Driving up the A9 is as close as we get in our country to replicating the feel of an American movie, driving across Montana or Idaho or Wyoming, endless straight roads, with nothing in the distance for mile after mile after mile. And it's not really that close. But once you're up past Stirling and Dunblane, the countryside is more open, and the longer you drive, the more different it becomes, and you know that wherever you end up, it's going to feel considerably different to where you started off.
Stop off once at the House of Bruar. Cup of tea and a piece of cake. Don't stay too long. Wander through the men's clothing department on the way back to the car park. This is the kind of shop where rich people buy their clothes. Shooting jackets. Fishing waistcoats. Mustard trousers.
When I retire to the Highlands I'll stop off here on my way up to refresh my wardrobe.
Fucking right I will.
Run screaming from the place before I turn into one of them. It may be the place where rich people shop, but most of the poor sods mooching through and looking jealously at £150 casual shirts are the kind of middle-class wankers in whose midst we currently find ourselves, up to our eyes in murder. The civil servants and the Tesco managers and the personal assistants, desperate to be part of the big leagues and wondering if all it takes is to fork out more than you can afford on a pair of giant, fuck-off waders you'll never use.
Up past Aviemore, snow on the hills, down the hill towards Inverness, then over the Kessock Bridge, passing Inverness Caley's ground on the way, where I once watched Thistle in one of those mind-numbing 0-0 draws that make you want to never watch another game of football in your entire life. Across the Cromarty Firth, and on up past Tain and Dornoch. Arrive in Golspie at 1.17 p.m., go straight to the old fellow's house. If he went to church, or was preaching, he'll hopefully be back by now.
Get out of the car, and stop for a moment. Look out on the sea, land in the distance. A lot of grey cloud around, not much blue sky. There's a wonderful quality to the light, and the smell of the air. I stand there for a few minutes, just looking at the water. Feeling it all. I only move when I get the sudden thought that I wish she was here with me.
I hadn't even got as far as imagining the weekends away we'd have been able to take together. Had spent the drive up the road with the old favourites, Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61, trying not to think about it. About her.
Up the short garden path. Ring the bell. The immediate pad of footsteps and the door opens. A woman in her late 60s, an apron on.
'Hello.'
'Detective Sergeant Hutton. I'm looking for the Reverend Baxter.'
'He said you were coming. He always takes Joey for a walk around this time. Keeps them both young, he says. You can come in and wait, or you'll find him along the Dairy Park.'
'Dairy Park?'
'Aye, if you go along to the end of the town, then instead of turning up the road to Brora, go straight along, park at the end of Duke Street, then walk across the bridge.'
'OK, thanks.'
'No problem. If you don't find him, just come back and you can wait.'
Into the car, along to the end of the street, following the directions. Park the car, and cross the bridge. A wide stream running on down to the sea, with a ford for cars to cross, albeit there's nowhere to go other than to park at either of the houses on the other side.
Onto the field, that beautiful feeling in the air, no hint of rain and just a bit too cold in my jacket and tie. Hands in pockets. Say hello to a couple of women walking by, dogs in and out the grass. See a single guy with a dog in the distance, heading back in my direction.
As we get closer, I can see he looks about the right age. Green wellingtons, big warm jacket. His clothes much better suited to the weather than those of the soft southern police officer who's here to greet him. Joey, if this is them, is a golden Labrador, old and not terribly excited about having to walk as far as he's being made.
'Reverend Baxter?' I say, as we come upon each other.
'Aye, you must be the policeman. Call me Jim.'
'Jim... Jim Baxter?'
'My name's Morris, but everyone started calling me Jim back in the day. It stuck.'
He pauses, takes a look around.
'You want to go back to the house or sit on a bench and look at the view?'
I get enough sitting in houses, so I indicate the bench.
'Joey!' he calls out after the dog, and the mutt comes ambling back towards us from ten yards along the path.
We sit down on the wooden bench and look at the sea and the rocks and narrow stretch of beach, the sand covered in seaweed and old buoys and those coloured, random bits of rope that you always get. Orange and light blue.
'Where's that?' I say, indicated the low land on the horizon, far across the water.
He gives me a curious glance. The dog approaches, looks vaguely interested in the fact that his owner is talking to someone, and then wanders off again to rummage around the beach, no doubt in search of some faeces or other to rub himself in.
'It's Scotland, son, where'd you think it was? Norway?'
'Which bit?' I ask, not rising to the bait.
'The Moray coast. Ardersier, Nairn, along there.'
I picture the map of Scotland.
'You come along here every day?'
'Rain or shine,' he says. 'Seems to be mostly rain at the moment.'
Everything seems like a potential lifestyle choice, and I'm forever slotting myself into other people's lives. Could I do this or that? Could I live this far north, with this seascape and this magical light, and walk along this coastal path every day with a dog around my feet?
I forget for a moment that I'm here to interview him, and let myself fall into the view.
'Are you going to ask me something, son?' he says soon enough. 'It's a beautiful day 'n' all, but a man my age sits on one of these benches too long, we're looking at month-long haemorrhoids.'
Funny.
'What age are you?'
'Sixty-seven,' he says. 'You'll be there soon enough. It may not sound old by today's standard, but just you wait. Every day is an exercise in pain management and limitation. Now, what can I do for you? You're up here to talk about those damned churches, I suppose.'
'Yep. You've seen the news? You surprised about what's been happening?'
'Only surprise is that it didn't come sooner.'
'I hear that a lot.'
Philo said it.
Think of Philo. Immediately kick the thought away. I know the technique of getting something out your mind, having used it so often in the past.
'Which has got to make you think,' he says.
'Why is it happening now?'
'Exactly. The merger, well, I don't know who you've spoken to, but I expect you've heard it plenty enough. It was an ugly business. Usually is. These things are happening all over Scotland. But I spoke to a couple of people from the Presbytery, and they'd never seen anything like it. There was so much lobbying taking place, a real political slugfest. People were getting threatened. It was—'
'Who was getting threatened? Who was making the threats?'
'Listen, son, the whole atmosphere was toxic. These people are supposed to be Christians. I'm not going to go giving you names, he said that and she said the next thing, I'm not handing some guy on a plate to you so that you're going to go charging down there saying, we have it on good authority that three years ago, et cetera et cetera. All that stuff is in the past. There may have been people continuing to bang on about it, because that's what people do, but it was settled. Done and dusted. The fat lady had sung. Why would someone who'd won the argument kill someone who was still trying to have the argument? You win the Cup Final 1-0, you don't have to kill the guy who keeps banging on about the offside goal. You get to move on, and you've got the cup.'
'Surely the aggrieved party is capable of sustaining the grievance at a level that's going to cause enough irritation to—'
'Maybe you're right, son,' he cuts in, 'but y
ou should have been there when it started. Some part of me wanted to stay there to try to help guide these people through, but I'm afraid there was another part of me that was quite sickened by it, and couldn't get away fast enough.'
He shakes his head, stares grimly at the ground. 'How do any of us understand the mind of a murderer? Yet it seems strange. For it to be happening now, you know? Strange.'
'So, you think there's something else? That talk of the merger is a smokescreen?'
He doesn't glance round, doesn't immediately reply. I like this guy. Sometimes you speak to people and you know you're going to be left trying to wring out the merest fragment of information, and that everything they do say is going to have been run through the arsehole filter. This guy though, he has a way about him. This is a guy whose comments are automatically given weight.
'I'm not on the ground, son, not any more. What I'm saying is common sense, that's all. It might have nothing whatsoever to do with the merger, or perhaps it's related to it, but the connection is more tenuous than you're currently thinking about.'
'There's a girl,' I say. Don't know where the words come from. Hadn't been expecting to say them. Didn't even realise I'd been thinking about them. Suddenly the thought is in my head, and the words are out there. There's a girl.
He smiles. I don't look at him, but I can feel it.
'Aye, son, there usually is. What's she like?'
'No, not like that,' I say. Now I'm thinking more carefully about what I'm going to say, but I'm still saying it. 'A young girl, twelve maybe, not sure. Seems as though she's twelve, rather than it's me looking at her and thinking that's what age she is.'
He doesn't say anything. I notice the slight movement of the fingers, a minimalist way of encouraging me to keep talking.
'She... she's in my dreams. I'm not sure what she's doing there, but it started at the same time as this church business.'
'What does she do?'
'I'm not sure. She's just there.' Pause for a second. What does she do? 'She directed me to the Book of Daniel, and then it turns out that the killer was using the story of the four beasts from Daniel 7 as, God, I don't know, a reference point for the murders. Something like that.'
'I didn't know about the Daniel 7 link,' he says. 'Hmm, that's interesting. The Book of Daniel is...'
'A box of frogs?'
He laughs. 'I've never heard that before, but yes, if you like. And this girl had you looking there before you realised that was the path the killer was following?'
'Yes.'
'Hmm... You know who she is?'
'Never seen her before.'
'You think she might be dead?'
'What?'
Turn and look at him sharply.
'The dead speak to us in all sorts of different ways, Sergeant.'
'I'm not communicating with a ghost,' I say.
'No,' he says, 'obviously you're not communicating with her.'
Discombobulated? Yep, that's the word. I've been discombobulated by him. I look across the water. There is a closer bank of land, and then the more distant one, which he said was the south bank of the Moray coast. They probably don't call it the south bank. There's a fishing vessel out on the water, that's all you can see. I realise I'm watching something black and round bobbing in the water, wondering if it's a seal sticking its nose in the air.
'That's the Portmahomack lighthouse over there,' he says. 'You ever been along that road?'
Shake my head.
'Beautiful.'
We fall once more into silence. Fall is the word. I tumble into it, and I could sit here for hours looking at the view. Sea and low-lying land, that's all. No mountains, nothing dramatic. But I could look at it all day. The landscape equivalent of sitting in the Old Kirk back home.
This is what my recovery could look like, if I wanted to try to make it. Sitting in silence looking at views. Yet, haven't I done a lot of that in the last year or two? Plenty of time off work, and when I'm not in work, I'm fine. I sit and look at views. It's going back to work, and once more subjecting myself to the daily grind, or the occasional terror, that's what brings it all back.
There you have it. What I need is not to go to work. Go and live by the sea, and look at the waves.
Fuck. Maybe when I'm sixty.
'Obviously you need to find this girl,' he says. 'Whoever she is. Dead or alive.'
I neither turn nor reply. Soon enough I'm going to have to drive back down the A9, and the stop for the cup of tea and the large piece of cake and the walk through the posh man's clothing department is never quite as enjoyable on the road home. For the moment I'm just going to sit in silence and look at the view.
And he's right. I need to find the girl.
38
Get back to the office at three minutes after seven. Felt melancholic on the drive down the road, as if I was leaving home rather than returning to it. Listened to Bob's Time Out Of Mind-Love And Theft-Modern Times trilogy all the way. Well, people call it a trilogy, never saw it that way myself. Don't reckon Bob does either, but who knows what he's thinking.
If I listened to the news I might have been ready for the media scrum outside the station. Glad that I decided not to leave the car at home, then walk in to work. That's what I would have done if I'd been aiming to go to the pub afterwards, but my head's in good enough a place this evening that I don't need it.
So, I don't have to walk through the cameras and the journalists at the front of the station; round the back, they've locked the gates on the car park. The constable on duty lets me in, and I can park and get out of the car without some dick of a journalist sticking his microphone in my face, asking who the fuck I am and what the fuck I'm doing at the station, so that they can then stand breathlessly on camera, above rolling text screaming BREAKING FUCKING NEWS, YOU BASTARD in ear-piercing letters, saying, 'I've just spoken to some cunt! I've absolutely no idea who he was, or whether he's connected to this dramatic breaking story! He told me to fuck off! Incredible scenes! Back to you in the studio, Kate!'
Into the station, up to the front desk. Ramsay's in position, his usual rock-like self.
'Shit's hit the fan?' I say, barely slowing down.
'An arrest in the four churches horror,' he says.
That almost has me breaking my stride. Not at the fact there's been an arrest, because it was one fairly obvious explanation for that stramash outside; it's at his use of the phrase four churches horror. That, there, is an expression straight from the tabloids.
I slow down a little, but don't stop. I'll get the information from the horse's mouth.
Up the stairs two at a time, into the office. Expect to see the usual headless chicken waltz, with people running back and forth in general ferment, but there is an air of calm. Maybe they've actually got him, they've actually made the breakthrough and the arrest in my absence, and tied it all up inside nine hours.
No, I don't think so.
Taylor's in his office, door open. I knock and enter. He looks up, acknowledges my return and nods for me to close the door, then gestures for me to sit down.
'One of you fellows win the lottery?' I ask.
'As a matter of fact, no,' he says.
Doesn't look pissed off, which is unusual in situations such as these.
'You didn't find Bible John, did you?'
He laughs.
'We did get his modern day replacement. Or, we arrested someone. It remains to be seen whether we have the right person, and I seriously doubt that we do.'
'And the winner is...?'
'Paul Cartwright.'
'Oh, nice. Did you get a confession?
Shakes his head.
'Evidence?'
He makes a maybe/maybe not sign with his hand.
'You read it was him in a fortune cookie?'
'That, obviously, was our starting point. Then we established it was definitely Cartwright at the centre of this little group of five. He admitted that, at any rate.'
'Did he say why?'
'He did. Seems he wasn't happy with his successes so far. He wanted more. He wanted, in fact, to get hold of St Stephen's. Or, more to the point, the congregation. Says it was his intention to sell the building, and invest the money back into the parish, i.e. St Mungo's.'
'He had a plan?'
'He was working with someone from inside each of the four congregations, including your Mrs Stewart at St Stephen's. Says that none of the other four knew exactly what his plan was, or anyone else's part in it. He admits it was all very Machiavellian, but that that in itself isn't a crime. Which is a fair point.'
'And so...?'
'He just happens to have no alibi for any of the four murders, which seems a bit odd for someone like him, with a family, and a lot of church and business contacts. DC Gostkowski was taking a look at his involvement in the church, and one thing she turned up was that he made a reading in church on average once every three months, and every single time he read, he read from the Book of Daniel.'
That's interesting, and yet one of those glaringly obvious clues that ultimately never point to anything.
'That's a very public thing, though, isn't it?' I say. 'And then, if someone else was looking to set the guy up, you have this obvious weird connection with Daniel to use.'
'Exactamundo.'
'So...?'
He lets his gaze drift out the door and off in the direction of Connor's office.
'The superintendent brought you a valuable new piece of evidence that absolutely nailed Cartwright's arse to the mast?' I ask.
'Not quite.'
'In need of a quick result and some good PR after a week of shit, the superintendent jumped hastily to a conclusion and ordered you to arrest someone first, build a case later?'
'Ah, Sergeant Hutton,' says Taylor, in some sort of generic, mock continental European accent, 'I see that you are a student of the superintendent's methods.'
I laugh, shake my head.
'You're fucking kidding, right?'
'Sadly, no.'
'What about the DNA sample you got from Mrs Christie?'
'Didn't match.'
'Of course not. You think you'll be able to build a case?'
'We can build a case of some sort, no question, but whether it's good enough to get a conviction... and whether it's the right case...' He tosses a dismissive hand to the side.
The Blood That Stains Your Hands Page 20
