When the Dead Come Calling

by Helen Sedgwick

  ‘Of course not, Fergus. I know we can trust you. It’s just that people are already talking and you know what it’s like round here, if you’re not careful…’

  But he’s not listening any more; he can’t hear a word she’s saying. There’s a high-pitched ringing in his ears that tells him the migraine isn’t gone, it’s intensifying, and the menhir is smaller than he’d thought, not much taller than him, grey and white and eroded and rough and speckled with guano, and the worst of it is that from back here where she’s pulled him, he can’t even see the markings any more.

  TWO O’CLOCK ON THE DOT

  It is uncanny, the way Cal likes to have his timing so precise, and the rest of the world seems to fall into line. Results. Fingerprints. Autopsy. The whole mechanism of forensics work. He said two o’clock, that’s what he said.

  Georgie answers the phone on its first ring with his name, because, after all, who else could it possibly be.

  ‘Give me some good news, Cal.’

  ‘I can give you some news, Georgie. Don’t know whether it’s good or no, that’s for you to decide.’

  ‘Let’s have it.’

  ‘Well, we got back the fingerprint comparisons on the two notes. One found under the body of Dr Cosse, the other found by you and Trish in his office. We’ve got three different prints in total, including the two partials, and one of the sets is on both notes. But whoever they are, they’re not on the system. No match to Kevin Taylor. Oh, and they used the same pen for both notes, too.’

  ‘Same pen?’

  ‘Might have been written at the same time. Or in the same place but at a different time.’

  ‘And the paper?’

  ‘Ripped from the same pad.’

  ‘So they weren’t careful. I mean, doesn’t seem professional, does it?’

  ‘Not particularly, no.’

  ‘Best guess?’

  ‘Not making any guesses here, Georgie. But I can tell you, they left prints all over the notes, and they ripped these pages out of a notepad. Find the pad, and you’ve found the culprits.’

  ‘Think they’ve got murder in them?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe no. It’d be a rash business, from whoever wrote these notes. They’re not that smart, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘So a messy stabbing would just about fit, then? Chucking the knife away like no one’s going to notice?’

  ‘Not sure about that.’

  Georgie finds herself thinking about Pamali. She hasn’t received any notes, but then maybe the notes are a new thing … maybe they’re working their way up to more personal attacks. Well, the vandalism felt personal, of course, with the eggs, awful. But in a way it was more distant than actual writing. It would be a big jump, though, from that to murder.

  ‘Do you think it could have been a mistake, the first killing? Could they have just wanted to scare Dr Cosse, but things got out of hand?’

  ‘They stabbed him five times.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’d say they might not have intended to start it, but they certainly intended to finish it.’

  ‘I need a favour, Cal.’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘Can you drive down here and call into the Spar? I think we need to dust for prints in there. I think there might be something … because of the harassment.’

  ‘Spar? The whole village’ll show up, see. Everyone shops in there, time to time. We’ll get your prints. Mine. Trish’s. Everyone’s. No way to distinguish from who was in there to smash some eggs from who was in there to buy them.’

  ‘I know, I know. But indulge me? I’ve got a hunch, that’s all.’

  ‘Alright, Georgie. I’ll have a gander this afternoon.’

  ‘Thanks, Cal,’ she says, though she wishes he sounded a bit more serious about it.

  ‘There’s one last thing,’ he says. ‘We’ve, er, we’ve found one of the eyes. Or rather, your Fergus found it.’

  ‘Fergus?’

  ‘Out by the standing stone, on the outskirts of Warphill. From the body, there’s no reason to think it was plucked out by anything other than birds. But…’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Well, he was behaving pretty weirdly, Georgie. It’s like he was … hugging the stone.’

  The pause is beyond uncomfortable.

  ‘Just thought I’d better mention it. The team’s there now.’

  ‘He’s setting up an archaeological society,’ she says, cringing as she hears the words from her own mouth. ‘That’ll be why he was there. At the standing stone, I mean.’

  ‘His latest project, eh?’ says Cal, laughing.

  Georgie feels that nausea sweep over her again. Pushes it down. Swallows, leans back in her chair. And right there, out of the window, circling high, black wings swooping from between the clouds, then up again and out of view.

  ‘A bird of prey, you mean? Could have taken the eye?’

  ‘More likely gulls, I’d say. They’re nasty, gulls.’

  She has a sudden image of them, the local gulls, picking through a carcass at the shoreline, a dead crab, the way they squabbled over the bits of it. The limbs. Pulling the legs between their beaks. She can hear the noise of them now, the croak of their call. Like they’re here, trying to get inside.

  ‘Anyway,’ he says. ‘I’ll be in touch when I’ve something new to report ’bout the second killing. We’re still dusting the scene for prints. Not that I’m expecting to find much in that tip. Plenty of dust, course, but plenty of prints to get lost among.’ Then he hangs up the phone, but Georgie stays sitting in the same position, holding the receiver to her ear long after the line’s gone dead. She needs to talk to Fergus. It’s been hard for him these past few years, course it has. She understands why he got depressed after he lost his job, how hard it’s been for him to claw back a bit of motivation, the frustration and everything, but this…

  ‘Erm…?’

  It’s Trish, standing behind her, clearing her throat like she’s got something new to report.

  ‘Some of the locals,’ she says, ‘they’re posting tributes on Bobby’s Facebook page. Might be worth taking a look through?’

  ‘Is it not private?’

  Georgie’s never understood the appeal of Facebook. Or the existence of it, to be honest. Maybe it’s about time she learned.

  ‘They’re all going up as public posts.’

  She shifts her chair over to the side so Trish can pull the spare in front of the computer. As the page loads up, she can see she’s right – it’s a catalogue of his friends and acquaintances, most of them lads, Andy fairly prominent among them. A few of the other kids from the school too.

  Someone’s put up a video of Bobby playing the guitar. It’s sad, watching it – the way his eyes avoid the camera and look down to the frets, like he was really concentrating. Like he really wanted to play well. There’s a message from Terry who runs the garage, a few names she doesn’t recognise – friends he had from boarding school? A picture of a sports car – he was into his cars, he’d told Georgie on that cab ride. And there are photos too, photos of Bobby in the pub in Warphill, drinking a pint, looking a bit flushed. A bit drunk. One of him outside, half turned away, mid-stride. Georgie leans forward.

  ‘What is he…?’

  ‘Just having a bevvy.’ Trish sighs. ‘With Ricky Barr, by the looks of it.’

  ‘No, I mean in the photo below.’

  Trish clicks on the image to make it bigger. Yep, it’s a photo of Bobby walking away from being in a photo, a dark day, grey sky and dull stone in that wall he’s walking towards. Georgie knows where that is. Is it a coincidence?

  ‘There was something your Uncle Walt said,’ she says to Trish, to herself, to anyone who’ll listen. ‘As he headed down towards the old church.’ Her eyes dart from the window to Trish’s face. ‘He said he was following the birds.’

  Georgie is starting to wonder if there’s something out there. Something that needs checking out. Something wrong.

  ‘Following
the birds?’

  ‘To the old church,’ she says. ‘The old ruin. Right where Bobby Helmsteading is standing in this photo. Can you tell me everything you know about it, everything you’ve heard?’

  Trish shrugs, shakes her head. ‘Old wives’ tales and ghosts stories is all,’ she says. ‘They were made up. Stuff about how the graves were rising through the earth. Then there was the hanging girl. The ghost of the hanging girl. Haven’t heard that story since I was at school, mind.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘They said, the other kids, you know, older kids when they were trying to scare us? They said if you went right inside, on your own, on the darkest hour of the night, and looked back out then you could see her hanging from the tree in the graveyard. No one ever did see her, course.’

  ‘What did they see?’

  ‘Nothing, Georgie. I mean, it was always a place to go, you know? Kids, teenagers meet up there, have done for years. To smoke, you know. Smoke a bit a hash. Drink. Get frisky.’ She sort of laughs. ‘It’s where you’d go for anything you need to get away from village eyes for.’

  ‘I think it might be a place worth us visiting.’

  ‘For the case?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, could be, I guess. Because of the photo?’

  ‘And because of the birds,’ she says.

  Trish looks unconvinced.

  ‘They’re circling out there, Trish. Like there’s something they’re attracted to on the ground. Something rotting maybe. Like…’

  Like the kind of thing that could attract the scavengers. Like gulls. She doesn’t want to think it, as though thinking it would make it more likely someone else was going to turn up dead, picked at, eyes stolen like Alexis’s and blood congealed in the ruins of the old church. In that graveyard with coffins rising through the ground. She’s heard the story herself, knows where it comes from and all. She’s seen the mounds in the churchyard. She’s never liked it there, never felt right there. And then there are the rumours. The stories about why it was abandoned, the crimes left unspoken and unpunished.

  ‘Maybe I’m…’ Georgie presses her hand across her forehead, trying to rub away the sharp pain that’s appeared there.

  ‘I’ll go check it out then, shall I?’ Trish says. ‘We’ll see what I can find. Shall I go now or after I finish looking into Dawn Helmsteading? I’ve got her education and career history, addresses past and present, the family tree—’

  And that’s when the phone starts ringing again. They both stare at it for a minute, as though its ringing is more unexpected than it should be.

  ‘Hello?’ says Georgie.

  ‘PC Susan White here.’

  ‘Suze?’

  ‘Georgie, aye.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Well,’ she says. ‘Someone just came up to me… A friend of mine actually, so it’s a bit… I’d got back to the flats after talking to your Fergus—’

  ‘What’s happened, Suze?’

  Georgie doesn’t mean to snap.

  ‘She was just passing, she said, but then she saw the tape and everything, the crime scene, and seeing as she knows me—’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Elise Robertson. We were at school together, see, and she’s wanting to talk to us about Alexis Cosse.’

  ‘What does she know?’

  ‘Well… Everyone’s talking about it, about the murder—’

  ‘Get rid of her, Suze.’

  ‘But she says she knows something, and I thought—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, apparently he was acting as her hypnotherapist.’

  Georgie gives herself a second to take it in, to think it through. Then there’s a knock at the office door. An unfamiliar face. Young, serious, smart, black, newly arrived from the city. Good. She knows what to do. ‘Bring her in,’ she says down the phone, as she gestures for the man waiting patiently outside to come in. ‘We’ll be ready.’ She hangs up the phone, stands.

  ‘DS Frazer, presumably,’ she says, glancing at him then turning away. ‘About time too. I’ve been needing some reinforcements. Trish, give him a quick tour of the station, will you?’ She doesn’t wait for a response. ‘You’re up to speed I take it, Frazer?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Trish here will get you a desk, so you can drop your bag and your coat and be back here in three minutes. And Trish, when Andy turns up, get him outside washing the cars, okay? Or send him home if he prefers. We’ll get to his interview when we can.’

  Trish opens her mouth to protest, but for once she’s too slow.

  ‘No arguments now,’ Georgie commands. ‘Frazer, I’m going to need you with me in the interview room.’

  A BAD TIME FOR NEW ACQUAINTANCES

  Trish is mighty pissed off. It’s not bloody fair, that’s what gets her. He’s practically still a kid, straight out of uni and fast-tracked into outranking her, ticking all the equal opportunity boxes as he goes. What does he know about anything that’s happening round here? Not as much as seven years’ experience in the police and a lifetime in Burrowhead has taught her.

  ‘This way,’ she says, opening the door for him. ‘Sir.’

  He’s holding his shoulders too straight, trying to act the part. Probably got his mother to iron his suit for him. She tries to catch Georgie’s eye as she leaves the room, but she’s giving nothing away. Elise Robertson will be on the way with Suze by now, and Trish is sent to show this DS Frazer around the station when she should be preparing the interview. She knows Elise too, from way back, they were all at school together – she could have helped in the interview. Though the knowledge that a stranger will be of more help than a friendly face is shoved to the back of her mind.

  ‘That was the DI’s office,’ she barks, striding down the corridor and gesturing into the rooms she passes. ‘Interview room there, me and Si—’

  ‘I’m going to need somewhere to do my paperwork.’

  ‘And here we are.’

  Trish stops in front of the door to the room at the end of the hall.

  ‘This is a cell,’ he says.

  ‘Aye, well…’

  ‘I want a desk, in an office.’

  She turns to face him. Is met by two stern brown eyes and a frown that doesn’t so much wrinkle his forehead as … wait, is he suppressing a laugh?

  ‘Here,’ she says, marching off again. ‘Have mine. I’m only a constable.’ Grabbing notes and pens and files, sending a stapler crashing to the floor. ‘Don’t touch that.’ Dumping all her stuff in the box room with the mop – at least Andy’s cleaned it up a bit, good lad – then rushing back to log out of her computer. ‘This we’ll have to share. You log on as Guest.’

  ‘Right you are, DC Mackie.’

  Sarcasm too.

  ‘I’ve got work to be doing.’

  Which is true, actually. She’s still got to narrow down Dawn Helmsteading’s last known whereabouts. Maybe it’s good she’s not needed in the interview; she might find the next lead on her own instead. A bit of investigating she can get her teeth into. Find them a proper suspect.

  ‘I was hoping you could bring me up to speed.’

  ‘I thought you already were up to speed.’

  ‘After that tour we’ve got two minutes to spare, I reckon.’

  She breathes deep to give a sigh then thinks better of it. Mind you, he looks like he knew it was coming.

  ‘Start with the first murder,’ he says. ‘If you don’t mind.’

  So she does it – never let it be said Trish is not a team player – and two minutes later he’s got copies of every entry in Dr Cosse’s day planner, Cal’s phone number, the fingerprint analysis from the notes, scans of the notes themselves, Trish’s notes from Kevin Taylor’s interview (which she hasn’t formally written up yet, much to Frazer’s consternation) and both crime scene reports.

  ‘Now, Dawn Helmsteading,’ she says. ‘She’s Bobby’s sister, right?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘What
?’

  ‘Have you got prints from the knife yet?’

  ‘Erm…’

  ‘The one found at the second crime scene. Phone Cal to check on that, will I?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘But this,’ he says, tapping at a page from the day planner, ‘this is interesting.’

  Trish leans down, trying to see what he’s found.

  ‘N.P.’ he says. ‘Looks like someone’s tried to rub it out, too. Any idea what that’s about?’

  ‘New patient,’ Trish snaps.

  ‘Or it could be initials.’

  ‘Either way, we don’t know who—’

  ‘Small community round here though, wouldn’t you say?’

  Trish bristles a bit but doesn’t quite feel she can deny it. Who is he to start casting judgements on a place he only set foot in ten minutes ago?

  ‘You could start with Burrowhead,’ he says. The way he pronounces it is like… like you can hear too many of the vowels. She’s suddenly irritated by the shape of his mouth. ‘Everyone living in the village. Go through house by house if you need to, and make a list of anyone it could be. First name and surname, or first name and middle name. Or any other kind of abbreviation.’

  ‘I’ve got other research to do.’

  ‘But this could be a lead, this. Based on some actual evidence. How long has it been sitting here?’

  Trish doesn’t reply.

  ‘I assume someone’s already gone through all the police records?’

  They lock eyes, and Trish is damned if she’s going to be the one to break it first, this stand-off of theirs.

  Down the hall, the front door opens. She can hear Suze chatting away, Elise too, and Georgie going to meet them.

  ‘Look, you didn’t have to give me your desk,’ Frazer says quietly, though he’s already standing up and straightening out his suit jacket. Suddenly it is piercingly clear how hard he wants to make a good impression. ‘I’ll check the timing to see if New Patient could be referring to Elise. But, while we’re doing this interview, couldn’t you check the department’s records for anyone with a name that could be shortened to N.P.? I’d really appreciate it.’

  Well. What was she supposed to say to that?