by Caro Ramsay
‘Well, there is. So bloody find it,’ Anderson whispers and bangs the door behind him. Cheekbones follows him out, ready to argue.
A deafening silence falls on the room; everyone avoids looking at Costello. I look at the media picture of my sister Sophie, on a separate board. She has a case number above her. For some reason that chokes my throat. Is this what my sister has come to? A number and picture? There are photographs and names and dates, including some of myself, then the diagram spreads down over the whiteboard. It reminds me of a family tree, all spread out, all of it laid bare. And there’s a photograph of Mark Laidlaw. I stare at it for a long time.
I review the information on Gillian Porter, and then Lorna Lennox. There are more photographs of something that looks like the Piltdown Man, a mass of flesh and dirt: Katrine, the Girl on the Hill. As a display of information it’s impressive. As a tool to move the investigation forward, it is proving bloody useless.
Costello starts up again. ‘You can’t accuse us of not being thorough. See here, we’ve mapped out Sophie’s timeline. Maybe you can fill a gap we have. We don’t know what she was doing on the night of Wednesday twenty-first March. Nobody seems to know. Your brother said that she was at home but your mum says that she definitely wasn’t, but then she may not be the best witness. Rod agrees that Sophie wasn’t home. We don’t know where Mark was either. So can you help?’ Her voice becomes sarcastic. ‘If it helps your excellent memory, that was the night you left the hospital after getting a phone call. The nurse who witnessed you take the call got the impression it was some kind of emergency. We can trace who phoned who. You live about ten minutes away from the hospital.’ Her voice drops a little. ‘We can talk through here if you want.’ She opens the door to a smaller, less formal room with two blue sofas. She has concern in her voice as if I am now a victim.
Has Billy put them up to this? He then answers my question. ‘It will be useful for us all to know what was going on in her life at that time, and you’re not the best person to judge what we should and shouldn’t know, Elvie,’ he says, as he indicates I should sit down. ‘We need it black and white.’
Costello picks up on Billy’s lead and smiles encouragingly. She sits down opposite and places a folder in front of her.
‘She was going to my flat but I don’t know where she was before that. I was working nights, doing a rotation in A and E, and she asked me – well …’
‘Well, what …?’
I repeat the story. Me going home, Soph in the bath, my suspicion that she had been raped. It doesn’t get any easier, telling it again.
The fact that Costello is not writing any of it down means that it is not news to her. ‘So you left but she never said what happened to her?’
‘No, I don’t know what she did, but she definitely stayed for a few hours after I left, judging from the mess.’
‘You suspect Mark Laidlaw?’
‘I do.’
‘Why?
‘He’s a brute.’
‘Any other reason?’
I shake my head. ‘It could only have been him.’
‘Would you mind if we had a look at the flat forensically?’
‘No, of course not.’ But this is confusing me. None of this has anything to do with me. It’s all to do with the Night Hunter. I put my hand in my pocket to check the keys are there, then I slide them across the table towards her. Billy’s hand pats me on the shoulder.
‘When does it suit you to go to the flat? You need to be there,’ she says, keeping it very professional.
‘Anytime.’ I get up and walk back through the doors to look at the rest of the women on the wall. They stare back at me for a long time.
‘We’ve exhausted all lines of enquiry on any connection,’ says Costello quietly. She is standing right behind me.
‘But running takes them outside, alone. Through parks. They’re of similar age – does that mean anything? Same stages of life?’
‘No. Have you come up with anything in your travels with Billy the Fox that he is not telling us?’
‘No,’ I answer flatly. I point at Lorna. ‘How did she get to the top of the moor?’
‘We think she was put out of a car on the road up near Succoth and then she went up the hill making for the Rest. Why she didn’t run down the road once the car was gone remains to be seen.’
‘Because they sent the dog after her? Maybe that’s how he gets his kicks, letting a girl loose then getting a dog to chase her down, a big, slow dog that never tires, coming after you, relentless.’
‘Maybe.’ The thought was chilling. We are both quiet for a moment.
‘The geographical profiler was trying to get something out of this.’ She points at the map of Argyll behind her. It is covered with pins, some large, some small – they are colour coded but I am not told the code.
‘That’s the house at Ardno.’ I point. ‘And that – is that Eric’s house?’ I move my finger to a house at the top of the Succoth road.
‘God, no, that’s his house, way over there. There are four farms between him and the point where Lorna fell, if that’s what you’re thinking. And it’s much too far to run in any weather. That road on the left is where we think the car stopped and put Lorna out, maybe Katrine too. That’s where we dropped you on Monday night.’
‘Tuesday morning,’ I correct her. ‘That might be the last point accessible to a normal road vehicle but that police Land Rover struggled.’
She sighs wistfully. ‘I’ve still got the bruises.’
‘So Eric lives way up there on the right, and there’s no way you can get between those two points by going across the way?’
‘Too mountainous, too rough. We know, we tried. The search team have been all over the place. Nothing.’
I look at the map. The main road winds round the top of Loch Long, a small offshoot goes straight north into the forest park through Succoth and keeps on going into nowhere. Beyond nowhere is Eric’s croft, almost up at Ben Vorlich, and that is a long way. I guess it’s about twelve miles as the crow flies, but God knows how long on that windy road. Eric’s croft is much closer to the hydroelectric scheme at Loch Sloy and the north-west side of Loch Lomond. Costello is right, there’s no vehicle access over the top of the hills, so Lorna must have been dumped from the road.
I am still trying to compute that in my mind when Costello says, ‘The road to that point at the top of Succoth is less than single track, it’s listed as “a road of limited use”. You can get to Ben Ime here, much easier. We think that’s where Lorna came from, the nearest point of vehicular access, so we centred our search there. All those farms have been searched and discounted, all outbuildings, ruins,’ she adds. ‘So maybe the holding pen for the women is down here in the city, near where they’re taken. It’s easier to hide somebody down here.’
I think about Lorna. Look at her Ali McGraw smile. She was scared but incredibly fit. I have no idea how we would work out how far she could actually have run. Would her fear have kept her going? Knowing that dog was coming through the darkness behind you … ‘There’s what, nearly eight hundred square miles.’ I look at Lorna’s face. Her hair is short, her face tanned and freckled, with big brown eyes. Trusting. ‘If she’d been in a car there would be contact trace, surely, on her body? Every contact leaves a trace and all that.’
‘You’ve been talking to Billy.’ Costello shoots a bitter glance in his direction.
‘We all know how to avoid leaving a forensic trail, that’s a matter of method and patience. Now what about the other woman, do you know anything about her yet? Forensically?’
‘Any further information from that body has not shed any more light on this,’ Costello says carefully, but she’s listening to me.
Billy smiles sweetly as his phone rings. There is something about his face that makes the room fall silent. His lined red cheeks make his face look like a pathetic clown; it’s obvious something is wrong. He puts his hand out as he looks around, asking for quiet. Every keyboard stops tapping. ‘Yes,
I was the senior investigation officer at the time.’ He listens carefully; the room is listening to him. ‘Yes, I know who you are. We’ve just been talking about you.’
Costello mouths, ‘Matilda?’
Billy nods, his eyes narrowing with incredulity. ‘And you’re sure about this? Yes, I know you wouldn’t say unless you were sure … Can you send a copy to DI Costello?… Yes, here – Partickhill … yes, that’s where I am, hen … oh, just get on with it.’ He ends the call. ‘There’s been another match on that dog hair, just the type of dog, but it’s way too rare not to be connected. Kelvingrove Park, 2005, the murder of Natalie Thom? You remember that?’
‘Of course.’
Thoughts start running through my head; I’m glad they’re not looking at me.
Billy is talking to Costello. ‘If you recall, Natalie was walking through the park on her way to a Halloween Party and had just changed into her fancy dress costume. We found a dog hair on it. It’s a familial match to the one that might have come off Lorna.’ He breathes out slowly.
‘But they’re all related in this country. Pasternak and Siberian. Like the House of Hanover. The same DNA will be all over the place.’
‘Matilda isolated some saliva. Dogs lick their own hair, the saliva is very sticky so it glues to the hair. If they get any DNA, it will be from the saliva, not the hair itself. Seemingly.’ Billy is regurgitating information but his mind is racing ahead.
Costello drums her pen on the top of her desk. ‘How big can the DNA pool of these dogs be in this country? We can have them traced, surely?’
Billy purses his lips. ‘Do you know who was Natalie’s best pal at university, the last person to see her alive?’
Costello looks blankly at Billy.
‘Mary Allison.’
‘Who?’
It is me who answers. ‘Or, as she is now, Mary Parnell.’
‘And,’ Billy adds, ‘at the time of her death, Natalie’s boyfriend was none other than Alex Parnell.’
Complete silence falls on the room. Costello and Billy both sit down, leaving me standing next to Sophie’s photograph like a teacher with nothing to say.
‘So a dog is the connection to all this. Alex Parnell runs a security company. They only use Alsatians as far as I know, but I don’t know much about him,’ says Costello.
Billy agrees. ‘And both the women were running. Police dogs are trained to chase a running target and hold them. These ones could be trained to bring someone down by the calf, hence the injury on the back of Lorna’s leg. O’Hare will check if the other woman has the same …’
‘She did.’ Costello opens her file and shows him a black and white A4. ‘But both these are cut clean with a knife. No tooth marks.’
‘So he cuts out the traceable teeth marks,’ I say, not needing to look.
Costello’s eyes dart from me to Billy and back again, but there is a flicker of excitement. She knows we’re on to something. ‘We need to identify that dog.’
‘Surely you can do that without clearing it with the boss? Or does it depend on his mood – or his missus? Is she gone then?’ Billy snorts.
‘Brenda?’ A smile flutters on Costello’s face, she relishes gossip.
‘Yeah, Brenda, redhead, face like a Brillo pad. Where is she? Left him or away on holiday or what?’
‘What has it to do with you?’
‘I’m an individual concerned for my friend’s welfare. Or a nosey wee shite who believes knowledge is power – take your pick.’
‘He’s out the family home, but they are talking. They’re sharing the kids. I think Brenda sees more of him now than she did when they lived together. But she seems happier, she’s working again. Accountant. Anything else you need to know?’
Billy says, ‘I know Helena McAlpine from way back. Nice piece of arse.’
Costello turns to me. ‘How do you put up with him?’
I am looking at the map still. Not interested in this small talk.
‘What about DS Mulholland, what’s his status?’ Billy tilts his head at the desk where Mr Cheekbones was sitting.
‘The closest relationship he’s ever had is with the mirror.’
Billy is encouraging this chit-chat, it’s not like him. He’s keen to hang around; his eyes are scanning, taking it all in. ‘I’m curious. Do you like it – the new office? Hardly all mod cons, is it?’
Costello’s fingers are now on her keyboard and she responds abstractedly, ‘Well, it has no fungus, no damp and a lack of asbestos. Look, do we know the number of the breed society or anything?’
‘Yip,’ I read her out the number that is stored in my phone.
‘Thanks,’ she says, the first time I think she’s looked at me like a human being. She writes the number down, rips the note off and hands it to a young man in a creased suit.
‘Can you action that? Use that phone down there.’
‘And what about yourself? You seeing anybody?’ Billy slides on to the side of her desk.
‘Is that an offer, Billy?’
‘No. When was the last time you were on a date?’
Costello thinks hard. ‘Yesterday. Before you ask, it was shit. Way too many teeth, like having a date with Red Rum. Except Red Rum had better table manners.’
At that moment Mr Cheekbones comes back in. He could be a model in the well-groomed but smouldering category. He glares at Billy intensely.
Costello starts on her keyboard again. ‘Mulholland, can you check this report? It’s about DNA from a single dog hair.’
His beautifully structured face looks spectacularly unimpressed. ‘A single dog hair?’ Mulholland gives me a glance of distrust as he slides his jacket from his shoulders and looks round for a chair to hang it on. ‘Why don’t I have my own desk?’
‘You might get your own coat hanger, if you’re lucky.’ Two people who do not like each other but work well together. He is pernickety and gets up her nose. The fact that she is his boss riles him. He knows that she is the better detective and that riles him even more.
The door opens, too far this time, and it catches on the carpet again. The figure behind bangs hard with his shoulder to get it to open.
‘Hi, Wyngate. Glad you could join us.’
‘Sorry, the baby was ill.’
‘Well, you have a job to do. Go through all the case files and find a low-actioned report from a Mrs Parke with an e. It’s about a dog. And Wyngate? You smell of baby sick.’
‘Oh, sorry.’ Wyngate sidesteps to allow the person behind him through the door. ‘She has best practice projectile vomiting. I did try to clean it off.’
‘Well, you didn’t succeed.’ Costello then turns to me. ‘Why are you in the middle of all this, Elvie?’ she says, making a swirly pattern with her fingertip then pointing it at me. ‘Sophie, Mary, Natalie?’
‘Good question,’ Billy says out the corner of his mouth.
I am saved from answering by a gentle knock at the door. ‘I’ve … Oh, hello, Elvie, how are you?’ But her hesitation when she saw me was obvious.
It is Avril, the family liaison officer. Costello invites her to sit down and takes the memo from her. Avril regards me with concern as Costello reads the note then hands it to Mulholland, who reads it then starts scanning my face. He opens his notebook out ready. Everything has changed. We are businesslike now. All these people are higher up the food chain than the normal plod who occasionally accompanies Avril on her visits to my house.
‘You’ve found Sophie?’ I see in the corner of my eye that Billy has moved behind me; he has one hand on my shoulder ready for succour if the news is bad.
Avril shakes her head. ‘No. But we think we’ve found Mark Laidlaw.’
‘So bring him in, for God’s sake,’ says Billy.
But Costello is looking straight at me. ‘I’ll rephrase that. We’ve found Mark Laidlaw’s body.’
We are now back in the quiet investigation room. I have been given a cup of coffee. It is terrible. I need to get out of here.
&n
bsp; ‘Obviously, things have changed a wee bit. We are going to have to reprioritise. So we don’t want you to go back to your flat until we say you can. We need to examine it with a different protocol, in the light of the new circumstances.’
‘Fine by me. Mark Laidlaw has never been to my flat.’
‘As far as you are aware,’ she adds succinctly.
Mulholland is now her sidekick. He passes the A4-sized photograph to me. I look at it. I know his eyes are on me as I look. Mark’s face is super clean. Death has lent him a dignity he did not have in life. There is a black mark on his left temple.
‘That’s the man I met in the street. He was looking for Sophie. He called himself Mark Laidlaw.’
‘Did you ever actually see him with your sister?’
I shook my head.
‘When did you see him?’
‘On the eleventh of April. When that picture was taken on CCTV. I think he was on his way to see me. If you follow the cameras you’ll see me talking to him. He was asking me where Sophie was.’
‘And you were going to tell us that – when?’
‘She’s telling you now,’ said Billy. He sounds disappointed in me. But he doesn’t tell them the bigger secret.
‘I had nothing to do with his death. But I do know that he had something to do with Sophie’s disappearance. That’s what you should be concentrating on.’
‘Look, young lady, I have had you up to my back teeth. You do not control this investigation. You tell me everything, do you understand? You will tell us everything.’
The scar near Costello’s hairline is doing a little dance. I know that each of them is watching my reaction carefully. I ignore her. ‘And where was he? Is Sophie there? I think you should be telling me everything.’ I stare her out.
Costello does what most people do, she senses that the aggression is not normal. She calls for reinforcements. ‘Avril, can you join us?’ She moves along the settee.
‘Hi, Elvie, you OK?’
‘I’m fine, what have you found?’
‘As you know, we’ve recovered a body and we’re sure that it’s Mark Laidlaw. It looks like his car rolled into the reservoir; they’re searching the rest of the body of water to see if there’s anything else there.’ She curls and uncurls her fingers, her nails are still perfect.
