The Ghost of Helen Addison

by Charles E. McGarry

  ‘Veni, Vidi, Vici,’ he replied serenely.

  ‘Will you have a drink with me? I think I owe you one.’

  ‘I’d be proud to, Detective Inspector. Scotch and soda, please, and make it a large one. I’ll get you inside in a minute.’

  ‘Large Scotch and soda coming up,’ said Lang, walking towards the hotel.

  ‘Good man,’ said Leo. Then he thought for a moment, turned and called out, ‘I mean that, Detective Inspector. You are a good man.’

  Uncharacteristically, Lang flashed a grin and gave Leo a thumbs-up.

  Leo lit a cigarillo and at that moment the priest he had seen earlier walked by. Leo greeted him and engaged him in conversation.

  The priest, one Monsignor Mulvey, was aged about fifty and in possession of an earnest but kindly countenance and a magnificent head of jet-black hair. It transpired that he was a regular visitor to Lady Audubon-MacArthur, and on that very morning she had requested that he go over and cleanse Innisdubh, to save her having to contact the bishop in Oban and instigate a prolonged clerical process. The WPC Leo had seen conversing with Monsignor Mulvey was a former parishioner of his, and she had obtained permission from DI Lang to convey him to the island for a brief, supervised visit. The priest confided to Leo that it had been one of the most unpleasant purifications he had ever had to conduct.

  ‘In what way, Monsignor?’

  ‘It is hard to put into words. It was a sensation I had, a chill in my soul. It felt like something profane was mocking me and entreating me to despair. It was as though the very soil and stones of that place resented my being there. As though the island had been steeped in evil for a thousand years.’

  51

  AT a booth in the hotel bar Leo held court and pontificated at length to Lang and Fordyce.

  ‘George was getting anxious. He didn’t underestimate my powers, as you did, Detective Inspector, warned as he was by the runic words on the thirteenth baron’s tomb.’ At this point Leo slid Fordyce’s translation towards the policeman, who scanned it rapidly. ‘Therefore he tried to kill me, not just the other night – with a handgun probably purchased in Glasgow at some point – but also when he drove me off the road in Robbie’s Land Rover. I also believe that he was stalking me in Glasgow, with a view to disposing of me there.’

  ‘And he framed poor Robbie?’ asked Fordyce mournfully.

  ‘Yes. He needed a fall guy, and who better than the village idiot? A man of immense physical strength, some psychological problems and a dubious episode in his history concerning the opposite sex. The first thing he did was burn down McKee’s house. That meant he could offer him somewhere to live, where he could control him better and easily plant evidence when the opportunity arose. George had him entirely in his thrall. He gradually drove him into a stupor by spiking his food and drink – we know they shared meals together – with horse tranquilliser. The process would no doubt have been aided by the little pills I saw McKee taking in the bar the first night I arrived here. They were probably some sedative to treat his anxiety. This doping not only subdued Robbie, it also made hime behave in a suspect manner.

  ‘Rattray stole a length of brass from Eva’s workshop. She leaves it unlocked, and he had legitimate reason for access anyway, to check on his boat which she was repairing. That was the item used upon poor Helen.

  ‘Now, Robbie, the simple man, did feel strongly for Helen. He was in love with her. And when George found an unsent letter, undated, addressed to Helen and declaring said love for her, it was too good an opportunity to pass up. So he kept it in reserve, and waited for the optimum moment to send it to the dead girl and place Robbie further into the frame.’

  ‘What about the handprint on that beastly brass rod?’ enquired Fordyce.

  ‘It’s easy to trick someone into touching something. It is my belief that George kept it along with the occult robes and the knife, and all his other props such as the profane instruments used in his black rites, sealed and ready for action, stashed underneath the bank where you and I saw him working the splash net. There’s a natural hidey-hole there, below the waterline, underneath the lip of the bank. No mortal man would ever have guessed at its existence. Apart from me,’ he added grandly, as he hauled up the oilskin parcel and slammed it melodramatically upon the table. ‘For you, Detective Inspector. Inside you will find personal items belonging to Helen, Eva and Robbie.’

  There was a pause as Fordyce and Lang gazed dumbly at the thing.

  ‘So, what about the other night, with Eva and Robbie?’ asked Fordyce.

  ‘George performed a black rite to lure Eva, his victim, and Robbie, his patsy, out into the open, just as he had with Helen, and just as he tried with me. Both were shoeless, wearing only the garments they had gone to bed in. He had purloined an item precious to each one of us – the things inside that bundle, and my Palgrave’s Golden Treasury, to use in his squalid wizardry. After the ceremony to draw out Eva and Robbie, he would first have rowed to the hidey-hole using the boat he had borrowed and stashed the occult paraphernalia there, before hunting down his prey.’

  Leo noticed that Lang’s eyes seemed to lose focus at this talk about the power of black rites, but he pressed on regardless. ‘George would slaughter and then violate Eva, and render the disoriented Robbie the obvious culprit. Helen’s bloodstained rag doll was already planted in Robbie’s home, to inevitably be found by the police. When he was interrupted by Bill, he simply scooted down towards the loch, dumped the brass bar in some undergrowth – such that it would be found and further implicate Robbie – along with the bloody knife, then chucked his robes into the water, and scuttled on home, presumably along the shore where he couldn’t be seen from the path. He wouldn’t have originally planned on dumping the robes but due to the arrival of Bill he didn’t have time to conceal them in his usual nook, and he didn’t want to bring them home that night to hide at a later date because the police would soon be crawling all over the vicinity because, of course, Robbie lived on his property. The fact was that a robed figure had been seen attacking Eva so it made sense to leave the garments in full view so that the police didn’t get suspicious over a loose end. And dumping them in the loch made sense because hopefully the water would dissolve any of his DNA which may have been deposited thereon, while of course there would be no tell-tale hairs left in the hood portion, because Rattray is – or rather was – as bald as an egg. He would have kept the gloves as they were more likely to have retained forensic evidence, either disposing of them or cleaning them later. He also took care, on his approach to attacking Eva, not to leave obvious footprints so that the police would only focus on Robbie’s prints; although he obviously used different shoes that night to the ones worn on the night of Helen’s murder anyway. Incidentally, before attacking Helen and Eva he would have changed footwear in the boats so as not to leave the same footprints at the crime scenes as on Innisdubh, because he wanted his business on the island to remain secret. After killing Helen he would have changed back again in order that the police couldn’t track him – he never got the chance to change after attacking Eva, because Bill had interrupted him, but the police, as he hoped, were engrossed only by Robbie’s footprints. The shoes worn for the murder, and the ones worn for the attack on Eva, will have since been destroyed by George, probably by fire; he burned wood to heat his home. Also, after he had killed Helen, George would have deposited the robes, the ceremonial paraphernalia, the knife and the brass rod in his hiding place. I think he waited a while to do this so that he could head straight home after the murder; perhaps that’s what he was up to the day I first met him by the lochside.

  ‘Anyway, back to George’s attempted murder of Eva: by the time Bill had walked her to his front door Rattray was already changed into his pyjamas, to make it look as though he had recently been abed, like a regular human being. Regarding his attempt to lure me to my death, his plan had a fatal flaw: he couldn’t have guessed at my superior mental resilience. He would have banked upon my coming to him in a
trance just like the others, thanks to his vulgar little ordinance. Instead, I arrived in a perfectly lucid state, and had already tipped you off. Even if I had nobly perished at George’s hand, I had already identified him as the real killer. You see, it was not the awful magnet of the black rites that had drawn me from my bed, but my extrasensory gift, which is bequeathed by an entirely benign source.’

  ‘What about all that nocturnal business up at St Fillan’s I heard about?’ asked Fordyce.

  ‘George knew Robbie and Lex were planning to go up there to steal lead. He had probably heard them converse, or simply sneaked a look at Robbie’s text messages. So he made Robbie ill by tainting the curry he served him. That cleared the way for him to send Craig a text from Robbie’s mobile phone, telling him that Lex was the killer and that he was heading up to the kirk. Perhaps George guessed that Craig already believed Lex was the guilty man. Either Craig would succeed in claiming his wild justice, such that some suspicion would fall on a now dead and therefore silent Lex, or the text message itself would mean that the suspicions forming around Robbie would intensify. The police would figure Robbie was manipulating Craig into killing Lex in order to cover his own tracks. George was clever enough to delete the text after it had been sent, in case Robbie saw it on his phone and realised that he had been set up.’

  Lang then admitted that he couldn’t quite shake the suspicion that Robbie may have been an accomplice. The man had been admitted to Gartnaval Royal Hospital in Glasgow, but his lawyer was now insisting that the charges against him be dropped, and the door of his room be unlocked.

  ‘As I already told you in my statement, Detective Inspector,’ said Leo a little wearily, ‘George himself gleefully informed me how he had framed Robbie. I can assure you the fellow is quite innocent.’

  ‘But you told me you saw George immediately prior to the Land Rover trying to run you down that night. Meaning that someone else must have been driving.’

  ‘I was mistaken. I did not, in fact, see George,’ replied Leo truthfully, a chill running down his spine as he remembered. ‘It was someone else. There is another, final matter of which you should be made aware: Rattray’s late father was the thirteenth baron’s illegitimate son.’

  ‘By Jove!’ exclaimed Fordyce.

  ‘Are you sure?’ protested Lang.

  ‘Rattray himself told me. I believe he had come to dedicate his life to emulating his grandfather. Perhaps evil can lurk in the bloodline, like some congenital poison.’

  The three men stood up and shook hands with each other warmly. Yet Leo had the feeling that his and Fordyce’s adventures together were only just beginning.

  DI Lang yawned and glanced at the mantle clock: 12.51 a.m. He poured himself a large Johnnie Walker. He had toiled hard to construct a version of events more rational than that offered by Leo, yet as he read over his notes one last time it was with a distinct sense of dissatisfaction. He signed off the report and re-read the final paragraph: ‘As for the cooperation of Mr Leomaris Moran, I can only commend his perceptiveness. I cannot reasonably account for all of the information he brought to bear on the case, however, I would recommend his utilisation in future operations.’

  The sleepwalking phenomenon that had broken out at Loch Dhonn of late was an exasperating loose end in the case. Lang’s concerns about Robbie McKee had abated since his final conversation with Leo. The man’s state of mind was so disturbed that he had been unable to interview him. Lang now believed that the poor bastard would easily have been persuaded or frightened into leaving his home in the middle of the night of the attack on Eva Whitton, in order to place him in the frame. Rattray was spiking him with ketamine hydrochloride and also, it turned out, probably a natural psychoactive – some traces of unusual fungi found in the killer’s bin had been sent for analysis. In addition, it had now been confirmed that McKee was being prescribed benzodiazepine by his GP for his anxiety. However, Lang’s theorising regarding Helen and Eva’s night-time walks seemed tenuous; not least he doubted that an individual could indeed be enticed from their slumber by prior covert hypnosis, but hopefully further elucidation would emerge from psychologists skilled in the field.

  Then an idea occurred to him: what if the notion of some audible trigger had been implanted by George Rattray into Helen and Eva’s minds, which when heard would draw them from their beds? Could such a sound have been remotely controlled, for example a ringtone or a text message? No, neither victim’s mobile phone had been contacted immediately prior to the attacks. What about an external sound? Both women had slept with their windows slightly open for fresh air – in true Highland fashion – which would have made any noise from outside more audible. Could George have produced such a trigger himself? Possibly, but such an added complication to his strategy might have risked his being detected. And Lang couldn’t think of any obvious long-range audio device that the searches of the killer’s abode or the countryside had thrown up. So what if he had utilised an existing, recurring external sound, such as a scare gun or a siren of some sort? Lang and his colleagues had calculated the approximate time at which the women would have left their respective homes – between 2.33 and 2.43 a.m. was the range. He put down his whisky glass, deciding to refrain. He switched on the television to kill an hour and settled into an easy chair.

  DI Lang woke with a start to trash, dead-hour broadcasting murmuring from the set. He glanced at the clock: it was just leaving two a.m. He would have to hurry. He switched off the TV and the two-bar electric fire, grabbed his coat, cigarettes and keys, and left.

  He rolled the unmarked Mondeo all the way down the track that led from the Loch Dhonn Hotel to the boatyard, mildly enjoying the rumbling noise of the tyres against the rough hardpan and the way the full beam raked the branches of the trees by the waterside. He parked, turned the engine off, killed the headlights and got out. This was a spot open enough such that any notable sound issuing from anywhere in the wide vicinity would be easily discerned. He lit a fag. Walked up and down a bit to keep warm. At precisely 2.34 a.m. he heard it: the ghostly, two-note horn of the milk train as it crawled out of the Lairig Lom at Stob’s Bend. Incredibly clear in the still night air, it could have been fifty yards away. Lang smiled, and as he walked back to the car rebuked himself for the relish he already felt at disabusing Leo of his supernatural theories.

  As he drove the lonely few miles back to Fallasky, DI Lang felt satisfied and perhaps a little relieved at how his rational method had produced an explanation which chimed with his worldview. Sure, he had to accept that Leo’s ‘visions’ had delivered certain key information about the case, but if the man indeed possessed unorthodox powers of perception then they were simply natural human facets as yet unexplained by science.

  Lang pondered awhile upon Leo and his religious outlook. He remembered a quote from Carl Jung he had once learned by heart: ‘One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.’ The awfulness of episodes such as the killing of Helen Addison is too much for sensitive folk to bear, therefore they posit it within a grand metaphysical struggle between forces of light and darkness. It is comforting to do so because it imbues such occurrences with a hope for some kind of meaning. But really, that’s just our controlling nature taking over. We can either face that down, and man up and call this world out for what it really is – chaotic and shitty – or we can refuse to grasp that core reality and carry on deluding ourselves, hiding under the covers like frightened children.

  It was 3 a.m. when the detective arrived back at the police house. As he wearily approached the front door a gust of wind picked up suddenly, moaning as it passed through a strip of bare woodland to his right. Lang happened to glance up at the sky as a drifting cloud passed over the moon. Then, somewhere in the middle distance, something – a nocturnal animal perhaps – screeched horribly, and a chill ran through him momentarily, a kind of grating fear which seemed to jar somewhere deep inside, and as he quickened his pace slightly and scrabbled in hi
s pocket for his keys the sense of smugness within him dampened somewhat, like the wick being turned down on a hurricane lantern.

  ‘Daft bugger,’ he chided himself, as he closed the door firmly behind him.

  52

  EARLIER that day, after taking his leave of Fordyce and Lang, Leo strolled out of the bar – Paul had parted the French doors which opened on to the terrace – and lit another mini Cohiba; he felt he had earned it.

  He wandered over to the balustrade and gazed at the splendid surroundings. At that moment Eva happened by with a male companion.

  ‘All hail the conquering hero!’ she said, as they ascended the steps to the patio. She pecked Leo on the cheek. He felt a little thrill, which was quickly quashed when she introduced her friend by name. This was Ryan, the member of the Kildavannan community she had spoken so warmly of during their dinner date. He was a handsome fellow in his thirties who hailed from Western Australia.

  Eva read the crestfallen expression on Leo’s countenance. She would have preferred to have spared him the ignominy of meeting her with this man whom he would doubtless perceive as her new boyfriend, but had she walked on by Leo would likely have seen them anyway, and she didn’t want him to think her rude. She cursed herself for being in the vicinity, but she had presumed that Leo would have left Loch Dhonn by now. And, as it happened, she had actually decided against any relationship with Ryan (they merely happened to be scheduled for firewood forage together that day); the dinner date with Leo had caused her to analyse whether she wanted anyone in her life right now, and she had concluded that she did not. The attack upon her person by George Rattray had consolidated her decision; as was her independent way, she wanted time by herself to come to terms with what had happened. She could still barely believe that George was Helen’s killer, and that he had tried to murder her, too. She would wear a livid red scar down her left arm for the rest of her life as a reminder of how close to death she had come, of how intimately evil had brushed against her.