Paths of the Dead

by Lin Anderson

  As he and Fergus had prepared to head for home base on the Clyde, a call had come through, sending them eastwards instead. The flight across the Cairngorms had been spectacular. Nearing midnight, and at midsummer this far north, the sun still danced on the mountaintops and played in the deep east–west pass of the Lairig Ghru. Gazing further north, the distant islands of Orkney were still bathed in daylight. They wouldn’t see darkness before three o’clock in the morning. A darkness that would dissipate with the rising sun, two hours later at five.

  Cameron checked his instruments. They were fast approaching the GPS reading given by headquarters. Having traversed the mountain range, the chopper now beat its way over Aberdeenshire fields, dotted by farmsteads, where pinpoints of light indicated their residents were still up and about, despite the late hour.

  The time spent in the air with this job had taught him more about Scotland than any history or geography book ever could. From above he’d viewed the results of the Ice Age in the scoured-out mountain corries, the Neolithic history in the shape of stone circles and burial mounds, and evidence of the highland clearances in the deserted townships and abandoned crofts, where people had been forced to make way for sheep.

  Below him now was evidence of the richness of the farmland that encircled the lights of Scotland’s new industrial base, the granite city of Aberdeen, anchored firmly facing the North Sea and its black gold.

  One thought always struck him in these crossings from mainland to islands, north and south, east and west. This was an empty land, a great wilderness at its centre. An easy place in which to disappear.

  Fergus, his co-pilot, was pointing below, indicating they should be directly over the location now. Cameron switched on the spotlights. The beams traversed a grassy mound, illuminating the stone sentinel that stood at its centre.

  Cameron controlled their descent while Fergus used his night goggles to take a closer look.

  ‘See anything?’

  Fergus craned his head, and Cameron dropped a little lower in response, swinging the chopper round for a better view beyond the stone.

  ‘There’s something there,’ Fergus said.

  The moon, hidden behind a cloud until then, suddenly emerged, bathing the standing stone in silvery light.

  ‘Fuck!’ Fergus said as a black cloud rose towards them.

  ‘What is it?’ Cameron shouted, seeing his shocked expression.

  ‘Bluebottles. Fucking hundreds of them.’

  A swarm found their way inside the cockpit and tried to commit suicide against the windscreen.

  Fergus signalled that they should land.

  Cameron swung westward by two hundred yards and began to set down. As the blades slowed, their erstwhile visitors took leave of them and headed back towards the grey shadow of the stone.

  Fergus’s face looked white and strained. ‘They were feasting on something. Let’s hope it’s dead mutton.’

  Cameron handed Fergus a high-powered torch and jumped down.

  The air was hot and heavy with no wind. In the still air, the buzzing grew so intense, it sounded like the flies were inside his head. As they moved towards the shadowy shape, the cloud rose again, exposing their meal.

  37

  Weary, McNab was now thinking of his bed and the bottle of whisky he’d left behind. He’d hung around outside the flat for a while hoping Iona would leave, but when she hadn’t, he’d gone walkabout while trying to avoid becoming one of the many Glaswegians inebriated by a heady mix of summer weather and booze.

  The walk had turned out to be fruitful. Free to think without interruption, he’d come to his senses and responded to the online photograph by asking the Air Support Unit to take a look at the Skelmuir site on their way back from a drugs recce in the west.

  That had been well over an hour ago and there had been no response as yet. Whether that was good or bad, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t want another victim, but he also didn’t want to look a fool. Thus, neither outcome was satisfactory.

  The sun had finally sunk behind the horizon, which meant it should have grown cooler, but the stone buildings and tarred pavements seemed to radiate heat. The clammy air heralded a thunderstorm, brewing in dark clouds over Cathkin Braes.

  Sweat trickled down his back under his shirt. He thought about a cool shower. He thought about ice clinking in his whisky. He thought about Rhona and Magnus supping Highland Park together, discussing his case, without him. He should have gone with her to Magnus’s. Behaved like a detective rather than acting the big man.

  He glanced up at the darkened window of his flat. Iona had either left or gone to bed. He hoped for once the former was true. He had well and truly conquered his Iona obsession. It seemed she had too, judging by the way she’d described his efforts at sex. McNab felt a little aggrieved at the memory, then reassured himself that Iona wouldn’t have returned as often as she had if his performance had been that bad.

  When he reached the front door, he found it standing half open. His first reaction was relief at the thought that she’d gone. The second was annoyance that she’d left the place unlocked. When McNab pushed the door wide, the smell hit him.

  Shit. It was definitely the smell of shit.

  It wasn’t the first time McNab had entered somewhere to find the previous illegal visitor had left his mark. McNab had developed the knack of closing his nostrils and turning off his olfactory sense if necessary. The worst thing you could do to contaminate a crime scene was to vomit all over it.

  Nevertheless, he grabbed a towel from the bathroom as he passed and covered his nose and mouth before stepping into the main room.

  The mess had been distributed, suggesting the delivery man or woman had excellent control over their bowels. There was some on the settee. A further deposit on the coffee table where he’d recently eaten his pizza. Urine had been sprayed along a lower wall. On the kitchen surface someone had spent time cutting white powder, leaving thin lines of it.

  McNab took all this in, without moving from his place in the doorway. A forensic team would get plenty from this, if he chose to call one in, but if it was Iona’s work, did he want to?

  He considered the sprayed line of urine. Whoever had done that could take aim, suggesting the culprit was either a man or a large dog. McNab considered the possibility that Iona had had an accomplice. Someone she’d called in to help her enact her revenge.

  Having checked the wreckage of this room, he noted that the bedroom door was closed. He made his way carefully across the intervening carpet and turned the handle.

  It opened without difficulty.

  There was no further onslaught of bad smells and a quick glance round indicated defecation had not reached the bedroom. The duvet, however, was heaped up, suggesting there was something or someone below it. McNab caught a corner of the cover and flipped it back.

  Rhona climbed wearily into bed. Despite her avoidance of caffeine, sleep did not come easily. Her conversations with McNab, then Magnus, began to merge with her own forensic work to create a psychotic dream state in which understanding lay frustratingly out of reach. Sometimes the solution was in her lab, which she could no longer locate in the university buildings. Sometimes within a maze, built like a triple spiral, the centre impossible to find. Sometimes it lay at the top of a tree which she could not climb.

  Wearily she tossed and turned, until the sound of the buzzer infiltrated her nightmare. Bemused, she saw from her mobile that only an hour had passed since she’d gone to bed. Her first thought was that someone had pressed the wrong buzzer. A second blast, extended this time, suggested she was wrong.

  She rose, worry already taking over from the bad dream.

  McNab’s voice sounded slurred, as though he might be drunk.

  ‘Can I come up?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I need a place to sleep.’

  She couldn’t resist a dig. ‘Iona throw you out?’

  ‘Can I come up?’

  The desire to gloat won. Rhona release
d the door.

  McNab looked rough, she was pleased to note. Rough, smelling of whisky, but not drunk. She wanted to know what had happened, but didn’t want to appear too keen.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said when she indicated the spare room. ‘My place is crawling with SOCOs.’

  He launched himself onto the bed, fully clothed, and immediately shut his eyes. What he’d just said suddenly struck Rhona. ‘Why is there a forensic team in your flat?’

  McNab mumbled something unintelligible. Rhona sat beside him and repeated the question as a soft snore sounded. She gave McNab a shake. He pulled himself free and turned his back on her. The snore became louder. Rhona stood up. She’d seen McNab in a deep sleep before. Nothing would wake him now, short of an all-out attack.

  She opened the window a little, but the outside clammy air failed to remove the smell of heat and sweat that emanated from McNab. Rhona departed, shutting the door behind her. If sleep had been tricky before, it would be even more elusive now, with McNab’s mysterious arrival.

  The storm broke shortly before dawn. The rain fell with a vengeance, pounding the window ledge, heavy drops jumping in through the open window to patter on the wooden floor. Rhona made no effort to rise and close it, grateful for the cool freshness of the rain’s arrival.

  After that she slept.

  When she awoke, McNab had disappeared, only a slightly rumpled bed suggesting Rhona hadn’t dreamt his presence. She made a pot of coffee, poured a large mug of it and phoned Chrissy. It was obviously family breakfast time in the McInsh household. Rhona could hear Michael’s baby yells and Sam’s dulcet tones as he soothed his son.

  ‘What’s up, boss?’ Chrissy said.

  ‘What the hell happened at McNab’s flat?’

  There was a moment’s silence as Chrissy digested the question.

  ‘I don’t know. You tell me,’ she said, sounding intrigued.

  ‘McNab’s had a breakin.’

  ‘First I’ve heard of it.’

  A small slither of suspicion entered Rhona’s mind. Chrissy was always first to know. She had an army of spies with fast-texting fingers. One of her fellow SOCOs should have contacted her by now.

  ‘McNab arrived here late last night. Asked for a place to sleep. Said his place was swarming with SOCOs, then conked out,’ Rhona said.

  There was a noise that sounded like a snort of derision.

  ‘And you fell for that story? More likely Lolita threw him out.’

  Rhona rang off before she made a bigger fool of herself than she already had.

  38

  McNab surveyed the room. At least the smell had gone, but he could do little for the urine trail on the wall. The powder on the kitchen surface had been cocaine. He’d tested it on his lips to make sure, and there was no mistaking the tingling sensation.

  He’d been wrong about bodily waste being absent from the bedroom. Removal of the duvet had revealed that. The bedclothes were in the washing machine, tumbling round with his clothes from last night.

  He surveyed his handiwork, already questioning why he hadn’t just called in the SOCOs, as he’d told Rhona. The reason, of course, was Iona. His dalliance with her hadn’t been wise. If this was her handiwork, assisted or otherwise, he didn’t want it broadcast.

  He thought back to what he’d believed to be whisky-fuelled sex sessions and suspected that, had he examined her eyes more closely, he may well have found dilated pupils.

  His memory of their first meeting at the party came back to him. Had she been high then? And why had she come on to him?

  His irresistible charm?

  Another scenario presented itself, the word ‘set-up’ featuring strongly. Iona had been hell-bent on accompanying him home that night, and very keen to return. She was well aware he was a cop, which put a lot of women off, but not Iona.

  McNab cursed himself for a fool.

  Detectives were taught to believe everyone a liar until proved otherwise. It went with the territory. Why hadn’t he followed the golden rule with Iona? He had a sudden image of himself sleeping and Iona checking his mobile … the numbers, the calls, the emails.

  Jesus, what had he been thinking?

  If Iona had indeed been a plant, who had planted her?

  His glance went to the kitchen surface. She’d had access to cocaine. Had snorted it while trashing his place, probably in the company of at least one male. They’d made no effort to hide the fact.

  A thought suddenly occurred. They hadn’t located the cocaine stash, so the police had assumed its owners had collected it. But maybe they’d assumed wrongly? Maybe its owners were looking for it too? Maybe they needed to know if the police had it?

  McNab cast his mind back over the few conversations he’d had with Iona. They hadn’t amounted to much and focussed mostly on sex. But what about when he’d slept? He was a deep sleeper, especially after booze and sex. Iona would have had any amount of time to check out his phone. And his text to Big Davy was in there.

  Was that why he’d been cornered at the Union bar?

  His eyes roamed the room, replaying its state when he’d returned last night. What was he expected to do on his return? Call in the troops? Look for clues? Take forensic samples? Or clear up and hide the fact that it had happened?

  He of all people knew that however clean it looked now, forensically it was anything but. Even the cocaine he’d washed from the surface could still be detected. And what about the blood on the bedclothes? There hadn’t been much and he’d wondered whether it was menstrual blood, or a deposit from a previous energetic coupling. He’d laundered the sheets anyway.

  What he should have done was show the flat to Rhona. Ask her to take samples and store them, in case he should need them later.

  Instead, he’d acted in haste, maybe to repent at leisure.

  His mobile rang. McNab glanced at the screen.

  ‘Sergeant?’

  ‘The Air Support Unit have reported a body in the location you identified, sir. It looks like the girl in the photograph.’

  Cameron’s initial images taken immediately after touch down weren’t best quality, but there was no disputing that a body lay on the ground in front of the standing stone, nor that it was female.

  R2S’s arrival had produced more detailed photographs, now part of a collage on the screen in the incident room. Alongside was the image circulated on the internet. They certainly looked the same – the floral dress worn by both females, the layout of the body and, most importantly, the face.

  Whoever had posted the image online had been at the crime scene, and not long after the girl had died.

  McNab had already spoken with the crime-scene manager. According to the SOCO sent to examine the body, there had been nothing in the victim’s mouth except flies. So no stone, and therefore no indication whether this was game victim number three – or number four, if Pirie’s theory about his Houton visitor was correct.

  McNab wasn’t happy that his order to check Skelmuir Hill had been the right one. At that moment, he wished he’d been made to look a fool. He wished the online photo had been a hoax. Instead he had another murder victim on his hands. Was it a copycat killing, instigated by the online frenzy of interest, or the latest from the same perpetrator?

  The signature looked similar, but it wasn’t the same. There was no stone in the mouth. Like the positioning of the hands, that feature hadn’t been made known to the general public. Yet there was no doubt the hands in this case had been positioned, as Rhona had pointed out when she’d urged him to check the location.

  Linkage denial – the inability to see that crimes were connected and have the same perpetrator. Was he suffering from that, or was he just being bloody-minded because Pirie was involved?

  He’d been summoned to Sutherland’s office on arrival. The meeting had played out much as before. Sutherland had suggested he didn’t have a grip on the case. McNab pointed out that it was he who had sent the chopper to Skelmuir Hill. When asked why, McNab, for his sins, had given
the impression that he had been the one to deduce the location from the online photograph. That had silenced Sutherland’s criticisms, albeit briefly.

  ‘When will we know the identity of anyone else playing this game?’

  ‘Very soon,’ McNab had lied.

  But they had made some progress, although McNab had chosen not to mention it. The search party at Skelmuir Hill had found a mobile. It had been dropped in a muddy ditch near the locus. Tech was examining the mobile now. McNab’s gut instinct told him it would be the phone used to send the photograph. He hoped his hunch was as good as Rhona’s had been.

  Walking into the computer room depressed McNab. There was something about all that equipment, the sterile airless nature of the place. It reminded him of the mortuary, apart from the fact it didn’t smell of dead bodies and disinfectant. He didn’t like Rhona’s lab either, too clinical, all shiny and full of stuff he didn’t understand, which is what he felt in here.

  Ollie, wearing outsize earphones, was sitting in front of a large touch screen. Beside him on the table lay an untouched bacon baguette and a can of Irn Bru. McNab’s stomach groaned at the sight of it. He’d left Rhona’s before breakfast, hoping she might think she’d merely dreamt his visit and his mention of SOCOs the previous night. Eating had been furthest from his mind while cleaning the flat. Now hunger was back with a vengeance. McNab eyed the baguette like an addict eyeing a line of coke. Ollie, absorbed in whatever he was doing, seemed to have forgotten his food. McNab wondered if he’d miss a bite.

  Then Ollie, with that sixth sense that someone was watching him, turned, exposing a line of words on the screen.

  Tune in, turn on, play hard, Live or Die by the Game.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Ollie, catching McNab’s venomous expression, looked puzzled and took off his earphones.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said what the fuck are you doing?’

  ‘I’m playing the game.’