A rustling. A moment later she understood that this sound was what had woken her. She froze. Somewhere deep in her psyche she knew the sounds were being made by a human. She felt the panic rising in her throat but stayed very still and listened, eyes open in the dark, gradually adjusting to the orange tint of the street lights outside seeping through the thick curtains. Monica whispered, ‘Mum?’
There was no reply, just the sound coming from the corner of the room. Her parents’ old dresser. Dad’s cupboard. Monica blinked again until she began to make something out. A black shape moving in the dark hours of the night, something small and malevolent, busying itself.
Monica stared at the shape for several seconds then reached for the lamp by the sofa, felt her fingers close around the plastic switch and clicked it on.
She could see the small back, the blue teddy bear pyjamas, the wild blonde hair.
‘Lucy?’ She sat up on the sofa. Her daughter was sitting on the floor at the far end of the living room, the cupboard door open. From Monica’s position it seemed she was holding something. The rustling sound was her sliding it along the floor. ‘Lucy?!’ Monica repeated her daughter’s name, louder this time. Fear washed over her as the little girl in the corner showed no sign of responding or even of hearing Monica’s voice. She stood and crossed the floor.
The cupboard door was open. Dad’s cupboard. How had Lucy unlocked it? Slowly she reached out and laid a hand on her daughter’s small shoulder. Felt the familiar warmth of her body through her cotton pyjamas.
‘Are you awake, honey?’ She heard the shake in her own voice as she crouched to look at her. Lucy’s blue eyes were glazed, still asleep. Monica glanced down. Clenched between Lucy’s small hands was an old address book about the size of an iPhone. Monica realised that it belonged to her mother. She hadn’t seen it in years. With her own hand shaking, Monica reached and took it. Lucy lifted her head, her glazed eyes on Monica again, then she fell forward into Monica’s arms. Completely asleep.
CHAPTER 62
The morning smells of an office returning to life – brewing coffee and bacon rolls in this case – met Monica as she pushed the Major Incident Room door open. Her hair was still damp from the rushed shower she’d taken before leaving her mum’s. Lucy had only stirred when Monica laid her back down in bed. ‘Where did you find the key, honey?’ The key to her dad’s old cupboard that she and her mother had thought lost for years.
Lucy had shaken her head. ‘I don’t remember. I must have found it when I was playing …’
Monica blinked and caught a glimpse of herself in the glass panel of the door. Her reflection looked exactly like someone who’d had about four hours’ sleep in the last two days. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, glanced around the office looking for Crawford. Hoping he’d picked her up a coffee when he’d bought his own from his favourite place – Coffee Affair in the centre of Inverness.
There was no sign of him, but her eyes stopped on DC Ben Fisher instead. Noticing something unusual: the way he was strangely motionless, staring straight ahead at the screen in front of him. Monica took a step towards him. Glad to have something to focus on for a moment that wasn’t Lucy and her sleepwalking. Fisher was dressed in his usual smart suit, his dark hair as neat as always, but he looked ill. His face painted white with shock. She looked around the office for a second time. Was she missing something? But the other officers in the room appeared to be acting normally.
‘Fisher?’ He didn’t seem to hear her. She flapped a hand in front of his eyes.
He blinked and finally turned to look at her. ‘Monica?’ She was sure it was the first time he’d ever used her first name, always preferring DI Kennedy or, worse, ma’am. He gestured at the screen. ‘The cars,’ he mumbled. ‘From the garage.’
‘What about them?’ Registration details were on the screen. Blue 2017 BMW M4. She stopped on the name of the registered keeper. ‘Annabelle Whittaker?’
‘I know her.’ Monica heard the catch in his voice. ‘She’s … well, I suppose you’d say she’s my stepsister.’
‘Your stepsister?’ She couldn’t quite believe what he’d said.
‘It’s her name.’
‘But …’ It took Monica about half a second to remember the strange text message. After that she had absolutely no doubt that Annabelle Whittaker was part of their investigation, that if she wasn’t already dead then she was in terrible danger.
‘Have you heard where that text message came from?’
‘Text message?’ In his shocked state Fisher obviously had no idea what she was talking about.
‘Fisher!’ She raised her voice and the whole room stopped. ‘The text message? We thought it was a wind-up, a few days ago?’
‘I haven’t chased it up. I assumed it was a prank, then everything yesterday with MacGregor … It just went out of my mind.’
An hour later Hately and Monica were sitting with Fisher in the detective superintendent’s office as they tried to make sense of exactly what was going on with their investigation. To be certain the text really was from Annabelle they had logged on to Fisher’s Facebook account and checked the number against Annabelle’s, rarely updated, profile. The numbers matched.
‘How do we know Annabelle isn’t our woman from MacGregor’s?’ Hately asked, face set in a frown.
‘It was the first thing I checked,’ Monica said with a sigh, rubbing her face. What a fucking mess. ‘She’s at least thirty years older than Annabelle.’
Hately took a deep breath. ‘What steps have you taken so far? You’ve contacted the family?’ He glanced at Fisher, and Monica caught Hately’s expression, which mirrored her own thoughts: This is strange, this whole thing is strange. ‘The rest of the family?’
Fisher was staring at a framed photograph of Hately’s own smiling family on his desk – wife, two teenage sons. ‘I’m trying to contact my …’ Fisher struggled with the word, as if he couldn’t bring himself to say it. ‘My stepfather,’ he said finally. ‘Joel Whittaker. He’s always busy, difficult to get hold of.’
Monica couldn’t miss the hint of bitterness in Fisher’s voice. She watched as he took his glasses off, put them on again with shaking hands. He seemed almost beside himself, as the reality of the situation – the danger Annabelle was in – began to sink in.
‘DC Khan’s tracking down Annabelle’s bank details to find out when she last used her cards, and Crawford’s chasing the phone records right now,’ Monica said. ‘I thought we might be able to find her intended destination from the car’s satnav, but it was smashed in the impact.’
Hately nodded. ‘Do you know where Annabelle lives, Fisher? Why she was up here?’
A flash of uncharacteristic anger crossed Fisher’s face. The same suppressed rage that led to the night at The Clach, Monica guessed. ‘I don’t know her,’ he said quietly, jaw tight as he battled to control his emotions. ‘I’ve only met her once, briefly.’
Monica stared hard at Fisher because what he was saying didn’t add up. ‘But she came up here, sent the message to you?’ Did Fisher know more than he was letting on? Was he involved somehow? But why would he have shown them the message if so?
Fisher took a deep breath, face red now, eyes locked to the floor. Probably running through the same thought processes as she was. Aware of how suspicious his position could look.
‘We met a few months ago, the first and only time. At a wedding. My mum was marrying Annabelle’s dad.’
‘You weren’t happy about this?’ This seemed obvious to Monica from his tone of voice.
‘I liked Joel at first. I knew Mum had been lonely. He seemed … perfect for her, almost too good to be true. He worked as a management consultant, had his own business, was financially secure. He proposed to her after less than three months together. It just … started to feel wrong.’
This was a story Monica had heard before. ‘What happened?’
‘Little things. He was supposed to come to my grandparents’ anniversary party bu
t never showed up. Mum was worried, phoning hospitals. Afterwards it all got swept under the carpet – he was busy with work, he said. Then a couple of months before the wedding he finally told my mum that he had a daughter from a previous marriage. Annabelle. Supposedly she’s a nightmare who had caused all sorts of problems for him over the years, but now he wants her to come to the wedding …’ Fisher glanced up at Monica, then at Hately.
‘You were worried for your mum?’ Monica asked.
‘It was a difficult time. While I was working on the case, last year. I told my mum she shouldn’t marry him, I said I wouldn’t come to the wedding …’
‘But you ended up going, and that’s where you met Annabelle?’ Monica asked.
‘We were sitting next to each other at the meal. It was strange, I can tell you. Meeting your new stepsister who you didn’t know existed until a few weeks ago.’
‘What’s she like?’
‘I don’t know – slim, dark hair … She was always on her phone …’
‘But is there anything that could actually help us find her?’ Hately barked, tapping his finger on the desk now, clearly impatient.
‘My mum told me that she’d … had difficulties, was vulnerable.’ Fisher’s eyes dropped back to the floor.
‘Vulnerable how?’ Monica asked.
‘She used to self-harm, when she was a teenager. I think she had to leave university – some kind of breakdown.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘She said she liked driving,’ Fisher offered. ‘I told her the Highlands were good for touring. Maybe that’s why she came up here.’
Monica nodded. ‘Do you think her father could be involved in Annabelle’s disappearance?’ First rule of serious crime: look to the family, and if Fisher’s descriptions were reliable, Joel Whittaker clearly exhibited narcissistic traits.
‘I don’t see how. He was working in Paris. He said he hates Scotland, made a point of telling me it’s not worth visiting. He doesn’t know anyone up here.’ Monica felt a flutter of disappointment. A neat connection between Joel Whittaker, MacGregor and Sinclair would have been convenient at this point.
‘There was no animosity between them at the wedding?’
‘Joel and Annabelle? I don’t think so … I can’t remember it too well … I drank a lot. I’m afraid I made a bit of a scene. Tried to have a quiet word with him, which didn’t exactly go down well … I ended up sitting on my own in the side bar. Annabelle came over. I thought she was going to have a go, but it was like she was thinking the same things about her dad …’ Monica nodded Fisher on, her detective’s instinct sensing some kind of confession. ‘We drank a lot. I told her I was having a hard time at work, and we ended up going back to her room. I woke up beside her the next morning. I couldn’t believe I could be so stupid.’ Fisher was speaking in a monotone now. ‘I just left and started walking. The hotel was in the country, and I just walked on until I got to a train station, then I came back up here. I don’t do things like that … I don’t break the rules: never used to drink, don’t smoke, keep things in order. It was like I was just as bad as Joel. I warn my mum off him then act like that at their wedding … It was like the case last year had changed things – society’s rules just seemed like … inventions.’ Fisher ran a shaking hand down the dark wool of his perfectly cut suit, seeming to find comfort in his pristine exterior, such a contrast to his internal turmoil. ‘I knew Annabelle was vulnerable. I just complicated everything … Afterwards I think I sort of blanked it all out.’
‘You need to unblank it, Fisher,’ Monica said softly. ‘Do you know anything about this? You’re telling us you slept with her. Now she’s turned up in a double murder investigation. Did she come up here to see you? Had you planned to meet her?’
‘I must have given her my number when we were drunk. It’s the only explanation.’ His eyes went from Monica to Hately. ‘But I’ve never heard from her. Honestly.’
CHAPTER 63
Monica entered the interview room and sat down opposite Francis MacGregor. The murders that had just yesterday been the main focus of the investigation had now almost been sidelined by the news about Annabelle. Her head was still reeling from the implications. I’m being held hostage but I’ve escaped. The parallel with what they’d discovered upstairs in MacGregor’s house was obvious. Was Annabelle still alive? Was the person who took her sitting right across from her?
She raised her head to look at MacGregor. Took in his thick grey hair and white beard. His eyes were blue, laughter lines carved in deep on either side of his face. Someone who had spent his life mocking the world and enjoying every minute of it. Her eyes ran down to his hands, marked with small scars, the skin toughened to leather. Up close he had aged remarkably well. If it hadn’t been for his hair and beard he might have passed as two decades younger than his fifty-nine years.
DC Khan came into the room a moment later. Monica clocked MacGregor’s eyes following the younger detective and felt momentarily protective of her. It was the first time they’d conducted an interview together, and in truth Monica would have been more comfortable with the familiarity of having Crawford beside her. But she needed him, a more experienced investigator than Khan even though he was a few years younger, to start figuring out just exactly where Annabelle might be.
‘Tell us about the woman, Francis,’ Monica said after the formal introductions for the recording.
‘Do I have to?’ he replied in a lazy drawl, leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head, addressing Khan rather than Monica.
‘Here or in court,’ Monica said. ‘We can keep you on remand for that rifle you were carrying, unlicensed.’
MacGregor raised an eyebrow but didn’t move his hands. He was wearing faded blue jeans and a white T-shirt. His arms were tanned brown and the muscles stood out on them. He looked strong across the chest too. For a moment Monica wondered if his youthful appearance might be explained by some kind of hormone supplementation.
‘Do you know Theo Gall?’
‘Not familiar.’
‘What about Sebastian Sinclair? Sinclair Enterprises.’
‘The famous Sinclairs! I’ve heard of them, but …’ He shrugged and pursed his lips. ‘Not really my kind of people.’
‘Who are your kind of people?’
‘Not them.’
‘Do you know a young woman called Annabelle Whittaker?’
MacGregor shook his head.
‘No? You like people you can manipulate, don’t you?’ MacGregor stared back at her but didn’t reply. ‘People like Beverly MacIntosh?’ Monica said, referring to the historical case Crawford had described. The teenager whose parents were allegedly killed by MacGregor’s gang.
A little smirk ran across his face, and he waved his hand as if he were wafting away a bad smell. ‘The MacIntoshes. People talk about that like …’
‘Like what?’
‘Like it was a big deal. The MacIntoshes were an unpleasant couple from what I gather.’ He broke into a wide smile, and Monica caught the glint of a gold tooth from the back of his mouth.
‘How so?’
‘They kept that poor girl on a tight leash. Never let her evolve into the best version of herself.’
‘She was a teenager when they were murdered. They didn’t get much of a chance to help her evolve.’
‘No?’ MacGregor finally dropped his hands to his lap, tilted his face up as if he were posing for a portrait. ‘Well. Things were different then. For us young people. It was a time for freeing ourselves. From all those old ideas.’
‘By killing people?’
MacGregor put his hands on the table and leaned forward so his blue eyes were close to Monica’s. ‘Beverly MacIntosh did what she did. She evolved. Served her time. You want to know where she is now?’
The lines at the corner of his eyes were creased up with satisfaction at what he was about to tell her.
‘You met her yesterday,’ he said softly. As if he were delivering the l
ast line in a bedtime story. ‘Her love never died. She came back to me, voluntarily.’ Monica tried very hard not to let the horror she was feeling show on her face. ‘She came home five years ago. Not long after she was released from prison. That’s a love story for the ages, isn’t it?’
‘No,’ Monica said after a moment of stunned silence. ‘If what you’re saying is the truth, I’d say she’s a very sick woman.’
MacGregor’s face fell slightly at that. ‘I can see you’re no romantic, Detective. What about you?’ He turned to DC Khan. ‘You understand. Even though you try to hide it. From all the rest of them. The way you’re trying to hide it from me now. I can see it though. It shines out of you, no matter how hard you try to contain it.’ His voice was low and had a strangely unsettling quality. Before either of the women could reply, he was standing up. ‘I take it we’re finished here? You’ll need to clear things up about Beverly, I suppose? Maybe it would be better if she stayed in hospital for a while.’
Monica slowly stood up herself and stared down at MacGregor – she was about four inches taller than him. ‘No. We’re not finished. Not by a long way.’
He stared back at her for long moments, then sank down, spreading himself across the chair. His eyes drilled into Monica’s like they might be the only two people in the world.
‘You’re different, Detective. DI Kennedy. I think we’d get on well together.’ He ran a hand through his long hair, leaned back, arms spread wide on the seat. Looking completely relaxed and comfortable.
Let’s see how long that holds up for, Monica thought. Quietly relishing the opportunity to present MacGregor with the evidence they’d so far gathered from the garage. She made a show of taking some pages from a file and placing them on the table between them, face down.
‘You’ve been successful in your businesses, Francis? Haven’t you?’
‘Buying at the right time. Spotting an opportunity. People up here are too cautious. It’s the Highland way, I suppose. The heirlooms of defeat, of being a subjugated people.’
Dark Waters Page 21