by Caro Ramsay
Anderson nodded. ‘Of course they do.’
‘One of the neighbours told the fire investigation guy that she saw a council van three nights ago, driving around late at night.’
‘Hemphill’s doing a door to door. I’ll leave you to it.’ He crept into the living room, quietly respectful of an old lady’s privacy. The light summer curtains had been opened, as had the hoppers on the window to let some air through. Free of the smell of the smoke, he could recognize the familiar accompaniments of old women: talcum powder, lavender water and mashed tea. A People’s Friend lay open on top of a pile of newspapers on a side table with a hand-held magnifier and a pen lying together. A few horses had their names ringed in blue ink. She must have liked a flutter. A grab stick lay against the throw-covered armchair, and a plastic aid to turn the fire on and off was placed on the arm of the chair. Next to it was a small tapestry footstool, a pair of old tartan slippers sitting neatly beside it. The telephone had a loud volume feature and an attachment for the care alert.
Anderson laid his fingertip on the top of the Harvey’s Bristol Cream bottle on the sideboard, disturbing the fine, silky soot. It was nearly empty. He thought he would have liked Bella.
He walked back out to the hall and stood beside the clock. A bowl of dusty potpourri stood on the small sideboard with a card tucked underneath which read: Never complain about growing old, some folks don’t get the option. ‘And I’ve never died a winter yet,’ Anderson muttered out loud, quoting his own granny. The flat seemed incredibly clean, free of the usual clutter and gatherings of a long life. Bella had been tidy, throwing out what she did not need, no need to keep anything for a rainy day if every day had its fair amount of rain. Through the open door of the bedroom he could hear O’Hare’s phone ringing, a millisecond before his own vibrated in his pocket.
‘DCI Anderson? We have an incident.’ The voice read out the postcode. ‘Riverview Farm. Near Erskine. They will meet you on the road.’
He said thanks, hung up and stepped back into the bedroom, looking at the calendar. Pictures of roses, hints and tips for pruning and dead-heading. ‘You said a neighbour had seen a strange van a few days ago?’
O’Hare looked at the date on his watch. ‘Yip, she said Friday.’
‘Friday the thirteenth.’
Elvie McCulloch had a whole two weeks off after her periods of surgical rotation and elective study for her medical degree had finished. Her dissertation had been submitted and she wasn’t scheduled for any more clinic time for another week. Her road back to health had been long and painful. The difficult part was trying to cope with ‘normal’.
Free time was an anathema to her so she was looking forward to spending the day at her other job at the agency. At half six she went for a slow fifteen-mile run, then after a shower and a smoothie for breakfast, she lay on the settee of her Woodlands flat watching the news. Some trouble over the new borders in the Crimea, some new horror in the Middle East and the usual gaggle of football managers talking crap. She dressed in baggy jeans and an old T-shirt, dirty trainers with broken laces and a stained, frayed, nicotine-scented hoodie she had borrowed from one of the retired cops she worked with. She had noticed the dark clouds gathering while she was out running so she slipped on her thin waterproof jacket. On her way to the office she practised her ‘ned walk’, rolling her shoulders, chin sticking out and hands deep in pockets. She had the crater skin; all she needed was a pit bull and a bottle of Buckie to complete the picture. As she crossed the grass up to Park Terrace, she noticed that strange Scottish summer phenomenon: the dawn had darkened the day.
Approaching the office she looked at the sign, as she always did. It was a bittersweet reminder of the past, friendships forged and good friends lost. Parnell Fox; Private Investigations. As her good friend Mary Parnell’s husband Alex would be in the company of Her Majesty for a few years yet, Mary had taken over his security business and tried to use it for the greater good – mainly tracking down society’s runaways and throwaways. Mary was on a cruise in the Med with her parents and her son Charlie, leaving Elvie to oversee their team of six investigators.
By the time she had opened up the shutters and turned the alarm off, the clock on the wall was twitching round to eight thirty. The office was quiet, the answering machine blinking away. The meeting table looked like the aftermath of a tea party for delinquent chimpanzees; four glasses, all dirty, nestling in the remnants of a takeaway. The air was scented with stale beer and chicken tikka, sweaty feet and God knows what else.
Typical of retired cops back from surveillance.
She opened the window, letting in the rumble of distant traffic with the fresh air. Then she put the chairs back where they belonged and started picking up screwed-up peanut packets, crisp packets and one empty can of dog food from the floor. The place still stank like the monkey house, so she opened the window a bit further and wandered into the back office to put the milk in the fridge and switch the kettle on.
Five minutes later she was sitting at a computer screen sipping a black coffee, reading through emails. A firm of car mechanics had paid them for tracing a vintage MG that had been nicked and renumbered. Not much money in that but the boys had enjoyed it. A small firm of decorators had paid up after they had proved beyond doubt that the two juniors were moonlighting and undercutting their boss, for cash. Another boss, his employee attending Zumba classes while off on the sick … not much wrong with that, thought Elvie, until she read the employee was supposed to be off work with a broken ankle. She herself had traced the mother of an adopted child, so he could thank her and reassure her that he had lived a happy life. It had been footwork, computer searches and educated guesses.
Her current case was more typical, a drug addict who had left home and now the family wanted him back: Iain Matthews – or Tattoo Boy, as Elvie called him.
She opened another email, recognizing the address and immediately remembering the case. An American had been trying to trace an old girlfriend. Fox Parnell had found the girlfriend’s daughter Alexis, and she had informed them that the American had fathered a son but both kids had lost touch with their mother. The last comment on file, dated a year ago, was Happy Families.
Elvie wasn’t surprised when she read the new email. Families, especially long-lost half connected ones, were toxic. Elvie saw the image of the clean cut handsome man in his late fifties, his black hair sprouting wings of grey. She guessed Italian ethnicity somewhere and read on.
[email protected]: My son is now living with Alexis. You have the address. Can you drive up and make sure all is well? He might be working away, but it’s not like him not to be in touch. But please be very discreet. I’m concerned.
She emailed back that it would be fine, mentally working out the time difference. The machine flashed that a new email had arrived. He had been waiting.
When can you manage it?
Later today or tomorrow.
Not sooner?
No, I’m following a lead on a missing boy today.
The cursor flashed impatiently. She waited.
That would be great.
The cursor marked time again.
Alexis McAvoy lives with her brother. My son, Warren.
Elvie read that twice. Another email arrived.
You promised discretion. Thank you.
The cursor stopped. Connection broken.
Elvie sat back, staring at the screen until the phone rang.
‘They said the weather would break,’ said Anderson as O’Hare crunched the gears in his new Avensis. The wipers smeared dirty rain on the windscreen with a rhythmic judder. Anderson winced. ‘The Boden Boo. What kind of name is that?’
‘Was he not a pal of Andy Pandy?’
‘That was Looby Loo. You need to exit the motorway here, before the bridge.’
O’Hare indicated and pulled into the slip road for Erskine. ‘I have no bloody idea where it is. What about Bella?’
‘It’s OK, I’ve asked plod to protect the scene until Vi
k Mulholland gets there and he’ll take charge until the forensic team turn up, don’t worry.’
O’Hare made a strange harrumphing noise.
‘You need to bear right here.’
The pathologist glanced at his watch. ‘No bloody idea why Mitchum requested me. I mean, why me?’
‘The answer to that in any walk of life is “why not me?”’ said Anderson, his handsome face crinkling with the smile of the Buddha. ‘In here somewhere.’
The windscreen wipers accelerated to double judder as O’Hare mistook the switch for the indicator. He swore quietly as the brand-new car tested its suspension on the single track road heading towards the Clyde, past an old gatehouse, a small car park and a playground of colourful swings and climbing frames. He drove round a corralled collection of early morning dog walkers, bad tempered and irritated that their walk had been interrupted by two uniformed police officers telling them there was nothing to see. One uniform waved the Avensis through, indicating that they should follow the rough track. O’Hare pulled in behind a familiar-looking Fiat.
‘Costello’s here.’ Anderson twisted in his seat to look across the field, to his colleagues milling around in the mud, waiting. As farms went, Riverview Farm did not exactly stink of success. A few caravans were stored on the flat land, the rusting carcasses of three or four cars at the verge of the access lane that bordered the Commonwealth woodland known as the Boden Boo. Anderson spotted Costello’s short blonde hair amongst the others. She was standing, hands deep in the pockets of an over-large anorak, feet in dirty green wellies, slowly turning, taking in a panoramic view, reading the land.
As O’Hare parked the Avensis nose into the hedgerow, moaning about scratches to his new paintwork, Anderson watched the movements in the field. They could have been a group of Sunday hill walkers waiting for a straggler to arrive. ‘As the film says, it looks like the band are getting back together,’ he muttered.
This farm was low on the land near Erskine. They had driven in on a narrow road to the rear of the property. The road continued down towards the River Clyde before skirting around the Boden Boo. If this was a murder site then there was a high degree of local geographical knowledge involved, which suggested a farmer, golfer or a dog walker.
‘They seemed well prepared,’ said O’Hare. ‘The fence has already been nipped, and the plates are down. And Walker the fiscal is here, we shall have to watch our Ps and Qs.’
Getting out of the car, Anderson looked across the field to see a small salt-and-pepper-haired man, smart in his Barbour and very clean green wellies, stalking Costello. ‘Yip, Archie Walker has honoured us with his presence. That’ll be his Merc, the one that looks as though it has never been driven. We are now in for three rounds of Pimp My Crime scene.’
‘As long as he keeps away from the body, he can do what the hell he likes.’
‘No jokes about him keeping away from Costello’s body. His chat-up lines are all about his beloved databases and his operational parameters.’
O’Hare moaned slightly as his back cracked with the effort of lifting his case over the fence. ‘Why does Walker have to turn up everywhere these days? His presence makes it all more … political.’
‘I would say messy.’
They both waved to their colleagues before starting the stepping stone game on the aluminium plates that lay on the grass in a wide arc. The plates marked the ‘corridor of ingress’, as Archie Walker, their new senior fiscal, would call it. Under that Barbour would be a very expensive suit. He kept his hair trendy short, which was faintly ridiculous on a man of his age. The sight of his number four caused Anderson to raise his hand, gauging his own.
Walker was taking advantage of chaotic Police Scotland to make his own mark. The mark he produced in his underlings being of the brown and skid variety. He might be a bit of an arse but he had a reputation as a man who got the job done, and wanted a good team around him.
He also had a reputation of having a wee liking for DI Costello, which had become apparent at the Christmas party. Walker had been very drunk, Anderson mildly so and Costello stone-cold sober as usual. Anderson had no intention of forgetting about Walker and Costello. All knowledge is power, as Bacon said. The thought made Anderson’s stomach rumble.
O’Hare slid on a plate and his foot landed sideways in the grass. Anderson grabbed him by the elbow.
‘I am getting too old for this,’ the pathologist said.
‘We all are,’ agreed Anderson.
By the time he reached the crowd, O’Hare was muttering about a pulled hamstring.
‘Looks like Costello is getting the benefit of the evidential database verbal experience again,’ said O’Hare, standing for a minute to look at the two horses at the top of the field. He then turned his attention to the dark shadow on the grass which was mostly obscured by the legs and bodies of the assembled company. The forensic team and the crime scene manager were standing around in plastic lilac suits murmuring quietly and looking at the sky. The scene was strobed by the constant flicker of camera flash, soundtracked by the whirr of a video camera.
‘Here she comes.’
There was no expression in Costello’s grey eyes when she looked up and immediately hurried towards them along the plates, leaving the fiscal mid-sentence. ‘Thank fuck you two are here,’ she said, her voice clipped with desperation.
‘Nice to be popular,’ said O’Hare.
‘Don’t let it go to your head; Ebola would be more welcome than Walker,’ said Costello curtly. She turned her face away as if she suspected the group might start lip-reading. ‘Walker wants you to lead on this one, Colin, and you have to liaise with him directly.’
‘He is not my boss.’
‘No, DCI Anderson, he is not. But ACC Mitchum is, and it comes from him.’
Anderson twisted on the plates, but the body was still hidden by a sea of folk doing bugger all. ‘OK, so what do we have?’
‘You need to see it for yourself.’ The words caught in her throat.
And Anderson became aware how quiet they were, how tense. Something had shocked the seasoned police officers and crime scene investigators.
Costello retreated to allow them access. The small milling crowd parted in front of them, eyes diverted, hands in pockets. No wisecracks, no patter.
Anderson took one step forward to see the young man in an anorak lying on his back, poised in the grass, his arms like a slave in an Egyptian wall painting; one sleeve up, one sleeve down, both bent at the elbows. His brown eyes were open, still staring up at the sky. He had a few days’ growth on his chin. Young, but old enough to have a family. Walker was now kneeling, white faced, pointing in disbelief at the dark, bloodied staining around the sleeves. And the lack of hands.
Anderson was momentarily confused until Costello nodded at the plastic sheet that lay on the grass about four feet from the body. On it, like a makeshift art installation, were placed two coils of rope and two dismembered arms. The dark, crimson ends caught the light of the camera, curls of ligament and fronds of tendons and nerves, ripped and disrupted.
Anderson shuddered. ‘Jesus.’ He knelt down beside the fiscal, easy to do as his legs were ready to give way.
Walker explained, ‘It looks like he was laid down, the rope tied round his forearms, then the rope looped round the horses’ necks. They got the horses to gallop in opposite directions. Pulled his arms right out his sockets.’
‘Total avulsion injury,’ said O’Hare, with some admiration.
Anderson felt vaguely sick.
O’Hare hitched up the plastic trousers of his suit, ready to kneel down to join them. ‘What did they use to make the horses bolt?’
‘Maddy, the lassie who owns them, says the wee grey one has a small burn on its rear end, maybe a cigarette burn. But we are waiting for the vet on that one.’
Anderson stood up to get some fresh air. The body had voided both bladder and bowels and the smell of urine and excrement made a heady mix with the scent of damp grass and th
e silty taint of the river. He saw Costello looking closely at the arms lying on their separate plastic sheets, mottled purple and streaked with blood like they had been drizzled with raspberry coulis. She bent over, oblivious to his observation, and peered specifically at the third finger on the left hand. Then she turned to look up at him, grey eyes searching out his own left hand, his own wedding ring. Their eyes met and she had the good grace to look away.
‘Sorry?’ Anderson said, realizing Walker had been talking to him.
‘It is a confusing crime scene. The forensic boys think the deceased walked from a car parked in that passing place, there.’ He pointed back to the line of parked vehicles where two pieces of police tape fluttered in the breeze. ‘There are drop marks at the fence at that point, then footmarks to where the body was deposited. Footmarks, not shoeprints, like they had shoe covers on. So, there are two sets of prints coming in, and only one going out. Plus some drag marks in but none out. So that makes three on entry and one on exit. And we only have one dead body, so we are missing a pair of feet somewhere. Like I said, confusing.’
‘Satanic? Medieval? Gothic?’ O’Hare muttered, as he acknowledged the questions going through his head.
‘And what do you think of these?’ Costello asked him, pointing to the forearms and the mottled skin puckered by the intricately tied rope. The flesh underneath was purple with a pattern of black that might be necrosis or dried blood. Or both. ‘Expertly done?’
O’Hare shrugged. ‘Somebody who sails? A climber? A nylon rope?’ The pathologist glanced up at the horses and made the connections. ‘So they got him into the field, tied his arms on to the horses then …’ He shook his head. ‘He was unconscious, surely? Dragged; probably backwards.’ He pointed out that the victim’s short dark hair was spiky with dirt and upended on the back of his head.
‘He is a fit young man. Even if they had a gun to his head, he would have struggled – anything would be preferable to this,’ said Anderson, looking into the battered, bruised and bloodied face of the young man. ‘Somebody punched him, more than once.’ Anderson heard Walker’s phone ring and saw him lift it from his pocket and reject the call. His eyes met Costello’s again; this time she looked away. That would have been his wife, then.