Something horrible.
If it was her.
The date was about right, going by the clothes and the haircuts. And the resemblance to the young woman in the photo was undeniable. But without a body or any forensic evidence to compare? With nothing but two stills taken from mobile phone footage in a darkened basement? Impossible to know for sure.
Aileen stared up at me, her father’s wallet clutched to her chest, bottom lip wobbling as her eyes filled up again.
What was better: false hope, or certainty and closure?
That whole year when I’d thought Rebecca had run away from home, when in reality she was already long dead. Hoping she’d walk in the door one day as if nothing had ever happened. Then that first homemade birthday card landed on the doormat and I found out what had really happened to my little girl.
But Aileen deserved the truth, didn’t she? No matter how much it hurt.
I nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’
Her mouth opened wide, the bottom lip curled in over her teeth as dark pink flushed her cheeks, eyes screwed tightly shut. The silent scream made her knees bend and her hands curl into claws. Then a painful breath howled into her lungs and roared out in a jagged wail.
So I opened my arms, wrapped Aileen in a hug and held her as she sobbed.
Because Helen MacNeil was right: I knew how it felt.
26
I closed the taxi door and Aileen blinked up at me from the back seat, face all puffy and streaked with mascara. Then turned to face front as the old Ford puttered away down the narrow lane, took a right at the junction, and disappeared.
Jesus.
I sagged back against the empty shop doorway, pulled out my phone, and called Franklin.
‘For God’s sake, what now? I’m going as fast as I can, but there’s three tonnes of—’
‘Our girl’s Linda McCaskill: sixteen, went missing twelfth of June, 1985.’
Silence from the other end.
Then, ‘How did you—’
‘Old-fashioned legwork. See if there’s a misper report.’
More silence.
‘McCaskill, McCaskill, McCaskill … Here we go. Linda McCaskill.’ Some rustling, then a groan. ‘If it isn’t her, it looks a hell of a lot like her. But without a body?’
‘Yup.’ I checked my watch. ‘Five past eight. We got time to finish up and make the last ferry at nine?’
‘You are kidding, aren’t you? Have you forgotten how much paperwork it takes to turn a missing person into a murder victim? Be lucky if I’m out of here before midnight!’
True.
‘Then wrap it up; you can finish in the morning.’
‘But—’
‘We’ll have to spend the night in Rothesay anyway, so there’s no point busting your hump. Might as well grab dinner.’
But you know whose hump was worth busting?
Sabir’s.
Soon as I’d hung up, I gave the useless wee sod a call.
The sound of explosions and machineguns rattled in the background. ‘This better be important, like, I’m savin’ the werld from Nazi zombies, here.’
‘Where are my IDs?’
‘Hello, Sabir. How are you, Sabir. You’re my favourite, you are, Sabir.’
‘Oh, sorry, let me try that again. Hello, Sabir, where – are – my – sodding – IDs – you – lazy – tosser?’
‘A guy could go off you.’ The sounds of war came to an abrupt halt. ‘I’ve got web crawlers going through every Friends Reunited and LinkedIn profile on the net. Every missing persons’ database too, including a few I’m not meant to have access to an’ all. Cough, cough, GCHQ, cough, cough.’ A slurping noise. ‘See, your trouble is you know bugger all about information technology. You watch one episode of Dr Who and think you’re an expert, but I can’t search for stuff that’s never seen a computer in its puff!’
‘I thought you were meant to be—’
‘You wanna better result? Try looking for people who didn’t fall off the globe thirty years ago, you utter divvy! I’m doing me best here.’
Yeah …
‘Fair enough.’ I limped across the road again to the Black Bull’s back door. ‘Do me a favour, though?’
‘What, another one?’
‘DS Watt’s got a warrant for locating Leah MacNeil’s mobile phone. He’s an idiot.’
‘And you think calling us a “lazy tosser” is going to make me want to help youse?’
I leaned my walking stick against the pub wall, closed my eyes, pinched the bridge of my nose with my free hand, and did my best not to swear. ‘I’m sorry, Sabir. You’re a tech guru, and DS Watt’s an idiot, and I want to find Leah MacNeil before Gordon Smith tortures her to death.’
‘Bleedin’ heck: you and the melodrama.’ A wet raspberry noise. ‘Hold on.’ The phone scrunched and squealed for a minute. Then Sabir was back. ‘Right, let’s see what’s on the system …’ Keys rattled. ‘OK … Jesus, your lad Watt’s spellin’s appalling.’ More keys. ‘He’s got it set up all wrong too. Give us a minute …’
I ducked back into the warmth, retrieved Henry and the printout, gave the lacquer-haired harridan a big smile, then headed outside again. ‘Any idea where she is?’
‘Can you shut yer gob for two minutes and let us werk?’
Fair enough.
We limped out of the lane and into the square, wind shoving against my spine, drizzle stabbing the nape of my neck. Past a tiny, closed, windowless newsagent’s with a big advert for Tunnock’s on one side of the door and a sandwich board screwed to the wall on the other: ‘HAS OLDCASTLE CHILD-STRANGLER STRUCK AGAIN?’
Knowing our luck? Definitely.
Across the square and down a cobbled road lined with wee shops, two banks, a huge Ladbrokes, cafés, and chemists. The only thing open was a small pub, the sound of a singalong in full-throated roar as we went by, bringing with it the funky scent of spilled beer and crowded bodies.
And nothing from Sabir’s end yet, but the clatter of oversized fingers on a noisy keyboard.
We’d made it as far as the Co-op on Bridge Street, cutting across the car park to the relative safety of the overhang above the main doors, before he was back.
‘You still there?’
‘Where else am I going to be?’
Henry got tied up outside, and I hobbled in, grabbing a basket on the way past.
‘One, you’re entirely correct: DC Watt is an idiot, and I am a tech guru. Two: I’ve fixed it so it werks now – muppet didn’t understand a mobile’s IMEI number and its phone number aren’t interchangeable. Three: I’ve been through the data they’ve got.’
‘And?’ Limping along the aisles to the one with face creams, shampoos, medicines, and various toiletries.
‘Got her phone being handed off between cell towers heading north up the M9 between Linlithgow and Junction Nine. Then it goes dark about three and a half miles south of Stirling. Either she’s switched it off, or it’s outta battery, like.’
Two cheap toothbrushes went in the basket along with a couple of bottom-of-the-range toothpastes. ‘Address?’
‘It’s the Stirling Services: they’ve gorra food court, tourist info centre, petrol station, and a Travelodge. So unless your Leah’s stopped for a touch of the early-evening budget-hotel delight, followed by a romantic Berger King, I don’t think so.’
‘Sod it.’ Down the aisles again, looking for the pet food.
‘Till she terns it on again, the system can’t find her. You want us to set up an alert, if she does? Straight to yer phone, like.’
‘Thanks, Sabir.’
‘Now, if ye’ll excuse us, I’ve got a werld to save.’ And he was gone.
Franklin wriggled out of her soaking jacket and collapsed into the chair opposite mine, mouth pulled into a grimace. ‘Bloody hell …’ Plucked a napkin from the table and scrubbed the water from her face. ‘Absolutely starving.’
‘Hold on a minute …’ I finished adding Leah’s mobile to my contacts, picking a differ
ent text-alert sound and ringtone so it’d be obvious when she tried to get in touch. Then pushed the bottle I’d ordered across the table to Franklin, flecks of condensation beading on the glass. ‘Got you a Cobra.’
The Chinese restaurant was tucked down a side street, within view of the putting course and seafront beyond. Warm in here, even as rain drummed against the steamed-up window, the air rich with five spice and sesame oil.
Franklin leaned over to one side and peered under the table. ‘Where’s Henry?’
‘Back at the hotel, tucking into a tin of own-brand meaty chunks in gravy and filling the room with wet-dog stench.’ I called up the map on my phone and placed it on the table between us. ‘According to Leah’s mobile provider, Gordon Smith is heading north.’
Franklin frowned at it. ‘Going back to his brother’s farm on the Black Isle?’
‘That’s Mother’s guess.’
She picked up the menu and frowned at that instead. ‘He’d be an idiot, though. Surely he knows we’d be waiting for him?’
‘And you don’t get away with killing people for fifty-six years by being an idiot.’
‘Szechuan ribs, crispy seaweed, Kung Pao chicken, egg fried rice.’ Franklin turned and waved at the waitress. ‘You want to split a thing of noodles?’
‘I’m getting some anyway; we can share, if you like.’ I wheeched a couple of fingers across the phone’s screen, scrolling up the A9, past Perth and on to Inverness. ‘He knows we’re after him, but he doesn’t know we can track Leah’s phone … Assuming she switches it on again.’
The waitress wandered over and Franklin ordered, then thrust the menu at me.
‘Can I have the spring rolls, salt-and-pepper king prawns, and … mushroom chow mein?’
‘Oh, and a thing of prawn crackers!’
Soon as the waitress was gone, I zoomed out the map. ‘There’s a lot of Scotland you can get to from Stirling.’
‘Yes, but most of it’s easier from the M90. If you’re heading north from Edinburgh, why not go straight up to Perth? Why the detour?’
Good question.
One thing sprung to mind: ‘Think he’s got property there?’
‘Not according to the Land Registry. The place in Clachmara was it.’
‘What about his brother, or his wife?’
Franklin raised an eyebrow. ‘Now that’s worth chasing up.’ She looked up as the waitress returned with a heaped bowl of prawn crackers. Had to be enough there for at least six people. ‘Perfect, thanks.’ Franklin scooped up three or four of the curled white discs and stuffed them into her mouth, one after the other. Eyes closed. Making happy humming noises as she crunched.
I bit the edge off one – still hot from the deep fat. ‘Unless Smith’s going the long way round on purpose? Tootling along in his ugly old Mercedes, staying off the main road so we don’t catch him on the ANPR cameras. Thinks he can sneak up to the Black Isle without anyone noticing.’
She stuffed in another prawn cracker. ‘He’d still have to be an idiot.’
The map on my phone shifted under a grease-free finger till the Black Isle filled the screen. That knobbly peninsula, just across the water from Inverness. Not really big enough to lose yourself in, if you didn’t want to be found. Assuming anyone was looking, of course.
‘Highlands and Islands have got the farm staked out, don’t they?’
Franklin paused, cracker half-in half-out of her mouth. ‘Yeah. Bound to.’ But she didn’t sound convinced.
Still … Wouldn’t hurt to check tomorrow: make sure someone was actually watching the place. But at least that was N Division’s problem, not mine.
‘OK,’ I pocketed my phone again, ‘so we hit Stirling tomorrow. How long do you need to finish up here?’
‘Could probably palm most of it off on sleazy Sergeant Campbell. I’ve got all the important bits done anyway. Even he couldn’t cock up the rest.’
‘Good. If we get the nine o’clock ferry, we can be in Stirling by eleven-ish?’
‘Doable.’ She rubbed her hands together as the starters arrived, diving straight into the ribs. And that was it as far as sensible conversation was concerned.
Too busy eating.
‘So, is your room nice?’ Alice, doing her best to sound upbeat and cheery, and not getting anywhere close.
‘You’d love it. Great view out over the sea and all the mountains in the background.’ Or at least there probably was, if you had a room at the front of the Hotel Sokoloff. I cleared a porthole in the steamed-up window, looking out over a car park and a building site. A nearly-full skip overflowing in the rain.
‘How’s Henry?’
The wee lad was curled up at the foot of the bed, making snuffling snores, paws twitching as he dreamed. His dirty-grey wet-dog stench filled every corner of the room, like a coat of horrible paint.
‘You asked me that already, remember?’
‘Yes. Right.’ A heavy breath.
‘Is everything OK?’ I pulled the curtains shut and sat down on the bed. ‘You sound all … squirrely.’
‘You didn’t see the Sunday papers? The tabloids found out that Gòrach garrottes his victims, so now they’re calling him the “Oldcastle Child-Strangler” and it’s all over the front pages and everyone on the team’s looking at me as if it’s my fault we can’t catch him and—’
‘It’s not your fault!’
‘Bear says we have to interview all the sex offenders again, but that won’t help, I mean, the profile clearly shows that Gòrach hasn’t been in trouble with the law before, or if he has it’s been for petty things like shoplifting or setting fire to the bins outside a takeaway or something minor like that, but he’s not going to be on the Sex Offenders’ Register, because this, what he’s doing, it’s been a journey for him trying to work out what his sexuality really is and how it works, and Bear’s going in the wrong direction and Toby Macmillan is going to turn up dead and strangled and it’ll all be my fault for not catching Gòrach and everyone will hate me and I’m horrible and useless at my job and why aren’t you here to help?’
Never ceased to amaze that she could do all of that in what sounded like one breath.
‘I can’t always be there, Alice. I wish I could be, but I can’t.’
Just like I wasn’t there for Rebecca. Or Katie …
The duvet whoomphed beneath me as I slumped onto it, lying flat on my back, one hand covering my face. ‘And it’s not all on you, OK? Jacobson’s the one in charge, if everything goes tits-up it’s his fault, not yours. Do what you can.’
‘Urgh …’
‘So the question is: what are you going to do?’
She made a noise like a deflating beach ball. ‘I don’t know. I want to rework the profile, but I genuinely can’t face anything stronger than Lucozade and Irn-Bru. Everything else bounces.’
‘So try doing it sober for a change. To hell with what Henry Forrester said, you’re not his minion any more, you’re a highly respected forensic psychologist who’s caught dozens of sick bastards and saved countless lives.’
‘Then why do I still feel like a total—’
‘Beating yourself up isn’t helping, OK?’
Silence.
Henry stirred at the foot of the bed, let out a huge pink yawn, then curled up and went back to snoring again.
‘Alice?’
‘You were right: what you said to Bear. I really won’t work without you. Going by the way I’m stumbling about, achieving sod all, I’m starting to think I can’t. Come back to Oldcastle. Please!’
‘You don’t need me to function, Alice, and you don’t need Henry Bloody Forrester. It’s time to drag your arse out from his shadow, stand on your own two little red trainers, and do it your way.’
She let out a long rusty whine. Then, ‘You’re right, you’re right.’
‘Of course I am.’
Twice in one day.
First time for everything.
— should auld acquaintance be forgot —
&
nbsp; 27
‘… unprecedented scenes in Holyrood as naked protestors stormed the Debating Chamber on Sunday …’
I hauled on my left sock, then worked the right one over the puckered circle of scar tissue that marked the middle of my right foot. Smiling as the room’s TV screen filled with bare-arsed people – all of whom had anti-government slogans scrawled across their chests and backs, while someone at the BBC blurred out all their naughty bits.
‘… amongst growing calls for the Justice Secretary, Mark Stalker, to resign in light of allegations he …’
Shoes next. Then shirt. Tucking it into my trousers as the photo of a small boy appeared on the screen: blond curly hair, blue eyes, chubby cheeks, cheeky smile as he mugged for the camera, clutching a guinea pig.
‘Fears are growing for missing five-year-old, Toby Macmillan, as police teams search woodland in Oldcastle. We go live, now, to Hugh Brimmond at the scene. Hugh?’
Toby and his guinea pig disappeared, replaced by a shot of a parking area in what was probably Moncuir Wood. Headlights pierced the darkness: a couple of patrol cars blocked the road, with two police Transit vans and a trio of minibuses sitting behind a cordon of blue-and-white tape. SOC-suited figures milling about, like pale grey ghosts in the middle distance, waiting for the sun to rise so they could get started.
The camera panned around until the standard BBC roving reporter was onscreen, hunched up in a padded jacket, breath clouding in the camera lights. ‘Thank you, Siobhan. Tragedy shrouds the deep dark woods here in Oldcastle …’
My phone buzzed on the bedside table, turning on the varnished wood, then the opening guitar chugs of ‘Eye of the Tiger’ burst out of the speaker. That would be Shifty, then.
I grabbed the remote and muted the TV as Hugh from the BBC launched into some bollocks about symbolism and fairy tales and children going missing in the woods.
‘Shifty?’
‘I swear to God, I’m going kill someone before this morning’s out.’
‘Going well, then.’
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