The Special Dead

by Lin Anderson

  ‘Can we forget you discovered Mark Howitt’s possible illustrious connections for the moment?’ McNab paused. ‘Just long enough for me to check out the suspect.’

  Ollie gave him a long, slow smile. ‘Sounds like a good plan to me.’

  Back in the incident room, McNab looked for DS Clark only to be told she was taking a statement from a friend of the two female victims. The elation he’d experienced in the Tech department fell away and was replaced by a dull anger, whether at himself or Freya he wasn’t sure.

  He checked which room they were in, then went to take a look.

  From the observation point next door, he studied the two women sitting across the table from one another. Janice looked calm and assured, Freya nervous and distressed. McNab’s stomach flipped as she inclined her head to the right, a gesture he realized he’d come to love about her. It was something she did when thinking deeply.

  In that moment, McNab wished the previous twelve hours had never happened. That he’d arrived ten minutes later at Freya’s flat and, as a result, had never seen Danny Hardy leave.

  Would that have made a difference to his reaction when Freya told him of Danny’s visit?

  Yes, because he wouldn’t have immediately linked her nakedness to Danny’s exit.

  McNab wanted to listen in, but found himself incapable of doing so. He’d lost all confidence in his ability to analyse, accept or reject anything Freya said. He would have to leave that up to Janice. McNab left the viewing room and shut the door firmly behind him.

  It was time to do something he was capable of.

  41

  Rhona stood for a moment considering her next move. Already kitted up, she could enter alone or wait and locate McNab. There were still a couple of SOCOs further down the lane, but Chrissy, she knew, had accompanied the evidence retrieved from the body back to the lab.

  Rhona pulled at the chain and it rattled through the double handles and fell free.

  As she pushed the door inwards, the scent of incense wafted out, faint but recognizable. Water dripped somewhere, each plop echoing back at her from the concrete walls.

  A sudden mad fluttering saw a trapped pigeon avoid the glare of her torch and escape upwards through a hole in the ceiling, seeking the windowed and brighter upper level. In return, daylight drifted down, exposing the emptiness and dereliction of the room, with its covering of concrete dust and bird shit.

  Yet she could still smell incense – of that she was certain.

  According to Magnus, the area required to perform the rituals and work magick could be a whole building, a room or just part of a room. A place kept solely for rituals, in perhaps an attic or basement, like the vaults they’d visited in Edinburgh, would be ideal.

  The room had to be clean and would have been scrubbed out with salt before the temple was constructed. Rhona checked the floor again. If there was a room, then there should be a noticeable pathway through the dust that led to it. She switched off her torch and stood for a moment, accustoming herself to the grey light.

  Then she spotted it.

  Rather than head across the room, the path snaked left. The room had been a shop at one time, as evidenced by the long counter and shelved back wall. Rhona followed the path behind the counter to an abrupt end at an old-fashioned wooden stool that stood between the counter and the shelves.

  Rhona moved the stool back to expose a small brass handle embedded in the floor, signalling the existence of a trapdoor. She slipped her finger through the ring and pulled upwards. With a sigh the wooden door released itself and rose.

  Immediately the scent, she recognized now as sandalwood, escaped.

  Glancing down, she saw a steep ladder of perhaps a dozen or more steps.

  Minutes later, Rhona was standing in the temple.

  Entering at the north-west corner of the basement room, she faced the altar, which stood in the middle of the circle. To the east was the opening on the circle. The walls were painted the magickal symbolic colours: the north wall painted green, the east yellow, the south red and the west blue. On the south wall, which faced her, stood a couch draped in red. Above, black writing on the red wall read:

  Here do I direct my power

  Through the agencies of the

  God and Goddess.

  Directionally opposite, smoke still drifted from the censer that stood on the altar. According to Magnus, a special charcoal briquette was lit and sprinkled with incense, then placed in the censer, allowing it to burn slowly. Hence the lingering scent. Around the circle and in all four corners of the room stood a burnt-out candle. Only one remained alive, fluttering its way to extinction. The candles and censer suggested someone had been in here recently, maybe only hours before.

  As Rhona approached the altar, she spotted the broken pieces of what looked like the Goddess statue scattered among the other ritual items, which included the statue of the God.

  Freya had said she’d told Danny to check Leila’s Goddess statue and it looked like either he or someone else had done just that. Rhona studied the altar and came to the conclusion that it wasn’t only the Goddess that was missing. Salt and water dishes were there, as was a beautifully inscribed horn for wine. Two goblets for the God and Goddess stood on either of the altar. On the floor before it stood two further goblets for participants, confirming that two Witches used this temple for worship.

  Magnus had said that every Witch has a personal knife, called an athame, or in the Scottish tradition, a yag-dirk. Usually made of steel, it was a double-edged blade. A ceremonial sword lay on the altar, normally used for marking the circle, but there was no knife, although there was clearly a place for it.

  Rhona recalled the body outside with its gouged eyes. A double-edged knife would have been a perfect implement to achieve such a result.

  If Danny had come here to search for the list, had he taken the knife?

  Freya had told McNab that Danny and Barry had both been involved in taking videos of Leila and her sexual partners. If the victim in the lane was Barry, was it possible Danny had killed him? If so, why?

  Rhona retreated upstairs. Back in the lane, she called McNab.

  ‘Dr MacLeod?’

  ‘I’ve located Leila’s temple,’ Rhona told him.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the Lion Chambers building.’

  ‘That’s been checked.’

  ‘They missed a basement in the downstairs shop on the lane side.’

  ‘You’re fucking kidding me, right?’

  She didn’t answer the rhetorical question but asked one of her own. ‘Can you come down?’

  ‘I have something I have to do first. Are there SOCOs still about?’

  ‘Chrissy’s gone but I can bring her back,’ Rhona offered. ‘And I could ask Magnus to take a look?’

  ‘Do that.’

  His swift agreement surprised Rhona.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she said.

  ‘Fine. Why shouldn’t I be?’

  Rhona could think of at least one reason. She decided to come clean.

  ‘I found the temple because of Freya.’

  She broke the loaded silence that followed. ‘She showed me the keys she found in Shannon’s desk. One looked like a padlock . . .’

  McNab cut in, his voice a splinter of ice. ‘You had no business interviewing Freya Devine.’

  ‘I didn’t interview her,’ Rhona said. ‘She called and asked to speak to me about Shannon.’ That wasn’t exactly true but . . .

  ‘How did she get your number?’ McNab asked sharply.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Rhona lied. ‘But I think what Freya told me was the truth.’

  ‘Really?’

  Rhona ignored the sarcasm. ‘I’ll let you know if we find anything.’

  ‘You do that, Dr MacLeod.’

  He rang off before Rhona could tell him about the missing knife.

  Stupid, argumentative, stubborn bastard. No wonder he made a piss poor DI.

  But, a small voice reminded her, t
hat stubborn bastard never gives up, no matter what it might cost him.

  And in this case, it looked as though it might have cost him Freya.

  McNab threw the mobile on the passenger seat and tried to concentrate on the road. Having commandeered a vehicle, he was now on the M8 heading east. The afternoon traffic was steady which meant he wasn’t going anywhere fast. McNab thought about putting on the blue light and hitting the accelerator. He would relish a burst of speed and some serious driving right now. On the other hand he was so angry, he was probably a danger to the public as well as himself.

  He forced himself to stay in the left-hand lane at a steady sixty and tried to think things through. He’d done it again. Cut Rhona off with sarcasm, instead of questioning her about her find. And it was a find, one that he or his team had failed to achieve. The main search had made use of the front entrance to the Lion Chambers. All rooms had been checked but no one had spotted the basement entrance. Congratulations should have been in order and instead he’d given Rhona grief.

  Was he a worse bastard sober than when he’d been drinking? Or was he just a bastard?

  And what had Freya told Rhona that she believed? He hadn’t even asked. So much for being a detective.

  When he pulled in at Harthill services for petrol and a coffee fix, he found a text message from Ollie. It seemed the mobile used to send the video was a pay-as-you-go, which had since gone quiet. No surprise there. The next bit of news was more interesting. Mark Howitt had made a call in the last hour to Edinburgh from the Glasgow area. If true, then McNab was heading in the wrong direction if he wanted to speak personally to his suspect.

  ‘Where in Glasgow?’ McNab asked when he rang Ollie back.

  ‘City centre area.’

  ‘Who did he call?’

  ‘An Emilie Cochrane.’

  ‘Do we know anything about her?’

  ‘Quite a lot.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  McNab listened to the details of Emilie’s life, including her place of work, which was a high-end fashion store on George Street.

  ‘Okay, keep a trace on Mark. I’ll get back to you.’ McNab rang off and finished up his coffee. If Emilie was the girlfriend then chances were she knew exactly where Mark was.

  McNab began to wish he’d taken the train as he entered the city centre. Glasgow traffic was bad enough with its one-way system, which inevitably meant you went round the block while trying to get to your destination. Edinburgh had its own unique problems, including the addition of the trams on Princes Street and the rule on buses only. Running in parallel, George Street was wide with two-way traffic but getting a parking place was no easy matter. He finally located one at Charlotte Square and, paying his dues via the meter, began his walk, fetching up outside a rather smart clothes shop that had no prices in the window.

  McNab headed inside.

  The scent in here was not of incense or candles but of money. It was funny how money had a smell. A very pleasant one. McNab enjoyed the aroma for a moment before taking a look around for a possible Emilie.

  Mark Howitt was by all accounts a tasty and well-heeled bloke, even if he might be a killer. McNab imagined a girlfriend would be his equal. He spotted who he thought might be Emilie moments later. She emerged through plush blue curtains and came walking towards him, although walking was an inadequate word to describe the movement she made.

  She was tallish, blonde and very classy. McNab gave her a silent ten out of ten.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said with a coquettish smile.

  McNab killed that smile when he produced his ID and introduced himself. She observed him in a puzzled, defensive manner. Dealing with the police would be like dealing with riff-raff, is how McNab read it.

  She collected herself and assumed a caring, bewildered look. One McNab had met many times before, usually among those who thought themselves above and beyond the law.

  ‘I’m investigating the murder of a young woman in Glasgow last Friday night.’ He paused to allow that to sink in. ‘And I’d like to speak to a Mark Howitt who I believe is a friend of yours.’

  Whatever she’d expected, maybe a parking offence or a burglary in the vicinity, it hadn’t been death, or a mention of Mark.

  McNab barged straight ahead. ‘We know he was in Glasgow at that time. We have him on CCTV leaving the pub with the female in question. We’d like to know where he is now.’

  The lovely face became a turbulent mass of emotions, including outright shock, but McNab could see the calculations behind them. How much to say? How much to get involved?

  ‘Can we go somewhere and have a quiet coffee?’ McNab suggested with a reassuring smile. ‘No one need know why I’m here.’

  She saw and immediately clung to that smile and its reassurance. Image was everything here. If she was linked to a murderer, he suspected the job and quite a few other relationships might be over.

  ‘I’ll just tell them I’m popping out.’

  McNab told her he’d wait for her outside.

  She appeared moments later having donned a jacket to match her outfit. In the interim she’d collected herself and her look was now one of steely determination. McNab suspected she was about to shaft Mark Howitt, whatever their relationship had been.

  She suggested a nearby cafe and chose to sit inside in the darkest corner she could find. McNab went along with her desire for anonymity. Edinburgh was a small place, and he presumed George Street and its environs were even smaller.

  When the waiter, decked out in long black apron, approached, McNab ordered his usual double espresso. Emilie asked for chamomile tea, to settle the nerves, no doubt. Left alone while they waited for their order to arrive, McNab asked Emilie what her relationship with the suspect was.

  ‘We go out together – now and again,’ she added, making it immediately impermanent.

  McNab accepted that to put her at ease.

  ‘Were you aware he was in Glasgow on Friday night?’

  By her expression, this was a tricky one for her. If she revealed the truth, it might be construed that she knew Mark better than she wanted to admit.

  Eventually, she said, ‘He told me he was playing five-aside football with Jeff in Glasgow.’

  ‘Jeff?’

  ‘Jeff Barclay. They went to university together. I’ve only met him once when he came through to Edinburgh. He and Mark get together once a month—’ She came to a sudden halt, aware she was giving the impression that her relationship with Mark was long-standing.

  McNab smiled again to further reassure her.

  ‘Do you have Jeff’s phone number?’

  ‘No, but he’s a lawyer for a big Glasgow firm.’

  ‘Where is Mark now?’

  ‘He said he’s on a course for the next few days, in Glasgow.’

  ‘When did he tell you this?’

  She hesitated. ‘He called this morning.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  Another hesitation. ‘Saturday. He took me out to lunch.’

  ‘How did he seem?’

  She didn’t like this, that was plain to see, as every answer indicated that she knew Mark better than she wanted to admit.

  ‘Hungover, and –’ she went in for the kill – ‘he had a bad scratch on his right shoulder. He said he got it at the football.’

  McNab thanked her and handed her his card.

  ‘If Mark gets in touch again, you’ll let me know?’

  She stared at the card. ‘I don’t want to talk to him,’ she said, shaking her head.

  ‘Just let me know if he calls, or tries to see you.’

  She didn’t relish the thought of either possibility.

  ‘Am I safe?’ she said.

  ‘We don’t know that Mark’s guilty of anything yet,’ McNab said. ‘That’s why we need to talk to him.’

  She wasn’t sold on that. Mark was plainly guilty of lying to her and picking up other women. Her expression said as much.

  ‘The sooner we contact him
the better,’ McNab said. ‘So anything you can do to help would be much appreciated.’

  Mollified by this, she slipped the card into her jacket pocket.

  ‘I’d better get back,’ she said.

  McNab offered his hand and thanked her again for all her help.

  When she’d gone he called the waiter over and ordered another espresso, this time to go. Emilie’s chamomile tea was left untouched.

  McNab picked up the car and headed up the Mound, intent now on checking out Mark’s pad. He didn’t have a search warrant, but that didn’t necessarily mean he couldn’t glean some information from a visit. Leading to the Royal Mile, this was the part of town most tourists flocked to. Crossing the Mile, he spotted the university in the distance and, to the west, the old Royal Infirmary.

  Just inside the main gate was a reception area for those interested in purchasing a property on this prime site. According to Ollie, Mark’s penthouse wasn’t in the older building, but part of the new block which overlooked the extensive parkland known as the Meadows.

  Parking in one of the many residents’ bays, McNab headed for the block in question. The view even from ground level was pretty spectacular and the location was only a fifteen-minute walk from Princes Street. McNab thought of his much more modest backstreet flat as he gazed upwards at the structure that rose in turrets of glass. If the view was ace down here, what must it be like in the penthouse?

  He turned in at reception where he was pleased to find a concierge on duty. McNab introduced himself once again and flashed his badge, which caused some interest.

  ‘Aye, how can I help you, officer?’

  ‘Mr Mark Howitt. The penthouse flat? Is he home?’

  The man lifted a phone and pressed a number, which turned out to perform much like the buzzer in McNab’s own less palatial residence.

  ‘He’s not in.’ The concierge waited on the next development.

  ‘Have you seen him recently?’ McNab said.

  ‘No. Why? Is something wrong?’

  McNab assumed a serious expression. ‘We’re concerned for Mr Howitt’s welfare. Is there any way we can check the flat just in case he is in there?’