Sacrifice

by Sharon Bolton

  ‘I can’t recall his name,’ he replied. ‘But he said he was the senior registrar. He said she had absolutely no chance of recovery. Are you about to tell me he was wrong?’

  ‘No, no,’ I said hurriedly, ‘nothing like that. I do need to ask you something else, though; and I am truly sorry to add to your grief. Did your wife have a baby shortly before she died?’

  He flinched. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We were planning a family, but Kirsten was a good rider. She wanted to compete for a few years before giving up.’

  Joss Hawick was pretty convincing. But he had to know I could check his story out in minutes.

  Dana stood up. It was crunch time. I stood too.

  ‘Tora,’ said Dana, gesturing towards the door. I went quickly, almost jogging along the corridor, and grabbed at the front door, half expecting to find it locked. It opened and I stood there, allowing the wind from the voe to sweep into the house, making sure Dana joined me.

  ‘One thing puzzles me,’ he said as Dana and I stood in the doorway, she outwardly calm, I ready to bolt at any second.

  ‘What’s that, sir?’

  ‘You said you’d found a ring. May I see it?’

  Dana was a good liar. ‘I’m sorry, sir, the ring is still at the station. But if your wife’s ring is missing I can bring it round for you to identify. The inscription inside should make it very easy.’

  Hawick shook his head. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. It can’t be Kirsten’s.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It was inscribed, but I knew it was tight on her finger and I didn’t want it forced off. I asked that she be buried wearing it.’

  I couldn’t help it. ‘Where?’ I said. ‘Where was she buried?’

  He looked surprised and a little disgusted, as though the question was in poor taste. Which it was – but hell, I had an excuse.

  ‘St Magnus’s Church,’ he said. ‘Where we were married.’

  ‘We should have brought two cars,’ said Dana. ‘Damn!’ She started the engine and drove five hundred yards down the road, until we were just out of sight.

  I fumbled in my bag and found my cell phone. Within minutes a local taxi was on its way to us. Dana pulled out a notebook and started scribbling.

  ‘He’s lying,’ I said.

  ‘I know.’ She carried on writing. I glanced down at the page. She’d written Kirsten Hawick, née Georgeson. Died summer 2004. Head injury. Franklin Stone Hospital. Senior Registrar in attendance.

  ‘It’s her,’ I said.

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘You saw the photograph. How many women have hair that long? It’s got to be her.’ I couldn’t stop talking.

  ‘Tora, calm down. It was a small photograph. We can’t be sure.’ She scribbled something else. A number.

  ‘This is my mobile,’ she said, tearing the page out and handing it to me. ‘Get to the hospital as soon as you can and check it. Don’t speak to anyone else. I’ll stay here until I hear from you.’

  I nodded. ‘Will you be OK?’

  ‘Of course. I’m just going to sit in my car and watch.’

  ‘Can you radio for back-up?’

  She smiled. I was using language straight from a cop show.

  ‘As soon as I hear from you. Let’s just keep this to ourselves until we’re sure.’

  The taxi arrived shortly afterwards and I was off.

  Fifty minutes later I called her mobile. She answered on the first ring.

  ‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘Can you talk?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Everything he told us is true.’

  Silence. I thought I could hear the wind whistling around Scalloway Voe.

  ‘What now?’ I said.

  She thought for a moment. ‘I need to drop by the station,’ she said. ‘Go home. I’ll see you there.’

  Just after eight in the evening and the Franklin Stone was still busy. I hoped I wouldn’t bump into anyone I knew as I left the building. I was seriously disturbed and I’m not a good liar at the best of times.

  Kirsten Hawick had to be the woman I’d dug up in my field. Death hadn’t changed her much. That delicate, white skin, with just a faint scattering of freckles, the type you only see on Scottish women, had been tanned by the peat, but her face had still been the perfect oval that I’d seen in the photograph.

  Yet I’d just called up her hospital medical records. She had indeed been admitted on 18 August 2004 (the better part of a year before the woman in the peat was supposed to have been killed), presenting with severe head trauma and multiple fractures of her upper spine. She’d been pronounced dead at 7.16 p.m. and her body released for burial two days later. There had even been a post mortem.

  I stopped at the front desk. At six in the evening the receptionist is replaced by a night porter. He was reading a newspaper and clutching a half-empty coffee mug.

  ‘Hi!’ I said, a lot more cheerfully than I felt.

  He glanced up, didn’t think much of what he saw and went back to his paper.

  ‘Do you by any chance have a street map of the town that I could look at?’ I asked.

  He shook his head and carried on reading.

  I fumbled in my bag, found my hospital ID card and placed it carefully on his newspaper. He looked up then.

  ‘A map,’ I said. ‘The front desk needs to have one, or you can’t do your job properly. If you don’t have one, I’ll make a complaint on your behalf, through the formal channels, that you’re not being kept properly supplied.’

  He glared at me. Then he got up, walked to a filing cabinet at the back of the room and searched inside. It took thirty seconds. He brought the map back and opened it.

  ‘What would ye be looking for?’

  ‘St Magnus’s Church.’

  With a tobacco-stained finger he pointed to a spot on the map.

  I looked carefully, trying to memorize the place. It wasn’t far from the hospital.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  He pushed it over towards me. ‘Take it,’ he offered.

  ‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘Someone else might need it.’

  I turned and left, feeling all warm and cosy inside at having made yet another friend at the hospital.

  I was glad it was still light when I arrived at St Magnus’s. I had to park on the main road and walk down the short, narrow street, and after dark I’m not sure I’d have found the courage to do so. The area was deserted. Tall, granite buildings towered overhead. Converted to offices, they were empty for the evening, but I had the sense of dozens of windows from which I could be watched.

  Opposite the church was a large, old house set in a walled garden. Trees, the like of which I’d never seen before, grew along the cobbled driveway. They looked like some sort of willow, but were a far cry from the tall, graceful trees that line English rivers. None of them was more than about twelve feet high and none had a central trunk. Instead, thick, gnarled branches sprang from the ground, twisting and knotting as they reached upwards. Leaves hadn’t started to open and the bare branches reminded me of an enchanted forest in one of the scarier fairy stories.

  There was no easy way into the small, walled churchyard. I guessed official visitors had to go through the church. I spent a few seconds plucking up courage and then I leaped over the wall. None of the headstones near by carried dates later than the nineteenth century so I followed the narrow, overgrown path around to the back. The rear left corner looked promising. There were patches of bare ground, the graves were better tended and one grave even had a raised mound and some remains of funeral flowers.

  It took me five minutes to find it. A large, rect-angular headstone, the granite dark and glossy, the carving simple:

  Kirsten Hawick

  1975–2004

  A most beloved wife.

  The mound of earth had been flattened and planted with spring bulbs. Some of the daffodils were still in bloom; others had dried, their petals shrivelled and orange. They needed to be d
eadheaded, tied in neat bunches and replaced with summer bedding plants but I had the feeling that Joss Hawick probably didn’t come here too much. I suppose it’s a very individual thing, one’s relationship with the grave of a loved one. Some people seem to need the close personal connection they feel with the deceased and can spend hours just standing or sitting by a grave. For others, I guess, a grave is a rather dreadful reminder of the physical process of decay taking place beneath their feet.

  I knelt down and, because I really couldn’t think of anything else to do, I started knotting the stalks. When I’d finished the grave looked neater, apart from the weeds. After all the rain we’d had recently they came out pretty easily, but my hands were soon filthy.

  ‘Touching,’ said a voice.

  I spun round to see two men standing over me. Two tall men. The setting sun was directly behind them and for a second I wasn’t sure who they were. Then, with a sinking heart, I recognized both. I stood up, determined to brazen it out, and looked down at the grave. ‘So, who do you reckon is down here?’ I said.

  Andy Dunn looked back at me as though I was a difficult child in whom he’d invested an enormous amount of time and energy and who had just let him down, again.

  ‘Kirsten Hawick is buried here,’ he said. ‘Joss Hawick is extremely distressed. He’ll probably make a formal complaint.’

  Well, I may not be the sharpest knife in the box but I know bullshit when I hear it.

  ‘I can’t imagine what about,’ I snapped. ‘He was handled with extreme sensitivity and the visit was perfectly legitimate. There was every chance the ring – and I’m referring to the one that I found, by the way, on my land – was his wife’s.’

  ‘How’s your horse?’ asked Gifford, successfully interrupting my train of thought. Christ, had that really only been this morning?

  ‘Please, Kenn,’ said Dunn, sounding tired.

  I decided to ignore Gifford. Well, at least try. Looking directly at Andy Dunn I said, ‘I saw her photograph this evening. It’s the same woman. How else do you explain the fact that a ring, bearing the exact date of their wedding and their initials, could be found in my field. In the hole I dug her out of, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Tora,’ it was Gifford again, ‘you saw the corpse only twice. The first time it was covered in peat and you were understandably in shock. The second time was on an autopsy table and, frankly, you didn’t look at her face that much.’

  I looked at Gifford. His eyes seemed larger and brighter than I remembered. For the first time that evening I started to have doubts.

  ‘Lots of women on these islands look like she did,’ he said. ‘Red hair, fair skin and small features are typically Scottish. But I knew Kirsten Hawick. For one thing, she was nearly your height. A good five inches taller than the corpse you found.’

  I shook my head, but what he was saying was plausible.

  He reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, speaking quietly, as though he didn’t want Dunn to hear. ‘Two doctors, a nurse and her husband were present when the machines were turned off. Kirsten Hawick died in our hospital.’

  I wasn’t giving in easily. ‘Then her body was stolen. Probably from the hospital morgue. Someone stole the body because they wanted her heart.’

  They looked at me like I was deranged.

  ‘Don’t ask me why they wanted it, but someone did. They stole the body, took out the heart and dumped her in my field.’

  ‘The woman in your field had just had a baby. Kirsten Hawick had never been pregnant.’

  Well, I had to admit, he had me there. Plus, according to Dr Renney, the heart had been removed while the victim was still alive, not post mortem.

  ‘And the timing just doesn’t fit,’ added Dunn, imitating Gifford’s gentle tones. ‘I’ve checked with Stephen Renney and the Inverness pathology team. They’ve had a chance to examine the body extensively and to carry out all sorts of tests on the peat around her. The woman from your field could not have been dead since 2004.’

  I looked down at the grave. ‘There’s one way to know for sure.’

  Well, that at least dented Dunn’s annoying self-control. He flushed and glared at me. ‘Don’t even think about it. We are not about to start exhuming graves. Do you have any idea how much distress that causes? To the whole community, not just the family concerned.’

  Gifford’s hand left my shoulder and slid down my arm, my sore arm. He squeezed gently and I had to grit my teeth not to flinch. ‘This is exactly what I was afraid of. Tora, I don’t blame you, but this has all become too personal. I want you to think again about taking some time off.’

  At least he wasn’t firing me yet. But I wasn’t about to take time off. There were some difficult deliveries coming up and the hospital needed me. I shook my head.

  ‘OK.’ He glanced at Andy Dunn, as if to say, I’ve done my best. You see what I have to deal with?

  Maybe he was right, maybe I did need to detach at bit. Forget about the murder, just concentrate on doing my job and let the police do theirs.

  ‘You have a clinic in the morning, don’t you?’ Gifford was saying.

  I nodded.

  ‘I’d like to see you just before. Can you be in by eight?’

  I nodded again, feeling like a delinquent teenager whose parents were being just too understanding.

  Gifford smiled at me. He laid his arm along my shoulders and pushed me gently down the path.

  ‘Come on, I’ll walk you to your car.’

  Andy Dunn followed us in silence as we walked down the path and left the churchyard. As I drove away, I could see them both, in the rear-view mirror, standing in the road and watching me.

  When I arrived home a shadowy figure was huddled on my doorstep. I shrieked as it moved towards me.

  ‘It’s OK, it’s only me.’ Dana stepped out into the light. The body is slow to catch up with the brain on these occasions. Even as I knew there was nothing to worry about, my nerve endings felt as though someone had administered a thousand tiny electric shocks. I looked round.

  ‘Where’s your car?’

  ‘Down the road.’

  I stared at her stupidly. ‘Why?’ I managed.

  ‘I don’t want anyone seeing it outside your house. We arranged to meet here, remember?’ she prompted.

  ‘Yes, but . . . you obviously haven’t seen your DI this evening.’

  ‘Of course I’ve seen him. Why, have you?’

  I nodded. ‘He found me in St Magnus’s churchyard. At Kirsten’s grave.’

  Her eyebrows shot up. ‘Did he now?’

  ‘He explained everything. He and Kenn Gifford.’

  She looked at me with both amusement and pity on her face. ‘And you fell for it? Tora Hamilton, you are not the woman I took you for.’

  10

  ‘I SAW HER grave, Dana. It’s just not possible.’

  We were sitting at my kitchen table, doors locked, blinds drawn. I was tired and had an uncomfortable sense of being drawn back into something I’d been happy to leave behind just half an hour ago. We were drinking hot, strong coffee. I’d offered red wine but Dana had shaken her head. ‘We need to think,’ she’d said. Scary word: we. Suddenly, we were accomplices, working against clear instructions from our superiors. We were arguably being foolish, possibly about to do considerable harm and definitely in for a whole heap of trouble when – not if – we were found out.

  I’d also offered food and Dana had given me a vague look. I wasn’t sure if it meant yes or no. I was hungry and acutely conscious of cold ham in the fridge and fresh bread in the larder.

  ‘Everything is possible. I just can’t see how they did it.’

  ‘Who exactly are they? You’re talking about my boss. He’s a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, for heaven’s sake. There were other people in the room with her when the machines were turned off. Kirsten Hawick died. Nearly a year before our victim did.’

  Dana clicked her tongue. ‘Yeah, yeah . . . I’ve heard all that too. But – just t
o put it another way – you find a wedding ring on the same patch of ground you found a corpse; the inscription inside suggests it belongs to a dead woman, one Mrs Hawick, who not only fits the age and ethnic group of our victim, but also, judging by her wedding photos, bears a reasonable resemblance to her. And we’re being told it’s just coincidence. How likely does that seem to you?’

  Not remotely, was the honest answer. But the evidence for Kirsten’s death had been pretty convincing. I stood up. I was not going to be intimidated out of making a sandwich in my own home. I got out the ham, butter and bread.

  ‘I felt such an idiot,’ I said. ‘God knows what they thought when they saw me digging up weeds on her grave.’

  ‘Does it strike you as odd that the two of them should follow you to the churchyard? How did they even know you’d gone there? And why would it bother them?’ Dana stopped, thought for a second, then said, ‘Do I sound paranoid?’

  I glanced over my shoulder. ‘Only totally.’

  ‘Thanks.’ To her credit, she managed a smile.

  ‘Welcome.’ I bent down again, fumbling in the back of the fridge for the mayonnaise. When I straightened up she was serious again.

  ‘There’s something I want you to do,’ she said.

  Just when I’d thought it was safe. ‘What?’

  She reached into a briefcase and pulled out a folder of thin, green cardboard. From inside she removed a sheet of black and white transparent film.

  ‘This is a dental X-ray that was taken of our corpse. My team have been checking it against records of women on the missing-persons list. No matches so far, although obviously not all records are available to us.’

  I brought the food back to the table and went to get cutlery. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I have nagged and pleaded and begged, but DI Dunn will not even consider asking Joss Hawick to release his wife’s dental records for comparison.’

  I really couldn’t see where she was going with this. ‘So . . .’

  ‘You should be able to find them.’

  Back at the table, I started buttering bread. I shook my head. ‘Most dentists work privately. No one else can access their records. Even if we knew who Kirsten’s dentist was, he couldn’t release them to me without Joss Hawick’s permission.’