Dark Waters

by G. R. Halliday

  ‘Put some music on, would you?’

  Crawford grunted a response and fiddled with his phone. Moments later sounds filled the car. ‘Gone With The Wind Is My Love’ by Rita & The Tiaras, according to the display. Seemed that Crawford was having a soul music moment. Maybe that’s what the tan leather jacket’s all about, she thought, glancing at him again. It did look good, she had to admit.

  ‘You ever worry about losing people, Crawford. People close to you?’ she heard herself say. ‘How you might be fucking people up with the things you do?’

  He shrugged, eyes fixed on the road ahead. ‘I guess everyone’s fucked up, aren’t they?’ He hit the indicator and slowed the car to take a right turn. ‘That’s what our job’s about, isn’t it?’ A mist of water sprayed up on the tarmac behind them.

  She glanced at him again, and her eyes landed on his wristwatch, sure she’d never seen it before. It was on a metal bracelet, old and battered. ‘You don’t normally wear that?’

  Crawford shrugged, glanced at the watch then held it up for her to see. ‘It was my great-grandad’s.’ She took his wrist and looked at the manufacturer’s name on the watch face. It was in the Cyrillic alphabet.

  ‘Is it Russian?’

  ‘He was a deep-sea diver, found it on a Russian boat. That was why I started diving a couple of years ago. It sounded terrifying and I hate the water, but I sort of wanted to see what it felt like …’

  Monica nodded and let go of his wrist. She wondered for a moment about the need some men seemed to have to follow in the footsteps of their ancestors. To prove themselves against some imaginary ideal.

  The road led away from the coast, inland towards the mountains. Finally the satnav directed Crawford to take another right and they arrived at a grand entrance archway constructed from bright yellow sandstone. A sign read SINCLAIR ENTERPRISES in solid purple lettering, a purple-and-white flag fluttering on either side of it.

  ‘You think this could be it?’ he muttered sardonically as they passed under the archway and followed the road through a section of forest before the landscape opened out. On the right there was a cul-de-sac of what looked like show homes, built in a range of styles from grey 1970s bungalows, 1980s red brick, to a modern sandstone detached house. A three-dimensional history of the company’s housebuilding, Monica realised. While straight ahead on a small hill a much larger building overlooked the houses.

  As Monica got out of the car she could see the beginning of the Cairngorm plateau in the far distance, a place where the last ice age lingered in tundra-like conditions throughout the year.

  ‘What was Sebastian Sinclair driving?’ Monica asked as they crossed the car park. ‘Last time he was seen?’

  ‘A blue BMW,’ Crawford said. Monica glanced around the car park at the array of expensive vehicles – Range Rovers, BMWs (none of them blue), Mercedes, a Porsche Cayenne. Clearly there was money in housebuilding, as if anyone didn’t know. And she wondered for a second about the people who did the menial tasks, the cleaning, the filing. Did they drive BMWs and Mercedes too? Or was there a hidden car park at the back? One for people like her mum, who used to drive a Fiat Cinquecento to her job as a dinner lady at a private school, with the staff cars parked round the back, and space for the parents’ expensive, always clean vehicles at the front. It made sense and maybe told her a little something about the culture of the company. Money up front, little secrets round the back.

  The receptionist at the front desk gave them a warm smile though. As if the most exciting thing that had happened to her in this lifetime was the appearance of the strange duo at her desk. Monica saw them through this woman’s eyes: the small good-looking man in his brown leather jacket and the tall thin woman who most closely resembled a ghoul in the threadbare tweed coat that hung around her like a cloak.

  ‘Are you here to see the new Caledonian?’ the woman asked, referring, Monica supposed, to the newest of the show homes they had passed. ‘The reception’s just down by the entrance, the house with the flag outside. I’ll buzz them to say you’re here.’

  ‘Actually we’re here to see Heather Sinclair.’

  The woman’s face changed, surprise sliding in to replace her fixed smile.

  ‘Oh, let me see. Do you have an appointment?’

  Monica dug in her pocket for her warrant card and laid it on the counter. ‘She’ll want to see us. We’re here about her brother.’

  The woman nodded and punched something into the phone, turned away to speak into the receiver. Monica glanced around the spacious reception area as the woman carried on her whispered conversation. The room was dominated by a series of large photographs. Pictures that appeared to be from the 1960s and 70s of housing estates, several huge dams. Monica recognised one of the Kessock Bridge. The message was clear: the Sinclair family built the modern Highlands.

  ‘You can go up now,’ the woman said, clearly surprised by this turn of events. ‘Third floor. Lift’s over there.’

  Monica nodded, then asked her, ‘What kind of car do you drive?’

  ‘What kind of car?’ She shrugged at the strange question. ‘A little Vauxhall Agila. Why?’

  CHAPTER 36

  Heather Sinclair stood waiting for them when they emerged from the glass lift onto the third floor. She was small but upright with the posture of a dancer or yoga practitioner. Dressed down in loose jeans, a white shirt like Monica’s own, with a thin green cardigan that looked thrown on, tatty even, but somehow seriously expensive. Her light brown hair was pulled back in a loose bun. She would have looked young for her age (forty-six, Monica knew from the company’s website), but she was clearly tired, wore no make-up and her eyes were red-rimmed with grief.

  Monica introduced herself and Crawford, held her warrant card out. Sinclair glanced vacantly at it and Monica could tell immediately why she hadn’t met them that morning. She was visibly shocked by the news of her brother’s death; probably the appointment hadn’t even registered with her. It was interesting though: in her grief she’d taken herself here, to her office, rather than stay at home.

  ‘We thought you’d rather speak to us here than at the station. We just have a few questions,’ Monica said, half expecting Sinclair to brush her off, tell her to arrange a time with her solicitor.

  She nodded though. ‘Now’s fine.’ The accent was mid-Atlantic, as if she’d spent a long time living abroad. She turned to walk across the room. The flooring was reclaimed wood, a large open-plan space with huge windows towards the Cairngorms. It was an impressive view, an impressive room. Sinclair sat on a battered chesterfield sofa that faced the mountains. Monica noticed that she never glanced back to check they were following her. A hint of arrogance, an assumption that others would always follow? Monica felt a flicker of attraction towards the woman; she had always been drawn to strength. When combined with moments of unashamed vulnerability it could be a heady mix. She and Crawford sat on chairs opposite. A large wood burner heated the room; the stove’s door was open, and the fire purred gently in the still space.

  ‘I hate whisky. It’s weird. When I heard this morning …’ She nodded at the table in front of her, a bottle of fourteen-year-old Tomatin, a glass beside it. ‘Is that a good one? When I lived in Japan, malt whisky was practically all they’d talk about when they heard you were Scottish. I never tasted it until my dad died. It was in his will I had to try some.’ She shook her head at the memory. There was about a quarter out of the bottle, but Heather Sinclair seemed completely sober. Hard to drown grief in whisky, Monica thought. Though plenty had tried.

  Crawford cleared his throat. ‘They do a sherry cask one as well. It’s good …’ Sinclair glanced over at the sound of his voice. Her eyes running over his face, down his chest to his hands. What looked, to Monica, like a relatively blunt sexual appraisal. One of the instinctive responses to bereavement, like it might just be possible to fuck death into non-existence.

  Monica cleared her own throat. ‘Your brother … He came to a meeting with you here o
n Friday the nineteenth of April. What did you talk about?’

  Sinclair let out a deep sigh. ‘Money,’ she finally said after a long silence.

  ‘The business?’

  Sinclair’s hand went to the glass, hesitated. ‘What happened to my brother? How did he end up in that glen, like that?’ The horror of the situation edged into her voice despite the whisky. And Monica hoped that she wouldn’t insist on seeing what was left of her big brother, that she would trust in the DNA and the dental records. Much better to remember him as he had been than as the bloated horror in Raigmore mortuary.

  ‘We’re still in the early stages of the investigation,’ Monica replied slowly. Hoping that her own horror as she accessed the memory of the thing on the metal tray stayed hidden from her face. Just a few days had passed since then, although it seemed as if the two dismembered men had been part of her life for weeks now. ‘We’re following up several lines of inquiry, but at the moment it seems you were the last person Sebastian spoke with before he went missing. Other than the attendant who sold him petrol after he left here.’ Crawford had followed up on the final payment from Sebastian Sinclair’s credit card to a petrol station on the west side of Inverness. The attendant actually remembered serving Sebastian because of his distinctive BMW and the platinum American Express card he used to pay. Heather Sinclair took a sip of the whisky and grimaced. ‘Did you receive any ransom demands? Any communications about Sebastian in the three weeks between him going missing and his body being recovered?’ Monica asked. A kidnapping would explain why Heather Sinclair had apparently kept the news of his disappearance out of the press.

  ‘There was nothing like that. Sebastian’s done this before,’ she replied, as if reading Monica’s thoughts. ‘Taken off without telling anyone. This time he came to me asking about money. The conversation didn’t go well. I thought he was annoyed. I thought …’ Her voice died away.

  ‘What exactly was he asking about?’

  Heather glanced around the room. Her eyes fell on a large framed photograph on the wall, a portrait of a man in his seventies or thereabouts. He had thick white hair, a narrow, lined face with high cheekbones, intense, staring eyes. ‘That’s my dad, Innes Sinclair,’ she said when she noticed Monica looking at the image too. ‘Built all this from nothing. Half of the Highlands too. The Big Boy, that’s what his friends used to call him. He pretended not to like it …’

  Monica felt a second of discomfort as she remembered her own father, his buffoonery and his fawning friends. Our Long John Kennedy …

  ‘Sebastian wanted to be like him?’

  Heather’s eyes met Monica’s, and for a moment understanding seemed to pass between them.

  ‘Dad was always hard on Sebastian. Could never understand why my brother wasn’t better, more driven, more assertive. He was softer with me. Because I was younger, because I don’t have a dick. Like anything I could do competently was a minor miracle because I’m female. He was old-fashioned like that at first.’ Monica nodded, despite the uncomfortable associations; she was pleased to finally be getting a more fleshed out picture of Sebastian Sinclair. ‘I went off to Tokyo, then Los Angeles after university. Sebastian stayed here, groomed to take over the business, but … My dad asked me to come back in 2008, after the crash. When he died he left me in charge of the important parts of the company. Sebastian got the … well, the “leftovers”, he called it – the “shit”.’

  ‘What did that refer to exactly?’

  ‘My dad was involved in all kinds of businesses over the years. Not just building and civil engineering. He’d get up at five in the morning and start working, go to bed at midnight. He owned pubs, restaurants, garages, you name it.’ Monica nodded again, pleased that what Heather was telling them chimed with what Crawford had mentioned earlier. ‘Sebastian got what was left of that. My dad was an old-fashioned Highland businessman. It tells you something about how he saw Sebastian that he’d leave that lot to him, the main parts to his younger sibling, a female too …’

  ‘I take it Sebastian wasn’t happy about this?’ This information seemed to have been kept private. The public image was of the two siblings, running the company as partners.

  ‘No, he wasn’t. He idolised my dad. Wanted to be just like him, but it’s like he couldn’t understand what that takes. My dad worked fourteen hours a day, 365 days a year. Not many people have got that in them. Sebastian liked to spend money, to play the role of the successful businessman, always wanted more money, to feel important, but …’

  Monica added the new pieces of information into her picture of Sebastian Sinclair, a disappointment to the father he idolised, resentful of his younger sister. Outside the window the clouds above the Cairngorm plateau were moving quickly, hinting at a coming storm. Heather seemed forthcoming, but Monica could tell that she was also highly intelligent. What might she be holding back? What might those small business entanglements have involved?

  ‘Do you have any idea who might have wanted your brother dead?’

  Before Heather could answer, the lift doors opened and two men came out, both dressed in dark suits. She glanced over, held up a hand to show that she wouldn’t be long.

  ‘I’ve got to go. I have to speak to the team now.’

  ‘You probably heard there was another body found yesterday. In the same glen as Sebastian. A man named Theo Gall. Not long before he died, Gall told his family that he’d started working for the Sinclairs.’

  A series of micro expressions passed across Heather’s face so fast that Monica couldn’t read them. Finally she sighed, reached for the whisky again. ‘Sebastian did this kind of thing. Someone meets him, thinks they’re talking to a gold mine. Sebastian gets caught up in some business idea …’ Heather went to stand up.

  ‘Theo Gall was a career offender, a violent man. This wasn’t some business idea.’

  Heather stared down, her intelligent eyes scanning Monica’s face. Finally she said, ‘Sebastian wasn’t a bad man … There were rumours. Things my dad had heard, that Sebastian got himself mixed up in things over the years. I never asked for details and it was absolutely nothing to do with Sinclair Enterprises.’ Her eyes seemed to harden as she said this, and Monica sensed the implicit warning. ‘Whatever he was doing he kept it away from me and the business.’

  CHAPTER 37

  Marcus must have heard the girl’s shouts because he came running uphill through the forest and onto the road. His face was drawn tight, his lips thin. Annabelle glanced back at the phone and hit Send.

  ‘Well, that was stupid, wasn’t it?’ he said.

  Annabelle stared up at him. He’d taken his jacket off at some point and the grey T-shirt underneath was stained dark with sweat. The phone was still in her shaking hand. The screen had gone black now, the battery finally dead. He snatched it from her hand and pushed it into the back pocket of his jeans.

  ‘You have to let me go, Marcus.’ The tears stung her eyes and she felt them running down her cheeks. ‘I want to go home.’ The little girl was silent now and was standing watching them from among the trees, skinny arms hanging down by her sides, a neutral expression on her face.

  Desperately Annabelle turned to her. ‘My name’s Annabelle,’ she heard herself say. ‘Please get someone to help me. I just want to go home.’

  The kid’s expression didn’t change, but after a second she leaned forward. ‘My name’s Annabelle,’ she said, mimicking a southern English accent. ‘Please get someone to help me.’

  ‘Just go home, Lily. This is nothing to do with you,’ Marcus shouted. Then he reached for the handles of the wheelchair. ‘Just forget you saw any of this.’ He spoke to the child as if she were an adult rather than almost twenty years his junior.

  The kid stared back. ‘Get lost, weirdo. You shouldn’t even be out here during the day.’ She turned and ran away through the trees.

  Marcus stared after her for a moment, then wheeled Annabelle back up the slope, through the doors and down the tunnel to her room. She knew
that she should be frantic, kicking and screaming all the way. But it was like something had snapped. She sat frozen in the wheelchair, imagined one of the Seven Dwarves, dressed in his gown and little hat. Somehow he’d got inside her brain. He was going around the tunnels in there, unplugging the connections that led to her emotions. The throbbing from her leg was worse than ever after she’d rattled it around.

  When they were back in the horrible room Marcus scooped her from the chair and laid her back on the bed. ‘The Doctor’s going to want to see you. After all your silliness.’

  ‘Oh Marcus.’ Annabelle found her voice finally, on the verge of hysterical laughter. ‘There’s no doctor. There’s no fucking doctor.’

  Marcus stared down at her with an expression between fear and bemusement on his face. A moment later Annabelle began to understand why, because she heard the metal door to the tunnel clank open. Then heavy footsteps on the tarmac.

  ‘Marcus? Who is that?’ In reply Marcus dropped his eyes to the floor. He shuffled back until he was standing in the corner of the room. Then he wrapped his arms around himself. The slow, heavy footsteps came closer and closer. ‘Who is it, Marcus?’ The sounds stopped outside.

  Annabelle stared at the metal door. It swung slowly open. A man stepped into the room.

  Marcus was hugging himself. Eyes fixed on the floor. The man was tall, a lot taller than Marcus. Wiry with thinning blond hair, the bottom half of his face covered with a surgical mask. He was wearing a white lab coat over dirty blue coveralls, and his long thin fingers were stained dark with engine oil.

  Marcus’s voice came in a whisper: ‘This is the Doctor.’

  But he didn’t look like any doctor Annabelle had ever seen.

  CHAPTER 38

  It was almost 3 p.m. when Heather Sinclair ended their meeting with that hinted warning. Monica would have liked to question the head of Sinclair Enterprises for longer – her instincts told her there was more. Something beyond the woman’s natural impulse to protect the company and her brother’s reputation.