Sins of the Dead

by Lin Anderson

  ‘Whoever it was had to know about the cat and the open window,’ McNab reminded him.

  ‘Well, anyone watching from the flats to the rear or the convent could have spotted the cat, or even me, climbing onto the roof.’

  ‘You’ve done that?’ McNab said, surprised.

  ‘I was trying to scare Rhona into shutting the window at night.’ Maguire shook his head. ‘A big mistake. Lecturing Rhona on what to do has the opposite effect from what’s intended. But then you’re probably aware of that.’

  He met McNab’s eye, his own a mix of fury and despair. ‘Who the fuck has her, McNab? Is Rhona even alive?’

  86

  Her watch and its luminous dial was her sole grip on reality.

  That and the aching cold that sent her muscles into increasingly frequent bouts of shivering. It might be August above ground, but being constantly wet and in the dark was lowering her body temperature to approaching dangerous levels.

  The answer, of course, was to keep moving.

  Free from her physical restraints, she could at least stand up and walk about now the opiate had worn off.

  And she could dig.

  The swiftly moving water had helped her, discarding stones near the outlet which she could throw free of the channel. Now able to slide her arm through the widened gap, Rhona registered open space on the other side, although there was no way of knowing if it was big enough for all of her.

  Rhona imagined her captor shining his torch down and finding her gone. What would he do? Assume she’d managed to climb out herself or even been rescued?

  That would scare the shit out of him.

  Would he come down the ladder to make sure?

  Rhona tested the slither of glass now back in her possession again, and felt a warm trickle of blood run down her finger in anticipation.

  There was, of course, another scenario. Her captor could choose not to return. Or if he did, it might only be to throw more earth into her grave.

  Weariness swept over her and a realization that the shivering wasn’t only caused by being wet and cold, but was possibly her body’s attempt at combating a rising temperature.

  Rhona brushed the sweat from her eyes as a shudder ran through her body.

  She had a plan, but would she have the strength left to carry it out?

  She positioned herself more firmly in the space she’d created, the swiftly rising water swirling about her. Whatever part of Glasgow lay above her had experienced one of the sudden tropical downpours that were becoming more frequent of late.

  The thought occurred that should the level rise too high, she might drown here, wedged in her carefully excavated cave, only to be discovered sometime in the future by Urbex explorers.

  If that were the case, Rhona found herself imagining what would be left of her. She’d excavated sufficient graves to know what lasted and what didn’t, due to time, the surrounding environment and circumstances.

  The air she was breathing wasn’t fresh, but neither was it foul. There were plenty of insects calling this place home. She’d felt them investigate her body, running over it, tasting her sweat and blood loss. No death flies had as yet come calling, but they would eventually appear to feast on her decay.

  Two lives could end down here, she thought. One barely begun.

  The flashes of light that had signified the beginning of existence had been revisiting her at regular intervals. Much like the imagined paralysis and the demon eyes.

  A fevered mental fight between life and death? Or self-imposed guilt at what she’d planned to do, had she not been abducted?

  She’d been close to the death of others so often. Serving the dead by cataloguing the manner in which they’d died had given her a purpose, and a way of emotionally disengaging from the reality of it.

  Contemplating her own death was something else entirely.

  The water rushing towards her was full of small sharp stones that scratched at her arms and legs, but not, she thought, her stomach.

  She had been protecting that part of her, she realized, from the moment she’d fallen into this pit.

  If I am allowed to live, then it will be too.

  When she heard her name called, Rhona thought she’d imagined it. The second time, she almost responded, so long had it been since she’d heard her name spoken out loud.

  Then the torch was back, sweeping her cell, seeking her presence. As Rhona pressed herself further into the space she’d created, the beam lit up the floor, then one by one the walls.

  At the third and more urgent call, Rhona thought briefly that she might recognize the voice. Then it changed, became muffled, and she knew the mask was back in place, distorting the sound.

  The light was on again, flickering over the moving water, skimming past her cave.

  He can’t see me.

  Then came the rattle of the metal ladder. The sound of footsteps descending. The splash as his feet hit the water.

  Rhona waited, the thump of her heart so loud that she was certain he must hear it. Standing in front of her now, all she had to do was grab his legs to topple him.

  87

  Dusk was descending as McNab exited Rhona’s flat.

  Sean had indicated he intended to stay there until Rhona returned. His declaration had sounded to McNab more like a desperate plea for him to find her.

  ‘Rhona always said she could trust you with her life,’ had been Sean’s parting words.

  It was a well-aimed blow, but McNab knew the truth of it. How often had he said the same of Rhona?

  And she had saved him, on more than one occasion. His sanity, his sobriety and his career.

  McNab glanced at his mobile, thinking to check up on Ellie, while not wishing to look like he was stalking her.

  That thought led to another. Rhona had accused him that night in the tunnel of doing just that. Taken aback, he’d insisted she was wrong, while at the same time wondering if there wasn’t some small degree of truth in her accusation.

  Then again if he’d been more diligent about it, things wouldn’t be as they were now.

  The search of the park had come to nothing, verifying McNab’s belief that wherever Rhona was, it wasn’t close to home.

  Snatched women were usually taken away by car, their bodies either dumped on open ground or buried, often far from the place they’d been taken. But this wasn’t what was happening here, McNab reminded himself.

  Rhona’s abduction was a test, one it seemed they were failing.

  As he fired up the bike, McNab looked up to see Maguire standing at the bay window, the current downpour distorting his image.

  The guy was as demented about this as he was.

  As McNab signalled to draw out, a white van suddenly appeared behind him. Passing dangerously close, it deluged him with surface water in the process. McNab gave the finger to the fast-disappearing vehicle, and like all good officers made a mental note of the number plate.

  He would find out who that fucker was, he promised himself.

  The longer she was missing, the more likely she was to be dead.

  Why did he not believe that to be true?

  McNab had never given credence to clairvoyants, and he’d seen a few offer their services on the job. None, to his mind, had been successful. The only story that had ever really bothered him had happened during the Stonewarrior case, when the mother of the victim, a young male student, had been told at a meeting in a spiritualist church not far from here that her son was dead, barely an hour after it must have happened.

  That he hadn’t been able to explain.

  Neither could he explain the feeling that, despite everything, he thought – no – knew that Rhona was still alive.

  McNab came to an abrupt halt, realizing he was at the top of the steep steps that led down to the park, to Sauchiehall Street and to the church that had been on his mind.

  He could go the long way round, he thought, or he could take the shorter and definitely more challenging, bone-rattling route, where h
e could test if he really could control the bike.

  The upstairs bar of the Rock Cafe was heaving, the beat of the music thrumming McNab’s body as he weaved his way through the crowd and headed for the stairs. Hunger assailed him as the smell of food met his descent, but McNab’s first thought was for Ellie. He scanned the room, his heart rising and dipping as he thought he spotted her, then was disappointed.

  McNab made for the bar to find the same guy as on his earlier visit.

  ‘Seen Ellie?’ he tried.

  The response was, as before, non-committal.

  ‘Not sure. We’re busy as you can see.’

  McNab ordered the same food as before, a double helping to share and a pint, then took one of the few remaining tables. Waiting for his meal to arrive, he scanned the room again and, this time, he spotted her.

  She was standing in a corner, and there was someone with her. A guy leaning in on her in a manner McNab didn’t like.

  Recognizing who it was, McNab made his way swiftly through the crowd.

  ‘Sergeant McNab.’ Symes stepped away from Ellie. ‘Good to see you again.’

  McNab didn’t respond, but looking straight at Ellie, said, ‘I’ve a table over there, with food arriving. For two,’ he stressed.

  Ellie nodded and, turning to Symes, said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Roddie.’

  The food had provided a welcome distraction. Now that they’d cleared the plate, a conversation would have to begin, and Ellie didn’t look like the one to do that, McNab thought.

  In that he was wrong.

  His weak opening salvo of, ‘Mannie must have been glad to see you back,’ was swiftly interrupted by, ‘I want to help you catch the killer,’ from Ellie.

  She was looking straight at him, her eyes challenging McNab to respond positively to her statement of intent. Recognizing he was on dangerous ground, and definitely not wanting to piss Ellie off again, McNab swallowed his stock reply that it was the job of the police to do that.

  ‘Okay,’ he managed instead. ‘Is there a way you think you can help us more than you’ve done already?’

  She looked relieved by his reaction and he caught the faintness of a smile before she said, ‘I may have seen him.’

  McNab absorbed this before he replied. ‘But you said you only saw his torch in the tunnel?’

  She nodded. ‘I did, but …’ She hesitated. ‘I kept having the feeling someone was following me. That’s why I left Glasgow.’ She met his eye. ‘I’m sorry, I should have told you.’

  ‘If I’d looked like listening, you would have.’ McNab reached out and squeezed her hand in encouragement.

  ‘If I could look at footage from CCTV at the places it happened.’

  ‘Which places?’ McNab said.

  ‘Near the bike shop and the Ink Parlour. And maybe my flat.’

  88

  He was face down in the water and thrashing, but it had taken what little strength Rhona had had to topple him.

  And he would stay there only seconds.

  As he broke the surface Rhona realized that the latex mask covered all of his head. Lit up by the torch, it looked like an exact replica of the goblin from the painting.

  Her feet fighting the flow, Rhona launched herself at him, rock in hand. Her initial plan had been to try and wound him again with the broken glass, but she’d decided instead to try and stun him enough to give her time to get up the ladder.

  Aim for the jaw or the middle of the chin.

  Which was easier said than done.

  The weight of water going in the opposite direction was pulling her away from her goal. Rhona swung the rock, imagining it to be the thick fist she didn’t have.

  His head jerked left on impact, but the latex had obviously absorbed some of the force. Before she could repeat the action, he was pushing himself up and out of the fast-moving water.

  Then it struck her. The all-encompassing mask had only slits for eyes and a small opening for the mouth. Hence the voice distortion. His coughing and spluttering confirmed this fact. Water had got in, but how did it get out?

  The demon might be her saviour after all.

  Rhona scrambled towards the ladder. Perhaps anticipating another blow, and surprised by her move, he didn’t react quickly enough.

  As she pulled the ladder free of the wall, a shower of soil and stones rained down on them both.

  Ducking behind the freed ladder, Rhona pushed it over. For a moment she thought she’d miscalculated and it would meet the far wall, but no.

  Its sudden descent had him swiftly back underwater, pinned there by the ladder and her weight on it.

  If she stayed here like this, he would likely drown … and she would be free.

  She thought of Andrew Jackson’s body, laid out in the tunnel, of Claire hanging like a rag doll from that tree. Whoever was behind that mask had killed twice already, and she was destined to be the third.

  Rhona revisited that terrible night at the stone circle. The night when McNab had used exactly the same reasoning for why that perpetrator had to die.

  But I’m not McNab.

  Rhona lifted the ladder and set it back against the wall. Released, his head turned, and the demon face broke the surface.

  Was he alive?

  Rhona knew she should wade over and check, but if he was …

  Turning for a last look, she saw the open eyes, lifeless and fixed upon her.

  89

  The incident room was packed. For a moment McNab thought there might have been a breakthrough, but none of the expressions round him suggested that. He joined the boss near the front with Dr Mackie. Behind her on the screen was a map of Glasgow but not a version McNab had seen before.

  As he approached, DI Wilson called for quiet, then reminded them who Dr Mackie was before asking her to take over.

  ‘We need to consider the underlying geology and the soil texture characteristics of the samples taken from the partial print lifted in Dr MacLeod’s kitchen. I should say, at this point, that the footwear has been identified as a size ten Harley man’s boot.’

  A murmur of interest greeted this declaration.

  ‘Harley boots have a variety of distinctive orange-coloured patterns down the centre of the sole, with the Harley insignia placed in the instep and a further pattern on the heel. An example of this type is to the right of the screen.’

  Jen Mackie continued, ‘The pattern is designed for grip but the deep, narrow spaces in the tread are ideal for retaining soil. Added to that, they run in different orientations which is also good for retention. In the case of our print, the top layer of material we’ve identified as originating in the area marked here.’

  Dr Mackie indicated a cross on the soil map marking an area south of Partick and close to the River Clyde.

  ‘However,’ she went on, ‘we also retrieved material that we traced to here.’ This time she indicated the Gilmorehill area of the university. ‘Some of the buildings such as the Joseph Black chemistry building stand on or next to old mine workings, which run down to the River Kelvin.

  ‘Our sample contains soil information to reflect such a location, for example, evidence of mine workings and feral animal faeces.’ She paused to let the significance of this sink in. ‘Also in the vicinity is a portion of the disused Kelvingrove Park railway tunnel, which emerges near the bridge carrying Gibson Street over the river. The tunnel is fenced off, but Urbex explorers usually find a way in, as the online photographs of the sections under the park demonstrate.’

  So they had two, maybe three possible locations derived from the boot, with every reason to suppose that they might all have been planted.

  When McNab said as much, Dr Mackie nodded. ‘Although I believe an attempt has been made to wipe the sole prior to the most recent layer.’ She gave a half-smile at this point. ‘As with blood deposits, perpetrators rarely realize the level to which we can both identify and analyse evidence.’

  She allowed the appreciative murmur at this point to die down before sh
e continued.

  ‘Now, let’s take another look at the second locus.’

  McNab had no wish to look again at Claire’s body against the trunk of that tree, but that’s not what appeared. This time the view was of an identified route taken from the tarred path through the undergrowth leading to that terrible spot.

  ‘I spoke to Dr MacLeod near the second locus, shortly before her disappearance, and told her we’d collected prints suggesting Claire approached from the park, and whoever she met with used the path from the university. That was, she informed me, the route she used on her way home.

  ‘The prints we collected in the undergrowth weren’t made by the same footwear as identified at the abduction point. However, they were the same size and likely made by the same person, suggesting that whoever killed Claire Masters and abducted Dr MacLeod favours the outer edge of heel and toe when he walks.’

  As the boss began organizing the search teams for the areas discussed, McNab took himself into the corridor to answer a call from Ollie.

  ‘Jeez, where have you been, Inspector?’

  ‘I was demoted, it’s Detective Sergeant,’ McNab reminded him. ‘What is it, Ollie?’

  ‘Can you come see? It’s easier than trying to explain. DC Fleming’s here,’ he added as an afterthought.

  DC Fleming? McNab thought as he headed to IT. He was aware her donkey work had been CCTV-related, but she’d been involved in Ollie’s world too?

  They were seated together, apparently avidly viewing his collection of screens. Neither turned on McNab’s approach to acknowledge him.

  When McNab cleared his throat to indicate his presence, DC Fleming immediately rose and said, ‘Sir.’

  ‘You’ve found something?’

  ‘Magnus—’ DC Fleming began.

  ‘Magnus?’ McNab interrupted her.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ she said, not looking sorry at all. ‘Professor Pirie sent you his profiling notes, sir.’ Fleming hurried on as though expecting McNab to interrupt again. ‘Working with Ollie here, we’ve come up with the theory that there’s another location which should be included in the geographical cluster he laid out.’

  ‘And that is?’