Bury Them Deep

by Oswald, James

  ‘Not the first subject I’d choose to listen to a lecture on, but yes. I know what you mean.’

  ‘Do you really think I’ll get on the course? It’s a big step, leaving work.’

  McLean reached across the table and took her hand in his. Her gaze flicked down, and for a moment he could see her tense, feared she might pull away. But little by little she relaxed.

  ‘I know you want to do this on your own, Em. I can even sort of understand why. I’ll keep out of the way if you want me to, but if you need help? Well, I’m not going anywhere.’

  Emma said nothing, but she did smile, which was more than McLean had hoped for. He reluctantly released her hand after a few moments, nodded his head in the direction of her bowl.

  ‘Now, are you eating that or what? I’d hate to see it go to waste.’

  She laughed, which was something he’d not heard in far too long, picked up the bowl and passed it over.

  10

  She runs in the darkness, terror chasing her through the trees. Somewhere in the distance she has lost her high-heeled shoes, but she’s so scared the pain in her soles barely registers the stabs of broken stick and sharp rock, the tear of thorns. Behind her, something large is crashing through the undergrowth, making no attempt at stealth. It wants to kill her, to rip the flesh from her bones and drink upon her still-warm blood. She does not know how she knows this, only that it is true.

  Raw and exhausted from the evening’s activities, she barely has the strength to run. Is this retribution? Punishment for her sins? The fear keeps her moving, makes her swallow the sounds of her sobbing even as she gasps for each breath. A small part of her knows this is irrational, knows she should stand and face whoever is trying to scare her. But the crash from her earlier high has left her vulnerable. Her tormentor knows it well, can smell the self-loathing on her, can smell the fright.

  She should have stayed in her car. She should have locked herself in and hidden in the footwell. Waited until dawn and the chance of a passer-by. She shouldn’t have shouted into the night when that first branch snapped like a pistol shot. Now she is too deep in the forest, no idea where the car park is, no idea where she is. The only thing she knows is that she is being chased, her life at stake. All the sick things she has done, all the bad men, they are all out there in the darkness, circling like jackals.

  Another crack of breaking wood, and something screeches like a wounded animal. She ducks away, stumbles as the ground dips beneath her. Rough branches rip at her hands and arms as she reaches out to steady herself. Stops running for just a moment.

  And then she sees the light.

  It is faint, in the distance, barely a candle through the dark shadowy trunks of the trees. It disappears as quickly as it came, and for a moment she fears it’s one of her pursuers. There must surely be more than one. Another step, and it reappears. Through the hammering of her heart and the lump in her throat, she realises the light has not moved, but been blocked by a distant truck. That screech behind her again, fading away in a series of low, guttural moans as if someone else has been caught and is now dying a slow, painful death at the claws of whatever great beast is chasing her. For a handful of seconds she wonders if she is safe, if the creature is sated now that it has caught its prey. Except that she was alone in the woods, no one else but her and the beast. It is toying with her.

  At some point she stopped moving, but she doesn’t know when. The cuts in her feet, her forearms and palms sting, blood sticky all over her. Eyes wide in the darkness, she strains to make out anything beyond the deeper blackness of the trees, but the light is all she can see now. She has to go to it, even if it is a trap.

  A silence falls over the land. Not the busy quiet of a night-time forest, this is the silence of something terrifying, waiting for her to make a move. And yet she can’t ignore the possibility of help. As quietly as she can, she takes a step forward, stops.

  Nothing happens. No noise of attack. No screech of triumph.

  Another step, and then another. Every movement sounds like an explosion to her. She knows the beast is behind her, closing in on her, its teeth bloody, its breath foetid with the stench of other victims.

  And yet the attack never comes.

  Step by painful step, she approaches the light. And now she sees it hangs over the porch of an old stone cottage. The clearing between the trees and the door isn’t wide, but stepping out into the open brings fresh terror. She can be seen here. Nowhere to hide. She wants to rush, but the pain in her feet is too great, her strength all gone now. It’s all she can manage to limp across the sharp gravel, stumble up the step and jangle the bell that hangs from a little frame beneath the light. The noise sends another shiver of fear through her, but she is too tired, too weak to do anything but surrender to it.

  Sounds of movement inside bring her a sliver of hope. She hears bolts being slid back, a key turned in a lock. The door swings open with a creaking of hinges that haven’t seen oil in a generation, and she looks up into a face filled with alarm, and concern.

  ‘Please.’ The word sounds like it comes from someone else, not her. Not her voice at all. She tries to take a step forward, but then the ground comes rushing up to greet her.

  11

  The number of cars parked in the cul-de-sac had grown significantly overnight, which gave McLean a little glimmer of hope there might be people at home to interview. The bungalow at the end was still dark, but most of the others had lights on, even though it was early. Folk getting ready for the daily commute, another day of work. Had Mrs Guilfoyle spoken to any of them? It wouldn’t matter. By the time his small team of constables was done, they’d all know the story well enough.

  ‘You know the drill. One team to each house. Any details about Renfrew or her mother. We’ll also need names and phone numbers for follow-up interviews. Try not to alarm anyone too much.’ He’d briefed the team before they’d all come out, but it never hurt to say things twice. ‘Quicker we’re started, quicker these people can get on with their days, but if anyone’s seen Renfrew in the past week I want to speak to them myself, OK?’

  A nod of heads, and then they all set off. McLean motioned for DC Harrison to follow him as he went to the house closest to the empty bungalow.

  ‘Someone at the door.’ The shout came from the back of the house just moments after he rang the doorbell. A woman’s muffled voice, it wasn’t immediately answered. They waited patiently, McLean straining to hear any sound from within of feet approaching. He was just about to ring again when the door swung open, no sign of a lock or latch being undone. A scruffy young man stood there, barefoot and hairy-legged beneath a towelling dressing gown that probably didn’t belong to him. He rubbed at his lightly stubbled face as he stared at them.

  ‘What youse want? If you’re sellin’ God we’re no’ buying, ken?’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector McLean. This is my colleague Detective Constable Harrison.’ McLean held up his warrant card. The young man sniffed, not even a little bit impressed.

  ‘No’ Jehovah’s Witnesses then. So, what youse want?’

  ‘You live here, Mr . . . ?’

  ‘Opened the door, din’t I?’ He scratched at his cheek, sniffed a finger. ‘What’s this about then?’

  ‘The house at the end there.’ McLean jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Miss Renfrew’s place. Have you seen her recently?’

  ‘Dinnae ken, mind.’ The young man sniffed again, and for a moment McLean thought he might hawk out a gob of phlegm. Would that be grounds for arrest? Probably. The repercussions might not help his investigation though.

  ‘Who is it, Johnny? An’ why’re you no’ dressed yet?’ The previously muffled woman’s voice came closer and clearer. The young man looked round over his shoulder, then turned his back completely on them and stepped inside. He might even have closed the door had McLean not placed his foot in the way.

  ‘It�
��s the polis, Mum. Askin’ about that hoose at the back, aye?’

  ‘Go an’ get dressed. We’ve to be at your gran’s in half an hour. And do something about your face. You look like a tramp.’

  The last of those words were directed at McLean, even though he knew they weren’t intended for him. The door had opened again, this time to reveal a middle-aged woman. Johnny’s mother, no doubt. She looked at him and Harrison with suspicious eyes for a moment before saying: ‘What this aboot, eh?’

  McLean went through the same introductions, the same question about the bungalow. ‘Can you remember the last time you saw her, Mrs . . . ?’

  ‘Russell. Agnes Russell.’ The woman swung the door a bit wider, holding a hand out for them to come in. ‘Sorry about Johnny. He’s sixteen going on twenty-five. School holidays are a nightmare. Come through an’ I’ll put the kettle on. Youse lot all like a cuppa, right enough?’

  McLean closed the door, followed Harrison and Mrs Russell through to a surprisingly large kitchen at the back of the house. By the time he arrived, the kettle was on, three mugs lined up on the counter.

  ‘Grace liked her tea black as tar. That how you take it, Inspector?’

  ‘Grace?’ It took his brain a moment to catch up with his hearing. ‘Detective Superintendent Ramsay, you mean.’

  ‘She was always just Grace. Long as I can remember. Such a shame when she had to go into that home.’ Mrs Russell paused a moment to pour boiling water into the mugs and mash at the teabags with a spoon. ‘I must go and visit her some time. I feel so bad about what happened to her.’

  ‘She had a fall, I understand.’

  ‘Aye, that’s right. Broke her hip in a couple of places. Osteoporosis, they told me. That’s no’ the worst of it, mind. She was lying there a whole day before anyone found her. Might have died.’

  ‘You know where she is now?’

  ‘Oh aye. It’s no’ far. Care home up on Deal Street. I helped Anya move her in.’

  McLean sipped at his tea to give him time to gather his thoughts. No milk offered, and it had been over-brewed. The bitterness numbed his tongue. ‘When did you last see Miss Renfrew?’

  Mrs Russell cocked her head to one side, staring sightlessly at the light hanging from the middle of the kitchen ceiling. ‘What’s it today? Tuesday? Would have been last Thursday, I think.’

  ‘Nah, Mum. She was in the house on Friday night, remember. For a while, at least.’ Johnny Russell walked into the kitchen fully dressed. He’d dragged an ineffective brush through his hair, but stubble still clung to his face. Sixteen going on twenty-five indeed.

  ‘Aye. That’s right. Saw her car parked up, must have been about seven? She weren’t there long, mind. Not more than half an hour. Probably picking up the post or something.’

  ‘That’s probably it.’ McLean put the mug back down on the counter, unwilling to try and drink any more of the liquid inside lest it dissolve his throat.

  ‘So what’s the problem then? Why all the questions? Has she gone missing?’

  ‘Sure it’s nothing serious, but she didn’t turn up to work yesterday, and she’s not answering her phone. We’re just trying to trace her movements.’

  Mrs Russell raised a suspicious eyebrow, the tone of her voice unconvinced. ‘A chief inspector?’

  ‘As I say, probably nothing serious, but if you wouldn’t mind giving some contact details to my colleague here. Just in case we have any more questions.’ McLean nodded in Harrison’s direction. ‘Thanks for the tea. I’ll see myself out.’

  The bungalow was unchanged from when he had visited it the night before. McLean went in through the back this time, then walked through to the front door. Before unlocking it, he collected together the mail and flicked through it again. Nothing for Anya, only junk for her mother, and none of the little flyers that seemed to come these days even when there was no other post. He put them down on the little table in the hall, beside the phone. As he did so, he noticed a faded colour photograph on the wall he’d overlooked before. It showed a group of people, mostly men, sitting around a table in a pub garden somewhere. In the middle of them sat Detective Superintendent Grace Ramsay, quite a few years before she had retired. A small woman, she nevertheless dominated the picture, and the group. Clearly the one in charge of whatever investigation it was they had been celebrating. Or drowning their sorrows over. McLean peered at the faces, trying to put names to the detectives. He was fairly sure one of them was an extremely young Charles Duguid, and there beside him, DI Malcolm Duff. And was that John Needham hiding behind them?

  He was reaching up to take the photograph off the wall when a knock at the door distracted him. Opening it revealed Harrison, along with DC Stringer and a pair of uniformed constables.

  ‘That’s everyone spoken to, sir. Looks like the only people who knew Anya were the Russells and Mrs Guilfoyle. Couple of houses further up have sold recently, and the rest of them only know her face. Couldn’t say how often they saw her, or when that last was. Thought it was maybe an Airbnb or something.’

  ‘So much for community.’ He stepped aside to let the constables in. ‘OK then. Let’s go over the house methodically. If Anya’s not staying here, she must have somewhere else to go. I want anything that might point to where that could be.’

  They set about their tasks while McLean took himself through to the master bedroom. It was the same as he’d seen it the day before, but with still no contact from Anya, her mobile switched off and another fifteen hours of the clock ticked past, he needed to look a bit closer. Needed to think smarter.

  The bed was neatly made, a thin floral duvet over clean white sheets. When she slept here, Anya favoured two pillows, it seemed, and aside from the alarm clock, light and copy of Persuasion, no other distractions. McLean could find no phone-charging cable and wall transformer anywhere in the room.

  A narrow dressing table sat in front of the window, its top clear. Its drawers held underwear, tights, a few pairs of socks. Nothing at all unusual. Hanging in the wardrobe, he found a couple of identical calf-length dresses with matching jackets in dark-grey cotton. Three neatly ironed white blouses hung alongside, and below them all a suspiciously sparse collection of practical shoes. This was the Anya Renfrew he recalled. Sensible. But where was the casual wear? The jeans and trainers? Sweatpants and hoodie? He couldn’t imagine her taking off her work clothes and wandering the house naked. Except that now he’d thought of it, he couldn’t help it. Only that didn’t make sense. There were no blinds in the living room, no lace curtains to avoid embarrassing the neighbours. And none of them had said anything, least of all sixteen-going-on-twenty-five Johnny Russell.

  Shaking the image from his mind, he kneeled down and looked under the bed, but apart from a spectacular collection of fluff there was nothing to see. Something was bothering him though. He stared at the bed, then the dressing table, the wardrobe and rickety wooden chair. Finally he went back to the wardrobe, pulled it open again. The clothes still hung from the rail, shoes lined up underneath.

  And that’s when he noticed the inside base of the wardrobe was higher than the outside. Crouching down, he saw that there was a drawer built into it, with no handle. Not exactly a secret compartment, but easily enough overlooked. The shoes covered a small hole, exactly the right size for a pair of fingers to reach inside and pull the whole thing open. And there, neatly folded, was something far more colourful than the dull grey suits hanging above it.

  He had carefully taken out the garment and was holding it up to the light for a better look when DC Harrison came in through the door.

  ‘Not found anything yet, sir – oh.’

  ‘Oh?’ McLean asked, which was perhaps a bit unfair since it was much what he was thinking.

  ‘I . . . Er, that is . . .’ Harrison’s face began to redden. ‘Not what I would have expected to find here, sir.’

  An understatement at best. McL
ean carefully laid out the dress on the bed. Short, skimpy and a red so vibrant it was almost painful to look at, it was the polar opposite of all the other clothes in the wardrobe, or at least those not hidden away. There were more like it, all neatly folded in the large drawer, all garments he’d more associate with his time spent working in the Sexual Crimes Unit than with demure Anya Renfrew.

  ‘Do you suppose, fancy dress?’ Harrison offered.

  ‘One maybe. But half a dozen? There’s a box here too.’ McLean bent down to fetch it out. At first he thought it might be a pair of boots; the box was large enough. It had a logo he didn’t recognise embossed into the lid, and when he opened it, the smell of new tyre inner tubes wafted up to his nose. Inside was something as red as the first dress, but shiny, and heavy. His gloved fingers squeaked against the material as he gently lifted up and held out a full-body latex suit. The last time he’d seen anything like it was when they had raided an upmarket brothel in Stockbridge a few years earlier.

  ‘Oh,’ Harrison said again. ‘That’s quite something, isn’t it?’

  ‘Indeed.’ McLean did his best to fold the garment back down into its box, but there was no way he was going to succeed. ‘It seems there’s rather more to Anya Renfrew than we thought. Wouldn’t you say?’

  12

  ‘You’ve been working here for what, eight years now?’

  McLean sat in interview room two, the one with a fresh coat of paint and windows you could see out of. Across the table from him, yet another of the station’s admin staff shifted nervously in her seat. He’d thought that working with the police day in, day out would have lessened the impact of being interviewed, but so far that hadn’t been the case. They were all nervous. Not because they were trying to hide something like the uncountable number of criminals he’d interviewed down the years, but because people were hard-wired to be nervous around authority figures. He’d never really considered himself to be one of those. Now, it seemed, he was. Particularly to Wendy Brown.