by Lin Anderson
Rhona didn’t want to register the date.
‘I believe a pathologist from the Met did the post-mortem, so would that have been stored differently?’ she said.
‘Really? That’s unusual.’ Dorothy thought for a moment, then began a different search. ‘Maybe they wrote it up on their own system,’ she offered when nothing was forthcoming. ‘But I expect there must be hard copies around somewhere. You could try the senior investigating officer, or the Fiscal.’
‘I will.’ Rhona tried to keep her voice light. ‘Thanks for your help.’
Dorothy gave her a sympathetic look. ‘It was a terrible thing. A young man like that, with everything to live for.’
Rhona simply nodded.
She left the Forensic Pathology department and made her way onto University Avenue. The biting wind that fought her progress reminded her of the night of the snowstorm when she and Chrissy had been stranded in Fern Cottage, Chrissy only days away from giving birth. It was hard to comprehend that in such a short space of time so much had happened. A death and a birth. She allowed herself to contemplate for a moment what McNab’s reaction to the birth of young Michael might have been, then shook herself free and concentrated on reality.
She would find out which Procurator Fiscal had been involved and contact them. If they didn’t have a copy of the report, surely they would have been able to name the pathologist involved. She would then contact them direct.
She pondered what significance this had for Petersson’s pursuit of Kalinin. How did it affect the possibility that Slater was on the wrong side?
Rhona recalled Petersson’s reply when she’d suggested that McNab had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. His take on it had been quite different. He believed Kalinin had known exactly where McNab would be. In fact, the Russian had arranged it. If Petersson was right and Slater was on Kalinin’s payroll, then his freeing of Kalinin from custody that night had made McNab’s death inevitable.
The thought only served to make her even more determined to find out what Petersson wanted to know.
Back at the lab, a glimpse of Chrissy’s suited figure through the glass raised her spirits. It would have been even better if she could have confided in her about her enquiries. She wondered if her assistant was aware that McNab’s post-mortem had been performed by someone from outside the department – she couldn’t imagine Chrissy keeping that to herself.
Chrissy looked up at Rhona’s entry, her eyes inquisitive.
‘Where were you?’
‘Forensic Pathology.’
Don’t ask why, Rhona prayed. Chrissy had a radar for lies. Luckily she seemed intent on asking questions on a different subject, one that made Rhona equally uncomfortable.
‘So who’s this new man in your life?’
Rhona was struck dumb.
Chrissy looked delighted at the result of her enquiry. She probed further. ‘Tall, Nordic looking?’
How the hell did she know about Petersson?
‘His name’s Einar Petersson. And he’s not my new man.’
‘That’s not what I heard.’ Chrissy was toying with her now.
‘I don’t care what you heard.’
Chrissy raised an eyebrow and waited. Rhona hung on, knowing Chrissy would be forced to reveal more. She had been in Petersson’s company in public three times. At the art show, the club they’d gone to afterwards and in the gallery café. If she hadn’t been spotted at any of these places, then Sean had to be the source.
Chrissy was looking fit to burst. She eventually did.
‘Sam told me.’
Had Sam seen them in the gallery café, or had Sean told Sam about his visit? She soon found out.
‘Sean’s not really serious about that woman, you know,’ Chrissy said.
Rhona couldn’t help herself. ‘How long?’
Chrissy pulled a face. ‘A couple of weeks, maybe. It won’t last anyway.’
‘A fortnight and he’s moved in?’ Rhona couldn’t hide her dismay.
‘Did Sean say that?’
‘He implied it.’
‘As far as I know, he’s still sleeping at the club. Anyway, you’ve got Petersson or whatever his name is.’
‘He hasn’t moved in.’
‘Sounded quite cosy to me though.’
‘Sean told Sam that?’ Now Rhona was annoyed.
‘Sean . . .’ Chrissy chose her next words carefully. ‘Sam got the impression he was upset.’
Rhona found herself pleased by that thought.
After all, no one liked to be replaced too quickly, no matter what the circumstances.
24
It had been difficult to get to speak to Dr Shan at all. Now that he finally had her on the line, the task hadn’t become any easier.
‘We need to establish whether the doll we have is one of Coulter’s.’
‘I understand that.’
‘So, if I send you a photograph . . . ?’
‘It would be easier to show Mr Coulter and ask him.’
Magnus had imagined Dr Shan visiting the photo gallery without Coulter and checking an image of their find against those on display. He didn’t want Coulter alerted to this. He didn’t want the man to fancy himself as the centre of police attention.
‘Psychopaths tell lies as a matter of course,’ he said.
‘I am well aware of that, Professor Pirie. However, Mr Coulter has not been officially diagnosed as having a psychopathic personality.’
Magnus knew the word officially was a direct dig at him. Coulter was being treated in the State Hospital as though he had a mental illness, not a personality disorder. He was apparently responding to drugs, if that could be believed.
Magnus tried a different tack. ‘Could you check if and how he signs his dolls without alerting him to why we want to know?’
‘That might be possible,’ she said grudgingly.
‘The Reborn we found has the initials JC signed in the head cavity.’
The silence that followed was heavy.
Eventually Dr Shan responded tersely. ‘I can’t take a doll apart. It’s a patient’s private property.’
‘He likes talking about his work. Perhaps just a general enquiry?’
There was a loaded pause, then she said, ‘I’ll be in touch.’
Magnus wanted to ask how soon, but decided that would be pushing his luck.
‘Thank you very much, Dr Shan.’
He heard the phone go down.
A complex woman, he decided. He reexamined his actions during the prison visit and the recent phone call, trying to work out how exactly he had annoyed her, then decided that he simply didn’t know and probably never would. He could ask her outright, of course, but people rarely liked being asked about these things and also rarely gave an honest answer. He came to the conclusion that he had to accept that he simply pissed Dr Shan off.
He put on some coffee, then took out Kira’s diary and laid it on the desk, with pen, paper and laptop nearby. It had been a good few years since mathematics had been an essential part of his life. He could only hope that it was like riding a bicycle and the thought processes would return once he stimulated that part of his brain again. He fetched a mug of coffee and settled to his task.
Bill had not specified his interest in the notebook, only that he wanted Magnus to take a look. A wise move on the DI’s part. Suggest one particular focus and that’s what the reader fastens on. Better to keep an open mind. Magnus was aware that Kira had been an exemplary student, good enough to study Mathematics at Cambridge. He began to leaf through the jotter. The contents were predominantly algebraic in content, and he recognised partial fractions and some calculations using the binomial theorem. After that came at least ten pages of matrix algebra. Magnus felt a surge of pleasure at the carefully laid-out matrix calculations.
Kira’s construction of the matrix form was beautifully scribed, the numbers and symbols written in a clear, small and precise hand. This was someone who loved maths as a poet mu
st love the form and meaning of poetry.
The notes went through the various algebraic rules for addition, subtraction and multiplication, then how to find a determinant, obtain an inverse and transpose a matrix. All topics in the Advanced Higher syllabus which he’d checked online. Nothing special up to now, other than a promising mathematician at work.
Magnus turned to the next page.
There were some calculations using complex numbers followed by their polar form, z=r(cosθ + isinθ), then a space followed by a group of symbols
which seemed unrelated to the topic she’d been working on.
Two blank lines followed, then Kira reverted to her previous calculations. Magnus began leafing through the jotter, looking for anything similar and found quite a few. Some were written within the text, some along the margins or the spine. Most were written in a tiny hand that would require a magnifying glass to make out the shapes.
He considered whether the collections of symbols might simply be doodles Kira had carried out while problem solving or whether they were in fact significant. Most of the symbols he recognised as Greek, others he wasn’t so sure about.
Magnus was aware that every letter in the Greek alphabet except one was used in the language of mathematics, omicron or ‘o’ being too close to the Roman letter ‘o’. He recalled, as a first year pupil in secondary school, being sent to sit at the back of a senior maths class. He had seen the strange symbols being written on the blackboard and hoped that one day he too would understand their meaning. Then, such symbols were like a foreign language the older students in the room understood, while he could only admire its strange forms.
Maybe Kira loved those symbols too, the ones less commonly used, and simply enjoyed drawing them on the page.
Magnus returned to their first appearance during Kira’s work on complex numbers. He wrote a copy on paper of what he thought each symbol was, then went online and checked on the Greek alphabet.
‘ɩ’ or the Greek iota he decided might be the English ‘i’. ‘τ’ he believed could be translated as ‘t’. He studied the next letter for a moment or two and decided it was beta. The fourth was epsilon. The next he didn’t have a clue about. In its slightly smudged state it could be anything.
He studied the alphabet again, then sought to enlarge the typeface in order to compare the symbols with the unrecognisable one, before giving up and moving on to the sixth, which, if he had been right first time, was ‘i’ again.
Symbol seven he decided was sigma used to denote ‘s’. He was now left with:
‘itbeγins’ which looked very like ‘itbegins’.
But what begins?
The phone rang as he sat back, satisfied by his translation but puzzled by its significance, if any.
He picked up the receiver.
‘Professor Pirie?’
He immediately recognised Dr Shan’s voice. ‘Yes?’
‘I tried raising the subject of his signing the dolls in general conversation as you suggested.’
‘And?’
‘It didn’t work.’
I bet it didn’t, Magnus thought.
‘He has asked that you visit him again.’
Any request or interest from Dr Shan that Coulter deemed unusual would have either enhanced his ego or stirred his suspicions, or both. Magnus had given Dr Shan the job. He couldn’t now complain if he felt she had not carried it out to his satisfaction.
He decided to take a different approach.
‘Do you know if Coulter has sent the doll he was working on when I was last there?’
‘No. But I can check with the mail department for you.’ Dr Shan’s tone was conciliatory.
‘Thank you.’
‘When do you envisage coming back to see Mr Coulter?’
‘As soon as possible.’
This time he wouldn’t have to go through the original channels, not if he had DI Wilson with him.
25
Slater had known nothing of a possible pregnancy pact or the existence of the Daisy Chain gang, so there had been no interviews conducted with its members.
Bill had set DS Clark the task of contacting the girls’ parents. She’d reported back that the families involved had been angry at having their names given out by the school. No doubt Morvern’s principal would be taking the flak over that. As to the reported pregnancies, DS Clark had established that only Melanie remained pregnant, the others having chosen terminations.
Bill and Magnus drew up outside a two-storey sandstone villa. Minutes from Byres Road, the house was in a highly desirable location within walking distance of Melanie’s school.
They had already discussed how Bill planned to conduct the interview; Magnus was there to observe Melanie’s reactions to the questions Bill posed.
He pulled the old-fashioned brass door bell and listened as a clanging resounded in the spacious hallway. The young woman who opened the door was dressed in dark clothes and spoke with an accent he took to be Polish.
Bill showed her his ID and introduced himself. ‘We’re here to speak to Melanie.’
She looked wary, but stood back to let them enter, then indicated a door on the left. ‘In here, please.’
The room they entered was spacious and filled with a soft wintry light. Near the bay window a tall fern plant stood in a waist-high blue ceramic pot, its fronds reaching almost as high as the ceiling. They were urged to take a seat on one of the three thickly cushioned sofas which framed the ornate mahogany fireplace.
‘I’ll tell Melanie you’re here.’
When the girl arrived a few minutes later, she was alone. In black leggings and a patterned top, she was small and slight, apart from the bump of her pregnancy.
Before Bill could ask, she said, ‘Mother is at a medical conference in London. My father’s out of the country on business. I don’t need them here to speak to you anyway.’
Bill began his introductions. Melanie’s reaction to Magnus’s title was a guarded glance in his direction. They took their seats. Magnus next to Melanie on the sofa, Bill opposite.
‘You know why we’re here?’
‘I assume it’s about Kira,’ she said, her manner composed.
‘She was a friend of yours?’
‘We were in the same year at school.’
‘That’s all?’
‘We weren’t close, if that’s what you mean.’
Bill didn’t argue. Instead he said, ‘May I ask when your baby’s due?’
The change in topic took her by surprise, but she quickly covered it. ‘In three weeks.’
‘You must be excited.’
‘I’m having it adopted. I have a place at Edinburgh University.’
‘To study Law, I believe.’
‘How did you know that?’ she said, suspiciously.
‘I visited your school and spoke to your principal, Ms Porter.’ Bill watched her wariness change to anger. ‘I also know that Kira was a good friend of yours. As were Louisa Sommerville, Jocelyn Calderfield and Samantha Wells. In fact, you called yourselves the Daisy Chain.’
Melanie’s face flushed.
‘And that you all got pregnant around the same time.’
‘The school had no business telling you that. My father will be—’ she said angrily.
Bill interrupted her. ‘Kira was found with the words “daisy chain” written on the palms of her hands in mirror writing. Which suggests that whoever killed her and took her baby knew about your little group.’
‘That’s impossible – apart from us, only David knew.’
‘What about Sandie?’
Melanie curled her lip. ‘She wasn’t part of the gang.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Sandie acted like an idiot around boys. It was embarrassing.’
‘Yet she didn’t get pregnant.’
Intense irritation crossed her face, but she didn’t respond.
‘This pregnancy pact?’
‘What do you mean, “pact”?’
�
�You were in a gang. You all got pregnant around the same time. That sounds like a pact to me.’
‘The pregnancies weren’t intentional.’
‘So Kira didn’t persuade you all to get pregnant?’
‘Of course not!’
Bill changed the subject. ‘May I ask who the father is?’
She lifted her chin. ‘That’s none of your business.’
‘If it helps bring Kira’s killer to justice, it is my business.’
‘My pregnancy is nothing to do with Kira.’
‘Then it won’t matter if you tell me the father’s name.’
She thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know his name. I was at a party. I got drunk and had sex with someone.’
‘Why didn’t you have a termination?’
‘I’d missed periods before because I was underweight. By the time I realised I was pregnant, it was too late.’ She glanced down at the bump. ‘Now I’m stuck with this.’
‘Kira chose not to have an abortion.’
She shrugged. ‘Kira always had to be different.’
‘Can you think of any reason why someone would hurt Kira and take her baby?’
‘No!’ She looked frightened at the thought.
Bill waited a moment before asking, ‘Why did you meet David Murdoch in the park the day after Kira died?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘I have a photo that shows you two together in the children’s playground.’
The question had unnerved her, but she rallied. ‘David was very upset about Kira. I was sorry for him.’
‘Is David the father of your baby?’
She laughed sarcastically. ‘David’s gay.’
‘Gay men can father children.’
‘Not mine.’
‘Do you know who the father of Kira’s baby is?’
‘No.’
‘Could you take a guess?’
‘She was having sex with someone. Not David. Kira liked to be the first to do things.’
‘So the gang decided to give it a try?’
She didn’t respond.
‘Was Kira frightened of anyone? The person she was having sex with?’