Cold Grave

by Craig Robertson

  Heneghan sighed and lowered his voice further, his eyes slowly closing over.

  ‘It was late March and me and old Tam Conway, the bloke I worked with, were going to Inchmahome. The island is shut to visitors from October to April so before it opened up again we would go over and cut the grass, do weeding, repair work, whatever was needed. I remember it was cold because Tam was moaning all morning. That was old Tam though – he never stopped complaining.

  ‘Anyhow, we got the boat over to the island, just the two of us. I always liked the old place. Full of history: Mary Queen of Scots stayed there for three weeks back in fifteen forty something; Robert the Bruce before that as well. And there was the wildlife and all – ospreys and merlins and swans and geese. Brilliant so it was.

  ‘So this day, me and Tam get to Inchmahome. It was raining but not very hard. We got the gear out of the old boathouse by the jetty and split up the way we always did. He’d start at the chapter house and I’d begin at the priory. Suited me fine – meant I didnae have to listen to his moaning. There wasnae much in the way of growth because of the winter having been so harsh, like. The island had been under snow for most of it. So we figured we wouldnae need to be there too long. We could spin it out for a few hours but that would include at least three fag breaks.

  ‘It was that quiet. No like working in here. When Tam was away working on the other side it was like you could be back in Mary’s days, ye ken? Just you and the priory and the ghosts. The most peaceful place you could imagine – till I heard Tam shouting, roaring in fact. So I went running to see what was up with him. He’d been working when something had caught his eye, something that shouldnae have been there. It’s because it was red, ye see. Everything else was all browns and greens and stone so this red thing stuck out like a sore thumb.

  ‘So Tam goes over and he told me that the closer he got, the stranger it looked. It was half-hidden by the wall and the undergrowth and he reckoned he would only have seen it from the angle where he was standing. Then he could smell it. Says he’d never smelled anything like it in his life. He went right over to it and moved the grass back till he saw the thing properly. I think he nearly died on the spot himself when he saw what it was. That’s when he shouted on me.

  ‘Christ, what a mess the lassie was in. I’ve never seen anything like it – not even on the telly. She’d obviously been there for months and the animals had got at her. Tam threw up and I wasn’t far behind him, I don’t mind telling you. They’d eaten her face and her eyes and her skin. Black the skin was, this terrible black colour. She had less than half a face and what there was wasn’t much like human. Her body was hardly there either, all shrivelled away inside the red waterproof jacket she had on. You got the feeling it was only the jacket that was keeping her bones together.’

  Narey shuddered but, unlike at the bar when her reaction was for the benefit of Kenny and Dazza, this time it was genuine. The horror of the girl lying there, broken and eaten, revolted her.

  ‘She had these wee pink gloves on that poked out the end of the jacket sleeves,’ Heneghan continued. ‘It was only the gloves and her long hair that let you know she was a lassie. Her hair had been blonde but it was all dirty with being on the ground for so long.’

  Heneghan drew breath to take a long sip of his tea and Narey could see that it was more than just the exhilaration of telling his story. The man was seeing the girl again in his mind’s eye and it was affecting him all over again.

  ‘But for all that, it was the head that was the worst,’ he continued. ‘I couldnae stop looking at it. It was like a magnet. It was all smashed in above her right eye. There was this big gaping hole and you knew right away it hadn’t been done by any animal. Well, not one with four legs. Some bastard had clubbed her head till it was caved in. She was just . . . broken into bits.’

  Heneghan’s voice trailed off but Narey wasn’t for giving him much time to get over the image that plagued him. She wanted to share it, to see it. Tony’s taste for the ghoulish had infected her, it seemed.

  ‘And there was nothing there that looked like a murder weapon?’ she asked the barman. ‘No log or stick or piece of metal?’

  Heneghan’s eyes suddenly narrowed and he looked at her warily.

  ‘You a reporter?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘Christ, no,’ she retorted. ‘I prefer to be able to sleep at nights and look at myself in the mirror. It’s my job, Bobby. I’m a good listener and I know how much it can help people to share their problems. Go on, please.’

  The man weighed it up before going on with his tale.

  ‘No, no weapon. Nothing that looked like it might have been used to batter her. We searched right enough and so did the police later but there was no sign of anything. And no one had been on the island since October. Excepting when the lake was frozen, of course.’

  ‘So you called the police right away?’

  ‘Well, we had to get the boat back to the mainland and we called from the hotel. We didnae have mobile phones back then. I said I’d take the boat if Tam waited with the body but he told me to get to fu—. He said no, he wasn staying there himself. Said the body wasn going anywhere so it was okay for us both to go back. The cops were there about an hour and a half later. Took us two trips on the boat to get them all over. Madness it was.’

  ‘So what did they think had happened?’ she asked him, waiting for the answers she already knew.

  ‘Well,’ he closed in conspiratorially. ‘That’s the weird bit. They reckoned she’d walked across the lake when the big freeze was there and never made it back across. Spooky, eh?’

  Narey nodded, encouraging him.

  ‘Were you there when the lake was frozen, Bobby?’

  ‘Not working, no, but I’d gone over to see what it was like. There were thousands of people. It was like the lake was covered in them. I didnt walk over to the island though. I’d been over it on the boat often enough that I knew how much water was under that wee bit of ice. If the girl had walked over to the island, on her own or with someone else, then no one would have noticed. Anyone could have done anything to her.’

  ‘Who do you think did it, Bobby?’

  Heneghan glanced back at the bar.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Have you heard people say that the girl was from a gypsy family?’

  ‘Aye, but I think it’s a load of rubbish.’

  She held her breath for a second, hesitating.

  ‘Did you ever hear of a guy called Laurence Paton?’

  He looked at her as if seeing her for the first time, newly suspicious. His answer was firm.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Look, I don’t want to be rude but you ask a lot of questions and I need to get back to work. I don’t know anything, right? And I don’t know if I’ll ever stop seeing that poor girl’s face.’

  Narey was about to press him further but stopped as she saw Heneghan’s eyes were fixed over her shoulder. She turned her head, following the man’s gaze and saw Dick Johnson standing inside the door of The Waverley. The old gardener was shaking a dusting of snow from his shoulders and staring angrily ahead – at her.

  CHAPTER 9

  ‘I remembered who your father was after you left,’ Johnson snapped at her. ‘I don’t think you were being completely honest with me, young lady.’

  Heneghan looked from one of them to the other, clearly confused.

  ‘Dick? What’s going on? I don’t understand.’

  ‘What’s she been asking you, Bobby? About finding the girl’s body?’

  Heneghan’s confusion turned to anger. ‘Aye. Aye, she has.’

  ‘I thought so. She was noseying around the hotel doing the same. Making out she doesn’t know anything about it. But she does. Her father was the policeman in charge of the investigation.’

  Heneghan’s mouth fell open and his lip trembled again. Narey knew arguing was a waste of time now.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Johnson. I didn’t mean to
mislead you but I’m keen to find out anything I can about what happened.’

  ‘You lied to me,’ the old man complained.

  ‘Not entirely,’ she excused herself. ‘I just didn’t tell you the whole truth.’

  ‘Well, you certainly lied to me,’ Heneghan burst in indignantly and loudly, his eyes anxiously jumping from one to the other. ‘You told me you were a counsellor.’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ she said gently. ‘You assumed that’s what I meant. I said that I talked to people who had been through traumatic events.’

  ‘What is that supposed to . . .’

  ‘How did you know I’d be here, Mr Johnson?’ she interrupted.

  The old gardener glared at her, his simmering anger obvious in his voice.

  ‘When I remembered who your father was, I knew you’d been stringing me along. I had a feeling you might come out here to talk to Bobby. Didn’t expect to see you when I walked in here, right enough. Thought I might get here before you – to warn him.’

  ‘Why would he need to be warned?’ Narey asked, becoming acutely aware that the raised voices were drawing a crowd, including the two Neanderthal farmers who had stood either side of her at the bar.

  ‘Bobby’s a good friend of mine,’ Johnson told her. ‘But he’s . . . well, sorry Bob, but you’re a nervous sort these days – not that I blame him. Never been quite right since he found that poor girl, you see. It’s been nineteen years but I don’t think that day’s ever left him. I knew how he’d react if he knew someone was poking around, asking questions after all this time.’

  ‘I’m only trying to find out what happened, Dick.’

  ‘Why?’ The old man was shouting now. ‘Why after all this time?’

  She ignored his question and asked one of her own.

  ‘What about you, Dick? Where were you when it happened?’

  ‘Home in front of the fire because . . . Wait a minute. How dare you ask me that? What are you suggesting?’

  ‘Nothing. I just need . . .’

  Kenny and Dazza were suddenly standing over Narey, glowering down at her.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ Dazza shouted. ‘Why are you asking all these questions, upsetting folk?’

  The man’s ruddy face was red with anger now, having no doubt eventually managed to work out that she had been lying to him too. He was leaning in aggressively towards her, his burly frame just inches from her much slighter figure.

  ‘Yeah, who are you?’ Kenny joined in, his beery breath in her face. ‘Making out you didn’t know about the murder. Were you taking the piss out of us?’

  Narey took a step back, trying to put a bit of distance between herself and the belligerent, half-drunk pair. Suddenly, the space between her and them was filled with another body – Tony.

  ‘Back up,’ he ordered Kenny and Dazza, his hands up in front of them. ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘Get out of the road before I move you,’ Dazza snarled at him.

  ‘Try it,’ Tony growled back, his eyes blazing. ‘You go near her and I’ll kill you – both of you.’

  Kenny and Dazza hesitated, looking at Tony and sizing him up. He was about the same height as Kenny but half as wide and nowhere near the size of Dazza. They were probably wondering whether, since he was prepared to square up to both of them, he had more about him than was obvious.

  ‘There’s no need for this,’ old Dick Johnson was saying. ‘Everybody calm down.’

  ‘No chance,’ Kenny spat at them. ‘This bitch has been lying. She made arses out of us.’

  ‘I’m sure you managed that just fine yoursels,’ Tony snapped back, moving forward so that he was toe to toe with both men, his eyes wide and unblinking. ‘Now piss off afore I have to make you.’

  Kenny and Dazza looked at each other and scowled back at Tony. Dazza pushed a meaty paw into Tony’s chest but he responded immediately by thrusting his own hand hard into Dazza. Narey pushed herself into the tiny gap between them, her bag held up seemingly for protection. Dazza’s arm, aiming to knock Tony’s to the side, caught Narey instead and knocked her bag from her hand, sending it tumbling to the floor.

  The men glared furiously at each other as they stepped back slightly, the few contents of the handbag between them on the floor. Chief among them was her police warrant card, sticking out like a sore thumb among a lipstick, car keys, a hair band and a packet of chewing gum. Dick Johnson stepped between them and picked the identity card from the floor, continuing to hold it as he put the rest of Narey’s things back into the bag. He handed her the bag and finally the card, making sure that both Kenny and Dazza had noticed it.

  ‘Like father, like daughter, eh?’

  ‘Something like that,’ she agreed.

  Kenny and Dazza were backing off, maintaining a staring session with Tony but retreating quickly to the safety of the bar. Dick Johnson stood, shaking slightly but with a comforting hand on the shoulder of his friend Heneghan, who looked distraught.

  ‘I think you should go too, don’t you, Miss . . . Narey?’ Johnson suggested.

  She nodded, grabbed Tony’s elbow and guided him to the door.

  ‘You do know that those big lumps would have snapped you in two?’ Rachel mocked gently when they were driving out of Callander on the road back to Port of Menteith.

  ‘Of course I do. But the important thing was they didn’t know it.’

  ‘True,’ she laughed. ‘And was that also why you did that thing with your accent?’

  ‘What thing?’

  ‘Oh, come on, you know fine well. When you squared up to them, you sounded more “Glesga” than I’ve ever heard you.’

  He grinned. ‘Works every time.’

  ‘Thanks. Seriously. It was getting a bit hairy before you stepped in. My hero.’

  ‘Don’t take the piss,’ he smiled. ‘You made sure they spilled your bag deliberately, didn’t you? To save me from getting a doing.’

  ‘Well . . .’ she shrugged apologetically. ‘Tony, you’re a lover, not a fighter. Maybe you could prove that later . . .’

  He smiled again. ‘I could and I will but I thought there was maybe something else we could do after dinner?’

  ‘What’s that then?’

  ‘Hm. Came to me while I was watching the game. Rangers were winning so I had nothing better to do than think. Have you seen the rowing boat that’s tied up in front of the conservatory? I saw it at breakfast this morning.’

  She had seen it: a little white boat that bobbed on the lake beyond the frosted green expanse of lawn.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well, how about, once it’s dark and the bar is empty, we go for a little sail? To the island.’

  She smiled and nodded again. Her hero.

  CHAPTER 10

  The further the hotel slipped into the distance, becoming one with the trees and the church and the night, the worse an idea it seemed. The lake was inky black beneath them, the mist an icy chill rising from the surface and eating into their bones. Tony paddled them quietly towards the island while Rachel tried to stop her teeth from chattering.

  They’d stolen through their bedroom window and across the lawn where Tony freed the rowing boat from the wooden stake that it was attached to. He let Rachel sit down in the back of the little boat before carefully joining her. There were no oars but he had liberated a kayak-style paddle from the darkened dining room and used it to push them silently from the shore and onto the lake. As he did so, it struck him that the boat was placed there more for decoration than practical use and it might not be entirely sound. He swallowed his reservations down, letting them settle on top of the three glasses of whisky that were stopping him from worrying and reasoned they would find out soon enough.

  Tony’s camera bag lay on the floor of the boat and he was much more worried for its safety than theirs. They could always swim for it if the worst happened but the bag wasn’t going to save his cameras from the murky depths of the lake. It also contained a torch and flash guns that they we
re going to need when – if – they got to Inchmahome. Rachel looked at the lake. Maybe for the first time, she understood his sgriob, her sense of anticipation was tingling just as much as his.

  Something flew just over their heads but neither of them could see what it was; they just felt the rush of air and saw the silent shadow slip into the gloom. They were over halfway now and there was no turning back. As Tony propelled them forward, Inchmahome rose out of the mist and darkness and emerged menacingly before them. More by memory than sight, he headed for the right-hand side of the island, knowing that was where the small jetty was with the boathouse behind it. Rachel turned as they got nearer, causing the boat to wobble, as she desperately sought a closer look at the place that had filled her thoughts for so long.

  Finally, Tony lifted the paddle onto his knees and let the boat glide soundlessly for the remaining yards to the jetty. When they drew parallel to the little wooden platform, he reached for the camera bag and hauled it safely onto the jetty first before scrambling out of the boat and helping Rachel to do the same. He kept the torch switched off until they were past the boathouse and shielded by it and the trees. Even then, he used it only intermittently – just enough for Rachel to be able to lead the way to the crime scene.

  She’d never been there before but had seen enough aerial shots and online maps to know where to take them. The ground was hard with frost beneath their feet and it crunched as they walked, frozen leaves crackling and brittle twigs snapping, the noise echoing off the remains of the priory walls and sounding big in the still night. No one could possibly hear them from the shore, even if anyone was still awake, but they moved without speaking, the enormity of the place suffocating them.

  They wound their way through the ancient arches, taking a haunting tourist trail past the south wall of the priory church, then the cloister with the remnants of its warming house and kitchen. Whatever ghosts still lingered there were whispering at them from the shadows and following them past the chapter house and towards the darkest corner of the island.