The Distant Echo

by Val McDermid

  "So the chances are that Rosie was killed on a boat?" Alex asked.

  Jason made a dubious smacking noise with his lips. "If she was, it must have been a fair-sized boat."

  "Why do you say that?"

  He pulled some papers out of his backpack with a flourish. "This is where the shape of the paint drops comes into play. Tiny tears, that's what we've got here. And one or two very small fiber fragments, which look a lot like carpet tile to me. And this tells me a story. These drops came off a brush while something was being painted. This is a very motile paint, which means that it came off in minute droplets. The person doing the painting probably didn't even notice. Typically, it's the kind of fine spray that you'd get if you were working over your head, especially at full stretch. And because there's almost no variation in the shape of the droplets, that suggests all the paint was applied overhead and at an equal distance. None of this fits with painting a hull. Even if you had the hull upside down to paint the inside, you wouldn't be doing it somewhere carpeted, would you? And the droplets would vary in size because some of the surface would be nearer to you, wouldn't it?" He paused, looking round the room. Everyone was shaking their heads, spellbound by his enthusiasm.

  "So what are we left with? If it was a boat, then your man was probably painting the cabin roof. The inside of the cabin roof. Now, I did some experiments with a very similar paint and, to get this effect, I needed to be reaching quite high. And small boats don't have much headroom. So I guess your man had a pretty big boat." "If it was a boat," Lynn said. "Couldn't it have been something else? The inside of a trailer? Or a caravan?"

  "Could be. You probably wouldn't get carpet in a trailer, though, would you? It could have been a shed, or a garage too. Because paints that are designed for fiberglass are pretty good on asbestos as well, and there was a lot more of that around back in the seventies."

  "The bottom line is that it doesn't take us any further forward," Weird said, disappointment in his voice.

  The conversation veered off in several directions. But Alex had stopped listening. His brain was ticking, a train of thought triggered by what he'd just heard. Connections were forming in his mind, links between apparently unconnected pieces of information forging into a chain. Once you gave space to the first unthinkable thought, so many things made sense. The question now was what to do about it.

  He suddenly realized he'd been out of it. Everyone was looking at him expectantly, waiting for an answer to some unheard question. "What?" he said. "Sorry, I was miles away."

  "Jason asked if you wanted him to write a formal report," Lynn said. "So you can show it to Lawson."

  "Yeah, great idea," Alex said. "That's brilliant, Jason, really impressive."

  As Lynn showed Jason to the door, Weird gave Alex a penetrating look. "You've got an idea, Gilly," he said. "I know that look."

  "No. I was just racking my brains, trying to think of anybody from the Lammas that had a boat. There were a couple of fishermen, weren't there?" Alex turned away and busied himself, popping a couple of slices of bread in the toaster.

  "Now you come to mention it… We should remind Lawson about that," Weird said.

  "Yeah. When he calls, you can tell him."

  "Why? Where are you going to be?"

  "I need to go into the office for a few hours. I've been neglecting the business. It doesn't run itself. There's a couple of meetings this morning I really need to go to."

  "Should you be driving around alone?" "I've no choice," Alex said. "But I think I'm pretty safe in broad daylight on the road into Edinburgh. And I'll be back long before it's dark."

  "You'd better be." Lynn walked through the door carrying the morning papers. "Looks as if Jackie was right. They're plastered all over the front pages."

  Alex munched his toast, lost in thought, as the others went through the papers. While they were occupied, he picked up the color chart Jason had left behind and tucked it into his trouser pocket. He seized a lull in the conversation to announce his departure, kissed his wife and sleeping baby and left the house.

  He eased the BMW out of the garage and onto the street, heading for the motorway that would take him over the bridge to Edinburgh. But when he reached the roundabout, instead of turning south on the M90, he took the northbound slip road. Whoever was after them was on his turf now. He had no time to waste sitting in meetings.

  * * *

  Lynn got behind the wheel of her car with a sense of relief she wasn't proud of. She was starting to feel claustrophobic in her own home. She couldn't even retreat to her studio and regain her calm by working on her latest painting. She knew she shouldn't be driving, not so soon after a C section, but she had to get away. The need to shop had provided the perfect excuse. She promised Weird she'd get one of the supermarket staff to do all the heavy lifting. Then she'd wrapped Davina up warmly, tucked her into her carrier and escaped.

  She decided to make the most of her freedom and drive up to the big Sainsburys at Kirkcaldy. If she had enough energy after shopping, she could always pop in to see her parents. They'd not seen Davina since she'd come home from hospital. Maybe a visit from their new granddaughter would help lift their gloom. They needed something to give them a bigger stake in the future than in the past.

  As she left the motorway at Halbeath, the fuel warning light appeared on her dashboard. Rationally, she knew she had more than enough petrol to get her to Kirkcaldy and back again, but she wasn't taking any chances with the baby on board. She flicked the indicator at the turn-off for the services and cruised down to the pumps, entirely oblivious to the car that had been on her tail since she'd left North Queensferry.

  Lynn fueled up the car, then hurried inside to pay. As she waited for her credit card to be accepted, she glanced out to the forecourt.

  At first, she couldn't take it in. The scene outside was wrong, all wrong. Then it sank in. Lynn screamed at the top of her lungs and stumbled toward the door, her bag hitting the floor and scattering its contents as she ran.

  A silver VW Golf was parked behind her car, engine running, driver's door wide open. The passenger door of her car was also ajar, shielding whoever was leaning in from sight. As she hauled open the heavy door of the service area, a man straightened up, thick black hair falling over his eyes. He was clutching Davina's carrier. He cast a glance in her direction then ran for the other car. Davina's shrieks pierced the air like a blade.

  He half-threw, half-pushed the baby carrier into his passenger seat, then jumped in. Lynn was almost upon him. He slammed the car into gear and took off, his tires screaming on the tarmac.

  Indifferent to the pain from her half-healed scar, Lynn threw herself at the wildly swerving Golf as it careered past her. But her desperate fingers connected with nothing they could cling to, and her momentum carried her forward on to her knees. "No," she screamed, banging her fists on the ground. "No." She tried to stand up, to get to her car, to give chase. But her legs wouldn't hold her and she collapsed on the ground, anguish wracking her.

  * * *

  Exultation swelled inside Graham Macfadyen as he hammered along the A92 away from the Halbeath services. He'd done it. He had the baby. He snatched a quick look, making sure it was OK. It had stopped that banshee screaming as soon as they'd hit the dual carriageway. He'd heard babies liked the sensation of being driven in a car, and this one certainly seemed to. Its blue eyes looked up at him, uncurious and calm. At the end of the dual carriageway, he'd cut off onto back roads, to avoid the police. He'd stop then and strap it in properly. He didn't want anything bad to happen to it yet. It was Alex Gilbey he wanted to punish, and the longer the baby was alive and apparently well, the worse his suffering would be. He'd keep the baby hostage for just as long as it was of use to him.

  It had been laughably easy. People really should take better care of their children. It was astonishing that more of them didn't fall into the hands of strangers.

  This would make people listen to him, he thought. He'd take the baby home and lo
ck the doors. A siege, that's what it would be. The media would turn up mob-handed and he'd have the chance to explain why he'd been forced to take such extreme action. When they heard how Fife Police were shielding his mother's killers, they'd understand why he'd been driven to something so out of character. And if that still didn't work, well, he had one final card to play. He glanced down at the drowsy baby. Lawson was going to regret not listening to him.

  42

  Alex had left the motorway at Kinross. He'd driven through the quiet market town and out the far side, heading toward Loch Leven. When she'd let slip that Lawson was off fishing, Karen Pirie had said "Loch" before she stopped herself. And there was only one loch in Fife where a serious fisherman would ply his rod. Alex couldn't stop thinking about his recent revelation. Because he knew deep down none of them had done it, and because he couldn't imagine Rosie wandering around in a blizzard alone, easy prey for a stranger, he'd always tended to believe she'd been killed by her mystery boyfriend. And if you were planning to seduce a lassie, you didn't take her to a shed or a garage. You took her to the place where you lived. And then he'd remembered a throwaway line in one of the previous day's conversations. The unthinkable had suddenly been the only thing that made sense.

  The looming bulk of the Bishop reared up on his righthand side like a sleeping dinosaur, cutting him off from a signal on his mobile phone. Oblivious to what was happening elsewhere, Alex was on a mission. He knew exactly what he was looking for. He just didn't know where he might find it.

  He drove slowly, turning off on every farm track and side road that led down toward the shores of the loch. A light mist clung to the surface of the steel-gray water, blanketing sound and adding an unwelcome eeriness to his quest. Alex pulled up in every gateway he came to, getting out of the car and leaning into fields lest he miss his quarry. As the long grass soaked his ankles, he wished he'd dressed more sensibly. But he hadn't wanted to alert Lynn to the fact that he was going anywhere other than the office.

  He took his time, moving methodically along the lochside. He spent the best part of an hour prowling round a small caravan site, but what he was looking for wasn't there. That didn't really surprise him. He didn't expect to find the object of his hunt anywhere that ordinary punters had access to.

  Around the time his distraught wife was giving her initial statement to detectives, Alex was drinking coffee in a roadside tearoom, spreading butter on a homemade scone, trying to get some warmth back in his bones after the caravan site. He had not the slightest inkling that anything was wrong.

  * * *

  The first officer at the scene had found an incoherent woman with dirt on her hands and the knees of her jeans wailing on the forecourt. The distraught attendant was standing helpless at her side while frustrated motorists arrived and then left when they found they couldn't get served.

  "You get Jimmy Lawson here, now," she'd kept screaming at him while the attendant explained what had happened.

  The policeman had tried to ignore her demands, radioing in for urgent assistance. Then she'd grabbed his jacket and sprayed him with saliva, all the while demanding the presence of the ACC Crime. He tried to fend her off, suggesting she might want to call her husband, a friend, anyone.

  Lynn pushed him away contemptuously and stormed back inside the garage. From the scattered pile of her possessions, she grabbed her mobile. She tried Alex's number, but the irritating voice of the service told her the number was unavailable. "Fuck," Lynn yelled. Her fingers fumbling over the keys, she managed to ring home.

  When Weird answered, she wailed, "Tom, he's taken Davina," Lynn wailed. "The bastard's taken my daughter."

  "What? Who's taken her?"

  "I don't know. Macfadyen, I suppose. He's stolen my baby." Now the tears came, cascading down her cheeks and choking her.

  "Where are you?"

  "The services at Halbeath. I only stopped for petrol. I was only away a minute…" Lynn gagged on her words and dropped the phone at her feet. She crouched down, leaning against a confectionery display. She wrapped her arms over her head and sobbed. She had no idea how much time passed before she heard the soft, reassuring tones of a woman's voice. She looked up into a stranger's face.

  "I'm Detective Inspector Cathy McIntyre," the woman said. "Can you tell me what happened?"

  "His name's Graham Macfadyen. He lives in St. Monans," Lynn said. "He stole my baby."

  "Do you know this man?" DI Mcintyre asked.

  "No. I don't. But he's got it in for my husband. He thinks Alex killed his mother. But of course, he's wrong. He's deranged. He's already killed two people. Don't let him kill my baby." Lynn's words tumbled over themselves, making her sound unhinged. She tried to take a deep breath and hiccupped. "I know I sound crazy, but I'm not. You need to contact the Assistant Chief Constable James Lawson. He knows all about it."

  DI McIntyre looked dubious. This was way outside her league and she knew it. All she'd managed to arrange so far was to radio all cars and foot patrols to tell them to be on the lookout for a silver Golf driven by a dark-haired man. Maybe calling the ACC in would be her ticket out of humiliation. "Leave it with me," she said, heading back out to the forecourt to consider her options.

  * * *

  Weird sat in the kitchen, fuming at his incapacity. Prayer was all very well, but a man needed a far higher level of internal calm to achieve anything useful with prayer. His imagination was galloping, running movies of his own children in the hands of an abductor. He knew he'd be beyond the reach of any rational response in Lynn's shoes. What he needed to do was come up with something concrete that might help.

  He'd tried to get hold of Alex. But his mobile wasn't responding, and Alex's office denied having seen him or heard from him at all that morning. So Alex was on the missing list too. Weird wasn't entirely surprised; he'd been convinced Alex had something on his mind he intended to deal with.

  He reached for the phone, wincing at even such a small movement, and asked directory inquiries for the number of Fife Police. It took him all his powers of persuasion to get as far as Lawson's secretary. "I really need to speak to the Assistant Chief Constable," he said. "It's urgent. You have a child abduction going on, and I have vital information," he told the woman, who was clearly as adept at stonewalling as he was at sweet-talking.

  "Mr. Lawson is in a meeting," she said. "If you'll leave me your name and number, I'll ask him to contact you when he has the chance."

  "You're not hearing me, are you? There's a baby out there whose life is in the balance. If anything happens to that baby, you can bet your pension that I'm going to be talking to the press and TV within the hour, letting them know how you guys fell down on the job. If you don't get Lawson on the line now, you're going to be the scapegoat."

  "There's no need for that attitude, sir," the woman said coldly. "What was your name again?"

  "The Reverend Tom Mackie. He'll talk to me, I promise you."

  "Hold the line, please." Weird raged inwardly to the soundtrack of a frenetic concerto grosso. After what felt an interminable wait, a voice he recognized down the years sounded in his ears. "This better be good, Mr. Mackie. I've been dragged out of a meeting with the Chief Constable to talk to you."

  "Graham Macfadyen has snatched Alex Gilbey's baby. I can't believe you were sitting in a meeting while this is going on," Weird snapped.

  "What did you say?" Lawson said.

  "You've got a child abduction on your hands. About quarter of an hour ago, Macfadyen kidnapped Davina Gilbey. She's only a couple of weeks old, for crying out loud."

  "I know nothing about this, Mr. Mackie. Can you tell me what you know?"

  "Lynn Gilbey stopped for petrol at Halbeath services. While she was paying, Macfadyen stole the baby from Lynn's car. Your guys are there now, why has nobody told you?"

  "Did Mrs. Gilbey recognize Macfadyen? Has she met him?" Lawson demanded.

  "No. But who else would want to hurt Alex like this?"

  "Children are kidnapped fo
r all sorts of reasons, Mr. Mackie. It may not be personal." The voice was soothing, but it had no effect.

  "Of course it's personal," Weird shouted. "Last night, somebody tried to beat me to death. You should have a report about that on your desk. And this morning, Alex's kid is abducted. You going to play the coincidence card again? Because we're not buying it. You need to get off your arse and find Macfadyen before anything happens to that baby."

  "Halbeath services, you say?"

  "Yes. You get down there right now. You've got the authority to get things moving."

  "Let me speak to my officers on the ground. Meanwhile, Mr. Mackie, try to stay calm."

  "Yeah, right. That'll be easy."

  "Where is Mr. Gilbey?" Lawson asked. "I don't know. He was supposed to be going to his office, but he's not turned up there. And his mobile's not responding."

  "Leave this with me. Whoever has the baby, we'll find them. And we'll bring her home."

  "You sound like the worst kind of TV cop, you know that, Lawson? Just get things moving. Find Macfadyen." Weird slammed down the phone. He tried to tell himself he'd achieved something, but it didn't feel like it.

  It was no use. He couldn't sit here doing nothing. He reached for the phone again and asked directory inquiries for a taxi number.