

  “Right. Just give me half a tick.” He jogged into the kitchen, grabbed the torch that was plugged into an electrical socket, and trotted outside.

  McLaren had finished his fish and was downing the last of his beer when the kitchen door banged shut. A few stamps on the floor told him Jamie was knocking bits of grass, rose leaves and twigs off his shoes. There was a dull click as he evidently plugged the torch back into the outlet, and a metallic clatter as his latchkey fell onto the tabletop.

  “Bloody rose,” Jamie said, dabbing his fingertip on his tongue and then applying his saliva to the scratches on his arm. “I should send you the bill for a new shirt.”

  “Find anything?”

  “Besides finding out how low my tolerance of pain is? Sorry, old man. Neither hide nor hair.”

  “I’d have liked you to find something a bit more concrete, like a driving license, but I’ll pretend I’m content.”

  “Written documents are rather nice, aren’t they? Now what’s the matter? What did I say?”

  McLaren snapped his fingers and held up his hand. “God, what a complete berk I am. I forgot about the notebook.”

  “What are you on about?”

  “Yesterday when I was poking around the site where they found Marta’s body, I found a notebook. It was at this little picnic area, near that rundown barn.”

  “Yeah, I know the spot.”

  “I grabbed it, intending to leaf through it to see if it had any bearing on her case, and I forgot about it. You don’t think that’s what my attacker was after?” He looked as though he would be sick.

  “Could be, I suppose, but that would imply that he was there and saw you take it, Mike. You didn’t see anyone there, did you? Any happy picnickers or birders tramping through the wood?”

  “No. I’d swear I was the only one there, and I’d been inside the barn and across the road at that clearing.” He caught his breath as he envisioned the scene. “He could have been in the wood.”

  “Like several yards in, so he was hidden yet could see you in the clearing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How far is that clearing from where you found the notebook?”

  McLaren stared at the ceiling, trying to estimate the distance. “Probably too far away. Maybe several hundred yards.”

  “Did you have the notebook in your hand when you placed it in your car, or had you stuck it in your trousers pocket?”

  “Uh, I had it in my pocket.”

  “You don’t sound like you could swear to that in court.”

  “Yeah, I put it in my pocket. I saw it on the ground, picked it up, pocketed it and did a fingertip search of the area. I took it out and laid it on the car seat when I got back into the car after looking at the tree trunk site.”

  “So the notebook should be in your car now.”

  “Would you mind?”

  “Why not? The night’s young. Be right back.” He left the room, grabbed the torch and door key and ran out to McLaren’s car. Seconds later he had locked up and strode into the front room. “This what you’re worried about?” He dangled the small notebook in front of McLaren’s eyes before dropping it on his lap.

  “At least I didn’t dream that.” He flipped open the cover. “Thanks.” He scanned through the pages but soon gave up. He closed the book and tossed it onto the coffee table.

  “No good?”

  “Somebody’s nature journal.”

  “Waxing lyrical over fungi and bird’s eggs and first crocus of the spring, no doubt.”

  “It could have been something. Ow! Damn.” He grabbed his upper arm and pressed his fingertips into his aching flesh.

  Jamie picked up his beer and relocated to the couch. “You know, Mike, when you first took on this case, I didn’t give it much thought. I mean, it seemed straight forward enough. But now…”

  “I’ve tried to figure out what Marta’s case has to do with beer, but unless there’s something in her past that I don’t know, I can’t see it.”

  “You know what I think?” Jamie said, sitting forward. “I think it’s connected to your disappearing friend, Karin Pedersen. Didn’t this all start with the beer bottle in your car, when the cop stopped you?”

  McLaren nodded and picked up his glass. He held it up to the light, as though he were going to salute someone with it. “I didn’t know the bottle was there until the officer found it.”

  “All that was minutes after you left Karin at the hotel.”

  “Quarter hour, maybe. I don’t know precisely. I just know I was startled to see the cop pulling me over.”

  “You know, whoever made the call to the police— the one of you driving drunk—had to know your car.”

  McLaren’s fingers encircled his glass, holding on for dear life.

  “He had to know the make and the model for the cop to find you.”

  “You’re saying it’s Karin?”

  “Not necessarily. I don’t know how or if she’s mixed up in any of this. But she had a good look at your car when you stopped to
give her a lift. She could have phoned from any shop in Hathersage. Or on her mobile. Could be someone else, too. Someone who knows you.”

  “Like Dena?”

  Jamie shrugged, reluctant to confirm McLaren’s suspicion with words.

  “That’s daft!” He set the glass on the beer mat. “Why would she phone in a false report? How would she know I was in Hathersage?”

  “You don’t know, Mike. She could have been following you.”

  McLaren rolled his fingers into a fist and slammed it against the arm’s chair. “Watch your mouth! Why the hell would she do that?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just saying that someone who knows you, who knows your car, rang up the local cop shop and reported your erratic driving. You don’t have any suspicions?”

  McLaren shook his head and slowly straightened his fingers. “It’s absurd! This whole thing. It all started with Karin Pedersen and that damned beer bottle the cop found in my car.”

  “I don’t suppose he could have planted it, could he?”

  NINETEEN

  McLaren’s face drained of color as he stared at his friend. “Planted it?”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of a bad copper, Mike. There are always pay offs if you look for them, rewards for doing a favor for someone. Drugs seized during a raid, money from some bloke wanting to avoid jail time, money or gifts for your blind eye. You know what goes on.”

  “Sure, but I’ve never been a party to any of it.”

  “I didn’t say you were. I just suggested this copper might be. You’ve also heard stories of evidence planted by the police to get a conviction. Maybe somebody has it in for you and paid this copper to slip the bottle into your car. Did he seem suspicious?”

  “No. And I don’t think he could have had it secreted on his person.” McLaren reached for his glass, then saw it was empty and sank back into his chair again. “Besides, I was watching him. He didn’t get that close to the passenger seat to slip it in without me seeing him. A pack of weed, sure. He could have palmed it. But a beer bottle? They’re rather large and cumbersome. You ever try slipping one out of your jacket in a hurry?”