The van pulled to a halt and after a few seconds Jock Henderson unfolded his ungainly body from the car. His movements reminded McKay of someone struggling to erect a deckchair. ‘Morning, Jock. Looks like the old band are back together again.’
Henderson regarded him with apparent bafflement, as if he were unsure why McKay’s presence was merited. ‘Always the old buggers like us who draw the short straw on public holidays, isn’t it?’
‘I’d say so,’ McKay said. ‘Let the youngsters enjoy a day with the kids.’
‘I’m told this is an interesting one.’
‘There’s our body.’ McKay gestured towards the tree.
The morning was growing lighter, though it was still gloomy under the heavy clouds. Henderson peered where McKay was pointing and raised his eyebrows. ‘Bloody hell.’
‘Quite.’
‘That’s going to take some getting down.’
‘I imagine it took some getting up, too. Story of your life, Jock.’
Henderson ignored him. ‘I take it you’ve called for backup?’
‘Cavalry’s on its way. Though may take a while. I assumed you’d want to do your stuff on the scene before it’s disturbed getting the body down.’
Henderson regarded McKay for a moment. ‘You know, Alec, if you stay in this job long enough you might finally learn how to do it. You’re showing real promise.’
‘Trailing in your wake, Jock.’
‘Okay.’ Henderson sighed. ‘I’ve got Pete Carrick coming out to assist, but I can make a start while we wait for him.’
‘You are spoiling us,’ McKay said. ‘Laurel and Hardy. We’re honoured.’
‘Bugger off, Alec.’
Satisfied he’d finally got a rise out of Henderson, McKay allowed the other man to get on with his work. He’d no doubt wait till Carrick and other support arrived before doing any of the heavy lifting in terms of erecting the crime scene tent. For the moment, Henderson was contenting himself with photographing the body and the surrounding area.
Despite their long-standing and semi-serious antagonism, McKay regarded Henderson with respect. The man was undoubtedly good at his job, with years of experience and an almost obsessive attention to detail. Henderson had almost no imagination, but that was probably a strength in the role. McKay had seen plenty of unpleasant things in the course of his career, but rarely had to really get up close and personal with any of that. McKay was never sure how the examiners dealt with what they witnessed, but they seemed to fall into two broad categories. Some, like Jock Henderson, were dour and gloomy. Others – and Pete Carrick was a perfect example – were jovial and apparently light-hearted, responding to their experiences with a distinctive graveyard humour.
McKay turned and stared out at the sea. He assumed the sun was fully risen now, but other than a slight lightening of the clouds there were no obvious signs of it. It was still bloody cold, a biting wind sweeping in from the firth. He could taste the snow in the air, and knew there’d be a further fall in the course of the day. That would make their job here even harder.
McKay had little doubt how difficult the job would be in any case. In any murder case, the priority was to kick off the investigation as quickly as possible, make best use of the hours before the evidence decayed and witnesses’ memories grew less reliable. The opportunities to do that on Christmas Day would be limited, even if he could accrue sufficient resources to get things moving.
More cars were arriving behind him. Another marked car and a civilian vehicle had pulled up by Henderson’s van. McKay walked back, preparing to greet the new arrivals. The marked cars contained two more uniformed PCs, whom McKay directed to helping seal off the crime scene. The second car belonged to Josh Carlisle.
‘Morning, Josh. Thought you’d be opening your presents.’
‘Can’t say I was all that popular with Katy this morning.’ It took McKay a moment to recall that Katy was Carlisle’s girlfriend. ‘Luckily I’d bought her a decent present or two this year, so I’m not completely in the doghouse.’
McKay could never quite imagine Carlisle in a relationship. He couldn’t even quite shake off the idea that Carlisle was still a schoolboy who’d somehow managed to sneak into an adult job. ‘Buggers don’t seem to give any thought for me or you when they get themselves murdered. Mind you, don’t know how much we’ll be able to get done today.’
Carlisle’s attention had clearly been caught finally by the sight of the murder victim. ‘Holy shit,’ he said. ‘Is that him?’
‘No, Josh,’ McKay said wearily. ‘That’s a spare corpse we brought along just in case we were short. Of course that’s him. Can you hold the fort here for a few minutes? I want to make a few phone calls.’
‘Anything particular you want me to do?’
‘Not for the moment. Just help the uniforms to keep the scene secure. Stop any curious locals from poking their noses in. I’m surprised we haven’t had more dog walkers already. I’d have thought that a place like this would be crawling with them, even on Christmas morning.’
He left Carlisle gazing in wonder at Forres’s body and made his way back to his car. His main task was to get someone working on getting things set up back in the office. One question was whether they should set this up as a new enquiry or link it to the existing murder investigation. Ultimately, that decision was above his pay grade, but it might affect the decisions he made today.
On the face of it, there was nothing to connect the two killings, other than that they’d taken place a few miles from one another. The circumstances were different, as were the nature of the killings. But the similarities troubled McKay. Both murders were bizarre, and in both cases the killers had gone to unnecessary lengths. McKay’s gut was telling him not to treat the two cases as distinct, but he had no real evidence to support that view.
There was one further task he needed to carry out before getting started on the administrative stuff. It was perhaps time that he disturbed Ginny Horton after all. He dialled her number.
‘Morning, Ginny.’
‘Morning, Alec. I’m guessing this isn’t good news.’
‘Not really. But I’m not asking you to disturb your day off. Well, not much anyway.’
‘Go on.’
He told her about the discovery of Hamish Forres’s body, and the grotesque nature of Forres’s death. ‘Not ideal for Christmas morning,’ he concluded.
‘That’s one way of putting it. You’re sure it’s Forres?’
‘Pretty sure. Obviously, it’s hard to do a formal identification when the body’s suspended ten feet up in a tree. But I don’t have much doubt it’s him.’
‘Christ. I’d assumed we were past the point where he would turn up safe and sound, but I didn’t quite envisage he’d be found like that.’
‘I don’t think anyone would have expected that, Ginny.’
‘Do you want me to come over?’
‘No, I want you to take the rest of the day off as planned. There’s only going to be a limited amount we can do today, so you might as well get your break. But there is one thing you could do for me.’
‘Happy to help.’
‘I’m going to arrange for someone to break the news to Forres’s son. I’ll do it through Edinburgh so they can see him face-to-face. Again, not exactly what anyone wants on Christmas Day, but there’s no alternative. It occurred to me someone ought to tell Billy McCann too. I know what it’s like when you’re working a missing persons case and it ends up like this – although admittedly not many end up quite like this. I’d rather he heard the news from a friendly voice than just off the log or through formal channels.’
‘This must be the new sensitive Alec McKay I keep hearing about,’ Horton said. ‘Okay, I’ll track down Billy and let him know. Don’t know if he was scheduled to be on duty today but the ops room will have his number.’
‘Thanks. It’ll come better from you.’
‘If you say so. You sure you don’t want me to come out?’
‘No. I’ll get what I can moving today and we can take it from there.’
‘I take it you’ve told Helena.’
‘Oh, aye, and I told her not to come out as well.’
‘How did she feel about taking orders from you?’
‘Funnily enough, on this occasion she seemed happy to accept it.’
‘How did she sound?’ Horton asked.
‘It’s not a concept I really understand, but otherwise I’d say she sounded happy.’
‘Well, that’s good. We should all be happy at Christmas.’
‘I’ll remember that as I sit here at the edge of the world staring at a dangling corpse while having my arse frozen off by gale-force winds from the North Sea.’
‘You have to get your kicks where you can, Alec. You love this kind of thing. It’s what you live for.’
‘I just like to do my job. Speaking of which…’
‘Okay. I’ll break the news to McCann. And you’ve got to let me know if you need me to come in.’
‘Enjoy your Christmas, Ginny. All the best to Isla.’
He ended the call before she could respond. Across the waterfront, a couple more marked cars were arriving, disgorging uniformed PCs. A year or so before, he’d have been nervous about leaving Josh Carlisle to deal with them, but the young lad had matured considerably since then, partly because of some of the professional challenges he’d faced.
McKay dialled back to headquarters and began setting up the infrastructure needed to deal with this new investigation. He’d decided that for the moment he’d treat it as part of the ongoing enquiry, if only because that meant much of what was required was already in place. He could discuss it with Helena when she returned and they might ultimately conclude differently, but for now he was inclined to make best use of the limited resources available.
Once he was satisfied that everything was under way, he climbed out of the car and stood watching the activity ahead of him. A second examiner’s van had arrived and a group of PCs were erecting the crime scene tent. Jock Henderson had been joined by Pete Carrick, and they were working on the area beneath the tree from which the body was still hanging.
McKay approached Josh Carlisle. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Not so bad, considering. This bunch seem to have an idea what they’re doing. Henderson and Carrick are just finishing what they can do with the immediate site before we start trying to get the body down.’
‘That should be entertaining.’
‘We were wondering about involving the fire brigade. It might be needed, but they’re going to give it a go themselves first. Jock Henderson’s keen that we should do as little damage as possible to the body or even the rope.’
‘I bet he is. I bet he’s not offered to give you a hand either. Not that I’m offering either. Benefits of rank.’ He looked past Carlisle at another car pulling up. A stooped figure climbed out and regarded the scene gloomily. ‘Looks like the cavalry’s arrived. Our friend, Willy Ingram.’
Ingram was one of the crime scene managers, a DS with countless years’ experience of organising scenes of this nature. Although even Ingram wouldn’t previously have encountered one of quite this nature, McKay had asked for Ingram specifically, partly because he knew Ingram was one of the safest pairs of hands and partly because he couldn’t imagine Ingram would have had much else on, even on Christmas morning. He was a man largely devoid of social skills. Rumour had it that he was married, but no one had met his wife, and McKay had occasionally suspected she might be fictitious. Ingram seemed primarily married to the job. McKay guessed that if Ingram’s wife was now spending Christmas Day alone, she might be glad of the lightening of the mood.
‘Willy,’ he said. ‘You’re a welcome sight.’
Ingram nodded acknowledgement. ‘Alec.’ He offered no further response.
‘Interesting one, this, Willy.’
‘Aye?’ Ingram sounded as if the concept was unknown to him. ‘Well, I’m sure I can keep it all under control.’
‘I’ll leave it in your safe hands. I’m heading back to HQ. Give me a call when you’ve got things sorted so I can plan next steps.’
Ingram nodded vaguely and walked over to consult with the examiners. McKay turned to Carlisle. ‘Reckon you might as well bugger off for the moment, Josh. Go and enjoy Christmas with Katy. There’s not much more we can do here for the moment.’
‘Sure you don’t want me to give you a hand?’
‘Are you not keen on spending time with Katy, son? If so you probably ought to break the news to her sooner rather than later.’
Carlisle looked affronted. ‘Of course I am. Just trying to be helpful.’
McKay grinned. ‘I’m only joking. But, seriously, you’ve caught me on one of my rare good days. Take advantage of it and bugger off. And a Merry Christmas to one and all.’