Follow the Dead

by Lin Anderson

  Then she spotted what had caught Kyle’s attention. He turned and gave her the thumbs-up. There was a plane, and it looked, if not complete, then not a pile of debris. As they swung over the light aircraft below, she quickly took in the scene. Blue and white livery, and at first glance it was intact apart from the right wing and tail. Tipped back, nose in the air, it lay on the side with the broken wing. At their first swing over, she saw no sign of bodies outside the aircraft. But that didn’t mean there weren’t any inside it.

  Their own pilot was turning, considering a suitable place to land. Rhona’s immediate fear was that the ice wouldn’t hold them. Kyle, sensing this, patted her hand to reassure her and mouthed something she thought was one yard thick. The noise as they descended filled her head. Powdery snow whipped up by the blades entered the open door and met her face and lips to melt there. For a sequence of moments the noise seemed deafening, then she felt a nudge as the feet met the surface, settled and were finally steady. The blades slowed, the whirring changing to a bearable level. Cold invaded the space, not blown in, but descending like a blanket about them.

  Then she heard the words, ‘It’s minus twelve out there.’

  I’m in the Arctic, she thought.

  12

  McNab emerged from the warmth of the hospital to discover more snow had visited Glasgow overnight. The low temperature that set his teeth chittering accounted for the frozen surface. Hugging himself against an icy wind that seemed to be blowing from the wide expanse of the Clyde, he tried to remember where he had left the car in the mammoth car park. Then he recalled that he hadn’t arrived by car, but by ambulance, insisted upon by Chrissy since he was ‘bleeding and high on cocaine’.

  I probably wasn’t the only one in that state last night.

  He contemplated calling for a police vehicle to come get him, then changed his mind. It would be quicker taking a cab. That thought proved to be faulty. Being Ne’erday, cabs it seemed were in short supply. He did eventually commandeer one by flashing his ID as it deposited a passenger at the hospital entrance. The driver gave up on his I’m already booked line and waved him into the back.

  ‘You on the job, Detective?’

  ‘Always,’ McNab said.

  The rest of the journey passed in silence, apart from an incoming call asking why the cab hadn’t turned up for its booking. The driver replied that he ‘had the polis in the back’ and was on his way to Govan police station, which was met with, ‘You’re fucking kidding me, right?’

  The roads were quiet, with few pedestrians walking the snowy pavements. Govan was still sleeping off the excesses of its Hogmanay celebrations, or its residents couldn’t face the biting wind the New Year had brought with it.

  Entering the police station, he found the desk sergeant happy to bring him up to date with the fallout from the raid.

  ‘The men were processed, statements given and released,’ he told McNab. ‘The TARA Project managed to find crisis accommodation for the females.’

  McNab was pleased to hear that. ‘And the debriefing?’

  ‘Already started.’ The desk sergeant looked sympathetic. ‘I’d have some coffee first. They don’t know you’ve been discharged yet. And by the way, you look like shite.’

  McNab thanked him for the kind words and headed for the coffee machine. Two espressos later, he was ready for the fray.

  As he tried to slip in unannounced at the back, silence fell and all eyes turned towards him, including the boss’s. DI Wilson seemed to be waiting for him to speak, but in response to what exactly?

  When it became apparent that McNab was at a loss, DI Wilson said, ‘The injured girl?’

  McNab came back immediately. ‘She’s thirteen, sir. A Syrian refugee, trafficked here by a Norwegian national called Stefan. We’ll need an Arabic translator before we can get more.’ He halted, puzzled by the atmosphere in the room.

  ‘The girl’s missing, Sergeant.’

  McNab tried to process this perplexing news. ‘I left an officer on duty outside her room,’ he said.

  ‘He went to the toilet. When he came back, the girl had gone.’

  McNab’s brain moved into overdrive; none of the thoughts swirling around in there were pleasant.

  ‘Could she have left the hospital by herself?’ the boss was saying.

  McNab tried to imagine the injured girl, fearful and in pain, orchestrating her escape from the apparent safety of the hospital. Why would she do that?

  ‘She’s been taken so she won’t talk,’ he said, certain now that that was the explanation.

  ‘She’s not the only witness,’ DI Wilson reminded him. ‘We have three other females at the safe house.’

  ‘Then we’d better make sure we keep them there.’

  McNab slipped his key into the lock. He hadn’t taken too kindly to being ordered home, but DI Wilson had been adamant, reminding him that he’d been without sleep for over twenty-four hours, had sustained a bullet wound and been subjected to cocaine ingestion. Plus you look hellish. For a man not prone to swearing, that was strong for the boss.

  McNab had finally agreed, on the understanding that he would be kept informed on the missing girl.

  Now he was here, the boss’s order didn’t seem such a bad idea after all. Under the shower, his injured arm stuck out to avoid the spray, he watched the remnants of the cocaine cloud disappear down the plughole. As it did so it seemed that the throbbing in his arm and the prickling of the tattoo on his back increased.

  Once out of the shower he rummaged in the bathroom cabinet. Paracetamol had been a mainstay when he’d been on the whisky. A necessity every morning when he’d had to face the bloodshot eyes and thumping head. But he hadn’t replenished his supply since he’d cut down on the booze. The cabinet proved to be empty of anything resembling a painkiller, so he went through to the bedroom and tried the drawer next to his bed, where he was luckier – a silver strip with two pockets yet untouched. McNab released the tablets and, heading to the kitchen, ran a glass of water. As he swallowed them, his mobile rang.

  ‘DS McNab,’ he immediately answered.

  There was a surprised silence before a female voice responded with, ‘So you are a policeman? I could have sworn Mannie was having me on.’

  ‘Do you still want to talk to me now that you know the truth?’ McNab said.

  ‘I’ve nothing against the police, and as far as I know, they have nothing on me,’ Ellie told him. Without waiting for his response to her declaration, she said, ‘Have you been taking care of my tattoo as per instructions?’

  ‘I’m just about to rewrap myself,’ McNab fibbed.

  ‘Good.’

  The pause that followed seemed ripe with possibilities. McNab, even in his present state of exhaustion, recognized that at least.

  ‘What about that drink you promised?’ he ventured.

  ‘Okay,’ she answered slowly. ‘Why don’t you come by the Ink Parlour later? I’ll check my work, then we can go for that drink.’

  McNab smiled to himself as he rang off, then headed for the kitchen and the cling film. Suitably wrapped, he turned the volume on his mobile to high and, setting the alarm for three hours hence, climbed gratefully into bed.

  13

  Despite Kyle’s assurances, Rhona stepped gingerly out onto the frozen loch. The air crackled with cold, each footstep on the crunching snow loud and echoing. The chill gripped her nostrils and cheeks, causing her eyes to stream in sympathy. Brushing away the tears with her gloved hands, she stopped for a moment, stunned by the beauty that surrounded her, in spite of the circumstances.

  The flatness of the frozen surface stretched out like a tendril behind them. To her right the mountain reared, rugged and menacing. Somewhere on that precipitous face was Hell’s Lum, the steep funnel of rock the climbers had tackled. Rhona couldn’t imagine what drove people to do such a thing, and in such temperatures.

  The wreckage grew in size as they made their way across the ice. In its blanket of snow, only patches of
blue livery peeked out. Given a further heavy fall it would have become invisible, Rhona realized, especially from above. The propeller hung with long glassy icicles, as did the wings and undercarriage. It resembled, she thought, a large bird frozen solid as it had come in to land.

  Kyle led the way, Rhona following in his footsteps, with Charlie behind. The wreckage, they all suspected, would hold a body or bodies, dead or maybe alive? On reaching the plane, Kyle immediately pulled himself up onto the broken wing, which lay drunkenly to one side, and began clearing the snow from the Perspex cockpit, only to reveal an ice casing below.

  ‘I can’t see anything,’ he shouted down to them.

  Rhona watched as he attacked the glistening surface with his ice axe. Eventually a slab broke free and fell to the ground to shatter in the snow.

  As the hood scraped back, Rhona prepared herself to be told there was one body at least. In that she was wrong.

  ‘It’s empty,’ were Kyle’s words. He sounded as surprised and relieved as Rhona felt. ‘But there’s blood on the instrument panel.’

  He jumped down, his feet crunching the frozen surface. ‘Before we do anything else, we need to record the scene,’ he told Rhona. ‘There’s a camera in your rescue gear.’

  ‘It’s okay, I brought my own, and my forensic kit.’ At Kyle’s surprised expression, Rhona explained, ‘I keep a bag in the boot of the car.’

  ‘See what you can find out,’ Kyle said, ‘while we secure the scene and look for survivors.’

  Rhona walked round the aircraft taking a series of photos from all angles, then a video. She was no expert on flying, but the care with which the plane had been landed seemed to suggest the pilot had been in control. What he couldn’t have known was what would happen when he met the surface.

  He must have worried about the thickness of the ice and whether it would hold him.

  So why when he’d landed safely would he abandon the plane? Did he fear the wreckage might catch fire? Or that the ice wasn’t thick enough to hold its weight for long? At least in the aircraft he would have been sheltered from the blizzard. To leave its relative safety and seek somewhere else to ride out the storm seemed to Rhona as dangerous as staying put.

  But I wasn’t here last night.

  Having examined all that she could from the exterior of the aircraft, Rhona now donned a forensic suit over the winter gear, glad for once that one (giant) size fitted all, and climbed into the cockpit. Kyle was right. There was blood on the instrument panel, possibly from a head wound during landing. She worked her way over the front two seats, then moved into the back. There was nothing to suggest how many people had been on the plane when it came down. She wondered again about the plane’s flight path and why it hadn’t been reported missing. Then a thought occurred. If there was luggage stowed in the hold, it might give them a clue as to who had been on board.

  Rhona climbed out of the cockpit and dropped down from the wing. There was no sign of Charlie although markers were obvious where he’d recorded the scattered debris for the benefit of the Air Accident Investigation Branch who would no doubt visit the scene soon. Rhona presumed he’d followed Kyle in his search for the plane’s occupants. The helicopter had taken to the air and was circling above, looking for signs of life.

  Shielding her eyes against the sun’s glare on the pristine snow, she focused on the area below the hovering chopper, eventually catching sight of two yellow-clad figures, who appeared to be checking a heap of snow she assumed was the result of an avalanche, with long rods.

  Rhona turned her attention westward. How far was it to the end of the loch? Could any survivors have headed in that direction? If they’d known about the existence of the Shelter Stone then that would have been a possible choice.

  But first she would try to discover who they were looking for.

  Circling the plane, she eventually found the opening to the hold, encased in ice like the cockpit. Following Kyle’s lead, she used her ice axe and was surprised at how much effort it took on her part to break through. Eventually, though, it cracked and the next blow saw the sheet slide south. Prising entry was less difficult, because the hatch was already partially open. She pulled the door back fully to view an empty cavity. Her immediate thought was that whoever had escaped the plane had taken their belongings with them.

  But was that probable?

  More likely for them to take what they needed to face the weather and leave the rest. Walking out of here would have been difficult enough in a hundred-mile-an-hour gale without carrying baggage. As she prepared to abandon the hold something caught her eye. The gloved hand she’d used to check for contents now had a thin film of dust on the fingers. White dust. Rhona lifted the glove to her face, sniffed, licked it, then spat it out.

  Cocaine?

  Rhona rummaged around in her kit, looking for the cocaine wipes. Each swab was sensitive to trace amounts of residue; far less than could be collected for regular field testing. Breaking the hermetic seal, she extracted the swab and applied it, waiting for the colour change, pretty sure she was right by taste alone.

  A definite blue.

  When she used her radio, Kyle answered immediately.

  ‘Found anything?’

  Rhona told him what she suspected.

  ‘That’s what the plane was carrying?’ he said, surprised.

  ‘All it tells us is that cocaine has been in that hold. When exactly, we don’t know.’

  ‘Maybe that’s why the flight was off-radar?’

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ Rhona conceded. ‘I’m going to start walking west. Whoever was in the plane has an injury. I suspect a head wound on impact. They may be concussed and disorientated.’

  ‘Okay. We’ll follow you. We’ve found no evidence of anyone being caught in the avalanche.’

  Rhona set a course for the head of the loch, shading her eyes to look for signs that someone had trodden a path through the snow before her. As she walked, she realized that the resounding crunch of her footsteps, coupled with the sharpness of the air entering her lungs, was energizing.

  Was this why people came up here? To feel alive? Or to experience danger?

  On Sanday in Orkney during a previous investigation, looking out across the vast expanse of the North Sea, she’d felt as though she stood on the edge of the world. But she’d never felt endangered by the weather on Sanday, just grossly inconvenienced at times by it. Here, in what were surely Arctic conditions, the weather and environment might appear to be your friend in one moment, only to become your fiercest enemy in the next.

  Rhona slowed as she discerned a shape in the distance. Was it a rock protruding from the loch or something lying on the surface? She upped her pace, more confident now of the solidity of what lay beneath her feet. Yards from the object, she came to an abrupt stop.

  Blood on snow.

  Blood, in all its patterns, was her business. It told a tale of injury and death, often pointing to who had inflicted the injuries, and the weapon used. Up to this point she’d discerned no blood trail, so had assumed that whatever the injury was, it hadn’t been as serious as the trail now suggested.

  Rhona hesitated, thinking to photograph the evidence, knowing that the weather might change abruptly and she wouldn’t get another opportunity. But, aware there might be a chance that whoever had bled here could still be alive, she hurried on.

  Steps away now, she noted that the figure was clothed in white, hence its ability to merge with the landscape. He, or she, lay face down, arms spread out like a supplicant’s before the altar that was the imposing edifice of the neighbouring crag. On approach, she registered that the freezing temperature had obliterated the familiar scent of death, yet Rhona knew that death lay before her.

  She knelt down and touched the bristled right cheek, finding it as frigid as the ice on which it lay. Below the head, the layer of snow had turned pink, like the frosting on a cake. Any forlorn hope that a pulse might beat in the creases of the neck was quickly abandoned. Her own brea
th condensing before her, she used the radio to alert Kyle to her discovery, then set about recording the scene.

  Now, easing the body over, Rhona discovered the reason for the blood trail and stained snow. The right side of the face had a deep wound just above the eye and a long score mark down the cheek.

  Was this the wound that had resulted in blood in the cockpit? There hadn’t been copious amounts in the plane and she hadn’t followed a blood trail here, but there was no other obvious evidence of injury. And the blizzard could have covered any trail there might have been.

  Rhona recorded the body in detail, before checking for any means of identification. There had been none in the plane, and there was, as far as her search revealed, none on the body.

  Looking up, she spotted Kyle and Charlie trudging towards her.

  Her second radio message had alerted them to a body, and as part of a rescue team, that wouldn’t be an unusual occurrence. Rhona stood up, assembling the words that might match the circumstances, but at the sight of the body Charlie became swiftly circumspect and knelt for a closer look. Kyle’s expression was one of sadness. The mountains sometimes killed those who loved them. That was a given. But this man hadn’t chosen such danger. Circumstances beyond his control had brought his plane down. Having survived that, either the cold or his wounds had taken his life.

  ‘There’s no ID on him and there was none in the plane.’

  ‘Looks like the flight and its occupant was definitely off the radar,’ Kyle said. ‘Something for AAIB and Police Scotland to handle.’

  A few flakes of snow began to fall, alerting them to the fact that the sky was no longer a pristine blue.

  ‘We’ll bag the body and stretcher it out,’ Charlie said. ‘Have you recorded it?’

  Rhona indicated she had. As she and Charlie secured the remains, Kyle radioed the base to give them the latest.

  Owen answered immediately. ‘You’re required at the Shelter Stone.’ And then he told them why.

  14

  McNab woke to the repeated buzzing of the intercom. Insistent, like a bluebottle at his ear, it jerked him out of a deep slumber. Cursing, he realized that whoever was pressing the button wasn’t likely to give up, so swung his legs out of bed.