Dark Waters

by G. R. Halliday

  Finally she said, ‘It’s out of our hands. Our job is to focus on the Slates for now. Find out who knew what. What the hell happened with Sinclair and Gall.’ Word of what had been done to the man in the tunnel had inevitably leaked from Raigmore Hospital. Sparking rumours that the Slates were a family of cannibals. ‘The media are going to be all over this.’ Once again she felt pleased to have had DC Maria Khan on the team; she had so far proved adept at handling the swell of media interest.

  Crawford took a long pull on his second bottle of lager. He’d finished his first before Monica had even touched her own vodka and orange juice.

  ‘I still don’t get it,’ he said, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. ‘Why leave Gall and Sinclair where they could be found?’

  Monica sipped her own drink, looking around the noisy bar. The alcohol was soothing. Softening at least some of the rough edges off the long day. A day of horror mixed with the boredom of waiting for news. She glanced back at Crawford. His bright green eyes, the red stubble across his face. His hands were on the table, one on either side of his beer. For a moment she had the impulse to reach over and lay one of her hands on top of his. Maybe they could go back to his flat. What difference would one night in bed make when that day they’d already walked down into hell together?

  Crawford cleared his throat. ‘Can’t stop thinking of her down there. Not being able to do anything …’ His voice faded. ‘Fisher said that Annabelle’s mum and dad are both in town now. Her dad wants to go up to the dam tomorrow. Seems to think he can take charge of the search himself …’

  ‘I’ll speak to them in the morning.’ Monica shrugged and slid her hand back across the table to her glass. You just almost propositioned Crawford. That would not have been a sensible idea.

  ‘Why are you still up here?’ she asked, keen to change the subject from the case. ‘You could transfer to Glasgow or London, easily.’

  He leaned back in his chair. ‘Are you trying to get rid of me?’

  ‘Just curious.’

  ‘What about you? Why did you come back? You were on track for senior management in the Met, I heard.’ He tilted his head to look at her. She could tell he was already a little drunk. ‘You know, you could be a model.’

  Monica laughed. Almost choking on the mouthful of vodka and orange she’d just taken. Sensing the hysteria that proximity to death seemed to encourage. Sex, anger, laughter – anything to keep the reaper at bay.

  ‘What?’ Crawford screwed his forehead up. ‘You’re statuesque. It was compliment.’

  ‘You’re funny, Crawford.’ She finished her drink and stood up to leave, but lingered for a second, glancing around the bar. The sounds of casual drunken conversation were a comforting reminder of normality. ‘Don’t stay out too late; we’ve got a world of shit coming our way tomorrow.’

  CHAPTER 96

  According to the faded birth certificate that the investigating team had recovered from the house, Marjory ‘Granny’ Slate was born Marjory Foster on Thursday 5 May 1938. Despite her unkempt appearance, she looked at least two decades younger than her eighty years when she sat down opposite Monica and Crawford in the interview room at Inverness police headquarters.

  Monica had the opportunity to take her in more closely this time. Her untidy grey hair hung around her face in ropey straggles. The whites of her eyes had a yellowish tinge to them, but when their eyes met Monica could see her defiance from the previous night remained. There was a slight smirk at one corner of her mouth, but her face was otherwise expressionless.

  ‘We just want to clear a few things up,’ Monica said finally. ‘Can you tell us who the permanent residents of your house in Glen Turrit are?’

  She stared silently back.

  ‘We know there’s yourself, Marcus, Hamish, Lily and Karen there at the moment. But Lily mentioned someone else – her uncle. Is that Doc? We haven’t found any trace of him so far.’ Despite working through the day and night the Cave Rescue team were making slow progress. Reporting that many of the small tunnels were dug into loose rock, making them extremely unstable and dangerous. The team of rescuers had to work on the assumption that Annabelle’s captor, presumably ‘Doc’ Slate, might also be down there. This meant having armed officers with them throughout.

  ‘No comment,’ Marjory Slate whispered with the ghost of a smile.

  ‘Marcus is critically ill in hospital. His skull was fractured in an attack. Is there anything you can tell us about who might be responsible?’

  ‘The weird-looking one? Belongs underground, that does.’

  ‘Is Marcus related to you?’ Monica asked, pleased that she seemed to be opening up. Her pleasure was short-lived.

  ‘No comment.’ Slate was clearly unwilling to elaborate on the weird-looking one.

  ‘You’ve lived in Glen Turrit since you married into the Slate family in 1958?’

  ‘Nothing to say.’

  ‘You know the area around the house well? The dam?’

  She looked straight through Monica.

  ‘Are you aware of a tunnel, two hundred metres to the south of your house?’

  Again she didn’t reply.

  ‘Do you know what the tunnel was being used for? That at least two people were being held captive there?’

  ‘Nothing to say.’

  ‘We’ve got a forensic team going through your house and those tunnels,’ Monica said, leaning across the table and letting the frustration she was feeling seep into her voice. ‘They’re going to find something, something that links you with the people in those tunnels.’

  Slate still didn’t reply.

  ‘I’m going to say some names, and you can tell me if you recognise them,’ Crawford said after Monica had nodded to him. ‘Annabelle Whittaker?’

  No reply.

  ‘Theo Gall?’

  Again no response.

  ‘What about Sebastian Sinclair? Do you know him?’

  ‘Nothing to say.’

  ‘He was married to your daughter, Karen. Before someone dismembered him. Cut his arms and legs off, tortured him and dumped him in a river a dozen miles from Glen Turrit.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘The same thing happened to his associate, Theo Gall. You sure you don’t remember him either?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘You’ve got nothing to say?’ Monica asked. Slate didn’t reply. ‘In that case I’m concluding this interview.’ She completed the formalities and stopped the recording, then stood up to leave.

  ‘We ate them,’ Slate whispered between her yellow teeth. So low Monica doubted what she’d heard.

  ‘What did you say?’ She turned back and crouched so her eyes were level with Marjory Slate’s. She caught the smirk of dark pleasure crossing her face. As if she’d just uttered the funniest one-liner and would be repeating it to friends for years to come. But before Monica could press her further the door to the interview room was opening. She turned and saw DC Khan standing in the doorway. Her face was tense.

  Annabelle, they’ve found her body.

  Monica braced herself and pulled the door closed behind them as she and Crawford stepped into the corridor. The last thing she wanted was Marjory Slate watching when Khan delivered the news.

  CHAPTER 97

  One month earlier

  Sebastian Sinclair glanced across the interior of the BMW to the man sitting beside him. The gate at the entrance to Glen Turrit was closed but Theo Gall showed no sign of getting out to open it. Sinclair squeezed the steering wheel just a little tighter. Who was paying who around here?

  ‘You getting the gate?’ he said finally. He felt the pressure in his chest. Annoyed at himself that he’d asked rather than told Gall to open it.

  Gall shrugged and reached lazily for a stick of chewing gum in his pocket. Clearly demonstrating that he moved at his own pace, that no one was his boss. Finally he reached into the back of the car for the bolt cutters, opened the door and got out. He was wearing a red tracksuit, his greying ha
ir combed and gelled in a centre parting. Once he’d chopped the lock Gall swung the gate open then stood waiting for Sinclair to drive through. His face set in that permanent half-smirk. The expression that had unconsciously drawn Sinclair to him in the first place. The way it seemed to suggest he’d seen it all before. That he knew just exactly what he was doing, where he was going. A wolf in a world of sheep.

  Sinclair wanted to be like that, to look like he was in control. That there was nothing that could surprise him. The way his father used to suck his teeth and narrow his eyes when he was weighing up a proposal. Somehow he could fill a room just with his presence without even saying a word. The memory of his father ramping up his anger, Sinclair gunned the engine on the BMW. Blasted through the now-opened gate and skidded the car to a stop on the other side. Twenty metres up the road so Theo was forced to walk further than necessary.

  Sinclair glanced in the far wing mirror, took in the way Theo Gall swaggered slowly along the side of the road, lit a cigarette, blew smoke into the air then dropped his lighter back into his tracksuit pocket, like he hadn’t even noticed that Sinclair was annoyed. Sebastian glanced away, doubly angry. Ahead the road disappeared into the dense silver birch forests. Beyond them the mountains, white with snow. Somewhere up there was a dam he owned. His property. His wife’s family lived up there. Rent-free since God knew when. Well, the party was over – time to move on, family or not. His wife Karen had gone into one of her moods about it, acting like it was a bad idea. Like it was wrong to make a bit of money.

  ‘Clutch control, mate. Should get an automatic next time – better for women drivers.’ Gall pulled the door open and flashed that wide smile. As if he knew exactly what was going on in Sinclair’s head. Knew exactly how spiteful and pathetic he was.

  ‘Yeah? Watch your fucking mouth,’ Sinclair replied. Staring straight ahead so he wouldn’t have to meet Gall’s mocking eyes.

  ‘Joke, boss man.’ Gall’s words made it sound like Sinclair was anything but the boss.

  For a long moment Sebastian regretted bringing Gall, regretted even trying to move the Slates on. Karen was right about one thing: technically they were family. Another mess he’d got himself into. For a moment his mind ran back over twenty years to when he’d first met Karen. He remembered being impressed by Doc, her brother, the way he seemed so ambitious and in control. The stories he told about studying medicine at Oxford, graduating a year early, how he still went down occasionally to help with particularly difficult operations. The notebooks he’d carried around full of his anatomical sketches. It was Doc who had introduced them.

  Karen had made him feel like he was a real man for once, deferring to his opinions, asking him to make decisions for her. She seemed delighted to be around him, right up until the night of their wedding, when he’d found her crying in the hotel bathroom. The sacrificial bride, playing him from day one, used by the Slates so they could keep their place rent-free all these years.

  Sinclair clenched his fist tight into a ball. And now Karen’s mum, Granny Slate, would persuade him out of selling the dam if he gave her a chance. Like she’d persuaded him to buy that big house above Inverness when he’d wanted to live further south in Aviemore. Persuaded him to hand over thousands of pounds to Doc Slate back when they were first married. Granny Slate seemed to like him at first. ‘Sebastian knows. He’s a smart one,’ she used to say. Face set in a crooked smile. ‘He knows how to run his family.’

  Well, those days were long in the past. The fawning gradually turning to open contempt on the Slates’ part when they realised he wasn’t about to hand over money every time they asked. Quiet hatred on his when he saw that contempt. He hadn’t spoken more than a few words to any of Karen’s family in over five years. Even at the funeral the year before for Grandad Slate that he’d paid for. So much for Doc’s supposed university degree and his trips to Oxford. So much for the piles of money he supposedly earned from them. Sebastian remembered the digging he’d had done several years before. No record of a Slate attending or graduating from Oxford for decades. No Dr Slate listed on the General Medical Council register.

  Sebastian couldn’t help shivering because truthfully he had always been intimidated by Doc. Maybe even more so since he’d uncovered the lies about his medical training. Not that it mattered now. The time for talk was long past anyway. And that was where Gall came in.

  Sebastian glanced in the rear-view mirror, craning to check the green plastic petrol containers on the back seat of the BMW. There would be no discussion. The house was on his land. He would burn it down if he wanted. But as he imagined the conflagration, the first licks of smoke rising up from the windows, he couldn’t help his mind from returning to the doubts. The ones he’d had since he first explained the plan to Gall. Seen the wicked smile on the man’s face. Understood that he was enthralled by the notion of being paid to burn down a house.

  A couple of times he’d even resolved to call Gall and tell him the plan was off. He’d overcome this weakness. The weakness that had held him back his whole life. The indecisiveness, the lack of the killer instinct his father had identified in him at a young age. Shame flickered in his stomach at the memories, at the incidental humiliations and put-downs. The worst of them all ‘The Last Will & Testament of Innes Sinclair’. His baby sister left the family business, while he got the scraps his father had accumulated over the years almost without even trying.

  He’d gone to Heather that morning. Left Gall in the BMW and stormed into the meeting with his sister. It was about some bullshit, another one of her ideas their dad had been so impressed by. Impulsively he’d asked her for money. More money. For some reason it felt good to see that disappointment and discomfort in her eyes. To see his own worthlessness reflected back precisely on her face, in the way she held her body. If he could have mustered up the energy he would have sunk down on the carpet in front of her and cried. That would have felt good. Really humiliating himself and letting her know that it was her fault. That she and her father had ruined him. Led him to this point of degradation. Instead he’d turned and left without a word.

  Back out at the BMW he’d hesitated before getting into the driver’s seat. Glanced at those petrol containers Gall had loaded into the car that morning to fill on their way to Glen Turrit. Glanced back to the impressive company headquarters his father had built. Maybe he should have burned that down, preferably with his sister still in it. Maybe he could have paid Gall to do it, then burst in at the last minute and saved her. Carried her out with her arms around his neck. Everyone would have seen him differently then. Would have known who he really was.

  ‘What is this? Fucking coffee break?’ Gall’s mocking eyes were on Sebastian’s face. ‘Thought we were here on business?’

  ‘Yeah. I said watch your fucking mouth.’

  Sinclair gunned the engine again and started down the road. He’d never visited the Slates’ house in all his years of marriage to Karen. Never even come down this horrible glen. But Karen had reassured him the family were away this week. On one of their trips to the south. Well, there would be a surprise for them when they got back. Lock changed on the gate at the top of the glen. House burned black at the bottom. He allowed himself a moment of glee as he pictured Doc and Granny Slate. The moment they realised how wrong they’d got him. And when he finally spoke to them, he’d shrug. It’s my land, and I’m not bothered anyway. I’m going to be spending most of my time in Vietnam and I told you it was time for you to move on. You probably left a hob on or something. They would know the truth, but what could they do? For once he would be the one in control.

  He took the bend in the road fast. Blasted the BMW out the other side. The road straightened. A wide flat section like a series of football pitches with the mountains white and foreboding on three sides. The black shape of the dam visible in the distance.

  ‘They really live down here? Ten miles from a pub or a shop? We’re doing them a favour.’

  Sinclair didn’t reply. Up ahead there wa
s a single tree by the side of the road. Somehow watchful and sinister. There was movement at the side of the road. A moment later a figure appeared; it must have been crouched behind one of the tussocks of heather. He swore and slowed the car as the person came to a stop in the middle of the single-track road. Then, impulsively, he accelerated again. As he would if a pedestrian was slow in crossing a road in the centre of Inverness. A warning to get the fuck out of his way.

  But the person showed no sign of moving, and Sinclair was forced to stand on the brakes, bringing the car to a juddering halt less than ten feet away. He realised that it was a child. A girl with blonde hair. A strangely familiar face, though he was sure he had never seen her before.

  ‘Fucking shite dri—’ A sound interrupted Gall’s tirade. A flash of movement in the wing mirror. A bang then a hissing sound as the car lurched to the side. It took Sinclair a moment to understand that a rear tyre had burst. He stared transfixed at the girl in the road. She was holding something, something dark. Slowly she raised it until it was pointing at his face.

  Sinclair heard the car door open beside him. Doc Slate, that vacant look on his face. Sebastian tried to jerk away as he saw the hammer in his hand. But his seat belt locked tight, held him in place. ‘Wait! Wait!’

  With his left hand Doc Slate blocked Sinclair’s arms. When he swung the hammer in a short, choppy blow it connected with the top of Sinclair’s forehead. Sebastian’s world turned strange, soft and fuzzy. He watched as if from behind a veil as beside him Gall unfastened his seat belt and threw the passenger-side door open. Doc Slate must have moved much faster than any human Sebastian had ever seen because as Gall exited the vehicle Doc was already swinging the hammer from the roof of the car. It was only a glancing blow but enough to stagger Gall, whose legs went. He hit the ground. Doc landed hard on him with two feet. Sinclair watched, still too dazed to move, as Doc Slate slipped a wiry arm around Gall’s neck then strangled him to unconsciousness.