None but the Dead

by Lin Anderson

  42

  The search would eventually have to be scaled down. The people of Sanday had work to go to, farms to run, families to look after. If a large-scale search hadn’t found Inga by now, it was unlikely to. Perhaps her remains would eventually be discovered years from today, like the numerous other graves that littered Sanday, from Neolithic times through to the Vikings and the possible Beth Haddow. Rhona didn’t want to think of that being the outcome, but the more time passed, the likelier it became.

  Thick velvety darkness enveloped the car as she made her way back to the cottage, her headlights picking out shadowy buildings, the concrete remnants of the last time the island had been at war. Back then, when government forces had invaded Sanday, the people had accepted their presence, even when it had forced locals off their land and allowed their crops to wither in the fields.

  The latest invasion of police personnel hadn’t been so welcome.

  For many islanders the interest the police had shown in the decades-old grave at the schoolhouse had been deemed disruptive and unnecessary. Sam Flett had definitely been one of them. The theft of the skull and the interference with the soil evidence could have been prompted by such disquiet. On the other hand, both actions could have been done to try and protect the identity of the victim.

  And now a possible sighting of Derek Muir near Jamie Drever’s flat in the run-up to the discovery of his dehydrated body. Scotland was a small place, and plenty of folk from Orkney travelled to Glasgow for a variety of reasons. But …

  Rhona didn’t hold entirely with the ‘there’s no such a thing as coincidence’ theory on crime. Life had a habit of ignoring carefully formulated theories on what did or should happen.

  By ferrying them about and providing local information, Derek Muir had been close to the investigation. According to her most recent discussion with McNab, he’d run Jock Drever’s name past the Ranger the day he’d arrived. So Derek had been forewarned and forearmed about their interest in the man. What he couldn’t do was wipe out his trip to Glasgow, if indeed it had ever happened.

  Assuming it had, and he had gone to visit Jock Drever, why would he tie up the old man and interrogate him? Had it had something to do with the unearthing of the remains at the schoolhouse? Was that even possible time wise?

  For a scientist, it seemed her imagination was taking over.

  Imagine the imaginable.

  As she turned a bend in the road, her headlights picked out the strange red-brick building, the only war edifice not to be concrete clad, although it did have a series of concrete supports, perhaps to protect against the shockwaves of any nearby bomb impact. Standing at right angles to the road, the mortuary, like all the other buildings, had been searched and nothing found. One thing had struck her at the time, and a memory of it swept back now.

  Unlike the other buildings, the floor of the mortuary had been raised by at least two feet of manure and sandy soil. How so much of this mix had got inside, she had no idea, except perhaps it being used as a shelter by cattle who’d managed to get in through the doorway. The smell had been pungent, the quantity of muck rising almost as high as the two windows that sat one on either side.

  At that point she recalled Inga’s boots and the remnants of something similar on them. When surveying the building, she’d given no thought to soil sampling, but talking to Chrissy about it had strengthened the need.

  Rhona pulled into the side of the road, and switched off the engine.

  The walk across the darkened field to the mortuary wouldn’t take long. With her forensic torch to guide her path, her only concern was that livestock using the building as shelter might take umbrage at her visit.

  Once out of the vehicle, she realized the night was thick with sound. A short-eared owl, registering her presence, barked in alarm, its flight illuminated by the beam of her flashlight. A group of cows mooed loudly at her passing, but thankfully shifted away rather than towards her. Then her light caught the red-brick wall as it loomed, an ominous shadow before her.

  Beyond lay the dark mounds and white hollows of the dunes. After that the moving waters of Lopness Bay. She felt as though she was walking into the past. Seventy-odd years ago a young woman had wandered through here on her way to a shell-sand beach, never to return. Yesterday a little girl had perhaps walked this way in her wellington boots and anorak and not come back either.

  The owl’s worried alarm call had followed her here and was now joined by the warning beat of the sea. Under her feet, the grass ended and the churned-up sand, manure and mud began.

  Rhona hesitated, but only briefly, then made her way towards the seaward end of the building, and the dark open portal of the old mortuary.

  43

  Inga’s mother was alone this time, and when she opened the door to him, he could read her terrified thoughts and sought immediately to reassure her, although the words he used weren’t really comforting.

  ‘We haven’t found Inga yet.’

  Her face, initially showing signs of panic, now dissolved into despair. McNab wasn’t sure which expression was worse.

  ‘May I come in?’

  She nodded and he followed her into the sitting room, where she sat down next to the fire, staring at it rather than him.

  ‘You’ll stop the search soon,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll scale it down, but we won’t stop.’

  Huddled into herself, she barely acknowledged his reply.

  ‘Can I ask you a few questions?’

  ‘I don’t know any more than I’ve told you.’

  ‘It’s about your life before you came here.’

  Her eyes flicked up at him. ‘I told you about that.’

  ‘Do you have a photograph of your former partner?’

  ‘Why?’ She regarded him suspiciously.

  ‘If you have one, may I see it?’

  She seemed to give up on the answer or denial she’d planned and rose.

  Leaving the room, she returned a few minutes later and handed him a passport-size photograph. ‘That’s Joe. I threw out the rest,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why that one survived. Maybe to give me a focus for my hate.’

  McNab studied the face in the photograph. Dark-haired like his daughter, and handsome in a bullish way. He was clean-shaven in this, but McNab sketched in the three-day stubble.

  ‘His height?’

  ‘About the same as you, but broader.’

  ‘What did he do as a job?’

  ‘Shipyards for a while, manual work, some time on a fishing boat.’

  ‘If he was to come here looking for you, what would happen?’

  Now the fear was as bright and hot as the fire that burned behind her.

  ‘There’s no way he would know to come to Sanday. I’ve been very careful about that.’

  ‘Would Inga be able to contact him?’ McNab tried.

  She shook her head. ‘Inga wouldn’t do that. She knew …’

  ‘About the beatings?’ McNab finished for her.

  Her face crumpled. ‘I don’t know. I tried not to make a noise, but sometimes …’

  ‘Did Joe ever threaten or hurt Inga?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘But you thought he might?’

  ‘I was afraid … if she tried to intervene. That’s why I left.’

  McNab looked again at the photograph. ‘How recent is this?’

  ‘It was taken about ten years ago.’

  There was no easy way to tell her, so he came right out with it. ‘I may have seen this man. Here on Sanday.’

  ‘What?’ She sprang to her feet in shock.

  ‘He came off a fishing boat docked in Kettletoft harbour.’

  She covered her mouth with a shaking hand.

  ‘He warned me not to take her away from him. He warned me.’ She looked at McNab with pleading eyes. ‘Please. You have to get her back.’

  ‘Can I use your landline? The signal here …’

  ‘Of course. It’s in the hall. Will I make us some tea
?’

  McNab nodded, not because he wanted tea, but because she needed something to do.

  DI Flett listened intently as he spun his latest tale, then talked about the police launch and the coastguard. McNab felt immediately out of his comfort zone when dealing with the sea rather than inner-city streets.

  ‘We’ll make contact with any fishing boats in the vicinity. See if we can track him down.’ There was a moment of silence before DI Flett said, ‘Well done, Detective Sergeant.’

  More used to reprimands than being congratulated, McNab had no idea how to respond, so hung up instead.

  Inga’s mother was waiting anxiously in the living room.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she said, handing McNab a mug of tea.

  ‘You said he never hurt Inga,’ McNab reminded her. ‘If I’m right and the man I saw was your former partner and he has snatched Inga, there’s no reason to suppose he would hurt her now. His intention may have been to hurt you by taking her.’

  That made a sort of sense to her.

  ‘Until we check this out, I’d rather you didn’t mention it to anyone. If he is here, it might alert him.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, although she didn’t look convinced.

  ‘I’ve called PC Tulloch. He’s on his way and will stay with you overnight.’

  She looked relieved.

  ‘I’ll make up a bed for him on the couch.’

  Her mention of the couch reminded McNab of his own sleeping arrangements. He’d fully intended going back to the hotel, but in view of the latest developments, he decided he should call in on Rhona on the way back and let her know what had happened.

  The schoolhouse was in darkness when he passed. McNab had little time for the paedo, but if they did find the girl with her father, it would let Mike Jones off the hook, for this one at least.

  Feeling the undercarriage hit the raised grassy centre of the track, he slowed down. Having got himself on the right side of DI Flett, he didn’t want to ruin it by wrecking a police vehicle. That thought made him recall being brought here by Derek Muir the night he’d arrived on Sanday. How he’d run Jock Drever’s name past the Ranger.

  McNab tried to recall the man’s reaction. There had been, he thought, no disquiet at his enquiry. Most of the uneasiness had been on his own side, as he’d looked out on the emptiness of Sanday and realized what he’d come to.

  If it was Muir that Chrissy had spotted on CCTV, he could have been in that part of Glasgow for any number of reasons. With nothing at all to do with Jock Drever.

  And yet.

  Derek Muir had exhibited little emotion about any of the subsequent events that had happened on Sanday. McNab had read this as the natural reticence of an Orkney islander. Sam Flett, on the other hand, had been much more emotional in his dealings with the police, on both the cold case and Inga’s disappearance.

  I even thought the old guy had lost his wits. Particularly over those muslin flowers.

  McNab revisited that night in the pub when he’d almost met a watery grave. It had been Derek Muir who’d brought him here to Rhona. He owed the man that at least.

  Drawing up in front of the cottage, he noted that only the porch light was on. He’d expected Rhona to be home by now. Either she wasn’t or else she’d decided to have an early night.

  He sat for a minute with the engine running, hoping if the latter were true, the sound of his arrival might rouse her. When that patently wasn’t the case, he made a decision and got out.

  His knock brought no response, so he checked below the stone to find the key was no longer there. Either she was inside or she’d taken the key with her. As a last resort, McNab headed round to the rear of the building in search of the elusive mobile signal.

  The schoolhouse had been in darkness as she’d approached, yet Mike Jones’s pickup stood outside. Rhona imagined him switching off the lights every time he spotted a car on the distant road, whether they were destined to turn his way or not at the crossroads.

  And she couldn’t blame him for that.

  He’d come to Sanday thinking to start a new life and instead had walked into a nightmare, not this time of his own making. His past, which clearly haunted him by his blurted confession in the pub, had become even more untenable here, where there was nowhere to hide.

  Then a thought occurred.

  If Mike Jones was so obsessed with watching the road for possible visitors, was there a chance he’d spotted Sam’s jeep going past on its way to Cata Sand?

  Rhona drew up behind Jones’s car and doused the engine.

  The wind had picked up, whipping at her body as she stood awaiting a response to her knock on the front door. When one didn’t materialize, she checked and found it locked. Aware he rarely used it as an entrance, leading as it did through the part of the building still being renovated, she decided to head round the back.

  The outside light sprang on as she turned the corner of the building, illuminating the mound of broken tar and earth from the excavation. Her pinned tarp was gone, of course. As she’d removed it, she’d advised Mike to put plyboard over the gaping hole until the digger came back to fill it in. He’d said he would, but by the looks of things, the hole hadn’t been refilled yet.

  Or Hugh Clouston, having discovered Mike’s secret, had refused to come back and do the job.

  Which, she thought, was a possibility. Whether proved innocent or not of any wrongdoing with Inga Sinclair, Mike Jones – his past misdemeanours now common knowledge – was unlikely to remain on Sanday.

  From her own island experience, she knew that the background of incomers to remote parts of Scotland was rarely more colourful than those who’d been born and bred there. But people, whether town or country dwellers, shared a particular aversion to the thought that their children were in danger from a paedophile, and once branded as such …

  The outside light, on a timer, went out. Rhona moved, hoping the sensor would spring it on again. When it didn’t immediately do so, she switched on her torch. There were no lights on in this section of the building and no smoke coming from the chimney, which was in itself unusual.

  Rhona approached the back door and was surprised to find it standing partly open. Perturbed now, she pushed the door wide and called out.

  ‘Mike, are you there? It’s Rhona MacLeod.’

  Her call entered the building and was swallowed by the shadows.

  In all her visits to the schoolhouse, she’d never encountered such a feeling of emptiness. Now on high alert, she stepped inside, to find the air in the big room chilly, confirming that the stove had burned too low or gone out.

  That wouldn’t happen. Not if he was here.

  As Rhona called out a second time, she caught a scent she immediately recognized. The older the blood, the sweeter it smelt. This smell wasn’t old. Some people couldn’t smell blood at all; others might smell a bottle cap’s worth of blood in a large room. Sensitivity depended on the person. Magnus, with his hyperosmia, might have found a myriad ways to describe blood deposits, both human and animal. Rhona, on the other hand, knew only that this blood had been spilt recently.

  Swinging her beam around the room, she sought its source. When she couldn’t find it, she located the nearest light switch and, covering her hand with her sleeve, turned it on.

  The room burst into light, blinding her for a moment.

  Now frantic to find the source of the smell, she surveyed the dishevelled room, aware that in all likelihood this was a crime scene, and if she entered without kitting up, she would be contaminating the locus.

  Yet Mike Jones might still be alive, if I can locate his body.

  Minutes later she’d established that the scent of blood that had drawn her inside had come from a struggle, and not directly from a body itself. In fact, the scattered trail led from the centre of the room back to the door she’d entered by.

  Wherever Mike Jones was bleeding, it wasn’t in here.

  Rhona retreated, checking the step to find more blood sp
latters on the concrete and the lower part of the door. Her exit, picked up by the sensor, fired up the outside light and it sprang on again, its circle terminating just short of the mound of earth and broken tar.

  Directing her beam at the immediate area around the back step, she established two sets of prints in the disturbed soil, the larger she assumed to be Mike’s. The footprints moved on, Mike’s leading, the other following. Keeping to one side of these, she followed their path, which led beyond what looked like a scuffle, towards the excavation site.

  Her heart upping its pace, Rhona followed, already knowing where Mike’s flight had led.

  Her beam eventually found him, face down in the open grave he had so feared. It looked as though he’d fallen into it by accident. His legs, too long to fit, were spread awkwardly up the side nearest the door.

  Like a raggedy doll, she thought.

  In the light of her torch, blood had streamed from the area of his ear, explaining the trail that had led her there.

  Rhona crouched and reached down, seeking a pulse, yet knowing that in a neck that lay at such an angle, she was unlikely to find one.

  44

  He poured the strong coffee into a flask, ignoring the desire to add a tot of whisky, and headed back to the tent. The wind had been kind to them, allowing Rhona to process the scene under shelter, but there was no guarantee it would stay that way for much longer. The darkness had eventually been broken by moonlight, but daylight was still some way off.

  Whatever had happened to Mike Jones had begun in the bedroom. That had been evident from the state of the place.

  As Rhona had processed the body, McNab had worked the schoolhouse. Waiting for forensic help from wherever they might send it had seemed like a non-starter. He’d managed enough crime scenes to know what was required, but still found himself checking with Rhona to be certain he’d thought of everything.

  As he walked back along the track to the sound of the sea and the eerie cry of an owl, he found himself desperate to be back among sandstone walls, noisy polluting traffic and the sound of Glasgow voices.