Costello had fallen asleep in the chair in the office, ending up slumped over a keyboard, and woken up with the imprints of the individual keys on her cheeks, as if somebody was making a mosaic.
A system search for Helen McNealy had come up with an unexpected result. As soon as Costello had seen the words ‘car mechanic’, she had got that chill that she was on to something. Steven Melrose was a mechanic, and women who got involved with him ended up dead. Her phone was ringing, vibrating its way across her desk like some demented little dictator. It was Brenda Anderson again. This was the third time: she couldn’t ignore it any longer. Costello steeled herself and sang a few lines of ‘Private Life’.
No, she had no idea where Anderson had been that night, but she did know it was a male colleague. No, she wasn’t his keeper. He was a grown man. Brenda went into a stress-fuelled rant. This was all over and he didn’t care about them or his daughter. He was out drinking.
Letting off steam was all Costello could say.
‘Well, I’m sending you the picture. Is this the man?’
Why don’t you ask him yourself? It was a selfie, which in itself spoke volumes about how drunk he must have been. Anderson grinning over a pint and pakora. Griffin with his arm raised. Costello looked closer at the picture, trying to increase the size on her phone. She couldn’t so she sent it to her email and opened it there on the computer and sat for a few minutes looking closely at Griffin’s rolled-up shirt cuffs and the skin of his forearm.
She didn’t know if she was elated or devastated. Or mistaken.
She texted Brenda a heartfelt thanks, and she was forwarding the picture to Matilda McQueen when the door opened. Wyngate was rubbing his eyes, tired of being in the office. Tired of the rain. Tired of being tired.
‘God I am wet.’
‘Do you want a cuppa?’
‘Oh, yes please.’
‘Good, get me one while you are at it.’
Wyngate sighed, that was twice. ‘I’ll just drip all the way from here to there.’
In the end she put the kettle on as he spoke; he was reading and drying his face with a paper towel at the same time. ‘We have a dead body of a mother, one daughter abroad who doesn’t give a shit. And a son called Gregor McMutrie, he’ll be forty-four. So I got back to the sister who said, Quote: If we are that bloody interested, then we should effin try to effin find him ourselves.’
‘Charming!’
‘He’s the director of McGregor Homes.’ Vik Mulholland didn’t look away from his screen.
‘I’ve heard that name before,’ said Costello.
‘He’s the builder on the far side of the hill.’
‘You found that very quickly.’
‘I’ve known all along, I put it on Anderson’s desk yesterday. I thought the son might know where his mum was.’
‘For God’s sake, Vik. We’ve been looking—’
‘Well you should have asked me.’
Wyngate kept talking, wishing the floor would open up; he did not want to get caught in the crossfire.
‘They don’t speak.’
‘Neither does anybody in here, seemingly. So Walker is going out to the post, we are too busy here. O’Hare is not ruling out natural causes, he’s not finished his tests. The rats have eaten some bits but the cartilage on her nose was disrupted. It had been snapped, pressed hard against something. Like the floor, probably when she fell. God knows my mum went down like a sack of spuds when pissed.’ She walked back to Anderson’s desk. ‘I think I have fin rot, my feet have been underwater so often.’
‘I’ve not finished,’ said Wyngate. ‘Matilda from forensic services was on the phone when you were out. There was some organic matter on the toe of the boot – lots of big words and then the word vomit. And she spelled this out for me: Z I N G I B E R A C E A E. Do you know what that is?’
‘I bet it’s ginger something. So she found traces of that?’
‘She said to tell you. Is it important?’
‘Very, OK, I am off to the B-L.’
‘You are going to see Gyle again?’
‘I am indeed. I have survived the gong-bath tea, I can survive anything.’
‘Were you looking for a FAI on somebody called Helen McNealy?’ asked Wyngate. ‘It’s here now.’
Costello nodded and Wyngate began to scroll, his fingertip pointing out the highlights. ‘Died, age twenty-nine, nurse, fatal accident, killed outright. 1972 MG Roadster … nice car that. It hit a wall, out East Kilbride way. The twelfth of May 1996. She was a member of the Braveheart Bangers.’
‘The who?’
‘I think they are a Scottish classic car club.’
‘OK, OK, google them. Has Steven Melrose ever been a member?’
Wyngate got to work as Costello thought out loud.
‘Steven Melrose was an old-fashioned car mechanic, which is why he fitted so well into the Carron Bridge Community. OK, loads of people like old cars, but how many of them end up with dead female friends?’
‘Yes, he was a member from 1988 to 1998.’ Wyngate sat back, pleased with himself. ‘But he has an alibi for the death of his wife and kids. He was at work.’
‘At a garage? Under a car, the radio on? We believe he was at work.’ She went back into Anderson’s office. Steven had sat opposite her, his hands still red raw from the vigorous hand washing. Was that a sign of guilt? No, it was a sign of not wanting to eat with hands covered in oil and engine dirt. She started flicking through the crime-scene photographs, looking for something, but she did not know what.
She googled the Braveheart Bangers herself, a group of Scottish classic car enthusiasts. They looked like a right bunch of anoraks. They sold bits and bobs for huge sums of money, including really old car badges – old AA badges, RAC badges, the metal kind that clipped on to the grille of a car. Their own badge was a car, maybe a Hillman Imp, in front of a St Andrews cross with jaggy edges. She thought about that and something that had been mentioned on the very brief PM report she had found on Lorna Reid’s adoptive mother, Vivienne Reid. A distinct mark on her leg at the point of impact, where the car had hit the side of the knee. So she sent Matilda the reference to that as well.
The poor girl would be sick of hearing from her.
Watching her time, she opened up her emails, scrolling through to anything that might be relevant. Matilda McQueen from the lab. She had retested the skin samples that had been taken from the wooden handle of the axe. They were all Gyle’s. The report on the blade from 1992 showed all kinds of matter – brain tissue, blood, muscles, skin, fat. Plus some canine tissue and hair from Heidi the family dog. Costello could take or leave dogs, but the death of that animal was emotive. Something about the way the dog completed the perfect family picture. That bloody dog at Inchgarten had peed on her. Then she remembered Nesbit, before Anderson rescued him, biting Mulholland, back in the old days, in the room next door. She flicked through the files for the PM report on Gyle. There was no mention of any dog bites on his body at all. Gyle had been wearing a black T-shirt. Sue had worn the white dress. She wondered what Steven had been wearing.
‘I was the one who persuaded her to go out for a walk that evening.’
She went back to the pictures. Looking at their hands, the blood, Gyle’s hands covered, his T-shirt covered, the spray that forensics had pointed out. It had been a warm night. She could see the covered feet of three men. She flicked over, looking up for a wider-angle image. It was Griffin talking to two detectives, one of whom she recognized a little. He had his jersey on, the white collar of the old uniform visible underneath.
He was talking, his hands out explaining something. She flicked through, looking at the hands, hands here and there covered in blood. Both men had bloodied hands. She dialled Anderson but put the phone down; that was the wrong person to ask. She dialled Archie – not unusual for her to call him at home, but she needed to know. She asked her question and he said he had no idea – maybe try O’Hare, he might know.
He might know about the state of AIDS and HIV and hepatitis in the early 1990s.
He might know about the perceived infection risk of a community police officer from disused needles in an old park.
Jennifer moaned slightly and tried to turn over in bed, except she wasn’t in bed, she was lying in the dark on something so cold it was damp and the dampness had seeped through her jeans and through her jumper. She was cold, unbelievably cold. There was a noise of somebody or something above, walking about upstairs. Douglas had come back. If so, why was she lying on the floor? She tried to get up, on her elbows, ignoring the spinning in her head. There was something she was supposed to be panicking about, but could not recall what. She was wearing an oven glove. She wiped her face, blood everywhere, her nose and cheeks felt as though she had been out in the wind. And she had a terrible headache.
She had come down to the basement to look for something; she had wellies on. She couldn’t recall why. The floorboards creaked upstairs. She had fallen down on the damp again, slipped into some kind of semi-sleep, the way she did when she was trying to ignore the alarm and was refusing to get up, in those days when she had a job. Nursing; she used to be a student nurse. Then she’d met Douglas – he was lovely and they had the family, so where were the kids now? Why was there a claw hammer next to her foot?
A weird creeping feeling came over her; something bad had happened. Her head was sore. She was bleeding. She sat up slowly, her head swimming, the room swirling in front of her eyes. She got on to all fours and crawled towards the wall. At the stairs, she tried to climb up. There should be a banister. Why not? That was her next job. There were a few things she was supposed to do but could not remember, so she climbed the stairs on all fours, like a dog. Her head pounded at each pull up, every time she used her knees. Her head thumped, she was so tired. She stopped as she drew level with the old worn carpet of the hall. Nearly there. She needed to stand up and turn right, and suddenly that seemed a very complicated thing to do. So she rested back on her knees, sitting down on the back of her thighs. She heard somebody walking about. She kept her head low, crouching in the old hall cupboard, listening and watching. Soft feet were walking back and forward. She knew it wasn’t Douglas; he wouldn’t have left her in the basement. This was a man in leather brogues, old leather brogues and thick tan cord trousers, old man’s trousers. The man had her son. He was walking around her house. He was wrapping Robbie in a blanket and the back door was open.
He was going to take him away.
And she remembered. She was lying in the basement because somebody had turned the lights off. She’d seen somebody’s face so they had hit her on the head and she had fallen. Now he was here, taking her child.
She crept on to her feet, leaning against the wall, still in the recess of the cupboard. She stood for a wee moment, getting her breath. Then she leapt forward, reaching into the kitchen and picking up her frying pan. Turning quickly, she battered him across the face as hard as she could, catching him off balance and sending him flying.
She picked up her son and ran out into the rain.