Tuesday 25 August 2015
Lynda McMutrie was lying in the basement, bloating and starting to darken. Her white nightgown floated and bubbled on the stinking water, forming islands of bluebells on the surface.
She was not resting in peace. It was very noisy with the blowflies swarming around the parts of her body above the waterline, and the rats dipping and diving like kids in a play pool. They emerged from murk to rest on her shoulder blades and perch on the roundness of her buttocks. They washed their pointy faces, running their paws over their chubby cheeks full of the human flesh they had nibbled and torn off with their razor-sharp teeth. They sat and groomed the water from behind their ears with lightning-fast movements of their front paws, claws out, little hands pulling through their hair, drying off excess water.
Then they would slide back into the water for another gnaw on an exposed bone, another chew on some soft tissue. Their half-inch-long incisors worked with supreme mechanical efficiency, biting and pecking all the way. Occasionally their claws got caught up in the heavy sodden knitted wool of the cardigan, and they stopped to pull and stomp their front legs, struggling to get free.
The water poured into the basement, gurgling its freedom from the disused culvert. The river rabbled around, searching out the corners, seeking out the walls to slap against so it could tumble back on itself. When the movement of the water coincided to form a wave, it tried to give Lynda a gentle shove. A bluebell island lifted, a red slipper drifted, but Lynda herself remained still.
It was nearly eight o’clock when Costello got to the station. She slumped in her seat, not knowing if she was suffering more from fatigue or frustration.
Professor Batten put a cup of tea down in front of her. And pulled over a chair. He had made himself some toast which he chomped at noisily. He stank of stale fags.
For a few minutes they sat in silence. Then Costello growled. ‘I’m going out to that bloody place again.’
‘What bloody place?’
‘Altmore Wood, Walker wants me to go out and … check stuff.’
Batten ignored her, examining a burnt crust. ‘Has it struck you? The similarities between Jennifer Lawson and Sue Melrose?’
‘Nope. I am too busy dealing with a foot that nobody wants to know about.’
‘Socially I mean.’
‘Nope.’
‘I was thinking.’
‘Don’t you start …’
‘Are they so different? Sue had come over from the West End, Jennifer from Tiree, both a type of refugee, if I can be culturally ironic. They both have families that are a little estranged from them. Marrying Douglas was Jennifer’s rebellion, leaving the island. Sue rebelled in reverse, away from the trendy west end to rough it out in Altmore Road. They both suffered a lack of family support. No respite from the washing, the ironing, the cleaning; neither had much support from the school or the preschool. Both had been stuck in this street, Jennifer in the rain, Sue in that long hot summer. Sue had seen the forest as a respite, a refuge, and Jennifer sees it as a jailer. It separates the street from the rest of the city. It’s no distance at all, but it could be on the other side of the world if you can’t get to it. How am I doing?’
‘Sounds good so far.’
‘Without the trees they might even have had a good view. But in Altmore Road they live on top of each other. Fine in the anonymity of the city, but not fine in a wee row of houses like that.’
‘We have looked at most of that,’ said Costello wearily.
‘Both women in trouble, both husbands not helping out, both husbands distracted by career or …’ He let the argument lie, taking a sip of tea.
‘No sign that Sue was having an affair, or Steven. That reminds me, I’ve to go and see him. If I don’t do it, no bugger will.’
‘But if you prove Andrew Gyle is innocent, then it is a wee tad obvious that the killer is still out there. Maybe still hanging around? Maybe we should look at it like that? And then I was thinking …’ He noticed Costello was looking back to her list of missing women: Elaine, Pauline, Pamela, Tamara.
‘Are you saying anything of importance, because I have to call up the DNA samples of these four for comparison, so we are ready to go as soon as O’Hare has the results. Do either of them strike you as an athletic dancer type? Mulholland and Wyngate have a sweepstake, you know.’
‘Sad bastards.’ Batten put his hand on top of hers, preventing her from lifting the phone. ‘Think about those women. The killer coming back, showing an interest in Jennifer, then maybe whatever it was about Sue, whatever triggered the rage, might also be present in Jennifer. What do you think about that?’
‘Crap. There has been twenty-three years in between. If it is somebody else, they are probably dead; probably pushing up trees, never mind daisies.’ She swung round on her seat. ‘Where did I put that bloody phone number? I need to get hold of Steven Melrose.’
‘He lost his two sons. I don’t think he will thank you for that.’
‘Yeah well, there’s a lot of people pussyfooting around this investigation and I’m getting a bit hacked off with it. You know how you talk about offender profiling versus victim profiling, so before you start wittering on about Jennifer, you should be having a look at Sue.’
‘She was looked at really closely at the time, Costello. She was a bored housewife, she had no lovers under the bed, nothing illegal going on. It was a rage killing, the spark of flame. Look at the psychology—’
‘Oh God, do we really have to?’
‘You need to understand. Rage is a reactive aggression. There is a desire to harm others with impulsive thinking and no planning, exactly what Gyle did. Then consider Gyle as the small man with no pride, no dignity. It was a psycho-pathological issue if you widen the predisposing factors to include low self-esteem, and the trauma Gyle had suffered in the previous year. He kept going with that axe until his victims were dead. Once it is over, the small man is back. It’s textbook.’
‘It would be more helpful if you looked a bit closer at Sue and I’ll look a bit closer at Steven.’ She found the slip of paper. ‘No phone number, but he was last known at the Carron Bridge Community. He was at Findhorn before that. And that is, what, an hour from here? Do you think I can get up there and back before twelve? We are going out to test a theory about how far you can hear a shout in those woods.’
‘OK, that sounds like two good “getting soaked” things to do, with a nice wee hour in a car in between to dry out.’
Costello took a large slurp of tea. ‘You know, there is somebody who is paying Jennifer Lawson far too much attention.’
‘Who?’
‘Anderson.’
Batten rolled his eyes. ‘Concentrate. Let’s take human kindness. Apart from the murder, let’s look at the events in Altmore Road. I think we both agree that nothing substantive is going on, so we are looking for something subtle, some small pattern of behaviour that appears very normal. It’s all superficial to us. Say, Jennifer had accepted a lift here and there. A wee lunch in town, a wee coffee. All this is from person X who is being kind but then gets drawn in. Say they are a loner who has never lived that kind of domestic life and they are fascinated by it, or once had the chance of that life and something sabotaged it. They are drawn to Jennifer.
‘Now, transfer that to Sue walking in the woods. He wants to go for a walk with her. She is looking for some quiet time with the boys; she says no thanks. Maybe she is a bit pissed off at the way the guy jumps out of nowhere as if he was watching her front door, waiting for her to appear.’
Costello spun in her seat and pointed at the whiteboard. ‘So, in reality, this is an isolated community. The person who did that would have been in residence on the road all those years ago. And wasn’t. Unless …’
‘And your candidate is …?’
‘Aird? Would he have been strong enough to do it then? How old was he?’
‘He had an axe, he didn’t need youth on his side.’
‘But he alibied Andrew Gyle.’
‘Or Gyle wittingly or unwittingly alibied him.’
‘It’s easy to insist on somebody’s innocence when you know damn well they are. Maybe that’s why he bankrolls Gyle’s campaign, because he himself is guilty.’
‘So if Aird is at large, are we watching Lawson? For her safety, we could really put the cat amongst the pigeons by sending her to Edinburgh to stay with her bloody husband. We can’t fund anything on a whim of a speculation of an idea.’
‘Did anybody look back into the history of Jock Aird?’
‘Wyngate. A wee bit. He waggled a knife in Esther Dirk-Huntley’s face once.’
‘Get him to dig deeper – a broken romance he never got over, something like that. There’s generally a woman behind it somewhere.’
Refuelled with more tea, Costello swung on Wyngate’s chair, staring at the wall. She looked as though she was doing nothing, but in fact she was multitasking, staring at the picture of Jock Aird, at the faded blue eyes, the strong mouth, thin lipped but grounded by a fine, elegant chin. He would have been a handsome man in his youth, she had no doubt of that. Tall, even in his seventies with a slight curve of his spine, he was still a fine man.
Costello was wondering if the initial investigation had been seduced by the man. Costello had seen him out with the coffee and the biscuits when the sinkhole happened. He was a rich man, a landowner, a boss. Many people in that position were, on the surface, benevolent. Aird seemed to be on hand to run the ailing women of Altmore Road to hospital. He was on hand to give the Gyles money when they were in debt. He had given Gyle his alibi when he needed one, and that alibi had not shifted one iota. Aird was the one person who had stood beside Gyle during the trial and while he was in prison. He had also paid for the funeral of May Gyle when she passed away.
All-round nice fellow. Or …
Costello had her doubts. Jennifer Lawson had said something about him sneaking around. It was a story as old as man, the power of the strong over the vulnerable.
Lawson was a young woman, a vulnerable young woman. May was a sick woman with a wee daughter. Sue was an attractive woman but was daggers drawn to Aird, because she was not weak or vulnerable and was going to call him out for the old creepy perv he actually was. And McMutrie, living rent free, but so pissed she never opened her front door. Her daughter left the street as soon as she could. Gyle was poor, in trouble. He had a young daughter.
Laura Steele from number 12 was still playing telephone tag from the evidence of the log. She needed somebody to talk to Esther Dirk-Huntley and Michael Broadfoot. But how to do that without giving rise to suspicion?
How far it went was anybody’s guess, but Costello was sure Aird belonged on some list somewhere and should be watched. Age was no get-out-of-jail card. She’d get the bastard.
Anderson was sitting in the office, pretending to be reading reports but really trying to pluck up strength to go out and face the team. They all seemed focused on the case in hand when he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing. Was it all about Jock Aird? Had they stumbled on to the same suspicion Griffin had all those years ago?
He needed to apologize to O’Hare and ask him about the foot bones.
His phone went. Internal call. He looked up and saw Mulholland gesturing to him with the phone. He picked it up, aware his hands were sweating. Scared of this being something that he couldn’t cope with. ‘Vik? What can I do for you?’
Even to his own ears, it did not sound convincing,
‘I have Brian Steele on the line … at last …’
Anderson had no idea who Brian Steele was, but knew from Vik’s tone that he damn well should know. He heard Costello snap something to Vik, then wrestle the phone from him.
‘Colin, the wee shit is refusing to talk to me. He wants to talk to the man in charge, so that is you. We have left messages for him at number twelve, at the gym, on his moby, on the landline, at his bloody hotel, and he has at last decided to get back to us after taking advice from his solicitor, would you believe? So can you arrest him for something? Anything? Here he is.’
There was a quiet click on the line; something was switched over.
‘Hi.’ The voice was friendly enough.
‘DCI Anderson here. We have been trying to track you down.’
‘I heard you were in the street making enquiries about the sinkhole.’
‘Yes, we were.’
‘And what does that have to do with me or Laura?’
‘Probably nothing, just wanted to check that you were OK and have a wee chat on a related matter.’
‘What kind of related matter?’
‘A missing person’s enquiry.’
‘We don’t know anything about that.’
‘We do need to get a statement from you.’
‘I’m giving you a bloody statement, am I not?’ Steele was getting a little rattled, Anderson gave him time to calm down. ‘I’m sorry, I am a wee bit stressed. Look, we don’t know anything about any missing people. My wife and I are accounted for.’
Anderson waited, then said, ‘We can’t take your word for that on the phone. You could be anybody.’
Steele was quiet.
‘When did you move into Altmore Road?’
‘Two years and a wee bit more. Number twelve.’
Upriver, as Wyngate had started to say. ‘Did you do a lot of work to it?’
‘Why do you ask? Oh the sinkhole?’ Steele’s voice relaxed. ‘Nothing to do with us, mate. Our property was knocked through in the sixties, it used to be twelve and fourteen. The only thing we did was get the basement lined – cheap job, nothing structural, as we don’t expect to be here for very long, but being the first house at the bottom of the hill the basement really was in a state. The damp was tracking up the exterior walls. They did a good job, though. So we didn’t do anything that disrupted the road or the concrete, nothing that could have affected the foundations of anything. I’m not responsible.’
‘That was all I wanted to talk to you about. Did you really need to see a lawyer for that?’
The voice on the end of the line toughened up again.
Anderson waited.
‘That was the missus. She gets really nervous around cops. She had a bad experience – not with the police but with, well, you know. It was a matter that the police had to attend to. And she was worried that it was all going to be brought up again, maybe even get into the papers.’
Anderson felt that fog in his head again. He really didn’t want to cause this woman any more pain. His own was bad enough. If they were about to dig up memories of a rape or an assault, then who the hell were they? ‘We need to speak to her.’
‘No, I don’t think you do.’
‘We do and we will. But if you want I can do it myself. You make the arrangements and I will be there. If it is not relevant to the investigation then it will remain between the two of us. I need to tick that box, and then we can all forget about it.’ He saw Costello out the glass front of his office, badgering Wyngate for something, that persistent, insistent look on her face. ‘And that box will have to be ticked. It is routine and we won’t stop until it has been done. I want you to believe me when I say that she’s much better off with me than she will be with some other members of my team who are a little more focussed, or belligerent, than I am.’
Steele gave a little laugh, ‘And I bet you are talking about one of the fairer sex, aren’t you? No, don’t answer that, there is a law against it. I’ll talk to Laura, she’ll be in touch. Just be mindful that she’s still on her tranquillizers and I don’t want her upset.’
‘Tell her not to worry. We can meet in a café, somewhere neutral, if that makes her more relaxed.’
‘Sure, give her a cake and she’ll talk to anybody. Leave it with me. Please go easy on her, she’s not as tough as she looks.’
Anderson put the phone down and looked at his watch. It was the MeisterSinger watch that Helena had bought him for his birthday. She had sought Claire’s opinion on what watch he would like. Claire would have gone to school today. He should go home early tonight to face the music. The subtle accusations in Brenda’s eyes as she danced silently around him, getting upset on Claire’s behalf but making it impossible for him to connect back to either of them. Brenda had built a shell round Claire, a protective carapace and it was becoming a wall between them.
He looked out at Andrew Gyle’s wizened face, as he was now. Then at the man he was when the murders had happened. What had happened to his daughter, the blonde five-year-old? He hoped Lorna Gyle had gone to Australia, got as far away as she could get. Laura Steele had had a difficult past. Jennifer Lawson was facing a difficult future.
And then there was Claire.