by Lin Anderson
Sins
of the
Dead
are all consuming …
LIN ANDERSON
MACMILLAN
This book is dedicated to the many
Harley-Davidson motorcycle owners who together
form the H.O.G. Dunedin Chapter Scotland (9083).
This group and their partners organize Thunder
in the Glens in Aviemore each year.
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
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8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
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20
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109
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
It was happening again. The crushing weight on his chest suffocating him, the paralysis of his limbs and his voice. Fear was the only thing that moved, surging through him like a bolt of lightning, tingling his skin. He tried again to open his eyes. If he could do that the night paralysis would end.
His eyes finally sprang open on darkness and the realization that something was still wrong. Usually once the bond was broken, he could move again. He would be shaking with shock, but around him the normal images of his bedroom would take form and reassure him.
Not this time.
This time his eyes had opened on something entirely different.
A figure was crouched next to him, formed by shadows, but he still recognized it as human.
Then the figure turned and he saw the face, and with horror he remembered.
1
I do not focus solely on the why of my endeavours any more, but increasingly on the how, as evidenced by the books I surround myself with and the various classes I take to assist me.
Her lectures are the best. I note the audience of around sixty participants – police officers, mortuary assistants, social workers – all of whom hang on her every word. The scene reminds me of an Indiana Jones movie where Harrison Ford, as the famous Professor of Archaeology, faces a class of entranced students. One girl blinks in order to show him the words on her lids … I love you.
I do not know if there is a similar wannabe lover among the current contingent, but I imagine there will be someone, other than myself.
The course is approaching completion. I have considered whether I should submit the required paper to gain a diploma in forensic medical science. I like the idea of adding that to my list of qualifications. Should I decide to do so, then I think the topic will be ‘Buried and Hidden Bodies’, a speciality, I know, of Dr MacLeod.
But I haven’t decided, because the sins of the dead take up so much of my time.
2
Izzy shone the torch on the padlock. Vertical to the gate, the metal gadget required a four-digit combination. Fortunately, Izzy’s relationship with the minder of the entrance was still going strong. Ellie sometimes wondered if it was sex, true love or, on Izzy’s side at least, a sacrifice required for her one true love … her Harley.
They could of course have shone their beams rather than the piddly torch, but that would have alerted local residents to the fact they were entering the tunnel. With tenements on one side and the car park of Paradise, Celtic’s home ground, on the other, they’d even pushed their bikes the last hundred yards rather than roar in.
Someone else had been inside the outer cordon recently, probably having dreeped the wall on the Paradise end. This was evidenced by a cluster of beer cans, empty Buckfast bottles and a rather splendid new gang slogan adorning the brick wall which sealed the tunnel they were intent on entering.
The combination complete, Ellie smiled at Izzy as the gate clicked open.
‘Sex still good?’
‘Looks like it,’ Izzy said.
The other two wheeled their bikes out of the darkness to follow them. Immediately they were through, Ellie locked the gate behind them.
The next barrier was the steel door set in the brick wall. Ellie felt in her pocket for the Yale key, a copy of which had also been acquired from Izzy’s playmate. The newly painted gang slogan, pure white and outlined in black, had seamlessly included the steel door in its indecipherable message.
Reaching the door, this time the key had to be wriggled back and forth before it finally conceded, which did cause some consternation among the four women. The steel door free, now came the hardest part – manoeuvring the heavy bikes through the opening.
When the door finally clanged shut behind them and the smell of the tunnel hit their nostrils, a cheer went up as four sets of headlights blazed on.
‘Fucking hell.’ Izzy gave Ellie a wide grin. ‘I’m looking forward to this.’
The old railway tunnel ran in a virtual straight line, about 400 yards short of a mile, under the East End of Glasgow. It was, according to legend, the original link between Parkhead South station and Bridgeton Cross, having been closed down in 1964, although since then there had been talk of using it to provide a second circle for the Glasgow Subway. A favourite with urban explorers, it had eventually been bricked shut by the council to keep them out.
But not us, Ellie thought as the roar of four engines punctured the silence.
Closed to the public years before they’d started racing here, the tunnel offered a selection of obstacles to circumvent at speed. It was, Ellie thought, a bit like playing a computer racing game, but for real, complete with the smell of petrol.
Ellie had been brought up with a similar scent, although speedway bikes ran on ethanol. Her father had been a rider with Glasgow Tigers and she’d spent her formative years alongside a speedway track. Trouble was, women didn’t ride speedway, not back then and rarely now, so she’d decided if speedway riding wasn’t an option, then a real motorbike was.
Her father’s face had been a picture at that decision.
It would be even more of a
picture if he knew I was down here.
The three women with her shared the same love of bikes, or more precisely, Harley-Davidson bikes, all being frequent visitors to the HD shop where Ellie worked. Although all four were welcome among the mainly male Harley riders on the various club outings, they’d fancied doing their own thing.
Which is why they were down here.
Now lined up, engines revving madly, at the agreed signal they took off, their back wheels throwing up a shower of stones. The race, Ellie knew, would be dominated by her and Izzy, although Gemma had vastly improved in her control of the bike since they’d made their first visit here. Mo was the beginner, her fear factor still too high to take the chances required, especially when negotiating the route.
Ellie felt a surge of pleasure as her thighs gripped the bike, her eyes focused for the sudden emergence of obstacles in her headlights which had to be avoided. The faster the ride, the swifter the encounter. She gave an excited shout as she swerved just ahead of Izzy and only just in time to miss the frame of an old pushbike.
Izzy was behind her but only just. If she fucked up again, Izzy would overtake. Something Ellie definitely didn’t want. Being leader of the pack meant you had to win – or expect a demotion. The races were supposed to be friendly, but you didn’t enter to lose.
The next major obstacle was the old Ford Sierra Cosworth, a classic car of the nineties which had found its way down here, probably to race like they were doing now. Stripped of its dignity, it sat across the tunnel with just enough room on one side to pass. Whoever got there first would take the lead.
They were now running neck and neck. Without looking, Ellie knew what the expression on Izzy’s face would be. Gallous, determined, Izzy in moments like this had no fear.
Ellie urged the bike on with a sudden blast of the accelerator. As it jumped forward, like a stallion running free, she whipped the handlebars round so that, like a speedway bike, the back end swung round to block her opponent’s path. A dangerous move, but one that Izzy would have attempted had she had the chance.
The tunnel wall reared up on her left, the Sierra Cosworth to her right, and by the skin of her teeth she was through.
Now the way was free, though Izzy wouldn’t be far behind. The race wasn’t over yet. The route ended at the next obstacle, a discarded oil drum, just short of the air vent. A quick turn about that, then back the way they had come.
Izzy was good on this stretch and she could still overtake her.
Ellie glanced behind, expecting Izzy to be tight on her tail. Yet she wasn’t. Had she got stuck passing the Cosworth? Just as she skidded towards the oil drum, a flashing torch beam from the tunnel ahead caught Ellie full in the face before being swiftly extinguished.
Fuck, was someone down there with them?
Realizing Izzy hadn’t followed her, Ellie slowed and turned the bike to face back the way she had come, only to discover the other two had roared up and were parked alongside Izzy, who’d already dismounted just short of the Cosworth.
Had they spotted the torch beam too? Was that why they’d come to a halt?
In her headlights, Ellie saw that Izzy appeared to be checking out the wreck, albeit from the other side.
So it wasn’t the possibility of someone else down there that had stopped them, but something about the Cosworth.
Starting up again, Ellie cruised forward, her heart skipping a beat, not from excitement, but from what she now saw.
‘Tell me it’s not what I think it is,’ Izzy demanded, her voice sharp with fear.
Ellie doused her engine and a sudden and ominous silence descended. She shot a quick glance behind her, but if someone had been down there, they had gone or at least had turned off the torch.
Here the Cosworth and its associated horror were illuminated in the Harley’s headlights. From her side at least there was no doubt what she was looking at.
It was the body of a male, fully clothed, stretched out alongside the wreck as though in sleep.
Dismounting, Ellie approached, the wide-eyed trio opposite watching her every move.
Ellie held her breath, having no wish to smell death, and, quickly hunkering down, reached for the exposed neck.
They’d retreated as far as the frame of the abandoned pushbike, keen to get away from their view of the Cosworth.
‘Well?’ Izzy demanded.
‘There’s no blood, but I think he’s dead,’ Ellie said, glancing down the tunnel, wondering if she’d imagined the torch beam and whether she should even mention it.
‘Maybe it was suicide?’ Mo suggested, almost hopefully.
‘Or he was murdered and dumped down here?’ Gemma said.
‘What the fuck do we do?’ Izzy’s raised voice bounced back at them from the walls.
Ellie studied the three frightened faces in turn, then answered Izzy’s question.
‘We go now and quietly,’ she said, trying to keep her own voice calm.
Izzy said, ‘Do we call the police and tell them?’
Ellie didn’t know the answer to that. For once, it appeared her decision-making process had ground to a halt.
All she could think was, if he had been murdered maybe whoever had flashed the torch in her face had killed him.
They’d probably stashed the body here, because they thought no one would find it. It was, to all intents and purposes, buried.
Except they’d been here and seen it, and if they reported it they would become potential witnesses.
Did that, could that, put them in danger?
Ellie had been born and brought up in Glasgow. She knew its underbelly as well as its face. This part of the city had been regenerated. The Emirates Stadium built for the Commonwealth Games was just along the road. That didn’t mean the gangs had deserted the place or had moved to only artistic pursuits like the graffiti on the bricked-up entrance. If it was a gang killing …
‘We go,’ she said, ‘as quietly as we arrived.’
‘And hope no one’s watching.’ Izzy’s nose studs glittered in the single light they’d left on, wishing to avoid any further image of the Cosworth and its contents. At that moment the defiant piercings seemed at odds with her fearful expression.
Ellie suddenly felt sorry for Izzy, for the others, for the person that lay beside the car.
‘We go now,’ she stressed. ‘We’ll decide once we’re clear.’
Ellie remembered how earlier she’d been worried about losing her position as leader of the pack, yet wished now that she had. Then Izzy might have taken the lead on this and made the decision.
Turning their backs on the nightmare, they headed in silence for the exit.
3
Rhona stood for a moment just inside the doorway. The air that met her face was cold and dank, in contrast to the warm stickiness of an August heatwave above. The throb of a generator indicated a source of power had been supplied for the arc lights, the bright beams of which were visible in the near distance.
The call-out to attend a crime scene had come late into the night. She’d been out, hence her arrival here dressed inappropriately. That had been dealt with via the boiler suit she now wore, although the high-heeled shoes had proved a problem, eventually solved by their removal and a double helping of forensic boots. The tunnel floor, however, which had apparently once housed a railway line, was a mix of mud and the sharp stones of old ballast, which wasn’t easy on the feet. Fortunately, the dedicated path had already been laid.
As Rhona stepped out across the metal plates that would be her stepping stones, a thought fleetingly crossed her mind.
If I’d just said I’d had alcohol, they would have found someone else to attend.
But she hadn’t been drinking, although she almost wished she had. Then she could have blamed that for her stupid decision of earlier.
Instead, I have no one to blame but myself.
Acknowledging this, Rhona then banished those thoughts from her mind. She was here now, and concentrating on the job meant she c
ould forget everything else. Mistakes in her personal life included.
Reaching the locus, she took in the scene. The brick tunnel was, at an estimate, twenty-five yards in width. On the walk here, Rhona had observed nothing but scurrying rats, decaying rubbish and a rusted bicycle frame. Now, sitting horizontally across the tunnel, was a car. Or, more correctly, the body of a car, its skeleton shape suggesting it had come from a previous era.
How such a vehicle had got down here, she didn’t know.
Then again, in Rhona’s experience, if folk wanted in somewhere, however tricky or even dangerous, they generally managed it. Certainly, at some time in the past, someone had driven through here in what DS McConnachie, crime scene manager at the entrance, had knowingly informed her was a Ford Sierra Cosworth, once the car of choice for criminals because they could outrun any cop car.
‘One gangster who had his stolen put it about that if it was brought back by the next morning, the thief would be allowed to live.’ DS McConnachie had told her a tale as illustration. ‘Next day there were three Cosworths outside his door,’ he’d finished with a grin.
The famous model, classic or not, was now little more than an empty shell and, it seemed, marked the final resting place of the victim she’d come to examine.
Male, approximately five foot eight or nine, and at a guess in his mid to late twenties, he lay on his back, hands together on his chest. From where she stood, his face appeared unmarked and there were no obvious wounds or blood. He was dressed in a dark padded jacket, blue jeans and brown leather pointed shoes. His auburn hair was styled longer on top, shaved at the sides, and he sported a three-inch beard, shaped and trimmed.
He was in fact a good-looking young man who would have blended in at any Merchant City or West End drinking establishment – had he been alive, that is.
Rigor mortis was still present, although on its way out. Said to start between two to six hours following death, the stiffening began with the eyelids, neck and jaw. In this case the peak had passed and gradually the body was becoming flaccid again as decomposition set in, but, as Rhona knew, standard rigor patterning was a poor indication of time of death.
Rhona was also aware that locations such as this, before they’d been sealed off, had been a magnet for urban explorers, who ventured below ground to catalogue and photograph a forgotten Glasgow. The entrance itself had recently been a hangout for a gang, as indicated by the fresh bottles, cans and graffiti between the gate and the door, but once inside, she’d seen nothing to indicate the gang had gained access to the tunnel.