by Lin Anderson
His own mobile rang, startling him out of his reverie. He glanced at the screen to find Rhona’s name. He almost answered. He would have liked to talk to her, to run the whole scenario past her. But then again, he knew what she would say.
McNab switched the phone off in case he was tempted. The truth was, Rhona had been right from the beginning. He wasn’t cut out to be a DI. She hadn’t said that in so many words, but he’d sensed it, observed it in her reactions.
Well, if he was going down, he would do it his way.
Helena’s mobile rang out. In an instant McNab was up and back at the computer.
The dot reappeared on the screen.
‘He’s back inside the city boundary,’ Ollie said, excited.
McNab opened the text from Stonewarrior and read the instructions.
He hated this place even more than he’d hated the house he’d grown up in. He spent most of his time in the van, but he needed to get off the road and this was the place to do it. The first mobile call had unnerved him, then he’d decided it was a fake.
There was no way that detective could be alive. He’d watched the car crash down the bank and enter the water. He’d waited for the water to fill the open windows. Unconscious, the bastard had no chance of getting out before he drowned. So he’d left the scene, content and looking forward to the finale.
Now he realized that killing the detective had made him complacent. He’d lost his edge. Grown soft like his supplicant mother. He’d observed the girl in the back of the van with something resembling pity. He’d been stupid, but he wasn’t going to be stupid again.
The backstreet of lock-ups behind the house was deserted. He got out, opened up, and drove the van inside. Dotted around the walls was the boxed debris of Angus’s housebreaking days. He’d rummaged through it a few times and found some interesting stuff, which he’d sold. There was nothing of any value left, if you discounted Angus’s penchant for stealing women’s underwear.
He locked the garage door from the inside and went to check on the girl.
She was moaning softly. He thought of his uncle and what he would choose to do to her at this moment. In the darkness of the garage the thought brought a flashback as powerful as the original. He was in the blackness of the cupboard, only a chink of light allowing him to watch his uncle’s sexual antics. For a moment he was his younger self again, fascinated and repulsed, aroused and repelled.
He reached down and checked the pulse in her neck. It beat, but weakly. He couldn’t go on dosing her like this forever, but he needed an image that showed her as alive or else the detective wouldn’t believe him.
He set the mobile to take a video then untied the gag. Saliva dribbled down her chin and she coughed to clear her throat. He turned the mobile on himself, undid his zip and his prick rose in anticipation. Her eyes flickered open briefly and she gave a small moan.
He stopped recording and re-zipped himself. That should be enough to bring the detective running. He re-tied the gag. He could of course inject her now, but the flashback had brought a desire. One that he would enact.
He would kill the pig, then come back here and reward himself. One thing he could promise. She would die in ecstasy.
64
Her mobile rang out five times, then stopped. The number came up as withheld.
Very few people had her personal number and all of them were identified by their name when they called.
A few minutes later it rang again. This time Rhona answered, but didn’t identify herself. A few moments of silence followed. She could distinguish nothing, not even breathing, so not a nuisance call. She decided on a wrong number, until a text pinged in.
It was from McNab. He asked to meet, there were important things he needed to discuss with her. He suggested they meet at his flat as soon as possible.
It was what Rhona had wanted to hear. When she texted back suggesting a time, McNab immediately replied in the affirmative.
Rhona experienced a sense of relief. McNab was going to talk to her and, despite everything, there was a possibility he could come through this. She would tell him about the evidence of Kearney in the flat. That Josh and Iona had obviously set him up. She would urge him to lie low. Let Bill take over. Not interfere.
His possible involvement in Iona’s death would be disproved. The statement by Steve Munro was obviously a pack of lies. McNab would survive, maybe even at DI level.
She was aware of the difficulties he faced, but the fact that McNab had got in touch and was planning to meet dispelled some of her worry. If she could persuade him of the right course of action, all might yet be well. She concentrated on finishing her reports with one eye on the clock.
Ollie had gone back to work, leaving McNab alone in his flat. McNab had urged him to do so, to avoid suspicion. Surely he could monitor any progress they had made from the official Starship Enterprise? Ollie had done as ordered with such a worried look on his face that McNab vowed to get the guy drunk when they had a party to celebrate bringing in Kearney.
An hour before the allotted time, McNab took himself into the bathroom. The dressing he’d put on the wound had peeled off, exposing what could only be described as a suppurating mess. He regarded it with one thought in mind: how he might inflict something similar on Kearney. He doused the wound with as scalding water as he could suffer, then searched for something to bind it with. Ollie’s bathroom cabinet wasn’t much healthier than his own, so he checked out the computer desk and found some masking tape.
He contemplated padding the wound with toilet paper, then decided closing it was more important than a dressing. He patted his skin dry, then cut a long piece of tape, pinched the sides of the gash together, and applied it along the wound. It hurt, but the anticipation of seeing Kearney again served to ease the pain.
Half an hour before the meeting time, he exited the building.
Ollie had proved to have nothing more than a can of high energy drink in the fridge. McNab had taken it and mixed it with a very healthy dollop of whisky from the half-bottle he was carrying.
His head buzzing from a mix of pain and alcohol, he headed for the rendezvous point. Kearney had sent him a video clip to prove Helena’s continued existence. It was a short but ugly scene. Ollie had assured McNab that it hadn’t appeared online, which he hoped meant she was still alive.
They said you always remembered your first murder scene, often in graphic detail. It hadn’t been true for him. He’d forgotten it entirely, until now.
The block of four houses was boarded up, in an already partially demolished street. He parked his car outside, wondering if it would be there when he exited. Or if it was, whether it would still have wheels. Any streets left standing had been empty as he’d wound his way through the housing estate. Across the road, grass was attempting to grow in the rubble left by the bulldozers.
McNab had been raised in a place like this. He remembered well the rules for survival here. He locked the car, aware that anyone with a little know-how could force the lock in seconds, hot-wire the ignition and drive away. And walking out of here might prove more difficult than driving in.
The Kearneys had occupied the flat on the upper level of house number 33. Access to it was gained by a side door that opened on an inner stair. When McNab tried the door he found it open.
The remains of a threadbare carpet covered the narrow staircase, the marks of dirty hands forming a dark and mottled frieze on the right-hand wall. McNab checked behind him, then entered and shut the door.
He stood listening in the silence, sensing no presence other than his own. As he climbed, his feet on the carpet caused dust motes to rise and dance in the jagged light from a smashed window.
He was on the landing now.
In a flash of recognition, he knew that the kitchen lay at the end. A sitting room and bathroom to the right, two bedrooms on the left. Everything about the flat was narrow and cramped. He dipped his head a little as he walked the corridor. Above him, the low roof sagged in places where the rain had foun
d entry.
He checked each room in turn, finding broken furniture and a scattering of syringes and condoms. The kitchen was last.
By now anyone in the flat would know of his presence, despite any attempts at silence. Since all the other rooms were empty, if Kearney was in his former home, he would be in here.
McNab pushed open the door.
The contrast with the rest of the house was dramatic. The kitchen window had been freed of its shutter and sunlight streamed in. The surfaces were clean, a table and two chairs sat in the centre. On the window ledge a posy of seeding grass and wild flowers was arranged in a cracked mug.
The image affected McNab more than he could acknowledge, because just such a bunch of flowers had been on the window ledge the night he’d been summoned here. It was a detail he’d forgotten until now. Then a red poppy had been the centrepiece, its colour matching the pools of blood on the floor and the splashes that streaked the surfaces. Isabel Kearney had been sitting at the table, the knife in front of her, her eyes focussed on the posy on the windowsill, as though by its presence the rest of the scene might cease to exist.
He heard a creak and turned to face the door.
65
Bill regarded the technical assistant with undisguised anger.
‘You aided a suspended officer in gaining access to data in a multiple murder enquiry?’ he said in disbelief.
The young man before him squirmed. ‘Not exactly.’
‘Then what did you do exactly?’
‘We engaged with Stonewarrior, as Joe Public.’
Bill gave a harsh laugh. ‘Joe Public. I bet that was DI McNab’s turn of phrase?’
Ollie gave a slight nod.
‘And how exactly did you do that?’
This was obviously the question Ollie didn’t want to be asked. He took a few moments to answer. ‘Detective Inspector McNab had the missing girl’s laptop and mobile.’
Bill couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Seeing Bill’s expression, Ollie came back quickly. ‘He was going to hand it in after we made contact with Stonewarrior.’
‘I bet he was.’ Bill waited for the rest.
Ollie rushed on in a breathless voice. ‘Inspector McNab sent Kearney a photograph to prove he was still alive. He said he was willing to meet him one to one, provided the girl wasn’t harmed.’
Bill fought to control his anger. There was no point shouting at Ollie whatever-his-name-was, when he really wanted to shout at McNab. He decided not to ask for further details on the revelation that Kearney believed McNab to be dead, guessing that the story of the car accident was just that, a story.
‘How did DI McNab get hold of the mobile?’
Ollie had no idea.
‘Where is the mobile now?’
‘He must have taken it when he went to meet Kearney.’
Panic began to rise in Bill’s chest. ‘He’s gone to meet him already?’
Misery filled Ollie’s face. ‘He told me to go to work. When I checked back at the flat, he wasn’t there. Neither was the mobile.’
‘When was the last time you saw him?’ Bill said sharply.
‘Around four hours ago.’
Bill dismissed the Tech guy and sat down to think. Four hours. Jesus, McNab could be in serious trouble or already dead, but trying to find him without a clue where to look was impossible.
He cursed McNab for making the case personal.
Bill had risen from the seat and was pacing. The atmosphere in the room was hot and humid, yet seemed to crackle as he moved through it. From the window he noted the river flowing, grey and sluggish between its banks, as though the heatwave had proved too much for it. Above hung an army of thick black clouds. The storm would break and soon.
Bill brought a halt to his walking, and put in a call to Professor Magnus Pirie.
Magnus’s usually healthy complexion, which had weathered the sun, rain and wind of the Orkney Islands, looked unnaturally pale. The dark blue eyes had lost their shine and, more surprisingly, their directness. Bill was faced with the strange experience of having to catch the criminal profiler’s eye.
‘I don’t think I can help. I’ve been unable to make any more sense of the medium’s predictions and I don’t believe him anyway.’
‘Let’s forget Patrick Menzies for a moment.’ Bill pushed the file on Isabel Kearney across the desk to Magnus. ‘Take a look at this while I fetch us some coffee.’ He took note again of Magnus’s drawn face. ‘And some sandwiches.’
Bill made himself scarce, giving the job of fetching the sandwiches and coffee to someone else before making a beeline for DS Clark. She jumped to attention at her desk on his approach. He waved at her to sit back down.
‘Angus Patterson,’ he began.
‘I’ve see him, sir. He’s suffering from dementia, and,’ she hesitated, ‘he’s an unpleasant character.’
Bill tried to recall Patterson, but could only remember that he’d been associated with endless burglaries. Then something did spring to mind. Angus liked stealing women’s underwear. From their homes and their washing lines. He mentioned this to DS Clark, who grimaced.
‘That sounds about right, sir. He asked me for a fuck and got quite irate when I ignored him.’
Bill nodded. They never did get Patterson for anything other than burglary, but they’d always wondered what else he’d been up to. Bill dredged his memory. There was something else. The boy had gone to live with Patterson after his mother died. Then Patterson had been caught at his favourite pursuit and banged up again, which meant the boy had had to go into care.
‘Has Josh ever visited Angus at the care home?’
‘I asked, but the woman there at the time didn’t know. She was going to check it out.’ DS Clark looked stricken that she hadn’t yet followed that up.
‘Find out if Josh has ever been there. And find out what happened to Patterson’s house when he was admitted to the care home.’
DS Clark looked even more uncomfortable at a further omission.
Bill, sensing this, gave her a few words of encouragement. ‘You’ve had enough on your plate trying to find your commanding officer.’
When he re-entered the office, Magnus was deep in the file. The swiftness with which his eyes travelled the page was pretty impressive and Bill had no doubt that the professor was assimilating the material regardless of the speed he was reading it. The coffee and sandwiches lay undisturbed in front of Magnus. Bill busied himself with his own coffee, cooled now to the temperature he preferred. He took the mug to his favourite seat and waited.
Bill had also found the file interesting reading. Domestic abuse and subsequent murder was ugly to deal with. According to the record, McNab had handled it well. The woman had confessed to stabbing her husband after he’d raped her. But, reading between the lines, questions had arisen in Bill’s mind. The son had told McNab that he’d done it, although the mother had denied this. Josh had been only fourteen at the time, below the age at which he could be tried and convicted. McNab had chosen to believe the mother’s story and that’s the way it had gone. Josh Kearney had stayed briefly with the uncle, Angus Patterson, not a great role model. When Angus went back inside, Josh was sent to a number of foster families, then a home, from which he subsequently absconded. There was no record of him after that.
Magnus was studying the crime-scene photographs intently. The bloody kitchen, the knife, the frenzied stab wounds, some of them obviously stabbed more than once.
Bill recollected Isabel Kearney. Small, slight, bruised and battered. How had she found the strength and frenzied will to inflict those injuries? Although, from his own experience, when women like Isabel finally snapped, often in the face of danger to their children, they were capable of just about anything.
So had Isabel Kearney been covering for her son?
Magnus set aside one photograph in particular. It was a horrific scene. Isabel Kearney was sitting at the kitchen table, the knife in her hand, amidst what could only b
e described as a bloodbath.
Magnus moved another photograph to sit against it. Now the two men could see what her glassy-eyed stare was focussing on. It was a posy of flowers set in a jam jar on the kitchen window ledge behind the sink. The posy consisted of wilting daisies, a splash of buttercups, tendrils of wild grass and a single red poppy.
‘There’s no psychiatric report on the boy amidst the case papers,’ Magnus said. ‘Was an assessment ever done?’
Bill had no idea. ‘I’ll try and find out.’ He waited for Magnus to continue.
‘You’re contemplating the prospect that DI McNab was wrong and that the boy Josh was the culprit?’ Magnus said.
‘If that were the case, what would it mean for the boy’s state of mind?’
‘If he did do it and made that plain, the fact that his confession was ignored would make him angry, perhaps despairing, and definitely without control. When his mother took her own life, any feelings he had would be exacerbated.’
‘How would the boy react to the officer who refused to believe him?’
‘Resentment, even fury, if he held the arresting officer responsible for his mother’s death.’ Magnus paused. ‘You’re linking Josh Kearney directly to DI McNab in some way?’
‘Kearney tried to kill McNab. He even risked capture to do so.’
‘That changes everything,’ Magnus said.
‘I agree.’ Bill now came at things from a different angle. ‘Assuming Josh Kearney is the puppetmaster of this alternative reality game, what’s the psychology behind it?’
Magnus considered the question for a few moments.
‘Game playing among adolescent and not so adolescent men allows them to act out their fantasies, ostensibly without directly harming their opponents. To outsmart and outplay your adversaries builds confidence and a strong sense of power and control, when in the real world you may have none of these things.’ Magnus went on. ‘Stonewarrior is not a shoot-them-up game, but a game of knowledge which has a mystery behind it. It is filled with pattern. The puppetmaster is like a chess grandmaster, who knows just when and how he will call checkmate. However, when he outwits his opponents, he loses respect for them and in this game they die.’