by Lin Anderson
The longer we stay, the worse it gets.
Their arrival had been the catalyst for all that had followed. Their poking about in the past had unleashed a darkness that had set neighbour upon neighbour and destroyed the tranquillity of the island.
Fuck it! People do bad things everywhere.
McNab composed himself and, throwing the flap open, entered the tent, brandishing the flask.
‘Coffee?’
The eyes Rhona turned on him were tired, but there was a resolve there he recognized. Often that same resolve had played against his wishes, both personal and professional.
She carefully laid her notes aside and accepted the cup he poured for her.
‘I told Sean I would be back yesterday, or maybe the day before. I’ve lost track,’ she admitted.
‘You should call him,’ McNab said.
She met his eye. ‘Have you called Freya?’
He shook his head, then voiced something he’d been avoiding. ‘It’s not going to work. With Freya,’ he added.
‘Can I ask why?’
He could have said, because I’d rather be with you, but didn’t. ‘Because she’s clever and young and she makes me feel old and sad.’
She looked distressed by his attempt at an upbeat admission. ‘That’s not good.’
‘No,’ he acknowledged, ‘it isn’t.’ Deciding he didn’t like where the conversation was headed, he quickly changed the subject. ‘How did the paedo die?’
‘His neck’s broken. Probably when he went into the grave.’
‘And the head injury?’
‘It’s bloody round the ear, but superficially it doesn’t appear severe enough to kill him.’
‘Was he murdered?’
‘There are fingermarks on his back which suggest he was probably pushed into the grave.’
‘Would you be able to match the marks to hands?’
‘Possibly.’ Her voice faltered, as though the well of determination had just run dry.
‘Go and get some sleep,’ he ordered. ‘It’s my turn to stay with the body.’
‘The ambulance is coming?’
‘At daybreak. And the police helicopter.’
‘Okay,’ she nodded. ‘Will you stay with him until they come?’
He noted she didn’t say ‘it’ but ‘him’. That, he realized, summed up Rhona MacLeod.
‘I will,’ he promised.
‘Then I’ll grab some sleep.’
She left then, and it was McNab’s turn to commune with the dead.
The ambulance arrived as dawn streaked the sky. This time the doctor didn’t accompany it. Mike Jones’s body was to be directly transferred to the helicopter waiting at the airfield, then taken south.
Watching the helicopter rise in a flurry of noise and wind, McNab wondered if he could have done more to prevent the latest death. He’d accused Jones of terrible things. Some true, some unproven. Yet still they were back in a world where a child was missing and two of the suspects in her disappearance were already dead.
45
Something was happening on Cata Sand. Something that involved pickup trucks and piles of wood. DI Flett instructed McNab to pull up next to the brickie hut.
‘Bonfire night,’ he told them. ‘It’s a tradition on Sanday to have the fire on the sands.’
McNab opened his mouth, no doubt to emit some sarcastic remark, then thought better of it. Something had happened between McNab and Erling. Something positive. And it was plain to Rhona that McNab was trying to maintain the mood.
Having deposited a load of wood, a jeep recognizable as the Ranger’s was heading their way from the beach. Rhona now understood Erling’s reason for stopping. None of them had seen Derek Muir since Chrissy’s revelation and the discovery of Mike Jones’s body. Erling, she suspected, having recognized the vehicle, was about to address that.
As the jeep climbed from the beach, Erling got out of the car and walked towards it.
From where they were sitting, the interchange between the two men appeared cordial. Once or twice the Ranger glanced at their car, but whatever Erling was saying didn’t appear to worry him unduly.
Moments later Erling was back, but they had to wait until they were on the main road before he revealed what had been said.
‘I told him we’re planning a mass DNA sampling and asked him to help spread the word.’
‘How did he react?’ Rhona asked.
‘As always. Interested and helpful.’
McNab came in. ‘What about Mike Jones?’
‘He was obviously upset about that. Said he’d called in on Jones yesterday.’
‘Why?’ McNab demanded.
‘He was worried by the pub incident and wanted to check that Jones was okay.’
That sounds like Derek, Rhona thought. ‘Did he say at what time?’
‘Around five.’
‘Did he have wind of someone heading Jones’s way?’ McNab asked.
‘No.’
McNab made a sound that suggested disbelief. ‘How close is Muir’s place to the schoolhouse?’
‘He lives on the headland at Lopness. The house is only really visible from the bay.’
Before McNab could respond, a pickup stacked high with wood came bombing towards them. Erling told McNab to draw into the next passing place and let it have the road, which didn’t please McNab one bit, but gained him a raised salute in thanks from the driver.
‘It’s better if we keep the locals on side,’ Erling said in response to McNab’s disgruntled expression.
McNab caught Rhona’s eye via the mirror. ‘I intend interviewing Muir about the Glasgow connection later today.’
Rhona immediately intervened. ‘Is that wise? I thought we planned to run the DNA check first?’
Erling came in next, surprising her by his response. ‘I agree with Sergeant McNab. Let’s see what Derek Muir has to say about his visit to Glasgow.’
McNab’s head shot round. ‘You know he was definitely there?’
‘I heard back from Kirkwall airport this morning. They confirmed that Derek Muir flew to Glasgow three days before you discovered the body of Jamie Drever, and returned the day before the body was discovered,’ Erling said.
Rhona heard McNab’s expletive, which wasn’t remarked upon by his superior officer.
‘You’re okay with me interviewing him, sir?’
‘You’re MIT. I’m just the local contact, Detective Sergeant.’
Silence fell as they travelled the remaining few kilometres to the community centre. McNab’s jawline was set, his eyes fixed on the road. Thankfully they didn’t meet another car. Rhona couldn’t imagine McNab giving way a second time, even on the orders of a superior officer.
Rhona had taken up residence in one of the back rooms normally used for meetings. The additional manpower Erling had brought with him on the dawn helicopter meant her help wasn’t required to take either prints or mouth swabs, which left her free to do other things.
She’d told Chrissy she would head back today regardless of whether they’d found Inga or not. That, of course, was before they’d discovered Mike Jones’s body, but having processed that particular crime scene, she was free to leave the island and return to Glasgow and her lab.
Except that she didn’t feel she could. Not yet anyway. Which is what she told Chrissy.
‘When I heard about Mike Jones, I guessed as much.’
‘Any word on Sam Flett’s postmortem?’ Rhona said.
‘There’s a report winging its way to you, but in a nutshell, he drowned.’
‘The head injury?’
‘The pathologist found rock and seaweed fragments in the wound.’
‘But the blow didn’t kill him?’
‘No. The water did. With no evidence to the contrary, the conclusion was he lost his footing, banged his head and drowned.’ Chrissy was quiet for a moment. ‘I do have some good news, however. I assume you’re currently online?’
‘I am.’
‘Then
take a look at what they’ve fashioned from the photograph you sent of the skull.’
Rhona waited impatiently as the email attachment downloaded.
‘Is it there?’ Chrissy said.
‘It is.’ Rhona clicked it open.
She found it difficult to conjure up the image of a human face from the bare bones of a skull. Thankfully it hadn’t been a problem for the digital artist who, with imagination and skill, had created this.
‘What do you think?’ Chrissy’s voice expressed her own excitement.
‘It’s very good,’ Rhona said.
‘Will someone recognize it?’
‘Someone already has.’
Magnus looked from the old photograph to the reconstructed face on the screen and back again.
‘The likeness is strong,’ he finally admitted.
‘But?’ she prodded.
‘But if we desire something enough, we can often convince ourselves that it’s true.’
‘I don’t want it to be her,’ Rhona countered.
‘Maybe not, but it might offer some explanation for Sam’s fear for Inga.’
‘It doesn’t help us find the child.’
‘No,’ Magnus said, his expression one of deep thought.
‘But if Inga’s great-aunt did go missing during the war, surely her mother would have known about it from her grandfather?’
‘Do you know everything about the generations that came before you?’ he countered.
Rhona was aware that she was adopted and that her birth mother had been the woman she’d called Aunt Lily, her adopted mother’s sister. She even knew that her biological father had been called Robert Curtis. But further back than that, no. She had no idea.
‘In those times,’ Magnus reminded her, ‘folk didn’t discuss family business with their children. Or with anyone else for that matter.’
‘So there’s no one left alive now on Sanday to confirm the identity of the victim.’
‘There’s Don Cutts,’ he reminded her. ‘You were planning to show him the reconstruction, if only to confirm it isn’t the Beth Haddow he spoke of.’
Rhona nodded. They would ask the old man to come in. Show him the reconstructed image.
There was another way to confirm if the body in the grave was a member of the Sinclair family, and that was to test their DNA. The same was true of the relationship between Sam and Jamie Drever. Although it hardly seemed important now that Sam was dead.
‘I wondered if Sam suspected and looked for Jamie Drever. I thought he might have been the one to interrogate Jock,’ she admitted.
‘But he never left the island?’
‘Apparently not.’
‘And Derek Muir did.’
Rhona nodded.
‘So what, if anything, was the connection between Derek Muir and Jamie Drever?’
‘I have an aunt in Glasgow. I visit her twice a year.’
The Ranger looked relaxed and not remotely put out by McNab’s opening question.
‘Where does your aunt live?’
Derek Muir gave an address McNab recognized as being in the East End, not far from Jock Drever’s place.
‘You can check with her if you like, although her memory’s not so good these days. She has Alzheimer’s.’
‘Did you speak to anyone else on your travels?’ McNab said.
‘I don’t know anyone else in Glasgow, so no.’
‘Not even Jamie Drever?’
That brought him up short. The Ranger observed McNab, a puzzled expression on his face. ‘Jamie Drever? Is that the man you spoke about when you arrived? Wasn’t he called Jock?’
‘We’re all Jocks in the army.’
‘You have experience of army life, Sergeant? I didn’t realize.’
McNab ignored what he regarded as an obvious deflection. ‘You were seen in the vicinity of Jock’s flat, just before he died.’
The Ranger looked puzzled. ‘If he lives near my aunt, then I suppose that’s possible.’
‘Why did your family leave Sanday?’
The sudden shift in topic seemed to catch Muir off guard and for a moment he didn’t appear so sure of his ground. Then he came back. ‘My father got a job in Peterhead. Why?’
‘Doing what?’
‘Same as before. On a fishing boat.’
‘But you spent your childhood in Glasgow?’
He looked nonplussed at that, then shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago, Sergeant. My parents parted company, that’s all I know.’
‘Where’s your father now?’
A shadow crossed his face. ‘He’s dead.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘I have the death certificate to prove it.’
McNab sat back in his chair. ‘So now that Jock’s gone, there’s no one left to tell the tale.’
‘What tale?’ The Ranger fashioned a look of bewilderment.
‘Why the girl buried in the schoolhouse grounds died.’
There was a knock at the door. McNab checked his watch, then called, ‘Come in.’
Don Cutts, it seemed, was a stickler for timing. The door opened and the wheelchair entered.
The two Sanday men exchanged surprised looks.
‘Ranger?’
Muir collected himself and smiled at the old man. ‘Don. How are you?’
‘Good.’
‘I take it you’re helping the police with their enquiries?’ Muir said, with a twinkle in his eye that annoyed McNab.
‘I just gave my DNA sample,’ Cutts said, full of self-importance. He looked from Muir to McNab. ‘So, Detective Sergeant. I believe you have something you want me to take a look at?’
‘I have.’ McNab turned the laptop round so they could both view the screen. ‘This is an image of the young woman in the schoolhouse grave.’
Whatever either man was expecting, it wasn’t this.
‘How did you do that without the skull?’ the old man said, impressed.
McNab smiled. ‘Don’t you just love forensic science.’
Muir said nothing, but his eyes were immediately drawn to the screen. McNab watched as both faces assimilated the image. It wasn’t a photograph, but it was real enough. Don Cutts muttered something under his breath. A phrase McNab couldn’t interpret. Muir’s expression never changed and he remained silent.
The old man eventually spoke. ‘That’s not Beth Haddow, although it does look a peedie bit like her.’ He continued to peer more at the screen.
‘Have you any idea who it might be?’
McNab watched as a thought took root and grew. Eventually the old man turned to him, and now McNab could see how distressed he had become.
‘It might be Ola Sinclair.’ He shook his head in dismay. ‘God, is that what happened to the lass? We heard she’d gone to work on the mainland.’
‘Tell me what you remember about her.’
It took a few moments for Cutts to muster himself.
‘The women like Beth Haddow, who came with the forces, were,’ he hesitated, ‘more available, so to speak, than island women. Ola kept herself to herself, although I did see her at the camp dances occasionally.’
‘Can you remember who may have been interested in Ola back then?’
‘Just about everyone, I’d say. She was a bonny lass.’ A thought crossed his face. One that obviously disturbed him. ‘I did see her once or twice with Eric Flett, but I didn’t think it was serious. I thought Eric was keen on Beth Haddow, but it’s so long ago, Sergeant. I’m not sure if what I remember is even true.’ He shook his head.
‘What about the other man you mentioned. The older one?’
McNab watched as Don Cutts probed his memories of seventy years ago.
‘The truth is, that guy hung about all the women. And for the most part, they liked it. I told you I wanted to know what it was about him that made them so keen.’
‘Describe him for me.’
‘But I did that already,’ the old man said, puzzled.
‘Do it again.�
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As Don repeated his description, McNab watched the Ranger. Muir’s face remained impassive, but the emotion in his eyes couldn’t be blanked.
It was strange how a dam was breached, the wall of lies swept away, the truth cascading out like a flood. In the job, McNab had seen it happen many times, with good and with bad people. With a truly evil person, it might never happen. A natural-born killer, from McNab’s experience, nursed a belief in their divine right to do whatever was necessary for their own self-gratification, or survival.
Derek Muir, in his opinion, was not such a person.
After the revelation of the image and his story, Don Cutts had departed, none the wiser as to why the Ranger had been present during the discussion. So much a part of island life, McNab realized that Muir’s presence was natural and acceptable anywhere, at any time.
McNab waited until the door shut behind Cutts, before asking, ‘Was the man Mr Cutts described your father?’
Derek Muir said nothing, his expression as closed as before. McNab wondered if that particular look had been fashioned in childhood, as a means of protection. Sam Flett had drawn a picture of Derek Muir as a troubled youngster, hardened by city life. He’d brought that toughness back with him, making his return to the island difficult. But Muir had succeeded in making himself an islander again. He’d been accepted back into the community. Built a reputation. Become a valued member of the community, of the stature of Sam Flett.
Then the body was unearthed …
‘When did you know?’ McNab said quietly.
Derek Muir’s eyes finally met his and McNab viewed the agony behind the stony countenance.
‘That my father was a murderer?’ His voice shook with emotion.
‘You know that for certain?’
Muir shook his head. ‘No, but I suspect it, as do you, and no doubt once she examines all the forensic evidence, your Dr MacLeod will prove it.’
His face, although still impassive, had turned a sickly grey colour.
‘We’re not responsible for the sins of our fathers,’ McNab found himself saying.
Muir gave him a small but pitying smile. ‘You think so, Detective Sergeant? And what if your father was exposed as a murderer? How would that sit with your job as a detective? How would it sit with you as his son?’
McNab didn’t answer the question, knowing full well that it would fuck up his job. As it would fuck with him too.