Paths of the Dead

by Lin Anderson

  McNab surveyed the ample selection of whiskies and finally settled for a Jura. He poured himself a sizeable glass and tossed half of it back. The descending liquid was the only warmth in his body. He waited until the effect hit his bloodstream then drank the rest.

  ‘I’ll have one myself. Large,’ a female voice said from the doorway.

  His erstwhile saviour was up and dressed, with a little colour back in her cheeks.

  McNab selected a glass and did as he was bid. She accepted it with a wry smile and knocked it back, much like he had done.

  ‘I’ll get you a change of clothes. My brother leaves a store here for when he comes to stay. You look roughly the same size.’

  McNab didn’t care what size the clothes were, as long as they were dry. He said so. She disappeared and came back a short while later with a pair of jeans, a shirt and a sweater. She handed them over.

  ‘Shoe size?’

  ‘Ten and a half.’

  ‘Scott’s feet are bigger, but a couple of pairs of socks and you could wear his walking boots.’

  She suggested he had a hot shower. ‘You know where it is,’ she said, acknowledging his role in putting her to bed. McNab nodded, making no comment. He had no desire to make her feel embarrassed, considering the injury he’d already inflicted on her.

  McNab headed upstairs with his bundle. In the over-the-sink mirror he examined the results of his ‘accident’. The face was more gargoyle than man. His chest was developing a patchwork of bruises interspersed with long and occasionally deep scratches he had no memory of getting.

  The shower was both pleasure and torture as it heated his body while stinging his cuts and bruises. He made it quick, then stepped out and dabbed himself dry. The clothes fitted reasonably well. The jeans were a little long, the shirt a little big. He pulled on the double socks and eased his feet into the summer walking boots and laced them up tightly.

  Back downstairs, he found her in the kitchen making coffee.

  ‘Megan,’ she said, when he asked her name.

  ‘Michael,’ he told her, leaving out the DI part.

  She handed him a mug and indicated he should take a seat at the table. McNab, having made up his mind in the shower what his next move would be, was ready when she posed her question.

  ‘What happened back there?’

  ‘A camper van drove me off the road.’

  She looked shocked. ‘On purpose?’

  ‘On purpose.’

  ‘We’d better call the police.’

  ‘I am the police,’ McNab said. ‘I need to find that van. Can I use your pick-up?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but …’ She hesitated. ‘I need to look for Helena.’

  The name rang a shrill bell in McNab’s brain. ‘Who’s Helena?’

  ‘She’s a guest. She arrived yesterday off the bus. She set off for the stone circle but …’

  ‘She hasn’t come back?’

  ‘No—’ She halted, having seen McNab’s face. ‘You think she’s in danger?’

  McNab was on his feet. ‘Let’s go.’

  55

  They were in McNab’s office, temporarily occupied by Bill. Rhona had just told him that she thought she’d seen Josh Kearney during McNab’s party.

  ‘Chrissy collected mobile images taken that night. There was one of Iona talking to a guy who may be the boy in the photograph with Isabel Kearney. I can’t be sure, but …’

  ‘So Iona and Josh Kearney may be acquainted?’

  ‘The meeting looks more intimate than just an acquaintance.’

  Rhona realized by Bill’s expression that their thoughts were progressing along the same lines.

  ‘Iona was used to get access to McNab,’ Bill said.

  ‘I think he was beginning to suspect that, especially after the flat was trashed.’

  ‘The question is, why?’

  Bill sat down at the desk and pulled open a drawer. He pushed a piece of paper over to Rhona. ‘Read that.’

  It didn’t take long to read the half-page scrawl and every word filled her with anger. She pushed it back at him.

  ‘That’s rubbish. I was in the tent until late. McNab left before me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  She wasn’t and it probably showed on her face. She had stayed late in the tent, communing with the dead, writing up her notes. The mortuary team had been there when she finally emerged. She’d declined their offer of a helicopter descent and chosen to walk down to the car park, the long summer day having not yet descended into darkness. She’d last spoken to McNab more than an hour before that, when he’d asked when they could remove the body. Could he have still been on site? McNab hadn’t mentioned cocaine until the Monday strategy meeting. He hadn’t said anything to her about it when they’d spoken at the crime scene.

  Bill interrupted her flow of thought. ‘What the statement says is physically possible, just not probable.’

  Rhona didn’t believe the accusation, but having Bill reinforce that belief, despite the mess McNab had created, was reassuring.

  ‘If Josh Kearney was close to Iona, he would also be in the frame for her murder. Assuming it was murder,’ Bill went on.

  ‘The prints on the syringe are hers, but there’s evidence of bruising round her neck which definitely occurred before death.’

  ‘What about sex games? How old were the bruises?’

  Rhona knew where this was going. ‘There was no evidence that she’d had sex in the lead-up to her death.’

  ‘But McNab’s semen will still be there?’

  ‘If he didn’t use a condom. Yes.’

  ‘Can you get a print from the neck?’

  She’d tried, unsuccessfully, and said so. Bill looked disappointed.

  He glanced at his watch. ‘Time to speak to Mr Munro again.’

  ‘You should have told me,’ Rhona said accusingly.

  ‘He asked me not to,’ Sean replied calmly. ‘McNab said it was undercover work and required twenty-four hours. As soon as the time was up, I told you.’

  Rhona had come straight to the jazz club from the police station. Their earlier meeting, when Sean had handed over the mobile, hadn’t lasted long enough for her to vent her anger at his actions – or inactions.

  ‘You realize he might be dead?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘So now you have the second sight?’ she said sarcastically.

  ‘No, but I do know that McNab seems to have more lives than a cat. He had a plan he was following. He appeared confident.’

  ‘Arrogant, you mean?’

  ‘That too,’ Sean acknowledged. ‘Look, if this maniac who’s posting photographs of his victims online had killed him, wouldn’t we have seen evidence of it by now?’

  Sean was right. Had McNab been killed, the puppetmaster, as described by Magnus, would have relished broadcasting it. Then again …

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If, as Magnus believes, the Brodgar victim was a case of mistaken identity, there are two victims still to go.’ She paused. ‘Helena …’

  Sean uttered the words Rhona didn’t want to say. ‘And McNab.’

  Bill indicated that DS Clark should accompany him to the interview room. He could tell by her expression she was discomfited by the prospect. He understood her reluctance, but in this job you had to face your demons, and he was keen to see how Steve Munro reacted with her there.

  The interview room was airless and too hot. Normal Scottish weather precluded any need for air conditioning. The central heating was switched on on the first of October and switched off on the first of May, whatever the weather. A heat wave didn’t feature anywhere in the building’s construction, hence the temperature of the room.

  Bill introduced himself and DS Clark. Munro shot the sergeant a poisonous look as though it was her fault he was back here.

  ‘I told her everything already,’ he said.

  Bill ignored that and asked Janice to
set up the tape, then laid the earlier statement out on the desk. Munro gave it a cursory glance. ‘See, that’s what I told her.’

  ‘And you stand by your statement?’

  ‘I do,’ Munro said, sounding anything but certain.

  Sixty seconds passed. Munro began to squirm under Bill’s steady stare. Then another sixty, during which Munro’s expression moved through a number of guises. Bill gave it a further minute then suddenly leaned forward, so that his face was inches away from Munro’s.

  ‘Who told you to tell us such a bunch of lies?’

  A startled Munro drew back as though a dog had tried to bite him. He eventually managed to utter, ‘Nobody.’

  Bill eased a printout from the folder in front of him and slid it across the table. ‘Was it this man?’

  Munro’s eyes wanted to go there, but he wouldn’t let them.

  ‘Look at it,’ Bill ordered.

  The eyes slid down, recognition blooming, although he was trying desperately to hide it.

  ‘Never seen him before,’ Munro said.

  ‘What about the girl with him?’

  Munro shook his head. ‘Her neither.’

  ‘So you didn’t have sex with her?’

  Munro looked genuinely aghast. ‘No way.’

  Bill extracted a photograph of Iona’s dead body and pushed it across.

  Munro’s eyes flickered towards it and were held there in horrible fascination as he realized what he was looking at. Bill pointed at the neck.

  ‘Did you squeeze her throat a bit to help you come?’

  Munro gagged. Bill thought he might throw up, but chose to ignore it.

  ‘We can match prints, you know? Even from bruises.’

  Munro’s voice emerged in a hoarse whisper. ‘I didn’t touch her.’

  ‘But you met her?’

  ‘Only once.’

  The flood gates were opening. Bill helped them on a bit. ‘The guy in the photograph, what about him?’

  Munro shook his head.

  Bill stabbed at the picture. ‘If he could do that to his girlfriend, what d’you think he’ll do to you?’

  He watched as the remark hit the bullseye and the flood gates were gone. Words tripped over one another in an effort to get out. The girl had contacted Munro. How she’d got his number he had no idea. She’d said she was into geocaching and wanted to talk about it. When they met up, the guy appeared. Told him to give the statement about the detective, or …

  ‘The gang who buried the stash would know I was the one who told the police about it.’ Munro was shaking with fear. ‘I saw what they did to that guy on Cathkin Braes.’

  Bill didn’t enlighten him as to who the real perpetrator had been.

  ‘Do you have a contact number for either of them?’

  Munro shook his head.

  ‘So the guy in the photo doesn’t know you were recalled for questioning?’

  Munro didn’t like that idea. ‘He seems to know everything.’

  56

  She was ripe and ready. Keen and willing. He realized he’d kept the best to the last. She wasn’t yet a supplicant, but would be soon. The newspapers had called him ‘the monster among us’. Yet he’d killed kindly. No pain, just pleasure. He’d only fucked the Skelmuir girl, and she’d asked for it, enjoyed it. He’d used violence on no one before death, except the detective.

  The detective hadn’t changed. Back then, he’d been just as arrogant. He’d walked into their home, their lives, with no knowledge or understanding of the game that had played out in that house. He didn’t know how each level had been reached. How many fights had been lost and won. How the end had become inevitable. He, Josh, had tried to explain, but his explanation had been dismissed. Supplication had been the essence of the game. Like Christ on the cross, his mother had died for his sins, despite his own admission of guilt.

  Josh wondered what would have happened if he’d done as instructed that day. If he’d raped his mother and let his father watch. Would she still be alive?

  ‘It’s beautiful here.’

  Her voice brought him back, if reluctantly, to the present. Finding her waiting patiently for him as instructed, had irritated him initially, just as success at thwarting an opponent in a game, caused him to lose respect for the loser.

  She was intelligent, that was obvious. If she’d beaten him, would he have spared her? Even now he questioned whether he would kill her. The dose he used need not necessarily kill. Maybe she would take the pleasure he offered and survive.

  The thought enticed him. It took root beside his earlier thought about his mother. That maybe she would have lived had he made a different choice.

  ‘Between the devil and the deep blue sea,’ she used to say. As a child it was the devil Josh feared, and not the deep blue sea.

  As they approached the circle he began to feel its energy. A stone circle wasn’t built on one energy line, but on a crossroads. Some people felt that energy, others were oblivious to it. He watched as she crossed into its realm.

  She stopped and looked at him.

  ‘Do you feel that?’

  ‘What?’ he said as though he didn’t know.

  ‘A tingling.’ She might have been talking about sexual desire, apart from the puzzled expression.

  ‘It’s the energy from the stones.’

  She ran to the centre and stood, arms outstretched. His reaction was not something he recognized. Emotions so long buried rose in a jumble of memories. A slideshow of fast-moving pictures. His own arms outstretched. His mother picking him up. Soft words and caresses. The scent of her skin, her cheek pressed against his. Then the scent of blood, the smell of fear, the stink of sweat and sex.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  Her concern irritated him. He forced a smile. ‘Great. What do you think? Was it worth all the tasks?’

  ‘I loved them,’ she said with a broad smile. ‘I called myself Caylum. Did you think I was a boy?’

  ‘I knew you were female,’ he said. It hadn’t been because of her answers, but because he’d traced her IP address, then intercepted her mail, hacked into her webcam. He’d know everything about her before he let her join in the game.

  ‘What shall we do?’ she was saying. ‘Dance round the circle naked like in the Wicker Man?’

  ‘We can if you want to.’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Why not?’ She caught his eye. ‘But you have to go first.’

  Her order, for that is what it was, discomfited him. If he refused, she might become difficult. But if he did strip off, she would see his desire. A horrible memory swamped him. The kitchen. His father’s bared buttocks. The relentless pounding and grinding. How his father had wiped himself on his mother’s skirt.

  ‘Ladies first,’ he tried.

  She eyed him. ‘You’re embarrassed.’

  He didn’t countermand this, sensing she liked the idea.

  One moment she was dressed, the next she stood naked before him. She was tall and slim, the shadows of her hip bones visible. Her breasts were small and shaped like pears. He was moved by the freshness and ripeness of her. In that moment he wondered whether he might be capable of love. The anger that had consumed him for so long evaporated and he re-imagined himself as her lover. The moment was fleeting and over as soon as she spoke.

  ‘Your go,’ she said.

  The worm inside him turned.

  57

  Before leaving the hotel, Megan had made a brief phone call. McNab caught the words ‘camper van’ in the conversation, which hadn’t pleased him. He’d challenged her about it when she hung up.

  ‘I don’t want him to know I’m alive. And he will if it’s obvious we’re searching for him,’ he’d said sharply.

  She seemed unfazed by his anger. ‘The neighbour says he passed a camper van heading up the glen road. I let him think it’s a guest who missed the turn-off.’

  McNab nodded, somewhat mollified.

  ‘Helena borrowed my bike, but she would have to walk the last pa
rt.’

  This time Megan drove. She took the bends with ease and at great speed. McNab found himself gripping the seat, which produced a wry smile.

  Ten minutes of hairpin bends later, she braked and turned right, drawing up in front of a padlocked gate, on the other side of which a dirt path headed into the hills.

  ‘We walk from here.’

  ‘I walk from here,’ McNab said firmly.

  ‘But you don’t know where you’re going.’

  ‘Then tell me.’

  He was out of the pick-up now and preparing to vault the gate. Once over, he awaited her instructions. She was thinking about arguing with him.

  ‘This is police business,’ he said.

  She acquiesced. ‘Keep on this path until you reach the brow of the hill. From there you should be able to make out the stone circle, due north-west on a neighbouring hill.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You should catch a signal once you get higher,’ she called after him.

  McNab took off at a jog. Stiff from the crash, his legs complained bitterly at first, but then began to loosen. The boots were at least one size too big and he could feel the heels rubbing through the double socks, but blisters were the least of his worries.

  He ran for twenty, walked for twenty, moving to more walking as the gradient increased. Soon sweat was trickling down his back and chest, its stinging salt reminding him of his other injuries. Once on the brow of the hill, he shaded his eyes and looked in the direction she’d indicated. The sun was on the wane, causing a patchwork of light and shadow on the surrounding hills. At first he couldn’t see the stones, then the outer rim of the sun re-emerged and shone on them. At this distance they were small in stature, nothing like the images he’d seen of the Ring of Brodgar. Neither could he make out if anyone was there.

  Suddenly aware of his prominent location, he dropped to the ground. The last thing he wanted was to make his presence known, although the fact that someone was in the vicinity might dissuade the puppetmaster from carrying out his plan.

  He solved the dilemma by swiftly moving downhill in the general direction of the stones. The path had narrowed to little more than a sheep track between heather, the long spell of dry weather rendering it so brittle, it crackled against his legs.