Singing to the Dead

by Caro Ramsay

  And he would find his son.

  27

  Costello hung up. Still no Peter. No Luca. No Troy. Lewis was being babysat by somebody called Smythe. Anderson had vanished off the radar, and there was now a search party out for him as well.

  Here at home, despite her headache, Costello had space to think, though the lump at the back of her head was growing now and throbbing with a pulse of its own.

  Peter had been gone for twenty-four hours, and she knew – the whole team knew – that the chances of finding any of the children alive were fading. She could feel Colin’s desperation.

  She got up and tottered into the living room, amazed at how weary she felt now the adrenaline had gone. She thought about making a cup of tea, but instead flopped on to the settee and switched on the television for the late news. There was Brenda Anderson making an emotional appeal to get her son back – Somebody must know something, she kept repeating. She looked a hundred years old, a broken woman. Graphics formed and flew across the screen showing what all three boys had been wearing when last seen, times and locations flashed up, an incident number. It all looked so simple. Costello pulled her hands up into the sleeves of her jacket, letting her mind run through everything. Nothing had been missed, lists of paedophiles had been checked and rechecked, but the investigations had run into a brick wall. Except for Jinky Jones and Dec Slater, always on the fringe, never doing much but somehow always hanging around, like a bad smell. They would be kept under surveillance every time they left the hotel, but for the time being that was all that could be done.

  The news switched again, to bloody Rogan O’Neill and Lauren McCrae. The image flickered on to an aerial view of a castle, the new O’Neill family home. ‘Rogan’s long-time road manager and engineer are already out in Thailand, preparing for the first blockbuster concert of his sell-out Pacific Rim tour,’ the newsreader announced. ‘But Glasgow’s very own superstar has delayed his own departure for Thailand in order to add another charity date to his Scottish tour.’

  Costello felt sick to her stomach. Jinky Jones and Dec Slater had moved one step ahead of the game already. Had Rogan got them out of the country, knowing the police were closing in? Had he shielded them in America, and then pulled the same trick over here? If Littlewood’s suspicions about their US tours proved correct, the two men had probably put paid to any attempt to relocate Rogan’s entire operation to a castle just forty miles up the road. Did loyalty stretch that far? Just what were the ties that bound these three, and how strong were they? However, if the American authorities were working in the same way with the Thai police, maybe Thailand was an excellent place for Jinky and Dec to be. Paedophilia still carried the death penalty there. And Costello knew enough about paedophiles to know that they don’t just stop. If the Thai police caught them at it, those two bastards would swing.

  And what of Lauren? Lauren of the perfect skin, of the perfect hair, the perfect teeth, Lauren who was perfect altogether? ‘Rogan’s supermodel girlfriend, Lauren McCrae, was today rushed to the Nuffield Hospital, having tripped and fallen in the Hilton Hotel,’ the newsreader announced, and on the screen an ambulance drove away from the hotel. A spokesman then spoke into a microphone. ‘I’m happy to report that the baby is fine, and so is Lauren, but she’s just being kept in for observation.’

  A piece of footage from earlier in the week came on, showing Lauren proudly holding her pregnant stomach. ‘I just love Scot Land,’ she was cooing. ‘And I really, really want my baby to be born here.’ She was looking very beautiful, but seemed slightly apprehensive when the camera was focused on Rogan. As it went back to her, she beamed. Maybe that was just Costello’s imagination, but she doubted it.

  Shit, thought Costello, another little chink falling into place. How could she get to Lauren now?

  The phone rang, and she snatched it up. ‘Yes!’

  ‘Did you see the news?’ Mulholland said.

  ‘Lauren?’

  ‘No, Jinky and Dec.’

  ‘How the hell did they get out?’

  ‘Free country. And there’re a lot of doors in a hotel.’

  ‘Any sign of Anderson yet?’

  ‘No, John Littlewood is out looking for him.’

  ‘Let me know when you find him. Once this is all over, I owe him a sore face. I’m going for a painkiller and a kip. I’ll be back in before midnight.’

  ‘Don’t take any Headeze.’

  ‘Bugger off,’ Costello said and hung up. She crawled across the floor to the television. In the Incident Room they had watched her video of Rogan’s band playing in Blackfriars to an audience that hardly made double figures. They had turned the sound down, making rude comments about the mullet haircuts and the shoulder pads. Now she slipped the video into the machine and pressed Play.

  And there they were – Dec Slater and Jinky Jones. Jinky was standing at the periphery of the low stage, smoking, drinking. Dec was slightly out of the picture, at the sound desk. Was it just friendship that had kept the three of them together all these years, or was it some obscene little secret, some vile pact, shared between two paedophiles and a wife beater?

  Costello sat back, resting her bottom on her heels, as black and white dashes ran across the screen, then the camera spun round, wobbling slightly in an inexpert hand, as it caught Rogan in the spotlight. The sound was unprofessional. Obviously the band was playing in a pub, and you could make out lots of background noise, glasses clinking, while Rogan talked into a mic that only picked him up intermittently.

  ‘… cover version, but just this once…’

  The crowd clapped and cheered, and Rogan disappeared in a sea of hands. Costello knew that they were about to break into either ‘Without You’ or ‘Rubber Bullets’ – the only two cover versions the band ever did, except of course for a terrible slick version of ‘Cadillac Ranch’ done to relaunch Rogan on the American market.

  The initial guitar riff sounded out, more Bruce Springsteen than Harry Nilsson. Costello moved back on the floor, leaning against the couch.

  She had fancied Rogan in those days, in an unrealistic teenage way at first, and then it had got a bit serious as she had sat on his stool, in his spotlight, in her new jeans and the black Tukka boots that pinched her feet, and he had sung to her – Say hello to the tambourine girl, she says hello to you.

  She watched him sing and felt the years slip away. Her brain was a mass of swirling fog, and images, thoughts and ideas were getting all mixed up. Lauren was having Rogan’s baby. Lauren was uneasy, scared even. Scared of getting a fist in the face? Or worse? Costello mentally cursed the silly bitch for not being frank with her when she had the chance, while knowing deep down that she never would have been.

  Rogan’s guitar echoed round the pub, bum notes and all, singing another big hit, ‘The Lost Boy’. Costello had always thought it was about losing a lover, but it could equally be about the loss of a child. But did anyone actually live after losing a child?

  What’s the point of crying, with no more tears to cry?

  What’s the point of dying, when nothing’s left to die?

  Brenda had lost her child in full view of the public eye – a cruel thing, an unbelievably cruel thing. If Peter didn’t come home, the poor woman would probably never sleep again. And Costello didn’t see the marriage surviving either; she certainly didn’t see Anderson surviving, not without his darling boy.

  Somebody – who was it? Lauren? Rogan? – had said something about losing a baby. Costello’s mother always used to say it was bad luck for a pregnant woman to talk about such things.

  Costello leaned forward on all fours in the dark, looking at the television as though it would talk back to her.

  Now Rogan was removing the guitar which hung from a strap around his neck. He was introducing ‘Death of the Enchanted’, a slow song with an edgy backbeat.

  And she remembered something, something Lauren had said. She could remember it exactly – He had a girlfriend who lost a baby. So, this time, he wants it all
to go right.

  He had a girlfriend…

  With Rogan back in Glasgow, and Lauren’s beautiful face slapped all over every paper, the tabloids had set about tracking down Rogan’s ex-girlfriends. Several had gone to town, outdoing each other to badmouth him. Public sympathy was with him, of course, and he just laughed at the stories. But what of the girlfriend who had lost the child?

  What if she was here, if she was Scottish? Rogan had been in the States for a long, long time, so she would have been young. And the minute he returned to Glasgow, children had started to go missing – well, boys had gone missing. Had the lost baby perhaps been a boy? The Lost Boy. She lay on her back, stared at the ceiling and let her brain go into freefall.

  Lynne sat back down. Her bloody sister!

  She started going through the dining room systematically, humming as she went so that Eve would think she was happily engaged in present wrapping. If Eve was going to hide something, she would hide it in her desk. But Lynne had already gone through it and found nothing. She pulled open a few drawers, feeling underneath for… she had no idea what she was looking for. Just a clue, any clue, that her sister was guilty.

  Why? The revenge would be so sweet. She pulled out a set of drawing pads, then Eve’s watercolour case. She picked up Eve’s pastel box and without looking at what she was doing placed it on top of the drawing pads. The box tipped over until one corner met the desk top and the contents made a slight shuffling noise. Not the noise of two hundred pastel crayons each resting in its own little groove. She lifted it up. Was it lighter than it should be?

  She opened the lid. And smiled…

  Oh, Eve. Gotcha!

  The blue Astra was bumped up on the pavement on Maryhill Road, its internal light still on. Irvine approached cautiously, radio in hand, and checked that the door had not been closed properly. She circled the vehicle carefully, seeing the red light of a mobile phone flashing on a central console compartment.

  ‘All OK?’ asked Littlewood. ‘Call it in, tell them we’ve found the car but no sign of the DI.’

  ‘It’s not been broken into; the lock’s intact, and so’s the door. Keys are here.’ Irvine breathed out slowly, her breath billowing in the cold air. There was no need to depress the catch; the door opened easily. Irvine leaned across and lifted the phone from the console; it was flashing the word Partickhill. She reversed out of the car as the blue screen on the phone died. She held it up in gloved hands to show him. ‘But where is he?’

  ‘He must be close by. Only an idiot would be out in this weather. And he’s not got his coat on.’ Littlewood cursed. ‘You drive this back to the station.’ He turned to jog back to his own old Sierra.

  ‘Look at the wheel – I can’t drive that in this weather,’ Irvine said plaintively. ‘Where are you going?’ She looked round, not wanting to be alone at this time of night in the middle of Maryhill. The old Glasgow joke about it being twinned with Baghdad flashed across her mind. ‘What if it doesn’t start?

  ‘It’ll start. Just drive it slowly.’ Littlewood looked up the hill. Behind the council estate, a few high crosses at the Necropolis were visible above the roofs. The graveyard looked still, quiet, as if comforted by the snow. ‘I bet I know where that bastard is.’

  Costello rolled her neck against the settee, wishing she had someone to bounce her ideas off. She could feel the two cases connecting, but she couldn’t get the two ends to come together.

  Rogan, his voice drowned out as the speakers buzzed angrily with feedback, was introducing ‘Tambourine Girl’. The camera followed him as he walked round to his keyboard and picked up his guitar, placing it gently into an outstretched plastic hand.

  An old memory surfaced – the shop-window mannequin used to hold the tambourine and a spare guitar.

  Rogan took a fedora hat from the mannequin’s other hand and placed it jauntily on his head.

  The audience grew quiet as he sat himself at the keyboard, rippling his fingers, and the opening notes tingled from the keyboard like champagne. He leaned forward into the mike, handsome in profile.

  The slow bass to ‘Tambourine Girl’ started and a single spotlight swung across the stage and followed as a figure moved centre stage, sliding on to the seat, nervous, shy, a small smile behind a curtain of dark hair.

  Costello felt her heart stop, and she pressed Pause. A mannequin. Vik had said Fran had a mannequin. She looked at the shy smile of the girl on the chair, her beauty frozen for a moment in eternity. She had seen her often enough, with Rogan, being sung to by Rogan. She had been jealous.

  Costello jumped up, forgetting the throbbing of her head until the sudden movement reminded her painfully. In the spare bedroom, she started flicking through the rack of old vinyls at the bottom of the wardrobe. She fished out Rogan’s Man Alone album, the one with ‘The Lost Boy’ on it, and pulled out the inside sleeve, a collage of small black and white photos of the band before they became famous… friends, family, fans. Costello turned it over, searching for one picture. And there it was, in the corner. In a passport-size print from a photobooth Frances stared back at her. The black hair was cut like Cher’s, with a blunt fringe, but it was the same woman. The woman who had given Peter the goldfish.

  She went back to the living room and pressed Play, watching the dark-haired girl playing the tambourine – young, innocent, her hand held to the side of her face… Costello had known, when she met her, that she’d seen her before. Christ, Frances was the original tambourine girl! The whole bloody song had been written about her! Costello watched, mesmerized, as Rogan began to sing.

  She plays her tambourine, at the break of day,

  Remembers all that she’s seen, places she’s been,

  But the dreams fade away…

  Costello found herself singing along, the words so familiar to her.

  She plays her tambourine, when the daylight goes…

  She could remember it like yesterday, being in that seat. She’d sat nervously in the spotlight, rattling the tambourine between the lines of the song, terrified of losing the beat, but not wanting it to end. Then the lights had gone down and a hand had guided her offstage to be given a bouquet of flowers and an invitation to go back to the dressing room and wait for Rogan. And she had gone to find the room with low lights and cheap wine. She had taken the flowers and legged it. She was sixteen.

  Now she sat with the wisdom of the passing years, and watched and listened to the very last lines.

  Walking away from pain and sorrow; walking to somewhere new,

  Walking away to her own tomorrow; walking away, she’s through.

  Oh-oh, say goodnight to the tambourine girl, she says goodnight to you.

  Costello was waiting for the husky little whispered Goodnight at the end of the song, which always made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, but it didn’t come. She shivered, the chaos in her brain suddenly stilled. It was a much darker song than she had ever realized, suggesting that the tambourine girl had taken her own life.

  But it was still a bit of a leap from Frances to Luca and Troy. Costello drummed the phone against her chin, knowing that there was something, something she had seen, something she should have been aware of. But she had been busy, too busy to notice. Think, think, think, think. Vik’s bloody gloves, folded in a bag… a carrier bag that Frances had brought in and handed over. And Costello had taken it and put it behind his desk. Frances had simply been walking past and had handed it in. Nothing odd about that; she lived down in Beaumont Place, a five-minute walk around the arc of Hyndland Road… Costello’s brain clicked round. In the middle of the Red Triangle…

  But Frances had also spoken to Troy’s mother. She had said hello, more than hello; she had sat down beside her and chatted, hadn’t she?

  Something Vik had said, about Fran… About Fran and money. Fran was on disability, for something painful – like migraine in your face, he’d said. Here, on the screen, the very young Frances had her hand up to her cheek in that disarming gesture. Lik
e migraine in your face… Did she have to go to the hospital with it? Costello thought of the board in the Incident Room – how the arrows connected them all – Miss Cotter, Lorraine Scott, Alison McEwen – to the hospital. And Frances?

  Frances, enigmatic, shy, beautiful Frances, who was filmed going out of the market less than two minutes after Peter. Colin was right, and so was Littlewood. Peter, a clever wee boy, an obedient wee boy, would not have gone off with a man, but he might have gone off with a woman… the woman he’d been playing with less than two hours earlier. The nice woman who had given him the fish. Kind Frances, who had put her hand on Alison McEwen’s arm and had offered sympathy. At the time it had sounded like no more than empty reassurance. Costello felt sick as she remembered. Frances had said, He’ll be all right, I promise.

  Without taking her eyes from the screen, Costello reached for her mobile and speed dialled Littlewood’s number.

  It was Wyngate who answered. Yes, Costello snapped in answer to his question, it was urgent.

  Anderson felt the blow on his upper arm, a dull thud into his biceps. He didn’t hesitate, he didn’t even think, he just swung round and caught his assailant full on the side of his jaw; he felt bone strike bone and it felt good. His body spinning, his fist came round again and caught the other guy under the chin. He felt blood splatter, heard somebody say something, didn’t care… He struck out again, but this time he wasn’t quick enough. A punch landed in his midriff. Two inches further down and it would have winded him. He felt a rib crack and a stabbing pain shoot across his chest as he backhanded his opponent across the windpipe. There was a grunt, a wheeze, the noise of somebody vomiting. Then Anderson recognized the grey number two haircut, the leather jacket, and the gold bracelet on the hand that clung to his own shirt.