by Helen Fields
‘You don’t drink at all,’ Elspeth repeatedly slowly.
‘No. Too many painkillers in my system. You enjoy that, though. Don’t feel as if you shouldn’t drink just because I can’t.’
He kept the whisky bottle firmly in his hand and away from her reach. Elspeth stared into the depths of the full plastic cup. This was the decision, then. Fight him and maybe die. Or drink herself into a state of unconsciousness and live another day when he’d finished doing what he wanted to her. Her choice.
‘Cheers,’ she said, raising the glass to him and giving the slightest bow of her head. She didn’t even grimace as the cheap liquor burned her throat.
‘Slainte,’ he replied, raising his own plastic cup and mimicking taking a drink. ‘Now we can really get to know one another, body and soul. I shall cherish every moment of it.’
‘Refill?’ Elspeth asked, her voice a too-bright mask for the twilight of fading hope beneath.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘As many as you want.’
It wouldn’t be enough, Elspeth thought. However much alcohol was in that bottle, it couldn’t prepare her for what was to come. She gave up trying to pretend to be cheerful and allowed herself to cry instead.
Chapter Five
‘She’s taken it,’ the female undercover officer announced, her voice relayed into the earpieces of every officer posted around Waverley railway station waiting for the kidnapper to pick up the ransom payment. ‘Red hair, twenty-five to thirty-five, Caucasian, approximately five foot six, slim build. Jeans, white trainers, grey hoodie. She’s exited the ladies’ toilets.’
‘All eyes on,’ Baarda said, Connie listening in at his side. ‘Is the tracker on the bag working?’
‘Yes, sir,’ a male voice reported. ‘She’s heading onto a platform and boarding a train.’
‘Follow her,’ Baarda ordered.
‘Got to show my badge to get through. If she looks back, she’ll clock me,’ the pursuing officer said.
‘Let her get a few steps ahead then show your ID and get on that train. Do not lose visual.’
Baarda’s laptop screen showed the woman disappearing onto a crowded commuter train, then the officer with the concealed headcam started jogging to catch up. He climbed on board and began walking rapidly through the carriages. The woman wasn’t in sight.
‘She’s exited the train,’ a woman’s voice picked up the story, ‘but she’s not carrying the bag the cash was in. There are several supermarket bags in her hands instead. She’s gone into a crowd. I’m following.’
‘Confirm when you have a clear sighting,’ Baarda said.
‘She’s out the other side. Can’t see any bags, though. Her hands are free.’
‘Where are the bags she was carrying?’
‘Not sure, sir,’ someone replied quietly.
Baarda sighed. ‘All the other people in the crowd she went through need to be surveilled for those bags. Which supermarket were they from?’
‘Multiple supermarkets, sir. There are hundreds being carried in the station right now. It’s rush hour. We don’t know who we’re looking for.’
‘The tracker was in the middle of the rolls of notes. Where is it?’ Baarda demanded.
‘Exiting via the Princes Street steps, but we don’t know who’s carrying it, sir.’
‘Do you want me to pick the woman up?’ the female officer asked.
‘No. If she fails to report in to Elspeth’s captor, they might panic and kill the hostage. Unit one, follow the tracker. Unit two, follow the female at a safe distance. The money’s irrelevant. We just need to know where they’re holding Elspeth.’
‘What happens now?’ Connie asked Baarda.
He stretched his neck. ‘You tell me. Are these the actions of criminals likely to make good on their word and release the victim, or not?’
‘They’re well organised, skilled, and there are several people involved. They’re less likely to respond emotionally to external stresses because they’ve thought consequentially and will have planned for all possible outcomes. One of those will be the need to kill the hostage. Deciding a course of action might be necessary isn’t the same thing as being able to take a life though, unless they’ve done that before. Many murderers only find killing traumatic the first time they do it.’
‘That’s rather clinical.’ Baarda regarded her solemnly.
‘Sorry, did you want me to reassure you that it’s all going to be okay?’
‘I may not have known you very long, but bland reassurance isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when I think of you.’
‘DI Baarda?’ a voice crackled down the line. ‘You’re wanted at the city mortuary.’
Edinburgh’s mortuary wasn’t far from Waverley station as the crow flew, but by car during rush hour, the journey seemed to take forever. Inside the mortuary, an assistant walked them through to a postmortem suite.
A woman with the build of a sparrow and the energy of a tornado was storming around the room, clicking files on a computer screen, holding a microscope slide on one hand and talking either to herself or to the corpse lying beneath a sheet on a gurney.
‘Ah, you’re here. Now I know you were busy, but there’s something you should be aware of. You’ll need to suit up before you step any closer.’
Baarda and Connie reached for the necessary overalls.
‘My name’s Ailsa Lambert, I’m the chief forensic examiner.’ She bustled across to pick up a set of photos and open them, holding up the relevant shot. ‘This drop of blood from your missing person’s vehicle flagged as a match on our system. In the circumstances, I decided you should come straight in.’
‘Where was she found?’ Baarda asked.
‘At home, in her bed.’
‘That can’t be right. We have officers there now waiting for confirmation as to whether or not Mrs Dunwoody has been found.’
‘Oh, this isn’t Mrs Dunwoody. Apologies. I thought you’d have been told. This poor young woman is Angela Fernycroft.’ She peeled back the sheet to reveal a darkly dappled face, its humanity long since disintegrated.
Baarda closed his eyes for a moment. Connie grabbed a nose and mouth mask from a dispenser, flipped the elastic over her head and stepped in to get a closer look at the face.
‘Her lips are weird. Like, really badly chapped. Is this weathering? Had she just come back from a ski trip or a desert hike?’
Ailsa Lambert folded her arms and peered over the top of her glasses. Connie decided it was like being watched by a mistrustful bird. The pathologist was tiny and probably old enough to have been her grandmother, and yet her energy felt more like it was coming from a high-functioning twenty-something.
‘Perceptive,’ Ailsa said. ‘You’re the American psychologist. While you’re very welcome, I was wondering how that came about.’
‘Intersection between politics and money,’ Connie said, picking up the stack of photos again. ‘So the drop of blood on Elspeth Dunwoody’s car was from this woman?’
‘Oh no,’ Ailsa said. ‘The blood on the car, while we know it’s from a male, has no identified source. Which you might think is unusual given how much of the same DNA was found at the scene of this woman’s murder.’
There was a pause, just two or three seconds, but the atmosphere in the room dropped notably even in the necessary chill.
‘I have to make some calls,’ Baarda said. ‘Excuse me.’ He left the room.
‘This is fascinating,’ Connie continued. ‘Cause of death? May I?’ She indicated the sheet that still covered the remainder of the body.
Ailsa peeled it back for her. ‘You’ve seen plenty of dead bodies, I take it. That’s a rare level of enthusiasm.’
‘God, I’m sorry, that’s not how I wanted to come across. Truth is, I envy you this. It’s where so much of the real work is done. I’d have loved your career. You guys make it possible to drag the beasts from their lairs.’
‘I’ve never heard it put quite like that.’ Ailsa gave a tiny wry sm
ile as she held a magnifying glass over Angela’s lips. ‘What you identified as chapping is in fact burns. The skin is badly damaged, not just over the sensitive area of the lips, but also in the nasal passages, extending out as far as the chin and lower parts of the cheeks – I’m sure you can see the discoloration of the pigmentation that forms a rough circle.’ She motioned at the edges with the end of her pen.
‘Carry on,’ Connie said.
‘Cause of death was respiratory failure, although a cardiac event would have killed her anyway if her lungs hadn’t ceased to work first.’
‘Chloroform,’ Connie said. ‘So there’s a high probability this is our kidnapper. If this was his first intended victim, perhaps he just got the dosage wrong. Makes sense. He’d have changed tactics when he took Elspeth Dunwoody. Hopefully that means she’s still alive.’
‘That’s not all, I’m afraid. There was one other DNA match on the system. Still no name, and it dates back five years on an unsolved case.’
Connie put her hands on her hips. ‘Now what are the goddamn chances of that?’
‘I’d say really rather low, assuming that wasn’t merely rhetorical,’ Dr Lambert replied.
‘Was it another murder?’ Connie asked.
‘That remains to be seen,’ Dr Lambert said. ‘The crime was neither confirmed nor solved. I pulled only cursory details from the online file. A young woman was apparently heard calling for help in Advocate’s Close just off the High Street. It was around two a.m. and the witness, another young woman walking alone had, quite rightly, opted to fetch help rather than intervene. By the time police arrived, they found a bundle of possessions, an empty sleeping bag, signs of a struggle, with bags kicked over and contents strewn. Neither weapon nor blood. However, a twenty-pound note was left on the pavement next to the possessions. That was seized for forensic testing.’
‘How many different sources of DNA are on any given banknote at one time?’ Connie asked.
‘A lot,’ Dr Lambert conceded. ‘But the forensic report said this DNA came from saliva. Recent, I would guess, as it hadn’t been in a pocket or wallet long enough to have rubbed off or become so tainted that it was unreadable.’
‘Who was the missing woman?’
‘I don’t have an answer for you there, either. No identification in the possessions. We have her DNA from the sleeping bag, but it never matched anything on the police national database. No physical description of her. No age. Just a mystery and a lot of assumptions. Not even any specific evidence that a crime had been committed.’
‘And still, I don’t like it.’ Connie folded her arms. ‘Do you have the crime scene photos here for Angela’s death?’
‘I do,’ Ailsa said. ‘Come into my office.’
She pulled the sheet back up and stripped off her gloves. Connie followed suit before sitting silently at a computer screen studying one photo after another.
‘That’s a lot of blood,’ Connie said.
‘It is,’ Ailsa said. ‘Some of it is definitely from his nose – he must have had a substantial bleed – and it contains a level of mucous material. It was pooled on her neck, upper chest and in her cleavage.’
‘Pooled? So she was on her back, and he was just lying on top of her. Was she raped?’
‘No. No sign of any sexual assault at all. No semen anywhere.’
Connie pushed her chair backwards, letting it glide a foot or so before it came to a natural halt. She crossed her arms and stretched out her legs, staring at the ceiling.
‘So he just lay on top of her, bleeding? That can’t be right. What other injuries did she suffer?’
‘A severe blow to the back of her head. Not enough to fracture the skull, but it would have given her concussion. There’s a substantial bump – you can feel it but not see it through her hair. Otherwise general bruises, scratches, defence wounds. We also have his DNA from skin scrapings beneath her fingernails. And his blood in her mouth.’
‘Good girl,’ Connie smiled.
‘Good girl indeed. Sequence of events?’
‘She’s in bed, maybe asleep, maybe not yet, but he doesn’t disturb her when he enters. Husband’s off the hook, right?’
‘Airtight alibi. He was away with the children for the weekend,’ Ailsa explained.
‘Figures. Chloroform deaths are almost inevitably unrelated assailant crimes. He goes for it, puts the chloroform over her mouth, she fights back. Reverse headbutt, injures his nose. Which part of him does she bite?’
‘Now that I can help with. A section of inner finger, probably middle, just a few millimetres long and a few wide, was recovered from the carpet.’
‘He passed out on top of her,’ Connie said. ‘He had the chloroform over her mouth and he just passed out. How long before she was found?’
‘The next morning. One of her young children ran into her bedroom and found her.’
‘Holy shit. That’s thirty years of therapy, right there.’
Ailsa pursed her lips and Connie made a mental note to cut out the expletives.
‘Just one DNA source at the crime scene?’ Connie asked.
‘Just one,’ Ailsa confirmed.
‘With Elspeth Dunwoody we have a complex set-up with ransom decoys and solid organisation. Angela’s murderer made no attempt to conceal his forensic identity. He attacked her in bed knowing that if anything went wrong, he’d leave a trail. Oh, hell …’
Connie returned to the computer, found a search engine and typed frantically. She scrolled through clip after clip of Elspeth Dunwoody at various events, listening to her voice recordings wherever she found them. Finally, she replayed footage from a charity ball, twice, three times. Ailsa Lambert peered over her shoulder and they watched it together.
‘So we join with the other foundations here tonight to fight malaria, to ensure safe systems for both avoiding the disease and treating it. I’d like to ask you all to please help. No contribution is too small …’ Elspeth’s voice lingered over the crucial words, her throat cracking with emotion.
Connie played the relevant words one last time.
‘Please help.’
Baarda appeared in the doorway.
‘The people who demanded the ransom don’t have her,’ Connie said. ‘Elspeth’s voice recording was taken from old footage and played back. It was clever.’
‘Clever or not, if the ransomers don’t have her, then who does?’ he asked.
Chapter Six
Fergus lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He could feel his blood slowing to a crawl around his arteries and veins. His lungs seemed to be allergic to the air. Beneath him the sheets had moistened to a cotton swamp, filthy with toxins and reeking with body odour.
An oxygen tank sat next to his bed like some bizarre relative waiting for interaction, the plastic mask dangling from a clear tube offering little relief from his symptoms. Taking his own pulse, he noted its elevated beat, feeling the irregularity and wondering what his heart looked like internally right now. Grey and worn, struggling to pump effectively. He pictured it as a semi-deflated tyre, ready to burst next time too much pressure was applied.
Throwing a selection of pills into his mouth and washing them down with an energy drink, he wished for sleep. No amount of beta blockers seemed to kill his pain. High-strength sedatives would offer some assistance, but there was no guarantee he’d wake up from them. Suicide wasn’t the end he wanted. His eyes filled with tears. It was so unfair. He wasn’t a bad man, yet such bad things were happening to him. The sickness that had him in its grasp didn’t care about its victims’ track records. It didn’t matter that he had never abused drugs or alcohol, that he’d never come to the attention of the police or the courts. He was going to pay the ultimate price, leaving behind a barely blotted copybook and so much wasted potential.
Elspeth was supposed to save him. Fergus wanted to impress his mother in the afterlife, to show her the man he’d become – a husband, a father, the perfect brother. Family was everything. Especially when you’d
never really had one. He didn’t want to die alone; nor did he want his mother to be disappointed in him again.
His wife was just the start of his plans. He’d worked so hard on making their home lovely. All Elspeth had to do was keep it clean and hygienic, particularly given how prone he was to sickness. His grandmother had reminded him of it regularly during his childhood. Back then he’d thought she was a fusspot. Now he knew better.
‘It’s cold out. You shouldn’t be playing in the snow. You’re not strong enough. As soon as you get wet, you’ll be back in bed. You heard what the doctor said about your poor lungs.’
‘Aw, Gran, that’s stupid,’ he’d declared.
It had been his phrase of choice from age eight to eleven. Everything had been stupid until his grandmother had ended up nursing him through illness after illness, homeschooling him, doing her best not to let him slip behind his peers. He’d attended school whenever he was well enough, and she didn’t do a bad job except in French and the sciences – her weaker areas. With every illness, his immune system had eroded, slowly but surely, and Fergus had found himself lost in a sea of sadness. He’d been thirteen when the doctors first labelled it depression. Then there had been periods away from his grandmother’s house, although they were vague and shadowy in his memory. Hospitals, only not exactly.
His grandmother had had few regrets when she finally passed. She’d wanted to see her grandson happy, naturally. She’d been a mother to him when his own had passed. No father. That was all anyone had told him, and he’d learned not to ask given the sulking it always caused.
Without her, he’d fallen into depression. If he’d had a surviving sibling, he often thought, it would have been different. Someone there to share the burden of grief. As it was, he’d stopped eating, shrunk into a reclusive home life, and found that without his grandmother’s no-nonsense approach to vitamins, minerals and a strictly balanced diet, his body had begun to wage war on him.