Sins of the Dead

by Lin Anderson

  Mary hated motorbikes. Davey had admitted if he was brave enough to go against her wishes and buy one, he’d have to ride it behind her back.

  That wasn’t the only fucking thing he was riding behind her back.

  McNab realized Mary was about to give him a refill. He’d counted three up to now, although not really singles. McNab reached out as though to prevent her pouring, but somewhere in between his hand let him down.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I’m counting.’

  McNab took a mouthful. Mary was right. It was a very nice whisky. He glanced at the label and suddenly realized what he’d been drinking.

  ‘Jesus, fuck.’ His eyes widened in astonishment. ‘This is a Fifty-Year-Old Speyside Glen Grant. It must have cost—’

  ‘Just over four and a half grand,’ she told him. ‘Davey was into buying expensive whiskies. A good investment, he said. I’ve decided it’s better to drink them.’

  They toasted to that.

  McNab decided that he was comfortable in this kitchen, more so than the last time he’d visited when it had seemed so shiny and ordered. Mary had moved in a big couch and there were books and other items scattered about that suggested she was using it as her living room. McNab thought of all the other spacious rooms in the mansion overlooking the park, of the big garden and the triple garage and the fancy cars.

  ‘How’s the business?’ he said.

  ‘Beauty business didn’t take a hit at all. In fact the trial just brought more punters in. After all, I was the innocent one. I just had a creep for a husband. There are lots of women who can relate to that.’ She gave McNab a knowing look. ‘Davey’s side is still ticking over. The men who gamble don’t care who makes that possible.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Although the proceeds of crime boys are on to his assets, even as we speak.’

  McNab wondered if that was what had prompted the call about the Harley.

  Reading his thoughts again, she said, ‘Fortunately we kept our assets separate. I’m selling the house. I’ve bought a penthouse flat down by the river with a view to die for.’ She smiled. ‘I move there in three weeks.’

  McNab was pleased for her and told her so.

  ‘And you don’t have to worry about the Harley. That’s definitely mine to dispose of as I wish. The stupid bastard registered it in my name. The insurance was cheaper that way.’

  Good old Davey. Always guarding the money.

  ‘I married the wrong guy,’ Mary said with a challenging look. ‘I should have stayed with you.’

  ‘I was a prick back then. And let’s face it, I still am.’

  ‘But you were – are – the better man.’

  McNab looked around the room to avoid meeting Mary’s eye. ‘You wouldn’t have had all this if you’d stayed with me.’

  ‘No,’ she nodded. ‘And, if I’m honest, I needed all this. Still do.’

  She topped up his drink. They were easily halfway down that expensive bottle, but McNab felt okay – no, he felt good. The shitty day seemed to belong to someone else now.

  ‘There’s something I never told you … about us,’ Mary said. ‘Something Davey doesn’t know about either.’

  McNab waited, aware by her expression that what she was going to say he probably didn’t want to hear.

  And he was right.

  ‘I was pregnant when I broke it off with you.’

  McNab wasn’t sure he’d heard right. ‘You were pregnant?’ he repeated.

  ‘I knew you’d freak at that, so I never told you. I didn’t tell Davey either.’ She shrugged and took another mouthful of whisky. ‘I had an abortion.’

  McNab was still processing the ‘I was pregnant’ bit.

  ‘It was mine?’ he asked in amazement.

  ‘I didn’t sleep with Davey until after I left you.’

  ‘But you were seeing him,’ McNab heard his accusing voice say.

  ‘But we weren’t having sex,’ she insisted. ‘Davey didn’t like that, but I wasn’t sure back then if it was him I really wanted.’

  This was all too much to take in for McNab. His head was buzzing with fine whisky and the amazing revelation that he might have been a father.

  ‘So the baby was definitely mine?’ he checked.

  ‘Yes.’ Mary looked offended that he should think otherwise.

  ‘And you never told me …’ That wasn’t a question for Mary, just a statement of fact to himself.

  Christ, he might have been a father. Had a son or a daughter. What age would they be now, a teenager? Jesus. McNab felt suddenly bereft at the absence of that possibility.

  What if Mary had stayed with him and they’d had the kid together?

  She was reading his face. ‘You were a prick back then, remember? You would have shat yourself if I’d told you I was pregnant.’

  McNab gave a small laugh, because she was right. That’s exactly what he would have done. Either that or run a mile.

  ‘Davey wanted kids, but I don’t think he would have wanted yours. Anyway, we tried, but I didn’t get pregnant again. Maybe that was my only chance. So my businesses became my babies.’ She swallowed the remains of her whisky and reached for the bottle again.

  ‘Why tell me now?’ McNab wondered.

  Mary shrugged. ‘Who knows? Too much whisky. Or nostalgia for what might have been. Anyway, as I said, I married the wrong man.’

  McNab wondered how many times over the years he would have loved to have heard her say those words. Too many. So why didn’t it matter now? Even as he looked over at Mary, it was Ellie he was seeing in his mind’s eye.

  McNab knew if he stayed any longer, drank any more, where it – they – would end up.

  Maybe he might think of it as a long-awaited farewell fuck, but he had a feeling Mary wouldn’t.

  And so the power shifts, yet again.

  McNab pushed his glass away and stood up. ‘I have to go.’ Before she could answer, he brought up the taxi call button and pressed it. Mary remained silent as he told the operator where he was and where he wanted to go to.

  If only directions for life were that simple, McNab thought as he pulled the heavy front door shut behind him and walked to the waiting cab.

  47

  Rhona was surprised at how quickly she’d fallen asleep after the events of the previous night. Perhaps the meal and the wine had helped or the reassuring words she’d exchanged with Sean or, indeed, the sleep aid Conor had given her, although she had no recollection of what the recording had said, past the opening musical cadence.

  Whatever the reason for the deep sleep, or drop into unconsciousness, she was grateful for it.

  Last night, if not frightened by the arrival of the gull, she’d certainly been disturbed by it. Still unsure if the dead bird had accidentally been deposited in her kitchen or had arrived there on purpose, the incident had reminded her of another dead offering she’d found in her flat, deliberate that time.

  Tom’s predecessor had been called Chance. And Chance had been killed in retaliation when she’d crossed psychopath Joe Maley. Chrissy had been the one to discover Rhona’s former pet lying behind the sofa in the sitting room, his head severed from his body.

  I didn’t let Maley’s threat stop me from doing my job then, and whatever’s going on, it won’t stop me now.

  With that determined thought, Rhona had headed for bed, plugged the pen drive into her laptop and set it to play.

  It was like the music of the heavens, she remembered. I closed my eyes and let it wash over me. After that, nothing.

  Swinging her legs out of bed, she rose and headed for the kitchen. As she spooned coffee into the cafetière, the smell of it hit her nostrils and she felt that all too familiar queasiness come over her again.

  This is getting ridiculous, she told herself as she headed swiftly for the bathroom to lean over the toilet bowl.

  Beads of sweat popped out on her brow and she felt a wave of heat encompass her.

  The last time I felt like this was when I gave blood and
got to my feet too quickly afterwards.

  Rhona, surer now that she wasn’t going to be sick, slowly rose to her feet and splashed her face with cold water.

  Viruses, she reminded herself, were usually over within a week. She would just have to put up with it until it ran its course. Even as she thought this, Rhona wished that she had done something about the slow puncture, because driving to work seemed preferable to walking through the park on what were definitely wobbly legs.

  The air will do you good.

  Opening the main door twenty minutes later, she found her prediction to be true. Last night’s rain had freshened the air, and Rhona took a deep breath of it. Heading down the steps towards the park, she noted the continued police presence among the trees, signalling that teams of SOCOs were still combing the undergrowth. The sight of this spurred her on. The postmortem on Claire would likely be scheduled for today sometime and she wanted to be there, nausea or not.

  As she entered the park, her mobile rang.

  ‘How are you?’ Bill asked in a concerned voice. ‘Chrissy said you were under the weather.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Rhona assured him. ‘Just heading into work now. What time’s the PM on Claire?’

  Rhona guessed by the pregnant silence that followed her question what was about to come.

  ‘I’ve been taken off the case,’ she said, before Bill could tell her so.

  ‘Just until they work out how your DNA was on the body.’ Bill was trying to sound reassuring. It wasn’t working.

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘I agree, but I’d use even stronger language than that.’ Bill paused. ‘You could take a couple of days off, get over the virus Chrissy says you have?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Rhona repeated, as much to convince herself as Bill, ‘and I have plenty of other work to be getting on with.’

  She was pissed off, but she wasn’t defeated, and sitting at home definitely wasn’t an option. She told Bill so. ‘Chrissy processed Claire. I supervised. There’s no way my DNA is on her body.’

  ‘Good,’ Bill said, sounding relieved.

  ‘On that subject, when’s the next strategy meeting?’ Her testing question resulted in an uncomfortable silence on the other end of the phone.

  Fuck it, she thought. ‘You don’t want me there?’

  ‘I do want you there,’ Bill countered. ‘But orders are for you to stand aside from all aspects of the investigation pending an explanation for the presence of your DNA.’

  ‘My DNA was planted. That’s the explanation.’

  ‘We’ll focus on that. Until then, send Chrissy in your place. That way you stay in the loop. Just play it by the book and we’ll sort it out.’

  ‘Now I know why McNab goes AWOL at times,’ Rhona said, exasperated.

  ‘But you’re not McNab,’ Bill reminded her.

  ‘You look like shite,’ a waiting Chrissy told her on entry.

  ‘Always the kind word,’ Rhona retorted.

  ‘Seriously, though, you should probably see a doctor.’

  ‘And be told I have a virus?’

  Chrissy examined her with an eagle eye. ‘What are the symptoms exactly?’ she demanded.

  ‘Intermittent headache, nausea, occasionally lightheaded …’

  A look came over Chrissy’s face which Rhona failed to interpret.

  ‘What?’ she demanded.

  Chrissy shook her head as though dismissing whatever possibility had come into her mind.

  ‘Tell me,’ Rhona insisted.

  Chrissy shrugged and raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t suppose there’s a remote chance you could be pregnant?’

  Rhona’s immediate response to such a shocking suggestion was a firm ‘no’. She shook her head to emphasize the fact. ‘That’s not possible.’

  ‘You and Sean are doing it?’ Chrissy checked, with a worried expression.

  Rhona threw her a look that would have curdled milk. ‘I’m on the pill.’

  ‘You haven’t missed one?’ Chrissy said. ‘Late-night working can screw the timetable up.’

  Rhona was about to insist that she hadn’t, then the horrible thought that she might have lodged itself in her brain.

  Chrissy was watching her closely. ‘Did you take it this morning?’

  Rhona remembered the rush to the toilet. The relief when the nausea lessened, in the aftermath of which she hadn’t taken the pill. Now thoughts came tumbling back of switches in her timing, when she’d taken it in the early hours of the morning after returning from the tunnel or next day when she remembered.

  But had she missed one?

  She simply couldn’t answer that without checking the box, and it would be at home in the bathroom.

  ‘There’s one way to find out,’ Chrissy declared. ‘I’ll go get us some breakfast and visit a pharmacy.’

  Rhona realized as the door shut behind her assistant that because of their preceding conversation, she’d failed to mention that she’d been removed from the tunnel case.

  God, she’ll be pissed about that.

  Not as pissed as you’ll be if Chrissy’s suggestion turns out to be true.

  Fear swept through her, accompanied by the memory of a previous occasion when she’d experienced similar symptoms to what had been happening recently.

  ‘No,’ she said again, even as she imagined what she would do if it were true.

  Rhona muttered a prayer to whatever God might be listening that she wouldn’t be faced with such a decision a second time.

  48

  McNab felt a surge of pity for the young bloke sitting in front of him.

  The elderly Mr Marshall had been sorely distressed, finding ways of blaming himself for not protecting Claire, but Claire’s boyfriend was way beyond shattered. McNab had seen the result of violent death on the bereaved before. It never got any better.

  It had been revealed that Claire’s parents had retired to Spain, and she and Taylor had been living together for two years.

  ‘We were going to get married,’ he said to an empty space just left of McNab. ‘Just a registry office ceremony, nothing expensive, then have a honeymoon in Spain, not far from her parents. God, do they know?’ he added, a look of horror on his face. ‘I don’t have to … ’

  ‘A family liaison officer will have done that,’ McNab told him.

  The FLO would take care of Taylor too, keeping him abreast of developments, finding out anything he knew that would help find Claire’s killer. They couldn’t make things better for those left behind, but their aim was that things wouldn’t be worse.

  It was a job McNab wouldn’t relish for himself, though.

  ‘This is all my fault,’ Taylor was saying. ‘If I hadn’t told her to go to the police about the breakin …’ He tailed off, his voice cracking.

  McNab wanted to say it was more likely his fault. He hadn’t taken the breakin seriously enough. As soon as he’d thought there might be a link to the tunnel case, he should have considered Claire’s safety. He hadn’t. Instead all he could think of was how it might help him get back on the major investigation.

  ‘You did nothing wrong,’ he said instead. ‘Now, what we have to concentrate on is catching the person who did this.’

  Taylor nodded at this suggestion like a drowning man being offered a lifebelt.

  ‘Tell me exactly what Claire said about the breakins, after I’d spoken to her about them.’

  ‘Well, she was upset about the shirt, and the forensic woman turning up.’

  ‘Dr MacLeod?’

  He nodded. ‘She’d tried to wash out the stain, but told you she hadn’t. She felt terrible about that.’ By the look on his face, the lifebelt was no longer holding his head above water.

  McNab drove on. ‘The two men were doing the same online course in forensics. Did Claire mention anything else that might connect them?’

  Taylor shook his head dismissively. ‘They didn’t know one another. One had family, the other no mourners at all. Claire felt sorry for him.’

  �
�Harry Martin?’

  He nodded. ‘She said he was awkward.’ He looked at McNab. ‘How can the dead be awkward?’ He gave a half-smile. ‘When no one came for him, she felt sad. Said she should have been kinder, because he was lonely.’

  God, the guy would cry soon. McNab couldn’t cope with that.

  But the tears didn’t come. The glint in Taylor’s eye turned out to herald a memory.

  ‘Someone did come in to view him.’

  McNab’s ears pricked up.

  ‘Claire said she was really pleased, but then it turned out they’d got the wrong man.’

  McNab’s hopes fell along with Taylor’s expression, but he pursued it anyway.

  ‘Man or woman?’

  ‘A man. Took a look at the body and said he’d made a mistake. It wasn’t who he thought it was.’

  McNab felt his heart quicken. ‘Did Claire describe this guy?’

  Taylor threw him a quick glance. ‘Is it important?’

  McNab tried to look calm. It could be nothing and he didn’t want Taylor to suddenly make things up to try and be helpful.

  ‘Everything you can tell us is important,’ he said.

  Taylor concentrated for a moment. ‘It was before the breakin when she was sad about Mr Martin having no one. Just some son in Hong Kong who Mr Marshall said was paying the bill. Claire couldn’t believe it when she was told he wouldn’t even come over for the funeral.’ He glanced at McNab. ‘Claire went to that, you know? She was the only one there except for a Polish nurse from the retirement home.’

  McNab nodded. ‘Did Claire describe this visitor?’ he repeated.

  ‘Not really, although she didn’t like him. Said he wasn’t kind. Kindness was her motto.’

  ‘Why did she think he wasn’t kind?’ McNab said.

  ‘It was because of what he said.’

  49

  Despite my detailed planning, I have made mistakes.

  I was too ambitious with the DNA at the first locus. Although, had I left only the impregnated fibre, it may have been explained away too easily, and I wasn’t to know she would leave the body clothed.