by Caro Ramsay
‘Well, you have my number if you need me, if you get stuck.’ Anderson turned on to the expressway and headed west. ‘What is it all about, anyway?’
‘Important people send their children to Glen Fruin. So I cannae tell you,’ Costello said, bored and leaning her head against the window.
As they neared Glen Fruin, Anderson turned right, taking the low road through the glen. Within minutes the trees had closed over the road, creating a long dark tunnel that still held the balmy heat of the day trapped under the canopy of the leaves. He had the feeling it was an omen that Costello had no real idea what she was being sent to ‘observe’.
‘Sorry to nag,’ he started again. ‘But is there somebody you can trust up here?’
‘Apart from the Warden, there’s a security guy called Pettigrew. Colin? What the hell do you think I can’t cope with? These kids can’t even wipe their own arses without a nanny.’
‘Be careful, and watch your back. Don’t drink anything or eat anything that might have been tampered with. Just be on your guard.’
There was a slow head-turn from the passenger seat. ‘Do you really think I can’t look after myself?’
‘Fine,’ said Anderson, and he put his foot down.
10.25 P.M.
Rosie wondered how long it would take her to die. She knew you could die within hours without water, especially in this weather, and she’d had no water now for … how long was an hour, anyway? She had had to void her bowels again, and the air in the bedroom was wretched and foul.
Then she heard a bluebottle, a gentle hum that came close and louder until it seemed to be buzzing in her ear. She couldn’t lift a hand to wave it away, and it kept landing on the soiled sheets, trying to get through to eat at her skin. Then there were two of them. Then another, and another, until she couldn’t fight them off any more. Now she really started to panic. She was going to die of thirst, and the flies were going to swarm over her and eat her as she rotted, stinking the whole house out. She closed her eyes, and thought about Wullie. She thought about death.
She heard a noise, and her eyes shot open. It was Wullie, coming back! She tried to call out to him, joy flooding her heart, and her voice caught in her throat. Wullie was back, he was back … Then reality caught up with her – the noise was scuffling, a thud. Even if he had forgotten his key, Wullie knew that there was a spare one under the stone – he was terrible with keys. Her eyes automatically darted to the laptop, to the disks.
She closed her eyes again. Wullie had not come back, and now they were coming for her. She screwed her eyes closed as somebody walked into the room. She could hear his quiet footfall, could hear him breathing, smell a waft of cigarette smoke. Somebody was watching her. Now she knew true fear, total terrifying fear. Only one of them – why had they sent only one? He still wasn’t moving. He just stood there, watching her, smelling her, and she could feel his eyes crawling all over her exposed flesh. The bluebottles rose from the bed to buzz in circles round the ceiling.
She held her breath, and waited – for the blow, the bullet, the knife.
10.45 P.M.
‘What’s that over there?’ asked Anderson.
‘Over where?’
‘In those trees, what a racket!’ He pulled the car to a halt. ‘Down there, just at the treeline. It’s like a scene from The Birds.’ He leaned across to get a better look out of Costello’s window.
‘Can’t see anything, but those crows are having a good investigation of whatever it is.’
‘They are pulling at something. Oh God, that’s horrible. Listen to them.’
The noise of them screeching and squawking filled the air.
‘Probably just a dead sheep?’ She could hear them crowing and cawing, she could hear the wind high in the trees, and she tried to quell the panic. She could do this. She closed her eyes tighter, in quiet desperation, when she heard the key click in the ignition and the engine die. ‘Can we not get a move on, Colin? It’s getting late, and it’s dark.’
‘Just a minute. I want to have a look.’ Anderson unclipped his seat belt and got out of the car. He walked round the back of the car and paused on the grass verge, peering up into the woods.
Costello resisted the urge to lean over and press the lock on his door. Instead she watched him walk away, before taking a step down into a dip. He paused, bending forward, his hands on his knees, moving his head from one side to the other, his eyes fixed on something low down. Without standing up he reached into his back pocket for his phone, and pressed a single button. Then he started talking, straightening up and looking over his shoulder, giving somebody their location. Costello felt a cold hand round her heart. She was starting to feel trapped. But she forced herself to open the car door, intending just to get out and stand there.
Anderson heard the sound of the door opening, and turned and saw her. He held up his free hand. Stay there.
But, hypnotized by the shadows in the trees, she started walking.
‘Costello, stay back!’
She walked on, her mind filling in the details her eyes saw: the blood, the eyes – no, no eyes – the flies, the green mottled skin of the face, the crows pecking at it, stripping it of its flesh …
‘Costello, get back to the car!’
But her feet were rooted to the ground. In a tree beside her, a crow scrawked loudly. Anderson clapped his hands to make it fly away. But it only flapped its wings and hopped from one branch to another.
‘Costello,’ repeated Anderson. ‘Go – back – to the car – now!’
Costello looked at the crow again. It cocked its head at her. Its grey beak was half open, and something once living was dangling from it.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’ll go back to the car.’
11.05 P.M.
A black car pulled up, and a man got out of it, slamming the door and jogging across the road, giving Costello, who was now sitting in the car, a quick glance as he passed. He jumped over the ditch, down to the lower ground, and went over to talk to Anderson. Costello wound down the window, trying to listen to the conversation, but they were talking too quietly for her to hear. The other man was small and fine boned, but had a degree of muscle definition that was evident through his white T-shirt. Something about him was not right; he was much older than he appeared to be at first. He had a tan, and dark hair that looked dyed. And his teeth looked as though they belonged to somebody else. He slapped Anderson on the upper arm, like an old friend saying goodbye after a late-night drinking session. Such camaraderie, so soon?
Costello felt a twinge of jealousy. Who was he, and why had he appeared? Had Anderson phoned him, and if he had then why didn’t Costello know who he was? She thought about getting out of the car and going back across the ditch, then she looked up to see the crows still moving from branch to branch, edging closer until some signal was given by one of them and they all moved again before settling, watching, dark eyes fixed on the carrion below.
The small man was coming back up to the road. As Costello wound down the window, he opened the rear door and pulled out her case.
‘Come on, you,’ he said. ‘You can’t stay here. You’ve had a shock, and your boss will be here for ages once the accident investigation guys appear. I’ll take you up to the school.’
‘I haven’t had a shock,’ said Costello, not moving.
‘Then why is your face the same colour as sour milk – and just as pleasant to look at, at the moment – if you don’t mind me saying so?’
‘I do mind.’
‘You’ll get used to it. I’m Jim Pettigrew, security consultant, or insultant if you prefer. Now, do you mind getting your arse out of there so that we can get out of here before the MPs come along? If not, we’ll be here until the next World Cup while they go back three generations trying to find a Muslim or a Catholic in your background. Uh-oh, here they come. Time for us to get out the way. Move it.’
Costello got into the black car, a small Corsa. ‘And who are they, the blackshirts over there?’
&nb
sp; ‘The military police. Any incident along this road and they’re automatically notified and come sniffing. Otherwise they don’t really have that much to do up here, apart from bugger the sheep and make sure the nuclear submarines are parked properly.’
‘And you’re head of security at the school?’ asked Costello.
Pettigrew pulled the car away, waving at the two MPs who were getting out of their car.
Costello laid her head back in the seat. Oh, she had been here before. Something in the way he spoke. ‘You’re ex-job, aren’t you?’
‘Indeedy,’ he said. As he drove past the MPs he gave them a two-fingered salute below the level of the car window, whistling the theme from The Great Escape as the car sped away.
11.50 P.M.
Auld Archie O’Donnell sat in the corner of the day room, his head hunched into his shoulders, chewing on his gums. He hated this bloody place. They’d taken him away from his favourite spot at the bay window to sit among this festering mass of dribbling window-lickers, and that was just the staff. He’d had dogs that were more intelligent than the morons in this place, and if he still had his gun he’d put the whole fucking lot of them out their misery. He chewed on his gums slightly more aggressively, enjoying the pain as soft flesh gave way to blood. He had been happy looking out across the garden and into the street where he could see the world go by. He was happy in his room, alone with his memories of the good days, able to have a shit without a fucking audience. Of course, it was easier for the staff to keep them all confined in the day room, tethered like animals, so they didn’t make a mess of the place after the cleaner had been round, just in case there was a random inspection and some poor sod had dared to leave a crumb somewhere.
Being in the day room meant there was no bloody peace at all. The huge TV sat unwatched but blaring out so the staff could hear it all over the home. Soap after soap after chat show, and reality show after soap. TV for the brain dead. Once in a blue moon they left it on a channel where they actually spoke the Queen’s English, and today had been such a day. He had heard the news; he’d had no choice. He had seen the appeal, the mocked-up face of the boy who had fallen from the bridge. It was expressionless, dead-eyed, but it was him. Auld Archie had then pulled a late copy of the Scottish Sun from a coffee table and stuffed it behind his cushion, pulling it out to read when the staff were on yet another coffee break and the other inhabitants of the day room were semi-comatose and drooling.
The boy was alive – critical, but alive. That’s all he needed to know.
Then Archie had sat, drawn deep within himself, until Ella had come to move him as the night air became chilled, and he had snarled at the woman, mouth open as if ready to bite her, and the stupid wee cow had buggered off to file a report about his aggression.
So, now he was alone, his head pulled well down. Alone in his world. He would not let them see his tears.
Thursday
1 July 2010
0.45 A.M.
Costello’s arrival at the school shortly after midnight was something of an anticlimax. She had been expecting some dramatic approach to the grand house of the photographs. But there was no sight of the grand blond sandstone turret or the immaculate sweeping driveway. No line of four-by-fours parked on the expansive gravelled forecourt, no tennis courts or neat hedges. Instead, Pettigrew simply drove, whistling tunelessly, along a tiny single-track road lined by trees, a mass of potholes with grass growing down the middle.
‘How on earth do you get any supplies in, with the road in this state?’ she asked. ‘I’d have thought a place like this would have a proper drive, with huge gates.’
‘We keep it like this,’ he replied. ‘For security – you can’t get in and out of here quickly. The remoteness of the school is a form of security in itself, though it’s only half an hour’s drive to Glasgow Airport. Well,’ he corrected himself, ‘half an hour until you get to this last bit. My house is well hidden at the top of this road, so I hear everybody go past – hence the rough road.’
Costello glanced around, seeing his point. She ignored the shiver of nerves that ran through her. ‘So, who was he?’
‘The dead guy?’ Pettigrew shrugged. ‘God knows. I wouldn’t recognize my own bookie if he’d had his face pecked off like that. And what the hell was he doing out there, miles from anywhere? It looked like a dump site. They’ll have left tyre marks, as they must have turned to go back down the glen. Nobody in their right mind would come up this road unless they knew it really well. All sensible folk take the high road.’
‘How do the pupils get here? And out again?’
‘I drive them mostly, pick them up at the train station in Balloch or go to the airport to get them. A few of the older ones have cars.’
‘Really? They’re allowed?’
‘Oh yes, as long as they’re taxed, insured, et cetera. If you’re paying £25,000 a year for an education, it’s no hardship to shell out on a wee motor. But they’re not allowed to go off on their own. Makes my job bloody hard, though, trying to keep tabs on the wee buggers.’
Costello thought back to her conversation with Howlett, seeing a bigger pattern to his problems. These were not kids who could be contained. ‘Is that really part of your remit?’
‘Technically, not at all. Once they’re off campus they can do what they like. They’re eighteen, some of them, legal adults, so what can we do to stop them? But at the same time the school has a duty of care.’
‘Supposedly.’
‘This is your place, here.’ He had brought her right to the door of an old stable block at the rear of the school.
She could now see the dark outline of the turret nearby, its crenellations etched against the sky, and she could smell the sweet scent of a lawn recently cut. There was no great history lesson; Pettigrew simply handed her a key.
‘I think it’s all been set up for you. If not, give us a buzz and I’ll come over. Don’t use your mobile, the signal’s terrible unless you go higher up the hill. There’s a landline phone in the room, and my number’s on the handset.’
Costello looked out at the night, and the dim rolling hills that seemed to rise like tsunamis on both sides of the valley. It was an oppressive place. ‘And where are you?’ she asked, wary of being on her own, out here in the dark.
‘Like I said, I’m at the top of the drive. But don’t worry, you’ll be fine.’ He jumped into the car, and drove off, leaving her standing alone with her bags on the sandstone paving.
She slid the key into the lock and the old wooden door opened without a sound. Before she stepped inside she felt around for the light switch. Her fingers found an old-fashioned round switch, and she flicked it.
The interior of the room was like a Scandinavian hotel, all polished wooden floors, with a sofa, a TV, a big fire, a bathroom, and a wee kitchen at the back of the living room, then a set of wooden stairs up to a mezzanine where she presumed the bed would be.
She was so tired she just wanted to make a cup of tea and flop under the duvet. She closed the door behind her, and turned on the light in the bathroom – nice clean tiles, and a brand-new shower with huge cream fluffy towels. In the kitchen, somebody had left her a welcome pack of tea, coffee, bread and butter. Enough to make some tea and toast. That made her mind up – she was going to put the kettle on, then have a shower and wash the midges out of her hair so she could stop scratching.
She was trying not to think about the body, about the crows that had been feasting on its face, their black wings flapping and clapping over their banquet. And she was absolutely not going to think about the crow that had looked at her, and what it had had in its beak. She was determined to feel safe here. She turned back to the front door to lock it. There were four deadbolts on the inside.
9.00 A.M.
‘My God, what is that smell?’ Lambie wrinkled his nose.
Anderson answered without lifting his head from the newspaper. ‘Vik’s aftershave.’
Lambie slipped his lightweight jacket from
his shoulders, and looked round for somewhere to hang it. Not seeing any coat stands or hangers, he hung it over the back of a student’s hard chair, before selecting a padded chair to sit on. Wyngate was filling the huge whiteboard with photographs of Biggart’s crime scene, and a side panel was dedicated to the death of Mrs Melinda Biggart. The smaller of the two lecture rooms had been turned into a handy little investigation room, the only downside being the lack of natural light, and no windows to open. The upside was the glorious silence and the well-tuned air conditioning. The fact that it was near the hospital café and their wonderful coffee was a bonus.
‘Can you put up something about wee Rusalka?’ Anderson asked. ‘There’s a few ideas of my own I was sketching out last night before I drove into a Hitchcock set. Not nice.’ He handed Wyngate a single sheet. ‘I’m sure Rusalka is connected to this. And I’m sure Biggart has been making films in that room – it’s the only explanation I can think of for the strange holes in the ceiling. Even if there’s no connection, I want whoever put her in the river nailed to a wall slowly. We are three full days into this and we are getting nowhere. Have you seen this, Lambie?’ He tossed the newspaper over to his sergeant as Wyngate went to the door in response to a knock.
‘Bridge Boy? They’ve done a good job. We’ll get a whole load of stuff come in on that.’ Lambie looked around the room. ‘Are we supposed to be manning the phones?’
‘No, the calls are going through to a helpdesk at Partick. They’ll phone through with the possibles. Did I tell you Costello was going out to Glen Fruin Academy to take a wee look at a situation they have? On the drive out there last night we found a body.’ Anderson was handed an envelope by Wyngate, blank apart from the words ‘DCI Anderson’ written on it in small neat writing. It was the first time he had seen it written down.
‘Sheep?’
