by Lin Anderson
‘I’d like to see that for myself,’ McNab said, sidestepping this time without interference.
The back shop was larger than he’d imagined. If Ellie was hiding out among the packed shelves or the bikes in the process of being repaired or refurbished, it wouldn’t be easy to spot her. Even as he contemplated this, McNab felt sick at the thought that Ellie was afraid to see him.
What the fuck had he done wrong?
‘Ellie,’ he called out. ‘I just want a word with you.’
McNab waited, wishing and hoping to see her slight, tattooed figure emerge. He’d never conceived of Ellie being afraid of anything up to now, and definitely not him.
He pulled out his mobile and rang her number. Waiting, hoping to hear it ring out nearby.
It didn’t.
‘I told you so,’ the bodyguard said. ‘She called in sick.’
‘Detective Sergeant McNab. Is there an office where we can talk police business, Mr—?’ McNab said, assuming his official tone.
A flicker of concern crossed the guy’s face. ‘Roddie,’ he said. ‘Roddie Symes.’
‘Are you the manager?’
Fear leapt between his eyes. ‘Supervisor.’
‘Then let’s talk. Mr Symes.’
Once he was finished with Symes, McNab took himself round the corner and tried Ellie’s number again, getting the same message. She could, he acknowledged, be simply choosing not to answer when she saw his name on the screen. Then again, Symes had stuck to his guns with the ‘she called in sick’ story. Even after he’d been quizzed about members of the Harley Club using the tunnel as a racing circuit.
McNab went for his car, already formulating a plan to visit Ellie at home, using the excuse that he wanted to tell her about the possible Harley connection.
Which was true enough.
When he’d approached DS Clark and proposed a visit to the Harley shop, she’d pointed out that they hadn’t identified the tracks as being made by a Harley. She wasn’t sure that that was even possible.
‘I just wondered if Ellie or anyone in the shop might have an idea who was using the tunnel,’ McNab had told Janice honestly. ‘The motorbike fraternity are a pretty close-knit community.’
She’d studied him for a moment before answering. ‘And Ellie would tell you if she knew?’
It was a valid question. Most folk didn’t like ratting on their friends whatever the circumstances.
‘She gave me the heads-up on the Davey Stevenson case,’ McNab had said, reminding Janice how he’d known where to find a vehicle used in a hit and run.
‘And you kept schtum about where you got that info.’
‘I told you,’ McNab had protested.
‘Okay, go see Ellie. Find out what you can. After which you can chase the council and find out who has keys for the tunnel.’
McNab had smiled an okay, because both tasks were infinitely preferable to watching CCTV footage captured in the vicinity of Paradise Park, although it now looked as if he would have been more useful doing exactly that.
When he reached Ellie’s block, there was no sign of her bike outside. McNab had adopted a frame of mind that said if he could only meet Ellie face to face and alone, they would talk things over. He would make her laugh again and …
We’ll fuck and all will be well.
It was, even McNab could recognize, a decidedly male solution to the problem, but it was the only one he had.
He tried the buzzer a couple of times. When that didn’t work he tried someone else’s buzzer, pressing each of them in turn until he got a response.
‘What?’ an angry voice finally said.
‘Police. I need into the close.’
The response was a frightened ‘Fuck’ after which the door buzzed open.
McNab took the stairs two at a time, keen to get this over with. Ear to the door, he listened, hoping for some indication that Ellie was inside, but heard none. He rapped on the door and waited, wishing now he’d agreed to have a key when Ellie had offered him one.
At the time, he’d feared accepting it would mean he would have to furnish Ellie with one for his own flat, so he’d jokingly turned her offer down. Not one of his best moves.
He could, of course, force an entry, should he so wish, but that would be unlikely to endear him to Ellie.
He turned from the door, accepting that, if in there, she had no wish to have a visitor, but preferring the explanation that since the bike was gone, so was she.
The question was, where?
30
Ellie opened the bedroom door and stepped into the hall. All was silent, apart from her heart that was thumping fit to burst in her chest.
She hurried to the sitting-room window and cautiously took a look outside.
Michael had gone. Ellie leaned against the wall and, slipping down to sit on the floor, hugged her knees.
How she’d longed to open the door to him, to have his arms round her again, and to tell him why she was behaving like this. And she would have done so, if it hadn’t been for the phone call.
‘I know what you did,’ the voice had said.
‘I didn’t harm him.’
‘No, but you felt a pulse. You felt something.’
‘He was cold. He was dead.’
‘But you’re not sure of that, are you?’
And the voice was right. She’d touched him so briefly that she hadn’t been sure, but paralysed by fear, for a moment she’d seen Danny’s face again. Was that why she’d told the others that he was dead and made them leave and not tell anyone? She’d even argued with Izzy, putting the blame for their silence on her.
‘You could have saved him if you’d called the police. You could have saved him.’
And the voice was right.
‘I know what you did.’
Ellie dragged herself up from the floor, feeling the weight of guilt on her chest.
I did it again, just like with Danny. I let him die.
In the tunnel, it had been a possible faint flicker of a pulse she had ignored. With her brother it had been much more than that. All the signs were there.
He didn’t tell you outright, but he tried. Oh, how he tried. And you ignored everything. You pretended it wasn’t happening. That he wasn’t taking drugs. That he wasn’t taking chances. That he didn’t care if he lived or died. That he might kill himself.
He told you in unspoken words and looks and actions.
And still you let him die.
Ellie buried her head in her hands. She’d believed the dark desert that she’d inhabited after Danny’s death had finally gone. But in one moment, in that tunnel, the sand had swept in to drown her yet again.
She extracted the mobile from her pocket. It was still turned to silent. She checked her voicemail and found Michael’s message. She’d never heard him sound like that before. She’d heard him being funny, sarcastic, evasive, tender, loving, but never with an edge of fear in his voice.
I can’t tell Michael that I panicked and ignored the possibility that he might just be alive.
If she did, then she would have to explain about Danny and she couldn’t do that. Ever. Even afterwards when her parents had tortured themselves with the idea that they had seen nothing to warn them he was taking drugs, she had said nothing to relieve their pain. Even when their marriage had disintegrated in grief.
I said nothing then. I can say nothing now.
She would go away, she thought. Climb on the bike and just go. She’d called the shop and the Ink Parlour and feigned sickness. They’d seemed to buy it. She’d also told Roddie at the shop that she didn’t want to see Michael.
He was pleased about that.
Ellie imagined what might have happened had Michael gone to the shop. It wasn’t a pretty thought.
God, what a mess.
It would be better to make herself scarce for a few days. Let things cool down. When she returned, she would make things right. She just needed time and space to think, and the open road would let h
er do that. It had saved her before. It would do so again.
She began packing. Just enough for a few days. She’d parked the bike a couple of streets away, hoping, should Michael come here, should anyone come here, they would think her gone.
She would go west, she decided. At this time of year there were always strings of motorbikes on Highland roads. She would just be one of many.
Her mobile vibrated on the bed, where she had laid it. On the screen was the empty outline of a figure and the unknown caller ID. She had made the mistake of answering it once.
She wouldn’t do that again.
31
Ashton Lane was busy, outside tables being the favourites in the late sunshine. Rhona skirted these and headed downstairs into the shadowy interior of the jazz club, knowing Chrissy rarely if ever chose to visit the recently revamped beer garden out back. Apparently its mainly student clientele made her feel old.
‘Plus, they listen in to our conversations.’
Rhona wasn’t sure that the latter part of Chrissy’s complaint was true, although, since the two of them often discussed forensic business, it was better not to be overheard.
Making her way down the stairs to the main room that housed the stage, Rhona found it virtually empty apart from a few customers who preferred the dark interior. Among those was Chrissy, seated at her usual place at the bar.
‘I ordered for you.’ She indicated the glass of white wine on the counter. ‘Didn’t think you’d want red.’
‘You were right.’
‘So,’ Chrissy said conspiratorially. ‘Tell all.’
‘God, I have so many sins that need forgiven,’ Chrissy declared, after listening to Rhona’s story of the sleep lab. ‘Why don’t I suffer from sleep paralysis?’ She sounded disappointed.
‘Perhaps because you go to confession?’ Rhona tried.
‘I haven’t been regularly since wee Michael was born.’ Chrissy looked a trifle guilty at that. ‘Although I did go when McNab disappeared at New Year.’
‘So it’s your fault he always comes back,’ Rhona said.
‘See,’ Chrissy said triumphantly, ‘I knew you two had fallen out again.’
Rhona didn’t contradict her.
‘So I texted him. Asked him to join us.’ Chrissy glanced at the door as though McNab was about to appear. ‘We can find out what’s happening with Ellie.’
The idea of mixing McNab with Chrissy and alcohol didn’t appeal to Rhona. Who knows what she might say, seeing as the sins of the past seemed to be getting an airing. Rhona finished her wine and got off her stool.
‘Where are you going?’ Chrissy demanded.
‘Home, to eat,’ Rhona declared. ‘Sean put something in the slow cooker for me and I’m ready to find out what it is.’
Ignoring Chrissy’s protestations, Rhona said her goodbyes.
32
The aroma of the promised stew met Rhona on opening the front door.
The flat was silent, indicating Sean had already gone. His room confirmed this. He’d even made up the bed. The tidy image of his departure, plus the aroma of the prepared meal, instigated a brief feeling of guilt, which Rhona quickly dismissed.
She hadn’t asked Sean to cook for her, and she hadn’t invited him to stay here permanently either.
They’d tried living together once before and it had failed spectacularly.
Things were better the way they were now.
Tom failed to greet her entry, preferring, it seemed, to remain stretched out along the back of the settee in the sitting room, basking in the final rays of the sun.
Taking herself into the kitchen, she found a note from Sean alongside the slow cooker. It simply said, ‘Enjoy’.
Rhona spooned a large helping onto a plate and took it to the window seat.
Below her, the neighbouring convent garden was already dappled with shadow, the setting sun partly obscured by the surrounding buildings. Two nuns sat on a seat next to the herbaceous border, chatting. Perhaps sensing Rhona’s watchful eye, the younger of the two looked up and gave her a friendly wave, which Rhona returned.
The views from both front and rear windows had been the primary reason Rhona had bought the flat. Back then, the long terrace of stone tenements that overlooked the park had been a little rundown, her neighbours decidedly more eclectic than now, both features endearing the place to Rhona.
More recently, however, property developers had recognized the area’s potential and had begun to buy up neighbouring buildings that had once housed offices and were redeveloping them into luxury flats, which were selling for high prices. Hence the turnover of residents in her own building.
Rhona was fairly philosophical about that, except, she thought, if the convent were to move, I might have to go too. The view from her kitchen window had sustained her through many of the darker moments in both her personal and professional life. She wasn’t religious, but there was something comforting about the quiet certainty of the female community she looked out on.
Her hunger assuaged, Rhona now noted that the corked wine bottle from last night still stood on the kitchen table, its contents slightly depleted (or had she in fact drunk more than she’d realized the previous night?). Beside the bottle sat a brown paper bag which, she now discovered, contained a loaf of bread, partially consumed, an edible organic label attached with the name ‘Henrietta’s’ on it.
Which I was supposed to eat along with the casserole.
If Henrietta’s was a local shop, Rhona didn’t recognize the name. Then again, Sean was the food and wine connoisseur. She, in contrast, existed mainly on Chinese and Indian takeaways and, of course, the ubiquitous Italian pizza, delivered and eaten at odd hours.
Popping the loaf in the bread bin and turning off the slow cooker, Rhona moved through to the sitting room, taking her laptop with her, intent on checking for any forensic results that might have come in since she’d departed the lab earlier.
The air in the room, she noted, was redolent of the heat of the day and something else, a sharp scent, of what she wasn’t sure. All the time she’d been in the kitchen enjoying the kind of food Tom usually went mad for, he hadn’t moved from his favoured spot on the settee.
Sean, to Rhona’s mind, was inclined to overindulge the cat with titbits while he cooked, which she assumed was the reason for Tom’s disinterest in her own meaty meal.
‘Tom?’ Rhona said, approaching to ruffle his ears, an action he was particularly fond of.
He stretched a little under her touch, but then relaxed back into what resembled the sleep of the dead. He was usually like this after he’d been on the roof chasing and sometimes consuming the small birds that dared to land or nest in the vicinity, but there was no evidence via discarded feathers that he had brought one inside for his supper.
‘Tom,’ she said again, looking for a response which didn’t come.
As Rhona crouched beside him, seeking an opening eye at least, the acrid scent grew stronger.
Had the cat been sick?
A little perturbed now, Rhona raised Tom’s head, to discover a patch of drool beneath, accounting, she now realized, for the smell.
It wasn’t the first time the cat had vomited up things he shouldn’t have eaten, but she’d never seen a reaction like this before. Rhona let go of his head and it lolled alarmingly, so much so that he would have fallen to the floor had she not caught him.
Weighty now in her arms, and unresponsive, it was obvious the cat was in something more than a deep sleep.
Rhona laid him out on the couch and checked for a pulse, her own heart racing.
33
The list of foods toxic to cats was comprehensive. Rhona ran her eye down her mobile screen, but could see nothing on it that Tom could have found in the kitchen. The stew had had onions and garlic in it, both on the list, but if Sean had given the cat a taste of the casserole, surely it would have been a piece of meat?
The most likely of the items listed would, she decided, be mouldy food, pos
sibly discarded by seagulls on the roof rather than rifled from her kitchen bin.
Maybe Sean could give her a clue?
Sean’s mobile rang out unanswered, so he either couldn’t hear it in the noise of the club or else he was playing and had turned his mobile off.
Rhona switched tack and checked online for the nearest 24-hour vet service. The first one to appear was near Charing Cross, not too far away. She couldn’t tell them what the cat had eaten, and for most poisons there wasn’t an antidote anyway, but they could perhaps monitor his organs until the effects subsided.
Rather than try to load the cat into the carry basket, Rhona fetched a towel and, wrapping it round Tom’s inert body, carried him down to the car. It wasn’t until she opened the rear door to lay him along the back seat that she remembered the tyre.
God.
She had done nothing about having it fixed and it was flat again.
Rhona contemplated whether to call a taxi, but doubted whether they would accept an obviously ill cat in their cab. Maybe if Tom was in his carrier?
Should she go back for it?
Rhona went for the pump instead.
As she fitted it to the tyre, her mobile rang. Hoping it was Sean returning her call, Rhona answered without checking the screen.
‘Rhona?’
It took her a moment to register who was calling her at this inopportune moment. ‘Sorry, Conor. I have a bit of an emergency. I have a sick cat to take to the emergency room, and I’ve got a flat tyre.’
He responded immediately. ‘I’m just leaving the clinic and have the car with me. Can I help?’
The tyre, despite her efforts, didn’t appear to be inflating. Rhona swore with some force.
‘Where are you exactly?’ Conor said.
When Rhona told him, he came back with, ‘I’ll be with you directly,’ and rang off.
Rhona tried refitting the pump to the valve. It didn’t make any difference. Either the pump wasn’t working or else the air was exiting as quickly as it could enter.
Just as well Conor proved true to his word.
Rhona looked up with relief as minutes later a car drew alongside her and Conor jumped out.
‘If you sit in the passenger seat, I’ll lift him in to you,’ Conor offered.