Now She’s Gone: An absolutely gripping crime thriller

by Alison James

  ‘Is that your boyfriend?’ asked Joe.

  ‘No, it is not.’

  ‘Well I reckon he’d like to be.’

  * * *

  Rachel had just brushed the remains of the pad thai from her teeth and was planning on falling asleep in front of a Richard Curtis romcom when there was a tentative knock at her door.

  She had half expected it to be him, and it was.

  ‘Giles. I was just on my way to bed.’ She indicated the hotel bathrobe, and her bare legs.

  ‘Just what I like to hear,’ he said roguishly, putting the Do Not Disturb sign on the door and closing it. He walked up to her, placed his hands on her shoulders and asked. ‘How are you? Seriously?’

  ‘Drained. Overwhelmed. Stressed.’

  ‘That’s what I thought…’ Giles pulled her into an embrace and for a few delicious seconds she enjoyed the sensation of letting her weight sink into him, of being supported. He stroked her back, gently at first, then with more purpose, letting his thumbs stray up the sleeves of her robe to the inside edge of her bare arms.

  ‘Giles…’ she mumbled. ‘Remember what I said… we can’t get involved. Not now.’ She pulled back from him. ‘The case has moved up a few gears, and then there’s Joe…’

  ‘Ah yes, your lad. He’s a long tall drink of water, isn’t he?’

  Rachel’s expression told him that she had no intention of discussing her son.

  ‘Anyway,’ Giles persisted. ‘This isn’t “getting involved”. We’re just two colleagues catching up at the end of a long day.’

  Giles went to the minibar and poured himself a whisky, sitting down on the edge of the bed, kicking off his shoes and swinging his legs up so that he was reclining against the pillows. He motioned to Rachel to sit down next to him, and too tired to resist, she sank down and allowed him to drape his arm over her shoulder.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘I think you’ll find this is my room.’

  He laughed. ‘You know what I mean… you just need to rest while I wait on you.’ He picked up the TV remote. ‘Anything decent on?’

  ‘I was going to watch a nice undemanding romcom. And then I was going to go to sleep.’

  He reached over and kissed her; gently, platonically. Then he kissed her again, and this time there was nothing platonic about it.

  ‘Sounds like a plan.’

  * * *

  Seven hours later there was another knock on the door, loud and abrupt, which signalled that it was Brickall. His room was on the same floor, and he was in the habit of calling for Rachel on his way down to breakfast.

  She threw on her robe and tiptoed to the door, opening it only a few inches so that Giles’ sleeping body wasn’t visible.

  ‘I’ll be down in a couple of minutes,’ she whispered. ‘Just let me finish showering. And order me a coffee with hot milk.’

  ‘You had someone in there with you, didn’t you?’ Brickall said accusingly as soon as she sat down opposite him in the restaurant. ‘And I’m guessing it wasn’t your son this time.’

  Rachel shook her head.

  ‘Don’t tell me… Denton.’

  Her lack of response gave her away.

  ‘Fucking hell.’ Brickall stood up and stomped over to the buffet, where he loaded up with the usual full Scottish. When he returned, he slammed his plate on the table and set about eating, ignoring Rachel.

  ‘What is it you have against him?’ Rachel asked. ‘I don’t get it. What’s he ever done to you?’

  ‘There’s something about him that just doesn’t sit right. Bit too good to be true; I don’t trust him. So I’m hardly going to be thrilled about you dating him.’

  ‘I’m not dating him.’ Rachel poured milk into her coffee, feeling a little frisson as her mind raced back to the previous night’s delicious non-date. She decided the best tactic was to change the subject. ‘I wonder what delights will be waiting for us in Gayfield Square.’

  Brickall ignored her, shoving a piece of black pudding into his mouth and settling into a grumpy silence.

  * * *

  ‘Ma’am, you need to see this. Straight away.’

  DC Tulloch intercepted them in the front lobby as soon as they arrived, his body language bristling with adrenaline.

  ‘The intel guys came back to us first thing this morning…’ He continued talking as the three of them hurried up to the incident room. ‘The mobile devices were all clean, but Will MacBain is certainly not. He’d deleted images from his laptop that we managed to recover. And then there’s this…’

  Rachel, Brickall and Tulloch crowded round a terminal, while Tulloch plugged the USB stick Rachel had found into the hard drive. Tentatively, Brickall took charge of the mouse and started to flick through the contents.

  ‘Christ on a bike…’

  They were pornographic images and video clips of children. There were both boys and girls, and some looked as young as six or seven. They were either alone and naked or being abused by a faceless adult. Hundreds of them.

  Thirty-Three

  Tulloch broke the silence.

  ‘The restored stuff from the laptop was more of the same… shall we send someone round to pick him up, Ma’am?’

  Rachel was trying to think but her mind was humming, rational thought temporarily crowded out by what she had just seen.

  ‘We took prints from both the MacBains yesterday?’ This was standard practice before a search, to be able to compare and identify any third-party fingerprints.

  ‘Yes, Ma’am.’

  ‘And were Will MacBain’s prints on the USB stick?’

  Tulloch shook his head.

  ‘Okay, so he’s been clever and either wiped it or used gloves – which means at interview he’ll probably try and deny everything. There’s still the laptop evidence, and I’d like to try and get him for organising the parties too… but we need to act fast: there are young children under his roof. And we need to alert Social Services and get the MacBain kids on the system, given what we now know about their father.’

  Rachel stood up and paced to and fro, trying to prioritise the multiple new developments crowding in on them. ‘The person who left the flyers for distribution in the Mail Boxes 4U shop looks very much like MacBain, but we need more… DS Brickall – can you get a photo of MacBain’s face and get the Intelligence guys to run it through facial recognition, comparing it to our leaflet man? DC Tulloch – are we sure we didn’t find a suspicious spare phone in the house, a burner?’

  Tulloch shook his head.

  ‘The man caught on CCTV left a mobile phone in the security box too,’ Rachel was thinking out loud. ‘Which would explain why there was nothing found on his regular phone.’

  ‘Or: maybe he destroys the spare phone every time and gets another when he needs it. Maybe that’s why they’re called burners.’ Brickall’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. He’s still pissed off about Denton, thought Rachel. It wasn’t the first time he had sulked over one of her romantic liaisons, and no doubt it wouldn’t be the last.

  ‘If you could just organise the facial recognition test immediately, Sergeant,’ she said, without making eye contact.

  Brickall stamped off to one of the other desks, leaving Rachel with DC Tulloch.

  ‘Do we know about the Southern Comfort bottle?’ she asked him.

  He retrieved a written lab report and flicked through it. ‘Negative for ethylene glycol, Ma’am.’

  ‘Fingerprints?’

  ‘Just Hazel MacBain’s and one other set we can’t identify. Could be the cleaner?’

  ‘Possibly… we need to rule her out. Radio control and get them to go to Valerie Muir’s address and bring her in if she’s there. Get a full set done, and hold on to her so I can talk to her again. We’ll hold off on Will MacBain just a bit longer, as long as it takes for us to brief Child Protection, at least. He’s not going anywhere.’

  Rachel picked up her coat and bag.

  ‘Got another assignation?’ Brickall asked,
curling his lip.

  ‘If you can call paying a visit to Edinburgh Council’s Fostering Services an assignation – then yes.’

  * * *

  Greta Wheedon lived in a characterless house on a modern estate in South Gyle. Rachel had been given her address after a very tedious hour and a half at the city council’s offices, watching a willing but slow elderly clerk work his way through boxes of historic records.

  ‘Can I come in for a quick word?’ she asked, showing her warrant card. Greta, an attractive woman in her sixties who wore her grey hair neatly cropped and fuchsia nail polish on her fingers, took the card from Rachel and read it.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I can’t think for a moment what a detective from the National Crime Agency would want to talk to me about, but do come in anyway.’

  She smiled pleasantly and ushered Rachel into a bright open-plan reception room where a large fluffy cat basked in a patch of sunlight next to the French windows. ‘Would you like coffee? I was just about to pop the kettle on.’

  ‘That would be lovely, thank you.’

  ‘And I’ve some scones?’

  Rachel smiled gratefully. She’d consumed nothing but coffee since the Thai meal, and her stomach was growling.

  While she was gone, Rachel looked around the room. There were a lot of framed photos; a couple of Greta with a distinguished-looking silver-haired man wearing a chain of office of some description – her husband presumably – and lots of photos of children of varying ages, some single, some groups.

  Greta came back carrying a tray with a steaming cafetière and a plate heaped with the freshly baked scones, together with home-made raspberry jam. Brickall would have been all over those, Rachel thought, smiling ruefully.

  As the coffee was poured, Rachel said, ‘I understand from Social Services that you fostered a girl called Hazel Nevins. Hazel MacBain, as she now is.’

  Greta narrowed her eyes slightly. ‘Yes. Yes, I did.’ Her tone was cautious. ‘Why, has something happened to her?’

  Rachel shook her head. ‘No, she’s fine. Nothing for you to worry about.’

  ‘I hear she’s expecting again.’

  ‘That’s right… are you still in touch with Hazel?’ She took a sip of the coffee Greta had handed her.

  ‘No, not exactly. I get a Christmas card from her every year, and I hear about her. Through her family on her mother’s side, the Elricks. I’ve known the family for many years. In fact, that’s how I came to foster Hazel when Barbara was… when she died. She was with us a fair few years. It was an informal arrangement at first, then I registered as a foster carer and took on more children. Quite a number over the years.’

  ‘Do you have children of your own?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘Aye, two boys. But they were older than Hazel, almost grown-up when she came to us.’

  She smiled at Rachel, and drank some of her own coffee. Setting down the cup, she said, ‘I expect you’d like to know a bit about what Hazel was like as a little girl.’

  Rachel nodded. ‘I would, yes.’

  ‘Has she… has she done something wrong?’

  ‘I can’t discuss details of our investigation with you at the moment. We’re following up some enquiries into the company her husband works for.’

  ‘That would be Will… och, I can’t imagine him doing anything wrong.’ There was a faint edge to Greta’s voice as she said this.

  ‘Why not?’ Rachel was careful to keep her tone light.

  ‘Well, you know, according to Hazel he’s just so perfect. In every way.’

  ‘Nobody’s perfect.’ Rachel smiled. Ain’t that the truth, she thought, the images of naked pre-pubescent bodies swimming back to the forefront of her mind. She pushed them away, forcing herself to refocus. ‘Tell me about Hazel.’

  ‘She was a funny little thing when she came to us. It was 1993, and she was eight years old by then, but she was practically feral. Any good poor Barbara had done in trying to raise her had been completely undone by what that bastard Archie Nevins… sorry.’

  ‘That’s quite all right. He’s a convicted wife-killer.’

  ‘… by what he’d done to her mother.’

  ‘Had Hazel been abused?’

  ‘I think he hit her, aye. And treated her cruelly. But most of Nevins’ rages were aimed at poor Barbara. So when Hazel came to us she was understandably silent and frightened, and developmentally delayed. She was quite a bright child, and she caught up, but she stayed a strange wee creature.’

  ‘Can you describe how? It would be helpful.’

  ‘She was quiet – almost timid – but when she set her mind on something, I’ve never known such doggedness. She wouldn’t let anything else get in her way. You know when they say “quiet determination”… well, that could have been invented to describe Hazel.’

  ‘How was she with the other children?’

  ‘Well, of course, she was the first we took on. She got all the attention, and she thrived on it. But then we fostered another little girl called Annie, and she didn’t like it at all. Played with her when anyone was looking, but when she thought no one could see her, I saw her pinch Annie on the arm, because Annie had a toy that she wanted. I’ve never seen a child act with such… such viciousness. She’d get bright red in the face with rage.’

  ‘When did she leave you?’

  Greta thought for a moment, pausing with a scone halfway to her mouth. ‘She’d have been about fifteen. She went into a care home for teens – that was her own choice. I tried hard to keep in touch, but it was like she wanted to wipe out her entire childhood. Hazel always did well at school, but all she really wanted was marriage and babies. She desperately wanted the stable home she’d never had herself. Which is not surprising. So when she met Will through the Catholic church in the Cowgate, that was it. She set her sights on him, and nothing would deter her.’

  ‘And was he as smitten with Hazel?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t really get that impression. He was very good to her, but I think he just wanted a wife, and any number of women might have fit the bill.’ Greta poured herself more coffee. ‘He’s always taken care of her though, and from what I’ve heard, they’ve been happy. So, she escaped the curse of her parents’ awful marriage. Which was what she wanted.’

  Rachel’s phone buzzed twice, and she took it out. The first message was from Giles, and simply read ‘xxx’. She deleted it, frowning. The second was from Brickall.

  CCTV facial analysis back. It’s MacBain.

  As discreetly as she could, without Greta seeing, she typed back.

  Bring him in. Now.

  * * *

  The initial interview with Will MacBain and his solicitor went very much as Rachel had predicted. The USB stick wasn’t his: he knew nothing about it and someone must have planted it there. He even suggested that it could have been one of the White Crystal students. As for the laptop – whoever had searched for and downloaded the indecent images, it wasn’t him. Again, according to him, the students could easily have used it. His demeanour was all wide eyes and shocked indignation.

  ‘That’s pretty low,’ Brickall muttered to Rachel, during a break. ‘The nonce pointing the finger at underage kids.’

  ‘He’s an upstanding member of the church. Hypocrisy rather goes with the territory,’ Rachel observed drily.

  ‘Are we going to try and nail him for the party stuff, too?’

  ‘We’ll give it a shot, but I’m expecting more of the same.’ Rachel checked her watch. ‘He was brought in at 13.10, so we’ve got him until tomorrow lunchtime. A few hours in a police cell might put some cracks into the holier-than-thou act.’

  Rachel recommenced the interview but, again, Will denied any involvement. The CCTV images captured at Mail Boxes 4U were of someone else. He knew nothing about the parties, and his whereabouts for the evening of the fifth of August could be verified. He didn’t drink, and would never attend a social event without his wife. Rachel stuck with the plan, remanding MacBain
in custody for the remainder of the statutory twenty-four hours.

  ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ Brickall asked as they went down to the canteen to grab a sandwich – or in Brickall’s case, three sandwiches, a packet of crisps and a Twix.

  ‘Probably.’ They sat at one of the formica tables and opened their sandwich packets. ‘Go on,’ Rachel prompted.

  ‘I’m thinking that MacBain has to be in the frame for finishing off those poor kids. He must have realised that if they talked about what had happened to them, his involvement in the parties was going to come to light, and with it, his particular… interest in the underage. So he drugs them and silences them permanently.’

  Rachel nodded. ‘I was thinking that, yes. But I’ve also been wondering how we’re going to prove it, given he has an alibi for the night of Emily’s death.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Did we ever get back the DNA results for the selfie stick? We need to chase that up, for starters.’

  ‘And talking of chasing up leads, what’s lover boy done about that list from the local sex register? I’m not sensing any urgency on that front.’

  ‘I’ll speak to him,’ said Rachel, standing up with half of her sandwich still uneaten. ‘But first I need another chat with our local friendly miracle worker, Mrs Muir.’

  * * *

  Valerie Muir was sitting on the edge of a chair in an interview room with her arms wrapped defensively around herself. She was crying.

  Rachel offered her a tissue and sent a PC to fetch her a cup of tea.

  ‘I’ve never been in trouble with the police before,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ve never had so much as a late fine at the library.’

  ‘You’re not in trouble,’ Rachel said gently, giving her hand a quick pat.

  ‘But they took my fingerprints.’

  ‘That was just to rule you out. You’re not suspected of anything. But, Valerie, I do need to ask you a couple of quick questions. Your fingerprints were on a bottle of Southern Comfort that was found in the drinks cupboard in 34 Campbell Road.’