Perfect Remains

by Helen Fields

  The implied criticism was below the belt and Callanach knew it, but he couldn’t stop himself. It wasn’t lost on DCI Begbie.

  ‘Don’t make this about her suspension, Inspector. Turner knows better than to put herself in harm’s way.’

  ‘It’s my fault,’ Natasha said. ‘She was here to protect me.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Callanach told her. ‘There’s nothing anyone could have done to stop it. Whoever is responsible played us.’

  ‘Where’s your team?’ DCI Begbie barked.

  ‘At the University checking out the other departmental staff,’ Callanach said.

  ‘Get them out of there and into the incident room. If this was a set up with DI Turner as the intended victim, then the University was just a means to an end. Pull every uniformed officer and detective from any other investigation that can spare them. Check who might want retribution from the baby case and revisit the death threat. And get the bloody press out of here. If I see Ava’s face splashed over the news, heads will roll.’ Callanach saw that the Chief was reeling. Ava had been under his command for years. He’d been responsible for promoting her. She was a difficult person not to love.

  ‘Come on, Natasha, I need to get you home,’ he said, walking her back up the road towards her house. As he did so, there was a shout from behind.

  At the Mercedes a forensic technician was waving and shouting for an evidence bag. Callanach left Natasha and went back.

  ‘What is it?’ he demanded.

  ‘A trainer, lodged way back under her seat. Just one. Could have been there some time, fallen out of a gym bag, maybe.’

  ‘At the end of a gym session she’d have undone the laces to remove the trainer, and even then it wouldn’t have fallen out of a bag and ended up lodged under the driver’s seat. If she was conducting surveillance last night, this is the sort of shoe she’d have been wearing. It seems more likely to me that this came off her foot at some point during …’ He looked up the road towards Natasha, the will to finish the sentence draining from him. Ava had known exactly what she was doing even in the stress and panic of the abduction. She’d shed the shoe to prove beyond doubt, as soon as the car was found, that she’d been taken by force. It was typical of her to be planning even in chaos. ‘Don’t tell Professor Forge,’ he said to the officers around him. ‘Enough hope’s been lost this morning.’

  He returned to Natasha, whispering urgent but distracting nothings about procedure and priorities as they went.

  ‘She’ll fight. I’ve never seen anybody get the better of her,’ Natasha said.

  ‘We don’t know what’s happened yet,’ Callanach replied. ‘Ava might have had a blow to the head and wandered off, or followed a lead on foot with no time to pick up her bag. Anything’s possible. Panicking won’t help.’

  ‘Don’t patronise me,’ she said quietly. ‘I get it. We talk facts not hypotheses.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he replied. ‘Ava would tell you the same.’

  ‘Ava can’t tell me anything right now.’ Callanach didn’t respond. Natasha was right. ‘She’s all I’ve got, Luc. My parents cared more about maintaining their social status than they did their own daughter. That’s why they ditched me when I came out. I didn’t fit their ideal of a wholesome, socially correct child. The day I told them, my mother asked if I’d done any research into where I could be treated for my “perversion”. My father just never spoke to me. He was the centre of my world until that day and he never spoke to me again. Ava looked after me, rebuilt my confidence and loved me enough that she very nearly made up for the whole rotten lot of them. I was depressed for the best part of a year, wavering between hanging around bars picking up any woman I could and phoning bizarre churches in America who claimed they could cure me. Ava didn’t once tell me to stop feeling sorry for myself. She didn’t make helpful suggestions. She just let me get on. The life I have now was all built through her and if I have to live it without her …’ She dropped her head as she fought not to cry, tensing her shoulders, gritting her teeth. ‘I refuse, Luc. I refuse to go on without her. So just fucking well bring her back. If you’re one ounce of the detective and the man she seems to believe you are, then prove it now.’

  Callanach didn’t make any promises. There was no comfort to be given. He simply let himself out of Natasha’s house and did as she wanted. He got on with the job.

  The incident room was a parody of a child’s game of sardines, body crushed against body, no one seated because chairs would take up too much space. The Chief took charge and Callanach was glad. He was too full of self-loathing to be trusted to lead the team dispassionately.

  ‘You all know what’s happened by now,’ DCI Begbie began. ‘DI Turner’s home was securely locked and undisturbed, as was her garage. In addition her handbag, found in her car, contained her house keys. The conclusion is that she was abducted between the hours of nine last night and six this morning. Door-to-doors have been conducted in Professor Forge’s road and there’s no information. It’s a quiet area, no local pub, people tend to be indoors at a reasonable hour. Low footfall. The majority of people living in the vicinity drive to and from work.’

  Salter shouted across a sea of heads.

  ‘Is it the same man who took Buxton and Magee?’

  Professor Harris stood up before the Chief could answer. Callanach hadn’t even realised he was in the room, not that it was possible to see further than the people immediately in front of him.

  ‘The man who took Miss Buxton and the Reverend Magee is in custody and this abduction does not shake my faith that we have the right man. Whilst there are similarities, there are also wild variations. The break-in at the professor’s house, the two rather crass notes, the fact that the assailant wasn’t waiting at DI Turner’s home but lured her to a public location. It’s a well-executed offence, I grant you, but the modus operandi is completely different. I suspect that what we have on our hands is a copycat.’

  Callanach raised his voice to be heard above the sighs and moans rippling through the crowd.

  ‘DI Turner was an extremely difficult subject to choose to abduct if this was a copycat,’ Callanach said. ‘Why risk kidnapping a police officer?’

  ‘Kudos,’ Harris replied immediately, as if he’d foreseen the question. ‘The glory of going one better than the man whose work he is emulating. He wants the same recognition, probably hopes Rory Hand himself will admire his daring. These are crimes of ego, DI Callanach. They are bold and unafraid. The copycat wants to show that he is even more outrageous than his idol.’

  ‘So why the clumsy notes and the heart in the freezer?’ Callanach wasn’t going to be silenced so easily. ‘That was just trickery, not a device Buxton and Magee’s killer has resorted to.’

  ‘I believe our new player is trying to put his own stamp on his work, to be unique. The outcome is a tribute to Hand’s work, not the minute detail.’

  ‘Could you not call the person who abducted DI Turner a player, if you don’t mind, Professor Harris,’ DCI Begbie said. The room was silent. It was a reprimand. ‘This is no game.’ Harris opened his mouth to apologise, knowing he’d been too clever for his own good, knowing he’d lost the respect of the men and women in the room, but Begbie wasn’t going to let him get another word in. It was the only moment of satisfaction Callanach got from the briefing. There was no other good news at all.

  ‘I’ll be revisiting the baby deaths case and chasing leads on anyone who might have felt retribution was necessary. DI Callanach will be following up the death threat DI Turner received. Anyone not allocated to those teams will be conducting further checks in the crime scene area, CCTV, studying recent personal and professional communications to see if there were any other threats she didn’t report. DS Lively will be continuing to process the case against Hand. I want updates by noon. Now get moving.’

  Tripp caught up with Callanach in the corridor. ‘I just thought you should know, sir, the scrap-yard owner finally found his records. He passed the car
to a dealer in Edinburgh. Name’s Louis Jones. Shall I bring him in?’

  ‘Not at the moment. That car could have gone on to another four or five dealers after Jones. Get me the file on the death threat, then find Sergeant Lively. Tell him to ask Rory Hand for the dates and times when he killed Buxton and Magee. I want to know how long each was alive. And tell Lively he’s to indicate to Hand that the police already know the answers to those questions, as if there’s a right or wrong. Professor Harris is not to be involved or I will personally see to it that DS Lively is the subject of a rapid transfer to traffic.’

  ‘Using those exact words?’ Tripp looked concerned.

  ‘Those exact words.’

  ‘You don’t really think it’s the same murderer who’s got DI Turner, do you sir? Only if it is …’

  ‘I have no idea, Tripp. It’s a mess. There are more differences than similarities and we’re all chasing our tails. But I want some answers and I want them right now, if only to rule a few possibilities out.’

  Callanach arrived home at two in the morning, and then he’d only abandoned his desk because Begbie had seen his light on and issued a direct command for him to leave the office. Outside Callanach’s flat was a tall stick leaned carelessly in the corner, wrapped in brown parcel paper. He recognised the handwriting on the attached card as Ava’s.

  He opened his door, grabbed the parcel and rushed inside. He tackled the wrapping paper first, desperate to believe that inside was a clue as to her whereabouts, that it had all been a terrible mistake and that Ava was alive and well, having run away after her suspension. What he found was a gleaming wooden fishing rod, reel already attached, with a small box of flies and a rolled-up woollen hat. Callanach opened the note. It was scribbled, the penmanship not a concern, with what looked like tea spilled on one corner of paper that had clearly been ripped roughly from a notebook. It was typically her.

  ‘Luc – I’ve decided you need to learn to relax. Enclosed is a fishing rod in case such things had passed you by in France. Next time you’ve a weekend off, we’re going to Loch Leven near Kinross. There I will teach you to catch the finest trout in the world, which I will also cook for you. We’ll hire a cottage (you’ll be paying as I’ll be sharing my fishing expertise with you). It’s a beautiful place – only sky, water and more sky. Just so we’re clear – this is not a date. The fish are much more interesting to me than you!’ The final phrase was followed by a huge smiley face, below which was a PS. ‘You’ll need the hat. We have to fish from a boat and it gets cold. Sorry if it messes up your hair!!!’

  He picked up the fishing rod. It wasn’t cheap. The wood was velvety smooth and the reel made the softest of clicks as he wound it, balanced faultlessly against the weight of the rod. The present and note had been left before she was taken, he knew that. Presumably while he was settling in at Natasha’s, so she could be sure he wasn’t home.

  The thought of what Ava was suffering was unspeakable. Callanach held a pillow to his face and yelled.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Ava’s face was swollen and disfigured. It was a shame. He’d admired her handsomeness at the lecture.

  ‘If only you hadn’t made me strike you, this would have been altogether less difficult and you wouldn’t be in so much pain,’ King had told her as he’d dragged her into his house from the garage. Ava had been unconscious, so he supposed talking to her was a little odd but at least she couldn’t answer back. He’d had to hit her to silence her. The second he’d stopped the car she’d begun the kicking and screaming again and, without the engine noise to drown it out, there was a possibility that a passerby might hear.

  He’d used the back of his fist, lashing one of her temples hard enough that it had put him in mind of a cat o’ nine tails on a Napoleonic ship. He’d enjoyed the comparison. It made him feel like a captain. At sea, strict discipline was necessary to maintain order. The ranks had to be kept in line or rebellion would occur. Wasn’t that the most apt analogy to their situation? Regretfully, after the cracking sound his fist had elicited from her face, he feared he might have broken her cheek bone. The bruise was already blooming.

  In the lounge he’d drawn the curtains, checked the cable ties and fastened her to the legs of a massive, old oak table. As a thoughtful final gesture he’d slid a cushion under her head.

  ‘You don’t want to wake up with a crick in your neck, do you?’ he’d asked as he picked up the car keys one last time. He still had to drop off the borrowed vehicle before he could relax. ‘Not that you’re going anywhere,’ he’d whispered in Ava’s ear. ‘And when I get back, we’ll make plans for your stand-in’s death. You can help, if you like. You know the tricks of the trade even better than I.’

  Dr King spent the intervening period returning the hired vehicle, and considering whether or not it had been too rash a move, taking a police officer. Not that there was any real danger she might prove to be a match for him – his ability to foresee and prepare for all eventualities was his ultimate weapon. But he was aware that she wouldn’t be intimidated as easily as Elaine or Jayne. The battle to break her would be more prolonged, require a greater level of dedication. There was a risk, in fact, that she might never bend to his will. It was possible that her stubbornness might be greater than her desire to better herself. If that was true then he had no qualms about dispatching her. He didn’t want to lose Ava, aware that he was tiring of Elaine and Jayne. Some fresh blood was definitely needed. But if she proved too dangerous, Ava might leave him no option. He considered the possibilities. Without an element of natural justice to her death, it would be plain old murder. And he was no common-or-garden murderer.

  She was stubborn, he focused on that. Stubborn like a mule. And what did mules do? They kicked, which would leave him no choice but to kick back. He imagined the sound of his foot contacting her abdomen, like deflating a football. Her ribs would break too easily. He would have to remove his shoes, he thought. He would hurt his feet but it was a proper and necessary sacrifice. It wasn’t fair to kick with shoes on. That would be wrongful. Yes, kicking it would have to be. Thinking about it, it seemed more than likely that she might prove implacably stubborn. And the more he thought about the consequences of that, the more colour and texture the sight of her bruised and fractured body took on in his mind. He wondered briefly if he weren’t creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. But that was absurd. After all, he was nothing if not open minded.

  It was three long hours before King made it home again. He’d had to walk miles back from the weasel’s. No buses at that time. And by then, very much awake, Detective Inspector Ava Turner was waiting.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Falling asleep had proved an insurmountable task, so Callanach had risen again, dressed, taken his car via the station to pick up keys from the evidence store and made his way to Ava’s. He was aware that it was four in the morning, that it looked odd going there alone at that time, and that he was doing more wallowing than police work, but it was the only place he wanted to be. He’d been there just once previously, but the familiarity from that sole visit lent a small measure of comfort. It wasn’t simply that it was the place Ava inhabited away from work, more that everything in it was the embodiment of her. Mugs were bright, colourful, larger than life. Every wall was covered in a painting, a print, postcards, maps or shelving that housed endless DVD cases and music. It was both functional yet brimming with life as only Ava lived it. In front of her washing machine was a pile of clothes, t-shirts, jeans with socks poking from the feet, half upright, that she had clearly stepped out of in the utility area, saving the walk from the basket to the laundry. He fought the desire to shove it all in the washer for her. To do one tiny, stupid thing to make her life easier when he brought her back. If he brought her back.

  His mind rewound time to the day she was sent the roses. What had he said when she’d refused to report it? ‘It’s your funeral.’ That was it. Only time would tell how prophetic that might prove to be. With a roar he hadn’t ev
en known was coming, he rammed his fist full force into the wall, pulling it back, connecting again and again until he felt the snap of his little finger and an exploding firework of pain shot up his arm. There was a dent and a bloody mark in the plasterboard. He took a cloth and did what he could to clean it with bleach from beneath the sink before raiding her first aid kit and binding two fingers together. He knew he should leave. It wasn’t healthy to be there, immersing himself in memories of her. Yet the temptation of her bedroom proved too strong, of finding out who she was in her most private moments.

  Ava’s bedroom was calmer and more ordered than the rest of the house. A plain white duvet cover was laid across a neat bed. A few ornaments decorated surfaces, but it seemed that this was where she came to clear her head and shed the chaos of the day. Callanach sat on the edge of the bed, feeling like an intruder, but knowing he was as close to her as he could get for now. Slowly, he slid open the top drawer of her bedside cabinet. There was jewellery, a notepad, a diary, and below that pushed to the back, was a tiny slate painted with a child’s prayer. ‘And now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.’ He ran his fingers over the thin, smooth slab of grey stone, the irony of the words a twisting vine of ice in his guts. If she should die … No amount of prayer could protect her now. Ava’s alarm clock buzzed. It was time to go to work.

  Callanach stared at the useless facts and figures on the page before him. His brain was frustratingly slow. Instead of trying to read it a fourth time, he picked up the phone to speak to the forensics assistant who’d compiled the report.

  ‘So the death threat letter gave us no leads. There’s not one unusual aspect about it that might help?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing, I’m afraid,’ the girl said.

  ‘Is there anything you could have missed, something you might test again?’