by Caro Ramsay
‘We are driving past the Western,’ he says, pointing.
‘We need to go to the Southern because they will go to the Western.’
‘Did you hurt them that bad?’
‘Yes.’
‘You a black belt or something?’
‘No, just angry.’
‘You were expertly angry.’
‘Krav Maga. Israeli self-defence. Kind of. Go for the eyes, the throat, the knees. If they can’t see, breathe or run then they’re fucked, aren’t they?’
‘You’re bloody good at it.’
‘My dad sent me when I was wee, he thought I had aggression issues.’
‘Remind me not to get you angry.’
Billy wants to ask me something but can’t quite find the words. This is what Soph would call an awkward silence, but I can’t think of anything to fill it.
But Billy does. ‘You know, hen, if you ever decide that medicine is not for you, you could be a great addition to the SAS. I’d just reverse-parked the car up that lane so I could pretend I was driving out if the traffic proles appeared. I got out to use the phone and the wee skinny one jumped me, spilled my bloody coffee – well, your bloody coffee to be precise. Now is the point where you ask who I was phoning that was so important I got jumped.’
‘Consider it asked.’
‘Mr Parnell.’
‘You phoned my boss?’
‘Indeed. You don’t have to look after Charlie tonight.’
‘Is Mary OK with that?’
‘Mary does as she is told.’ He presses a button and the window drops.
I look into the footwell where my rucksack was. The wee toerag had rummelled about but everything was still there. ‘And why am I not looking after Charlie tonight? What am I doing instead?’
‘I told him you were needed on police business.’
‘Did you buy something off those guys before they tried to mug you?’ Now I put the window down, the flow-through drifts caffeine past my nose.
‘And now we need to speak to someone.’ His voice is a little clipped.
‘Who, specifically?’
But Billy is talking to himself, thinking as he goes along. ‘I bet the whole case has come up now for review. That’s why Anderson has been brought in. Jack gave us a heads-up about that one at least.’
‘So where are we going?’
‘The next best thing.’
‘We’re going to the hospital first.’
Two hours and three coffees later we are driving through a housing estate near Glasgow’s most desirable postcode. Spelled Milngavie, pronounced Mill Guy to separate those who belong there from those that just think they do. The phrase ‘Near Milngavie’ raises the value of any property by ten grand, Billy tells me as I drive. He left hospital with an X-ray, a strapped wrist and a prescription for Tramadol.
‘Pull in here,’ he says, pointing to a neat bungalow in Balvie Road, brown roughcast with a newly slabbed driveway.
‘Nice gaff,’ I say, more to annoy him than anything else. I was still thinking about that mark on Lorna’s leg. And Jack’s question about a dog. I needed to chat with this Anderson.
‘Do you think you can be nice in here and only speak when you think it is appropriate? And not hit anybody?’
I tell him to fuck off.
‘Watch your language, sweet cheeks,’ he winks at me.
A thought strikes me. ‘You’re not going to lie to them, are you? If you’re going to impersonate a police officer, I am …’
‘Oh, I spent my whole friggin’ life impersonating a police officer, so I’m not likely to stop now, am I?’
He rings the bell and the door opens so quickly it’s obvious we’re expected. Was this lady the reason for his distraction when he was jumped? She is a small woman, roughly the same age as Billy, with blonde hair dulled with grey, pulled back and twisted into a bun. She looks the sort that would do an Open University course or paint watercolours to amuse herself in her retirement. She is as unlike my mother as you could get, except for the restless look in her eyes. She too is looking for a loved one. I recognize her face from the news clip on the TV, and there is no mistaking the warmth in her eyes when she looks at Billy; their formal greeting has some false restraint about it. I retreat a little, not feeling part of this togetherness. They remind me of a pedigree poodle meeting a stinky mongrel. Billy introduces me as his associate and her smile slips a little when she sees me.
‘Oh, you have an associate now?’
‘Yeah, I use her to scare people,’ Billy says, moving into a narrow hall with a laminated floor and a lot of doors. The glass doors at the bottom end are half open; I can see beyond to the new extension. I can see she has a porthole window like Mary has. The shelves on this one are full of spider plants.
‘Christine’, as she is introduced, smiles at me and has the good grace to keep the smile when she notices the acne and the hairs on the side of my face as I walk past.
‘Now that the door is shut I can tell you who she is,’ says Billy as he walks purposefully into the living room.
Christine sits down on the chair by the window, looks at Billy and then back at me. I stay quiet, I have to speak only when appropriate.
‘This is Sophie McCulloch’s sister.’
Christine’s expression changes to one of five-star sympathy.
‘Sophie? I’m Gilly’s mother.’ She extends her hand for me to shake; her hold lingers.
Billy was the head of the investigation into her daughter’s disappearance, so these two have a professional history that has developed into something personal.
‘Please have a seat.’ She sweeps her arm out like BA cabin crew. ‘Sorry, what is your name?’
‘Elvie.’ I sit down on her coffee-coloured leather suite, pulling my tracksuit bottoms underneath me. She can’t help but glance at my trainers and her spotless carpet. Another thing she shares with my mother.
‘How are your parents coping?’ she asks.
I notice that Billy has sat down and made himself at home, leaning back with his legs crossed. ‘Just my mum.’
Christine nods.
‘I think she’s OK,’ I lie.
‘Every time I get a knock on the door I think that this might be it.’ Christine shudders slightly, and her forefinger caresses her chin as she looks at the photographs on the wall behind my head. I turn to look at the family portraits. Gilly has curly brown hair and a pretty smile. She’s wearing an open-collared white blouse revealing a small gold dolphin leaping on her breastbone. ‘But now the knocks on the door are getting fewer and fewer. And that feels so much worse.’ She starts to well up. ‘I can’t stand the waiting. I had to do something. She went missing on Thursday night, the fourth of March 2010. Not a night I am likely to forget, ever.’ She turns to Billy, her hand outstretched across the arm of the chair to rest on his knee.
Billy has the good grace to look a little embarrassed but pats her hand. ‘Christine, have you seen the news?’
‘Not that woman found in Argyll? Gilly?’ Her hand goes up to her throat. ‘Oh, please, no.’ She shakes her head.
‘No, no, no,’ says Billy quickly, taking her hand in his. ‘Christine? It was not Gilly.’
Christine bites her lip, her free hand wipes a tear from the corner of her eye. She takes a deep breath to compose herself.
Billy twists in his seat to take both her hands in his good one. ‘But I do think that woman was taken by the same person that took Gilly and I didn’t want you reading the details in the papers. There was a body found, that’s all you need to know. We’re going to have a chat with the Senior Investigating Officer and that might move the situation on, get us closer to finding Gilly.’
Christine glances at me and then back to Billy. ‘So if the woman at the Rest and Be Thankful was alive until Friday night …’ Her eyes look straight into Billy’s. ‘There’s a chance that Gilly is still alive?’
Billy has the confidence to nod; Christine looks at me bleary-eyed and I smile. ‘Ev
ery chance she is alive.’ I am sitting on my hands so that she does not see that my fingers are crossed.
‘You need to see the room, it might help.’ She is suddenly on her feet and moving. ‘There might be somebody there that you recognize, somebody your sister knew. You must look.’
‘Was her husband abusive?’ The question flies from my lips, and Christine looks stunned.
‘Pardon?’
‘No,’ said Billy to me sharply before turning to Christine. ‘There’s a battered women’s refuge that has come up twice in the investigation, that’s all.’
‘Refuge for victims of domestic violence,’ I correct him.
‘Gilly was happily married,’ said Christine, sitting back down. ‘Very happily.’
‘Something we needed to ask, that’s all. Can you think of any other reason for Gilly to come into contact with the refuge? In her role as a teacher, perhaps?’ asks Billy. ‘Needn’t be anything personal.’
‘I can’t think why she would. But she wouldn’t have told me.’ She smiles at me. ‘Do you want to look at the room, just through there?’ She points.
‘Just leave her to it, Chris. Come on, we’ll put the kettle on …’ says Billy.
She shows me through to the room across the hall, a dining room converted to a murder room. Just the same as we have at home, but with Gilly instead of Sophie.
‘You found anything?’
I jump. They’re both standing in the doorway and I think they might have been there for some time. ‘Sorry, I was miles away. I’ve looked at the pictures, read the articles, but I don’t see any link between them, except running. They were not the same kind of people.’ I stop and check my radar that Christine is not offended.
Her pursed lips suggest that she might be. ‘Gilly was married young to her childhood sweetheart. She loved her children and her family life. She liked working with the kids at school.’
‘Whereas Sophie liked to live the life of a student. Gillian ran with the Milngavie Mummies? Did they have a trainer or a coach or something?’
Christine shook her head. ‘Nothing so formal, they went out jogging on a Tuesday and Thursday night and there was a babysitter provided so they could all go out together. Afterwards they went for coffee. That’s all.’
‘But she must have been on her own the night she went missing.’ I look at Billy for confirmation.
‘Yes. She was late home from school that night, the weather was terrible. Rather than not go she went out on her own.’
‘Did she run the same route?’
‘I think so.’ Christine shudders. ‘She was down by the Baldernock Linn. That was where she was last seen. Graham said it was their favourite summer run.’
‘Was she having an affair?’
Christine pursed her lips. ‘No. Why, was your sister?’
‘Probably,’ I replied. ‘She normally was.’ I look at a little map, photocopied and folded many times. ‘So she was along this route somewhere. The person who abducted her knew where she would be.’
‘Or came across her?’ asks Christine.
Billy shook his head. ‘He couldn’t get that lucky twice. He knows where these women will be and when.’
‘Do you know any really big dogs – or anyone with a really big dog?’
Christine shakes her head.
‘OK, Christine,’ Billy says. ‘We have another idea that might help.’ As if on cue his phone goes; he smiles and accepts the call. ‘Do you think that might be a flyer?’ Absent-mindedly he rubs his nose, just where the skin is cross-marked with fine red veins from his drinking days. Then he listens. ‘Well, you can take credit for it. It’s your jurisdiction, your idea.’ He progresses to scratching and turns to look at me. The scared old man has gone, the fox is back. ‘Yeah, she’ll do it. She can go out hunting in the night. It’s something that she does. Yeah, she’ll be glad to … no, I don’t need to ask her. The body nearly fell on her, remember? And her sister is missing. She already is involved.’
TUESDAY, 5 JUNE
It’s a simple plan. Find out where Lorna came from. We know where she ended up, so all I have to do is retrace her steps. I look out into the darkness. Same place, same time of night, same type of woman. It’s the best that they can think of as the dogs can’t find a scent with all this rain. Billy says that we don’t know what it will achieve until we try. I console myself with the fact that even if Lorna was chased by the Earl of Hell her feet still hit the ground and somewhere up there was a footprint that might take us to a track, to a road, to a tyre print. To a CCTV camera. A number plate. An ID.
I couldn’t say no.
So now I am running over the moor. Two crime lab technicians are standing in the glare of a very powerful arc light, huddled against the rain and poring over a plastic map. They have already calculated the radius that Lorna could have covered in her state of dehydration and weakness. One of them has factored in that I am fitter, well nourished and not injured.
‘But I am not scared,’ I said and jogged away to warm up. Lorna would have a runner’s eye for the contour of the land, she would know roughly where she was trying to get to – the Rest. There was no sign of her being chased, and only her footsteps were at the top of the landslide, nobody else’s. She was simply trying to get away. Didn’t matter if that was uphill or downhill, she would run towards where she thought she would get help. The emptiness up here – hundreds of square miles of it – would focus her mind.
It’s certainly focusing mine.
They talked me through it. I will be followed, and they will check for any evidence that Lorna also passed this way. I will have a camera on my skip cap to record what I’m looking at. Later they will clarify the images to examine any places of interest, as they put it. Sounds a load of cack to me.
At twenty past midnight we are still gathering on the hillside.
I’m dressed in my usual black leggings, wearing trail-running boots to protect my ankles from the clumps of heather. I feel good as I jog past the Land Rover that dropped me off, past the huddle of people taking notes. They are looking up at the sky, looking at their watches and wondering why their phones have no signal. It’s going to be a very wet and windy night. Sipping my water, I head off down the track, loosening up my limbs, wishing these men would get their finger out so that I can get on with it. It will take us an hour or more to walk to where Lorna fell before I can start to run. I jog on past a police tape that separates nothing from nowhere and look back, they’re still milling around. I go on, waiting for it to happen, getting my anger up, my own little roid rage. I roll my neck and shoulders until I feel it creeping along my arteries and I move away from the lights, into the dark shadows. I have no fear about the run; the bigger fear is that we might miss something.
Something moves in the darkness; I hear the breathless wheeze of unfit lungs behind me. I turn round quickly, he puts his arms up to protect himself. He is an older man, wearing a coat ill-matched to this weather.
‘What’s going on?’ he asks. ‘I know she was here.’
Of course she was or we wouldn’t be here. I take a minute to read his body language; he is no threat. Not only is he scared of me, he’s trying to hold back the tears.
‘Please?’ His hand reaches out towards me, shaking. His skin is red with exposure to the cold and the rain as he holds a creased piece of paper in a clear plastic folder out towards me. That Ali McGraw smile. It’s a million miles away from the face that lay in my lap and ceased to breathe, so thin that the skin looked painted on her bones. His thumb grips the photograph tightly in case the wind should catch it and take it from him, as fate had taken Lorna.
‘Mr Lennox? We will find the man who did this.’
‘So what is happening? What are you looking for?’
‘Whatever we can find. You should go home.’ I can’t tell him that his daughter spent her last hours on earth in this dark, lonely, desolate place.
‘Three days shy of six months.’ He shakes his head. For a minute his face is
impassive, then he nods. ‘And it comes down to this.’ He coughs. I think that might be to hide a tear. ‘Just tell me if she suffered.’
Tell me if she suffered. I recognize that type of question; he does not want to know the answer. ‘She was doing her best to get back to you,’ I say. We have been spotted, someone shouts to us. I say quickly, ‘I’m Sophie McCulloch’s sister …’
His head jerks up at that. ‘Oh?’
‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘Aye? Whit?’ His eyes narrow, I have his attention.
‘Your daughter’s running schedule?’ It comes out as a formal question but he answers it.
‘Well, she’d been up for the marathon, but she injured her foot. She got a pool thing built at her house so she could run in water. Nothing like that in our day. But she was fit enough when … when she was taken.’
I smile what I hope is an understanding smile. ‘She went missing on a Thursday night, out running?’
He nods. None of this is news to him.
I nod back, he thinks we have empathy. ‘I’ll let you know how this goes.’ I can say that confidently as I know Billy will know all about Mr Lennox. ‘I’ll do my best.’
‘God bless you, hen, mind how you go.’
And I trot away.
A team of six of us set out to walk to Lorna’s last known point, the point where she fell to her death.
An hour and ten minutes later. I am running, thinking that Lorna, marathon fit with all that muscle memory, could have run here from bloody anywhere, no matter what state she was in. She was tough.
The first part is almost a clamber up a few rocks, and it’s easy to see where Lorna had come down. I have the camera fixed to my hat, a small flat torch clipped to my waist and two big clunking brutes of men behind me. I try to find a rhythm, ignoring the discomfort of the guy behind me trying to talk down his radio, his lack of breath giving his speech a staccato arrhythmia. My instructions were to go and to keep going, so I ignore him and push on. From the point where she fell, the natural path is upwards. She would have run down this gully, not realising she was being funnelled into the landslide and the sheer drop to the road below. Half a mile north or south she would have had an ungainly clamber down, but not here. Because of the heather I look down as I run and the torch finds the footprint before my eyes register it. A crescent moon of toes embedded in the mud on the bank of a stream that gurgles loudly in protest at all the rainwater pouring into it. So Lorna jumped it here coming the opposite way, this was her take-off point. The torch finds her landing footprint just beside my own take-off one. One of the cops takes a photograph of them, they look so slight, so inconsequential – just small imprints of a bare sole and toes. I am on the right track. So where she ran up, I run down. I feel she’s talking to me, guiding me.
