Valentine felt the blood stiffening in his veins as he drove towards Monkton. It was suppressed anger, the type that tightened in the chest and constricted around the heart muscle. When he had returned to active duty, after a forlorn stint at the police training college in Tulliallan, he had been warned about these episodes by a doctor. All stress was bad, always, in his condition. However there was no way of avoiding stress; it was as much a part of the human experience as breathing, but knowing this only increased his problem. It was like conceding to Clare that the very reason she was confronting him – though he’d rebuffed it – was in fact true.
Clare knew, perhaps even better than he did himself, that Valentine was no longer fit for purpose. When the visions had begun, he’d questioned his sanity and that had remained his overriding preoccupation, until only very recently. However, now that he was beyond the questioning phase and nearing acceptance, his mind was latching onto other issues.
Valentine had started to notice his own deterioration: the grey hairs at his temples, the creeping of the notches on his belt, and a sundry collection of aches and pains that seemed to be multiplying daily. There had been an internet meme he’d spotted a short time ago that showed a middle-aged tradesman holding up a cardboard sign reading: ‘Only someone that spent all day in an office could think working past 70 was an option.’ Valentine had stared at the picture and wept inwardly because he knew only too well that there were limits to human endurance. He didn’t long to be put out to pasture like some old pit pony though, because he knew he wouldn’t last long enough to see the green grass. The job had shortened his life, but his life was the job. At some unforeseen point on the horizon the two lines would converge and cancel each other out; he just hoped that by then he’d done enough to make a difference to those who mattered.
Bouncing light from a low, receding sun breached the road and put a harsh glare on the windscreen. The buildings of Ayr looked shrunken under the broad and cloudless sky. Huddling together behind a bleached, hazy screen that shimmered along the roadside, stark towers rising and falling, before disappearing as the car sped along.
Driving was like walking, thought Valentine, you picked up and put down thoughts as you went. He made a half-smile as his thinking began to coalesce around the day’s more pressing events. There was a young girl, abused and pregnant, whose life had been taken. That was his priority. Everything else was just unwanted chatter inside his mind; he was the hunter here and that meant keeping his focus on the prey.
As the DCI pulled into the entrance to the Sutherland estate a police Land Rover was slowly crossing the gravel scree that butted a high grass verge. Two uniformed officers in hi-vis vests were sitting in the back of the vehicle, carefully delineating the road’s edge by dropping a row of yellow cones.
He spied McCormack’s car ahead. She’d parked in front of a grand building that could accurately be described as neoclassical but to Valentine was only ever going to be seen as pretentious at best, intimidating at worst.
A delicate knock sounded on the driver’s-side window.
‘Hello, sir.’ McCormack had a bundle of blue folders under her arm that she was feeding into a black leather satchel. The wind took her hair, which responded by whipping her face.
‘Bit blowy out,’ said Valentine, exiting the Audi.
McCormack seemed unfazed, clicking the lock on the satchel. ‘No sign of Sutherland yet, I’m afraid.’ She pointed towards the end of the cone trail, where the gravel driveway ended. ‘We’re heading this way.’
As they walked, the path petered off into a bridleway that appeared to be well trodden. Deep declivities, filled with water, made their progress difficult, causing them to shimmy round the worst of the muddy pools. By the time the wall was in sight Valentine was cursing the state of his shoes.
‘I’ve got wellies in the boot,’ he said. ‘You should have told me it was this bad.’
‘Sorry, boss. Uniform have been trooping through here all day, it’s worse than I expected.’
By the edge of the wall, the detective’s attention had shifted again. ‘Is it me or does that wall look higher from this side?’
‘It is higher, at least five feet or so,’ said McCormack, pointing to the wall’s base that was coming into view, though still obscured slightly by the land’s incline. ‘Look, there’s a pit this side.’
‘What in the name of Christ?’ Valentine halted on the edge of the pit that skirted the wall, running the full length of the perimeter. ‘Who digs a pit inside their property?’
‘Someone who doesn’t want you to get out.’
The DCI peered down the line of the wall, then returned his gaze to McCormack. He shook his head before speaking again. ‘When I was a lad they used to have broken glass cemented into the top of the wall at the footy ground.’
‘I bet they don’t have it now.’
‘No, we don’t have ducking stools either.’ He walked up and down, staring into the steep pit. ‘No leaves or twigs, nothing cluttering it up.’
‘It looks to be well maintained. Someone’s keeping it clear anyway.’
The detective turned back to the route they were walking. ‘Lead on, Sylvia.’
‘This way, boss.’ The sound of a passenger jet drowned out her voice, causing her to shout. ‘The ladder was found just up ahead.’
‘That plane’s low. We must be virtually on the runway.’
‘Yes, I discovered there’s an access point too – it’s a private road between the Laverock depot and the estate.’
‘Cuts the morning commute, I suppose,’ said Valentine. ‘Not so sure I’d be that keen on mixing business with pleasure, though.’
‘No, kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’
‘It does indeed, Sylvia.’
The officers continued walking. Valentine allowed his new observations room to percolate. ‘Is Phil at the scene?’
‘No, he’s interviewing those teenagers he mentioned at the briefing.’
‘The ones that were caught trespassing?’
‘That’s them, yes.’
‘Well, I hope he’s not bribing them with a few bottles of Buckie.’
McCormack laughed. ‘I looked at the file on them – they all seemed a bit feral – and you just never know with Phil.’
‘What about Ian?’ Valentine corrected himself, ‘Oh, don’t answer that, I see him now.’
DI Davis was holding a small, clear plastic bag up to the light. Beside him a stocky man in a hoodie and red Adidas track-pants was furtively talking into a mobile phone. Even as he examined the little bag, Davis seemed to be keeping one eye on the other man.
As the officers approached Davis broke away and stepped towards the others. ‘Hello, sir,’ he said. ‘DI McCormack, good to see you.’
‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ said Valentine.
Davis handed over the plastic bag. ‘Have a look for yourself.’
Valentine took the bag and turned it over in his hand. ‘Looks like those things you get on women’s dresses, the fancy ones.’
‘Sequins, sir,’ said Davis.
‘I’m impressed,’ said McCormack. ‘Are you sure you’re not married?’
Valentine handed back the bag. ‘Where did these come from?’
‘Over there.’ Davis pointed to a stone outbuilding. As he did so, the man in the hoodie started to walk away, distancing himself from the others.
‘Who’s the beat boy?’ said Valentine.
‘The groundsman, Malcolm Frizzle.’
‘Isn’t he supposed to be in green and tweed?’
‘Says he was just finishing up when we arrived. He’s on his way to the gym, but has been trying to rouse his boss. Seems a bit pissed off, to say the least.’
‘Well, maybe he’s got good reason to be.’ The DCI started out for the outbuilding, and as he reached the doorway a white-suited SOCO was emerging with a cardboard box in his hands.
‘Hold up, what’s in there?’
‘Soil sample, sir.’ He nodded towards Davis. ‘The detective inspector wanted the lot.’
Peering into the box, Valentine pointed. ‘What’s this white stuff.’
‘We think it’s salt,’ said Davis, answering for the SOCO and nodding him off. ‘We found it on the ground, quite a quantity of it, too. That’s where we found the sequins as well.’
The DCI turned towards Davis and tilted his head. ‘Salt?’
‘It’s commonly used in purification rituals, sir.’
‘In what?’
‘It’s something to do with spirits. Kevin Rickards would be able to tell you more.’
‘Bring Rickards down to Ayr as soon as you can, Ian. We need to have a chat.’ Davis nodded and the detectives went into the outbuilding. It was a small, unlit chamber with drystone walls. The roof beams were exposed and the ground earthen. At one end two more SOCOs were engaged in bagging evidence by torchlight.
‘What have you got there?’ said Valentine.
‘Looks like blood,’ said Davis. ‘And lots of it.’
‘No splatter marks that I can see. The walls seem clean. It’s like a bucket was just emptied.’
‘Very strange, sir.’
The DCI asked the SOCO for his torch and shone the beam upwards. A glossy black dampness covered the roof-beams, but there was fresh scoring in the centre of the beam. ‘Take a look at this, what do you think?’
‘It’s something sharp, not rope, more like metal,’ said McCormack, stepping forward.
‘A chain,’ said Davis, ‘possibly on a pulley, maybe for lighting? There’s a waxy black residue on the floor, too. It looks like drippage, from candles perhaps. We’ll need to have that analysed, of course.’
‘It certainly looks like the building’s been used for something unwholesome.’ Valentine turned back to the SOCOs. ‘Anything you find, scoop it up and bag it. Fibres, fluids . . . anything. This building is a crime scene now; I want the place sealed off.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Ian, get some uniforms on that door, too. Nobody comes in or out without my say-so.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The detective headed back to the door and into the open air. Outside, joined by the others, he asked DI McCormack to show him where the rope ladder was found. She indicated a stretch of wall about two hundred metres away and they set off. The ground around the wall was hard packed, too hard to show any footprints or tracks. Valentine was crouching down, pressing the soil with his hands when McCormack spoke. ‘The SOCOs have the rope ladder in the lab now, sir, but I have a picture here.’ She removed a photograph from a blue folder in her satchel and handed it over.
‘Looks expensive, are those mountaineering grips?’ Valentine said.
‘Hard to say, but it doesn’t look run of the mill.’
‘No, with any luck it’s rare and we can narrow down its origins. There’s no doubt something went on here, but I’ll be honest I’ve no idea what.’ He handed back the picture and exhaled heavily. ‘That old cowshed’s been used for something, but I’m not sure the ladder is connected. I’d wager that whoever was responsible for the blood and the salt wouldn’t have left a ladder hanging around in the open.’
Davis nodded. ‘Certainly not after a young girl was killed a matter of yards away.’
Valentine smoothed the stubble on his chin. ‘Something’s not right here at all. I get a very bad vibe indeed about the whole place.’