by Val McDermid
‘There’s quite a few possibilities and I’ve nothing else pressing. Plus … ’ She paused. ‘Ann Markie has landed me with another body. A Weegie refugee from the MIT through in the west.’
‘MIT? Whose toes did he stamp on to end up with HCU? Not that I see that as a demotion, obviously.’
‘That’s because you get it. The work we do, what it means. Jimmy Hutton’s doing some digging to see what he can find out. I wonder whether it’s as simple as the Dog Biscuit trying to keep me in line.’
‘The Dog Biscuit?’ River knew there would be an explanation.
‘Markies are apparently a kind of dog treat. According to Jimmy. Anyway, I think what she really wants is a spy to see what rules I’m breaking. Like Leonard Cohen says, “The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor.”’
‘I thought you’d given up listening to that miserable old man? Are you slipping back into the depths? Phil so wouldn’t approve.’
Karen chuckled. ‘Field Commander Cohen was wise as well as miserable. Anyway, enough of me. What’s dragging you up the A9?’
‘Inspector Walter Wilson. You ever come across him?’
‘No, is he with Highland?’
‘Yes. Specifically, Ullapool. He’s got a bog body for me.’
‘Ooh. Anything for me?’
River chuckled. ‘You’re a glutton for punishment. But no, not this time. Inspector Wilson’s information is that it probably dates back to 1944. So even if we’re looking at foul play, it’s well outside your seventy-year limit. No reprieve from the red Rovers for you.’
‘So it goes. Good luck with it anyway. I look forward to hearing all about it.’
‘Always interesting, a bog body. Up there in Wester Ross, there should be a high level of preservation, given the levels of sphagnum moss in the peat. We might even get fingerprints.’
‘Aye, but what are the chances of meaningful fingerprints from 1944? We didn’t even fingerprint the army back then in case it put people off joining up.’
‘I know. But I still enjoy the challenge.’
‘I know what you mean. Like me and my red Rovers. Anyway, if you can squeeze your bog body under the seventy-year rule, I’ll only be a couple of hours away in the morning.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind. But don’t hold your breath.’
12
2018 – Wester Ross
River had barely made a start on her first cup of coffee of the morning when a stocky man with a shock of white hair and a weathered face appeared across the table from her. He gripped the back of the chair opposite hers and peered at her from beneath eyebrows that jutted like a pair of awnings over bright blue eyes. The black quilted anorak over the black crew-neck sweater on top of a white dress shirt with the knot of a black tie peeping out was the equivalent of walking in with a blue flashing light strapped to his head. ‘You’ll be Dr Wilde,’ he said.
She recognised the voice. ‘Inspector Wilson.’ She gestured towards the chair. ‘Join me?’
‘Thanks, I will.’ He pulled out the chair, half-turning to wave the waitress across. ‘I’ll have a coffee, pet,’ he said as she approached. He sat and gave River a tight smile. ‘You had a comfortable night?’
‘I did, thanks.’
He nodded, with an air of satisfaction that seemed to suggest he was somehow responsible for that. ‘They’re good here at the Ceilidh Place. Very reliable.’
‘Thanks for sorting it out for me.’
He dipped his head. ‘All part of the service. We pride ourselves on treating our visitors well up here. I thought you might like to follow me up to the locus after you’ve had your breakfast. It’s not the easiest place to find if you’re a stranger.’
‘That’s kind.’ It was the level of task that would usually fall to a more junior officer. She wondered whether Wilson was one of those who enjoyed micro-managing their officers. She hoped he wouldn’t make the mistake of trying that on her.
‘It’s an interesting case,’ Wilson said, leaning forward conspiratorially over his coffee. ‘Very unusual set of circumstances.’
Clearly he wanted her to prompt him for more information. River took advantage of the arrival of her breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausages to make him do the work himself.
‘It seems this married couple, Alice and Will Somerville, came up here looking for a couple of motorbikes that her grandfather buried at the end of the Second World War. I know that probably sounds completely daft to you’ – he raised one caterpillar eyebrow, daring her to exclaim – ‘but there were all sorts of things going on in these parts at that time, so up here, it doesn’t strike us as entirely crazy. That’s why we think the body dates back beyond the seventy-year limit, by the way.’
‘Fair enough.’ River carried on with her breakfast.
‘They recruited a local crofter, Hamish Mackenzie, to help them. The three of them excavated one of the bikes without incident, but when they came to the second one, it seemed it had been interfered with. When they investigated further, they got a hell of a shock. They unearthed a man’s arm. Thankfully they stopped then and there and called us in. My lads took a closer look—’
‘Tell me they didn’t clear away the rest of the peat.’ River’s tone was stern.
‘Well, they had to check out what was there.’ Defensive indignation lurked in Wilson’s response.
‘Did they at least keep separate the peat they dug out?’ Almost a growl. But not quite.
‘It’s all on site. We’re not bumpkins. They were very careful. Anyway, it’s definitely a body. A gey big chap too. When they called me from the locus, I knew we needed an expert. And that’s why I called you.’
River cut a sausage into precise bite-sized chunks. ‘How well preserved is he?’ She tucked in without waiting for a reply.
Wilson cleared his throat. ‘I was in Inverness yesterday. I didn’t get back till early evening, so haven’t actually seen him myself, but I’m told it’s quite a remarkable sight. He’s very well-preserved, apparently. Right down to the eyelashes, one of our boys tells me.’
‘That should make my job a bit easier. Just let me finish this and I’ll be with you.’
Fifteen minutes later, River was following Wilson’s police Land Rover north out of Ullapool. In a matter of minutes, the town was behind them and the landscape so wild it was almost impossible to believe a modern settlement was close at hand. The land swept upwards to peaks and ridges, some rounded and gentle, others jagged and savage. Sheep dotted the grasses and the machair, flocking together in seemingly random areas, since there were no visible fences or walls to confine them. Occasional patches of conifers were contained by deer fences, marching up the hillsides in orderly rows. From time to time, a roadside sign would direct passers-by to a smokehouse, a pottery or a tearoom, the destination often invisible from the road. And then there were the mountains. Every one rising from the plateau to make its own abrupt statement. The steep porcupine pinnacle of Stac Pollaidh; the isolated cone of Canisp; and the big daddy of them all, the blunt thumb of Suilven’s barrel buttress.
River found the drive almost hypnotic. Usually when she was on her way to an investigation, she felt tensed for action, her mind racing over the possible scenarios that awaited her. But that morning, she was curiously soothed by the panoramas that altered subtly every couple of miles. She resolved to bring Ewan up here to share the magic. He thought nothing compared to his beloved Lake District but she had a feeling this might shake his certainty. They might not get weather like this – crisp blue sky with tattered shreds of cloud that made every colour more vivid – but she suspected this landscape would have a distinct beauty in all weathers.
The best part of an hour passed easily, then at last they turned off the main road on to a narrow strip of tarmac that ran between rough ground where sheep grazed oblivious to their passing. Soon she caught sight of a white two-storey croft house nestled against the hillside, and beyond that, two more police 4x4s and an unmarked van that she surmised would belong t
o the forensic technicians who would be getting on with whatever they thought was worthwhile until she’d done what she could at the site.
The tarmac gave way to an unpaved track as they turned down past the croft house. The sound of their approach brought a man to the door. Tall and broad, dressed in overalls and wellies, he put one hand possessively on the door jamb and raised the other in acknowledgement. As she pulled in behind the other vehicles, River caught a glimpse of him in her rear-view mirror, striding purposefully down the track towards them.
She went round to the rear of her own Land Rover and put a vinyl mat on the ground. She took off her walking boots and battered waxed jacket then pulled on a white Tyvek suit over her jeans and T-shirt. She was shoving her feet into her rubber boots when Wilson appeared with a uniformed sergeant in a hi-vis jacket. He had a face like an unsuccessful prize fighter. Wilson gestured at him with his thumb. ‘Dr Wilde, this is Sergeant Slater. He was first on the scene yesterday.’
River smiled up at the tall burly man as she double-gloved her hands in blue nitrile. ‘Hi, Sergeant. I understand you’ve cleared the peat from the body?’
‘It was a bit of a dilemma, Doctor. It was hard to tell whether we were looking at a body or just an arm. Either way, we were told the crates had been in the ground since 1944, so obviously there wasn’t an issue of damaging or disturbing evidence from a live case.’ He sounded like a stranger to doubt. ‘If you’d like to follow me, you can get started.’
‘Can you carry one of these?’ River pointed to the two hard plastic boxes that contained most of her scene kit.
Slater turned away. ‘Hector,’ he shouted. ‘Get over here and carry Dr Wilde’s kit.’ He gave her a condescending smile. ‘The boys like to make themselves useful. Leave them both there, we’ll head over to the excavation.’
She was about to follow him when the man from the croft arrived. ‘I’m Hamish Mackenzie,’ he said, thrusting out a large calloused hand towards her. ‘This is my land.’
River shook his hand. She couldn’t help noticing he was definitely worth a second look. Just because you were happily committed to one man didn’t mean you had to pretend not to notice striking. ‘Dr River Wilde. Sorry for the inconvenience,’ she said.
‘Is it OK if I come over and watch?’
‘It’s fine by me. So long as you don’t interfere,’ River said.
‘Where are Mr and Mrs Somerville?’ Wilson asked.
Hamish pointed to a low stone cottage across the glen. ‘That’s where they’re staying. I told Will it might be best if they kept out of the way this morning. Alice is pretty much in a state of shock. This was supposed to be a happy, fun kind of thing, getting their hands on her inheritance. Now she’s wondering whether she knew her granddad at all. That sweet old man she thought was her best friend when she was wee? Was he really a killer? Did he get rid of his mate so he didn’t have to share the treasure?’ He shrugged, spreading his hands expressively. ‘It’s a lot to get your head round.’
‘We will be talking to Mrs Somerville in due course,’ Wilson said repressively. ‘But right now, we need to take a look at what you people dug up. Somebody put that body down there and I intend to find out who. And why.’
13
2018 – Elgin
Karen sipped her breakfast coffee and did the sums in her head. Louise Macfarlane was fifty-nine, which meant she had been twenty-seven in 1986 when she’d been the registered keeper of a red Rover 214. Like the other two women she’d interviewed thus far, Louise had bucked the demographic trend of drivers of that make and model. Already, one of Karen’s interviewees had confessed that she thought the Rover was an old man’s car, but she hadn’t been able to say no when her granddad had died and her mum had said she could have the car. It was that or nothing.
Louise was the school secretary of a primary school on the outskirts of Elgin. She’d asked Karen to come to the school at ten, after the morning rush of dealing with registers and issues raised by parents dropping off their children. The late start was fine by Karen. The difficulties she’d had with sleeping since her beloved Phil had been killed were gradually diminishing, but she still often found she needed a late-night walk to reach a point of exhaustion where sleep would hold her captive. So after she’d checked in, she’d found a decent fish and chip shop then threaded her way through Elgin, discovering the network of paths along the River Lossie before cutting back through the town. What, she couldn’t help wondering, would Phil have made of the woman she had become? He’d always insisted he loved her exactly as she was, that he didn’t want to live with some diet-obsessed stick insect. But the weight she’d unintentionally lost due to a combination of lack of appetite and the endless route-marching through the night streets of Edinburgh had changed the way she looked. ‘Fat bastard’ was no longer the first insult of choice from those she crossed swords with. She liked feeling fitter too. She used to struggle with the flights of stairs in high-rise blocks and tenements. Now she took them steadily, literally in her stride.
Those were the upsides of her loss that she forced herself to embrace. Finding an upside to the insomnia itself was harder. She’d never had trouble sleeping. Even when she’d first got together with Phil, there had been no period of adjustment to sharing a bed. When Karen used to switch the light off, it was as if she’d switched herself off too. Losing Phil had destroyed that facility and at first she’d struggled to accept that easy sleep had abandoned her. Walking had been a last desperate resort to stop her climbing the walls in frustration. It wasn’t as if they’d been one of those couples who took to the hills at weekends. Not like Theresa May and her man, striding out for the cameras in identical walking gear like a skinny Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Going for a walk in the middle of the night would have been as alien to Phil as attending a poetry slam.
But somehow it had worked for her. The rhythm of her steps calmed her ragged heart. It helped her to order her thoughts about cases and create her own mental map of the city she now inhabited. In strange places like Elgin, she found her feet by night wandering. It was well after midnight when she returned to the hotel, but her sleep was still restless and broken. It was especially frustrating since for once she didn’t have an early start. When she conceded she would sleep no more she had time yet for a leisurely hotel breakfast.
On the dot of ten, Karen arrived at Lossie Primary. She was about to buzz the intercom when a woman appeared on the other side of the glass door, waving a greeting. She released the door and gave Karen a generous smile. ‘You must be Detective Chief Inspector Pirie. I’m Louise Macfarlane, come away in.’
Obviously the concept of stranger danger hadn’t made it to Lossie Primary. Karen followed Louise down the hall and through the door marked ‘School Office’. A quick glance convinced Karen that Louise was one of those whose motto could be, ‘a place for everything and everything in its place.’ Louise herself was equally neat, Karen noticed. Navy slacks – oh yes, definitely slacks, not trousers – and a plain white blouse without smudge or stain, grey hair in an immaculate twisted bun and perfectly manicured pale pink nails all added up to the sort of look Karen’s mother would have loved her daughter to achieve. Or even aspire to, Karen thought wryly.
Louise’s face matched the rest of her. Small features in an oval face, eyes that were somewhere between blue and grey, perfectly applied lipstick the same shade as her nails. The only flaw was a slight overbite. She smiled at Karen again, waving her to a seat on the opposite side of the desk. ‘Your call was very intriguing. When you asked about my Rover, I thought at first you were one of those annoying people who call up pretending you’ve had an accident. But of course, I realised almost immediately that couldn’t possibly be right, not after all these years.’
‘Nothing like that,’ Karen said. ‘As I explained, I head up the Historic Case Unit. Information sometimes comes to us a long time after the fact and we have to do our best to use it to achieve a successful outcome in cases that weren’t resolved at the time.’<
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Louise nodded vigorously. ‘It’s just like Waking the Dead, isn’t it? So I suppose that makes you Trevor Eve.’
‘Aye. But a bit less shouty,’ Karen acknowledged. ‘Thanks for agreeing to see me.’
‘I’m intrigued, I won’t deny it. I can’t imagine how my old Rover has come up in a criminal investigation. I never even got a parking ticket in it.’ She giggled, as if she’d said something funny.
‘A witness has come forward, placing a car like yours at the scene of a serious crime in 1986. Nobody imagines for a moment that you had anything to do with it, but we have to go through the motions of eliminating all the possibilities.’
‘Like Sherlock Holmes.’ She made quote marks in the air with her fingers. ‘“Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” I can assure you, Chief Inspector, that I’m going to be one of your impossibles.’
On her present showing, Karen thought Louise a more likely victim than villain. ‘I need to confirm that you were the driver of the car, not simply the registered keeper.’
‘Oh yes, it was my car. I bought it from the dealership in 1984. It was an ex-demonstration model so I negotiated quite a substantial discount. I had it for almost ten years. It was very reliable.’
Karen scribbled a note in her pad. ‘Can you tell me where you were living in 1986?’
‘I can. I was living in a flat in Mastrick in Aberdeen. I was an advertising sales rep for the Press and Journal. I qualified for a company car because I had to go all over the area keeping our advertisers happy and securing new business. But I chose to use my own car because the mileage rates were very favourable. Even when you factored in depreciation and wear and tear, I reckoned I still came out ahead.’
‘Did you live alone?’
Louise shook her head. ‘I shared with the picture desk secretary, Fidelma McConachie. We were flatmates for four years, then in 1988 my mother took ill with cancer and I had to move back to Elgin. I’ve been here ever since.’ She gave a dry little laugh. ‘Still keeping house for my father. I never married, you see. My sister was the lucky one. She got herself a husband before my mother died, and that left me to be the dutiful daughter.’