by Lin Anderson
It wasn’t strictly true, but it worked. The car would be with her in half an hour. Claire thanked the woman profusely and rang off.
She dressed slowly, conscious she was putting on the clothes she’d soaked and muddied the night before. Someone had done their best to clean and dry them, and she was grateful. Without anyone to bring fresh clothes to the hospital, Claire had little choice.
When she went in search of Emma, she found her sitting on her bed reading a book. She was wearing something from the hospital’s store of children’s outfits, a bit too big for her. It made her look like a refugee.
‘Hi.’
Emma studied her mum’s expression. ‘Can we go home now?’
Claire smiled. ‘I’ve organised a car.’
Emma slid off the bed and came for a hug.
‘I promise to stay on the road this time,’ said Claire.
She had a fleeting recollection of the figure that had caused her to swerve, and a shiver ran down her spine. The detective had listened to her explanation as to why she’d left the road, but although he’d taken down a description, he hadn’t looked convinced. Claire decided not to think about it or mention it again. Especially not to Emma. One thing she was sure of, the figure on the road had not been Nick.
A shadow crossed the little girl’s face. ‘Gran’s dead.’
‘What?’ Claire had been so busy worrying about getting Emma home, she’d almost forgotten her mother.
‘When I fell asleep in the car, I dreamt she died.’
Claire hugged the girl to her and kissed the top of her head.
‘I’ll call the hospice.’
‘Your mother passed away at six thirty p.m. last night.’
It was, almost to the moment, the time she’d turned on the radio to listen to the weather warnings.
‘We tried calling you …’
‘I was in a car accident. My mobile was damaged.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. You’re all right, I hope?’
‘I banged my head and lost my memory for a bit.’
The hospice nurse murmured a few more condolences, then added: ‘Your mother made all the arrangements for her funeral when she came to us. You don’t have to rush over. Give me a call tomorrow.’
Her mother had made all the arrangements, probably even written the funeral invitations. It was so like her. ‘I don’t want to be a burden’ was her motto.
Emma looked up as she re-entered the room. Claire had expected tears, but her daughter didn’t look upset. Not the way she’d been the previous night.
‘Gran’s OK, Mummy. She told me.’
‘When did she tell you?’
‘When I was in the woods.’
The look of conviction on the child’s face made Claire uneasy, but she decided to play along.
‘Granny will be in heaven, bossing everyone about.’
‘She’s not there yet,’ Emma corrected her firmly, ‘but she says she soon will be.’
It was difficult to believe they were travelling the same route. In broad daylight the moor looked unthreatening, even pretty in its patchy cloak of white. As they entered the wood Claire saw a line of police vehicles parked close to the spot she’d gone off the road.
‘Stop the car, Mummy.’
It was the last thing Claire wanted to do. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘Please.’
‘But why?’
‘I can hear them.’
‘Emma, this is silly.’
Emma began to cry so Claire reluctantly pulled in behind a police van. An officer immediately approached to wave them on, and Claire rolled down her window.
‘I’m sorry, miss, you can’t stop here.’
‘That’s my car. I went off the road here last night.’
‘This is a crime scene now. No one is allowed to approach.’
‘I found them,’ said a small voice from the back of the car.
Claire explained. ‘It was my daughter who found the … remains.’
The policeman was spared making a decision by the arrival of the plainclothes officer Claire had met the previous night.
‘Mrs Watson. How are you?’
‘DS McNab. Thank you, I’m fine.’ Claire paused, unsure how to continue.
Emma got out of the car. ‘You told me your name was Michael.’
‘Detective Sergeant Michael Joseph McNab.’ He held out his hand and Emma solemnly shook it.
‘I want to go back to the tree.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not possible.’
‘They want to talk to me.’
Claire grimaced apologetically at McNab, who squatted down in front of the child.
‘Thank you for finding the bones, Emma, but you have to leave it up to us now.’
Claire watched her daughter’s face. The girl could be very stubborn.
‘If I write down what they say, will you read it?’
Claire and the detective exchanged glances.
‘Of course I will,’ he replied.
Emma looked appeased, for the moment.
‘Why don’t you go with one of my officers and bring anything you left in the car?’
Claire waited until her daughter was out of hearing.
‘What does she mean, they? Is there more than one?’ Claire was horrified.
‘We’re examining the site, that’s all I can say.’
‘I don’t want this to prey on Emma’s mind.’
The detective gave her an understanding look.
‘Here’s my card. There’s a phone number and email address. Let Emma get in touch if she wants to.’
‘You’re sure? She does have an active imagination.’
‘Mum, you forgot these!’ Emma was running towards them, waving a bunch of keys.
‘I keep the house keys on the same ring as the car key, otherwise I lose them,’ Claire told McNab.
Emma seemed to have forgotten her earlier request in her delight at saving them from being locked out.
‘Do you have far to go?’
‘Another twenty minutes or so.’
The detective crouched to speak to the child. ‘If you remember anything else about last night, your mum has my email address.’
Emma nodded solemnly.
Fifteen minutes later, Claire left the main road for a narrow track that wound into the nearby hills. From here you could see Chapel Mains farm and its outbuildings, but not the farm cottage that nestled in the glen behind.
Coming here had been the best thing she’d ever done. For the first time in months she felt safe, hidden from Nick’s sight.
‘Can I put the Christmas tree lights on?’
‘Of course.’
Emma burst through the door ahead of her and made for the small sitting room, while Claire headed for the kitchen. She opened a bottle of red wine and poured herself a glass. She could hear Emma talking to Toby, the cat who’d taken up residence almost as soon as they’d moved in. According to the farmer, Mr Jenkins, Toby had belonged to Mina, the old woman who’d lived in the cottage before them from childhood to the grand old age of ninety-two.
‘If Toby’s stayed, he must like you.’
The farmer’s words had pleased Claire, helping reassure her that she’d made the right decision. The move meant a new school for Emma, but they could worry about that after the Christmas holidays.
Her jangled nerves beginning to steady, she set about making them something to eat. A few flakes of snow fluttered past the kitchen window, but the prospect of more snow didn’t worry her. She’d stocked up well, and Emma’s presents were already hidden on top of the wardrobe. Being alone here over Christmas would be a blessing. At least they wouldn’t be travelling back and forth to the hospice. The thought made Claire feel momentarily guilty, before she reminded herself that that was what her mother had wanted. ‘Let the child have her Christmas without coming here.’ It was as though her mother had decided it was time to go.
Claire wondered about the funeral. She wou
ld call the hospice in the morning and discuss the arrangements with them.
When the pasta was ready, she went in search of Emma and found her upstairs in her bedroom at the computer.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Sending Michael an email,’ Emma told her brightly.
She resisted the desire to read over her daughter’s shoulder and tried to keep concern from her voice. ‘Tea’s ready.’
‘OK.’
Emma ate with gusto, appearing none the worse for the ordeal of the last twenty-four hours. Claire broached the subject of the email over the ice cream.
‘So, what were you telling the detective?’
Emma gazed at her levelly. Sometimes Claire thought her daughter had been here before.
‘There are two of them.’
‘How do you know that?’ Claire tried to keep her voice steady.
‘I hear two voices.’
‘Voices?’
‘Just whispers.’
Claire’s heart was pounding. She told herself that Emma had a vivid imagination; that finding the skull had upset her. The best thing was to say nothing and let nature take its course. Emma would soon forget all about it when the excitement of Christmas took over.
Emma was waiting for her response. She mustered herself. ‘More ice cream, or have you had enough?’
Emma shook her head. ‘Can I watch TV?’
Claire had never been so glad to hear her daughter ask that question.
‘Good idea. I’ll clear up and come and join you.’
She quickly rinsed the dishes, then took her refilled glass through to the sitting room and sat on the couch next to Emma.
‘Would you like to sleep in with me tonight?’
The little girl didn’t turn. ‘It’s OK, Mum, I’m fine. Honestly.’
Claire tried to relax into the sofa and let the wine do its job. Emma was right. They were fine – no, they were lucky. Very lucky. They had survived a bad accident with little more than a few cuts and bruises. And, she reminded herself, her mother was at peace at last.
She made up her mind that this would be a good Christmas. The best they’d had for years.
8
She saw me. The bitch saw me.
He flicked channels, his hand shaking with rage. The news programmes were full of reports of storm wreckage, but nothing on a car going off the road.
Maybe the bitch was dead?
The car had turned over. He’d watched it slide down the bank, heard the crunch when it hit the tree.
If she wasn’t dead, she was badly hurt.
He hoped she was dead.
He’d parked his own car well out of sight of the road. Same place he always used when he went back. She’d appeared out of nowhere just as he was crossing the road, blinded by snow, thrilled by memories.
The bitch had seen his face.
It doesn’t matter if she saw me. She doesn’t know why I was there. Nobody knows why I was there. No one but me.
But the truth was the bitch had messed things up. She had given him grief.
He would have to deal with her.
9
‘These cards are marked.’ Chrissy was flicking through the pack Rhona had taken from the soldier’s pocket. ‘Watch.’
The cards flew from one of Chrissy’s hands to the other.
‘Where did you learn how to shuffle like that?’
‘I had a boyfriend who was a magician.’
‘A magician?’ Chrissy never failed to amaze Rhona.
Chrissy placed the pack in her right hand. ‘OK, in technical terms I’m not shuffling, just springing the cards from one hand to another without moving their place in the pack. When I do it this time I want you to watch for dots of light.’
The cards whizzed from one hand to another. She was right. There was a faint line of light.
Chrissy extracted a card and placed it under a microscope.
‘Take a look.’
Rhona focused on the magnified image.
‘There are two holes in the card.’
Chrissy replaced that card with another. There were two holes pierced in it too, although in different positions.
‘Every card’s like that,’ she said. ‘A hole for the suit and a hole for the card’s position in that suit.’
‘So our soldier cheated at cards?’
Chrissy raised an expressive eyebrow. ‘If the corpse is our soldier.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘While you were at the deposition site, I checked the blood sample you took against the grouping indicated on his dog tag. They weren’t the same type.’
The information on the cleaned metal tag had been easily distinguishable under the microscope – name, identity number, blood type and date of birth. The MOD had already confirmed that Private Fergus Morrison had gone AWOL after returning from Afghanistan.
‘Any chance of a fingerprint?’ Rhona asked.
Her assistant showed her what she’d succeeded in lifting from the burned hands. The partial print was too warped to be of much use.
‘We can DNA him, that’s not a problem, but if he’s not the blood type on the tag, he’s not our soldier.’
‘What about evidence of petrol?’ asked Rhona.
‘I’m just about to start on the debris.’
‘So, we have a corpse carrying a false identity?’
‘Looks like it.’
‘I’m going to the mortuary,’ Rhona said, standing up.
‘Why?’ Chrissy had gone back to shuffling the cards.
‘I need to ask Sissons something.’
You needed a strong stomach to work in a mortuary, or no sense of smell. Similar attributes were required in Rhona’s own profession. The headless corpse was laid out on a metal table, and Dr Sissons had already begun the post-mortem procedure and was talking into his overhead microphone. The chest had been sliced open and the various organs removed. The stomach contents were in a receptacle awaiting analysis, which would be done in Rhona’s lab.
Sissons carefully finished his sentence before switching off the microphone and regarding her quizzically.
‘I wondered if you’d got to the stage of examining the hyoid bone yet?’
‘The fracture, you mean?’
She nodded.
‘You suspect foul play?’
‘I thought the fracture odd.’
‘If the brain boiled and caused the skull to shatter, that might account for a fracture in the hyoid.’
Rhona had come to the same conclusion herself until the result of the blood sample. ‘He was wearing a dog tag that wasn’t his.’
‘You can buy fake dog tags in any army surplus store, or so I’m told.’
‘The dog tag was real. The soldier it came from is missing. The MOD have reason to believe he’s gone AWOL. His name is confirmed as Fergus Morrison.’ Rhona looked down at the blackened corpse. ‘But this isn’t him.’
When she got back to the lab, Chrissy had forsaken the cards and was tucking into a cheese-and-tomato panini. Rhona was struck by how well she looked. Being pregnant suited Chrissy, so her tales of being chatted up in spite of the bump didn’t surprise Rhona.
‘So?’ demanded Chrissy.
‘The hyoid bone was fractured.’
‘He was strangled before the fire?’
‘It’s a possibility.’
‘Maybe he cheated at cards once too often?’
It would be up to the Procurator Fiscal to decide whether this was a murder inquiry, but going on what they’d discovered up to now, it had begun to look likely.
‘Are you not due in court this week?’
Chrissy’s casual enquiry gave Rhona a split second of panic. Two major incidents in the space of forty-eight hours acted on the brain like jet lag. ‘What day is it today?’
‘Tuesday.’
Rhona breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I’m in tomorrow.’
Court appearances, though a vital part of her work, could be long winded. Sitting around wa
iting for her turn to enter the witness box drove Rhona to distraction.
The case in question – the killing of an elderly woman – was particularly nasty. The old lady, Mary Healey, had been in her eighties and well liked by her neighbours. Brought up in Govanhill, she’d never left the area of streets she’d known as a child, then a wife and mother, and eventually a grandmother. She’d continued with her life as she’d always done; her door kept open for her neighbours. Last Christmas Eve, someone had entered Mary’s flat uninvited. When she’d challenged the man in her hallway, he’d bludgeoned her to death. The shock of Mary’s murder had reverberated round the community and brought the decent folk together to mourn her loss.
Rhona wanted to stand up in court and fight for Mary. She wanted to present the forensic evidence that laid the blame firmly on the suspect the police had apprehended – a twenty-five-year-old heroin addict who was willing to do anything for money to feed his habit. Mary had been old-style Glasgow, solid, hard working and friendly, and some creep had ended her life in an instant.
Rhona left Chrissy in charge of the lab work for the skip fire while she concentrated on the material brought from the wood. Cold cases had to be run alongside current work. They cost more and took longer, but the discovery of a body, if identified, could bring closure for relatives tortured by never knowing what had happened to those they loved.
Rhona began by making up the skeleton as it had lain in the deposition site, placing the bones in their appropriate places, double-checking against photographic records and her recording sheet.
As she worked, she recalled the first time she’d really understood what lay beneath skin and flesh. It had been a revelation and the beginning of an insatiable desire to know more; a desire that had eventually led her to the job she did now.
It had been during one of those long summer holidays from school, when you forgot the wet days and remembered only the sun shining and the tar melting beneath your feet. She’d been ten years old. A keen swimmer, she’d walked to the nearest outdoor pool every day, sometimes with her friend Alison, sometimes on her own.
The incident was as crystal clear now as it had been then. The footpath to the pool ran along the edge of a field a couple of metres from the road. A group of boys, one from her class, had been clustered left of the path, throwing stones at an object in the near distance. Their movements had been determined, the look on their faces cruel. Rhona had been watching for some minutes before her classmate had turned and spotted her. He’d stared defiantly back, as though challenging her to say something. She remembered being suddenly afraid of him. After a few moments’ stand-off, he’d called to the others to move on. As they’d run away, catcalling, towards a nearby wood, Rhona had had a burning desire to see what they’d been doing.
