Missing Believed Dead

by Chris Longmuir

  Inspector Mason turned away from Kate to walk over to the handler.

  She grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop. ‘The searchers need to be alerted . . . ’ Kate kept watching the dog.

  Mason stopped and turned.

  ‘There’s a quarry at the far side of the wood and it’s not visible in the dark. The searchers need to be aware it’s there.’

  ‘Damn!’ He marched over to the dog handler. ‘The child’s mother is in that car.’ He pointed to the far side of the semi-circular area in front of the house. ‘She’s got an item of clothing for the dog to get the scent.’

  He turned abruptly, and with his airwave set at his ear, he strode into the wood.

  Kate watched him until the trees swallowed him up, then she turned her attention to the dog handler who was now at the far side of the parking area. A woman got out of the police car and handed him something, and even from where she stood, Kate recognized the bulky form and wild hair of May Fraser.

  She groaned. ‘That’s all we need,’ she said to Sue, who stood beside her. ‘Try to keep her away from the searchers.’

  The gravel crunched beneath her feet as she strode over to join them. She forced a smile to her lips, and said, ‘There was no need for you to come here, Mrs Fraser. You might have been better to wait at home.’

  May Fraser snorted. ‘It’s my lassie out there,’ she said, ‘and what kind of mother would I be if I didn’t come along to help.’

  The dog handler knelt beside the dog to allow him to sniff the blouse Mrs Fraser had handed him.

  ‘He’s got the scent.’ He stood up and allowed the dog to sniff around the area, but after a few minutes it was obvious, even to Kate, the dog had not picked up the scent.

  ‘He might have carried her to the hut,’ she said, ‘maybe we should start there.’

  ‘Right, where is this hut?’

  ‘Follow me,’ she said.

  May Fraser tagged on behind.

  ‘Sue, maybe you could take a statement from Mrs Fraser,’ Kate said. ‘There’s no need for her to come into the wood, it’s not the nicest place, and she’ll be far warmer in the car.’

  Sue led a reluctant May Fraser to the car while Kate accompanied the dog handler and his dog to the hut in the wood.

  Kate watched the dog pick up the scent. At least that confirmed Megan had been here. But where was she now? She could only hope the dog would track her down before she reached the quarry. A cold shiver of fear engulfed her.

  * * * *

  Megan stopped to catch her breath. It rasped from her chest and up through her throat, sounding like a death rattle. She was so cold and so wet, she thought she’d never be warm again.

  Her head was swimming now and she kept thinking of her mum, aching to be enclosed in her arms. She wouldn’t even mind the swearing she would get for not coming home.

  She slid down the tree she was leaning on, and sat on the damp moss at its base. If only she could go to sleep and wake up back home, but that was a dream, and her life had become a nightmare.

  She heard a dog in the distance, and saw a flickering light. He was looking for her. But he mustn’t find her.

  Grasping the tree trunk, she hauled herself up onto her feet and stumbled on.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Jenny stared at the silent phone and bit her lip. She was near to tears. She liked Bill, and the caller’s information was vague about whether Bill had survived the overdose.

  Someone would have to attend the scene but there was no one in the office except for herself, and she’d never attended a crime scene on her own before. But first things first, she would have to let her DI know. Kate wouldn’t be pleased if she wasn’t kept informed.

  Kate answered the phone immediately. ‘What is it?’ She sounded testy.

  Jenny struggled to keep her voice steady. ‘It’s DS Murphy, ma’am.’

  ‘Oh, he’s turned up has he. It’s not before time.’

  ‘No, ma’am. It’s a lot more serious than that.’ Jenny tightened her grip on the phone. She had difficulty controlling her hand as well as her voice. She explained the situation while Kate listened.

  ‘Right,’ Kate said. ‘You need to refer this to the SOCOs and get over to the Carnegie house. Make sure the scene is protected until they get there, gather the family together, and I’ll join you as soon as I can get away.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Hold it together until I arrive.’

  Jenny laid the phone on the desk, aware she’d given Kate a garbled account of the situation. She cursed herself for allowing Kate’s terse reply to throw her. Oh well, it couldn’t be helped. She hoped Kate wouldn’t think she was an idiot.

  * * * *

  Kate kept walking out of the wood towards the large semi-circular area outside the house, where all the cars were parked. She could no longer feel the fingers holding the phone to her ear, and as she listened to the voice, her eyes grew bleaker, and the feeling of despair that had swept over her when Patricia Carnegie told her about the quarry, intensified a hundredfold.

  She had never felt so alone as she did now, walking through the trees with their waving branches scattering rain over everything. The darkness was intense, although the flickering lights from the torches behind her pierced the darkness like stars in an overcast sky. She could only imagine what Megan must be feeling if she was out there.

  Reaching the parked cars, she thrust the phone into her pocket and scanned the area, looking for Sue. She located her at the far side and approached her. ‘We’ve got a situation, I’m going to have to attend another scene. I’ll leave you in charge here. I’ll be on the end of my phone if you need me,’ she hesitated, ‘or if you find anything.’

  ‘What is it?’ Sue’s face showed concern.

  ‘Bill’s on his way to hospital, apparently he’s in a bad way.’ Kate looked out into the darkness. ‘Tell me something, did Bill ever take drugs?’

  ‘No, he didn’t even dabble.’

  ‘I thought not.’

  Sue gave Kate’s arm a shake. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘He was found in the Carnegie family’s kitchen with a needle in his arm. It’s an overdose.’

  ‘An overdose of what?’

  ‘I don’t know but I fear our killer may have got to him.’

  ‘Why would the killer target him?’

  ‘Maybe he was getting too near the truth. But I have to see for myself before I decide. You’ll have to hold things together here while I go and investigate what’s happened.’

  ‘Keep me posted.’ Sue wrapped her arms round her body. She looked as miserable as Kate felt.

  ‘Of course.’ Kate headed for the car. It was squeezed between two police cars and it took all of Kate’s driving skills to extricate it from the space. But at last she was free and had it facing the right way, but she still had to drive carefully down the drive which was lined with police cars and vans. One large van forced her onto the grass verge and she prayed it wasn’t bordered by a ditch. But once she reached the main road she put her foot down, anxious to get to the Carnegie house as soon as possible.

  * * * *

  Sue watched Kate drive off until the car was out of sight. She could hear the searchers beating their slow way through the wood. A search was always slow because it had to be thorough, no bush or thicket could be ignored and it all took time. Maybe the dog would speed things up, provided it retained the scent of the missing girl.

  The thought of a water-filled quarry, somewhere out there at the end of the tree line, nagged at Sue, and she knew time was running out. She stared into the wood, imagining Megan running between the trees, while the searchers moved forward at a snails pace.

  Turning her collar up and digging her hands into her pockets, she strode towards the trees. She couldn’t remain back from the search while a child was missing.

  It was darker underneath the dripping branches, the torch lights were further away, and she felt as if she were being swallowed up. She soon rea
ched the hut which was now cordoned off by a ribbon of blue police tape. She nodded at the officer left guarding it until the SOCOs arrived, and continued to plunge further into the wood.

  The ground beneath her feet was soggy, The tree branches swayed, and an unending pelt of rain battered through the foliage. The damp and the wet seeped through her clothes, chilling her. It would be easy to get lost here.

  Up ahead she heard the searchers, and she was glad of the odd flicker of light piercing the darkness. But she couldn’t see or hear the dog and his handler. She hoped the dog would produce results.

  She stopped, and stared ahead, trying to put herself in Megan’s shoes. What would the girl be likely to do? She wouldn’t know the searchers were police and it would be safe to be found by them. She might think it was her captor pursuing her. But what would she do? Would she hide? Or would she run? And if she ran, sooner or later she would reach the quarry.

  Sue shivered, and started to walk in the direction of the flickering lights, hoping they would find Megan before the child plunged over the edge of the quarry.

  * * * *

  Emma glanced at the clock on the mantel. They seemed to have been sitting in the living room for hours, but it was only 20 minutes since she’d last looked at it. Thoughts whizzed round her head, questions which had no answers. The mystery of why the detective had been in their house. Who had let him in? Why had he overdosed here? If he intended to overdose why not do it somewhere else? She glanced over at Ryan, sitting in a brooding silence in one of the armchairs. Was Ryan involved in this? And if he was, why?

  She grasped her mother’s hand. It was cold and still, no longer twisting frantically at the material of her skirt, nor rubbing the arm of the settee. It wasn’t like Diane. She was too calm, almost as if she were in a trance.

  ‘You feeling OK, Mum?’

  Diane’s gaze was fixed on the doorway where the policewoman stood guard, and she gave no indication she’d heard Emma.

  Ryan shifted uneasily in the armchair at the other side of the room. He had a look on his face Emma had never seen before. Was it fear? Or was it embarrassment? Emma wondered again if he’d had a hand in what had happened to the detective.

  The front door opened and a cold breeze wafted round the room. A white clad man walked past the living room door. He looked like something out of a science fiction film, or an operating theatre.

  Emma rose and walked over to the policewoman, reaching her in time to see another white suited man walk up the hallway.

  ‘Who are they?’ She stared after the man – at least she thought it was a man – watching as he vanished out of sight into the kitchen.

  The trace of a smile hovered on the policewoman’s lips as she said, ‘They’re SOCO.’

  ‘What the heck’s SOCO?’ It seemed to Emma the policewoman was talking a different language.

  ‘Sorry, I should have explained. They’re the scene of the crime officers. They need to examine the kitchen where the body was found.’

  Emma shuddered. Body? Did that mean the detective was dead? But she was afraid to ask.

  ‘Why do they have to do that?’

  ‘Forensics,’ the policewoman said. ‘They always do that when a crime’s been committed.’

  Emma stared at her. She felt her chest tighten and it was difficult to breathe. ‘So it’s a crime. I thought he’d overdosed.’ Her voice sounded strange, even to her.

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out.’ The policewoman looked embarrassed. She was probably wondering if she’d said too much.

  ‘What happens now?’ Emma wasn’t sure why she felt scared.

  ‘CID will want to question you. We’re waiting for them to get here.’

  ‘But we’ve told you all we know already.’ Emma took a deep breath. There was no reason for her to feel scared, so she pushed the feeling away, replacing it with annoyance.

  ‘Well you’re going to have to tell them as well.’

  ‘I see.’ Emma walked back to the settee, subsiding into it with a disgusted sigh. What a damn pain in the neck. All this bloody hassle because that damned detective decided to overdose in their kitchen. She grasped her mother’s hand again, stroking it, and wondering how Diane would survive all the upheaval.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Kate couldn’t help thinking about Megan, stumbling about in the wood in the dark and the rain. The girl must be terrified and Kate was unable to help because she was on her way to another crime scene. She could only hope the searchers would find her before she reached the quarry. She shuddered at the thought. But thinking about it wasn’t doing her any good, she had another crime scene to attend, and it was important they nail this sicko who was killing men with lethal injections.

  She forced herself to concentrate on her driving, watching the windscreen wipers swish the rain from the windscreen, and trying to avoid staring into approaching headlights which masked the massive puddles forming at the side of the road.

  Thoughts rolled round her head while she drove. Why had Murphy been targeted? He wasn’t a paedophile. At least she didn’t think he was. And why was he in the Carnegie house in the first place? He hadn’t told her he was going there. But did Murphy ever tell anyone what he was up to? She was still thinking when she pulled up in front of the house.

  Light shone from the front window and the occupants could easily be seen from the street, perhaps it was intentional, or perhaps so much was going on they hadn’t thought of it.

  She got out of the car and stood for a moment looking around. It was a habit of hers, sizing up her surroundings before she entered a building.

  The gate and front door to the house were open, and a policeman was on guard at the door. Well at least they’d got that right. The street, however, was quiet, and with a start Kate realised it was after nine o’clock and most people would be ensconced in front of their televisions.

  A curtain twitched at the house next door. There was always one in every street, a neighbour who knew everything that was going on. Kate made a mental note to speak to the person hiding behind the curtain.

  She checked her shoulder bag to ensure she had a notepad and pen, fished out her warrant card, then walked up the path to the front door. She held up the card to the constable, who nodded and stood aside to allow her to enter.

  DC Jenny Cartwright met her in the hallway. ‘DS Murphy has been taken to hospital, the SOCOs are working in the kitchen, and the Carnegie family are in the living room. PC Fraser,’ Jenny indicated with a nod of her head to the constable at the front door, ‘along with WPC Cameron took a statement from the family. They’re saying they found DS Murphy unconscious in the kitchen when they returned home. They claim to have no idea how he came to be there.’

  ‘Are there any witnesses to confirm their statements?’

  ‘I checked if they’d done a door to door, to see if any of the neighbours saw anything, but apparently they weren’t able to get any other officers to the scene, and they needed to protect it.’

  ‘I see.’ Kate looked towards the kitchen where two white clad figures were dusting surfaces.

  ‘The needle and syringe were still there, as well as the cup he’d been drinking from. The SOCOs already have them bagged for examination in the lab. There was something else,’ Jenny’s voice grew more thoughtful, ‘two green beads lying on the table. They were like the ones Murphy had me enlarge on the computer. They matched the photo of the beads from the Carnegie file.’

  Kate remembered. Murphy had produced the photograph of the necklace that had belonged to Jade Carnegie. The necklace her mother said she’d never be parted from. The beads in it were a direct match to the ones found in the eyes of two different men, and now it seemed they’d been intended for Murphy’s eyes as well.

  ‘Good work, Jenny.’ Kate smiled at the young officer. Despite Jenny’s outward appearance of ineptitude, she’d proved to be an efficient investigator.

  Jenny’s eyes behind her owlish spectacles glowed with pleasure, but
all she said was, ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

  ‘Do we know what’s happening with DS Murphy?’

  ‘I phoned the hospital. He’s still in Accident and Emergency, and they’ll be moving him to a ward later. They said the Naloxone should have kicked in by now, but they think there’s something else in his system so they’re running tests. They said he wouldn’t be available to question until they’ve counteracted everything.’

  ‘Did they give any indication how long that would take?’

  ‘They weren’t specific, but they said to check tomorrow.’

  Kate mulled over the information, sorting it out in her mind into levels of priority. Murphy’s condition would have to be checked. His evidence would be of prime importance. She’d need to talk to the SOCOs, and of course, interview the family. Ideally she’d like to see each one individually but that might not be possible here, and she wasn’t sure if she had enough evidence to take them in to Headquarters to interview. If she did that, they might be there most of the night and she was aware of the fragility of Diane Carnegie’s mental state. On the other hand, the house was a crime scene, so she couldn’t allow them to have the run of it until the SOCOs were finished, and even after that it might be better to preserve the scene for a time.

  Coming to a decision, she decided to interview the family together before making her mind up, and to be safe, she’d run it past the procurator fiscal. But if she was going to do that, she’d need all the evidence available, which included anything that neighbours might have seen.

  ‘DC Cartwright, I want you to do the door to door while I interview the family. Take the WPC with you, I’m afraid I can’t recall her name . . . ’

  ‘It’s WPC Cameron, ma’am.’

  ‘Yes, well take her with you and find out if any of the neighbours saw anything. For example, if they have any information on when each one of the Carnegie family arrived home, or if they saw anyone in the house or leaving the house before that. You might find the house on this side,’ Kate pointed, ‘of particular value. I saw a curtain twitch when I arrived.’