by Caro Ramsay
On the seafront, his jacket collar rolled up to keep the draft from his neck, his gloved fingers struggled to get Archie’s contact on the mobile. The call was answered immediately, Anderson told him that he thought he had seen Costello twice, up in Port MacDuff, sniffing around George Haggerty, or more likely, somebody called Neil Taverner.
All Archie said was ‘oh’. Anderson knew there was something else Archie had to tell him, something more important.
‘What’s happening at your end?’
‘I backtracked the CCTV on the night of the murders.’ Archie’s voice had that clipped quality, he was not happy.
‘Should Mathieson’s team not have done that?’
‘She was checking it for around the time of death, and is now doing six a.m. through to twelve, and on a wider range of cameras. They have somebody carrying an object that looks like the Millennium Falcon in a bin bag, going across the footbridge. Mathieson missed the exit route, the time, the lot.’
‘She’s used to investigating cops, this murderer is much cleverer than the average cop.’
‘What’s that noise?’
‘It’s a wind tunnel called Port MacDuff. It’d be lovely when, and if, the sun ever shines.’
‘Colin? Between you and I, I backtracked the footage from the time George met Valerie at the garage.’
‘Did Mathieson not?’
‘No, I was more interested in what Valerie was doing.’
‘What does she do?’ He was trying not to snap at the fiscal but he was beginning to understand the true meaning of the words wind chill factor.
‘Nothing. But I go back. You know the off-licence? George was carrying a bag. Easily seen on the footage but not on the images that appeared in the paper. It’s a bottle.’
‘Alcohol.’
‘George had been in earlier that day. He’d bought vodka.’
‘OK.’ Anderson was trying to piece this together. ‘I presume George doesn’t drink vodka. Or Abigail?’
‘Neither. I think he bought it for Valerie, gave her it, took her somewhere, and left her … Last thing on film is them walking into a crowd down near your place.’
‘Leaving her with no alibi? You can sanction a request for more footage, but I don’t think you need to bother. We have them, Archie, it’s a matter of time.’
‘He set her up, Colin. He set her up.’
‘There’s a lot of it about. Don’t worry about her, Archie. We are nearly there.’
Anderson sat in the corner of the pub with a coffee and the biggest fruit scone he had ever seen. It was warm, a small tub of fresh butter sat on the side with a small ramekin of strawberry jam, he could see lumps of fruit. He basically enjoyed his work but sometimes it was truly a pleasure. If only the locals would stop looking at him as if they were sizing him up for a wicker cage.
They had all looked round when he had walked in, the seven or eight men, regulars he presumed, from the way they looked fixed onto their seats, the shape of their bodies moulded into the leather.
He gave his order at the bar, the sign clearly said coffee and scones served. If they wanted to think of him as a namby southerner so be it. He hoped they didn’t have him pegged as a Christian for his lack of alcohol. He’d know if Britt Eckland put in an appearance. He placed the box file on the table and got out his notebook. They would know why he was here, it would be useful for him to be seen working. As he made himself comfortable, two men got up within a couple of minutes of each other. The taller, younger left by the door that pointed towards the gents and returned a couple of minutes later. The other man, bald, older with a couple of days’ stubble on his face went out that same door leaving a trail of Eau De dead fish in his wake, but he failed to return.
Anderson turned back to the file.
Jennifer Argyll had been a truly beautiful seventeen-year-old. She had grown up in Inverness and moved to the port with her parents when she was fifteen. She had worked as a junior clerk in the port authority and on 20th November 1987, she walked up to Dolphin Point and was never seen again. It was that simple.
Nothing else, but he could see how that smile, that face, might have haunted a generation. She had the look of a young Claudia Cardinale. Jennifer had, for some reason, gone off the cliff, or so it was presumed. Her body had never been found despite sea searches, leaving her to walk the clifftops forever in her ghostly form, so the rumours went.
He had Googled the Le Adare Lodge and apart from the many reports of the fire that had flattened the place on 13th of January 1995, there was not much. He looked at a few photographer’s shots of Dolphin Point itself, the pictures mostly populated with dolphins. Then he came across a website for Historic Scotland, where people had put their old cine films on line, and he found a treasure trove. He had only been looking for about ten minutes when he struck real gold. There was a film taken in mid-1950s, maybe a bit later, of Le Adare Lodge, a corruption of the old Gaelic of Leumadair, as Morna had said. The scene flickered to life to show the picture of the water, the sea, the waves, then it panned unsteadily round to reveal a man standing on the veranda of the lodge. A set scene Anderson had seen in many of the old postcards of the lodge. The man was dressed in full highland regalia, the kilt, the tartan Glengarry, the sporran, the lot and he was laughing at the camera, saying something a little self-consciously before two ladies appeared, both dressed in their best for the holidays in neat box jackets, high heels and skirts that floated round their knees. They both had hats on, handbags matching their suits dangled over their arms. The man in the kilt greeted them, and two young men also in kilts appeared carrying leather suitcases, one in each hand, and a couple of hat boxes under their arms.
The staff, no doubt.
He Googled the name. Interesting. All the names were interesting.
Were these the wives of the sort of men who would be out shooting anything in sight over the next few days? Anderson nibbled at his scone, it melted in his mouth and he watched the film, enjoying it rather than analyzing what he was seeing. It went on for seven or eight minutes, bits of film tagged together from here and there around the lodge, jaunty figures flickering in black and white, stag heads, the huge open log fire, guns hanging everywhere. He was looking at this when the convivial host turned back to the garden, the camera panned back to the grass that swept down to the cliff steps. He watched with interest as the camera turned indoors to catch a couple of kids running across the terrazzo dance floor. Anderson smiled, that was a piece of history right there. He was still munching his scone, taking a mouthful of coffee when the camera panned back out again, the kilted man stood on the veranda, summoning some other member of staff.
Clap clap.
Clap clap.
Oscar Duguid. Certainly not a common name. A few threats and a quick visit to DCI Patrick had confirmed what Anderson suspected. The kilted man in the cine film was Donal Duguid, the father of Abigail’s first husband.
Presumed dead.
His boat had been called the Jennifer Rhu.
Rhu was a village in Argyll.
And Jennifer Argyll was also presumed dead.
Anderson was being played, again.
So he did what his instinct told him to, he finished his coffee, nodded goodbye to his watchful companions, left the pub. He drove the Beamer the three miles to Dolphin Point.
In the very last of the light, Anderson stood in the breeze, fresh but no longer howling the way it had been earlier in the day. He could breathe easily. He had parked the Beamer at the south of the overgrown driveway, two huge boulders had been pushed into the middle of the dirt lane creating a natural barrier to prevent any vehicle from going further up the hill towards the cliff. He was a hundred feet or so above sea level already, and the lodge had been at the highpoint of the coast. The road from Port MacDuff had been a long slow steady climb, making the car engine whine and groan, out of its comfort zone.
Anderson had tried to do his homework. He had quickly realized that the Le Adare Lodge was not something that
the locals liked speaking about. He had watched the films, seen the exhibition dances of Elenora Haggerty, some relative of George’s, Colin presumed, nothing surprised him now. He had watched her dance with a tall handsome man, they did a feature dance, every movement caught on the flickering cine film. He read that she had trained to be a ballet dancer but injured her shoulder. Anderson had hoped it was all going to go a bit Bates Motel after that, Haggerty traumatized by his beautiful mother damaging her shoulder and losing her love of dance and her sanity. But no, she gave up her dreams and settled down to life as hostess and exhibition dancer of the Le Adare Lodge, Dolphin Point, Port MacDuff and had lived a long and content life.
Then Jennifer Argyll had gone missing and the wheel of fortune turned.
It was a long walk, the lane that lead up to where he thought the house had stood was badly overgrown. The lane wound its way up a hill, around a crop of boulders to a tall rock stack right on the headline. Now he had his bearings. He zipped his anorak, and pulled his hat down over his ears, scarf up round his neck, gloves on. He trudged on, weaving his way upward through the thorns and the bushes. Sometimes he found himself walking along a good concrete road, the tarmac only slightly cracked, at other times the tarmac was broken and fractured by the plants growing through. But on the road went, narrowing slightly. He could feel the change in the air, smelling the sea breeze, the scent of salt on his face. It was fresher up here, away from the perfume of the trees and the winter undergrowth, the bare branches that pulled and tugged at him as he pushed his way through.
And suddenly he was at the top of the hill, the great rock stack to the north, the Inner Sound lay in front of him like undulating grey silk. He stood, gathering his breath. The climb had been more strenuous than he had thought, but as he walked into the clearing at the summit, the clouds parted and the sun came out, warming his face once more, letting him breathe and appreciate the crystal clear diamonds of light on the water. The dark grey churn had calmed to a sheet of silver, he could hear the gentle beat and crash of waves on the shore beneath him.
Mother Nature had welcomed him to her world.
He stood and looked around him, pulling the gloves from his hands, feeling his fingers so he could dig around in his pockets for the map. He looked at it again, the small road was there, winding up to the top of the cliff. He walked carefully to the edge, fearing that the breeze which was absent one minute, might gust again and one real blast would push or pull him right over. Was that what had happened to Jennifer Argyll? He looked out over the grey water, where the Jennifer Rhu had gone to the depths.
Anderson moved slowly towards the edge and looked down on to another bank of grass, then another below as if the cliff had layered itself, tiered to make it easier to get down to the beach. In the cine film, there had been a wooden stairway attached to the cliff face. He could still see a few wooden uprights clinging onto bare rock. The enclosed beach, a perfect semi-circle of a bay with the cliffs reaching out and high on either side, like arms to protect the pure white sand that looked as though it had been sieved onto the beach. A few cracked slabs of rock forked out into the water, waves cutting over them. Jagged fingers that would be treacherous to any boat wanting to land. Dangerous as they were, Anderson could see how they reduced the power of the waves breaking over them, making the beach itself a much safer place to swim.
He leaned over, seeing, on the face of a cliff with its levels of coarse tufted grass, more bits of the wooden stairway, playing join the dots, he could make out exactly where the steps had been. He looked at the photocopy of the photograph of the lodge, it must have been taken from where he stood. The house had faced right out to sea, from high up on the cliff, far enough back to keep it safe from erosion and the worst of what Mother Nature could fling at it.
He looked up and down, from the height of the rock stack to the beach below. No sign of the house was left, no sign it had ever been.
It was the ghost of a house.
What had he been expecting?
This was where Oscar had played as a child. He had spent his life here and he had been a friend of George’s, whose mother had danced so elegantly across the terrazzo dance floor. This was the place that George ran back to, but strangely enough, despite the emotional history he shared, he had never brought his wife or child up here. They had never met his father.
Those boys had been formed by this place. They had married the same woman. Now both children of those unions were dead. As Costello had said, something that is too much of a coincidence tends not to be a coincidence. He walked back towards the road, now he could see some outlines of the brickwork, light grey coloured granite stone, a wall only a foot high that would be solid then vanish in the undergrowth as though it had never been. He walked forward, tracing the footprint of the house. He kept turning round to look at the view, to check it was still there and then find himself doing nothing but standing looking, and looking, the view was beguiling and enchanting.
He continued to trace the outline, his feet getting wet. Looking back he could see his path, the footsteps clear in the wet shiny grass, sidestepping to the left and then wandering to the right like the footsteps of a drunk. Then he climbed over a piece of wall, now trying to find his way through drier winter growth.
Anderson realized he was standing on something solid underfoot, more than the surrounding earth and moss. He scraped the sole of his shoe back and forth, removing the dirt to reveal a white tile, edged with black. He scraped and pulled the branches back with his gloved hand, getting his face scratched and cut as the tiles of the black and white terrazzo floor revealed itself. In his mind’s eye, he saw Elenora Haggerty glide across the floor in stiff taffeta and sprung heels, he could almost smell her perfume in the air; hear the small dance band in the noise of the wind as it raced up the cliff face.
He pulled out his phone to photograph the few stones that were still standing, then turned to go back to the edge, a wall a hundred yards or so, mentally mapping out the footprint of the building as it had been the day the photograph over Morna’s fireplace was taken. It was a well-known picture of the place, he had seen a few versions on the net, on calendars and postcards.
He paused to look at the grass, his own footprints now almost faded in the rain, the blades of grass he had crushed had sprung back to life – on his footprints only, not on the new footmarks that had closely tracked his. The footsteps walked in a straight line, coming right for him, and then they had pulled away to the side, into the trees that ran down the hillside back to the main road.
‘Hello?’
No answer, just a buffering breeze warning him not to make a noise up here. This had been a still and silent place for many years. In his mind’s eye, Elenora Haggerty lifted a finger to her ruby red lips as she glided past, keeping the secret.
She was a ghost, the footmarks were real.
Whoever it was didn’t want to make themselves known, so Colin Anderson put his phone, the print of the house and the map back in his anorak pocket and made his way down the road, a little more quickly than he had come up.
Halfway down the path, Anderson caught sight of him. Somebody, moving ahead, shambling through the undergrowth. The figure started to speed up, running, pushing aside the dead bracken. Anderson shouted at him but the figure, camouflaged in black and dark green, began to melt into the landscape. Anderson gave chase, nearly catching him at the stream where the wet jacket of the man slipped out the grasp of his outstretched hand, but it was enough to put both of them out of kilter and down they went, down amongst the stones, the darkness and the icy bubbling water.
The water went over Anderson’s head. He thought no, not again; he was getting too old for this. But he held onto the man he was chasing, taking in lungfuls of water, writhing and twisting as they both struggled for air. Anderson felt his head scrape against a sharp stone, a blow aimed at his midriff made him pull back. The impact this time was hard and brutal. He still held on, trying to push himself up with his legs so the ot
her guy could pull him free of the water when he tried to stand up. But Anderson rolled and he went under again, feeling his head strike something hard again, and that terrible fear of water filling his nose and this throat. Anderson panicked, his clothes weighing him down, he opened his mouth to scream that this could not be happening to him again. Then he felt a hand grab his jacket and pull him clear, the other man got to his feet quicker, staggering, and barely managing to stay upright. He, an older and balding man, bent over, hands on knees, taking in gasps of breath. He reached out a hand to help Anderson up.
‘I’m too old for this, pal.’
‘Me too.’ Anderson looked at the bald head, the weather-beaten face, the straggly beard and subtracted eighteen years. ‘Welcome back from the dead, Mr Duguid.’
They sat on the grass in silence looking out over the Sound, both soaking wet. The smell of dead fish rose steaming from his companion. Anderson was about to change this man’s world, he could let him say goodbye.
Anderson regained his breathing, he stood up, looking round at the rock stack, feeling colder than he’d ever felt. He looked up and saw that same woman he had seen before. She took her time looking, keeping her distance, a tranquil figure, unmoving. She turned, walking away quickly, heading towards the road, her hand up over her head, holding her hood up. But again he saw another flicker of familiar blonde hair. And, he thought, just for a moment, that she had a gun in her hand.
‘Costello?’ he shouted, his fatigue forgotten, he was running in an instant. But she was gone. He repeated her name, ‘Costello?’ quietly, more to himself than for any other ears. ‘Did you see her?’ asked Anderson. ‘That woman?’
‘What woman?’
The file from the Scub camera was now available to view after a huge delay about who was footing the bill for the restoration of a video file that might show nothing. Eventually it had been returned to the Complaints team with an invoice.