Final Cut

by Lin Anderson

  Swanson’s room was a different matter. It had the same neatness and order, but Rhona sensed Swanson’s presence, even now when it was empty. Magnus stood in the centre, viewing each of Swanson’s pieces in sequence. The colour and intensity of the stained-glass images seemed even more powerful to Rhona now as he examined them.

  ‘He’s talented,’ he said. ‘A patchwork of colour. Beautiful and yet somehow also disturbing.’

  It was exactly how she had felt when Swanson first showed her his work. She indicated the one that had been in the workshop.

  ‘Can you see anything in the pattern?’

  Rhona watched as realisation dawned on his face. He swung abruptly round to look at her.

  ‘That’s an image of a child.’

  ‘I think they all are.’

  Magnus stood in front of the open wardrobe.

  ‘He organises his clothes, shirts, sweaters, everything, by colour, like the stained glass.’ He flicked through the shirts. ‘Three of each shirt except blue and white.’ He checked the drawers. ‘Socks and underwear also arranged by colour, three of each except blue.’ He thought for a moment. ‘My guess is Swanson’s gone on a short trip.’

  Rhona understood. ‘He’s taken enough clothing for two days.’

  It was strange to have the three of them together again. McNab looked sullen but was not openly hostile. Magnus’s pronouncements on the contents of the wardrobe had prompted him to alert the airports, although if Swanson had departed immediately after their visit, he might already have left the country.

  Magnus questioned McNab closely, about his meeting with McCarthy, their talk with Swanson, asking them to go over what each had said in detail. He particularly wanted the man’s precise responses, his facial expressions, the tone of his voice, his mannerisms. Rhona wished Magnus had been there, instead of encountering everything second hand. She suspected McNab felt the same, although he would never admit it.

  ‘If we accept Swanson was complicit in Mollie’s death and Claire saw him that night, then he would see her as a threat. Once the link between the crash and finding the skull became clear, she was in real danger. I suspect the fact that Claire had a child came as a pleasant surprise to him.’

  Rhona shuddered at the thought.

  ‘His penchant for children might dictate he keep Emma alive, at least for a while. It would be easier for him to hide her here on the premises.’ Magnus looked over at McNab.

  ‘We’ve searched. There’s nothing,’ he replied sharply.

  Rhona flashed McNab a warning look, willing him to cooperate.

  ‘I thought there might be a cellar,’ he conceded, ‘but I can’t find any access to one.’

  ‘If Emma is here, he has to keep her warm for her to stay alive,’ Magnus said.

  Light dawned in McNab’s eyes. ‘And for that he needs power.’

  As the lights and sockets were switched off, the steady hum prevalent in every modern home gradually faded to nothing. In the torch’s beam, the electricity meter slowed its whirring movement almost to a standstill – but not quite. McNab had the junction box exposed. As silence descended he flicked each of the switches in turn. Turning off the final switch brought the meter to a halt.

  It was McNab who discovered the cable. It ran along the underside of the workbench, down the leg and from there through the wall behind the stained-glass store to the forensic room. It took longer to work out how to access the cellar. The external wall of the cottage was over two feet thick, but the section behind the shelves of evidence bags contained a narrow stairwell to an old root cellar. Without following the path of the wire they would never have found its access point.

  McNab went down the narrow stone steps first, calling Emma’s name into the frigid darkness. Rhona followed, the strong scent of decay catching the back of her throat. She heard him curse as he stumbled over something in the dark, saw his torch beam circle a mound on the floor.

  The plastic-wrapped parcel was partially open. Water had seeped from it to form a pool of ice in the sub-zero air. What they were looking at had to be the remains Swanson had retrieved from the loch.

  ‘Over there!’

  McNab swung the torch as directed.

  Rhona had spotted what looked like an item of clothing in the nearby shadows. Close by were the remainder of Claire’s clothes strewn about as though removed in a frenzy. As they approached, the torch beam found Claire’s naked body. She lay on her side, curled up as though in sleep.

  Of Emma there was no sign.

  Rhona asked Magnus to carry Claire’s body upstairs to Swanson’s bed as carefully as he could. In advanced cases of hypothermia you had to be gentle – no rubbing the limbs, nothing that would send a cold rush of blood to an already struggling heart.

  Rhona pulled back the duvet.

  ‘Lay her in the centre and take off your own clothes. All of them,’ she told Magnus.

  Rhona fetched the duvet from the spare room, then quickly undressed to her underwear.

  ‘We have to warm her with our own bodies.’

  They slipped under the covers and positioned themselves against Claire, front and back, skin on skin.

  ‘Her torso and neck area. That’s what we have to get warm.’

  Rhona felt Magnus’s long arms stretch out to encircle them both. She shivered as heat flowed from her to Claire’s icy limbs, but Magnus’s body heat was plentiful.

  When they’d checked for life signs in the cellar, Claire’s pulse had been weak, her breathing shallow, the pupils dilated. If her body temperature dropped any lower, she wouldn’t survive long enough for the paramedics to arrive.

  In the muffled darkness of the cocoon created by their naked bodies, Rhona listened to Magnus’s steady breathing and felt his breath on her hair. They didn’t speak, focused as they were on bringing Claire back to life.

  McNab watched as Magnus dipped his head at the top of the stairs and manoeuvred Claire’s inert body carefully through the narrow gap. Claire, he knew, was as near death as it was possible to be. He could do nothing about that now. He had to think only of Emma. If Claire was here, there was a chance Emma was somewhere close by.

  The cellar was fully lit now. The arc lamp threw shadows against the wall, illuminating long scratches on the surface as though Claire had fought to escape her silent freezing grave.

  A faint scent of stagnant water came from the bundle that still lay on the floor. He suspected, as had Rhona, that this was the second body removed from the loch before the divers had arrived. Emma had been right and he’d treated her eager disclosures as irritating lies.

  McNab paced the dungeon-like room. He could see nothing that suggested another space beyond what they had already discovered. He retraced his steps to the wire’s entry. Perhaps there had been an electric point here at one time, but this place was not using the power that was making the meter turn.

  He went back into the house. Men were searching every room, carefully, methodically, with a sense of urgency to match his own. Frustration welled up in him. Maybe they were wrong about the power supply. Maybe Swanson had simply taken the child with him. If so she could be anywhere, if she was still alive.

  A call came from the sitting room.

  ‘He’s gone to Venice.’

  Swanson’s computer was switched on, details of his early morning flight on the screen.

  ‘One return ticket only.’

  ‘When is he back?’

  ‘Forty-eight hours from now.’

  The German shepherd entered by the front door and stood sniffing the air. They had nothing of Emma’s to give it, but it was a general-purpose dog, trained to search for humans inside and out. The dog team had arrived shortly after the paramedics, who were already upstairs with Claire.

  The dog moved swiftly through the house, tail waving and muzzle twitching enthusiastically. It wanted to find someone as much as they did. McNab stood near the front door waiting for the shout, but none came. When the dog descended the stairs, the handler sh
ook his head, indicating they had found nothing.

  McNab followed them outside. They headed for the workshop. As the Alsatian worked the air, he was suddenly conscious of the smell of putty. It reminded him of Swanson and the sanctimonious look on his face as he’d trotted out that stuff about seraphim. And all the time Claire was freezing to death in his cellar. If Swanson had been in the vicinity McNab would have killed him with his bare hands and to hell with the consequences.

  And what about Emma? What had the bastard done to Emma?

  The police dog was sniffing its way round the workshop, but without the urgency that would suggest it had picked up an unexplained scent. The handler moved with it into the forensic room. Through the workshop’s open door McNab was keeping half an eye on the waiting ambulance. It didn’t look as though Claire had been brought down yet, and he didn’t want to contemplate what that meant.

  The dog was back in the workshop now and making for the door. The handler mouthed ‘sorry’ before heading into the garden.

  It looked as if Swanson had hidden the girl somewhere else. They would have to widen their search. The adrenalin was beginning to drain from his body, leaving a battered, exhausted shell. He gave his head a shake, knowing if he allowed his eyes to close he would fall asleep right there.

  Maybe they had no choice but to await Swanson’s return. They could put him under surveillance, follow him to Emma’s hiding place. But what if he never went there? Could they make him talk? McNab suspected he would never give the girl up, dead or alive.

  He went outside, anxious to be away from Swanson’s things – the coloured glass, the cloying putty smell, the stained-glass window awaiting repair, with the blood-coloured seraph looking down on its supplicant.

  There was a flurry of activity by the greenhouse. McNab felt his chest tighten as someone shouted and a uniform waved him over. They had found something. His heart took off, pounding his chest. He found himself praying that it would be the child. That she would be alive.

  The group of anxious faces parted to let him through.

  The trapdoor was obvious now that it was open. McNab wondered how he had missed it before, tucked below the bench of wintering geraniums. The morning sun was already warming the glass roof, accentuating the smell of damp and soil. He crouched by the opening.

  A set of wooden steps led downwards. McNab eased himself through and flashed his torch around. The space below was about a metre square, earthen sides prevented from caving in by wooden props. A pale grey fibreglass container sat partially exposed above the surrounding soil. It was onion shaped with a lidded top, a spyhole in the centre, a soft pink light filtering through the glass. McNab swore as he realised what he was looking at.

  The bastard had buried her in a septic tank.

  When McNab pulled open the lid, heat and the scent of sweat and fresh urine escaped, catching in his throat.

  ‘Emma?’

  There was no answer.

  He dropped inside, feeling warmth encase him. He landed on a soft spongy base. A plastic bottle of what looked like water rolled away from his foot to clunk against the curved side of the container.

  Then he saw her, naked, knees curled to her chest, white-blonde hair covering her face. McNab had never been in the presence of something so openly and achingly vulnerable and so infinitely precious. His own heart had ceased beating, waiting to learn if this child was alive.

  He crawled towards her, afraid to call her name again in case there was no response. He gently touched her shoulder, and the skin beneath his fingers was warm.

  ‘Emma? It’s me, Michael.’

  He gently moved her hair to one side. Her small face was dirty, the cheeks tracked with tears. Then the blue eyes flickered open and Emma smiled at him.

  ‘I knew you would come.’

  53

  Swanson shivered as cold December air met him at the top of the plane steps. Venice had been cool and damp, but not like this. He smiled. Despite the cold he had much to look forward to.

  It wouldn’t take long for the house to warm up. There was food in the fridge and he had brought a couple of bottles of Venetian wine back with him.

  The drive from the airport was uneventful. He turned on the radio, choosing Classic FM over a news and weather bulletin. The fields he passed were still white with snow, so the forecast for low temperatures until New Year were proving accurate.

  He wondered how long he would keep the girl. For the holiday period, at least. He smiled to himself. She would be grateful to see him again. She wouldn’t have liked being alone, but he hadn’t left her in the dark. He would have to wait for a thaw to bury the boy’s remains. Perhaps he could bury them together. That gave him a week with her.

  He turned into the drive, a little surprised to see a light at the sitting-room window. Had he left it on? He’d departed in a hurry so it was perfectly possible.

  He was more perturbed when he did not need his key to open his front door. He was on the point of dialling 999 when a police car entered the drive and drew in behind him.

  Then the detective sergeant emerged from his sitting room and beckoned him inside.

  54

  Claire had believed herself dead, her hallucinations the afterlife – or more likely purgatory, because Emma wasn’t there with her.

  But she hadn’t died. More than a week had passed since that night when they’d brought her back to life. Haemodialysis, the doctor had explained; they’d taken the chilled blood from her body, warmed it and put it back.

  She had the forensic woman and the psychologist to thank for her life. The doctor had been blunt about it. Had they not acted promptly to raise her body temperature, her heart would have gone into cardiac arrest.

  Claire recalled the day they’d come to take Emma to the woods. How she’d hated them for doing that. How she’d despised Emma’s stories and drawings. She’d believed she’d hidden herself and her daughter from evil, only to find it had followed them.

  Emma was facing the window, her drawing book on her lap, selecting coloured pencils from a long clear plastic folder. Claire no longer feared her drawings. Fear was born of fear, and she refused to be frightened any more. DS McNab had promised her she had no reason to fear either Hugh Swanson or Nikolai Kalinin. Neither of the two men would trouble her or her daughter again, he would make certain of that. Claire wanted desperately to believe the man who had saved her daughter’s life. What if she’d awakened from sleep to find the opposite had happened? The fear she was trying to banish slid its cold fingers round her heart once more and squeezed tight. Claire wondered whether a life without fear was possible or probable, after what she had done.

  Her small daughter’s back was arched in concentration, her dedication to the drawing process evident. This was how Emma would always be. Intensely engaged in everything. Sometimes frighteningly so.

  ‘There.’ Emma had finished and was ready to show her mother. She strode over to the bed, her face still creased in concentration. She handed Claire the picture.

  It was Fern Cottage in summertime. Splashes of yellow climbing roses round the door. A cottage garden full of colour and life. A butterfly the size of a bird. Window boxes stuffed with red, pink and blue flowers. She’d told Emma they could make a garden like this when summer came, and Emma would have her own space where she could grow anything she wanted.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ Claire said, and meant it.

  Seeing her daughter’s smile now, Claire hardly dared think of what the child had endured. A special team had worked with her after her rescue. Emma had asked that Professor Pirie be there too. Through their delicate questioning it emerged that Swanson had not harmed Emma other than to strip her and lock her in her prison. Magnus believed that, for Swanson, keeping the child hostage, controlling and observing her, together with the anticipation of what he would do when the time came, was part of his obsession.

  Perhaps Swanson had been saving Emma, or simply didn’t have time to hurt her before Rhona and DS McNab spook
ed him enough to leave the country. Claire didn’t care which it was.

  She glanced at the clock. DS McNab would be here soon. This hospital room that had been her safe haven would be abandoned and she would have to face the world outside. She had promised herself she would tell the policeman the truth, the whole truth. And she would tell it in Emma’s presence. The child deserved to know the real reason for the nightmares and the drawings.

  McNab glanced in the rear-view mirror. Emma was humming to herself, her face animated. She’d already told them she was glad to be going home. Claire, he wasn’t so sure about. He stole a glimpse at her pale face, her tight mouth that seemed to be on the cusp of saying something.

  The cottage, he knew, had been cleaned and set to rights. Mrs Jenkins had seen to that. Claire’s blood had been washed from the walls, but the memories of what had happened there would remain.

  They drove past the scene of the crash. The snow had melted, exposing the bog-like terrain of grass and heather that led to the trees. The place was visible for a moment then gone, as though their time there had never happened.

  The track to the cottage was muddy and slick with water from the melted snow. Here and there a fence post had staggered under the weight of snow and now hung at an angle, wire drooping.

  As the cottage came into view McNab noticed smoke coming from the chimney. Mrs Jenkins had been true to her word: the place would be warm and ready for Claire’s return. The poor lassie, the woman had declared over the phone, had only to call her if she needed company or help.

  McNab stood back to let Claire turn the key and push open the door. As her mother hovered, Emma rushed past and headed upstairs. Claire gave him a nervous smile.

  ‘It’ll be OK,’ he said.

  In the sitting room the fire was blazing, the Christmas tree still in place, lights twinkling. Below it was a pile of presents. Claire surveyed it all in amazement.

  ‘We found the presents you’d hidden from Emma when we searched the place. I presumed you’d want them out for your homecoming. There’s a couple from me and the rest of the team.’

  He saw tears fill her eyes and quickly turned away. ‘I’ll make us a cup of tea.’