by Lin Anderson
The prisoner leaned towards him, his mean little eyes shining self-importantly. ‘The police want to question me.’
He kept a hold on his emotions and asked why.
‘They found a kid’s body in a wood.’ The idiot beamed as though he’d announced a lottery win.
He gripped his hands tightly below the table, his brain full of the sound of shattering glass.
‘They think it’s the one they said I killed.’
‘And is it?’ he heard himself say.
McCarthy’s face resembled a broken doll’s. For a moment it seemed he might cry. ‘I never killed no one. You know that.’
The visitor nodded reassuringly.
‘Maybe they know that, now that they’ve found her,’ McCarthy offered.
‘What do you mean?’
A dribble of saliva ran from the corner of the prisoner’s mouth. ‘Evidence,’ he said. ‘Trace evidence. Like in those TV programmes.’ He said it as though he knew what he was talking about.
The man gave McCarthy an encouraging smile. ‘That would be a turn-up for the books.’
‘They’ll find the real killer and I’ll be freed. I can come and visit you.’ McCarthy’s teeth were on show again, plaque and all.
He glanced at his watch, signalling his time was almost up. McCarthy looked disappointed, obviously wanting to talk more about his early release.
‘What about the other one?’
‘What other one?’ McCarthy’s eyes narrowed.
‘The one you told me about.’
McCarthy’s face crumpled again, his mouth a cartoonist’s jagged line.
‘I never did.’
He shook his head lightly, smiling as though McCarthy had just indulged in a white lie. He leaned slightly forward and looked directly into his face. ‘I remember. A little boy, wasn’t it? You picked him up in Sunderland. He was playing on the pavement outside his house.’
McCarthy’s face flushed red. ‘I never said that.’
He smiled a slow, sad smile. ‘I think you did.’
McCarthy looked puzzled. ‘You won’t tell them, will you?’
‘Of course not.’
They offered him a cup of tea afterwards. He would have preferred something stronger after McCarthy’s revelations, but accepted anyway. The young guard he’d fantasised about arrived carrying a mug and a plate with a chocolate biscuit on it.
‘McCarthy told you about the proposed visit from CID?’
He merely nodded.
‘He doesn’t seem like the type to murder kids.’
‘People are rarely what they seem.’
‘That’s true.’
The young guy gave him a look that could be read as flirtatious.
‘I understand you work in stained glass?’
He nodded again.
‘I studied art at college, dropped out and ended up here.’ The guard rolled his eyes as though he couldn’t believe his bad luck and smiled conspiratorially.
He raised the mug to his lips and caught the faint scent of linseed oil on his hands. He’d been working on the window first thing, setting in the ruby droplets.
‘Are you interested in glass work?’
‘I did a little at college. I didn’t like cutting the glass, but I liked the creative aspect.’
He examined the boy’s face with its smooth, childlike skin. The young guy hardly looked old enough to shave but he was too old for his liking. Nevertheless, he fetched out his card. ‘Give me a call if you’d like a look at my workshop.’
Outside, the large gate clanging shut behind him, he questioned his actions. Now was not the time. Yet … why not? The mess would soon be cleared up, and he liked the idea of having a disciple to admire his work.
32
McNab was almost an hour late arriving at the cottage.
It had taken longer than he’d expected to organise the divers at the loch. He’d found the location using Rhona’s GPS reading and had had a look round while the team got kitted up, then left DC Clark in charge. He and Janice had made a joint decision to pursue this line of enquiry together, using Rhona’s identification of the remains as an excuse.
In the wood, a couple of inches of overnight snow had weighed down the branches of the pines. Underfoot the snow had been crisp and white, in contrast to the grey slush of Glasgow. The loch itself had been covered by a thin coating of ice, but not enough to worry the divers. McNab had left them to it, promising to be back within a couple of hours. Janice knew where he was heading. He got the impression she would have liked to meet the kid who was the cause of all of this.
He found his way to Fern Cottage without getting lost this time. The track to the front door was tricky to negotiate without four-wheel drive, and he swerved and slithered on the frozen snow before pulling up outside. No one was at the door to greet him.
McNab decided to turn the car while he still had momentum in the snow. He also wanted a bit of extra time to compose himself. He was slightly nervous about the meeting, mostly because of his present. He had no idea what you should buy for a nine-year-old girl. It was at times like these he wished he had a married brother or sister with kids so he could have someone to advise him. The thought of asking Rhona had never occurred. She didn’t seem the type to know, and as far as he was aware she didn’t have brothers or sisters either. Chrissy had plenty of family, that he did know, having encountered two of her wayward brothers in the past.
McNab reached into the back seat and grabbed the box the assistant had carefully wrapped for him. He had the horrible feeling his coming here might be construed by Emma as a thinly disguised courtship visit to her mother. In a way, it was; he had to keep Claire onside until the case was over.
It wasn’t until he exited the car that he noticed there was no smoke coming from the chimney. When he’d knocked a couple of times he stepped back and looked up at Emma’s bedroom window. The house, he decided, had an empty look to it. Perhaps Claire had decided he wasn’t coming after all and she and Emma had gone for a walk.
McNab castigated himself for not calling to say he’d be late. He shaded his eyes from the sun’s reflection on the snow and scanned the horizon. There was nothing in the surrounding fields but the usual sheep.
When the front door proved locked, he decided to take a look round the back. There was no car out front and there wasn’t one parked at the side either. He tried to remember what Claire had said about the replacement car the insurance company had supplied after the crash. How long did that arrangement last for? As he cornered the building he heard what sounded like the crunch of footsteps. ‘Hello?’ he called.
A roe deer, her coat a deep russet against the glistening snow, stood in the middle of the back garden, ears pricked up. When she registered McNab she froze for a moment then bounded off towards the safety of the nearby trees.
The deer hadn’t been the only creature wandering about the garden. The snow was criss-crossed by numerous tracks, including what looked like a whole family of rabbits come to scavenge the remains of a summer vegetable patch.
He turned the back-door handle and struck lucky this time. As the door swung open he called out Claire’s name. When there was no answer he stepped into the kitchen and called again. His suspicion that the place was empty was reinforced by the temperature. Last time he’d visited the cottage had been gloriously warm, but now his breath blew white in the icy air.
There was a teapot and a milk carton on the kitchen table. McNab touched the metal. It too was stone cold. He headed for the sitting room. The tree lights had been switched off and the fire in the grate was long dead.
His sense of unease deepening, he took the stairs two at a time and stood poised on the upper landing. Both bedroom doors were partially open. He hesitated, conscious that if this turned into a crime scene, then he was trampling all over it. He chose the door on the right. It swung open and he caught a glimpse of a single bed, a brightly coloured duvet on the floor. Nothing wrong yet, so why was his heart hammering in his
chest? McNab stepped into the room and looked around.
His gaze registered soft toys and piles of books, a doll’s house in the corner, an open wardrobe with clothes pulled from hangers and scattered about. Just an untidy bedroom? His heart still jammering, he felt the crunch of broken glass beneath his feet. He stepped back. A smashed tumbler littered the carpet, a stain around it. Something had happened here.
McNab retreated into the hall and turned left, his senses on full alert. As he approached the second door he spotted a reddish-brown spray pattern on the cream paint of the frame and the neighbouring wall. He knew immediately what it was. He’d seen it often enough. Impact spattering was the most common type of blood pattern encountered at a crime scene, caused by kicking, stamping, beating, punching or shooting your victim.
He was already picturing Claire running up the stairs, being caught here on the landing just outside her bedroom door. When she’d struggled her attacker had responded by slamming her head against the wooden frame. Judging by the mess, he’d done it not once but many times. McNab felt sick. He stood for a moment before opening the door. The horrific memory of a crime scene he’d once attended reappeared in his head: a woman and child lying entwined on a blood-drenched bed, after the frenzied knife attack of the mother’s deranged partner.
When he found the courage to push open the door, the first thing that hit him was the sickly odour of stale vomit. Long orange-brown strands stained the bedcover. A trail of blood from the doorway marked a path to the bed and the bundled mound of the duvet. McNab pictured Claire’s body hunched beneath. He forced himself forward, reached for the duvet and jerked it back.
The bed was empty.
He sucked in air like a dying man, only now realising how long he’d held his breath. Neither the girl nor her mother was in the house, but one of them was badly hurt and it looked as if it was Claire.
He retraced his steps and stood for a moment in the doorway, waiting for his heart to slow. He was a crime scene manager. He had to distance himself, get a proper perspective on this. Forget that he knew the woman and child who lived in this house. Read the signs properly and without emotion.
He examined the area of wall next to the door frame. As well as the spattering, he could make out a set of bloodied fingerprints and a long light-brown hair. He examined the patterned carpet, cursing himself for entering the room without first checking for other footprints.
McNab retreated downstairs. If Claire and Emma were no longer in the house, where the hell were they? He pulled out his mobile and brought up Claire’s number. When it rang he heard a corresponding musical ringtone and followed it through to the sitting room. He located Claire’s mobile on the sofa, tucked beneath a photo album. On the floor beside the sofa was her handbag. Claire and Emma had not left the house voluntarily.
He called Rhona on her direct line, and she answered almost immediately.
‘Can you get down here right away?’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Something’s happened to Claire and Emma.’
33
A couple of police vehicles stood by the side of the road near the crash site, and Rhona gave them a cursory glance as she drove past. The underwater team would call it a day soon. She wondered whether they’d discovered anything. McNab had said nothing about the search of the loch when he’d called her. He’d sounded too agitated about what he’d found at Fern Cottage.
The light was almost gone by the time she reached the access road. Weaving tyre tracks were visible in the snow, evidence of how slippery it had been earlier. It had melted a little during the day, turning to slush in the wetter sections, making her own approach easier. Rhona was beginning to question whether she had in fact taken the right road when she crested a hill and finally saw the lights below.
McNab was waiting at the front door.
‘There was an intruder. I’ve found his point of entry. I didn’t notice at first, but the window glass in the toilet next to the kitchen has been cut. The cottage was Baltic when I went in. I assumed it was because the heating had been switched off.’
Rhona got kitted up and handed McNab a set of overalls before he led her round the back. The open window to the right of the back door had a clean circular hole cut in it, big enough for a hand.
‘He must have suctioned it free. There’s no broken glass inside or out, as far as I can see. When I drove up, the snow was undisturbed. So the breakin must have occurred some time before midnight when the snow came on in earnest.’ He looked exhausted, as though he’d been running it over again and again in his head. ‘I tried calling Claire’s mobile and found it lying in the sitting room along with her handbag, purse, credit and debit cards.’
‘Hospitals?’
‘Tried all A & E departments within range while I was waiting for you. I also rang the local doctor’s surgery.’ He shook his head. ‘Nobody fitting Claire’s description turned up at any of them.’
‘What about the farm?’
‘The farmer’s name is Jenkins. He says he hasn’t seen Claire for the past three days. He got the impression she wanted to be left alone.’
‘Have you told Slater about this?’
McNab’s jaw hardened. ‘Slater’s orders were to forget the kid.’
‘That was before this happened. Have you heard from the divers?’
‘They didn’t find anything.’
‘So Emma was making it up?’
‘Looks like it.’
Rhona told him about the feeling both she and Magnus had had, that Claire was frightened of something not necessarily connected to Emma’s discovery of the skull.
‘There were only three numbers stored on Claire’s phone,’ he told her. ‘The hospice, her mother’s number and the farmhouse.’
‘Nobody has three numbers on their mobile.’
‘I know,’ he agreed. ‘I checked the log. Just my call and one other, number withheld. I’m beginning to get the feeling Claire came here to hide from something.’
‘She must have friends back in Glasgow,’ said Rhona, puzzled. ‘What about her work?’
‘She never mentioned what she did and I never asked.’
‘Emma’s school?’
‘She told me she was going to the local primary after the holidays. Maybe they’ll know the name of her previous school. I’ll get on to the station while you take a look inside.’
Rhona entered the cottage by the back door. McNab was right, it was very cold in here. Nothing like the day she’d sat by the fire with Magnus. She went to the supposed point of entry first, taking video footage on the way.
The small back room housed a toilet and handbasin. The window above the sink had a deep ledge, indicating the thickness of the old stone walls. It had a brass catch at the bottom and a metal lock that swung between upper and lower sections. A circle of glass in the upper section had been removed, allowing a hand to reach in and free the lock. Pulling up the lower section had provided easy entry.
Rhona took a look at the kitchen next. There were no obvious signs of a struggle and no immediate evidence of blood, although anyone exiting the cottage with a head wound would probably have dripped blood somewhere along the way.
The sitting room was as McNab had described. Rhona couldn’t imagine Claire going off in a car without her mobile and handbag, although it wasn’t unheard of for people to rush to hospital after an accident forgetting such things. But if Claire had been as badly hurt as McNab feared, would she have been able to drive?
After she’d recorded the sitting room, she headed upstairs. The upper landing was narrow, with two doors leading off. Rhona went into Emma’s room first. The cupboard was open, clothes and shoes scattered about. The smashed tumbler lay on a damp patch on the carpet. She picked up a piece of glass and sniffed it, catching a sweet syrupy scent. A pile of jotters, a pencil case and a textbook lay in a heap next to the bed, as though they’d been tipped from a bag. Wondering whether this was evidence of a sudden and rapid packing session, Rhona
checked the wardrobe for a backpack or holdall, but couldn’t find one.
McNab joined her outside Claire’s room as she recorded the bloodstains.
‘It looks bad, doesn’t it?’ he said.
‘Head wounds always bleed a lot.’ What she said was true but he still looked worried.
‘I called the lab,’ he said, ‘asked for someone to help you process the scene.’
She nodded. On her own it would take time, and she didn’t want to spend her entire Christmas Eve down here. ‘What about Claire’s car?’
‘The insurance company says she returned the hire car. Apparently she bought a replacement to be delivered after Christmas.’
‘So she had no transport?’
‘Mr Jenkins said he offered her the use of a farm van. Claire told him she planned a quiet Christmas at home with Emma and wouldn’t need it.’
So any hope that Claire had driven away from the scene with Emma was gone.
‘Someone’s taken them,’ said McNab.
‘Or they ran away from the intruder and are lying low.’
‘They would have made for the farm.’
Rhona suspected he was right. If Claire and Emma had been frightened by an intruder, they would have made for the nearest house. She went to the window. The snow was on again, thick flakes drifting down to form a second layer. What if mother and daughter were out in the open with night coming on?
‘The intruder must have come and gone by car,’ she said. McNab had driven down the unsurfaced road. So had she. There was no other route to the cottage.
McNab was reading her mind. ‘Jenkins says he brought fodder to the sheep by tractor early this morning. The gate into the field is about half a mile up from the main road.’
So the drive had been well churned up after the intruder left. With that and a further fall of snow, they had little chance of identifying his tracks.
‘What if Claire came here to hide from a former partner who was …’
