Dark of Night

by Oliver Davies

  “It’s not much, but it’s worth checking,” Caitlin said, reading my face easily enough. I hadn’t heard anyone else come into the cottage yet, so we went back to where Walker and Mills were waiting for their last visitor of the morning.

  “Becky Semple heard a noise near the back of the house on Tuesday evening, and I don’t know where it came from, but we need to check that area,” I told them. “Murray and I want another word with her. Any idea if she’s still here?”

  “She said she only comes in to help when there are guests, Sir, so I would think she’d be up at the house, helping with your lunch today.” Walker had coloured slightly, and Mills had shifted uneasily, both knowing, now, that they should have asked for a bit more detail about whatever Becky had thought to be the cause of the admittedly slight disturbance.

  I checked my watch. We still had time to speak with her before lunch.

  “Alright, then. When you’ve finished with the gamekeeper’s assistant, you can pack up here. Just make sure you call me if he has anything of the least interest to say. Don’t forget to let the factor know you’ve finished or to thank him for his trouble.” I gave them their recorder and notebook back and handed Caitlin’s device back to her. “Then I want you to drive out along towards the road and park up by the last cottage on the left. It’s up a little rise about two hundred metres before the estate entrance.” I waited for them to nod. “Once you walk round to the back of it, you’ll be able to see the camp in front of you. Stay on your side of the wall and follow it down to the bottom of that field.” A pause, confirming nods, they were following me just fine. “You’ll see a copse of trees about a hundred metres directly below you, out in the open, hard to miss.” They nodded attentively. “Do a thorough sweep of the ground under those trees, treading carefully. You’re looking for any sign of someone spending time in there recently: partial footprints that escaped the rain, litter, trodden down growth, anything. Bag any litter you find, if there is any, and photograph any sign of disturbance you see. I want to know what view of the Ramsay farm you can get from there too. It will be below and to the west of you across a stream, no near neighbours. Take a few pictures. Got all that?”

  “Yes, Sir,” they both responded dutifully, looking a little more perked up at being given the job, looking forward to it even. Hopeful souls, the pair of them, not a bad thing. Caitlin in tow, I left them to it.

  Martha answered the door for us this time, a bit surprised at our timing, and I explained that we just wanted a word with her niece before lunch. She led us through to the kitchen.

  “You must be Becky Semple?” I greeted her with a friendly smile, “My constables were just telling me how much they appreciated your help earlier.” She’d been washing some greens when we came in and gave me an uncertain smile as she dried her hands.

  “I’m not sure I was of much help, Sir,” she told me, “but I tried to answer their questions as best I could.”

  “I’m sure you did. In fact, I just wanted to ask if you could show us where the bins are? Are they through the green door there?” There was an outside door, with both a bolt and a lock, on the other side of the kitchen, four small, glass panes in its upper half. Becky nodded and led us out into a little cobbled yard. The bins were over by the far wall, under a little shed roof, about twenty feet away.

  We all walked over there, and Becky pointed out where the noise had been coming from on Tuesday night. “I’d say it came from over there, Sir, just the other side of that little hedge by that group of horse chestnuts.”

  I thanked her and let her go back to her work. Caitlin and I went through the latched gate and across to the ornamental hedge, circling it to approach the group of three, closely spaced large trees. They didn’t have much new leaf cover on them yet, but some of the branches looked large and wide enough to keep the rain off. We moved carefully, scanning the ground, side-stepping the bushy growths around the trees.

  “Conall!” Caitlin hissed, pointing. There, right under one of the trees, a clear, almost complete footprint pressed deeply into the soft, humped-up accumulation of wind drifted soil and slimy black leaf rot around the trunk. A few fragments of brown, partially rotted leaves from the autumn had been flattened into it.

  I gestured to Caitlin not to move and got my phone out to call Davie Baird. I described the location, and he said he’d be up with one of his boys within the hour, not to worry, they’d do a thorough sweep and see what else they could find. I took a couple of pictures in case something walked over the print or fell on it before Davie could get there, and we carefully retraced our own steps away from the trees. It might not be much, but it was something. We’d heard a lot of accounts of everyone’s movements since Tuesday afternoon, and not one of them could explain someone being in that spot recently.

  Someone who’d been keeping quiet, sneaking around unnoticed in the dark on Tuesday evening, perhaps? Was it too much to hope that Walker and Mills might find a matching print down in the copse?

  Fourteen

  Shay

  Cousin Conall can spin a good yarn. It’s kind of fun to watch him in action once he gets going. I’ve noticed though, how he edits a lot of boring detail out when he’s telling someone about an old case, very unlike the dry, thorough reports he writes officially. I guess any form of written, autobiographical account would fall somewhere in between. And, of course, he always edits my bits carefully when he’s talking. Some of it because he’s obliged to really, because, let’s face it, my research methods can be a bit iffy. It’s not really advisable to advertise those. And then there’s all the stuff Conall doesn’t know, and I don’t want him to know, not while I’m still breathing anyhow. It’s bad enough, the way I catch him looking at me sometimes as things are. He’s got a very wrong impression of the kind of person I am, in some ways, our Conall. And of himself too, I think.

  Set off the wrong trigger, and he had a raving maniac waiting, deep beneath that calm, controlled surface, ready to rip you limb from limb before his conscious mind had time to figure out what the hell just happened. My anger was icy and calculating, his was a rumbling volcano that needed its lid keeping firmly in place. Just because he hadn’t beaten the crap out of anyone since our school days didn’t mean he was rid of the urge to. Honestly, he was always so messy about it too. All you needed was a nifty, well-aimed strike at one of the good spots and they went down like ninepins. I’d shown him enough times.

  I was quite enjoying my drive up to Inverness until I took my halfway break to stretch my legs a bit and look through the emails I’d heard coming in. I’d set off earlier than planned, because I’d been up anyway and didn’t fancy hanging around once I was good to go.

  So I’d walked round to fetch the van from the handy yard I rented a space in and got her loaded up. The first hour had been slower going than expected, anyway; a sleet storm blowing in from the northeast, proper March weather, slowing the traffic to a crawl until I got above it. I kept chugging up the A9 until I reached the pull-in spot for the Falls of Bruar, about forty minutes ahead of my original schedule. I drove along to the far end of the car park, which was nearly empty, putting myself as far away from the cluster of little white buildings as I could go.

  I wasn’t stopping here to go and shop for more jumpers or scarves, cashmere or otherwise at the House of Bruar outlets, or to go up to admire the falls. This was my chosen halfway break, nothing more. It was a pretty spot here, but not a dramatic one, low rolling hills around quite a level little piece of countryside. Lots of trees, especially where the woods came down to meet the car park at its north end. A lot of people visiting Scotland seem to expect the Highlands to be all looming mountains and gothic scenery until they come and have a good drive around the region themselves. Lots of green, lots of trees, plenty of hills, not many buildings and mile after mile after mile of pretty similar views.

  Yes, I’d be running up past Aviemore later, and the Cairngorms were stuffed with great views, if you turned off the A9 to explore them a bi
t. Most tourists who’d taken the time to do a bit of trip planning followed a route north that took in the Western Highlands and Glencoe instead, which looked a lot more like the type of scenery they’d been expecting to see, with plenty of lochs and castles thrown in.

  I climbed through to the back and got the kettle on before jumping out to pace a bit while it boiled. It wasn’t worth pulling the rear deck out to sit on, because the sky looked ready to start spitting again soon and besides, it was pretty damned chilly out. After a few minutes, I climbed back in and got a little pot of tea brewing while I started opening tabs up on the laptop.

  As promised, the first of Con’s emails came with lots of files to go through; all of yesterday’s audio files, transcripts and notes. Those could wait. The new information on Archie Ramsay was definitely interesting enough to read properly right then though. I didn’t enjoy it, except for the happy ending. He’d probably suffered horrible agonies for ages, which cheered me right up. I poured myself a cuppa and checked the next one, the results of Conall’s first call this morning.

  Mitchell and Ferguson were both easy enough to track down and follow through the years, and I put together a summary of dates, addresses, jobs and successive arrests for Conall to look at. Billy, or William McGregor proved more difficult. After leaving home, aged eighteen, he’d moved down to Glasgow, and settled into a succession of steadily improving jobs, swapping rental addresses every few years. No brushes with the law, no hint of criminal activities or associates. His bank account and tax returns made sense, nothing fishy there. Just a steady, hard-working lad making his way in the world until, three years ago, he’d emptied his account, given up his latest flat, and vanished. But he still sent Christmas cards to his mam.

  I’d found a few photos of him. He was a good-looking lad, as his biological father had purportedly been in his day. Black hair, brown eyes, handsome features. I could hook back into the DVLA’s system later and leave a facial recognition scan running overnight, see if it came up with a list of possible matches. That was my best next move as far as finding Billy was concerned. I doubted he’d have given up driving, whatever name he was using now. Maybe he’d got a fake licence, but maybe he hadn’t. After that, I got round to the student contacts list and pulled up pictures of the nine people I was hoping to meet soon. I snuck a peek at their recent debit card activity too.

  Once I’d packed my findings on the three names from Wendy McGregor’s off to Conall, I refilled my mug and took it for a few laps around the van, in no hurry to get going again yet. I hadn’t been for a good drive for quite a while and needed to loosen up again properly. A series of forms and stretches behind the long side of the van, facing nothing but empty countryside, soon had me feeling right again. I had a quick, furtive piss on the grass there too, as there was nobody about to notice. Then I heard another chime, so I went to check the new email and saw, and read, the preliminary forensic report.

  Whoever had killed Gareth was going to get the heaviest book in the legal arsenal thrown at them when the case went to court. I’d like to see the defence try to argue that it hadn’t been premeditated now; none of that wishy-washy second-degree nonsense. And that was good news, as far as it went. But even maximum sentences never helped the families much, not really. They’d still had something priceless and irreplaceable ripped from them without justification or warning, and there was no quick fix for that kind of newly inflicted emotional trauma. It was as much use as sticking a plaster on a gushing artery, to know that ‘justice’ had been ‘served’.

  I stewed on it as I set off again, my figurative thermostat plunging nicely. It wasn’t justice. Real justice didn’t exist in this world. But it was the closest any of us were going to get to it without going vigilante mental and utterly destroying ourselves in the process. Yes, I take crimes like that one too personally, I don’t deny it. My brain is too deeply and permanently wired that way to fix the problem, and my awareness of the fault enables me to use it as fuel, not be impeded by it. Organic computers like the human brain are stuffed with such a mess of conflicting operating systems, most of them totally illogical, that it’s a miracle so many of us cope as well as we do.

  It only took me another hour and a half, after that stop, to reach my destination, and by just before twelve, I was parking up outside The Bonny Ewe. A bit too early, really. I closed my laptop, spun its shelf back into its nesting place, and slotted the folding seat away after tossing the cushion back onto the near bench. All neat and tidy, the central space between the two padded storage benches behind the front cab was clear, the dining table folded snugly into the flooring. The sink and stove were tucked away under their wooden covers opposite my little office space, and everything looked very nice. I’d put in plenty of storage cupboards on both sides there.

  I adjusted the cushion I’d just thrown onto the near bench into an upright position and trailed my fingers along the smooth length of the ceiling where the lovely lower section of my replacement pop-up roof, the bed base, gleamed softly under its satin, varnished finish. I was ever so chuffed with the way that job had turned out; I hadn’t been totally certain my design for that would even work. The ‘loo’ - no, wait, let’s call it the bog, that’s a much more fitting name for it - the bog and the matching floor to ceiling wardrobe/closet facing each other across the narrow passage at the back were clean, tidy and equally ready for curious inspection; all good in here.

  I put on my beanie and jacket and wrapped a long scarf around my chin a few times. Then I fished a pair of oversized, blue-tinted specs out of my jacket pocket and put them on before hopping down from the back; getting a confirming beep from my phone as the doors locked. It was time for me to go and see if I could make some new friends.

  The Bonny Ewe was alright, I supposed, in a generic, modern country pub way, but their lunch menu wasn’t very impressive. Lots of different pieces of dead animals to choose from but nothing but soup or a toastie for me. I ordered soup and a pint of Guinness, without any high expectations of the soup, so I wasn’t particularly disappointed by the bland, mediocre offering I was served. My jacket and beanie were lying in a neat little heap on the foot ledge by then. It was warm in there.

  At least it wasn’t one of those places that made you take a table to eat at. They were fine with me perching on a stool at the corner end of the bar. I took my time getting through that soup, while I looked at various maps of the area on my phone. A few handy lay-bys looked okay for tonight, if I didn’t have any luck in here, but there was a good chance that some of the students from the camp would pop in soon. Looking at their debit card activity had confirmed that lunch-time trips here were quite a regular occurrence.

  Sure enough, after my unfinished soup had been replaced by a much nicer slab of apple pie and cream, I heard the door swing open behind and to the right of me as a group of people tumbled in.

  “… looks amazing! I’d love to take a peep inside. I haven’t seen one of those old VWs for ages.”

  “A hell of a rescue job, by the looks of the outside. Did you see that roof?”

  I didn’t look round, just kept my head in my phone as I forked another piece of pie into my mouth. They all headed off to find a table or a booth and get settled, and I zoomed idly around the map, checking out the street views of my possible spots again. Not that I needed to, but I wanted to look occupied.

  “Three pints of Tennent’s and a bottle of alcohol-free please Emma.” A girl’s voice, off to my right. I pretended to be too engrossed to notice. “Hi! Excuse me.” The voice had moved closer, grown warmer. I glanced up. “Sorry to bother you, but my friends and I were just admiring that lovely old VW camper parked outside. Is it yours?”

  I lifted my head and gave her a shy little smile. “Yes, it is.” I admitted, oozing proprietary pride, “She’s a little beauty, isn’t she?”

  The woman blinked, flushed, and nodded enthusiastically. The flush suited her, she was a bit pale, was Abby, but quite attractive by most people’s standards. Her photo
s hadn’t done her justice.

  “I’d say so!” she agreed. “You must have spent a lot of time and money on restoring it… her.”

  “More time than money.” I gave a little shrug. “It took me over a year to finish getting her exactly right for me. Whatever hours I could spare, here and there.” I was mixing a strong hint of Galway into my soft, Edinburgh accent, a voice I was comfortable sticking to consistently. I’d used it before.

  “There you go, pet.” The barmaid had the girl’s order neatly arranged on a round tray for her. “That’ll be eleven pound fifty when you’re ready, Abby.”

  “Oh, I’ll pay now, Emma, thanks.” She pulled her debit card out of her jeans, and Emma went off to fetch the wireless payment terminal. Abby turned her attention back to me. “I’m Abby,” she said, with an amused ‘as you just heard’ twist to her mouth, holding out her hand expectantly.

  “I’m Shay.” I shook the offered hand lightly, released it quickly, and let my own spring home to my knee.

  “There we go, pet.” Emma was back. Abby put her card in and entered the pin. “All done,” Emma declared when it had digested the payment. Abby put her card away and gave me a hopeful look.

  “Look, Shay,” she said, “I know it might seem a bit cheeky to ask, but if you wanted to join us when you’ve finished eating, I know the boys are dying to ask you a ton of questions about the work you’ve done on your camper.” I glanced over to where the others were sitting watching us from a three-sided wall booth, another girl, Lindsay and two lads, Paul and Stephen. They were all wearing friendly, interested smiles, and Paul even sent me a little wave. “Unless you have to hurry off or anything?”

  “No, not that,” I managed. “Alright, thanks.” And turned my attention back to my phone and my pie.