Sins of the Dead

by Lin Anderson

  Rhona didn’t acknowledge either the title, the explanation for it or McNab’s attempt at a joke, but continued to study the picture intently. McNab could almost hear her brain working.

  He waited as long as his patience would allow. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘That’s too weird to be a coincidence, don’t you think?’

  ‘I have to get to my lecture,’ Rhona said. ‘Can you bring the shirt to the lab? I’ll warn Chrissy it’s coming.’

  McNab agreed, noting as she rose in preparation to leave that he didn’t want her to go. She’d accused him of stalking her. He wasn’t. Well, not physically anyway, but she was on his mind a lot.

  Heading for his car, McNab castigated himself yet again for what had happened the previous night. Things between him and Dr MacLeod had seen a slight improvement since the Stonewarrior case. He’d even managed to blot the reason for their major fall-out from his mind, but he was never sure that Rhona had. It was like a big black mark on his copy book. One that she might try to live with, but that she would never forgive him for.

  ‘Fuck it!’ he said for the umpteenth time as he forced his way into the line of traffic, incurring the wrath of the car immediately behind.

  Claire was waiting for him in the reception area, a worried look on her face.

  ‘This won’t be in the papers?’ she said. ‘Mr Marshall wouldn’t like that. And I don’t want Mr Robertson’s family to find out that someone did that to him.’

  ‘No,’ McNab promised, taking the bag she offered. ‘But I’d keep this between you and your boss.’

  A flicker of further concern crossed her face.

  ‘You’ve told someone else?’ McNab said.

  ‘My boyfriend,’ she admitted. ‘I had to talk to someone about it. It was Taylor who made me tell Mr Marshall and you.’

  ‘Taylor sounds like a sensible bloke, but tell him not to share the story with anyone else.’

  She gave him a searching look. ‘The person who did this, have they done something else?’

  McNab considered how long it would be before the tunnel murder hit the headlines. Not long, he suspected. Once it did, the press would have a field day with the Last Supper references. As for the sin-eater …

  ‘Let’s just concentrate on what they did to Mr Martin and Mr Robertson,’ McNab said.

  Claire seemed placated by this and gave him a firm nod. ‘Okay.’

  McNab threw the bag onto the passenger seat and jumped in the car. As he headed for the lab and Chrissy, he contemplated how long the story of the shirt and the funeral parlour would go unmarked by the tabloids, knowing it wouldn’t matter whether there was a direct connection with the tunnel death or not. Claire, he suspected, was about to discover how persistent the press could be.

  15

  The place is packed. It always is when she gives a lecture. I never miss one of hers, nor the guest appearances by the Professor of Forensic Psychology. He has an amazingly soothing voice. I can imagine him interviewing me, probing my secrets.

  Know your enemy.

  If I know how he thinks, then I know how to thwart him.

  As for her, it’s all down to knowing the science. Which is the reason I’m here.

  As she enters, I feel a frisson of pleasure. It’s interesting that I haven’t yet involved sex in my project. Nor a female subject. But it’s early days.

  I was expecting more on the tunnel death on the news before coming here, but there was no detail as yet, which was disappointing. Then I remembered, when discussing her work at a crime scene, she clearly stated that she might be up to twelve hours with the body before it was removed to the mortuary.

  I picture her in the forensic tent in the tunnel. Did she find what I left for her? There had been the possibility that she wouldn’t be the one they called out to the scene. So I followed her to make sure.

  And saw her with the detective.

  That image comes to mind, unsettling me, but I dismiss it as she approaches the lectern. The voices around me dissipate, and I focus entirely on her. Notebook open, ready to begin.

  16

  Rhona realized as she opened the door that, though often in a mortuary, she had never been inside a funeral parlour before, even when she’d been arranging the burial of her parents.

  Jamie McColl, the latest McColl to work in the family business, had come to their cottage on Skye to discuss the arrangements for the last funeral, her father’s. He’d sat in the kitchen with a mug of coffee and they’d exchanged stories. Even laughed at some of the memories of her parents that they both shared.

  ‘My father sends his condolences,’ Jamie had said. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I asked to be the one to come, seeing as we know one another from way back.’

  ‘I’m glad you did.’

  She and Jamie had spent many holidays in each other’s company when her family had come to the cottage during the summer months from Glasgow. They’d shared shifts in a local cafe. Swum together off the nearby beach and got drunk among the rocks.

  The tall gangly youth back then had become a handsome, steady man, Rhona acknowledged.

  If I hadn’t met Edward at university, things might have been different.

  ‘You vowed that last summer that you’d do anything rather than become an undertaker,’ Rhona had reminded him.

  ‘I did, didn’t I?’ he’d said with a smile. ‘I was so keen to leave the island, never to return. You told me I was lucky to live here. We fell out about it, as I recall. I stayed, but you stopped coming back?’

  He’d waited then, hoping for an explanation, and Rhona had almost told him. How she’d got pregnant and hidden it from her parents. How she’d given Liam up for adoption immediately after his birth.

  In that moment with an old friend, when her guard was down, and she’d been distraught at having denied her parents the right to know that they’d had a grandchild, Rhona had almost revealed her most closely guarded secret to Jamie.

  Even now, she could picture his expression, knowing she wanted to tell him something important, but not pushing her.

  Then the moment had passed, although the guilt never had.

  Past sins rarely do, Rhona said inwardly, thinking again of the recent scenario with McNab.

  ‘May I help you?’

  The young woman who’d appeared from behind the draped velvet curtains fitted McNab’s description of Claire, whom he’d interviewed. Rhona was struck immediately by her pleasant voice and demeanour. Whoever had given her the job of working with the bereaved had made the right choice.

  ‘Claire?’ Rhona said to make sure.

  When the girl, a little surprised by the rendition of her name, nodded, Rhona introduced herself, an act which brought a flush of concern to the young woman’s face.

  ‘I gave the shirt to Sergeant McNab.’

  ‘Yes,’ Rhona said. ‘Thank you for that.’

  It was obvious by the girl’s expression that she couldn’t imagine, having done so, why Rhona should be there at all.

  Rhona’s decision to come had been fired by the lecture she’d just given. They had been concentrating on Locard’s principle, Every contact leaves a trace. Although everyone in that room had some rudimentary knowledge of the principle and what it meant in practice, few were aware of how all-encompassing it could be.

  ‘I wanted to chat to you about the incidents you reported to DS McNab,’ she explained.

  Claire was examining her. After a moment, she said, ‘Has something else happened?’

  It was unlikely that the fuller details of the tunnel death would escape the evening news, although the signature feature of bread and wine definitely wouldn’t be one of them.

  ‘I’m here because of what happened to your …’ Rhona hesitated, unsure what term to use for the victims.

  ‘My charges,’ Claire saved her. ‘For the short period they’re with me, I think of them as in my care.’ At this point she appeared to come to a decision. ‘It’s probably better if we go through to the viewing room where it a
ll happened. There’s no one due to come in and, if someone does, they’ll ring the bell on the desk.

  ‘I told Sergeant McNab a fib when he asked if I’d laundered the shirt,’ Claire volunteered, almost as soon as they were ensconced in the heavy-draped silence of the viewing room.

  Rhona waited, sensing her discomfort at having to admit to this.

  ‘I did try to get the stain out by rubbing it under running water,’ she explained. ‘It didn’t work, so I gave up.’

  The look on Claire’s face indicated how traumatic that had been for her. It could also affect what forensics they might retrieve from the shirt, but Rhona didn’t mention that, instead asking, ‘How did you clean up the crumbs?’

  ‘I tried brushing them up, but some landed in the coffin.’ She pulled a face. ‘I eventually had to hoover them out.’

  Rhona’s spirits lifted a little. ‘You used a vacuum cleaner?’

  Claire nodded. ‘A hand-held one from my car.’

  ‘Have you emptied it since?’

  Claire indicated she hadn’t. ‘I hardly ever use it. I’m not fussy about my car.’

  Internally, Rhona gave a cheer at that news.

  ‘What about the brush?’

  ‘It’s here, in the back.’

  ‘Can I see them?’

  Keen to show willing, Claire disappeared and returned with the said items.

  The brush was of soft bristle, and from a quick glance, Rhona could see crumbs among the hairs. She carefully slipped it into an evidence bag.

  The vacuum, she indicated, she would take intact.

  Rhona stowed the items in the boot of her car, pleased now that she had visited and spoken with Claire. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d extracted valuable forensic material from a vacuum cleaner or a brush.

  As she drove to the lab, she contemplated what Claire had said as she’d departed. It was something that had occurred to Rhona too.

  ‘I don’t think either the mess of crumbs or the spilling of the wine was an accident,’ she’d said. ‘Someone wanted me to know they’d been here.’

  Rhona was inclined to agree.

  17

  ‘What is it between you and McNab?’ Chrissy asked on Rhona’s return to the lab.

  ‘You mean apart from all the times he’s pissed me off?’ Rhona tried to make light of the question.

  ‘Apart from that,’ Chrissy challenged.

  ‘Nothing,’ Rhona lied.

  ‘Yeah.’ Chrissy shot her a disbelieving look. ‘If you don’t tell me, I bet he will.’

  By that statement, Rhona guessed Chrissy had had no luck so far, which meant McNab was keeping as silent as she was. She changed the subject by asking about the shirt.

  Chrissy, registering this, seemed to accept defeat, but, Rhona thought, it would only be for the moment.

  ‘McNab delivered it and gave me the backstory. Is there a chance the funeral parlour was a practice run for the real thing?’

  It was a possibility.

  ‘How are you doing with the body evidence?’ Rhona said.

  ‘Come see,’ Chrissy ordered, her face lighting up.

  Chrissy had been examining the mix of both individual and class evidence Rhona had removed from the victim’s clothing and exposed skin. Individual items such as fingerprints, DNA and footwear impressions had a high probability of being linked to one source. Class evidence like hair and fibres had common characteristics, although uniqueness might be found in wear or stain patterns on the fibres from clothing items.

  Rhona settled down at the microscope. ‘What am I looking at?’

  ‘The fibre taken from his nostril. Wait till you see what it’s come from.’

  It took some moments for Rhona to register the reason for Chrissy’s excitement.

  The fibre on view had been built in such a manner that it wouldn’t shed easily. In fact, the material it had come from was designed that way, with an outer coating preventing this.

  However, should the integrity of the inner side become compromised, such as coming into contact with sharp stones like the ballast in the tunnel, fibres from the exposed cut might become detached.

  Which had obviously happened in this case.

  ‘I checked it against the fibre database,’ Chrissy said, before Rhona could ask. ‘It’s definitely what we think it is.’ She made a ‘wow’ face at Rhona. ‘How the hell did that get there?’

  Up to now, they were tending towards the locus being the assault site. Now Rhona wasn’t so sure. And if they were right about the source of the fibre, it changed everything.

  Chrissy was watching her, following Rhona’s thought process, verbalizing it for her.

  ‘The soil samples on his shoes suggested he walked through the tunnel,’ she reminded Rhona.

  True, but as yet unconfirmed. And there were other ways the soil could have got on his soles.

  ‘What if the car in the tunnel wasn’t the assault site, but the deposition site?’

  It was the question Rhona was asking herself.

  And, if so, what part had a forensic suit played in either scenario?

  18

  Unbeknown to Rhona, McNab had caught the latter part of her earlier lecture. She was, McNab had decided, as impressive at the lectern as she was at a crime scene. And she had her fan boys and girls, by the reaction of the audience.

  He’d also realized, while scanning the crowd from his place at the back, that pretty well everyone in the audience was younger than him – which had been a dispiriting thought. There had been, he’d noticed, a fair percentage of police officers in the sixty-odd crowd, plus other professionals who worked alongside them.

  The diploma course was open to law-and-order professionals and members of the general public, so there would be a scattering of folk in here who just fancied knowing more about forensics. The university’s reasoning behind this being that anyone might end up on a jury and be presented with forensic evidence by both defence and prosecution. To understand that evidence, it helped to have some basic knowledge of the subject.

  McNab held quite the opposite view. Knowledge was power and it was difficult enough to catch criminals without them knowing as much about the art of detection as he did.

  He was even further convinced of this in the area of forensic psychology, which, according to Janice, was just as popular with the general public. Who needed psychopathic nutters learning how to avoid being recognized as such?

  Then there were all the crime dramas on TV. He’d never watched any of them, but there were always folk in work discussing the latest one, usually round the coffee machine. DS Clark was a fan of foreign stuff in particular and had tried to get him interested. No fucking chance. As far as McNab was concerned, the previous case involving Norwegian Inspector Alvis Olsen was enough foreign crime for him.

  Although, McNab silently acknowledged, I do owe Janice. If she hadn’t spoken to the boss on his behalf, he would have been frozen out of the groundwork on this case and been spending his time in front of a computer screen.

  Not that folk who did that weren’t important.

  As though on cue, a text came in from Ollie in IT, who McNab liked to think of as his own personal screen watcher. It seemed that Ollie of the owl-sized eyes and keen appetite wanted a word with him. McNab thought to ignore the request at first, but Ollie was both an asset and someone who’d put himself on the line for McNab on more than one occasion, so McNab texted back with a promise that he would come by soon, but he had another appointment to deal with first.

  There was a sudden burst of laughter from the audience, the reason for which he’d missed in his engagement with the mobile.

  She has them in the palm of her hand, he thought as silence fell again and Rhona continued with her talk.

  Why exactly he’d come here, McNab wasn’t certain, although it hadn’t been to learn more about bloody forensics. He’d been delivering the wine-stained shirt to Chrissy at the lab, as ordered by Dr MacLeod, and found himself not that far from the bu
ilding where the lecture theatre was.

  If Chrissy knew I was here, had been his next thought.

  Rhona’s forensic assistant had already given him a grilling about ‘what was going on with him and Rhona’. For a brief moment, McNab had thought Rhona might have told Chrissy what had happened the previous evening, then dismissed it.

  Once Rhona gave her word …

  McNab had brushed Chrissy’s concerns aside with a Fuck all, although he wasn’t sure she’d bought that, and had switched to the sin-eater story, which Chrissy had eagerly lapped up.

  Suddenly realizing Rhona was bringing her lecture to a close, McNab now moved swiftly towards the exit. Due to present himself in DI Wilson’s office in twenty minutes, he had no wish to blot his copy book by being late.

  Making his way back to the car through a throng of undergraduates, McNab noted that this was the second time in one day he’d had to endure being among Glasgow’s student population. That morning, at the rival Strathclyde campus, when he’d been waiting for the professor, and now here.

  He’d arrived at the earlier gig in just enough time to witness Pirie pontificating about the psychological approaches to lie detection. It seemed that the detection of lies was a skilled and rare talent. Something that McNab actually agreed with.

  It was the statement that had followed that he’d taken umbrage at. According to Ekman’s Theory of Detection, experienced police officers were no better than the general public at detecting lies, and no better than new recruits. Since that was in essence his job as a detective, and he also thought he was rather good at it, that statement had pissed off McNab.

  Pirie of course had greeted him in his usual pleasant but searching manner. It was the role of a policeman to believe everyone guilty until proved innocent. McNab always had the impression Pirie was doing the same with him. Rhona had once compared them to stags at bay and she wasn’t far wrong. McNab wasn’t sure exactly where his own antagonism came from. Pirie had messed up spectacularly on his first case, but the boss had forgiven him that, so why couldn’t he?

  It wasn’t as though he always got it right.

  Just as Pirie had invited McNab to follow him to his office, a blonde female undergraduate had approached. McNab had tried not to be jealous of the way she’d looked at the Viking. He might be her professor, but there was little doubt that she fancied him like mad. Magnus, seemingly oblivious to this, had swiftly answered her question, then led McNab on, without comment.