Dark Waters

by G. R. Halliday

  Unexpectedly Gillian pulled the baseball cap off to reveal her head of matted hair. She threw the hat hard across the room and spat on the floor. ‘I told them years ago. It was the Affric Men who did it to him. He told me they would and they did.’

  ‘The Affric Men?’ Monica repeated back. Whatever she had expected Gillian to say – the name of some local ne’er-do-well probably – this wasn’t it. ‘Who are the Affric Men?’

  CHAPTER 11

  Annabelle stared at the mask with horror. She was beginning to realise that she was in trouble. The worst possible trouble. She lay frozen, as if the person, just feet away across the room, might somehow forget she was there.

  ‘I take it we’re in agreement then? You’ll do as you’re told?’

  If you don’t the mask will be strapped tight around your head, probably you’ll be tied to the bed too.

  She realised her head was nodding slightly.

  ‘Good. I could tell you were sensible.’ The person laid the mask on the floor and sat back down. ‘I’ll bring you something to eat soon. The Doctor said it’s important you build your strength, help the leg to heal as best it can.’ Then stood again almost immediately. ‘I’d better go. I shouldn’t really be here.’

  ‘My phone,’ she heard herself whisper. ‘I need my phone.’

  ‘Your phone?’ The person made a snorting sound, something like a laugh. ‘You won’t have to look far. It’s right beside your bed.’

  Annabelle turned her head to the left. She realised that the room was lit by a dim lamp standing on a table close to the bed. Right there beside it was her iPhone. She made an impulsive grab for it, as if it might be snatched away. The feeling of relief was immense as she squeezed it tight in her hand, like spotting an old friend in a distant lonely city.

  ‘I’ll leave you to make your calls.’ A moment later the door clanked shut and Annabelle heard a bolt being drawn closed.

  She stared down at the phone. Her elation faltered when she saw the web of cracks across the black screen. It broke in the crash, of course it did. The tears stung her eyes as she heard the distant sound of a second heavy door slamming shut. It seemed to come from above her, as if she were deep underground.

  For a moment she couldn’t even remember how to switch the iPhone on. She gulped the tears away. Please, please work, please. Finally she remembered that she had to hold the button on the side and the button on the front down at the same time to start it. With shaking finger and thumb she pushed them in and watched as, incredibly, the phone responded. The white apple logo appeared on the screen and relief blossomed in her chest.

  ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ she whispered. Still staring at the screen, phone cupped in her hands like a sacred object. Her mum’s face came into Annabelle’s head. How long had it been since she’d spoken to her? More than a year. Annabelle had tried to talk about her childhood, about her parents’ divorce. Her mum had got annoyed, asked why Annabelle always had to make a fuss, told her that not everything was about her. Annabelle hadn’t tried to see her or even speak to her since. But she would give anything for a five-minute call with her now, with anyone.

  She typed her passcode in. The screen opened with its gloriously efficient movement, revealing the familiar little lozenges of her apps. Her thumb landed on the green phone icon at the bottom right. She hit the Keypad option and quickly typed in 999, then the Call icon. She held the phone to her ear, praying for a voice on the other end of the line.

  There was only silence though.

  Slowly she moved the phone from her ear and looked down at the screen again. ‘No Network Connection’. The space at the top left that normally read ‘O2-UK’ now showed ‘No Service’.

  Of course it did, why else would they have let you have your phone? They were keeping her here. Maybe she’d even die here and no one would ever know.

  For a long time she sat there on that bed, in that musty darkened room, praying for the return of ‘O2-UK’. But no matter how hard she willed it the screen never changed. The deep blackness piled down on her, and as the adrenaline ebbed from her body the pain edged back in a chill tide.

  CHAPTER 12

  Despite being late leaving Little Arklow, Monica was actually among the first of the mothers waiting outside the nursery to collect their children. She completed the drive to Inverness in under forty minutes. A record time, probably. Aided by the caffeine from one of Crawford’s cans of Red Bull she found in the passenger seat pocket. The spring day had turned gloomy and spits of rain were hitting the windscreen as she pulled up. She reached into the rear of the car for her umbrella before she climbed out and went to wait for Lucy by the wall.

  The black umbrella flicked satisfyingly open, and she glanced at the time on her phone: ten minutes early. She should chat to some of the other parents, like a normal person would. Instead she found herself dialling Crawford for an update.

  ‘Fisher and Khan haven’t come up with anything obvious from the house-to-house so far.’ Crawford sounded frustrated at the lack of progress. ‘No abandoned cars down the glens, nothing suspicious. It’s like the body just appeared there, out of thin air.’

  Monica glanced along the street to the other mothers congregating at the nursery entrance. A few curious faces were already turning to glance at the solitary detective. Feeling a moment of paranoia, she allowed herself to imagine what they might be saying about her. What they might know about her. Monica forced an awkward smile back at them. Who didn’t have things from their past they were uncomfortable about? Who hadn’t made mistakes? It would be easier if she were friends with some of them. But unlike her mum, who seemed able to strike up conversations wherever she went, Monica couldn’t do small talk.

  ‘What about the organised-crime angle?’

  ‘I’ve spoken to a few contacts, but if they know anything they’re not saying. Could mean there’s something big, could be nothing … I’ve been asking about Theo Gall, to see if anyone knows what he’s been up to recently. Nothing so far.’

  ‘What about Sebastian Sinclair?’

  ‘Sinclair?’ Crawford sounded surprised she’d even mentioned the name. ‘You’re talking about Inverness royalty, practically. You saw that spread about him and his sister, property magnates. Not one of my contacts, I’m afraid. You’d be better asking Hately. He’s in with that crowd.’ Monica nodded – she hadn’t thought of talking to her boss about it. ‘Seems less likely than Gall though? Don’t you think?’

  Monica tended to agree. But the fact Sinclair’s disappearance hadn’t been reported in the local press niggled her. ‘Probably. We should have the DNA back on the body tomorrow, we’ll know if it matches what we have on file for Gall.’

  ‘I’ve requested DNA from Sinclair’s family too.’

  ‘We’ll speak to his wife about his disappearance tomorrow.’ A thought occurred to her then. ‘Do “the Affric Men” mean anything to you?’

  ‘The Affric Men?’ he repeated back to her. ‘I don’t think so, why?’

  But before she could expand on her conversation with Gillian Keegan the nursery doors were opening and the children were pouring out.

  Monica turned the shower down a little and stuck her hand under the running water to check it was at a child-friendly temperature. Then called Lucy through from the living room where she was watching Horrible Histories on Netflix. A naggingly inappropriate programme for a four-year-old, but Lucy loved it.

  Monica undressed and in the bathroom mirror caught a glimpse of the scar. The thick white mark was six inches long and ran from just above her dark pubic hair to close to her belly button. A permanent physical reminder of the night at that house the previous autumn, of the case that almost made her quit the force. Like she needed one, like the guilt could ever recede. She laid a hand over it, as if blocking it from her sight might somehow hide it from memory too. She shook her head at the notion as Lucy came wandering through and Monica waited dutifully for her daughter’s small, slow fingers to take off the T-shirt
and jeans she was wearing.

  Monica resisted the urge to ruffle that thick mass of blonde curls, something that Lucy had recently taken to protesting against. Instead she watched her daughter in the mirror. She was still cherubic with those curls. Still relatively unselfconscious about her naked body. Monica had tried hard to stop her own bouts of physical self-hatred from being passed on to her daughter. The kid stepped carefully into the shower and Monica reached for the special anti-tangle shampoo she used on Lucy’s hair. So different from her own straight black hair, lined with grey now. She worked the shampoo through the curls, trying hard not to pull at them.

  ‘Did you get to see Grandad’s bones at his funeral?’

  ‘His bones?’ Monica repeated, taken aback. The question was strange even by Lucy’s standards.

  ‘Granny said that lots of people came to his funeral. But it was before I was born so I wasn’t there except in your tummy.’

  ‘You don’t see someone’s bones at their funeral, honey,’ Monica said gently. Her mind was drawn back five years to the scene at Tomnahurich Cemetery. Rows of mourners in black, faces grey. Her mum was correct, there had been lots of people there. Barely one who Monica had felt connected to. She wondered for a moment where Lucy had got the idea you might see someone’s bones at a funeral.

  ‘What was on Horrible Histories?’ Monica asked, sensing this might provide the answer.

  ‘Just “Stupid Deaths”,’ Lucy replied after a moment, referring to a section of the programme that celebrated the unusual ends of historical figures. ‘A king got his leg infected by someone’s head that he cut off and he died from it.’

  ‘Right.’ Monica wondered again if the programme was in any way suitable for a four-year-old. ‘Was there anything else good on it?’ She was keen to steer the conversation away from another reference to her father. But Lucy never replied and stood staring down at the plug hole instead, watching the frothy water spin. Monica tried again, ‘You never told me what you did today at nursery?’ Lucy glanced up at her, shook her head quickly and looked back down, her mind clearly elsewhere now. For a moment Monica pictured herself crouching to glower at the kid, putting the pressure on her to talk. If only getting inside her daughter’s head was as straightforward as forcing evidence from a criminal.

  After the shower she towelled that small body dry then took Lucy through to the bedroom to help her into her pyjamas. Once Lucy had climbed into bed, Monica sighed internally as her daughter’s eyes remained fixed on the ceiling in a preoccupied stare. It was only when Monica leaned in to kiss her goodnight that Lucy finally seemed to realise she was even present.

  ‘Do you think that dreams can be real?’ Lucy asked, her face expressionless as if it were the most everyday question.

  ‘Why do you ask that?’ Monica replied slowly. ‘Did you have another scary one?’

  ‘I dreamed that a lady was trapped in a room,’ Lucy said. ‘I dreamed that she was frightened. A monster wanted to eat her.’

  CHAPTER 13

  An odd chill ran up Monica’s spine at Lucy’s description of her dream, but she tried to keep her voice light. ‘Why did the monster want to eat her?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Lucy shrugged, suddenly wide awake again, turned away and grabbed the book of cats that was inevitably lying on her bedside table. ‘What colour of cat do you like the best? I like ginger ones, especially if they have white patches.’

  After another long conversation about what colour and size of cat she would most like to befriend, Lucy finally drifted off to sleep. Monica went to double-check the front door was locked and bolted, then sat on the sofa. She considered opening one of the bottles of wine in the rack her mum had bought and filled for her, but remembering the stink of booze on Fisher’s breath the night before, she made herself camomile tea instead. She flicked through the collection of records she had inherited from her dad, selected a yellow-and-red LP, slid the record from its sleeve and set it on the turntable without checking the artist. She dragged the headphones over her ears, volume low in case Lucy called. A voice crooned out and Monica checked the sleeve. ‘Indian Love Call’ by someone called Slim Whitman.

  She considered turning the TV on to check what coverage their body had generated in the evening news, but remembered DC Khan had been tasked with keeping track of the media and would inform her of anything significant. Instead she picked up her laptop and typed ‘Affric Men’ into the search engine. Gillian Keegan had refused to elaborate any further earlier that afternoon, insisting Euston Miller had put all the information online somewhere before his death. At the recollection of the name, Monica slid her phone out and typed a message: ‘Could you look into Euston Miller’s death? Suicide in Dog Falls, Glen Affric, four years ago.’ She sent it to Fisher, sensing it might be helpful for him to stay busy.

  She turned back to the laptop. The search had returned ten pages of results. Five minutes of clicking through revealed that most of the sites provided information or services for tourists visiting ‘Scotland’s most beautiful glen’, as Affric was billed. This seemed to confirm her suspicion that the Affric Men only existed in Gillian Keegan’s slightly addled mind. Monica continued scrolling hypnotically down the screen anyway, engrossed by random stories of hillwalkers rescued from the winter mountains or the latest advocate for releasing packs of wolves back into the Highland wilderness.

  Then her eyes caught the words and for the second time that night a chill ran up her spine. Blue letters stood out against a bright background: ‘The Truth about the Affric Men and the Glen Affric Triangle by Euston Miller’.

  ‘Gillian was telling the truth,’ Monica whispered. And involuntarily she glanced out through the gap between the blinds at the dark night sky, the glow of lights from the city. She clicked the link.

  The page that slowly loaded looked not to have been updated since the 1990s. On the left-hand side there was a column of fuzzy images. Under the header was a map of Glen Affric, Glen Mullardoch and Glen Turrit with a lopsided red triangle sketched over the top of it. She hit the first image, the entrance to what looked like a huge tunnel. It opened a gallery featuring a series of black-and-white images of men excavating the tunnel. She scrolled down to read the paragraph beneath: ‘The earliest of the recorded incidents took place in 1954 when the first six-mile-long tunnels were being sunk through the Turrit massif to feed the great loch that was to be dammed up behind the planned Turrit dam …’

  Monica scanned further down the page, impatient to read about the actual incidents Euston Miller was referring to. Her eyes landed on a photograph of the front page of a newspaper dated 10 December 1954. The headline read: BUTCHER RUNS AMOK IN HYDRO TUNNELS. Monica sucked in a breath. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it certainly wasn’t this. She zoomed in to read the faded words.

  It is reported that up to ten men have been killed and a number more trapped after a disgruntled tunnel worker is said to have detonated explosives at the entrance to one of the access tunnels, trapping a significant portion of the day shift within the mountain. Subsequently the man, named locally as former Scottish Hydro employee William McBride, is said to have attacked surviving members of the works gang armed with a shotgun, before turning the weapon on himself. Rescuers were met with scenes of devastation. A number of tunnel workers are still unaccounted for and there are fears that without light they may have become lost among the maze of small exploratory tunnels in the lower reaches of the mountain.

  Monica took a sip of the tea and reflected for a moment on the horror of being lost in a maze of dark tunnels. Somewhere she’d visited in her nightmares recently, more than once.

  She opened a fresh tab and typed: ‘Turrit tunnel collapse William McBride’, expecting a string of results. Surprisingly only a handful came back. Surely such a major event would have a slew of pieces written about it. She tapped on the first result, a short Wikipedia entry which described the incident in less dramatic terms than the newspaper article.

  Early reports on the Tu
rrit Tunnel Tragedy suggested that explosive charges had been deliberately set off by a disgruntled former employee, drilling engineer William McBride, something that his family vigorously denied. A subsequent investigation found that the integrity of the entrance tunnel had been compromised by a lack of adequate bracing to hold the roof in place, and the repeated use of explosives within the tunnel caused the entrance to fail. In all a dozen workers were killed in the accident, making it one of the worst single incidents in the history of Scottish Hydro dam building. Which stands out even in the early years of the hydro projects in the Highlands, when health and safety was notoriously lax.

  Monica set her laptop down on the coffee table and stood up to stretch her back. So was the investigation report nonsense? Or was the newspaper story sensationalised bullshit? Maybe somewhere in between. Either way she still couldn’t see what bearing it had on a murder investigation over sixty years later, regardless of Euston Miller’s theories and his potentially suspicious death.

  Unless, the idea fluttered into her mind, unless there really is something bad about those mountains. The way there’s something bad about Little Arklow. Monica took a mouthful of tea and gazed out at the black skies again.

  CHAPTER 14

  Scott MacConnell turned his head each way, flicking his shoulder-length blond hair out of his face as the panic washed over him. His blood was on fire, and the dark mountains of Glen Turrit loomed over him from all sides.

  He bit his lip, wished he was anywhere but here. And to think …

  To think that for all his life he’d wanted to go travelling, to visit the Scottish Highlands in particular. Ever since he was a little boy growing up in the ass end of nowhere. Or Botha, Alberta, Canada, to give it its proper title. Since he was eight years old he’d known he wanted to travel. During those long hot summers when the prairie was brown with mud, the bitterly cold winters where it was virgin white. Staring at that map of the world on his bedroom wall. Dreaming of the Amazon rainforest, the heat coming off the Sahara Desert. But like most dreams, life had got in the way. Somehow he’d ended up thirty years old with a job and a mortgage. More recently a failed marriage to boot and maybe a broken heart, because it had been her more than him. He’d wanted a family, she didn’t. He’d pushed the point and it was a deal-breaker.