The Reborn

by Lin Anderson

The answers seemed to satisfy most of the adults, although the kids didn’t look impressed.

  ‘You’ll be called in one at a time and an officer will take a mouth swab and a set of prints. When that’s done you may leave, unless DS Clark wants a chat with you. And thank you in advance for your co-operation.’

  Bill withdrew before any more questions could be posed. He wanted to reinterview the three who had been present at the funfair that night, and since they’d already been processed for DNA and prints, he had asked DS Clark to send them straight in. Only David hadn’t turned up.

  He asked to see Sandie first. This time she wasn’t in school uniform, which made her look at least five years older. He beckoned her over and she glanced curiously around the room before taking her seat.

  ‘Is this a real interview?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Will you turn on a tape?’

  ‘Not unless you want me to.’

  ‘Shouldn’t I have my mum or dad with me?’

  ‘Are they here?’

  She shook her head. ‘They’re busy. I’ve nothing to hide anyway. They know that.’

  She settled herself in the seat and looked directly at him.

  ‘Let’s start with Kira’s mobile,’ said Bill.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Did she have it with her at the funfair?’

  ‘God, yes. She always had it with her.’

  ‘Do you specifically remember seeing it that night?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Yeah. She dropped it and I picked it up for her. Her belly had got so big it was hard for her to bend over.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’ she said, guilelessly.

  He decided not to mention the partial print they’d retrieved from the mobile. If it was hers, she had accounted for it, assuming she was telling the truth.

  ‘Kira wasn’t a good friend of yours, was she?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why were you at the funfair with her?’

  ‘I wasn’t with Kira. I was with Owen.’

  ‘You went there with Owen Hegarty?’

  ‘Yes. We saw David and Kira and joined them for a bit.’

  ‘Kira’s mother said her daughter didn’t like you.’

  Her face flushed. ‘I didn’t like her, either.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She thought she was better than everyone else. She told lies about people.’

  ‘About you?’

  ‘She said I was a slag, when she was the one that got pregnant.’

  Bill changed tack. ‘Did Kira ever mention a life-like doll? One her mother had made for her?’

  She was shaking her head briskly before he’d even finished the sentence.

  Bill pushed the photo of the ‘Daisy’ Reborn across the table. Sandie avoided looking down initially, then gave it a swift glance.

  ‘That’s horrible.’ She screwed up her face.

  ‘You never saw this doll before?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘You’re sure of that?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  He waited for a moment, then asked, ‘What was Melanie Jones like?’

  ‘She was a silly cow. She got herself pregnant to be like her precious Kira.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘She was anorexic. Her arms and legs were like sticks.’

  ‘You didn’t like her?’

  ‘She wasn’t as nasty as Kira. She was just a sheep.’

  ‘Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm Melanie?’

  ‘No.’

  There was no sorrow in her voice. Whatever the Daisy Chain had said or done to Sandie had hurt her deeply. Despite this, Bill suspected that if Kira had ever offered Sandie a place in her gang, she would have accepted with delight.

  Bill told her she could go and asked that Owen Hegarty be sent in.

  Owen was small and slightly built, not much taller than Sandie. He had black hair, blue eyes and an Irish look about him, as suggestd by his name. He smiled pleasantly at Bill and took a seat. They had nothing suspicious on Owen so far; his story checked out and there had been no trace of his DNA on Kira or at the crime scene. His only questionable behaviour had been his attendance at one of Kira’s parties.

  ‘Tell me about the parties, Owen.’

  It looked like the question he had been waiting for. Bill wondered how often he had rehearsed his answer since he’d been contacted by DS Clark.

  ‘It was like any party. I had a few beers, smoked a joint, met some girls.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Kira’s place. Her parents were away.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I didn’t get any, if that’s what you’re asking.’

  Bill pushed a picture of the mask towards him.

  ‘Did you see this at the party?’

  Owen took a look. ‘No. What is it?’

  ‘A mask of the Greek god, Dionysos.’

  ‘Kira was into Greek stuff. She was always showing off, saying things in Greek that no one could understand.’

  ‘So no one wore this mask at the party you went to?’

  ‘Not that I saw.’

  ‘Did you know Melanie Jones?’

  ‘The skinny one who died? She was at the party, but she went off into a room with someone.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I never saw him. Kira said it was Melanie’s turn.’

  ‘Her turn?’

  ‘Kira was high, giggling and stuff. That’s what she said. I thought she meant Melanie was going with a guy.’

  ‘Have you spoken to David recently?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him since Friday morning. He was in class first thing, then he skived off.’

  ‘He left school?’

  ‘He didn’t turn up at the other classes and he wasn’t about after school.’

  Bill let Owen go and immediately went in search of DS Clark. There were only a couple of teenagers left in the cafeteria. He headed for the incident room. Janice was at her desk, concentrating on something on her computer screen.

  ‘Did you reach David Murdoch?’

  ‘No. I’ve sent someone round to the house.’

  ‘Owen Hegarty says David came into school on Friday but left early. I want him found.’

  ‘Right, Sir.’

  38

  The name ‘chromosome’ derived from the Greek: chroma for colour, and soma for body. Rhona wondered if Kira had discovered that fact while learning Greek, or whether she had only been interested in the glamour of the legends.

  The word had originated because different chromosomes were receptive to certain dyes. They produced a pattern of colour that painted a genomic picture of each human being; twenty-four different chromosomes, of which twenty-two were autosomes and two sex chromosomes. Males had an X and Y chromosome, females two Xs. Once you added the twenty-two held in common, the magic number of forty-six chromosomes defined each of us as unique.

  She had begun with Melanie’s baby – a girl who, had she lived, might have inherited her mother’s dark hair and her slight build. Alternatively, she might have grown tall like her father, whom Rhona now knew to be David Murdoch.

  The pattern of paternity she had sought in the blood from Kira’s baby’s umbilical cord, she now recognised in the DNA of Melanie’s unborn child.

  According to Bill, Melanie had been utterly and convincingly dismissive of his suggestion that David might be the father. Was it possible she didn’t know who had impregnated her? Was that what the mask was all about?

  Rhona thought of the picture of Kira that was beginning to emerge. Extremely intelligent, but also manipulative and controlling. Her impressive intellect and charismatic personality were used to devastating effect on those she called her friends, and probably on David too. According to Bill, David had spoken of Kira as though she could do no wrong. He had declared their relationship to have been unique, that he’d loved her and her unborn child, even knowing it wasn’t his and despite h
is sexual ambivalence.

  Sandie had called his devotion ‘weird’. Perhaps it was.

  But that’s what a cult did to its members, blinded them to any faults in their leader. It seemed Kira had indeed played at being God, with devastating consequences.

  Rhona turned to the swab samples she had taken from Kira’s parents. Mrs Reese-Brandon had told Bill that Kira was adopted and the DNA confirmed this, with no pattern to suggest a familial connection between Kira and either of her parents.

  Rhona now checked the DNA comparison that Bill had specifically requested – a paternity check on the umbilical cord using the DNA sample taken from Mr Reese-Brandon.

  Magnus’s research into Myrrha had revealed that, according to myth, the goddess Aphrodite had inspired Myrrha with lust to commit incest with her father.

  But in Kira’s case, it wasn’t a myth. The DNA pattern did not lie; the child Kira had been carrying had been fathered by her own adoptive father.

  If Reese-Brandon had been abusing his daughter and suspected the child might be his, had he killed Kira and removed the child to cover this up?

  Bill lowered the phone, his stomach churning. He had known there was something wrong in that household, and Rhona’s call had just confirmed his worst fears. Instinct had told him that the atmosphere had been generated by something more than losing their child. Why hadn’t he considered this as a possibility before Magnus worked on the diary? It wouldn’t be the first time he’d brought charges against a father for raping his daughter.

  Had he been misled by the big house and the private school? He knew full well that sexual abuse happened in all social classes. Or was it simply because the research had shown that foetal theft was usually carried out by women?

  He was annoyed and angry with himself. He should have paid more attention to Reese-Brandon’s reactions, to his assertion that the baby was dead even when his wife had tried to hope otherwise. Why had he been so sure of that?

  Bill checked himself. Even if Reese-Brandon had fathered the child, it did not automatically mean that he’d killed his daughter and removed the foetus.

  He thought of Melanie, smothered in her own bed. Had she known something that might have led them to the killer? Was that why she’d died? There had been no sign of a forced entry, suggesting she had willingly let her attacker in. What if Reese-Brandon had gone round there that afternoon? What if something Melanie had said made him think she knew the truth about his relationship with his adopted daughter?

  Most people wouldn’t know that the umbilical cord contained only the baby’s blood, so maybe he’d thought that by removing the baby he’d removed the evidence of paternity. According to his wife, Kira and her father had been very close. She had been his ‘little princess’, until she’d got pregnant. He had been initially set on an abortion, but Kira had defied him.

  The situation must have become intolerable for him; if Kira had gone on to give birth, he would have had to watch the baby grow up, knowing it was his. She could have held this secret over him forever – constantly threatening imminent disgrace, if not prosecution. The pregnancy had put her in control.

  Bill wondered if it had been engineered that way. Had Kira got pregnant on purpose? Or had the pregnancy afforded her a means of getting back at the man who was abusing her? The man who should have been her protector?

  He thought of his own daughter, Lisa. He would never be capable of imagining her as a sexual object. She was as precious to him as the air he breathed.

  An hour later, DS Clark delivered the news that Ronald Reese-Brandon was waiting for him in interview room one.

  ‘Any luck with David Murdoch?’ he asked her.

  ‘No, Sir. His father’s not seen him since Saturday, when he went out and didn’t come back.’

  ‘He has no idea where he is?’

  ‘He says he’s tried phoning him but gets no answer. We’re doing the same.’

  ‘Friends?’

  ‘Seems he wasn’t much of a socialite, apart from with Kira.’

  ‘Keep trying the mobile and let’s put out a missing person on him. We need to find that boy.’

  Kira’s father was sitting stiff-backed at the table and didn’t look round as Bill entered and took his seat opposite.

  ‘Thanks for coming in, Mr Brandon.’

  ‘My name is Reese-Brandon.’

  Bill ignored the reminder. The truth was he’d had enough of the double-barrelled label. One surname was enough for most people.

  ‘We have the results of the DNA tests.’ He took a moment to study the man’s expression. Did he already know what was coming? ‘At my request, Dr MacLeod compared your DNA to that of Kira’s baby.’

  Ronald’s arrogance had been replaced by suspicion and surprise.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘We don’t need a baby to test for paternity, Mr Brandon. The umbilical cord does the job just as well. Our results show you to be the father of your daughter’s child.’ Bill had trouble keeping the contempt out of his voice.

  Reese-Brandon blinked twice, very fast, then seemed to regain his composure. He straightened himself in the chair and said, almost triumphantly, ‘Kira wasn’t my daughter.’

  ‘Your adopted daughter,’ Bill retorted.

  ‘She wasn’t my adopted daughter either.’

  ‘Your wife told us . . .’

  Reese-Brandon interrupted him. ‘Maria and her former husband adopted Kira when she was two. By the time I met Maria, she was divorced and Kira was twelve. Kira was not related to me in any way.’

  ‘You deny she was your daughter?’

  ‘She was patently not my daughter in any natural or legal sense.’

  ‘What about morally?’

  He gave a deep sigh. ‘I cared deeply for Kira, but not as a father.’

  Bill tried to control his distaste and rising anger. ‘When did your . . . sexual relationship begin?’

  ‘Kira revealed her feelings towards me on her sixteenth birthday. I reciprocated.’

  Bill frowned. ‘Are you seriously trying to tell me this was a consensual affair, initiated by Kira? What did your wife have to say about it?’

  At last the man looked uncomfortable.

  ‘We planned to tell her once Kira had left for university and we began living together.’

  ‘But the pregnancy changed all that?’

  Reese-Brandon said nothing.

  ‘Were you aware the child was yours?’ Bill persisted.

  He swallowed hard before answering. ‘Kira told me she wasn’t sure.’

  ‘She’d been sleeping with someone else?’

  ‘She was a teenager. There were parties, as you know. She said she’d got drunk one night . . .’

  Bill cut him off. ‘Kira told you you weren’t the father?’

  ‘No. She simply said she wasn’t sure. She was too young to have a child, and she had a brilliant future as a mathematician. I wanted her to have a termination.’

  ‘But she said no.’

  ‘She told me she couldn’t in case the baby was ours. She wanted it. I accepted that.’

  ‘I have an alternative version of events, Mr Brandon. You abused your daughter and got her pregnant. When she wouldn’t abort the baby, you killed her and removed the foetus to hide this fact.’

  ‘That’s utter nonsense. I loved Kira. I would never have harmed her.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘I want to speak to my lawyer.’

  ‘We haven’t charged you, Mr Brandon. Under Scots law you don’t need a lawyer yet.’

  ‘Then I have nothing more to say.’

  Bill felt an overwhelming need to get the man out of his sight. When he entered the observation room, Janice Clark was standing at the window. She turned to him, a shocked expression on her face. She’d seen and heard a lot in her time on the Force, but she was still young enough to be surprised by what people were capable of.

  ‘What do you think, Detective Sergeant Clark?’

 
‘I don’t think their relationship was the way he described it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She was twelve when they met, he was forty, at least.’

  ‘You think he abused her?’

  ‘I think he manipulated her.’

  ‘Clearly,’ said Bill. ‘But by the end, from what we know of Kira, maybe she was the one manipulating him.’

  ‘Perhaps he taught her well.’

  ‘But did he kill her?’

  ‘He has an alibi for that night.’

  ‘I wonder if his wife will back him up once she knows the truth.’

  ‘You’re going to tell her?’ Janice looked alarmed.

  Bill shrugged. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but it had to be done.

  ‘What if Mrs Reese-Brandon had already found out about them?’ said Janice. ‘What would she have been capable of?’

  ‘We can’t rule that out,’ replied Bill. ‘We’ll have to speak to her again.’

  He would have to let the husband go, for now. They had nothing to place him at the scene of crime; no sightings, no mobile calls. But he had a motive, if he didn’t want his sexual relationship with Kira to be revealed.

  Reese-Brandon was an intelligent man, and it wouldn’t take a great deal of searching on the internet to discover that umbilical cords were routinely used to establish paternity. Would he not have planned in advance, and removed it from the scene? And even if he did kill Kira, what had become of the baby?

  Bill didn’t like the man – or what he had done with the girl the world regarded as his daughter – but that didn’t make him a murderer.

  Magnus had been right when he said the psychological aspects of the killing had changed with the delivery of the doll and the video on Kira’s mobile. Whoever had done that was trying to manipulate them. He just couldn’t see Reese-Brandon playing that kind of psychological game.

  Bill put a call through to Maria Reese-Brandon and asked if she could come down to the station.

  ‘I should check with my husband first. He’ll want to come with me.’

  ‘He’s here already.’

  She gave a small gasp. ‘Why? Have you found the baby?’

  ‘No. Your husband is helping us with our enquiries.’

  ‘I’ll come down.’

  Bill replaced the phone. He would tell her the truth, and if she had been covering for her husband, he suspected she wouldn’t do so for much longer. Of course, if Janice was right, Ronald might be the one covering for Maria.