by Lin Anderson
As the figure stumbled past, Chrissy brought the poker down as hard as she could. There was a crack as iron met bone. The man staggered and dropped. She raised the poker again.
‘No!’ A voice called out in pain.
Chrissy flicked on the light switch.
MacNiven was on his knees, his head in his hands. Blood from the reopened head wound had splattered the surrounding tiles. He looked up at Chrissy, his eyes cloudy. ‘I thought you’d gone.’
‘You thought wrong.’
Chrissy let her poker hand fall by her side as MacNiven slid unconscious to the floor.
She began to search him, finding nothing that could serve as a weapon. His body was deeply chilled, his lips blue. She suspected he was on the verge of hypothermia. Had she been able to, she would have phoned for an ambulance. Instead she found a length of plastic washing line and used it to bind his hands and feet together, before washing the wound and reapplying a dressing. Then she covered him with a blanket and sat down to await his return to consciousness.
The guy was fit and resourceful, as evidenced by the snow hole, but the plummeting temperature had forced even him inside. MacNiven, if that was his name, hadn’t come to attack her, he had come for shelter. Chrissy studied his unshaven face and grimy skin. He was living rough, that much was obvious.
His translucent lids rippled as his eyes moved behind them. Chrissy watched as his limbs twitched and his breathing became more rapid. He was dreaming, or more likely having a nightmare, imagining he was running from something.
Then he screamed. The blood-curdling sound of it made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. His eyes flew open and he was looking, not at her, but at something that terrified and sickened him. He shook his head wildly, then tried desperately to take his bound hand to his face.
‘Fucking guts. Wipe off the fucking guts!’
Chrissy grabbed a towel and knelt beside him, wiping his face as though there was something on it. Gradually terror eased from his face and tears ran down his cheeks. His hands began to jerk in their bindings.
She grabbed his head and cradled it against her. ‘It’s OK, Alan. It’s OK.’
He looked up at her, glassy eyed. ‘I’m not Alan, I’m Fergus. Fergus Morrison.’
Morrison glanced down at Chrissy’s swollen belly. ‘Nae chance of a fag, eh?’ He’d discarded the Queen’s English, ever since he’d revealed his true identity.
‘There’s red wine?’ she offered.
‘Aye, go on, then.’
Chrissy poured him a tumbler. It took both hands to raise it to his lips.
‘Afghanistan,’ he said in reply to her unasked question. ‘Ma mate and me were in this compound. A mortar came. Blew him up.’ He wiped his face. ‘Ah can still taste his guts.’
They were in the sitting room, the fire rebuilt. His face had lost its ashen colour, but the shaking was barely under control.
‘We knew by a blood test the body in the skip wasn’t you.’
‘The dog tag?’
Chrissy nodded.
‘I needed to buy time tae get away. Those fucking hands. They snapped his neck. Just like that. He was talking, begging. I couldnae understand, but he was shit scared. The big guy threw him in the skip.’
‘Who else was there?’
‘A tall guy in a fancy overcoat. He was the one that gave the orders. When they left ah took ma chance. He was deid anyway. Ah gave him ma tag and set the skip alight, then headed south. I’ve been hanging round the cottage for a while. There’s tins of food in the shed. I’ve been living on them.’
‘How did you hurt your head?’
‘That happened before the skip. Wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘When Rhona asked you about the woman and her daughter who lived here …’
‘Ah panicked when you mentioned the polis.’
‘You did see something?’
He nodded. ‘There was a car parked a bit down the lane. Ah memorised some of the number plate. We were taught to take a note of all vehicles. That wis supposed tae keep us alive. Fuckin lot of good it did Gary.’ He took another mouthful of wine, both hands gripping the glass. ‘When ah came back later, the place was in darkness, the car gone.’
‘Did you go in?’
He shook his head. ‘Ah took a couple tins and left. If ah’d known it wis goan tae snow like that ah’d have stayed put.’
49
He looked through the spyhole. The child was asleep, curled in a fetal position in the corner. He had designed the hiding place well. The floor was covered with a plastic mattress, the temperature kept even and comfortably warm. There were suitable books, a supply of water and some food, fresh fruit and a bar of chocolate. The girl had eaten nothing, but she would eventually. By the time he returned she would be very pleased to see him. She would let him do anything he wanted to her without making a fuss.
He didn’t like fuss. He didn’t like mess.
There would be a mess when he came back but a hose-down with warm water would fix that. The girl was his Christmas present to himself and good presents were worth waiting to unwrap. He went back to his laptop and double-checked his booking. The flight would land him at Marco Polo airport in time to deliver his bags to La Residenzia and have lunch at the Corte Sconta. Two days to savour church windows, then home.
From his own window, he looked out on a brilliant moon. The bare arms of the trees at the foot of the garden seemed to stretch upwards like dancers towards the stars.
Another little star for his garden, but not yet, not before he made her dance.
50
‘Chrissy?’ Rhona could hardly speak, she was so relieved. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m in labour.’
‘You’re not!’
‘Of course not. I bet on the ninth of January. I intend to win my bet.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Still at the cottage but no longer alone. Remember the snow-hole guy? Well, he came back. Turns out he’s Private Fergus Morrison. He witnessed the skip murder and I think I’ve persuaded him to turn himself in.’
‘She’s located the missing soldier,’ Rhona told McNab.
Chrissy wasn’t finished. ‘He’s been hanging about the cottage, sleeping in the shed, working his way through Claire’s store of tins and,’ she paused for effect, ‘he saw a car the night Claire disappeared.’
McNab was watching Rhona’s excited face, trying to make out what was being said on the other end of the phone.
‘He remembered part of the registration number.’
Rhona rifled in her bag for a pen.
‘Go ahead.’ She wrote it down. ‘You’re a star.’
‘Too right I am.’
When Chrissy rang off, Rhona related the news to McNab. ‘It’s a part number, but it might be enough.’
He called the station and asked for an ID on what they had.
‘If it was that sanctimonious wee git …’ he hissed under his breath.
‘We’ll pick him up and get a warrant to search the place. All legal and above board,’ she said.
‘Maybe we’re too late. Maybe that’s why he was so bloody confident.’
‘Maybe he had nothing to be guilty about?’
McNab was making for the door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘If the car turns out to be his, we’re already on our way.’
Twenty minutes later they had a possible ID on the owner of the car.
‘It’s not an exact match with the registration number you gave me, but it’s close.’
‘Name?’
‘Swanson.’
When the officer tried to give them the address, McNab cut him off. ‘I know where the bastard lives.’
He stuck the light on the roof, turned on the siren and drove like hell.
Swanson’s house was in darkness. On the way there McNab had appeared oblivious to Rhona’s remonstrations that they should at least inform Slater what they were about to do.
‘Maybe he’s gone to bed?’
‘It’s not that late.’
There was no car parked outside.
‘He’s not here,’ said Rhona.
McNab pounded on the door anyway. They could hear the sound echo in the hallway. No lights came on and there was no sign of anyone stirring inside.
‘If he was here he would have answered by now,’ said Rhona. ‘Maybe he was spooked by our visit and ran?’
He shook his head. ‘He knew we had nothing. He wasn’t worried, only irritated.’
‘So where is he?’
McNab glanced at his watch. ‘It’s still Christmas Day. Maybe he’s out visiting friends?’
She didn’t fancy the prospect of sitting in the car waiting for Swanson’s return. Not in these temperatures.
‘D’you think you could get us into the workshop without breaking the lock?’
He grinned. ‘A woman after my own heart.’
Ten minutes later McNab pushed open the workshop door and stood back to let Rhona enter. She flicked on the overhead bulb and was stunned again by the myriad of glass colours glinting in its light.
The church window still lay on the bench but Swanson’s own design had gone. She glanced about but could see no sign of it. The surface exposed by its removal was covered by a thin film of ice. The workbench was pale in colour, the ice brown. Rhona chipped a piece free.
‘Remember Swanson said he’d washed the window and the water had frozen? Look.’
She shone her forensic torch on the surface of the ice, highlighting clusters of tiny feathery brown particles. ‘The pattern of peat in water is quite distinctive. On Skye, our water came from a loch and was brown because of the high peat content. When you made ice cubes, they looked like this.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘That Swanson lied about this water and I’m wondering why.’ Rhona slipped the ice into a container.
She selected a piece of red glass.
‘If Swanson tends to stick to the same supplier, the constituents of this could prove a match for our fragment.’
McNab had moved towards a door in the wall that backed on to the side of the house. There was a key on a hook near by. He slipped it in the lock and turned it. She heard him give a low whistle as the door swung open.
‘Lookee here, Dr MacLeod. Someone’s after your job.’
Forensic evidence bags of varying sizes and material were neatly stored on shelving. There were containers for swabs, latex gloves, blood detection kits, just about everything you would need for evidence collection.
McNab shook his head in disbelief. ‘He said he was a CSI fan but this is weird.’
‘Not as weird as this.’
She indicated a row of evidence bags laid out on a table, the labels itemising the contents.
‘Tissues, lipstick, hairbrush, sweets, shoes and an envelope addressed to Mrs Watson.’
‘That’s the address we got from the hospice for the granny.’
‘He must have thought it was Claire’s home address,’ Rhona said.
The final three bags contained an earring, a child’s pencil and a sympathy card. Rhona extracted the card with gloved fingers. Inside was a message of condolence and a promise to be at the crematorium at the allotted time.
McNab had no qualms now about breaking in. Using a glass cutter from a rack of tools in the workshop, he cut a circle in the kitchen window and made his entrance.
He made for the stairs while Rhona walked round the lower rooms. There was nothing unusual. No locked doors, nothing to suggest that Swanson had brought Claire and Emma here. She followed McNab upstairs to the bedroom. The stained-glass window they’d viewed in the workshop hung at the foot of the bed. Several other designs, similar yet different, were displayed round the walls.
Swanson had suggested the work wasn’t a representation of anything in particular but Rhona wasn’t so sure. At a distance the swirling shapes took on a more concrete form.
‘I think that’s a picture of a young girl,’ she said suddenly.
McNab came over.
‘The opalescent glass is her hair. See there, the small red sections look like drops of blood.’
They cast horrified glances round the other pictures, trying to find images hidden in the patterns.
‘What has he done?’
‘I think we should call Magnus,’ said Rhona.
This time McNab didn’t argue.
51
He took the motorway to Glasgow then headed south on the A1. The flight from Newcastle airport was ridiculously early, but it would be worth it to be in Venice by midday.
The gritters were out in force. The icy conditions reminded him of the film of water on his workshop table and he was irritated with himself for not cleaning it up. Despite his annoyance, the cold crispness of the surrounding countryside brought him pleasure. That and the anticipation of seeing Venice again.
He turned on the radio. The BBC was replaying the earlier service of carols and readings. He hummed along with his favourites, learned in childhood and never forgotten.
He allowed himself to think about the room and the sleeping child. It had been so long, he’d almost imagined it never happening again, then suddenly the possibility had arisen when he wasn’t seeking it. His patience and self-denial had been rewarded. It was a pity that he had had to leave her so soon, but it wouldn’t be for long.
For a brief moment he pictured McCarthy. He saw the puffy face, the red gums, the disgusting teeth. He would never visit McCarthy again. He would explain to the governor that the visits were causing him too much distress. He had done his bit, well beyond the call of duty.
He followed the signs for the airport and headed for long-stay parking, eventually finding a free space in the far bottom corner of the car park. The walkway to the terminal was frosted and icy in places. He took care, placing his feet cautiously, anxious not to fall. Age did that to you, he mused, made you more careful about everything.
The checkin desk was open. He joined the short queue and mentally sized up the passengers bound for Venice with him, finding no one of interest.
The young woman manning the desk had a thick Geordie accent to match her make-up. She smiled brightly at him, asking the usual silly questions about someone else having access to his luggage. If he’d said yes, he doubted she would have noticed.
Once through security he made for the café and ordered a full English breakfast and a large mug of coffee, his last fast food before the delights of Venetian cooking.
52
It would soon be light. A thin red streak marked the horizon. In the pre-dawn, the vested officers looked like yellow spectres moving among the trees. Rhona was reminded of that other night, when a little girl found a skull in the woods. She prayed that whatever special ability Emma possessed, it wouldn’t be the reason she died.
They’d searched the house and workshop thoroughly. Apart from the exhibits in the forensic room there was no further evidence to link Swanson with Claire and Emma’s disappearance. Swanson hadn’t returned and they had no idea where he was.
As the sun rose the extent of Swanson’s garden became more apparent, his attention to detail evident in the ornamental layout, trim paths, shrubberies and neat greenhouse. At the foot of the garden was a small orchard of apple trees and the skeletal forms of bare birch and rowan trees.
Magnus arrived with the dawn. Rhona was surprised how pleased she was to see the tall figure ease himself from the car and walk towards her. Magnus looked stressed, and she wanted to apologise for not telling him about Emma’s disappearance earlier. She shouldn’t have let him discover it via a news broadcast. She knew if she tried to apologise he would dismiss it, saying he wasn’t officially involved with the case and didn’t have to be included in the latest developments. But she knew he’d be thinking of what had gone wrong the last time and how he had failed them.
‘Anything?’ he said hopefully.
Rhona shook her head.
He t
ook a deep breath. ‘Show me the workshop.’
The powerful fluorescent strips seemed to excavate every corner. In the stark light Magnus looked even worse. Rhona had grown used to McNab’s pummelled face as the bruises developed in colour from mottled purple to a frightening yellowish-green. Magnus hadn’t been beaten up but his eyes were bruised too, from lack of sleep or from worry.
His eyes swept the room. He stood for a moment then took a deep breath, assimilating and analysing what his strong sense of smell was picking up. He approached the work table and touched the icy film, then tasted his finger.
‘He doesn’t store any gardening stuff in here? Soil bags, fertiliser, anything like that?’
‘No.’
‘This area smells of something peat-based. The ice tastes of it too. How did the water get here?’
Rhona described their visit to the workshop with Swanson, his enthusiasm about stained glass and the delight he’d taken in showing off his own design.
‘He said he washed the window and the water froze.’
Magnus shook his head. ‘Something lay here. Something in a state of decay.’
She explained that Swanson had been at Claire’s mother’s funeral and had probably followed the three of them to the wood.
‘Then I think there’s a possibility he removed something from the loch and brought it here.’
Neither of them voiced what that something might have been. Emma may well have been right.
‘Show me the back room.’
She led him through to Swanson’s lab.
He surveyed the pristine whiteness, the neat rows of materials. He approached the exhibits Swanson had collected on his victims, picking them up one by one to study. Rhona saw distress on his face as he examined Emma’s pencil, the half-eaten packet of sweets. Swanson’s hoard consisted of the casual items of Claire and Emma’s lives, abandoned, lost, unmissed; yet now they were all that remained of the missing mother and child.
‘I’d like to look at the house now.’
Magnus paced through the downstairs, then climbed to the upper level. He checked the spare room first. It looked unused, the bed unmade, the duvet and pillows folded neatly at the foot.