The Ghost of Helen Addison

by Charles E. McGarry

  ‘The modus operandi smacks of someone who knows the area well, but we have to keep an open mind as to the perpetrator being an outsider who could be miles away by now,’ said Lang. ‘There was no evidence of a pursuit, which suggests the victim wasn’t initially frightened at meeting the murderer, and probably knew him. There was no sign of a struggle on the ground at the murder scene; neither did the victim’s hands show any evidence that she had fought back. She was struck on the head with a blunt instrument – probably first, and which may, hopefully, have knocked her unconscious – then stabbed twenty-three times to the chest and abdomen. All the wounds were inflicted by the same long blade. It was a frenzied attack, with lots of blood on the immediate surroundings. Some must have splattered onto the killer, and we found a couple of droplets nearby where it must have dripped from his hand or garments or the weapon. The body hadn’t been moved. There was rowan bark residue in the victim’s hair, and contusions to her throat consistent with the grip of a large, gloved left hand; we reckon the killer pinned her upright by the neck against a tree while using his other hand to stab at her. There were abrasions and a couple of the victim’s hairs upon the tree. Neither weapon has been located, despite an extensive search.’

  ‘Was she sexually assaulted?’

  Lang raised a finger. ‘This is the bit we’ve held back from the press so far, so if it gets out, I’ll know it was you. She was violated with an as yet unidentified hard cylindrical object, probably metallic, very possibly the same item that she was struck on the head with. Now this part of the attack was very brutal, and post-mortem. It seemed almost ritualistic. We ran a nationwide cross-comparison of the entire MO but there were no matches. This is someone with a profound hatred of women.’

  ‘You said there was no DNA?’

  ‘There was the boyfriend’s DNA – he says they were together the evening before and there are witnesses to that fact. And that of two patients, both elderly and housebound. If the perpetrator wasn’t the boyfriend he was extremely careful not to leave a particle of evidence on the victim or the crime scene.’

  ‘So he was probably someone local, who knew he would be swabbed, or someone on a database.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Did you use bloodhounds?’

  ‘We brought a couple of tracking dogs up from Pollok, but they failed to pick up a precise trail from footprints we found at the murder scene which we believe belong to the killer. The rhododendron paths are well used and the whole area would be awash with scents, especially after two dozen polis swarming all over the place. Also, a breeze had picked up and time had elapsed because the dogs were delayed getting here, neither of which would have helped. By the way, there was a distinct scarcity of clear footprints due to the compacted blaes used on the paths around here.’

  ‘Who found the body?’

  ‘James Millar. Forty-year-old loner. He lost his wife suddenly a few years back, and has had psychiatric problems as a result. Since then he’s stayed way up the glen in a little but ’n’ ben. He found the body just after five a.m. He was one of the victim’s patients.’

  ‘What was this fellow doing strolling around so early?’

  ‘He’s something of a night owl. Apparently, it’s not unusual for him to go for nocturnal walks. And the body was quite visible from the path. It was a bit misty over the loch, but the cloud was broken and there was a full moon.’ Leo raised his eyebrows. ‘Aye, he’s a suspect, sure. We’re keeping tabs on him,’ said the policeman.

  ‘Was the killer definitely a man?’

  ‘We believe the footprints and the angle of the wounds indicate a strong male, between five foot nine and six foot one, acting alone. Right-handed with a size nine shoe. The trouble is, that description, give or take a shoe size either way, fits numerous men living around here, including Millar. It does, however, pretty much rule out the victim’s father and brother, and the GP with whom Helen worked.’

  ‘What about the hotel guests?’

  ‘They’ve all been interviewed, but I couldn’t keep them prisoner any longer and they were understandably keen to get home. I’m fairly satisfied that our man wasn’t among them. With it being off season the hotel was quiet. There was a young professional couple from down south, a middle-aged couple from Aberdeen and a young family from Ayrshire. Oh, and an elderly couple from the States.’

  Leo suddenly raised his left hand to silence the detective and used his right to smother three violent sneezes. He then plucked a monogrammed Irish linen handkerchief from his pocket with which to blow his nose; an extended, dissonant trichord. He lowered his left hand and replaced the hanky.

  ‘Forgive me. Do continue.’

  ‘The only remaining guest is a bachelor who you’ll no doubt meet around the hotel at some point. I gather he’s virtually a permanent resident. As for employees, they’re all female apart from the chef and the barman. They were both on their days off, and we’ve verified that they were in Glasgow partying the night away. Everyone else’s alibis are somewhat less watertight: they all claim to have been asleep in bed. Apart from Millar, of course. It’s a pity these trusting rural types don’t seem to believe in CCTV; we might’ve picked something up.’

  Lang withdrew a business card with his name, mobile phone and landline numbers printed on it, and handed it to Leo. ‘Text me so as I have your number. And get in touch if you come up with anything. It’s nearly dark – come on, I’ll walk you back to the hotel.’

  They set off. The policeman, who had set quite a brisk pace, fell into a sullen silence. At the edge of the grounds at the rear of the hotel he stopped.

  ‘This is as far as I go.’

  The men shook hands.

  ‘The perpetrator of this crime will face justice,’ said Leo, sensing the detective’s despondency, ‘and one day the awesome judgement of God. Evil does not have the final word in human affairs. Good will always prevail. In the end.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope it prevails before the bastard decides on a second helping.’

  ‘Evil has a way of obscuring the truth, but things will become clearer.’

  ‘So, you believe in evil, do you, Leo?’ enquired Lang, who had lit a cigarette. ‘As an actual, living force?’

  ‘On the contrary, I take the Augustinian view that evil is precisely the absence of an actual, living force – the absence of goodness and the rejection of God’s will; a kind of void, if you will. That may all sound rather neutral, but within that void, when man becomes his own god and gives in to lust, envy and the unrestrained pursuit of power, terrible things can happen, even torture and genocide. However, concerning the dark metaphysical host wandering the world engaged in the proliferation of that void – primary evil – I believe in that as profoundly as I believe in sound waves or sunshine or electricity or love. I believe in it because I’ve stared it in the eye.’

  Lang was unimpressed by Leo’s potted theology lesson. ‘You work in this job long enough you find out that convenient labels of good and evil just don’t wash. Most murders I’ve investigated have involved a scared-shitless, drunk teenager from a dysfunctional background, a few words of bravado, a blade and a lifetime of regret.’

  ‘Precisely my point; horrendous things happen when the conditions are conducive.’

  ‘So, you’re a churchgoer, Leo?’

  ‘Yes, I am a professing Catholic.’

  ‘Ah, a Holy Roman.’

  ‘You gotta believe in something,’ replied Leo, rolling with the mild jibe.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Lang as he exhaled smoke. ‘Apart from the law. But I still envy you religious lot, having that certainty.’

  ‘Faith doesn’t work like that. Show me a man who has certainty and I’ll show you a fool, and a dangerous fool at that. Even I, who has oft-times been confronted by the legions of darkness, have been assailed with doubt as to the existence of the forces of light. But there’s one thing I remember, Detective Inspector, even during those dark nights of the soul. That as a society we’ve got ourselves
into a whole mess of trouble precisely because we’ve lost sight of the difference between good and evil.’

  3

  WHEN Helen had been alive she had racked herself over the slightest confrontation. Regardless of whether she was right or wrong in the matter, the very experience of outward conflict made her feel anxious, guilty and exhausted. She would witness with wonder other people falling out and then becoming easily reconciled; she herself was terrified of the prospect. What had been said could never be unsaid and she simply did not believe that for her the wounds would heal quickly, or indeed ever. It was not so much what was said to her that would injure her – she could forgive easily enough – more what she might say to others.

  She recalled the day she had come home from school, aged ten, in an uncharacteristically foul mood, and lashed out verbally at her mother over a trifling matter. When her mother responded Helen cast up to her a malformed, long-held belief that her parent would occasionally deliberately humiliate her due to some strange, primal resentment. Even as she revealed the secret she felt a surge of self-disgust and pity for her victim which swelled up like nausea, but some perverse impulse made her press on with the cruel accusation which only now, by being uttered out loud, was denuded as unfounded. Eventually, with her beloved, aproned mother standing speechless and pathetic in the kitchen, Helen ran upstairs and threw herself onto her bed in complete despair. She gazed up at the early summer teatime sky through her window. She wanted to put out the sun.

  The memory would haunt her over the years. Nothing indeed could unsay what had been said, nothing could wipe away the human stain of ill will she had unveiled on that June day. Yet death had now released her from such frivolous guilt. ‘The Waiting’ – that was what she had termed this new metaphysical state. Perhaps it was a transitional dwelling, a holding area where souls could come to terms with their new situation while a place was prepared for them, or until some critical issue connected to violent or sudden death was resolved. Or maybe it was that thing called Purgatory she had heard old Mrs O’Donnell, her late grandmother’s friend, once speak of (Helen had enjoyed the semantics of the word – Purgatory – Purge-atory; a place of purging, of purification, of restoration; it instinctively made sense to her). Anyway, perhaps setting out on her career and the romance she had found with Craig had already given her a fledgling certitude about herself, and perhaps being denied the natural opportunity to fully realise these and the many other joys of adulthood – because she had been brutally murdered – meant that righteous indignation now reinforced this hardening of the will. And as she wandered this new, waking limbo she rediscovered a long-forgotten childhood pugnacity that had been gently crushed by her parents’ tendency towards public humility, and also by other dramas that afflict far too many children and which she had taken to heart more than she would ever know. She thrived upon this refound confidence now, celebrated it. She was no longer the typecast Miss Shy, with memories of the playground bullies’ taunts blooming like a heat rash on her chest and neck and face. She found that underneath she was insightful, witty and even cutting. And now it relieved her boredom and provided her righteous anger with a proper channel.

  The trouble was, she had no one to try it out on.

  The restaurant was empty by the time Leo arrived for his evening meal, having taken his time unpacking and freshening up with customary fastidiousness. He was glad; he wanted some time alone, to focus only upon fine dining and a bottle of robust Burgundy. It was a magnificent cliché of a traditional Scottish dining room, the walls adorned with the heraldry of various local clans, some tasteful Highland landscapes and the inevitable deer-head trophies. A welcoming fire crackled in the hearth and a Scottish longcase clock tick-tocked reassuringly.

  Leo sat between a baby grand piano and a window which looked out onto the black yonder, his back facing the rest of the room, indicating his desire for privacy should any diners tardier than himself arrive.

  He ordered a Campari and soda as an apéritif, and politely requested a fresh knife – the existing one was slightly spotted. He started with some exquisite Oban scallops with braised pig’s cheek, followed by mock turtle soup, braised halibut, and then saddle of venison in a beetroot and sloe gin jelly, all washed down with a bottle of 2006 Chambertin. It was a satisfying repast, so much so that he didn’t quibble over the fact that the meat had been cut slightly too thinly such that it had lost its optimally gamey flavour. He abjured dessert for some Hebridean Blue cheese before ordering his espresso and Cognac. While he was waiting he savoured the powerful fruity structures of his last mouthful of wine. Leo remembered too well the 1960s. The last days of old Glasgow. The end of old poverty and the shame of the slums. Spam on the dinner table, strips of the Evening Citizen on a nail, a shaft of morning sunlight through a dirty window pane revealing peeling Edwardian wallpaper. Yet he was proud of his humble origins. Proud of the stoical and dignified way his parents had borne the struggle brought about by his father’s chronic illness. Proud of the values and manners and culture that had been instilled in him which so greatly outweighed material possessions in a world in which every ha’penny had to be accounted for. It all made him more appreciative of the finer things in life now that he could afford them. He signed the bill to his room and unfolded a crisp ten-pound note for the Polish waitress on account of her pretty smile.

  He wandered towards the bar, past the splendid drawing room with floor-to-ceiling windows which during daylight hours afforded grand views of the lawns and the loch beyond. Leo felt recharged and ready for social intercourse. Like the other rooms in the hotel the bar was furnished and decorated in solid Caledonian style, and Leo noted a mini humidor with approval. The place was empty of patrons but for a trio of hard-drinking newspapermen huddled together around a corner table. Bill Minto was on duty.

  ‘No rest for the wicked,’ joked Leo lamely, after ordering a Rob Roy – dry, no cherry.

  ‘No, indeed.’ Minto smiled, partaking only of a lime cordial at Leo’s pleasure.

  He was a clean, somewhat cowed man, who smelled of Pears soap and wore steel-rimmed spectacles and a zipper cardigan, and his remaining white hair clipped short. Leo speculated that his only vice was the occasional half pint of real ale (he was wrong – Minto was teetotal). Yet Leo couldn’t help liking him and soon unearthed a bit of his background. The defining period of his life occurred after he had been called up for National Service. Expecting an easy, boring couple of years of halfhearted manoeuvres in Aldershot and the Rhineland, instead he found himself in some godforsaken, frozen valley in Korea, being used by Chinese riflemen for target practice. He returned from the peninsula singed and shaken by friendly-fire napalm but unbowed, until his harridan of a wife inexorably ground down his spirit (not that Minto expressed himself in such overt language). He slaved away for years as an actuary for a commercial financier, then as a wine importer, finally as a hotel entrepreneur, and he was still slaving away in that capacity today.

  Minto and his wife had bought the Loch Dhonn when it was crumbling to a slow death. It had been owned by a pair of English alcoholics whose attempts at maintaining or improving the hotel came in occasional half-hearted spurts amid an ocean of gin. Things came to a head after the man of the house befriended members of a quite popular progressive rock band, who had travelled to the area in order to get in touch with their folk roots as they struggled to write the traditionally difficult third album. After one evening of particularly indulgent revelry, the hotelier decided it would be a grand idea for the boys to expand their consciousnesses by experiencing the haunting night mists of the loch, and promptly rowed the entire band, replete with assorted folk instruments, into the middle of the water. The trouble was that they were all high on a heady cocktail of Courvoisier brandy and cocaine, and the band’s renowned bass player, who had earlier been mainlining the narcotic, stood up in a fit of hubris, lost his balance, toppled into the water and was promptly drowned by the weight of the hurdy-gurdy he had strapped over his shoulder, an ins
trument he had thus far singularly failed to master. As the years wore on increasing numbers of the drowned bassist’s fans would make pilgrimage to the hotel, bolstering the coffers. Enterprising local businesspeople created a mythology that his spectre could be seen hovering above the loch at the same hour he had perished. Bogles are great for tourism, but the initial impact upon the hoteliers was one of shame. Therefore, not long after the tragedy the Mintos bought the Loch Dhonn for a song, and Shona’s grand plan swung into action. The progressive new owners took a hands-on approach, renovating and extending the building, and rediscovering its grand interior. Marcel, a down-at-heel but brilliant chef from Grenoble, was unleashed upon the newly installed Falcon gas range with dramatic results. He was fired by his domineering mistress after six months over ‘culinary differences’, but the hotel’s gastronomic reputation had been secured, and was subsequently maintained by a succession of low-paid Gallic magicians whose skills became the stuff of legend and helped upgrade the establishment from a two, to a three, then a four-starred attraction. This funded the purchase and renovation of Ardchreggan House, a derelict stately home on the loch’s western shore. After the fall of the Berlin Wall came the availability of cheap, willing tradesmen from the east, and that house was re-imagined as an exclusive spa retreat with an exquisite art deco bar as its centrepiece, a monument to the Mintos’ growing fortune which earned them the nickname ‘the Minteds’. There wasn’t resentment as such, just mild envy; Bill and Shona weren’t locals but they were Scots, and even if he was just a Lowlander at least they weren’t ‘white settlers’ who had sold up a terraced house in the south east of England during the Thatcher property boom and bought a castle up north.