Hanlon and Wemyss watched as the Audi’s tail lights bounced down the track. She stood a moment outside the house. She could hear the surf crashing onto the rocky beach a few hundred yards away in the darkness. It was the only sound she could hear. It was very loud. She took a deep breath and looked up at the night sky. There was hardly any light pollution here. Out on the sea she could see the green starboard light of a fishing boat and in the distance the yellow glow from a house’s windows, but that was it.
She stretched, exulting in the loneliness and the silence. The wind tugged at her clothes and she turned and went inside.
She switched the lights on and lit the fire she had laid earlier in the grate in the living room. The old clock on the wall said seven o’clock. She fed Wemyss a can of dog food, opened the fridge to look for something to eat and stared at the bodies of three rabbits that sat on the lowest shelf. She’d been given them by the farmer who lived up the road. At the time she’d been delighted – he’d stopped by in his pick-up truck and offered them to her. ‘If you don’t like rabbit, the dog will.’
The problem was, she had no butchery skills whatsoever. She hadn’t thought about that at the time. She couldn’t just throw them away. She closed the door. I’ll look at them in the morning, she told herself. She went upstairs, had a shower, started her laptop and inserted the memory stick Gillies had given her that contained the information on Aurora Cameron.
She hadn’t eaten but she wanted to find out more about the missing girl before she did anything else.
Aurora Cameron was twenty-three. She had been born at Ross Hall Hospital in Glasgow, went to primary school in the city and then, when she reached secondary-school age, was educated at a boarding school in a town near London, Wycombe Abbey, one of the country’s top girls’ schools.
The folders and files on the memory stick were arranged chronologically and meticulously, as she might have expected since Gillies had compiled it. First she looked at pictures of Aurora’s mother, Giulia. Italian, an ex-model from Turin. She looked like models so often do in that identikit way: tall, slender, leggy, full-lipped. Here in the photos, there were some catwalk images, but mostly the images were of her on the beach with young versions of Aurora – who was blonde like her mother – making sandcastles in a bikini, smoking a cigarette outside a bar, pulling faces at the camera.
None of Cameron. He was the man behind the lens. Hanlon had the same feeling that she’d had at his house. A man forever arranging things to his satisfaction, people, pictures, places. And, of course, the same ethos underlaid his business: he didn’t make things, he arranged things. He arranged exhibitions, sales, events, careers.
She suddenly thought of Gillies, the dark, saturnine lawyer. Cameron had even arranged a legal adviser/factotum who was as silent as the grave.
She opened the folder labelled ‘School’. Aurora’s school reports. Languages, A grades, ditto art. Well, no surprise there. Sciences and maths, less so, sport, poor. A distinct lack of effort.
Then alarm bells rang. She had been discovered with some other girls smoking weed in the woods in the school’s extensive grounds. That was post-GCSE. Her results had been good, straight As. Sixth form, more trouble with drugs; e-mails flew – Cameron certainly wasn’t trying to hide stuff from her. Thinly veiled threats to the school from Cameron channelled via the lawyer. Aurora was beginning to go off the rails. Then, the summer after her first year of sixth form, the end of Year Twelve, rehab. Hanlon recognised the name, a well-known clinic.
More photos. Now Hanlon was able to recognise the girl in the painting in Cameron’s study as Aurora. An older, more self-confident version, but her, nevertheless.
Aurora with Giulia, looking very much like the model that her mother had been. But a haunted look in her eyes now, no longer smiling at the man behind the camera. Honey-gold hair, honey-brown eyebrows in a perfect arc, mother and daughter both with the same nose, slightly on the large side, a feature that added a touch of humanity to what would otherwise have been a slightly unearthly beauty.
Then, post-rehab, more unhappiness. Six years ago. Aurora would have been seventeen. There was even a copy of Giulia’s death certificate, cause of death – overdose. A copy of the order of funeral service; Aurora had read a poem. Photos from the funeral. And there was Aurora, stony-faced in black. A rare shot of Cameron, also in black, looking stern but composed, talking to another man, a head taller, jet-black hair. Hanlon guessed he was probably one of Giulia’s relatives. Although Giulia and her mother were blonde, Hanlon associated the kind of hair this man had with Italy rather than the UK – it was very dark, like her own, a kind of Mediterranean black. There was obviously little love lost between the two men. The taller guy was frowning, caught by whoever was using the camera jabbing a finger into Cameron’s chest. Tall guy looked furious.
Then her A level results, straight A stars – her drug history and the tragedy hadn’t affected her studies. There was her acceptance letter from Edinburgh university. The final page in the file contained her current address – a street name and number, Howe Street, that meant nothing to Hanlon. She didn’t know Edinburgh at all well.
Hanlon rubbed her eyes. Enough looking at the screen for now.
Standing up, she stretched and went over to the sink to fill the kettle. The accusatory presence of the dead rabbits in her fridge hung in the room. Glancing up, through the window of the small kitchen, she saw a car’s headlights bouncing up the track to the cottage. She frowned – was this Gillies again? Had he forgotten something? Hanlon looked out of the window as the vehicle pulled up in front of the house – a Land Rover. She went over to the front door and switched on the outside lights for the forecourt.
The driver’s door opened. A tall man got out, red-headed, good-looking, in his thirties. Murdo Campbell, a police detective she had met the year before on Jura, an island just off the Argyll coast. She hadn’t seen him for a few months, but they’d kept in touch with the occasional text and e-mail. She’d sent him a Christmas card with her address on – ‘if you’re ever in the area’.
Hanlon opened the door to him.
‘Hello, Murdo, what brings you here?’ Her voice was friendly. She liked Campbell and was pleased to see him.
‘I’m in court in Campbeltown in the morning,’ he said. ‘I’m staying there overnight. I thought I’d come the long way round and visit you.’
She nodded, ushering him in. Campbeltown was at the end of the long, narrow Argyll peninsula, maybe thirty or so miles from where she was staying. Here on the east side where she was, the road was a twisting, single track with passing places; it took twice as long to drive. He had come considerably out of his way to visit.
‘So, how are you?’ she asked. He looked tired; there were bags under his eyes. One of the disadvantages of being as pale as he was, things like that were very visible. She had a shrewd idea that she had got the Cameron job via him. She waved him to a seat. Campbell looked around with interest.
Hanlon’s rented cottage was small. There was the front room that the door opened directly into; there was a kitchen through a small passageway and a staircase leading upstairs to a bedroom and bathroom. The living room was as spartan and immaculate.
‘Would you like a drink?’ she asked.
‘Tea, please,’ he said.
She nodded and turned. As he followed her into the kitchen she asked, ‘Do you know how to clean rabbits?’
‘I’m sorry?’ The question had obviously baffled him.
She laughed and nodded at the fridge. ‘I’ve got three rabbits in there. I was given them earlier today but then I realised I’m not sure how to gut them, or skin them, come to that.’ Or cook them, she thought. How do you even do that?
Campbell laughed. ‘Yes, I do know how to clean a rabbit.’ He took his tie and jacket off. ‘Have you got an apron?’
She did. He tied it on.
‘Knife? Chopping board?’ he asked. She handed them to him. He sharpened the knife on a steel that was sitting on the counter. It was the instinctive action of a man who handled food a lot. As it happened, the knives had a good edge to them. Hanlon didn’t know what to do with the kitchen knives that were sitting in a wooden block on the work-surface, but she kept them sharp anyway. ‘Rabbits?’
She opened the fridge.
‘Here you are…’
‘Thank you, and two bowls, one for the meat, one for the waste.’
He picked up the first rabbit, examined it with a critical eye and deftly inserted the knife. She looked on as Campbell expertly skinned and gutted the rabbits.
‘You’re very good at this, aren’t you?’ she said. He smiled at her, giving her a glimpse of very white, even teeth.
‘I used to shoot them for my mother, and then when my sister, Ish – you’ve met her – got a job in a local restaurant, I used to sell them to the chef who worked there.’ Ishbel Campbell, Murdo’s sister, was a restaurateur who had a well-known place in Glasgow’s centre.
As he worked on the rabbits, his hands slick with blood, Hanlon asked, ‘Did you give my name to a lawyer called Gillies?’
Campbell looked up at her from his bloody chopping board. ‘Aye, I did. Has he called you?’
‘He was round this afternoon.’ She told him of what had happened, her drive with the lawyer to visit Cameron. Campbell nodded.
‘I had heard he worked for some wealthy businessman. I gave your card out to several people and some law firms that I thought might be interested. I think once you get known you should get a reasonable amount of work. Scotland’s a relatively small pool. You should start to get recommendations. Cameron’s well known in Glasgow. He eats at Ish’s restaurant quite often.’ He started jointing the rabbits. ‘It’s paintings, isn’t it? That’s what he does – sells them?’
Hanlon said, ‘Yes, he’s an art dealer.’
He resumed his work. ‘Gillies, eh, so he drove you to the other side of Oban – how long did that take?’
‘Long enough,’ she said, smiling, thinking of the interminable, silent car journey.
‘Bet you couldn’t get a word in edgeways…’ Campbell didn’t smile a great deal, in that respect he was rather like her, but when he did, it lit up his face.
Hanlon smiled. ‘Yeah, he’s not exactly talkative.’
‘Is he still listening to blues music?’
Hanlon shuddered. ‘God, yes…’
Campbell laughed. ‘He was like that as a kid. Everyone else liked Eminem or S Club 7, not him… weird.’
‘Well, he hasn’t changed.’
Campbell put the skinned and gutted carcasses onto the chopping board in a line and finished jointing them for her. He put the pieces in the clean bowl he hadn’t used. The other was full of guts and fur. He washed the knife and his hands. ‘There you are. Be careful when you eat it – there are a lot of bones in a rabbit.’
‘Thanks,’ Hanlon said. ‘Shall we go next door?’
Campbell took the apron off and they sat in the living room with their tea. He studied Hanlon, sitting relaxed on the sofa with her dog. She was wearing old jeans and a man’s white shirt, several sizes too big for her, the sleeves rolled up. She looked formidably fit.
‘So where did you meet Gillies?’ she asked.
‘Oh, I was at school with James. He was a bright kid, did law at Glasgow then joined a firm of solicitors. He was involved mainly in corporate stuff, then he got this job with Cameron. He got in touch with me a couple of days ago to ask if I knew of any ex-police who might be interested in doing a bit of private detective work. I thought of you. What’s it all about, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘No, not at all.’
She told him. Campbell sipped his tea thoughtfully.
‘Cameron’s never come across my path professionally,’ he said. ‘As far as I know he’s squeaky clean. High-end art deals aren’t the kind of thing that the people I come across are interested in, and they wouldn’t want to hide or launder money in them, too easily seized by us. POCA…’
She nodded.
‘I suppose you could transport them easily though…’ he mused, still thinking of stolen paintings. ‘Anyway, his name’s never come up. I hear he’s got quite a place.’
‘He sure has. It’s like a castle. A pretend castle, but a castle nevertheless.’
‘Gillies said that. There’s a bit of a story to it. Cameron’s parents used to live across the loch from that place. They were shit poor. He used to look at it, the impoverished wean, holes in his breeks, the shining mansion on the hill, and think… one day… well, that’s what he told Gillies anyway.’
He put his cup down.
‘And now his daughter’s missing, you say.’
‘And now his daughter’s missing, but I’ll find her.’
He looked at her. Quietly determined. Confident. The windows shook and rattled as another strong gust of wind shook them. The fire in the grate had died down to a mound of glowing red embers. Wemyss was asleep – he could see the dog’s legs move as he chased something in his dreams. The room was lit by a small lamp in the corner. It was warm and cosy. He yawned.
‘And how are you?’ asked Hanlon. ‘Busy?’
‘Not especially. We’ve got a bit of trouble on at the moment with what I’m hoping is not a turf war. There’s this guy, Graeme Millar, kind of old-school gangster, quite the psycho actually.’ He tapped the side of his head for emphasis. ‘He controls the west side of Glasgow and the satellite towns, Alexandria, Dumbarton. Anyway, earlier today he killed this guy, Drew Lennox, a small-time drug dealer. It was spectacularly vicious.’
‘Charming,’ said Hanlon.
‘Well, you know how it is…’
‘Will he go down for it?’ she asked.
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Only circumstantial evidence and a witness, the victim’s wife, who denies that Millar was ever there. She’s shit-scared, with good reason. She’s got a young baby.’
He fell silent, thinking of Millar. Six foot five of malice in human form. The dead man’s wife, Calla, and her baby, a girl, Palmer.
Calla had been shaking with fear when he’d interviewed her. She hadn’t seen what had happened; the assailants’ faces were masked, she’d said. She had clutched Palmer fiercely to her; she’d kept looking towards the window, her eyes flicking from the baby to the window, repeatedly. In a sudden flash of realisation, Campbell had thought Millar had probably threatened to throw the baby out. They had been seven floors up.
They both knew he would have done it. Would do it if she talked.
There was no way anyone was going to tell them what had happened. And he couldn’t blame them.
‘Everyone’s frightened of Millar,’ he said. ‘Nobody on that estate will dare to come forward. It’ll go nowhere.’ Hanlon nodded.
He stood up and stretched. ‘I’d better go. I’m nearly asleep.’
She nodded and stood up too. She fetched his coat and he put it on.
‘If you ever need help with rabbits again…’
‘I was thinking about moving on to deer,’ she said, smiling.
‘I can do deer,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ll take you stalking.’
‘I’d like that,’ Hanlon said. He looked at her slightly surprised, she sounded like she meant it.
‘It sounds fun,’ she added.
‘Well, when we get some time, I’ll arrange it.’ He looked at her. ‘It was good to see you again, Hanlon. I’m glad you’ve got the job. If you need any help, unofficially…’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It was nice to see you too…’
Campbell opened the door. It had started raining since he had arrived and an icy gust of wind blew into the house together with a fine spray.
‘Dreich,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you…’
‘Bye,’ said Hanlon. She closed the door behind him. The Land Rover’s engine started and the lights washed through the window as Campbell turned and headed off down the track.
Hanlon sat on the sofa, thinking of Aurora.
A young girl, mother gone, alienated from her father, a controlling weirdo. She could sympathise. Her grey eyes narrowed as she thought of her own past. Nobody had been around for her – well, she couldn’t change that, but she could make a difference now. She knew what it was like to grow up in an unhappy family. She had been determined to do a good job anyway, but now she felt a kind of crusading zeal. She would track Aurora down, come hell or high water.
She suddenly thought of Dr Morgan, her analyst. Now, in her imagination, but as clearly as if she were in the same room, Dr Morgan said, ‘So are you finally ready to engage with the world again, instead of hiding away from everyone, including me, which is what you’ve been doing for the past six months?’
‘I’ve been waiting for a sign, Dr Morgan, and here it is.’
The girl was the sign she had been waiting for. Time to find Aurora Cameron; she couldn’t stay missing for good.
If anyone can find her, thought Hanlon, it’ll be me.