Sins of the Dead

by Lin Anderson

  I’m losing it, she thought.

  As the lift stopped at the fifth floor, Rhona stood hesitant. Maybe she should go back down. Wait for Ellie to arrive and they could decide whether to come up together. Or maybe she would ask Ellie to call McNab and have him join them.

  McNab would know. He would decide. She would trust his judgement. McNab knew her better than anyone.

  The lift doors opened and, as Rhona hesitated, a man appeared and got in, his back to her, and pressed for the ground floor.

  Rhona, calmer now that she’d made her decision, found her heart begin to slow.

  As the door pinged open, Rhona waited for the other occupant to exit, then followed him outside.

  102

  McNab knew the flat was empty as soon he opened the door. Wherever Ellie was, it wasn’t here.

  It appeared that neither of the two women he wanted to protect required him to do that.

  As McNab entered the kitchen he spotted a note on the table.

  ‘Out with Izzy … racing! Be back later.’

  McNab smiled. He’d been wrong. Ellie did intend staying here tonight after all.

  Sticking his ready meal in the microwave, he set it to high. He would eat, then have a drink.

  He headed for the shower first and, under the pounding water, contemplated Rhona’s request for him to take her to Skye. He’d assumed she’d meant for him to drive her there, but now pondered the idea that she might be persuaded to go on the Street Glide.

  What would Rhona make of such a suggestion?

  Probably reject it out of hand was the first response that came to mind. But, then again, if your object was to escape your old life, what better way to do it?

  McNab heard his mobile buzz as he exited the shower. Hoping it might be Ellie, he grabbed a towel and went to look. Checking the screen, he found a picture message which appeared to come from Rhona’s missing mobile.

  His heart upping a beat, he opened it to discover an image of Ellie on her bike, taken outside the Harley shop, seemingly catching her unawares. The caption below turned McNab to ice.

  Bye bye biker girl

  Swiftly pulling up Ellie’s number, McNab listened as it rang out unanswered.

  She’d said she was racing. But where?

  It couldn’t be back in the London Road tunnel. So where else did the four women go to race their bikes? McNab tried to recall any conversation they’d had that had centred on that topic.

  Ellie had always been cagey about it, suggesting it was better that he didn’t know.

  ‘We don’t endanger the public. That’s why we were using the London Road tunnel.’

  With the mobile unaccounted for, they had to assume the perp had it. So this message and photo had to have been sent by him.

  McNab rang Ollie. ‘Find Ellie’s mobile,’ he demanded. ‘And I just got a message from Rhona’s missing phone. Someone has it and I want to know where it is.’

  Ollie spluttered and said okay, then told McNab something he didn’t want to hear. Something that suggested Rhona and Ellie might well be together.

  ‘Dr MacLeod said she didn’t recognize the voice on the recording. She was upset about that. Ellie was trying to help her, sir.’

  Next up, McNab checked in with Rhona’s minder.

  PC Watson sounded apologetic. ‘She sent us away when she went out, sir. Said she was going to the jazz club in Ashton Lane and would stay with Mr Maguire tonight. Told me to inform DI Wilson of that.’

  ‘Have you checked her tracker recently?’ McNab demanded.

  There was an embarrassed silence. ‘I think she’s switched it off, sir.’

  ‘Jesus, Rhona,’ McNab screamed at the wall as he pulled up the number of the jazz club. Sean wasn’t the one to answer but he came on the line soon enough.

  ‘She never came here,’ he said, his voice panic-stricken. ‘Why would she say that?’

  McNab tried to reassure him. ‘You know Rhona. She didn’t like being watched. She felt trapped. She’s maybe with Chrissy.’

  Chrissy was his next try.

  ‘She wasn’t okay when I spoke to her in the hospital. She was haunted. God, you’ve got to find her.’

  He has us running again, McNab thought, as he climbed on the bike. In all directions.

  Only that could explain what was happening.

  Keeping Ollie on speaker, McNab headed for Rhona’s. If Ellie was with Izzy and the others, surely one of them would take a call.

  There’s four of them, he kept saying to himself, and they’re on bikes. He can’t isolate one of them, surely? Would he even know which was which?

  Even as he thought that, McNab remembered the individual leather markings on their jackets with clarity. The perpetrator knew which one was Ellie. He’d seen her in the tunnel.

  At the same time he realized how easy it was to take a bike off the road. A single chosen swerve would do it, similar to what had happened to him when he’d almost met his maker via the white van outside Rhona’s in the rain.

  Exiting Sauchiehall Street, McNab turned in the direction of the park and the quickest route to the hill. If he could descend the staircase from Park Circus on the bike, he could drive up it too.

  Rhona hadn’t been happy about the tracking device being on, especially if she had ‘a posse’ as she’d called it sitting on the doorstep. Maybe she just wanted rid of them. Maybe she was back inside the flat even now.

  Then why not answer her bloody phone?

  McNab buzzed his way in via Mrs Harper and headed up the stairs.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked anxiously from her open front door.

  ‘I want to check if Rhona’s home,’ McNab told her. ‘She’s not answering the buzzer or her phone.’

  Mrs Harper looked stricken. ‘Dear God. I have a key for feeding the cat. I’ll get it.’

  McNab had already noted from the street below that Rhona’s car was missing, and there were no lights on in the flat, but he had to try anyway.

  The flat was empty. McNab knew that as soon as he crossed the threshold and the cat came running towards him. He went for the kitchen first, but it was as he’d left it.

  In the sitting room, the sofa was draped with a duvet as though Rhona had been lying there. Beside it, her laptop was open, a memory stick attached. On the screen a file entitled ‘victim support’ was open and had been running.

  ‘Has Rhona had any visitors today?’ he asked Mrs Harper.

  ‘Apart from you, Detective Sergeant, only one. The tall man from the university. He’s been here before. Rhona said he was a sleep specialist.’

  ‘Conor Williams,’ McNab said under his breath. Maybe there was a remote chance she was with him.

  Williams answered McNab’s call almost immediately.

  ‘Is Rhona with you?’ McNab demanded, praying she was.

  ‘No. Should she be?’

  ‘What happened when you came to see her?’

  ‘We talked.’ Williams, picking up on McNab’s anxious tone, rushed on, alarm obvious in his own voice. ‘I gave her a new recording to help her sleep.’

  ‘Called “victim support”?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the one.’ Williams prattled on about Rhona asking who’d made the recording. ‘I told her it was Ray.’

  ‘Ray who?’ McNab demanded.

  ‘Ray Howden. He’s a volunteer at the sleep clinic.’

  McNab had a memory of Rhona’s determined expression when she’d told him she would know the voice of her abductor again, despite McNab’s doubts.

  ‘Where can I find this guy?’

  ‘You think Ray had something to do with all of this?’ Conor sounded horrified. Not waiting for an answer, he added, ‘God. I told him before I left that Rhona had asked whose voice was on the recording.’

  103

  ‘Okay,’ Ellie signalled. ‘Let’s go.’

  Izzy’s face was much as it had been in the tunnel, alive with excitement. Gemma, she could tell, was up for it. Mo, not so much.

&n
bsp; The park was devoid of traffic and pedestrians, and provided a clear run to the university precinct.

  She’d told McNab she was racing tonight, and in a way she was.

  Travelling in twos, they entered by the gates below Park Circus and swung west to cross the Kelvin. Someone hearing the roar of motorbikes crossing the park might report them to the police, but if Rhona was right and the police turned up, that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

  When they’d watched the CCTV footage together earlier in the day, Rhona had studied that man’s movements over and over, asking Ollie to anticipate his height, weight, whether he was left-or right-handed. Ellie had been amazed at how seriously Ollie had taken her questions.

  ‘She’s right,’ he’d said. ‘How a person walks is as unique as their fingerprints.’

  At the time Rhona had indicated she hadn’t recognized the guy or the voice in the recording, then later when she’d called, it seemed she thought she now had.

  Ellie had been immediately concerned for her, recognizing in Rhona’s voice the same desperation she felt when she thought of the killer still out there.

  They were approaching a set of bollards placed to stop cars from using the tarred road through the park.

  But just like the obstacles in the tunnel, it won’t stop the bikes.

  Ellie checked behind her. Izzy was hot on her heels and keen to pass. She knew where they were headed so there was no reason not to let Izzy win this race.

  As Ellie moved to one side, the Bluetooth connection buzzed again inside her helmet.

  It would be Michael. If she didn’t answer soon he was likely to put the police on her tail, she realized.

  ‘Michael?’ She kept her voice upbeat.

  ‘Where the hell are you?’ he demanded.

  ‘I told you in the note. I’m racing with Izzy,’ she said as the main gate loomed up in front of them.

  ‘The perp sent me a photo of you from Rhona’s missing mobile.’ When McNab repeated the caption, a shiver of fear went through Ellie.

  ‘It’s okay. I’m fine,’ she said.

  ‘Do you know where Rhona is?’

  Ellie hesitated. Rhona had asked her not to say what she planned to do. Then again …

  ‘Ellie.’ McNab’s voice brooked no argument. ‘She’s not at her flat and she lied about where she was going. Plus her tracker’s off. If you have any idea what she’s up to, you have to tell me. Now.’

  104

  The small square was empty apart from her own car and a solitary van in shadow on the far side.

  Rhona checked her watch. She would call Ellie from the car. Feeling better, she headed for her vehicle.

  Her rising panic in the lift had subsided now she was outside again. She halted and took in a deep breath of night air, catching the scent of roses from a display outside one of the terraced buildings that lined the square.

  Noting the van was still parked, she assumed that the man who’d shared the lift with her had been on foot and had probably taken the walkway that led down to University Gardens.

  Glancing up at the building she’d just left, Rhona thought she spotted a figure at the fifth-floor window, which might just be Conor.

  God, now she felt foolish.

  In fact, this whole idea of coming here tonight was beginning to look like a mistake. Tomorrow she would talk to McNab about Ray. They would interview him, and probably clear him of any wrongdoing. After all, she’d even had her doubts about Conor.

  Her stalker, whoever they were, was definitely connected to both her professional and personal life. Even Dr Sissons’s new APT had briefly crossed her mind. He was the right height and build, and had blue eyes. Then he’d spoken to her in the hospital and that suspicion had been put to rest.

  Worst of all was the knowledge that her abductor had had access to her flat. And for how long? Long enough to learn everything about her? Certainly long enough to collect her DNA.

  A sudden and shocking thought now occurred to Rhona.

  Could her stalker even have found out about the pregnancy and her decision to abort?

  God, that would have been one for a self-styled sin-eater.

  As she clicked the remote to unlock the car, Rhona suddenly noticed a shadowy figure in a nearby doorway. Its back turned to her, there was, she registered, something odd about the shape of the head.

  Then the figure swung round and stepped into the circle of light from the nearest street lamp, and she saw her shadow man. Her own personal demon.

  ‘Rhona,’ the same distorted voice caressed her name, as hypnotic as in the sleep recording. ‘You didn’t think I would give up on you, did you?’

  In that moment Rhona prayed that this terrible image was merely a figment of her imagination. That the panic now gripping her body might be presenting her with the image she feared the most.

  But of course it wasn’t. The figure approaching her now was real.

  Rhona, aware that if she tried to run it would be over in seconds, wrenched at the door handle instead.

  If she could just get inside the car.

  For a moment she thought she might make it, but with only one foot in, he was on her and even the open door between them wasn’t enough to shield her.

  Seeing the needle approach, Rhona twisted her head desperately in an effort to thwart its impact, but the point hit home anyway. The power of whatever concoction he was pumping into her was swift.

  She felt the surge of the drug enter her bloodstream and she was suddenly back in her kitchen, the same demon face above her, her body refusing her commands to move, to walk, even to cry out. The disassociation complete, she now departed her stricken body to merely observe what was happening from above.

  This must be what dying is like, her brain mused.

  You’re a fool. You convinced yourself you were going mad. That nothing you believed was sane. That trauma had confused your senses.

  She had lost faith in herself, yet she’d been right.

  Too late now.

  The nightmare had returned. The darkness and the smell. The rattling motion of the van, the desire to vomit. Feeling around her current space, Rhona encountered the rubbery touch of the mask, the metal blade of the spade, with remnants of soil still on it from her last incarceration.

  Were his plans to bury her again?

  Fear swamped her and she was back in the blackness of the pit, with the memory of soil raining down on her.

  She couldn’t, wouldn’t, let that happen again, she resolved. She dragged herself up into a sitting position. Whatever he’d managed to pump her with, it hadn’t been enough. Her fight to avoid the needle had resulted in that at least.

  And, in his hurry to depart the square, he’d left her hands free.

  Rhona listened.

  The close proximity of surrounding traffic, the repeated stops and starts, had definitely grown fewer, suggesting, she thought, that he’d left the inner city, and by the new pattern of sound was possibly on the motorway heading out of Glasgow.

  Where was he taking her?

  It would likely be somewhere remote this time. A body buried in the wilds of Scotland was unlikely ever to be found. She imagined him planting forensic evidence to further confuse their search.

  Now that she’d discovered his identity, the challenge was different, but it wasn’t necessarily over. He could dump her and disappear, to kill again.

  Something that must not be allowed to happen.

  Rhona checked her pocket for her mobile, knowing there was little chance it would still be there.

  No matter, she thought. There was another way to communicate her position.

  105

  The four bikes were clustered in front of the sleep clinic building. The three girls still perched on their Harleys observed McNab’s approach with obvious trepidation.

  Izzy tried a ‘Hi’ but the other two remained silent.

  ‘Where’s Ellie?’ McNab demanded.

  ‘She went inside,’ Izzy told him.

  �
�Alone?’ he said, worried by that.

  ‘She insisted.’ Izzy shrugged as though McNab should know by now what Ellie was like.

  McNab found the front entrance wedged open, no doubt in anticipation of his arrival or Ellie’s quick getaway. Entering, he took the stairs two at a time. When he arrived slightly breathless on the fifth floor, he found one of the three doors on that level also wedged open.

  ‘Ellie,’ he shouted, his voice echoing down the dimly lit corridor.

  A face appeared at the end, but it wasn’t Ellie’s. Not at first anyway.

  ‘Michael,’ her voice called as she appeared behind Conor.

  Both came together to meet him.

  ‘He’s gone,’ Conor said. ‘Ray was supposed to be on duty tonight, but he’s not here.’

  McNab looked at him. ‘The bastard has Rhona, and it’s your fucking fault,’ he said. ‘When you told him about the recording, he knew she would come here. He was waiting for her.’

  ‘God, I’m sorry. Rhona never said anything that suggested she suspected him.’

  ‘Okay, who is this guy?’ McNab said as they headed for the exit. ‘I know he’s a volunteer, but what does he do on his day job?’ he said, trying to get a handle on the man they sought.

  ‘He’s a trainee anatomical pathology technician in his first year. He—’ Conor halted mid-sentence. ‘It was Ray who suggested I contact Rhona in the first place about Andrew Jackson.’

  ‘And he was doing the forensic course with Rhona,’ McNab exploded. ‘And you never fucking thought about that? Okay,’ he said, trying to get his anger under control. ‘What does he drive?’

  Conor looked bewildered by the sudden question.

  He’s a fucking cyclist, McNab thought. He doesn’t care about models of cars.

  Conor surprised him by coming up with an answer of sorts.

  ‘It’s a van. Small and white.’

  ‘Okay.’ McNab tried to stay calm. ‘A white van. Registration number? Make?’

  Conor shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I have no idea.’

  They were outside now, all four girls back on their bikes, waiting for someone or something to chase, but what and who?