Sins of the Dead

by Lin Anderson

  She was alive and in hospital.

  Rhona savoured the moment, but didn’t open her eyes immediately, for fear she was experiencing the opiate-induced dream from before.

  She searched for and located her right hand and felt for what lay beneath it. No longer stones and wet earth, but the softness of a sheet against the broken skin, worn raw with digging.

  A voice spoke to her, although it seemed very far away. Rhona strove to answer, but couldn’t.

  A gentle hand encased hers, large and warm and comforting.

  ‘Rhona,’ the male voice tried again, and this time she recognized it, and her eyes flickered open in answer.

  His face swam above her. The dark hair, the deep blue eyes.

  ‘Rhona, it’s Sean.’

  ‘Sean,’ she repeated, or tried to.

  His face moved and settled into place. She knew who this man was.

  ‘You’re safe now,’ he was saying. ‘You’re going to be all right.’

  The real world was coming back. Where she was now, where she had been. What had happened?

  Rhona attempted to drag herself up. ‘Did they find him? I left him in the pit in the water.’

  A face materialized behind Sean.

  ‘Do you feel well enough to talk now, Rhona? To tell us what happened?’

  Sean hadn’t wanted to leave the room, and McNab definitely hadn’t wanted him to stay. For one important reason which had nothing to do with asking Rhona about her assailant.

  McNab waited until the door closed behind the Irishman before he said outright, ‘You were bleeding when admitted, Rhona. You know that, don’t you?’

  A shadow crossed her eyes.

  ‘You didn’t get to the appointment you made at the abortion clinic. Whatever happened in the tunnel caused you to miscarry and they had to operate. I take it Sean still doesn’t know you were pregnant?’ McNab said, then watched as her eyes began to clear and understanding set in.

  ‘You have to tell him. It’s not our secret any more.’

  She’d asked McNab to give her five minutes before he sent Sean in. He was right of course. Sean had to be told, but more importantly she had to make peace with herself first.

  Rhona kept her hands where the imagined light had been, devoid now of life other than her own.

  In her deepest, darkest moments in the pit, she had vowed to keep them both alive.

  And she had failed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

  McNab forced himself to step away from the intervening glass. He didn’t want to see or hear her revelation. Nor did he want to observe Maguire’s reaction.

  The whole thing was a fucking mess.

  Her tears when she’d interpreted his words, the hands that had reached for her abdomen. The sorrow in her eyes. All of that suggested to him, at least, that something had happened in that tunnel which may have made Rhona change her mind.

  About telling Sean? About having an abortion?

  Two coffees later and after a long call to the boss, McNab returned to find Maguire gone. The look Rhona gave him on entry, the slight shake of her head, indicating whatever had happened between her and the Irishman was not to be discussed.

  ‘Have they found him?’ she demanded.

  ‘They’ve found the pit and the abandoned ladder, but no body, drowned or otherwise,’ McNab told her.

  ‘So he isn’t dead,’ she said, sounding almost relieved.

  ‘Do you feel like describing what happened that night?’

  ‘Yes,’ she told him, a determined look on her face. ‘At least as much as I can remember.’

  95

  They would discharge her soon, probably tomorrow.

  Could she return to the flat or was it still a designated crime scene?

  She could stay at Sean’s, something he’d already suggested. Although, after what had happened between them, Rhona couldn’t imagine doing that. And by his expression, neither could Sean.

  So what did she want?

  To turn back time. To make different decisions. To prevent Claire’s death.

  To tell Sean, but not after it was all over.

  Rhona recalled the turmoil of emotions that had crossed Sean’s face when she’d revealed the unplanned pregnancy. Then, in halting words, her decision to have it terminated.

  ‘That’s what you and McNab were talking about when I walked in on you that day at the flat.’ Sean had shaken his head as though in disbelief. ‘And I thought there was something going on between you two.’

  ‘McNab found the tester in the bathroom. I didn’t tell him by choice.’

  Sean had given a half-smile. ‘He was pretty good at covering for you, as I remember.’

  ‘He asked me to tell you,’ Rhona had said, remembering McNab’s desperate attempts at doing just that, including recounting the tale of his own missed fatherhood.

  At that point, Sean had started putting the pieces together.

  ‘That’s why he sent me out as soon as you regained consciousness? To remind you of what you had to do?’ He’d looked to Rhona for confirmation.

  ‘Yes,’ she’d admitted, feeling sick inside at what she now saw as betrayal.

  ‘So, if this hadn’t happened … I would never have known?’

  Sean had sounded so sad and lost at that moment, that Rhona had almost told him about the flashes of light video, her change of heart in the tunnel in the face of what had seemed like imminent death.

  But I didn’t.

  ‘You could have died down there,’ Sean had said.

  A little bit of me did.

  ‘So, where do we go from here, Rhona?’ he’d asked.

  A question she wasn’t able to answer.

  Rhona looked up as another visitor arrived.

  Chrissy stood in the doorway, her face a mix of emotions. Elation and fear being only two of them.

  ‘Jesus, Rhona. I’ve never prayed so hard in my whole life.’

  ‘Me too,’ Rhona said.

  Chrissy came to give her a hug. It was a bit like being smothered with love.

  ‘The number of feckin’ candles I lit.’

  ‘Well, somebody spotted them,’ Rhona said with a half-smile.

  Chrissy settled herself beside the bed.

  ‘You fucking scared me. Big time.’ She sought Rhona’s hand and met her eye. ‘How are you really?’

  At that moment Rhona wanted to tell Chrissy the truth. That she was a mess, both inside and out. That she’d lost all sense of herself in that pit. That she too had tried to bargain with whichever God would listen. That she’d revisited all her sins and regrets, shouting them to the enveloping darkness.

  Instead, she said, ‘I’m okay, honestly.’

  Chrissy made a face as though knowing that would always be her reply.

  They lapsed into a silence heavy with unspoken thoughts.

  Eventually, Rhona said, ‘I told Sean.’

  Chrissy, who was normally never at a loss for words, merely registered this with a nod. The worry about what they should next say was solved by the door opening and the entry of another pair of hospital scrubs.

  The man came forward and, holding out his hand, said, ‘Dr MacLeod, Nick Gallagher. We met at a recent postmortem here.’

  Rhona only had a vague recollection of the blue-eyed, masked figure of the new APT. Not to be rude, though, she acknowledged him with a smile.

  ‘Dr Walker sends his regards. As does Dr Sissons. They hope you’ll be home soon.’

  Rhona thanked him. ‘Tomorrow, probably.’

  ‘Great. Well, I have a body to collect,’ he said, as though it was necessary to explain his visit further. He gave her a smile. ‘Not from this ward, fortunately.’

  ‘Who was that?’ Chrissy asked when he’d left.

  ‘Dr Sissons’s new APT. He was at the Jackson postmortem,’ Rhona said as Chrissy’s mobile buzzed.

  Chrissy checked it and rose. ‘I have to get back to work.’

  She avoided saying where, but Rhona k
new anyway.

  ‘If they let you out tomorrow, go and stay with Sean. Please,’ Chrissy pleaded.

  Rhona nodded despite having no intention of doing any such thing.

  96

  The tunnel was brightly lit by arc lamps, the walls resounding with the steady throb of the generator. The perp’s ladder had been transferred to the forensic lab, an alternative now giving access to the pit.

  McNab surveyed the scene of Rhona’s incarceration, trying to imagine what it must have felt like down there in the dark, bound and gagged, earth being shovelled in on you.

  He’d faced death himself on a number of occasions, but had never experienced the feeling of being buried alive. And for that he was grateful.

  The tunnels around here, he knew, had been badly flooded some years ago, after a particularly wet November when the River Kelvin had burst its banks. The deluge of water had found its way down more than one disused tunnel, to eventually flood the Glasgow Central railway line.

  Since that time, remedial work had been done to prevent a repeat, including, according to Jen Mackie, a partial backfill of the south end of the tunnel, as well as a higher bank outside the Kelvinbridge portal.

  ‘That deluge probably created the hole Rhona found herself in, aided by the underground stream. The only positive thing about her prison was the fact it had running fresh water,’ Jen had added. ‘If Rhona had been stuck down here without that, she might not have survived.’

  Rhona had related to McNab how she’d got into the hole on her own volition when she’d mistaken an approaching torch for her captor.

  ‘He had no intention of supplying her with water,’ McNab had told Jen. ‘I’m not even sure he planned to keep Rhona here long-term. Alive or otherwise.’

  ‘Well, he definitely left us soil clues to follow. I assume he was watching to see which ones we would choose,’ Jen had said.

  And they were back in the realms of the watcher. The perpetrator who was always there, following the investigation. Perhaps even adding to it.

  Chrissy had spent a great deal of time in the pit and had apparently little to show for it. The most recent tropical downpour had, according to Chrissy, raised the water level sufficiently to wash away all evidence of Rhona’s imprisonment.

  ‘But we do have the ladder,’ Chrissy had told McNab. ‘He didn’t take that with him when he went.’

  So Rhona’s fear that she’d drowned the perpetrator had been wrong. In fact, it seemed certain that having got out of the pit, he’d followed Rhona for a while. Jen had found footwear imprints matching his size and preferential wear pattern as evidence of that.

  ‘Something stopped him, though,’ Jen had said. ‘Possibly the arrival of the search team.’

  ‘Rhona’s given you a description?’

  ‘Five ten. Slim build. Demon mask.’

  It wasn’t much. Her captor had apparently spoken her name clearly only once when he’d thought she’d escaped from the hole.

  ‘If I heard his voice again,’ Rhona had told McNab, ‘I would recognize it.’

  McNab wasn’t so sure about that.

  Rhona had ID’d the demon mask online but multiple sources offered it for sale, so little chance of pinpointing a particular buyer.

  He tried to imagine the scenario from the perpetrator’s perspective. If Rhona’s abduction was the ultimate test, what result had he wanted from that?

  For Rhona to die and never be found?

  Or what was now the case? The airwaves filled with how clever he had been in outwitting them all.

  According to Magnus, the perpetrator craved recognition – for his forensic knowledge, for his skill and intelligence, for the police’s inability to catch him.

  Rhona’s escape, McNab began to see, may well have been part of that plan. And Magnus, when challenged on that, had appeared to agree.

  Emerging above ground, McNab heard the mobile ping an incoming message.

  It was from Rhona’s replacement phone, the original still missing just like both Claire’s and Jackson’s.

  I’m back at the flat. Can you come and see me, now?

  97

  The kitchen was a mess, the surfaces dusted for prints, the forensic markings still littering the floor. It looked like the crime scene it was.

  God knows what Rhona thinks every time she comes in here.

  McNab wondered if Rhona had left it like this as an aid to memory, in case something occurred about that night which she’d forgotten. Or perhaps she didn’t have the heart or the energy to clean it up.

  At least the cat had been reinstated, he thought. It had run to greet McNab on entry, winding itself round his legs, meowing in an agitated fashion, as Rhona had led him through the flat to the kitchen. Tom was back, but not Sean, as evidenced by the empty bedroom, McNab had noted on passing.

  So whatever had been said in that hospital room had led to him moving his stuff out.

  As for Rhona herself, McNab had had to cover his shock when she’d opened the door to him. Pale as a ghost, apart from the vividly coloured bruise above her eye, the hands still scratched and swollen from digging.

  Rhona had caught his expression and read it.

  ‘I look like shit, I know, but I’m okay, really,’ she’d insisted.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here alone,’ McNab tried again, remembering the last time he’d said those words.

  Rhona dismissed his concern. ‘They’ve alarmed the place at Bill’s insistence and they’ve given me a tracker. You won’t lose me again, even if I do get past DC Watson and Co. Plus –’ she pointed to the closed kitchen window – ‘the roof’s off-limits to Tom. For now, at least.’

  Heading for the cupboard, Rhona brought out the whisky.

  ‘Will you join me?’ she asked.

  When McNab nodded, she poured them both a double measure, her hand, he thought, a little unsteady as she did so.

  ‘Is this about Sean?’ he tried.

  ‘Yes and no,’ she said, her brisk tone belying the trembling fingers. ‘Firstly, something I didn’t tell you, although in truth I thought I’d lost it, until they gave me back my clothes in the hospital.’

  McNab accepted the open evidence bag Rhona handed him and took a look inside.

  ‘It’s from the broken bottle.’ Rhona indicated the marked-up floor with the bloodstains still evident. ‘I tried to stab his left leg through the trousers that night, and I think I pierced the skin, although,’ she said, looking down at the blood spots, ‘I doubt whether I did enough damage for any of those to be his.’

  She went on, ‘I hid the splinter in my pocket. I had planned to stick it in his neck when I got the chance. The way, I suspect, you would have done.’ She gave him a half-smile and shrugged. ‘In the end, I didn’t, and as you know, he’s still alive. And free to kill again.’

  McNab was pleased about the glass. If it did have the perpetrator’s blood on it, it would be the first DNA sample they had on him, although if, as she’d described, it had been in the mud and washed clean by the water …

  However, judging by Rhona’s demeanour, McNab wasn’t sure that was why she’d brought him here, instead of simply handing the glass over to Chrissy at the lab.

  Noting his puzzlement, Rhona continued.

  ‘No one can understand what it feels like to decide between killing and being killed, until you’re faced with the choice yourself.’ She met his eye. ‘I know that now. I learned it in the dark, in that pit. Just the way you did that night on that hill among the standing stones.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ McNab said.

  ‘So am I,’ she said with a small smile.

  And with those words and that smile, McNab knew, the business between them regarding Stonewarrior was over.

  That was why Rhona had asked him to come here, he realized, but now having had a glimpse of her state of mind, including ‘the kill or be killed’ scenario, he was even more certain she shouldn’t stay here on her own. At least not until they picked up the perpetrator.


  He said as much, adding, ‘It would be better if you went to Sean’s.’

  ‘I know. And I may do that. He has offered and it would save on a sentry here.’ She forced a smile.

  She hadn’t touched the whisky and McNab sensed she’d only poured it to make him feel at ease. There was, he realized, something else Rhona wanted to say, and eventually it came.

  ‘I have a favour to ask.’

  ‘Anything,’ McNab said.

  ‘I’d like to go home to Skye for a week, maybe more, and I’m not sure I’m up to driving yet. Will you take me?’

  He briefly considered Ellie’s reaction to such an arrangement and decided she would be for it. She had a great deal of time for Rhona, knowing what had happened in that pit. And they were, as she’d said, both victims of the same attacker. ‘Although Rhona was braver than I could ever be,’ had been Ellie’s exact words.

  ‘Of course,’ McNab said swiftly. ‘When d’you want to go?’

  ‘Once this is all over.’

  98

  Rhona stood behind the door, waiting for the sound of McNab’s footsteps to fade from the stairwell. In truth she’d been tempted by his offer to come back later, even stay for tonight, if, as he’d said, she chose not to go to Sean’s.

  But she had other plans for the rest of her day and maybe the evening too. And it wasn’t to stay with Sean.

  A ping from her phone indicated an incoming return message from Ellie agreeing to her suggested meeting. Rhona smiled. It was good to be doing something positive. Anything was better than being regarded as a victim.

  Dressed and ready to go out, she pulled the door shut on Sean’s empty room as she passed, almost locking Tom in there. The cat, she acknowledged, was fond of Sean, and would probably choose him over her if given a choice. She would have to ask Sean to look after Tom again, of course, when she went to Skye.

  I’m always asking Sean for something, she thought. And he rarely asks me for anything in return.

  He’d been deeply hurt by the secret of the pregnancy. Recalling his face, the confusion and hurt in his eyes, stung Rhona yet again.

  He couldn’t dispute her right to make such a decision, Sean had told her. Just that he’d wished she’d given him the chance to tell her that.

  Even then, Rhona hadn’t been able to bring herself to reveal her change of heart in the pit. Her vow that if she survived, then maybe …