Singing to the Dead

by Caro Ramsay

  ‘Well, I’ll ask her, but she wasn’t feeling too well…’

  ‘If she was well enough to go to the German Market, she’s well enough to come down here,’ said Costello. ‘Or I’ll go and get her myself, understand?’ She turned to see another picture being pinned up alongside Luca and Troy… a little blond boy with a gap-toothed smile and both arms round Pat the Penguin. To Costello it seemed a lifetime ago.

  ‘There’s no answer on her moby,’ said Mulholland, coming back in a moment later.

  ‘Did you leave a message? Is she calling in?’ Costello’s voice punched the air.

  ‘Her phone was off. She might be in bed – it’s late, you know.’

  ‘Well, get yer arse round there then!’

  ‘Yes, go, Mulholland. Now!’ Quinn said, coming out from her office, sipping strong black coffee. ‘We need to know what she saw. And we need to ask Brenda if she was aware of Frances. If neither saw anything, then it was very smooth, very quick, the way…’

  ‘A paedophile would do it?’ Anderson finished the sentence for her. ‘You’re thinking this is an organized thing, aren’t you? With a car and a driver?’ The question was directed at Littlewood.

  Quinn shrugged.

  ‘But there’s no other reason to think that.’ Costello now turned to Littlewood. ‘Unless you know something we don’t.’ Littlewood passed a look to Quinn, who kept her face down, swirling her coffee in her cup.

  ‘Well, it’s still just a possibility we have to consider – the boys are all of a type; pretty-looking, blond, thin,’ said Littlewood. ‘Peter might just fit the bill. Sorry, Colin.’

  Costello felt close to tears, remembering the photo of Peter that Anderson kept in his wallet. Absurdly, she thought of her own father, wondering if he had ever kept a photograph of her. She doubted it. She looked from Anderson to Littlewood. They had locked eyes; something was going on that she didn’t know about. Anderson looked more angry than she had ever seen him.

  ‘Right,’ Quinn said. ‘Get Irvine to talk to Brenda, take her through it again. Wyngate, start ringing round, see if any bus drivers or taxi drivers saw anything. Get them to think, what was parked in front of them, what was parked behind. Anything unusual, no matter how small. We have somebody on every corner; it’s all roped off, nobody’s going in or out.’

  ‘I’m going down there,’ said Anderson with quiet anger.

  ‘Not a good idea, Colin. You’d probably hit somebody. Leave it to us. Shouldn’t you be with your wife?’

  Anderson didn’t reply. He covered his mouth with the palm of his hand, and shook his head, not trusting himself to speak

  ‘Go home with Brenda when Irvine’s finished,’ Quinn said gently. ‘Try and get some rest.’

  ‘For Claire’s sake,’ Costello contributed.

  ‘Claire’s staying with Graham’s mother, and I’m not going home without Peter.’

  How often had Costello heard parents say that? But hours turned into days and days into months. The dead did not come back. Costello stepped into the corridor, checked there was no one there, pulled out her mobile phone and started scrolling for a stored number.

  The effing bloody profiler, the Boss had called Mick Batten. But then the Boss had always said: Get the help you need where you can.

  21

  Eve lay looking at the ceiling, waiting for the distinctive clunk of the gate as Lynne sneaked out. She had lain quiet and listened as her sister searched her desk, God knows what for – she wouldn’t find it. She had probably only found the file on Douglas – well, the bits Eve had wanted her to find. They really were stupid, those two. It was a shame, what was going to happen to Douglas. She had enjoyed tracking down every little aspect of his tawdry but charmed life. She felt like a stalker after a prize stag. She could admire its beauty, salute its majesty, but she would enjoy putting a bullet through its brain even more.

  She stretched her legs out, slowly and carefully at first. The pins in the right one made it very stiff, and she still had to be careful about initial weight bearing. But, even though she had practised for long enough, she often surprised herself by how easily she could get to her feet.

  Poor Lynne, silly frustrated old cow – if the house had been left to her rather than Eve, that bastard Douglas would have had it sold ages ago. The fact he was still sniffing round Lynne proved she had never put him right about the house not being hers at all. If it were, he would have taken her for everything she had, and Lynne would have found herself stuck in a dismal wee flat blighted by cheap conversion work, waiting for him to leave his ‘wife’. Which he would never do.

  Eve limped to the window, and watched her sister hurry across the road and up the path to Stella’s flat. Stella would think Lynne was mad, going across to see her at this time of night on some strange whim.

  Eve lumbered through to her own room, holding on to the wall for support. In her bedroom she got down on the floor, lying flat on her stomach. Kneeling was something she hadn’t quite mastered yet. She reached under her bed, pulled out the under-bed storage bag and groped around for a green shoebox secured by an elastic band. She opened it, checked the contents, and smiled at the little bag of white powder, its sticky yellow label marked with the letters NaCN, bordered by a black skull and cross-bones. The bag was wrapped up in the grey wig, accompanied by her mother’s glasses, a scarf and an ‘old lady’ brooch from the Oxfam shop in Byres Road. Lynne had already gone through the desk, so that would be the place to hide this now. She knew her sister, knew she wouldn’t give up; and if she got anything out of Stella McCorkindale, then she’d be even keener. Eve put the box on top of the bed and shoved the plastic storage bag back, making sure it was exactly where Lynne liked it to be. She took her time getting to her feet, her right leg sticking grotesquely out behind her. Upright, she waited for the dizziness to pass, then picked up the shoebox and went into the drawing room. Five minutes later, the contents of the box had been distributed throughout her desk, bits hidden here, other bits there. Most of it fitted under the removable shelf of her pastel box. Lynne would never look in there; it was far too messy. Eve then ripped the shoebox into tiny pieces and pushed them to the bottom of the bin in the kitchen.

  By the time Lynne came back, Eve was back on the settee, complaining. ‘I’d just dropped off to sleep, and you woke me up, banging the bathroom door. It’s gone eleven! You know how hard I find it to get to sleep. Could you not be a bit more considerate?’

  Peter Anderson was cold, colder than he had ever been in his life. It was quiet; there wasn’t even the sound of traffic up here. There was a door – it was slightly open – he had tried to push it closed but the concrete underneath was bumpy, the door got stuck. He had tried to pull it. The door had juddered and sprung back. The stab of the skelf into his thumb made him cry out; his hand started to bleed.

  He put his hand against the door again; it didn’t move at all. Now he couldn’t get out, the gap left was too small.

  He pulled his jumper tightly round him and put his anorak on back to front, the way he’d learned in the Cubs. He could snuggle into it now, and he sat on the floor with his back against the wall, hugging his knees, his head nodding backwards and forwards, muttering his Puff song to himself. Every so often he would hear a door open and close, hurried footsteps over his head. Once he had gone up to the smaller door and tried to open it, but it was locked.

  He decided to call out the next time he heard footsteps come, but they never did. He must have curled into a ball and fallen asleep, then he was awoken by a noise. He put his hand out for his dinosaur. Instead of the warmth of his duvet, his fingers touched cold, hard concrete. Then he remembered.

  He heard a car drive away. Then there was only dark and silence.

  And it was very dark. He was trying hard not to be scared. He could hear music from somewhere, like a brass band doing Christmas songs, but nobody was singing and it all sounded very far away. He joined in with the words he knew, and those he didn’t know he made up, singing quie
tly to himself. And waited for his Dad to come and get him. His hand began to hurt again so, for the first time in two years, he sat down and sucked his thumb.

  Vik Mulholland pulled on his gloves as he left the station, glad to leave the chaos behind. It was a bitter cold, clear night; snow was falling, and he had to take care to avoid stepping in the piles of slush at the side of the pavement and in the gutter. He could hear them still having a right knees-up down on Byres Road. The West End in particular was treating it like some kind of winter carnival and nature had obliged by producing this, the most beautiful fall of calm snow. As he headed down Hyndland Road, he could hear the Salvation Army brass band in the distance having a go at ‘Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ – everybody in the West End could probably hear it.

  Vik quickened his pace as he turned into Beaumont Place. Outside number 42 Frances was standing in the street, her collar up round her neck, shoulders hunched – a slender black witch delicately outlined against the snow.

  ‘Fran?’ Vik called, loudly. Then, more quietly when she did not answer, ‘Fran, are you OK? It’s nearly midnight, for God’s sake. You’ll freeze out here.’

  ‘They look like ghosts, don’t they?’ she muttered in her husky voice, the words clouding with her breath and melting into the air.

  Vik turned to look at the Sally Army band, just visible on the corner of the street. What little light there was played around their feet, their silhouettes anchorless, adrift.

  Frances had been crying; slow, silent tears had marked her face. Vik lifted her chin with the knuckle of his forefinger and wiped them away.

  ‘I was trying to be festive. I thought if I stood out here in the snow listening to that music,’ she sniffed, ‘I might come over all Dickensian and romantic.’

  ‘And cold,’ added Vik, his feet thumping the ground.

  ‘But I just get so depressed.’ The tears started again. ‘It’s all so bloody depressing.’

  ‘Well, maybe this time…’ Vik took both her hands in his. ‘Maybe this time it will be different. This time you stand a chance of being happy. What about that for a present?’

  ‘Yeah, what about it?’ But she was smiling. She leaned forward and kissed him. ‘I’ve been thinking about…’

  No, not now. He pulled away. ‘Look, I need to speak to you about something. Work.’

  ‘Oh…’ Frances sounded hurt. She turned away from him slightly, as the band switched to ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’. ‘I thought you were here to see me.’

  Littlewood was the only one who still had his own desk nowadays, the only one whose computer the others couldn’t access. Costello had spent ten minutes furtively tapping away at his computer, but all her guesses at his passwords had failed. At the same time, she was dialling the eternally engaged Mick Batten. She glanced into Quinn’s office. Something was happening. The most experienced guy in the field was working on his own, on a need-to-know basis, and the rest were not privy to whatever was going on. If she hadn’t found out what Quinn and Littlewood were up to by midnight, she was going to go in there and lose the plot with both of them. Quinn and Littlewood looked as though their meeting was breaking up. Costello went back to her own desk, and dialled Mick’s number yet again.

  ‘Costello! So, what gives?’ The Liverpudlian voice of Dr Mick Batten sounded weary at the other end of the phone.

  ‘Sorry for disturbing you so late, Mick.’ She glanced at the clock, the hour hand almost at the witching hour.

  ‘You’re not the first.’

  ‘I’m worried. Colin wouldn’t speak to you. So, I feel I have to…’ Costello’s voice trailed off.

  ‘About what?’ Batten sounded quite unperturbed.

  ‘These missing boys, Mick. We need your help.’

  ‘While I’m flattered, Costello, you know what I’m going to say.’ She heard him sip something, and a gentle clink as if a teaspoon had rattled in the mug. Or ice in whisky. ‘I’ve not been instructed to act for you. And I told you when you were working on the Crucifixion Killer case, it’s all educated guesswork. Your force will appoint somebody who is good.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. But it’s Christmas, Mick. The bloody request form won’t be filled in until the admin staff come back.’

  ‘And?’ A slow, appreciative swallow. Whisky.

  ‘They won’t be as good as you.’

  ‘You are not one to flatter.’

  ‘No, I’m not. It’s a fact.’ Costello snapped back, her voice quiet and crisp. ‘Mick, they’ve taken Peter Anderson. It’s been four hours. We need some help here. Please.’

  There was a slightly confused silence on the other end of the phone. ‘Peter Anderson? I know that name…’

  ‘Colin Anderson’s son. You know how important the first few hours are, and the clock is ticking.’

  The silence on the phone intensified; she knew Batten was gathering his thoughts and putting his analytical brain into gear. She pushed on. ‘We think we’re under pressure from upstairs to follow certain lines of enquiry.’

  ‘Is that not the point?’ asked Batten.

  ‘Not when the ground troops are thinking otherwise. We think any profiler will only be asked to look at the profiles of paedophiles. The investigation is getting narrower when it should be getting wider… Things are being leaked to the press.’ She sat down, her legs suddenly too weak to hold her up. ‘I’m not sure what’s going on, but the new DCI and John Littlewood seem to be going off at a tangent that nobody else knows about and I – well, I don’t think it’s healthy. If you were here, you’d agree. Can I send you some stuff to look at?’

  ‘Like you said, it’s nearly Christmas. It would take ages to get permission.’

  ‘Without permission?’

  ‘Costello, how well do you know Peter Anderson?’

  ‘He’s Colin’s son. How well do you think I know him?’

  ‘Then you should distance yourself from it, you know that. Knowing them means you cease to function effectively. Look, I spent yesterday talking to a man…’ the voice faltered a bit, ‘… talking to a man who’d picked out his daughter’s eyes with a knife because he thought she had the eyes of Satan. The child was four years old…’ A sip of whisky, quickly swallowed.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Costello felt a cold wave of nausea.

  ‘… and my daughter is four years old. So, how long would I survive in this job if I let it get into my head?’

  ‘But how would you feel if your daughter was taken and I quoted the rulebook?’

  Silence. Ice chinking on to crystal. ‘We didn’t have this conversation. You have my fax number?’

  Costello bit back her tears, said a quiet thank you, and hung up. She looked round; nobody was watching, and the fax machine was blinking idle in the corner. She took a deep breath, picked up the briefing summary sheet, and prayed to a God she didn’t believe in.

  As Mulholland trudged slowly back up the hill to the station, the night was eerily light with undisturbed snow, and no wind stirred. The sounds of drunken happiness were muffled. All is calm, all is bright. Everything seemed to be waiting.

  Frances’s eyes had filled up the minute he had mentioned work. ‘I thought you were here to see me,’ she said. She had sounded hurt, angry even. When he explained about Peter, she had become distressed and in the end she had fled back into her house, wounded, hurting.

  No, she hadn’t seen Peter or Brenda at the German Market. She just hadn’t wanted to go home on her own after the fair. She was depressed and she wanted to be among people. Yes, she had noticed the men in the long coats, and yes, she had recognized the logo. And she thought she had recognized the two men. Mulholland quickened his step, breaking into a run – they needed to know about that at the station. Frances was sure they were Dec Slater and maybe Jinky Jones. She was sure about Dec, not so sure about Jinky.

  The logo was that of Rogan O’Neill’s home-coming tour – anybody would know that.

  ‘Right, guys.’ Quinn rapped on the table for silence. Behind h
er on the wall someone had pinned up a map of the United States, but no one was brave enough to ask why. ‘I know we’re all tired, but we’ve got Colin out the building for half an hour – he’s in good hands, Burns will keep him calm, he’s taken him for a walk and to get some food into him. We can only imagine what he’s going through.’ Quinn stopped and adjusted the elastic that held her ponytail. ‘Of course, he’s not going anywhere until we get the wee guy back, but each and every one of us would be the same.’ There was a murmur of empathy. ‘So, thanks to you all for coming in. Now, first, let’s check out what we have. Brenda Anderson has given us a minute-by-minute account of her shopping trip, and Irvine has the list of all the stalls she visited prior to Peter’s abduction.

  ‘We’ve caught the first edition of tomorrow’s paper – we’re banking on the front page, and a photograph. However, we’re keeping Peter’s father’s ID to ourselves for now. The media are honouring that. Somebody from Stewart Street is coming down to interview Colin, to go over old cases, dig up old enemies, just in case this abduction has nothing to do with the other two and some bastard’s been given ideas. Burns will stay with him. Meanwhile we are reviewing the film of the reconstruction of Luca’s abduction, which featured Peter Anderson of course.’ Quinn noticed Costello’s eyes narrowing; she paused, as if inviting her to say something, but Costello shook her head.

  ‘I want a team to go up to Miss Cotter’s flat and take the place apart. I know we’ve already searched that area, but just in case she really is a raving nutter we need to go through any outbuildings in the back court. Has she a plot or an allotment? Or a garage somewhere? Is this the only property she owns? If she has these children, she must be hiding them somewhere. Over the next twenty-four hours the temperature is going to plummet and the snow will freeze. Tell her it’s best for her to stay in and keep warm – well, we don’t want her falling over and breaking a hip, do we? And if she does leave the house, we’ll follow her. I’ll get the team organized for first light. We are leaving nothing to chance. I’ll get PC Smythe on to it.’