by Alex Walters
‘A lunatic?’ Horton offered. She turned to Graham. ‘Who was it found the body?’
‘A bloke and his young son. They’d walked out here so he could show the son the cave. I took a statement from them and got their details.’
‘You didn’t hold on to them?’ McKay asked.
‘Well, no,’ Graham said. ‘He looked shaken and the boy was upset. They’d been intending to grab some lunch so I let them go. Sorry. ‘
McKay had felt a momentary irritation at Graham’s actions but knew he was being unreasonable. Graham was a good reliable copper. She’d have taken a decent statement. She’d have got the man’s contact details and made sure his footprints could be eliminated from any others that might be found outside the cave. There was probably nothing more the man could tell them. ‘Ignore me. Ginny will tell you I’m not in the best of the moods.’
‘It’s his time of the month,’ Horton said. ‘Runs from the first through to the thirtieth or thirty-first. Shorter in February, for which we’re all grateful.’
‘Very funny,’ McKay growled. ‘No, you did good,’ he said to Graham.
She shuffled uncomfortably on the damp sand. ‘I’ll go and see how the examiners are getting along,’ she said.
‘What is it, Alec?’ Horton said when Graham had walked off.
‘What’s what?’
‘You’ve been like a bear with a sore arse ever since we left Culbokie.’
‘Ach, I don’t know. That bastard Scott, I suppose. Fucking Christian hypocrite. Loves our Jesus Christ, but can’t bring himself to love his own fucking daughter.’
‘People show their love in different ways.’
‘And he showed his by throwing her out of the fucking house?’
‘She walked out.’
‘Because he made her. Because his own morality was more important than his love for his daughter. Who knows what he did to the poor lass.’
‘You don’t, for a start. And neither do I. And you don’t know what he’s going through now. Not inside.’
McKay made no response, but stood, chewing rhythmically, staring at the open sea. Finally, he turned and said: ‘Let’s go see whether Jock Henderson’s finally got his act together.’
They arrived back at the cave as the two examiners were emerging. Henderson pulled back his white hood and stood blinking in the noonday sun.
‘What’s the matter, Jock?’ McKay asked. ‘Don’t they normally let you out in daylight?’
‘Just the shock of seeing your ugly mug, Alec.’
‘What have we got?’
‘Young girl. Similar age to the last one. Maybe mid-twenties. Death from asphyxiation, again, I’d say.’
‘Any signs of chloroform?’ McKay tried, not entirely successfully, to keep a note of mockery from his voice.
‘Aye. Burns round the mouth. Same MO as the last one, I’d say. Though I think this one might have been more difficult for the killer. Looks like she might have vomited. Maybe choked on her vomit, with her mouth held firmly shut. Imagine the doc will confirm.’
‘Any ID?’
‘She was naked like the last one. A few more tattoos this time, so you might have some luck with those. I’ll get the photos over to you. Dyed blonde hair. Skinny little thing.’
‘And roses and candles again?’
‘Aye. Like up at Munlochy. The body wasn’t buried this time. Ground in there’s too hard to make it feasible. It was wrapped in plastic sheeting. We’ll have a look at that and see if we can get anything from it.’
‘How long’s she been here?’
‘I’m pretty sure she was placed here last night. In this kind of weather people walk up here to explore the caves, so if she’d been here longer she’d have been spotted. I’d say she’d been dead for maybe three or four days before that.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Might be a bit more chance than there was last time of getting some DNA traces, given the body’s not been here long and it’s been under cover.’
‘If there’s any on there, other than the victim’s.’
‘As you say. No sign of any fingerprints, certainly. But you wouldn’t expect someone who goes to these lengths to be that stupid.’
‘You reckon this is likely to be the same killer?’
‘Well, I’d say so, wouldn’t you? You haven’t released any details of how the first victim died, so it’s not a copy-cat killing.’
‘So we’ve got a random multiple killer on our hands,’ McKay said. ‘Helena Grant’s going to be so pleased.’
‘More your problem than mine, pal.’ Henderson sounded more pleased than any man who’d just finished examining a murdered corpse had a right to be. ‘The report will be with you in due course.’
‘As always, quicker than that,’ McKay said. ‘Much quicker.’ He turned away, then looked back over his shoulder. ‘Pal.’
***
McKay dropped Horton off back at Divisional Headquarters and continued back through the city to his house on the outskirts. He expected to be pulling a late one tonight—and possibly for the foreseeable future—so he wanted to square things with Chrissie in person, rather than trying to do it over the phone. It probably wouldn’t help but it was worth a shot. In any case, the journey would give him a bit of time to himself and he felt he needed that just at the moment.
Chrissie was in the kitchen when he arrived, preparing something for their suppers. Not the most auspicious of starts. ‘Jesus,’ she said, ‘you made me jump. What the hell are you doing back at this time? Have they finally sacked you?’
Lovely to see you too, dear, he thought. ‘They’ve still not found me out. But I’ll need to work late tonight. So I thought I’d pop in on my way past.’
She took it better than he’d expected. ‘I saw the latest on the lunchtime news,’ she said. ‘Sounds like another one?’
‘Looks that way,’ he said. ‘Which isn’t good news for anyone.’
‘Least of all us,’ Chrissie said. She looked at the casserole dish into which she had been carefully dicing vegetables. ‘I’m just doing a stew,’ she said. ‘It’ll keep till you get back. Whenever that is.’ She allowed just the faintest edge of bitterness to creep into her tone.
‘Aye, I know, Chrissie. Look, I’m sorry—’
‘I know you’re sorry, Alec. You’re always sorry. It doesn’t help.’
‘I know—’
She held up a hand as if stopping traffic. ‘Don’t, Alec. We’ve been through it. It doesn’t go anywhere. There’s no point in having another argument.’
As if I’d been the one trying to provoke it, he thought. He could feel his irritation rising. The anger and despair he’d felt when speaking to that bastard up in Culbokie came back into his throat like bile. This was how it always seemed to be these days. As if she wanted to needle him just enough and then stamp the lid firmly back if he tried to respond. In his more rational moments, he knew he did the same. It was like probing a loose tooth. You could never stop yourself until the damn thing dropped out.
‘No,’ he said, finally, ‘you’re right. There’s no point. Everything’s been said. It doesn’t help us to keep saying it.’
She looked, for a moment, as if she were about to argue after all. ‘No, you’re right. It doesn’t.’
‘I’ll give you a call when I’m on my way back. I hope it won’t be too late.’
‘No, well. I know it’s important. Those poor wee lassies. It’s frightening just to think about it.’
‘Whoever’s doing this is a mad bastard, right enough.’
‘Look, Alec, I’m not trying to be difficult. I’m a cantankerous old bitch, just like you’re a miserable old bastard. But at the end of the day we’re on the same side. We’re having to deal with the same things. We’re both suffering. We need to help each other.’
‘Aye, you’re right,’ he said, finally. ‘I’ve had a bad time today. Went up to see the parents of the first victim—we’ve managed to ID her now. God-bothering old bugger up i
n Culbokie. Cared more about his precious Bible than he did about his murdered daughter.’
‘Alec—’
‘Aye, I know. Get a bit of perspective. But bastards like that don’t deserve any perspective.’ He paused. ‘And then we got the call about the second body. They found her in this bloody cave just up from Rosemarkie. I watched as they carried her body away. She was just a poor wee slip of a thing—’ He could feel, embarrassingly, the tears welling behind his eyes.
Chrissie took his hand in hers. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d made a gesture like that. She was still the same woman he’d married, he thought, the fiery redhead who used to drag him on to the dance-floor and made damn sure he had a good time, whether he wanted to or not. But she looked shrunken now, her shoulders stooped, streaks of grey in that copper hair. ‘Alec. I know. I understand,’ she said. ‘Nobody else does. Nobody else can. But I do. I’m there as well, you know?’
He wanted to say it wasn’t a fucking competition. But he knew that hadn’t been what she’d meant. She meant, he thought, that they were both burning in the same hell. But at least they were there together. For what that was worth.
‘Aye, pet, I know,’ he said. ‘We struggle on, eh? That’s all we can do.’
‘That’s all we can do.’
He released her hand and, giving her a kiss on the lips that felt more perfunctory than he’d intended, he turned and left her standing in the kitchen. He felt as if he should stay longer, do something for her. Above all, he felt as if there should be more words, but he hadn’t a clue what they might be.
CHAPTER TEN
‘Penny for them,’ Horton said. They were driving through town to visit Danny Reynolds, Katy Scott’s one-time boyfriend. Horton was at the wheel. They’d hit what passed for rush hour up here, and the traffic was clogged and slow-moving. McKay had never been able to work out how the Highland traffic authorities could contrive so many tail-backs from such a small population.
As it had turned out, it hadn’t taken them long to track Reynolds down. He was still on the PNC, with a recorded caution for possession, the best part of ten years before. The address had been out of date, but Horton had identified three Daniel Reynolds on the electoral role. A couple of telephone calls later, and they’d pinned down the correct one.
‘They’re not even worth a penny.’ McKay was conscious he’d been staring blankly out of the passenger window for the last ten minutes or so. He’d been thinking, with no real focus, about Katy Scott, about her father, and then about Chrissie and about his own life. That way, he knew, lay nothing but self-pity or worse.
‘This is the place,’ Horton said. ‘Next left.’
It was a respectable looking new-build. Neat semi-detached houses with tidy, low-maintenance front gardens, most with at least one new car sitting on the drive. The sort of place that would attract young professionals with a half-decent joint salary. Somewhere you could trade up, step by step, from a tiny starter home to a five-bedroom villa without moving off the estate. The Reynolds were on one of the lower rungs of that ladder, but doing all right.
Horton pulled into the curb. ‘Number eleven.’
The houses along this stretch were largely identical, differentiated only by the colour of the paintwork and the efforts made to personalise individual properties—window boxes, garden furniture and ornaments, decorative door-knockers. All looked neat and well-maintained.
As they entered the front garden, McKay gestured towards a football lying at the edge of the lawn. ‘Patter of tiny feet,’ he said.
The front door was opened before he’d pressed the bell. A young woman, slim with pale blonde hair, was standing inside the doorway. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked, in a tone that suggested it was unlikely.
‘Police,’ McKay said, holding his warrant card steadily before her face. ‘DI McKay and DS Horton. Mrs Reynolds?’
‘Yes?’
‘We’d like a word with your husband, if he’s in.’ McKay gave a smile unlikely to provide any reassurance. ‘Just a routine enquiry, in connection with an ongoing investigation. Nothing to worry about.’
‘You’d better come in.’ She ushered them into the house, leading them into a small sitting room. ‘I’m sorry everything’s a bit of a mess. I’ll go and get Danny.’
The room seemed tidy enough to McKay, except for a small pile of children’s toys next to the television. Exactly what he would have expected. Neat modern furniture purchased from some chain store. Large screen TV and a stack of DVDs. A handful of paperbacks on a bookshelf largely occupied by random ornaments. Aspirational was probably the word.
After a few minutes, an anxious-looking man appeared. He was probably around thirty, ginger hair already slightly receding, dressed in a tee-shirt and jeans, his watery blue eyes blinking nervously at them. ‘Danny Reynolds,’ he said. ‘Was it you phoned earlier? I don’t know why you’d want to speak to me.’ He sat himself down in the middle of the sofa. McKay and Horton had occupied the two armchairs.
‘As I told your wife, Mr Reynolds, it’s just a routine enquiry—’
‘Isn’t that what you say just before you arrest someone?’ Reynolds laughed. It wasn’t entirely clear whether he was joking.
‘We’re enquiring about someone we believe was a past acquaintance of yours. A Katy Scott.’
For a moment, Reynolds looked baffled. ‘Jeez. Katy. Haven’t seen her for years.’
‘But you did know her?’
‘Oh, aye. A long time ago. Is she in trouble?’
‘In a manner of speaking. I’d appreciate if you’d keep this confidential at present, Mr Reynolds, as we haven’t had formal confirmation of identity from the next of kin.’
Reynolds jolted upright. ‘Next of kin?’
‘You’ll have seen the news reports about the discovery of a body in the woods up near Munlochy?’
‘Up on the Isle, aye. Christ, you mean that’s Katy?’
‘We’ve reason to believe so, yes.’
‘My God. You never expect—’ He shook his head, as if trying to deny what he’d just heard. ‘Not someone you know.’
‘Can I ask how you knew Ms Scott?’
‘She was—well, just one of the crowd, you know? We’re talking ten years ago.’
‘You weren’t particularly close to her?’
Reynolds looked up in surprise. ‘You mean were we an item? Christ, no.’ He sounded unexpectedly vehement. ‘Is that what you thought?’ He looked nervously towards the door, as if concerned his wife might be eavesdropping.
‘Her parents seemed to have that impression.’
‘Is that why you’re here? Because her dad fingered me. It wouldn’t surprise me. But, no, we weren’t an item. She was just a friend. Hardly even that.’
‘Did your wife know her too?’ Horton asked.
‘Zoe?’ For a second, Reynolds looked uneasy. ‘Yes, a bit. Like I say, we were all part of one crowd. You know what it’s like at that age.’
McKay could barely remember. ‘How did you meet her?’
‘I’ve no idea, really. Probably with some others in a pub. She was just there, you know? I’m not sure there’s much I can tell you. It’s been a long time.’
‘At this stage, we’re just after background. Trying to find out what sort of a woman she was.’
‘Well, she was—difficult, let’s say. She was always a handful. I mean, sometimes in a good way. She could be fun. But then she’d go too far. She’d go a bit off the rails.’
McKay decided to take a punt. ‘You’ve a police record for possession?’
Reynolds sat back heavily on the sofa. ‘Oh, Christ, I suppose it’s still on the record, isn’t it? It was only a bloody caution. Possession of a bit of grass. But, yes, that was her.’
‘In what way?’
‘We were coming back from the pub one night. Quite late. All a bit pissed. We got stopped by a couple of your colleagues in the city centre. It should have been nothing. We’d done nothing wrong, except had a few
too many drinks. They’d probably just have given us a ticking off for being rowdy. But Katy starts making a big play about what I’ve got in my pocket, like I’m trying to hide something. I’ve no idea what she’s on about, but eventually the cops start taking it seriously. They ask me to empty my pockets, and when I do there’s this little packet I’ve never seen before. Turns out to be grass.’
‘She planted it on you?’
‘Her idea of a joke. I think she was a bit pissed off with me for some reason. Something I’d said or done earlier in the evening. Can’t remember what. But obviously the cops have to take it seriously then, so they haul me off to the station. And I end up with a caution and a record on your bloody system.’ He glanced nervously towards the door. It was evident this was a story he’d never shared with his wife. ‘Which, fortunately, hasn’t affected my career so far.’
‘I don’t think you need to worry about that now, Mr Reynolds.’
‘You never know. I work for a US company. They’re a bit puritanical.’
‘That was typical, was it? Of the way she behaved?’
‘That was one of the more extreme examples. Let’s just say that it didn’t pay to get on the wrong side of her. And she was a daredevil. Did things for the hell of it. I remember her sitting on the fencing at Kessock Bridge, drunk as a lord. We thought she was going to topple off. Scared the hell out of us. But she was just laughing.’
‘When she moved out of her parents’ place in Culbokie, they had the impression she moved in with you. Wasn’t that the case?’
‘Only in a manner of speaking. I was living in a shared house, a big Edwardian place. The landlord had inherited it and was trying to scrape together the cash to do it up properly. So he let the rooms to pull in some money. There were eight of us living in there. When Katy decided to move out of her parents’ place, there was a spare room so she moved in. A couple of us went to help her move. That’s probably why her dad got the idea she’d moved in with me. She didn’t stay long. Just a few months, then she went off to live with some girlfriend who’d got a spare place in a council flat.’
