Perfect Remains

by Helen Fields

  ‘Nothing. You’ve got the grammage of the paper, the ink type. They’re all commonly used. Most businesses buy these in bulk just because they’re so cost effective. We use both.’

  Callanach stopped flicking through the report. ‘We, meaning, the people in your lab?’

  ‘We, as in the Edinburgh stations within Police Scotland,’ she said.

  Callanach hung up. The flowers and champagne had been delivered to the station but that didn’t mean they hadn’t been ordered by someone on the inside. Someone who had access to exactly the same paper and ink as had been used to write the death threat. Someone who had developed an impossibly deranged obsession with Ava, who had manipulated Natasha to get Ava where he wanted her. It was time to go back to basics. No amount of forensic investigation would solve this.

  Callanach took the stairs to the ground floor. Every police officer had been called in for the day. All leave was cancelled. Only those holidaying abroad or off sick were not on duty. He didn’t even know what he was looking for. He simply had to believe that when he found the person who was doing this, their reaction would give them away. He started on the ground floor and slowly worked his way up.

  Office by office, corridor by corridor, floor by floor he went. He spoke to everyone, asked if they’d had any contact with DI Turner in the last twenty-four hours. Every person took his questions seriously, no one was evasive, they all understood what was at stake. Callanach wasn’t listening to their answers, not the words they used, anyway. He was watching faces, looking in their eyes for avoidance, excitement or fear. He kept his manner stern, businesslike. Two hours later, as he reached the top floor, he was starting to doubt the sanity of what he was doing thinking he could find the needle in the haystack. Once he reached the administrative offices, he was lost. He’d never been up there in the most distant corridors, had always sent Tripp with paperwork queries.

  He kept on going through human resources, past the press office and up to support staff. A woman crossed the corridor into an office carrying a bundle of folders. He followed her.

  ‘DI Callanach,’ he introduced himself. ‘Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions? Have you had any contact with Detective Inspector Turner in the past twenty-four hours?’

  The woman shook her head. ‘I haven’t. I only do the finances for the uniformed divisions. My colleague handles yours and DI Turner’s accounts. She’s in the other office. I wish I could’ve helped.’ She seemed genuinely upset. Callanach thanked her and went to the office opposite.

  A woman was at her desk in the corner with her back to him, eyes fixed on a screen, tapping fast on the keyboard. Callanach waited a second before knocking on the open door to announce his presence.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I appreciate you’re busy but I need to ask you a couple of questions.’

  The woman turned around. Her hair was streaked different shades of blonde and cut into a short bob. She was skinnier than he remembered and wearing black-rimmed glasses. He’d never have recognised her from the back or the side, and even front on he might not have noticed her if he hadn’t been looking directly. But the smile was exactly the same.

  The woman he’d spoken to across the corridor walked in and stood at his side.

  ‘There you are. You probably haven’t been introduced yet. Detective Inspector Callanach, this is my colleague, Astrid Borde.’

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  King was tired, and when he was tired his manners suffered. It was a flaw he disliked in himself but then he always had been his own harshest critic. What he didn’t enjoy was having his faults pointed out by others.

  On his return home, legs and arms punishing him for the physical exertions of his night, skittish with the after effects of too much adrenaline, he had tried to be welcoming to his newest guest. She’d been unreceptive. Tempted as he was to resort to an extra dose of chloroform, he couldn’t imperil her with too great a build up. More importantly, he’d decided that he was beyond dragging bodies up and down the staircases. Tilting the heavy table, he allowed Ava to slip her cable-tied hands free of the table leg, and sit up.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘You’ll be groggy for a while and your hands and feet will be numb from the restraints, but that’ll go. I’m Dr King.’

  ‘Moffboars,’ she said through a swollen face, puffy lips, eye badly disfigured. He’d have to get some ice on that.

  ‘I can’t understand what you’re saying, I’m afraid. Perhaps better to stay quiet and listen at this stage. I need to get you to a place where you can rest properly. You’re going to have to walk. It’s not far. Every door and window is locked so there’s no point running. Your hands will remain as they are and I will cut the tie around your ankles, but you and I need to understand one another. I have this knife,’ he picked it up from the sofa. ‘It’s a carving knife. I sharpen it myself and take quite a pride in doing so. Given that the world will be mourning your passing anyway in a couple of days, it would be advisable not to give them better proof of your demise than I had planned.’

  Her face could put lemons to shame, he thought. Quite the vixen. She hadn’t even glanced at the knife. He’d expected toughness from a police officer but this hostility was unfortunate. King pointed the blade at her for effect, letting the lamp light glint off its edges and reflect in her eyes.

  ‘This knife will be at your throat as you walk. Do not kick or trip or launch yourself at or away from me. If you do, I will not hesitate to dirty the steel.’ He put the knife to the cable tie around her feet and demonstrated the truth of his claim. It sliced the toughened plastic as if through butter. Ava watched him do it, but he saw calculation in her eyes rather than distress. He’d have to be careful with this one. No wonder Natasha had been drawn to her. They were well twinned in cunning and guile.

  ‘Stand up,’ he said. Ava didn’t hesitate. She was bright enough to know which battles to fight and which were beyond her. They walked across the lounge, through the hallway and into the cupboard under the stairs. From there, the door to the cellar was discreet but far from hidden. The cellar was a feature of all the houses in the road. Pretending it didn’t exist would look suspicious if anyone ever got close enough to enquire. It was down those very steps, tragically enough, that his sister had slipped and broken her neck aged just fourteen, wasting so much extraordinary genius and potential. Thirteen-year-old King had thought they might move from the house then, that it would be too full of memories to tolerate, but it had only served to become a shrine to their darling Eleanor, and both his father and mother had spent the rest of their days there.

  DI Turner was walking as he’d instructed her, but her eyes were darting left and right. Well, left anyway, he thought, allowing himself a grin. She couldn’t look to the right with the damage to her face.

  ‘I know what you’re doing,’ he said. ‘So study away, get a feel for the terrain, know your entrances and exits. It won’t help. The staircase from the cellar to the guest suite has been there for years. My father used to escape to his private rooms when my mother was in one of her less sociable moods. It was only when they both passed that I put in the false wall, converted the space so I could use it in my own way. It took me the best part of a year just to fit the wood panelling.’

  At the bottom of the first staircase he unlocked the door and flicked a light switch to illuminate the stairs hidden behind the wall. Ava turned to look him in the eyes. She was brave. He could see it. Not bravado, not an act. Perhaps she genuinely had no fear. Perhaps some part of her, that sixth sense that everyone had like a parasitic worm in their guts, had always suspected this might be her fate.

  ‘I know who you are.’ She spat out each word through the swelling so he could be left in no doubt. ‘You smell of mothballs. You murdered Elaine Buxton and Jayne Magee.’

  ‘Is that what Detective Inspector Callanach told you when he was so unsuccessfully investigating the case?’ King asked, bristling at the mention of how he smelled but more determined than ever to get h
er up the stairs. ‘You police are all so self-assured, aren’t you? So keen to label and box and solve. Perhaps you’d like to join Miss Buxton and the Reverend Magee?’ he asked, pushing the knife into her throat until he could see the veins starting to bulge.

  Finally she looked afraid. She took a step backwards, then another and another, following the orbit of the knife as he circled it from left to right in an infinite loop before her face, forcing her upwards, closer to the top of the hidden staircase, further away from her old life with every step.

  ‘You don’t have to kill me,’ she said, finding her voice as the upper door loomed closer.

  ‘If only that were true,’ he said. ‘But if you don’t die, then you’ll never be mine, not properly. There will always be people with hope in their hearts, people who won’t stop searching, police officers for whom the case will grow cold but never lie still in their memories. With death, Detective Inspector, comes grief and with grief there can be an ending.’

  Ava stood on the top step, her back to the door. She put her hands in the air and the gesture said more than words ever could. She had surrendered, accepted her fate, made herself his. He wished he could stop time, could study the expression on her face as she transcended into his world, could fill himself forever with the delight of knowing he had won.

  ‘Ava, don’t be scared. It’s time to meet your new dead friends.’

  King pushed open the door. He held Ava’s hand as she went in, like a bride walking to the altar, watching her eyes widen as she recognised the women on the beds.

  ‘What the fuck?’ she whispered.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  ‘DI Callanach,’ she said, adopting a superficially demure air before her coworker. Only Callanach could hear the mockery in her voice. ‘How nice to meet you.’ Astrid held out her right hand to shake his. He stared at it as if she were offering him a slab of maggot-infested meat. He hadn’t been able to tolerate anyone touching him, however fleetingly or well meant, since she’d accused him of rape. Now the thought of Astrid’s flesh making contact with his made him feel physically ill.

  ‘I’ll need to talk with you privately,’ he said, his voice hoarse, fighting his disbelief.

  ‘Certainly,’ she replied sweetly, ‘anywhere you like.’ Astrid beamed at the woman she shared an office with as if she’d been given the rest of the week off. Callanach stepped back to let her through the doorway without giving her an excuse to touch him.

  ‘Down the stairs, ground floor, far end of the corridor to the right,’ Callanach said, keeping his eyes in front, counting his breaths to combat the light-headedness that was blurring his vision. Astrid took her time on the stairs, greeting every person who passed them with a cheery hello. Callanach could feel the muscles in his shoulders and back seizing up with every passing step. It was all he could do not to scream at her to hurry.

  ‘Are we not going to your office?’ she asked, sugary and compliant. Her voice grated inside his head like vuvuzela at a football match.

  ‘No,’ he said, walking ahead down the final corridor, and opening the interview room door. ‘And we’re talking in English only. No French. I’m not prepared to lose time with allegations that we’ve had any improper conversations.’ He pulled a chair out from under the table and motioned for her to sit. Callanach punched buttons on the monitoring system, setting both video and audio recording in motion. Astrid slid her hands across the table to within a centimetre of his, flashing a bright smile.

  ‘Luc, this is an interview suite. I don’t understand what the problem is. And why the machines? Just ask me whatever it is you want to know.’

  ‘I want to know what you’re doing here,’ he said, endeavouring to keep his voice unthreatening. It shook with the effort.

  ‘I work here,’ she said. ‘I have not been hiding. I even sent down some time sheets you hadn’t filled in properly. My initials were on the note. Unfortunately, you sent one of your boys to sort it out. Sloppy not to get your paperwork right. Your standards must be slipping.’ Astrid played with a lock of hair that had fallen across her face. Another man might have thought it alluring. What Callanach saw was a viper planning her next strike.

  ‘I meant, what are you doing in Scotland? There’s an injunction, Astrid, a court order to prevent you from coming near me. You’re not allowed to have any contact at all.’

  ‘Only in France, silly. That injunction ceased to have any effect once you left the country. And you didn’t get another one here, so I’m not restrained any more. That’s how you wanted it, no? You came here so we could have a new start?’ She touched his hand. Callanach reacted as if a scorpion had crawled on his skin. He kicked his chair away and backed off to lean against the far wall.

  ‘I didn’t come to Scotland for you to follow me. I came because you ruined my life in France. You took everything – my career, friendships, reputation. How the hell did you get this job?’

  ‘Interpol was not entitled to write anything about it on my reference. It was not relevant to my professional conduct. I was a victim who had felt unable to go ahead with a trial. If that had prevented me getting this job, I’d have been entitled to sue them. And my immediate superior at Interpol had no idea you were here. I actually think the bitch was pleased I was leaving, so I’m sure she wrote me a glowing reference.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain why no one here realised who you were. They did a full background check. I disclosed everything.’

  ‘You were never convicted – in fact you were legally declared not guilty of any wrong-doing. The administrative system does not cross-reference the names of employees in such circumstances, especially given that I only applied here after your posting had been finalised. And your boss who worked so hard to get you this job presumably arranged to keep all the paperwork nice and clean on your behalf.’

  ‘You had no right to follow me here and you know it.’

  ‘Luc, darling …’ She stood up and began to step around the table.

  ‘Sit down,’ he ordered.

  ‘Am I under arrest?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re being questioned.’

  ‘Then caution me,’ she teased, undoing her top button and flicking her hair, but she sat. ‘I don’t understand why you’re so angry. I decided against giving evidence.’

  ‘Not until the day before the trial. I lost months of my life! My own mother can’t bear to talk to me any more. And the worst thing is that I don’t believe you ever intended to go through with the fucking trial. You just wanted to destroy everything I had!’ Callanach’s hands were fists in his pockets.

  ‘I saved you. You really shouldn’t be telling me off.’ Her eyes were huge and teary.

  ‘It was a lie, Astrid. Every bit of it was a lie. I didn’t rape you, we didn’t have sex. How can you possibly think you saved me?’ Callanach was at shouting point. A curious officer put his face to the glass in the door to check what was happening. Callanach nodded at him and he walked away.

  ‘You’d have been in prison now if it weren’t for me. Is that what you’d have preferred? Ten years of shitty food and dirty, stinking men for company. How long do you think you’d have lasted?’ Astrid was angry. At least that one emotion was real, Callanach thought. ‘I made sure you were released so we could move past the unpleasantness and start again. That’s why your choice to move elsewhere in Europe was so perfect. We both speak English, we both have transferrable skills.’

  ‘Please, stop!’ Callanach’s hands were over his eyes. ‘Astrid, listen, you need help. I know this is hard for you but we don’t have a relationship, we never have. You can’t keep doing this.’

  ‘You’re so kind, Luc. You’ve always been kind. No one else sees it but me. We are destined to be together. When I’m with you, the pain inside me goes away. That’s why I came after you. I feel how much you love me and I know it’s scary, but I can be strong enough for us both.’

  ‘How did you think this was going to turn out?’ he asked. ‘Were you planning on just walki
ng into my office one day and throwing yourself at me?’

  ‘I had already let you know I was here. I sent you champagne. Nothing but the best. And roses like the ones that grew at the Parc de la Tête d’Or in Lyon where you used to run every lunchtime.’

  ‘That was you? We assumed … never mind. At least it makes sense now. But I want to know everything. No more games.’ He changed tack.

  Astrid considered it. ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘Just the truth,’ he said. ‘There has to be honesty between us if you want me back. Only you could have thought so carefully about the things I like. The roses were stunning and they did remind me of home.’

  Her face darkened. It was like watching a storm roll in.

  ‘Only me, Luc, or has there been someone else?’

  ‘No one else,’ he said, sitting down again.

  ‘Liar!’ she shrieked. ‘I saw you with her. I watched you flirting. And I saw the way she looked at you. Did you share my champagne with her? Did you give her the flowers I sent you?’

  ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about, Astrid.’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ she spat.

  Callanach was making headway. ‘No, honestly, I don’t. There’s been no one since you.’

  She grinned at him and it was like teetering on the edge of an abyss.

  ‘You’re playing me,’ she said. ‘I know what you want me to say, Luc, and I’m not going to. No one since us? I thought there had never been an “us”. I thought you’d scuttled here like some big, fat, nasty spider hiding under a rug to get away from me. You want me to say her name. I’m not going to.’

  Callanach checked his watch. He’d tried his best with her, but having a personality disorder wasn’t the same as having a low IQ. He would need a lot more time to get her to admit what she’d done and the clock was stealing minutes Ava didn’t have.

  ‘Did you send DI Turner the death threat?’ he asked plainly. The emotion dropped out of her face.