‘Oh. Thank you.’ She laid a hand on his and led him back to the window she had been staring out of when he’d entered the room. ‘Gladhouse. I never thought.’ She looked up at him then, eyes like skimmed milk fixed on him as if she had made some difficult decision. ‘What do they call you, Detective Chief Inspector? I expect the constables still call you “sir”, but mostly it’s all first names these days, isn’t it?’
‘McLean to my face, or Tony. What they call me behind my back is best I don’t know.’
‘They used to call me Ramrod Ramsay, which shows there’s nothing quite so unimaginative as a copper.’ The merest flicker of a smile ghosted her face, chased away by a darker frown. ‘But Gladhouse is not good. People who go missing there aren’t often found again. If Anya’s . . .’ She left the sentence unfinished.
‘What’s so special about Gladhouse?’ McLean knew all too well about the discovery of Audrey Carpenter’s body, and Sergeant Donaldson had mentioned two youngsters drowning there twenty years or so earlier. Neither of those seemed to fit what the retired detective superintendent was talking about.
‘Who’s still in CID these days?’ Ramsay shook her head slightly. ‘No, you’re not CID any more, are you. All that nonsense with Police Scotland and the like. Glad I retired. Is Duguid still about? I heard old Mac Duff died of the cancer. And of course Needy went mad.’ She looked up at him as she spoke the last. ‘That was you, wasn’t it. Picked up that rock and found the nastiness living underneath it.’
‘Duguid retired a year or two back, but he’s working with us in the Cold Case Unit. He’s a lot easier to live with now he’s not in charge.’
Ramsay took a couple of steps back towards her wheelchair. She leaned one withered hand on the arm for support, but didn’t sit down. ‘Well, ask old Dagwood about his cold cases. Ask him about the ones out by Gladhouse and Penicuik. The ones that have got my name on them as SIO.’ She shook silently, and for a moment McLean imagined that it was her age wearing her down. But then he understood she was fighting back tears. She leaned too heavily on the wheelchair, its brakes not properly locked. He caught her as gently as possible as it began to slide away from her, but instead of thanking him, she shook him away. Tottered back to the table and lowered herself into the chair McLean had vacated minutes earlier.
‘Stupid bloody thing. Stupid bloody body.’ She shook as she rubbed at her eyes, smeared tears over her wrinkled cheeks. ‘Just when I need to be strong. Need to find my wee girl.’
A noise at the far side of the room distracted them both. McLean glanced across to see the door open and a nurse enter. She took one look at them and hurried over.
‘Goodness me, what’s happened here?’ She spoke like a mother to a young child, and McLean couldn’t help notice the way Ramsay stiffened at the words. Nevertheless she allowed herself to be treated in a manner Ramrod would never have suffered.
‘I’d best be going.’ He dipped his head to acknowledge the reprimand. ‘I’ll speak to Duguid as soon as I can. And we’ll find her, ma’am.’
‘You’ll try. I remember that much about you, McLean. Tenacious wee bugger, that’s what the other detectives used to say.’ Ramsay turned to face him as the nurse brought the wheelchair over to her. ‘Go. Go find my Anya. Or whatever’s left of her.’
25
Dawn came early at this time of year, but even so the light had that fresh, new quality to it as McLean pulled in to the car park at the south end of the reservoir and silenced the V6 burble of his Alfa Romeo. Stepping out of the car, he might have expected quiet, the plaintive cry of a curlew across the water perhaps, the distant gossiping of ducks. Instead he was greeted by the sound of a couple of dozen uniformed officers grumbling about the hour.
‘Come to help have you, sir?’ Grumpy Bob sauntered over, dressed in a lightweight coat against the morning chill that couldn’t hope to last, a bright orange bobble hat pulled down over the tops of his ears.
‘Thought I’d maybe give everyone a pep talk then bugger off. Isn’t that what DCIs are supposed to do?’ McLean popped the boot lid of the car and pulled out his walking boots. He’d found a Police Scotland fleece jacket for protection against thorns, and decided not to bring a hat, knowing full well that it would be sweltering before nine. All the same, he’d do his best to help with the search, and more importantly be seen to be helping.
Half of the station seemed to be waiting for their orders, kitted up and ready in the hidden car park. Three police Transit vans had brought them, along with as many uniformed officers from nearby Penicuik and Dalkeith as could be persuaded to take the overtime. Given the area they needed to cover, it didn’t make for as big a search party as McLean would have liked. Still, they gathered in a bunch around him, attentively quiet when he called.
‘For those of you who don’t already know, we’re here because one of our admin support officers went missing a few days ago, and her burned-out car was found here just yesterday.’ McLean glanced past the collected officers to the patch of ground darkened by the fire. Forensics had been and gone, but a few of their markers still lingered.
‘I’m sure some of you think you know why she was out here, but we’re not here to judge, only to gather whatever evidence we can find and hopefully the woman herself. Best guess is she’s out there in the woods somewhere. She may be injured, may be simply lost. It’s a big area and easy to lose your bearings. Your sergeants will explain the search pattern. Pay attention to them. I don’t want to lose any more officers, OK?’
That got him a few nervous laughs, which was perhaps better than no comment at all. ‘Right then. Sooner we get started the better. We’re looking for any sign of recent activity. If you see something and you’re not sure, then flag it with your sergeant. I’d far rather mark something and come back to it than miss it altogether.’
McLean left the gathered constables to find their maps and further instructions, heading over to the nearest Transit van, where Grumpy Bob had set up a base of operations. As usual, the detective sergeant had managed to find the only decent mug of coffee in the area and was guarding it like the Crown Jewels.
‘One of these days I’m going to pull rank on you, Bob.’ McLean pointed at the mug. Grumpy Bob swivelled in his seat, reached behind it and pulled out a disposable cup with a plastic lid on it. Not exactly environmentally friendly, but at that exact moment McLean found it hard to care.
‘You’ll need to hurry up then, sir. I’m retiring at the end of the month, remember?’
‘How could I forget?’ McLean took the cup, popped off the lid and sniffed the fine aroma from within. He took a welcome sip, then looked down at the map spread across a fold-out table. From his point of view it was upside down, but he could see easily enough the reservoir and the woodland spreading south into the hills. The scale of it didn’t fill him with much hope they’d find anything unless it was close by.
‘There’s a series of short paths through the woodland close by here. They’re marked with coloured posts, see?’ Grumpy Bob jabbed a fat finger at the narrow lines on the map, barely visible in the gloom of the car park. Then he pointed away from the van towards the trees. McLean hadn’t noticed before, probably because it was hidden by the fire engine, but now he could see a short wooden post with yellow, green and red bands painted around it at waist height. Beyond it, a gap opened up into the woods.
‘Has anyone walked the paths yet?’
‘PC Harker and his mates did yesterday, while the forensics team were here. Didn’t find anything, but we’ll walk them all again. Reckon the best thing we can do is transect the woodland between the paths first, see what we find. If there’s nothing, then we’ll spread the search further in blocks. If we don’t keep it systematic then we’ll be as lost as poor Anya.’
‘What about the dog team? They here yet?’
‘Over the far side of the car park. They’re not happy though.’
McLea
n looked in the direction Grumpy Bob had indicated, seeing the telltale ventilation fans on the tops of two vans.
‘They say why?’ he asked, then shook his head. ‘No, don’t worry. I’ll go speak to them myself.’
McLean remembered the dog team from the case over at the derelict Rosskettle lunatic asylum a few years back. Two highly trained cadaver spaniels had sniffed out rather more dead bodies than anyone had been expecting, including that of a recently deceased member of the Scottish Parliament who was supposed to have been lying in rest in the family mausoleum in the city. His abiding memory of the dogs was their focus and sense of purpose; they were disciplined and eager, but went about their work in silence until they found something. So it was with some surprise he heard whining from the first van, the occasional angry bark from the second.
‘Constable Brewster?’ He approached the nearest van, where a short woman was leaning around from the driver’s seat, trying to calm down the animal in the back. She started at his voice, then relaxed when she recognised him. With a gentle command to her charges to calm down, she climbed out of the car.
‘It’s no good, sir. I cannae get him to settle. Something’s no’ right here.’
‘DS Laird said there was a problem. What’s up?’
‘Wish I knew. They both started acting up soon as we pulled into the car park. Jim’s no’ had any better luck than me.’ Brewster hooked a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the second van, where another constable leaned in through the open rear door. Another couple of loud barks were followed by low whining.
‘Did DC Harrison bring you the clothes?’ McLean had asked the detective constable to fetch anything she thought might have Renfrew’s scent on it from the bungalow in Joppa.
‘Aye, she did. Pity it was all laundered. Something out of the dirty washing basket’s usually better. Thought we’d got something when the two of them set off up that path there.’ Constable Brewster pointed to a narrow opening between the rhododendron bushes. ‘Further up we got, the more nervous they were. Never seen anything like it. All they wanted to do was come back to the vans.’
‘Any idea what might have set them off?’ McLean wasn’t a dog person particularly, but he knew people, and he knew Brewster was equally embarrassed at her failure and concerned for the welfare of her animals.
‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say they’re afraid of something. Terrified even.’ She looked up and around the clearing, visibly shuddering. ‘Fair gives me the willies too.’
He knew what she meant. McLean wasn’t given to superstition, but there was something about the trees that pressed in on him, a niggling sensation at the back of his mind that he’d really rather be somewhere, anywhere, else. Some of the other officers clearly felt it too, although by no means all of them. He could tell by the way the waiting search teams had clumped into groups, some chatting noisily while they waited for the off, others standing quietly, faces glum.
‘Best get them away from here if something’s upsetting them.’ He turned back to Brewster, nodded at the van and its whining canine occupant. The constable’s tension eased at his words, although the look of worry and embarrassment stayed on her face.
‘I’m sorry, sir. Thought we’d be more help’n this.’
‘It’s no matter,’ he said, even though it was. ‘We’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way.’
26
Beyond the car park and the short network of paths, the woodland soon became a tangle of thick undergrowth and uneven ground. Sergeant Donaldson had warned them all, but as the day progressed McLean began to wonder whether he hadn’t been understating the difficulty of the terrain. In some places the leaf canopy blotted out almost all available light, and there the going was a little easier. Nothing about the search was remotely easy though. As the morning turned to afternoon and the sun rose higher in the sky, so the temperature began to rise too. It wasn’t long before McLean could see constables stripping off coats and tying them around their waists. Not exactly protocol, but neither was he going to make anything of it. He’d already unzipped his own fleece in a vain attempt to get some airflow, but the trees damped what little breeze there had been and the undergrowth snagged at everything. The air here grew increasingly thick and hard to breathe, the smells of the forest threatening to overwhelm them all.
‘To think I used to bike out here from the city. Up into the hills and on down to Heriot. For fun.’ McLean stood at the top of a steep bank, leaning against an ancient, moss-covered oak tree as he watched DC Harrison struggle up towards him. Her face was almost as red as the seats in his car, and sweat beaded on her forehead, her cheeks, a drip of it dangling precariously from the tip of her nose. She stared at him with a look he found hard to read, too breathless to comment as she finally reached the summit beside him.
‘Not sure I ever came through here exactly, but if memory serves there’s an old drover’s road about a mile west, a couple of abandoned bothies too. Someone must farm the moorland, own these woods.’
‘Lofty was going through the Land Registry records, sir. Looks like he made the better call, staying at the station.’ Harrison produced a water bottle from her pocket, drained about half of it then offered the rest to McLean. He shook his head even as he cursed himself for not coming better prepared. How the hell Renfrew could have come through here he had no idea, was beginning to suspect she hadn’t.
‘Chances are it all belongs to the Duke of Buccleuch, or someone like him. It’s more who actually lives here, works here, comes here regularly. They’re the ones we need to talk to.’
‘Aye, I know. It’s so quiet though. So remote. Who’d ’ve thought you’d find somewhere like this so close to the city.’
As if hearing her words, a shout of alarm broke the stillness. McLean started towards the sound, not far off at all. Either a constable had found something or they’d slipped and fallen down one of the many narrow gullies that criss-crossed the woodland. Harrison stopped him before he could move more than a pace.
‘One moment, sir.’ She reached into her pocket and pulled out a short piece of blue and white crime scene tape. The lowest branch on the tree was too high for her to reach, so she handed the tape to him. ‘Loop that over the branch so we know where we were, aye?’
McLean did as he was told, suppressing the urge to ask her if she’d ever been a Girl Guide. No doubt the sergeants running the search teams would have briefed everybody about this, and handed out tape at the same time. He’d been too busy chatting with Constable Brewster and the dog team at the time. And, besides, as a DCI he should know all that stuff anyway.
Half a dozen officers had converged on the source of the shout by the time McLean and Harrison arrived. A young female PC squatted by a half-rotted fallen log, and in front of her lay a small canvas carry-all not unlike the one Emma used as a handbag. The PC looked up as the group surrounded her, then stood and took a step back as she recognised McLean.
‘It’s exactly as I found it, sir. Haven’t touched anything.’
‘Good work, Constable. Get this place marked on the map.’ McLean pulled a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket as he turned to the other members of the search team. ‘You lot, spread out around this point, see if you can spot anything else.’
They did as they were told as he kneeled down beside the bag. It wasn’t big, and it felt almost empty as he picked it up. The top opened with a thin leather strap, unbuckled. Inside, he found a folding hairbrush, a small compact with ‘No. 7’ written on it, a lipstick in gaudy red, half a dozen police-issue latex gloves, a handful of condoms still in their wrappers, a packet of moist tissues and a small velvet eye mask of the kind you might wear to a fancy dress ball in a period drama. There was also a mobile phone. Lifting this last one out, McLean tapped at the button to turn it on, but it was as dead as the log under which the bag had lain. He went through the outer pockets for anything that might yield a clue as t
o who owned it. There were only a set of house keys, an electronic fob with a BMW logo on it and a small roll of cash. Nothing whatsoever to identify whose bag this was. That more or less confirmed it for him.
‘You think it’s hers?’ Harrison asked, squatting down beside him.
‘I think it is, yes. We need to get that phone to the IT team.’ McLean held up the keys. ‘And I’ve a suspicion Sandy Gregg’s going to tell me where the front door these unlock is soon enough.’
McLean left the complicated matter of electronically tagging the spot where they had found the bag to those officers more technologically savvy than him. DC Harrison had produced an evidence bag from her voluminous pockets, and he’d put their discovery inside it before the two of them cut a route back through the searched forest to the car park. When they arrived, Grumpy Bob still sat at his command post; the general overseeing his battle from well behind the front line. Police Sergeant Donaldson sat beside him, two time-served officers who knew how to avoid the hard work.
‘Heard you found something, sir.’ Donaldson had the decency to stand as they approached. Grumpy Bob took a little longer to rise out of his seat.
‘Not me. One of the constables from Penicuik, I think.’ McLean placed the evidence bag with its contents onto the table. ‘We’ll need to get this to Forensics pronto. Pretty sure it’s going to belong to Renfrew though. Quite far back into the woods too, which is a worry. No sign of anyone being dragged through there, so it looks like she must have dropped it.’
‘Aye. I was just marking things up here on the system, see?’ Alongside the map he’d been using earlier, Grumpy Bob now had a laptop set up, displaying something similar on the screen. It took McLean a moment to work out what he was looking at, as the scale was much smaller than the paper version. A couple of points hovered over the woodland, GPS locations of things of interest to the search. As he watched, a new one appeared. Marking the point where the bag had lain, he assumed. Grumpy Bob peered at the screen, then picked up a pen and drew a small circle on the paper map in roughly the same position. High-tech, indeed.
Bury Them Deep Page 14
