Sins of the Dead

by Lin Anderson

  Magnus didn’t, because he was only a guest lecturer, but saying that wouldn’t hold sway with DC Fleming. When he didn’t immediately respond, she said, ‘You and Dr MacLeod tell anyone who attends these lectures how we work, both psychologically and forensically. And I think someone with that knowledge is using it to fuck with us.’

  ‘You think someone killed Andrew Jackson in order to test us?’

  ‘You must have considered that a possibility,’ she said sharply. ‘Forensically it’s complicated and we still aren’t even certain if we’re dealing with a homicide or a suicide, which is clever in itself. Then the wine and bread nonsense, which was bound to get you involved,’ she said, her tone indicating exactly what she thought of Magnus’s contribution.

  Magnus tried to focus and block out her scent, which was growing stronger the angrier she became.

  ‘It’s a valid theory,’ he said quietly, studying a space somewhere between them in order to avoid concentrating on her eyes, which were flashing in a mixture of excitement and outrage.

  Most murders were unplanned and often messy. This one didn’t tick either of those boxes. Organized killers liked to defy the police, seeing themselves cleverer and therefore able to get away with the crime undetected, which they sometimes achieved. Hence the existence of cold-case files. Magnus didn’t want this to be one of those.

  He said as much, before adding something DC Fleming didn’t like.

  ‘Of course, we can’t dismiss the possibility that a perpetrator with that degree of knowledge may well be one of our own.’

  43

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Rhona stressed.

  ‘No?’ McNab gave Rhona the hard stare. ‘So is it yours? You went back for the shirt, remember? Maybe the perpetrator found out about that?’ The nerve at the side of his face twitched his anger. ‘We’re being fucked with, and one death wasn’t enough to prove the point.’

  They were standing at the edge of the clearing as a team from Fire and Rescue completed their erection of a tarpaulin. Already the wind was up and tossing the branches as the first heavy drops of rain pattered the leaves.

  McNab kept his eyes on hers, demanding a reply, so Rhona gave him one.

  ‘I think you may be right.’ She glanced over at the sheeting now enclosing the body of Claire Masters.

  When McNab looked surprised by her response, Rhona told him about her earlier conversation with Bill.

  ‘Someone planted your DNA on the victim’s groin?’ he said in disbelief.

  ‘The scrotum, to be exact,’ Rhona said. ‘The sample on the PPE fibre in the nostril might just have got there by accident.’

  ‘But you don’t think so?’

  ‘Not when my DNA was found on a fragment of fibre in the turbinates further up the nasal passages, suggesting that the victim had breathed it in while still alive.’

  Rhona changed the subject, more interested now in finding out why McNab had believed the victim could be Ellie.

  ‘She found the body in the tunnel,’ he told her. ‘They were racing their bikes down there, Ellie and three others.’ McNab’s look darkened. ‘She called me that night when I was with you.’

  ‘In the pub?’ Rhona interrupted him.

  McNab shook his head. ‘No, later, when we were in the tent.’

  Rhona remembered the call now and McNab’s reluctance to answer.

  ‘I answered once I was outside.’ He pulled a face. ‘Blew her off before she could tell me what was worrying her.’

  ‘But that doesn’t mean she’s in danger,’ Rhona countered.

  McNab stared towards the newly erected tarpaulin. ‘She finally answered my call last night. She sounded shit scared. Said the guy in the tunnel wasn’t dead.’

  ‘She checked for life?’

  ‘It seems so.’

  Rhona recalled the partial print she’d lifted from the neck. Had Ellie felt for a pulse?

  ‘What else did she say?’

  ‘He wasn’t dead. That was all.’ McNab rushed on like a worried dam breaking. ‘And now she’s disappeared. She’s not been to work. There’s no answer at her flat. Izzy, her pal, says she’s not at her dad’s.’

  ‘What about her bike?’ Rhona said.

  ‘Gone – or at least I can’t locate it.’

  ‘You’ve put a trace on her mobile?’

  ‘I asked Ollie to do that after the phone call,’ McNab confirmed.

  Rhona understood McNab’s concern at Ellie’s disappearance, but if she was upset at not informing the police, and worried about the implications of that, she might just have made herself scarce. She could simply have taken off on her motorbike. Headed north or west or even to the islands, like the legion of bikers who roamed the Highlands during the summer months.

  ‘There’s no reason to suggest the perpetrator even knew she was down there,’ she said.

  McNab threw Rhona a look that suggested he didn’t buy that, and despite her encouraging words, Rhona felt the same. If the victim was still alive when Ellie found him, there was a chance the perpetrator hadn’t been too far away.

  DS McConnachie was signalling that the locus was now secure from wind and weather if Dr MacLeod wanted to start her examination of the body.

  ‘You okay to do this?’ McNab said.

  ‘They haven’t taken me off the case … yet,’ Rhona told him, although if her DNA on both the body and the fibre couldn’t be explained, then she would be. ‘Go find Ellie,’ were her parting words to McNab.

  Chrissy took in the sitting body, the display of yew branches and the ligature. ‘And this is the girl from the undertaker’s?’

  Rhona nodded.

  ‘Jeez,’ Chrissy said, obviously shocked. ‘Why kill her? Nothing she said or did gave us any forensic evidence on the perpetrator.’

  Chrissy halted, studying Rhona’s expression. ‘I take it we’re not considering this as a possible suicide?’

  ‘We haven’t cut the rope.’ Rhona indicated the thin cord against the trunk.

  ‘Good,’ Chrissy said. ‘Okay, shall we get going?’

  The rain beat at the overhead tarpaulin, the wind flapping the side walls. Rhona had no fear that her temporary shelter might be swept away, but the sun’s warmth had been obliterated.

  Chrissy had been verging on apoplectic on hearing the full story of the DNA contamination. ‘There’s no way you would have let that happen,’ she’d protested, taking the insult as personal, even though she hadn’t been present in the tunnel to substantiate the point.

  Rhona appreciated her support but still insisted that it was Chrissy who would perform the tasks which she normally did.

  To Chrissy’s worried question about what would happen next, Rhona had confirmed what her assistant already knew.

  ‘They’ll test again, then get another independent lab to do a secondary test. If the fibre matches the make of suits we use, and they confirm the DNA match, then I won’t be allowed to work on the case until they decide how my DNA could have arrived there by secondary or tertiary transfer. As for the DNA retrieved from the testicles …’

  Chrissy mouthed an expletive. ‘Could that have happened at the PM?’

  Rhona couldn’t see how, and told her so.

  Chrissy moved back to the fibres. ‘Do you describe the materials used in forensic suits in the course? Tyvek might make us sweat but it doesn’t easily shed fibres, except maybe round the cuffs.’ She paused. ‘Did anyone ask about control samples from the suit batches for comparison purposes? Did you mention the ones you favour?’

  It wasn’t part of the course, but if asked the question, Rhona knew she would have answered honestly.

  ‘Did anyone ask?’ Chrissy demanded.

  Rhona had no idea. ‘I can’t remember,’ she admitted.

  ‘You’d better try,’ Chrissy warned her. ‘McNab says the two dead guys at the undertaker’s were doing your online course. That’s the only thing they found that connected them.’

  Now that was interesting.


  ‘McNab never mentioned that,’ Rhona said.

  ‘Probably too busy worrying about Ellie,’ Chrissy told her.

  44

  Magnus halted for a moment, finding the deluge of scents momentarily overwhelming. Woods still affected him like this. Coming from Orkney, where a tree was a rare occurrence, the olfactory power of closely packed foliage always took him by surprise.

  As a child he’d been troubled by the intensity of his sense of smell but had gradually developed mechanisms to control his hyperosmia. It was, Magnus knew, genetic, inherited from his mother’s side. Although she herself hadn’t been subject to it, she’d seen it in her own father who’d been known to smell sickness in his cattle before an illness presented itself. Much like the woman recently in the news who could detect early Parkinson’s by scent alone.

  The sun had come out again and was beating down on the rain-soaked leaves, creating spirals of evaporation. He could distinguish a variety of woody smells, but as he approached the glade that was the locus, Magnus knew at once that he was in the presence of a yew tree.

  The sacred tree’s rich scent emerged immediately – crisp, clean, but also thick and sweet. Magnus felt like he’d just parachuted into a forest and been hit by every tree on the way down.

  Yet, despite the yew tree’s power, he could still smell death.

  A myriad of thoughts swept over him at that moment, the most powerful being, why here? And why involve a yew tree?

  The Druids, Magnus knew, considered the yew to be the most potent tree for protection against evil, a means of connecting to their ancestors, a bringer of dreams and otherworld journeys, and a symbol of the old magic. In hot weather like today, it gave off a resinous vapour, which shamans had inhaled to gain visions.

  Magnus only wished it would do that for him now. If only to better understand what they were dealing with here.

  McNab’s call about the body had surprised Magnus. Not to discover, sadly, that he had been right about the likelihood of another victim, but that McNab had been the one to ask him to come to the locus. The detective sergeant had been brief, his voice angry as he’d revealed the identity of the victim.

  Despite his concern that another death might follow Jackson’s, Magnus hadn’t considered the young woman working in the undertaker’s to be a likely target. In the attack on Claire’s clients, the perpetrator had appeared to be practising the use of his signature, perhaps even advertising what was to come.

  Most folk in Claire’s situation would have cleared up the mess and said nothing, wishing to avoid any bad press for her employer. Had that been the case, the police would never have known about the breakins.

  Did Claire die because she told the police? Or perhaps because she’d engaged with the perpetrator without realizing it?

  Magnus pressed his face to the ancient trunk and breathed in the powerful resin before securing his mask and entering the tarpaulin structure.

  ‘This is the first time I’ve heard about the possibility that Andrew Jackson may have died by means of yew needles,’ Magnus said. ‘Have you proof of that?’

  ‘We’re awaiting the results for the presence of taxine from Toxicology before announcing it,’ Rhona told him.

  Magnus looks stressed, she thought. Not unusual in the circumstances, but unusual for Magnus, whose outward air of calm was the norm.

  They’d taken themselves outside the tent and moved to sit on a fallen log on the perimeter of the circle. Someone had brought them coffee from a vendor who’d taken advantage of the police presence in the park and the associated interest from the general public.

  ‘If so, how was it administered?’ Magnus asked. ‘Via the wine?’

  ‘He hadn’t consumed either the wine or bread at the scene,’ Rhona told him. ‘That has been established.’

  ‘But that doesn’t mean a doctored drink hadn’t been used,’ Magnus mused out loud.

  ‘We found a needle mark in a black band tattooed on his leg. So he could have consumed it or had it injected.’

  ‘And a victim of taxine may display no other symptoms before the heart stops,’ Magnus said. ‘So he could have gone down there, administered it and awaited his own death.’

  Rhona was puzzled as to how Magnus knew so much about the drug.

  ‘The yew plays a big role in the whole Druidic/Celtic mythology and I had to do a lot of reading up on that during the Stonewarrior case, do you remember?’

  Rhona only wished she could forget.

  ‘Is there any reason you’ve uncovered that would explain why Jackson, as far as we know a young and successful professional model, would choose to kill himself?’ Magnus asked.

  As Rhona explained about her visit to Dr Williams and the sleep clinic, Magnus’s expression grew grim.

  ‘Perpetually having to deny himself sleep because of fear of sleep paralysis must have been torture,’ Magnus said. ‘If true, then we have a motive for suicide in Jackson’s case, but,’ he glanced towards the tent, ‘not, I think, for Claire Masters?’

  ‘She was certainly distressed by what happened while the victims were in her care.’ Rhona recalled the open and friendly girl she’d met at the funeral parlour. ‘But I don’t believe Claire was suicidal because of it.’

  ‘Despite being linked with the Jackson killing and the press hounding her about the wine and bread?’ Magnus countered.

  ‘Claire was, in my opinion, a very level-headed young woman,’ Rhona said. ‘She was angry at the treatment of her charges, but was well aware she’d done nothing wrong.’

  ‘So this little tableau was manufactured for our benefit?’ Magnus said. ‘Matching a theory that was presented to me at the lecture this morning.’

  ‘And that was?’

  ‘Just as in Stonewarrior, criminal profiling is failing in the current case. In fact, DC Shona Fleming is convinced, as are her comrades in arms, that we were being played by the perpetrator, who has sufficient knowledge from courses such as ours to fool us as required.’

  ‘McNab thinks exactly the same,’ Rhona told him, aware she hadn’t yet revealed her own DNA part in the existing drama.

  ‘The sergeant’s name came up during the discussion,’ Magnus said. ‘Detective Sergeant McNab, DC Fleming reminded me, was the serving policeman who actually apprehended the Stonewarrior perpetrator, and for that he was demoted.’

  Anger bubbled up in Rhona. ‘That’s ridiculous,’ she told him.

  ‘But essentially true,’ Magnus countered.

  ‘McNab was demoted because he acted like a prick and went AWOL. He knew what would happen and, in my opinion, courted it.’ Rhona barely paused for breath. ‘He never wanted or intended being a detective inspector, because that would require not doing whatever he fancied.’ She halted there, aware that she may have overstepped the mark.

  The barely supressed anger in her words had surprised Magnus and he was now observing her with a psychologist’s eye. Something Rhona didn’t desire or welcome. Magnus had probably been aware that things hadn’t been great between her and McNab since the case under discussion, but he had no idea why. No one did.

  And I have no intention of telling him.

  She gathered herself up and, finishing her coffee, dispensed with the cup and proceeded to put on gloves again, making clear by such movements that she didn’t want to discuss the matter any further, although there was something else she did want to say.

  ‘Dr Williams at the sleep clinic is keen to talk to you about Jackson. I’ll give you his number.’

  45

  Dusk was fast approaching, the long summer days they’d become accustomed to growing rapidly shorter. The team had set up a generator and arc lights but the chances were she wouldn’t require them for long. With Chrissy on hand and a couple of SOCOs helping, their work on the body had been swift and, Rhona believed, thorough.

  Homicidal hanging was extremely rare. It was difficult for a single assailant to carry it out unless the victim was unconscious either by injury or a drug. Claire was c
ertainly small and light, but she wasn’t the size of a child and there was no evidence of a struggle.

  Nothing under her fingernails, no obvious bruising. There were no marks to suggest she’d been dragged to the place of her suspension. In a true suicidal hanging, the rope was pulled downwards. In this case, the marks on the branch suggested the opposite.

  There were no fibres on Claire’s hands from the ligature, although in a suicidal hanging there would have been, unless the girl had used gloves, which she could hardly have removed from her hands after death. Sometimes a suicide victim could arrange their death to look like a homicide, implicating someone for motives of revenge, but …

  Left alone at her request in the tent, Rhona had been writing up her report on what she’d discovered here. The wind had dropped, making the throb of the generator more discernible. At times like this the tent seemed to Rhona like the beating heart of the investigation. Once the body was removed, that heart stopped, but the dignity of the deceased would still be preserved, as it should be.

  Rhona flipped back to the Gladstone quote she always started a new notebook with.

  Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender mercies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land, and their loyalty to high ideals.

  And with that thought in mind, Rhona said her personal goodbye to Claire Masters and exited the tent. Dusk had penetrated the surrounding woods, casting dark shadows, reminding her of Conor’s shadow men, who threatened and terrified their victims.

  Just like Claire.

  The postmortem would reveal more, as would a forensic study of the type and chirality of the knot used in the ligature, which should tell them if the person who’d tied it was right-or left-handed.

  Rhona halted for a moment, her eyes only on the yew tree and its ancient bloated trunk.

  She’d had no idea such a tree existed in the park, let alone so close to her place of work. Glancing up at the frontage of the Gothic building that dominated the skyline, she wondered if, when back in her lab, she might even be able to discern it from the window.