‘Couldn’t last, of course. These things always break. Her dad found out about it. She never told me the story of that, how it happened. He found out, and he did… he did what some dads would have done. He shut down her chess, he banned her from the tournaments, told everyone she was burnt out and wouldn’t be playing, possibly ever again, and she was consigned to home. Now, it could be that that might have saved her. Might have. The dark side of her didn’t like it, but the other side, the real Emily, she was relieved. Except her father…’
Shake my head in the dark of the car. Know what’s coming.
‘He thinks… who knows what he thinks? His little girl is lost to him. That person, the one living in the single bedroom in the house they’ve always lived in, is gone. Might as well be dead. Instead he’s got this slut staying there, this young woman who’ll sleep with anyone. It’s barely his daughter. He sees it, there and then. There are two of her, and one of them isn’t related to him.’
‘So he sleeps with her.’
‘Yes. Emily’s mother… She likely didn’t know the details of what Emily had been doing, but she’s a mother, she’s not naïve. Not in the way the dad had been. And she knows, knows as soon as it starts happening with the dad. She goes for it. Walks in on them, kills him in front of her. Right there. Beats his head in with an ornament, while Emily cowers in the corner draped in a sheet.
‘Although, in fact, she told me, she didn’t cower at all. She sat and watched, quite dispassionately.’
Watched and learned.
‘So, the dad was dead, Emily is sixteen and alone. She has an aunt in Scotland. Inverness. She comes here. Emily, fucked up in all sorts of ways that no one knows about, comes to live in the Highlands to finish school, ending up at university in Aberdeen.’
‘Which is where you met.’
‘Yes.’
We hit traffic approaching Dundee. Still plenty of time for the rest of the story to unfold. I’m already infected by it. Already filled with the pain, already sensing the difference between these two characters, these two halves of the same person.
‘She did all right for a while, I think. Maybe the two Emilys started to grow towards each other. The real Emily started to grow up, the other Emily was contained. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde began to meld into one, the former toughening up, the rough edges and bitterness being removed from the latter. We started a relationship, which was all right for a while. She was never going to stick to just me, we argued about that, but I had to accept that’s who she was. And she didn’t mind me… you know, that’s the way it was. A lot of sex. There was a lot of sex. And then this Andrei guy arrives from Ukraine, and perhaps that’s all it took. The Eastern European in him. That’s what I thought at the time. She’d already told me about her life in Canada, and how it’d ended. I felt like I was trying to ease her through it, ease her into some kind of normal adulthood, then this guy walks in.
‘I immediately started seeing more of the other woman. Her Mr Hyde. The slut. The witch. The conniver and liar.’
‘You stayed with her, though.’
‘Yeah, I did. Lovestruck fool, moth to the flame, name the cliché. Always thought I could… I don’t know what… help her. Cure her. Instead I was just drawn further and further in. The other Emily won me over. And then we started this whole business with Andrei, and we were lost.’
Another pause. It’s coming out though, it’s flowing. He’s started. Doesn’t mean he’ll finish, but we’re getting somewhere at last.
‘The organisation ran as it did. Emily was never in charge, but she was the heart of it, you know. She ran a lot of the connections. There was Gibson and me and Waverley.’
‘And Rosco.’
‘And fucking Rosco.’
‘You said he was a moth to the flame too.’
‘He was. The dark half of her, that’s what he was after, and she used him. It was good for the operation, I have to admit that. She was more or less living two lives by then. One with him, and one with me.’
I keep any more comments to myself. I don’t think there’s a fragility in his decision to talk, but I don’t want to risk shutting him up by being glib or antagonistic.
‘And then this thing with Solomon happened. Emily did her usual, you know, slept with him, but we were both sceptical about him joining the business. For a kick-off we didn’t need him. And there was something about him. He was trying to be cool, but we could tell.
‘We fixed up the Estonia trip, we made our plans, had it all sorted. Part of the plan was that Emily would kill Solomon. Her idea right from the start. She thought she’d stitched Solomon up. But she wasn’t counting on one person…
‘Her other self. Her good self. Emily might have been a slut, she might have been manipulative, but it was still a stretch to actually kill someone. And it wasn’t like she turned up armed and dangerous. All along she was going to kill him with her bare hands. And some part of her just couldn’t cope with that. This thing inside her, knowing it was wrong, screaming at her, trying to wrest control.’
A slight pause. Take a brief glance at him. He’s staring at the dashboard, eyes are dead. Lost in the past.
‘The two days before she killed Solomon were… insane. She was insane. Raving. Fighting, arguing with herself. Impossible to tell who she was. I couldn’t talk to her. Literally. I was too scared, and she was completely unapproachable. This thing, I thought, this thing is just going to play out one way or the other.
‘The original plan had me and Emily meeting Solomon, but in the end she didn’t want me there. Said I’d get in the way. As she was leaving, she looked over her shoulder. This plaintive, pathetic, desperate glance, as though she was being led away by someone else, taken to do something she didn’t want to do.
‘I stayed in the hotel room. Waited all night. Emily’s plan was that we’d spend the next day together in Tartu, being as normal as possible, and then I should go missing in the middle of the following night. And that was how it played out. She came back in the small hours of the morning. I hadn’t slept, waiting for her.
‘She walked in, like she’d just fired an unwanted employee. Composed, hair unruffled, very businesslike. Except… she’d dyed her hair. At least, I thought that’s what it was. That it was dyed.
‘She slept for, like, I don’t know, two hours, and then she was up. We had to be seen in the town, looking normal. Normal tourists, doing normal tourist stuff. We ate breakfast, we walked around, we drank coffee, we went to churches and to see the river and so on. There’s not a lot to do in that place, and we did it all.
‘All day, I had this sense. You know, something. That something wasn’t right, something weird had happened. Occasionally I’d catch a glimpse of something, but it was so wrong, so extraordinary, that it didn’t make any sense.
‘And then, I don’t know, it was around two in the afternoon, we’re sitting outside this little coffee place, and I see her. I’m sure of it. Emily – the old, normal Emily that I loved – across the other side of the square. Just a fleeting glance…’
He stops for a moment, and I leave him to the silence. He sounds convincing and involved in his story, but of course, the previous times I’ve questioned him, he’s only told me what suited him, and regularly not told me the truth.
‘And she was gone. And… maybe it wasn’t her. It would be ridiculous if it was, after all. I mean, how could it be, she was sitting beside me at the time? Yet I realised. Whatever happened with Solomon, this woman who’d come back, this was the other Emily. My Emily had left her body. Banished for good, never coming back. Does it… is it possible that she had become someone completely different? That I really did see her across the town square?’
Another pause. At a standstill for a moment. Look at my watch. Almost at the Tay Bridge. Glance over at him. His head is down, his words have become less agitated.
‘Maybe, in her head, that dark side won over. Won over completely. That’s all.’
The traffic starts moving again, and this
time we might actually get going. Decide to leave the questioning for the moment.
Why would I even entertain the possibility that there might physically be two Emilys? Would anyone else believe him? Would Sutherland or Quinn give him the benefit of any credulity? Would any police officer?
So why am I? Is it because I already handed my scepticism in at the door when I chose to believe Dorothy’s tale? From that moment I started thinking that perhaps there were two different versions of Baden. That I now accept there aren’t, doesn’t really matter. It’s still allowed me to give credence to the possibility that there are two of Emily.
That someone’s mind can be split like that, that someone can have two distinct personalities, is well known to science, medicine, and the law. But what I’m allowing here, the possibility of it, would be universally considered preposterous. When it comes to writing this down and submitting a report, am I really going to give this as an explanation? Am I really going to try to justify this, and then expect to have a job as a detective inspector at the end of it?
If it’s not this, then there must be something else. Yet the other possibilities, that it wasn’t Emily King who died in Anstruther, that it’s not Emily King who was married to Rosco, all of them, while being practical and possible, send us backwards in the investigation. Yet there must be something. Surely.
‘So, you presume that Emily, dominated by her evil side, turned you in,’ I ask, halfway across the bridge, the traffic surging forward into the night, towards Fife.
The question hangs in the car for a while. He’s looking out at the reflection of lights in the water. The sky has clouded over, here on the east coast, not so far away from the clear skies of Perthshire. No moon, no stars.
‘I really don’t know,’ he says eventually.
50
Drive into Anstruther from the back of the town, and down to the seafront. Back again for a second time within a few days, after having not been here in years. The place seems quiet, no obvious sign of police activity. Not that I’d been expecting it. Had they actually found Debbie Rosco and Baden’s mother, I’d have received a call.
Drive past the harbour, no one out walking by the sea. A couple of teenagers standing in the car park, one with a skateboard, the other with a bike. One café is still open, and the pubs. A small supermarket, a woman just leaving, clumsily clutching a couple of overpacked shopping bags.
Along the front and then turn up towards Emily King’s house. I have a feeling that’s where we need to be, that Debbie Rosco will have gone back there. If there’s no sign of anyone, then we will head for the police station. If there has been no sign at all of Rosco in the vicinity, then it looks like I’ll need to head back to Gartcosh, drop off Baden, then drive north, mission unaccomplished.
That’s not going to happen, though. It finishes today. However absurd it is that those words came to me, I know they’re true. This finishes today, by one means or another.
The evening is well advanced. If it’s going to finish, it had better get on with it.
The phone rings. I jump a little at the sharp sound, and realise how tense I’ve become. Need to relax. This is going to play out one way or another. Me being tense isn’t going to make any difference to it.
Lift the phone. It’s DCI Meadows. The call was bound to come. Possibly better now than in a few minutes’ time. I’m not answering it. I’ll give him a call shortly, when I’ve got a better idea of whether we’re right to be here or not.
Round the corner, along the road from Emily King’s house, and the confirmation is right there, beneath a dim, orange streetlight. There’s a police car parked in the driveway, and parked across it, the red Peugeot belonging to Debbie Rosco.
I immediately slow and stop the car some thirty yards from the house. There are no lights on, which is odd, if there are three people, if not more, inside.
The street is on the edge of town, a row of neat, uninteresting houses down either side. Emily King’s is one like any other.
‘Close the door quietly when you get out,’ I say.
Engine off, out the car, doors gently closed. Walk slowly towards the house, and as we do so, I realise that there is a dim light in the front room. Just a side light, the curtains closed.
It’s an open driveway with no gate. Inside the house, more than likely, are Debbie Rosco, Mrs Baden, and at least Sergeant Edelman.
I’ve gone from nowhere this morning, to believing that Debbie Rosco is guilty of several murders, based on what I have to admit is absolutely no evidence whatsoever. It’s all supposition. All of it. Her actions are questionable, and there’s curiosity in what Sutherland reported, but even if she is Emily King – as I suddenly started taking for granted – there’s no proof that she killed anyone. We don’t have her at the scene of any crime, we don’t have any fingerprints, we don’t have DNA, we don’t have any witnesses. We might even struggle with motive, once we’ve unravelled this as much as we can.
‘You all right?’ I say, my voice low, standing at the entrance to the drive.
‘Sorry?’
‘You’re about to see your mum for the first time in twelve years, and Emily, who might have betrayed you. How are you?’
Giving myself time. Thinking out the permutations of how things are going to look in there. Do I call for backup, do I sneak round the back, do I ring the doorbell?
The front door is going to be unlocked. She needs us just to walk in.
‘I don’t know,’ he says.
We glance at each other. He looks nervous, but not as bad as he did back in the Estonian forest.
Up the short driveway, hesitate for a second at the door, and then turn the handle. The door opens, the mechanism of the handle and the noise of the hinges both thunderous in the silence.
The kitchen to the right, unlit. To the left, the front room, the door open an inch, dim light around its edge. No longer hesitating. Quickly along the short corridor, open the door, step into the room, turning the main light on as I enter.
The mother isn’t there. Sergeant Edelman is, tied to a chair, gagged, her police shirt ripped. Debbie Rosco is sitting behind her, leaning on Edelman’s chair. In her hand is a six-inch kitchen knife, which she’s balancing on her right index finger, letting the point of it bounce softly on the sergeant’s exposed shoulder.
‘Detective,’ she says. ‘You followed me all this way. Tomorrow couldn’t come quickly enough for you?’
Edelman looks blankly back at me. No fear there. However this happened, she’s going to be annoyed at herself.
I step forward into the room.
‘Don’t come any closer or she gets a knife in the neck.’
Edelman’s eyes narrow. I know what she’s saying. Don’t mind about me. My fault. Do what you have to do.
A couple of footsteps behind me, and a smile comes to Rosco’s face. Just a glance over my shoulder, however, then she looks back, keeping her eyes on me the whole time that she talks to him.
‘John, you’ve changed. Lost a bit of weight. Looks good on you.’
‘Emily…’
‘Expect they told you I was dead.’
They can talk. Lovely reunion for them. I start to calculate. Three yards across the room. She’ll never take the time to kill Edelman if I suddenly make a move. Her automatic reaction will be to fight me. Of course, she’s the killer with the knife, so there’s that to be taken into the calculations. As are the possibilities of making other distractions.
‘Where’s Mum?’
‘She’s fine, don’t worry. Just like we planned.’
Edelman’s eyes widen. I start to turn. Much too late. Don’t even have time to feel stupid.
* * *
‘Hey, it’s been a while. What’ve you been up to? Still working on this Estonian case?’
Take a few moments to get my bearings. Motorway. Cars. Night-time. Outside lane, steady seventy-five. I’m driving, and although my hands are on the steering wheel – I can see them there – I can’t actual
ly feel them. I have no sensation of my hands touching anything.
I glance at Dorothy. Hold her gaze for a moment. There’s a slight smile on her face, then I turn back to the road, even though I’m not sure I need to. Which is odd, because I’m definitely sitting in the driver’s seat of a car in the outside lane of a motorway. It’s normal in that situation to have to pay attention.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask.
‘It’s coming towards the end, so that’s where, I guess. We’re going to the end. It finishes today, remember?’
‘What d’you mean, the end?’
‘I’m not entirely sure. You just turned up here. What stage are you at with the case?’
I glance at her again. She had seemed so maudlin before. Almost as though there was a great chunk of her missing. She was half a person. It was inconceivable to think that she worked at the FCO. It didn’t make sense. She was just a heartbroken young woman, wrapped up in her own tragedy.
‘You seem different,’ I say.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘You’ve found your family?’
‘Of course… They’re here somewhere.’
She’s smiling, and looks around as though she might be able to see them, then stares forward again, a slightly detached look on her face, her eyes straight ahead.
‘I’m sure I saw them earlier today. Expect they’ll be in for dinner.’
Her voice drifts off, an uncomfortable edge to it, as though she’s talking about something she doesn’t want to, and then she’s quickly back, positive and airy again.
‘Hey, but we’re here for you. Fill me in on the details. I mean, I know we never talked about it on our drive across Europe, but I knew the case, obviously. I’d done some work on it. Did you explain the mystery of how there managed to be two John Badens?’
OK, so that’s why I’m here. Need to focus on the case. That makes sense. Need to gather my thoughts, try to lose that feeling of disconnection. It’ll probably help if I just start talking. The focus will follow.
Song of the Dead Page 29