by Lin Anderson
But that was past history now.
Pulling the door closed behind her, she double-locked it and set off down the stairs.
Her current minder was waiting outside. Giving him a bright smile, Rhona explained that she was heading out for a couple of hours and she had her tracker, as requested.
‘I plan to go to the jazz club and stay with Sean Maguire tonight. So as far as I’m concerned, you’re off-duty.’
PC Watson looked a little taken aback by that. ‘But DI Wilson said—’
Rhona cut him short. ‘Let DI Wilson know where I’ll be. No point you guarding an empty flat.’ She smiled. ‘I’m sure you have more useful work you could be doing.’
Not waiting for a further response, Rhona headed for her car. She checked all four tyres first, then finding all was well, got in.
Ollie had been surprised to get her call, but when she’d explained what it was about, he had readily agreed.
‘I don’t want DS McNab to know about this yet,’ she’d said. ‘It’s just an idea. Nothing more.’ She had ended the worried silence by adding, ‘If anything comes of it you can tell him immediately.’
That had seemed to placate him.
In truth, experiencing daylight and a feeling of being in charge again, of where she went and what she was doing, was exhilarating. Even driving through traffic gave Rhona a sense of control. The claustrophobic darkness of the pit had been horrific. Even afterwards in the hospital she hadn’t been able to shake off the feeling of incarceration.
As for the flat, it too was tainted by association.
Rhona wondered if she could ever regain her love for the place. Could she ever look out of that kitchen window on the convent garden and experience a sense of calm? Could she ever let Tom onto the roof again?
A rush of fear swept over her once more and her hands shook on the wheel.
Would this ever go away? The bursts of remembered terror, her fear of sleeping and the demon face that featured in the inevitable nightmares?
That was why she’d decided to go west for a while. It was a journey she had always taken when life seemed too much for her. Maybe it would weave its magic again.
But before I do that.
She had met Ollie only briefly, usually when he was called to give evidence at strategy meetings, but she had heard a lot about him from McNab.
When Rhona told him so, she could have sworn the poor guy blushed.
Ellie was already seated beside him and she and Rhona exchanged hellos.
‘Thanks for letting me join you on this,’ Rhona said.
The last thing she wanted in return was for Ellie to tell her how sorry she was about what had happened to her. Perhaps reading her expression, Ellie didn’t do that.
‘I told Michael I wanted to help find the killer, just like you do,’ she said with a fierceness of purpose that perhaps matched her own.
Rhona nodded her understanding.
The repeated shaking bouts such as the recent one in the car, and her guilt at what she had or hadn’t done, were, Rhona knew, typical with any victim of crime. The liaison officer who’d accompanied Bill to the hospital had talked her through what they could do to help her. There were support services available and a worried Bill had urged her to make use of them.
Rhona knew herself well enough to think that unlikely, although she hadn’t told Bill or the LO that, because she had had other plans for her time and her efforts.
And that was to relive her experience as often as possible, in the hope that she would remember every single second she had spent with her attacker.
The flashbacks that accompanied the shaking were vivid and growing increasingly more revealing.
Now she could recall his legs as they descended the ladder in the dancing light of the head torch. All of it suffused with the smell of her own fear. In the hospital, McNab had asked her to describe her attacker, and she’d given him the bare minimum, because that’s all she could remember at that point.
Not any more.
Now she knew the eyes behind the mask had been blue. Not the deep colour of Sean’s eyes, or even McNab’s, but paler. The way he’d moved as he’d descended the ladder was imprinted on her memory like the bad dream it was. He’d led with his left, she thought. Both his first foot on the ladder and his hand too.
The way people moved, Rhona knew, was as distinctive as a fingerprint. And a mask couldn’t hide that.
‘So,’ Ollie brought her back. ‘You want to start with the captured footage?’
Rhona nodded, her throat suddenly dry. ‘Then I’d like to hear the phone recording.’
‘Run it again,’ Rhona ordered.
The grainy image was like an old noir movie, the time of day playing along the bottom. Ollie had strung three clips together. Each one featured a guy dressed in a dark-coloured hooded top and jeans. In the first he was checking out the window display of possible tattoos at the Ink Parlour. In the second he almost went into the Harley shop, then decided against it. In the third recording, Ellie emerged from the shop and walked away, glancing back as though conscious of someone’s eyes on her, and the hooded man turned his face away.
According to Ollie, the super recognizer, all the sightings were of the same guy.
‘You haven’t got one of him descending a ladder?’ Rhona said jokingly to ease the tension. ‘That’s about all I saw him do.’
Ollie cast her a sympathetic look. ‘You said you thought he was left-handed?’
‘Yes.’
‘So’s this guy. Watch his hands. He uses the left hand to push open the door, before he decides against going in. He uses his left hand to rearrange his hood. His gait also suggests he’s leading with his left.
‘So he’s one of ten per cent of the population,’ Rhona said. ‘That narrows it down.’ She glanced at the two anxious faces beside her. ‘Sorry. I just thought I would know if it was him by the way he moved.’
‘Shall we try the recording?’ Ollie offered.
Rhona nodded. She had all her hopes now pinned on the voice, and the voice along with the demon mask was what traumatized her most.
Ellie sat rigid beside her as the replay started. Rhona would have reached out and taken her hand, but knew that her own trembled too much.
A wave of nausea hit her as the taunting voice began to weave its sinister web. Ellie had committed a sin and should be punished for it. That was the message. They were back in the realms of the sin-eater.
Rhona searched desperately for a face she might recall to match that distorted voice, but all she could visualize was the demon, crouched in the corner of her kitchen, looming over her as she lay drugged on the floor.
‘He must have had the mask on when he made that call,’ she said. ‘It’s too distorted to recognize.’
Ollie, who’d been leaning forward in his eagerness, slumped back in disappointment. ‘I’ve cleaned it up as much as I can,’ he apologized. ‘Did he speak to you at all without the mask?’
Yes.
Rhona forced herself to remember. A white door, the metallic noise of it being opened. The back door of a car? No, the double doors of a van. A smell had hit her as the door had opened. It had been the smell of the pit.
Now she was reliving her time in the van, rattling against the bare floor as it took off, the jolts bringing her back intermittently from her drug-induced stupor. The drug had made her vomit, and hearing her from the driver’s seat, her abductor had turned and swore at her, his voice no longer disguised by the mask. The same voice she’d heard in the pit.
‘Rhona.’ It was Ellie’s worried voice that broke into her revisited nightmare. ‘Are you okay?’
Rhona pulled herself together. ‘I heard his voice twice clearly, apart from the phone call. Once from the back of the van he used to abduct me. And again when he called out to me in the pit.’
‘And you would know that voice again if you heard it clearly?’ Ollie said.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget it.’
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99
Grabbing the duvet from her bed, Rhona took it through to the sitting room. Tom, thinking this was the first sensible thing she’d done since he’d arrived back, came to nestle beside her on the sofa. The August evening was warm, but even under the duvet, Rhona shivered.
She had placed her hopes on viewing the footage and hearing the recording and she’d been wrong. It had been too distorted.
Anyway, a voice wasn’t enough to accuse someone. There had to be more. Means, motive and opportunity.
On her return to the flat, she’d gone straight to the kitchen, stopping short at the door. In her preoccupation with what had just happened, she’d forgotten that the kitchen was still in such a state. If she ever wanted to eat in there again, that would have to change.
‘Tomorrow,’ she promised herself. ‘I’ll start tomorrow.’
Rhona pulled the cover up round her. Any notion she’d had about food had dissipated. She thought of Ellie’s worried face as they’d parted company earlier.
‘If you need to talk, just call me,’ she’d said.
Rhona had watched her roar away on her bike and hoped that she and McNab would find a way to stay together.
The sun was setting, its reddened glow filling the room. In normal times, she would have gone to the big bay window to admire the view. Rhona wondered if she’d ever seek that image again without her eyes being drawn to the place where Claire’s life had ended.
She admonished herself for that thought. You work with death, all of the time. Just because in this instance it almost touched you …
The insistent buzz of the intercom broke into her ruminations. Her first thought was that it might be Sean, and she hesitated at the prospect of facing him again. The alternative could be McNab of course, and she wondered if Ellie might have told him about what had happened earlier.
The voice on the intercom proved to be neither of them.
‘Rhona, it’s Conor. May I come up?’
Conor was trying not to stare or show any reaction to her face, but wasn’t succeeding.
‘I saw the story on the news. I’m so sorry, Rhona.’
She brushed aside his concerns. ‘I’m okay, as you can see.’
She’d led him into the sitting room where Tom was now intent on ingratiating himself with the visitor.
Rhona studied Conor’s valiant attempt to deal with the cat’s determined attentions.
I’m not afraid of him, she thought. Nothing about him suggests I should be. And yet … from the moment they’d met accidentally in the park, he’d been within her range. Supplying information on Jackson, arriving the moment she needed help with the cat. Appearing again, when she’d been investigating the roof. Means and opportunity, but motive?
Feeling her eyes on him, Conor met her studied look, his left hand still stroking the cat.
‘I’ve given details of my movements and a DNA sample, as requested by DS McNab. Ray tells me they’re asking the same from everyone on the forensic diploma course and from anyone who knew the victims.’ A look of pain crossed his face. ‘You have nothing to fear from me, Rhona. I hope you know that?’
Rhona smiled, as though she agreed with him.
Taking the smile as a positive, Conor reached in his pocket.
‘I work with victims of violence at the clinic. I know how difficult it is to sleep after a major trauma. I thought you might need some help with that.’
He handed her a memory stick.
‘I’m not planning on sleeping much,’ Rhona told him. ‘But thanks anyway.’
Conor had something else to say, something he was uncomfortable with.
‘What is it?’ Rhona asked.
‘They’re calling him the sin-eater. The press, I mean. There was an image in the newspaper of a painting.’ He hesitated, perhaps looking for a reaction. When there was none he continued, ‘It reminded me of the painting I showed you, The Nightmare. I wish I’d never done that. It’s haunted me.’
Rhona gave a brief nod. She wished he hadn’t either, then a sudden and penetrating thought occurred. ‘Did you show it to anyone else?’
‘Ray and I use it in the sleep clinic with anyone who suffers from sleep paralysis. Sometimes knowing others down through the ages have shared the same horrors helps. And, let’s face it, who is without sin?’ he said with a wry smile.
‘Are you on duty tonight at the clinic?’ Rhona said as she led him to the door.
‘Yes, for a while at least. We have a number of new patients to manage. We’ve become a little famous through all of this,’ he said apologetically.
‘The first recording you gave me. Does the new one have the same voice?’
‘It does,’ Conor said with a smile.
‘Is it you?’
‘Only in the intro,’ he admitted. ‘Ray does the sleep sequences.’
After he’d gone and she’d double-locked the door, Rhona fetched her laptop. Plugging in the new memory stick, she selected the file named ‘victim support’ and pressed play.
The room was already in shadow, the thick curtains she’d now pulled across cutting out the light from the street.
Rhona closed her eyes to deepen the darkness.
The voice that introduced the session, she took a moment to relate to Conor. It sounded different in the recording. But, as he continued to speak, Rhona’s brain began to match his face to it, in the park when they’d first met, then later in the pub where they’d shared a drink and talked of the importance of sleep.
The words he spoke were of trauma and how to use sleep to overcome a feeling of victimhood. How to be a survivor and take back control.
As the introduction drew to a close, a second voice entered.
Decidedly hypnotic, it washed over Rhona like a warm rush of water. She attempted to map that voice to the one that had called out to her in the pit and in the van, unhindered by the mask. The voice that had repeated the muffled words, ‘I know what you did,’ over the phone.
100
She got away and I was impressed, although I imagined it might happen. She is nothing if not resourceful.
She could, of course, have ended it there. She had the opportunity but chose not to do so.
Was I surprised by that? Not really. Some people are too weak to take a life, even when their own life depends on it.
I listened to her in the pit, babbling on in her drugged state about her guilty sins. When I said on the phone that I knew what she’d done, I was of course referring to the planted DNA.
Were I to call her now, there are other ‘sins’ I could mention.
It’s illuminating how a near-death experience urges us to confess our sins.
I had intended to devour all her sins like the others. That would have been my parting gift to her, but circumstances prevented me from doing that.
Mainly the fact that she is still alive.
They’ve begun taking DNA samples from the participants on the course, and others in the vicinity of her place of work and home.
I have a decision to make, and soon.
Do I complete my task or not?
101
Rhona shivered a little as she met the night air. August was almost over.
She thought of the winding road west she would take when this was all over. She thought of stepping out of the cottage and looking across the Sound of Sleat to the mainland.
The air would be different there. She would be closer to the sea and to the mountains, and at that thought a great longing rose in her.
Maybe she would be there soon.
She glanced down the steps. She’d taken time to make her decision after listening to the recording. By now Conor would be at the sleep clinic, preparing his patients for hopefully a good night’s sleep.
Getting into the car, she pulled out the replacement mobile and brought up McNab’s number. Would he take her at her word that she might go to Sean’s or would he check with Bill or her minder?
Rhona put the mobile away. If she told McN
ab what she planned, he would only try to prevent her.
Ellie, on the other hand, had understood why she might need to do this.
‘This clinic. You won’t be alone there with him?’ she’d asked when Rhona had explained.
‘Dr Williams will be there.’
‘So you’re just going to check out his voice?’
‘The sleep recording. It sounded like him,’ Rhona said, already beginning to question herself about that.
‘I’ll come there,’ Ellie had told Rhona. ‘Give me directions.’
Ellie would be here soon. Rhona knew she should wait and let Ellie come in with her. That’s what they’d agreed.
And yet …
It would only take a few moments for her to be sure. Not by his face, but his movements and his voice.
If she was wrong she would simply make some excuse about looking for Conor and then leave.
And if her instincts proved right, what would she do then?
A woman approached and, giving her a smile, asked Rhona if she needed help to get into the building. Seized by indecision, Rhona murmured something about visiting the sleep clinic.
‘Maybe they’re sleeping and didn’t hear the buzzer,’ the woman joked. She pressed the security keypad, and when it crackled into action, she said, ‘Visitor for the sleep clinic,’ and the door clicked open.
‘Are you one of the sleepers?’ she said as she walked Rhona to the lift.
Rhona found herself nodding.
‘Sweet dreams, then,’ the woman offered as she got out at the second floor.
As Rhona watched the doors close behind her, she realized she was moving into panic mode again. In that moment, every sense in her body was warning her that this was a mistake. The small enclosed lift space only exacerbated that feeling. What if the lift stopped and she was shut in here in a space the size of the pit?
In an effort to countermand the panic attack, she tried to focus on the reasons why she’d come, but the logical list she’d convinced herself with seemed tenuous now, suggesting her poor mental state had been the culprit, and not scientific evaluation.
Now she accepted that she should have contacted McNab, rather than Ellie, after she’d listened to the recording. Told him she thought she’d recognized the voice. They would have talked it through. He would have come here with her if she’d asked him to.