Time for the Dead

by Lin Anderson

  So the PM it was.

  Although McNab disliked the mortuary and all that happened therein, he was curious to find out whether the estimated time of death might fall into the timeline of Watson’s own demise. If the pathologist turned out to be Sissons, he wouldn’t make life easy for McNab, but the acerbic doctor’s caustic remarks could be dealt with if there was something interesting to learn from them.

  As they approached the River Clyde and the signs of human habitation became more marked, McNab found himself relaxing. The cloud grew thicker as they neared Glasgow, and when the rain began to hit the windscreen, he decided that civilization, however damp, was very welcome.

  At touchdown they were met by both an ambulance and a police car. McNab, thinking he’d spent enough travelling time with a corpse, opted for a trip to the morgue in the police vehicle instead.

  ‘DI Wilson wants you back at the station,’ he was informed as he climbed inside.

  ‘But I was told McArthur wasn’t coming in until this afternoon?’

  ‘Change of plan,’ his driver told him. ‘He’s at the station now.’

  ‘Any idea why?’

  The driver shook his head. ‘Although I hear he’s pretty jittery.’

  McNab wondered if that was caused by a lack of heroin or a fear of reprisal – or maybe both.

  He brought up Ellie’s number and listened as it rang out. When there was no response, he left a message. ‘I’m on my way to the station to see Harry. Be there shortly.’

  ‘Did Ellie Macmillan bring him in?’ McNab asked.

  The driver shot him a look that suggested he knew all about DS McNab and his biker chick Ellie Macmillan. ‘Can’t say. Wasn’t there when he arrived. My job was to pick you up and get you there. How was Skye?’

  ‘Cold and wet,’ was all McNab could manage.

  ‘Much the same as Glasgow,’ came the reply.

  Oh no, it bloody well isn’t, McNab thought, gazing fondly on his home turf.

  On entry to the station, the desk sergeant told him he was wanted in DI Wilson’s office. Expecting nothing less, McNab headed there, although he would have dearly liked to take a look at Harry McArthur first.

  He didn’t get time for the statutory knock. The boss, expecting him, opened the door on his approach. He tried to gauge the mood by the boss’s expression, but as always it was impenetrable.

  ‘DS McNab, welcome back. How was your visit to Skye?’

  ‘Short,’ McNab said.

  ‘You think you’ve found Private Galbraith?’

  ‘It looks like that, sir. Although we still need DNA confirmation from the MOD to be certain.’

  ‘A delicate operation, but we’re working on it. I expect they’re as keen to know whether they’ve lost a serving officer to the Cuillin of Skye as we are.’

  ‘Do we know when he was due to report for duty, sir?’

  ‘We don’t, yet. Nor have we been given the names of the other medics who were on Skye with him.’

  ‘Why the obstruction, sir?’

  ‘The MOD would see it as a cautious evaluation of the situation.’

  ‘Can I ask if they know about Harry McArthur, sir?’

  The boss shook his head. ‘Former soldiers living on the streets are not high up on their priorities, I suspect. Although should such a former soldier give us information regarding the supply line of heroin from Afghanistan, that will have to change.’

  ‘I understand Inspector Olsen has some information regarding Private Galbraith’s last stint out there?’

  The boss scrutinized him. ‘He has. And perhaps we’ll get more from that source. But our hope lies with Harry.’ He paused. ‘I’ve had the full story of his removal from the hospital in advance of your arrangement to pick him up.’

  McNab wondered just what the full story entailed. Ellie, he knew, wasn’t one to spare the details, maybe even the morning sex.

  ‘She did it, she says, because she feared you had other plans for Harry, rather than the ones you’d agreed on.’

  McNab wasn’t sure if that was a question, but decided he probably had to give some sort of response.

  ‘I had deep reservations about Ellie giving him house room, but I couldn’t forbid—’

  As the boss raised an eyebrow at the word forbid, McNab quickly amended it to dissuade her.

  ‘Indeed. And she did not break any law by picking him up at the hospital. Harry was a victim of a crime, not a perpetrator.’

  McNab thought of the wasted hours he’d spent imagining someone like Malky picking Harry up and, worse still, Harry’s body deposited somewhere around Glasgow.

  ‘If you had gone straight home as planned that night, you would have learned where he was, Detective Sergeant.’

  It sounded like a telling-off, and McNab wondered if he’d been spotted in an inebriated state and word had got back to the boss.

  ‘I did go home, sir, but by then Ellie had gone.’

  ‘So you went round to her place in the middle of the night and—’

  It was obvious Ellie hadn’t spared any of the details, so McNab finished the sentence for him, ‘and posted a note through her letter box.’

  The boss was looking at him with what might be the ghost of a smile.

  ‘I learned many years ago from Margaret that it was better to tell her the bad stuff. Not full details, of course, but enough so that we were honest with each other.’

  McNab, taken aback at the mention of the boss’s recently deceased wife, someone he had truly admired, muttered a ‘sorry, sir’.

  ‘Sorry for what, Detective? That my wife is dead or that you can’t find it in yourself to be straight with your current partner?’

  ‘Both, sir,’ McNab said honestly.

  ‘So. How does your professional partner, DS Clark, fare on Skye?’

  McNab, relieved to move to another topic, explained where they’d got to on interviewing the locals.

  ‘You suspect it might be an inside job?’

  ‘They hated Watson. No doubt about that. He messed with them once before. Screwed up a few lives. They weren’t happy to see him out of jail and back on the island.’

  ‘A vigilante killing on Skye?’ DI Wilson didn’t look convinced. ‘Any direct link between this Snowman character and the medics?’

  ‘None, sir. And no one’s come forward to report a sighting of Watson anywhere on the island, prior to his body being found on the foreshore at Kilt Rock. The medics, or at least Galbraith, was suspected of taking cocaine in the toilet of the Isles bar the last night the group was seen together.’

  ‘And the question of a stash in the woods behind A.C.E Target Sports?’

  McNab was seriously impressed by the grasp the boss had of all the threads in the case, some of which he was struggling with.

  ‘Rhona treated it as a crime scene, and the soil did contain evidence of that as a possibility.’

  ‘Right,’ the boss said. ‘It’s time you talked to Harry.’

  64

  Rhona listened in disbelief.

  ‘Someone’s reported seeing Archie with Watson?’ She repeated Lee’s announcement to make certain she’d heard him correctly. ‘How did they know it was Archie?’ she said.

  ‘The description matches Archie perfectly. Down to the drone. He’s a distinctive figure,’ Lee said.

  ‘And Watson?’

  ‘Same. Even down to the facial features which we now know.’

  ‘And Archie was alone with Watson? On the clifftop?’ Chrissy said.

  ‘Yes. According to the witness, a tourist, who’s now left Skye.’

  ‘How did he know Archie?’ Rhona said.

  ‘Met him when he was working his drone, got talking to him about the scenic images he took. Was following the police Twitter feed and saw the call-out for any sightings of Watson in the area near Kilt Rock.’

  Rhona fell silent. Archie had been honest about his hatred of the so-called Snowman. Even to the point of wishing the drug pusher dead. Why do that if he’d met
him on the cliffs? It didn’t make sense.

  ‘You’ll bring Archie in?’ Chrissy asked.

  ‘Have to,’ Lee said, his concern at this showing.

  ‘Is there any footage of this meeting?’

  ‘The tourist says no.’

  ‘Who is this guy?’ Chrissy demanded. ‘Can he be brought in for questioning?’

  ‘We’ll have to find him first.’

  ‘It’s too convenient,’ Rhona came in then. ‘We still don’t know the names of the other medics and now we don’t know the identity of a possible witness.’ She looked to Janice. ‘Everyone associated with this case is like a cipher.’

  ‘True, but an anonymous call doesn’t mean a witness is lying,’ Janice said. ‘Most folk want to help the police. They just don’t want to get involved and end up having to go to court.’

  ‘When exactly did this tourist see them together?’ Rhona said.

  ‘Mid-afternoon on the day we think he went over the edge,’ Lee said. ‘Archie was using his drone to take footage of the cliffs, apparently.’

  ‘And Archie never mentioned this in his interview?’

  Lee shook his head.

  Whatever way Rhona looked at the scenario, it didn’t ring true. Though, if they’d already written Archie out of the equation, then they would dismiss a sighting like this. There was a danger in only paying attention to evidence which matched the current interpretation of events.

  ‘Can we trace that call at all?’

  ‘We can try,’ Lee said doubtfully.

  ‘We should also check Archie’s footprints against those Chrissy collected from the clifftop,’ Rhona said.

  ‘Agreed.’ Lee looked to Janice. ‘I called Archie as soon as the message came in. He’ll be here shortly.’

  Rhona thought of McNab’s fury yesterday when he’d spotted her comparing notes with Donald and Jamie. His annoyance at how close the police and the public had become on the case. How he’d pointed out that either man might yet turn out to be a suspect. Something Rhona had immediately dismissed.

  Lee rose. ‘I think you should interview Archie about this,’ he told Janice. ‘It’s better to come from an outsider. Plus there’s a report of another vehicle going off the bend on the way out of Uig last night. It’s been sighted well down the hill, so I’m headed there with the MRT.’ He turned to Rhona. ‘DS McNab’s landed in Glasgow. Hopefully we’ll hear back from him soon on Private Galbraith.’

  Rhona and Chrissy adjourned to the production room.

  ‘Did you speak to Donald?’ Chrissy said.

  ‘I did, and I’m borrowing Blaze again.’

  ‘You’re going looking for Seven?’

  ‘Alvis and I, and the dog.’

  ‘Why not get Jamie to look?’

  ‘Because I have no definite proof she’s gone in the direction I think she has, plus the MRT are stretched enough as it is,’ Rhona added.

  Chrissy was giving her the eye. ‘What is it about this girl that’s bugging you so much?’ When Rhona didn’t answer, Chrissy did it for her. ‘You think she’s a casualty of war. Much like yourself.’ Chrissy reached out and touched Rhona’s arm in support. ‘Then you need to find her. I take it you have something of hers for Blaze to follow?’

  ‘I do.’

  Chrissy smiled. ‘I thought as much. Okay. When do I start worrying about you?’

  Rhona handed her a map. ‘I’ve marked our proposed route. I’ll keep in touch for as long as I have a signal.’

  Alvis was waiting for her, their intention having been to leave at first light until Lee had called her in for the meeting. She already knew about the vehicle off the ridge road north-west of Uig, Jamie having wakened her to tell her what was happening. When she’d informed him of her own plans with Alvis, he’d looked pleased.

  ‘We’ll take any help we can get, and Alvis knows the island as well as you. Are you heading for the coast?’

  ‘We’re not sure where we’re heading. We’re hoping Blaze will help us with that.’

  ‘You have something to help him track?’

  ‘I have,’ Rhona had said, without saying what.

  Jamie had nodded. ‘From our drone image, the vehicle that went off the C1225, the Staffin to Uig road, looks like a dark-coloured jeep.’

  ‘A Wrangler?’

  ‘Could be – why?’

  ‘Archie said the vehicle looking for Seven was a dark-coloured Wrangler jeep.’

  ‘There’s probably a few on Skye,’ Jamie had said. ‘But we’ve had no missing people reported as yet.’

  ‘We have seven hours of winter daylight,’ Alvis told her as they exited Portree.

  ‘If necessary, we can make camp. Donald was fine about that.’ Rhona glanced in the back where Blaze was sitting erect, watching the world go by.

  ‘I assume you have something from the tent for him to follow?’ Alvis said.

  ‘Unofficially, yes.’

  ‘But you couldn’t use it to check for her DNA?’

  ‘You and I both know the answer to that. As for helping locate a missing person, that would be different.’

  ‘The favoured way into the Tables is via Orbost, which means she would have got off the bus at the junction of the B884,’ Alvis said.

  ‘She did,’ Rhona told him. ‘I phoned the bus company again as I was leaving the station and they finally put me in touch with the driver who drove the bus Seven got on. He was off work the first time I called. He remembered Seven, though she didn’t say much, even when he spoke directly to her. Apparently he tried to tell her the times he would be back along the road, but she didn’t seem too interested.’

  ‘So she wasn’t planning to come back that day?’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘And what about us?’ Alvis said.

  Rhona shot him a look. ‘We don’t turn back until we’re sure.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘That she’s okay,’ was all Rhona could offer.

  They passed the car journey in silence, each deep in their thoughts. Rhona’s were partly about McNab and his impending interview with Harry McArthur, of the post-mortem and what it might reveal; but they were mostly about what had happened to Private Galbraith in Afghanistan and what had really brought the group to Skye.

  Had it been, like her, to try and forget? To forge new memories together so that whenever they looked at one another they didn’t only remember a shared horror?

  PTSD did that to sufferers, replaying past scenes vividly – the sights, the sounds, the smells. Anything could trigger the sudden recall. For her it was confined places and suffocating darkness which brought soil into her mouth to choke her.

  And what of Alvis, reliving the sights and sounds of caged children? Something, thankfully, she didn’t have to endure.

  They parked the vehicle on the grass verge at the beginning of the designated path. Once across the stream, Rhona produced what she’d taken from the tent. The last time she’d trailed Seven she’d been able to let Blaze smell a few items of Seven’s clothing, plus the trainers, but fearful that wouldn’t be enough, she’d also taken the anklet sock.

  Alvis made no comment as she produced this from an evidence bag and offered it to the dog.

  65

  McNab observed the scarred face of the man across the table from him. ‘I thought you were fucking dead.’

  The pale lips assumed the ghost of smile.

  ‘You could have been, leaving without me,’ McNab went on. ‘If wee Malky was having the hospital watched . . .’

  ‘Then he would have seen me leave with you. Not a good move. Your bird was wiser, bringing me out the back way. Having her mate pick me up. Nice bike too, by the way.’

  ‘You stayed at Ellie’s?’ McNab made himself say.

  Harry laughed. ‘Man, you got that fucking wrong. She was waiting at your place to tell you so. Fucked up there, mate.’

  McNab wasn’t going to argue that particular point.

  ‘Did Ellie get you to come into the
station?’

  Harry met his eye. ‘She asked me where I wanted to be most in the world.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘I told her back with my mates.’

  ‘In Afghanistan?’

  ‘I’d rather die out there with them than in a Glasgow alley alone.’

  Registering Harry’s expression as he said that, McNab had a fleeting glimpse of what he might be like if the police force ever threw him out. It wasn’t an image he liked.

  ‘Why did you leave me that service number in the sign-out book?’ McNab said.

  Harry twitched a little at the mention of that, and for a moment McNab imagined him clamming up and this whole interview becoming a waste of time. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had offered a statement only to change their mind.

  ‘You found Sugarboy then?’ Harry said cautiously.

  ‘Private Peter Galbraith, a medic who served in Afghanistan?’

  Harry nodded. ‘Bastard saved my life.’ He pointed at his face. ‘When this happened.’

  McNab had no idea where this conversation was going, but it didn’t seem like the path led to the Sandman. He decided to shake things up a little.

  ‘Then I’m sorry to have to tell you that Private Galbraith is dead.’

  ‘What the fuck did you just say?’ Harry sat to attention.

  ‘The medic Private Peter Galbraith, who you call Sugarboy, is dead.’

  A look of abject fear crossed Harry’s face. ‘But I just saw him.’

  ‘Where?’ McNab demanded.

  ‘He came looking for me. He always does when he’s home on leave.’

  ‘When did he do that, Harry?’

  ‘Before it happened. Before I was in hospital.’ Harry’s face was working through his memories, trying to make sense of them.

  ‘Did Malky see you with him?’ McNab said.

  ‘Malky?’ Harry looked at him stupidly. ‘I don’t think so.’ He swayed in his seat as though the shock at what he’d just heard had suddenly hit him.

  McNab, thinking for a moment he might meet the floor, jumped up and came round the table to prevent that from happening.

  A horrifying thought seemed to strike Harry. ‘Did you lot have something to do with it? Fuck you, you bastard. Ah should never have given you his number.’