She thought she was asleep. Her mind was rolling through a field of marshmallows, pastel colours everywhere. Her body floated to the left and to the right, somersaulting in the air before it came to a soft landing, bouncing. Then it took off again, floating towards the light.
She thought she was dead. Dead again.
Bethany was hungry. Could you be dead and hungry? If there was something that she could hold onto, then she’d be able to anchor herself, stay down here and get herself grounded. Then she might be able to think straight. Then when she got to think straight, she’d be able to make sense of it.
But there was no point if she was dead. Was there a solution to being dead? She thought about that for a moment and her aerial self had a laugh at her, a real giggle. Bethany herself was finding it hard to see the funny side.
But if she could think it, then surely she was not dead. Not dead at all.
It was very tiring, staying awake, so she went back to sleep when she could do all her acrobatics without interruption. If she was dead, she’d be bouncing her way to heaven.
Or more likely to hell.
Her unconscious brain was looking for refuge in a safe place because her intellect told her that there was no safe place. They were going to kill her.
Caplan stood in the middle of the room, having stepped over the scattered papers McPhee had knocked on the floor and pulled on her jacket. Her mind was buzzing but she tried to appear calm for the sake of the team, what there was of them. Mackie was doing what most Scottish people do in an emergency. She had put the kettle on.
‘Right, I think we all need to take a moment after that.’ She rubbed her forehead in circling movements with her fingers. They were one man down now. Okay, he hadn’t been paying much attention but at least he had been here. ‘As to the allegations made against him, it appears that Carrie-Louise had a broken cheekbone. I have brought the Domestic Abuse Investigation Unit’s attention to Callum’s recent medical history and requested a full tox screen on him. We’ve all been cops long enough to know that none of us knows what goes on behind closed doors. But all my instincts tell me that the DAIU have the situation wrong. They’ll interview us, hopefully sooner rather than later. We’ll respond professionally. I feel like some fresh air.’ She sighed. ‘I’ll be back in a mo.’
‘But can we do anything to help?’ asked Mackie.
‘We can’t interfere. I’ll be back in five minutes.’
She zipped up her jacket and went out to sit in the car, the wind tugging the door from her grasp. Then she called Henderson’s Garage, introducing herself and asking to speak to somebody in charge. The phone was put down and the sound of their radio playing Taylor Swift reached her ears. The call was transferred, quiet, then a voice said, ‘Wo?’
She introduced herself, said it was off the record but did they know if they’d sold a silver Octavia, 19 plate, partial number was …
‘Grey.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Grey, not silver. Hang on a mo.’ She heard typing.
‘Yeah, I can tell you exactly who I sold that to. Not a problem, is there?’
There was something in the way he said it, his tone; a pride that had sold a car to a very respectable member of the community, a fear that something had gone wrong with it. By the time he said the name it was no surprise to her at all.‘What do you have, Craigo? Please make it good.’ Caplan took the green tea proffered by Mackie and walked into her office, lifting something from the printer. She looked at it and nodded to herself. Craigo trotted in behind the others.
‘I’ve the history here of Andrew John Deayton Pottie.’
‘Yes, his body was found in Clatteringshaws, Dumfries and Galloway? May 2020?’
‘Yes. He has a friend called Spudboy, sorry, Spudbam. Here’s a photo, ma’am.’
‘I’m familiar with that. It’s the one on the wall.’
‘Spudbam tells us the recent history. Andy had started with the same talk we’ve read in the other reports, hitting the big time, leaving all this shite, sorry ma’am, behind. He’d packed his worldly goods into the patient clothing bag he’d brought home from the hospital. And left. He didn’t say where he was going.’
‘They never do, do they?’
‘He wouldn’t say in case the others wanted a bit of it too, without saying what “it” was. When asked what sort of thing might attract Pottie, Spudbam had answered cash and girls, that was about it.’
‘And his meds?’
‘He took them wi’ him.’ Craigo nodded.
‘He lived in a bedsit, though?’
‘Loch Lomond Centre. It’s supervised bedsits and near the Heatherbank Raptor Rescue.’ The beady eyes twinkled.
‘Really, so birds of prey? Do we have a list of who else was there? I know residents will be hard to track down but ask the local nick first. It’s not so long ago. These victims have a scattered life. The only constant is their residential environment, and somebody dangerous is common to these sites.’
‘PUPS.’
‘PUPS?’ Caplan’s headache got worse.
‘Pickup points. The place where we think they came into contact with their abductor.’
‘Is there a common link?’
‘Not yet, but we haven’t started looking.’
‘Yes, I know. Go through them one by one. The Lomond? Get Pordini to do that. You can do the Revolve. Ask the local stations about the Blueberry Centre, the Gretal Rooms and the Ashtown Community Unit. In particular we’re looking for anyone who volunteered there before our victim went missing and – and this is the important bit – left shortly afterwards. Never to return. I don’t expect the list to be comprehensive but it’s a move in the right direction. I have a photo from the Revolve that might help.
‘Find out who owned the place, who cleaned it. Who the odd-job man was. The window cleaner. The addiction counsellor. I’m hoping to hear about more funding today, so the workload was going to drop, but with Callum missing …’ She noticed Craigo was still waiting. ‘What else do you have?’
‘Mackie’s got the same for Ardman.’ Craigo went to open his next file. ‘Let’s do that next door.’
They walked back into the incident room. The few members of the team present shuffled round to face the big board. The floor was still a sea of white and blue paper.
‘I’ll get somebody to pick it up,’ said Caplan.
‘Well, I’m not bloody doing it,’ said Mackie.
Craigo’s eye met Caplan’s. He gave a gentle shrug and looked away.
Mackie took the floor. ‘I’ve been on the trail of Nikolas Kane Ardman. He was last known at the Fairmount Hotel, called Castle Grayskull by locals because the residents are mostly heroin addicts. Kylie Innes worked there in those days. She wears a black hoodie and smokes like a wood-burner. Can’t say that she was interested in talking to me. She knew Nik was dead and that was the end of that. He went missing nearly seven years ago and stayed at Grayskull for two years before that, on and off. Nobody was surprised when he went off again. This time, obviously, he never came back.’
‘And she remembered him well, amongst so many others?’ clarified Caplan.
‘He’s the only one found dead in a Dark Sky forest.’ Mackie’s eyes twinkled. Then she continued. ‘Anyway, Kylie was saying that there are some at Fairmount who have lost their job, can’t pay the rent, their family breaks up and they can’t negotiate their way through the system. So, eviction, homeless, then they get to Grayskull, gather themselves, get sorted, move to a flat, get back on their feet; a passing nightmare in an otherwise normal life. They’ve known normality so they know how to get back there. Ardman was, quote, “born into shit and will die in shit”. His only ambition was self-destruction. Kylie concluded that Ardman was an unpleasant little shit, a smart-arsed, thieving little monkey, a taker and a waste of oxygen.’
‘Not on her Christmas card list then?’
‘Like Revolve, volunteers run courses to help residents read and write and help them with documentation. She then said that the university students are the worst volunteers as they know they are going back to uni, in pursuit of their six-figure salary ambitions …’
‘No bitterness there.’
‘She then mentioned Bethany, by name, as an example of exactly that, which I thought was interesting.’
‘Did she now?’
‘Yeah, she’s been following the story. Nik manipulated the newbie volunteers, the ones who thought they could not only show the vulnerable the right road but could force them to go down it. Nik was heading for a bottle of vodka a day. Had been since he was thirteen.’
‘He left at what, nineteen?’
‘Stole somebody’s rucksack and he was away. It sounded like he had somewhere to go. Again, Ardman didn’t say anything outright, it was a big secret and they were supposed to be jealous. Sound familiar?’
‘Good bait, offering a way out of the mess.’
‘There was a scam going, ma’am, where youngsters, ten years old or thereabouts, start running drugs round town. They’ll be attacked and their drugs stolen. Then their superiors accuse them of stealing the drugs or selling them on themselves, and, after much consideration, the wee guy, or girl, is offered the opportunity to earn it back rather than getting a brick over the genitals. That often takes them into the sex industry.’
‘What, getting a brick over the genitals?’ asked Craigo.
‘Instead of, not as well as. And Nik was a handsome lad who looked younger. Kylie couldn’t explain why he ended up dead, but she guessed organised crime.’
‘Was he close to anybody?’
‘He was too much of a user to make friends. The staff saw it as their job to protect the other residents from him. He was predatory. But here’s the interesting bit. He did get close to one female volunteer, older, kind of a mother figure. She could tell him to fuck off and he did. I asked Kylie for a name but she couldn’t remember. But she said it was a short name.’
‘Okay.’ Caplan nodded as they all looked at the board. ‘That’s another mention of a female they got close to. Can you get a description?’
Craigo scratched his chin. ‘Do you know that vampire bats will feed those they are not related to?’
‘No, I didn’t know that, Craigo,’ said Caplan, wearily.
‘Well, ma’am, it’s a concept of friendship, isn’t it? Who did Nik here share his voddy with? We all have a degree of friendship.’
‘He was an obnoxious shit,’ shrugged Mackie.
‘Thank you for that insight. Is that all?’
‘One more thing. There was somebody else interviewing Kylie recently about Ardman. That might be a good lead for me to follow. About two, maybe three, months ago.’
‘Get a description, then show her a picture of Rachel Ghillies, before she was ill. I bet it was her.’
Mackie looked rather crestfallen. ‘Kylie did say she was plain clothes, female, short dark hair with a face like a bag of spanners.’
Craigo took a quick call on his mobile as all eyes turned to look at the photograph of Rachel Ghillies that was up on the wall. She was smiling but there was no warmth there.
‘Was she asking anything in particular?’
‘Nothing much, just general, same as I was.’
‘Ardman’s life trajectory was only going in one direction. DS Craigo, I see you’ve been very busy with … bits of paper?’
They all looked towards the two sheets of A1 paper the sergeant had sellotaped together and stuck on the wall. And for a moment Caplan was back in Glasgow, in a huge incident room with tablets, smartboards and laser pointers, colleagues in good suits and a wall full of screens and monitors. Here she was with McPhee, arrested, and Craigo with his creased trousers, flicking his fringe over his bald spot and holding a drumstick to use as a pointer, waiting for her to say it was his turn to speak, like she was the class teacher.
‘So, we are in Pulpit Hill Park, the last seen of Bethany. Thirty-five minutes walk, a bit less as she’s fit and young. The paths are designated by the blue lines.’ He pointed to them as if his small attentive audience was afflicted by colour blindness. ‘The swing park, the bike park, the small pond.’ He pointed at each in turn.
‘I fell on my bum there when I was wee, gave my brains a right rattle,’ said Mackie, then she pointed at several matchstick shapes, looking puzzled.
Caplan realised they represented dogs, complete with directional arrows. They covered the paper, giants out of scale. In the middle of the drawing was a stick girl, looking like she was about to be crushed by a bunch of celery.
‘This is Bethany, seen at around half three. I’ve plotted the movement of the dogs, not the people, as people notice dogs more. Come and look at the footage we have so far, and remember that we’ve no phone-camera footage as yet, only that from the two security cameras that cover this bit of the park.’
They stood round the monitor and Craigo guided them with outstretched arms, like a maiden aunt shepherding young children to sit round the fire after being out in the cold.
‘It’s interesting, ma’am.’
Caplan was tired, she had a lot to do. She sighed inwardly, trying to keep her focus on Craigo and whatever had piqued his interest, ignoring her concerns about McPhee. She’d asked Craigo to do it, the least she could do was look interested.
‘We’ve spent most of the night looking over the film again, ma’am, trying to see where she was going, where we see her for the last time. She never left the park, ma’am. This is Bethany Robertson going home, we’re looking at 3.23 here. We’ve seen her going in, she’s strolling through, her normal routine.
‘You see a Border collie run for that frisbee. A jogger goes past. This old guy has been sitting on that bench.’
‘That’s Stan that is. He’s just out the pub, I bet.’
‘And is that the blue bag across her back? Is she the one who pats that wee dog?’
‘It looks like it, ma’am. Her direct path home takes her close to this small wooded area, a large heavily leafed rhododendron and a few small trees. Very thick foliage there, dense shrubs, lovely thick blooms even at this time of year. Fortunei Discolor. They are an invasive species, ma’am, and they …’
‘Do we see her beyond the wooded area? Where’s the wee green van you were talking about?’
‘It’s not visible.’
‘It’s not there or not visible?’
‘Not visible. It drives in and at 4.15 it drives out. We might see better on any phone footage that comes in. And that is Bethany. Lochran was sure. He knows the Shivonne girl and says she walks “like a navvie”. His words.
‘The specialists from Govan gave us a hand, they looked at all the footage overnight. They spotted this guy.’ Craigo tapped the screen. ‘This chap here is a person of interest. I think he’s the road sweeper.’
‘What’s he doing?’
‘Sweeping.’
‘But he would have been there for a while,’ said Caplan. ‘She went into the park about half past three, broad daylight. What did he see?’
‘You can ask him. He’s in reception. That phone call was that he’s arrived.’
‘Do you want me to interview him now?’ asked Caplan.
‘Well, he’s chatting to Stewart, having a cup of tea and a Hobnob.’ Craigo looked back at his pad. ‘The helpline number has asked for all mobile-phone footage of anybody that was present.’
‘This was a public park. Surely nobody can be snatched like that. The park is not huge,’ said Caplan, then answered her own question. ‘Not so long ago, a woman was killed in a big park in Glasgow. There were dog walkers everywhere, lots of people saw it, nobody realised what was going on. A couple sitting is a couple sitting. A scream is somebody larking about. A scuffle in the bushes is God knows what. The human brain doesn’t suddenly jump to abduction. Anything from the search of the park?’
Nobody said anything.
Caplan coughed. ‘We’ll revisit the search results later. Let’s go back to the film.’
They sat, paying close attention to the screen as the video advanced frame by frame, the little dog running towards the camera, his tongue out the corner of his mouth and his ears flapping. Then he disappeared into the rhododendron bush.
‘Was that dog attracted by something in the bushes? Go through the statements again, see if anything was going on in there. From the feathers, it was probably an injured bird. We might think about doing a reconstruction tomorrow; ask everybody to be where they were the day she was taken. Do we know anything about that green van?’
‘Nothing and it was …’
Stewart interrupted their train of thought, knocking on the door and telling Caplan that she was wanted in her office right now by DDC McEwan.
Caplan ignored him and handed Mackie a small, printed picture. ‘Find Tiggerdean. Here’s a tenner. Ask him if that’s the bloke he saw.’
‘DCI Caplan?’ called Stewart, louder.
‘Yes, I hear you.’
Mackie’s eyes widened. ‘Are you sure?’
‘No, that’s why I want you to ask Tiggerdean.’
‘Maybe, ma’am, if we had a look at this? It’s important.’ Mackie pointed at the laptop showing a still from a video posted on Facebook of Shiv and Bethany at the seafront with a view of the road behind.
Caplan almost whispered. ‘If that shows what I think it shows, then it goes no further than this room.’ She turned to Stewart. ‘Tell McEwan I’ll call him back.’
‘Zoom call, ma’am, and they want you now.’
‘Tell him five minutes. Tell him it will be worth his while. And close the door behind you.’ She waited until Stewart had slunk from the room.
‘Can you run the video, Craigo? Whose Facebook page was it from?’
‘Shivonne’s. This was our second look at it.’
They stood round the single monitor and watched a few minutes of footage lifted from the social media account. Shiv and Bethany larking around. Shiv very alive, the prankster. Bethany the one being pulled along by the arm. The clip ended with the two of them on the beach, shoeless. Bethany’s trousers were turned up neatly at the bottom, Shiv didn’t seem to care if she got her clothes soaking wet as they went running into and out of the waves, laughing. Caplan asked for Craigo to put the sound up so she could hear their voices, hear who was holding the phone. Shiv pointed to the phone, and said something like look behind you.
‘That sounds like Tiggerdean,’ said Mackie, listening to the reply.
The phone spun round showing the beach, the row of houses, the sea wall and then landed on the face of a Newfoundland out on his walk. A disembodied hand appeared and ruffled the dog’s forehead. A woman walked into view. There was a simple conversation about wet dogs and weather. But in the background was the road and a grey car parked there. A Skoda Octavia. They could see the rear of the car and an outline of somebody sitting in it. Caplan noticed the number plate was dirty. Deliberately so?
Craigo pressed pause and tapped the screen. ‘It might be worth getting this back to Glasgow to see if their tech boys can clean it up. But if that’s a grey Skoda, not silver, then look who is in the driver’s seat. The passenger window is open.’ Craigo gave another tap on the screen and the driver turned slightly. Even the profile within the car was recognisable as he leaned to look out of the passenger window. ‘He’s watching her.’
Mackie muttered, ‘Shit and fireballs of hell.’
‘Not a surprise to you, ma’am?’ asked Craigo.
‘No, but keep it quiet. That’s an order. I’ll tell you when we can go public. Social media on this can be a runaway train. We keep our mouths shut.’
DCC McEwan placed his hands on the desk, knife edge creases down his shirt sleeves, silver cufflinks on display.
While Linden leaned her elbow on her desk, Caplan sat with perfect dancer’s posture, all her attention to the screen. She might need McEwan onside for McPhee’s sake but she kept quiet; the DCC was angry. He ranted for a few minutes about the amount of work he had to do, and how his life was easier when Rory Ghillies wasn’t on the phone complaining about the conduct of some members of the MIT.
Linden looked at her fingernails. ‘To be precise, Rory Ghillies is up for an OBE. It’s a bit weird that he initiates an investigation but when we ask him any questions about it, he comes running to you.’
‘He went to Oban first. His contact wasn’t there. So he got in touch with you, Christine.’ McEwan rolled his eyes. ‘Where’s Bethany?’
‘Funnily enough, we don’t know!’ said Linden, heavy on the sarcasm.
‘Caplan?’ asked McEwan. ‘You do know who you’re dealing with here?’
‘Yes. I’m dealing with a twenty-one-year-old missing woman, a twenty-year-old missing woman who could be considered vulnerable, and another three, four, five bodies that could be linked.’
‘I’ve heard this rumour, Christine. Nobody caused their deaths. There was no connection. End of.’
‘Oh yes, there is,’ whispered Linden, leaning forward so her face filled the screen. ‘You need to be very careful here, Andrew.’
‘Somebody was looking for Rory’s DNA on the database. That could hit the papers tomorrow. I can’t allow that to go unpunished.’
‘Then I suggest you sack the person who committed that breach of confidence,’ said Linden.
‘DCI Caplan, did you do it?’ McEwan fired the question at her.
‘I did,’ said Linden.
‘What?’ McEwan erupted.
‘I didn’t order his DNA. I enquired if it was still on the database. All service personnel have their DNA listed for exclusion purposes but Rory’s retired. Did his DNA leave the database when he left the service? It’s not unreasonable that his DNA could be found on Bethany’s belongings because he was at her house on Friday night. Imagine we were celebrating to the media that we had a DNA sample from an unknown source, a stranger at the scene. Imagine the embarrassment when it turned out to be ex-DCC Ghillies. He has a distant relative still in the service, in Edinburgh. It would have tracked back to Rory eventually.’
‘Have you found a DNA sample?’
‘The bag we found at what we think is the abduction scene could yield something. We have a witness who I was about to interview before you called,’ said Caplan.
McEwan sat back, then threw the pen down on the table, more in resignation than anything else. ‘Okay, off the record, what’s going on here?’
Linden remained quiet so Caplan spoke. ‘Not sure yet, but there’s something. And, well, it’s starting to look like the top brass are stonewalling us. There needs to be complete and transparent cooperation. The bodies have been found in Dark Sky sites. Robertson, the misper’s dad, has books in his house on that subject.’
‘As do I.’
‘Sir, if I can speak freely. We are connecting Bethany’s disappearance with the rest of these incidents. It feels the same; vulnerable people taken from their place of support, then found months, weeks, later in a Dark Sky site, with similar injuries.’
‘Bethany Robertson was not vulnerable,’ argued McEwan.
‘She was volunteering at the Revolve Centre.’ Caplan held up her picture of Shiv, the Instagram image of the young woman with auburn hair. ‘Look at her, look at Bethany. Would you know them apart from the back, from a distance? They had started dressing like each other. Shiv had dyed her hair red. Bethany was wearing a headscarf like Shiv’s. Bethany’s a lot more troubled than her father will have us believe. Robertson was spying on his daughter. He was scared for her. She keeps her boyfriend secret. Why? Dad wouldn’t approve. The boyfriend, we think, drives a family car, an Octavia. You see where I might be going with that.’
‘What does Rory drive these days?’ asked McEwan.
‘A Lexus,’ answered Caplan honestly. ‘Why did you ask, sir? Did Rory Ghillies jump to your mind? Does he have some kind of reputation that it might be useful for us to know about?’
For a moment their eyes locked over the ether.
‘Am I missing something here?’ asked Linden.
‘There’s an Octavia registered to Rachel Ghillies. I suspect it’s still in the garage up on Cruitten Glen Heights. I think Mr Ghillies uses that car to pick up Bethany on a Wednesday morning and God knows at what other time. I’m asking you, Sir, if you think he’s the kind of man who would be involved with a woman so many years his junior. Or is this an innocent, if clandestine, routine they have?’
‘Fuck,’ said Linden. ‘Andrew, have you heard rumours?’
McEwan was quiet for a long time, tapping his forefinger against his chin.
‘You’re not jumping to his defence,’ said Caplan.
‘It’s unsavoury but not a crime. They’re both consenting adults. Any further allegation needs evidence. If you feel you have evidence then please, go ahead. Good work. You’re thinking there’s a connection between Dark Sky sites and the safe houses for the vulnerable. The volunteers are part of it and Rachel Ghillies had made the connection?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘Something that she was very clear she wanted kept from her husband.’
Caplan wished the meeting had been face to face. She dearly wanted to read Linden’s expression. McEwan was telling them something without actually saying it.
‘I presume linking the car registered to his wife as being used by him to meet our victim is reason enough to pull him in and interview him?’ asked Caplan.
‘I’d leave it, Chris,’ said Linden. ‘He’s not going anywhere. You have a weapon there. And he’ll talk his way out of it. She’s not around to give her side of the story is she? I’d leave him to hang himself.’
Caplan looked at McEwan.
‘I tend to agree with ACC Linden. For operational reasons, you keep that up your sleeve.’ McEwan made a face that resembled a smirk.
‘How many are on the list you are working on now, excluding Bethany Robertson and Shivonne McDougall?’
‘Ardman, Pottie, Glen Douglas, Welsh maybe, Stratton.’
‘Lisa Stratton? Up near Tyndrum? I recall that case. She wasn’t vulnerable in any way.’
‘She was helping out at a foodbank.’
‘Didn’t she work for a building firm? An accountant?’
‘A PA. Fayer’s Construction.’
‘Well, ladies, the police service nowadays is all about transparency.’ McEwan smiled, a curve forming in his tight lips. ‘And how hard have you looked at Lisa Stratton? Where she worked, her life?’ It was a question of encouragement.
‘Her disappearance and the subsequent finding of her body was investigated at the time. She worked in an office which she left on the 6th January 2022. Her phone says she nearly got home then the phone stops dead. She disappeared into thin air. She was found in May of the same year. Rachel had already connected her with the rest of them, otherwise we would not have noticed her at all. The profile was wrong. It’s still wrong,’ Caplan said.
‘Have you considered there might be two things going on here? Abduction and murder of service users. Then the abduction of two intelligent young women.’
‘We don’t have funding as yet to open up the former cases. I’m not stepping away from Robertson if we think he’s involved,’ said Caplan.
‘Of course not. And don’t step away from Ghillies if you think that he’s involved either. Or as well. Linden, you are wanted upstairs. Best of luck with the funding. The decision won’t take long.’