by G R Jordan
Macleod looked offended. ‘I treat you all with respect and as for my female colleagues, I hope I treat you equally.’
‘You try, Seoras, I know you try. But it can’t be easy. I mean, working with McGrath, she’d turn any man’s head.’
‘That’s unfair,’ he snapped and then felt bad for snarling at Mackintosh.
‘No, it’s not. You turn my head and I have to try and moderate myself. Why’s it any different for you? But sometimes you see us as fragile and then it pops out, that protective streak. It’s endearing to some of us but it won’t be to Jona. It isn’t to McGrath either. You need to let her fly.’
‘I’ve brought Hope on, pushed her to go for Sergeant,’ Macleod defended himself, ‘and yes, it would be easier to work on a male team, it would. But they deserve their place, McGrath and Stewart, on their own merit. As do you.’
‘Soft soap me,’ laughed Mackintosh but then looked at him endearingly, her eyes hinting at tears. ‘Thanks for yesterday, for being there. I know it can’t be easy what with your Jane. Don’t feel guilty; you were a rock in a storm for me. God knows how I’ll get through the next part.’
‘When’s the treatment start?’
‘Two days in Glasgow.’
‘You got anyone there.’ Mackintosh shook her head in a pitiful negative. ‘Then Jane will go down with you. I need to tell her anyway, in case anyone starts a rumour about us, make sure she understands.’
Mackintosh reached forward and touched Macleod’s hand. ‘Thank you.’
Macleod nodded and then removed himself to the rear of his desk. ‘Anything else to tell me? We got a little bit unprofessional there.’
‘No, you didn’t. As I said, she was knifed skillfully, dying if not immediately then in quick fashion. I can’t find anything from them at the scene yet, but we are still looking. The car you heard about. Burnt out and again that’s something we are working on. You have the copies of the parchment, which looks to be very standard paper, but I am having it sent to the lab for analysis. The first map at Canna was made on basic parchment, untraceable really, and with a basic ink pen. Again, getting us nowhere.’
‘There seems to be little forensically,’ said Macleod, ‘so I hope we can do a little ferreting on the mainland—discover something. I still don’t understand why there’s a murder on Canna, but the maps show they are connected.’
‘Did you hear what the press are calling the murders? The Pirate Club. People digging on the beach, rather apt.’
There was a rap at the door and Hope entered with Jona trailing behind. Macleod saw the lack of sleep in both their faces but Jona looked like she had seen a ghost, her skin even paler than normal. Mackintosh got to her feet and embraced the woman like she was her mother. It was not the professional attitude Macleod had desired but given the circumstances, he understood why. Hope stood to one side and he simply nodded at her and she nodded back. She was good to go.
‘There’s another room through there if you two want to do a handover and then it’s back to work, Miss Nakamura,’ said Macleod and Mackintosh looked at him. ‘I’ll have a word before you go, Hazel.’ It just slipped out and he understood what she had said. Hazel. Not Mackintosh. A softer tone—well, at least she found it endearing.
The forensic team left and Hope took the seat in front of the desk. Swinging a leg of her jeans across the other she seemed agitated.
‘How was last night?’ asked Macleod.
‘You got my statement.’
‘I meant Jona; how was she?’
‘Not good. Don’t tell anyone but she spent the night in my room.’ Macleod’s eyes raised. ‘Hell, Seoras, do you see everything in that way? I swear that’s an island thing. In case you are wondering she’s not inclined to women and she simply needed someone to hold her, if you can understand that. Anyway, where’s Mackintosh off to?’
‘Hospital, medical issue,’ said Macleod, flatly. And yes, I can understand that.
‘So, it’s on Jona. I’d keep an eye on her, Seoras; she’s struggling.’
‘You do that for me, Hope. You seem to have a rapport.’ She’s female and Asian, not doubt I’ll manage to cause offence at some point. Especially if the old instincts kick in. ‘Stewart’s on the first flight out, off tailing leads. We need to mount a search here for our two runaways from last night, so I want you to organise that but as we are still struggling for officers make sure we don’t endanger anyone, these runaways are killers. Everything at a distance, observation only is the watchword for any of the other services.’
Macleod pulled the copy of the map Mackintosh had sent him and placed it on the table before rooting in a drawer and placing another copy of a map beside it. Then he took a copy of an Ordnance Survey map of the area and placed it on the table.
‘Two pieces of map, Hope, and people looking for something, prepared to kill to get it. I am bringing in Karen Gibbons’ mother to talk to us, but she was in bed asleep last night so I though it better to let her sleep and they can advise her in the morning about her daughter’s death. We’ll need her in some sort of state and I thought the fatigue of being woken up in the night and the shock of the news might not be a good combination.’
‘True,’ said Hope. ‘Is Stewart looking into their background any further?’
‘Karen Gibbons seems clean, but I have tasked Stewart with connecting the dots between our victims. In the meantime, we have a manhunt here and that’s your baby.’
Hope looked at the maps and tried to see the connection between them. ‘Why are the maps basically blank except for a few dots, Seoras? I mean, if you read the text on the back it tells you what the dots are and then gives a referencing co-ordinate off of Dusty’s Harbour. Where is that? What is it?’
‘I reckon you need it to solve the puzzle which is why people are looking for the other pieces. Yes, there’s a reference on each map but this referencing co-ordinate seems critical. I tried this morning using lots of harbours as references but all I got was lots of points which I could look at although none were on a beach. Given that they all seem to be looking on the coast I didn’t want to start digging up twenty-plus locations. We don’t even know what they are looking for.’
‘Given that our murderers appear to be young, we can assume it’s something recent, perhaps?’
‘No,’ said Macleod. ‘Everyone else is older so that means the young people might just be following up on something older. I know we’re clutching at straws at the moment but ruling things out too soon will hurt us, Hope.’
As he spoke, his mobile began vibrating and Macleod picked it up. ‘Macleod.’
‘Stewart, sir. I’m about to go for the plane but I thought you would want to know this right away. I was researching our victims and I have started onto their immediate families. Our Vatersay victim, Alasdair MacPhail, has no previous record but his wife does, or at least has some sort connection with crime.’
‘Explain.’
‘Well, I called the team I used to work with in Glasgow to see if there was any background on MacPhail but one of the lads there is from Newcastle and transferred up five years ago. He recalls working on a case and there was a MacPhail they could not pin a theft down on. As he recalls, it was a piece of artwork, but she had an alibi. Although it seemed fabricated, they could not prove it. Long story short, sir, is that she has form and I want to go and dig up more about her. So, I’d like to head to Newcastle if that’s okay with you.’
Macleod breathed in deeply, thinking to himself. This was a change in that Stewart was now going after suspected felons rather than families of victims and he was weary of her snooping around territory they did not know. ‘I’ll get in touch with Newcastle and see if they can help, and to let them know you are in the area. But tread carefully, Stewart, we have bodies mounting here and I doubt they will go easy on a snooper even if we are the police. I’m sending Ross to work with you, cover your back sort of thing. No risks, Kirsten; if something is sticky, talk to Newcastle and get backup.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said an excited voice on the other end of the line. ‘It’s getting close to check-in time. I have to go but thank you.’
Macleod wondered if he were playing this right, but he knew the girl could dig things up and Ross should be able to curb any overenthusiasm that could lead to unsafe situations. He briefed Hope on the conversation and then dismissed her.
As he sat back, cup in his hand, staring at the maps before him, the door opened again and Mackintosh walked in.
‘How’s Jona?’
‘She’ll be okay. Shaken but I think she’s found a friend in McGrath. Hasn’t stopped talking about her. But I came through to say goodbye, Seoras. I need to catch the plane.’
‘Stewart’s going too if you need company.’
‘She’s ahead of you, picking me up in a moment; otherwise, you’d offer to take me, and you have enough on.’
‘I’ll get Jane to meet you at Inverness today.’
‘You don’t need to, really. I’ll be okay.’
Macleod took Mackintosh’s hands. ‘I know you will and you’ll fight like a wild one against this, but no one should walk along these paths alone. Jane will want to help, she’s like that. Same way you would for someone else.’
Mackintosh leaned forward and hugged Macleod tightly. ‘Thank you, Seoras. You’re a man of faith, so pray for me, pray damn hard.’
With that, she broke the embrace and turned without looking back out of the door, but he could hear the sniff pulling the emotion back inside. He collapsed into his chair, feeling the tug inside that made him think this could be a last time seeing her. As much as she had chased after him, a taken man, he could not help but like her. Determined woman, so like Jane.
The door flew open and Hope stood before him looking a little flustered. ‘Sir, we just lost our lead. Gibbons’ mother, she’s dead.’
‘Dead?’
‘She woke up and started demanding to know where her daughter was. When they told her, she collapsed. Just died, sir, just died.’
Macleod grabbed his coffee cup and threw it against the wall smashing it into tiny pieces, the liquid spraying the wall. Hope looked at him, in shock.
‘What? Every damn lead, Hope, every damn lead!’
Chapter 12
She looks like a ghost, still, thought Macleod. He did not know Jona Nakamura well but the girl had obviously had a rough time over the last twenty-four hours. Yet she was still here and working. Sitting before him in the Castlebay station, Jona was confirming that the older Gibbons—for Karen Gibbons had not gone with her father’s name but rather her mother’s—had indeed died from a massive heart attack probably brought on by the news of the death of her daughter.
‘Every time we get somewhere, it gets snatched away,’ said Macleod under his breath.
‘I don’t know if we can gain anything else from her. We are searching the room and taking prints and whatever we can find. There are addresses in various formats for the pair of them but according to DS McGrath, they don’t check out. I have sent DNA samples away from the incident last night and the lab is proceeding with those as fast as they can. I’ll let you know if anything significant comes back.’
Macleod stood up and paced the room, looking around wildly as he thought. When he stopped for a moment, he realised that Jona was still there, obviously waiting for him to say she could go. He looked at her for a moment and once again saw her covered in blood, her face a mess of tears and sweat, crushed at not saving a life before her. Now she was in a smart jacket and blouse with a pair of dark trousers, but her face still showed the scars.
‘Good, Jona, you’re doing good. Look, this case has a bucket of attention coming with it and you’ve lost your cover but just do your job, nothing more, nothing less. I realise you are struggling with last night so if you need to release let me know. I can help.’ Macleod was not actually sure he could.
‘Hope, I mean, DS McGrath has been immensely helpful, sir, but I understand. To be honest I need to just bury this until we get finished. I’m sure you understand that.’
Only too well, thought Macleod, but it’s not healthy. ‘Just make sure you take time to deal with it when you can. Don’t let things linger in the background because they don’t leave. As for the press and any other pressure from above, that’s mine, not yours, to deal with. You worry about what I need from you and that’s all. I have big shoulders.’
‘But no coffee cups I heard.’
There was a silence as Macleod struggled to take in the joke. His mind raced through whether this was an attack, a friendly jibe, or what. His staff did not normally throw in such quips, even Mackintosh came at him from a completely different angle. ‘No,’ he said and forced a smile. ‘Don’t be up too late, Jona; you need your rest.’
When she had left, Macleod flopped into his chair again and thought through where the day had left him. It was nine o’clock already and the Chief Inspector had been in conference with him for an hour on top of the press conference, leaving him exhausted. Stewart had called and was in a hotel in Glasgow, ready to start out first thing in the morning. No doubt she would be running through files on her laptop, checking wild links just in case they brought something up.
The island had been combed that day by a helicopter and search teams, looking for the pair who killed Karen Gibbons but there was no sign of them. Whoever they were, they were no mugs. Barra was not the largest island at around four miles across and they had brought in teams from the other services from the other isles, up as far as Stornoway. But all the searching had been fruitless.
Macleod remained, studying reports until around midnight and then headed for his hotel. Calmly walking through the small scrum of reporters, he held up a hand for no comment and forced a smile as they asked questions on the hoof. A newly arrived officer kept them back at the entrance to the hotel and Macleod let his mask drop. As he entered the lobby, he heard a strong shower begin and was thankful he had missed a soaking, deciding he had two things to do before he slept. A quick call to Jane discovered she was travelling down to Glasgow with Mackintosh the next day and that she had experienced a rough day with the woman. But there was no complaint from her, just concern for him.
And as his last duty for the night, he rapped on Hope’s door. Hope asked who it was.
‘Macleod.’
‘Come in.’
He swung the door open and saw Hope cross legged on the floor with Jona sitting beside her in the same pose. Both sat in pyjamas with their eyes closed. For a moment Macleod did not know where to look as Hope’s informality caught him out again. Neither woman was indecent, but Macleod felt that old standard from his upbringing of a woman not being seen in her bedclothes by anyone but her husband. Today this standard had been tossed to the wind and surely Hope and Jona would think him mad to be embarrassed but he still did feel it, that touch of shame and even naughtiness. Grow up Seoras, come on.
After a minute of silence, Hope uncrossed her legs and stood up. Behind her, Jona unfolded herself, put her dressing gown on and then gave Hope a brief hug. With a quick ‘Sir’, Jona left the room and Hope sat down on her bed directing Macleod to a chair by the dressing table.
‘She okay?’
‘No, but she’s getting there. Are you okay? You look beat.’
‘Weight of the world, McGrath. Search continuing tomorrow then. You got everyone you need.’
‘No,’ said Hope flatly ‘but we have got who we can get so it’ll have to do.’
‘Okay. I just wanted to see you were okay. You were a bit annoyed at me bringing you here. You understand why? Stewart’s investigations are useful, but this is where the focus of the press and the force will be. I need someone experienced to handle the day to day.’
‘I know, Seoras but don’t expect me not to be pissed. I was running my own investigation, and it felt good if scary. But you won’t get complaints from me—you have enough, and Mackintosh is worrying you. You’re actually fond of her despite how you protest about her. Don’t make
that face—it’s not obvious to everyone. I just know you well.’ Macleod felt his face going red. ‘Get to bed, Seoras, busy day tomorrow.’
At three o’clock in the morning, Macleod wandered downstairs to the hotel lobby unable to sleep. He had thought about having a quick walk but one of the heavy showers had come on, so he simply sat in a chair and looked out of the window into the dark vista beyond. Trying to calm his mind, he felt himself drift but then he was seeing Jane’s face; she was beside Mackintosh. And then Ross was asking him why they were staying at this house. Then Jona started saying his fingerprints were over them both. And then Hope placed handcuffs on him.
Waking with a start, Macleod saw the same dark vista his eyes had closed to.
‘Can’t sleep. Me neither.’ He saw Hope in a chair across from him, dressed in a leather jacket and her pyjamas. ‘I was going to take the air but it’s pissing down out there.’
Macleod gave a faint smile and nodded. As he went to speak, Hope’s mobile vibrated. He looked away as she picked it up, but he was keen to know who was calling at three in the morning, it was not her boyfriend Allinson’s way. Hope jumped from her seat, still on the call. Throwing her hand over the mouthpiece she said, ‘Person on Vatersay with a spade. Get the car.’
Macleod walked into the pouring rain and sought out his vehicle. Once inside he started the engine and brought the car to the front of the hotel where Hope jumped in, now dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, covered by the same leather jacket. The headlights lit up the narrow street out of Castlebay and he swung the car hard left onto the road to Vatersay. It was a matter of minutes before they crossed the causeway at Caolas and raced along the coastal road to Traigh Siar where Alasdair MacPhail had been murdered.
As they got close, Macleod saw a police car through the driving rain parked off the road beside another vehicle. Pulling up, Macleod saw an officer beside the car who waved him over.