“This is a piece of art sold in a New York gallery two years ago.” The painting displayed on the screen showed a young woman standing next to a surrealist painting almost as tall as she was. A female figure hung from an old oak tree – the noose connected to clockwork gears visible in the leaves. Two twisted branches forked outwards, looking for all the world like the hands of a clock, twisted into grotesque shapes. The piece was entitled Whirligig.
“The woman in the picture is Joie Dupont. Her father was the clockmaker, Henri Dupont, who was famous for creating animatronic sculptures out of bone. I know her as Jenny Peck, she’s a staff nurse at the hospital and I believe she is June Stevens’ missing daughter. Frankie, I want you to accompany me to the hospital. McAdam, Lamb – follow us in the patrol car and cover the back of the hospital in case she makes a run for it. Don’t use the siren, I don’t want her to know we’re coming for her.” Corstorphine couldn’t help but see Lamb’s exaggerated mouthing of the words ‘Uniform Dating’ out of the corner of his eye as they left the station. He chose to ignore him, there would be worse to come.
Frankie climbed in to the patrol car beside Corstorphine and they drove off, Lamb and McAdam following closely behind as they headed towards the hospital. “How did you make the connection, sir?”
Corstorphine’s mind was in a turmoil, doubts chasing around his head in a kaleidoscope of activity. “I may be wrong, Frankie. Christ knows I may be wrong.” He drove in silence, attempting to collect his thoughts into some kind of logical order. “I viewed video footage from the hotel car park first thing this morning. Inverness DCI called me just after six to see if I recognised anyone. The picture wasn’t clear but I could see it was a woman, and she waved at the camera.”
“Sir?”
A reluctant smile escaped Corstorphine’s tight lips. He could see how this sounded. “The woman had a distinctive way of waving, fingers bending down towards the palm like a Mexican wave. My blind date, Jenny Peck, waved to me in exactly the same way.”
“Jesus. She’s your blind date?”
Corstorphine nodded, keeping his gaze fixed on the road. He could imagine Frankie’s expression without having to see it. They pulled into the hospital car park and waited for the two constables to make their way around the back before entering the building.
“Can I help you?” The receptionist looked surprised as they entered. Corstorphine held up his badge, and watched the worry leave her face.
“DI Corstorphine and DC McKenzie. I don’t suppose one of your staff nurses is in just now, Jenny Peck?”
“Jenny, yes, she’s just starting the day shift. Can I ask what this is about?”
Corstorphine knew his luck wasn’t that good. “How long has she been on duty?”
She checked a screen, tapping an enquiry onto the keyboard. “Since 7 a.m. She’ll be on the ward, still doing the handover, I expect.”
“Can you tell me which ward she’s on?”
The receptionist looked doubtful. “I can ask her to pop down if she’s free?”
“Thanks. Make some excuse for needing her at reception but do not mention the police.” They took a seat, watching the lift doors as the receptionist relayed his request for her to visit reception. He sat in quiet contemplation, wondering how he was going to deal with the next few minutes. A chime announced the lift’s arrival and a stout middle-aged woman in uniform caught his eye as the doors slid apart. Corstorphine rose to his feet, an apology already on his lips. He’d never seen this woman before.
Corstorphine sat in the car outside the hospital, trying to make sense of the last hour. Whoever it was that he’d shared dinner with, shared a long kiss with – she was not Jenny Peck, the SN. She must have known who he was from the beginning, beckoning him over without any introduction. Of course, she would have researched who she’d be up against and come up with a washed-up detective and his small town police crew. Had she been laughing at him the whole time? Had that kiss meant anything at all? It had felt to him as if she’d meant it at the time. Christ, what a fool he was.
“At least you’ve identified the murderer, sir.” Frankie attempted to make the best of it for him.
“It’s all circumstantial, Frankie. The Fiscal won’t move without solid forensic evidence or a confession.” Corstorphine led the small convoy back to the station, unsure which of the many emotions he felt at that moment would come out on top. On one hand, he felt relief that the murderer had been identified, in his mind at least. Relief and satisfaction that his team would come out of this with reputations intact despite what would be said about his dalliance with the murderer. Fighting that was his disappointment at being unable to bring Jenny in for questioning, and the embarrassment at being taken in so easily. Overriding both was the hope that she’d escape, never to be brought to justice. Free, probably for the first time in her life.
Back at the station he assembled the team once again, grateful that Lamb hadn’t seen fit to make one of his humorous comments.
“The woman we are looking for has been masquerading as Staff Nurse Jenny Peck. It’s possible she’s still in the town but her behaviour in the CCTV footage from the Strathcarron Hotel leads me to believe she’s left the area. I want you all to make finding any trace of her a priority. Any flats suddenly left empty, missing hotel guests – you know the drill. If we’re lucky she may have left something behind that will help us catch her.” Corstorphine said the words without any real hope behind them. She’d been meticulous in covering up her tracks. “Frankie, see what you can get on Joie Dupont. See if the French police have anything on her, any recent photographs.”
The phone rang and PC Lamb took the call, holding the receiver out towards Corstorphine.
“This is DCI McCallum. The ACC has asked me to formally advise you that this investigation into the murders is to be handled by the Glasgow Major Investigation Team. They’ll be with you in an hour or so. Make sure all relevant information is made available to them when they arrive. In the meantime, under no circumstances are you or any of your team to talk to the press. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir. Understood.” Corstorphine ended the call, handing the receiver back to Lamb.
“Do you think we’ll ever find her, sir? This woman?” PC Lamb looked hopeful.
“Possibly, Lamb. But whether there’s enough evidence to mount a successful prosecution...”
“Do you think that’s the end of it, sir? The end of the murders?” Bill McAdam’s question mirrored the same thought that Corstorphine had been toying with.
“I hope so, Bill. Every person the witnesses told us was involved is now dead. Each one has been accounted for.” He struggled unsuccessfully to find the right words to tell them they’d all been taken off the case, some way of making it less of a kick in the teeth. “We’ve been taken off the murders. Glasgow MIT are on their way now and I need you all to offer them your full support.”
“So, what do we do now?” The sergeant’s voice asked the question they all wanted answered.
Corstorphine looked at each of them in turn. He could see the tiredness and stress of the week etched on each face.
“We wait for the MIT to arrive, pass over our files and take some well-earned leave. You’ve all been through a lot and I know everyone here has put in a lot of unpaid overtime. I’ll see you back here on Monday, assuming I’ve still got a job.”
“Are we not going after this woman then, sir? Or the nuns?”
“No, Lamb. This case now belongs to the MIT. They’ll be working hand-in-glove with Interpol to try and find her and they’ll question the nuns. Our part in this is over, just the paperwork to do.”
The groans that followed his comment were a sign that they’d all get back to normal, back to policing a town where nothing much happened. No doubt the press would make a feast of the events of the last week and some scars would never heal, but he knew that was the end of the mur
ders.
As he waited for the Glasgow team to arrive, Corstorphine realised he’d have to let them know that he’d met the killer. Tell them he’d sat down and had dinner with her and shared the first kiss he’d had since his wife had died. That admission could be the end of his career – a backwater detective like him would be lucky to survive dating a murderer during a killing spree. Corstorphine leant back in his seat, the office door shut against the animated voices of his team as they railed against being sidelined by some Glasgow detectives. Why had she waved at the camera? Did she know he’d recognise her from that gesture? If she hadn’t come back to avenge her mother’s death, to deal her own brand of justice to those involved in abusing her and the other children – what then? He knew the answer. Nothing would have happened, the orphanage abuse would have remained concealed, the guilty would have never faced justice.
As Saturday drew to a close, Corstorphine left the station under the charge of a group of Glaswegian detectives. Opening his front door, he wondered why the house felt different. Was it because his wife no longer waited in the hall to welcome him as often as she used to? Was it because he struggled now to see her face sometimes when before it had been as clear as day? He put on the kettle, as much to fill the silent house with some sort of noise as to make a cup of tea.
There it was, the reason the house felt different. Corstorphine walked quietly into the living room, listening for the sound that had alerted him. The house was no longer as silent as it used to be. He could hear the steady tick of the carriage clock he had broken when he returned from seeing his wife die in hospital; the clock he’d thrown to the ground in impotent rage but kept because it reminded him of her – its rhythmic heartbeat once more told him that he was alive. His hands trembled as he removed the clock from the shelf, turning it around to reveal the back. There, in a flowing script that he knew only too well, was one word – Merci.
Whirligig
© Andrew Greig 2020
The author asserts the moral right to be identified
as the author of the work in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.
Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Fledgling Press Ltd.
Cover illustration: Graeme Clarke
Published by:
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Edinburgh
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Print ISBN 9781912280339
eBook ISBN 9781912280346
Whirligig Page 27