by Caro Ramsay
Eoin seemed to think about saying who, then said pleasantly, ‘Of course. There’s somebody in here you need to meet anyway.’
He walked across the worn lino of the hall into the front room. The first thing Anderson saw was the photograph of Callum McCardle sitting on the shelf above the fire, one photograph and not even a very good one at that. The Hermit card stacked on the other side, like it was a holiday postcard.
‘Visitors, eh?’ said the voice from the bed in the corner. An old figure was propped up against two pillows that sat against the wall. The bed was a single one, an old divan.
The man had no flesh on his bones, buttery parched skin drawn over his cheeks so tight it looked as though it might burst. A red rash scampered over his nose and into his cheeks, around his dull, yellowed eyes. A hand was withdrawn from the sheet and extended out to greet Anderson. He took it, shook it gently. It felt very fragile.
‘DCI Anderson? You going to find out who killed my boy?’
‘Fergus?’
There was no mistaking the pain in his eyes, or the pleading in his voice. Or was it guilt eating away at him? Anderson pushed the thought away. The man was a husk.
‘Aye. I’m afraid the drink has got hold of me. Sorry.’
‘Why are you here? Surely you should be …’
‘Where?’ The thin cracked lips pulled across gums interrupted by a few teeth. ‘This is better than where the council put me, better than any home.’
‘He means he can still drink here,’ said Eoin, with a trace of bitterness. He picked a few cans up off the floor.
‘He’s worse than a wife.’ A wee guilty smile.
‘Does Ruth know you’re here?’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. Don’t go telling her – I want to die in peace.’ His eyes flitted across to the clock on the small TV, as if death was a minute away.
Eoin pointed to the small settee. ‘You two can have a seat there; I’m getting some stuff organized. And I didn’t give you the slip; I’m just not insane enough to bring the Jag here.’ He lifted up two carrier bags and took them into another room, the light went on. Anderson followed him, standing in the doorway watching the bread, the wet wipes, the water and the cans and cans of lager being arranged on the worn but clean worktop.
Batten sat down on the sofa, crossing his legs casually. ‘How long have you been here for?’
Fergus shrugged, ‘No idea. I was admitted. I dried out. Ask him.’
Eoin answered from the kitchen, ‘He was in high dependency for four days, hospital for another eight weeks. Stopped the taxi on the way back here so that he could buy a bottle of vodka.’
Fergus screwed up his face. ‘I had nowhere else to go.’ He looked round like he couldn’t remember how he got to this place.
‘They gave him a hostel bed. But he couldn’t stay off the juice. So he left and one day got hit by a car. He gave A&E the name of the company.’
‘Only bloody thing I could remember.’ He tapped the side of his head. He was barely recognizable as the dark-haired man at the press conference, the man who had stared into the middle distance looking for his son.
‘And you have been looking after him ever since?’
‘He’s the only one who looks after me. Ruth wouldn’t. She’s nuts.’ He looked at Eoin.
‘Yip, and what you didn’t lose you managed to throw away.’ Eoin could hardly disguise his disgust. What was it Costello had said, Alcoholics do not have relatives, just hostages.
Batten moved forward, lifted up his jacket to sit down on the end of the narrow bed. ‘You tried the programme?’
‘I’ve tried them all.’
‘You have an infection. I can smell it from here.’
‘Imagine how bad it smells from where I am.’
‘I’ve told him that, I’ve tried to keep him clean with the antibiotic wipes but …’ said Eoin, fussing around.
‘It’s fine.’
‘You can die from that, you know. Look at the mess of you.’ Batten’s hand rested on the narrow knee under the sweaty duvet. Fergus went into a coughing fit, body wracked, blood and mucus spilling slowly from the corner of his mouth.
Eoin handed him a small plastic container that had contained Häagen-Dazs ice cream in a previous life. The coughing went on and on, Fergus spat and wheezed. Until he fell back on to the bed, exhausted with the effort.
‘If that chest infection doesn’t kill you first …’ Batten pulled out his phone.
‘Eoin, you must have told somebody where he was, otherwise he wouldn’t have got the card here, would he?’
‘I didn’t tell anyone.’
‘You told Bernie,’ said Fergus.
‘Sorry. He’s right, I did,’ said Eoin. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ And he left with a small wave of the hand. He’d had enough.
‘Can’t blame him,’ shrugged Fergus.
‘Well, we’re having a reconstruction of the events. Callum’s death. Saturday night. I’m calling an ambulance now. Cut the crap until then. After that you can do what the fuck you like,’ said Batten.
Fergus nodded as Anderson lifted his mobile to get the tail back on Eoin.
‘Your machine has gone ping again.’
‘It will be Amy Lee.’
‘Does she never sleep? It’s the middle of the night over there. I mean, she must get out her bed to email you.’
‘I don’t think Grandpappy approves so she’s doing this when he’s asleep.’
‘So she’s doing this behind his back? I find that odd.’
‘Yes. Oh, she’s attached a clip of film, seven minutes of it. I’ll download it.’
‘Taken at night from the other side of the water by a blind old codger. Good luck with that.’
‘Thank you,’ said Elvie, perfectly serious. She waited as it downloaded. Vik was lying back on the settee, falling asleep with his cast up on a cushion. She opened up the video file, turning the sound down. She noted the date. The film had been taken on the Saturday night, 22 June, 2013. Time stamped 23.51. It was just before midnight that Jimmy had come rowing back across the water.
The film was bumpy but surprisingly clear. She leaned forward, clipping her earphones into the laptop, and turned the sound up. Breathing. Then the quiet rush of water slapping against the stanchions of the jetty. The visual field moved. She heard the crunch of shingle, then the softer sound of coarse sand underfoot as the old man walked, the slight wheeze of his breath. Then there was a squeak that morphed into tuneful bagpipes from somewhere, the sound slightly distorted. A bright piercing, light in the film, a glow far across the water. The islands came into view. She leaned forward, seeing dots at the fire. The focus honed in, nobody doing very much. This was before Jimmy had returned. Then the film panned across the loch, shades of grey for a moment, then the water turned oily black with the islands in dark grey. She pressed pause. There was something in the water. Its yellow form stark against the black. It was an inflatable. There was some movement on it; she watched closely to try and make out what.
She noted the time. The film flicked back to some more islands, black water, and another little grey island. The fire was out of shot. She saw something ghostly climb out the water, followed by another, then another. Deer?
Then a scan back, the focus hunting around as if looking for more deer. The bonfire shot across the screen. The noise of the bagpipe again.
‘Vik?’
‘What?’ he asked sleepily. The whisky round here really was very good quality, if totally illegal. Elvie didn’t drink it, of course. He wondered if she had any fun.
‘You need to come and see this.’
‘Later.’
‘Now.’
He hobbled over. And stood behind her looking at the screen. He watched it twice in silence, hearing his heart thump. A tickle crawled up his neck. ‘Elvie? Do you realize what this is?’ He leaned forward to ruffle her hair, letting go the crutch, and fell over …
The door opened. A light shone in his eyes, so bright he could not see a thing. Even wi
th his lids closed he could feel the retinas burning. ‘Shine it away,’ he said, but it came closer. He sensed only one of them. The shackles tightened right up so he could hardly move – a tape over his mouth and a hood brought down over his head. He tried to say something but they were too quick.
And the cold hand of fear gripped him. He heard a squeal, realising that it was himself.
Deftly, he was pushed across the concrete floor. His captor was strong and seemed tall. He tried to plead, squeaking and squalling. Then he felt cool fresh air and the ground underneath him was softer, grassy. Something at the side of his right knee, pressure on his left shoulder, and he was pushed over on to a hard surface. His shoulder stung as his body weight landed on a hard, cold, ridged surface. It was the panelled floor of a van of some kind. His mind went blank. They had kept him, watered him. Where were they taking him now? He knew he was still squealing as they closed the doors. Two doors. One over, then the other. Then the noise of the handle going down. He tried to work out where the door was in relation to his feet. He heard a voice, one he recognised, talking outside. Then the door opened, somebody got in the driver’s seat. The floor bounced slightly with the extra weight.
Then he heard a muffled, ‘OK.’ A key twisted and the engine fired.
Bernie summoned his energy and as the van went round a corner, he slid slightly on the floor, into something warm and soft. He could smell it, it smelled human, reminded him of home. He could imagine contours, he could smell scent. Coco Chanel? There was someone else in here with him, someone he should know.
The van went uphill. He felt the pressure change on his shoulder and tried to wriggle towards the doors, the faint incline helping him. The warm lump beside him did not move, but he could sense it breathing. If he could get close and kick the doors with his feet, something might happen. Something they might survive.
They had something on the film. Elvie had watched it twice and gone to bed. Vik had replayed it over twenty times, seeing a little more each time. They needed to get it enhanced.
Vik had searched on Google but there were no mentions of men overboard that day and the news had been full of the boys’ murder, so any boating incident on the loch that same day would have been reported. Unable to sleep, he started an internet search on Angela Colquhoun and became increasingly disturbed by what he was reading. He wished Elvie hadn’t gone to bed. She should be here, lying on the floor, discussing theories.
He tried to reach for a pad and pencil that lay on the coffee table but it was too far away. And the sofa he was on was too comfortable.
So he started to copy and paste, making up his own little narrative as he went along. It was sad but not controversial. Angela had been strangled on the banks of Loch Lomond at Inchgarten. Her body found at the bottom of the Rocking Stone. The mother had nearly hanged for the murder of her four-year-old daughter. This was in the mid-nineteen thirties and public opinion was starting to sway against capital punishment; there was some enlightenment as to why a mother might kill her daughter: illness, not evil.
It crossed his mind that ‘Grandpappy’ was a Colquhoun, if one spelled phonetically.
He read on, looking for a reason why Angela’s mother had moved the body to the stone. It said, in an effort to conceal – Vik snorted at that. In an effort to conceal the crime, the body was placed in an exposed place. The place where Grace had been found all those years later.
Ina Colquhoun had stayed quiet and taken her punishment, damned by the fact that small, feminine hands had strangled the child. What had happened to the husband? Vik read on with his fingertip tracing the words. The couple had a six-year-old, Robert. Robert Colquhoun.
Grandpappy? Bert Cohoon. One and the same? A huge coincidence, surely? But if not, no wonder the old guy didn’t want young Amy Lee poking about in his past.
He opened up Elvie’s emails and read back the conversations with Amy Lee, his heart thumping. The old guy had been here on his birthday, the longest day. He had been here when the murders happened on the island. He starting phoning the three hotels on the opposite side of the loch, got lucky on the third one. Mr and Mrs Robert Cohoon had stayed there, left in the early hours of Sunday the twenty-third. They had asked for a late checkout. Old man with a bad knee.
Vik thanked him and ended the call.
He read back over the emails again. He was an old man mourning the loss of his wee sister eighty years before, returning to the scene of crime every five years. Some vigil to keep up.
He had no idea how long the van had been travelling for, more than ten minutes but less than an hour. It had stopped once, somebody else had got in and he felt the weight of the van tilt slightly. Nothing was said then the van set off again, turning sharply as if it was doing a U-turn. It was moving through the city now, stopping at lights, taking bends at right angles. Then it picked up speed, out on the open road. The warm body beside him rolled slightly; at one point he thought he heard it groan before it fell quiet again.
Occasionally they went round a bend, causing him to roll and his weight to shift from the back of his hip to the front. The arm he was lying on jabbed him painfully until the car straightened back up again. He worked his way to the doors, bending his knees slightly, and waited until the next curve, until he felt the car was slowing. He counted to ten and kicked with both feet; the door gave a little then held. He kicked again, trying to jackknife his body off the floor to gain more strength. The doors flew open this time. Bernie had no idea if he fell or if he rolled. He tucked his head in as he struck concrete and then tried to get on his feet, or roll away. Get away.
He lay for a minute breathing in the fresh air, enjoying the sense of freedom and a moment of exhilaration as he heard the van drive away. Then it stopped. The engine wasn’t turned off; he heard footsteps coming towards him, one set. Then he felt a sharp pain as he was kicked in the head. Then he passed out.
He woke up with pain stinging his head and the taste of blood in his mouth. Now the van was moving very slowly. He heard no indicator. It bumped a fair way then settled on to steady ground, going up a hill, and then it stopped.
The doors opened and immediately slammed shut. He scraped his fingernails as much as he could against the lining of the boot, wriggling his fingers against the shackles. No matter what happened to him now there was something of him here. He would take something of this with him.
They were quick. They lifted his torso, pulling him out the tail doors of the van and letting him drop on to the ground head first. That scared him. Now he was squealing through his lips. Behind the tape he was gagging for breath. They didn’t unshackle him, just forced him to walk a short way, grass and soft earth under his feet, then concrete. He heard, or sensed, something going on behind him, another set of feet, another person fighting for breath. He tried to call out, two against two, a fighting chance.
There was no answer.
Now he was cold, there was a chill in the wind. Cold night air fresh in his nostrils. He felt he was high up, a sense of space around him.
He felt something wrapped round his ankle; he tried to sidestep to kick it away but his legs were held together. The tape went tight then slack, but he heard it being ripped. He was being tied on to something. Somebody? He smelled the scent again, immediate memories of Inchgarten, on a long summer day on the island. He was about to recognize the smell when he pivoted backwards, something hard catching him on the thigh.
He heard a familiar hum, a rattle that got ever louder. Ever closer, ever closer.
And then he plunged into nothing.
Costello parked the Fiat behind O’Hare’s Avensis. It was twenty-five minutes past three in the morning but the single track road that wound its way up on to the bridge looked like Sauchiehall Street the day the circus came to town. The approach to the bridge was a mass of vehicles: a fire appliance, an ambulance, three police patrol cars, the mortuary van, the scene of crime vehicle and two Scotrail engineering trucks. The small bridge itself was lit up like a seaside disco;
flashing multi-coloured lights that prismed off mirrors and sparkled on fluorescent jackets.
Costello couldn’t see a thing.
The track over the bridge only went to an old cemetery, but underneath the bridge ran the main west coast rail line. Down on the track, in the distant darkness, she could make out the yellow end of a Scotrail train. The last train to Glasgow Central was going nowhere. The track was closed.
She walked slowly towards two figures on the top of the bridge, carefully picking her way over cables and multicores. There was a bigger crowd underneath the bridge, a swarm of fluorescent jackets catching the arc lights. Torch beams were swinging left and right, picking out yellow and aluminium triangles. The bearers were advancing in a specific pattern. Somebody had organized an inch-by-inch ground search on a railway line under an isolated road bridge. There was forensic activity on the top of the bridge. She didn’t need to be Jessica Fletcher to work out they had a jumper.
On top of the bridge, a lone figure sat on the wall in a green plastic suit, shoulders hunched. His face was turned away, his back to the activity below. As Costello approached she realized it was O’Hare. Then she noticed the black and pink bloodied pile lying on the plastic body bag. Then another, bits of torn bin liner, flashes of red fabric, a bit of a – human? – leg? A red, stumpy mess. She slowly walked forward, fascinated while trying not to look.
‘So what happened here?’ She sat beside O’Hare, then looked behind her over the wall to the train track below. Four SOCOs walking away in a perfect line. As she watched, one stopped. The line stopped. The first one bent down to place another yellow marker. He straightened up and the line set off again, making its slow progress. ‘What are they looking for?’
O’Hare looked straight ahead, staring into the black night. ‘Two bodies. Parts of two bodies.’
‘Two?’
O’Hare stumbled over his words. ‘Yeah, two. They had ropes round their ankles. Dangled from here, tied to a vehicle, probably. Dangled down there, in front of the train. Left hanging there for the train coming.’
‘Jesus Christ!’
‘We called you when we found the tarot card.’
