by Caro Ramsay
She called out, ‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes, what are you doing?’
She went back out to the hall, upstairs slowly, one step then catch up, the next one then catch up. She dialled Archie on her phone, hearing him outside as she heard him through the earpiece.
‘I want you to stay outside.’
‘I am right here.’ She could hear the neighbour standing close, asking if everything was OK.
‘I’m going up the stairs.’
‘Why, what have you seen?’
‘I’m investigating.’
‘Well be careful, very careful.’
His voice faded. She could only hear him over the phone now, as she stepped onto the top landing with its oak wood floor, a keyboard tucked into a recess on the wall. She noted the fold away chair stacked beside it.
The smell was stronger up here. The bedroom door to her left was open. If the next-door neighbour slept to the front, the chances are that Abigail did as well. To her right was the window she thought she had seen Malcolm wave from that night, a small face at the window. He could have said something, he could have asked for help.
He had phoned her. Why did she not get back to him?
But why did he not ask for help? Because victims never do. They are trapped, physically, emotionally and psychologically, conditioned to respond as they are told to. Nothing can make them truthful, they live with their own truth.
Something had happened here. A suitcase opened, not filled, but an attempt. At flight?
She pushed gently on the door, it squeaked eerily. She saw the posters on the walls, the Lego model of the Millennium Falcon. The duvet cover on the bed was smooth. Lying on top of it was a Celtic top, a pair of black leggings, the socks, the shoes. The left shoe at the bottom of the toe of the left sock, the neighbour sitting likewise. As if the body had slipped out the clothes, leaving them behind.
Costello stopped breathing for a moment.
Then she crossed the hall to the small room at the front and there they were. She couldn’t make it out at first. The narrow bed with the suitcase sitting open on it, then at the end of the bed, a bundle of clothes, like somebody had woken up and tossed the duvet off the end of the bed and left them there.
That was the first impression.
The second was of Abigail, lying curled up.
The third was of Malcolm.
She had no idea how long she stood there for, looking. She knew, had known this was going to happen. She had felt it in her bones. She had told Dali, they had discussed it. She had even requested a welfare check.
They always thought they had tomorrow.
Well they didn’t.
She had walked right up to the end of the bed. The blood spattered on the walls, the piss on the floor, the deep mineral stench of the blood with the sweeter, mulchy smell of faecal matter. But there was mess everywhere, human tissue, hair, blood, bone on the floor, the walls, the duvet that hung over the end of the bed, some of it had hit the ceiling, some had even spattered on the suitcase. The mirrored wardrobe had a rose spray spatter.
And she looked. Abigail was there, on her side, her arm up and over the smaller, less substantial body underneath. His blood-stained swollen fingers still gripped the stained purple silk of her blouse.
She heard somebody whisper her name.
Then again.
She turned round, looking behind her. Nobody there. She checked in the mirrored wardrobe. The blood splattered reflection was on her own.
The phone was speaking to her.
She replied, ‘Hi Archie. You need to come up here. Now.’
Costello had her head in her hands, sitting on a stool in Anderson’s kitchen.
‘How’s Archie?’ Anderson asked.
‘He’s asleep at home, under sedation. I’ll pop in and see him on the way home. How are you?’
‘My throat feels as if I’ve been gargling sandpaper. But I am fine, you don’t need to look after me, I have a houseful of folk here. Any news on Braithwaite?’
‘He’s not confessing, but he must have felt the squeeze being put on him, Sally freaking out, thinking she recognized Mary-Jane or Adele or whatever it was she was calling herself. And then Valerie was coming closer, ever closer and him wondering what she was really up to. In the market for buying a baby or was she testing the water for a prosecution? Braithwaite had no idea what she did or did not know. It could have been a fishing expedition. I mean, there was no way she was going to get a baby herself, not with her alcohol abuse. And they would have not sold a child to her for the same reason. Sally would have told her that. And there would have been a scuffle. Being refused a baby, Braithwaite had conjectured that blackmail wouldn’t have been far from her mind. Sell me a baby or else. Braithwaite was sure that Valerie had gone a fair way down that road. She had sold a lot of her stuff, she was planning to move. That fits in with some odd conversations Valerie had been having with both Archie and her boss. And then Braithwaite saw the whole thing tumbling down around him. She’s still in the hospital.’
‘Still hanging on.’ Anderson nodded. ‘It seems so desperate. All these women who seemed to have everything were all squirming with their internal pain. But I guess you never know what’s going through anybody’s mind, it’s all the suffering of strangers. Everybody lives in their own private hell. It’s just that some of us know it.’
‘You are real ball of fun today,’ Costello said, biting her lip, then falling silent.
‘I’m sure that was entrapment, what you did to me.’ Anderson put a cup of tea in front of Costello, trying to get her to talk. He had listened to the horror of the house, now known as the monkey puzzle house. She was off that case, she had been told. Twice. So he was now trying to get her to talk about the Blue Neptune, they were walking a fine line. Braithwaite was sharp, and he had Sally lined up as fall guy – and he pardoned the pun – as she could have been responsible for it all, except the attempt on Anderson’s life.
If it had been that.
Now Braithwaite was saying that as a doctor he was palpating Anderson’s neck. It was shite, of course, but it might be enough to muddy the water. And his defence team was quoting all kinds of entrapment.
Costello was perched on the breakfast bar seat and she pulled the plate of HobNobs closer. ‘Nobody asked him to come into your room, to try to strangle you,’ Costello answered. ‘That was what he was trying to do, all those pictures we got with his hands fluorescing with Claire’s paint. I think we got the evil bastard. That’s all that matters. I don’t think Wyngate or Mulholland are going to forgive us for a very long time though. They really thought you were a goner.’
‘Nice of the ACC to chip in, telling them Braithwaite was to be released,’ Anderson laughed, then remembered the horror that Costello had witnessed and why she was here, curled up on top of a high stool, her feet resting on the top bar so that her knees were almost up as high as her chest. A protective posture if ever there was one.
She looked very tired and very vulnerable. It was on the front of every Scottish national. The Monkey House of Horror.
‘I’d have loved to have seen Wyngate’s face, trying to tell the assistant commissioner how to do his job.’ Costello took a bite of her biscuit. ‘And I thought Braithwaite would stick around, check your vital signs. Try killing you by doing something – I don’t know – sticking an elbow in some nerve that stops your heart instantly. I mean, he didn’t even question how quick O’Hare got you out of there, or even the fact he’s a friggin pathologist.’
‘Give him his due; he had just pushed his wife off a roof so he was a tad preoccupied.’
‘Are you sad about that?’
‘Never go back, Costello, you have always said that. There’s a reason why the past is behind you.’
She sighed. ‘Still, glad you didn’t drown. Just feel bad that we didn’t get to Malcolm in time. The crime scene people had almost finished by the time Dali’s welfare check social worker arrived.’ She shook her head,
trying to break free of the horror of it.
He went very quiet. They sat for a while, the faint beat of music in the distance, somewhere on the two floors above them.
‘Was it awful?’
‘It was.’
‘You couldn’t have stopped it. You, Dali, the combined might of the social services couldn’t have stopped that from happening. Sad but the only person responsible for the death of Abigail and Malcolm Haggerty is George Haggerty.’
‘Well, that is not true, his alibi checks out, totally, it wasn’t him. Seemingly,’ said Costello.
‘So I heard.’
‘It checks out. He wasn’t there.’ Costello spoke without conviction. ‘Dali is right though. What is the point of it?’
‘Well, Claire would say that it is the starfish. You only save what you can save.’
Costello wasn’t listening. ‘Any more on Braithwaite for Orla? Sholto?’
‘All they have is his access to Sholto at the Blue Neptune. We have hairs from Sally’s jumper on Valerie’s necklace, black vicuna.’ He shrugged. ‘Easily planted. We need to hope that Valerie wakes up and can remember the details of her attack.’
‘He was that good. But we do have his palm print that matches the print you found on the side of the car in the underground car park. He cleaned the one on the car in front of him, but forgot to do the car behind him. That puts him there. The oil and the indent on her thigh puts Orla’s body there. And his only alibi for that night is me. And I was so pissed I fell asleep really early on their sofa. Not like me to go out like that, like a light.’
‘Had Sally warned him you were coming? All it would take was a wee bit of sleeping tablet then he was clear to do as he wished. And so was she. He admits he fell against the car when he took Orla up from the car park. He denies killing her.’
‘Water under the bridge and time will tell. If anything, he’ll go down for murdering Sally. Mathilda and her crew will get to work on the forensics dots. She’s so good, you know.’
‘Doesn’t let anything past her,’ agreed Costello, formulating what she had to say in her mind, then being unable to say it.
Another silence fell between them, slightly more tense this time.
‘Have you had your pep talk yet?’ asked Anderson.
‘Oh yes, I have a team counselling me now. But I’d rather get the bastards. Valerie will wake up. Braithwaite will go down for a long time. George Haggerty is still out there. And I will get that bastard.’
‘He has an unbreakable alibi, Costello. He was on his way to see his sick mother. That’s where he was going at that time of night. It wasn’t him.’
She bit her lip. ‘Except there is no such thing as an unbreakable alibi. I will leave the force tomorrow, I will go after him. That will do me far more good than any counselling.’
‘I believe you.’
‘And I was thinking.’
‘Never a good sign. And I have been thinking too. Nobody had ever run the rapes of Sally and Gillian together through a spreadsheet, I don’t mean HOLMES, I mean a human eye. Both raped, both had ligatures round their neck, both had violence perpetrated to their person, after the event, to the left shoulder. That’s not normal, that’s a signature. He will not have stopped, he will still be out there doing it. I think … Well, I’m not sure what I think or what I want to think.’
‘He could be dead.’
‘Or progressed to murder.’
‘What’s your thinking?’
‘That instead of cold case shite, all this review, you pull it all together. You have more clout now, you have suffered again in the course of your duties.’
‘I was hit over the head by Andrew Braithwaite who was skulking in a corner after pretending to be called away. I wasn’t mauled by a serial killer.’
‘Well actually you were once we prove it, but that is beside the point. Tell them you want to head up a task force. With me, Wyngate, Mulholland – the old team. We work much better together than apart.’
‘And they will listen to me, like that?’ He snapped his fingers.
‘You have been mauled by a serial killer. The ACC signed off on that plan of action.’
‘Only because you suggested it!’
‘See teamwork. They will agree to anything you ask now.’ Then she was laughing. Then sobbing.
‘Why is it such a big deal, Costello? They will get who killed Abby and Malcolm, give them time.’
‘But do you think that was his first? Do you really believe that? That wasn’t a domestic, that was ohhh … so much more. That was slaughter. The way the boy’s clothes were laid out, that was a message. I just don’t know who it was for.’
‘For who?’
‘I don’t bloody know.’ She wiped her face. ‘But there is a connection that I can’t see. Valerie wanted a child. She was doing the whole wearing loose clothing thing, preparing to be to be pregnant in inverted commas, to buy a baby. Because she knew her sister had done the same thing? Abigail’s eldest child was purchased, not conceived.’
‘Surely Mathilda will be looking at all that.’
‘God, yes, you should see the spreadsheet. Wyngate is in his element.’
‘What happened to the woman in the blue coat?’
‘Oh her, Emma? She’s driving Dali nuts. Had her baby, can’t decide whether to keep it or not. But a tabloid has offered her a load of money for her story so she’s weighing up her options. Her baby too, is a commercial enterprise. By Christmas Emma will have a workout DVD and will be in the jungle eating kangaroo testicles. I see where Sally was coming from, you know, and they drifted into this mess.’
‘Andrew led her into this mess.’
‘And she followed.’ Costello was firm.
Silence fell again, listening to the odd sound of movement upstairs. Costello had hoped they would be alone.
‘Anyway, you are fine, the plan worked out. He had you convinced though, Braithwaite. He had us all convinced. Nothing a defence council likes better than somebody else to blame. He will go down for murder for Sally though, I am sure of that. And the little matter of his offshore bank accounts that are stuffed to the gunnels, all that stuff he told the tape about being a gambler was a load of lies. He was rolling in it. Him. Not them, not him and Sally.’
‘So she believed his gambling story?’
‘Who knows, but it’s a great way to explain why he was always skint. Colin?’ she looked upwards.
‘Yes.’
‘Is Claire upstairs?’
‘Yes. With David no doubt.’
‘I need to ask you a personal question and I need you to be honest with me.’
He looked at her, seeing she was serious. ‘OK.’
‘Did you and Sally ever have a relationship that went beyond friends?’
‘Why is that of any interest to you?’
‘It’s complicated. This girl. She might be calling herself Adele—’ she held out the photograph taken from Valerie’s house, now out of its frame – ‘that girl. She’s the elder child of the Haggerty house and we cannot trace her.’
He looked at the picture, then up. Costello was staring at him as if she had never seen him before, her grey eyes scanning his face, memorizing every detail; his blue eyes, the high cheekbones, that fair skin that turned gold in the sun.
‘There is no easy way to say this. But we think, we know, that she is your daughter.’
Anderson sat down, laughed, then stopped laughing. ‘That’s shite. How do you know this?’
‘At least that’s a better answer than “this is not possible”. Mathilda and I—’
‘What has it to do with her?’ He was angry now, he took a few deep breaths. ‘Sorry, I think I see where this confusion has come from.’
‘There is no confusion, the DNA doesn’t lie. You, me, all serving police officers, have their DNA on the system for exclusion at crime scenes. When Mathilda ran the sample, yours showed up as a familial, paternal match. Exactly. We looked as Sally had said the father of the baby was h
er rapist. And yours came up as the match. If I look at the timelines, I’m sure it wasn’t the rapist’s baby Sally was carrying. It was yours.’
Anderson shook his head.
‘Sally wasn’t put down to your year when she was attacked. She was already in your year because of her knee surgery. You knew her, that’s why you were interviewed after she was attacked, remember? They asked you to account for your movements. Because some of your acquaintances thought you were a couple. You were right up there as a suspect.’
‘That can’t be right.’
‘It is right.’ Costello was adamant. ‘Mathilda got it double checked. The sample at the lab. A sample from the mortuary. Your cheek swab. You and Sally are the parents of this girl.’
‘Oh my God. So Sally and I have a daughter. Is that what you are telling me?’ He whispered it, his eyes flicking to the ceiling as if Claire might hear. ‘Where is she?’
‘Colin, we don’t know. At the moment we don’t even know her real name. Mathilda and I are on it. We have a picture and her DNA.’
‘Adele. Do you think it is Adele … that was the only one Sally mentioned by name.’ He ran the top of his finger over the face on the picture. ‘Bloody hell.’ Then his face fell, eyes narrowed. ‘Do you think she’s still alive?’
‘I did think about not telling you, in case she wasn’t but … well, it will all come out, won’t it.’
‘Do I tell Brenda? And Claire, Peter … they have a sister.’
‘Colin, don’t go rushing into this all red roses and Little House On the Prairie. You don’t know what this girl is like, you don’t know anything about her. We don’t even know if she’s still alive.’
‘Except that she’s my kid, and she was sold. Sold?’
‘Sold because Sally couldn’t keep her. You heard what her parents said, she was sold because Sally wanted her to live. She couldn’t bring herself to abort your child, bloody sure Andrew didn’t want it around if he knew it was yours, and you have no idea what she and this child have been through.’
