by Caro Ramsay
‘We think it prudent to be extra vigilant with everybody who has a connection to the case. We have no reason to believe that Jimmy is at risk, but he is the only witness to McAvoy’s crime and we now have to consider the possibility that McAvoy is still alive.’
‘And now it’s the anniversary,’ Eoin said, eyes in the middle distance, then focussed on Costello. ‘You think that bastard is going to come back and try again? Try for Jimmy?’ He put his hand out to Isobel; she flinched at his touch.
‘Not really, but his safety is our first priority. It might help if Mick speaks to Jimmy one-to-one. He could try to find out why McAvoy attacked Robbie and Callum at that moment. It might have some bearing on what McAvoy feels about Jimmy. They seemed close on the films I’ve seen.’ Costello held her breath. It was complete rubbish, of course, but they seemed to believe it.
‘What about Ruth – she got one of these?’ Eoin pointed at the tarot card.
‘She is being interviewed as we speak.’
‘Robbie was killed by that bastard, ten years old and battered to death. Why did we let them go out?’
‘Because they were young boys and they wanted to go to the island?’ suggested Costello quietly.
Eoin curled his fingers back into Isobel’s as his wife went quiet, staring out across the room.
She rubbed her forearm, pulling up her blouse to check a deep magenta bruise. Tears rolled down both cheeks. ‘Jimmy liked the Dreamcatcher; it would have been his idea to go out, an adventure to go out that late. It was barely dark. We thought it was safe.’
Costello noticed the shift in her mood, as obvious as the bruises. ‘Was McAvoy good with boats?’
Eoin shook his head, ‘Not particularly.’ But his eyes lay on Costello quizzically.
Isobel sat up straight. ‘I’ll take Jimmy to my mum’s.’
Costello glanced at the clock; the longer Batten had with Jimmy the better. ‘There’s no need to panic. Here’s my card; phone if you need anything, day or night.’ It was Eoin who reached out and took it.
Costello opened the folder again. ‘Can I show you this picture? Do you know who this is?’ She handed over the picture of Mr Field.
‘Is that him?’ asked Eoin but not before Costello noted that familiar flash of recognition.
‘Yes. You know him?’
Eoin’s eyes narrowed. ‘Not easy to recognize him, his face is a mess. I can’t place him but …’ He let out a long, slow breath.
‘But?’ prompted Costello.
‘It rings a bell. Sorry, I’m trying to think …’
‘Do you think he looks like McAvoy?’ asked Costello.
‘In passing only,’ said Eoin. ‘Isobel, look. Who is this guy? I’ve seen him around.’
Isobel shook her head.
Eoin handed the photograph back. ‘Sorry, I can’t recall.’
Costello heard movement out in the hall. ‘It might come back when you’re not thinking about it. Give me a call if it does.’ She stood up.
‘Did McAvoy do that to him, what it said in the paper?’ asked Isobel.
‘Somebody did.’
Brenda looked at the clock; it was getting on for eight. She had been late getting home from work and was thinking about making some salad for tea. There had been no communication from Colin or Claire. Peter would be round at his pal Graham’s, playing computer games, no doubt. Graham’s mum would send him packing when she’d had enough. Colin could be back in five minutes or at five in the morning, she was used to that. But where was Claire? Still at Helena’s? She checked the answering service on the house phone, then looked into Claire’s bedroom in case she had fallen asleep. She was just checking her mobile for any voicemails when it rang.
‘Hello, Mum?’ Her daughter’s voice was clipped, panicky almost.
‘Yip, where are you, Claire?’
Her daughter’s voice got higher, shrill. ‘Mum, I’m at Helena’s house.’
Brenda checked the kitchen clock again. ‘I gathered that. I think your dad was going to collect you but he might be held up, so if you can—’
‘Yes, Mum, it’s just that …’ Claire couldn’t speak for sobbing.
‘What is it, love?’
‘It’s Helena.’ Her sobbing went quiet. ‘Can you come over? I don’t think she’s very well. She’s being sick, she’s in bed but … well, I …’ and she started to cry in earnest.
Claire was already at the front door when Brenda pulled up outside the house in the terrace. Her heart was thumping. She wanted to be anywhere but here, yet at the same time some morbid self-torture of walking into Colin’s lover’s house, this most desired address, meant she couldn’t stop herself. She had texted Colin and told him she would update him. So far there had been no reply.
‘Oh Mum,’ said Claire, ‘I didn’t know what to do.’
‘It’s OK, love. Where is she?’
Brenda walked into the hall, taking in the parquet floor, the Turkish rugs, the art and the porcelain. Beautiful, fragile, but still a home. Claire was still dressed in her school uniform and had taken her shoes off, running about another woman’s house in her socks. She wondered if Colin did that. How ‘at home’ were they here? Claire never took her mucky shoes off in her own house; what did that say about them?
‘She felt sick at work so I came back with her. Then she was really sick. I had to open the bathroom door to get her out and I had to help her to bed.’
‘You did the right thing. Is she here? What has she had to eat?’ Brenda continued to climb up the stairs, looking at the beauty of the light from the oriole window playing on the patina of the floor. The smell of freesias and oil paint was now tinged with the bitter smell of vomit.
‘Tuna sandwich; she only ate a wee bit. I ate the rest.’ Claire opened a big white door, knocking on it gently first. The room was a symphony of brown and cream; the curtains were closed against the evening sun, bathing the room in sepia. Helena lay still on her back, on top of a white duvet, a white duvet that covered a huge double bed. Brenda tried to push the thought of Colin and Helena rolling around on it from her mind.
Helena’s eyes opened slightly as Brenda entered the room. Her brown jumper had slid off her bony shoulders; her grey trousers sagged between her jutting hip bones. Just for a moment, both women held their breath. Brenda saw the yellow sheen on the pale skin, the thin, lifeless hair.
Helena’s fingers crawled across the top of the duvet, reaching out.
The old woman trudged up the wooden stairs, counting. The factory had been derelict for many years, but from the minute the gates closed it became a haven for the homeless. She always wound her way back as if drawn by some invisible flame.
In the eighties she had worked here, when the production line was a hotbed of chatter and gossip. It had been her life to pull out the misshapes: the broken caramel wafers, those only half covered in chocolate, sometimes two stuck together, or one somebody up the line had already taken a bite out of.
She had gained a lot of weight, of course, and that had prompted the diabetes and the loss of three of her toes. And now the fourth wasn’t smelling too good.
She counted the stairs, pulling herself up on the handrail as she dragged her bags behind her. Nine, ten, eleven. Stair fourteen was missing. She had put her foot through it once before and been stuck for a day. Two days? Three days? Until one of the graffiti boys from the Plantation part of the city had come in to work on the Green Devil and had heard her calls for help. He’d been scared shitless and done a runner, thinking she was a banshee. But when he’d reached home and thought about it, he had called the police. That had been a month in hospital – it was when they had amputated her toes.
But she was OK now. She had her wee den on the third floor, a huge area with twin lines of pillars and the Green Devil taking up the full height of the far wall. It had given her nightmares at first, with its blood-red eyes and shards of teeth, and she had been scared of the Plantation boys with their loud music and tattoos. But two years ago they had finished their ar
twork and left. She was alone with the howling, screaming wind, the dancing ghosts of a loyal workforce and the Devil.
She kept to the far corner where most of the windows were well boarded up. It was warm tonight, but in the winter, rain and snow drifted in and the bitter cold winds chased her down. Many times she had been woken by frozen rain stinging her face. But on a windless, gentle summer night like this, the factory was quiet. None of the clattering and screaming that usually echoed round the walls and inside her head.
She settled down, putting her Morrisons bags in a pile and kicking open the old duvet that she had pulled out of a skip in the West End; she’d had to fight for that. Then she put her hood back up, and got settled in. Two cans of Special Brew and a polystyrene tray of bits of burger and fries that she had scavenged from the bins outside McDonalds at St Enoch’s. She always found a load of gherkins in that bin. She cooried into the duvet, reliving conversations with Aggie and Janet – the girls on the line – with their white hats and constant chatter. Wilma from the office’s new up-do, the shift manager’s latest squeeze, the new girl with the hips and the stilettos and the Marilyn Monroe huskiness. It was all she had in her life and it was all she needed; she had been happy. Then redundancy came and everybody moved on. She was left behind, her past and her present were the same thing, her life had stalled. She had worked at the factory since she was fifteen, left when she had the kids, then came back. She didn’t know anything else.
Or anyone else.
Didn’t even know her own children now. She wasn’t sure what happened there – a drift apart.
She was still trying to remember them when she fell into her usual drunken stupor. She never heard them come in. The first kick in the temple woke her up; the second kick got her in the ribs. But she had not lived on the streets for all these years without some sense of survival, so she rolled, pulling the duvet tight up round her neck, curling herself up, making herself as small as possible. They would get bored and go away.
She thought she smelled petrol and heard splashes. In the dark she saw the bright, single flame, hanging in the air like a flower held by an angel. Then the brilliant light came rushing towards her and she knew it was God welcoming her to heaven. It was all going to be OK.
Anderson held the phone out from his ear. ‘… So you made the identity without waiting until the DNA was through. You did not ask them to confirm the DNA before you went ahead? Is it not procedure to …’ He checked the number recognition: Karen Jones. ‘… Another monumental cock-up …’
‘How did you get this number?’ he asked politely.
‘Do you deny that? Did you tell his sister that Warren was dead?’
‘So it was Lexy who gave you this number?’ He doodled Lexy’s head with its sticky out fringe and stuck a hatchet through it.
‘Are you trying to stop the bereaved from talking to the press, DCI Anderson?’
‘Well, if it wasn’t Warren then Lexy is not the bereaved, you stupid cow,’ he muttered, hopefully loud enough for her to hear as he slammed the phone down. So, now the press knew that the body was not Warren McAvoy. He and Walker had been on damage limitation for hours.
He looked at his watch and the number of unread emails in his inbox. Somebody was sending him lots of links to the Where’s Warren Facebook page; the police were now dressed as Wallys in red and black stripes. He checked his text messages instead. Brenda was at Helena’s house; a doctor from NHS 24 had come out and given Helena an injection. Brenda said Claire was sitting in the lounge watching TV, all was OK for now.
Another one timed at twenty to midnight said Helena was feeling better and had sent them home.
Colin immediately started dialling, then stopped. He should go straight out. Helena was ten minutes away at most. But if she was sleeping what good would that do?
But he could nip round there and make sure she was OK, then he could concentrate on his job. Looking in his jacket pocket for his mobile, his fingers found Helena’s house key, on its own key ring. It burned in his palm.
He pulled his mobile out, pressed her number. Straight to voicemail.
He’d go home, calling in at Helena’s on his way past. He slipped his jacket on, picked up his car keys and saw the fatal incident report on Grace Amelie Wilson. Clipped to the front cover was her photograph, a small round face framed with unruly brown curls. Underneath that were his early notes on Bella, ignored, at the bottom of the pile.
Somebody was writing a symphony for his heart strings.
He opened his office door when a voice from the vacant incident room made him jump.
‘Hi, Colin.’
He saw Batten wave his hand from above Costello’s monitor. ‘Have you been here all evening?’
‘Well, alone with James Dewar. He has a nice computer set-up, that boy, better than mine. Call of Duty …’
‘I don’t like Peter playing that,’ said Colin, sitting down, glad of the distraction.
‘Boys will be boys, Colin. Jimmy plays it with his dad.’ He pulled a face, eyes still on the keyboard. ‘Jimmy is an interesting kid. He still needs to talk through his ordeal, he’s not over it.’
‘Doubt if he ever will be.’
‘But as a family they remain engaged with the Inchgarten, probably because of Robbie. His dad researches a lot of local history, and Jimmy’s homework for English, My Favourite Place essay? Still Inchgarten Bay, after all that has happened.’ Batten was thoughtful.
‘It’s where he last saw his brother, that’s understandable.’
‘And you have seen this? The video of the boys?’
Anderson felt guilty at the relief he felt for an excuse to stay there. If he was caught up here at work, he couldn’t go up the road and check on Helena. Equally, he couldn’t go home and face Brenda’s polite concern.
And the undertones that carried.
Anderson decided to toss a mental coin. If it was the same video as the one on Ruth’s phone, he could go. ‘Is it the one from Ruth’s phone? PN332?’
‘No, this is Production number 410.’ Batten reeled it off without looking as Anderson slipped his jacket off again. ‘This is more Warren than Callum. I’m watching the interplay.’ His eyes were fixed on the screen, elbows on the desk, chin resting on his hands, his focus unwavering. As Anderson leaned closer he dropped his right hand to cradle the mouse, a click, a pause then another click. Then the hand went back to the chin, another few minutes transfixed to the screen.
This piece of film was new to Anderson. The monitor was full of images of Inchgarten Lodge Park, a canoe on the water and the two Dewar boys, Robbie and Jimmy, wading in the shallows, pointing at the Dreamcatcher and talking to whoever was holding the camera.
‘This is from Eoin Dewar’s mobile before they set sail.’
‘The day they were killed?’
‘No, this is two weeks before.’
‘Is there no sound?’ Anderson put his hand out to click in the volume, but was halted by Batten’s strong grip.
‘I’ve turned it off. Better to watch, don’t get distracted by the words. Look at the body language, the faces. Interpret what you see. Eoin is telling the boys how to stop the canoe floating away, Isobel is paddling, hugging Robbie. It all says happy families so far. Well, happy families then; now the Dewars don’t only sleep in separate beds, they sleep in separate rooms.’
Anderson looked at him in astonishment.
‘I can snoop too, you know. But the family dynamic works well here, they are happy together. The Dewar boys seem confident. I take it the McCardle boy couldn’t swim?’
‘I have no idea.’ Anderson pulled his seat closer as the film cut.
‘Five minutes later, that’s Callum McCardle. Thin wee thing, three stone when sloppy wet. Obviously the focus is on the Dewars as their dad is filming. Typical, the Dewar boys are paying no attention to what Dad is saying, everybody’s getting very wet. Here the view swings round as the canoe floats away; we catch a better view of the McCardle boy, and that there … is
Warren McAvoy. The shadow man.’
Batten pressed pause.
Anderson leaned in closer. ‘Flesh and blood, eh? The man himself.’
‘Not “Mr Field”.’
‘Not the man in Lexy’s photograph, not the man in the field …’
In silence they studied the thin, dark-haired, pale-skinned man in his ill-fitting khaki trousers rolled up to the knee, getting very wet. He was bent over the wee lad who was standing knee deep in the water. The boy held on to the man’s arm, his grip tightening every time a wave slapped against his puny knee. Warren was adjusting the boy’s crew saver, making sure it was right. Then he stood up, obviously asking the boy to twist it from side to side, making sure it fitted. He held his arm out, steadying the boy as he let go. The boy had a nervous grin on his face, half laughing as a wave tickled the bottom of his shorts.
Warren ruffled the boy’s hair, patted his cheek and walked towards the camera. His head left the top of the frame. Callum stayed in focus, laughing, gripping the braces of the crew saver with one hand, saying something to the other boys.
‘Look at that,’ said Batten.
‘At what?’
‘Look at Callum’s arm, stretched out. He doesn’t want Warren to walk away and Warren does not want to walk away. Callum is not comfortable. Look at the way Warren comforts him, doing Fergus’s job as a Dad. This is all very interesting.’
Anderson watched as Warren turned his shoulders, maybe answering Callum. The answer was a shy thumbs up from the boy, a smile. A smile of complete trust.
‘This is difficult to watch,’ he checked the date. ‘Two weeks later he battered that wee lad’s head to pulp.’
Batten touched the mouse and rewound the film a little. ‘But Callum trusts him.’ He waved a hand at the screen. ‘I need to get to Inchgarten. How are the arrangements coming along to get me there?’
‘Costello has already set the ball rolling.’
‘Mm-hmm?’ His eyes didn’t move as he clicked again to rewind the film.
‘And Mitchum is giving us four bodies for a tail on Eoin Dewar. Eight would be better but the budget is tight. The wife is going back to her mother’s.’