The Killing Tide

by Lin Anderson

  ‘What about Willis?’ Janice said.

  ‘You organize the search party. I’ll deal with Willis.’

  75

  Willis was staring at him as though he’d just heard an announcement of his own death.

  Which, in fact, he had.

  Nothing that McNab had just uttered had been a lie. The big boss, Hugo, was out there. He likely knew by now, or would find out soon, that Willis had been lifted by the police and was currently being questioned about the fire death.

  He might also be aware who would be asking the questions.

  ‘He hates me,’ McNab said. ‘I screwed him over. Got away when he planned to kill me. Twice. He still wants me dead.’ He paused. ‘Your problem is, he wants you dead too.’

  Willis was chewing his lips, causing a dribble of saliva to run down his chin.

  He finally mustered an answer. ‘I haven’t told you anything about them.’

  ‘Hugo doesn’t know that and once we put the word out that you have’ – McNab swiped his hand across his throat – ‘you’re a goner.’

  The eyes opposite him darted about like a trapped rodent looking for an escape route.

  ‘Now, if Hugo was to be locked up, things would be different.’

  ‘You’ll never pin anything on him.’ Willis gave a little laugh. ‘He’s too clever for that.’

  ‘Not that clever,’ McNab said.

  He watched as Willis digested this.

  ‘What are you asking me to do?’

  ‘Give us a lead in. The guy who hired the flat. Who probably killed the girl. We take him in. You get good marks on your charge sheet.’ Seeing a small but positive sheen in his eyes, McNab went on. ‘You only need to make the contact. I’ll do the rest.’

  Janice was in with the boss when he got back. Looking through the glass door, he noted that there was a serious discussion going on inside. They both turned when he entered.

  ‘You haven’t found them?’ McNab said.

  ‘No,’ Janice said. ‘They’re checking the CCTV footage now.’

  McNab shook his head. ‘They’re gone. Maybe shortly after they were dropped off.’

  The boss was examining him. ‘You know something we don’t, Sergeant?’

  McNab was getting brief but sharp reminders of his last conversation with Ava.

  ‘There’s a possibility she was planning this. She knew what she wanted and wasn’t giving up on it. No one is that fixated on buying clothes and toiletries.’

  Okay, he was maybe thinking about himself when saying that, but a quick glance at his partner indicated she wasn’t exactly disagreeing.

  ‘We need to speak to Rhona. She was with them on the ride from the heliport. See if she picked up on anything. And Erling needs to go to the Clouston farm, right away. If all three were cooking something up together, Erling will know when he tells Dougie that we think his sister and the girl have been taken.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Tell him to take Magnus. If the professor of psychology is up to the job, he’ll be able to spot a lie.’

  ‘There is an alternative explanation,’ Janice reminded him. ‘The one you fed me when you got the call. They were tracked to the police station from Orkney and from here to the shopping precinct. And whoever wants to prevent the girl from talking picked them up from there.’

  They all turned as the door opened and a voice said, ‘Excuse me, sir, we have a sighting of them from the CCTV footage if you’d like to take a look.’

  The Sauchiehall Street entrance was the first location. The two women entered, then stood together for a moment. After which they began walking up the concourse, passing a couple of clothes shops without pausing to even look in the windows.

  Stopping again a little further in, Ava took out her mobile and read the screen. After a further short exchange, they set off in a seemingly purposeful manner.

  ‘We lost them after that,’ the officer said. ‘But we haven’t looked through everything yet.’

  ‘Check all the exits and the car park cameras,’ McNab told him. ‘If that was a message coming in on her mobile, then they were possibly being given directions.’

  ‘Who would they be meeting?’ Janice said.

  ‘Ava’s never given up working on her story. If she got a lead, especially on Mark’s death, she would follow it.’

  ‘Can we pinpoint the last place she used her mobile?’ Janice said.

  ‘I bet when we do it’s there on the concourse.’ McNab pointed at the image of the two women currently on the screen. ‘She then either switched it off – or someone did it for her.’

  76

  ‘What’s happening?’ Chrissy said as Rhona finished the call.

  Rhona rarely learned something before Chrissy, and in this case she wished she hadn’t.

  ‘Ava and Nadia have gone missing,’ she said.

  Chrissy’s expression turned swiftly from puzzlement to dismay.

  ‘How the hell did that happen?’

  Rhona repeated what McNab had just told her. ‘He wanted to know what we talked about on the way from the police heliport, in case it threw any light on where they may have gone.’

  ‘He thinks they went AWOL by choice?’ Chrissy said.

  ‘He thinks it’s one possibility.’

  ‘And did Ava indicate she might be considering such a thing?’

  Thinking back, the atmosphere in the car had been tense. Rhona had assumed the decision to come to Glasgow, plus the ongoing saga of Nadia’s appearance, then disappearance again with Dougie, had made the relationship between the two women strained.

  And yet, in retrospect, Rhona began to wonder if that was the case.

  ‘The first thing Ava asked me when she got in the car was whether Mark’s warning about DI Cleverly had ever been properly pursued,’ Rhona said.

  ‘And?’ Chrissy urged her on.

  ‘I told her that Jack Winters, the undercover cop McNab had rescued, had vouched for Cleverly.’

  Rhona recalled Ava’s reaction to that, the firm set of her mouth, the steely-eyed stare out through the windscreen.

  ‘She definitely wasn’t happy that Mark’s warning hadn’t been taken seriously.’

  ‘Maybe she’s found out more about DI Cleverly?’ Chrissy suggested.

  ‘If she has, she didn’t mention it to McNab in their interview,’ Rhona said.

  She began to go over every interchange she’d ever had with Ava Clouston. Their first meeting at Magnus’s house for dinner the evening after she and Chrissy had arrived on Orkney. Then the very different scenario with McNab at the curry house in Glasgow. Followed by the really awkward dinner party on her second trip north, when it was obvious something was wrong. Ava’s subsequent text, pleading for Rhona to come alone to the farm. And, finally, her revelation that she was harbouring Nadia and her intention not to inform the police.

  Rhona had been the first person Ava had told of the girl’s existence and of her fear for Nadia’s safety.

  Then another thought arrived. One that she should have considered before now. Mark had been more than just a journalist and colleague who’d been murdered while working on a story. She now realized Ava had been much closer to him than that.

  That night in the restaurant with McNab, Ava had indicated how much faith she had in what Mark had already unearthed. Otherwise, why would she have broken her journey home to speak to them about it?

  Mark believed that Cleverly couldn’t be trusted. Had he been right all along? Were Jack Winters’s words enough to dismiss that?

  Rhona took a moment to consider the consequences if, in fact, Mark Sylvester had been correct in his suspicions. Maybe even had evidence to prove them.

  That would undoubtedly have set Ava on a different path.

  What if Cleverly already knew of Ava and Nadia’s arrival in Glasgow and was worried about them being interviewed? Mark was dead, so any suspicions or evidence that he’d collected against Cleverly might well have gone with him.

  Or maybe not . . .

 
‘What are you thinking?’ Chrissy demanded.

  ‘McNab has two trains of thought on the women’s disappearance,’ Rhona told her. ‘The first is that they’ve been taken to prevent them giving evidence about Go Wild in court. The second that Ava orchestrated their disappearance herself, but he has no idea why.’

  ‘If she asked about Cleverly,’ Chrissy said, ‘it has something to do with that.’

  77

  Watching the car pull away, Ava allowed herself a sigh of relief.

  ‘Let’s get inside before the police officer changes her mind and decides to come shopping with us.’

  ‘You were worried about that too?’ Nadia said.

  ‘There was always the chance DS McNab had ordered her to stay with us at all times.’

  At the sound of a text arriving, Ava pulled out her mobile. ‘We’ve to meet them in level one of the car park, opposite the lift.’

  Up to that moment she hadn’t known who they would send and her heart rose when she’d seen who the message was from.

  Her joy was confirmed when she spotted his tall figure waiting for them.

  She quickly did the introductions. ‘Nadia, this is Firash, Mark’s friend, who I told you about. Firash, this is Nadia.’

  ‘Thank you so much for agreeing to come for us,’ she added as Firash led them over to a sleek black car.

  ‘My father was very happy when you called,’ he said. ‘We want to help you bring these people to justice.’

  ‘We have two hours before they come looking for us,’ Ava said as they were installed in the car.

  ‘That’s plenty of time to get out of Glasgow and onto the road south,’ he assured her.

  Ava hoped it would be. ‘Are we likely to have been picked up on camera?’ she said, spotting one as they approached the exit sign.

  ‘There were none where I parked. And with the tinted windows, you wouldn’t be visible once in the car.’

  Ava cast her mind back to their swift walk through the shopping centre. There was no doubt that CCTV would have picked them up in the concourse. How long would it take before McNab started a search for them? How long before he figured out what had happened?

  At this juncture it felt too easy, and knowing McNab’s terrier-like qualities, Ava couldn’t imagine him not working out how they’d departed the shopping mall.

  Perhaps reading her thoughts, Firash said, ‘This isn’t the vehicle I used with McNab. He’s never seen this one before. Plus, if he does run the plates, there’s nothing in the ownership that would link it to us.’

  Having navigated the exit, Firash eased his way out into the traffic.

  ‘There’s food and a flask of coffee in the bag beside you,’ he called back to Nadia. ‘It’s our own coffee, McNab’s favourite, although maybe a little cool by now.’

  At the positive reminder of McNab’s part in all of this, Ava felt a stab of regret at what she was doing to the man who’d done so much to help her up to now. But, she reasoned, if she had suggested this course of action to him, he would have undoubtedly forbidden and prevented it.

  Her plea after the interviews that she be permitted to take Nadia to buy some much-needed clothes and toiletries had been met initially by a definite no, then an attempt at dissuasion.

  ‘We can’t let you just wander about Glasgow. You were both in danger in Orkney. That hasn’t changed,’ he’d said. It was then she’d pointed out that the identity of the Orlova witness hadn’t been made public. Neither was it known that they’d both given statements to Police Scotland or that Nadia was even in Glasgow.

  After that, McNab had reluctantly agreed to their outing, but ordered that they shouldn’t leave the shopping centre. ‘We can’t be certain news of you being here isn’t already out there,’ had been his final words.

  Ava, accepting a coffee from Nadia, changed the subject. ‘Did you drive through the night?’

  Firash nodded. ‘I’ve done the journey many times. We have relatives who have a restaurant in Glasgow. I’ll take you there sometime when this is all over.’

  When this is all over.

  Ava welcomed those words, even though she wasn’t sure if they would ever be realized.

  Her heart began to slow as they eventually departed the city centre, then its outskirts, finally joining the main road heading south. Knowing they were definitely on their way, she relaxed and, closing her eyes, eventually drifted off, to dream she was back on Orkney with her parents still alive.

  In the dream, her father was asking what she planned to do about Dougie and the farm, and she was telling him about Tommy Flett and how everything would come out all right in the end.

  When she resurfaced, Firash had Afghan music playing and he and Nadia were having an animated conversation about it. To hear Nadia laugh was a wondrous thing, Ava thought, and closed her eyes again so that she might listen to their chat, but leave them free not to include her in it.

  Eventually, as silence fell, she roused herself and asked Firash where they were.

  ‘Passing Oxford,’ Firash told her. ‘Not long now.’

  ‘Have you been in touch with McNab since he left London?’

  ‘He asked that I keep him posted on Jack Winters, so I’ve messaged him a couple of times,’ Firash told her.

  ‘Is he likely to contact you when he realizes we’ve gone?’

  Firash shrugged. ‘It’s a possibility. If he does, I’ll at least find out what he’s thinking about your disappearance.’

  ‘We won’t be able to keep him in the dark for long,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll tell him where you are as soon as possible,’ he promised, then hesitated. ‘McNab knows they couldn’t have kept you in Scotland for long. You were always going to go south because of the suggested threat to national security. McNab or his boss couldn’t have prevented that.’

  Knowing Firash was right, Ava moved her thoughts to Dougie.

  As soon as Erling learned she and Nadia were missing, he would go and see Dougie. How would her brother react?

  He had a teenager’s ability to blank out bad news, showing no emotion at all, or else be very angry. If he accused Police Scotland of not keeping them safe, that would probably work with Erling.

  Though perhaps not with Magnus.

  She felt a surge of guilt about deceiving both men, but reminded herself that it wouldn’t be for long. Glancing behind her, she saw that Nadia had fallen asleep, which would allow her to talk to Firash in private.

  ‘How is the police officer?’ she said quietly.

  ‘Nurse Jenny says he has regained consciousness and has been able to talk a little. He is guarded round the clock. No visitors are permitted, but Nurse Jenny gave him my message.’

  ‘Will he agree to see you?’

  ‘I helped save his life. I think he will agree.’

  78

  ‘You’re sure you want to go ahead with this?’

  Janice fired him a pointed look. ‘Do you think he set that girl on fire? Or that he rented the flat to the man who did do it?’

  McNab could tell by Janice’s expression that she was playing devil’s advocate on this. Plus he didn’t need to remind her that the only real evidence they had on Willis was the print on the credit card and his DNA on the handle of the bag. Both of which could have been put there when he claimed he visited the room. He could just see Willis considering stealing both items, then thinking the better of it.

  ‘And the semen?’ Janice checked. ‘It’s definitely not his?’

  ‘Rhona’s confirmed that now. She’s running a profile through the database just in case it finds a match.’

  ‘You lied to him about us finding the lighter.’ Janice waved a finger at him. ‘Naughty.’

  ‘You could tell from his face when I said it that he hadn’t touched a lighter. And we now know Willis has a Go Wild contact, here in Glasgow.’

  ‘Or who happens to sound Glaswegian,’ she corrected him.

  ‘And I thought you were the positive one in this partnership,
’ McNab said with an attempt at humour.

  ‘What if they know he’s been lifted?’

  ‘That’s a chance he says he’s willing to take, to get himself off the hook for murder.’

  ‘If they can pinpoint where he’s calling them from . . .’ Janice said.

  ‘We plan to let him go and keep a tail on him.’

  ‘We could lose our only suspect in a murder case?’ she queried.

  ‘True. However, I’ve talked it over with the boss and he’s agreed to amend our original suggestion to go for Hugo and replace it with Willis’s contact,’ he said. ‘Provided surveillance have him well covered at all times.’

  McNab had already had all these arguments with himself. With the boss and, to a lesser extent, with Willis.

  A spell alone after McNab had left the interview room had apparently persuaded Willis that he didn’t have much to lose, but a lot to gain, if he did what was asked of him.

  Janice still didn’t look convinced. ‘If we hadn’t already misplaced our key witness . . .’

  McNab didn’t want to discuss it any more. The need to do something was, he accepted, too strong to simply wait and hope they might get a lead on the whereabouts of the two women.

  ‘I’m going to talk to Ollie about the memory stick Ava gave us,’ he told her. ‘Can you find out what happened about the Combat offices? The Met were supposed to be checking them. I’m particularly interested in any footage from the entry door camera. I know I’ll be on it, but I still don’t know if Cleverly went into the sex shop the first time I was taken or whether he was heading into the Combat offices, where I’m pretty sure my abductors came from.’

  In an attempt at normality, McNab went to the cafe first and bought two coffees and two cakes. If Ollie had forsaken the doughnuts again, he would just eat them both himself. He definitely required a sugar rush along with the top-up of caffeine.

  He tried to remember when he’d last sat down to eat properly, and couldn’t. That thought reminded him that no decision had yet been made on the elusive dinner party, which meant he hadn’t contacted Ellie again since he’d got back from London.