by Helen Fields
‘I see,’ Connie murmured, moving closer to him and lowering her voice. ‘You know, I can’t profile someone we’re not sure exists. Sounds to me as if Elspeth was living a high-pressure life. The sort of life where you might just hop on a train then hitch a lift somewhere until you’re well and truly lost.’
‘Do you think that’s what she did?’ Baarda asked.
‘I’m a forensic psychologist, not a psychic. I’ll need to meet with the family tomorrow if I’m going to help. Can you set that up?’
‘Sure, but not until morning.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s too late to call anyone now. I hired a car. I can give you a lift back to your hotel if you like?’
‘That’d be good,’ Connie said. ‘Thank you.’
‘Not at all. There wasn’t much choice of vehicle left, I’m afraid. I had no option but to take the bright yellow monstrosity over there.’ He gestured to the far side of the square.
Connie stared blankly. ‘No one warned you?’ she asked.
Baarda frowned.
‘I’m an achromat. A head injury when I was eighteen resulted in a bleed in my skull. When they operated to remove the haematoma from my brain, I was left able to see only in black and white, and shades thereof. I’m afraid you’ll have to learn to do better with your descriptions where colour’s concerned.’
‘You literally can’t see any colour at all?’
‘I remember colours, but not as abstracts. I can place colour linked to an object, a place, sometimes even an emotion. You’ll get used to it.’
‘Have you?’ he asked.
Connie paused. ‘I find it easier to read facial expressions accurately, landscapes are somehow more beautiful, sunsets are disappointing, and I may appear in clothes that clash. That about covers it.’
‘I doubt that,’ Baarda said. ‘I can’t imagine a world without colour.’
‘This isn’t a world without colour,’ she corrected softly. ‘It’s a world where I have to paint the colours in with my mind. You’d be surprised how much more you notice when you have to work this hard at it.’
‘Is that why you began to specialise in profiling, because of your perspective on the world?’ Baarda pointed his keys at the line of cars, and lights flashed back at him.
‘No,’ Connie said, walking to the passenger side. ‘I became a profiler as a matter of survival.’
Chapter Three
The cherry-red BMW sat in the sweeping driveway, abandoned. Connie had her back to it, hands on her hips, staring instead at the police officers who had arrived at the scene first.
‘Retrace your steps in your mind,’ she told them. ‘Each one of you. From when you drove in and first saw Elspeth’s vehicle, to getting out of your cars and walking towards it. Which window did you look through? Who touched which door? Think hard about what you saw.’
‘Respect, ma’am, but I don’t see how it’s going to help even if we can remember …’ one of the bolder Police Scotland officers attempted.
‘Call me ma’am again, and see how much I like it,’ Connie said.
‘It’s an expression recognising authority over here,’ Baarda intervened.
‘When an American police officer calls you ma’am, he’s either about to arrest you, or he wants you to shut the fuck up and move away. I’m guessing this situation is the latter. So listen up and think. Were all the doors properly shut when you arrived?’
There was vague nodding.
‘Because if they weren’t, it suggests a hurried exit, or that she was surprised when she was exiting the vehicle.’
‘Um, the driver’s door might have been open a wee bit,’ another officer stuttered. ‘I grabbed the handle to open it and I can’t be certain if it was properly secured.’
‘Well done, that’s the detail we’re looking for.’ Baarda’s comment covered Connie’s obvious sigh.
‘And the keys?’ Connie continued.
‘Still in the lock, ma’am. I mean, miss. We haven’t moved them.’
‘The neighbours have been spoken to,’ Baarda explained. ‘Looks as if the car’s been here a while, although there’s no precise timeline.’
‘Whose house is it anyway?’ Connie asked.
‘Elspeth Dunwoody’s best friend. The family is currently away sailing in the Caribbean and has no idea why the car would have ended up here. No one had spoken to Elspeth for a couple of weeks before her disappearance.’
‘Public or private best friend?’ Connie asked.
‘Is there a difference?’ Baarda looked confused.
‘Some best friends you only speak to occasionally, never get round to seeing in person because the bond is strong enough to withstand little contact. They’re difficult to trace unless you’re on the inside. If, however, she’s an “out on the town” best friend, or an “always standing at the school gates together” best friend, then someone would have noticed. It would have been easy enough to find this address and to come up with an excuse to get Connie here.’
‘Check that out straight away,’ Baarda instructed the uniformed officers.
They scuttled off, looking relieved to be going.
‘She’s not inside the property; it’s been thoroughly checked. Her mobile isn’t in the car, but her handbag is,’ Baarda said.
‘No keys, no handbag. No clothes missing from her wardrobe, and a genuinely distraught husband and kids. It doesn’t look good.’
‘Best will in the world, it doesn’t take a forensic psychologist to figure that one out.’
‘Why do people say that?’ Connie mused, working her way around the vehicle and looking it up and down. ‘Best will in the world. It always precedes an insult. Not a big, in-your-face kind of insult. Just something slipped in sideways.’
‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just that it seemed obvious.’
‘You are institutionally apologetic. Seriously, you’ve got to get past that.’ She knelt down by the passenger side door and looked more closely at the paintwork. ‘There’s something on here. Tell me what you see.’
Baarda joined her, the two of them on their knees in the gravel staring at the door.
‘It’s red and has formed a droplet, but it hadn’t dripped very far when it dried, so there isn’t much of whatever liquid it is. But that’s red on red. How did you see it when you can’t make out colour?’
‘It’s easier for me, actually,’ Connie said. ‘Your brain fools you. It sees a patch of red against a mass of other red information and it’s hard to differentiate. My brain only deals in shades. The additional liquid on top of the red paint made a denser shadow. The usefulness stops there when I have no clue what the liquid might be. Could have been engine oil or mustard for all I’d have known.’ She took out her mobile and photographed the spot. ‘We have scenes of crime incoming, right?’
‘We do. I’m guessing if that’s Elspeth’s blood then we’re either waiting for a ransom call, or looking for a corpse.’
‘Not enough evidence to assume that, even if it is her blood,’ Connie said. ‘Don’t tell her husband yet, but get this rushed through the police labs – and I mean rushed like fast food, not rushed like passing new legislation.’
‘Point taken. I’ll chase it up personally. I should be able to get next-day DNA results if I make a couple of calls.’
‘That’s impressive. What squad were you with in London?’
‘Met Operations. I have a few years’ experience in what used to be called the kidnap unit. I suspect they were perfectly happy to pack me off up here. I don’t think I quite fit the Met Ops’ new cool, slightly unshaven, three hours a day in the gym, alpha-male type.’
‘Are there no women in Met Ops?’ Connie asked.
‘They’re also more alpha-male than me, I’m afraid,’ he smiled.
‘Actually, recent studies have proved that the alpha typing is often a handicap when it comes to higher-ranking promotions and long-term personal partnerships. Management wants quiet calm and diplomacy with an analyt
ic brain, and relationships require longevity with warmth and humour.’
‘Sir!’ The shout came from near the driveway entrance in some bushes.
Connie and Baarda made their way towards the officer calling them, standing far enough back not to corrupt the scene.
‘What is it?’ Baarda asked.
‘Shoe, just the left one. Definitely female, and it matches the description given by the missing person’s husband.’ The officer held up one gloved hand.
From her fingertips dangled a pale slip-on sports shoe with little scuffing or wear. It was fairly new, and it hadn’t been in the dirt long, Connie concluded.
‘Any blood spatters on it?’ she asked Baarda, who stepped forward to inspect it.
‘Nothing visible. Can you point to where exactly you found it?’
The officer pointed about a metre from her feet, approximately two metres into the undergrowth.
‘So either it flew off her foot when she was kicking and resisting, or she was sufficiently aware of what was happening to make sure she left us a sign that she’d been taken against her will and threw it in there. Her assailant couldn’t let her go and risk wasting time searching for it,’ Connie said.
‘So we set up camp in the husband’s house and wait for the ransom call then,’ Baarda said quietly.
‘If she’s lucky,’ Connie said. ‘That really depends on what her kidnapper wants from her, doesn’t it? Drive me back to my hotel? I need to write up my notes.’
‘Now? Shouldn’t we be reporting back to the family and going into the police station for a briefing? I usually leave note-taking until the evenings.’
‘You’re a policeman, DI Baarda. You follow procedure, have meetings, share information, chase up leads. My job here is not the same.’ She walked to the passenger door of his car and climbed inside, clicking her seat belt securely and double-checking its reactive lock mechanism by tugging on it firmly as Baarda got in next to her.
‘I just assumed you’d want to be as involved as possible. You know, the more information the better, make sure no one’s missed anything.’
‘I’m here to paint a picture of the man or woman who currently has possession of Elspeth. I’m assuming it’s a he, but there could be a she behind this if it’s extortion, a revenge kidnapping or an attempt to distract from a different sort of offence. That could be anything from insurance fraud to corporate manoeuvring given her connections.
My task is usually much simpler. When you have a string of dead bodies there are patterns, victim similarities, situational similarities. Even then, I can’t be distracted by processes, procedures and police politics. Here, I’m throwing darts at a profiling board almost blindfolded. So I need to go back to square one, and see if I can do justice to the fact that I’m being paid. I can’t do that in the middle of probable chaos in a police station. You’re my filter.’
Baarda pulled away, waving gratefully at the uniformed officers who cleared the road to let him pass.
‘You worked extensively with the FBI, I’ve been told. Why did you never become an agent?’
‘That was the dream.’ Connie stared out of the window as they passed mottled heathered verges that disappeared into bushes. ‘My achromatopsia prevented me from becoming an agent, so I chose a profession that would allow me to work with the in-house profilers.’
‘What do you miss?’ Baarda asked.
Connie looked at his face. The question was vague, but the tenderness of his features gave away his meaning. She softened her usual brusque tone, aware that her manner was professional bordering on stony. It was a persona she’d cultivated to counteract some institutional misogyny along the way, and not a little condescension when people learned that she was ‘colour-vision impaired’. The person who’d coined that phrase had left the room soon after she’d responded to him, never to be seen on the same working squad as her again.
‘Mainly clichés. Twinkling Christmas lights, the waves when the weather is just starting to change. I used to sit on my parents’ back porch and watch the sea for hours. Now it’s just more of the same.’
She paused for a moment, trying to do the question justice. Baarda kept his silence where most would have felt the need to fill the space. She respected the fact that he was able not to. In her opinion, men could be measured by such minuscule but enormous details.
‘The sparkle of a ruby. The endless shades of green on a single tree. Seeing images of earth from space, and viewing our tiny place in the universe in all its breathtaking beauty. When I was a child, my parents took me to visit the Grand Canyon. I’d been given my first camera. I was maybe ten. Anyway, I was going through an artistic phase, so every photo I took was in black and white. My parents had my favourite shot blown up, framed, and I must have fallen asleep staring at that image through most of my puberty. And God, I wish I’d taken a colour photo. That’s my only memory of the Canyon. That goddamned black-and-white photo. One of the most beautiful places in the world and I have no memory of it in colour. That’s irony worthy of a poem, right?’
‘I’d miss seeing the light shine off my red setter’s coat,’ Baarda said.
Connie laughed. ‘That’s a great image. What’s its name?’
‘His name’s Tupperware. We made the mistake of letting my then four-year-old daughter name him, and that was her favourite word at that time. But a promise is a promise. The more we tried to persuade her to choose something more … well, doggy, the more intractable she became.’
‘Oh my God, you have to chase a red setter around the park shouting Tupperware? That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard.’
‘I don’t get home to see him – or the kids – as much as I’d like at the moment.’ His voice dipped.
‘Why not?’
‘Oh, you know, life gets in the way.’
‘That’s bullshit. Life gets in the way of golf or visits to the in-laws or trips to the chiropractor, but home literally is a person’s life. What could get in the way of that?’
He shrugged. ‘My wife’s currently having an affair. She’s been perfectly honest about it. No attempt to cover it up, which I appreciate. I felt it was easier to give her some space while she figures out what she wants.’
Connie didn’t miss a beat. ‘Do you still love her?’
‘I believe so,’ he said.
‘Do you know who she’s having an affair with?’
‘One of the other officers from Met Ops. Makes it all a bit awkward. Probably the reason everyone was so pleased when I got packed off up here.’
‘Holy shit, Baarda,’ Connie whistled. ‘Do you think you might be suppressing some anger beneath that super-polished exterior?’
‘Not at all. I obviously hadn’t been meeting her needs, she’d made that pretty clear, so what was I to expect? I have to take my share of the blame.’
‘Careful with that,’ she said. ‘Taking the blame for someone else’s choices lets them justify their deviancy with no checks or balances. You want to let her off the hook that easily?’
‘You don’t know her, and you don’t know me.’
Connie looked back at him. His neck was strained as he drove, his hands a vice around the steering wheel.
‘I’m sorry, that was rude. I’m never rude. I hope you can …’
‘Stop,’ Connie said, her voice only a whisper above the engine’s purr. ‘The apology should be mine. Let’s call it quits with the personal revelations for today, okay?’
Baarda’s mobile rang. He put the call on speaker.
‘Sir, we’re being bombarded with requests to comment from the press. I don’t know how it leaked, but they know about our missing person, including her identity and her connections.’
‘Shit,’ Connie muttered.
‘And Elspeth’s husband just received the call. There’s a request for five million to be paid in fifties. We have forty-eight hours. Elspeth Dunwoody’s voice could be heard in the background saying, “Please help.” It’s confirmed as her. Her father-in-law’s
been informed. We’re working on tracing the call and the payment details.’
‘Very good,’ Baarda said, closing the line. ‘Well, that’s you off the hook. Looks as if we’ve got all we need.’
‘Except Elspeth,’ Connie muttered. ‘What are the statistics on getting her back alive in these circumstances?’
‘We work on an average of fifty to eighty live UK kidnappings per year. Most of them resolve successfully.’
‘How many don’t?’
‘A handful,’ Baarda said. ‘Deaths usually occur while we’re closing in and the kidnapper panics, then concludes it would be easier not to leave any witness who could identify them.’
‘Poor Elspeth,’ Connie said. ‘I hope she doesn’t know that.’
‘We’ll do all we can,’ Baarda said. ‘The contact is a positive sign. I’m hopeful that we’ll get her back unharmed.’
‘I’m glad you’re feeling hopeful, but I very much doubt Elspeth is right now. Wherever she is.’
Chapter Four
‘Marry me,’ the man said.
Elspeth Dunwoody was doing her best not to gag. The food he was feeding her was stale and rank. Her body was still in the process of attempting to oust whatever chemicals he’d forced into her on her friend’s driveway. Since then, she’d been going through phases, all of them extremes, each passing through her with the speed and force of an express train. Currently she was numb and sick. For some reason she was finding impossible to fathom, there was a stranger on one knee in front of her, presenting a ring in a box. She turned her head to one side and gagged, almost losing the flat square of cheese and the few dry crackers that had been her lunch. He didn’t even seem to notice.
‘Marry me,’ he repeated.
Elspeth peered at the ring. The gold band had tarnished and worn thin, and the single stone had no lustre, sitting forlorn and grey in spindly golden claws. She lifted her own left hand and waggled her fingers, knuckle-side to his face, showing off the ring that was already lodged there.