The Special Dead

by Lin Anderson

  Her words drifted over McNab, not really registering, because he couldn’t draw his emotions away from what had just happened between them. Eventually his brain engaged and analysed what she’d been saying. ‘There’s footage of her meetings with the Nine?’ he said.

  ‘According to Danny, there’s some footage, but not of all the men in the group.’

  ‘Why did he tell you?’ McNab said.

  ‘Danny wants to find his sister’s killer. He thinks you . . . the police aren’t doing enough. He asked what I knew about the covens and Leila’s place in them. And did I know anything about the Nine.’

  ‘And do you?’ McNab said.

  ‘No. What I told you is true. Leila, Shannon and I were work colleagues who shared a similar interest. That’s all. It was a coincidence that we were all at the Edinburgh coven that night.’

  McNab wished she hadn’t used that word. One thing the boss had taught him was not to believe in coincidence.

  ‘Why didn’t Danny tell me about the video footage in his interview?’

  ‘He said you didn’t like or trust him, and you didn’t want to listen.’

  Both could be said to be true, but McNab didn’t buy it. Danny Hardy had a mission and McNab wasn’t convinced it was the one he’d assigned to Freya.

  ‘What’s he planning?’

  ‘I don’t know. He had a call, probably around the time you arrived downstairs. He said he had to go. That’s when I called you.’

  McNab recalled Danny’s swift exit from the building, plus the fact that he’d avoided looking in the direction of the arriving car. McNab’s detective heart told him that Danny had been warned of his imminent arrival, and not by an external call. That heart shattered as he formed the words, but he said them anyway.

  ‘I don’t believe you were at the library. I don’t think you forgot your mobile. I think you didn’t answer because you and Danny were fucking. When you got the second message, you knew I was on my way, so Danny had to leave, and fast. That’s why you were naked when you opened the door to me.’

  Freya stood up, that lovely face white, sad and furious.

  ‘I want you to go. Now,’ she said.

  McNab deliberately drank down the remains of his coffee before standing up.

  ‘Be at the station sometime this morning. Detective Sergeant Clark will take down your statement.’

  He waited a moment on the landing after she’d shut the door on him, listening to the sound of her weeping, knowing if he was wrong, then he’d just fucked up the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  38

  So he didn’t need whisky to press the self-destruct button. He could do that when stone-cold sober.

  As he walked towards town, McNab relived every word he’d said, and saw his expression as he’d said them. It wasn’t a pretty sight or sound. He’d conducted the conversation like an interview with a known criminal – with sarcasm, innuendo, accusation and cruelty.

  McNab felt his chest tighten and his throat close. He had been a bastard to her. Then he remembered Danny’s expression in the interview room when he’d been coming on to Rhona. His manner while McNab was interviewing him. The arrogance. The sense that Danny had something on McNab and was very pleased about it.

  Then, to crown it, an image of Danny and a naked Freya came into his head.

  Had there been an object he could punch at that point, McNab would have done it.

  He forced himself to think about what Freya had told him. The Nine were important men and Danny had footage of some of them with Leila. McNab’s first instinct said it wasn’t true and she’d said it to deflect him from his rant about Danny’s visit. Why would Freya tell him something like that? Did Danny tell her to?

  None of it made any sense.

  If only he’d stayed calm and not let suspicion take over, he might have learned more. But, he reminded himself, suspicion was at the heart of being a detective.

  Everyone was a liar until proved innocent.

  For once the mantra didn’t work. He’d conducted himself badly. He should have asked more questions, instead of throwing accusations. Janice would make a better job of it – that is, if Freya turned up at the station as ordered.

  He would call and warn Janice that Freya was on her way. Bring DS Clark up to date on what he’d been told about Danny. He would also ask for a warrant for the arrest of Daniel Hardy. Barry Fraser, he would keep for himself.

  A brisk walk and a phone call later, he was outside The Pot Still.

  Last time he’d been here, Barry had turned up ten minutes from now, just as McNab had finished his breakfast. The thought of anything other than a liquid breakfast didn’t appeal at the moment. McNab stood for a moment, composing himself, rehearsing the word ‘coffee’ rather than ‘whisky’ before heading inside.

  The same guy was bottling behind the counter. His expression when he spotted McNab’s entry was anything but welcoming.

  ‘He’s not in,’ he said before McNab could ask after Barry. ‘Didn’t turn up last night either. I had to come in and cover for him.’ He didn’t include bastard in the complaint, but McNab got the flavour of it.

  ‘You have his number?’ McNab said.

  ‘I’ve tried it twice already this morning. He’s not answering.’

  McNab gave his order and went back to his table in the corner. As he waited for the coffee to arrive, his mobile rang and DI Wilson’s name lit up the screen. McNab hesitated before answering, aware he’d been off the radar for a while, and would have to explain his reasons.

  ‘Boss?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  Another hesitation. Should he tell him he was in the pub?

  McNab came clean. ‘The Pot Still, looking for Barry Fraser.’

  ‘Get round to Bath Street Lane. Now.’

  McNab rose to his feet, just as the pot of coffee was plonked on his table.

  ‘What’s up, sir?’

  ‘A council worker just called in to report the body of a male, behind the Lion Chambers.’

  He lay curled in a corner, his face and knees close to the wall, a thick pool of congealed blood seeming to cushion his head against the cracked concrete. From the back, McNab estimated him as around six feet tall. Dressed in shirt and jeans, his broad muscled shoulders stretched the cotton. Blond, twenties to thirties, worked out – a description of plenty of the blokes who may have frequented the Hope Street area last night.

  McNab would have given anything to have checked out the face, but knew that wasn’t possible. With the forensic team not here yet, he couldn’t step any closer to the crime scene without contaminating it.

  The tape was already up cordoning off entry to the lane, two uniformed officers on sentry duty. The bloke who had found the body had been told to stay put until someone interviewed him. His anxious face sought McNab over the barrier, seemingly keen to tell all.

  McNab departed the body and went to talk to him.

  Up close, the man had a pinched look, the voluminous yellow jacket dwarfing his thin frame. His face was pale and sickly, not surprising when he’d come to clear up rubbish and found a body instead.

  McNab introduced himself and showed his ID. ‘What’s your name?’

  The man looked surprised to be asked. ‘Tattie McAllister.’

  ‘Your real name?’

  He looked taken aback by the question. ‘That is ma real name.’

  ‘Well, Mr McAllister –’ McNab couldn’t bring himself to say ‘Tattie’ – ‘tell me how you found the body.’

  ‘I came in to pull out the wheelie bin for emptying and he was lying there.’ He gestured at the corner, but averted his eyes.

  ‘Did you touch the body?’

  He shook his head. ‘No way. I knew he was dead, so I kept away.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  Tattie checked his watch. ‘Half an hour ago.’

  ‘Any sign of a weapon?’

  ‘Naw, but it might be in the bin,’ he suggested helpfully.
/>   McNab hoped so. Just then he saw the team arrive, including the forensic van. He thanked Tattie and said he could go, but to leave his contact details with one of the uniformed officers at the cordon.

  ‘I haven’t emptied the bin,’ the man said, looking worried.

  ‘We’ll do that,’ McNab assured him.

  McNab recognized Rhona’s figure despite the shapeless forensic suit. McNab joined her and began kitting up himself.

  ‘Any ID?’ Rhona said as she taped her gloves and pulled on a second pair.

  McNab explained about the position of the body. ‘I haven’t got close enough to check.’

  Back inside the cordon, Rhona followed McNab along the cobbled lane, round the Lion Chambers building and into the rear concreted area behind a wheelie bin, passing the door into Leila’s flat en route. Rhona stopped six feet back and studied the scene. The body lay close in to the corner, where the back of the Lion Chambers building met a neighbouring block of flats. The cramped location would make securing a tent a problem. Something she didn’t have to tell McNab, who’d been crime-scene manager on a number of incidents.

  Rhona approached with caution, trying to assimilate and question as she did so.

  The smell was of warmth and rotting refuse near the bin, but as she got closer to the body she also picked up a faint scent of male cologne.

  The position had struck her as odd from six feet away. Now nearer, it seemed even odder. Why was he so close to the wall, almost hugging it? Had his assassin pulled him into the corner to hide him from view of the few windows that did look down on the lane? Or was it to make it difficult to see his face? The pool of blood didn’t look disturbed and there was no evidence of him being dragged into the corner.

  Rhona hunkered down and began to check the accessible pockets of the jeans. All of them were empty. If he’d had a wallet or a mobile phone, they appeared to have been taken.

  At this angle, she couldn’t see his face without moving his head. Remaining crouched, she took some shots to indicate the exact angle of his head, then handing her camera to McNab, she gently turned the head enough to expose the face.

  Any hope of instant recognition was immediately quashed, although the method of death became apparent. The eye sockets had been pierced and gouged out by a sharp implement. Both cheeks and the forehead had been cut in the shape of a cross, in what looked like an attempt to make the victim unrecognizable.

  McNab crouched beside her. ‘Jesus, God.’

  ‘You know him?’ she said.

  McNab shook his head. ‘I thought it might be the barman, Barry Fraser, but there’s no telling from that face.’

  ‘Why Barry?’

  ‘He and Danny were apparently filming some of Leila’s encounters with the Nine, supposedly as a safeguard for Leila. Then again, maybe it was for blackmail. The Nine are apparently pillars of our society.’

  ‘Who told you all this?’ Rhona said.

  McNab gave a little shake of his head, indicating he wasn’t willing to divulge his source. ‘I’m not saying it’s true, but if it is . . .’ McNab reached over to double-check the pockets, then said, ‘There’s no watch.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t wear one,’ Rhona suggested.

  McNab stood up as though he’d just realized something. ‘I think the bastard took his watch,’ he said, amazed.

  ‘Who, the killer?’

  ‘No, the guy who found him. He swore he didn’t go near the body, but he looked shifty about it.’

  ‘What about the wallet and mobile?’

  ‘Maybe he got the whole lot before we arrived.’ McNab cursed himself. ‘I’d better locate Tattie McAllister before he gets rid of his plunder.’

  ‘Before you go, what happened about Freya?’ Rhona felt she had to ask.

  ‘She was fine,’ McNab said curtly.

  The difference in his demeanour from that of last night suggested Freya might be fine, but McNab definitely wasn’t, and neither was their relationship.

  Rhona wanted to say, ‘What happened?’, but settled for, ‘That’s good,’ instead. When McNab’s expression closed down, it was better not to probe too deeply.

  In the end, with rain threatening, Rhona had made the decision to move the body away from the wall in order to raise a forensic tent. Once enclosed, with the heavy patter of rain on the roof, she’d continued with her forensic examination in situ.

  A police pathologist had come and gone. Expecting a knife crime but not in the manner it was presented, he’d been a little taken aback at the gouged eye sockets and slashed face, and had stayed just long enough to pronounce death.

  Judging by the knees of the victim’s jeans, it appeared he’d been kneeling prior to his death. The walls that met on that corner were green with slime from a leaking drainpipe which ran down the back of the Lion Chambers building. The corner also housed some rather artistic graffiti, perhaps as a tribute to the Chambers’ former use as a set of artists’ studios.

  There were deposits of green fungus on the victim’s palms and under the fingernails. Rhona imagined him on his knees facing the wall, his hands on the stone. Whoever had killed him had made him a supplicant first. If that had been his position, then why not slit his throat? Easy to do and less chance of blood on your clothes. Why bother with the messy business of stabbing out the eyes, unless it had some meaning for the perpetrator?

  The state and temperature of the body suggested he’d been killed the previous night, which matched McNab’s story of the missing Barry. Having been with him for such a short period of time to take a mouth swab, her one abiding memory of Barry Fraser was the fear in his eyes. And now those eyes were gone.

  When her mobile rang, she’d already finished work on the body and was in the process of writing up her notes. Outside, she could hear the movements and calls of the forensic team scouring the lane. Chrissy had worked the area inside the tent and had now joined her colleagues who were decanting the contents of the wheelie bin, looking for a possible murder weapon.

  Rhona fished inside her forensic bag for her mobile, assuming it would be McNab to give her news on the missing items, but the call came from an unknown number.

  ‘Dr Rhona MacLeod?’ a voice said hesitantly.

  ‘Yes. And you are?’

  ‘Freya Devine. I’m a research student at Glasgow University.’

  McNab’s Freya.

  ‘How did you get this number?’ Rhona said.

  There was a moment’s embarrassed silence. ‘From Detective Sergeant McNab’s mobile.’

  By the tone and manner of her reply, it seemed clear to Rhona that McNab knew nothing of this acquisition. She waited for an explanation for the call and it eventually came.

  ‘There’s something I need to speak to you about. Will you meet with me?’

  ‘If it’s to do with the current case, then you should contact the police directly,’ Rhona told her.

  ‘It’s about Michael.’

  Hearing McNab’s first name spoken in that concerned manner, coupled with McNab’s earlier demeanour, decided Rhona.

  ‘Okay, let’s meet.’

  39

  The video clip had arrived on his mobile shortly after McNab had left Rhona at the crime scene. He’d barely had time to contact the council and get details for Tattie McAllister, who it appeared had knocked off work early because of his shock at finding a body in Bath Street Lane.

  McNab thought it more likely that Tattie was disposing of his loot and with it the identity of the corpse. Of course, he could be wrong. Tattie could be an upright citizen who, after a bad experience, needed a lie-down. Experience and intuition suggested otherwise.

  The message that heralded the video clip immediately caught his attention.

  It said, ‘This is the man you’re looking for,’ followed by a mobile number.

  McNab launched the video.

  There was a moment when he could make out nothing but flickering candlelight and dancing shadows. Then he saw them. They were seated upright on the
bed, Leila straddling the man. Around their waists was fastened the red cingulum. There was no sense from their actions that they were aware of a camera recording them, but then again, maybe they were acting for the camera. Leila’s face was in clear view. The male’s face was barely visible and only briefly. The shoulders were broad, the upper body toned. The chest hair suggested he might be blond.

  On the top right-hand corner of the recording was a date and a time. If they were correct, this had happened the night Leila had died. There was no sound on the recording, but it was clear that they were approaching climax as Leila reached down and began tightening the cingulum.

  McNab realized that the thump thump was the sound of his own heart in his ears. He had a sudden and overwhelming desire to shout Stop, then the video jumped as though it had halted on his command then started again.

  Now he saw only Leila’s face, her eyes wide with excitement or maybe the beginnings of fear, as a male hand appeared to push a cloth into her mouth.

  Without sound, the image of panic in her bulging eyes was even more horrific.

  McNab waited for her hands to appear to pull the cloth free, but they never did.

  The screen went black. It was over.

  Around McNab life continued. Pedestrians stopped and checked out the yellow tape and were moved on. A bus trundled past, those on this side craning their necks to see why so many police were about. A young woman appeared with a pram. She and McNab exchanged glances as she realized something bad had happened behind that tape.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said as she walked past, as though she could do anything about it.

  McNab didn’t answer, intent as he was on what he had just viewed.

  Freya had said that Danny had footage of some of Leila’s encounters.

  If that were true, was this one of them?

  He dismissed that as a probability. If Danny had shot this video, then surely he would have prevented his sister’s death?

  So if Danny hadn’t taken it, who had? And who was the guy in the video?

  McNab rang Ollie and warned him he was forwarding him the clip and message.