The Innocent Dead - Rhona MacLeod Series 15 (2020)

by Anderson, Lin

  At this point, Rhona heard Sean’s voice from the stage. Turning, he spotted her and threw her a surprised smile, before introducing their first performer of open mic night.

  Rhona didn’t have to be told that the young man who stood next to Sean was the real reason for Chrissy’s visit to the jazz club that evening.

  14

  It looked like Ollie in IT had done okay in the short space of time between receiving McNab’s email and his arrival in person at the Tech department.

  Some of the players in the Mary McIntyre story given to McNab by former DI McCreadie were listed on the computer screen for McNab’s benefit, together with what was currently known about them, dead or alive.

  DI Wilson had already retrieved the old physical files from storage but, according to the boss, they were incomplete. So McCreadie’s notebooks might just prove to be by far the best source of information on the case.

  It was from the first of them that McNab had pulled the family details, plus a list of suspects identified by McCreadie, which he had then forwarded to Ollie to check out. Handing over his current offering (or inducement) to Ollie of a large coffee and a Tunnock’s caramel wafer, McNab settled himself down to take a closer look at Ollie’s findings.

  First up was their possible victim, with the photograph published at the time of her disappearance. McNab saw a wee girl, slim, with long dark curly hair and a wide smile. She was eating an ice cream, with a beach behind her, on one of the few days in Scotland when the sun had shone.

  Her date of birth was 3 May, so she’d disappeared just two days short of her twelfth birthday. Ollie had also dug up a class photograph from her primary school. Those being the days of large classes, McNab had had to search for Mary among the many, eventually finding her in the middle of the second row from the front.

  There wasn’t a photo of the dad or the mum, just dates of their deaths. Dave McIntyre had died almost ten years to the day after his daughter had vanished. Her mother, Evelyn, had followed two years later. There were no details as to how they’d died.

  Two more photographs: one of Mary’s big brother, Robbie, who was fourteen when his wee sister went missing, and one of her sister, Jean, who was sixteen. You could see the family resemblance, despite Robbie’s scowl and Jean’s smile for the camera.

  Ollie, tucking into his caramel wafer, was watching as McNab scrolled down through the details he’d unearthed in the short period of time he’d been given.

  As McNab reached Robbie, Ollie added, ‘The brother has a criminal record. He went to Borstal for a spell, then prison for a short time. Both happened soon after Mary disappeared. Nothing on him since then. I’ve emailed you the details.’

  ‘And Jean?’ McNab said.

  ‘She married a Samuel Barclay two years after Mary went missing. As far as I’m aware, they’re still married and have two girls, now adults: Marianne and Lesley. Oh, and the good news is Jean and Sam Barclay’s current address is the family home in East Kilbride where Mary was brought up.’

  So I have at least one survivor to talk to, McNab thought.

  ‘The best friend, Karen Marshall. Nothing on her?’ McNab said, realizing he’d reached the end of Ollie’s search results. After what McCreadie had told him about the pal, McNab was very keen to know of her whereabouts.

  ‘Sorry, I haven’t got anything on her yet,’ Ollie said apologetically.

  ‘What about Karen’s dad?’ McNab said. ‘McCreadie said he was a detective constable at the time. There must be something in the records about him?’

  ‘I’m sorry. That’s as far as I’ve got.’

  Ollie was much too polite to say, ‘Fuck’s sake, I’ve only just been given the job’, although McNab read it from his expression.

  ‘So can we carry on looking?’ McNab made his request sound like a plea. ‘We could order in a pizza if you’re hungry.’

  When his offer was followed by a studied silence, McNab suddenly woke up to the fact that Ollie was keen for the off. Since he usually seemed to live in the IT suite pretty well permanently, this was unusual, to say the least.

  Then it dawned on him why Ollie might be so keen on leaving.

  ‘You’ve got somewhere important to be?’ McNab raised an eyebrow.

  When Ollie flushed, McNab gave a low whistle. ‘If you have a date, I sincerely hope it’s with the lovely Maria from the canteen?’

  ‘We’re going for a pizza,’ Ollie admitted.

  ‘So that’s why you blew me off? Well, don’t forget who introduced you two,’ McNab reminded him as Ollie rose in somewhat of a hurry now that he had been officially released.

  Watching Ollie exit, McNab smiled. Ollie had been helping Maria in the canteen for months with her digital devices, never cottoning on to the fact that she was only asking for help because she fancied him. Something McNab had set about fixing. And apparently it had worked.

  McNab congratulated himself on getting that relationship right. As for his own, it too was in fairly good nick for the moment. He checked his watch. Ellie was working tonight and he’d told her he would come to the Rock Cafe later and they could go home together. A date he didn’t intend to miss.

  He set the alarm on his mobile, just to be sure.

  After his earlier meeting with the boss, McNab now knew a little about DI McCreadie’s fall from grace. It hadn’t passed his notice that McCreadie’s story read a little like his own, although DI Wilson hadn’t put that into words. McNab had also picked up on the fact that McCreadie’s colleagues had believed him to have been hard done by.

  It appeared that the former DI’s departure had a smell about it that hadn’t gone away with time. Maybe it was just legend. Good cop versus bad cop, with a whiff of something rotten at the top, bearing in mind that they were talking about the world of the seventies, when paedophiles were being sheltered by the state, whether as famous disc jockeys, politicians, members of the upper echelons of society or even priests.

  McNab hoped times had changed, but he wasn’t yet convinced that they had.

  Something about the whole McIntyre story rang bells with McNab. Brought up by his single mum, the Catholic Church had been a big part of his life back when he was a boy, although he’d removed himself from its sphere pretty soon after adolescence.

  And the main reason for that had been Father Barry.

  True, he’d continued to act as though he was going to mass, for his mum’s sake, then walked round the block instead. He suspected his mother knew what he was up to. If nothing else, Father Barry probably ratted on him, but if he had, his mother never challenged her son about it.

  What remained from all that religion was a lasting memory of the power the Church had over people, and children in particular, especially via priests like Father Barry.

  As a ten-year-old from a single-parent family, he’d been taken on a free week’s holiday to the seaside with the priest. There had been eight boys in total, all between the ages of ten and twelve. They’d had a great time on the beach and in the amusement arcades. The Church had even presented them with pocket money for the trip.

  They were put up in a boarding house where the food was good and the woman who ran it unfailingly cheerful, despite having eight boys under her roof. They’d all slept together in a dormitory, and that was fine too. There was just one weird thing about it. At night, before they went to sleep, they were required to lie on their beds with their bare feet sticking over the end, so that Father Barry could inspect them in some detail.

  The excuse for this being, he didn’t want any smelly or dirty feet.

  At age ten, the idea that a priest had a foot fetish involving small boys would have seemed ridiculous if presented, although they’d all thought the practice strange and a little creepy too. But basically, if a foot inspection every night was required to avoid being sent home, then no boy in that room would have refused.

  But what if the required favour in order to stay had been something more than that? And maybe it had been, just not for him.
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  McNab had never mentioned Father Barry’s interest in small boys’ feet to his mum, because he somehow knew she would have been upset. And, after all, for him at least, it had gone no further than that. Later, he’d heard Barry had left the parish somewhat abruptly, having been transferred elsewhere. At that point his mum had questioned McNab about the priest and that holiday. By the worried look on her face, he’d wondered just why the priest had gone. Even then he hadn’t had the courage to tell the tale.

  The name following Karen’s father on the list was Father Joseph Feeney. McCreadie had been fairly cutting about the priest in his notes, so he was definitely worth checking out.

  McNab briefly contemplated doing a search for his own Father Barry, just to see what had happened to him, then decided against it when the alarm on his phone reminded him that it was time to depart.

  Having come to work on his Harley, he decided to leave the bike where it was and make his way to the Rock Cafe by other means. Ellie always went to work on her bike, so he could have a drink and she could run them back to the flat together.

  As he passed the desk, the sergeant called after him.

  ‘DS McNab. There was a guy in here earlier asking after you. I thought you were out.’

  ‘I was up in IT. Did he leave a name?’

  The sergeant handed him a slip of paper with a number on it. ‘No name, but he asked if you could give this number a call. A snitch, maybe?’

  McNab had built up a few informants over the years, but checking the number, he knew this wasn’t one of them. There was, of course, one way to find out who it was. He hesitated for a moment, then stuck the paper in his pocket.

  Whatever it was, it could wait. He had other non-police-related plans for tonight.

  When he arrived at the Rock Cafe, the row of motorbikes parked outside suggested it was as busy as usual.

  Heading downstairs, he stopped halfway so that he might observe Ellie in her place behind the bar. She had her hair up, so the tattoos that encircled her lovely neck were in full view. McNab knew every one of them by now in minute detail. Her skin was a story he loved to reread. For every picture painted, there was an accompanying story of why Ellie had chosen to be inked with that particular pattern.

  As for McNab, he had only one story and one tattoo . . . on his back, where a bullet hole had become the empty eye of a skull, and it had been Ellie who had been the one to ink him. It was the sweetest pain he had ever endured.

  Spotting him on the stairs, Ellie waved him over.

  ‘Just in time,’ she said, in a voice that suggested she might have been giving up on him. ‘I finish in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘I know,’ McNab said with a suggestive smile. ‘I left my bike at the station.’

  ‘So I’m running you home?’

  ‘I hope so, or else I’m walking.’

  ‘So what are you having?’

  ‘A single malt,’ McNab told her.

  ‘A bad day at work?’ Ellie said.

  McNab smiled. ‘Forgotten already.’

  ‘Is that a promise?’

  ‘It is,’ McNab reassured her.

  Seated at a table with his dram, curiosity got the better of McNab and he fished for the piece of paper the desk sergeant had given him and dialled the number. It rang out only once before a male voice said, ‘Is that Detective Sergeant McNab?’

  ‘It is,’ McNab said cautiously.

  ‘McCreadie told me to contact you. He says you’re working the Mary McIntyre case.’

  McNab’s ears pricked up at this. ‘Who am I talking to?’

  The caller skipped the name request, saying instead, ‘It’s about who killed wee Mary McIntyre.’

  In the seconds that followed, McNab contemplated the possibility that he had a nutter on the line who had not yet given his name but could somehow get in touch with a former DI who was now a crime writer.

  ‘Name?’ he demanded again.

  ‘Robbie McIntyre. We need to talk.’

  15

  Extracting herself from Sean’s arms, Rhona grabbed her dressing gown. Her sudden departure from the bed, she knew, had little chance of waking Sean.

  His untroubled and easy sleep was something she envied him for. It was said that to sleep well, it was better to sleep alone. That didn’t appear true for Sean, but it was for her.

  Sean always offered to go to the spare room after they’d had sex, knowing her sleeping habits very well. Last night Rhona hadn’t wanted him to desert her, and it had been obvious how much that had pleased him.

  The previous evening, her intention hadn’t been to stay late at the jazz club, but she’d become captivated by watching things develop between Danny, the young jazz guitarist, and Chrissy. Eventually, realizing just how late it was, she’d got ready to leave, only for Sean to offer to walk her home, if she would stay a little longer.

  Rhona had been intent on going over the notes she’d taken at the locus despite what she’d told Chrissy, but suddenly Sean’s company had seemed preferable to that. Perhaps it was the wine, or maybe because a faint sense of dread still beset her when she thought of entering the flat alone late at night.

  It was a feeling she’d hoped would eventually fade, and for the most part it had. But today’s excavation had stirred up such thoughts again. So she’d agreed to wait a little longer, had ordered up another glass of wine and had watched as Chrissy and her latest conquest left together.

  It had been, Rhona realized, like the night she’d first met Sean. Not a jazz fan herself, she wouldn’t have chosen to spend time in the club had it not been for Bill having his birthday party there. When the tall, dark-haired Irish musician had asked if he might join her at the interval, Rhona had gladly agreed, because she’d wanted them to get together as much as he obviously did.

  Rhona had discovered fairly soon after their first coupling that Sean’s way of dealing with the world was pretty much the polar opposite of her own. Chrissy said he was a keeper, but Rhona had never been certain of that. There was always a posse of available women with an eye for the saxophonist, and she had decided early on in their relationship that Sean was probably playing the field.

  Much like herself.

  Rhona definitely wasn’t looking for a life partner, and most of the time she liked to live alone. Despite this, Sean had always been there for her when she’d needed him most. Particularly during the sin-eater case.

  ‘So,’ Sean had said as they’d eventually headed out onto Ashton Lane. ‘What did you think of the open mic night?’

  There had been five participants, all probably good, but to Rhona’s ear, most jazz was impenetrable.

  ‘I liked Danny and his guitar the best,’ she’d said honestly. ‘And that’s nothing to do with Chrissy’s interest in him,’ she’d added with an amused smile.

  ‘I think it was definitely mutual.’ Sean had caught her eye at that point, reminding her, Rhona knew, of the evening they’d first met.

  They’d walked on then in companionable silence, crossing the wide tree-lined Kelvin Way still busy with groups of students, either heading home or perhaps only now going out for their evening’s entertainment.

  Entering the park, they’d made their way down towards one of the many bridges that crossed the River Kelvin on its way to its bigger sister, the Clyde. The surrounding trees, for the most part, were still awaiting the arrival of their summer foliage, but the scent of growing things, particularly after the rain, had been pungent. Rhona had stopped midway across the bridge.

  An underground tributary of the River Kelvin had saved her life during her incarceration, and she rarely traversed the park without offering a silent thank you to its swirling waters.

  ‘I heard on the news about the child’s body found buried on the moor,’ Sean had ventured as they’d started on their way again.

  ‘I can’t discuss it,’ Rhona had said shortly.

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to.’ There had been no rancour in Sean’s voice despite her sharp reply. ‘I ju
st thought that dealing with the scenario might have been difficult.’

  ‘All crime scenes are traumatic. Especially when a child is involved.’

  She hadn’t said unborn child, but that was what had been in her mind. And Sean knew her well enough to understand that.

  She’d turned away from him then to take back control of her feelings.

  That’s what it will always be between us, Rhona thought. Too much emotion. Too many memories.

  Before she could walk away though, Sean had encased her in his arms.

  ‘It doesn’t have to come between us, Rhona. Nothing does. Nothing will.’

  She’d turned and kissed him then, knowing they would end up in bed together, and by doing so, they might close the still-open wounds between them, for a short while at least.

  Now, on the threshold of the kitchen, Rhona halted for a moment. The remembered horror of what had happened there in her home had faded, aided by what Sean had done with the room during her absence on Skye. With the new colour scheme and new fridge, he had changed her much-loved room, just enough for it not to replay too many bad memories for her.

  Rhona filled the coffee machine, then set up her laptop, keen to look again at the evidence she’d gathered on the moor.

  Pouring herself a freshly brewed mug of coffee, she settled down to view all the images she’d taken on site, and the notes she’d recorded beside the grave.

  Two thoughts had come to mind in the interim, and the more she examined the images, the more she thought they might be pertinent. Rhona pulled up the notes she’d made while reading Jen’s report on the preservation of bog bodies.

  To preserve a bog body, specific acidic and oxygen-poor conditions must be present, thus allowing for the mummification of the body’s soft parts.

  Many other conditions must also be fulfilled in order to prevent micro-organisms from breaking down the human body.

  1) The corpse must be sunk in water or dug into the ground and covered quickly.

  2) The deposition of the body must occur when the bog water is cold, in the winter or early spring, otherwise the process of decay can begin.