by Lin Anderson
For the first time in what seemed like months, Rhona laughed. Not the polite or restrained version she’d been using, but a real laugh. One that almost made her choke on the haggis and bacon combination.
‘God, I’ve missed you, Chrissy McInsh.’
‘And I you,’ Chrissy said with a grin. ‘It took me ages to stop buying an extra filled roll of a morning. I put on weight by eating yours along with my own. And, by the way, if you don’t come back soon, I’m likely to get my jotters.’
‘They’ll never give you the sack.’
‘You haven’t met Derek.’ Chrissy’s graphic description of Rhona’s replacement would have provided a stand-up comedy routine on a par with Frankie Boyle in terms of expletives.
Rhona held up her hands. ‘Stop, please.’
‘So when are you coming back?’
‘Soon,’ Rhona said, wiping her hands and replacing her gloves. ‘Let’s deal with the body, then I’ll tell you everything that’s been happening here,’ she promised.
Rhona and Chrissy watched as the RNLI rib, having secured the body on board, set off in a burst of engine and froth towards the harbour at Portree. Rhona had given Chrissy the option of going with the lifeboat, but she’d chosen instead to be lifted by the recently arrived coastguard helicopter, so that they might work the scene on the cliff face above together, before time ran out on them.
The light would fade soon, and although a couple of SOCOs had been examining the area deemed most likely to have originated the fall, Rhona was keen to view it herself.
As it was, perhaps immunized by her recent cliff descent, being lifted by the coastguard and deposited in the field next to the car park hadn’t raised Rhona’s heartbeat too much. As for Chrissy, she was beyond excited, insisting she had her photo taken during the transfer. Rhona could see the image being on show at the jazz club on her return to Glasgow. There and everywhere else Chrissy might interest someone in her ‘rescue’.
Waiting for their lift, Rhona had brought Chrissy up to date on the incident in the woods behind A.C.E Target Sports.
‘And you suspect the dead guy may be linked to that?’
Rhona couldn’t say that exactly, but time-wise it might fit. The state of decomposition of the body on the beach could certainly place the death in that time frame. She explained about the head injury and the material she’d collected from the tree trunk. ‘The majority of the shore victim’s injuries were from impact as he landed on his front. But there was a sizable older wound on the back of the head.’
‘Which may provide a match for the material you found in the birch tree?’
‘And the blood deposits,’ Rhona had added. ‘Has anything come back on those, and the soil samples I sent?’
‘God, I forgot to tell you, Jen Mackie came back on the soil. Seems she did find evidence suggesting cocaine. Something about benzoylecgonine?’
Rhona knew it would have been unlikely to find cocaine molecules in the soil. The natural water content would have metabolized the cocaine quite rapidly. Jen would have had to look for the cocaine metabolites, the predominant one being benzoylecgonine, its presence indicative of cocaine having been there.
‘And you detected cocaine on your faller?’
It’d been one of the first tests Rhona had done on the body.
‘According to Sergeant MacDonald, it’s increasingly the drug of choice for both visitors and locals and it’s available on the island, despite all their efforts.’
‘Maybe the victim got high and went too near the edge?’ Chrissy had suggested.
‘Or maybe,’ Rhona had said, ‘that’s what we’re supposed to believe.’
Crossing the stream that left the small loch to tumble over the cliff face, Rhona, led by Blaze and followed by Chrissy, took the path that wound its way along the headland. The wire fence between them and the sheer drop was a grim reminder of just how easy it would be to stray too close, especially in the thick mist of earlier.
When Blaze had indicated he wished to accompany them, Rhona had been happy to agree.
‘He’s safe on the cliffs?’ she’d asked Donald.
‘He’s mountain-trained,’ Donald had told her. ‘And very cautious.’ He gave Rhona a selection of the dog’s commands. ‘But if you tell him to stay, remember to release him, otherwise he’ll stay in that place forever,’ he warned them with a smile. ‘I left him in the pub once. He hasn’t forgotten.’
Rhona’s ‘walk on’ had sent Blaze a little ahead of them. Her ‘here to me’ brought him swiftly back.
‘Hey,’ Chrissy said. ‘You’re bossing him about just like me.’
Cresting a small hill, they found an area sectioned off by police tape, an officer on duty, although it looked like the SOCOs had already departed.
The crime scene manager turned out to be Jamie’s friend, the one who was due to have his stag do the forthcoming weekend. Introducing himself in a London accent as Sergeant Frank Duns, he told them he’d transferred to Skye from the Met five years ago.
‘I used to climb here on holiday once a year. Now I can climb whenever I like,’ he told them. ‘And the murder rate’s a lot lower,’ he added with a wry smile.
‘Did the SOCOs find anything of interest?’ Rhona said.
‘A few footprints, but folk wander up this way from the car park all the time. Good thinking on Blaze, though.’
Freshly kitted up, Rhona and Chrissy entered the enclosed area. Rhona then produced the swab she’d taken from the victim and offered it up to Blaze.
If the collie could detect blood in the woods behind the sports centre, he was equally likely to pick up where the victim had been on the clifftop.
Donald’s instructions had been clear. ‘Use “Go find it” and if Blaze is in close proximity to what he’s meant to be looking for, you call “Good boy” and he’ll do a detailed search of about a five-yard area.’
Blaze took a while sniffing the swab, then, on her command, he took off. Rhona’s biggest fear in trying this was that Blaze might pick up the faller’s scent around the cliff edge.
She was wrong in that. The dog was circling the area, but if the faller had walked this section, it seemed he had left no trace.
Chrissy turned to Rhona, disappointed. ‘Could this be the wrong spot they’ve identified?’
Having crossed and recrossed the sectioned-off area, Blaze now passed under the tape and moved further afield in his search.
‘Maybe he’s looking for a rabbit?’ Chrissy said.
‘I thought that in the woods,’ Rhona told her, ‘and I was wrong then.’
The dog had come to a halt and now stood waiting, the brown eyes fixed firmly on Rhona.
‘Looks like Blaze has found something he wants us to see,’ Rhona said.
25
Afghanistan
Back before this happened, according to Sugarboy, the guys had decided that at home in Glasgow, I’d be a 4-10-4. But out here, I was way higher, a 6-10-6, maybe even a 7.
Lack of women, he’d added, with a grin. Changes the odds.
So Seven became my nickname, a compliment of sorts. The Scottish male version of a compliment.
I’d laughed anyway.
I didn’t give a fuck what screwing score they gave me. I knew what my scores for them were. I knew who I’d want stitching me up and who I needed if the skin fried on my body. I knew who would restart my heart and who would be quickest at staunching the flow of blood. Even who I wanted near if the scorpion with the fat tail dropped from the canvas onto my body during the night.
And, best of all, who would make me laugh when everything seemed at an end.
And that was Sugarboy.
I am laughing now, despite the choking red sand that swirls about our blue prison, seeking entrance to it, and us. The cloud that seeks my tight-shut eyes through the prison mesh, and my mouth open from laughing.
Sugarboy joins in, and we laugh the way we’d done back then, before the world as we knew it ended.
It was Sug
arboy who had wakened me that fateful night.
‘There’s a fucking big spider! Quick, Seven. It’s on your tits.’
‘Fuck off,’ I’d said, and rolled over.
Then I’d caught the sweep of the beams and heard the unmistakable sound of the chopper. Something or someone was coming in.
We were up and ready, hearts beating wilder than the chopper’s blades, but cool and calm inside. At that point I’d have scored us all at a 9.
The boy appeared first, alone, limping and crying, the tears streaking through the blood on his face. I waved Mitch away and took charge of him, because kids are less frightened of a woman, even in uniform.
I led him to a bed and started to clean him up, trying to work out whose blood was on him. His or someone else’s.
Then the first stretcher appeared, Gordo and him carrying it.
‘A roadside fucking bomb,’ Gordo said. I remember at that moment thinking the streaks on his face made by red sand and sweat looked like rivulets of blood.
The stretcher was weighed down by a soldier in full protective gear, which hadn’t saved him from the blast. I registered the missing leg and arm, the gaping chest wound . . . and stepped in front of the boy to shield him from the horror, just as the next stretcher arrived via Ben and Charlie.
The shape on it was so fucking small I thought it was another kid, then I registered it was a blood-soaked sniffer dog.
That’s all the dying soldier cared about. With his last words he begged us to save his fucking dog and Sugarboy took his remaining hand and promised him that we would.
I’d wiped the boy clean by then, finding only superficial wounds, cuts from stones, not shrapnel. I should have searched him, checked he’d come in via the chopper, but he was just a wide-eyed kid. Wasn’t he?
When you think of it that way, he was right and it was all my fault it happened.
But back to the dog . . . right front leg looked a goner, but Sugarboy wouldn’t hear of taking it off. We set to work, and during that time the boy did what he was there to do.
The chopper never took off again, blown to bits when the boy threw a grenade.
Just far enough away from the blast, Sugarboy, myself, Ben, Charlie . . . and the fat-tailed scorpion survived. Gordo and Mitch weren’t so lucky.
Or maybe they were the fortunate ones.
The deafening blast hit the tent like a whirlwind. After that, the first thing I remember when I forced my grit-filled eyes open was the boy pointing down at me, a triumphant smile on his face.
Seems I scored a 7 with the enemy too.
‘You didn’t rape me,’ I say as the sandstorm ends and everything becomes quiet again. ‘Not even when they threatened to cut off your balls.’
He reaches up and touches my face. I can smell blood on his fingers.
‘And I’ll kill any bastard who does.’
I know he means it.
26
‘What is that?’ Chrissy said.
Rhona placed the oval gemstone in the palm of her hand so that they might both take a proper look. Set in an intricately worked metal tin casing, the jewel was a clouded dark blue-green. On one side it was linked to a similarly fashioned but smaller triangular metal piece, without a stone.
‘It looks Arabic, like part of a necklace,’ Chrissy said.
When Rhona held it up by the short chain, the parts jangled together.
‘Not the victim’s then?’
It seemed unlikely, but it had been dropped here on the churned-up ground that the dog had led them to. Rhona took a picture of it then dropped it into an evidence bag.
‘We’re out of time to do this properly,’ Chrissy said, glancing at the swiftly darkening sky.
They’d photographed the ground and the footsteps found there. Rhona had counted maybe four sets of boots, of individual sole patterns and sizes, which had imprinted deeply on the moistened ground. None matched the soles of the victim’s boots.
She’d also taken soil samples, noting the presence of Sitka spruce needles, some of which she’d also found on the victim’s clothing. Picea sitchensis wasn’t a native conifer. Introduced to Britain from North America, it was grown in commercial plantations all over the Highlands and, it seemed, also on Skye.
‘We’ll come back tomorrow, at first light,’ Rhona said. ‘Look for where the footprints came from.’
The area Blaze had brought them to was apparently the only location that held the victim’s scent. After leading them there, the collie had spread his search far and wide, but nowhere else had elicited the same excitement.
‘Our victim must have flown over the edge,’ Chrissy said, exasperated, as leaving the site in Sergeant Duns’s capable hands, they’d begun their trudge back to the car park. ‘Or maybe he was carried there?’
That thought had been also in Rhona’s mind, but it was a thought only, not a conclusion.
‘Maybe Blaze missed the trail near the edge,’ she said. ‘The rock’s exposed there and the rain and snow could have diminished any scent he left behind.’
As if in response to such thoughts, a sleet shower decided to accompany them to the car park, where they discovered that the burger van had shut up shop, much to Chrissy’s dismay.
‘We’ll eat in Portree,’ Rhona promised. ‘Then head back to the cottage, where I’ll no doubt get a check-up call from McNab.’ She gave Chrissy a piercing look. ‘But then you’d know all about those, wouldn’t you?’
‘You were the one who chose to become a hermit on Skye,’ Chrissy told her testily.
Blaze had gone on ahead and was already reunited with his owner.
‘How’d he do?’ Donald said as they came in behind the dog.
‘Very well,’ Rhona said. ‘Thanks for the help.’
Donald nodded, aware that Rhona wasn’t in a position to give out information.
‘We’re going to take another look in the morning.’
‘D’you want Blaze here?’ Donald said.
Rhona thought about it for a second. ‘Yes. If you can spare him.’
Chrissy ruffled the dog’s ears. ‘See, you are taking over my job, and I don’t mind a bit.’
‘You headed back to the Isles?’ Donald asked.
‘For food, definitely.’
‘Maybe see you there later,’ Donald said with a grin.
‘You’ve got a fan,’ Rhona told Chrissy as Donald headed for his own vehicle. ‘And I don’t mean the dog.’
Chrissy threw her a look that suggested such a thing wasn’t a rare occurrence, then spotting Alvis’s tall figure approaching, went to meet him.
They greeted one another with a big hug, the top of Chrissy’s head barely reaching Alvis’s chin.
‘It’s good to see you again, Alvis,’ she said.
‘And you, Chrissy.’
Rhona suddenly remembered the first time she’d observed them together at the jazz club. McNab had seemingly taken umbrage about what he’d regarded as Inspector Alvis Olsen sticking his nose into his investigation, and Rhona had overheard Chrissy explain about McNab’s ‘Byronic’ character traits and how he’d saved her unborn son’s life.
‘How is Detective Sergeant McNab?’ Alvis was saying. ‘I saw him only briefly when he made a Skype call to Rhona.’
This remark brought a twinkle to Chrissy’s eye. ‘So that’s why he was so desperate that I come here. He didn’t like the handsome Inspector Olsen having Rhona all to himself.’
Alvis, always the gentleman, merely smiled wryly at such an idea.
Jamie’s vehicle was one of the last to leave the car park. Having arrived in thick mist, they departed in utter darkness. For Chrissy, a trip along a dark unlit road ‘in the middle of nowhere’ reminded her of various horror films she’d seen, which she then proceeded to tell them all about.
In response, Jamie provided them with Skye tales of strange goings-on, of fairies and witches and pacts with the devil.
A quick glance at Chrissy’s face suggested at least some of his tales wo
uldn’t be quickly forgotten.
‘Your place isn’t miles from anywhere, is it?’ Chrissy asked Rhona. ‘We’re not headed for –’ she lowered her voice – ‘the cabin in the woods?’
‘Remember the place we stayed on Sanday?’ Rhona reminded her.
‘Yes,’ Chrissy said suspiciously.
‘Well, it’s more remote than that,’ Rhona told her.
Chrissy groaned. ‘But you do have food?’
‘We’ll fill you up before we leave Portree.’
On arrival at Somerled Square, Rhona indicated she would hand in the evidence she’d collected and catch up with Sergeant MacDonald on developments.
‘Don’t wait for me before ordering,’ she added, noting Chrissy’s stricken expression as she imagined a delay before she could eat.
On entry to the station, Rhona was shown through to Lee’s office and immediately offered hot tea, which she gratefully accepted.
‘It was pretty cold up there on the clifftop,’ she admitted, nursing the mug.
‘You found something?’ Lee said hopefully.
‘Blaze did, but not near the edge. Much further back.’ Abandoning her mug, Rhona brought up the images she’d taken to show him.
‘It looks like a skirmish,’ Lee said.
‘My thoughts too.’
‘So maybe the victim didn’t walk to the edge?’
‘The dog didn’t seem to think so,’ Rhona admitted.
‘The material you sent via the rib is already on its way to Glasgow with the body,’ Lee told her. ‘Once we log the clifftop evidence, I’ll take you up to the conference room. The team’s all there for a debrief.’
As she unpacked her bag, Rhona showed him the clear evidence bag with the gemstone.
Lee peered at it for a moment. ‘Skye has a reputation for its jewellery, but this doesn’t look local, more oriental. But you never know, someone upstairs might recognize it.’
The conference room on the upper level of the building was packed with officers, some of whom Rhona recognized from Kilt Rock. If this did turn out to be a murder enquiry, more would have to be brought in, together with a serious crime team from the mainland.