Human Face

by Aline Templeton

  Murdo John, who was sitting at a small desk in the window doing paperwork, looked up. ‘Don’t get involved,’ he said.

  ‘But I am involved, Murdo,’ Vicky argued. ‘I was very fond of Eva and if something’s happened to her I’m not going to let them get away with pretending nothing’s wrong.’

  ‘If,’ Murdo John said. ‘The girl was packing to go away, wasn’t she, and now she’s gone away. That’s all.’

  ‘She was going to get me to collect her when she was ready,’ Daniel repeated, for possibly the fortieth time. ‘She didn’t. She didn’t answer her phone.’

  ‘Yes, you said. It looks as if she changed her mind. What do you think happened – someone pushed her over a cliff or something?’ He sounded irritable.

  ‘Murdo, we’re not saying that!’ Vicky said. ‘It’s just—’

  ‘Something happened,’ Daniel insisted. ‘And no one’s doing anything about it. I spoke to one of the sergeants at Broadford and all he said was that he had it on file. What use is that?’

  Vicky was distressed. ‘Oh, I was hoping someone senior would come and investigate it! Is that all – they’re just shrugging their shoulders? What can we do?’

  ‘Try leaving it to the experts,’ Murdo John said flatly. ‘And if I did think harm had come to the girl, I’d forbid you to have anything more to do with them over there.’

  The word ‘forbid’ fell into the conversation like a hand grenade going off.

  ‘Forbid? Did you say forbid?’ Vicky’s voice rose.

  Daniel got up hastily. ‘I’ll be off. I’m going to see what I can do.’ He went out, shutting the door behind him with a silent whistle. That was going to be one hell of a marital spat.

  The interview with Kelso Strang was a constant niggle at the back of DCS Borthwick’s mind over the next couple of days, even as she dealt with the usual overload of papers on her desk and the fallout from an inquiry – or ‘witch-hunt’ as one of her more irascible inspectors had termed it – by the Police Investigation and Review Commissioner.

  She could slot him into admin meantime but it wouldn’t be the absorbing job he was needing right now and in his current volatile state he might just chuck it. That wouldn’t be good for him, and losing talent wasn’t good from her point of view either. She was still trying to think of a way round it when the phone call from the deputy chief constable came.

  They’d been setting up a pilot scheme for a new initiative: the Serious Rural Crime Squad. With the pressure on budgets, financing CID expertise in low-crime rural areas was expensive so it would make sense to have officers from one of the larger units available to be seconded as necessary.

  There was, he said, a case that the CC thought wanted looking into on Skye. When he described the circumstances Borthwick was surprised; a woman packing her bags and walking out without explanation wouldn’t normally justify the expense of sending someone in, but if that was what the CC wanted …

  And, she thought as she put down the phone, this just might be the answer for what to do with Kelso Strang. He’d be in an isolated position but she suspected that wouldn’t bother him much. She’d always sensed a sort of independence in him, aloofness, even, as if what others thought or did mattered little to him. This would give him a brief breathing space – Skye, on his own, not much pressure. A bit of hillwalking in his spare time, even.

  She was definitely warming to the idea. He was intelligent, too, so she could task him to produce a report on the viability of the new system before some major case came up.

  As long as he was up to it. Was he? She wasn’t a gambler by nature and if the case had been anything other than low-key she wouldn’t have entertained the idea. But it wouldn’t be for more than two or three days, surely, then he’d have a spell doing the feasibility study. It might be the chance he needed to let everything settle down – and let the team get back to normal too.

  She buzzed her secretary. ‘Get hold of DI Strang for me,’ she said.

  ‘They’re going to parachute in a DI up from Edinburgh to check out that female who disappeared in Balnasheil,’ Sergeant Buchanan said.

  At the other end of the phone, PC Murray bristled. ‘Edinburgh? What for? I’ve investigated. She just packed her bags and went and the guy who thought it was him she was going to go off with didn’t like it, that’s all. We’re not needing some hotshot Edinbugger coming here and mucking us about.’

  ‘Lassie, you’re there to cooperate, right, not start some sort of civil war. Or uncivil war, since it’s you. You’ll get word when he’s coming so you can be prepared. Have you got that?’

  ‘Sir,’ Murray said in as bolshie a tone as she dared, and banged the phone down. This was all she needed.

  DI Strang went to the appointment with DCS Borthwick in no very receptive frame of mind. Doing nothing but office work, he could almost feel the moss growing as he sat there. This wasn’t the job he’d loved; if what JB had in mind was putting him into admin, she could shove it, frankly. He went in to see her, determined to stand his ground whatever pressure she brought to bear.

  So what she had to say took him aback. He hadn’t even heard of the SRCS but it sounded like an interesting idea.

  ‘You’d have to be prepared to be a bit of a maverick, operating on your own initiative,’ she explained. ‘Whatever help you got from the local force would be billed to the SRCS budget and the CC is very keen to keep costs down. Of course, if it was a major investigation we’d helicopter in whatever is necessary but to be honest this case looks like a cosmetic operation to placate someone who has pull – a soft start for what’s still really a pilot project.’

  She paused, looking at him a little uncertainly. ‘Do you – do you feel you would be up to that at the moment, Kelso? It’s a big responsibility.’

  He almost bit her arm off. Solo operations held no fear for him and at least he’d get a break, however brief, from seeing the lads going home to spouses and partners every night, constantly reminding him that he had none. If he handled it well, it might lead to other opportunities. This job appealed to him. It appealed to him a lot.

  For the sake of form, he hesitated as if he was giving it mature consideration, then he met her eyes squarely. ‘I know you’d be taking a chance with me, ma’am, but I’d welcome the challenge.’

  Borthwick held his glance for a moment, as if she were evaluating the chance she was taking. Then she said briskly, ‘Good. Anyway, as I say, it looks like something you could wrap up in a couple of days. And you’ll be reporting directly to me on your progress.’ Then she added warningly, ‘But you understand – this has to be your show and you’ll be in charge.’

  ‘Not a problem, ma’am. Thanks for giving me the chance.’

  Kelso drove home, his mind already working on logistics. Liaise with the office about accommodation, check the route, pack ready to leave first thing tomorrow …

  And phone his mother. He’d been bad about not returning her calls and there were dozens of other messages he hadn’t even read. Sympathy only made him feel worse; even though Mary wouldn’t be crass enough to offer it, he would sense her pity. If he told her he was being sent to Skye to do a job for a few days and would be out of touch, he wouldn’t have to feel guilty about not responding.

  He heard the relieved lift in Mary Strang’s voice when he spoke but she was careful not to sound reproachful at his neglect, or to ask how he was.

  ‘Getting away will be good, and Skye should be lovely at this time of year – all that autumn colour,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Get some fresh air—’

  ‘I know. It’ll put some colour in my cheeks,’ he finished for her, and heard her laugh. It had been her constant cry when her family showed couch-potato tendencies. ‘I’ll probably get that all right. Skye isn’t famed for its balmy weather.’

  ‘Don’t be such a pessimist! I heard the forecast this morning and tomorrow’s going to be nice. Lots of sunshine. And don’t say they got it wrong today. Even if they did.’

  ‘Should
n’t dream of contradicting my mother. But anyway, I’m not exactly going to be taking my bucket and spade – and talking about tools for the job, I’d better get on and sort some out.’

  He was just about to ring off when she said, in a rush, ‘Darling, try not to blame Dad too much. He’s worried about you, you know—’

  ‘Yes, Ma, I know.’ He knew he sounded terse and he heard her give a tiny sigh, but he couldn’t help that. At least he hadn’t retorted that what his father was worried about was his masterplan for Kelso failing. ‘Anyway, I’ve got a lot to do. If you need to get in touch, go through the office. The reception’s probably not very good and I won’t be checking calls.’

  It was one of her virtues as a mother that she didn’t believe in flogging dead horses, and Mary made no attempt to return to the subject of his father. ‘Right. Let us know when you get back. Have a good drive up and – and take care.’ The anxiety showed through when she said that.

  Kelso swallowed hard. ‘Yes. At least, I’ll do my best. Bye, Ma.’ He didn’t want to think about getting out onto the motorway again.

  He busied himself with packing and checking through the reports that had been passed on to him. It sounded straightforward enough; he scribbled a few notes and sketched in a schedule. He was engaged, absorbed even, and when he looked at his watch he was surprised to see it was almost midnight.

  He struggled with a foolish feeling of guilt that something of a healing process seemed to have begun.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  He hadn’t realised how nervous he would be on the city bypass. It was the first time since the accident that Kelso Strang had driven outside the city streets and he found himself shaking, sweat forming on the back of his neck, eyeing every juggernaut that passed in the outer lane of the other carriageway, tensed up for a sudden swerve that would bring it smashing through the central barrier, imagining what he would do, what he would have done, if he had been driving instead of Alexa …He needed distraction.

  The car was stocked with Alexa’s CDs; he’d had no interest in classical music before he met her but she’d got him hooked. He couldn’t listen to her music just now, though – not yet; he was too afraid of the emotion it would provoke. He switched on the radio, set to Radio Three, and hastily flipped to some sort of phone-in on Five Live instead, something about cuts to welfare benefits – that might do. He forced himself to listen until he felt his attention drifting and flipped again, finding a documentary on Afghanistan. There was a journo holding forth on how it was and he listened with a wry smile to the confident rubbish the man was spouting.

  But as the long miles rolled on it became harder to concentrate on the voices coming from the little box in the dashboard, harder to suppress the memories that flooded in, taking him through it all over again.

  ‘You’re not killing her,’ the doctor had said, reading his mind. She was very young and not far from tears. ‘Alexa’s dead already, Kelso.’ Then she corrected herself. ‘They’re dead already. The baby too.’

  At least she had acknowledged the baby. The consultant, professionally compassionate, seemed to have forgotten the other life – the child who would never exist but who had been so fondly imagined.

  Alexa didn’t look dead, though. The hand he was holding was warm and her chest rose and fell gently with each breath. Apart from the dressing on her head, where the corner of the roof had caved in on her after the crash and the bruising under her eyes, she looked as if at any moment she might sit up, look incredulously at the technology attached to her and shake it off, laughing.

  ‘Can you leave us alone for a moment?’ he said to the doctor.

  ‘Of course. As long as you want.’ She whisked out of the room and he knew she was going to cry when she got outside. Poor kid. She’d have to toughen up. He didn’t feel like crying. He felt remote, detached, as if all this was happening to someone else.

  He didn’t feel like talking to Alexa either. They’d let him see the brain scans that showed no activity at all after the massive damage, and though he’d heard the theory that a familiar voice could get through even so, he didn’t believe it. He didn’t want to because if she could hear, it would mean she was in some sense still alive. He badly needed to believe what the doctor said – that she was dead already.

  But she was warm and she was breathing, thanks to the tube in her throat, and once he gave the consent they were waiting for she wouldn’t be breathing any more. She would go still and the ugly processes of death would start.

  They would let him stay. He could wait until the breathing stopped, wait till the hand went cold in his.

  Or he could go now to sign forms that would bring death to her and give life to someone else, then get out of this place that had started to smell of death to him so strongly that he gagged. He could get out before the rage, the agony and the despair – the total, blank, utter despair – kicked in.

  He wasn’t sure how long that would be. He could feel it building, like a sort of mental nausea, and he was afraid of what would happen when the numbness of shock that had carried him through this far began to wear off.

  With a great, shuddering sigh he stood up. He kissed Alexa’s hand and laid it down on the smooth white sheet. Her lips were cracked and dry; he kissed her forehead instead. The obstruction in his throat was almost choking him.

  As he turned away, he said, ‘Sleep well,’ as he had said every night for all the years they had been together, though he knew he was saying it to empty air. Alexa had gone already.

  Kelso Strang walked out without looking back, along to the nursing station where the doctor was waiting. She stood up with a brave smile but her eyes were red and puffy.

  ‘Give me the forms,’ he said harshly.

  It hit home as he came out of the doors of the hospital into the watery sunshine, striking him with a force that doubled him over. A woman walking past eyed him nervously but he didn’t even see her or hear her tentative, ‘Are you all right?’ Gasping, he managed to straighten up and staggered towards the car park.

  He hadn’t expected the physical pain that was crushing his lungs. He was sweating and breathless by the time he reached his car, finding it by instinct rather than conscious thought. Perhaps he was having a heart attack. He embraced the thought. The end. Nothing more to face, nothing more to feel.

  But it hadn’t been that easy. He had driven back blindly to the fisherman’s cottage opposite the Newhaven harbour, the little house that still smelt of paint from the room they were painting yellow for the baby because Alexa couldn’t bear to wait to see if it would be blue or pink.

  He had crashed the front door closed and walked to the cupboard to fetch the Scotch and drunk himself into oblivion.

  The memory of the hangover that followed, the worst he’d ever had in what had not exactly been an abstemious existence, jolted him out of the darker thoughts. He was setting off to start the next chapter of his life and that meant this sort of emotional overindulgence had to stop.

  He’d learnt resilience in a hard school. To save his comrades in Afghanistan, it had been his job as a sniper to inflict death on an oblivious man miles away. Then, when he’d been in Armed Response, he’d dropped a Yardie who was high on smack as his finger was tightening on the trigger of the shotgun pointing at a policewoman. He’d learnt to live with that, learnt not to punish himself for what had been his duty to do.

  He had to use that hard-won ability now to handle the soul-deep anguish of losing Alexa. He had to lock away the pain, the grief, the guilt that came from feeling as if he had killed his wife and child, no matter how authoritatively he was told that they had both been dead already. He had to lock all that out and get on with the job, just as he always had. As a soldier’s son and a soldier himself, discipline was inbred; whether this was entirely healthy or not was a question he wasn’t going to let himself debate.

  Courtesy of JB’s patronage, he had an absorbing new task. Here he was on the traditional Road to the Isles, even if only for a couple of da
ys, and he owed it to her to get this absolutely right.

  And what, he wondered, was the reaction at the other end going to be like? How happy would the local force be about someone being parachuted in over their heads? He grimaced. He had a nasty feeling that they wouldn’t exactly be shaking out the bunting to string across the front of the station.

  They were arguing. Beatrice Lacey could hear their raised voices in Adam’s flat as she struggled in the kitchen trying to make sure she was perfectly organised for the evening meal. Vicky had just gone, leaving food that was as simple as possible – soup, a fish pie with a green salad and a cold pudding to follow – but she had to work out when to heat things up and how to stop them spoiling if the men wanted to linger over their drinks.

  Rows between Adam and Harry were nothing new – they were both strong-willed men with their own very definite views – but this was going on longer and getting louder than anything she had heard before. She’d never known Harry stay so long, either, when there wasn’t a house party, and he wasn’t showing any sign of leaving. This wasn’t normal; there was definitely something wrong.

  Beatrice began to tremble and hastily set down the dish she was holding in case she dropped it. She was getting more and more scared, sleeping badly and waking shuddering at the dreams she’d had.

  Harry was shouting now. ‘I don’t trust you!’ she heard, then something about being compromised. Suddenly there was a series of sharp barks. Harry stopped mid word. There was a silence, then she heard Adam give a harsh laugh and what sounded like an instruction to the dog.

  A few moments later a door slammed, then another one, and she heard footsteps going right across the hall, not climbing the staircase or heading towards the door underneath it.