4.00 p.m., Friday 12 February 2010
O’Hare surveyed the pots and pots of small seedlings, too weak to survive outside, carefully positioned to get the best of the weak wintry sun during the short daylight hours. A smelly paraffin heater kept the chill of winter at bay.
‘Am I disturbing you?’ he asked politely.
‘Would it make any difference if I said yes?’ Wee Tony Abbott kept working away, stubby fingers nimble and sensitive as they pressed the clean earth down around the stalk of the seedling. Then he picked up the next in line, delicately, almost lovingly. ‘You cops have been all over here in the last two days, I expect to get huckled any minute.’
‘I think they’re pursuing leads, as they say. Any idea where Bobby McGurk is at the moment?’
‘That bloody Marita’s just rung asking for him, so bugger knows where he is. He’s supposed to be helping me with this. No way I’m going to get all this done on my own, is there?’ He picked up another seedling and shook it gently. ‘Why? Do you want to talk to him?’
‘No. I want to talk to you. And I’m not a cop.’
‘So who are you then?’ Wee Tony drew a grimy hand under his nose.
O’Hare made his way down the central concrete pathway. He looked up at the vines twining overhead. ‘Must be difficult to keep these alive in this weather.’
‘OK if you know what you’re doing,’ Wee Tony said guardedly.
O’Hare pulled the gloves from his hands, placed them in the pockets of his jacket. ‘I’m a pathologist.’
‘I’m not dead yet.’
‘Forensic pathologist. I do a lot of work in court, suspicious deaths, that sort of thing.’
‘Weird life, working with the dead. I prefer the living.’ Wee Tony held up the potted seedling to prove a point.
‘Indeed, but I do notice things about people.’
There was the briefest sliver of a reaction to that.
‘I can always place a face, you know, a likeness. I never forget a face.’
‘I can forget my own name these days,’ said Wee Tony.
‘I bet you wish you could.’
Wee Tony went back to his seedlings, with slightly more concentration than before. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I think you know exactly what it means. If people give themselves a new name, sometimes they don’t quite let go of the name they had.’
‘Oh, believe me, I let it go, son, I let it go.’
‘They’re a good murder squad at Partickhill. Particularly DI Anderson and DS Costello. They have a bit of a reputation.’
‘Good for them. I just hope they find out who’s responsible for hurting wee Itsy. Poor wee Itsy Bitsy.’
O’Hare caught the slightest rasp in the older man’s voice. ‘Well, they’ll be talking to you soon. Don’t lie to them, just let things take their course. Please.’
‘I’m busy, son. I’ve to get all these done.’ Wee Tony turned and gave O’Hare the briefest of smiles that didn’t quite reach his guarded grey eyes. Then he went back to his task, picking up the next seedling, examining it before placing it in a finger-sized hole, and pressing it in.
O’Hare went outside. He had been prepared for Tony Abbott to have no idea what he was talking about, but he did know. O’Hare hoped he had done the right thing. He looked up into the fog, along the overgrown path that had got Browne into so much trouble. He walked a few paces along it, remembering it from forty years ago. It had been a proper back drive then. A vehicle had been along here recently; tyre marks showed in the frost, and the frozen puddles were cracked. But the tracks disappeared into the bushes.
O’Hare followed the wheelmarks, pushing his way through, noting the recently – very recently – snapped twigs. He nearly walked into a wooden upright hidden by undergrowth, part of an older building almost obscured by trees and shrubs. It was derelict, its broken glass thick with moss.
And in it, hanging, a darker shape among the shadows, was a body.
Mulholland had driven the Audi down to the gatehouse and was just parking it close to the wall, when his mobile sounded. Batten’s number. He thought about ignoring it, but then answered. Was he with Marita? No. Did he know where she was? Up at Strathearn. No she wasn’t, not now, and they really needed to speak to her. Mulholland smiled and closed his phone. Something had rattled Marita right enough – something he, Mulholland, had said.
And now for Bobby.
He knocked on the door.
He had been expecting Bobby to be a simpleton, easy to interview, easy to control. He was wrong. Bobby McGurk was way over six feet tall and moved with the graceful strength of a tiger, and the same controlled power. But he was jumpy; his muscles tensed, and his eyes darted towards sounds and sights he didn’t recognize. Littlewood had said how well Abbott had calmed Bobby down just with a pat on the shoulder and a gentle word, and Vik Mulholland wished that Wee Tony was here now. Bobby was in his own home, within his comfort zone, yet he was pacing the small front room of the gatehouse, blond fringe flopping across nervous eyes, refusing to sit, refusing to be calm.
Yes, he had seen Marita on Tuesday night, and they had gone out looking for Itsy. He just shook his head and grunted ‘dunno’ to every question after that.
Mulholland had to find a way in. ‘We’re asking Tony the same questions. He’s helping us. Don’t you want to help us too?’
A grunt.
‘Do you remember the night Itsy went away?’
A nod. ‘I was looking for her. I said.’
‘And you met Marita?’
There was a slight change there, that feral look in the eyes again. Bobby was wary, uncertain.
‘Tony says you have to tell us the truth.’
‘I found the collared dove, the one Itsy was worried about. I took it back to the greenhouse, splinted its wing. Then I went out again. I caught up with Tony at the pond.’
‘So Marita was with you when you found the dove?’
The feral eyes darted sideways, as if looking for a way out.
‘Funny she forgot to mention it,’ Mulholland went on. ‘I don’t think she was there. Well, not until a bit later. So, Bobby, what really happened?’
Bobby bit his lip and muttered: ‘At last I knew / Porphyria worshipped me: surprise / Made my heart swell, and still it grew / While I debated what to do.’
‘Pardon?’
‘While I debated what to do,’ Bobby said again. ‘It’s from “Porphyria’s Lover”. It’s a poem.’
‘Who was your lover, Bobby?’
‘Marita.’
‘Don’t you mean Itsy? Marita said it was Itsy.’
Bobby walked up to Mulholland. ‘Marita, Marita, Marita,’ he growled, stabbing Mulholland three times in the chest with his finger, so powerfully Mulholland was forced to take a step back.
Where the fuck was Batten when you needed him?
But Bobby was talking. ‘It was after dinner she came, a long time after. Tony was asleep.’
Mulholland took a deep breath. ‘Did Marita tell you to keep that a secret?’
‘Yes, a secret. Nobody’s business, is it?’
‘Good. Well done. And do you always do what Marita tells you?’
‘No, I do what Tony tells me. He’s the main man.’
‘Bobby, has Marita ever asked you to hurt anybody?’
A shake of the head. Bobby was standing very close to Mulholland. ‘How’s my Itsy?’ he asked. His breath was hot in Mulholland’s face.
Mulholland pulled his head back slightly. He had to think fast. He was dealing with a wild card. Bobby’s mind did not work the way the minds of other men worked. ‘You like birds, Bobby. You saved the dove. I hear you’ve a nightjar down beyond the pond.’
Bobby eyes narrowed slightly.
‘Terrible the way the weak can get hurt, isn’t it? I’m sorry, Bobby, but Itsy’s dead.’
Bobby’s eyes flared, and Mulholland sensed danger.
Instinct told him to keep his voice soft, to keep talking. ‘We think Marita killed her, Bobby. We think Marita hit her on the head with a stone. That wasn’t a nice thing to do to Itsy, was it? Leave her out there in the cold, to die? I mean, you didn’t let the dove die, did you, Bobby? So you have to tell me where Marita is now. Itsy would want you to do that – Tony too. Tony’s helping us. He’s talking to Gillian – you know Gillian. So will you help us out? Where is Marita? Do you meet her at a special place?’
But Bobby seemed to have drifted off somewhere else.
Mulholland tried to get his attention back. He took a risk and said, ‘I know you and Marita have a special place to go to, and what you do there. When you and Marita were together, did she tell you she had killed Itsy?’
Mulholland recognized some emotional instinctive intelligence kicking in. Bobby leaned forward as if to whisper quietly in Mulholland’s ear, and Mulholland leaned forward to listen.
Then Bobby punched Mulholland so hard that he flew over the back of the sofa.
‘It looks like we’ve found Ronnie,’ said Anderson. ‘Well, O’Hare found him.’
Costello stepped off the mossy old slabs that formed the central aisle of the derelict old greenhouse, crouched down and put on a pair of plastic covers over her boots.
‘Is there any doubt now that this is being brought home to us?’
‘Or to Strathearn, surely?’ said Costello, looking up at Gillespie’s distorted face. ‘Did Abbott never come down here? I see Uniform have taken him away.’
‘Well, obviously somebody was here. But this place is bloody isolated. Did you know there was a disused greenhouse down here till Browne mentioned it?’
The body hung, swinging infinitesimally, the only noise a slight grating from the cord on the rusted crossbeam. Vines were still growing across the wrought-iron rafters, but nature was slowly winning the battle to reclaim the place for her own. Gillespie’s shoes were level with Costello’s face, and she could see the pattern on the sole of his trainers, a wad of chewing gum stuck on one heel. He was wearing socks, both black but not matching.
She looked up at the swollen goggle eyes, the tongue protruding from a rip in the cheek, the lips puckered like a half-closed rose.
‘He didn’t get up there by himself, did he?’ asked Anderson. ‘It would take a man of some strength to hoist him that high. And it looks as though his mouth was superglued.’
‘So Batten was right. The minute that DNA was found, he’d signed his own death warrant.’
‘But who knew?’
Gillian Browne knew she was going to have to admit that she really wasn’t any good at this. Anthony Abbott had been picked up from Strathearn the minute Gillespie’s body had been found, and she and Wyngate were supposed to be interviewing him. Anderson had quickly discussed with her what she was supposed to ask, what she was to find out. She would try out what she had learned about interview techniques during her training at Tulliallan. Gillian was to ascertain how Tony saw the relationship between Marita and Bobby, whether he thought it was sexual. Dr Batten had said that was important; there would be an element of ‘love’, of sheer adoration, directed from the subordinate to the superior. It was the way these things worked. She then had to find out how much he knew about the old greenhouse, and if he had seen any vehicles going in or out the back way. She had her pad and pen ready, and the tape machine was on standby.
But here she was sitting in the fridge that was Interview Room Two faced with an old man with trembling hands, far removed from the kindly and authoritative figure with whom she had drunk a cup of tea in the hothouse. Wee Tony had a worn and lined face. He reminded her of someone she knew, someone she liked. But it was obvious he did not want to be here, and she wished she could allow him to have the fag he so desperately wanted.
She couldn’t even do anything at the moment, as Wyngate had been called away. No doubt something else about Marita had come to light. At that point Abbott had leaned over and pointed out that a formal interview could not now go ahead. Even before that, he had stonewalled her attempts to ascertain whether or not he had a criminal record, as there was nobody of his name and of the right age in the system. Abbott had shrugged and said, ‘Well, there you go then.’ Not a denial, not an admission.
He looked out of the grimy window of the interview room and commented on how bad the fog was. He asked her what they were doing up at Strathearn.
‘Searching,’ she said.
‘Are you stuck here because you’re female? Not allowed out in the fog?’
‘No. DS Costello’s up at Strathearn and she’s a female officer,’ said Browne, proudly. ‘They’ll be up there all night.’
Abbott nodded at this. Then he put his hand on his chest. ‘I’ve mislaid my spray. I’m sure I left it in the greenhouse. I really need to take a tablet now. Can I have a glass of water?’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a foil blister pack, placing it on the table.
She recognized the pills as the ones her dad used to take before his fourth and final heart attack. ‘Of course,’ she said, her own heart softening.
He looked drawn, almost grey, and very tired.
She was away for all of two minutes, getting a plastic cup of water from the toilet downstairs. She stopped to give wee Nesbitt a pat on the way past.
She opened the door of Interview Room Two. ‘Here you are,’ she said brightly.
Then she realized she was talking to an empty room.
Batten answered his mobile in the ghost room that was Partickhill main incident room. Everybody else had gone up to Strathearn, the focus now of both investigations.
‘We found Gillespie,’ said Anderson.
‘Dead.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘Hanging? Superglue?’
‘Yes.’
‘Colin, does he have the keys on him? We think he got the keys to the Clarence Avenue flat and made a copy. Are they on the body?’
‘What?’
‘You heard – just look! If our man is following a plan, he’ll have left us something.’
Batten heard Anderson talk to somebody, probably O’Hare. There were a few muffled sounds. He heard both Anderson and Costello swear loudly, and O’Hare’s deep voice saying, ‘Well, well, well.’
Then Anderson’s voice. ‘They were in his mouth.’
‘And the lips were superglued?’
‘Yes. Mick, do us a favour and just tell us who is doing this?’
‘Just let me think.’
Batten snapped his phone shut and looked at the wall. He had that old tingling feeling, which felt strange to him now. It had left him the minute he had heard about Kim Thompson. He had failed to do his job then. But now, he wasn’t making the killer fit the profile; his profile fitted this killer. The prison psychologist had seen it as soon as he had first interviewed Adrian Wood, which was why he had called in Batten.
Wood was an insignificance of a man, who had met a beguiling and very dangerous other.
‘Iain, I’m so sorry about Itsy.’
Iain Kennedy just nodded. ‘I know.’ He was sitting on the chesterfield at Strathearn, a photograph of Itsy beside him. The room was both cold and dimly lit, isolated from the outside world. ‘They don’t mess around, your boys, do they? What was that man doing hanging in the Old Vinery?’
‘I think that’s what they’re trying to find out,’ O’Hare replied.
‘I can’t go out or do anything. There’s a cop on every door. I’ve been given the third degree about stuff I know bugger all about and Itsy’s lying dead up in the …’ He ran out of steam. ‘Nobody seems to be doing anything about Itsy.’
‘Do you want a whisky?’
‘Another one? Yes, please.’
‘Is anybody coming to stay with you? Family? Friend? One of your sons? I’m sure they’d come if you asked.’
‘I’m afraid I’ve well and truly burned my boats there. God, who would want to walk into this nightmare, Jack? Do you know where Marita is? Nobody will tell me a thing.’
‘I don’t know. I think they might be talking to her about …’ he searched for the right words, ‘… recent events.’
‘Do you know what they’re doing out there?’
‘Not really. I’m waiting for Gillespie’s body to be picked up.’
Kennedy had to be content with that. ‘I want to thank you for what you did for Itsy. I know you saved her life out on the Moss, gave her another couple of days. Time to say goodbye …’
‘Just doing my job. You mind if I … ? Just a mouthful – I’m driving.’ O’Hare lifted up the bottle of Laphroaig ten-year-old cask strength.
‘I will always be grateful to you that she died in a warm bed, with me holding her hand, rather than alone out there in the freezing cold.’ He registered that Jack was still holding the bottle and an empty glass. ‘Oh, please, help yourself.’
‘Mind if I put the fire on?’
‘You’re trying to look after me, Jack.’
‘Trying to look after myself. I’m feeling my age and it’s minus ten out there. It’s warmer in the mortuary.’
The two friends sat in silence, as the hum of the gas fire came through, the living flame getting stronger and brighter, offering an imagined warmth rather than any real rise in temperature.
‘Do you know why they were asking me about Diane? How long she’d known Marita? They didn’t seem to believe me when I said she just applied for the job. I never knew Diane before then. What was that about?’
‘I don’t really know.’
‘I really don’t, but they’re trying to establish a link with your wife, I think.’
There was silence again, broken only by the occasional squeak of leather as O’Hare got comfy, and the friendly hissing of the fire. ‘If you don’t want to stay here, you can come and stay with me if you like. This is a big house. You might not want to be on your own.’
‘So Marita isn’t coming back?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Right, boys and girls,’ said Anderson. ‘The dogs won’t be here for a while yet, but you know the search areas we’re looking at and you know who we’re looking for. Marita’s out there somewhere – probably inappropriately dressed, as she left the house pretty sharpish. We don’t know what mental condition she is in, so we approach with caution; we don’t want to spook her. She’s a slightly built female so should be easily overpowered, unless she decides to set McGurk on you. Uniform are doing a direct outward search from this spot. Browne, you come with me; Littlewood, go with Costello; Mulholland …’ Anderson saw the DS wince a little, no doubt suffering the effects of Bobby’s punch, ‘… and Lambie, stick together and stay out of trouble. Everyone, stay with your partner, and on no account get split up; the fog is very dense. Stick to the paths unless you hear something.’
There was a shuffle of papers as they looked at their little maps.
‘Check your torches. Make sure you have them with you at all times. They’ll give you about four feet of visibility in this fog at best. Good luck.’
Anderson’s phone vibrated against his leg, and he fished it out, his fingers clumsy in his heavyweight gloves. It was Brenda. He switched his phone off. For the next few hours, anybody who really needed him would use the radio.
Costello and Littlewood moved off first. They walked in single file down the path to the pond, their footsteps clacking hollowly on the crazy paving. Littlewood went first, and Costello just followed the fluorescent strips on the back of his padded jacket.
There was total silence down here, and a threatening stillness in the murky air. Mature rhododendrons flanked the path, and behind them loomed great park trees, all part of the older garden, from Strathearn’s glory days as a grand manor.
As they neared the water Costello could swear the air was getting colder. Her nose started running with the icy nip in the air, and her sinuses hurt. Her breath puffed out in billows as she kept up with Littlewood, who was coughing every few seconds. It was easy going along the path, which was flat and well maintained, though starting to ice over. Then they came to a small group of high conifers, planted to mark where the path divided to go round either side of the pond, one to the left and one to the right.
‘There’s a small bench along here somewhere, I think,’ said Costello.
‘I could do wi’ a sit-down and a smoke.’ Littlewood delved into his side pocket and came up with a packet of cigarettes.
‘Is the smoke an excuse for a rest, or vice versa?’ Costello asked.
‘Just gie’s a wee spell.’
She knew better than to try and persuade him not to, so she stood and stamped her feet to keep warm and to signal her impatience.
‘So you think he could be dangerous, this McGurk?’ she asked.
‘Oh, I’d say that Marita is much worse. Bloody women.’
‘We’ll get this done a lot quicker if I go right and you go left round the pond, and I’ll meet you at the other end. But this fog is so bad we’d lose sight of each other.’
‘Not one of your better ideas. I’ll wait.’
Littlewood drew long and hard on his fag, letting the smoke warm his lungs. He blew out a birl of smoke that Costello watched twirl and drift in the night air before it melted into the fog. She knew Littlewood would not be rushed.
Her colleagues could only be a hundred yards away, maybe less, but the fog muffled everything. She and Littlewood seemed to be the only people on the face of the planet, stilled to silence by a blanket of icy cold air.
She rubbed her gloves together and smiled quizzically at Littlewood, but he was looking out over the pond, listening, thinking. She took a couple of steps down to the water’s edge, where the bare spindly fronds of the willow hung over the water, the needles of frozen reeds bristled through the ice, and the stark uprights were all that was left of an old boathouse stuck up like accusing fingers. This was Ice Queen country, she mused, and she shivered, but not from the cold. She walked a little way up the edge of the lake, and shone her torch over the frosted surface of the water; it glittered like countless millions of diamonds.
‘You should come and see this, John,’ she called softly. ‘It’s so beautiful.’
Batten forced his mind not to race, to consider everything with care. He was thinking like a detective now. Harry Castiglia was the one closest to Gillespie. Had he seen details of the DNA found on Donna Campbell? He would certainly have seen the information about the keys to the flat on Clarence Avenue. In fact, it was Harry who had alerted Quinn to the fact that Gillespie had taken the magazine photos. Batten’s gaze passed over the board, caught by the lovely picture of Emily. In the intense clarity of black and white, he could see the shades of grey in the iris of her eyes … How extraordinary, how astonishing, that a single movement of a shutter could capture an image in such marvellous detail.
With a click. In a flash.
A flash …
Fuck!
The victims had described ‘pressure’ on their eyes … was that the blindfold being jammed down so they could not see a flash? Yet not one of them had mentioned the distinctive sound of a camera being wound on. That would have made the click recognizable. So – one photograph, one flash. One chance. One chance to catch the face of a woman who thought she was about to die. A lifetime’s fear distilled into a single moment.
If he was right, then the violent damage to the mouth wasn’t pseudo-rape at all. But what the fuck was it?
Batten reached for his phone, and speed-dialled Anderson, his mind racing.
Costello shone her torch over the sugar-coated pine trees, taking a childish pleasure in the way the frost sparkled and glinted in the beam. But she couldn’t waste any more time like this. ‘You ready to move yet, John?’
Littlewood ignored her.
Her radio bleeped, crackled, then fell silent. She heard Littlewood’s radio crackle in unison. She stood for a moment, scanning her torch round the edge of the pond as far as she could see, illuminating poplar, spruce and deciduous trees. Tony Abbott did a good job of keeping the old and combining it with the new. The right-hand path was the less used, more overgrown. Would that be the one that Bobby would take? Bobby and Marita would be meeting somewhere, close by. But where? All vehicles were accounted for and it was heading down to minus ten.
The fog was growing denser; it seemed to crawl up from the water, as if climbing up her body and pulling her in. She wedged her torch between her knees and pulled the collar of her jumper around her neck, her hat down, and the collar of her jacket up. She picked up her torch, looking for any sign that somebody had passed this way recently.
She could see nothing. They needed the search dogs.
She called loudly, ‘You finished your fag yet? If the cold doesn’t get you, lung cancer will.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ she swore.
‘I beg your pardon?’ A voice came through the fog, quiet, friendly. ‘Such language from a lady.’
‘Oh, Harry. God, you gave me a fright! I didn’t know anyone else was down here.’
He placed his gloved hand on hers. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Looking for someone, and I need a partner. I’m not allowed to do it on my own.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘No, I need a proper partner. That’s why John’s here.’
‘Oh, him. He’s happy with his fag.’ Harry slapped his hands together, trying to keep warm. ‘Look, I’m here to photograph the pond and the search.’
‘Isn’t it too cold for you?’ Costello looked back to the shady bulk of Littlewood hunched on the bench, a single stream of smoke curling into the air before being killed by the fog.
‘Look, I need to work,’ Harry said, almost in a fit of temper. ‘Since Ronnie … My home is five hundred miles from here, and I really have nowhere else to go.’ He backhanded something from his eye. ‘I really don’t want to be on my own right now. So you do your search thing, and I’ll make sure the bogeymen don’t get you.’
‘I should radio in.’
‘I spoke to Colin, so he knows I was heading down here; it’ll be fine. Does this path take us round the pond? I’ve been down here before but, good God, it’s spooky and deathly now, isn’t it? Look at the ice baubles hanging on that willow just above the water. Jesus …’ Harry lifted his camera from his bag, his creative mind focused. ‘I need you in it so I get paid, but try not to spoil it, OK? Can you kneel down and shine your torch towards those branches?’
‘I’ll try,’ she said sarcastically. She was rewarded with his torchlight smile, and was suddenly glad he was there.
He slung his bag down, and pulled out another camera, an old one. The kind that used proper film. He pushed her towards the edge of the frozen pond with a firm hand on her shoulders. ‘You stand over there. Can you hold the torch low so the light catches on the ice and reflects back a bit?’
She did as she was told, risking another look at her watch.
‘Don’t bother about the time. Quinn and the Chief Constable will just be thrilled that you’re out here getting your arse frozen off in the line of duty.’
‘Hurry up, can’t you? I’m freezing to death, waiting for you to get organized.’
‘This will be a beautiful picture, on the front of every newspaper,’ he said, and flicked a small lever on the camera.
She heard the film wind on.
‘You’re kind of beautiful too, in a Glaswegian no-sleep-for-four-days kind of way.’ He smiled at her and tipped the end of her nose with his finger.
‘I’m supposed to be on a manhunt,’ she protested, but her heart started thumping. What if he tried to kiss her now? She couldn’t think of a more beautiful place to be kissed, or a more beautiful man to be kissed by …
‘If you get into trouble, I’ll take the blame. But you get weather like this once in a lifetime.’ He smiled that smile again, and she could see the length of his eyelashes, the deep, deep pond of those eyes. He had not shaved for ages, and he looked tired too.
He was standing very close to her.
She turned her face up to be kissed.
And felt something cold and hard at the side of her head.
Click.
It was Anderson who saw them first. Lying entwined in the fog, they could have been sleeping children, happy and protected in each other’s arms.
The blond head moved a little.
‘Bobby?’ called Anderson softly. ‘Is Marita OK?’
Bobby didn’t answer. He wound his arms protectively around Marita’s neck, pulling her towards him. Her head lolled alarmingly, her hair and her scarf coiled down her neck, just like in her portrait over the living-room fire.
‘Bobby, can you hear me?’
‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ whispered Browne in his ear.
‘It would look like it. Take your hat off, slowly, so he can see who you are.’ Anderson did the same. ‘Bobby?’ he said softly. ‘Can we have a look at Marita? See if we can help? Gillian here is a nurse. Do you remember her from before?’
All the time he was inching slowly towards them, Gillian following close behind.
‘You know Gillian; she made you a cup of tea in the greenhouse. So could Gillian have a look at Marita?’
Bobby muttered, ‘I propped her head up as before, / Only, this time my shoulder bore / Her head, which droops upon it still …’
‘Oh Christ, he’s lost the plot,’ Anderson muttered. He was very close now; he could see the gaping wound in Marita’s head. Not so much the wound, but the blood soaking her hair and blackening the side of her face. The injury was a parody of Itsy’s.
Bobby raised a hand wet with blood, idly feeling the weight of the stone in his palm. ‘No pain felt she; / I am quite sure she felt no pain.’
‘Let me speak to him.’ Browne inched forward beside Anderson. ‘I know that poem, Bobby. It’s by Browning, isn’t it? “Porphyria’s Lover”? Is that your poem? Who was your lover, Bobby?’
Bobby drew the back of his hand under his nose and sniffed loudly, refusing to meet Anderson’s eyes. It was a gesture that Peter made when unsure; but this was not a boy, this was a strong powerful man. A man lying with the woman he had murdered in his arms.
‘Itsy,’ he said dreamily. ‘Bobby and Itsy. Always Bobby and Itsy.’
‘Oh, you love Itsy too?’ said Browne. ‘I like Itsy.’ She crawled up a little further. ‘I saw all those drawings she did, of the birds. The nightjar. She was very good.’
Bobby looked up. Browne had his attention. ‘How’s your face?’ he asked with real concern.
‘It’s still sore, Bobby. And I think Marita has a sore face too. Can I come over and see?’ Browne edged closer. ‘You wouldn’t want to hurt her, would you?’
‘Yes,’ he mumbled. Then a glint came into his eyes. ‘I would. She hurt Itsy.’
Batten couldn’t raise Anderson or Costello. He tried Quinn, but she was on her phone. He looked out into the night and thought about going to Strathearn himself. He phoned the switchboard and asked them to get calls through, requesting DI Anderson, DS Costello and DC Browne to phone him back immediately, urgently.
Beyond urgent.
He reached over and opened an envelope that was lying on the desk. Harry had left it for Costello a while ago. It was a photograph. Costello sitting on some stairs somewhere.
Why her? Was something going on between them? He had not seen them together enough to make any assumption. He checked his phone again, checked the control room. They were trying but it was busy up at Strathearn, said the snotty female. They would try the radio.
Batten looked around and saw the pile of Castiglia’s and Gillespie’s equipment, the padded camera bags, other bags, and an aluminium case. A long plastic case, about eighteen inches long, was propped up against the wall in the corner. Batten opened it. The collapsed legs of a tripod slid out, heavy, cylindrical, long. He undid the clasp, letting the inner extendable leg slide out, bent his head and sniffed. There was something …
He strode over to the board and pulled down the package of Silicolube, ripped off the rigid plastic and cardboard, and unscrewed the plastic cap. He shut his eyes, and sniffed.
Then he seized the phone again, and pressed a speed-dial number. It rang immediately.
‘Browne? Gillian! Thank fuck – now listen …’
It would make a great photograph, Costello thought confusedly. Harry was holding her face firmly in his grasp as if he was going to kiss her. Then she heard her radio go off, deep in her coat pocket. ‘I have to respond to that.’
He smiled. ‘They can wait.’
‘You know I’m not allowed to wait.’
‘There are plenty of them, but only one of you. Turn it off.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘I’m not asking.’ He released his grip, pulled the radio from her pocket, and threw it skidding across the ice.
Then his grip on her face resumed, his lips touching her forehead. ‘You grew up around here, didn’t you?’
‘No, I grew up on the south side.’
‘But you were born here.’
Christ, what was this about? ‘I was born on the south side.’
‘No, you were born over here. I was there. I remember.’
‘Well, I was there when I was born too, but I was kind of young to remember.’ She pulled her head back to smile at him, humouring him.
Harry’s eyes were full of pain. ‘Why did you never come looking for me?’ he whispered, like a child.
‘Looking for you … ?’
‘You must have known; you must have had some idea.’ His voice was racked with hurt.
‘Known? About you?’ She looked around her, at the water, the remains of the boathouse. Yes, it had made a good photograph. Herself in her little sailor suit. And she remembered the way O’Hare had looked at it, and him saying, ‘Did you never come here as a kid? In my day we treated it as a public park; it was our pond.’ And she remembered that feeling of being followed. Who had taken that photograph?
‘Did we know each other as kids?’ she asked, playing for time. ‘Did we play here?’
‘Prudenza,’ he whispered.
Costello felt a chill around her heart that had nothing to do with the coldness of the night. ‘Only my dad ever called me that.’
‘Our dad called you that.’
Costello shook her head, the icy chill melting a little. He’d got it wrong. Then a faint memory … A splash, her mum screaming, her dad running. She’d been left alone, crying. But reason told her to reject the memory. ‘Harry, I don’t have a brother. I’ve never had a brother. I’m the classic example of the only child of a single mother.’
Even as she said it, she knew in her heart it was not true. Memories started thudding through her head, ghosts of a hideous face kissing her, frightening her, memories that should have been left sleeping.
‘No, no, Prudenza. You were one half of the family, and I was the other. You were the favourite, so you were kept. But I was taken away. Do you know why?’
‘Know … ? None of it is true. I’m an only child.’
‘Don’t lie to me,’ his voice punched back at her.
‘I’m not lying, Harry. But you’re wrong. My mother was a drunken alcoholic bitch; she had no time for me …’
‘She named you after Granny Winnie and Granny Prudence,’ Harry said, almost as if he was telling her a bedtime story. ‘She called you Winnie-Prue. But dad always called you Prudenza, pretty Prudenza, the clever little fish. All those years ago.’
He turned her to face the pond. Then she heard a click, just behind her ear. A flash. Her photograph had been taken again.
‘It was OK till you came along, the sweet little girl they really wanted.’
A single click. And it all became clear. But I haven’t been blindfolded, she thought.
No, because she wasn’t going to live to tell the tale.
‘You really don’t remember me jumping in?’
‘I’ve no memory of you at all, Harry.’
‘I’d caught a minnow and put it in a jar. I was trying to show it to them. But all they wanted to do was photograph you, taking your first little baby steps. So I jumped in. Right here.’ He was talking now as if she wasn’t there at all. ‘But Dad just hauled me out, slapped me around and dumped me soaking on the ground, and went to calm little Prudenza, who was crying. Dear perfect little Prudenza was upset, and I was nothing but a nuisance.’ The grip tightened on her neck, and she could feel her pulse starting to weaken. ‘No matter that I couldn’t swim, that I might have drowned … ?’
Thinking fast, she threw herself forward, intending to run for it. But he caught her and threw her down, turning her on her back.
‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked.
He grasped her head and brutally rammed it back on to the ice-hard ground.
She felt blood running down the back of her throat; she had bitten her tongue. ‘Harry? Harry?’ she repeated.
‘Who are you?’ he asked, and she felt his weight shift. She saw the fist coming too late, felt bone crunch, a tooth come loose, blood in her mouth … She opened her eyes, but could not see.
Then the blood cleared. She turned her head, agonizingly, and saw him raise his fist once more, felt his body weight shift again. She took her chance and writhed away. But Harry was on his feet, and his foot caught her in the stomach. She lay winded, unable to move.
He kicked her again, hard, and suddenly she was sliding, sliding face down across the ice, arms and legs splayed. Absurdly, she thought of Bambi.
Then she felt the ice judder and realized with horror that this was how she was going to die. Under the ice. She saw Harry’s feet, then his knees as he knelt down beside her, and his hand caressed the side of her face, a cold fingertip down the outline of her cheek. The finger stopped around her mouth. It was a soft touch, a lover’s touch.
‘Harry, Harry,’ she said through blood.
‘Yes, Harry,’ he repeated.
Then he grasped at her hair, jerking her head backwards until she thought her neck would snap. Above her, she saw his face full in hers, the tiny telltale scar. Then he rammed her face down on to the ice, and she heard it crack … Or was it her skull? Had he snapped her neck like a frozen twig?
Her cheek was resting in her own blood, comforting and warm.
She tried to breathe but it was getting so hard, so hard to get the breath in and out through the blood pouring from her lips. She felt a resounding blow to her head, then another. And she could hear the cracking and groaning of the ice, feel the lapping of the icy water beneath, waiting for her, ready to suck her down.
Then Harry was gone. Something, someone – an angel? – had taken him.
The blood was pooling around her face now, and it felt as though the ice was warming beneath her. She could hear the water lapping under it, so close, so very, very close, licking at her. And her blood was melting the frost so she could see through the ice to the black, the deepest black she had ever seen. She heard muffled noises behind her, and the ice juddered again; somebody called her name, but it was only the water … An angel didn’t have Harry. An angel had her by the hand. The whole world was cracking; she could feel her arms and legs drifting this way and that in warm water. Through the blood, in the indigo-clear sky beneath the ice, she saw her own face, old and lined, a halo of grey hair around her head. She was dying, floating past herself. Goodbye, she said to herself as she died.
And then she was going down, down into the black depths, into the dark water.
There was a massive jagged hole in the middle of the pond where the ice had given way, and something – someone – was lying right beside it. Browne’s torch caught the short blonde hair, the familiar jacket; it was Costello.
‘Stop!’ she shouted, as loudly as she could, but Costello was still being punched like a rag doll. Browne screamed again. The man lifted his arm high, some kind of stick in his hand, and the blows rained down, the black map of blood on the ice spreading. Browne yelled down her radio, then screamed with fright as something shot past her, through the beam of her torch, out on to the ice. She watched in horror as the smaller figure rugby-tackled the other. She heard fists go in, heard bones crack, and then the ice itself gave way. In terrible slow motion the gaping blackness of the water opened up and took them both under.
Browne couldn’t see Costello at all now. She swung her torch frantically, and there she was, her outline distorted by the lapping water. It was devouring her. The slab of ice she was lying on suddenly cantilevered, one way then the other, and Costello too slid slowly into the dark water.
Under the ice.
Browne did not hesitate. She screamed, a primeval cry that sent the night birds flying out of the trees. She ran down the sloping lawn, took one leap and jumped.
Anderson picked up a discarded radio, looked at his own and pressed the alarm. Suddenly the night echoed to a deep resonant crack – the ice had shifted. He shone his torch out on to the surface of the pond. He had heard a scream but now it was quiet, too quiet. Then his ears caught a faint whimper coming across the ice.
‘Oh, fuck.’ Browne was out there. He shouted at her, ‘What are you doing, woman?’
An answer came, like a weak echo. ‘I’ve got her, I’ve got her.’
He saw Costello’s body move as if gently lifted and dropped by an unseen hand, and Browne struggling to move through the water, trying to keep Costello’s head up. But there was a thick ledge of unbroken ice between them and the bank.
Anderson hit the alarm again, then threw the radio down, stripped off his jacket, and lay down to roll on to the ice. Flat out, he tried to slither towards them, uneasily aware of the ice yielding beneath him. Closer now, he could hear Browne talking, talking to Costello. Hold on, just hold on. And he could hear the panic in her voice – Oh my God, she’s bleeding so much, her face is missing.
‘Put your left arm around her neck, Gillian,’ he panted. ‘Grab on to me with your right hand. I’m right behind you, Gillian.’
Browne tried, missing his fingers by inches. Briefly she and Costello went down, but a few air bubbles and they were up again.
‘Just reach back, you silly cow! I’m right here – come on, Gillian!’
Another alarming crack, and they sank again. Gillian bobbed up seconds later, gasping. Costello’s head remained under water, completely under. One more crack and they’d be under the water for good. And if they went under the ice, they would never survive, not in this cold.
Anderson slithered inch by inch across the ice, willing Browne to try once more. Grunting, almost weeping with the effort, she strained to touch her hand to his. Just as their fingers touched, there was a massive crunch. He grabbed her, let go, reached further, and grabbed her sleeve. But Browne slipped from sight.
Anderson felt the icy water slap his face, he tried to hold on, but his eyes were staring into the deep water. Just as he went under he saw a light, and heard a voice, somebody shouting his name.
He just hoped it wasn’t God.