The Shadow Man

by Helen Fields

  ‘Not at all, although next time I’d prefer a warning. One last thing, how long was it from the lacrosse injury to when you first saw in black and white? I’m intrigued by injuries and their resolution. It helps my knowledge base.’

  Connie looked at the tiny woman, inches shorter than her, years older, yet as on point and forceful as a missile. She considered lying, and decided Ailsa would know immediately if she did.

  ‘A little over a year,’ she replied. ‘We should be going. Baarda’s a kidnapping specialist, and Police Scotland sound like they could use all hands on deck.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Ailsa said. ‘Call if you need me, day or night.’

  They left the chief pathologist standing out under the stars.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Baarda asked.

  ‘Nothing. She reminds me of my grandmother. The nice one. We should get back to the station.’

  ‘You had a not-so-nice grandmother?’ Baarda asked as they made their way to the car park.

  ‘Misguided is probably the word. Impressed by titles and professions. Too convinced by her own judgement to really see what was going on around her. You know the type.’

  ‘I believe I do,’ Baarda said, opening the car door for her.

  She smiled gently at the old-fashioned gesture.

  ‘So, tell me about this missing girl,’ Connie said.

  ‘Someone thinks they saw her being forcibly pulled into a car and raised the alarm.’

  ‘Jesus, Baarda, how many people get abducted each year in the UK anyway? It’s starting to feel like 1920s New York.’

  ‘Around 5,000 per year. When it’s a child, chances are it’s a family member or friend. Unconnected child abductions are still extraordinarily rare.’

  ‘Did the witness get a licence plate?’

  ‘No. Unfortunately, it was another minor. Less observant and more chaotic in recollection.’

  ‘Where was this?’ Connie asked.

  ‘School car park. Plenty of people currently at the scene. We’ve been asked to remain available at the station in case it turns out to be anything sinister, given my area of expertise.’

  ‘Go to the school anyway,’ Connie said. ‘What’s the point of sitting at the police station waiting to be asked questions by phone?’

  ‘I thought you’d want to get on with the Dunwoody case while we’re waiting. There might be nothing for us to do in any event.’

  ‘My brain works best on one set of facts while it’s occupied with something completely different. Also, that police station is cold, and it smells like takeout and armpits. I’d prefer to be outside, thank you.’

  ‘If that’s what you want. Likely to be a waste of time, though. Girl’s probably had a fall-out with a parent and been dragged into a vehicle to take her home. The vast majority of these turn out to be false alarms.’

  ‘You see, that’s the problem with statistics. We rely on them to convince ourselves that we don’t need to rush, that everything will turn out fine. Which in my experience is exactly when things turn out more fucked than you could ever have imagined.’

  ‘Positive motivational talks not your thing, then,’ Baarda muttered.

  ‘Positive motivation is overrated.’ Connie reclined her seat and closed her eyes. ‘The only trigger human beings really respond to is abject frigging fear.’

  Chapter Ten

  Another of his teeth had fallen out that morning. Fergus had inspected it at length. It was a lower left molar, now in an egg cup on top of the microwave. He’d tried to recall when he’d last visited the dentist and couldn’t. There had been so many medical appointments over such a protracted period that at some point he’d simply switched off from it all, attending those he could in a blur of travel – wait – answer questions – look away from the needle – wait – travel. The timeline of it all was meaningless. He wondered if he’d had toothache before the offending pearl had seen fit to desert him, but there was pain so often that he’d probably just beta-blocked it out. No doubt he was calcium deficient along with everything else. His gums bled all the time. He wasn’t retaining iron. There was nothing he could do to stop the rot.

  The disease was consuming him exponentially. He’d thought he had months, recently reviewed that time estimate and had concluded he should make that weeks instead. Now, he knew, he had just days left. If that was all, he had to move fast. No more watching, no more waiting, just forward momentum. Which was why Meggy Russell was currently in the boot of his car and kicking up a storm.

  She wasn’t what he’d expected. At twelve, she was supposed to have been unprepared for him. Scared, and easy to threaten. Pliable. In fact, sweet little Meggy, who liked to go to the park alone and sit watching the clouds go by, often with a book in hand, apparently immune from the addiction offered by a mobile phone, had turned out to be a hellcat.

  He’d waited for her outside the school library. She spent an hour there each day after lessons finished, presumably doing her homework before her mother picked her up. The mother hadn’t been the normal type, either. Several years younger than he’d anticipated and a bit showy – that’s what his grandmother would have called her. All tight leggings and false eyelashes. Her car had been easy to doctor that afternoon. Left out on the road a few doors down from their house, he’d sprung the bonnet and loosened the spark plugs. The mother never set off in good time to pick Meggy up, and the girl was regularly left stranded in the car park waiting for her ride.

  He’d first seen Meggy back in May, during one of Angela’s regular trips to Inch Park. The girl had watched Angela play with her children then shyly gone over to say hello. That was when he’d begun the process of watching Meggy as well – she was to be his gift to his new wife – before the whole Angela disaster. By then he’d done too much work. He couldn’t waste months of studying Meggy’s every move.

  He’d been careful to keep himself hidden at her school. Parents were horribly suspicious and ‘stranger aware’, so he’d had to avoid the playground itself and kept to the tree-lined area across the road, turning up when the bulk of parents and buses had left, to establish the identity of the kids who stayed late. Meggy always went to the library first and got picked up late. He’d just had to follow the car home one day to figure out where she lived and what the home set-up was. The rest had been uncomplicated. Until he’d approached Meggy in the car park.

  These days, he was having to take fewer precautions. When he’d begun his regime of stalking his future family, he’d had to be careful not to stand out. Now, though, with death’s hand around his throat, all that mattered was taking what he wanted as quickly as possible. What did an arrest matter when he was looking at a much more permanent fate?

  ‘Hi!’ He’d waved happily to her as she’d exited the small grey-bricked block and walked to where her mum usually pulled up. ‘It’s Meggy, right? Sorry about this, but your mum’s car broke down. She asked me to come and get you.’

  Meggy had stared at him, not in a friendly way.

  ‘My mum?’ Meggy had asked.

  ‘Aye, pretty lady, sporty-looking, goes by the name of Carmen Russell. You remember her?’ he’d joked.

  ‘My mum?’ Meggy said again.

  The look she was giving him could have lanced boils.

  ‘Yes,’ Fergus said, his voice losing its former jollity.

  Meggy had her backpack clutched in her arms like a shield.

  ‘How do you know her then?’ she’d asked.

  This question he’d anticipated.

  ‘I live on your street, Durward Grove, just a few doors down. I saw your mum having problems with her car and offered to help. She explained that you’d be stuck at school with no one to fetch you.’

  A new emotion had flickered across Meggy’s face then, a ripple of self-doubt, he’d thought. ‘We met in our local park, remember?’

  ‘You were ill,’ Meggy said.

  ‘That’s nothing to worry about; it was just a cough. Sorry if I scared you. I went to the doctor and got
some medicine. All better now.’ He gave another grin to show her just how fine he felt.

  She flinched and he put away his yellowing teeth with their recent addition of a raw section of empty gum.

  ‘How long have you lived near us then?’ Meggy asked.

  ‘Couple of years. I see your mum at the local shops sometimes and we chat. She’s very proud of you. Always talking about how well you’re doing at school.’

  A shutter came down. Whatever he’d said, Meggy was not just unconvinced, she was looking thunderous.

  ‘Liar,’ she said quietly. ‘You’d better go. I’m going to tell a teacher.’

  There was a fraction of a second where he didn’t know what to do, but a lack of preparation was how Angela had ended up dead. It was the moment in which she’d whipped back her head and broken his nose. It was the stupidity of putting his hand over her mouth with nothing to protect his fingers from her teeth. Not this time. It couldn’t go wrong again.

  Fergus leapt forward, punching as he went. His fist hit Meggy’s face full on in the nose. He knew from bitter personal experience how painful and debilitating that was. It did the trick perfectly. The girl went flat out backwards like a toppling domino. Her head hit grass rather than pavement. He was grateful for that. One unforeseen death was acceptable. More than that would be totally incompetent.

  Slinging her backpack over his shoulder then sliding both arms beneath her, Fergus picked her up. The boot flipped open when he hit the switch on his key fob, and he deposited her flopping body inside. There wasn’t time to secure her, that was his only problem. In his head, she was going to be utterly convinced by him knowing her mother and her address. She was going to climb into the back seat of the car and sit there patiently as he drove her home. He’d engaged the child safety on the rear doors, locked the windows mechanism, and had the back windows tinted for privacy months earlier. But there was something he hadn’t anticipated – a wrong word. She’d known he was lying. He just had no idea how.

  Now, he was halfway home and she was hammering at the boot of the car. It was upsetting. Almost as bad as Elspeth doing nothing but sobbing all day. He’d taken to slipping sedatives into her food to get some peace. He was going to need a new prescription from his doctor if he had to quieten both his wife and his daughter from now on.

  Quarter of an hour later, he arrived home and readied himself for a fight.

  Meggy was equally ready. The screaming started when the first rays of light hit the inside of the boot. He smashed an ungentle hand down on her mouth, leaned forward and growled at her.

  ‘Keep screaming like that and you’ll leave me no choice but to throttle you. You think I want that? I’m a nice man, Meggy, but you’re not being a nice girl, and that’s not fair. Now shut up, or I’ll hurt you.’

  That did stop her screaming, to his amazement. She glared at him, an unmistakably furious stare, more adult than childlike, as if he’d just crashed a wedding and vomited down the bride’s dress.

  Fergus looked away from her, pulling her arms upwards so he could throw her over his shoulder, and carried her into the house, setting her down only when they were inside the kitchen and he’d locked the door securely. The internal door through to the lounge was open. Meggy took a look at it, turned back to Fergus and ran at him full pelt, punching his groin as she charged.

  ‘Fuck you,’ she shouted. ‘I’m going to kill you!’

  Fergus held her by the shoulders, keeping her at arm’s length.

  ‘Does your mother let you speak to her with that filthy mouth?’ he yelled.

  ‘Carmen’s not my mother. She’s a bitch! You lied about everything. Help,’ she yelled. ‘Help me. I’ve been kidnapped!’

  Fergus wished he could just hit her again, but Meggy’s eyes were already blackening from the earlier blow he’d dealt her, and she had a dry trail of blood snaking from nose to chin. Carmen wasn’t the girl’s mother at all. His research had been flawed. That was what came of rushing. His head ached. He wanted her to be quiet now.

  ‘I won’t hurt you,’ he told her. ‘I mean, I will if you don’t stop. I’ll have to. I can’t just let you carry on. But if you’ll just quit it, everything’ll be fine.’

  ‘You’re going to rape me. And kill me. I’m not stupid. I watch the news. They teach us about men like you at school.’

  ‘Don’t be disgusting. I’ve no intention of raping anyone. What would my wife think of me if I did that?’

  Meggy took a step back, stared at him.

  ‘Are you simple?’ she asked.

  Fergus gritted his teeth. He wanted to lie down. By now, Meggy should have been introduced to Elspeth, the two of them getting to know one another in their little flat. He was overdue his painkillers, and there was a sensation in his left arm that had started off no more than a pinching and was now circling around, vice-like, making it hard to breathe.

  ‘I’m not simple. You shouldn’t say that. It’s rude.’

  ‘You abducted me. You think your wife’s going to care about anything else? Where is she, anyway? Is she here?’

  Meggy turned and ran. Finally, Fergus thought. It would be easier to control her deeper inside the house than in the kitchen.

  Reaching for a carving knife, long ago hidden on a high shelf, Fergus followed her in as she threw open doors, shouting at the top of her voice, screaming at him to stay away from her as she retreated to the stairs, taking them two at a time. At last, in the upper corridor, Meggy stopped, her entire concentration aimed at the silverware dangling from his right hand.

  ‘Wait there,’ he ordered, pointing the knife in her direction.

  There was a single door off the landing. Fergus walked to it, checking an upper eyehole that was situated in the usual place, then kneeling down, knife still extended in her direction, to take a quick look through a second peephole that had been inserted at thigh height in the door. All clear. He detached a set of keys from his belt and threw them at her feet.

  ‘Largest silver key,’ he said. ‘Open it up.’

  Sluggish tears plopped onto the frayed carpet at her feet. She was all fought out. Between the pulsatile waves of pain in his temples and the rapidly worsening ice-pick sensation in his chest, Fergus could only be grateful. Snatching up the keys, Meggy expended her ebbing energy attempting to hurl a last insult before opening the door. All that arrived was a pitiful mewing sound.

  ‘Tired,’ Fergus murmured. ‘Leave the keys in the lock and go in. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘What’s in there?’ Meggy whispered, peering inside, along the darkened corridor to where a single lamp cast light in a bedroom.

  ‘New mother. Maybe you’ll like this one better.’

  He pushed Meggy forwards, locked the door behind her and stood at the top of the stairs. The steps beneath were a tide wavering towards him then away. Fergus extended quivering fingers, hoping to find the handrail in the same place he’d left it, but distance was stretching.

  ‘Can’t get back down,’ he muttered. ‘Light’s gone off. Where’s switch?’

  He reached out blindly in his own personal dark, the movement catching his brain unawares and turning him sideways. One foot stumbled over the other.

  Fergus went sideways into the void of the staircase, leading with his left shoulder, wondering how he could be falling when a second earlier he’d been standing completely still in his own home. He’d never been on a roller coaster, but he imagined it would feel like this. On the swings as a small child, he’d always imagined his mother smiling before him, arms outstretched. She wouldn’t desert him now, not when he needed her most. As he began his cartwheel down the narrow staircase, he smiled, seeing her appear at the bottom, knowing no harm could come to him with her ready to keep him safe.

  The side of his head hit first, five steps from the top. His neck followed with a crunch normally reserved for abattoirs, and the breath was crushed from his lungs as the left side of his ribcage connected thereafter. Still Fergus smiled.

  He�
�d known it was coming. There was no tunnel, no bright light, no angelic choir welcoming him in, but no pain either. Better even than that, no fear. He could die knowing he finally had a wife and child who would miss him. No brother, he hadn’t had time to organise that, but that wasn’t going to stop him from passing over this time. Fergus Ariss was dying, and he was glad.

  Chapter Eleven

  The school grounds were awash with blue flashing lights. Connie and Baarda parked outside on the road and remained pavement-bound, watching. One side of the car park, just outside the entrance to the clearly marked library, was cluttered with officers talking over the head of a visibly upset Asian girl to an irate adult who might have been her mother. At the far end of the car park near the entrance to the road, other police officers were busy with crime scene tape, sticking markers on the ground and taking photographs. A high-pitched wailing echoed from an area largely hidden by a hedge. Connie could just make out another cluster of heads, some going to and fro, others leaning inwards.

  ‘Guess they’ve figured out the missing girl’s identity,’ Connie said quietly.

  Baarda was already looking up and down the road.

  ‘What’s up?’ she asked.

  ‘Cameras. The school should have some in the playground, but I’m not seeing any. No traffic lights on this road, and no industry or retail, either. If you were going to take a girl from a school in this area, given the lack of security, this would be a good target.’

  ‘You think he found the school first, then identified a student who suited him?’ Connie asked. ‘That’s clever.’

  ‘That’s what I’d have done. Minimise the risk of getting caught, then work a kidnapping backwards from that. Reverse-engineered crime. The issue is not the criminal. It’s the efficacy of the police response. We should already be canvassing the neighbourhood for suspicious vehicles, or people seen hanging around. Always amazes me that the first reaction of so many officers is to group together and repeat information-gathering when the best course is to spread out and obtain diverse context.’