Candles and Roses: a serial killer thriller

by Alex Walters

‘We’re looking for Mr Cameron.’

  ‘He won’t be back yet. Doesn’t get back till about five-thirty. From Inverness, you know.’ The man seemed happy to share any detail he knew with this pair of strangers.

  McKay took a step out of the porch and looked at the man, who was standing well back out of the rain. He looked to be in his late seventies, his wispy grey hair combed carefully over a largely bald head. ‘He should be back later, then?’ McKay asked.

  ‘Should be,’ the man agreed. ‘Is his wife not there?’

  ‘Seems to be no-one in.’ Cameron had obviously re-married in the interim.

  The man made a play of looking at his watch. ‘She’ll have gone out somewhere with the girls, then.’

  ‘Girls?’

  ‘Two daughters. Lovely girls. Very polite.’

  ‘Aye, of course,’ McKay said. ‘The girls.’

  ‘Anything I can do?’ the man said.

  ‘We really need to speak to Mr Cameron.’

  ‘Can I take a message at all?’

  ‘Thank you. But we’ll call back later.’

  ‘Shall I tell him you were here?’

  McKay shook his head. ‘There’s really no need. It’s not urgent.’

  ‘Ah, no, well. I like to help if I can.’

  McKay was already leading Horton back down the drive towards the car. The man was still gazing after them as they pulled away back down towards the main road.

  ‘Nosy neighbour,’ McKay said.

  ‘He was just lonely. I’m assuming we’re heading to Cromarty, by the way?’

  ‘We might as well. Let’s see if we have any more luck tracking down Rhona Young’s family. By the time we’ve done that, we should be right to catch our friend on his return from work.’

  On a fine day, the drive to Cromarty could be an inspirational trip through sunlit woodlands and golden fields. Today, it offered little more than a haze of grey. On the far side of Rosemarkie, they saw the police tape still blocking the tree-lined driveway down to the residential home where Rhona Young’s body had been discovered. The examiners were still there, along with a couple of McKay’s own team, working their way through the large building in the hope of finding some further leads.

  Cromarty had always struck McKay as an odd place, even by the standards of the Black Isle. It was picturesque, full of multi-coloured houses and narrow, inviting streets that afforded a tantalising glimpse of private gardens and courtyards. There were the usual touristy cafes and bijou craft shops, and in summer the place was busy with holiday-makers from the surrounding areas.

  But the view out over the Cromarty Firth was largely an industrial one, dominated by the oil platforms brought into dry dock at Nigg for repair or storage. There were facilities over there for oil processing and cargo handling, and it provided a thriving industrial centre. The effect should have been contradictory but was somehow complementary, the platforms adding their own austere beauty to the land- and seascape.

  Their destination was an Edwardian terraced house on one of the narrow streets in the centre of the village. It was impossible to park outside, so Horton found a spot in a nearby side road and they both hurried across the street. ‘Let’s hope this bugger’s in, then,’ McKay muttered as he ducked his head against the ceaseless rain.

  In fact, the door was answered almost immediately. A young man with a shaven head dressed in a checked shirt and jeans blinked at them through thick designer spectacles. The sort of arty type the place attracted, McKay thought. But this man was too young to have a daughter in her late twenties.

  ‘We’re looking for a Mr Young?’

  ‘Not me, I’m afraid.’ He frowned, thinking. ‘He used to live here. But that was years ago. I’m afraid I can’t really—’

  McKay pulled out his warrant card and looked up at the heavy sky. ‘May we come inside for a moment? Easier to talk out of the rain.’

  ‘Of course. Though as I say—’

  McKay brushed past him. ‘I don’t want to make a mess. Are we best in the kitchen?’

  ‘Probably. Brewster. My name, I mean.’

  ‘Good to meet you, Mr Brewster. Through here?’ McKay, keen to get out of the wet, had already made his way into the kitchen and was warming himself by a radiator. The room was decorated with pictures of musicians—they were presumably musicians, since they were depicted playing an array of instruments. But the faces meant nothing to McKay.

  ‘How can I help you?’ Brewster asked.

  ‘We’re trying to track down Mr Young. We have this as the last address on our files. I don’t suppose you have any information that might help us locate him?’

  Brewster was looking confused. ‘I think you’re probably too late for that. I assumed—’

  McKay caught Horton’s eye. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well—’ Brewster stopped. ‘I mean, I thought you’d have known.’

  McKay sighed. ‘I think you’re going to have to start from the beginning. My colleague and I really have no idea what you’re talking about. Which I suspect may be our failing.’ He looked at Horton who shrugged her agreement.

  ‘I just assumed—’

  ‘That the police were a perfectly co-ordinated machine? Aye, it’s an impression we like to give.’

  ‘Well, I bought this place about five years ago. It was a real bargain, and I wasn’t sure why at first. Then I got talking to some of the locals and found out the back-story.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Archie Young. He was the previous owner—well, you know that. Apparently, he killed himself here.’ Brewster pointed towards the kitchen door. ‘In the sitting room. Overdose. Nothing gory.’ He spoke as if that made all the difference.

  McKay frowned. ‘And you thought we should have known about that?’

  ‘No, of course not. Not that in itself. But it was after his arrest that he committed suicide. He taught at one of the local primary schools. He was arrested for downloading child pornography.’

  ‘Images of child abuse,’ Horton corrected, softly. ‘We don’t treat it as pornography.’

  ‘Well, he was arrested. From what I understand the investigation was still continuing, but then—’

  ‘He killed himself,’ McKay said. ‘Which, I suppose, may or may not have been an admission of guilt. When would this have been? You bought the place five years ago?’

  ‘It had been standing empty for a year or so before that. So probably six, seven years ago.’

  McKay was wondering who deserved a bollocking for this. There should have been a flag on Rhona Young’s file. Someone should have made a connection between father and daughter.

  ‘What about his family?’ Horton was asking.

  ‘He was living alone, as far as I know,’ Brewster said. ‘There was some story about his wife having left him, but I don’t know the details. Not really my business, you know?’

  ‘We’re very grateful for what you’ve been able to tell us, Mr Brewster,’ Horton said. ‘The full details will no doubt be on our files. We’ll check on what you’ve told us but it’s just a routine matter. Looks like we can scratch him from our list.’

  ***

  They were still early for their intended meeting with Thomas Cameron, so Horton pulled off the main road in Rosemarkie and took the narrow road past the Plough Inn to the waterfront. She pulled into one of the parking spaces overlooking the sea and they sat—like an old married couple, McKay thought—staring out at the teeming rain. The tide was in, but it was impossible to see more than fifty or so metres across the leaden water. The far side of the Firth was invisible.

  ‘What did you make of that?’ she asked.

  ‘Some bugger’ll get my toe up his arse for failing to link the files,’ McKay said. ‘That’s the first thing. Second thing is we do seem to be uncovering something of a pattern.’

  ‘That was what was occurring to me. We need to check out Young’s story. Sounds as if his wife had left him before all this happened. And presumably the daughter too?’


  ‘Which raises the question of why the wife left. If Young really was downloading child abuse images, was he abusive himself?’

  ‘It’s a lot of ifs,’ Horton said. ‘And it doesn’t explain how any of this links with the daughter’s killing. Except that Young’s no longer a suspect.’

  ‘And there’s no sign of any connection between our victims, other than that they came from this area and the first two ended up in Manchester. They don’t seem to have known each other, up here or down there. So what’s the link?’

  They sat in silence watching the endless rain washing down the windscreen. In the previous days, the place would have been busy with holidaymakers, families playing on the beach, children eating ice-creams from the van at the end of the road. Today, except for a single hardy dog-walker, the seafront was deserted.

  Eventually, Horton said: ‘You remember that missing woman last year? In Fortrose?’

  ‘Lizzie Hamilton,’ McKay said without hesitation. ‘What about her?’

  ‘I don’t know. There was something about that that seemed similar to these cases.’

  McKay shrugged. ‘We don’t even know that anything happened to her. She wasn’t local in the way these women are. She never ended up in Manchester, as far as we know. Doesn’t seem much similarity to me.’

  ‘She was a similar character,’ Horton persisted. ‘No close family ties. Estranged from her father. Rootless drifter type. Vanished in the same way, as if she hadn’t been expecting to leave.’

  ‘What are you suggesting? That her body’s out there somewhere, surrounded by roses and candles?’

  ‘I don’t know. It just keeps coming back to me.’

  ‘Aye, well. Me too, since you mention it. But I don’t see how it helps.’

  She turned on the ignition and switched the heater up to full-blast in an effort to clear the fogged windows. ‘Time for us to give Cameron another try?’

  ‘Why not? But do us a favour. Let’s check there’s a car in the drive before we stop. I don’t want to find myself having another conversation with that bloody neighbour.’

  ***

  As it turned out, there were two cars in the drive, a newish BMW 4x4 and an older Nissan. The door opened before they’d reached the porch and a middle-aged man peered at them suspiciously through the rain. ‘Can I help you?’

  McKay held out his warrant card. ‘Police. Can we step inside?’

  Cameron looked genuinely startled. Whoever he might have been expecting, McKay thought, we were the last people he wanted. ‘Aye, yes, of course. Nasty afternoon…’ He waved them past into the warmth of the house.

  It was a decent place, well-furnished in expensive-looking taste, not that McKay was any judge. Cameron was a well-built man in his mid-fifties, with closely-cropped grey hair. He looked like someone who’d once been a sportsman but had now put on a few too many pounds. He was dressed in a slightly bulging back polo shirt and a pair of expensive-looking slacks.

  ‘How can I help you? Old Morrie said someone had called round, but I didn’t realise—’ He ushered them through into the sitting-room. ‘We can talk in here. My wife’s in the kitchen with the girls.’

  ‘It’s about your daughter, Mr Cameron. Joanne, I mean.’

  The colour had drained from Cameron’s face. ‘Joanne?’

  ‘You might want to sit down,’ McKay said. ‘I’m afraid it’s bad news.’

  Cameron lowered himself on to the settee. ‘Go on.’

  ‘You may have seen the reports of the body found near Rosemarkie, Mr Cameron?’

  ‘Aye, in the cave there.’ He stopped. ‘Christ. Joanne?’

  ‘We think so,’ McKay said. ‘We’ll need your help in confirming that. I’m sorry.’

  Cameron had buried his face in his hands. But in the moment before McKay had seen his expression. There were echoes of the way that Scott had responded to the news of his daughter’s death. After a moment, Cameron looked up. His eyes were dry. ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘We don’t yet know the full story, Mr Cameron. Again, you may be able to help us in piecing it together.’ He lowered himself into an armchair opposite Cameron. Horton did the same. ‘Have you seen your daughter recently?’

  Cameron looked up. ‘Not for a few years.’

  ‘Did you have some sort of falling out?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Cameron said. ‘I mean, not as such. There was no grand argument. We just didn’t get on.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  Cameron had dropped his head into his hands again. ‘I was going to say you’d have to ask her. But you can’t, can you?’ He looked for a second as if he’d made a joke. ‘Her mother left me. Twenty-odd years ago. Just walked out one day. I don’t know where she went. She wouldn’t give me an address.’ He shrugged. ‘She tried to get custody of Joanne. Came up with all kinds of lies about me. But I got the best lawyers I could and fought her every step of the way. And I won.’ He spoke the last word with a bitterness that made McKay start. ‘In the end, I won because she’d just walked out. No reason, no excuse. No word where she was going. I don’t even know what she lived on. She didn’t know how to work. She only knew how to sponge off me.’

  ‘So you looked after your daughter as a single father?’

  ‘Aye. I kept her. She was mine.’

  ‘But then she left?’

  ‘Ungrateful little bitch. Walked out one day when I was at work. Just like her mother.’

  ‘How old was she then?’

  ‘Seventeen. Eighteen, maybe. I forget.’

  ‘Where did she go?’

  ‘Inverness at first, apparently.’

  ‘To her mother?’

  ‘No. She had no idea where her mother was, any more than I did.’

  McKay wondered whether that was true. Perhaps, like Mrs Scott, the mother had a closer connection with her daughter than her husband knew. ‘Where was she staying?’

  ‘Christ knows. With some friends. She wouldn’t tell me who. Wouldn’t give me her address.’

  ‘Did you keep in contact?’

  ‘Only for a week or two. She was after money at first. She’d just finished at school. Hadn’t found a job. Wanted me to bail her out.’ He shook his head. ‘You can imagine my response.’

  Only too well, McKay thought. ‘And after that?’

  ‘I tried to contact her a couple of times on the mobile number I had, but it was unobtainable. That was it.’

  ‘You didn’t contact the police?’

  ‘What would you have done? She’d left home of her own free-will. She was nearly an adult.’

  ‘And that was the last you saw of her?’

  ‘Aye. Until you two turned up tonight, hadn’t heard a word about her.’

  ‘You didn’t know she’d been living in Manchester?’

  ‘News to me. But then she could have been living in Outer Mongolia for all I knew. Or cared.’

  ‘You’ve remarried?’ This was Horton.

  Cameron looked at her as if he’d forgotten she was there. ‘Aye, five years ago. Receptionist from the office. Divorcee. Two bonnie daughters.’ Cameron stopped. ‘Murdered, you reckon?’

  ‘It looks that way,’ McKay said. ‘The investigation’s continuing.’

  ‘You’ve got two of them, haven’t you? Bodies, I mean. So you reckon it’s somebody local?’

  ‘We’re keeping an open mind,’ Horton said. ‘The first step is for us to confirm that this is your daughter. We’ll need you to make a formal ID.’

  ‘There likely to be any doubt?’

  ‘We don’t think so, I’m afraid. But we don’t have definitive confirmation.’

  ‘I see. So what do I need to do?’

  ‘We’ll make arrangements for you to view the body, Mr Cameron. It’ll be at the Raigmore. You work in Inverness, I understand. Will you have any difficulty getting time off work? An hour or so is all we’ll need. Tomorrow if possible.’

  ‘Aye. Reckon they’ll give me an hour off to view my own daughter�
�s corpse, don’t you?’

  ‘Aye. I should think so.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘We’ll need to take a statement from you, Mr Cameron. Background.’

  ‘We could do that now. I’ve told you most of what I know already.’

  ‘We’ll do it properly, shall we? At Police HQ. Perhaps after you’ve completed the ID.’

  Cameron was staring back at him. It was an expression that in a Glasgow bar might have suggested a fight was imminent. ‘Fine by me,’ he said.

  ‘If you let DS Horton have a contact number, we’ll call you first thing to confirm the arrangements,’ McKay said. He pushed himself slowly to his feet. ‘My sincere condolences on your loss, Mr Cameron. I appreciate this must be a shock.’ He paused. ‘Can I ask about Joanne’s mother?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Do you have any contact address for her now? We’ll need to get in touch with her.’

  ‘Last I heard she was in Edinburgh somewhere. But that was at the time of the divorce.’

  ‘Do you still have that address?’

  ‘Aye. Somewhere, probably. I’ll dig it out.’

  ‘I think she’d want to know, Mr Cameron, don’t you?’

  ‘Maybe. That’s up to her.’

  McKay stood for a moment, as if intending to offer some response. Finally, he said only: ‘We won’t disturb you any longer then, Mr Cameron. We’ll be in touch in the morning.’

  He and Horton didn’t speak until they were heading back out of the estate on to the main road. McKay felt as if he’d been holding his breath for the last half-hour.

  ‘He was a piece of fucking work, wasn’t he?’

  Horton had her eyes fixed on the wet road. ‘Fits the pattern, though, doesn’t he?’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘Respectable-looking household. Daughter has fall out with father. Walks out. Mother’s already walked out.’ She turned on the car headlights. It was almost as gloomy as a winter’s evening. ‘Question is why. Why’d the mother walk out? Why’d the daughter go?’

  ‘I think we can guess the answer to that. Or part of it.’ McKay shook his head and gave a theatrical shudder. ‘What worries me is that new family of his. Jesus.’