Some time later, when we’re in Belgium, and the mood hasn’t lifted, and some part of me can’t get out the car quickly enough while another never wants to leave her, she finally speaks again. A few small words.
‘I don’t even have a photograph.’
We get to Brussels a short time later. I kiss her goodbye, my hand lightly touching the top of her arm.
22
On the Eurostar. Need to check in with Dingwall, but will wait until we’re the other side of the tunnel. Could have called from Brussels, but didn’t feel like it. Needed time to recover.
Darkness comes as we speed towards the tunnel. This train goes a little too fast for me, but that’s not something I’m ever going to openly admit. I sit on trains sometimes and imagine, if this was a plane, with this level of movement and juddering, I’d be freaking out. Of course, it’s not 30,000 feet in the air.
There’s a lot of banging on in Britain about the pace of the rail network, and how so many other countries in the world have high speed, and won’t it be great when we’ve spent several billion pounds we don’t have so that we can have intercity tracks where trains can travel at three hundred miles an hour. I think, why is everyone in such a rush? Why do they need to go so quickly?
So, I don’t really like Eurostar, but it’s a vague kind of discomfort. I was on this train when it started, twenty years ago, and it’s apparent the rolling stock hasn’t been updated since then. So we’re sitting on a twenty-year-old train that was built by a company struggling against bankruptcy and doing everything as cheaply as possible.
There’s no fear. I am aware, however, that I used to have a vague discomfort about flying and that developed into fear. Hopefully I won’t ever have the same experiences on a train as I did in the air.
Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to getting on the slower Highland train out of King’s Cross.
The train disappears into the tunnel and I’m looking at my own reflection even more than I have been. I look into my eyes, the same old eyes look back. Unchanged.
What does one make of Dorothy’s story? Most people wouldn’t believe it. Why should anyone believe it? Conventional thinking, I imagine, would have her suffering from some kind of neurosis. A storyteller. Schizophrenic perhaps. I doubt many would not think that she absolutely believed the story she’d told, but they wouldn’t for a second believe it themselves. Except I did. I believe her. I know she’s telling the truth. Maybe it doesn’t make sense in our conventional narrative of how life and time work, but the very existence of life at all in all its extraordinary forms is incredible in itself, so this is just one more remarkable story in a world full of them. And, like many of the other remarkable stories, crushingly heartbreaking.
I never asked her if she did anything outwith her own little circle of interest, during all these years of waiting to get her life back. Did she put money on Tony Blair to win three elections? Did she bet on Spain to win the 2010 World Cup final 1-0? Did she call someone before the 7/7 bombings and warn them? If she did the latter, they didn’t listen to her.
I suspect she thought she couldn’t risk changing anything.
She’s just waiting to commit suicide. Just waiting. For the right moment, the opportunity, the day when she wakes up and feels, down into the pit of her soul, that all hope is lost. Then she’s going to take some pills. Or cut her wrists in the bath. Something where at least there’s a moment. A moment in time before she slips away, for time to revert. For time to realise it’s had its fun, that it has messed around with her quite enough. That it’s gone too far, and she can get her life back.
* * *
I call Quinn when we’re out of the tunnel and I’ve set my watch to UK time. 1607 hrs. Early enough, unexpectedly, to get to King’s Cross and catch a train that’ll get me into Inverness tonight. Of course, I won’t be able to transfer the ticket, but that’s all part of the scam of British trains. Those are the terms and conditions they will say, as though the terms and conditions are laid down by a higher authority – Zeus perhaps – and there’s nothing they can do about them.
‘Where are you?’
He needs to ask, I think, largely to make the point that I’m not where I’m supposed to be.
‘Kent,’ I say. ‘On the train into London, then I’ll get the next one available up to Inverness. Will be in work first thing tomorrow morning. What’s happening?’
‘Natterson’s taken over the investigation. He’ll fill you in in the morning.’
Well, there’s a rebuke. Didn’t really see it coming, but I could hardly expect less. Natterson is the other DI at the station, my junior officer by several years. It’s the use of the words ‘taken over’, as well as the reproach of refusing to let me know what’s been happening.
‘You’ve had Baden’s corpse exhumed and identified?’ I ask.
‘DI Natterson will fill you in in the morning,’ he repeats.
There’s another one of those brief silences.
‘Very good, sir,’ I say, ‘see you tomorrow,’ managing to get the farewell in just before he hangs up.
So, I really am in the doghouse then. Well, fair enough. He didn’t order me back to Scotland so that I could spend twenty-four hours in a car.
I call Natterson. He’s a decent guy, we have a good relationship. I don’t have the ego to care that he’s been put in charge of a case that was mine, especially under these circumstances.
‘Hey, Nat, how’s it going?’
‘Ben, where are you?’
‘On the train. Will be in first thing tomorrow. How’s it looking?’
‘Weird,’ he says. ‘Look, I’m sorry about the thing. I don’t know what’s…’
‘It doesn’t matter, don’t worry about it. How d’you mean, weird?’
There’s a slight pause, and I wonder if he’s driving, then he says, ‘Look, you couldn’t do me a favour, could you?’
‘If it’s to do with the investigation, you’re the boss.’
‘Could you get off the train in Perth?’
‘What’s in Perth?’
‘Baden’s mother. She’s in a care home. I’ve spoken to the head of the house, and it sounds like she’s not the most coherent. Well, consistent perhaps, just not on the same page as everyone else. Nevertheless, we need to at least try. If you could get off there, maybe spend the night in a Travelodge or something, it’ll save one of us having to go down there in the next day or two.’
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘E-mail me through the details, I’ll pick it up somewhere along the way.’
‘Cool.’
‘And what’s weird?’
‘Where to begin… There was no corpse. In the coffin, in Baden’s coffin. All the paperwork on the file suggested that he’d been buried, that the body had been buried. We dig it up, there’s a coffin, but inside the coffin there’s an urn.’
‘And the ashes in the urn could be anything, I suppose. A cat. A block of wood…’
‘Well, now we go to the crematorium in Kilvean, and sure enough, they have the record of Baden having been cremated twelve years ago. The body was cremated.’
‘So why did we think he’d been buried?’ I ask.
‘Because that was what Rosco wanted us to think.’
Rosco. ‘Ah, OK.’
‘Anyway, although we can’t get the body DNA checked, there was a DNA sample on the file, taken from the body when it was returned, so we have those details. And they match the DNA sample that was just sent back from Tallinn, and taken from Baden this week.’
‘So the DNA tells us that both the corpse and the living victim are the same person?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that is weird. Not the weirdest thing I’ve heard today…’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No, but I’ll grant you, it’s weird enough.’
And this one has documented evidence to support its weirdness.
‘It just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever,’ he says. ‘Unless, of course, there was somethin
g else suspect going on with that original DNA sample.’
No, it doesn’t make sense, not without us having more information. I’m not going to think about that at the moment, though. I need to see some sort of proof to be able to move on from general disbelief to actually trying to think about what might be going on.
‘Anything else happening?’
‘Had a long chat with the lead officer in the Emily King case. She lived a quiet life, on her own, on a small scheme at the back of the town. Never spoke to her neighbours, and we haven’t been able to pin down any family or friends so far. She’d been strangled, beaten, but her house hadn’t been touched. They’re thinking it was a robbery, burglar was interrupted, killed her but then fled.’
‘Rape?’
‘Nope, just beaten. And she didn’t get to fight for very long. Thumbs pressed forcefully into her windpipe, and it popped.’
‘Popped? That the word the pathologist used?’
‘Yep. And some of the facial beating was after she’d stopped breathing.’
‘Where did she work?’
‘Didn’t. Like I said, so far they haven’t been able to establish her as having any connection with anyone. She went into local shops, went to the chippie sometimes, a lot of people recognised her from sitting on a bench down the front, but she never spoke to anyone. Ever.’
‘Online?’
‘Waiting to hear.’
‘And have we mentioned to them about the connection with Baden?’
Slight pause.
‘Not yet.’
‘Quinn’s orders?’
‘Yes.’
The pause being because he thought we should have done. I would too. That’s Quinn playing his cards close to his chest, worried maybe that the investigation will get away from him.
‘OK. And what about the hit-and-run on the High Street?’
‘How much d’you know?’
‘That it happened.’
‘Couple of witnesses saw a white car, but no number. One of them thought it was a Land Rover, the other said it was a saloon of some sort.’
‘Great. Who was the victim?’
‘Local guy. Andrew Waverley. Well, lived in Cromarty. Local enough.’
‘Known to us?’
‘Not to us, but down south. And when I say local, he’s from London. Came up a few years ago. Worked as an artist, had a few pieces in local shops and galleries around the place. Very dark. I mean, his paintings were dark.’
‘How’d he make his money?’
‘In the city. Made a shedload, got busted for some sort of business thing. Insider trading. Spent six months in one of those jails in the south-east where they more or less lock you up in a room in the Hilton. Came north when he got out.’
‘They never took his money off him, then?’
‘He might have used some of it to upgrade to a suite.’
‘OK, thanks, Nat. I’ll give you a call after I’ve seen the mother.’
‘OK, cheers.’
We hang up. I didn’t ask him if he’d looked for connections between Waverley and our case. There needn’t be, just because it happened on our patch – after all, one aspect of the case happened a thousand miles away and the other in Fife – but we’re involved because those two people were from around Dingwall the last time anyone knew they existed, and now, as they emerge strangely and darkly from the woodwork, someone else is killed. It needs checking.
We can talk about it when I get into the office tomorrow.
Rest my head against the seat. Tired. England passes by, under cover of cloud and almost dark. I think about Dorothy. I should call her. I could call her now, but I didn’t get her mobile number. Next week, I’ll call the Embassy. I won’t be calling to make sure she’s all right, because she won’t be. I’ll just be calling. She trusted me with her story, so I’m the guy. From now on.
Thinking about her troubles me. I’m not sure why, and it’s not because of the peculiarity of her narrative. There’s something else. Something else bothering me, just out of reach.
The train starts to slow. Specks of rain show on the window.
23
I catch the 16:35 from King’s Cross, gets into Glasgow at 21:57. Decide I’ll stay in Glasgow for the night, then head up to Perth early in the morning. Book a room in the Central Hotel, arrange a car for 7 a.m. Spending money like I have plenty of it to spend. Guilt money. Guilty because I ought to just have got on the plane and come home.
Now that I’m back here, the plane doesn’t seem so frightening. Now that I don’t have to get on it. All I would have to do though is imagine it again, sit and feel it, surround myself with the sensations of taking off, being in the air, but I don’t even want to put myself through that.
Asleep within thirty seconds of getting into bed.
* * *
I blindly head off towards Perth, even though I’m going to be far too early. Spoke to the home, asked if I could be there at eight. They said ten. We compromised at nine. Mrs Baden is always up before six anyway, they said, but give her a few hours to get herself together.
Nevertheless, approaching Perth well ahead of schedule, wondering what I’m going to do with myself, when I notice a garden centre with a sign advertising a full Scottish breakfast served from 8 a.m. Already past the entrance before I make my decision, make a U-turn, pull into the car park, and settle down to a large plate of grilled breakfast, two fried eggs. Several cups of tea, too much toast.
As I sit in the usual bright and airy garden centre café, in the company of two other customers, the sky begins to brighten to a pale blue and weak late autumn sunshine. I begin to feel my mood lighten, on the back of breakfast and the sun, and it’s not until it happens that I realise how dark and melancholic I’d been feeling. Not just these past few days. Been a long time.
There’s no reason to be so unhappy. Up and down, that’s not unreasonable, everybody is up and down, but not this consistently despondent, so steadily miserable that I don’t even notice. It doesn’t make sense.
When was the last time I felt like the sun was shining? In my head, and not just out there? I don’t remember.
I leave the café and take a few moments before getting in the car. It’s a beautiful morning, fresh and cold and clear. Not quite the sharp crispness of a perfect autumnal day, but close enough.
A door closed, briefly, on the eternal bleak November.
* * *
There’s a large common area at the back of the care home, overlooking a lawn which is surrounded by trees. Large, broad pines, mostly, a few deciduous trees amongst them, their leaves yellow and red and brown in the morning sun. I pause to look around the room, the nurse beside me.
Care homes can be depressing. Everybody knows. Money, as everybody also knows, can buy separation from the norm, and this is a care home for people with money.
The room is quiet, five people in all. The woman at the reception desk called them guests. They’re all guests. One of them, an old fellow in a wheelchair, is reading the Scotsman; there are a couple of women sitting together in silence, impossible to tell from a quick glance whether it’s companionable or a silence they don’t even recognise; there’s another woman talking to herself, rosary beads in her hand, her fingers working the beads, words tumbling softly from her lips; and at the window, looking out, is Mrs Baden.
‘This way,’ says the nurse, having given me my moment of evaluation.
‘Who pays for Mrs Baden to be here?’ I ask, as we weave our way over between velvet-backed chairs.
‘You’d need to ask the director,’ she says. ‘Sorry.’
‘Does she get many visitors?’
She pauses, concerned we’re getting into earshot.
‘Just the one, I think. A woman. Younger. I think it might be her daughter, I’m not sure.’
‘She doesn’t have a daughter.’
‘Oh.’
She looks at me for a moment, a look that says we don’t quite understand each other.
; ‘Perhaps don’t mention that to Mrs Baden, I’m not sure she realises.’
I glance over at her. She’s looking out of the window, not appearing to have noticed yet that we’re approaching.
‘But you realise, though, right? She doesn’t have a daughter.’
‘I… no, I didn’t know. I’ll need to look at our records.’
‘So, who do you think it is that comes to visit her?’
‘I’m not sure then. I got the impression, like I said… she said it was her daughter.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Mrs Baden seems to call her a different name every time. Thinks it’s funny. They both do.’
I hold her gaze for a moment, look over at the old woman, her back straight, her gaze steady out over the lawn. On the table before her there’s a small pot of tea, a cup and saucer, a jug of milk. It doesn’t look as though she’s poured any yet.
‘She’s waiting for the deer,’ says the nurse. ‘There’s one, the same young buck, passes through the lawn every morning. He always stops and looks at the house. She thinks he’s looking at her. She thinks they’re communicating.’
‘Maybe they are.’
We look out over the lawn, as though this may be the moment that the young buck chooses to appear. The nurse touches my arm, her voice drops even lower.
‘She calls him her son.’
She walks over to the table and I follow.
‘Mrs Baden,’ she says, and she doesn’t speak slowly and loudly, as you so often hear. ‘This is the policeman we told you about.’
The old woman looks at the nurse, slightly confused, and then she sees me and a smile comes to her face. A broad smile. As if she’s been expecting me. As if she knows who I am.
‘Of course, of course. Sit down, Detective Inspector.’
I nod at the nurse, the nurse looks vaguely curiously at me, as if she’s suddenly got the impression that Mrs Baden and I have met before.
‘Don’t take too long,’ says the nurse, inevitably, as she leaves.
As I sit down I hear her say to the man with the Scotsman, ‘How’s the cricket going, Mr Jarvis?’
‘I’m waiting for John,’ says Mrs Baden, by way of a conversation opener. ‘Perhaps today you’ll finally get to see him.’
Song of the Dead Page 11