Cold Grave

by Craig Robertson

  Narey knew she had no simple, satisfactory answer to a question like that. She was aching to see the girl but she was also scared about where it might lead. Be careful what you wish for, that’s what they said. Instead, she settled for a simple unsatisfactory reply.

  ‘Yes.’

  Kirsten grinned and beckoned her to the other side of the screen. As Narey walked round the terminal, there she was, looking back at her as if she were real. Lily. Barbie. Fully formed, three-dimensional, not living or breathing, flesh but no blood. It was incredible. In little over a day, she had been transformed from skull to face, turning on the screen in front of them, all but alive from every angle.

  ‘There is some guesswork, of course,’ Kirsten warned. ‘But we have some very clever software and we can be confident it’s accurate. This is how she looked.’

  Narey almost unconsciously took the seat in front of the screen and just sat there, staring at the girl. She watched her revolve slowly before her, still wondering who she was but knowing they were now so much closer to finding out.

  ‘Can you give me an image of this that I can send to Strathclyde?’

  ‘Of course. One touch of a button.’

  ‘Great. I want to send this to my DC. She’s the one who has been going through all the missing persons data. If anyone is going to be able to put a name to the face quickly, it’s her.’

  Two minutes later Narey had Julia Corrieri on the other end of the phone and they were waiting for Barbie’s face to appear on her computer screen in Stewart Street.

  ‘What’s happening down there today, Julia?’

  ‘Pretty quiet at the moment, Sarge. I’d just come in to go through these files one more time before I go over to Vancouver Road to take over guard duties at Greg Deans’ house.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Scared. Scared and very annoying. He is always . . . Hold on. It’s here.’

  There was a tense silence on both ends of the line as the image unfolded before Corrieri.

  ‘I know her, Sarge. She’s on my list, I’m sure of it. Her name is . . .’ Corrieri paused to make sure she was right. ‘Claire Channing. She’s from somewhere in the north of England. Wait a mo, let me . . .’

  On the other end of the phone, Narey puffed out her cheeks while Corrieri shuffled through some papers. It wasn’t impatience at the DC’s actions; it was tension, pure and simple.

  ‘Yes,’ Corrieri confirmed jubilantly. ‘Claire Channing. Born in May 1976. She was from Whitby in North Yorkshire. Her parents, Edward and Emily Channing, reported her missing in September 1992, the year before. And yet . . . sorry, hang on, Sarge.’

  Narey could hear Corrieri softly reading aloud and sounding as if she had repeated it to make sure she had heard herself correctly in the first place.

  ‘Okay, Sarge. I could be wrong. The initial missing person’s report from North Yorkshire Police is the one that has the photograph attached but there is a follow-up from 1994 after the body was found on Inchmahome. They went back to the parents just in case but were told that it definitely wasn’t her. That was the last they had on it.’

  Shit. Why could nothing ever be simple, Narey thought.

  ‘Email me the photograph of the Channing girl, Julia. But what’s your take on it looking at her?’

  ‘Well, I mean . . . I’m sure it’s her, Sarge. The likeness is very strong. I’d say that unless Claire Channing has a twin, then it’s her.’

  Within minutes, the image from the North Yorkshire file had been spirited back up the line to Dundee and popped up on the screen before Narey and Fairweather. It was stunning. Narey couldn’t help but smile at the look of satisfaction on Kirsten’s face. She and her scanner and her software had done a remarkable job.

  Narey sat in her car and pulled out her mobile, her overnight bag in the boot, ready to make the drive back south to Glasgow. First she called Tony and told him about Claire Channing and what she wanted him to do. Then, taking a deep breath, she hit another number, dreading it but needing to do it before she went any further. It rang.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi Dad. It’s Rachel.’

  ‘Rachel! Hello, love. It’s so good to hear your voice.’

  ‘And yours, Dad. It’s so good to hear yours.’

  CHAPTER 48

  Winter was standing before the fax machine in his Pitt Street office, wondering when he’d last used the thing. Whatever the answer, he knew he’d never been remotely as anxious to see anything appear from its black plastic mouth.

  He’d been pacing before the fax for the past few minutes, urging it to deliver. The gloom of the poorly lit room swamped him as he waited, feeding his anxiety and quickening his pulse. Would she fit the image that taunted and tempted him in his dreams? Would he know her?

  Winter knew it mattered more to him than it should have done but he wouldn’t change that even if he could. It went beyond ghoulish interest: he cared. He wanted to see her and he wanted to see her now. Lily. Barbie. It had been ten minutes since Rachel had said she’d fax the image – ten long minutes.

  When the beep that signalled the arrival of the fax burst into the quiet of the room, it made Winter jump and sent his heart thudding into his ribcage. For that momentary beat, he suddenly wondered whether he really wanted to see her after all. The thought lasted as much time as it took the noise to fade.

  The wait wasn’t over, however. He had forgotten how bloody slow and inefficient fax machines were when you were used to email or text. The paper edged agonisingly from the feeder, testing his patience and his nerves. When she eventually began to emerge, pixel by laboured pixel, it was head first, her blonde hair filling the top of the page.

  It took an age for her eyes to appear, peeping out below a flaxen curtain of eyelashes. They looked up at him from the tray, spring sky blue perhaps, lighter than he’d expected, wide set and deep. In his imagination, her eyes were pleading, appealing to him for help. Sometimes they screamed and he’d stare deep into them, trying to see the reflection of the person who had caused them to cry out in such pain. But the eyes that looked back at him now were disappointingly expressionless.

  The paper eased on, revealing the bridge of a slim nose peppered with the faintest of freckles that spread engagingly onto high cheekbones. Her face was narrow and her ears stuck out ever so slightly. As her lips emerged, he saw that they were full and symmetrical, turning up into the beginnings of a natural, youthful smile that defied any attempts at making it impassive.

  Her chin carried a mark just right of centre; not a natural cleft but probably the result of an accident, maybe falling from a swing or a bicycle, its faintly irregular contour having been raised by the professor’s scanner. It didn’t scar her looks but offered character and insight into the girl she had been.

  When the last of the paper had filtered through the fax machine, Winter hesitated before picking it up, leaving her lying alone and untouched on the tray. Breathe. Deep. He finally picked her up, holding the paper gently, almost reverentially, and looked at her properly for the first time.

  Her face was lean and the skin taut. She was a pretty girl, not beautiful perhaps but attractive in an outdoorsy, fun-filled kind of way. He liked her. She was friendly and open but there was a suggestion of something more, a hint of rebelliousness maybe. He read mischief and kindness. Winter knew he was seeing all sorts that probably weren’t there, things that certainly couldn’t be seen by eyes alone. He was able to see those things because he’d seen her before.

  She was the girl who visited him in his sleep. His fellow waif and stray. The little sister he’d never had. The photograph he never took. Lily. Barbie. Claire Channing. Who was she really? It scared him at least as much as it excited him to know that he was soon going to find out.

  CHAPTER 49

  Saturday 21 December. 1.17 p.m.

  Twenty minutes after they received the call, Winter and Danny were on their way to Whitby. Rachel had resisted the urge to call Addison or anyone else at Strathclyde,
and certainly not anyone at North Yorkshire Police, reasoning to herself that the identification wasn’t confirmed and she’d rather be sure before she made it official. She knew, of course, that the truth was far different.

  Winter had asked her to phone the SPSA and make up some kind of story to keep his bosses happy. He knew Baxter would go spare about him missing yet another shift and all he could do was hope her plan to come up with some bullshit about vital photographs and identification would be enough for there to be a job for him still when he got back.

  Danny was driving, which meant they could probably knock half an hour off the estimated three hours and forty-five minutes the online directions had suggested. Danny had always had a heavy right foot behind the wheel of a car but rejected Winter’s notion that it was because Strathclyde’s boys in blue had let him off speeding tickets for years. He also had a much simpler idea of directions than Winter’s computer.

  ‘South past Carlisle, hit a left at Penrith, left a bit again at Scotch Corner and keep going till we’re nearly in the sea. Simple.’

  That was more or less it for conversation until they were nearly at Lockerbie, both of them consumed with their own thoughts of what lay at the other end of their journey, letting music on the radio fill the void.

  ‘I still think we should have phoned ahead and told them we were coming,’ Winter piped up. ‘Christ, if it is their daughter, then this is going to come as a bit of a shock. You not think we should have warned them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s it? No.’

  ‘Aye, that’s it. Tony, there’s more harm than good to be done by telling them we’re coming. I don’t want them prepared.’

  ‘What? You think they had something to do with it?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? Okay, it doesn’t look like it at the moment but if I’ve learned anything in thirty years on the job . . .’

  ‘Oh fuck, here we go again . . .’

  ‘If I’ve learned anything, it’s that nothing would surprise you. And I’m not taking the chance they might just be involved. When we knock on their door, assuming it is still their door after all these years, I want to see the look on their faces. I want to be sure it’s real.’

  ‘You’re a sick bastard, Uncle Danny.’

  ‘And this coming from a man who covers his bedroom wall in photographs of dead people?’

  ‘Piss off.’

  They lapsed into regular silence again after that, pierced only by Danny swearing at the radio DJ’s choice of music and Winter telling him to leave the bloody channels alone. They were near Barnard Castle when Danny’s mobile began ringing. He fished it out of his jacket pocket, took one look at the caller display and threw it over to Winter, who juggled with it before he too saw who was calling: Jered Dunbar.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Neilson?’

  ‘No, it’s Tony Winter. And anyway, it’s Mr Neilson to you.’

  ‘A hard man when you’re on the other end of the phone, eh? Where’s Neilson?’

  ‘Mr Neilson’s driving. Talk to me.’

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

  ‘Okay, monkey, but you make sure you pass it on to the organ grinder. I’ve got a message for him from Uncle: Peter Bradley is at the travellers’ site in Dumbarton at Dennystown Forge.’

  ‘Thanks, Jered.’

  ‘Don’t thank me. If it were down to me, I’d have told you nothing. Anyways, word will likely have got to Bradley by now. He’ll know you’ve been asking about him.’

  ‘You make sure of that?’

  ‘He’s family.’

  The line went dead and Winter placed Danny’s mobile on the dashboard, taking his own out of his pocket and finding Rachel’s name in his contact book. Danny looked over at him with raised eyebrows but Winter just lifted a hand to tell him to wait and he’d find out.

  ‘Mr Neilson,’ Danny laughed. ‘I liked that. You’re learning, son.’

  Rachel picked up after a few rings and it was immediately obvious that she was driving too.

  ‘Hi, Tony. Go ahead.’

  ‘We’ve just heard from Jered Dunbar and he’s told us where Bradley is.’

  ‘Excellent. Where?’

  ‘He says he’s at an official council site in Dumbarton. It’s called Dennystown Forge.’

  ‘Says he is? You not believe him?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably, yes. It came from Tommy Baillie and I think he’d be straight with us. We’ve still got info to put Sam Dunbar in jail.’

  ‘Christ, don’t remind me. I’ll get my jotters for that one if anyone finds out. So what’s your problem with what Jered told us?’

  ‘He said Bradley might know we’re coming. I don’t know if he was just winding me up or what but he hinted that he or someone else let Bradley know.’

  ‘Shit. Let’s hope he’s winding us up. Okay, I’d better go. You far from Whitby?’

  ‘Less than an hour.’

  ‘Let me know as soon as you’ve spoken to them, Tony.’

  ‘Yes, Sarge.’

  ‘Ha ha. I’m really grateful for everything, Tony. I promise I’ll make it up to you when you get back.’

  ‘Promises, promises. Rachel, we may actually know who Barbie is and where Bradley is. This could all be over soon.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe. But so far we don’t have anyone. Let’s not count any chickens.’

  For the second time in a few minutes, the phone line went dead on him.

  CHAPTER 50

  Detective Constables Julia Corrieri and Mike McCaughey had been given babysitting duties for Greg Deans. Corrieri, ever Narey’s eager beaver, didn’t mind in the slightest but McCaughey was more resentful of the task, given that it was mind-numbingly dull. While Corrieri had used the time to pore over her missing persons lists in the hope of seeing something she had missed the first time, McCaughey just watched TV or complained. He’d much rather have been out on the street, doing his action man routine with dealers or gangsters and he wasn’t slow to tell anyone who would listen.

  Deans had dispatched Janet and Leanne, his wife and daughter, to his sister’s house in Aberdeen to get them away from any potential threat – and any further prospect of them knowing what he’d got involved with when he was younger. Narey had agreed to the move readily. While she didn’t have much time for Deans’ pleas for secrecy, she did want to keep his family out of harm’s way.

  For the two and a half days that they had been looking after Deans, the detectives had worked twelve-hour shifts: Corrieri was there from noon till midnight and McCaughey took over until she returned the following day. It wasn’t so much that it was inappropriate for Corrieri to be there at night; it was more that there would be fewer opportunities for McCaughey to moan at someone. As a result, by the time Corrieri got back, he was bored, frustrated and grouchy.

  He knew by the knock at the door it was her but McCaughey still insisted that Deans retreat into the sitting room until he had opened the front door. He eyed her up through the peephole and pulled the door ajar slightly in an overly theatrical manner, his blond hair pushed back on his head.

  ‘Password?’

  ‘Plonker.’

  ‘That’ll do. Thank God you’re here. I’m bored out of my tree.’

  ‘Nothing happening then?’

  ‘Sadly not,’ he grimaced.

  ‘You’d actually prefer it if someone attacked Deans so you’d have something to do?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he grinned.

  ‘Boys . . .’ she shook her head despairingly. ‘All the same. Okay, macho man, you can go fight crime on the mean streets of Gotham. The cavalry’s here.’

  ‘Fight crime? I wish. I’m off home to get some kip. Deans is in the front room.’

  Corrieri groaned internally. She had been charged with befriending Deans in the hope that he would let slip some nugget of information he’d been keeping from the cops up till then. She chatted to him, listened to his worries about himself and his family, put up with his prot
estations of innocence about what had happened in the Trossachs and generally tried not to show that Deans made her skin crawl.

  It was partly that she knew what he, Paton, Mosson and Bradley had done with the girl all those years ago. She wasn’t a prude and it wasn’t the sex she had a problem with. If Lily, who they now knew as Barbie, was a willing participant, then that was down to her. It wouldn’t have been Corrieri’s choice but the girl was young and drunk yet seemingly able to make her own mind up about what would happen. Corrieri was determined not to judge her but she reserved the right not to allow Deans the same luxury. For a start, he was old enough to have known better and, much more than that, he was a coward to have kept the truth to himself for so long when the girl’s parents must have been desperate to know what had happened to their daughter.

  The only slack she was prepared to cut him was that he did seem genuinely terrified about anything happening to his family. DS Narey was more sceptical and felt Deans was at least as concerned about covering his own backside as he was about protecting his wife and daughter. However, Julia, with her Scots–Italian background, was all about family and gave Deans some credit for his worries. It meant she was alone with him in the big house on Vancouver Road, something she didn’t particularly like, but that was her job.

  There was something she was getting from Narey as well that was throwing her a bit: the DS was normally as cool as they came but this case seemed to have her on edge. Corrieri didn’t know the full background but was aware there had been moves going on before the rest of the squad knew anything about them. Whatever it was, Corrieri trusted Narey completely and knew she’d be doing the right thing. It was a standing joke in Stewart Street station that Corrieri was in awe of the DS and the mickey-taking annoyed Corrieri for one very good reason: it was true. There was less than ten years between them but Corrieri knew Narey was everything she wanted to be in terms of being a cop.