by Lin Anderson
The job had taken her to many open places like this, looking for hidden and buried bodies. Killers could go to extreme lengths to hide their victims, believing that without a body there was no evidence of a crime. In the process, she’d had dogs set on her, been threatened by landowners and once been shot at, albeit with an air rifle. Usually because someone had something to hide.
Here, the only curiosity came from the neighbouring field of cows.
‘Anything?’ Magnus said, peering ahead.
‘No.’
‘Could it be behind the mortuary, rather than on the seaward side?’ he suggested.
It was worth a try.
They set off towards the building Rhona had last visited in the dark.
‘Sam Flett hated this building, but he never said why,’ Magnus said.
‘No one likes a mortuary, just as no one likes the thought of a grave,’ Rhona offered.
‘I think something happened to him here as a child.’
‘That sounds like a psychologist,’ Rhona said.
The last time she’d been here, the field had housed a herd of cattle. This time it was deserted, although the scent they’d left behind was just as pungent.
Rhona glanced at Magnus, wondering if his strong sense of smell was causing a problem. Guessing the reason for her look, he shook his head. ‘Now, an abattoir would be difficult, but live cattle, no.’
As they turned the corner of the building, a bird flew out of the mortuary, practically into their faces. Startled, Rhona realized it was the owl that had accompanied her earlier visit. As she turned to watch its flight, she spotted an undulation in the ground.
Magnus, following her glance, registered it too.
Rhona walked in that direction.
The grass here was well churned up by her compatriots of the other night, although last night’s rain had been absorbed by the sandy underlying soil.
Approaching, Rhona took her bearings again.
‘This could be the spot,’ she said.
‘So we dig,’ Magnus said. ‘But where exactly?’
Digging up the ground always disturbed the layers. Filling it in did the same. Those who sought to hide bodies by burying them always forgot that. They forgot too that the grave sank as the body beneath it rotted. Sunken areas in the surface often gave the game away.
But we’re not looking for a body, just the entrance to the bomb shelter.
Rhona pointed at just such an indentation. ‘Here, but let me go first.’
She didn’t use the shovel, but chose the trowel instead, scraping until the metal met a hard surface. The patch of exposed concrete grew under her hand. She could sense Magnus’s excitement behind her, but she didn’t pause or look round until she’d exposed the top part of what she believed was a tunnel entrance.
‘That’s what was in the photograph,’ she heard Magnus say.
Below the surface the soil became predominantly sand, falling away easily to expose a corrugated sheet serving as a door. Rhona turned away as the smell of decomposition hit her nostrils. Behind her she heard Magnus gasp.
‘Help me dig,’ she told him.
Ten minutes later, the tunnel entrance was obvious. Rhona sat back on her heels. The strong smell that had first been released had dissipated, although that might have been because of the stiff breeze that had blown up. Despite the wind, a few flies had arrived, deserting the neighbouring cattle for the sweat from their exertions, or the scent of something rotting.
As Magnus dragged the panel free of the entrance, Rhona shone her forensic torch inside. The beam played off a concrete passage, its walls dry.
‘So what now?’ Magnus said.
‘I take a look inside.’
52
It felt like a replay of her entry to Maesry Mound, although this time the walls weren’t constructed with ancient flagstones but Second World War concrete. The space between the floor and ceiling had been lessened by an infill of sand, requiring her to crawl rather than crouch. Her body blocking what little light came from behind her, Rhona had to rely on her torch to illuminate her path. The entrance tunnel didn’t last long before she found the ground beneath her dipping and the space before her widening.
Rhona slithered inside.
A quick swing of her beam established the height and width of the place. It also illuminated a shelf of what looked like different-sized light bulbs and a collection of shells. On the ground lay a bundle that turned out to be a blue sleeping bag and a pillow, with a soft toy alongside.
A child’s hideout?
The smell of decay still in her nostrils, she went looking for its source, eventually finding it between the makeshift bed and the wall. A mound of writhing maggots were busily stripping the remains of flesh from the bones. Rhona got closer for a proper look, already certain it wasn’t big enough to be a human corpse, even a child’s. The scattered remnants of fur suggested an animal, the size of a fox, though the remains of the coat weren’t russet, but a striped grey and black.
The cat’s glassy eyes had gone, leaving gaping holes, its small sharp teeth exposed in a mouth now devoid of flesh and tongue.
The remains were undoubtedly those of a large feral cat, one of the many living wild on the island.
Having scanned the entire small space, and certain now there was nothing else alive or dead here apart from the maggots and the flies that had accompanied her entry, Rhona eventually answered Magnus’s urgent shout.
‘Come in,’ she urged him, ‘and take a look.’
His big frame eventually eased its way into the shelter. His eyes took in the scene, registering the collection of stored treasures, the bed and the soft toy.
Rhona handed him a school notebook with the name Inga Sinclair written on the front.
‘Her diary,’ she said.
‘So Inga was using this place as a den?’
‘According to Sam she was really interested in wartime Sanday. I can imagine this place was a bit of a find for her.’
Magnus was examining the contents of the shelf. ‘These look like old bulbs, maybe from the lighthouse?’
‘There’s a similar collection on the window ledge in the cottage,’ Rhona said.
Rhona used her mobile to take a photographic record of the scene, then took a short video.
‘How did the search party miss this place?’ Magnus said.
‘Inga made a pretty good job of burying the entrance. She obviously didn’t want anyone to discover her den.’ Rhona gestured to the jotter. ‘Let’s go outside and take a look at this.’
Trying to study the diary in a whipping wind proved difficult, so they decided to make their way back to the cottage. A few yards from the building, they made a dash for it as a squall hit, with hailstones rather than rain this time.
Once inside, Rhona put on the coffee maker again. Then they sat down at the table with the jotter.
Each entry had been dated, and assuming she began the diary when she’d discovered her den, then Inga had been using the bomb shelter since the summer. The beginning of the school holidays in fact. Inga hadn’t written an entry for every day, but apparently only when she’d visited the shelter.
1st July
It’s coorse wither for summer, but I’m cosy enough in my den. I’ve brought some of the old bulbs Mr Muir gave me for the shelf and my favourite shells from the beach on Start Island. Mum doesn’t know about this place. It’s just for me.
Rhona skimmed through the other entries which talked about birds she’d seen while lying hidden in the entrance tunnel. She’d recorded too what she thought was the Orkney name for each bird and a little drawing. Eventually they neared the present day.
They’ve found a body buried in the old playground! The man who lives there called the police and two forensic women in white suits came to dig it up, but someone had stolen the skull!!!!
There followed an entry on her determination to find the missing skull.
Lachlan, Nele and Robert have vowed to help, but they’r
e not true detectives. Lachlan and Robert would rather play computer games or football and Nele’s too frightened, so I’ll have to investigate myself. The Glasgow Detective said he would be glad of my help.
The discovery of the flowers in the schoolhouse loft had definitely fired her imagination.
I have this feeling that one of the flowers belongs to my family from long long ago.
Then she’d recorded her visit to Mike Jones.
He looked at me as though I was a ghost, then was sick in the sink. I saw one of the magic flowers on the kitchen table and he had a picture on an easel, but he wouldn’t let me look at it.
‘So Mike Jones’s story of their encounter was true,’ Rhona said.
The final entry was dated Friday.
I’m going to the museum with Mr Flett tomorrow. We’re going to try and discover who the thirteen flowers were made for. They represent the souls of dead children!
P.S. Mr Flett told me not to cross the causeway.
Magnus met Rhona’s gaze.
‘Sam was afraid for her and that fear centred on water,’ he said.
‘I’m going to try McNab again. If I can’t reach him I’ll try Erling. Then we’ll head for Kettletoft.’
The squall had moved south-west, darkening the sky over Eday. Here the sun was out, its shafts of light like stairways to heaven. In Scotland, she thought, you could experience every season in one day. Here on Sanday, you could face all the seasons within ten minutes.
Sheltering behind the lookout, she tried McNab’s number again. It didn’t even ring out but informed her there was no connection. She was luckier with Erling.
‘I’m docking at Loth as we speak,’ he told her. ‘I’ll head for Kettletoft to see this boathouse, then McNab and I will go to the community centre, where we can keep in contact with the coastguard.’
Rhona quickly told him of finding Inga’s den.
He listened in silence. ‘You were looking for her body?’
‘At one point, I thought I’d found it.’
On the road to Kettletoft, Magnus in the driving seat, Rhona ran her thoughts out loud.
‘Assuming he has her on board this boat. Where would he go?’
‘If he launched it on Friday night, it would have been before dawn. The girl was taken on Saturday morning by jeep.’ He considered this. ‘He got rid of the jeep on Cata Sand, so chances are he’d anchored by then in the Bay of Newark, north of Cata, or Sty Wick, to the south.’
‘Sty Wick,’ Rhona said, trying to recall where she’d heard the name. Then it came to her, with a shudder. The last victim murdered on Sanday had been found buried in the dunes of Sty Wick.
But that won’t be the case for Inga.
‘Then where?’ she said.
‘If he wanted to hide, then somewhere not easily accessible from the land or the sea.’ Magnus paused. ‘I don’t know the coast of Sanday well enough to guess where.’
‘Wouldn’t he just sail to another island, or Orkney mainland, or even Caithness?’
‘It’s possible, but he’d be noted on one of the smaller islands. The girl’s disappearance is big news. And –’ he paused – ‘it all depends on his reason for snatching her.’
Rhona waited for Magnus to explain further.
‘Did he really want the girl with him or did he just want to punish her mother?’ he said.
‘Maybe he had no plan other than to snatch her,’ Rhona said.
‘That’s possible,’ Magnus conceded. ‘Domestic violence is all about control of the partner. Torment and torture feature strongly. Of course,’ a shadow crossed his face, ‘the ultimate torture for the mother would be …’
‘If he were to kill the child,’ she finished for him.
They settled into an uneasy silence, each party to their own thoughts. Rhona’s transitory relief at discovering that the old bomb shelter hadn’t contained Inga’s body had long departed. The flat fields rolled by the window. Magnus drew in at a passing place to let a local car pass and was given the customary wave. The surrounding scene of island life suggested peace and tranquillity, made more beautiful by the watery sunlight that graced their path.
Yet, wherever you are, the surface of life rarely portrays what lies beneath.
The tide was out on Cata Sand and the bonfire had grown larger since their previous visit. A couple of pickups were there now, unloading, with a few figures stacking the wood that had been delivered.
‘They’ll go ahead with the bonfire?’ she asked Magnus.
‘It’s an island tradition, designed to glue the community together in hard times. It’s their act of defiance against the long dark days of winter. The we will survive gesture.’
‘Despite Sam’s death, and everything that’s happened?’
‘I believe Sam would be the first to wish it so.’
53
McNab had the look of a man who hadn’t slept. Wild-eyed and high, on a mix of adrenaline and, she’d hoped, caffeine, although she’d definitely got the whiff of whisky from his breath when he’d come close.
Rhona had seen that look before. Perhaps too frequently. Yet its appearance had often heralded the moment in a case when the breakthrough had happened, or was about to. When McNab’s terrier determination had dug up the truth.
All that scouring of the Sanday countryside, the endless interviews, listening to stories that appeared to have no relevance, yet fearful that if you didn’t take note of the details, the answer would have passed you by.
McNab’s life wasn’t that different from hers, she acknowledged. Asking the right questions of a crime scene, and looking for the answers, forensic or otherwise.
He caught her eye and gave her a little personal nod. Rhona felt a rush of … what? Annoyance, pleasure, excitement? She broke eye contact before he did, and the wistful look he met that with made her a little sad.
They were back in the meeting room. Erling and Magnus, she and McNab, with PC Tulloch and the other three officers brought in from Kirkwall. Entering the centre, she’d taken note of Derek Muir and Hege Aater sharing a coffee and apparently waiting to be interviewed. Both had looked uneasy, although it was Derek Muir that had most concerned her. The man who’d met her from the helicopter and welcomed her to Sanday was no more, and a stranger sat there in his place.
She roused herself as McNab called them to attention and indicated the photograph of a motorboat which had just appeared on the screen.
‘This is the Antares. It’s owned by a Dr Frank Haynes from Eastbourne, who comes up with his family every summer. It was stolen from the boathouse of his holiday home in Kettletoft sometime on Friday night, possibly in the early hours of the morning, and taken, we believe, by Joe Millar.’
Up on the screen came a list of the boat’s specifications. McNab mentioned a few for emphasis. ‘Suitable for coastal cruising, a four-berther with all mod cons, including a dinghy and standard navigation equipment. Dr Haynes maintains it’s ideal for Sanday, although he wouldn’t go out in her at this time of year.’
He continued, ‘Some tinned supplies and frozen food has been taken from the storage shed at the Kettletoft shop, which wasn’t discovered until today. So we believe he has provisions. There have been no sightings reported as yet of the boat off the neighbouring islands, nor in the intervening stretches of water. We’re assuming, therefore, that he’s still around Sanday somewhere.’
‘After discussions with DI Flett,’ he glanced in Erling’s direction, ‘we decided that Derek Muir was our best bet in identifying suitable locations to hide such a craft.’
McNab nodded at PC Tulloch who, looking decidedly awkward about being the one to do the job, immediately headed out of the room. Minutes later, the Ranger appeared.
He glanced at Erling, discomfort and shame written on his face. It seemed to Rhona that Erling’s return look was non-judgemental. In his quiet but firm Orcadian voice he asked the Ranger to tell them where Joe Millar might have hidden the Antares.
The Ranger visibly relaxe
d at the tone, and requested McNab to bring up the Ordnance Survey map of Sanday. At this magnification, all the locations Rhona was familiar with were there. The cottage, the schoolhouse, the old RAF station, the bays and inlets of Sanday.
‘I would suggest that after abandoning Sam’s jeep, he went south, tracking round the tip of the island and the ferry terminal. Going north would have meant circling Start Island and the northern coast where we were all searching on land, and the motorboat might have attracted attention.
‘I believe he may have been heading for this area.’ He pointed to a section of the western seaboard. ‘Between the Taing of the Pund and Scuthi Head.’
‘Why there?’ McNab said.
‘It’s peppered with caves, hidden inlets and arches.’ He pointed at the name Blue Geo just south of Taing of the Pund. ‘The Orkney name for a cave or creek is Geo.’
Rhona recognized the area from her soil map. It had been coloured turquoise, indicating thin soil over strongly weathered rock of old red sandstone, hence the numerous abandoned quarries indicated on the Ordnance Survey map.
‘He could hide there?’ McNab said.
The Ranger nodded. ‘The main problem is the weather at this time of year. Most fishing boats wouldn’t get close to that part of the coastline in November.’
Rhona saw Ivan nodding vigorously at this.
So he snatched the child and deliberately took her into danger.
‘How do we search then? From land or sea?’ McNab said.
‘Both,’ Erling said. ‘Broughtown’s the closest settlement. It’s not a town, just scattered farms. The road doesn’t venture near the cliffs, so we approach cross-country. It’s a bit like the cliff area of Yesnaby on mainland Orkney, and as spectacular, I understand.’
‘Just not in the dark or bad weather,’ McNab muttered. ‘And since daylight is short, and the weather predicted to be bad, we’d better get going.’
Magnus came in then. ‘Can I speak to Hege? She may be able to give us some insight into Millar’s frame of mind and the psychology of thought behind his actions.’