by Helen Fields
‘It’s a heart, way too large to be human, thankfully. Maybe from a cow or a horse,’ Ava said. ‘That’s why nothing was taken. Whoever came here was leaving you a message.’
‘A former partner with a grudge?’ Callanach asked. ‘Have you had any bad breakups with anyone who might still have a key?’
‘I’m single,’ Natasha said. ‘Almost every relationship I’ve had has ended badly, or they wouldn’t have ended. As for keys, there are probably a couple of women who still have one.’ She was fighting back tears and trying not to let her shaking hands show as she cleared up the bloody mess on the floor. Ava took over from her, sitting Natasha down at the table. ‘I can’t believe anyone would go so far as to come into my house. It’s disgusting. And why leave that in my freezer?’
‘Write down the name of anyone who might have a key and I’ll ask DC Tripp to follow it up. Tonight, you should stay elsewhere,’ Callanach told her.
‘No,’ Natasha said. ‘Ava got a death threat and she didn’t run away.’
‘You don’t suppose they’re linked? You’ve been friends a long time. Is there anyone who might be jealous of your relationship?’ Callanach asked.
Ava stared thoughtfully at the heart as she scooped it into a bag to go to the lab.
‘I don’t see who fits that bill. Our paths don’t cross socially unless we’re out for a drink and Natasha rarely lets me meet any of her girlfriends.’
‘It’s a bizarre coincidence though,’ Callanach said. ‘I’ll have to make this official to get forensic testing authorised and I’ll need you to give a statement in the morning, Natasha.’
‘You didn’t say we,’ Natasha noticed. ‘Are you not going to be dealing with this, Ava?’
‘I’m currently suspended from duty,’ Ava said. ‘Could be worse. Two weeks’ fully paid leave is a fair trade for having my professional judgment questioned.’
‘Oh honey, I’m sorry,’ Natasha hugged her. ‘And now I’ve dragged you into this. It’s the last thing you need.’
‘I’d rather be suspended than have someone leave that in my house. Are you sure you’ll be all right tonight?’ Ava asked.
‘I’ve got chains on both doors and I’ll lock all the windows. Don’t worry about me. It was just a shock, that’s all.’
‘I’m reporting it now,’ Callanach said. ‘Patrol cars will go by regularly to check on you. Call me if you’re worried. And I’d better get you out of here before the first officer arrives,’ he said to Ava. ‘Probably not a great idea to be found in the middle of a crime scene within one hour of your suspension.’
Callanach had thought he was tired, but by the time they arrived at Ava’s he knew sleep was going to be evasive and it was obvious she felt the same.
‘Cup of tea?’ she asked. ‘Or instant coffee? Just don’t come in expecting anything freshly ground.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he replied. ‘It would ruin my bohemian, laissez-faire impression of you.’
Ava’s house was somewhere between chaotic and well lived in. Most of the furniture looked antique but used and loved, rather than polished and posed. The furnishings were all about comfort and warmth. Callanach poked through collections of films and music while she washed mugs in the kitchen.
‘There’s no dining table,’ he shouted. ‘Where do you eat?’
‘At my desk. Or standing up if I’m busy. Usually on the floor in front of the TV if it’s late. Here you go. Decaff, I’m afraid. Can you cope?’
‘Next time I’ll bring my own.’
‘If you’re going to be like that, there won’t be a next time.’ She landed in an armchair and closed her eyes. ‘Well, that was quite a day. Thanks for trying to stick up for me with Begbie. But he’s right. A suspension is the only option to make this go away.’
‘Not great for your career, though.’
‘These things happen, and careers can be rebuilt. Look at you. You never did tell me what made you leave Interpol, so go on, I could do with listening to someone else’s disaster story. Make me feel better about mine, if you don’t mind, that is.’
Callanach considered it. It wasn’t a tale he was comfortable telling. Then again, the rumours were undoubtedly already flying. Tactically it might prove helpful to have someone hear his side of it, and unburdening himself after so long might be exactly what he needed to avoid another mess like the one at Strathallan airfield. He hadn’t talked to Ava about the skydiving incident yet, and she hadn’t pursued the subject. It would be a while before he could deal with that one.
‘It’s the usual story,’ he said. ‘There was a woman involved.’
Astrid Borde was eye-catching. She had long auburn hair, sun-bleached at the ends, sweeping eyelashes, high cheek bones and the sort of figure men would pay good money to stare at. He’d been aware of her before a colleague had set them up, but had never spoken to her.
‘My then best friend at Interpol arranged a date,’ he told Ava. ‘Jean-Paul would do almost anything for food and Astrid had offered to stock his freezer with enough meals to last him a month if he talked me into it. I didn’t know that when I agreed to go out with her, unfortunately. It might have been enough to ring alarm bells even at that early stage. As it was, I was single, not too busy and saw no reason why I shouldn’t.’
‘Wasn’t there a policy about dating fellow agents?’ Ava asked as she sipped her tea and dragged a throw over her legs.
‘She was a civilian working in the finance department. There was no conflict, it couldn’t have caused problems in the field, so the rules didn’t apply. Jean-Paul gave me her mobile number and I put it in my pocket, thinking I might call her in a week or two. The next day he asked why I hadn’t phoned her that night, said she’d been waiting for me to call and was upset that I’d failed to do so.’
‘You didn’t know anything else about her? Not even by reputation?’
‘Nothing at all,’ he said, ‘but my friend was getting hassle and all I had to do was make a call. I suppose I was a bit irritated but not so much that I pulled out. Anyway, I made the arrangements that evening, booked a restaurant. I was going to meet her there, keep it casual but she wanted me to pick her up, do everything formally.’
He recalled that phone call almost word for word, or perhaps he’d reconstructed it in his mind too many times wishing he’d seen the trouble that was coming. Astrid had a great voice, low and husky. If he was honest, that was the reason he hadn’t made his excuses straight away. He knew she was going to be a bit of a princess – he’d dated enough models to know the type. There was going to be no taking it easy, no quick drink to see if they liked one another.
‘She was obviously keen, a bit nervous and giggly, but I ignored it,’ Callanach told Ava. ‘Ironically, the idiot I used to be would never have found himself in so much trouble. Astrid Borde wouldn’t have got past that first telephone conversation after requesting that I wear smart clothes.’
Ava choked. ‘She didn’t!’
‘Absolutely, she did,’ he said, smiling ruefully at Ava’s astonishment.
He’d picked Astrid up as directed at seven o’clock, which was a bit early for him but she’d wanted to go for a drink before dinner. In his mind she would always be wearing the low-cut, shimmering charcoal dress that had hugged her body to within a hair’s breadth of indecency. The skirt stopped mid thigh but had an off-centre split revealing enough leg that Callanach caught himself glancing at it as she walked. The dress was worn to get his attention and he had to admit that it did.
‘We had champagne at a bar first and she wasn’t talking much so I chatted about work, stupid things Jean-Paul and I had been up to, then I made some comment about football. I wasn’t even that interested in sport but she wasn’t responding to my conversation so I was just filling air space. That was when I knew for sure it was going to be a first and last date.’
‘What did she do?’ Ava asked.
‘She said, “We won’t be talking about sport. It doesn’t interest me.” You know
those moments in your life when you look back and think, if only I’d done something different right then, it would have changed everything? For months I woke up in the night dreaming I’d walked away that minute, feigned illness, made her get a taxi home.’
‘But you didn’t,’ Ava said.
‘No, I didn’t. I tried to be nice, gave her the benefit of the doubt, even thought that perhaps I’d misheard her. In my mind I just had to finish the evening, drop her home, never see her again. It seemed more effort to react than to let it go.’
He and Astrid had gone from the bar to the restaurant, the one she’d insisted they go to. It was too staid for Callanach’s taste, suited and tied, with a waiter whose default facial expression was disdain, and decor designed to warn you how high the bill was going to be. Astrid had loved it.
‘So what happened?’ Ava asked.
‘Astrid was like a child, petulant and rude one moment, tossing her hair and demanding attention the next. I honestly didn’t know how to act. The waiters were looking at me as if I should have done something about her behaviour. At one point I was so embarrassed that I suggested we should talk more quietly and it made her worse. After that, I sat back and watched. She ordered fish then told me she hated it, made a point about tasting the wine, approved it, then halfway through the glass she told the waiter she’d never been served anything so revolting, and was rubbing her feet in my crotch by dessert.’
Callanach remembered listening to Astrid’s whining at dinner and wishing for silence. It had seemed that she could eat without pausing once in conversation. He’d looked at his watch every few minutes during that meal, trying to do it under the table so she didn’t notice, but eventually even she had taken the hint.
‘Are you keen to get out of here?’ Astrid had asked.
‘I’m sorry. I hadn’t meant to be rude, it’s just that I need to review some files and I was hoping to look at them tonight. Please don’t rush your clafoutis,’ he’d said.
‘I was going to leave it anyway.’ She’d thrown down her spoon, letting it clatter in the china bowl amidst the mess of black cherries, making every other diner in the place stare. Callanach hadn’t had to ask for the bill. The head waiter had brought it immediately with a look of pure relief. Callanach had left cash on the table with a generous tip, his only thought how quickly he could get out of there.
By the time they were on the street, she was asking for more champagne and complaining about being rushed. That was when he’d made the mistake that had changed everything.
‘I didn’t know how else to shut her up and get her home quickly, so I kissed her. It was just a few seconds, nothing intimate, just enough to take her breath away and make her do what I wanted, which was to get in my car without a fuss so I could drop her home and run.’
‘You don’t have to defend yourself,’ Ava said. ‘If I was going to judge you, I’d have done it already.’
‘I’m defending myself against my own judgment as much as yours. Some part of me still thinks it was my own bloody fault, you know? That I led her on.’
‘If I had a pound for every victim I’d heard say that …’ Ava said. ‘What happened when you got her home?’
‘It started before then, in the car. Kissing her was the worst thing I could have done and I knew it as soon as I touched her. Astrid started acting drunk. She was all over the place, took off her seat belt while I was driving and tried to climb into my lap. By the time we reached her apartment she was saying she couldn’t walk and that I would have to carry her up.’
Astrid’s dress had ridden so high up her thighs in the car that he could see her underwear. If he’d been intrigued at the start of the evening, he was sickened by the end of it. Her drunkenness had been an act and, with hindsight, he wondered if she’d seen through his sudden affection towards her. He’d had to half-lift, half-drag Astrid to her front door where he’d tried to make the same excuse about work until she’d literally collapsed in her doorway and started to cry. Desperate to avoid her neighbours coming out to gawp at the spectacle, he’d taken her keys, opened the door and carried her to a sofa.
‘I’ve got to go,’ he’d said, as she’d thrown her stilettos across the room.
‘You don’t have to go, you’re lying,’ she’d said, sobering up fast, the loudness gone from her voice and the low sexiness returned. ‘You can’t tell me you don’t want me. I saw how you were looking at me earlier.’ She’d twisted an arm behind her and unzipped her dress.
‘This isn’t going to happen,’ he’d said, ignoring the clothes that were flying towards him and making his way back to the door.
‘Astrid threw herself at me in the most vulgar way imaginable and I had to push her off,’ Callanach told Ava. ‘I was as gentle as I could be but she wouldn’t let me go.’
Astrid had been completely naked by that point. Callanach remembered his disgust when she’d thrown herself against his back, rubbing her bare body against him, touching herself, trying to pull his clothes off. Eventually he’d had no choice but to use force to extricate himself. He’d heard the thud as she’d hit the wooden floor hard, looked back to make sure she wasn’t hurt, then went to leave.
‘Just before I got her front door open, Astrid attacked me, scratching my neck with her nails,’ Callanach recalled. ‘One of her neighbours came out to see what the noise was about. They saw me wiping the blood off my neck and heard me swearing.’
By the time he’d left, Astrid had been hysterical, calling him every name imaginable and sobbing. A minute later he’d been back in his car, cursing Jean-Paul for getting him in so much shit and driving home, desperate for a shower to get rid of the smell of her.
Ava leaned forward, head on hands, looking at his neck as if the wound would magically reappear.
‘So what happened after that?’ she asked.
‘Nothing. I went to work the next day, a couple of people asked about the neck and I said I’d scratched it at the gym. I told Jean-Paul she’d been a pain but no more than that. Whatever nightmare she’d been, I wasn’t going to jeopardise her job. As far as I was concerned it was over and I’m not the sort to spread rumours, so I left it at that. Two days later I was on my way to Jamaica following a lead, and the rest you know.’
‘So what were you charged with?’ Ava asked.
‘I’m sure you’ve already figured that out,’ Callanach said.
Ava nodded.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ava had apologised for prying into his past and been generously reassuring in response to his disclosures. Lyon and his lost life was a subject he tried not to think about, but the discussion with Ava had brought it all back and he gave in to the memories as he lay restless in bed. He thought about the delicatessen, hidden away in the back streets, which had sold the best meats and cheeses he’d ever tasted. He could still feel the heat of the long, hot summers and see the sun as it glinted off the imposing square glass fortress that was Interpol. After leaving France, Callanach had spent six months in Fife doing expedited training in Scottish criminal law and police procedure, before making his way to Edinburgh. By then, he’d hoped he might get a better sense of where he’d come from, but the truth was that he still felt like a cultural intruder. His father had loved Scotland with a passion. Callanach understood why, but the fact of his forced migration was still too raw for him to make a new country his home, even if he had been born there. Edinburgh was beautiful, but he longed for evenings warm enough to eat outside without the persistent rain.
DS Lively was on the phone before six in the morning, when Callanach had just fallen asleep.
‘There was a name on the list, J. Locke, but the car’s licence plate was last registered to a Mrs Francesca Fairbanks in Livingston. Apparently the car was written off after an accident a couple of years ago. Her husband took it to a scrap yard in Falkirk.’
‘Can the husband give us more details?’ Callanach asked.
‘He might have done if he hadn’t passed away six months ago,’ Li
vely said. Callanach could hear the frustration in his voice.
‘Get a team to visit every scrap yard in the Falkirk area. I’ll be at the station within the hour.’
‘And Professor Harris wants another briefing so you can bring him up to date on what you found in Braemar. Shall I tell him you’re on your way?’ Lively asked.
‘Get straight out to Falkirk, Sergeant. I’ll call Harris myself.’ The last thing Callanach wanted was to lose more hours explaining himself to a man who was determined not to deviate from his own assumptions. The day was going to be busy enough that avoiding the profiler shouldn’t prove too difficult.
Naturally, Professor Harris was waiting in his office when he arrived at work. Of course, Callanach thought. Why had he ever thought that Lively would follow orders? Harris had taken it upon himself to arrange for the Chief to join them.
‘The team has used the profile I gave them to identify three suspects in the local area. They will each be brought in for questioning today. I should like to sit in on the interviews, if you don’t mind, Detective Inspector. I’ll have an accurate idea of whether or not they’re telling the truth.’ Harris stroked his beard as he talked. It was a habit Callanach particularly disliked.
‘What makes you believe that any of the men you’ve identified are linked to the murders?’ Callanach asked.
‘They all have previous convictions for violent sexual assaults. I’ve studied their files. In my view they all showed the potential for escalating sexual violence with some psychopathic tendencies. Each lives close enough to make commission of the crimes feasible.’
‘And what if you’re wrong about the sexual motive for the crimes?’ Callanach asked. ‘You have nothing other than a history you’re assuming matches the killer’s psyche to connect any of these men to the offences.’
‘They’re also in the correct age bracket, Scottish accent, they all drive and know the city well. Statistics show that most abducted women are sexually molested, Inspector, so I’m not sure why you’re so doubtful about it.’ Harris was unflustered. Callanach knew he needed more than gut instinct to formulate a good argument and opted for the path of least resistance and least wasted time.