Picture Her Dead (Rhona Macleod)

by Lin Anderson

  PICTURE HER DEAD

  Lin Anderson

  www.hodder.co.uk

  Also by Lin Anderson:

  Driftnet

  Torch

  Deadly Code

  Dark Flight

  Easy Kill

  Final Cut

  The Reborn

  First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Lin Anderson 2011

  The right of Lin Anderson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Ebook ISBN: 978 1 848 94204 2

  Hardback ISBN: 978 0 340 99292 0

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Also by Lin Anderson

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Glasgow – Cinema City

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  The Glasgow Evening Post

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Dr Jennifer Miller of GUARD, DCI Kenny Bailey (retired), Andy Rolph, R2S CRIME Forensic Services Manager, and in particular the staff at the British Heart Foundation Shop, Dumbarton Road, Partick (formerly The Rosevale Cinema), Christine Lindsay, playwright and old film reel aficionado.

  I have taken some liberties with the Rosevale, restoring its beautiful foyer and wonderful Highland frieze and inserting a fictional basement. All the characters therein are entirely fictional.

  To Detective Inspector Bill Mitchell

  Glasgow – Cinema City

  Seventy years ago, Glasgow was home to over 130 ‘picture palaces’ which could accommodate an astounding 175,000 film fans every day. With more cinemas per person than any other city outside America, Glasgow earned the title ‘Cinema City’.

  1

  The manager slipped the key in the lock and turned it, and the click sent a shiver of anticipation through Jude. As the door swung open, light from behind her formed shadows in the darkness. She thought she could make out a ticket booth and a distant staircase.

  ‘The switch is on your left just inside the partition door,’ the woman told her. ‘It only lights up the foyer, I’m afraid.’

  ‘It’s OK, I came prepared.’ Jude showed her the large torch she’d brought with her.

  ‘I can’t leave the shop to go in with you.’

  ‘I’ll be fine on my own,’ Jude assured her. ‘I really appreciate you letting me take a look.’

  ‘Rather you than me. I wouldn’t go in there alone if you paid me.’ The woman checked her watch. ‘We close the shop at five. How long were you planning to be?’

  Jude’s heart sank. ‘I was hoping for a little longer. I wanted to take some photographs.’

  The woman thought for a minute. ‘There’s a fire exit off the balcony which takes you down to a back lane. I suppose you could leave that way. But you’d need to make sure you closed the door behind you.’

  ‘That would be great. And I’ll be sure to shut the door. I promise.’

  The woman hesitated as though already regretting the offer, but then gave a quick nod and headed back to the charity shop.

  Jude waited until the clip of her heels had faded before locating the light switch and flicking it on. The shadows immediately dispersed, revealing a beautiful circular entrance foyer.

  ‘Wow!’ Jude breathed, gazing round in delight.

  She knew from her research that the foyer’s design was distinctive, but the reality was so much better. A terrazzo-patterned floor radiated from a central island paybox, still intact. Above this, the ceiling rose to form an intricately worked plaster dome, encircled by a painted mural of a Highland scene. In the centre was a ten-point Art Deco light fitment.

  Jude extracted her precious camera and flash gun from the backpack. She would take a set of digital stills, followed by a 360-degree video recording. She began where she was, looking towards the ticket booth, with the wide carpeted staircase beyond.

  This was what people would have seen when they entered the cinema in its heyday. Even in its present state, nothing could detract from the feeling of opulence; not the peeling paint, nor the scent of dust and misuse. Most of the other derelict cinemas she’d visited had been damp and mouldy, but in here the air was warm and dry.

  Once she had a set of stills Jude switched to video and began recording with a voiceover. She set the place, date and time and gave a potted history of the Rosevale. Then she began a slow circular sweep of the foyer, recording her impressions as she went.

  When she was satisfied she had enough material, she checked her watch. She hated being late, but she definitely couldn’t leave before seeing the balcony and the projection room. She pulled out her mobile and sent a text, then headed for the main staircase, still recording and narrating.

  Halfway up, the route turned abruptly to the left and faded into darkness. Jude did an about-turn; she must have missed the balcony entrance. Running the beam over the walls, she picked out a narrow door on her right. The projection box was normally at the top of a cinema, but not always. In the nearby Tivoli, now demolished, the box had been at ground level.

  The door swung back to reveal a corridor leading up to another door, this one marked ‘No Smoking’.

  Jude eased it open and shone her torch inside, illuminating a
sign which read:

  THE SOUND PROJECTOR APPARATUS USED IN THIS THEATRE IS LEASED FROM

  Western Electric Company Ltd,

  Bush House, London

  This was it. The projection room.

  Seized by excitement, Jude looked round for an alternative light source. The manager had suggested there wasn’t one beyond the foyer, but Jude knew from experience that some projection suites had their own power. Her beam finally found what she was looking for – a mains supply box.

  She stepped down from the small metal platform and picked her way across the rubbish-strewn floor.

  Fortune favours the brave, she thought, and threw the switch.

  Two things happened simultaneously; the room was flooded with light, and the door shut with a bang.

  Jude stood for a moment, her heart pounding.

  ‘OK,’ she said out loud to calm herself, ‘I’d prefer the door open …’

  As she retraced her steps something caught her eye; a pile of discarded bricks by the battery-room entrance. One of those could be used to prop the door open. As she bent to pick one up, she felt a cold draught brush her skin, prickling it, as though charged with electricity.

  There were countless stories of supernatural presences in old cinemas, but Jude didn’t believe in ghosts and had never felt strange in any of the abandoned cinemas she’d visited. Until now.

  Her senses on high alert, she straightened up and stood listening. For what, she had no idea. Then she did hear something. The scratching went on for a few moments, then stopped before she could pinpoint where the sound had come from.

  Mice, she thought, or rats. Neither of which she was afraid of.

  As Jude resumed her path, brick in hand, she caught another sound, this time a heavier scuffling. Had the manager let someone in to view the cinema after her?

  Reaching the door, she wedged it open with the brick and checked the corridor. It was empty.

  Jude suddenly recalled the tale of a homeless man found burned to death in the old Bridgeton cinema. Could someone have found their way in via the fire escape and be squatting somewhere in the projection suite?

  ‘Hello, is anyone there?’

  Her voice echoed round the confined space. When it died down and silence returned, she had the weird but definite sensation that there was someone – or something – in there with her.

  There were two openings off the box room. One led to the battery room, the other probably to the rewinding room. Jude went to check the battery room first. Save for three ranks of old batteries, the place was empty of anything but dust. As she had suspected, the smaller room next to it held the flat surface and mechanism for rewinding the reels. It, too, was empty.

  OK, you’re imagining things, she told herself.

  It was time to get down to work, and she might as well start in here. As she set up her shot, a faint but nauseating scent made her wrinkle her nose. She ran her eye over the floor expecting to find the disintegrating mess of a rat, but there was nothing. She did notice now, though, that the far wall had been partially demolished, leaving a dark hole large enough for a person to climb through. Perhaps the smell was coming from there.

  Jude approached and shone her torch in. The beam picked up a row of coat hooks, a narrow table, two wooden chairs and what looked like an ancient freezer.

  ‘The usherettes’ room,’ she whispered, delighted.

  Ignoring the smell, she eased her way through. The room was small, the table and chairs taking up all of one wall. Jude pictured the women getting changed into their uniforms in this cramped space, laughing and joking, drinking tea and smoking.

  In the confined space the smell had definitely grown more pungent. Jude glanced round. The smell had to come from something bigger than a rat. A dead cat maybe?

  A sudden roaring sound filled the room, making her almost jump out of her skin. Then the roar settled to a steady hum, and she felt a wave of warm air brush her body. It had to be the heating system for the charity shop starting up. Jude relaxed, feeling foolish.

  She began to photograph the room, aware that the smell had worsened further with the sudden increase in temperature. In the wall opposite the coat hooks was a bricked-up doorway. Most areas the public didn’t see in cinemas consisted of bare brick, but this brickwork looked quite recent. Jude realised the smell seemed to be coming from a gap in the mortar halfway up.

  Curiosity getting the better of her, she pressed an eye to the hole.

  There was nothing but inky darkness.

  She told herself firmly to get on with the job as she was already running late, but even as she thought this she was looking round for something to help her enlarge the hole between the bricks. She spotted a strip of metal with a jagged end, and began to scrape at the mortar.

  A few minutes later she was able to prise the edge of the brick loose. The resulting rush of foetid air made her gag, but she focused her torch beam on the enlarged hole and peered inside.

  Her eyes widened in horror.

  2

  Not many people got the chance to look into their own grave. Or indeed to see their own coffin after their funeral, but DS Michael McNab (deceased) was impressed with his. A very smart coffin it was, despite the damage to the lid where it had been forced open. Rich mahogany, the metal handles carved with the design of the Sacred Heart. Definitely not the bargain end of the market.

  He wondered if someone had found the life-insurance policy he’d stuffed in his kitchen drawer, or had the Scottish Police Federation coughed up the cost of burying one of their own, killed in the line of duty? McNab tried briefly to remember what he’d estimated his life to be worth, but couldn’t, although he was pretty sure he hadn’t insured it for much. After all, he had no dependants. There would have been enough for a simple ceremony and a couple of rounds of drinks at the wake, if there was one. Probably not enough for a casket as fancy as this.

  He examined the headstone. Carved in grey granite, with the inscription and the dates of his arrival and departure in gold.

  Michael Joseph McNab

  He died that others might live

  It was enough to choke him up, if it was true.

  No doubt the sentiment had been Chrissy’s. Eight months pregnant, she had been with him at the Poker Club the night he had been gunned down on the orders of a Russian oligarch. McNab swallowed hard, tasting again the horror that had assailed him when he’d thought Chrissy might be in the line of fire.

  He looked up from the gravestone and weighted coffin into the dawn sky, where layers of blood-red cloud heralded the day. It was time to leave. The cemetery was popular with the public, as evidenced by the well-tended graves and fresh flowers. It would only be a matter of time before the excavation was noted and reported.

  The Serious Crime Squad wouldn’t be able to bury this news as easily as they’d pretended to bury him. More to the point, his would-be assassins now knew he was available to appear as a witness in the upcoming trial of Nikolai Kalinin, head of a crime cartel that stretched from the Baltic via London to Glasgow.

  McNab took a last look at his final resting place then turned on his heel and walked swiftly away, suddenly acutely aware that the men who’d desecrated his grave could be pointing a gun at his head right now. Sure he’d heard the explosion of gunfire, he ducked behind the nearest gravestone, fear clogging his lungs. Crouched and gasping, he furiously willed himself to breathe.

  Eventually air rasped in through his clenched teeth. McNab cursed himself for succumbing to another of the all-too-frequent flashbacks. He couldn’t afford to lose it, or he would end up in that coffin for real.

  Brushing the dirt from his trousers, he rose and set off towards the gates.

  3

  Dr Rhona MacLeod exited Glasgow High Court and stood for a moment, listening to Chrissy’s animated phone message.

  ‘Someone dug up McNab’s grave and the coffin was empty. Word is he’s alive and SOCA are hiding him!’

  Her assistant’s joy at the news
was only to be expected. Rhona had known for weeks, but hadn’t been able to tell anyone apart from a select few, Chrissy not among them. She would take that pretty badly when she found out. Rhona read the text that had also arrived while she’d been in court: Dead but not forgotten. Coffee?

  Speak of the devil. She didn’t recognise the number, but it had to be him.

  Rhona looked about her, but there was only a young hooded guy, leaning on a pillar and drawing on a cigarette as though it was his last. When he saw her checking him out, he was immediately on the case.

  ‘Any chance of a pound for a cup of tea, missus? Ah swear on ma mother’s ashes it’s no for drugs.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve no cash.’

  ‘Nae bother.’ He shrugged and went back to his cigarette.

  Rhona slipped her mobile into her bag. If the text was from McNab, he would be at the nearby Central Café waiting for her.

  His cigarette finished, the guy by the pillar fiddled with the drawstring on his hood and shoved his hands in his pockets, but didn’t move on. Rhona had the feeling that he was waiting for her to leave first. She glanced at his feet, recognising an expensive brand of trainers. Perhaps he was waiting for a court appearance? Something about him told her to keep an eye on him.