Their Final Act

by Alex Walters

  As she leaned over, she realised that Munro and Dowling were still sitting out there, the bottle of single malt between them. Their voices carried upwards with unexpected clarity. Jane's first instinct was to withdraw her head, feeling guilty at the prospect of eavesdropping on her host.

  She hesitated a moment too long, and heard part of the exchange from below.

  'What do you think of them?' Munro was asking.

  'Jane and Alicia seem okay. Good material.'

  Jane didn't want to hear any more. She pulled her head back into the room and firmly drew the curtains, leaving the window open for air. She could still hear the two women's voices, but could no longer work out what they were saying.

  She finished undressing and climbed into bed, astonished again by how comfortable it was. As she turned off the light, she could still hear the murmur of the two voices outside.

  She wondered what they were saying. Good material. That was what Dowling had said. Good material for what?

  She'd expected to fall asleep quickly after the drink and the stresses of the day. But instead she found she was tossing and turning, kicking off the covers because she felt too hot, her mind working over everything she'd seen and heard since arriving here. Her conversations with Munro. Her interactions with Elizabeth and Alicia. The dinner and the music. Most of all those last words she'd heard.

  Good material.

  When she finally managed to sleep, her dreams were disturbed, incoherent narratives of imprisonment and slavery which felt real and vivid, but which by morning had fled her mind, as insubstantial as the early mist on the firth. It was only then that it occurred to her to wonder why, in that late-night exchange, Munro and Dowling had not mentioned Elizabeth.

  20

  McKay pulled into the entrance to the Yard and stopped before the line of police tape. One of the uniforms was already striding towards him. McKay wound down his window and waited.

  'I'm sorry, sir, but this area's–'

  'You do this on purpose, Benny? Pretend not to recognise me just to wind me up?'

  'Oh, aye, sorry, sir. It's just we've already had a couple of people here rubbernecking. Think the guy who found the body hasn't been exactly discreet. Probably blabbed to one of his neighbours.'

  'Great. No doubt someone's been on the phone to the Press and Journal just to spread the word further.' That would mean another call back to Helena, and another conversation for her to have with comms. 'You going to let me past then, or do I have to join the rubberneckers?'

  'Aye, come through. Your wee lass is over there.' The uniform gestured towards the corner of the nearest building.

  'My wee lass? Oh, DS Horton, you mean.'

  The uniform seemed impervious to McKay's irony. 'That's the one.'

  McKay sighed theatrically then, hardly giving the uniform time to pull back the tape, drove into the yard and parked up close to where Horton was standing. He climbed out and walked over to join her, nodding to the uniforms, who clearly recognised when they weren't wanted and moved to rejoin their colleagues taping off the remaining area.

  'Cavalry's arrived,' McKay said. 'Save you being bored to death by the boys in blue. What's the story?'

  'Examiners arrived a couple of minutes ago. They're setting up.' Horton gestured towards where two figures in white suits were constructing the protective tent. 'Rather them than me in this case. Body's been there a day or two. And it's been a warm couple of days.'

  Though he'd never admit as much to Jock Henderson, McKay had nothing but admiration for the examiners' resilience in the face of a scene like this. He supposed eventually you just became inured to it, but he couldn't imagine how you managed to get to that stage. Police officers had to deal with a fair amount of unpleasantness, and often they were the first on the scene, but they rarely had to work in such demanding conditions. 'There are times when even Jock Henderson earns his pay. Speaking of whom…'

  'You're spared the pleasure of his company today. Pete Carrick's on the job.'

  'That's something.' McKay could see now that Carrick was one of the two figures in white. He was a heavily built, slightly lumbering man, with a shock of red hair and an expression that seemed permanently surprised. Given some of the situations he had to deal with, McKay supposed the surprise might be genuine. 'You want to get off for a bit?' he said to Horton.

  'I wouldn't mind grabbing a shower. I was only supposed to be going out for a run.'

  'You'd come some distance. You getting back into it now?' McKay made constant fun of Horton's running, but he knew how important it was to her and how difficult she'd found the events of the previous winter.

  'Pretty much. It's easier now the days are getting so much longer.' She paused. 'And when my abusive stepdad isn't banging on the window.'

  'I can see that. Look, you take the car. I'm going to be here for a while, I imagine. So take your time.' On his way, McKay had dropped Chrissie back at what he still, perhaps now with a little more hope, thought of as home. Then he'd called in at the office to swap his own vehicle for one of the pool cars.

  'I just need a shower and a quick change of clothes and I'll be back.' She regarded McKay with curiosity. 'Incidentally, none of my business but not like you to be late out of bed on the first morning of a major enquiry. Don't tell me you got lucky last night?'

  McKay laughed. 'Bugger off, Horton. You're absolutely right. It's none of your fucking business. But, for what it's worth, I actually got lucky twenty-odd years ago. I'd just forgotten.'

  She nodded. 'I'm hoping that's good news.'

  'We'll see.'

  'Good luck with that, Alec. You've both been through a hell of a lot.'

  He nodded, vaguely, his expression indicating that he'd already said more than enough. 'You go and get yourself cleaned up. I'm told you scrub up okay.'

  'Fuck off, Alec,' she said amiably. She turned to go then paused. 'You want to speak to the guy who found the body while I'm gone? I can give you his details.'

  'Is he likely to tell me anything useful?'

  'I doubt it. It was the dog found the body. He only stayed around long enough to see what it was and call the dog off. He brings it down here most mornings though, so I suppose it's possible he might have seen something over the last few days.' She was silent for a moment. 'We've had a couple of visitors here already, so it looks like he must have blabbed when he got back home. I did have a word with him about being discreet, but maybe I should have kept him here. I just thought he was likely to be more trouble than he was worth.'

  McKay shrugged. 'He'd have blabbed as soon as we let him go anyway. So it would only have bought us a bit of time. And the longer we'd kept him here the more he'd have to blab about. As it is, all he knows is we've found a body. If it gets to the media, we can just play a straight bat till we know what we're dealing with. Which may well be not much if chummy over there died from natural causes.'

  'Yeah, you're probably right. Okay, shower, clothes and then I'll be back. Don't have too much fun in my absence.'

  'If you say so,' McKay said. 'Though having a chat with the examiners should remove any risk of that.'

  21

  'Is this what they call glamping?' McKay called. He'd stopped sufficiently far from where the examiners were working to ensure he didn't risk contaminating the scene.

  'It's supposed to erect itself instantly,' Pete Carrick said, gesturing to the tent beside him. 'But it never bloody does.'

  'We've all been there. How's it looking?'

  'Not good.' Whereas Jock Henderson seemed to be perpetually gloomy, Carrick was normally a bundle of cheery enthusiasm. Even faced with the prospect of an already decomposing corpse inside an overheated tent, his good nature seemed undented. 'Body's in a bad way. I'd say it's been here at least a couple of days. Decomposition fairly well advanced, and it's been attacked by one or more predators.'

  'Lovely. Any clues as to identity yet?'

  'Not really. White. Male. Probably middle-aged, though I wouldn't swear to that
till we've had a closer look. And–' He stopped as if waiting for a cue from McKay.

  'And?'

  'I heard from Jock about the Jimmy McGuire case. The cause of death. It looks as if this might be the same.'

  'That right?'

  'Again, I don't want to speculate before I've looked properly.'

  'You buggers never do.'

  'But it looks like there's a narrow lesion around the neck. That could well be the cause of death.'

  'Another garrotting?'

  'Another garrotting.'

  'Jesus,' McKay said. 'So when did that become the dispatch method of choice? Still, it might help us reduce the knife crime figures. You sure about this?'

  Carrick hesitated. 'Pretty, to be honest. Like I say, I need to have a closer look once we get started. But that's what it looks like.'

  'Which means that, unless garrotting really has become unexpectedly fashionable, there's a connection between this and yesterday's killing.' McKay intended his tone to be suitably serious, but it was difficult to disguise the excitement in his voice. 'You think he was killed here?'

  'It's too early to say. The body might have just been dumped here. But it should be possible to tell once we've examined the scene properly.'

  McKay knew when he was being warned off. Carrick was easier to deal with than Jock Henderson, but none of the examiners liked being rushed or to speculate ahead of the evidence. 'Aye, son, fair enough. Not asking for guesswork. Just want to know as much as I can before I brief the powers that be. If we do have two related deaths, this'll need some managing.' There's my shot across your bows, son, he added to himself. Don't rush, but don't be sitting around on your arse either.

  'You'd best let me get on then,' Carrick said with a grin. 'I'll tell you as soon as we've got something solid to report.'

  'You do that, son.'

  McKay walked slowly back to where the uniforms were clustered. They seemed to have the site effectively cordoned off, and most were just standing chatting. McKay stopped and looked about him. The yard was an extensive area, comprising little more than an empty concrete expanse with a few abandoned and derelict buildings. Assuming that Carrick was right – and for all Carrick's reticence, McKay had little doubt that he was –they'd have to institute a thorough search of the place, a major task in itself. Quite probably fruitless, McKay thought. If the murder weapon wasn't in the vicinity of the body, it could easily have been tossed into the sea in the natural harbour within Whiteness Point. The divers were likely to have even less luck down there than in the Ness.

  McKay wasn't prone to be over-imaginative but this struck him as a strange place. It was partly just the sense of lost industry – a site that had once been so central to the local economy, now given over to grass, weeds and wild flowers. He thought of the people who must have passed through here, the business that had been conducted, the sheer hard work of those who'd kept the place going. Then its moment had passed, and the place had vanished into history. It's what awaits us all, McKay thought.

  He walked over to the cluster of uniforms.

  'What's the story, sir?' one of them said.

  Sir. You didn't get that too much these days, though McKay tended to get it more than many of his colleagues. He was always happy to let his reputation go before him, for good or ill. 'Too early to say, son. But we'll be treating it as suspicious until Pistol Pete over there tells us otherwise. Some of you lot keen to get off?'

  'Not if we're needed here. But you know what it's like these days, sir.'

  'Aye, only too well, son.' He raised his voice to speak to the rest of the group. 'I'll need to keep a couple of you here to protect the site. Especially if we're getting rubberneckers. Rest of you can bugger off back to proper work until we know what we're dealing with.'

  While he was speaking he noticed that, as if summoned by his reference to rubberneckers, a car had drawn up just off the road at the site entrance. 'Okay, people, you sort out among yourselves who's staying and who's going. I'll go and have a little chat with our friend over there.'

  He walked slowly over to the car, watching as an elderly man climbed out of the driver's seat. 'Can I help you, sir?' McKay asked, in a tone that suggested the answer was unlikely to be in the affirmative.

  The man was looking slightly bewildered. 'I'm sorry. I was talking to one of your colleagues earlier.'

  'Is that right, sir?'

  'A young lady. She was very helpful. I was trying to phone–' The man stopped, as if conscious he was rambling. 'Stewart. Gordon Stewart.'

  It took McKay a moment to work out that this must be the man's name. 'You were talking to DS Horton?'

  'That's right. After Scott found–'

  'Scott?'

  'My dog. He was the one who found it.'

  'You found the body?'

  'As I say, Scott–'

  'Yes, of course. How can we help you now, sir?'

  Stewart hesitated, as if not sure why he was there. 'Your young lady…'

  'DS Horton.'

  'Yes, she said someone would be coming round to take a statement from me.'

  'We'll need to do that, sir, yes. Just routine.'

  'That was what she said. She said I should include anything I can remember that might be relevant.'

  McKay nodded, wondering whether there was a point to any of this. 'That's right, sir,' he said, patiently. 'Sometimes things that seem trivial can turn out to be useful to our enquiries. So anything you remember–'

  'That's the point. I hadn't remembered but my wife did.'

  'Go on.'

  'She thought it might be important. That I should come and tell you straightaway.'

  'Tell us what?' McKay was beginning to pray that Horton would reappear to relieve him of having to deal with this apparent dotard.

  'It was a couple of days ago. Not yesterday, the day before. I normally walk Scott twice a day. I bring him here in the morning, and then just walk him near the house in the evening.'

  McKay nodded wearily, having finally accepted there was little point in trying to hurry Stewart. Whatever he might have to say, he'd say it only in his own good time.

  'But that day I needed to pop into the shop for a couple of things so I thought I might as well take the car out. So I brought Scott up here for his walk in the evening as well.' He stopped, as if his story was now complete. It took him a moment to realise he hadn't yet mentioned the salient point. 'There was a car here. Parked where I am now. There sometimes are. Other people come up here to walk their dogs.'

  Or just dogging, McKay thought, though probably not at the times when Stewart was here.

  'I remember thinking it was a bit odd,' Stewart went on. 'It was an estate. One of those big Volvo things. The boot had been left up. There was a plastic sheet spread out inside.'

  'In the boot?'

  'Yes, spread across the bottom of the boot. Thick plastic. Industrial stuff.'

  This was beginning to sound more interesting, McKay thought. 'Did you see anything else?'

  'Not really. There seemed to be something spilled on the plastic. Some sort of staining. At the time I thought it might be someone fly-tipping. We get a bit of that down here.'

  'You didn't see anyone with the car?'

  Stewart shook his head. 'To be honest, I decided to make myself scarce. I've had one or two run-ins with fly-tippers before. Some of them are nasty pieces of work. So I just drove on and parked further along.'

  'I don't suppose you noted the car registration?'

  'No. I should have done, shouldn't I?' Stewart looked genuinely distraught at his own failing. 'I realised afterwards I should have taken the number and reported it, if they really were fly-tipping. But I was keen to get out of there and I didn't really think about it till too late. By the time I got back, the car had gone.'

  'You said the car was an estate?'

  'Yes, one of those big ones. Not new, I'd have said. A good few years old. It was a dark colour, blue or black.'

  If you were looking to d
ump a body, McKay thought, you'd probably wait till dark. On the other hand, the nights were already growing short up here, and it wouldn't be fully dark until ten or even later. Maybe there was more risk of running into doggers than dog walkers round here. They couldn't afford to discount the sighting anyway. Although Stewart hadn't given them much, it might be enough to pick out the car on any CCTV on the surrounding roads. 'What time of day would this have been, Mr Stewart?'

  'About five, I think. I usually take Scott out before we have tea. I left the house a bit earlier than usual so we could call in at the shop. So probably just after five when we got here.'

  'Thank you, Mr Stewart. That's very useful.'

  'You think they might have brought the body here then? Whoever was in the car, I mean.'

  'We don't even know the cause of death yet, Mr Stewart. So it's too early to say. But your sighting may be useful, especially if the death does seem suspicious.'

  Stewart nodded. 'I should have mentioned it to your colleague earlier. But it had slipped my mind. It was only because I'd mentioned it to my wife after I got back – you know how it is.'

  'Aye, I do,' McKay said sincerely. 'We're none of us getting any younger.' In his own case, he felt he'd aged several years in the last few minutes. 'But I'm very grateful that you reported this. As I say, we'll be sending someone round to take a formal statement, so if there's anything else you remember in the meantime…'

  McKay gently ushered Stewart back to his car, certain that if left to his own devices the elderly man would stay there blethering all day. It was only after Stewart had finally driven away that McKay turned to see a couple of the uniforms standing grinning at him.

  'We've had a few of those this morning,' one of the uniforms said. 'Bloody time-wasters. We just told them to bugger off.'