The Reborn

by Lin Anderson

  Rhona came to a halt, but the couple weren’t interested in her, only in each other. The girl was talking rapidly, the boy trying to calm her. Rhona could hear nothing of the interchange. She brought out her phone as though answering a call and surreptitiously photographed the pair.

  Her first instinct was to send the image to McNab, tell him what she’d spotted. She even brought up his number before she realised what she’d done. She stared at the screen, angry with herself for not deleting the contact already, yet unable to do so even now. She thrust the mobile back in her bag. She would email a copy to DS Clark when she reached the lab, check if it was David she’d seen.

  By the time she exited the park the pair had disappeared; the distant view was of a deserted playground, an empty swing swaying back and forth.

  ‘OK. Listen to this. Yak hair is considered to be the best material to use for wigs.’

  ‘Yak hair?’

  ‘Bear with me on this. The victim had hair under her fingernail. It isn’t human. So she picked it up from an animal. An animal that was dyed red? I don’t think so. More likely she was in contact with a dyed fur jacket, or a wig. I started with wigs. Basically, the most expensive ones are made with virgin hair which has never been chemically treated. Remy hair, human hair that has been treated, comes next in quality. Next best is a weave of human and animal hair. Further down the price scale it’s synthetic. Apparently yak hair is pretty good in a weave because it can be curled, permed, relaxed and coloured just like human hair.’

  Chrissy had launched into full flow as soon as Rhona appeared. Now she’d paused for breath, Rhona told her the news about Bill.

  ‘Ya beauty!’ Chrissy punched the air. ‘All down to us of course.’

  Chrissy took any forensic success to be a personal achievement.

  ‘It’s not over yet.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Bill was in with Sutherland when I left.’

  Chrissy put her hands on her hips. ‘He won’t demote him. Sutherland’s not that stupid.’ She took in Rhona’s doubtful expression before going on vehemently. ‘Everyone hates Slater. They want Bill back. Sutherland’ll pretend to be the big noise . . .’

  ‘Which he is.’

  ‘But he’ll try to make Bill stay.’

  ‘I don’t think it’ll work.’

  For the first time during the conversation Chrissy looked unsure.

  ‘I hope you tried . . .’

  ‘I tried,’ Rhona said more sharply than she intended.

  Chrissy’s face fell. ‘Things will never be the same again, will they?’

  ‘Things change. Besides, you have Sam and Michael now.’

  ‘And who do you have?’

  ‘You know me. I like my own company.’

  Rhona hoped her tone made it clear the discussion was at an end. Just to make sure, she changed tack.

  ‘Sutherland has asked for Magnus to be consulted on the fairground case. Slater wasn’t too keen, but he has no choice.’

  Chrissy had a soft spot for the Orcadian professor of psychology and liked the idea of a discomfited DI Slater. The small consolation seemed to perk her up.

  ‘I’d better be going. I’d said I’d meet Sam about now.’

  ‘So when will you be back?’

  ‘I’ll come in for a couple of hours every day. See how Mum gets on. If it works out, I’ll do more.’

  ‘Great.’

  Just the thought of having Chrissy back was like a shot in the arm.

  8

  Despite the coldness of the late afternoon, Magnus stepped out onto the balcony, where the wind coming up the river whipped at his body. The tide was in, surging from the western seaboard, up the 600 square miles of waterway that lay west of the Clyde. Below him, grey water seethed, white-tops like snapping teeth.

  He thought of his home in Orkney, overlooking Scapa Flow. How the Flow would change minute by minute, second by second. Once, coming back from a camping trip on the nearby island of Hoy, he had been caught midway as the tide turned and the wind rose, heralding a storm. Everything had changed in an instant and life had become something to be fought for, his wits and sailing skills the only thing between him and oblivion.

  He’d reached the safety of his small harbour and the exhilaration he’d felt as he’d fought the waves stayed with him the entire evening. As a result, he’d been unable to settle to anything and had walked the beach, despite the deteriorating weather, before he could finally go to bed.

  Magnus felt something akin to that feeling now.

  When the cold began to seep into his bones and his teeth to chatter, he turned and went back inside. The scent of water and city wind was replaced by the comforting smell of his home. Warm wood and polished leather. The musty smell of the books that lined the shelves mingled with the aroma of fresh coffee.

  The box file lay closed on his desk. He knew when he opened it the comforting smells would be replaced by something else. Something that conjured up very different images and thoughts, fascinating and disturbing.

  He decided to enjoy one more pleasant scent before he began. He fetched the decanter and poured some whisky into a brandy glass. The peaty aroma immediately met his nose. He added a little water, then swirled the liquid slowly round, before taking a mouthful. The powerful combination of kick and scent would go some way to anaesthetising what was to follow.

  He settled in the swivel chair and turned to face the desk, and the box file. Setting the glass down, he unfastened the catch and opened it.

  The effect was extraordinary. It was as though Coulter was now in the room with him. The pages he had pored over had absorbed his scent, sweat from his hands, the distinctive sweetness of his aftershave. Even the faint, lingering disinfectant odour of the hospital was discernible.

  Who knew how long Coulter had laboured over each handwritten page, handling each sheet of paper countless times? Magnus wasn’t distressed by the barrage of smells which brought Coulter into the room, but he would have preferred to read the diary objectively without the feeling that Coulter stood over him. He could ask one of his students to type up the notes for him. He would need to do that eventually anyway, if he was planning to use them in his classes.

  But for now he would have to manage.

  He clipped back the restraint and studied the opening paragraph of the first page. He had read it before but he did so again now, absorbing the flow of words as they were written.

  When Geri came back with the Baby I was surprisd it was so pretty like a doll I said I wood change the nappy Geri didnt want me to but I said Id be Gentel I pinched the leg for fun and she cryed and kicked me I wanted to pinch her all over becos she wos mine

  The passage was similar in tone to the other hundred odd pages written in the mawkish, rambling and semi-literate hand on lined prison notepaper. The spelling confusions, missing words and intermittent use of capital letters confirmed Coulter as poorly educated.

  Yet, if you ignored the lack of normal punctuation, the writing had an elegant form similar to a stream of consciousness. He was reminded of a comment attributed to James Joyce on the subject of his novel, Ulysses.

  ‘I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of ensuring one’s immortality.’

  Is that what this was all about, Coulter’s desire for immortality? His memoir to be picked apart interminably by psychology professors like himself and their students. To have books written about him, like other ‘notorious’ killers? Coulter’s work on Reborns had redeemed him, at least in the eyes of those he’d helped. Why expose his ‘other’ self through the diary, if not for notoriety?

  Psychopaths were known to take advantage of prison facilities, taking any courses on offer, attempting to shape a positive image of themselves with which to impress a parole board. Coulter was regarded by the hospital authorities as a model inmate, someone who had apparently turned a chaotic and violent life around
. Someone who had found ‘his calling’. Coulter no longer lived by the narrative that had informed the diary. He had said so himself. I am no longer that person. Was that really true?

  Even in this short extract, Coulter’s storytelling skills were evident. His ability to portray himself as a young father, delighting in the delicate wonder of his newborn baby daughter. Yet beneath the playful tone, Magnus sensed something else.

  Coulter had insisted on changing the nappy, even though his partner wasn’t keen. He’d told her he would be gentle. Once in charge, he began to refer to the baby as she, where before, he’d used it. He pinched the little leg hard enough for the baby to cry out, which made him want to pinch it all over because, he said, he was her dad.

  The memoir wasn’t easy to read. It would take time and patience to deal with the flow of consciousness and to make sense of the poor spelling and punctuation, but the real challenge would be to determine what psychological sense it made.

  Coulter, faced with a sentence that would keep him behind bars for the remainder of his life, had taken a route with a well established history. Criminal memoirs weren’t new. From the days of the gibbet, murderers’ life stories had been sold, usually on their demise, both for profit and as treatises on morality.

  In Coulter’s case, however, there was no evidence of remorse or guilt. In fact, the murder of his baby daughter was never mentioned at all. An initial trawl of the manuscript had shown it to be peopled solely by his numerous partners and their offspring (in it, he admitted to fathering nine children, the first at the age of fourteen). He talked about these babies fondly, yet some he’d never even seen, having left the mother before they were born. He often seemed to forget or never knew the babies’ names or sometimes even their genders. Mothers’ names, too, were misspelt and muddled up.

  In the past, fathering numerous children had been common, usually in the hope that some would survive to pass on your genes. Nowadays one or two were the norm, their survival down to their parents’ care and protection. But there were still plenty of instances where women had numerous children, often by different fathers. Fathers who took no part in their children’s support or upbringing.

  Magnus had picked up a sense of egotistical pride in Coulter’s reminiscences of his progeny, as though his masculinity was evidenced by his virility. Even now, he went on creating children. My babies, he’d called them, only now they weren’t real.

  Magnus lifted his glass and took another sip of the golden liquid. He tried to imagine what he might write in a memoir of his own life. Unlike Coulter, he would have very few partners to declare and no offspring that he was aware of.

  Would the narrative he wrote be honest or would he choose his words carefully, hiding the real Magnus beneath a revisionist tale? Would his students be able to glean anything of the man he was, or thought he was? Would he, knowing how it was done, be able to fool them?

  It was an intriguing thought. Maybe even an exercise that might prove useful, for his students at least.

  He wondered if his profession had destroyed his capacity to take people, even himself, at face value. To enjoy life as it happened, rather than constantly analysing it. Then he recalled an early meeting with Rhona, where his silent study of her thoughts had proved just as erotic as her scent and physical appearance.

  In his profession, you had to be aware of what people were thinking, as opposed to what they were saying. He ran over his dialogue with Coulter in his mind. Both of them had been intent on establishing who was in charge. After that, Coulter had sought to intrigue Magnus. And he had succeeded. Showing him the Reborns had been a master stroke; seeing Coulter at work was much more powerful than simply being told about it.

  His mobile vibrated against the surface of the desk, and he closed the lid on Coulter’s musings and picked up the phone. The caller ID surprised him – it was as though by thinking about her, he had conjured Rhona up.

  ‘Rhona!’ he said, keeping his tone light.

  ‘Hi, Magnus, how are you?’

  Did she want the truth or the accepted reply?

  ‘Fine, and you?’

  ‘Busy. I thought you might like to know that Bill has been cleared of the assault charge.’

  ‘I’m very pleased to hear it.’

  She ran the details past him. ‘Internal discipline kicks in now.’

  He could sense her disquiet.

  ‘You suspect he’ll step down?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He found himself profoundly saddened by such a thought.

  ‘But that’s not why I’m calling. Sutherland wants you involved in the fairground case. I wondered if DI Slater had got in touch.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  She made a small annoyed sound in her throat.

  ‘I have been following it on the news.’

  ‘The abridged version,’ she said.

  ‘Do you want to meet up and you can tell me the rest?’

  There was a moment’s silence before she responded. ‘Can you drop by the lab?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow, about eleven?’

  ‘OK.’

  He rang off, happy that he would see her again, whatever the circumstances.

  9

  Bill stood at his front door and imagined life inside. Margaret would be in the kitchen by now, making the evening meal. Lisa was probably upstairs in her room studying. She was working for her Advanced Highers, her sights set on becoming a doctor. If she failed to get the qualifications she needed, it would be that bastard’s fault. Bill cursed the Gravedigger under his breath for the umpteenth time.

  ‘You have to let it go,’ Margaret had told him. ‘He wants what he did to Lisa to eat at you. If you let it, he’s won.’

  When she said it, it made sense. Standing here alone, hate filling him, such a notion seemed impossible. He took out his key and slipped it in the lock as quietly as he could. He needed more time before facing Margaret.

  There was something comforting in the familiar sight and smells of the hall. Robbie’s wet sneakers had been abandoned at the bottom of the stairs. A damp jacket hung steaming on the radiator. The left hand door lay ajar, television playing to an empty sitting room.

  He went upstairs.

  As he turned on the shower, he realised Margaret would hear the water running and know he was back. The thought made him feel guilty. He should have gone through to her right away. It wasn’t as though she would castigate him for his choice. She’d stood by him in all his major decisions, knowing that none of them were made without a lot of soul-searching.

  Two brightly coloured scarves hung on the dressing table mirror. They’d been Margaret’s favourites when she’d lost her hair through the chemotherapy. He wondered why she didn’t put them in the drawer or throw them out now they were no longer necessary. Then the thought struck him that she kept them out to remind her that she’d survived.

  Survival. Margaret knew better than most people what staring death in the face meant. The thought chastened him, and he dressed quickly and went downstairs.

  She was standing at the open oven, her back to him, stirring a casserole dish she’d lifted out. On the kitchen table stood a bottle of Jura and two tumblers.

  She spoke without turning. ‘Why don’t you pour us both a drink?’

  He did as requested, adding water from the cold tap. The casserole back in the oven, she turned, her face flushed by the heat.

  ‘Well?’

  He handed her a whisky. He’d already texted her the court result so that wasn’t the news she was waiting for, glass in hand.

  ‘I got a ticking off from the Super.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  He nodded. Sutherland had been brusque but kind. More than he deserved. She was waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t, she said the words for him.

  ‘You didn’t resign.’

  He met her eye. ‘I didn’t resign.’

  She toasted him with her glass and he saluted her back. Even now, as the whis
ky warmed his chest, he wondered why she didn’t demand he leave the Force, point out that the job had endangered his family.

  She took a seat at the table. Bill was struck, looking down at the new-grown hair, how much younger it made her look, the cap of curls resembling an infant’s.

  He joined her.

  ‘What’s happening about finding Michael’s killer?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It’s time you did something about that.’

  He agreed. It was time.

  Bill had developed a way of observing his daughter that wasn’t direct. It had begun on her return from hospital and had continued since then. The mental checklist he went through each time he viewed Lisa exhausted him. It had worsened in the idle hours spent sitting at home awaiting the trial. Lisa was his first thought when he opened his eyes in the morning and the last when he closed them at night.

  That was the reason he’d decided to go back to work, even if it meant being demoted. Surely if he had a case to work on, it would stop him thinking about what had happened to his daughter. If he was at the station, he would stop watching her.

  It was Robbie who brought up the fairground case while they were at their meal, breaking the rule that what happened on the job wasn’t discussed at home. Margaret had already told them he’d been reinstated.

  ‘Does that mean you’ll be in charge of the fairground murder?’ Robbie’s tone was casual.

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I just wondered. David Murdoch’s in my year at school.’

  ‘Who’s David Murdoch?’ Lisa chimed in.

  ‘The boyfriend of the girl who died.’

  A flash of fear crossed Lisa’s face. Bill cursed his son silently for his thoughtlessness.

  ‘Is David a friend of yours?’

  ‘He’s in my maths class.’ A fairly non-committal answer.

  Margaret threw Bill a warning look.

  ‘I’m glad you’re going back, Dad.’ Lisa gave him a wan smile.