She led the way through to another room. ‘You’ll recognise this,’ she said, pointing to an enormous wall painting of the battle. Only I wasn’t looking at the painting. I was looking at a small model of another battle in a glass case.
She noticed my interest. ‘That’s the battle of Stirling Bridge . . .’ But I wasn’t listening. Suddenly I wasn’t interested in battles, I was interested in models. Little model soldiers by the hundred almost exactly the same size as the one I’d picked up at Threave Castle. I put my hand in my pocket and felt the hair on the back of my neck rise as my fingers touched the tiny figure.
*
‘Can I help you?’ People are always trying to help me; mostly when I don’t want or need it. In this case I was somewhere I shouldn’t have been and his was the voice of authority, so I turned and gave him my hundred-watt smile.
‘Hi, my name’s Glen Savage.’ I’d hoped for a hint of recognition, but his expression revealed nothing except mild suspicion. Instead, he studied me with shrewd, pewter-coloured eyes from a face you knew would have liked to break into a smile if only he didn’t have to deal with this awkward situation. He looked to be in his early fifties and introduced himself as the school’s deputy rector.
‘I’m afraid our playing fields are out of bounds to everyone at the moment.’ He nodded towards a line of orange tape with half a dozen curious kids on the far side. The tape cordoned off the part of the rugby pitch where we stood in the shadow of the posts.
‘A terrible tragedy,’ I said deliberately, not taking his hint to get my backside the other side of the tape. I stared down at the mark on the ground where the cops had made a half-hearted attempt to erase the outline they’d created of the body. ‘I hope it wasn’t one of your pupils?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘it wasn’t, but that doesn’t make it any less sad.’ I sensed a tightening in his voice but I wasn’t sure whether it was grief or his growing irritation at my presence on his territory.
‘Did the police find anything with the body?’
His jaw came up and his eyes hardened. ‘I’m sure they wouldn’t have told me if they had, Mr Savage, and I’m not entirely certain what business it is of yours. In fact, I’m not entirely certain that I shouldn’t call the police and let them know someone is snooping around here.’
‘You’d be perfectly entitled to do that, Mr ...?’ He didn’t take up my invitation, just as I hadn’t taken his second, less subtle hint to clear off. ‘But I hardly call walking about a rugby pitch in broad daylight snooping. The police have been here for three days. They’ve done what they came to do. And I’m not here sightseeing.’ I said it quietly, laying the sincerity on thick. ‘I have an interest in this case and I think they may have missed something important.’
He looked puzzled, staring around him at the broad space the forensic experts had stripped back to the last blade of grass. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘Call it a hunch.’ I handed him my card. ‘Does the school have a metal-detecting club?’
Frowning, he studied the card, which introduced Glen Savage, Psychic Investigator. It gets them every time and I saw his face relax. Yes, they had a detecting club and, although still wary, he was intrigued enough to humour me. Being a law-abiding citizen, he also wanted the cops to be there just in case we found anything, but I convinced him that they’d think we were wasting their time. That made him hesitate. I sealed the deal by assuring him I’d hand over anything I found to him so he could give it to the proper authorities. Eventually he nodded and walked off towards the school with his hands in his pockets.
I looked again at the figure etched on the ground in yellow. In its way it conveyed as much anguish as Munch’sThe Scream. How much terror and pain lay behind that simple outline? It had the same faint echo of a cross I’d visualised where Shoaz Ahmad lay at Roxburgh Castle, and I was close to certain this boy and Shoaz had been killed by the same person. Quite possibly the girl at Threave Castle, too. But I needed more proof. Suddenly what had seemed clear a few days earlier didn’t seem so clear now. Where did Gurya Ali fit in, if she fitted in at all? From what Dewar had told me it seemed certain that the Bannockburn kid had been snatched off the street and killed on the same night. Why kill him if he already had her? Or was her body already lying somewhere waiting to be found?
‘Will this do?’ He was back and holding out a long tube with a metal ring about a foot in diameter attached to the bottom end. ‘The battery’s charged, I think, but they don’t last long. I’m afraid it’s not quite state of the art, but we’ve managed to find a few bits and pieces with it.’
‘Anything from the battle?’
He smiled for the first time and his face took on the look of mischief that took about five years off his age. ‘Some metal buckles that might or might not have been, but as far as the kids are concerned they’re the real thing. We put them in a glass case.’
I grinned. ‘Let’s give it a go then.’
He switched on the machine and handed it over. A metal detector is just like a mine detector, and there was a time in my life when it was literally a matter of life and death to know how a mine detector worked. Between ourselves and the Argies we laid 25,000 anti-tank and anti-personnel mines in the Falklands and most of them are still there. This detector didn’t have any earphones but I knew that if the electrically charged coil passed over any kind of metal it would give off an audible signal.
I carefully covered the area around the outline of the body in sweeping arcs, keeping up a conversation with my companion as I worked.
‘Do you know who he was?’
‘A boy from Stirling. His parents are from Algeria. They’re something to do with the university, I think. The police said they raised the alarm when he didn’t come home. A man walking his dog found the body early on Thursday morning.’
‘That must have been a shock?’
‘Yes, especially when he turned him over.’
‘The heart?’
He gave me a startled glance. ‘No one’s supposed to know that. The detective said not to say anything about it.’
Beep.
I waved the detector across the area again, with similar results. It was about three feet from the body’s out-flung arm. I looked down at the muddy surface and realised that I didn’t have anything to dig with.
Fortunately the deputy rector was better prepared. ‘Will this do?’ He held out a small trowel and I accepted it gratefully. ‘Be careful with the turf, we only had it resurfaced last year.’
I nodded and made a small cut about four inches square, carefully piling the excavated soil to one side. Nothing. Puzzled, I ran the detector over the hole I’d dug. This time it stayed silent. I tried it over the mound of soil and was rewarded by another beep.
‘What exactly are you looking for?’ he asked as I sifted through the pile.
I shrugged. ‘I’ll know when I find it.’
‘The police were very painstaking when they searched,’ he said helpfully.
‘Did they use one of these?’
‘No, but . . .’
‘Gotcha.’ I held up a small object between two fingers, brushing the soil from it with my free hand.
‘Yes,’ he said distractedly, ‘we get a lot of those here.’
It wasn’t what I was looking for. Not even a piece of harness from Robert the Bruce’s warhorse or an English bowman’s arrowhead. It was a metal rugby stud. And he was right. We got a lot of those.
By the time we’d been there for an hour I’d dug more holes than a hyperactive mole and collected enough studs to shoe a full front row. My companion was tutting about the state of his playing surface but he agreed to give me another ten minutes before he returned the detector to the school.
Frustrated, I made one last sweep across the try line in the shadow of the cross bar. It wasn’t until I reached the very centre that the alarm went off. For some reason I felt the same shiver I had when I noticed the model of the battlefield in the museum. This time I didn�
�t need to dig down, because the object was just beneath the surface of the grass. Hardly daring to breathe, I scrabbled among the soil until my fingers closed on something small and hard. I rose with a sigh.
‘Another bloody stud.’ I held the offending object up so he could see it. ‘Let’s call it a day.’
As we were walking back across the field I apologised for wasting his time.
‘Not at all,’ he said cheerfully as we paused by the main school entrance. ‘It’s not often we get someone interesting visiting the school. I’m sorry you didn’t find what you were looking for, but at least we didn’t have to bother the police.’
‘Do you have somewhere I can wash my hands?’ I held up my mud-stained fingers.
‘Use the boys’ toilet along to the right. The pupils will all be gone by now.’
I walked along the corridor inhaling the distinctive high-school scents of cheap perfume and male body odour, disinfectant and damp. The toilet was clearly marked and I quickly washed my hands under the hot tap. When I finished, I waited a few seconds just to make sure I was alone before shaking the thing I’d palmed from beneath the posts up my sleeve. It was caked with mud, just like the rugby stud I’d shown him, but smaller and more delicate. I washed the mud away under the tap, to reveal a perfect replica of the little toy soldier already nestling in my pocket.
CHAPTER 23
Wednesday, 20 June 2007
One of the things about having MS as a lodger is that it gives a heightened sense of mortality. More so than most people, we have to make every day count. It’s no secret that I haven’t been a good husband. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’ve strayed, at least not beyond the odd admiring glance. No, it’s because in the past I’ve taken chances with my liberty and my life in the knowledge that if I lost either it would also destroy Aelish. It makes me a complete bastard, so why do I do it? That’s a question I’ve never been able to satisfactorily answer. Risk was part of the military contract, but it was supposed to be a calculated risk even at the height of battle. All I know is that the urge to dance with danger is as much part of me as the blood running through my veins. Now, here I was withholding evidence from a multiple murder inquiry, which must put me in line for a long, well-deserved holiday in the Bar-L or Saughton – a fact that Aelish wasn’t slow to notice.
‘You should take them straight to the police,’ she insisted the next morning.
‘I should,’ I agreed. ‘And I will. But first I want to understand what they mean.’
She pursed her lips and I got ready to face Aelish, the Dragon Lady. The Dragon Lady is a scary creature who breathes fire and common sense, both of which have a habit of scorching my tender parts, but today she counted to ten and slithered back into her lair. ‘Let me see them.’ She held her hand out and I dropped the two toy soldiers into her palm.
She studied them closely while I told her precisely where I’d found them and of the revelation I’d had when I visited the museum at Bannockburn.
‘I think battlefields are the key to this,’ I explained. ‘But I’m not quite sure why. The first thing we need to do is find out more about Threave and Roxburgh. I also want to get someone to have a closer look at the soldiers, someone who knows about these things. They’re not white, which is one thing that ties them to the three victims. They look to me like miniature Indian mutineers,sepoys – see the red tunics and white trousers and the curved swords? It might make sense because the Indian Mutiny was about as savage and merciless as they come. But where’s the link to Bannockburn?’
‘Why do you say three victims? I thought you were sure the Pakistani girl was part of this?’
I shook my head. ‘Gurya’s Asian and she’s vanished, but why would the killer take the risk of snatching the Algerian boy off the street in Stirling when he already had her? It just doesn’t seem to fit.’
‘That’s one more reason why you should hand these over to the police, Glen. Her father is paying you to find her, not to hunt down a serial killer. The police have the resources to analyse them. If they’re significant they’ll find out why. Give them back.’
‘I will, but . . .’
‘You’re an idiot, Glen Savage,’ she hissed. ‘Switch on my computer.’
‘What are you going to do, e-mail the cops?’ I said it to annoy her, but the glare she gave me told me she’d thought about it.
‘I’m going to do what you suggested and look again at Roxburgh and Threave.’ She picked up one of the soldiers and looked at it again. ‘And I’m not sure about your mutineer theory.’
I opened my mouth to say something that would have got me into more trouble, but fortunately the phone rang. At least it seemed fortunate at the time.
‘Mr Savage, you are due to make a report to me today. What time can I expect you?’ Shit! In all the excitement I’d forgotten about the man whose money was the only thing keeping us afloat.
‘Can we say about three o’clock, Mr Ali?’ I said smoothly. ‘I have a few things I need to tidy up here.’
‘Three, Mr Savage,’ he confirmed. ‘But I must warn you I am becoming extremely frustrated. I hope you can report some progress.’
I looked down at the toy in my hand and I had an idea. ‘There is one thing you might be able to help me with,’ I said. ‘I have some metal samples I’d like to have analysed and I know you employed people who did that kind of thing. Could you put me in touch with someone?’
He hesitated and I could sense him frowning. My credit with Mr Ali was running out fast. I heard him sniff as he came to a reluctant decision. ‘I still have an interest in a company which does such work.’ He gave me a phone number. ‘They’re based in Edinburgh. Ask for Dr Simpson. I’ll let them know to expect your call.’
I put the phone down and kissed Aelish on the back of the head as I walked out of the door.
*
Sometimes, when I’m travelling and I reach a fork in the road or a crossroads, it occurs to me that my whole life could depend on whether I take a left or a right. Go that way, and a tank transporter will squash your car as flat as a tin can under a steamroller; go the other way and you might buy a winning lottery ticket. The problem is that you never know whether you were right or wrong; only that your car is still in one piece and your villa on Corfu remains just a dream. I got that feeling when I reached the red sandstone viaduct over the Tweed at Leaderfoot about three miles from the house; the compass inside my head spun as if I was sitting over the North Pole. Carry straight on and the road would take me up the A7 towards Mr Ali’s mansion and I’d arrive just about on time, but I was pulled in the other direction. Right would take me to Edinburgh and Mr Ali’s metallurgist. I took a right.
I called the number he’d given me from the car and a voice at the other end directed me to an industrial estate off the Edinburgh bypass. It turned out to be one of those new, clean Silicon Glen-type sites full of white plastic buildings that look like they’ve been designed by NASA. Clearly Mr Ali still carried plenty of weight because I was ushered directly into a lab where a pretty, strawberry blonde girl who looked as if she was on work experience introduced herself as Dr Helen Simpson. She was sharp and efficient, and once I’d explained what I needed she smiled.
‘This is very simple compared to what we usually do.’ She took a scalpel and shaved off a piece of metal from the soldier’s base and placed it into a plastic bag. ‘The boss said you needed this done yesterday?’ I nodded. ‘I’ll just run some tests this afternoon and hopefully I’ll be able to get the results in the post for you tonight, unless you’d rather I called you?’
I said the post would be fine. Fifteen minutes later and only half an hour late I drew up in front of Chapel House. Mr Ali’s Aston Martin sat exactly where it had been on the first occasion I’d driven up the long driveway. It struck me that Mr Ali was a man who liked expensive ornaments.
He received me coolly, which I suppose wasn’t surprising since I’d cost him about twenty grand so far and, in his eyes, achieved precisely
nothing. His daughter had vanished as totally as if she’d been transported away by some alien spacecraft, but I doubted that was what Mr Ali wanted to hear. He wanted clues, ideas, leads and evidence, and the only evidence I had was a one-inch-tall toy soldier that probably had nothing to do with her at all.
‘What do you have for me, Mr Savage?’ he demanded abruptly, all the urbane charm forgotten.
I told him about Shoaz Ahmad and the Algerian boy, about the body at Threave Castle, and watched the disbelief grow on his face like the dark stain of a birthmark. He shook his head slowly and when I placed the little metalsepoy on the table between us, he picked it up and tossed it back at me.
‘My daughter has been missing for two weeks and you are playing with toys?’ He managed to keep his voice on the very edge of control, but the dark eyes glittered with the force of his anger. ‘What do these people have to do with my daughter? This last person was killedafterGurya disappeared, the police have told me this. They say there is no link between these . . . these atrocities, and’ – the word ‘death’ hung heavy in the air but he wouldn’t say it – ‘what has happened to my daughter. Yet you have wasted my time and my money on this. I asked you to help me because my wife thought you were special. You are not special, Mr Savage. You’re nothing but a fraud. Where are these great talents you trumpet on your ridiculous website? Where is the man who can find anything? Toy soldiers!’ he spat. ‘I can find toy soldiers in my attic. What have they got to do with Gurya? Precisely nothing, Mr Savage, nothing at all. Our agreement is at an end. The police say they are following a specific line of inquiry. I will trust in them . . .’
What could I do? I could have blustered and given him some bullshit about having my own specific lines of inquiry, but he wouldn’t believe me. He knew as much, probably more, about Gurya’s life than I did. She was just a normal young girl with a few parent problems, some pals who envied her looks and her money, and an unsuitable boyfriend. The spent, bewildered face of Donnie McLeod appeared in my mind. That was when I realised exactly what specific line of inquiry the cops were following.
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