A Deviant Breed (DCI Alec Dunbar series)

by Stephen Coill

‘I followed the direction signs,’ Dunbar cut in pointedly. ‘Anyway, you’re here now so get busy Falk – quick statement off Peter Nairn, the student who dug up our skull and any others who worked on that trench.’

  ‘Swabs for DNA elims?’ Falk asked wafting a pre-packed kit. One of the sergeant’s many qualities, always thinking ahead. Contamination and poor continuity of evidence had ruined many a solid case. Now – he would make a good DI if only he would take and pass the bloody Inspector’s exam.

  ‘Sorted, Eugene and Laughing Boy covered that – they’ve had bugger all else to do.’

  Falk tapped DC Donald’s elbow and nodded for him to follow as Dunbar turned to survey the landscape. What odds indeed? It was improbable enough that he and his daughter would cross paths at a crime scene and yet, the fact they had triggered questions about the crime scene itself.

  Who would choose such a remote and unlikely place to bury a head? The killer? Or someone simply tasked with getting rid of it? And why just the head – especially at a place where everybody else got buried without theirs? What had happened to the victim’s body?

  3

  Eugene Grant very slowly and methodically stowed his equipment and samples into their respective cases. Several yards away Laughing Boy chatted animatedly to one of the female students, feigning deep fascination when all about knew it was her skimpy vest and ample cleavage was of far greater interest.

  ‘Anything, Eugene?’ asked Dunbar.

  ‘Let’s just say if your case stands or falls on forensic evidence – you’re screwed,’ he replied. ‘I’ve taken a few soil samples on the off chance but I wouldnae hold my breath if I were you.’ Eugene worked some of the dirt between his fingers, ‘too peaty – once a bog according to Dr Vasquez until somebody diverted the burn some centuries ago, to create this meadow.’

  ‘Umph!’ Dunbar grunted as he surveyed the landscape. ‘Aye, the burn must rise on the moor. Cuts down the glen north to south-east forming the base of the triangle to the steep sides of the glen – forms a natural corral. The perfect place to hide and graze rustled livestock.’

  Eugene sprinkled the soil sample onto the ground and wiped the residue off on the seat of his trousers. ‘Acidic, good for preservation – but a bugger for destroying other potential chemical indicators; which is what makes this find so intriguing. In this sort of soil I’d have expected some soft tissue to have remained on the skull. Indeed, some of the professor’s headless corpses have soft tissue still attached, and they have been in the ground a good deal longer than poor Yorick. No, not wishing to pre-empt Professor Salkeld’s findings but, I suspect the soft tissue was subject to decomposition elsewhere and sometime thereafter the skull was brought here.’

  ‘Dug up and reburied?’ Dunbar asked.

  ‘More than likely.’ Eugene turned to look at Laughing Boy and scowled disapprovingly. ‘Duncan!’ he snapped. ‘Let the lass get on with her job and you get on with yours. Get our kit back to the Land Rover.’ Laughing Boy shrugged dismissively, handed her a card and made the ‘call me’ sign. She responded with a noncommittal smile as he walked away.

  ‘Land Rover,’ Dunbar repeated.

  ‘Aye, you dinnae think we lugged this lot up here on our backs did you? I’m a forensic scientist not a Sherpa. No, Professor Geary kindly sent one of her team down the track to transport our equipment in their Land Rover. And now I’m going to avail myself of her generosity again to get it back to the van.’ At that he heaved one of the cases up with a grunt and set off. ‘I’ll get poor Yorick away to Professor Salkeld then shall I?’

  Dunbar nodded affirmatively.

  Once he was out of earshot Tyler repeated, ‘forensic scientist? I thought –’

  ‘An affectation,’ Dunbar cut in. ‘Eugene’s a frustrated academic; an anal-retentive of the highest order – but brilliant at his job.’

  ‘E-Bee-Gee-Bee – it suits him.’

  ‘Don’t ever use it within earshot – he’s prickly enough about being called – Huge.’

  ‘Strikes me as prickly – period!’

  As the sun inched towards the near horizon a shadow slowly stretched towards them. They fell silent seemingly mesmerised by the peaty blackness of the empty trench.

  “Let us talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs. Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.” Tyler softly said, to herself alone.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Shakespeare,’ she explained a little embarrassed. ‘It’s this place, sir, this case – brought it to mind.’

  Dunbar studied her for a moment and smiled. ‘Interesting – you think of poets and I of psychopaths. – Oh, and best you don’t talk like that around Donnie.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Our erstwhile forensic pathologist, he really gets-off on the Great Bard. You’ll give him a hard-on or heart attack. In fact the former might well bring about the latter.’ She flushed and stifled the urge to chuckle. ‘Well!?’ he added, fixing her with an intensely quizzical stare.

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘What do you make of our crime scene, Inspector?’

  Tyler felt a ripple of nervousness. It was a test. Did she blush? Her neck was suddenly warm. Shit, she had. ‘Remote but accessible,’ she observed. State the bleeding obvious, why don’t you? She railed at herself, which induced another telling warm flush, but she had to start somewhere. What the hell? Run with it. ‘We’ve passed more convenient places to dispose of body parts that were no less secluded – so why come this far?’ She looked at him hoping that would suffice.

  ‘I concur. Go on.’

  ‘Likely approach path, the same as ours. The nearest accessible road lies to the south-east. To have brought it here from any other direction, judging by the map, would have involved a much more challenging hike. So why bother?’

  He smiled and after putting her through an agonising wait nodded his agreement. ‘So! Charring ye say?’ Dunbar eventually asked.

  ‘On some of the skeletal remains. Yes that’s what Professor Geary said.’

  ‘As in cremated or –’

  ‘As in execution. Tyler cut in. Or cooked maybe.’ She added after a pause. Dunbar eyed her quizzically. ‘They’re also detecting cut marks on bones of some, too, indicative of the removal of flesh, butchery,’ she added, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘Cannibalism!? Ach! I dinnae need….’

  ‘Again!’ Tyler cut in. ‘Pending closer examination of the remains Professor Geary was being noncommittal, but yes, and that chimes with contemporary reports from the period. Hard to separate truth from fiction.’

  ‘Or fantasy!’ Dunbar cautioned.

  ‘Some thought Morag a witch and devil worshipper etcetera….’

  ‘For Christ’s sake! Do not breathe a word of that to the press.’

  ‘According to the Professor, a chronicler of the day collectively stigmatised the Inglis Clan as –’ Tyler consulted her notebook, “– a deviant breed whose blood shall forever taint the burn and whose remains shall offend that curs’d unconsecrated ground” – and not without some justification by the sound of it.’

  ‘I repeat – not for press release.’

  ‘All the same, sir, such claims, real or imagined, provided the grounds her God-fearing persecutors’ needed for the extra-judicious slaughter that occurred here.’

  ‘Teacher’s pet,’ he teased.

  ‘It’s fascinating, don’t you think?’

  It was but he was determined not to get distracted by it. ‘So the militia that stormed her stronghold turned into a lynch mob.’

  ‘A simple lynching might have been a mercy according to Dr Vasquez. An example was made of them – and, again according to legend, Morag was forced to watch as one by one her kin met increasingly hideous deaths but none as terrible as her own – for some reason Vasquez spared me the gory details.’

  ‘The killer won’t be so considerate.’ He noticed his remark had troubled her and to be fair, she never asked him for any special consideration, so did she deserve provocation? ‘Whatever
happened here stayed here and the feud ended,’ he continued. ‘I just pray no bugger’s started it again.’

  They scanned the surroundings each of them wondering what horrors might yet to be discovered.

  ‘You’re not thinking –’ she began

  ‘Ach, lass, I’m having all kinds o’ thoughts, none o’ them good ones. This isn’t where our mon’s story ended – just were his skull ended up. Hopefully, once we get him ID’d, we’ll know where it began.’ He paused. ‘The mind of a psychopath is a labyrinth and crimes of this nature are rarely linear, Briony. No straight line from the victim to killer. We’re embarked on a crooked path.’

  ‘You’re already quite certain that that’s what we’re dealing with?’

  He turned and squared off to her, ‘You’re not?’

  Tyler shrugged. ‘Keeping an open mind. Maybe a gangland thing and the body has been cut up and dispersed on the orders of – whoever!’

  He had briefly considered and just as quickly dismissed that possibility. Gangsters rarely go to this much trouble – and the ones that do know their stuff. They remove all identifying features – such as teeth!

  ‘No, this isn’t a gangland thing and the killer didn’t pick this place at random.’

  ‘Oh, I nearly forgot, Geary got a call from Professor Holmquist. She’s been trading opinions with the Home Office pathologist. He confirmed her findings – the skull’s only been in this piece of ground ten years – tops and elsewhere long enough for decomposition and creepy-crawlies to strip it to the bone, however, not long enough to deny DNA retrieval. The teeth look promising if the dental work alone doesn’t ID the victim. His preliminary report will be in your tray by the time we get back to the office.’

  That was good news but he would request DNA anyway – and Terry Watt could squeal all he wants about the expense. He had fallen silent again for a minute or two then suddenly blurted, ‘Right to roam.’

  Tyler turned to face him with a puzzled expression.

  ‘The Land Reform – open brackets, Scotland, close brackets – Act,’ he said glancing at her briefly before gazing into the distance following that thought to where it might lead.

  Tyler was impressed, she had sensed from the moment they arrived at the site that he had been tuning into the crime scene, weighing every detail, sifting through the facts and likely scenarios but the right to roam law had not occurred to her. The Chief Constable’s high opinion of him appeared to be well founded.

  ‘Of course!’ she gasped through gritted teeth. ‘I wouldn’t mind but I even checked with the Land Registry. This area is still private land, held in trust. There was no public right of way up here previously. Oh and the farmers who use it – tenants.’

  ‘We’ll need to speak to the agent or the lawyers then. So, until recently trespassers would have risked bumping into a farmer or gillie who’d have been within his rights to challenge them, and they traditionally guard their territory very jealously. Ach, if they’re anything like my Grandpa was – trespassers would have got short shrift – not to mention their bags searched for snares, for poached game and such.’

  ‘Or heads!’ She offered. He nodded his agreement.

  Dunbar stared into the distance as if imagining the killer’s journey up that track to where they stood. ‘There’s a link between our skull and these skeletons – I’m sure of it. Make that link and we on our way to solving this case.’

  ‘But this Archie English spent the best part of his lifetime trying to find this place. How did they?’

  ‘How indeed? And he’s the very person I want to speak to next.’ Dunbar checked his watch and sighed. ‘But that will have to wait until tomorrow.’

  ***

  Dusk shrouded the Lammermuir glens by the time they got back to the car and Dunbar was at least resolved about one thing. There was no way they were making the trek from the incident room to Braur Glen on a daily basis. He would have to find a hotel or B&B for himself and Tyler – after all, the boss had insisted upon her shadowing him. As the crow flies it was a relatively short distance from Edinburgh but proved very slow going once they turned off the B road onto the narrow, twisting single-track roads, not to mention the long walk up the rutted track which only local farmers used. Of course, when he finally got a signal on his mobile phone the very suggestion pushed Terry Watt’s blood pressure up a notch or two but Dunbar softened the blow by suggesting it would markedly reduce travelling times and the overtime bill – swings and roundabouts. Not only that, they would spend a lot less time on the road and far more actually doing the job.

  ‘Let’s face it – it’ll only be for a night or two, there’s precious little field work to be done, no house-to-house – hell, even Eugene was twiddling his thumbs by the time we got here.’

  ‘Don’t milk it because you’ve been deskbound for six months and are sulking over that search bollocks,’ Watt cautioned. As if! It was a small victory though and served Terry Watt right for denying them a line search team, anything to save money.

  ***

  Dunbar had suspected from the outset that his bosses were not anticipating a clear-up, which was why they had handed the enquiry to a case-rusty cripple and a novice DI. Two birds with one stone – it met with the Chief’s edict about giving Briony Tyler homicide investigation experience and did not tie up some other operational senior detective whose services could be put to better use elsewhere. He might officially be on light duties but he was still on full pay. That alone would have been bugging those number crunchers at Fettes and Detective Chief Superintendent Molineux especially, having tried and failed to have Dunbar retired on ill-health grounds during his recuperation following the car crash.

  ‘Professor Geary’s team swept the field thoroughly before they started their dig, which also means a common approach path is a moot point – and all that after that local history nut-job had covered every inch of it with his metal detector.’ Watt had offered lamely in response to Dunbar’s request for a fingertip search of the whole site.

  ‘With respect, sir.’ He responded, acknowledging seniority because Molineux was in the room, ‘They weren’t looking for the kind of stuff we’d be looking for.’

  ‘Buried there since God knows when?’ Molineux had guffawed dismissively.

  ‘And your point, sir?’ Dunbar had responded, much to Molineux’s displeasure.

  ‘What do you expect to find after – how many years are we looking at? Ten, twenty – thirty maybe?’ Molineux countered.

  ‘Yet to be established – and with that in mind, a fingertip search of the area is the very least we should be considering. Hell, the professor’s team are finding stuff that’s been there over three hundred years.’

  ‘Under the ground, not on the surface,’ Watt interceded, having caught a whiff of burning cordite from his DCI’s short fuse having sensed where the discussion was heading.

  ‘Actually, sir – they have recovered artefacts on or very close to the surface.’

  ‘Then I suggest you ask to see them and whatever this obsessive bastard with the metal detector may have picked up. We’re not wasting precious resources on a pointless exercise, Dunbar,’ Molineux had growled after downing his coffee and stomping away and that was that. End of discussion.

  It was the cynicism that rankled with Dunbar. With the threat of another cull hanging over almost every senior ranking officer in Scotland they were all desperately trying to demonstrate their fiscal awareness and mastery of departmental budgets. The new force, Police Scotland was top-heavy with Chiefs and Superintendent Association ranks, and when the axe fell, Molineux et al were determined that their names would be front and centre as appointments were deliberated over at the Justice Ministry.

  After Molineux’s petulant exit, and much to Watt’s chagrin, Dunbar had made a point of making an entry in his notebook that Watt had refused to sign. Left with no option he had insisted that his request for a search team and their denial be recorded in the policy book for the purposes of any future case re
view – and warned his boss that he would check. In the event of a case review, that was one ball Watt would have to admit – he dropped, knowing full well Molineux would leave him to field it. Getting his boss’s hackles up was not the best of starts to a homicide enquiry but thoroughness was one of Alec Dunbar’s hallmarks. Every job demanded it and this case would be no exception. From here on in they were going to do it his way.

  ***

  Alec Dunbar had built a reputation on the CID for being the first in and last out – be it the office or the pub. But that was in the past. Now he presided over a new breed of detectives schooled in a much more liberal atmosphere than he had known.

  Watches were checked and looks exchanged as his small team drifted in and took their places at their work-stations only to see the SIO apparently fixated by the dearth of information they had to work with on the whiteboard.

  ‘Greg!’ he said.

  ‘Sir?’ DC Reece responded – was it an assumption or did he know he was in the room? If so, how? He had never taken his eyes off the board. Whatever, he was just glad he was there when his name was called.

  ‘Any joy on that headless corpse search?’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe how many unidentified bodies there are out there.’

  ‘Beyond being surprised, Greg!’ Dunbar shot back without turning.

  ‘It’s a terribly sad indictment on society,’ DI Tyler contributed as she strode through the room.

  ‘Nin’ missin’ their heids so far, sir,’ Greg Reece continued.

  Tyler eyed the flustered detective as she passed his desk. ‘You look dreadful. On the lash last night, were you?’

  ‘I wish! Bairn’s colic, barely got a wink,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Tyler replied, further affirmation, if it were needed, that choosing career over marriage and breeding was the smart move.

  ‘Annnd our lass is on earlies. I pity any poor bastard that’s gettin’ a bed bath off her this mornin’, she was in a fierce mood when I poured the milk on her Frosties.’

  ‘Aww’ you got her Frosties for her,’ another colleague teased.