Picture Her Dead (Rhona Macleod)

by Lin Anderson

  Rhona felt terrible. All this had been going on in Liam’s life, and she hadn’t contacted him as promised.

  ‘You think the reel’s in some way linked to our body?’

  ‘I have no idea, but I’m beginning to think Jude might.’ Bill chewed his lip, suddenly awkward. ‘Rhona, how well do you know Liam?’

  ‘What?’ Rhona was unsure how to answer. How could she admit to having had only three conversations with her son, all of them difficult? ‘Not well,’ she conceded. ‘Why?’

  Bill regarded her sympathetically. ‘It’s just that I wasn’t sure he was telling me the whole story when he handed over the memory stick. It might be that he was just embarrassed about removing it without permission, or maybe he’d seen the images.’

  Rhona found herself immediately jumping to Liam’s defence. ‘If Liam had anything to do with Jude’s disappearance, why would he report her missing? And why get in touch and ask for my help?’ Even as she said it, Rhona knew the guilty sometimes did that, believing it would make them look innocent. The thought distressed her.

  ‘I’m not accusing Liam of anything, except perhaps omitting part of the story,’ Bill said. ‘Or maybe he’s just being loyal and not telling a secret Jude asked him to keep.’

  ‘I’ll speak to him.’ Rhona stood up. ‘And now, I really must go. You’ll get in touch as soon as you hear anything about McNab?’

  She knew she had left abruptly, but the conversation had made her uneasy. Did Liam know something more about Jude’s disappearance?

  19

  The Glasgow School Of Art, Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s most famous architectural contribution to the city. Even to Bill’s artistically untrained eye it looked good, although his own favourite Mackintosh building was the less-well-known Queen’s Cross Church in Maryhill.

  He stood for a moment on the other side of the street, drinking in the façade as small groups of students drifted in and out.

  Student support had been helpful, but unwilling to discuss one of their own over the telephone. Already aware of Jude’s missing status, they were anxious to assist with his enquiries, but only in person.

  Five minutes later he found himself sitting in a tiny office, with a mug of tea and a ginger biscuit. Angela Wakefield, the woman behind the desk, looked like a former art student herself; stylish, and definitely not conservative in dress.

  ‘Jude did have special support in her studies here,’ she confirmed. ‘She was diagnosed as having high-functioning Asperger’s syndrome while in the care of Sunderland Social Services.’

  ‘And this means?’

  ‘In Jude’s case, it means she’s gifted artistically, but lacks non-verbal communication skills and displays a limited empathy with her peers.’ She smiled. ‘Jude works hard, but plays little.’

  ‘Some would say a perfect student.’

  ‘For her to succeed at her chosen profession, she will have to engage with the world, not just a tiny part of it. We try to help her make that happen.’

  ‘She was happy here?’

  ‘Jude was obsessed with her studies.’

  ‘Is that the same thing?’

  ‘It is to her.’

  ‘What about friends?’

  ‘If you mean close friends rather than just people in her class, I don’t think there were any.’

  ‘The boy who reported her missing. Liam Hope. She never mentioned him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about family?’

  ‘We believed, initially, that she had none. But just recently there has been some correspondence from an uncle in Sunderland wanting to know how to get in touch with her.’

  ‘You told her this?’

  ‘I gave her the contact details.’

  ‘Do you know if she did anything with them?’

  ‘She never said.’

  ‘Do you still have these?’

  She checked her file. ‘I believe I just handed over the piece of paper with the name and number to Jude.’

  ‘Can you remember the name?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘It wasn’t the same surname as Jude’s, I remember that.’ She gestured her regret. ‘I’m sorry. That’s not much help, is it?’

  ‘If you remember the name, or he calls again, you’ll let me know?’

  ‘You think if Jude did make contact with this uncle, she might have returned to Sunderland?’

  Bill wished he did think that. ‘It’s a possibility,’ he said.

  She didn’t look convinced. ‘Jude wasn’t the kind of person to act spontaneously, Detective Inspector. Everything she did was planned, down to the smallest detail.’

  Bill’s next port of call was the halls of residence. Maybe Charlie had heard something about Jude’s mystery uncle. When he arrived the older man was in his cubicle, having words with a young man about the noise level coming from his room. Bill was impressed with his non-confrontational style – Charlie would have made a good policeman.

  ‘You’re back. Any luck finding Jude?’

  ‘We’re working on it.’

  ‘So how can I help?’

  ‘Student Support said an uncle of Jude’s called them trying to get in touch with her. I wondered if he came here, or if she mentioned him.’

  Charlie must have seen hundreds of visitors coming through these doors, so asking him to remember one in particular was a long shot.

  ‘It’s funny you turning up now. I was going to call you. I’ve been thinking a lot about the lassie since she disappeared. Especially after someone got in her room and stole her computer.’ He sounded personally affronted by this. ‘She didn’t like people much. Preferred her own company. Liam, the lad that came by looking for her. He was the exception. Then I remembered the phone call.’

  Bill’s ears pricked up.

  ‘A man called, asked if he could speak to Jude Evans. I told him we don’t bring students to the phone and that he should call her mobile. He said she’d contacted him about an interview for a photographic project on old cinemas and he’d misplaced her mobile number.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I told him I didn’t have it, which isn’t strictly true, because we keep a contact number for each resident. But I don’t hand them out willy-nilly. I told him I would pass on the message and Jude could get back in touch with him.’

  ‘He left his name and number?’

  ‘He said Jude had his number already. Wouldn’t even say his name.’

  ‘And you passed on the message?’

  ‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘The lassie usually never showed any emotion. I tried to make her laugh once or twice, and she blanked me as though she had no idea what I was on about. That time was different. I thought she looked, well, a bit worried. I asked if everything was OK. She never answered me, just headed out with her backpack.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A week, maybe ten days ago.’

  ‘And nothing since?’

  Charlie shook his head.

  ‘Thanks, Charlie.’

  ‘No bother. You will let me know about the wee lassie?’

  ‘I will.’

  As Bill left the building, he wondered if Charlie had been the nearest thing to a father figure Jude had had in Glasgow. He doubted an uncle had turned up from nowhere, and surely if one had their contact would have been Sunderland Social Services. That was something he could check up on. As to the second caller, Jude had definitely met a man and recorded him. Had he been the one to phone the Hall of Residence? If so, why not leave his name? And why had the call worried Jude?

  Bill didn’t like the way this was going. A girl disappears after visiting a crime scene, having previously found and restored some old porn film. Mind you, who would worry about that? What it showed wasn’t considered a crime nowadays.

  His mind kept working at it during his drive to the station. Ask the right question and you got the answer you were looking for. But the right question wasn’t always the obvious one. No matter which path his brain took, it ended up at Lia
m. The boy was the only person who apparently knew Jude at all. As such, he was the one who might have the answers – whether he realised it or not.

  He recalled Rhona’s speed in jumping to her son’s defence. It had been a natural reaction, something he would have done himself. It was also clear that she hadn’t had the opportunity to get to know Liam and felt guilty about it. She shouldn’t. He had two teenage children of his own and after almost twenty years probably didn’t really know them either. People let you see what they wanted you to see. As a detective he knew that only too well.

  Liam had retreated to his own room. Ben had tried to give him a lecture on Facebook, and his plan to set up a Find Jude page. Viewing Jude’s own page, her wall messages and the photos of the cinemas she’d visited had disturbed Liam. Here he was thinking she had nobody but him, when she actually had all these cinema and sci-fi ‘friends’. He was beginning to realise that he had no idea who Jude really was. She’d let him into a very small part of her life, and he’d believed that was all there was. Jude was a private person. Very private. He was lucky to have got as close to her as he had.

  Ben had been gobsmacked by Liam’s lack of interest in, or knowledge of, the workings of Facebook.

  ‘What planet have you been on?’

  ‘The Physics lab planet.’

  ‘You don’t have computers in there?’

  ‘To calculate, not to indulge in cyber babble.’

  ‘Don’t diss the cyber talk. Remember the sonic screwdriver,’ Ben had replied.

  Liam had left Ben to it, feeling gloomy once again. If Ben could enlist help in finding Jude, that was great. It was something he had singularly failed to do himself.

  He lay on the bed. There was an assignment due in soon, but for once particle physics didn’t exert its appeal. He thought about calling Rhona. Did she know about the ransacked room, the stolen laptop? If she did, surely she would have got in touch with him by now?

  His despair grew deeper. Why did he think she should care enough to call? Just because he’d turned up on her doorstep asking for help. The long-lost son she’d given away at birth. Why should she suddenly give a shit now?

  He hated himself for his neediness. He should never have approached her. He’d vowed not to make contact again and just get on with his own life. How do you form a relationship with someone who was your mother, but who gave you away? The concept nagged at him like toothache. Finding his birth mother had been an obsession for years. He’d imagined the moment all the time. When it finally happened he’d been elated. Seeing Rhona was like finding a missing piece of himself. But the reality hadn’t matched the fantasy; he’d never imagined the awkwardness that would lie between them, or the guilt. He could taste it whenever Rhona looked at him.

  Liam shut his eyes, trying not to remember his visit to her flat and the subsequent journey to the Rosevale. He squirmed at the memory of his reaction to the news of the dead body. She must have thought him a complete idiot. He recalled how her intensity and excitement at the discovery of the remains had unnerved him. Rhona had gone into a different mode then, rendering him as invisible and unimportant to her as he’d always been.

  He wondered if that’s why he’d gone to her with the story about Jude’s disappearance. To try to enter her world. It was true that Ben had urged him to, but only because he’d got drunk and bragged about his relationship to Rhona.

  This was going nowhere. Liam dragged himself off the bed and went back through to check on Ben, taking two bottles of beer from the fridge on the way.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Good, bro. Very good.’ Ben accepted an opened bottle and took a slug. ‘I figured Jude made contact with plenty of people about her project. That’s our starter. Then there’s the puzzle. People like a puzzle. Sci-fi friend goes to visit an old cinema and disappears. We’ll get the weirdo stuff like she was abducted by aliens, but hey, maybe she was.’ He grinned at Liam. ‘We’re going to find her, mate. Dead or alive.’ He stopped short, realising what he’d just said. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean …’ Ben rushed on to cover his discomfort. ‘Then there’s the porn film. I posted that online too. If someone stole it from her room, then that someone doesn’t want it out there. I thought it might be good to piss them off.’

  ‘I don’t think that was a good idea,’ said Liam, suddenly alarmed. ‘What if the person who stole it has something to do with Jude’s disappearance?’

  Ben hadn’t thought of that. ‘Shit!’ He eyed Liam in horror. ‘You think Jude met some weirdo through this cinema thing and he’s, like, kidnapped her?’

  Liam realised that’s what he’d been fearing all along.

  20

  Rhona leaned over her work-bench. The various bondage items and metal piercings had been logged and stored for study tomorrow, and now she immersed the blackened and wizened fingers in Photoflow, a soapy liquid normally used for developing photographs. They would soak overnight and tomorrow morning she would dry them, photograph them to scale, then print them using black powder and low-adhesion white tape. If the victim had had any police contact in the past, his prints would be on the database. If he was a missing person, they might be able to match his DNA with a family member and identify him that way.

  Job done, she cleared up and changed, anxious now to get home and take a long hot shower. There was still no sign of Chrissy and her mobile went unanswered. Rhona suspected she was still at the Poker Club, and fought off a desire to go down there herself. If Slater was about she would get short shrift, and it might also alert him to Chrissy’s presence. She would have to be patient and wait for Chrissy to contact her, difficult though that might be.

  When Rhona opened the front door Tom came bounding towards her, flicking his tail in welcome. He hung around just long enough to be fed, then miaowed to be let out of the kitchen window and disappeared up on to the roof. Rhona had given up worrying about him falling off and tried instead to be pleased that he had so much flat rooftop to roam on.

  Before she headed for the shower, she phoned the local pizza place. Gone were the days of coming home to the delicious smell of cooking and the sight of Sean in the kitchen opening a bottle of wine.

  Rhona felt a pang of regret before reminding herself how much she preferred her own space. And God knew she had enough guilt and emotional baggage on her plate right now, without the complications of living with Sean. She toyed with the idea of phoning Liam, which she knew would be an awkward call. She should have called before now, and the longer she put it off the more difficult it would be. She brought up his number and pressed the call button before she could change her mind, but it rang for a bit then went to voicemail. His voice on the recorded message sounded young and serious.

  ‘Hi, it’s Rhona. Can you give me a call?’ She almost added ‘about Jude’ but stopped short, worrying that he might think it was bad news, or even good news, when it was neither. She thought again of the look on Liam’s face when she’d emerged from finding the body. He’d been truly frightened, and immersed as she’d been in the discovery, she hadn’t registered just how much. She was used to death in all its horrible forms; not immune to the tragedy of it, but without a thick skin she couldn’t survive. Her coping mechanisms, she realised, must have made her look offhand to Liam. She’d followed this by getting rid of him as quickly as possible, just as she would have done with any member of the public at a crime scene. Except Liam wasn’t any member of the public. He was her son.

  Rhona heard her mobile ring while in the shower and sprinted naked for it, leaving a trail of water in her wake.

  It was Petersson. ‘Can you come over?’

  ‘I’ve just got in. I’ve ordered a pizza.’

  ‘Bring it with you.’ He rang off before she could question him further.

  Irritated, she almost called back to demand an explanation, but decided it must be something important from the tone of his voice. She dried and dressed quickly, and the pizza arrived as she was putting on her coat.

  As she
left, cardboard box in hand, she remembered she’d left the kitchen window open. She should close and lock it, but Tom hadn’t returned from his nocturnal ramble yet.

  When she buzzed Petersson, he let her in immediately. Rhona wondered as she climbed the stairs, how he had managed to get to the intercom so quickly in his present state.

  He was waiting for her at the open door. ‘I was at the window,’ he said, answering her unspoken question. He glanced down at the box. ‘That smells very good.’

  Rhona followed him through to the kitchen. There was an open bottle of red and a couple of glasses on the table. It seemed her earlier fantasy featuring Sean had come true, although she was the one supplying the food.

  The suite of computers in the corner was shining brightly. Petersson resumed his seat there. ‘I’ll show you first, then we’ll eat,’ he said, motioning her across to stand behind him. There was a map of central Glasgow on the screen, McNab’s hotel at centre stage. To the right was a grid of black and white grainy images, which Rhona presumed came from security cameras.

  Petersson selected one and brought it forward. The clock below indicated the image had been taken the night of the shooting at 01.04. It was a picture of two men on the front steps of the hotel.

  ‘McNab did leave with a man,’ said Petersson.

  ‘But who?’ She peered at the screen. The image was so grainy, she could barely recognise McNab from it.

  ‘That’s not Solonik?’ asked Petersson.

  Rhona recalled the bulk of the man, his huge arms and gigantic fists. She’d met him in person only once, when he’d been preventing her from leaving Kalinin’s flat. The fear she’d experienced then was every bit as real now. ‘He’s of a similar build, but it isn’t Solonik,’ she confirmed.

  ‘They got in a car. It’s too far to see the licence plate clearly, but I’m working on it.’ Petersson paused. ‘What I don’t get is this. If McNab went of his own free will, then why hasn’t he been in contact? He promised you he’d come by. He never made contact with me at the Poker Club. What the hell happened between speaking to you and this point?’ He brought forward the first image again. ‘And who the fuck is he with?’