Dark Flight

by Lin Anderson

  www.hodder.co.uk

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Also by Lin Anderson

  Acknowledgements

  Day 1:Monday

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Day 2:Tuesday

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Day 3:Wednesday

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Day 4:Thursday

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Day 5:Friday

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Day 6:Saturday

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Day 7:Sunday

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Day 8:Monday

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Day 9:Tuesday

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  About the Author

  First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK Company

  Copyright © Lin Anderson 2007

  The right of Lin Anderson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Epub ISBN:9781848945074

  Book ISBN: 9780340922415

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  An Hachette UK Company

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  To Detective Inspector Bill Mitchell.

  Dark Flight

  The face that stared at him through the glass was his mum’s, but it didn’t look like her. Stephen’s mouth dropped open and real fear grabbed his stomach. His mum’s face was chalk white, her mouth twisted in pain. Behind her was a dark shadow.

  Stephen dropped the bones.

  Also by Lin Anderson:

  Driftnet

  Torch

  Deadly Code

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks to Ted Coventry for his Nigerian input, and to Dr Jennifer Miller of GUARD for her help with bones and botanics.

  SANNI DIVED LEFT into thick undergrowth. The big four-by-four vehicle made a 180-degree turn, splattering red mud in a semicircle, and followed. Thorns tore at Sanni’s face and chest. He tasted blood. If he could only make the river. The rainy season had swollen it and the fast-moving water would carry him away from his pursuers. He smelt burning diesel as the vehicle stalled, its wheels churning the soggy clay. Sanni broke through the bushes that lined the river bank. Rua. Water. Rua, da godiya. Thank God. His small slight body stood, indecisive, on the high bank, as big black river ants ran up his thin legs, biting him savagely. Sensing someone behind, he sprang forward. But it was too late. His arm was gripped in a fist of steel. Sanni screamed, but there was no one to hear.

  Day 1

  Monday

  1

  ‘YOU CAN GO outside, but stay in the garden. Do you hear me, Stephen?’ His mum’s voice was shrill, like a witch’s.

  Gran’s bedroom smelt of pee. His mum was stripping the bed, while his gran sat in a winged armchair, her hair a fluffy white halo. She winked at Stephen as he left the room. His gran was sick, but she wasn’t cross.

  The garden was tiny and surrounded by a high hedge. Once, when he came on holiday, he’d helped his granddad cut the hedge, but now it was so tall it blocked the light.

  Stephen stood on the closed gate, humming to himself . . . until he saw the bones.

  They lay in the shape of a cross, on the pavement just outside the garden. Excitement beat the pulse at his temple. Already his active imagination was writing the bones into a story of pirates and treasure. He looked up and down the empty street. Whoever had dropped them was gone. Probably they would never come back. Conscience assuaged, Stephen dropped to his knees, slipped his small hand through the black bars and stretched his arm as far as he could. He grunted as the metal dug painfully into his armpit, his face squashed sideways to the gate. Out of the corner of his eye he could see his fingers wriggling disappointingly short of the bones.

  He withdrew his arm and rubbed it, muttering under his breath in a decisive manner, ‘I’ll have to go outside. I’ll just have to.’

  He sneaked a look at the kitchen window. What if his mum was at the sink? His heart leapt. The window was blank. A mix of excitement and fear coursed through his veins and he swallowed hard.

  He conjured up an image of his mum’s angry face if he disobeyed her and he wiped his mouth anxiously. She would go bananas, raving on at him about not doing what he was told. It was a scary thought.

  But if he was quick? He saw himself zip out and in again almost instantaneously like Billy Whizz in the Beano comic. The bones were tantalisingly close. And it wasn’t really going outside, he told himself firmly. Not if he was very very quick.

  Stephen slipped through, snatched up the bones and stepped swiftly back inside, pulling the gate quietly shut behind him. He stood stock-still, his heart thudding in his chest. At last he let his breath out in an exaggerated gasp. He had done it!

  He smiled down at his prize.

  The bones were about the size of his first finger, tied together with red thread. He held the cross to his nose and sniffed. They smelt like the garden when his granddad used to dig up the weeds.

  He placed the bones in his left palm and ran his finger over them, studying the three lines scored at the top of each one, which could be a magic mark.

  A muffled voice made him look up guiltily. Had his mum seen him go out of the garden? He whistled through his teeth, and shuffled his feet, waiting for the shout that meant trouble.

  But no shout came.

  When he felt brave enough to look directly, the face that stared at him through the glass was his mum’s, but it didn’t look like her. Stephen’s mouth dropped open and real fear grabbed his stomach. His mum’s face was chalk white, her mouth twisted in pain. Behind her was a dark shadow.

  Stephen dropped the bones.

  ‘Mum?’ His voice emerged
in a whimper.

  She opened her mouth as if to scream at him and he waited, rigid with apprehension. Then her face jerked towards the glass, once, twice, three times.

  Stephen stood rooted to the spot, watching her neck whip backwards and forwards. Then it was over.

  She caught his eye and held it. Her mouth moved in a silent exaggerated word.

  RUN.

  2

  DR RHONA MACLEOD ignored the metallic smell of blood mingled with stale urine, and raised her eyes to the ceiling, where cast-off bloodstains formed an arc.

  Short heavy weapons tended to swing slowly and in short arcs. Judging by the spots on the ceiling, the instrument used to kill the old woman was probably long and light.

  The body sat in an old-fashioned winged armchair, head slumped forward, fluffy white hair stained dark red. The skull gaped in a line from crown to neck. In the opening, contusions bunched like black grapes.

  Larger drops splattered the slippered feet and surrounding beige carpet, their tail direction suggesting the victim was attacked from behind.

  Rhona wondered if the woman had even realised her attacker was in the room. She secretly hoped she hadn’t. To die such a violent death was terrible. To anticipate it, even worse.

  The hands that lay in the lap were small and pearly white, a threading of blue veins running like raised tributaries across the crêpy flesh. A worn gold wedding band hung loose on the fourth finger of the left hand, a delicate gold watch circling the thin wrist.

  She wore a pale blue nightgown, a knitted shawl about her shoulders. Had it not been for the blood, it was as if she had fallen asleep in her chair and would waken with a crick in her neck.

  The room had a threadbare quality, while retaining an aura of gentility, despite the gory contents. Every surface held an ornament, most of which looked like good china. There were three small, ornately framed paintings on the walls, dark oils of highland scenes.

  The chair was placed so the woman could see the small television that sat on a chest nearby. A remote lay on the floor beside her, as though she had dropped it. To the left of the chair, the bed had its headboard against the back wall. The bed was newly made, crisp white sheets spoiled by crimson spray. On a bedside table sat a radio and three pill bottles.

  Rhona lifted one with a gloved hand and read the label. Sleeping tablets. The other two might be medication for water retention and circulatory problems, but she would have to check. She bagged the bottles and labelled them.

  It looked as though the old woman never left this room. And even here, she hadn’t been safe.

  Detective Inspector Bill Wilson appeared in the doorway, his expression brightening at the sight of Rhona. ‘You got here fast.’

  ‘I was in the car when the call came through.’

  Bill assumed an official air. In the midst of carnage it served as a survival mechanism. ‘The Procurator’s been. Decided he didn’t need to look in detail to give us the go-ahead. The duty pathologist pronounced death, via a view from the window. He’ll wait until we ship them to the mortuary to take a closer look. McNab was keen to restrict access to the scene in case of contamination. Seems sensible.’

  The name startled Rhona. She hadn’t realised DS McNab was back in town. ‘McNab’s the Crime Scene Manager?’ She tried to keep her tone light.

  Bill gave a cursory nod. It was a name well known to both of them. ‘Want to take a look in the kitchen?’

  The room gave onto a long narrow hall, which led to a back door. The layout was straightforward. A two room, kitchen and bathroom flat. The front room, normally a sitting room, had become Granny’s bedsit. According to the other SOCOs, the smaller bedroom at the back was filled with a three-piece suite circa nineteen fifties.

  Aluminium tread plates had been laid throughout so no one would leave their own imprint on the scene. Unfortunately, whoever laid them had a longer stride than Rhona, and she had to jump from plate to plate. In other circumstances she might have laughed, but this blood bath held no place for humour.

  A younger woman lay face down on the kitchen floor, her skirt pulled up to her waist. The blood had left her severed carotid artery in a series of spurts that corresponded to the beating of her heart. The arterial gush had hit the kitchen surface near the sink, leaving a large stain, several centimetres in diameter. Secondary splattering peppered the front of the kitchen unit.

  Rhona felt her throat tighten. Even after all this time, she had to remember to immerse herself in procedure. Only that saved her, and the other members of the team, from losing their minds, or their emotional well-being, in the face of such violent death.

  The woman’s sweater had been pushed up. Between the shoulder blades, her attacker had carved a diagonal cross. Her legs and arms had been spread in a mirror image of the same shape.

  ‘Who is she?’ Rhona asked.

  ‘Not sure yet. The old woman had a pension book. Enid Cavanagh, seventy-eight years old.’

  ‘Are they related?’

  ‘We think they might be mother and daughter.’

  Rhona crouched and shone a torch between the spread-eagled thighs. A smeared mix of blood and what looked like semen had dried in strips down the pale mottled skin of the legs. She peered more closely, directing the torch on the bloodied vaginal area. The clitoris and adjacent labia had been cleanly removed. The extent of the mutilation made her gasp.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s been circumcised.’

  Bill swore under his breath.

  He hated all deaths on his patch, but sexual mutilation suggested a sadist. And any study of the psychology of murder identified sadists as good planners, with a degree of intelligence that kept them one step ahead of the law.

  Rhona indicated the contact stain of a long blade on the woman’s discarded underwear.

  ‘Looks like he wiped the weapon clean on those and took it with him.’

  She glanced around the room, trying to get her bearings from the blood spatters and position of the corpse. ‘If he attacked her from behind, he could have avoided the main gush of blood. Which means he could be virtually blood free.’

  Rhona shone a light obliquely down either side of the body, looking for foot or knee prints. The beam picked out a partial imprint in the V-shape between the victim’s left arm and leg. ‘Take a look at this.’

  Bill stepped across the treads and joined her.

  The print was smudged, but distinguishable.

  ‘This looks like a child’s footprint.’

  The colour drained from Bill’s face. He had two kids of his own, teenagers now, but always kids in his eyes. Margaret, his wife of over thirty years, was always giving him a hard time about letting them grow up, especially his daughter, Lisa. Every time Bill was called to a female murder victim, he imagined Lisa in her place.

  ‘Did she have a child?’

  Bill stood up. ‘We’d better find out, and fast.’

  Left to her own devices, Rhona began the slow laborious job of evidence collection. She concentrated on the kitchen. Her assistant, Chrissy McInsh, would finish working the bedroom. Two other scene of crime officers were dealing with the remainder of the small flat.

  She swabbed the woman’s mouth. Dr Sissons would deal with vaginal and rectum swabs in the mortuary. The tongue was swollen and bloody; her teeth had bitten into it in fright. If the woman had screamed and there was a child nearby, it might have heard and come running in.

  Rhona glanced out of the window. What little light existed was masked by a tall hedge. In the middle of the hedge, a metal gate squeaked back and forth, as crime scene personnel moved in and out.

  She had a sudden image of herself as a little girl, swinging on their gate, her mother shouting at her to get off, in case she broke the hinges. Had a child been in the garden?

  Once she’d finished with the body, she tackled the rest of the room. It was small, a kitchenette rather than a kitchen. She suspected it had been cleaned recently. Beneath the scent of death she discerned t
he faint aroma of disinfectant. In the sink, a dishcloth was soaking in bleach and water. A teapot lay open and ready for boiling water, a fresh teabag damp inside. Two china cups and saucers sat nearby. A washing-machine door was partly open. Inside were sheets smelling of old sweat and dribbled urine. The woman had changed her mother’s bed and cleaned the kitchen then set about making a pot of tea. A normal domestic scene one minute, carnage and death the next. Rhona didn’t want to imagine the scenario, yet knew she had to. Understanding the choreography of a crime was as important as collecting the forensic samples associated with it.

  She imagined herself standing at the window, maybe checking on a child in the garden. Did the woman hear the intruder in her mother’s room? Rhona listened to the soft movement of Chrissy next door. Only a narrow hall divided kitchen from front room. Bill had said the television was on when they arrived. Loud enough for the old woman to hear. Maybe the sound had masked her death?

  There had been nothing beneath the younger victim’s nails. No skin or hair or blood. When she bagged the hands she could smell bleach from them. It didn’t look as if she’d fought her attacker. Why not?

  A knife at her neck, perhaps . . . or to protect her child?

  Rhona enhanced the child’s part-print impression with a protein dye and was satisfied she had enough to distinguish pattern, size and wear. A careful examination of the remaining linoleum revealed a poor partial adult print near the door. Maybe Chrissy would have more luck with the beige carpet.

  She stepped her way through the hall. Chrissy had finished photographing the bloodstains and was taping the carpet, looking for fibres or residue. A fringe of bright auburn hair was visible beneath the hood of her white suit.

  ‘How’s it going in here?’

  Chrissy glanced up. Without the usual make-up, the face looked five years younger. ‘Fine. Where are you going?’

  ‘I want to take a look outside.’

  Chrissy turned back to the task in hand. Rhona didn’t have to ask her to check for footprints. It was a routine part of the job. Chrissy might have a sharp tongue and a somewhat cynical view of the world, but she was a stickler for protocol.