She sighed. ‘That it?’
‘The team’s what I know.’
‘And me being at the head of it? I take it that’s not a problem for us?’
‘You’re the boss. As long as I’m kept involved. I’d like to do more.’
His reply didn’t answer the question, or address the fact that it was most probably himself he had a problem with. That guilt kept at bay as long as he was able to blame her.
‘Good.’
Ferguson said nothing, the relief evident in his features as he pointed at the windscreen.
They were there. The recovery vehicle’s strip lights flashing by the side of the road and marking the spot. The guys were out of the truck, shouting, arguing over whatever it was they were about to do.
Intermittent flashes of yellow and orange light bounced off the snow that was piled high at either side of the road as she and Ferguson parked and got out of the car. The landscape was white, a nothingness as far as the eye could see to the mountains beyond. Eve peered over the embankment to where the car wheels, which had long since stopped turning, were sticking up and out, the recovery lights reaching and bouncing off them too. It reminded her of the scene from the film adaptation of Stephen King’s Misery. Except in this case the one in the car had been the psychopath.
She looked along and up the winding road that stretched towards and beyond the mountains. Not a car in sight. The road had been shut off. Again. The Lecht. A remote road through the Scottish Highlands, known for closure in adverse conditions.
Ryan had been found frozen at the wheel. He’d already been cut free of the wreckage, his body taken away. A passing motorist heading for the ski slopes after the thaw allowed the reopening of the road had spotted the tyres – black poking through white – and had wasted no time in phoning it in.
Eve signalled to the recovery guys, asking permission to have a little time, let them go and take a look. One of the guys, his gut too big for his hi-vis vest, nodded and hopped in the truck, looking only too happy, his workmates joining him as quick, all of them lighting fags and taking turns to pour from a flask something that looked hot.
She motioned to Ferguson and started to make her way down the hard-packed path that had already been trodden in the snow by the emergency workers who had gone before her. He followed her lead. She wished she’d worn better footwear. Instead, she took over-exaggerated steps, her thigh grumbling, making sure her feet cleared the mounds of snow and got her over to the car. Ferguson didn’t offer to help.
Eve placed one of her freezing hands on an upturned tyre, leaning back into her legs as she crouched to take a look at what was left of the car. Going by the amount of dried blood splattered over the interior, there hadn’t been much of Ryan left either. Ferguson peered in from the other side, his face paling at the sight.
Dried blackened blood dominated the crushed dashboard, was congealed on the buckled steering wheel and stained into the footwell. A fitting reflection of Melanie and Lexie’s murder scenes.
Eve had already done the rounds of phone calls on her way here. Neither Ryan’s adoptive parents nor his former flatmate, Michael Forbes, had any idea what he would’ve been doing this far from home. There seemed to be no previous connection with Ryan to the area that they were aware of.
Maybe he was running from what he’d done. And ran straight off the road instead. Black ice, perhaps. The deluge of snowfall before and since had obliterated any tyre marks that might’ve told the story. Gone. Out of the picture. Like Ryan.
Eve pulled her head out from the wreckage, listening. Her phone was ringing from the car above, abandoned on the road verge, door still open from when she’d parked. She watched as Ferguson stumbled up the embankment as fast as he could, surprised when he caught the call. He said little to whoever was on the other end of the line, made his way back down the embankment and passed the phone to her.
‘Hunter.’
‘Wasn’t sure you’d be getting a signal.’ It was Cooper.
‘What you got?’
‘Nothing you’re going to be happy about.’
Eve’s heart sank, Cooper confirming what she’d already been afraid of. Ferguson stared at her. ‘Tell me.’
‘MacLean’s been on the phone. Preliminary report from the guy who examined Ryan confirms he can’t be our man.’
‘How come?’
‘He’s been dead longer than Melanie and Lexie.’
Hastings paced the office, squeezing at the centre of his sweating forehead with a forefinger and thumb. If her boss let his blood pressure get any higher, he’d be in danger of looking healthy.
‘This is a balls-up of the highest order.’
Eve stayed seated, the scolded schoolchild. ‘With respect, sir, we followed what we had.’
It sounded a poor excuse, even to Eve’s ears. She didn’t say anything about how she’d been torturing herself, questioning whether someone else would’ve seen whatever she hadn’t.
She hadn’t got it all wrong though. She’d been right to feel uneasy about the fingerprint found at the hotel. The room had indeed been booked under Ryan’s name. They’d even confirmed he’d stayed there before. But it wasn’t Ryan who had checked in the day Melanie was killed. No way it could’ve been after they’d found his body. It made sense. There was no way of telling the age of a print. Sack the cleaning staff.
The text inviting Melanie to the hotel had been sent from Ryan’s mobile, but no phone was found in the car with his body. They could only assume it had been stolen by someone who knew what was going on between them. That theory had proved to be as cold a trail as where Ryan had been found. But Eve had a feeling that Ryan’s death wasn’t the accident it seemed.
Hastings stopped pacing and placed his clammy palms on the desk. He leaned towards Eve. ‘Look, I know you followed the obvious, but tell that to Ryan’s father, who’s lodging an official complaint. He’ll probably sue us. Both his kids dead and a city full of folk who know what was going on between them when it turns out they didn’t need to.’
Eve chose her words carefully. ‘Mr Ross wasn’t exactly against the notion of it being Ryan who killed Melanie. He joined the dots, same as us.’
‘Maybe, but he’s convinced it’s that reprobate Ryan was hanging around with.’
‘Forbes?’ The doubt was clear in her voice.
‘Yeah, you said yourself he might have been jealous. What if something was going on between him and Ryan? Even if it was in Forbes’ head? What’s to say he didn’t kill Ryan in a rage over Melanie? Then killed her?’
Forbes. Acne-ridden, skinny. She doubted he was clever or strong enough to do either.
‘Eve, I’m under pressure for results. That doesn’t mean making this fit, but I want you to consider him. We have to, especially with the stuff Jenkins is peddling in the press … The Rottweiler is whipping the city into a frenzy with her front pages, knowing we have nothing. He’s still out there. Women are scared to walk the streets alone.’
‘Maybe not a bad thing.’
Hastings glared at her, teeth gritted. ‘Eve, don’t push me.’
‘I’m not. But we’re back where we started, with nothing to say that there won’t be another. We have leads to follow that, admittedly, we didn’t look into because we were hell-bent on pursuing Ryan. But we’re on them as of now.’
Hastings threw himself in his chair. ‘As of now isn’t good enough. You needed to be on them two weeks ago.’ Her boss swivelled the chair, hard, towards the window.
Eve stood. It seemed the conversation was finished.
Chapter 21
‘I think I’ve found something.’
Eve was by Mearns’ side before she’d finished speaking. ‘Show me.’
She pointed to the Scottish Intelligence Database on her computer screen. ‘Here. A year ago. Down in St Andrews.’
‘St Andrews? Nothing else?’
Mearns looked at Eve. ‘I searched for any murders with similar MOs and I got two hits. This and another goi
ng back to the 1990s.’
‘Same drugs in the nineties?’
‘No drugs. A murder. Partial removal of the tongue. I’ve ruled that out though, as the perp served his time, been a model citizen ever since. Plus he’s an old man and terminally ill. This one though, the St Andrews one, is too close to ignore.’
Cooper stood, pushed his chair out from the desk opposite, where he’d also been searching the database, and came round to join them.
Eve’s heart pounded as she scanned the details. Mearns was right. It was closer than close.
‘Jesus.’ The word whistled through Cooper’s lips.
Eve barked at Mearns as she made her way back to her desk. ‘Get me the number of the officer who worked the case. Text it to me when you have it.’ She grabbed her jacket from the chair. ‘Cooper, you’re with me.’
Beagles Bar and Nightclub on Justice Mill was grim. Even in daylight, the windowless space was dark, dingy and stank. Not unlike Michael Forbes’ flat. They found him behind the bar, only three staff members in, stocking the shelves ahead of the night-time trade. They’d managed to convince the club owner that using his office to talk to Forbes was best for everyone. Forbes sat on the other side of the desk from Cooper and Eve, as slouched as he had been at his flat last time they’d met.
‘Nae impressed with you coming to my workplace, like.’
Eve smiled. ‘We’re not out to impress you, Michael.’
Forbes tutted, fingers rubbing fast against each other. Probably desperate for a fag but not willing to face the wrath of his boss if he lit up in here. ‘Fit you wanting this time?’
Eve didn’t have him down for any kind of clever. A blunt statement would tell her if he knew anything. She looked straight at him. ‘Ryan’s dead.’
The colour drained from Forbes’ face quicker than Eve had ever seen. His mouth was opening and shutting as if it was on a loose hinge.
‘Dead?’
Eve nodded. Forbes clutched at his stomach with both hands, gasping for breath before crying. Crying. Eve and Cooper watched him fumble in his pockets for his fags, his hands shaking, unable to get one from the packet. Cooper stood to help, lit it for him. Eve would placate the boss.
It was clear in that moment that Forbes knew nothing about Ryan. She now had to make sure he hadn’t been instrumental in Melanie’s death, even though she already knew he hadn’t. The lack of forensics jarring against Forbes’ poor hygiene, the set-up, the murders since.
But the answer was on the wall of the office they sat in and she would double-check with his boss as they left. She stood, moved over to the rota, saw within minutes that Forbes had been working in the run-up to and during the estimated time of Melanie’s murder.
She motioned to Cooper. They left Forbes sitting there in a cloud of smoke, snivelling.
Helen Black died a violent death down a cold, dark back alley in the historic seaside town of St Andrews. A place famous for world-class golf, sandy beaches and a university attended by royalty. It showed that no matter how pure the surface seemed, there was always a layer of rot hiding beneath.
Eve listened as the officer Mearns had found wheezed on the other end of the phone, doing his best to recover after a lengthy coughing fit. Detective Sergeant Jack Allen. Six months retired. Happy to talk to Eve as long as she called him Jack.
‘Sorry. Damn near coughed my lungs up there.’
Eve heard the click of a lighter, the slow deep breath in and then the sigh of addiction on the way out. She waited.
‘Yeah, I remember it. It was my last case and a big one for here.’
‘Can you tell me what you remember?’
‘Everything. Bloody thing’s stayed with me since I left.’
‘The officer I spoke to said you never gave up.’
‘Damn right. I knew Helen. She was a good kid. One of the few locals at the uni.’
‘I read the reports. Says she was drinking at a local pub with friends that night.’
‘Uni friends. It was a regular meeting place for them. Helen left before closing time. Home was a ten-minute walk, but she never made it.’
Melanie and Lexie never made it either. She couldn’t help but think of her mother. Only minutes from home when she’d been brutally raped by Eve’s father. She may not have been murdered, but she never made it that day either. Eve struggled with the thought that if her mother had, then she wouldn’t be standing here.
She remembered the phone in her hand. ‘I take it you’ve heard about the murders here in Aberdeen?’
‘Sure have. And I’m assuming you’re thinking something connects them to Helen.’
Eve picked at the skin on the inside of her forefinger, the office phone cradled between head and shoulder, thinking how to play this one. ‘Both our women had the same puncture wound to the upper arm as Helen, ketamine in their system.’
The other end of the line was silent for a moment. Not even the slightest hint of a wheeze.
‘Battered?’ The elderly ex-detective’s voice was a whisper.
‘That’s where it differs.’
‘How?’
‘Same drugs, but the first had her face mutilated, the second had no injuries to her face.’
‘The drug’s the only thing connecting your victims?’
‘That and both their tongues were missing.’
The wheezing returned. Eve held the phone away from her ear as Jack launched into another barking episode.
‘I can see why you kept that from the press.’
‘Yeah, and there’s something else we kept from them. Something I wanted to ask you if it was the same with Helen.’
‘Shoot.’
‘Was her body manipulated into a position?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Did the scene look staged?’
‘I’m not sure you can class being beaten black and blue as requiring any kind of precision.’
‘I read that in the report. No trace of the guy found. I had to be sure there was nothing else.’
‘Understood. But she had her tongue intact.’
‘I know, but the drugs and the injection site were a huge coincidence. We only got two hits on the system. Your case and another going back to the 1990s. Guy from that case is now an old man and terminal, so not on our radar.’
‘Glad you added the terminal; I was about to say there’s life in us old dogs yet.’ Jack broke into another cough.
Eve doubted there was much life left ahead for Jack if he kept lighting up. She sighed. The long shot at a breakthrough in the case looked to be falling short.
Jack clicked his tongue, the sound loud in Eve’s ear. ‘There’s no harm in taking another look. Why don’t you see if you can get down here, visit the scene, look at the photos, even re-interview the guy that found her?’
‘I’m not sure it’d be worth it. Helen died a year ago. We’re on the block up here. But it’s the first lead we’ve had since the screw-up that I’m sure you know about.’
‘A screw-up’s only that if you let it be. Everything was pointing towards Ryan at the time. OK, that was wrong. But look at him as one suspect eliminated. This would be something else off the list.’
Eve wasn’t surprised to hear Jack had been following the case closely enough to know Ryan’s name. She imagined it’d be hard to step away from the job – retirement or not. She was tempted by Jack’s proposal. ‘I’m not sure the boss’ll go for it.’
‘Sell it. Let me help you. If anything comes of it, think of it as you helping me.’
‘Eh?’
‘We find something that helps put Helen to bed, then I’ll sure as hell rest a little easier in these supposedly golden years of mine.’
The photos on the wall of Melanie and Lexie stared out at her. Had Helen been the first?
There was only one way to find out.
‘You around tomorrow, Jack?’
Chapter 22
Now
Seven o’clock in the evening. He watches the hand of the over
sized clock tick a stiff minute past the golden roman numerals at its top. If it makes any sound, he doesn’t hear it.
The open fire crackles. He turns his gaze to the flames, his forearm resting on the soft velvet arm of the hotel lounge’s sofa, a whisky glass clutched in his hand. Amber swirls in the tumbler as he circles his wrist, the liquid coating its glass sides. He takes a sip, enjoying the heat in his throat and the warmth of the fire on his skin. It would be easy to let both soothe him, to carry him off into daydreams. He blinks. Lack of focus is dangerous.
He leans forward, past the sofa’s padded side headrest, and looks over to where Claire Jenkins sits. A woman who makes a living from exposing lies. The reporter is shovelling food into her mouth faster than she can chew. Silver cutlery waving about in front of her face as she talks to her overweight male companion, a spider’s-web tattoo spun across his left temple, which causes other diners to stare. Jenkins’ mouth is full, arms animated, the hair framing her face looking as red hot as the flickering fireplace.
She greeted the bald man on arrival with a brisk handshake and painted smile. It seemed tonight’s meal was business not pleasure. Which was what he’d feared. They were too far away for him to hear what they were saying, the clink of other diners’ cutlery and their incessant chat mingling in his ears as murmured mayhem. As he leans back, he knows they can’t see him.
How long would he have to sit here? He hopes she’ll be leaving alone. She’s played the game exactly the way he wants her to: dishing the dirt purposely fed to her, devouring the details he is willing to part with.
He’d been nervous when she started reporting on Ryan but quickly realized he could turn it to his advantage. It was a shame Ryan had been found. The place had been an ingenious idea. He’d gone to a lot of trouble getting that low-life piece of shit up there, Ryan willing to travel the distance for the promise of a cheap score. Liked a good smoke, did Ryan, but liked to save money more, even though it was a deal with some guy that had struck up a conversation with him in a nightclub. They’d been in the middle of nowhere when Ryan realized there was no deal to be had. Had thought getting in his car and driving off would be the end of it.
Hold Your Tongue Page 13