Whirligig

by Andrew James Greig

  The car swerved, Lord Lagan swearing as he fought to regain control of the careering vehicle with one hand as the other encountered the needle poking out of his headrest.

  “What the bloody hell?”

  His hand came away with a speck of blood showing darkly in the light from the dashboard. He slowed down, looking for somewhere to pull over so he could investigate further. He was cursing the bloody idiot who had left their sewing needle in the leather when he experienced the first effects of paralysis. With a sense of increasing dread, he realised that the hands clasping the steering wheel were no longer his to control. His hands, and now the arms attached to them, felt like they belonged to someone else – some godlike puppeteer had replaced his own arms with unresponsive dead weights. His mobile lay within reach, but his hands refused to obey his increasingly frantic demands to call for help. The brake pedal was under a foot that no longer obeyed his command to push downwards. When his lips became numb, his mouth feeling as though a dentist had just injected novocaine into the gums, he began to panic. A cold sweat beaded his forehead and a chill travelled down his spine as his heart began to physically stutter in his chest. He could feel it frantically beating as if determined to escape the confines of his ribcage. A desperate need for air took precedence as the first warning signs of suffocation entered his primal brain; the autonomous action of breathing in, breathing out no longer responding to messages from medulla to diaphragm. It was at this point that he first realised he was going to die, his body frozen into inaction with a mind that remained as sharp as ever. The car continued to creep along the road towards a hedge as his brain screamed a warning that he needed to breathe. With a surreal awareness that this was happening to him, he sat in the warm leather seat, a disembodied passenger in a car slowly forcing its way off the road and into the undergrowth. The engine finally gave up the fight against the obstinate foliage as a wheel sank into a ditch, coughing one last protest before stalling to a halt. Lagan’s heart gave a few massive leaps, a last attempt to keep pumping blood around his body but it was too late. Saliva speckled his lips, already turning blue as oxygen was starved from his system. One last breath escaped his mouth, denying him a final opportunity to cry out as pain spread along every nerve in his body. The headlights illuminated pastureland, glinting off the still black waters of Loch Mhor. It was, in its own way, a beautiful scene but of no consolation as he continued to suffocate, drowning slowly on dry land.

  XXXIII

  SATURDAY 06:11

  Corstorphine woke from a troubled sleep, scrabbling around beside his bed for the mobile that had finally managed to intrude on his consciousness. He squinted at the number before admitting defeat, eyes too old to focus so soon after wakening, and keyed the green accept button.

  “Corstorphine,” he announced, blearily checking the alarm clock again for confirmation that it really was just after 6:00 a.m.

  “Inverness CID here, DCI McCallum.”

  Corstorphine struggled to match a face to the name, his memory eventually returning a tall, gaunt fellow that he remembered thinking didn’t seem to like him very much. “DCI McCallum. Sorry, sir. I’ve just woken up.”

  “Well, you’d better finish waking up and get yourself down to the station, sharp, because I need you to run through some CCTV footage I’ve just sent you.”

  “Can I ask what this is about, sir?” He climbed out of bed, reaching for fresh underwear with one hand whilst holding the mobile securely against his ear.

  “The Assistant Chief tells me you warned Lord Archibald Lagan an attempt might be made on his life last night?”

  The silence told Corstorphine he was expected to make some kind of a response. “That’s right. I advised him not to go to the Inverness Ball. When he made it clear that he wasn’t minded to take my advice, I asked the ACC to put a few uniforms on the ground, just as a precaution.”

  He could almost hear the DCI on the other end of the line processing his comments, the silence extending to a few seconds before a response came back down the line.

  “Shame he didn’t listen to you. His body was found this morning by a farmer at four o’clock. Driven his Jag into a hedge and died with the car stuck in a ditch. It looked like a heart attack at first sight, then we spotted a needle stuck in the back of his neck. Forensics are on it now, but they mentioned your name.”

  “Why? What have forensics found?” Corstorphine had a sinking feeling that he knew what was coming next.

  “It’s a strange one. Looks like the headrest has been tampered with. Some sort of timing mechanism has been put in there that jabbed a needle into Lagan’s neck after he’d been driving for a while. Forensics can explain it to you in more detail, but we need you to look at the camera footage. The CCTV picked up a woman breaking into his car whilst it was parked at the Strathcarron Hotel. Quality isn’t great at that distance, but you may recognise her as someone you’ve been looking at in connection with all this.”

  “Certainly, sir. I’ll check the footage at the station.”

  “Get back to me as soon as you’ve seen it – the Chief Constable is going ballistic.”

  Corstorphine threw on some clothes and drove to the station, his mind freewheeling over the dramatic events of the last week. Whilst obviously trying to keep open minds, they had been convinced they were looking for a man, someone strong and agile enough to spy on the gamekeeper and laird, climb the Hanging Tree and bell tower, someone who possessed the cold analytical fury to plan each death down to the last detail. If it was a woman behind the murders, then she must have had a connection to the orphanage – and Margo McDonald was the only suspect he had that fitted the bill.

  The station was dark when Corstorphine arrived, thankfully free of any reporters blocking the entrance. He entered his password into the computer and downloaded the video sent from the Inverness police. The image showed a floodlit parking area adjacent to the hotel, timestamp in the upper right corner of the frame telling him the footage was from the previous day at 21:14. The picture had the peculiar grainy effect that night vision footage always displayed, reducing the level of detail to well below anything of any practical use. A figure appeared in the frame, walking towards what he took to be Lord Lagan’s car. A package showed under an arm; it was too far away to make out the face but the figure looked feminine – something in her build, her walk; if only he could see her face more clearly. She lifted her head, almost as if she knew she was being observed and gave a little wave towards the camera. At that point she must have operated a car remote because the car’s indicators flashed in response, overloading the night vision camera and wiping out her image. By the time the image stabilised she was in the car, moving around the driving seat. Whatever she was doing took under thirty seconds, then she left the car with what looked like the same package under her arm. Corstorphine could only see her back as she disappeared out of the frame.

  “Shit!” The expletive was heartfelt. There was nothing he could use from the footage, they’d need a better picture from somewhere. Whoever this was it certainly wasn’t Margo; this woman had a slimmer build and appeared a good head taller. He checked his mobile for the last call, dialling the DCI’s number.

  “DI Corstorphine here, sir,” he answered in response to the DCI’s brusque acknowledgement. “There’s nothing I can get from the footage, sorry.”

  “I’m not surprised. Talk to the forensics team, they’re prioritising this case – you may be able to provide some assistance.” The phone went dead, leaving Corstorphine with the distinct impression that the DCI’s opinion of him had just dropped even lower than the subterranean point it had started from. At least forensics answered their phone with a cheerful tone, becoming even happier when they realised Corstorphine was on the other end of the line.

  “Your murderer has been busy, taking out a lord this time!”

  His murderer? Corstorphine hesitated, searching for the right words to let forens
ics know that the murderer was not someone he particularly wanted to claim as his own. The forensics guy filled the space for him.

  “Gary won the sweepstake. His entry was Lord Lagan’s son – the MP, Reginald Lagan. Killed by the parliamentary mace. You have to admit that’s close.”

  Corstorphine wondered at the psychology of finding enjoyment in predicting another’s death, especially before 7a.m. Perhaps that was what happened to you if you worked in forensics, a way of coping with the daily toil of death and injury. “What have you got on the murder method?”

  “Ah, that’s why we thought of you. Whoever it was installed a syringe in the car headrest, activated by an electronic timer. Similar to your murders, but what really gave it away as your murderer was the bone case the electronics had been packed into. Quite a work of art, looks like it was milled in a machine shop. We’re running the DNA now. What’s the betting it comes back as one of your child skeletons?”

  “What was in the syringe?” Corstorphine pressed for more information, anything that might give him the clue – any clue – to the murderer.

  “Something pretty evil. Must be a neurotoxin of some kind to affect him that quickly, although having a dose injected straight into his neck wouldn’t have helped him any. It looks as if he managed to give himself a second dose when his hand went behind his neck, probably to check what had just stung him. It may take a while before we get any feedback on what’s left in the syringe; to be honest, we were all a bit wary of handling it.”

  Corstorphine ran through the video footage in his mind. “I think the murderer swapped headrests. I saw her carry a small package to his car and fiddle about around the driving seat. She had thirty seconds at most.”

  “She?”

  “Yes, she. It looks like we’re dealing with a woman as far as the only video we have of the suspect shows. What about the poison, the neurotoxin? Any ideas where that could have come from?”

  “Difficult to say without knowing what it is. It’s not the sort of thing you can buy over the counter at the chemists.”

  Corstorphine felt a chill run down his spine, settling in his stomach like a lead weight. He needed to look at that video again. “Can you get back to me with anything you find?”

  The voice on the other end of the line paused. “We’ve been told you’re off the case, Corstorphine. The ACC was quite specific about that yesterday.”

  “I haven’t been told anything official, so as far as I’m concerned I’m still working the case. Just send me what you find and if I’m no longer involved then I won’t bother looking at it.”

  “OK.” The response was dubious. “Soon as we hear anything I’ll be in touch. I’ll pass on your comments about swapping the headrest to the Inverness detectives. They’re handling Lord Lagan’s murder.”

  As soon as the line went dead Corstorphine ran the CCTV footage again. Just as she raised her hand towards the camera, he could see her fingers waving one after the other before the picture was flooded with light. He was glad he was alone, sitting at his desk – he was fairly certain he knew now who the murderer was. Opening his desk drawer, he pulled out the print Frankie had given him; a newspaper article about the innovative French clockmaker, Henri Dupont. The photograph of the Toulouse clockmaker showed him standing behind some animatronic construction made from bone but there, to the side, was a girl standing almost lost in the shadows. He’d never checked the date – Henri Dupont had died five years ago. With a sinking feeling Corstorphine searched online, pulling up the same photograph and reading the date. 2002. Abigail Stevens would have been about eleven years old – around the same age as the girl in the photograph. On a whim, he searched for the meaning of her name. Abigail – my father’s joy. Like clockwork, Corstorphine’s memory returned the French for joy – joie. Joie Dupont. It couldn’t be coincidence! June Stevens had never provided the name of her daughter’s father, yet Brian had told him he’d taken her far away where she’d be safe. Had the old detective managed to track down the girl’s father, taken her to France to start a new life? Could it be that she and her father had plotted revenge on her mother’s murderers, or was he taking this too far? Either way, he had no real evidence, just the coincidence of a characteristic wave and a feeling from deep in his gut.

  His phone rang and he recognised the same ebullient forensics officer from earlier.

  “Hi, Corstorphine. The lab results have come back on the toxin. Luckily it’s a quiet time in the lab before the day starts so they fast-tracked it. Tetrodotoxin – found in Puffer Fish, Blue- Ringed Octopuses, Poison Dart frogs – you get the idea. It’s a particularly nasty one, over a thousand times more toxic than cyanide. The poor bastard didn’t stand a chance, he’d have been dead within minutes. The thing is, this toxin causes total body paralysis whilst the mind is unaffected. He’d have been fully aware that he was dying, and most likely felt everything as he suffocated. She must have had it in for this one!”

  Corstorphine thanked him for the information and sat quietly whilst he wondered what to do next. Women were not typical suspects, but Abigail Stevens had the motive. Her mother murdered by Oscar Anderson – he’d have enjoyed telling the young girl the gruesome details of what he did to her mother before he hanged her in the tree. The minister – had she told him the truth, looking for someone to believe her and help her escape from the orphanage? What had the minister done, did he abuse her when she came to him for help? The laird, she’d taken a lot of trouble to make his a slow death. Was he responsible for having her locked in the hole, the cold stone cell that Craig Derbyshire had said she’d often been confined in, maybe because she wouldn’t stop talking about her mother’s murder? Then Lord Lagan; this was personal. She had wanted him to suffer, needed him to feel the pain and panic as he fought unsuccessfully for breath. What had he done to her as a young child to keep that anger alive after so many years? And Brian, the old DI. Had she given him the gun out of mercy, payment for him taking her out of the orphanage and providing her with a new life? She’d demanded interest from him for not pursuing her mother’s killer, for letting the children suffer and die. That payment could only be his death.

  The station door opened, alerting Corstorphine to the time. It was 7:30 a.m. and the team would be arriving in the next half hour to put in another day’s hunt for the murderer. Hamish put his head around the door, the frown lifting off his face as he saw the DI at his desk.

  “Morning, sir. You been here all night?”

  Corstorphine shook his head. “No, sergeant, just the last hour.”

  The exhaustion he was feeling must have been written across his face, because the sergeant offered to make him a coffee. Corstorphine watched him as he made ponderous progress towards the corner of the shared office that served as a kitchen, before looking again at the young girl’s picture in the photograph. Could that really be June Stevens’ daughter? Spirited away from the orphanage to Toulouse – and was Jenny Peck the same person, just some twenty years older? What if he was wrong? He massaged his temple, attempting to allay the fog of indecision. The only evidence he could bring to bear was the woman in the CCTV waving at the camera the same way Jenny had waved to him the first time they’d met, beckoning him over to her table in the restaurant. Corstorphine re-ran the recording, squinting at the screen as though that would bring the grainy image into some kind of focus. If he could only prove the girl in the photograph was Henri Dupont’s daughter, the love child of June Stevens. She would have had the motive – God knows what she had experienced after her mother’s death. She also had the opportunity to learn how to make mechanisms out of bone. Could Abigail Stevens really be Jenny Peck?

  It was a long shot at best, and if his gut feeling was right then he was about to question a woman whose life had already been destroyed, who’d already paid more than enough for the harm that had been done to her. Had she been so wrong to take the law into her own hands? Corstorphine knew the orphanage abuse
would never have come to light if it hadn’t been for her actions. He started searching online for a more recent photograph of Joie Dupont, eventually finding her pictured beside one of her own artworks which had sold for thousands of dollars just two years previously. He stared at the picture in shock, there was no room for doubt now.

  One by one the team arrived at the station and Corstorphine told them to be ready for a briefing at 8:00. When they were assembled and waiting patiently, he took a deep breath and left his office, standing against the crazy wall.

  “Morning, all.” The humour had been sucked out of the phrase. He looked each one of them in the eye – they were a loyal bunch, worried about what he had to tell them, bewildered by the deaths.

  “Lord Lagan died last night as he drove back from the Inverness Ball. It very much looks like the same killer was responsible, this time using a timing mechanism to inject a lethal toxin into his neck.”

  “How did they get to his neck?” The desk sergeant spoke for all of them.

  “The syringe and delivery system were concealed in his car headrest. It very much looks as if she swapped headrests over whilst his car was parked up at the Strathcarron Hotel.”

  “She, sir?” Frankie was first off the starting line, as usual.

  “I’ve seen video footage from the hotel’s CCTV and although the quality is too poor to make an identification, it’s pretty clear that it was a woman.” Corstorphine took a deep breath, the next words were going to come at a personal cost. He was the only person who’d seen Jenny in the flesh, had kissed her. He realised he was at risk of becoming a complete laughing stock. The woman had deceived him completely. He’d taken her at face value, who wouldn’t? He couldn’t even be sure what she really looked like, whether her hair or eyes were the colours he remembered. All he had was her approximate height and build, and how her lips felt. He shook his head as he stood in front of the small group, in frustration and anger they all rightly presumed – not knowing these emotions were directed purely at himself.