The Innocent Dead - Rhona MacLeod Series 15 (2020)

by Anderson, Lin

  ‘Very nice,’ he says admiringly. ‘Is anyone home?’

  ‘No. Jack’s dead,’ I remind him. ‘Aren’t you, Jack?’ I call into the back seat.

  He gives a little laugh at my madness, confident now in his power over me. I smile as he releases his seat belt. He doesn’t see the knife I take from my pocket. He is too busy thinking of the dark empty house we’re about to enter, and what will happen there.

  I reach over and, for a brief moment, he believes I am about to fondle him.

  ‘You haven’t forgotten,’ he says with a smile.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  My touch in his groin becomes steel. Stabbing and grinding. Now the true madness takes me. The madness of remembering what he did to me. What he did to Mary. He is caught completely off guard. Just as I was as a little girl when he forced his thick fingers inside me.

  Now Jack joins me in my madness. Screaming words of encouragement from the back. I have never heard him so elated.

  ‘Again, girl, again,’ he screams.

  I obey him. Blood spouts to meet my face. Hot and tasting of copper.

  He has his big hands round my neck now, hoping to choke the life out of me. But I am a mad woman and I cannot be stopped.

  66

  McNab saw the flashing blue lights as he approached the Raploch roundabout and knew instinctively that the story had met its conclusion at McCreadie’s.

  Had Karen directed him there? Or had Jackson thought the nearby woods might be Karen’s final resting place?

  Turning left into the road behind the King’s Garden, McNab drew in behind the line of police cars. The stately row of villas alongside was a blaze of lights, the neighbours keen to discover what had taken place outside or maybe inside the home of the famous crime novelist, J. D. Smart.

  What a story this was going to make.

  There was no cynicism in McNab’s thoughts, just relief. According to McCreadie’s brief call, Karen was alive and Jackson dead. That’s all he needed to know for the moment.

  Emerging from his vehicle, he was met by a familiar figure.

  ‘You got here fast,’ DS Jones said.

  ‘Not quite fast enough,’ McNab said. ‘Do we know what happened?’

  ‘He tried to strangle her. She knifed him in the groin. Mr McCreadie came out and saw it happening. He got Karen out the car and called the ambulance. By the time they got here, Jackson was dead.’

  ‘Did they take Karen to hospital?’

  ‘She wouldn’t go. She’s in with Mr McCreadie and his housekeeper. SOCOs are working Jackson’s body and the car. You can take a look if you kit up or I can show you some photos.’

  McNab chose the photos.

  Ten minutes later he was approaching McCreadie’s front door, which was opened to him before he could knock.

  ‘DS McNab,’ Lucy greeted him, her voice a mix of strain and relief. ‘Karen’s with Mr McCreadie in the conservatory.’

  Karen was lying on the sofa, a blanket over her. McCreadie had been sitting alongside but rose to greet McNab on entry.

  God, McCreadie looks old, McNab thought, old and tired, but relieved too.

  ‘You thought she might come here,’ McCreadie said. ‘Thank God, you were right.’ He stood, making room for McNab to take a seat beside Karen.

  She gave him a weak smile. ‘Detective McNab,’ she said. ‘How did you know I’d come back here?’

  ‘Call it a hunch,’ McNab said.

  Her slender throat clearly showed the grip of Jackson’s hands. McNab wondered how she could have survived his obvious attempts to throttle her. Unless . . . she had weakened him already, by making the first move?

  From the crime scene photos taken on arrival by DS Jones, the knife Karen had used lay on the floor of the passenger seat. It looked like a bigger version of the one she’d wielded on her own wrist in the scullery at Rowan Cottage. Longer and obviously sharp enough to do real damage. Why have a knife like that with you, if you didn’t intend harming yourself or others?

  By the quantity of blood inside the vehicle, she’d caught the femoral artery, weakening Jackson enough to save her own life. But who had struck the first blow?

  ‘Is my Jack still in the car?’ Karen suddenly asked him. ‘He won’t like that, Detective. Not with all that blood. Jack never liked the sight of blood.’ She gave him a little smile and McNab could have sworn her eyes twinkled at him before she closed them.

  Lucy arrived with a tray, breaking the moment.

  ‘Can I talk to you?’ McNab said to McCreadie. ‘In private?’

  ‘Let’s go into the sitting room.’ He led McNab through the hall and into a room that looked out onto the crime scene.

  ‘Of course, you want to know what happened?’

  ‘The truth of what happened.’ McNab emphasized the word ‘truth’.

  ‘I was in the conservatory, which as you know is at the back of the house, so the front was in darkness. After your call, I came to sit in here in the dark and watch, just in case. I’m ashamed to say I dozed off, albeit I think briefly. When I woke I saw there was a car that hadn’t been there before. It matched the description you gave me of Karen’s car.

  ‘I went straight out there. As I approached the car I realized there was a struggle going on inside. His hands were round her throat. The doors were locked. I couldn’t open them. Then came the blood. It splattered the window and he went limp. Karen unlocked her door and I got her out and brought her inside,’ he said. ‘Where I called 999.’

  ‘So she was defending herself when she stuck the knife in him?’

  ‘Without a doubt. Had she not done so, I couldn’t have got into the car in time and Karen Marshall would be dead.’

  He didn’t add, ‘just like Mary McIntyre’, but it hung there between them nevertheless.

  It was a good story, and Jimmy McCreadie would stick to it. Who wouldn’t take the word of a former detective inspector and famous crime writer? Especially the detective who had served on the original case.

  ‘I assume,’ McCreadie said, ‘when you told me you planned to arrest him that you have proof he was implicated in Mary’s death?’

  McNab didn’t answer. He felt that to be the case, but now that they had Jackson and his DNA, the forensic evidence would tell them the truth.

  ‘There’s stuff Karen’s still not telling us,’ McNab said.

  ‘She will, though,’ McCreadie said. ‘I’m sure of that. When she’s fully recovered, that is. The doctor’s been,’ he added. ‘Karen’s still running a high temperature. That might account for the delirium, he says.’

  ‘So she’s not doolally after all?’ McNab said.

  ‘Only time and her recovery will tell.’ McCreadie gave him a half-smile.

  67

  Written evidence relating to the abduction and murder of Mary McIntyre

  The handwritten note found by Karen Johnston in the hall at Rowan Cottage read, I know who you are. This note is believed to have been written by the accused, Eric Jackson.

  The following is the letter found by Eleanor Jackson, sister of Karen Johnston (née Marshall), in her bathroom after Karen left the house to be driven back to Stirling by Eric Jackson on the night in question.

  Eric told me it was our secret. That he would never tell anyone and neither should I. He said it was normal. He did it to my big sister and she liked it.

  After Mary disappeared, he said that if I told anyone, he would kill my sister. They were going to be married, so it would be easy.

  My father told me we had to protect the innocent, so I did.

  Statement by Karen Johnston (formerly Karen Marshall):

  What I told Detective Sergeant McNab about that day was almost the whole truth. Mary wasn’t there when I returned to the den, so I changed back into my own clothes, folded the dress and veil and carefully put them in the bag with the shoes. Later when I returned I found Mary’s jumper in the nearby woods.

  I had told Mary what Eric had been doing to me. I knew I had committed
a sin. She tried to console me. She told me if I went to the chapel wearing her dress, I would be absolved of my sins. She was very angry about Eric.

  He hadn’t got to Mary. No one had. I made that part up.

  She would have told him that day when he came to the den to leave me alone. That she would tell everyone what he was like. What he had done to me.

  I believe that’s why he killed Mary. To stop her doing that.

  He had a van for work, although he never brought it to our house when he came for Eleanor. But Mary and I saw it sometimes up the back track near the reservoir. That’s when he used to spy on us.

  After Mary disappeared, I tried to tell Eleanor what Eric was really like, but she wouldn’t listen to me. She said I was too young to understand about men.

  My sister was an innocent in all of this, and he said he would kill her if I told the truth about him. I believed he would because of Mary.

  My father told me to forget that day and everything that had happened. Eleanor married Eric and they moved away. I never had to see him again.

  I made myself believe Mary wasn’t dead. That she’d run away. That it was my fault Eric abused me. That I was the one to blame for everything.

  Until I saw the crow and the dead cat walking past the cottage. Then I knew Mary was dead, and she wanted her body to be found.

  When that did happen, that’s when I started to unravel. Marge and the other women at the recovery cafe tried to help me remember. When they began to succeed, I became very frightened. When I tried to cut my wrists, I failed, because of the crow. It flew at my head and I dropped the knife. I believed the crow was sent by Mary. That she wanted me to stay alive to tell the truth.

  Then I saw Eric. He was in Stirling, watching me. Reminding me of my promise. I think the note was from him too. By then I was ill. Everything became muddled. I had stopped talking to Jack for a while, but now I did it all the time, because it helped.

  I thought I was dying, so I went to say goodbye to Jack at the cemetery. That’s when I met Detective McCreadie again. I didn’t recognize him the first time, when he was in King’s Knot with the dog, but I did now. I was running down the path in the woods. I thought Eric was chasing me. That’s when Detective McCreadie stepped out to catch me. I like to think Mary made that possible.

  He took me home and Lucy looked after me. The doctor came and after he treated me I started to feel better. But I couldn’t stay there, because of Eric.

  If he thought I’d told anyone about him and Mary, he would keep his promise and kill my sister.

  So I went to see Eleanor. I tried to tell her, but how do you tell your sister that her husband abused her wee sister? That he’d threatened to kill Eleanor if I breathed a word of it to anyone? That I thought he’d killed Mary and buried her out on the moor?

  Eleanor had told me that Eric had left her for another woman. She told me DS McNab had been to see her. He’d told her to call him if I came to visit. I urged her to do that.

  Then he turned up. Walked into the house and pretended to be surprised that I was there. I knew then I was right and he had been trailing me. The only other explanation would be that Eleanor called him and told him I was there. I didn’t want to believe that of my sister.

  He was just like before. Friendly, pretending to be concerned because I looked so ill. He was so glad, he said, that Eleanor and I were friends again. He gave me a look at that point. A look I understood perfectly. When I said I felt ill, he offered to take me home. I accepted to get him away from my sister.

  She’d been surprised when Eric had appeared, and not altogether happy. There’s something wrong between them.

  Getting into the car, I made Jack move into the back seat. Plus I went on talking to him as usual. Eric found that amusing. I could read his mind. He was beginning to think I’d gone a bit mad. So maybe no one would believe anything I said. But could he take that chance?

  Or would he decide he couldn’t?

  I directed him back to the villa. It felt safer than Rowan Cottage because it was close to Detective McCreadie. I don’t think Eric believed that I lived there, but he didn’t say anything. I hoped Eleanor would call Detective McNab, although I wasn’t certain she would.

  Detective McCreadie saved me. I’d picked up the knife when I went back to Rowan Cottage for the car. I thought I’d maybe do a better job on myself next time.

  When Eric tried to strangle me, I stuck the knife in his leg, although I was aiming for his crotch. I couldn’t breathe with Eric’s big hands round my neck, and I think I started to pass out, but Detective McCreadie was there at the car window and he saved me.

  The next thing I remember is being back in his house with Lucy. He told me Eric was dead. I was glad.

  Signed: Karen Marshall

  A brief summation of the forensic evidence submitted by Dr Rhona MacLeod establishing Eric Jackson as the killer of Mary McIntyre:

  Eric Jackson left his mark forensically in a number of ways. He’d handled Mary’s school jumper, which was found in the woods after her disappearance. Evidence of his recently cut hair was retrieved from the body of Mary McIntyre. Skin and blood under Mary’s fingernails had also come from the accused. The DNA from the cigarette was also a match. The fingerprint extracted from the black bag was Eric Jackson’s.

  A brief report as to the circumstances of Eric Jackson’s death:

  There might be a dispute as to when Karen drew her knife. Whether she had struck first, before Jackson began to strangle her. However, there was an eye witness, former Detective Inspector McCreadie, who has declared under oath that Karen Marshall was in danger of her life before she struck her assailant in the leg with a kitchen knife.

  That she caught the femoral artery, which had produced the swift bleed-out and death of her assailant, had been something Karen couldn’t have foreseen, particularly when she’d been experiencing a high fever at the time.

  The report from Jackson’s autopsy, plus the forensic examination of the vehicle in which Jackson died, both reinforced former DI McCreadie’s version of events.

  Dossier on Eric Jackson, 1975 until the present day:

  Through his DNA profile and the subsequent digital forensic investigation, Eric Jackson has been identified as a person of interest in a number of child abductions and murders throughout Europe. He is also implicated in the production of child pornography, mainly in Europe, but also in the UK. This investigation is ongoing.

  The murder of Alec McLaughlin, a suspect in the Mary McIntyre abduction and murder:

  David Ian Willis has been charged with the murder of Alec McLaughlin by cutting his throat on [date given] at [address given]. Willis is the brother of McLaughlin’s former partner Anne Marie Willis. In his defence, he said that McLaughlin had raped his sister’s three young children over many years and had been locked up for it, but not for long enough.

  ‘I was just waiting for the bastard’s release.’

  68

  Summer had arrived. The view from Rhona’s lab window provided proof of that. The trees circling University Hill had burst into life, obstructing Rhona’s view of the park below and the red sandstone majesty of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

  She missed the sight of its Gothic splendour, but, Rhona reminded herself, she would see it soon enough when she left the lab and headed home through the park.

  Chrissy had gone already, keen to see her son and use the arrival of the long light evenings of a Scottish summer to play with young Michael in the garden.

  Rhona now contemplated how she might spend her own evening. She could enjoy the park for an hour, then maybe pick up some food on her way home. She briefly thought of Sean, and not for the first time since the night of the missed dinner. After that disaster, she’d sent both men a text, apologizing for forgetting to tell them that she’d been called out to a murder scene.

  Liam had responded positively, promising to get back in touch the next time he was in Glasgow. As for Sean, her apology and offer to make it u
p to him by taking him out to dinner had fallen on deaf ears. It appeared Sean had a heavy schedule in the coming weeks, including a trip to Paris to play, so he couldn’t fit in a dinner with Rhona at the moment.

  She wasn’t sure if it was a brush-off or simply the truth. She found herself wondering how many times Sean had felt the same about her own similar responses.

  The intercom buzzed as she was making ready to leave.

  For a brief moment Rhona hoped it might be Liam, back in Glasgow again, or even Sean deciding he had time for her after all, then the voice told her who it actually was.

  On entry, McNab greeted her with a characteristic grin, while Rhona waited for him to explain why he was there.

  ‘Where’s Chrissy?’ he said, looking around.

  ‘She went home early to play with wee Michael. Why are you here?’ Rhona asked outright.

  ‘I was in the area,’ McNab began, then stopped when he caught her disbelieving expression.

  The grin began to fade and Rhona now caught a glimpse of McNab’s true mood. Rhona could read McNab like a book – after all, she’d had enough experience of doing so over the years they’d worked together.

  ‘It’s Ellie, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘How did you guess?’ McNab said drily.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I think she may have dumped me,’ McNab admitted. ‘After abandoning her the night I was chasing Eric Jackson.’

  ‘You explained why?’ Rhona said.

  ‘Yes, but it didn’t work. Seems being in a relationship with an officer of the law is losing its appeal.’

  ‘Ditto with Sean,’ Rhona said. ‘Ever since I missed that meal and went to view Alec McLaughlin’s body instead. Even my offer of dinner out at my expense hasn’t done the trick.’

  McNab was brightening a little. ‘So what are you planning for tonight then?’ he said.

  ‘A walk through the park, then a pizza probably,’ Rhona told him.

  McNab hesitated, leading Rhona to believe he might be about to ask if he could come with her.