Paths of the Dead

by Lin Anderson

  ‘So no connection between the snow and the deposit in the stone circle?’ McNab said to make sure.

  Through the smoke, Davy’s cold eye fastened on McNab. ‘Didn’t I just say?’ he spat at him.

  ‘So where’s the snow now?’ McNab tried.

  Davy smiled. ‘Falling all over the place.’

  ‘Orkney?’

  Davy grunted. ‘Who knows and who the fuck cares?’ He held out his hand. ‘Got a spare smoke, Inspector?’

  McNab handed him the packet, sorrier to see the cigarettes go than the money he’d tucked inside. Davy headed back in. From the doorway, McNab saw him order up another pint, this time accompanied by a whisky chaser. Davy was spending his earnings already.

  McNab stood for a moment, wishing he’d handed over the money inside the copy of the Daily Record instead. He licked his lips. Even that slight encounter with nicotine was buzzing his blood and his brain. Giving up fags was harder than celibacy. He’d certainly thought about smoking, dreamt about it, at least as often as sex.

  He spat the taste out of his mouth and tried to focus on what he’d got, which wasn’t much. Davy had intimated that the body and the coke were unrelated. That could be a lie, but who would draw attention to a stash by leaving a body behind? Then again, they didn’t know that someone would dig up the stash and call the cops. If just the body had been found, there wouldn’t have been a connection.

  As far as a fucking game was concerned, McNab decided, he was definitely on Level 1, assuming there was nothing lower than that.

  He’d parked the car round the back. It looked lonely sitting there on the crumbled asphalt. As he slipped in and started up the engine, a big black Mercedes tank with a heavy metal grille up front, swept in to keep him company.

  Very close company.

  So close McNab could no longer open the driver’s door, even if he’d wanted to. The buzzing in his brain upped tempo as nicotine met with a sudden surge of adrenaline.

  McNab hit reverse and roared back, spraying stones. The tank went into reverse too, right across his path. McNab slammed on the brakes and caught a whiff of smoke, rubber-scented this time, as the back of his car pinged against the tank’s grille.

  He forced the stick into first and, foot on the accelerator, ramped up to third and took off, just as the tank gave him a shove. Now he was flying forward towards a sagging fence. He swerved right at the last moment as the tank roared in from behind. With its heavy metal grille it cared less about hitting the fence than about squashing him.

  McNab screeched a circle, smoke coming from his wheels in a black cloud as he left his treads behind. He cursed himself for lingering, for not leaving the car out on the main road, ready to jump into. He was definitely losing his touch. Or else deliberately courting trouble in search of excitement or a hard-on.

  A glance in the rear-view mirror showed that the tank had turned and was on its way, burning as much rubber as he had. When McNab swivelled to the front again, he found three masked youths, hoods up, standing across the exit, each holding a machete.

  ‘Shit!’

  He pressed his foot to the floor. The one in the middle was the last to abandon ship, but not before hurling his machete at the windscreen. It hit with a crack and flew off as McNab bounced the car via the intervening pavement and onto the road. He swerved left, aiming for the nearest main thoroughfare, knowing he had more than one back street to reconnoitre before then.

  The posse was waiting at the T-junction. Another trio of machetes, suggesting they must be buying them bulk order. His one consolation was the absence of guns.

  So far.

  The tank was back on his tail, bearing down on him like Spielberg’s truck in Duel. McNab decided to take no prisoners and mowed into the triplets, sending them flying. No one threw a weapon this time, but a shower of stones hit his rear window. He took another left at the junction, passing a wide-eyed woman with a pram, praying that the truck would miss her too.

  Then he was out and onto the main road, squeezing himself between a bus and a pissed-off Volkswagen, whose driver blared his horn.

  McNab gave him the finger.

  Once clear, he contemplated calling in to report that the natives were restless in the area of the Union bar, but decided against it. By the time a couple of cars had reached their destination, all would be quiet on the western front. He’d gone snooping and someone had taken offence.

  He headed for the flat, in need of a drink – more than one, in fact – and there was the safest place to indulge. When he pulled up outside, he checked his face in the mirror to find a bloody cut where his head had slammed into the windscreen. He wiped it clean with his arm. It wouldn’t do to scare the neighbours.

  The flat, on entry, seemed different. He sniffed the air. Where was that familiar fusty smell of dirty dishes and unwashed clothes? He opened the inner door and looked about in surprise. The room was clean. No piles of dishes in the sink. No clothes lying around.

  Iona!

  He marched into the bedroom. There was no one there, but the bed had been changed, something he couldn’t remember when he’d last done.

  McNab swore very loudly and slammed the door shut again.

  Back in the kitchen, he went in search of the whisky. She’d washed all the glasses and put them in a cupboard along with the bottle. He poured himself a large glass and drank it. Being in a room that didn’t smell, he could suddenly smell himself, a mixture of sweat and fear. He poured another shot and headed to the shower.

  Undressed, he examined himself in the mirror. If they’d pulled him out of the car, what would he look like now? McNab had a sudden flashback to his hours tied to the chair under examination, Russian style. He’d ridden the pain then with ever-increasing anger. Eventually he’d come to embrace it, even welcome it, because it had pissed off his torturer so much. If you can’t frighten with the promise of pain, what the hell can you do?

  He’d begun to understand then what sadomasochists sought. The way in which pain and pleasure became linked. How whipping and being tightly bound could bring blood surging to the surface, making anticipation of what was to follow both exquisite agony … and ecstasy.

  He was pumped up like that now. He let himself imagine finding Iona here and what he would have done to her, partly from anger, partly from relief that he had outwitted his attackers – Mercedes man and the hooded wee punks.

  He caught tight to the sink and let the feeling wash over him.

  The ring of his mobile brought him back to the here and now. Glancing at the screen, he found Iona’s name.

  Serendipity.

  26

  Everyday actions can quickly dislodge items of trace evidence indicating where you’ve been, and who you’ve had contact with.

  Unless, of course, you die.

  From the moment of death, assuming your body is left in situ, the rate of loss decreases rapidly. Which means evidence of your killer is on you. As you are on your killer.

  The problem lay in identifying those traces and finding a match. It was a problem Rhona relished. At times like this it seemed that there was a mountain to climb, but then again she liked climbing mountains.

  She’d already prepared her report on the tool used to remove the hands. Chopping wounds were created by hatchets, axes, machetes, meat cleavers or swords. The weight of which might render even thin, unsharpened edges effective. Occasionally the sharpened edges could transect the bone with little effort. Sometimes she saw trench-like fractures with comminuted edges, where the bone was powdered by the impact.

  In this case, the weapon, which she believed to have been a machete, had been ultra sharp and used cleanly. The style, shape and metal, she was still working on, but it hadn’t been a painted or patterned blade, so no weird Samurai ancient metal forged in history like a Hollywood movie. Any of the popular machetes might match it. Sharp, decisive, honed to perfection, whoever had wielded it had known their trade.

  From his stomach contents, she’d deduced that Alan�
��s final meal had consisted of a plain bagel with peanut butter, and black coffee, consumed a couple of hours before his death and not fully digested. There were no toxic substances that might have indicated he’d been poisoned. In fact, none of the forensic work so far had revealed why the heart of a fit young male had suddenly stopped beating.

  Until the recent arrival of the toxicology report.

  The PM had found no evidence of needle marks on the body, no external or internal evidence that suggested Alan was a regular drug user. But it required only one point of entry for an overdose. In this case, a combination of heroin and cocaine, in substantial quantities, had been injected directly into a vein. Cocaine would have sent his heart racing. Heroin would have slowed it down. The rapid change in heart rate was the most common cause of overdose amongst speedball users.

  So McNab had been right. The death had been drug related, but not, she thought, gang related. Rhona considered calling McNab to see if he’d seen the report, then remembered he didn’t want to work with her any more. From now on Chrissy had to be the go-between. Chrissy had accepted the role, but only after she’d grilled Rhona about the reasons for it.

  ‘Okay, I’ll do it. If only to keep the peace,’ she’d added nobly.

  ‘I remember a time you and McNab weren’t on speaking terms.’

  Chrissy had chosen to ignore that reminder and they’d left it at that.

  Rhona experienced a pang of regret, tinged with frustration. Whenever McNab felt threatened he acted like a piss artist, which is why they could never be an item. She recalled his young admirer at the party and hoped he’d had the sense to check her actual age before bedding her. Maybe his love life, or lack of it, was the reason he was so on edge? Such thoughts led back to memories of her last brush with Sean. Not somewhere she wanted to go.

  She brought up the images of the body at postmortem. The most popular injection site was the crook of the arm. After that, the forearm. As sites became infected or veins collapsed, addicts went for trickier places such as the thin veins on the back of the hands, or the fingers, all of which could prove painful and required finer needles. The femoral vein in the thigh came next. Dangerous if you missed the vein and hit an artery.

  Alan wasn’t an addict and had been wearing shorts and a T-shirt, so plenty of sites available and easily accessible. Assuming he hadn’t administered the injection himself, how had it been accomplished and where?

  Rhona revisited the images she’d taken of the body in situ. Alan had been lying face down in a supplicant’s pose. From the state of the body, he’d lain in that position since death. Perhaps he’d been lying like that when the drug had been administered?

  Her eyes went to the neck. Injecting into the neck was a no-no for most addicts. They usually needed help or a mirror to achieve it. There was also the danger they would hit an artery and bleed to death. But if you wanted someone dead, whether they bled to death from your attempts at injection or died from the overdose wouldn’t much matter.

  Rhona magnified her images of the neck for a closer look.

  Five minutes later she called the mortuary.

  Dr Sissons listened to her in silence. Not the easiest of men, he didn’t like his work questioned. The fact that he didn’t interrupt with a dismissal suggested he was at least intrigued by her suggestion.

  ‘I’ll take another look,’ was his short reply.

  Rhona, pleased, settled back to examining the material she’d taped from the clothes and body. If the killer had administered the drug from behind, he’d made contact with the clothes and the body while doing so.

  Magnus took a seat at the rear of the room, which was swiftly filling up. The Thursday medium session was proving popular. The audience was predominantly women, mostly middle-aged to elderly. There was a scattering of couples, but very few people looked younger than mid thirties. Magnus guessed it went with the territory. You had to have experienced the death of someone close to you and the older you got the more likely that became. A man his age stood out from the crowd, when he really wanted to blend in. That had been his reason for considering inviting Rhona to accompany him here. They would have looked like a couple, perhaps mourning the death of an elderly parent, or even a child.

  After failing to ask her during their meeting, he’d later sent a text, giving the time and suggesting she come along. The spiritualist church was a five-minute walk from her flat on top of the hill that rose behind this section of Sauchiehall Street, though she probably hadn’t been aware of its presence until now.

  There had been no response from his text, so he’d come in alone.

  Tonight there wasn’t a service prior to the mediumship. Magnus was glad about that. He wasn’t a churchgoer, except for attendance at island funerals or special services held in St Magnus Cathedral, and would have felt an even bigger fraud singing hymns under these circumstances.

  At the allotted time, the door to his left swung open. Sensing the medium’s arrival, the crowd hushed and turned in his direction. Menzies was short, a little plump, with an air of hesitancy. For a moment he stood as though paralysed by those stares, then he turned and looked directly at Magnus. They locked eyes for a moment, then Menzies walked down the aisle towards the front.

  Magnus studied the expressions on the faces of the audience as Menzies passed them by. On some, he would have described it as close to rapture. Whatever Magnus thought, these people believed in what this man was about to say. Magnus strove to clear his mind. If he was to evaluate, he must do so as a psychologist. He was not here to mock, but to try and understand.

  Menzies had gained the stage. He took up his place in the centre and gazed out across the room, packed with people waiting to hang on to his every word. The atmosphere was tense and full of expectation. His audience was there because they had lost someone they loved and wanted them back, even in the guise of a few words from beyond the grave. Even if those words were simply lies.

  Menzies appeared ill at ease, as though what was about to happen was not of his choosing. Magnus wondered how much of that was for show. The medium eventually welcomed the audience in a halting voice, his eyes sweeping the room, pausing now and again to note the presence of a recognized face with a small smile and a nod. The frequency of these interchanges showed Magnus just how many members of tonight’s audience were regulars.

  Then he felt the medium’s eyes rest upon him. The look was both questioning and, at the same time, encouraging. Magnus realized he was, with that look, being welcomed into the congregation, as a believer or unbeliever.

  Menzies now offered up a small prayer for guidance before becoming very still, his eyes closed. Silence fell like a soft, enveloping blanket. A few moments passed, then Menzies began to speak as though to some disembodied voice at his shoulder. A shiver ran through Magnus. His senses on high alert, he became prey to the numerous scents surrounding him. Anxiety, fear, hope and grief. To his right a woman sat forward, her body rigid, her mouth moving silently. Magnus lip-read the repeated words, ‘Please, God, please’.

  In his pocket, his mobile vibrated an incoming call just as the medium opened his eyes and looked directly at Magnus. His gaze rested there a moment, then swept to the right.

  ‘I have a message for Betty. Is there a Betty in the room?’

  Three hands went up, including Magnus’s desperate neighbour.

  ‘The message is from Jim.’

  Two hands were lowered, but not that of his neighbour.

  She was on her feet now. ‘I know a Jim,’ she shouted as all eyes turned towards her. ‘My husband.’

  Menzies nodded and began a whispered conversation via his left shoulder, finishing with the words, ‘God Bless’.

  ‘Jim wants you to know that he is fine, Betty, and you’ve not to worry. He will always be with you.’

  The woman gave a small sob of relief, and a ripple of approbation went through the crowd. Magnus felt a surge of anger at what appeared to him to be a charade. But his neighbour didn’t think so. Se
nsing Magnus’s eyes on her, she turned and gave him a watery smile. Any words of anger melted on his tongue.

  The mobile vibrated again. This time he took it out and glanced at the screen to find Erling’s name.

  Magnus rose and made his way to the exit as Menzies made his second call. He didn’t wait to hear who it was for.

  ‘Erling?’ he said as soon as the door swung shut behind him.

  ‘A couple of divers found the body of a female, wrapped in a tent, in the wreck of the Tabarka. Someone had been camping at the Nissan huts on Hoy the day that young woman visited you.’

  ‘And you think it’s her?’

  ‘It could be. The general description you gave matches, although there’s not much left of her face. And no ID on the remains.’

  ‘You want me to take a look?’

  ‘If you would.’

  ‘I’ll catch an early flight tomorrow.’

  Magnus stood in the brightly lit hallway. From beyond closed doors came the sound of clapping as Menzies continued to commune with the dead.

  27

  Rhona pushed open the flat door with a tired sigh of relief. A few seconds later Tom was at her side, his loud purring indicative of his pleasure at her arrival. Since her return from Orkney, he’d been especially affectionate. Her neighbour was happy to top up his food and water, but Tom liked company, especially of an evening.

  Late sun washed the kitchen in a warm light. This was her favourite room, with its intimate view of the convent garden, an oasis of peace, which she retreated to at times – if not in body, then in spirit. The statue of the Virgin Mary stood in pride of place on the manicured lawn, cared for with love by the resident gardener. The two of them were acquaintances, although distant ones who resorted to smiles and waves to maintain their friendship.

  City life was like that. A few firm friends and an ocean of others who, while not knowing you personally, were also part of your existence in small ways. The guy in the Italian shop where she bought her fresh pasta. The girl on the stand she bought her morning coffee from. The doorman at the forensic lab.

  Rural life was different. There you belonged. Even though you might have moved away, you were always one of their own. She felt that about Skye, just the same way Magnus felt about Orkney. It was something they both understood.