Siren Song (Harrison Jones and Amy Bell Mystery Book 1)

by Rebecca McKinney

  She had power over them and she had learned how to use it early. If Lucy thought about it too much, she could shame herself, so she didn’t allow herself to think. Lucy had ambitions and she was beginning to understand what she would have to do to reach them.

  In Edinburgh, she performed in jeans and boots, but this was not Edinburgh. She sang softly to warm up her voice as she applied her makeup: just a dusting of bronzer on her cheeks, a little mascara and lip gloss. Kostas had let it slip more than once that he preferred the beauty of nature’s creations to that which came from a jar. She put on a gauzy black sundress with a halter neck and a skirt that fell to mid-thigh. With the light behind her, it was just transparent enough to show the silhouette of her figure. She put on sandals that laced halfway up her shins and made her feel like a mythical heroine. A goddess, even. Her hair provided all the gold she needed. She tied the sides up into a messy knot and left the rest to flow down her back.

  When Lucy was ready, she took her guitar from its case, opened the bedroom door and bumped straight into Kostas.

  ‘Oh!’ she said, stepping backwards. ‘Sorry, I’m just coming. Am I late?’

  ‘Of course not,’ he said. His smile threatened to send her into meltdown. ‘My God.’ He lifted her hand and looked her over. ‘You look ...’ He paused and shook his head, then kissed her hand. ‘Exquisite.’

  Just then, Tim opened his door. There was no need for him to voice his anger. His face said it all.

  ‘Ah,’ Kostas said, patting his shoulder. ‘There you are. It is time for the show, my friends.’ He held onto Lucy’s hand as he accompanied her down the tiled corridor. Two steps behind them, Tim stared at the floor and retreated into one of his moody silences.

  THREE

  ‘I thought about killing myself on Tuesday night,’ Amy Bell told her therapist.

  Caroline’s expression didn’t change much. It never did.

  Once a week for a year now, Amy had tucked herself into the huge, squashy chair in Caroline’s office and dragged one sordid fact of her life after another out into the open. It was helping, but she still couldn’t tell anyone about seeing Caroline. Where she came from, talking was considered a betrayal, or worse. People didn’t go to therapy where she came from.

  The statement hung over both of them for a few seconds, until Caroline said, ‘Do you want to tell me about that?’

  ‘We had a DOA at work. This poor guy ... social worker came to his house and found him unconscious on the living room floor. There was no food in the house. Nothing. Turns out his benefits had been sanctioned because he missed a Job Centre appointment and he probably hadn’t eaten for a week. He had a heart attack. He was so far gone by the time we got there, cardiac arrest en route, dead. One missed appointment and they cut off his money? What kind of country does that to its own people?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Caroline said. Most of the time, Caroline didn’t try to answer Amy’s rhetorical questions, but this one must have touched her. ‘I don’t know what kind of country does that.’

  Amy’s voice rose slightly. ‘A cesspit of a country where nobody gives a shit, that’s what kind. Is that what we’re supposed to be loyal to?’ She paused, challenging Caroline to a response. When Caroline offered her usual intent but neutral gaze, Amy blew out frustration and continued.

  ‘Anyway, after my shift I got off the bus on the bridges and decided to walk the rest of the way home. Just needed to clear my head, you know? I started thinking about how I didn’t want to go home alone to a cold flat, and this ... thing came over me. Have you ever been in a boat, out at sea or on a loch and the water’s calm, and then a squall comes up out of nowhere? And it practically picks you up and throws you down somewhere else.’

  Caroline continued looking at her. It was like talking to a mannequin sometimes, but that was okay. A mannequin would never judge her.

  ‘That’s what it felt like. Like something was carrying me away and I didn’t have any control over it. I stood there on North Bridge, staring down over the station and I could feel myself climbing over that wall and letting myself go. And I wanted to.’

  ‘You wanted to?’ Caroline asked, forcing Amy to clarify her intentions.

  ‘I thought I did.’ Amy tried to remember the feeling that had gripped her that night. It was less a desire than an idea that if she tried, she might just be able to fly away. And if she fell, then it would all be over in a couple of seconds.

  ‘You wanted to die?’

  ‘Yes. Well ... no, not die exactly. But leave. I wanted to leave here, and at that moment it seemed like the only option.’

  ‘It seemed like death was the only place open to you?’

  Amy nodded. ‘Exactly. Like it was the only place left.’

  ‘The only place left ...’

  ‘That we haven’t destroyed.’

  ‘When you say we ...’

  ‘Humans.’

  Caroline let this hang for a few seconds, taking in its full weight. ‘That must have been a very dark, frightening moment for you.’

  ‘I was more angry than scared. I’m not scared of dying.’

  ‘But you didn’t jump.’ A hint of a smile.

  Amy shook her head slowly.

  ‘Can you say why?’

  Amy took a deep breath and looked out at rosy winter sunlight. She watched it illuminate the yellow grass on the crags for a few seconds. Each long blade cast its own dancing shadow. ‘A man came up to me. This weird tall guy with a beard and one of those accents that you can’t place anywhere. He walked up to me and said, “This isn’t what you want to do.” How the hell did he know what was going through my head?’

  ‘Some people are naturally empathic. He saw that you were hurting.’

  ‘Strangers don’t do stuff like that.’

  ‘Some do.’

  ‘It was more than empathy. It was like he opened me up and looked inside. I can’t explain it, but it was a unique feeling. Almost physical, like ... he was pulling a big long splinter out of me.’

  ‘Relief?’

  ‘Yeah ... maybe.’

  ‘What did you do after that?’

  ‘I went home and went to bed. I slept for ten hours.’

  Caroline smiled, but she tilted her head slightly to the side and narrowed her eyes a little. For the first time in a year, Amy caught a glimpse of disbelief. It was okay, because Amy still didn’t quite believe it either.

  When her session finished, she ran from Caroline’s office, into Holyrood Park and along the road that skirted the base of the Crags. She ran hard, blowing past dog walkers and old women with shopping trolleys. The cold North Sea wind blew into her face. Easter Road was greasy and littered with the evidence of Scotland’s poor eating habits. When she’d first come to Edinburgh, she’d heard that Leith was both sunny and trendy, but this part of it was neither. Between the high tenements and the towering grey and green stands of the stadium, the light rarely hit the pavement. This time of year, it felt like a deep wet canyon. Her dad would have died of an apoplexy if he’d known she lived here, spitting distance from the Hibernian ground. Enemy territory, he’d have said, and he’d have meant it.

  But what her dad didn’t know couldn’t kill him a second time, and there were some old battle-lines that deserved to be buried along with him.

  She lingered in the shower, letting the hot water wash away the poison that always came to the surface when she had a therapy session. When she got out, she smeared moisturising cream over herself, pretending in the steamy safety of her bathroom that she was a woman who had time to care about her skin. It felt pointless, although the sweet almond fragrance of the cream was soothing. The whole beauty regime thing had passed her by, and sometimes she wondered if she’d missed out on the gene that made women care about being feminine. Was it even a gene? Amy didn’t know. She’d grown up in a household with three brothers, so maybe it was just the logical outcome of her upbringing. The only time in her life she had ever bothered with makeup was when she and Ricky
went out on the town together, but there was no need for it now.

  She spent an hour or so cleaning the flat, a weekend ritual that helped her reclaim some sense of control of the world, or at least her tiny place in it. The best thing about living alone in a two-room flat, or three if she counted the bathroom, was that cleaning never took very long. The worst thing was that once she’d cleaned, she felt like she was living in an Ikea display: cheerful on the surface, expendable beneath. Just like the rest of her life.

  The man from North Bridge, Harrison Jones, kept materialising in her thoughts just the way he’d materialised out of the night to stop her from doing whatever she had been thinking about doing.

  He’d turned it into more of a drama than it was. She’d only been standing there, feeling sorry for herself. She hadn’t really wanted to jump.

  Or had she?

  She tried to remember exactly what it felt like when he spoke to her. It was the strangest sensation she’d ever experienced, like something less than tangible but still real being drawn from her body. Like she’d had an alien inside her, or a ghost.

  He knew what he was doing to her, she was convinced of that. But what had he done? And who the hell was he? She made herself tea and sat in front of her laptop. She typed Harrison Jones, Edinburgh into Google and rubbed her hands on her dressing gown, torn between curiosity and trepidation. The first link that came up was for the university website. She took a deep breath, clicked on it and there he was. She hadn’t paid particular attention to his appearance when she met him, but this was unmistakeably him, although younger and without a beard. He had brown hair, a serious expression behind a pair of geeky dark-framed glasses, and wore a tweed blazer over a black t-shirt. From his staff profile, she read that Doctor Harrison McKenzie Jones was a lecturer in social anthropology: PhD Cambridge, 2009, specialism: belief, ritual, shamanic practice and healing, Latin America. Below that, there was a list of publications, including two books with incomprehensible academic titles.

  So the man was a boffin of some obscure religious shit. How did somebody get into doing that for a living, and what good was it to man or beast?

  Cambridge. He had to be pretty damn toffee-nosed. But also pretty damn brainy. She’d accused him of chatting her up. Embarrassing.

  The other web links were mostly academic: papers he’d given at conferences and that kind of thing. There were some entries from students on a website called Review My Lecturer. These were varied and entertaining. A step up from the usual decaying fossils that teach in this place. Definitely on the spectrum. Oh my God, he’s so sexy I could listen to him talk all day. Don’t try to tell him any lies about why you need an extension on your essay, he sees right through you. A total mind-fuck.

  Scrolling down, she clicked on a link for a forum dedicated to tracking down people who had gone missing. A person called Jo had written, ‘Please, I am desperate to find my brother. He vanished fifteen years ago and the police won’t help. All trails have gone cold. What can I do now?’

  Another person had responded, ‘Get in touch with a man called Harrison Jones in Edinburgh. He’ll help you when nobody else can. PM me your details and I’ll give you his number.’

  He’ll help you when nobody else can. The line hit her, made her heart pound and her breath come up short. That was exactly what he did for her.

  But how?

  This might not even be the same man.

  But it had to be. There couldn’t be more than one person called Harrison Jones in this city.

  FOUR

  ‘You could, for example, interpret the Holy Communion as ritualised cannibalism.’

  There were some nervous titters from the undergraduates around the seminar table, and a couple of sharp breaths. Fifteen young faces stared at Harrison, waiting for an explanation. He always secretly enjoyed shocking the middle-class Church of England types.

  ‘This is my body; this is my blood?’

  ‘It’s just a metaphor,’ one of the girls said.

  ‘Some would say that the Eucharist actually transforms into the body and the blood of Christ. A believer is consuming Christ’s flesh and blood in order to take the Holy Spirit—his power—into their own body.’

  ‘But you can’t make that comparison,’ the girl pressed, sounding horrified.

  ‘Why not?’

  She couldn’t answer this.

  Harrison smiled and felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

  ‘Think about it. Okay guys, that’s it for today. See you next week.’ He pulled the phone out. It was an unknown number, so he didn’t answer. A moment later, a voicemail message pinged in and a flush of anxiety ran through him.

  The students filtered away, half of them still sniggering at his concluding remarks and the others already making their evening plans. He flipped his notebook shut and listened to the voicemail while making his way back along to his office. Having the phone stuck to his ear spared him from having to make conversation with the group of colleagues and postgrads who were having lunch in the department lounge.

  He hurried past them and took in the details. The caller was female, English-sounding, with elongated vowels and fully enunciated consonants.

  ‘Hello, Doctor Jones. My name is Elizabeth Merriweather and I would like to speak to you about locating someone. I would appreciate it if you could ring me back at your earliest convenience. Thank you.’

  She sounded like the wife of a philandering politician. He decided to turn down the request, whatever it may be, and wished there was some way of purging his details from the internet.

  In his office, he stood beside the window for a couple of minutes, watching students fighting the wind that tunnelled between the buildings of George Square. It was early afternoon and already the light had taken on the dusky tint of evening. A familiar hollowness gnawed at his gut. It started the same time every year and continued throughout the festive season. If he had a choice, he would hibernate from early December until the end of January, when the light began to change and the first snowdrops came out. Failing that, he’d have to figure out how best to survive the Christmas holidays. Always the same dilemma: suffer it with his mother, impose upon the hospitality of friends, or flee to some lonely, amnesiac sanctuary in the sun.

  He was just about to return Elizabeth Merriweather’s call when there came three sharp knocks on his office door. ‘Yes,’ he said loudly.

  The door creaked open slowly and a face peeked in. ‘Um ... hello, Dr Jones.’

  Why were these students always so damn meek? ‘In you come,’ he said forcefully, before looking up at her properly. He recognised the vibrations she cast toward him before he recognised her face. It was the girl he’d talked down from North Bridge two nights ago.

  Girl was the wrong word. He could see that now in the light. She was a young woman, in her late twenties perhaps, with sandy hair in a tight ponytail, jeans and a dark blue hooded sweatshirt. She wasn’t wearing makeup but had a lot of natural colour in her cheeks, and looked like someone who spent a lot of time exercising. She was calmer and less open to him this time. For the time being, at least, the crisis seemed to have passed.

  ‘Hello again,’ he said, although it felt like an inadequate greeting.

  ‘Do you have a minute?’ she asked.

  ‘As you’ve taken the trouble to track me down, I suppose I do. Do I get to know your name today?’

  ‘Oh ... yeah ... sure. I’m Amy. Amy Bell.’

  ‘It’s nice to meet you officially, Amy Bell.’ Harrison didn’t offer to shake her hand, but he motioned toward the spare chair. ‘Have a seat if you like.’

  She sat very upright, knees together, palms flat on her thighs. He caught a flash of her in combat uniform: vest, helmet, badge showing the rod of Asclepius. It might not be an explanation of the suicidal tendencies, but it suggested plenty.

  ‘What can I do for you? Are you alright?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks. I hope you don’t mind that I looked you up.’

  ‘No, I
don’t mind.’

  ‘You don’t seem very surprised.’

  ‘I’m not,’ he said and, catching her curious expression, added, ‘I’m the only Harrison Jones in Edinburgh, so that makes me easy to find.’

  ‘Oh, well ...’ She picked at a torn cuticle. ‘I just ... wanted to say thank you for stopping the other night. As you can see, I kept my promise. It was a stupid moment, after a particularly hard day. I wouldn’t have done it, but it’s nice to know that somebody cared. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.’

  ‘I’m glad to know I helped.’

  ‘The thing is, I can’t figure out how you knew what I was thinking. Not that many people jump off North Bridge, even if the Samaritans have put stickers all over it.’

  ‘It’s kind of a specialism of mine.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Knowing what people are thinking.’

  ‘Are you a psychologist as well as an anthropologist?’ She turned her eyes to the books and objects on the shelves behind him. Titles about spirituality, witchcraft, shamanism, ritual, healing practices: subjects that would seem dark and occult to her.

  ‘No. Would you like some coffee or tea? Or a whisky? I keep some for emergencies.’

  ‘Oh … no, thank you.’

  ‘Are you a student here?’

  ‘No. I’m a paramedic ...’ she trailed off and looked down at her hands.

  His mind silently completed the sentence for her. ‘That must be a tough job.’