Water's Edge

by G R Jordan

  “Officer?”

  “Yes!” The officer turned round. “Oh, sorry sir, did not realise it was you. How can I help?”

  I need you to trace a death certificate, or at least a letter that informed of the death of a British citizen. Carol Hewitt formerly of here. Her details will be in the case notes from Detective McGrath’s visit to her former partner at Ness. She died in Burundi. I need to check up on that, all the paperwork and who signed it through.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And right now, drop everything else you’re doing. Ring me when you’ve got it all. Okay?”

  The officer nodded. Macleod made his way over to the kettle and set it to boil. Staring out the window, he kept running through an idea in his head. Just how clever and how determined was Sara? It seemed beyond his capacity but then his own capacity was no gauge for anyone’s.

  With the kettle boiled, he poured himself a cup of coffee and then made the officer he had engaged a cup too. Placing it beside her, he smiled, hoping to generate a bit of comforting leadership. Turning back to the window he took a sip of his own coffee. Poor girl, that tastes like puke.

  Chapter 21

  The hut was off the main roads, along a track through a field and then at the sand dunes on the coast. There were not many sand dunes but they were large and full of the soft sand that your feet simply slid through. Hope waved her contingent of uniforms along, surrounding the cabin ahead. It was made of wood and looked like a large shed. Emerging from the top of it was a small, steel chimney which emitted some smoke. The clogging smell of peat reached her nose and she momentarily choked. She was not a fan of real fuel.

  The top of the hut was held down by two enormous straps that were gripped to the ground by wooden pegs. She had heard the wind could get up in this part of the world but this seemed ridiculous. Other than the smoke from the chimney, the place seemed deserted but Hope was taking no chances and they surrounded the building.

  One of the uniforms knocked the door but there was no answer. Then the rip of a chainsaw cut the air. The door exploded open and knocked the front policeman on the chin causing him to stumble back. The rest retreated quickly seeing the spinning chain coming towards them.

  “Police! Halt and put down the chainsaw!” Hope shouted above the noise but was unsure if she was being heard. Two men emerged from hut, one holding the chainsaw and the other right behind him, a hammer in his hand.

  “We’re taking our car, stay back and you won’t get hurt. But come at me and I’ll cut you.”

  The police formed a loose ring around them as the men moved forward and Hope held her hands up to try and defuse the situation.

  “Where are you going to go on an island? The game’s up. Put down the chainsaw and hammer and we can talk about this. That’s all we need, just the chainsaw and hammer put down.”

  “Shut it, bitch, I’m in charge, now tell your men to get out of the way.” As if to make a point the man with the chainsaw, swung it wildly nearly catching his partner with his follow through.

  Hope waved a hand to make her men back off but one stumbled and then fell forward towards the man with the chainsaw. He swung at the constable marking across his back. Hope reacted by racing forward towards the man with the chainsaw. Her colleagues also took action and sought the man with the hammer. As the man with the chainsaw tried to regain his balance, Hope careered into him knocking him to the ground and his hands slipped off the safety of the machine. The incessant whine stopped and she heard him curse.

  Rolling to his feet, the man started to run and Hope was on her feet after him. The other officers were subduing the man with the hammer who was intent on putting up a fight. As they raced through the sand dunes, the man ahead realised Hope was gaining and turned towards her. He swung a hard right hand which caught her around the temple. Her face screamed but she rolled with the punch and managed to get two hands on the man. Instinctively she drove a knee hard into his groin. And again. And a third time. He was finished after the first time but this bastard, or one of his mates had nearly broken her jaw in the castle grounds. He deserved a heavily bruised set of family jewels.

  She heard her colleagues arriving and she breathed heavily, merely pointing at the man. The sound of handcuffs shutting brought a smile to her face and she indicated they should go back to the cars for questioning.

  “Don’t forget to bag up that hammer and the chainsaw. Is everyone alright?”

  “Anderson’s been raked across the back. Not pleasant but not life threatening. We’ve got the ambulance coming for him,” said one of the constables.

  Hope nodded and stood for a moment looking out to sea. The waves were rolling in and she thought she could see a kayaker, or maybe a surfer. This place might be worth a try someday, she thought.

  Walking back to the vehicles, she saw the two men sitting in the back of two different police cars. She decided to try the man with the hammer first and opened the appropriate door.

  “Which one are you then? Donnie Youngs?” The man nodded. “Okay, you’re looking at assault, maybe even something stronger and possibly attempted murder being out with him last night. So where is he? Tell me where is Macaulay?”

  The man shook his head. “I don’t know, he said to regroup here after last night. We were going to get a boat, get away to the mainland. But he’s shafted us. He’s damn well shafted us.”

  “Why’s he want the girl? He was paying Sara Hewitt for sex, wasn’t he?”

  “He was! We were all banging that little hussy. He introduced us, said she was good for it. Nice and quiet too. But with her dead, he said the other girl was going to blame it on us.”

  “Did you help him kill Sara?”

  “Whoa! Hold on. I might rough a few people up but I ain’t taking no rap for murder. I might have been rough with her in her room but I ain’t done anything like murder. We were just catching her to keep her mouth shut, convince her not to spread lies.”

  “Station,” said Hope, looking at one of the constables. She then spent a few moments with the brute’s colleague and found their stories matched up. There would be time to interview them properly but realistically, it seemed that Macaulay had sent them off here to be used as a decoy and the fools had fallen for it. Hope got into her car with one of the constables and drove off back across the track towards the main road.

  She turned the corner onto the main road, her mind racing through the questions she would ask the recently apprehended men, the radio of the constable sat in the front seat squawked. She only half heard it. Something about a man near the sea, nearby units requested to assist. Then she heard the word Ness.

  The constable slapped the dashboard. “Turn around. Straight back up the road. The main road! It’s the harbour behind us.”

  Hope looked in the rear view mirror, saw a clear piece of road and spun the car around in a quick three point turn. She could hear a siren in the air now, most probably one of the police cars ahead of them on the return trip. Her foot close to the floor, she negotiated the narrow road out to the harbour. On parking, her colleague was out first and running towards the end of the harbour wall where a woman with a dog was pointing into the sea.

  “He’s out there,” shouted the woman. “He just jumped in. I told him to be careful but he walked right off the pier. Oh God, he walked right in.”

  Hope ran past the increasingly hysterical woman and looked out into what was a mild surf. Sure there was a swell but she had seen much worse even on the west coast of the mainland. The constable was talking into his radio, confirming with control there was a person in the water and requesting assistance from the coastguard and lifeboat.

  Any assistance was going to take time, thought Hope and she looked around for anything she could use to help the man in the water. She saw the red casing of a life ring cabinet and ran for it, opening it quickly and removing the life saving device. With precision, she threw the ring right beside the man in the water who was just about above water. It floated on top of the sea and
its momentum caused it to hit the man in the side. He put a hand onto it and seemed to float with it for a few moments.

  But Hope saw a face that was not in panic. It was solemn, almost calm. As she heard the noise of other vehicles arriving behind her, she almost began to drift into a moment that seemed out of time. Did the man smile? Did he look relieved? And then he simply let go of the life ring. In a moment he had submerged and the ring continued to float.

  Hope scanned the surface, desperately looking for the man but nothing appeared. “He was there, right there, she shouted at the constable. As she continued to scan the water, time seemed to pass slowly. It seemed an age before a helicopter arrived on scene. There were men and women in blue overalls and lifejackets arriving onto the pier. Hope pointed, said what happened, but inside she felt her heart sinking.

  A coastguard gently moved her away from the edge of the pier, saying that they had it now. The noise around her became a blur as she sat down on the bonnet of the police car. Her body turned numb and she could not feel the breeze about her. Even when a drizzle began, she did not register the cooling mist of water. But in her mind was a face.

  He had smiled. He had definitely smiled. Like a release, as if this was his cure to everything, a journey completed. She had gotten the life ring to him. As she lifted her head, she could see the ring still out there in the water. Presently, someone came and told her she had done well, that the ring was showing them where he would drift. But they still had not seen him.

  An hour later and the man had not been sighted. There was a helicopter overhead and a lifeboat on scene, as well as a contingent of coastguards and many police. Hope had not moved and her blouse was now wet and she could feel the chill in her bones. Her mobile was ringing, vibrating in her pocket and she took it out. It was a temporary one and she did not recognise the number. Answering she heard a voice she recognised.

  “McGrath, I’m about to go in with our two men you grabbed at Ness, are you nearly done up there or should I take someone else in?” asked Macleod.

  Hope did not answer. She shivered and held the phone to her ear but she did not speak. Her eyes drifted back to the piece of water where the man had been. It had not changed, the water still giving that constant, almost swaying motion.

  “Hope, are you there?”

  “I saw him go under,” she blurted.

  “The man at the pier. You were that close.”

  “Yes,” she blurted and then bent over double as a wave of anger ran through her. She snorted as she cried, tears streaming. Someone grabbed her and put an arm around her. She could hear Macleod calling her name on the phone before someone took it off her and explained to him.

  Eventually she stood up and walked away from the pier back to the road they had raced down only an hour earlier. Cold and numb, she just wanted away from the scene. A constable intercepted her.

  “Detective, that car over there is going back to the station. Let them take you back.”

  Hope nodded and allowed herself to be steered towards the correct car. As it made its way along the road back to Stornoway, across moor and the sight of the large wind turbines stationary today in the light breeze, she saw the man’s face again. He smiled. Maybe he was happy now. What could make you smile like that?

  She emerged from the car at the station and as she entered the building, she saw Macleod looking towards her with concern. He came up to her and wrapped his arms around her. Hope said nothing but her shock at what had happened must have been obvious. She was seated in a quiet office, Macleod handing her a cup of tea and just letting her sit there. Gradually she told him, taking time over everything. Detailing the life ring, the man’s hand touching it and then the smile. Over and over again, she mentioned the smile.

  He had said one phrase and it had made her snap to the present. He had said it as he left the room, but there were tears in his eyes as he had. It was after mentioning that his wife had walked out into the sea too. His body had shaken as he said it and she saw Seoras falling apart under the strain of telling her. Now standing in the shower, letting the warm water bring her chilled body back to life, she felt for him in a way she could not have before the events of the day.

  Just one phrase, but it was ringing in her head over and over again. She smiled too.

  Chapter 22

  Macleod watched Hope enter the room and tried to assess her fitness for the job from her face. It was not a prescribed method but he did not have many senior officers and he needed her right now. He had been discussing the case with Allinson while waiting for Hope to come back from the hotel. Given her state and physical condition, he thought the best thing was to start again and had sent her back to the hotel for a few hours to sleep and change. In the meantime, he had conducted the interviews with Youngs and Fraser, both feeling suitably stitched up by Macaulay.

  At Macaulay’s prompting, they had become involved with Sara Hewitt, paying for her services in the bed above the massage parlour. Thoroughly unpleasant individuals, Macleod had felt anger at their using of the girl and the more this case unravelled he was beginning to see a dark side that went far beyond what he had encountered when he had lived here. But the main question he had for the men had gone unanswered. Macaulay was missing, on the run. They had not seen him since they had come back from their adventures in the castle grounds when they had encountered Macleod and tried to capture the young woman.

  “McGrath,” shouted Macleod over the noise of the investigation room. Hope made her way over to them and Macleod watched her smile. It seemed reasonably forced but it was good to see her fighting. Her face still had the marks from the punches she had taken in the castle grounds, ruining an otherwise smooth face but the deep purple almost blended in with her red hair, once again tied up in a ponytail.

  “I was just running through with Allinson where we should be looking for Macaulay. I also sent a car out for Marie Smith, as I think we need to talk again to our Councillor.”

  He watched Hope nod and sit down on the edge of a table. He had prayed that she could shake the incident at Ness off and get on with the next few days as if nothing had happened but he knew that had been a forlorn wish. He’d have to watch her over the next few days.

  “We’ve got a check on all the normal routes off the island and have a warning out at the smaller harbours but it’s difficult to close the net tight. There are too many out of the way places to lock it tight.”

  “The boss is right,” said Allinson, “it would be easy to jump aboard a yacht or dinghy, or even a motor vessel. It’s summer so we can’t simply stop them from being here, and we can’t check them all.”

  “Is he going to run?” asked Hope. “I mean off the island. And are we sure it’s him that killed Sara? What do we have actually linking him to it? He was after her friend, a witness to what? She didn’t see a killer, she only knew the dirty secrets. Yes, he’s at the scene but that’s all.”

  “He’s not exactly coming forward,” said Macleod, “not really the actions of an innocent man.”

  A plain clothes officer approached Allinson and handed him a piece of paper which he read with apparent interest. There was a small shake of the head before he spoke.

  “The incident up at Ness. We still haven’t found a body but there seems little doubt it’s McKinney, Marie Smith’s supposed lover. He’s been missing from his home since church this morning and the woman who saw him go in has identified him.”

  “Marie Smith. Get the car we sent out and found out if they have her.” Macleod was raging inside. The guy had been stitched up to cover the councillor and obviously did not have the stomach to carry out these games that were being played. Looking up, he saw Hope staring away at a wall. “Allinson, go check out if they have found her.”

  When Allinson had moved out of earshot, Macleod moved closer to Hope. “It won’t go away today. It probably won’t go away in a week, and it may even never leave you fully. But I need you now, right here in this room and with that brain in full gear. I want t
o say fly back to Glasgow and take some time but I think things are about to heat up further.”

  Hope turned her head and looked at him, sullen eyes almost tipping into tears. Macleod reached up with a hand and placed it on her cheek. Looking at her reminded him of that day, and part of him was wishing that this woman he had thought of as loose and wild when he had seen her at the Glasgow station would just disappear. But another part wanted to see her back to her former glory, restored to full fitness, mentally and physically. Something he could not do for his wife.

  “I’ll be okay. I’m good,” said Hope.

  She wasn’t and Macleod understood the professional integrity of saying you will soldier on. “You’re not, but you’ll have to do. If it gets too much, then I’m here. Okay? We’ll get you a world of counsellors afterwards but in the here and now, I’m here.” He saw her nod. “Okay, let’s find our man, our young woman and this blasted councillor.”

  Allinson was returning and cast a glance at Macleod which asked if it was okay to re-enter the conversation. Macleod nodded and sat back again but his eyes were still on Hope.

  “She’s not at her house,” said Allinson, “nor is she at her son’s. The neighbour said she disappeared about four hours ago, walking out, leaving her car.”

  “She’s got a bus then,” said Hope.

  “Not here,” replied Allinson, “no buses on a Sunday.”

  “Then she’s either on foot, or a taxi,” surmised Macleod. “Get someone onto the taxi companies, see if they had a fare close to there or a call to somewhere unusual. Of course she could have just gone to a rank. Hire car firms too, get on to them and check if anyone paid cash or if she’s actually been daft enough to use her own name.”

  Allinson nodded and turned away to issue instructions when a female constable walked straight up to Macleod and handed him some paper. “The detail you asked for sir, regarding the Carol Hewitt case. I have nothing to say she ever left the country and nothing to say she actually died out there except for a tour operator’s report. I have rung through the contacts at the tour operator and no one remembers anything about this. It’s like it just didn’t happen.”