Picture Her Dead (Rhona Macleod)

by Lin Anderson

  ‘The battery’s probably flat,’ sighed Chrissy, disappointed.

  ‘Could this Jude have been aware of the body?’ Bill said.

  ‘She might have smelt it. Also there was a loose brick which may have been taken out before.’ Rhona glanced at her watch. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go.’

  ‘She’s off out tonight,’ Chrissy said sweetly.

  Rhona threw her a warning glance.

  Chrissy countered it with a glare of her own, silently reminding Rhona of their deal.

  ‘I’d like a word with Liam tomorrow,’ Bill said as she made her exit.

  ‘I’ll text you his number,’ Rhona promised.

  As she made for the car, she thought how odd the situation was. Having her son back in touch was good, the circumstances leading to it not so positive. If Jude didn’t turn up soon, then Liam would have to be involved in an investigation into her disappearance. Rhona wondered how he would cope with that. If she was honest, she wondered how she would cope.

  10

  Liam found himself shivering uncontrollably. It had started on the way to the flat. Thankfully Ben wasn’t in, so he didn’t have to explain what had happened at the cinema. He knew the shivering meant he was in shock, but since he’d not actually seen a dead body, only heard that there was one, Liam felt a wimp.

  After fifteen minutes, he managed to get himself together enough to head for the pub. His only concern was he might not be able to lift the pint to his mouth. He solved this by taking a seat at one of the dining tables. He had no appetite, but he’d rather order food than stand at the bar.

  Hidden in the furthest corner, his body turned from the door, Liam ran over what had happened at the cinema. The terrible moment when he’d heard Rhona cry out and thought she’d found Jude. Rhona had changed after that, her interest in Jude gone, swept away by what she’d found behind that brick wall.

  She’d been kind enough in her dismissal, mouthing encouraging words about reporting Jude missing, telling him she was sure to turn up soon, but the discovery of the body had become Rhona’s primary concern.

  Liam couldn’t shake a nagging feeling that Jude’s disappearance had something to do with the dead body. Jude was curious, obsessively so. He couldn’t help thinking that if Rhona had been drawn to the body by the smell, then Jude would also have discovered it.

  He suspected she’d texted him from inside the cinema, excited by what she’d seen. His own mobile had had no signal in there, which explained why Jude’s text hadn’t arrived until later. But how had it taken until the next day? Had Jude been in the Rosevale all that time? And if so, where was she now?

  He had a sick feeling in his stomach. He’d never thought about someone going missing before. He bought the Big Issue fairly regularly and had seen the adverts for missing people, but they’d barely registered with him.

  What if Jude never got in touch, like those people in the adverts? Would he just give up and forget her? Liam raised his pint with a trembling hand and took a gulp as an even worse scenario presented itself. Jude would be found, but she would be dead, like that body behind the wall.

  He would have to do something constructive or he would go mad. Liam reached in his pocket for the memory stick. There were other files stored on it he hadn’t looked at yet, including sound files from Jude’s interviews. He would listen to those, maybe get in contact with the people she’d spoken to. He eyed the stick, thinking he should have handed it over to Rhona.

  If she’d reported Jude missing, would the police search Jude’s room and take away her computer? Should he hand over the stick to them? Liam decided that wouldn’t be necessary. Anything on the memory stick would be on the computer. He tucked it back in his pocket.

  He was glad Ben still wasn’t at the flat when he got back. It meant he could avoid bringing him up to date on his meeting with Rhona. Ben, having suggested he get in touch with her, now regarded the whole thing as his business.

  Liam made himself a coffee then settled down in front of his computer. He inserted the memory stick, then copied all the folders on to his hard drive before checking out the sound files. There were three of them in a single folder, WMA files numbered VN550001, 0002, and 0003. He played the 0001 file and was startled to suddenly hear Jude’s voice.

  This is a test using my new digital sound recorder. I’ve set up an interview with a former projectionist at the Olympia Bridgeton. I plan to record this.

  The message ended there.

  Liam selected the 0002 file and double clicked. There was a whooshing noise he didn’t at first recognise, then some background chatter and the chink of what he suddenly realised was crockery. She was in a café somewhere and the whooshing sound was the coffee machine in the background. Jude spoke first.

  So, the batteries would have been in a separate room?

  A man’s voice answered.

  Yes, the battery room. Of course they needed to be topped up with distilled water. Each one was about one and a half volts, and you needed about a hundred and ten volts to feed the emergency lighting in the cinema. That’s why you had big banks of them.

  There was a pause as some crockery was placed on the table. Liam heard a rattle of spoons then Jude encouraged her interviewee to just chat about what life was like in the projection room. The man began to talk about how the reels were sequenced and the projectors maintained.

  There was a lot about arc flames and negative and positive carbon rods, mirrors and tending your light. Even how the curtain was managed, because apparently the projectionist was responsible for that too. Much of the talk was quite technical, especially something about a mercury box Liam couldn’t understand. Jude said very little, just an encouraging word here and there, but he could tell by her tone that she was genuinely interested.

  He listened through to the end. The interviewee had started as a projectionist in 1953 and had worked in lots of cinemas in Glasgow; many of the names, including the Rosevale, were familiar to Liam from looking through Jude’s folders.

  The excitement he’d felt as he began playing the recording had dissipated into disappointment by the end. It had been good to hear Jude’s voice but the content of the recording didn’t help him find her. She hadn’t even said the name of the man she was interviewing, so he couldn’t try to find him and ask if he might know anything.

  Liam sat back in a fog of despair. He was no investigator. He would just have to leave it up to the police to find Jude.

  His mobile drilled and he grabbed for it, hoping to see Jude’s name on the screen. It took a moment to register that it was Charlie calling from the halls of residence.

  ‘Is that you, son?’

  ‘Charlie, what’s happened?’

  ‘She’s back.’

  ‘Jude’s there?’

  ‘She came back last night, according to the girl in the next room. She says she heard her banging around.’

  ‘I’ll be right there.’

  He was already grabbing his coat and making for the door. Joy bubbled up inside him as he sprinted along Gibson Street. He imagined Jude’s face as he told her of his fears. She would look at him with those penetratingly clear eyes as if he’d lost his wits. How often had she told him in no uncertain terms that she could look after herself? She’d been doing it her entire life. Liam didn’t care if she was cross with him, he would hug her anyway, whether she liked it or not.

  He negotiated the multiple routes at Charing Cross without waiting for a green man and continued his run along Sauchiehall Street. By the time he panted up the steep brae to the halls his heart was pounding so hard he couldn’t hear anything else.

  Charles emerged from his kiosk when he saw him.

  ‘Can I go up?’

  ‘Go ahead, son.’

  ‘Have you seen her?’

  ‘No. I just phoned you when that lassie came in and told me she’d heard Jude come back. I wasn’t on last night.’

  Liam sprinted up the stairs and knocked on Jude’s door. ‘Jude, are you in there?’
He waited for what seemed an age before trying again. ‘Jude, it’s me, Liam.’ As he said this he leaned against the door. With a dull click it eased open. Liam stood, hesitant. Should he go in? Maybe she was in the loo or taking a shower?

  ‘Jude, can I come in?’ He waited. When nothing happened he slowly pushed the door open. The greeting he’d been preparing suddenly stuck in his throat. The scene before him was so incongruous, so absolutely wrong, that the breath left his chest.

  The room he looked on could not possibly be Jude’s. She would never countenance such disorder, not even momentarily. It was as though a bomb had hit the place. The wardrobe lay open, clothes, shoes and books flung about.

  ‘My God. What happened here?’ It was Jude’s neighbour, the one with the weird glasses. Her eyes, now that he could see them for the first time, were wide with surprise.

  ‘Did you see Jude last night?’ Liam demanded.

  ‘Not exactly. I told Charlie I just heard someone moving about the room.’

  ‘So you don’t know it was Jude?’

  She shook her head, frowning. ‘You don’t think something’s happened to her?’

  That was exactly what he did think but didn’t want to admit it. Liam began to register other things besides the mess. The laptop was no longer on the desk, and the contents of both drawers had been emptied on the floor. He spotted the black metal box open and upside down, surrounded by pencils and pens.

  ‘Go get Charlie,’ he told the girl.

  She turned and went immediately. Liam retreated to the doorway and had a closer look at the lock. To his eyes it seemed intact, with no marks on the wood to suggest it had been jemmied open, which meant whoever entered had had a key.

  Charlie came puffing along the corridor behind the girl, his face red with the effort. ‘What’s up?’

  Liam stood aside to let Charlie take in the devastation. ‘What the hell happened here?’

  ‘The laptop’s gone,’ Liam told him.

  ‘So it’s a break in?’

  ‘I don’t think the lock’s been forced.’

  Charlie turned to the girl. ‘Did you see anybody go into this room?’

  She shook her head. ‘I just heard noises.’

  ‘OK. I’m going to call the police.’ Charlie ushered them clear of the door. ‘You didn’t touch anything?’ he asked Liam.

  ‘Only the door handle.’

  Now in the lobby, Liam waited while Charlie made the call from his small office. After a few moments’ discussion which Liam couldn’t hear, he replaced the receiver and came out.

  ‘The police want to talk to you about Jude. Can you hang about until they get here?’

  Liam nodded. It was what he’d wanted all along. Now that it was happening, he didn’t feel so sure.

  11

  He was digging his own grave. At least, that’s what Rhona would accuse him of. But McNab didn’t care – he’d spent too much time in a hotel room, staring out of the window. Relying on Petersson to do his job for him was no longer an option.

  The girl behind the desk smiled pleasantly as he crossed the foyer. She had almond eyes and coffee-coloured skin. When she smiled she dipped her head a little and her curtain of black hair swung forward and back again. McNab was almost tempted to linger. He was a free agent, he reminded himself, and it had been some time since he’d been close enough to a woman to smell her hair.

  The last occasion had been with Rhona, upstairs in this hotel. It had been the first time they’d seen one another since she’d found out he was alive. When Rhona had asked him, ‘What next?’, he’d chose to interpret the question in his own way, suggesting they go upstairs. Making love to Rhona was the moment he’d really returned from the grave.

  McNab gave the receptionist one of his best smiles as he exited through the double glass doors on to Bath Street. There was no point in writing Rhona into his future, if he had a future. The old McNab always kept his options open, and he fully intended to become the old McNab again.

  He set off towards the city centre. Had he turned in the opposite direction he would have been in sight of police headquarters on Pitt Street within minutes. He toyed with the idea of turning up there, pretending to be Joe Public complaining about kerb-crawling or litter. He relished the thought, but resisted the temptation to turn round. He knew that if he got close or spoke to them his colleagues would recognise him; the changes in his appearance, although dramatic, were fairly superficial. Now wasn’t the time. Maybe after the court appearance, when he’d seen Kalinin leave the dock in handcuffs.

  He turned right on Renfield Street and made his way steadily downhill towards the river. Since he’d been ‘hiding out’ in Glasgow he’d taken to walking everywhere. He certainly couldn’t use his car which must have been towed from outside his flat by now. He’d been there briefly on his return to Glasgow, choosing to go late at night so the neighbours, who hadn’t shown any interest in him when he was alive, wouldn’t see a dead man opening the front door.

  He’d stood in the hall, smelt the cold and dust and disuse. Considering how little time he’d spent there when alive, he had been surprised how unnerved he was by the abandoned atmosphere of the place.

  The sitting room had looked too tidy and there had been no dirty dishes in the kitchen for the first time since he’d moved in. Someone had cleaned up. Chrissy immediately sprang to mind. She was no more domesticated than Rhona and he’d heard terrible rumours about the state of her own flat, but he sensed that it was something she might do, like organising his funeral. The thought was an oddly pleasant one.

  The main problem he’d had since leaving the safe house had been access to ready money. He had funds in his old account, but withdrawing it would put him on the map. Kalinin was no fool. You didn’t run a financial enterprise that stretched from Russia to Glasgow via the South of France and London without having some pretty efficient people on your books, including IT professionals who would track him down if he gave them half a chance. Holed up in the safe house, money hadn’t mattered, except to use in the poker games with the soldier.

  His new persona under the witness protection scheme was one William McCartney, an Ulster protestant born in County Antrim. The thought amused McNab even now, although God knows what his late mother, a devout Catholic, would have had to say. He had McCartney’s documents, even a bank account with his police salary going in every month and his outgoings, no doubt, being monitored by SOCA, if only to make sure he was still alive. McNab didn’t begrudge them the information; he just liked to keep them guessing as to his whereabouts.

  So he’d returned to the flat for the money he had hidden there, the cash from his mum’s savings. A single parent, she’d always feared poverty, even as she’d lived in it. So she’d saved something from nothing, and left it for him when she died.

  He’d approached the hiding place with some trepidation. If Chrissy had tidied up she’d probably gone through his things, if only to look for his life insurance policy. Chrissy was like a ferret, which is why she was so good at her job – she discovered things that other people thought were well hidden.

  The meagre selection of books that had occupied his shelves consisted of novels by male crime writers. He’d bought each one on a whim and never got past the first couple of chapters. Ignored as reading material, they’d provided a cover for what had lain behind.

  The tin box was long and narrow, an idealised snowy Christmas scene painted on the lid. Inside were spools of thread and a selection of rusty sewing needles, buttons and pins. A pair of scissors had brought back memories of having his fringe cut, his eyes screwed up and the hair tickling his nose.

  He’d scooped everything out. Fitted in the bottom was a folded piece of brown paper, which he’d prised away from the edges of the box to expose a wad of twenties, a bank card and a small piece of paper with a number on it.

  He’d never used the card. Had no idea how much was in the account. She hadn’t wanted to be a burden on her son, so had left him no debts and mo
re than enough money to bury her. McNab had never considered using the remainder until now.

  He’d flicked through the wad and counted £500, committed the PIN to memory and scrunched up the paper.

  ‘Good on you, Mum.’

  He’d headed for the kitchen then and opened the cupboard above the sink. His heart had risen when he’d seen the bottle of Grouse, two-thirds full, still in its place. He’d poured himself a substantial shot and toasted the woman who was still looking out for him, even after death.

  He was passing Central Station now. A newspaper vendor was selling early editions of the evening paper, although, if you weren’t Glaswegian, you would have been hard pressed to work out what he was shouting. McNab contemplated buying one then decided against it. He would have no time to read it where he was going.

  When he reached Argyle Street, he headed east. The fancy designer shops in Buchanan Street and the Merchant City were conspicuously absent here; this area served a different Glasgow population. One that still liked to dress in style, but wasn’t able to pay exorbitant prices for it.

  The nearer he got to Glasgow Cross the more at home McNab felt, and not just because he was in the vicinity of the High Court. His mother had come from even further east in the city. As a kid he’d spent lots of time at his granny’s in Bridgeton. The tenement on Broad Street where she’d lived was demolished now, as he’d discovered when he’d gone looking for it on one of his frequent walks through the city. Funny how a brush with death made you remember your youth. He had been seized by a rush of memories focusing mainly on playing football in the cobbled street and treats that his granny, despite her meagre income, had provided for him. Empire biscuits and bottles of ginger beer always sprang to mind.

  The Commercial Bar was festooned outside with Union Jacks, just as he remembered. McNab smiled as he pushed open the door. This time he was entering a Rangers supporters’ pub as an Ulster Protestant, William McCartney from Ballymena, County Antrim. He wondered if he should adopt an accent to reflect his new identity but decided against it. A phoney accent would immediately arouse suspicions. Besides he suspected the man he had hopefully come to see would know him, regardless of the shaven head and glasses.