Bury Them Deep

by Oswald, James

  ‘You’re awake. Thank the Lord. We weren’t sure if you’d make it.’

  The voice sparks a memory. Knocking on a cottage door in the dead of night. Why is she here and not in a hospital?

  ‘Please –’

  ‘Shh. Don’t try to move. You were badly injured. Don’t want to risk a rib puncturing one of your lungs now.’

  A man’s voice, soft and low. She can’t see him as he shuffles into the room, but the light spreads from outside, showing more of her surroundings. The stone is covered in thick white paint. It vaults overhead, the highest point marked by a bare bulb in a light fitting that is as old as the man crouching beside her. He reaches out, and she catches a whiff of something from him that she can’t immediately place. Whatever it is, it wakes a primal fear deep inside her. She struggles, tries to move away from him before he can touch her face. But the blankets wound around her are too tight. She is trapped, helpless.

  ‘Don’t.’ His tone is chiding, like one might admonish a child. As he speaks, his fingers brush over the skin of her cheek, her forehead, feeling the scars on her face. She cannot recoil from it, head pushed hard into the pillow as she tries. He examines her for what feels like hours, his fingers gentle but probing. There’s a skill to his touch, a familiarity that isn’t medical.

  ‘Here. You need to drink. Clean out your system so you can heal.’ He presses a cup to her lips, and as the liquid trickles into her mouth she realises she is parched. She drinks as deep as she can, each swallow a little less painful than the last. Too late, she understands there is something in the water to take away the pain. Something to lull her off to sleep. No refuge there from the demons that haunt her.

  18

  They shouldn’t be here. Wee Gav’s heard stuff about these woods, how they play tricks on you. Folk get lost and are never seen again. He didn’t want to come here, but Bobby dared him, and he doesn’t want to be called feart. Still, he’d rather be home playing on the Xbox.

  ‘Hey, Gav. Look.’ Bobby’s in the car park, his bike leaning against a tree. Gav doesn’t really want to look, but he pedals up anyway.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Rubber johnnies. They’s thoosands of them.’ Bobby has a stick, and he’s prodding at the little plastic blobs strewn around the base of the tree like some weird rotting fruit. It smells of piss and something else. Like that tramp Gav saw last time he was in the city. Young bloke wrapped up in a filthy sleeping bag. Big old dog lying beside him. Mum had dragged him away muttering something under her breath about druggies and wasters. Didn’t seem fair on the dog.

  ‘That’s boggin’. Come on, Bobby. Let’s go. Ah dinnae like this place.’

  ‘You a wee feartie, Gav? Come on. It’s just a johnny.’ Bobby hooks one with the end of the stick, picks it up and twirls it around.

  ‘Aye, but someone’s used it, right? That’s been on someone’s cock. There’s some bloke’s cum in there.’

  ‘Eww. Ya dirty bastard.’ Bobby whips the stick around, trying to fling the slimy little parcel at Gav. It shoots off the end, but misses, disappearing into a nearby bush. And, anyway, Gav’s ducked.

  ‘Fuck off, Bobby, ya wee fud.’ He shoves a foot in the pedal, kicks off and bikes away as quick as he can. Only when he’s made a bit of distance between himself and his friend does he realise he’s going the wrong way.

  ‘Hey. What’s that over there?’ Bobby’s caught up already, overtaking and speeding through the gaps in the trees. Gav follows even though he doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want to be on his own even more. He’s heard the stories about these woods. More’n the folk who left the johnnies behind. His da’ told him about when they found bones buried under an old oak tree. Human bones. Gav reckons it’s just his da’ trying to stop him coming here. Grown-ups lie like that all the time. He still disnae like it.

  ‘Whoa. Check this out.’ Bobby’s stopped now, alongside a parked car, tucked away in a spot that’s more clearing than car park, deeper in the woods. Before Gav can say anything, he’s reached out and pulled the handle. ‘It’s no’ locked, see.’

  Gav approaches more slowly, staring into the trees and all around. The car’s owner’s got to be somewhere near if they’ve not locked it, surely? But there’s nothing. The only sound is the birds, and there’s not many of them. That’s another reason he disnae like these woods. They’re too quiet. Dead quiet.

  ‘See me, I can drive.’ Bobby’s dumped his bike now and climbed into the driving seat. Gav’s expecting an alarm to sound or something, but it doesn’t happen.

  ‘Come away, Bobby. They’ll be back soon. Don’t wannae get caught.’

  ‘Ah ye wee chicken, Gav. There’s naebody here. Must’ve gone off intae the woods for a shag. Dirty bastards.’

  ‘An’ left the car unlocked?’

  ‘Aye, well, there’s nothin’ in here ’cept this wee bag.’ Bobby reaches over to the passenger footwell and comes back with his prize, opens it up and peers inside. ‘Aww man, that’s fuckin’ boak.’

  Gav’s not so lucky this time, as Bobby chucks the bag out of the car. Fair’s fair, he probably wasn’t trying to hit him but the bag smacks his leg with a wet slap and a handful of used johnnies fall out over his foot. It stinks of rubber and something else, and the stains darken the blue of his jeans.

  ‘Fuck man, what ye doin’?’ Gav falls over in his haste to get away, tangling in his bike frame as he goes. Bobby’s no help, the wee fud. He just laughs like it’s the funniest thing. Then he falls quiet, a dark grin spreading over his face as he steps out of the car. He shoves a hand in his pocket.

  ‘Let’s torch it.’ He pulls his hand out again, holding the lighter he found up at the loony bin.

  ‘You fucking mad, Bobby? Let’s just go. I wannae get these jeans off, ken?’ He points at the slimy mess dribbling down one shin. ‘Proper boggin’ it is.’

  ‘Aye, and the wee fuckers who left it in here need telt.’ Bobby clicks the lighter, the flame reflecting the eager madness in his eyes. He’s Gav’s best mate, is Bobby, but he’s a right mentalist when he gets like this.

  ‘No’ havin’ anything tae dae wi’ it, man.’ Gav grabs his bike back up, swings his leg over the crossbar and starts to pedal off towards the road. Home’s half an hour away and he already feels sick at the thought of what’s on his leg. Bobby overtakes him after less than a minute, screaming like a total nutcase as he whizzes past. Gav looks over his shoulder for a second, sees black smoke already billowing out of the car. How the fuck do they burn so easy?

  19

  A dull headache squatted like a malevolent toad at the back of McLean’s head as he tried to concentrate on the screen of his laptop. True to her word, DS Gregg had left a detailed report of her evening’s activities for him, but he was having a hard time making sense of anything. Not enough sleep and too many things on his mind. He’d have liked to have been able to blame it on the whisky, but he’d not touched a drop of alcohol the night before. Another one of Emma’s ideas that, while sensible, wasn’t much fun.

  ‘Something you should see, sir.’ McLean looked up to see DC Harrison standing in the doorway, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as ever. Only the worried expression on her face ruined it. That and the printout she was carrying.

  ‘Good news, I hope.’ McLean tried to inject a little sarcasm into his voice, not difficult given the way he felt.

  ‘It’s a report from the IT department. They’ve been collating a list of all the system access carried out recently by Anya’s login.’

  ‘Let me guess. She’s been selling our secrets to the Russians.’

  Harrison frowned in confusion. ‘The Russians?’

  McLean reminded himself that the detective constable was almost half his age. The Cold War was a footnote in her history books, not something lived through. ‘It’s an expression. Not literal Russians, just people who shouldn’t have access. What’s she been looking into t
hen?’

  ‘Actually, that’s all fairly innocuous. Nothing she shouldn’t be doing. At least not as far as they could tell.’

  ‘So why do I need to see it then?’

  Harrison moved further into the room, offering the printout as if it would make any more sense than the words on his laptop screen. ‘It’s more the number of systems she has access to, sir. I mean, I know she’s worked here a long time, but she seems to have higher security clearance than most of the DIs. And she’s got linked accounts on a lot of external systems too. CCTV feed, DVLA database, some of the council records. There’s a bunch of others I didn’t even know existed.’

  McLean took the sheet of paper, rubbing at his forehead as he tried to focus on the tiny print. It was a list, as Harrison had said. It was a very long and comprehensive list too. It brought to mind something that had come up regularly when he’d interviewed the other support staff; that Renfrew was the person you went to if you had a problem, the person who always seemed to know how to sort it. That was the innocent explanation of course.

  ‘Do we know when these were last accessed?’ he asked, then noticed a column in the table. A few of the entries were recent, but they weren’t particularly sensitive. Most of the rest either hadn’t been accessed for months or years, or had nothing logged against them at all.

  ‘Not all of the systems monitor access like that. She could have logged into some of them on Friday and we’d never know.’

  ‘How much of this is relevant to Operation Caterwaul?’ McLean stared at the page again, not taking any of it in.

  ‘I’m not sure, sir. That’s a bit above my pay grade.’

  He let out a weary sigh. This was a smoking gun, if ever there were one. And yet he still didn’t believe Renfrew’s disappearance was anything to do with the operation. That gut feeling was getting harder to trust as the evidence against her mounted up though. Might she be a mole? Or maybe someone was blackmailing her? Found out about her secret life and was using it to make her do their bidding. No, that was stupid. This wasn’t some spy thriller, and Renfrew wasn’t important enough to be worth the effort. Except that she did seem to know a lot about everything.

  ‘These accesses have all been revoked now, I take it?’

  ‘Aye, sir. First thing IT did.’

  Well, at least that much was going by the book. He handed the list back to Harrison. ‘Get that to the operations room, will you? They can pass it on to the other partners. Stakeholders, I should probably say.’

  Harrison managed to muster a smile at that, but she looked as worried as he felt. ‘What about the senior officers?’ she asked.

  ‘Let me worry about them. I want you to go and find Grumpy Bob. He’ll probably be in the CCU down in the basement. Think we’re going to need to set up an incident room. Start treating this disappearance like the major investigation it’s turning into.’

  The detective constable brightened immediately at the prospect. Renfrew going missing had upset the whole station, McLean realised. Taking control of the search for her like this would hopefully boost morale as much as improve their chances of finding her.

  ‘I’ll get right on it, sir.’ She turned to leave.

  ‘One more thing, Constable. You don’t know if DS Gregg’s in, by any chance?’

  ‘Aye, sir. Saw her heading for the canteen not five minutes ago. You want me to go find her?’

  McLean stood up, doing his best to ignore the twinge in his hip as he did so. The coffee machine on the other side of the office hadn’t been switched on yet, and still contained the cold tar of yesterday’s last brew.

  ‘No, it’s OK. I’ll go find her myself. Could use some exercise and a half-decent coffee. Besides, I only want to talk to her about singing.’

  As Harrison had promised, he found Detective Sergeant Gregg in the canteen, standing in line for breakfast. For someone who’d stayed out late in a folk club, then written up a report and emailed it to her boss, she looked surprisingly chirpy.

  ‘Good time last night, was it?’ McLean asked as he joined the queue. He didn’t have time to eat anything, but a coffee might help shift the headache, and he could always shove one of those healthy muesli bars on the tray for later. Or some chocolate.

  ‘Oh, it was amazing. Can’t wait till next week. I’m going to take Barry along.’

  The last, and first, time McLean had met DS Gregg’s husband had been a few years back, when he’d carried the unconscious man from their gas-filled house just a few moments before it exploded.

  ‘He a big folk music fan then?’ he asked.

  ‘Och, no. But it’s so much more than that. Besides, he never goes out much. Just sits and watches telly all evening. Mebbe reads a book if there’s nothin’ much on. Can’t be doing wi’ that.’

  McLean thought it sounded idyllic, but decided not to say so. ‘What about the other regulars then? Any of them know Anya?’

  ‘Grace, remember. She’s been using her mum’s name. And, aye, there were a couple used to talk to her. Got their names and contact details. It’s all in the report I emailed you.’

  ‘Busy morning. I’ve not had a chance to do much more than skim it so far. They say anything about her we didn’t already know?’

  ‘Funny you should mention that, sir. They mostly said what we’ve heard from everyone else. She kept herself to herself, didn’t share much. But there was one – Val Robertson. She didn’t really know Grace any better, but she says she lived not far from her. Next street over. Used to see her walking to the corner shop sometimes. A nod and a smile if they passed each other, that sort of thing. Only, she doesn’t live in Joppa. Val, that is. She lives in Pilrig.’

  McLean shuffled further along the queue, waiting while Gregg ordered an enormous fry-up. Tempting though it was to join her, there really wasn’t time. His hand hovered over something made of nuts and fruit that claimed to be delicious. He’d learned the hard way never to believe that sort of claim, and grabbed a couple of chocolate bars instead. Paying for his spoils, he shoved the bars in his pocket and carried the coffee over to where Gregg was already pouring brown sauce over her breakfast.

  ‘This Val Robertson. I don’t suppose she gave you an address?’ He pulled out a chair, then decided sitting wasn’t such a good idea. There was too much else he needed to be doing.

  ‘She wasn’t sure exactly which one it was, but it was one of the tenements on Spey Street. Said she’d call me this morning once she’d had a chance to walk down there and have a look.’ Harrison chewed a mouthful of bacon and egg for a moment before adding, ‘I’ll give her a call soon as I’ve had my breakfast, if that’s OK. Shift doesn’t start for another half-hour.’

  McLean glanced up at the clock on the wall, surprised to find it was still so early. On the other hand, he’d left home before six, Emma fast asleep and with a day off to look forward to. How much nicer it would be to be spending it with her.

  ‘No, that’s fine. She’s probably not even up yet. Don’t rush your breakfast, you’ll only regret it later.’

  20

  ‘I don’t need to tell you that this is very serious, Tony.’

  McLean stood on the wrong side of the deputy chief constable’s desk, hands clasped behind his back like a schoolboy awaiting detention. It wasn’t the first time he’d stood in this office in a similar manner, and neither was Robinson the first senior officer to vent their frustration at him. He’d learned a long time ago, back in his hated boarding school in the south of England, that it was best just to take whatever was said, get it over with and get back to the job. Also best to say nothing unless it was strictly necessary.

  ‘I’ve had three different ministers on the phone this morning, including the First Minister herself. She at least was polite, but it’s clear that this setback’s got everyone on edge. You do realise what’s at stake here?’

  That one had to be answered, McLean knew
. He couldn’t help but recall the words of the CIA spook, Brad Fenwick, the previous evening. ‘I know that some very powerful and influential people are nervous about what Operation Caterwaul is doing, if that’s what you mean, sir? There’s a lot of egg to go around, a lot of faces.’

  Robinson raised a single eyebrow. ‘You have a very reserved way of saying things sometimes, McLean. Egg on faces is one thing, but we’re talking national reputation on the line here. The kind of people implicated in this investigation will do anything to protect themselves and their interests. They consider themselves above the law.’

  ‘And you honestly think that they’d what? Kidnap a member of the admin staff in one of the many stations and teams giving support to the operation? An operation that’s barely begun and which very few people know about. Even I don’t know the whole picture.’

  Robinson leaned back in his chair. ‘Oh come on, McLean. You know who we’re really after with this one, don’t you?’

  ‘I can guess. And I can understand how Renfrew going missing might get a few people worried, but we’ll find her soon enough. I don’t believe she’s the security risk everyone thinks she is either. I’m more concerned for her welfare.’

  Robinson rocked forward so swiftly McLean had to stop himself from flinching. ‘That’s always the way with you, isn’t it? Everyone else is concerned about a threat to national security and all you can think about is some poor wee girl.’

  ‘With respect, sir. She’s forty-five, she’s not a wee girl. She’s worked for the police all her life. Longer than most of the officers here. Ask around the canteen, anywhere in the station. You won’t hear a bad word spoken about her.’

  ‘From what I’m hearing she’s spent all those years hacking her way into our secure systems. Sounds very much like someone playing a long game. Who knows what sensitive information she’s been hoarding? Who she’s trying to sell it to. Maybe Operation Caterwaul’s the one she’s been waiting for. Cashing it in for a nice early retirement.’