Torch

by Lin Anderson

  ‘Never mind Amy,’ her mother was saying. ‘Your dad’ll be working. You can try again tomorrow.’

  Jaz went into the bathroom and flushed the toilet for effect. Maybe he would get a sleep in a bed tonight after all. As long as he was away sharp in the morning.

  The room over the garage was being used mainly for storage but the bed was comfortable and wonderfully warm. After showering he put his clothes back on and left his parka at the foot of the bed and climbed in.

  When he’d left the kitchen, Emperor hadn’t stirred from his deep sleep beside the range. The old woman had listened to the dog’s heartbeat and pronounced his progress satisfactory. Nothing was said about Emperor’s injuries nor Bess’s death. The old woman seemed to have accepted him at face value, but her daughter was a different matter. Jaz had caught MacRae’s wife looking at him oddly during supper and he was sure she didn’t believe a word of his story. He had a feeling she had decided keeping him there might be the best idea, at least until she’d spoken to her husband or the police.

  Snow sliding off the garage roof and landing with a thump on the roadway wakened him two hours later. Immediately awake, Jaz slipped out of bed and reached for his jacket, deciding to check on Emperor. The kitchen was in darkness apart from a small lamp near the range. Jaz bent over the sleeping shape of the dog, relieved to see the blanket rise and fall with gentle regularity.

  ‘How’s he doing?’ Amy’s gran was standing at the door in her dressing gown.

  ‘Okay, I think.’

  ‘Let’s have a look.’

  She lifted the heavy eyelids. ‘The sedative should wear off soon. He’ll be up and about by morning.’

  ‘I want to thank you.’

  ‘No need. It’s my job.’

  ‘But you usually get paid.’

  ‘I’m retired. I just like to keep my hand in.’ She fetched two mugs from the cupboard. ‘Emperor is very fond of you. Have you had him since he was a puppy?’

  Jaz decided on the truth. ‘He belonged to a friend who died.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She lifted the boiling kettle and made a pot of tea.

  ‘My daughter doesn’t trust you.’ She took a seat at the table. ‘She wanted to phone the police after you went to bed.’

  ‘What?’ Jaz was on his feet.

  The old woman waved him back to his seat. ‘I told her not to,’ she smiled. ‘She still listens to me now and again.’ She sipped her tea. ‘I told her anyone who cared about their dog as much as you do couldn’t be all bad.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll be out of your way in the morning.’

  She glanced at the window.

  ‘You might be stuck with us a little longer than that. Snow has a habit of slowing the world down, sometimes for the better.’

  Sitting in that kitchen drinking tea, watching the snow fall outside, was like being in a different universe. If the old woman wanted him to tell her his life story; the truth about Karen, why he was here, she was going the right way about it.

  ‘I know who killed your dog.’

  She nodded as if she had known that all along, then waited for him to go on.

  ‘A bloke called Tommy Moffat. He’s a... well he’s a nutcase.’

  ‘Why did he kill Bess?’

  ‘Because he wanted to. Because he felt like it,’ he said angrily. ‘Who knows? Maybe she just barked and annoyed him.’

  ‘Where is this Tommy Moffat now?’

  ‘He’s gone,’ Jaz said, hoping that was true.

  ‘Did he have anything to do with Emperor’s wound... and your hand?’

  Jaz nodded.

  ‘Can I take a look at it?’

  He held it out.

  ‘It’s deep and quite inflamed. Would you let me dress it for you and give you a shot of antibiotics?’

  Jaz hesitated then nodded.

  She poured hot water into a basin and carefully cleaned and dressed the wound then pulled up his sleeve exposing the old needle tracks.

  She said nothing as she slid the needle into his arm.

  ‘This might make you feel sleepy.’

  ‘What if the police... ?’

  ‘There will be no police here tonight.’

  Jaz went back to his room and got into bed. The world outside was dark and silent, wrapped in a white cocoon. For the first time in forty-eight hours, Jaz felt safe.

  Chapter 29

  Wee Archie was a one-syllable man. Talking to him was a case of twenty questions. Bill Wilson was conscious he had reached nineteen and didn’t have his answer yet. One more question and Archie had had enough. He might be a drinker but he always went home for his midday meal. A long term married man, Charlie wasn’t going to miss his New Year lunch.

  When they got outside, he threw his parting shot as Bill got in the car.

  ‘After our boy died from an overdose, Marge was all for joining them. Somebody has to clean up this place,’ he said angrily. ‘Your lot aren’t doing anything about it.’

  If Archie’s veiled suggestions were to be believed, clearing out drug pushers from the estate was a joint effort. Big business working with a local enterprise group. It was what the government would call a private public partnership. The clean residents get rid of the junkies while big business made a killing on the building and land deals. Bill wondered if the local vigilantes realised they would be the next to go.

  On the way home, Bill phoned the hospital to check on Chrissy. The ward Sister said Chrissy was asleep and sounded pleased about that. She would be discharged in the morning. The Sister didn’t say Thank God, but Bill could hear it in the tone of her voice. Chrissy was not in the model patients’ league.

  He called Rhona’s home number.

  A sleepy Irish voice answered.

  ‘Sean?’

  ‘Hi Bill. Sorry, I’m half asleep.’

  ‘Is Rhona there?’

  ‘No. She doesn’t even know I’m back. There was a cancellation so I jumped a plane. She’s been here recently though. Looks like the remains of last night’s celebrations.’

  Bill filled him in about the car fire.

  ‘God. I had no idea this was all going on.’ He scrabbled about in the background. ‘An urgent fax arrived half an hour ago, something about coffee cups. Do you want me to read it?’

  The fax was two pages long. One was technical gibberish to both of them. The second stated a match between DNA residue on one of the cups submitted and the semen residue on the letter.

  ‘Have you tried her mobile?’ Bill said.

  ‘It’s sitting in the recharger. I’m going to try Mrs Harper downstairs. She might have spoken to Rhona or seen her leave.’

  When Sean rang off, Bill sat in his car trying to figure out what the hell coffee cups had to do with anything. It took five minutes for Sean to call back.

  ‘Mrs Harper saw her leave with a dark haired man in a leather jacket about lunchtime,’ Sean told him. ‘She doesn’t know if there was a car.’

  ‘I’ll go round by the hospital and check with Chrissy. See if she knows anything about the cups or this guy.’

  Bill headed for the Infirmary. One thing was certain, if anyone knew the whole story it would be Chrissy. How much she would be prepared to reveal was a different matter. Chrissy took loyalty very seriously.

  The ward sister threw him a look of relief when he arrived.

  ‘She’s up and about,’ she said. ‘Try the television room.’

  Chrissy was in there trying to organise a game of cards with the other residents who just wanted to watch an hour long episode of Eastenders.

  ‘DI Wilson. You’ve come to rescue me.’

  She took him to the quiet room.

  ‘The cup came from Greg’s flat. Rhona took it from there after the boy with the dog turned up. MacRae put the wind up her about him,’ she said. ‘It’s funny though, she told me the cup tested clean.’

  ‘She had more than one cup tested.’

  ‘Didn’t know about that,’ Chrissy looked puzzl
ed. ‘Why don’t you ask Rhona?’

  ‘We don’t know where she is,’ Bill told her. ‘Her neighbour saw her go off with a dark haired guy in a leather jacket about lunchtime.’

  ‘What?’ Chrissy sounded alarmed. ‘There was a guy like that in the videos hanging about every fire. No clear facial image. Just the dark hair and the leather jacket. I told her it looked like MacRae.’

  ‘I’ll contact MacFarlane,’ Bill reassured her. ‘Chances are Rhona’s in Edinburgh with them.’

  ‘If the cup tested positive... then the boy with the dog must have sent the letter.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bill, rising to leave.

  Chrissy got up too. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘You’re not allowed out until tomorrow,’ Bill tried.

  ‘They’ll be glad to see me go.’

  Chapter 30

  ‘Jaz didn’t have anything to do with Karen’s death.’

  MacRae didn’t turn his head from the snowy windscreen. He was waiting for her to prove what she said was true.

  ‘When he came to the flat, I kept his coffee cup.’

  He took his eyes off the road. ‘What?’

  ‘Careful!’

  The stretch of road at Harthill was renowned for its bad weather accidents. The highest point between Glasgow and Edinburgh wasn’t the place to come off the road in a snowstorm.

  MacRae slowed down. ‘Why?’

  ‘I was worried he might have stolen something, so when he left I bagged the cup. When nothing was missing I forgot about it. Then you got suspicious about him so I analysed it. The DNA pattern didn’t match either the letter or the semen in Karen.’

  ‘I still don’t trust him.’

  ‘You don’t trust anyone.’

  MacRae grunted and swung left into Harthill Service Station.

  ‘I want to phone Amy.’

  Rhona nursed a coffee while she waited for MacRae to return. She hadn’t been completely honest with him. She’d removed three cups from Greg’s flat. After Jaz left, she’d sat his cup by the sink. When MacRae threw suspicion on Jaz, she decided to test the cup. But there were three beside the sink by then and they all looked the same. She bagged the lot. One had been tested already. The results on the other two were still to come.

  ‘The line’s down.’ MacRae looked worried. ‘Heavy snow.’

  ‘Mobile?’

  ‘No chance. They’re surrounded by hills.’

  ‘Amy’ll be pleased.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The snow.’

  They looked out at the thickening cover.

  ‘We’d better get moving,’ she suggested. Rhona was back in the car when she remembered. ‘Shit!’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I’ve left my mobile and Greg’s keys behind.’

  MacRae didn’t look round. ‘No problem. I can get you in anywhere.’

  Mary Queen of Scots’ squat was littered with a fresh covering of empty lager cans. Either the Queen had taken up residence again or someone else had.

  When they got to the manhole it was back in place. The water board had taken their job seriously. ‘It’s padlocked,’ MacRae looked at her in frustration.

  ‘What about a car jack?’

  ‘Clever, lady.’

  The sewer, when they finally got inside, was warm and damp. Rhona wondered out loud why Mary and her entourage hadn’t made their home down here, away from the police and the cold.

  ‘Most people don’t know this place exists.’ MacRae used the torch to check the map. ‘I marked each of the side tunnels I checked out.’ He pointed at the opposite wall. ‘I think we’re about level with the toilets at the western end of the Gardens.’

  While they were walking, their footsteps had played back at them, jumping across the tunnel walls, making them sound like an advancing army. Now they were standing still the echo that rang behind did not belong to them. Rhona was sure of it. She looked at MacRae and mouthed ‘keep talking’.

  ‘I vote we head back,’ she suggested loudly. ’We shouldn’t be down here without the proper equipment anyway.’

  The footsteps had stopped. If someone from the Water Board was down there they would have made their presence known by now.

  ‘Good idea,’ MacRae shouted, as Rhona took off.

  The cobbled ledge rang beneath her feet. MacRae’s rapid breathing rasped as he pounded along behind her. A distant thump was followed by the sound of splashing water. Disturbed silt propelled poisonous gases into the air. Rhona coughed as they hit the back of her throat and flooded her eyes with water.

  She upped her pace, praying she wouldn’t miss her footing in the darkness and fall off the ledge. She swerved instinctively as the tunnel curved right but MacRae didn’t react so quickly. There was a crunch then a stream of curses as he collided with the side wall.

  Rhona’s beam of light caught a foot as it slipped into a right hand tunnel. She jumped across the channel and looked down the side sewer. Nothing. It sounded as though her quarry had gone to ground or else found a way out. Rhona, head well down, entered the side tunnel, hearing MacRae gasping for breath, cross the stream behind her.

  Ahead, a dark shape blocked the tunnel, the recognisable smell of death hitting her with force, despite the surrounding scent of the sewer. Rhona moved forward until she could see the object more clearly.

  Somewhere in the distance, she heard feet clamber up metal steps. A gush of noise and fresh air signalled an escape into the Gardens.

  MacRae was behind her, bent double. ‘Christ, something smells bad.’ He peered past her. ‘Anyone we know?’

  ‘I’d say the guy in the drawing. Hair colour and clothes are the same and he’s wearing a nose ring.’

  ‘No wonder the police couldn’t find him. Did you see who we were chasing?’

  ‘I saw a man’s shoe in the torchlight. Brown, black, I’m not sure.’

  ‘You’re shivering.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she lied.

  ‘Let’s get out of here. There’s an exit fifty yards further along the main sewer.’

  Rhona took a gulp of hot coffee, but it did little to bring warmth back to her chilled bones. She’d insisted on going back down the sewer with Dr Mackenzie for the in-situ examination. For once MacKenzie hadn’t argued. Maybe being the one to find a body had its compensations.

  She then spent half an hour with MacRae viewing the surveillance tapes of Princes Street on the night of the fire. Three men were caught on camera passing the building.

  ‘The one on the left could be our decomposing body,’ MacRae suggested.

  ‘Maybe. But it would need computer enhancement to prove it. What about the other two?’

  ‘Never seen them before in my life. They’re there, then they disappear,’ MacRae said. ‘But that doesn’t mean they went into the building. They might have turned up into George Street.’

  ‘We can check a DNA sample from the sewer body against the semen in Karen’s body.’

  ‘He’s dead, she’s dead,’ MacRae said. ‘What’s the point?’

  ‘Then we’ll check it against the letter.’

  MacRae shrugged. They were no nearer the fire raiser now than they’d ever been. They’d found a body in a sewer. Even if he was the rapist it didn’t mean he had anything to do with the fire. Whoever had run from them in the sewer might have.

  MacRae fished in his pocket and handed her an envelope. ‘MacFarlane asked me to give you this.’

  Rhona tore it open. She read the faxed forensic report on the remaining cups with growing alarm. MacRae hadn’t trusted Jaz from the outset. Did Jaz give them the drawing of the boy with the nose ring already knowing he was dead? Jaz had been watching Greg’s apartment and MacRae’s family. Jaz drank coffee in Greg’s flat. Now they had matched a DNA trace on the semen in the letter with one of the cups taken from Greg’s. Which could mean Jaz sent the letter.’

  ‘Christ. What’s wrong?’ MacRae said, catching her look.

  ‘We have to get inside Gr
eg’s apartment.’

  Chapter 31

  Greg’s front door swung open.

  It had taken ten seconds for MacRae to defeat Greg’s fancy security system.

  ‘You’ve done this before?’

  ‘Don’t tell MacFarlane.’

  The flat was clean and empty. There were fresh flowers in a vase on the hall table and a neat pile of unopened mail by the phone. The bedroom wardrobe revealed a partially cleared rail and no shoes. Rhona was convinced Greg hadn’t been there since she spoke to him that first night.

  ‘What are we looking for?’

  Rhona was skimming through the telephone book. She found the number and dialled. A man’s voice answered. She tried to sound casual. ‘Is Greg there?’

  ‘No,’ the voice sounded amused. ‘Should he be?’

  Whoever Justin was, he’d changed his voice since their last meeting.

  ‘I believe we met in Greg’s flat a few days ago,’ Rhona tried. ‘You arrived just as I was leaving.’

  The voice was puzzled but anxious to help. During the ensuing conversation Rhona learned that Justin Roberts was not the man who let himself into Greg’s flat and sat relaxed on the sofa, paying Rhona compliments. By the time she hung up, MacRae had rediscovered the drinks cabinet and was helping himself.

  ‘I need a drink,’ he said as if she would argue. He sat down where the pseudo Justin Roberts had sat, feet up, giving her the once over. That was what had been odd, Rhona realised. She had never been sized up by a gay man before.

  ‘So your friend’s gone to Rome. What’s the problem?’

  A niggling doubt was turning into a terrible realisation.

  ‘I’ve been stupid.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘I gave him a name and an identity.’

  MacRae looked lost.

  ‘The second time I stayed... there was a guy came into the flat. I assumed it was Greg’s boyfriend Justin Roberts.’

  MacRae was catching on, fast.

  ‘And it wasn’t?’

  She shook her head. Everything was adding up. ‘I think he’s the man we’re looking for.’