by Lin Anderson
The armed team circled the graveyard, planning their approach from all directions. Bill and McNab headed for the brewery car park south of Ladywell Street, entering without lights. As he climbed from the car, Bill felt as if the whole world was holding its breath.
Magnus was pacing up and down, tightly wound.
‘Okay, our man has a thing about burial, so we need to look for disturbed earth, anything that suggests he might have been there.’
Bill’s guts turned over. ‘You think he’s buried Lisa?’
‘If he took Lisa, this is different. It’s more about taunting you than his need to kill. Showing you what he can do. One man against authority and justice. Assumed invincibility is a trait of serial killers. He believes he cannot be beaten.’ Magnus paused. ‘I think we should assume he’ll stay true to form. I think he’ll try and imprison Lisa underground, like he did Terri and Leanne. We have to find that prison while Lisa is still alive.’
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph.’
Magnus met Bill’s eye. ‘He hasn’t won yet.’
The first flush of dawn was visible to the east as they climbed the rear of the mist-swathed graveyard. Above them was the steady beat of the police helicopter. If the mist cleared, they would have an aerial view of any disturbed ground. The dogs would focus their search in the thirty-seven acres that constituted the Necropolis.
Magnus’s conviction had relayed itself to the entire team. He’d been closer to the killer than anyone, had been one of his victims. The Gravedigger had effectively ended his professional career. Now he was threatening Bill’s most precious possession.
70
RHONA OPENED HER eyes. The first rays of dawn warmed the room. She was completely alone apart from the steady hum of a machine. For a moment she thought she was in the lab, but couldn’t imagine why she should be there at dawn, then in a rush, she remembered everything. From the moment she saw the man enter the old hotel, to shaking uncontrollably in the ambulance. And afterwards, weeping as the female police officer carried out the rape examination, and finally oblivion before they set her leg. Every part of her body ached with memory. She wanted to be asleep again, or dead, anything not to have such thoughts.
The door opened and someone entered, tiptoeing so as not to disturb her. Rhona thought it was a nurse, then recognised the rhythm of the walk and quickly closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see Sean, not yet.
She heard him pull his chair close to the bed and felt his warm hand enclose her cold one. She could sense his agitation through the pulse in his fingers. He was muttering something under his breath. It sounded like, ‘I’ll kill the bastard.’
Rhona opened her eyes.
‘Who?’
Sean started at her voice. ‘Thank God you’re conscious.’ His voice was thickly Irish with emotion. Rhona realised how terrified he must have been.
‘Who do you want to kill?’ Rhona repeated, knowing Sean wasn’t talking about the man they called the Gravedigger.
Sean didn’t answer.
‘You’re talking about Magnus.’ Rhona was suddenly afraid of the look in Sean’s eyes. A brutal, incensed gleam she’d never seen before. ‘Magnus Pirie saved my life in the culvert. I would have drowned but for him.’
‘It was his fault you were there. The fucking bastard!’ Sean’s face was livid with fury. ‘He put you in danger.’
Rhona clung to Sean’s hand, but he shook her free and stood up. ‘I was waiting for you to wake up. Now I know you’ll be all right,’ he said stiffly.
‘Sean, stay with me, please?’
‘Chrissy will be in soon.’
‘Sean, promise me you won’t go near Magnus.’
His eyes were like a stranger’s.
‘Why should you care what happens to Magnus Pirie?’
When she didn’t answer, he turned away. Rhona wanted to call after him, ask him to stay with her so she could tell him what had happened in the cellar. She wanted to share her fear and her disgust. She wanted his arms about her.
The door banged shut behind him.
Rhona rang the emergency bell. When a nurse arrived, she asked to make an urgent phone call.
71
MAGNUS STOOD MOTIONLESS as the armed team moved silently among the headstones. Yards away, the team was almost invisible. But not their scent. Not to the dogs and not to him.
Magnus closed his eyes and concentrated. Sound and sight would be distorted in the mist, but his sense of smell was as acute as ever. The hot damp weather had caused an abundance of growth. Magnus sensed the earth writhing with life as the sun began to show its colours. He was seeking something else in the blanket of smells around him. Something different. Not the wall of decay he’d met on his first visit to the graveyard, but the scent of the killer. A scent he’d first breathed in at Rhona’s lab, and again in the vaulted space of the cellar. The scent he’d picked up from Rhona’s skin. The unique human scent everyone had. Like the dogs, Magnus knew he could find the guy in a crowded room, even though he’d never seen him clearly.
Every hair on Magnus’s body stood to attention. Each vein and artery pulsed with blood. He could feel each beat of his heart. He knew if he came face to face with the man they sought, he could kill him. All thoughts on the sanctity of human life had departed him in those moments he’d watched the killer with Rhona.
If he could find and follow the killer’s smell, he would find Lisa. He was convinced she was here. They were both here. Soon Bill would receive a call from Lisa’s phone. The killer would reveal he’d tricked them. Laugh at them, revel in their despair.
But the game wasn’t over yet.
The men were fanning out over the hill. Magnus aimed for the lower mausoleums. Digging a grave in open ground would be difficult. A mausoleum would be better.
Three vaults lay embedded in the hillside. Large, rusting hazard signs forbade him entry through their gates, due to their crumbling state. Magnus sniffed each padlock, checking for oil, but there was nothing but the dust of corroded metal.
His breathing was matching his heartbeat, fast and furious. Magnus forced it to slow, and tried to gather his thoughts. He’d roamed this place at night and during the day, after their initial find. Then, he’d been seeking to understand the killer’s mind and his world. The map of the place was burned into his memory.
Magnus turned abruptly left and slithered down a grassy bank. Someone had been down here before him, while it was wet. In front of him were bent and broken branches.
Magnus let the smells wash over him. Gorse, the coconut scent of the flowers long gone, but the sharpness of the foliage still there. And something else. Magnus smelt the killer; salt and oil and the scent of his skin.
The metal gate of the partially collapsed mausoleum was closed but not padlocked. Magnus pushed it open, his mind already computing the fact that the floor was stone and looked unmarked. Nothing had been buried there, but still Magnus was convinced the killer had been in, or near this building.
Magnus placed both hands on the wall. The stone was dry and surprisingly warm, as though it had been in full sun not long before. There was a rustling at his feet as a mouse, disturbed by his presence, made for the outside world. The crypt had been built with its gate facing east, so its occupants might see the rising sun and Jesus’s second coming. Already dawn was swallowing the shadows.
Magnus stepped outside and examined the outer wall. The northern section was partially collapsed, the roof fallen in, its exposed tombs reminding him of the burial mound of Maeshowe in Orkney, plundered by Vikings, who had written graffiti on its internal walls.
He went back inside, knowing there was nothing there, but unable to leave. The stillness of the night was being replaced by the energy of dawn, heralded by a blackbird’s bid to begin the chorus.
The rising sun now shone on the western wall. It was three tombs high, the divisions between them like a grid. Magnus saw the carving and knew he was in the right place. A full moon and a fish were scratched into the stone of t
he central tomb.
His fumbled attempts to open the sarcophagus lid were hampered by his swollen hands. Magnus gave up in frustration and used the radio. Bill answered immediately.
‘The dogs found disturbed earth. We’re checking it now,’ Bill said.
Magnus gave his location and explained about the symbols. ‘I can’t get the lid off.’ Even to his own ears, he sounded desperate.
Bill was there in minutes. Magnus was aware he must look like a madman, tearing at the lid of a sarcophagus. McNab and Bill immediately joined him, their combined efforts freeing it to scrape across its base.
The escaping air was full of the scent of dust and disuse. Magnus knew before he looked in, the sarcophagus was empty. Inside his head, Magnus could hear the killer’s laughter. How many places had he scratched those symbols within the graveyard? Leaving his scent at each of them. He’d drawn them back here. Tricked them when they thought they were tricking him. Magnus could taste Bill’s anger and despair.
‘She’s here. I’m sure of it.’
‘Why?’ McNab said. ‘Why are you so fucking sure?’
Magnus concentrated on Bill. ‘He was watching you. He followed you home. He saw your family. He followed Margaret to Barrowland. Lisa looks like the others. His victims all look alike. I said that didn’t matter. I was wrong.’ Magnus turned to Bill. ‘Why would Lisa go with him?’
‘She wouldn’t.’
‘But if she did?’
Bill thought for a moment. ‘I’ve had police cars follow her before, when I knew she was walking home. I frightened her once. She didn’t realise who they were.’
‘Maybe he told her he was a cop,’ McNab came in. ‘That you’d sent him.’
‘A perpetrator wants to be part of the action,’ Magnus said. ‘What if he’s here with us now?’
Bill shook his head. ‘Impossible.’
‘Drivers?’ Magnus tried. ‘The guy who opened the gates?’
‘We checked out everyone who had a key.’
Bill’s look suggested he thought Magnus was rambling. ‘You need to get checked over at the hospital. Have those wounds seen to.’
Magnus didn’t argue. The adrenalin was draining from his body, leaving him weak and full of doubt. He’d been so sure he would find the killer, and save Lisa. A false belief, more about himself than the case.
McNab left them at the crypt to check out the road blocks. Magnus knew the sergeant’s anger was directed at him. McNab thought him a fool. McNab blamed him for what had happened to Rhona, and believed Magnus had increased the danger by responding to the auction. And McNab was right.
72
MCNAB STOOD ALONE near the road block, thanking God he was no longer with his boss or Magnus. The DI’s fear was too raw for McNab to cope with, and McNab’s dislike for Magnus was too intense. McNab had secretly prayed for the Norse God to fail, but would never have wished for this to happen to Lisa.
He couldn’t shake off the thought that if Rhona had stayed with him, she would have been safe. But you couldn’t make Rhona do anything she didn’t want to. If McNab had learned anything in the short space of their relationship, it was that.
The camera image of her lying helpless in the cellar had affected McNab deeply, in a way he was not proud of. To be in control of Rhona was a fantasy of his. A fantasy that could never be realised. Rhona could never be possessed. McNab had tried and failed. Maybe if he hadn’t tried so hard, they would still be together.
A white van drew up. McNab watched as a constable moved to the driver’s window and asked the usual questions. Routine. Endless routine, which – the boss never tired of telling his team – was good policing. McNab’s eyes drooped with fatigue. The only thing that would keep him awake now was alcohol or the prospect of sex.
McNab’s eyes ran over the van and checked the number plate. They’d had a half-dozen delivery vans through already, starting before the rush-hour traffic. This one was no different. The constable stepped back and the engine revved into action. Something in that sound alerted McNab. The guy was really keen to leave. Watch and listen, that’s what the DI had told him.
The vehicle was pulling away.
‘Stop,’ McNab shouted without knowing why. Then his brain registered what his eye had spotted. A towbar on the rear bumper.
The van slithered to a halt. McNab immediately thought that a guilty man wouldn’t stop. A guilty man would drive on. Knock them down in his effort to escape.
McNab checked out the occupant of the driver’s seat. An ordinary bloke. Middle-aged. A face he didn’t recognise under the lid of the cap. They had only one photo to go on. Bradley had said it might be Henderson, but couldn’t be sure. He looked different now, Bradley had said. Smarter. This guy didn’t look smart and he definitely smelt ripe.
‘Lose the cap.’
McNab watched as the man reached up with his left hand. The exposed hair was thinning and mousey-blond.
‘I’d like a look in the back.’ McNab could have sworn the guy flinched.
‘Be my guest.’
The guy got out of the cab and strolled around. Took his time about unlocking the door, then stood back for McNab to take a look.
McNab could sense something about him, something stiff and alert. The guy was cool, but McNab could hear a strange tension in his voice. No light came on when the door opened. The back was a place of shadows. The man stood quietly as McNab jumped inside.
A jumble of stuff, clothes, cardboard boxes. McNab picked up a set of stinking overalls.
‘Sorry about the smell. I’ve been clearing a drain for a mate.’
McNab threw the offending garment to one side. ‘Where did you say you were headed?’
‘South.’
‘Where south?’
‘Bradford.’
Wrong answer, mate.
McNab surreptitiously prodded the remaining heap of clothes and his foot met something firm. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the swift movement of the man’s left hand towards his belt.
McNab flung himself to the floor of the van, shouting ‘Gun!’ to alert his colleagues. He felt something firm absorb his fall and began to hurl aside the remaining garbage, oblivious to the shots outside.
The shiny blue sleeping bag was zipped all the way around like a body bag. McNab cursed as the zip caught, then forced himself to go more slowly, imagining all the time the blue and lifeless body of his boss’s daughter inside.
At last he had it open.
Lisa’s face was like porcelain. McNab wondered if such beauty came only with death. Routine sent his fingers searching for a pulse. He caught it, lost it. Panicked. Found it again. Held it, faint but steady. With his other hand he pulled the gag from her mouth and leaned close. His heart leapt as he heard her suck in air and saw her chest rise.
‘Lisa?’ Her lids flickered at her name. McNab tried again. ‘Lisa.’
The eyes slowly opened.
McNab would remember her look of fear for ever. Fear, then joy.
73
THE DISTURBED EARTH had turned out to be the grave of a dead dog, its corpse bearing the signs of a traffic accident. A Glasgow resident had deemed their pet important enough to take up residence in Glasgow’s answer to the Père Lachaise.
There had been four other reports of scratched gravestones, symbols that might have been a fish, or a fish and a moon. Magnus had been wrong, although his conviction had brought them there, like disciples following a prophet. Desperation had made fools of them all.
The call came in on his mobile as Bill abandoned the search and headed for the Bridge of Sighs.
‘I’ve found Lisa.’ McNab’s voice cracked with emotion. ‘She’s alive.’
‘Where?’
‘We stopped a van. Lisa was trussed up in the back. The driver ran, but we got him.’
Bill shook with relief. ‘Is she okay?’
‘Shaken, but all right. She’s on her way to the Royal.’
Bill felt his legs give way under him and grasped a
nearby headstone for support. ‘I’ll call home.’
Margaret answered immediately. He imagined her waiting, like Nora Docherty, for the call that would pronounce her child dead.
‘We’ve got her. Lisa’s okay.’
Bill wished he could put his arms around his wife as he listened to her weep.
‘She’s at the Infirmary. I’ll send a car for you.’
‘Thank God.’
‘She gave a pretty coherent account of how she was grabbed,’ the doctor told Bill. ‘But couldn’t remember much after that. She asked to have a rape examination. There was no semen, but we found this.’
He produced an evidence bag. Through the clear plastic, Bill saw a small silver charm, shaped like a half-moon.
Bill felt bile rise in his throat. He wanted to cry out, but was struck dumb. He accepted the bag and put it in his pocket.
‘The girl doesn’t know about the charm yet. I thought I’d leave that up to you. You’ve informed her family she’s here?’
Bill realised the doctor had no way of knowing he was more than just a policeman.
‘Lisa is my daughter.’
The doctor’s matter-of-factness transformed into genuine distress.
‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.’
Bill brushed his concerns aside. ‘Where is she?’
Bill stood at the door, hardly daring to enter in case he woke her. He hadn’t composed himself yet, hadn’t perfected the lie he’d made up his mind to tell. Lisa suspected the bastard had violated her. She didn’t need to know he’d left something behind to prove it.
Bill moved quietly to stand by the bed. His first-born. His wee girl. Now he knew what it was to be David Docherty. Understood why Docherty had prowled the streets. Felt the man’s pain, anger, shame and impotence. And most of all, his desire for revenge. Only one thing separated them now. Bill’s daughter was alive.