Final Cut

by Lin Anderson

  ‘Alan MacNiven? Can’t say I know the name.’

  Thanking him, she headed back as swiftly as the snow would allow. Although her feet were reasonably dry, the wellington boots were a little too large and had begun to rub at her heels. She would be glad to kick them off. As she came in sight of the cottage she was pleased to see plumes of smoke coming from the chimney. Chrissy certainly wasn’t skimping on the fire.

  She left the boots at the front door, delighted by the wave of warmth that greeted her entrance. Chrissy was sitting on the sofa by a blazing hearth, checking her mobile, no doubt for the hundredth time.

  ‘Any luck?’

  ‘Mr Jenkins will come and pull us out as soon as he deals with his livestock.’ Rhona realised Chrissy looked perturbed. ‘What’s wrong? You’re not getting contractions?’

  Chrissy shook her head. ‘I found something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The kid left a message.’

  ‘A message? Where?’

  ‘The broken tumbler on her bedroom carpet? I tasted the liquid that had been inside – it was just sugary water. Not lemonade or Coke. I kept wondering why Emma would drink sugar and water, then I remembered.’

  ‘Remembered what?’

  ‘There was a notebook on the desk. Emma had written a poem in it. There was a pen and a toothpick near by.’

  ‘What’s special about a toothpick?’

  ‘Did you never make invisible ink when you were a kid?’

  Rhona shook her head.

  ‘You use a toothpick to write the secret message in sugar water, usually between normal writing. If you heat the paper you find the message.’ Chrissy handed her the notebook. ‘Look between the first and second line of the poem.’

  The area Chrissy indicated was pale brown in colour in contrast to the white page. She was right. There was something scrawled there. Rhona read out the chilling words.

  He’s here. I think he wants to take us away.

  Rhona felt terrible. The message had been left for her and she’d missed it. Thank God for Chrissy’s keen eye.

  ‘When we were in the wood, Emma asked what I did. I told her I looked for evidence that was invisible to the human eye, and she asked if it was like invisible ink.’

  ‘Smart kid,’ said Chrissy.

  Rhona studied the message. ‘She says he. Who does she mean?’

  ‘It sounds like she didn’t know him.’

  ‘Or she thought we would know who she meant? The only person we’re aware of from Claire’s former life is someone called Nick, and according to McNab, Emma liked him. We have to speak to McNab about this.’

  She tried her mobile again, swearing at the no signal message still showing.

  ‘I’m going to walk down and start digging out a car.’

  ‘I’m coming with you.’

  40

  He was pleased with his work so far, very pleased. The underwater team had searched the loch in the woods and found nothing, because what they sought was here.

  One end of the workbench had been cleared and was now serving as a mortuary slab. The freezing air in here was as good as an icebox. Really the weather had been a godsend. A Christmas blessing. He smiled at his own little joke.

  The remains had shrunk inside their plastic covering, leaving the binding loose. Maybe he should have brought it back here sooner, but he hadn’t wanted to desecrate either of the graves.

  Anger bubbled up inside him. Desecration, that’s what it was. The girl had lain in peace for all those years. He would have buried the boy beside her, but at the time foresters had been working near by and he couldn’t risk it. He’d settled for the loch.

  They should both have been allowed to rest in peace.

  It was the woman’s fault. Her reckless driving had started all of this. Had it not been for her, both of them would have remained undiscovered for ever.

  He looked out at the snow-covered garden. Pretty as it was, it would make a burial service difficult. He had already chosen a suitable place among the trees, but would have to wait for the weather to change. He was only sorry that he couldn’t bury them together.

  He locked the workshop door and went inside the house. The sudden warmth quickly brought colour to his cheeks. He entered the kitchen and switched on the radio. He wanted to listen to the service of carols and readings as he prepared lunch.

  He set about scraping the surface of the parboiled potatoes with a fork, sprinkled them with salt and slipped them in below the sizzling turkey. He had already opened the red wine and left it to take the air. Touching the bottle, he was pleased to find the temperature about right.

  He hummed along with the carols as he set the small table in the dining alcove, laying out two places. The young prison guard had called and had been invited round for Christmas day lunch, an invitation he had eagerly accepted.

  He laid out the holly-patterned napkins and chose the balloon glasses for the wine. Now it only remained for him to prepare the remaining vegetables. He washed and peeled the Brussels sprouts, slicing a diagonal cross in the stem, then prepared the parsnips. He was very fond of roast parsnips. He poured a glass of wine and opened a second bottle with a smile.

  As he sipped, he contemplated the forthcoming activities. He had planned to show Daniel his workshop, but that wasn’t possible now. Instead he had brought in some pieces of finished glass for him to admire. The panel depicting the child was the centrepiece, of course. He was particularly pleased with the milkiness of the hair and the ruby-red glass he’d used for the blood droplets. He wondered momentarily whether Daniel would discern the true picture hidden in the swirls of colour and shape. The idea excited him.

  He glanced at the clock. Daniel had agreed to work Christmas morning. Allowing for transport difficulties in the snow, his arrival was likely to be mid-afternoon. Everything would be ready and waiting. There was just one more thing to do.

  41

  Chrissy had insisted on digging out the forensic van, despite Rhona’s attempts to stop her. Rhona had found a shovel in the garden shed, rusted, its handle thinned by wear. She’d used that one, leaving Chrissy with the pristine model that formed part of her ‘emergency’ collection of utensils.

  The snow, although deep, was light and easy to shift. Once all four wheels were free, she tried the engine. It fired on the third attempt. Behind her Chrissy was doing the same with the van. Rhona let the engine run for a while, then switched off and went to check on Chrissy.

  ‘I’m going to take a look farther on,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll go with you.’

  The next section of track was impassable by car. After that things began to look better for a while, the snow shallow. Unfortunately a few yards later they encountered a waist-high drift of some length. Walking the road in daylight only served to reinforce the danger they’d been in the previous night.

  One thing was certain, they were going nowhere without the farmer’s help.

  ‘Maybe I should walk to the main road.’

  ‘And leave me here?’ Chrissy sounded incredulous.

  ‘There’s more of a chance of a signal once I’m out of the glen, and I might get a lift.’

  Chrissy wasn’t convinced.

  ‘We have to let McNab know what we’ve found.’

  ‘Then we’ll both go to the main road.’

  ‘What if the landline’s restored more quickly than the mobile? If I’m still at the road end by the time you’re dug out, we’ll go together.’

  A two-pronged attack made sense.

  ‘OK,’ Chrissy conceded.

  They parted company. Rhona walked on a few yards, then turned to watch the small bundled figure trudging back towards the cottage. Chrissy wouldn’t be alone for long, she consoled herself. Mr Jenkins was bound to appear soon.

  By car, the track had seemed a fair distance. On foot it was endless. Even with the help of a tractor, getting a vehicle to the road would take some time. Climbing out of the valley, she was rewarded by a buzz from her m
obile, indicating the arrival of a message. McNab’s voice sounded terrible. He asked her to phone him right away.

  His phone rang five times. Rhona was anticipating a switch to voicemail when McNab came on the line.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Trying to get away from the cottage. We got snowed in last night.’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Emma left us a message.’ She gave him a quick summary of their findings, including the fact that Emma didn’t seem to know her abductor.

  ‘You and I both know the odds are against it being a stranger,’ he said.

  ‘Then who?’

  McNab was at as much of a loss as Rhona. ‘We’ve nothing on Claire’s life before she left Glasgow. We’re still trying to find out which primary school Emma went to before they moved.’

  Claire had covered her tracks well, which did suggest she’d been hiding from someone.

  ‘If someone was looking for Claire and they knew about her mother’s death, they could have turned up at the funeral,’ suggested McNab.

  ‘And followed Emma to the wood?’ Rhona suddenly wished she’d brought this possibility up with Claire. Maybe then Claire would have told them whether someone was harassing her.

  There was a baffled silence.

  ‘I’ve been checking the Mollie Curtis file,’ said McNab eventually. ‘Guess who did the groundwork on that?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Slater. That’s what led to his promotion.’ His tone was loaded.

  ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘Nothing, but I’m working on it. Can you hitch a lift back to Glasgow?’

  ‘I’m trying to.’

  ‘Call me when you get here. I’m going to visit Mollie’s killer.’

  ‘But it’s Christmas Day.’

  ‘So I’ll take him a present.’

  ‘Maybe you should take Magnus with you.’

  There was a grunt of disapproval.

  ‘He’s good at reading people. He could just observe.’

  ‘It’s Christmas Day. He’ll have plans.’

  McNab hung up before Rhona could respond. His obvious agitation worried her. Something bad had happened, something he hadn’t told her about.

  Ten minutes later she was in sight of the main road. Snow piled up by a plough blocked the end of the drive. She climbed up the hard-packed mound. There were no vehicles in sight, but she could tell by the tyre tracks that someone had travelled along the cleared road recently. She had to wait twenty minutes before a car came into view. She waved it down.

  42

  The baby-faced guard on reception wasn’t impressed by McNab’s appearance or his ripe smell. McNab had got used to both by now. Bar going home to change, he’d accepted he couldn’t do anything about it and there were more important things than taking a shower and putting on clean clothes.

  McNab waited as the guard re-examined his ID. If he’d compared his face to the identity photograph once, he’d done it ten times.

  ‘Fuckssake,’ he hissed under his breath.

  ‘What did you say?’ Righteous indignation spotted the boy’s plump cheeks.

  ‘You do realise you’re hindering a murder inquiry.’

  A deeper flush crept over the guard’s cheeks, and he waved McNab through. The visiting room was dotted with families celebrating Christmas prison-style. By rights the meeting should have taken place in an interview room with McCarthy’s brief present, but McNab had sold this as a friendly visit on Christmas Day.

  He hadn’t had time to study the Mollie Curtis case in detail, but seeing Slater’s name in the file had coloured his attitude from the outset. If Slater had been anything like the boss, McNab could have talked over his concerns surrounding the case, including the guy on the road and the possibility that someone had followed the kid in the woods, but Slater wasn’t DI Wilson. He was a whole different species.

  McCarthy appeared five minutes later, walking into the room and taking a quick look around. Baby-face pointed in McNab’s direction. A few words were exchanged, and McCarthy looked quite pleased. He obviously liked having a visitor on Christmas Day, even if it was a police officer. Or maybe because it was a police officer. He came over and took a seat across the table from McNab, who showed him his ID.

  McCarthy smiled. His teeth were weird, coated with yellow. McNab inadvertently licked his own clean.

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘Walked into a lamp-post in the blizzard last night.’

  McCarthy shook his head in sympathy. ‘You look fucking awful. Eyes like slits.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  It was the pot calling the kettle black.

  ‘I knew you would come. Soon as I heard you’d found the grave.’

  ‘Whose grave?’

  ‘Mollie Curtis.’

  ‘The girl you killed?’

  The prisoner shook his head vehemently. ‘I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘You confessed to it.’

  McCarthy leaned towards McNab. His breath smelt terrible. ‘I didn’t kill her and I didn’t bury her. Forensic will prove that.’ He said forensic as if it were the word of God.

  ‘Forensic found her blood on your clothes, along with your semen. Forensic put you in here.’

  ‘She cut her finger. I put a plaster on for her.’ McCarthy sounded aggrieved.

  ‘Then you jerked off?’

  McCarthy glared balefully at him.

  ‘I didn’t hurt Mollie. I didn’t kill her.’

  McNab drew back to get out of range of the man’s red gums and rotting teeth. ‘Want to know how we found her?’

  McCarthy’s eyes narrowed.

  The news bulletins hadn’t mentioned Emma, and McNab didn’t know why he was mentioning her now. ‘A wee girl told us where she was.’

  McCarthy’s mouth puckered like a cartoon character’s. ‘A wee girl?’

  ‘She said she heard a voice calling to her from the woods. The voice led her to the grave.’

  McCarthy’s face was turning a similar colour to his teeth.

  ‘I’ve heard people who are murdered often come back to haunt their killer,’ said McNab.

  ‘I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘Then you’ve got nothing to worry about.’

  But McCarthy clearly was worried.

  ‘Thing is, the girl also heard a second voice.’

  ‘I didn’t kill the boy either.’

  A shiver descended McNab’s spine.

  ‘What boy?’

  He watched as the shutters came down on McCarthy’s eyes. He’d assumed the look of a child confronted by an angry adult. His voice became a whine. ‘Did you bring me a Christmas present?’

  ‘How about early release?’

  McCarthy licked his yellow teeth.

  ‘Tell me about the boy.’

  McNab examined the visitor list. Apart from himself, a prison volunteer came once a fortnight. That was it. McCarthy had no one who cared whether he lived or died, or cleaned his teeth.

  He fired change into the coffee machine and watched as muddy liquid filled the paper cup. McCarthy had rabbited on about CSI and finding forensic evidence at the grave that would clear him. No matter what McNab said, he couldn’t get him back on the subject of the boy.

  He racked his brains but failed to recall a link with another missing-kid case. Slater would be the one to ask, of course. He contemplated phoning his new boss at home on Christmas Day and enjoyed the fantasy while it lasted.

  The caffeine and sugar buzzed around McNab’s brain and reminded him how hungry he was. He needed food, and he needed to properly study the notes on the Curtis case. He checked his phone in case Rhona had called while he was incarcerated, but there was nothing. He drank the remainder of the coffee then dragged his sorry body back on its feet.

  Glasgow was getting back to normal after the blizzard, or as normal as Christmas Day could be. Snow swept from the roads was piled in the gutter. No longer deep and crisp and even, it now consisted of hardened grey lumps.
McNab picked his way through it and managed to flag down a lone taxi. He was compelled to show his badge before the driver would allow such a bedraggled and bloodied passenger to enter his pristine cab. They indulged in some desultory chit-chat about the weather and Christmas in general.

  ‘I can’t stand turkey, myself,’ the taxi driver told him. ‘So I work and the wife entertains the relatives. That means we’re both happy.’ He forbore asking why McNab looked as though he had been beaten up. No doubt he’d seen worse in his time on the job.

  As he stepped over the threshold of his flat, McNab’s legs almost gave out. Fit though he was, being manhandled by Solonik and flung in a skip was taking its toll. He made straight for the whisky bottle and poured a decent shot. He drank it swiftly and poured another, taking it to the shower with him. He dropped his clothes on the floor and climbed under.

  The shower felt like hot needles against his bruises, but gradually warmth spread through his shattered, chilled body. He held his face up to the spray, filled his aching mouth and spat the bloodied water out. After a full ten minutes he stepped out, reached for the glass and drank the second whisky. Now that he was warm outside and in, the pain was receding a little. He dressed, then looked up the pizza carry-out number and ordered a pepperoni and a margarita. The inflated Christmas Day prices would have bought him a week’s supply of food. While he waited for the pizzas to arrive, he checked out the contents of the fridge for a starter. He was starving, but couldn’t face the single soft tomato and square of blue-tinged Cheddar – all that remained from his last shopping trip.

  When the buzzer went he released the lower door, assuming it was the pizzas. But the pizza man wasn’t his only visitor. When McNab opened the door Rhona looked even more horrified than the guy holding the eagerly awaited boxes. Only then did McNab appreciate just how bad he looked.

  ‘What the hell happened?’

  ‘Let me eat first, then I’ll tell you.’

  McNab paid the gobsmacked delivery man and ushered Rhona and the steaming boxes into the kitchen.

  ‘Open those while I get the whisky.’

  When he reappeared with the bottle, she had set a couple of plates on the table.

  ‘Want some?’ He waved the bottle at her.