The police blamed her boyfriend, a guy called Steven or Simon or something. The cops said they’d had a row and he’d killed her and buried her somewhere. The boyfriend said she’d walked the Telegraph Road but they didn’t believe him. No one other than Nathan had seen her on the road and Steven or Simon got twelve years in prison.
They were getting it wrong again now. He’d watched the news and saw the cop in charge, a wee guy named Kelbie, saying how it was because Aiden McAlpine and Calvin Brownlie were gay. He was slavering at the mouth about homophobia and how that was the key to breaking the case.
It was rubbish. Nathan didn’t care one way or the other. Sex was never something he’d been bothered about. This Kelbie was like a dog with the wrong bone, clinging to it for all he was worth.
Sure, he’d taken the boy from the park, that much was right. But only because he’d followed him long enough to know that was the best place to make his move. It was dark and secretive and anyone who saw anything was going to be reluctant to talk to the cops.
That one had been about the boy’s dad, the MSP. Mark McAlpine had been the Minister for Public Health when Nathan was eventually diagnosed, the man who the Internet said had responsibility for things like doctors.
Nathan had written to him, angry for sure but polite all the same. Not ranting or anything, just wanting to know what would be done. To save it happening to anyone else. Maybe he’d used language he shouldn’t have done but that didn’t mean he should have been ignored. The very least he should have got was a reply.
When two weeks had gone and he’d heard nothing, he phoned. The man who answered sounded as if he were just out of school, said that McAlpine wasn’t there, said he was in a meeting. Three times Nathan phoned and three times the man was in a meeting. One of those times, Nathan heard him speaking in the background, he was sure of it. That was when he’d made his mind up.
He’d already had a plan, an exit strategy if you like. The plan was not to go quietly. He was going to do more of the things he’d done and do them more publicly. He’d have found the tools to work with, through planning or chance, but then Mark McAlpine delivered his son into Nathan’s path and he didn’t need to look any further.
He knew it wasn’t the son’s fault, but that didn’t matter. He had to suffer for the sins of the father, and Mark McAlpine had to know the pain that Nathan knew, had to learn what it felt like to look at death.
Then, when he found out that the other guy, the Brownlie kid, had been selling off clothes and saying they were the ones Aiden McAlpine had been wearing, he had to act. He couldn’t let that go. That was taking the piss, and Nathan wouldn’t stand for it.
It was like stealing money from his pocket and his name from the headlines. None of them knew who Nathan was but they soon would. There was a letter, left to be found as and when it was needed. If the cancer took him or something else did, then the letter would ensure his immortality. It laid claim to all that he’d done. All that he should be credited with.
It didn’t tell everything. He owed some duty of silence to those he’d come to side with, the few who were like him and those whom they sold to. Nathan could keep a secret.
He hadn’t always realised there was money to be made in what he did and in the things he’d kept. Maybe he should have known everything had a price, everything had a value, but he was too busy doing what he did to think about it or care. Then he learned about murderabilia. Such a strange word. A strange thing, too, he guessed. But there was money in it.
He saw what things were going for. Items that were much less than what he had. Much of the stuff that was going for big bucks was second-hand. All once removed from the event. His things were very much first-hand.
He made himself a profile, created in an Internet café so there was nothing tracing back to him, and offered to sell an item of clothing. Just a shirt. A bloody shirt. Things happened quickly after that.
The offers came thick and fast, each one higher than the one before, but he never got a chance to accept any of them. He got an email, clearly from the police, asking where he’d got such a thing and to identify himself. He didn’t reply. An hour later he was glad to be kicked off the site he’d posted it on.
The collectors, the ones who called themselves the Four, they’d sought him out. At first they’d come looking just for what he was selling but when they sensed who he was, just how he’d obtained what he had, then they became very interested. They let him know they had money and were prepared to spend it.
It was explained to him how he’d been selling in the wrong place and that there was somewhere safer for all of them, somewhere the cops wouldn’t go or even know about. Abbadon. They invited him in and made him king.
Nathan had never been fêted like that before. Respected. Worshipped even. It felt good and it made him rich. His hidden cabbage patches suddenly sprouted money. They wanted everything he had.
And everything he could get.
They’d had this conversation about Robert Knox, the anatomist who bought the bodies from Burke and Hare. A useful arrangement, they’d called it. The doctor was a respected man, they said, didn’t know where the corpses came from, didn’t have to know. But he paid Burke and Hare well. An arrangement that suited everyone. All except the dead.
It was on Abbadon that he’d got talking to Archibald Atto. Until then, Atto had simply been someone he’d read about, the guy on the television news who’d killed all those girls. The famous version of him. Famous because he’d been caught.
The first time Atto had messaged and revealed himself, Nathan wasn’t sure what to make of it. There was a thrill, almost as if he’d been contacted by a celebrity, but also worry and a sense of contest. They swapped stories, giving a little more each time, trust growing, telling things only the other would understand.
Nathan never said who he was, though. That was a step he wouldn’t take. He could only be Big Sleep, and Atto accepted it. There was a kind of comradeship, a bond for sure. Two people who knew.
Atto sold through Abbadon, too, and had done for a while, his own stash of keepsakes being snapped up by the Four. He made money out of it, but Nathan got the impression it was all a game to him, getting off on his own notoriety. Atto said he used the Four at least as much as he used them.
It was Atto whom the old ex-cop had gone to when he wanted information. He went looking for a way in and Atto had given him a map and a key and pointed him in the right direction. So simple.
Smart man, though, is Archibald Atto. Devious bastard too.
The old guy and the journalist had stitched him up before, something that a man like Atto was never going to forget. When they wandered back into his life, he saw an opportunity. He saw revenge. He didn’t just point the way to Abbadon, thought Nathan: he sent them to me. An arrangement that would suit everyone.
All except the dead.
CHAPTER 57
It was already dark by the time Winter got to Balerno. He parked as he’d done the time before, well away from Haldane’s cottage, and hoofed it from there.
The house was shrouded in gloom, swallowed up by the woods behind it so that only the sheen of the whitewashed walls and the shade of two lights hung out of the forest’s mouth. One of the lights burned in the living room that Winter had been in twice, while the other was fainter and probably deeper inside the cottage.
He stole into the cover of the trees across the road, now a familiar hiding place, and he waited. He took a few shots of the house through his longest lens but made sure not to use a flash in case Haldane spotted it. He opened up the aperture instead and let in all the light he could. It was enough to do the job and keep him veiled.
A couple of minutes later, his phone vibrated silently in his pocket. He knew it would be her and deliberated over whether to ignore the text. He knew he couldn’t take the risk of stressing her out by not replying, so reluctantly took the phone from his pocket.
So he’s still at home? Just sit tight.
He swor
e silently. It was bad enough her pulling his strings when they were in the same room. Just as well he loved her.
His photographs were going straight to the cloud and popping up within seconds on the window she had open on her laptop. She was seeing what he was. And ready to comment on it whether he liked it or not.
Sit tight was what I was planning to do.
But thanks for the advice.
Sit tight was exactly what he did, for a little over an hour. He had friends who had done this kind of thing, either surveillance work for security firms or as paparazzi for the papers, and they’d told him about the arse-numbing monotony of sitting in one place for so long, but he’d never really understood it until now. His knees locked, his neck was stiff and his back ached. His fingers did too until he realised the complete needlessness of holding onto his camera.
What’s going on!?
Nothing.
And it was a whole load of nothing until the rear cottage light went out and, seconds later, the front room light followed it. His mind just had time to wonder whether Haldane had gone to bed when . . . There! The front door opened and the man emerged, coat on and collar turned up. He didn’t look around as he strode to the old black Volvo, got in and drove off away from the village.
Winter took two quick shots of the departing car and awaited the inevitable reaction on his phone.
Stay where you are for a bit in case he’s forgotten something. He might turn around.
Yes, boss.
Shut up and do what you’re told ;)
He waited five minutes then slipped out of the trees and across the road. There was a side gate that led to what he was sure was Haldane’s garden, backing onto the woods. He groped at the door and swore to himself when it didn’t open. Locked. The whitewashed walls were easily six feet high. Damn it. He took another look around then stepped back to give himself room to get a foot up onto the handle and from there levered himself to the top of the wall. He took one look to see where he would be landing and swung himself over the top, dropping almost soundlessly onto grass
He leaned his back against the door, breathing hard and listening for the unlikely sound of footsteps or a shout suggesting he’d been seen. There was nothing but the wind stealing through the trees and the unseen scurry of small animals.
There was even less light in the garden than outside, the overhang of trees from the forest blackening the night still further. As far as gardens not being overlooked were concerned, this was an estate agent’s dream, with the wall to one side and the dense woods protecting the rest.
He – or, more to the point, she – was sure the garden would give him the easiest and safest way into the house. He wanted to work quickly, not knowing when Haldane would return, but the privacy of the garden would at least buy him time to find a way in.
He could make out two lines of slabbed path that ran at ninety degrees from each other and skirted mature flower beds, the colours neutered under the pale moonlight. He stole down one side towards the house until his eye was caught by something shining dully to his left. He stood still, trying to work out what it was. Tall and thin, it seemed out of place.
He turned and walked across a patch of lawn until he was next to it. It was a round, metal post that rose a good foot above his head. A pole for hanging a washing line? No. His phone’s torchlight picked out a rusting, white, square metal flag at the top. BUS STOP.
Running a hand up and down its roughcast surface, he felt a chill on his spine that mimicked his own movement. Pulling at it, he found the pole was planted deep into the garden, very much a permanent fixture.
He took a burst of photographs and resolved not to answer the text that he’d soon get. He didn’t have an answer for her. He could only see what she could.
Sure enough, as he worked his way back to the house, his phone shook in his hand as her message came through, then buzzed again in frustration a minute later when it had been ignored.
Tell me that’s not what it looks like
It sure looks like it, he thought.
He inched along the path, walking more by feel than sight, his head full of the implications of the bus stop sign. He had begun to reach for his phone to text her when he was forced to stop in his tracks. There were footsteps on the road outside.
He shoved the phone in his pocket to douse what little light it offered, and stood still. The footsteps got closer, voices too. Shit. Don’t text, he urged her. Even on mute, don’t text.
There were two voices. Two people. He couldn’t make out what they were saying but he realised they were now right outside Haldane’s garden and just a few yards away. He held his breath and debated his options if the garden door opened. Fight or flight or bullshit his way out of it?
There was something said and then the snap and sizzle of a match being struck. That was quickly followed by a sharp bark. A dog reminding its owner it was there. He held his breath some more until the footsteps started up again, voices chattering till they faded.
He finally let his breath loose with a weary shake of his head. He didn’t need this.
As he reached the other side of the garden, his phone’s torch picked out a door that he could see led into a conservatory, the moonlight glinting on its sloping glass roof. It seemed the most promising way in and he headed towards it. There was a good chance the conservatory would have an open lock or if not, one that was easily negotiated.
He had taken just two steps when his shin cracked painfully into something solid.
He sank onto one knee, rubbing at his shin and doing his best not to swear. What the hell had he walked into? He shone his torch towards it and saw a slab of upright grey stone. No wonder it hurt: the thing was two-inch-thick granite with corners that would cut down a rhino.
He looked closer. Jesus!
Open-mouthed, he picked up his camera and adjusted the aperture. To hell with any risk, he needed flash. He shot from every angle, a few close-up shots and one further back to frame it in the lean of Haldane’s house.
The photographs flew to the cloud like angels and he waited.
Is that what it looks like?
Yes
Can’t be. In Haldane’s garden?
Yes!
He slid onto his haunches and looked at it, camera by his side.
Martin Welsh’s gravestone.
CHAPTER 58
The words on the stone were macabre in the mix of moonlight and torch.
Martin Alexander Welsh
January 16 1959 to May 7 1973
Beloved son of Alexander and Jean Welsh
Loving brother of Alice
He doesn’t lie here but in our hearts.
Never forgotten.
The last line reflected the fact that Martin’s body was never found but the ripping up and movement of the headstone gave it even greater poignancy. Winter’s breath was caught in his throat. For all that the boy wasn’t buried beneath him, he felt just as if he were stamping all over his grave. He felt as if he were intruding, even though the gravestone had no right being there. He wasn’t the culprit: Haldane was.
The headstones that were damaged in Calderrigg Cemetery. The family had put a new one in its place. This . . . this had to be the original. Had it actually been vandalism or something calculated to get the stone out? Haldane was the collector. And he’d collected big time.
His phone had been jumping at his side as if it were alive. He finally relented, dragging his eyes away from the carved granite and inspected the messages that were desperate to be read.
I’m not sure I believe what I’m seeing
Any sign of how long it’s been there?
What is the ground like around it?
Forget going inside. We have enough and DO NOT want to alert him
Get out of there NOW. Phone me from the car
Winter heaved an exasperated sigh and got to his feet. He retraced his steps through the garden, stopping at the door to listen for the sound of returning dog walkers. There was a bolt on
the garden side that would have let him out easily but there was no way of locking it again from the other side, so he had to repeat his trick of climbing the wall, this time landing with a bit of a clatter on the road. Just a few minutes later, he’d got back to his car, driven to the opposite end of the village and parked again. She answered his call immediately.
‘Did anyone see you leave?’
‘Nope. There was no one around. I guess I might have been seen getting back into the car but no one would have thought anything of it, even in a place this size.’
‘Okay, good. We need to think what to do next, and it helps a lot if no one knows and we’ve got time to work it out.’
‘No one saw me leave. A couple of people walked past while I was inside but I’d been in for a good few minutes before they arrived.’
‘How long do you think the headstone had been there? Was it covered up by anything? Shrubs or flowers or some manmade thing? And the bus stop sign, could it be seen from the road? They’re usually pretty tall.’
‘Which question do you want me to answer first?’
‘Sorry, sorry. Any one you want.’
‘I’ve really no idea how long it had been there. Maybe I’d have a bit of a clue if I’d seen it in daylight, but who knows? The earth didn’t seem like it had been disturbed any time recently so my guess would be it’s been there a while. When did the stone get taken from the cemetery?’
‘March 2007.’
‘Well probably then, don’t you think? Or not long after it. There were some tall, dark-leaved things growing by it and the fronds – is that what you call them? – were hanging over the headstone. Hard to say if that was deliberate or not, but they did hide it a bit.’
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