Missing Believed Dead

by Chris Longmuir

  It was just as Colin had described. The man was on his back on a mattress, his arms and legs spread out and bound by rope which was attached to iron rings embedded in the van’s floor. His skin was hairless and pale, apart from the reddened area on the parts of his body resting on the mattress. Bill knew it signified livor mortis, where gravity had ensured the blood pooled in the region of his back. The eyes were open and would have been staring vacantly upwards if it were not for the objects pressed into them. Bill leaned forward for a closer look. He could see intricate carvings on the beads and, like Colin, thought they were jade.

  The expression on the man’s face gave no indication of any suffering. His lips were curved into a smile and, apart from the beads in his eyes, Bill considered he looked peaceful. It didn’t make any sense and he wondered what kind of person could do such a thing.

  Pulling his notebook and a pencil from his pocket he made a rough sketch of the interior of the van. It might come in handy later. Then, shivering, he backed out of it relieved this part of the job was complete.

  This level of the car park was now deserted and a gust of wind whistled eerily across the empty space, drifting round his ankles, making his feet even colder than they already were. He walked over to the down ramp and leaned over the parapet at the top.

  ‘You still there, constable?’ he shouted.

  A disembodied voice answered him. ‘Yes, sir, I have to wait until they come for the van before I can go.’

  Bill nodded and returned to the van. He leaned against the side of it and chewed on the end of his pencil. It was at times like these he missed the fags and the cool feel of smoke being drawn into his lungs. But up to now he had always resisted, although he was not sure how much longer he could hold out. Spitting out the wood splinters on his tongue he dug his hands in his pockets and crossed to the edge of the car park to look out into the darkness of the night.

  By the time the mortuary van turned up an hour later, Bill was so cold he could hardly feel his hands or feet. Two men got out. The taller one glared at Bill and said, ‘You in charge, mate? Where’s this body, then?’

  Bill gestured towards the dirty white van and the other man disappeared inside it. Seconds later he stuck his head out and complained, ‘How we supposed to shift him when the bleeder’s tied to the floor?’

  Bill swore under his breath. Colin should have seen to that before he left. ‘Sorry, lads.’ He looked around to see if he could find anything sharp to cut the ropes. Drawing a blank in the front of the van, he said, ‘Don’t suppose you lads have a knife or a pair of scissors, do you?’

  ‘It’s against the law to carry a knife,’ the bigger and more aggressive man said, ‘but lucky for you I might happen to have something in the motor.’

  Bill’s eyes widened when he produced a box and opened it to reveal a large carving knife.

  ‘Before you say anything,’ he said, ‘it’s a present for the missus. Her carver’s knackered and I do like a bit of roast beef. Anyway, it’s a damn silly law, how’re you supposed to get these things home after you’ve bought them?’

  Bill was too cold to argue. He took the knife and cut the ropes, preserving the knots in case they were needed for evidence.

  The men produced a long oblong box and after loading the body inside, drove off.

  Shortly afterwards the white van was collected by a low-loader and removed to the police compound, and it was only then he felt free to leave the crime scene.

  When he arrived back at headquarters Bill was relieved to find the CID room empty. It had been a long day, he was cold and tired, and not in the mood for company. He just wanted to get finished for the night.

  He sat at his desk and switched on the computer to write his report and get it out of the way. But he couldn’t get the thought of the body in the van out of his mind. Something about those jade beads niggled him. He knew he had read something recently about jade beads or a jade necklace and he couldn’t think what it was.

  The computer blinked and made a noise as if to say it was ready and why didn’t he get on with it. But Bill’s mind was far away. He stared blankly at the top of his desk. Something was different about it. It was too tidy. The files he had left were no longer there. He needed those files. They might contain something to trigger his memory.

  Sighing, he turned to his filing cabinet. Sue must have tidied up for him. But the files were not there either. Nor were they in his desk drawers, Sue’s desk drawers, or her filing cabinet.

  He swore loudly and vociferously. The new DI must have been snooping around. He could lay bets she had taken the files. Stamping to her office he searched her desk before turning to the filing cabinet. It was locked. He searched for the keys in all the places office staff usually hid them, but came up a blank.

  ‘Bugger it,’ he shouted, thumping the filing cabinet with his fist. That meant he would have to ask her for the files in the morning, and he could guess what she would say to him. Well, let her do her worst, ‘It’s not as if I care anyway,’ Bill thought, with a touch of bravado. ‘Damn her.’

  Forgetting all about his report Bill left the office. He had better things to do with his life than worry about a here today, gone tomorrow, DI.

  Chapter Twelve

  Kate was still seething when she drove into Forfar.

  She’d seen the look on Murphy’s face when she left, and knew he thought she was skiving off and leaving him to wait at the crime scene for everything to be concluded. But she was his DI. He would have to learn she meant business and he would have to follow her orders whether he liked them or not.

  One parking place was left at Forfar HQ, and she reversed into it faster than she usually did, flung the door open and got out.

  ‘Whoa, you’re in an almighty hurry.’ DS Adam Strachan opened his car door.

  ‘Good job I waited or you’d have winged me.’ He grinned at her. ‘Your first day not so good?’

  ‘It wasn’t too bad,’ Kate said. ‘The team seem to be on the ball, apart from one bolshie character who got right up my nose.’

  ‘There’s always one.’

  ‘I’m not sure how they see me, though. They’ve never had a woman DI before.’

  ‘They’ll get used to it. We did.’

  ‘I suppose. The Forfar team’s a dawdle though, compared to the Dundee one. Anyway, down to business. Are we ready for this raid, or what?’

  ‘Yeah, the team’s already been briefed and raring to go, and I’ve got a bunch of uniforms waiting for the signal.’

  ‘Let’s do it.’

  Kate travelled to the site of the planned raid with Strachan. The rest of the team followed in unmarked cars, with two police vans following them. The vans parked round the corner out of sight of the cannabis factory which looked like every other bungalow in the street.

  Uniformed police exited the vans, taking care not to slam the doors or make a noise. Several of them jumped a fence and headed for the rear of the bungalows where they would move from garden to garden until they reached the rear of the factory. The others bent double, scuttled round the corner in single file, and up the street.

  When they reached the bungalow the first man in the line hefted the bull bar onto his shoulder and, at a signal from Kate, ran up the path with the other officers following close behind.

  Reaching the door he pounded it with the bar, shouting, ‘Police, police!’

  It took several hard thumps with the bull bar before the door caved in. Yelling, ‘Police, police,’ they surged in, followed by Kate and Adam Strachan.

  The heat engulfed Kate. The only time she’d encountered anything like it before was when she walked off a plane in Cyprus during a heatwave. She blinked and wiped the sweat from her eyes. The light was blinding, the smell of the plants overwhelming, and there was so much greenery the pots holding the plants couldn’t be seen. Every wall inside the house had been demolished leaving one large room filled with thousands of plants, electric wires, duct pipes encased in silver foil, fans and he
at lamps.

  The two Asian boys cowering in a corner couldn’t have been any older than fourteen. They looked blankly at the officer questioning them.

  ‘Are these boys the only ones here?’ Kate frowned. The intelligence had been that six men had entered the house late in the afternoon.

  DC Jim Morgan nodded. ‘They don’t seem to speak English and I can’t find out what happened to the others,’ he said. ‘The boys we’ve detained are gardeners. It’s common for gangs to use kids they’ve brought in to the country to tend the crops.’

  ‘Bring them in anyway. Maybe they can tell us something if we get a translator.’

  ‘They probably don’t know much. These gangs are clever.’

  ‘It’s worth a try.’

  * * * *

  Bill’s stomach growled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten anything since midday, and that had only been a sandwich. Sue was always saying he’d get an ulcer because he didn’t look after himself. Maybe she was right, it was the bane of many a policeman’s life, one of the occupational hazards of the job.

  The wind caught him as he left the centrally heated police headquarters for the cold of a typical March night in Dundee. He stopped, buttoned his jacket, turned his collar up, and ran down the steps to where he’d left his car in one of the disabled parking spaces. It started at the first turn of the ignition, something of a miracle considering the trouble he’d been having lately, then he drove in the direction of Perth Road and the Deep Sea fish restaurant. A fish and chip supper would go down nicely.

  The fish restaurant was a popular place with the students from the university, and workers on their way home, and the queues were usually long, but Bill hit a quiet period and was soon outside again clutching his paper-wrapped supper. He drove the car to Riverside Drive where he found a parking place facing the river. Grabbing the parcel from the front passenger seat he unwrapped it and ate, relishing the taste of fish and chips liberally sprinkled with vinegar. The car would stink for days but he didn’t care, he was enjoying it. Finished, he screwed the paper wrapping into a ball and heaved it into the passenger footwell, wiped his hands on a duster he used to clean his windscreen, leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes.

  He woke with a start thinking of Evie. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep and the dream of his ex-wife was unwelcome. Usually he pushed thoughts of her to the back of his mind, but now he remembered the time before everything became intolerable. Evie, with her long blonde hair streaming behind her in the wind as they walked along the esplanade, her waist soft beneath his hand. They stopped to kiss in front of where he was parked now. He had thought he was lucky having someone like Evie in love with him, and he had been besotted with her. He hadn’t recognized the danger signals. The one drink too many, the way her eyes lit up when an attractive man entered the room, the way she flirted with his pals. The wedding had been ostentatious. She’d wanted to be married in white, and she’d wanted everyone to see her special day. It had almost bankrupted Bill, but he hadn’t cared because he’d been so much in love. He would have given her anything.

  However, Evie had been more in love with the idea of being married than she was with him. She craved excitement. Sometimes she got that from the bottle, but there were the men as well. At first Bill tried to ignore it, but the lying and cheating got to him and he became more and more depressed. If he’d been able to face her with her infidelities it would have been better, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Eventually things came to a head and she ran off with one of his best mates, Craig, a sergeant in the drug squad.

  Bill shook his head. He had to stop thinking of Evie, it made him depressed all over again. Grabbing the greasy wrapping paper from the footwell, he got out of the car, strode to a nearby rubbish bin and tossed it in. He turned to face the river, dark and tumultuous, with waves battering against the wall. Spray stung his skin and the wind battered his body. Faraway lights from Newport-on-Tay, at the other side of the river, gleamed in the darkness. The river beckoned him, but he didn’t have the guts to do anything that would end his misery.

  Pushing Evie out of his mind, his thoughts turned to what he remembered of Diane Carnegie. She’d seemed vulnerable at the time, and her agony had struck a chord with him. He’d wanted to reach out and wrap his arms round her, protect her, keep her safe. But he couldn’t do that because she was part of his work. And now that old case of a missing child had become entangled in the murder case he was currently investigating.

  Sighing, he turned back to the car, got in the driving seat, and drove home.

  The ground floor flat in the Victorian villa was cold, dark and unwelcoming. It hadn’t always been like that. Evie may have had her faults but she’d made the flat a home. That was before she’d run off with Craig. Some mate Craig had been, sneaking about with Evie when Bill’s back was turned. But that was ancient history now, and it was time he moved on.

  Bill flicked a light switch, nothing happened. Either he’d forgotten to pay the bill or it was a power cut. He felt his way into the kitchen, and fumbled for the torch on the welsh dresser. A cup, dislodged from its hook, shattered on the floor before Bill’s hand found what he sought. He shone the torch on the fragments, picked them up and deposited them in the bin under the worktop.

  At times like this Bill regretted his bachelor existence, but he didn’t seem to have much luck with women. First, Evie who had left before their first anniversary. She hadn’t stuck with Craig either, served him right. Then Julie had come into his life, that hadn’t worked out, and she’d returned to Edinburgh. And he’d never got beyond first base with Louise, although it had been looking hopeful before that fiasco in Templeton Woods.

  He shone the torch round his kitchen, the beam flickering over the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, the newspapers piled on the chair, the littered table. What a mess he’d got himself into. ‘Oh, shit,’ he muttered, ‘can’t do anything in the dark, and turning round he left the flat. At least the pub would be bright and warm.

  * * * *

  Megan had never been as scared in her life as she was now. To begin with she’d struggled against her bonds, twisting this way and that, but to no avail. It only left her with bruised wrists and ankles which ached worse than toothache. Then she’d screamed until she became hoarse, after that she’d cried for her mum. Nothing helped.

  At least he’d left her bread and water which initially she’d ignored, but hunger made her desperate, and now she’d become practised in eating and drinking, even though her wrists were bound.

  It was dark outside again. The tiny window with the wire mesh over it that let in faint daylight helped her to assess how long it had been since he’d brought her here. Megan reckoned it must be two nights and days. She’d given up screaming because no one came, and she reckoned if he’d thought her screams would be heard, he wouldn’t have left her without a gag.

  The dark hours were the worst. She imagined all kinds of bogeymen outside, and sometimes she thought she heard snuffling noises at the door, which conjured up images of wild beasts. She also played out scenarios of what he would do to her when he came back.

  However, he hadn’t returned yet, and she was terrified he would leave her here until she died. But he’d left her bread and water which meant he would return. She shivered. Whatever way she looked at it, her fate was sealed, and it was terrifying.

  Megan reached for the bottle of water. Her lips and throat were parched. She eased herself into a different position, smelling urine when she moved. She tried not to think of that because, despite trying to hang on, she’d wet herself several times.

  She closed her eyes and tried not to listen to the strange noises outside.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tuesday, 13 March

  Kate groaned when the alarm clanged in her ear. Gavin had his arm slung over her, and she had to disengage herself before she was able to press the button to silence it. He hadn’t wakened though, simply stirred in his sleep and mumbled something indistinguishable.
He looked younger when asleep with the worry lines smoothed out and his face relaxed. He looked like the young man she had married twenty-five years ago on her twentieth birthday. ‘Far too young,’ her mother had said, but they’d been happy, well, happy most of the time, she supposed.

  Ignoring the temptation to snuggle up to his back, she leaned over to plant the lightest of kisses on his forehead before swinging her feet out of the bed. No way could she go into the office late when she had a new team to manage at Central Division. It was obvious they were not going to accept her without a struggle, and she would have to exert her authority in a way that wasn’t necessary with the Forfar team.

  She had seen the look on DS Murphy’s face when she left the car park last night, and knew Murphy thought she was skiving off. But she was damned if she was going to explain to him or anybody else, that she had been called back to Forfar to oversee a raid on a cannabis factory in one of the town’s suburbs. After all, she was the boss and she was not going to undermine her position by justifying her actions, besides, she was damned if she was going to give that bolshie lot the satisfaction of thinking she was not up to the job. That was the problem with having to run two teams; you could get pulled in different directions.

  The raid, which was the third in as many weeks, had been a success though, and this time they had a lead on the Chinese gang operating the factories. But after it was all over, she was still on a high and had slept badly.

  Cold water stung her skin when she stepped into the shower which wasn’t anything out of the usual. It meant the boiler was playing up again. She would have to make time to get it seen to. Her skin was a rosy pink when she finished, and she scrubbed it madly with a dry towel to get the blood flowing again.

  She inserted contact lenses into her eyes. Then she dithered over which trouser suit to wear, eventually deciding she would go to the office in uniform. It would assert her authority in an unspoken way. She needed its support.