by Caro Ramsay
Anderson thought the dead man looked peaceful, at rest. He must have been unconscious when all this was going on – surely anybody with any sense of the pain and horror to come would have terror etched into every muscle in their face. He put his hand out, palm up, feeling the drizzle turn to rain.
‘Right, let’s get on with it.’ O’Hare bent over the empty sleeves, each cuff a tunnel of blood. Costello crouched down in front of him and O’Hare handed her a sealed bag of nitrile gloves. ‘Stick them on, will you? My back’s giving me gyp.’ The pathologist leaned forward uncomfortably and looked over at the plastic sheet. ‘Can you bag the hands up, then the rest of the arms?’ Then he said to Anderson, ‘Well, he has the hands of a manual worker. Somebody who has a job in this part of the world can’t be too hard to trace. I was going to suggest that the facial disfigurement was to conceal his identity.’
‘No, that was sheer brutality, personal brutality,’ said Walker as he approached, smiling. He was in charm mode. ‘In the back pocket of his jeans we found a wallet, a driver’s licence with photo ID, passport. We’re fixed.’
O’Hare raised an eyebrow. ‘Handy.’ He looked over to the farm, then back at the body.
Anderson followed his chain of thought. ‘And nobody heard anything?’
‘Absolutely nothing,’ said Walker, getting very close to Costello and receiving a glare to back off.
‘I imagine getting your arms pulled out is a tad painful, so the fact that nobody heard anything lends weight to the theory that he was unconscious.’ O’Hare shone his powerful torch on the battered face. It immediately looked older, more thirties than late twenties. ‘No damage round the mouth, so not gagged; the blood there is not smeared. But he was bleeding from the damaged tissues, so alive when it happened, not alive shortly after it happened.’ O’Hare carefully lifted the eyelids with his thumb, first one then the other. ‘Pupils still a bit dilated.’ He made no further comment and pulled a tape recorder from his pocket, ignoring Walker who was trying to kneel beside him to get a better look. Costello and O’Hare moved towards each other, closing the gap.
‘You’ve got the pictures of these cuffs and the trails of blood into the mud?’ O’Hare asked the photographer.
A nod. ‘You can move him.’
The camera flashed a few times, O’Hare doing his own running commentary. The rate of flashing increased as Costello dipped her head forward, twisting as if she was looking under the dead man’s chin. Then she slowly placed her gloved fingertip between his teeth, trying to prise open the mouth.
‘Use a spatula for that,’ warned O’Hare, shuffling the digital recorder before handing her a wooden strip. He adjusted the torch beam so she could see better.
‘There is something in there, something black.’
‘If that is a butterfly, I am out of here,’ muttered Walker.
‘Well, it’s not Hannibal Lecter. No Silence of the Lambs. Did you see the sequel? Shut up Ewes?’ quipped Costello as she took the ruler off a smirking O’Hare and placed it against the lips of the deceased, letting the photographer get close, his camera constantly flashing and whirring.
A corner of black paper came into view, then a fold. Costello swore and took an evidence bag from her pocket then gently prised the black, wet cardboard out of the mouth. The fold caught on the top teeth, and O’Hare reached forward to prise the mouth wider with a sterile spatula so she could pull it free. A black envelope. She dropped it straight into the evidence bag where it sprang open slightly. ‘Nice that they thought to leave us a message.’ She stood up, letting O’Hare start to record body temperature.
‘What is it?’ asked Walker, pointing at the black envelope.
‘I need to open it first. I bet I can do that without touching it; it’s closed but not sealed.’
‘No DNA on the glue then.’
Costello shook the envelope down to the corner of its plastic cover and proceeded to bend it and wriggle it until the flap was opened, her purple gloved fingers squeezing and manipulating. She then waggled the envelope from side to side, and a black card slid out to rest in the opposite corner of the plastic bag. ‘Years of steaming other folk’s mail open,’ she explained to Walker casually. The card was black on one side, patterned with a white, magical unicorn, winged and magnificent. She flipped the bag over. The other side was a beautiful print of a court jester, the words The Fool in gold lettering underneath.
‘A tarot card?’
‘Was that put in his mouth?’ Walker asked the stupid question.
‘Probably. The Fool – does that mean something?’ asked Anderson.
‘Maybe O’Hare is right and this is satanic?’ Costello caught the involuntarily grimace on Walker’s face. ‘Something sacrificial? We might find three virgins burned at the stake up here somewhere.’
Walker pulled a sarcastic face. ‘Oh Costello, don’t be daft. Where would you find three virgins in Erskine?’
Helena McAlpine sat on a bench on the main drag of the Botanic Gardens, taking a breather before going back to the studio.
She wanted the company of strangers, of these strollers in the park who moved slowly and aimlessly, burdened only by the change in the weather. The noises of the gardens were muffled; heels on the concrete, cars on the road, chitter chat of passers-by, rumbling of buggy wheels on the path. She looked up, seeking a breath of fresh air but finding none; there was no air to breathe. Leaden clouds sat low over the city. It looked like thunder.
She would sit here and welcome the rain. She was warm but still pulled her jacket round her for comfort, nestling herself into the hard wood of the bench. Thinking.
Thinking that the colour of the clouds was the same Payne’s grey as the curtains she had just ordered.
She looked at her watch, quarter to ten. She should go to the studio and get on with the piece she was working on. It had been called Hope, but she had now renamed it Fuck It.
She heard a dog bark. A small, wiry mongrel had grabbed a stick and was running through the bushes looking very pleased with himself. He dropped his stick and indulged in some frantic earth digging, front paws clawing away, sending blades of grass flying, and his carrot of a tail metronoming the air. Content with the hole, he picked the stick up again and scampered off back into the rhoddies.
Helena watched him running around without a care in the world. His owner seemed nowhere about. Perhaps he or she was with the small group of people standing at the front of the plant houses looking at the sky, debating whether to go in, go to the café or go towards town. Anywhere to get out of the rain.
She watched the dog bounce around and thought of Nesbit, and then Colin. DCI Colin Anderson. Her lover, somebody else’s husband. Her late husband’s protégé. And Nesbit’s owner. She pulled her phone from her pocket and looked at the unsent text message, then put her phone back.
She moved slightly on the seat, easing the pain. Was it a pain? Or just a little sensation, a gripping little flutter. Nothing more, nothing that had appeared serious.
She should go to work. Ella, the manager at the gallery, was expecting her back from her appointment sometime before lunch.
Helena McAlpine stayed exactly where she was, watching the people walking backward and forward in front of her. The clouds dropped lower. The wee dog came back across the grass, ran up to her and had a sniff at her knee, prancing on his front paws. She patted him on the head, ruffling him behind the ears. So like Nesbit, a one-ear-up-and-one ear-down type of dog. It regarded her with liquid-brown eyes, offering some understanding if not sympathy. She heard somebody call; it sounded like Moby, Toby or Cody, the consonants lost in the air. The dog pricked its ears then ran off, back legs going like pistons. Helena could not see who the dog ran to – just another face in the crowd.
Going back where he belonged.
Colin was doing the same thing – going back where he belonged, a subtle drift back to Brenda and the kids. He wasn’t Helena’s to have.
Which meant less mess, less wake on the water.<
br />
Helena did have Claire Anderson, though. Admittedly she only had a wee part of Claire, but that meant a wee part of Colin. Colin’s daughter was a talented girl, only too glad to hang round her dad’s ‘friend’ and help out at the art gallery on a Saturday for some pocket money. She was the only person Helena allowed in the studio while she was working. As a companion, the girl was a delight. Helena saw in Claire something of herself at that age, and something of the daughter she would have wished for. She wanted Claire to get a good art degree, maybe share her studio in the house on the Terrace, come back and work with her at the gallery. Well, all that was now in the lap of the gods.
It began to rain. A few spots at first, big and heavy, falling slowly. They splashed on to the back of her hands, opening into petals of water, blooming and spreading. She pressed the damp skin of her hand to the heat of her forehead. She felt both hot and cold; that little twinge in her spine niggled a little more. She shuffled in the seat, thinking again about the new curtains she had ordered, the same Payne’s grey. The dog ran past, ears flying, then the owner came into view calling the dog back. An older lady, holding the lead with an empty collar swinging like a noose.
She should have ordered the curtains earlier.
‘Warren McAvoy?’
The name hung in the air.
The rain was coming down in stair rods by the time the two SOCOs appeared, carrying the plastic for the tent. Anderson pulled Walker and Costello well out of earshot of the others, leaving O’Hare with his thermometer. ‘Did you say Warren McAvoy?’
‘He has the ID of Warren McAvoy,’ repeated Walker. ‘So where the hell has he been hiding for a year?’
‘Shit,’ said Anderson slowly.
‘Shit indeed,’ agreed Costello. ‘Shit coming to a town our way. Today.’
‘Hence why I asked for you two,’ said Walker. ‘So he’s been found at last. But not by Police Scotland. Despite the fact we’ve been looking for him for a year.’
‘Almost exactly a year,’ said Costello. ‘It’s the sixteenth of June today.’
‘It was DCI Bernie Webster’s team, wasn’t it? Why not let him run with this? It’s his case.’
‘It’s your case now,’ said Walker.
‘But we had a suspicious death this morning.’
‘Oh, the old woman in the fire? Someone else can deal with that.’ Walker stood and shoved his hands in his pockets.
‘An old woman in a fire?’ Costello asked.
‘Ninety-two. Vulnerable. Deliberately set on fire and left to die. Slowly. In her own home …’ murmured Anderson.
Costello took his cue: ‘Imagine what Karen Jones and her tabloid chums would make of that. She gets another scoop on Police Scotland ignoring a brutal crime and …’
Walker knew a double act when he heard it. ‘I am not ignoring, I am prioritising. You are Major Incident and you are busy here. There’s a briefing at seven. Nothing is to be said to anybody, especially the media, and especially Karen Jones. That woman has got a contact in the service.’
For some reason Walker’s eyes focussed on Costello, whose attention was back with the deceased.
‘Well, well, somebody got to McAvoy,’ she muttered to nobody in particular. ‘Good!’
‘The murder of a double child killer is a huge deal. And it is very sensitive for obvious reasons. But I don’t want it affecting the way you handle this. Anderson? Costello?’
‘Course not. We are not going to red-light vigilantism,’ said Anderson.
‘And that is the Police Scotland view. Colin, maybe it would be better if you informed Webster? I want him at the briefing, get him onside. None of this goes behind his back.’
‘Of course,’ Anderson said, wondering how Webster would take the news. No matter how it was phrased, it would smack of professional criticism. ‘I’ll use all my charm.’
‘No hope then,’ said Costello. ‘Do we have any idea where McAvoy has been for the last twelve months? A year on Saturday. A bit spooky, don’t you think?’
‘Getting your arms pulled off is more than spooky,’ said Walker, blinking as he took off his specs, then wiping them with his hanky, which only served to spread the smears. ‘The next few days are going to be very difficult.’
‘We know it wasn’t your net when McAvoy slipped through it,’ said Costello reassuringly.
‘Thank you, Costello.’ Walker beamed at her.
‘Shame to fuck it up by letting the old lady’s suspicious death go uninvestigated by Major Incident.’
Walker’s smile froze.
‘I think the public need to know that any investigation into a suspicious death will be comprehensive and extensive. For all our sakes. No cherry picking to be popular,’ Costello added.
Walker’s voice was tremulous. ‘There wasn’t anything wrong with the investigation into the death of those boys last year.’
‘Or the wee lassie in 2011, two years ago? You were assistant fiscal then.’
‘Her death was accidental. The boys were murdered a year later. Probably by Warren McAvoy. We could not trace him. Somebody else did, obviously.’ Walker nodded, a flexed forefinger pressed to his upper lips. ‘Oh yes, this could have huge repercussions. The media. Vigilantes – vigilantes who are better at the job than you lot are. We need to get our ducks in a row this time.’
Anderson said, his voice almost a whisper, ‘God’s sake, look over there.’ He pointed to the body. ‘Whoever did that was careful. The location, the ropes, the knots, the … whatever made the horses bolt, the shoe covers, the way the victim was kept compliant and subdued. The SOCOs don’t think they are going to find much. This guy really knew what he was doing. This was belt, braces and superglue. If they are vigilantes they are bloody good.’
Walker dropped his voice even though there was nobody within earshot. ‘They are already muttering that it might be a cop.’
Half an hour later, a wet Anderson accompanied a soaked O’Hare back to the car. O’Hare was speculating about the time of death, talking himself in and out of precision as was the way of all pathologists. Two other vehicles had pulled up behind the Avensis. The two uniforms out on the road nodded to them as they picked their way through the mud at the gate and stood on the concrete.
O’Hare said, ‘Interesting, that very medieval method of death. The Romans used to do a similar thing with tree trunks. They bent the trunks, tied the victim to them and when they cut the rope the trees would spring back and pull the poor bugger apart.’
‘Thanks for that story. I will sleep easier in my bed tonight knowing that barbarianism is alive and well. The big question is where has Warren McAvoy been between the death of those boys and now?’
‘Be careful, Anderson, I have no doubt that this case has the scent of shite about it. Nobody else will touch it. If you solve it, you will end up making the top brass look stupid. You’ll make Bernie Webster look stupid and he’s a popular guy. If you don’t solve it, you will be made to look stupid, and it will be your name that they’ll remember.’
Anderson stopped walking and turned back for a final look at the farm. ‘I know I am dancing on eggshells, believe me. I hope Walker isn’t looking for a fall guy.’
‘Don’t expect Police Scotland to rush to catch you.’ At his car, O’Hare started to pull his wellies off, leaning on the boot and swearing about the pain in his hip.
‘It’d be nice to know if he was drugged when he went into that field.’
O’Hare shot him his dour doing my job now, are you look. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as I can. But so you know, I didn’t do any of the posts on the kids. Robbie or Callum.’
‘Or Grace,’ added Anderson automatically. ‘Two boys last year, the wee lassie was the year before. Could you review them? Subtly?’
‘Review the work of my own colleagues? We’re really spreading the shit around.’
‘So play the benefit of hindsight card. Talking of cards …’ He turned to the passenger side of the car, reached over and pulled a black enve
lope from under the windscreen wiper. He passed it to O’Hare. ‘Looks familiar. Black envelope.’
O’Hare stopped putting his bags in the boot of the car. Anderson handed him another pair of gloves from his pocket, ‘It wasn’t there when you parked.’
O’Hare looked round, his eyes scanning the fields around them as Anderson looked at the Avensis with its boot on the concrete of the road, the bonnet tucked into the hedgerow, the open fields beyond stretching down to the river. There was nobody there.
‘How can that be meant for me? Who knows my car? Only had it a month.’
‘Somebody who knows you. Somebody who knew you would be here. The people who did that?’ Anderson looked up to the hill, up to the dead body. ‘A cop would know that was your car.’
O’Hare pulled on the gloves and turned the black envelope over to find the flap was not stuck, just folded closed. It was a white tarot card this time, the same unicorn. He turned it over. An ornate picture of a man on a throne with sword and scales.
Justice.
Bernie Webster put the phone down slowly, sighed and scratched his belly.
Warren McAvoy had turned up dead in a field.
His arms had been pulled out.
Webster knew that was twelve months of his career gone for nothing. The team had always known McAvoy would turn up sooner or later – that was sod’s law and sods like McAvoy always came to light in the end, rotting in a hole, stinking like the evil vermin they were.
He looked out the window into the main office of Alexandria Station. Three of the original murder team were still here, the team that had spent months trying to locate a suspected double, or even triple child killer. No lead left unfollowed. No stone left unturned. They had worked their arses off to trace him. Had he taken his eye off the ball? No, but he had been thinking of steering the case in a new direction.