Song of the Dead

by Douglas Lindsay

  We need to follow the money. Baden’s money, from twelve years ago. That’s another thing to add to the list. Might help us get somewhere. Fearful I’ll forget that by tomorrow morning, I take out my phone and leave myself a note for 9 a.m.

  I’m aware that it’s not out of the question that I might have to return to Tallinn. We don’t really know where this thing is going yet, so it could happen. I need to guard against trying to steer the investigation away from there, if it happens to be naturally moving in that direction. If I need to go, then I need to go. Perhaps Quinn would just save everyone the trouble and send Natterson.

  I’ve driven, taken the train, taken the ferry. There aren’t really any other ways to go that would get me there inside of a week and aren’t the plane. Even if I lived in London it might not be so bad. The extra length of Britain really adds to it. I start, absurdly, thinking of getting a ferry to Bergen and driving through Scandinavia, as though that might be quicker than speeding through Germany.

  I take out my phone and start to look on Google Maps, but there’s no point. You end up needing to get the Stockholm – Tallinn ferry or take the enormous drive round the Gulf of Bothnia between Sweden and Finland. It’s so long that I get fed up trying to persuade Google that I actually want to drive all the way round it and not jump on the first convenient ferry.

  If I have to go, the quickest way would be to drive back the way I came. I think of Dorothy, in her hotel bathroom, the water in the bath running red.

  29

  Into the office just before eight. Several calls to make, starting with Kuusk and the Embassy. They’re two hours ahead, so I won’t be waking anyone up or catching someone before they’ve kickstarted their day with coffee.

  Get through to Kuusk, after being passed around four different sections. Everyone I talk to speaks English.

  ‘Inspector, how are you?’ he says. Sounds happy to hear from me. ‘You got back to the UK all right? I hear you went by bicycle.’

  ‘Funny. I got here, that’s all that matters. How’s it going out your end? Will you need me to come back to sort everything out for you?’

  He laughs lightly.

  ‘I think you might find it is all sorted out by the time you got here, especially if you were going to walk.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Your Mr Baden does not tell us much we do not already know. Nothing new to add. But we find many things at the farmhouse. The main thing being a mass grave of young men. They’d all had their bodies harvested in exactly the way Mr Baden describes. They are being examined now, the ones that had not decomposed so much. They had surgical scars in the same places that Baden has them.’

  ‘So you think he was telling the truth?’

  ‘There are many truths, Inspector,’ says Kuusk unhelpfully, ‘but he certainly believes it to be true, and so it may well be.’

  ‘You know who these people were?’

  ‘Russians,’ he says, more or less spitting out the word.

  ‘Come on,’ I say, blundering into a centuries-old Eastern European feud, ‘really? Russians? Is that not just who you all want it to be?’

  ‘Remember who you are speaking to, Inspector. There are divisions in this country, definitely, I do not argue. But we know right from wrong. And if these people were our people, had they been Estonian, they would still have been hounded down, and they would have lived in shame. They would deserve nothing from us, regardless of their ethnicity. However, we know they are Russian. Many have told us about these people. They came into the nearest towns for food, various other supplies.’

  ‘No one suspected anything?’

  ‘We do not know exactly how long they have been there. Your man, Baden, he remembered being moved once, under blindfold. The place he ended up, the room he was in, was not so different. He wondered if they were just playing with his head, and had driven him around before taking him back to where he was before.’

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  ‘He was unable to say. The local police do not say much, Inspector. That is their way. If they had suspicions, if anything had been reported to them, they obviously did not act upon it. Perhaps they are embarrassed and are covering their tracks.’

  ‘What about Stepulov, what is she saying about it? I can’t imagine her letting them away with being embarrassed.’

  ‘She is spitting chickens,’ he says. I can’t stop myself laughing. Like one of those perfectly placed moments of slapstick in a serious drama.

  ‘Feathers,’ I say, followed by a quick apology. My Estonian isn’t so great after all.

  He laughs ruefully.

  ‘She is angry,’ he says. ‘But this is political now. We must balance these things. We decide who we accuse of what.’

  ‘You don’t want to pick a fight with the Russians?’

  A pause. No need to go there, although having thought of what he’s going to say he finally fills in the gap.

  ‘We are happy to pick fights, we just need to pick the right ones. They may decide that this is not the right one. We shall see.’

  ‘Of course.’

  The conversation drifts on. We get back on to the matter of body harvesting, and whether it’s ever really going to be that worthwhile keeping someone alive once you’ve taken the valuable parts. Indeed, wouldn’t it be more valuable harvesting all their organs and disposing of what’s left? Perhaps they did that with some, kept the others for bone marrow.

  There are no more answers, just speculation. I feel that the matter of the body harvesting farmhouse is going to be swallowed up in internal Estonian police politics. And I know that if I need their help to further our investigation at this end, I’ll only get it if it really suits them.

  * * *

  On to the British Embassy. Get straight through to the DHM, working on a Saturday morning, stressed and tired. Not even ten thirty their time, and he sounds like he’s had a long day already.

  ‘The place is reeling about Dorothy,’ he says. ‘And… well, of course, I’m going to have to answer questions about putting her in the car. Just couldn’t… felt like I had to come into work today. There’s always something to do.’

  ‘You did it for the right reasons,’ I say. ‘As you said to me yesterday, there’s nothing anyone could have done. She was lost to the world, for whatever reason. She was just… lost.’

  A pause. Gathering himself. He must be feeling awful. Stupid and awful. Even though I’d met him, I still had him down as a faceless government official. By that standard, I’d be the faceless police officer.

  Nobody’s faceless.

  ‘We should talk about Baden,’ I say to move the conversation on. ‘We need a strategy.’

  ‘Yes, of course… Has anyone come forward at your end? Does anyone even know?’

  ‘No, there’s been a complete lid on it. Very impressed that nothing’s leaked from your end.’

  ‘A small miracle in itself.’

  ‘The only family we’ve found is his mother. I spoke to her, and she was convinced he hadn’t died all those years ago…’

  ‘I thought she identified the body?’

  ‘She said it wasn’t her who made the identification. I chose not to tell her that he’d turned up. She’s constructed a nice world for herself, and I made the decision not to put too much strain on it just yet.’

  ‘Probably a good move.’

  ‘So, what would you people usually do with someone like this?’

  ‘Normally, we get the family to take care of things. We do have to tell people we don’t run a travel insurance company. Under the circumstances, though, I think the British taxpayer might understand us putting Mr Baden on a plane home. It’s where he’s going to go when he gets there, that’s the question. And the media.’

  ‘Why does there have to be media?’

  ‘There usually is,’ he says, ‘but then, we’ve got this far. Maybe we can get lucky. He might want the attention, sell his story, get him started back on his feet. I’m speaking to London, c
oming up with a strategy. Either way, he’s likely to be coming home tomorrow. My vice-consul’s going to fly with him.’

  As the DHM is talking, Constable Fisher stands across the desk from me, beside Natterson’s chair. She looks pale. Troubled. Not the usual sign of some emergency development in a case.

  I hold up a couple of fingers, and she nods, but does not move away. Stands still, staring at the floor.

  ‘OK, Kenneth, thanks for everything. We can speak again later today when you’ve got a bit more of an idea how things are going to play out.’

  ‘Will do, Inspector. Goodbye.’

  He doesn’t hang up straight away. The silence seems to exist so that words can be dropped into it.

  ‘Kenneth,’ I say, after a few moments.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You did what you could. All you’re guilty of was trying to help her. She was going to do this, regardless…’

  I can hear him swallow as my words run dry, stuck in my own remorseful throat. I can picture him, his head resting heavily on his right hand, and then the phone goes dead.

  I lay down the receiver with a great sense of unease. Then I look at Fisher, and realise that the awful feeling that has just enveloped me is not just because of the forlorn conversation with Kenneth. Fisher is lost somewhere, doesn’t look round when I hang up the phone.

  ‘Fish, what’s up?’

  She lifts her head. Swallows.

  ‘Inspector Natterson.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘There was an accident, just outside Nairn. Not far from the airport rou–’

  ‘–Is he all right?’

  ‘He’s dead, sir.’

  Her voice breaks. We stare at each other across the back-to-back desks. I realise the peculiar sound coming from the office is almost total silence. This time in the morning it would usually be bustling, and subconsciously I’d noticed it as I spoke on the phone. I glance round, see the shocked faces, look back at Fisher.

  Natterson. What age was he? Mid-thirties. I think of the last time I spoke to him, getting tetchy, walking away from him, him still being polite, as he always was, and me not bothering to turn round. A slight shake of the head to remove the thought, throw it away.

  As he always was… The thought was right there in my head. How quickly someone moves into the past tense.

  ‘Has anyone been to tell Ellen?’

  ‘Sergeant Sutherland thought the Chief Inspector might want to do it. He’s in with him now.’

  Swallow, deep breath. I thought that Dorothy had hit me hard, but this is much more real. Dorothy was a strange experience that came and went from my life. Nat was there every day, smiling and slightly awkward. Always helpful, always diligent, always good at his job. And always home in time to play with his kids before they went to bed.

  ‘How did… do we know, do we know what happened?’

  The thought finally starts to form. There’s already been a hit-and-run. He’s investigating a double murder – at least a double murder, for there’s so much we don’t know here – and now he’s dead in a car accident.

  ‘It wasn’t…’ she starts, then has to swallow and catch her breath. Takes a moment, swallows again, composes herself.

  ‘It was a student. The Nairn police have him now. He was coming the other way, was looking at his phone, changing the music, looked up to the blare of the Inspector’s car, as he’d drifted over onto the other carriageway. The Inspector swerved, the kid swerved the same way at the same time. Says he panicked. The cars hit each other head on. His airbag worked…’

  Another moment, another swallow, another couple of breaths to compose herself. The next sad horrible line speaks itself, words softly echoing through the dreadful, hollow space of the office.

  ‘The Inspector’s didn’t.’

  30

  Driving through to Aberdeen. Wasn’t this what I wanted? To be the guy investigating the historical aspects of the case? The thought of that, and of the death of Natterson, sits like a dead weight in the pit of my stomach.

  A couple of people to see at the university, but first I’m going to doorstep the former Mrs Rosco in Aviemore. I don’t know whether Natterson called her, and neither did Sutherland. There’s a fifty-fifty chance she’ll not be there, but if I call to say I’m coming, I’d think the odds would drop dramatically.

  I’m glad I’m not taking the A96, through Nairn and Forres. I don’t know whether the road’s been cleared or not, but can’t bear the thought of going past the spot where Natterson died. His car might well still be there, one lane cordoned off, traffic filing by in mournful, rubbernecking procession. Can’t stand the thought of it. Fortunately I’m on the low road, south to Aviemore.

  I keep thinking about Quinn turning up on Ellen Natterson’s doorstep. Her in the kitchen, baking with the kids. Having a laugh. In my head, every moment in that house was happy. How would I know otherwise? So, there would have been no shouting, no tense words, just a regular domestic scene, mother and daughters amusing themselves, not even a TV playing in the background, and then the doorbell goes.

  Ellen goes to answer it, flour in her hands, wiping them on her apron, or maybe in the nearest dish-towel she could grab, and she opens the door, blowing a loose hair off her face. And there he is. Quinn. The Chief Inspector. The face of Death. And she knows. He doesn’t even need to say anything.

  There’s the moment of shock, and then immediately her maternal instinct kicks in. She glances over her shoulder. She can see into the kitchen, where the younger of the kids is playing with flour and making a mess, while the other is very studiously stirring the eggs into the mix, her tongue sticking slightly out of her mouth.

  That’s the moment. The moment that will never leave her.

  She steps forward, she closes the door behind her, and she hears the news from the Chief Inspector while standing outside on her front step.

  * * *

  Get out the car, look around. An estate of new houses, tightly packed together, like commuters squeezing onto a platform, though the houses are big. Whatever she’s doing now, whoever she lives with, Mrs Rosco is a hell of a lot better off than her ex-husband. I wonder if she still insists that he pays her some meagre alimony.

  Up to the front door, ring the bell. Look back over my shoulder. This visit is, of course, entirely speculative, and I really doubt that I’m going to get anything useful from it, but if I am, then it’ll be as a result of keeping Mrs Rosco onside. Have to be straightforward and non-confrontational.

  The door opens, and I turn back. A woman in her late thirties, long dyed blonde hair, thin face. Something unattractive about her, made all the more unattractive by the make-up and the hair, which are a vain attempt at something that isn’t naturally there.

  Listen to me; Gok Wan. I hold out my ID.

  ‘Inspector Westphall, from Dingwall.’

  She stares at the ID for longer than is necessary, possibly contemplating telling me where to go, then finally looks up.

  ‘Rosco dead, is he?’

  It had occurred to me that that was going to be her first thought.

  ‘No, saw him yesterday. He was fine. Sober.’

  She nods grudgingly, stands for another few seconds as though contemplating closing the door in my face, then says, ‘Suppose you’d better come in.’

  She steps back, lets me enter and closes the door behind me. The house is big enough that it has a small central hallway, with stairs up the middle and rooms off either side. She nods to me to go into the sitting room, then follows behind. A large, bright room, can see through to a dining room behind. Television on the wall, a couple of sofas and a single chair. Not much decoration. It all looks sleek and simple and expensive.

  If I ever have this kind of money, I think I’d spend some of it on not living so close to other people.

  ‘Cup of tea?’

  I usually say no, but have decided that this is an interview that will go better if it’s eased into.

  ‘Milk, no su
gar, please.’

  A few minutes later, we’re sitting opposite each other, a sofa each, both of us with a mug of tea in our hand. I noticed the complete lack of sound while I was waiting for her. Total silence. Barely a car outside, not a clock ticking, if there’s a plane overhead or so much as a bird, the noise is excluded.

  She was safe leaving me alone in the room, as there was literally nothing for me to look at. Not a book, not a DVD, not a magazine, not a photograph.

  ‘So what’s Rosco done this time?’ she asks.

  ‘I wasn’t lying,’ I say. ‘I spoke to him yesterday. He was fine. On his way to work. Dry…’

  She makes a small rueful noise, puts the mug back to her mouth.

  ‘You look miserable enough that you might be here to tell me he’s dead,’ she says, ‘although presumably you wouldn’t presage that with how well he was yesterday.’

  ‘I know this was round about the time you got married. Just before it, so maybe you knew each other already.’ Feel like I’m rambling. ‘I need to ask you about a case Rosco had in Estonia.’

  Watch for the expression, but there’s nothing more than a slightly guarded shadow in her eyes.

  ‘It’s come back in one way or another.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him?’ she says, then she nods in answer to her own question. ‘Of course, you already did. That’s why you’re here. He’s not talking.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I never knew anything about his cases, so I’m not sure what I’ll be able to tell you.’

  ‘I don’t need to know about the case. It’s more about Rosco. Maybe… I mean, it’s a long shot, in case there’s something you can remember that strikes a chord in some way.’

  ‘OK, go on. What do you know?’

  Think again about how to put it. I should have been thinking more as I drove down. Basically I’m asking a fairly personal question about their marriage, and I’ve no idea how it still affects her. Some people, ten years later, would have moved on and wouldn’t care. Others, not so much. Not so much moving on.

  ‘Looking at his file… he seemed to change after that case in Estonia. That’s how it looks. Pretty decent officer before then, not so good, sliding into… becoming terrible over the ensuing years. I need to know what it was about that case. Although the tribunal found a variety of things to say about him throughout his career, it was bogus. A lot of it… you know, it’s like when the press discover one story, and then suddenly find all these other stories that are similar to try to make some sort of a thread.’