The Innocent Dead - Rhona MacLeod Series 15 (2020)

by Anderson, Lin

  ‘What if it was a stranger?’ Chrissy said. ‘Paedophiles like Robert Black stalked their victims all over the UK.’

  Rhona had considered that too. But how would a complete stranger know about the confirmation or the fact that Mary was going to the den, when she should have been at the school with the other newly confirmed kids? This felt closer to home. She told Chrissy so.

  As for the blue jumper she’d found in Karen’s attic, if it was part of Mary’s missing outfit, how had Karen come by it?

  ‘And so we come round to Karen again,’ Chrissy said.

  ‘We have Karen’s toothbrush from the cottage, so we’ll soon have her DNA,’ Rhona said. ‘At least then we can establish if she was the other wearer of the dress.’

  ‘You’ll have to watch your time,’ Chrissy reminded her. ‘The autopsy’s at two o’clock.’

  ‘I’ll set an alarm,’ Rhona promised.

  50

  The screen was divided into half a dozen different images, so fuzzy that to McNab’s mind the CCTV footage might not even contain humans, let alone ones he might recognize.

  ‘These are all from the city centre,’ Ollie told him. ‘One in a corner shop, a cafe, in the queue for Greggs, the rest in various streets. She’s in them all.’

  ‘Where?’ McNab said, narrowing his eyes as if that would make any difference.

  Ollie patiently went through all the images, pointing specifically at the figure he claimed was Karen Marshall.

  ‘This woman ought to have been a spy. She’s practically invisible,’ Ollie said, sounding impressed. ‘It’s as though she knows no one is aware of her existence, even a security camera. She’s hiding in plain sight.’

  In plain sight. McNab remembered someone else from his past who had been hiding in plain sight during the Stone-warrior case. Eventually McNab had realized that, but it had taken too long and cost more than one life.

  ‘You’re telling me Karen Marshall is alive?’ he checked.

  ‘She was alive until late afternoon yesterday.’

  ‘Nothing from last night or today?’

  ‘Not so far.’ Ollie took a bite from the iced doughnut McNab had brought him.

  So Karen Marshall wasn’t dead or in the hands of a kidnapper after the scene at Rowan Cottage. At least until twelve or so hours ago. McNab tried to take this as a positive, though a lot could have happened in those missing hours.

  Ollie continued, ‘Also, I think there’s something wrong with her left arm. Look –’ he pointed again to the screen – ‘she’s holding it oddly.’

  ‘We think she was injured in the cottage,’ McNab said. ‘A knife wound, perhaps self-inflicted.’

  Ollie nodded. ‘That could be it. But there’s something else about these images.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Both in the queue and the cafe, there’s a guy, the same guy, in the background of the footage.’

  ‘Show me,’ McNab demanded.

  ‘He has his back to us, so I can’t show you his face, but I can recognize, as you know, more than just faces.’ Ollie indicated who he was on about, prompting McNab to go through his peering routine again.

  ‘His stance is the same.’ Ollie endeavoured to explain his reasoning. ‘The set of his shoulders, the form of what we can see of his body. He’s tall, maybe close to six feet, and he’s not young, not by the clothes he wears and the way he moves.’

  ‘What age?’ McNab said, desirous of something more concrete.

  ‘Over fifty,’ was all that Ollie would offer.

  ‘Where were these sightings?’

  Ollie showed him the locations on the street map.

  ‘So he could just live or shop in that area?’

  ‘He could,’ Ollie agreed, ‘but . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘I spend a lot of my time “recognizing” people. I can tell if they’re in the scene for a purpose. Stalkers in particular.’

  ‘And you think the purpose here may have been Karen Marshall?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And we have no shots of his face at all?’

  Ollie shook his head. ‘I’ve gone through a lot of footage of the city centre and found none.’

  As a detective, McNab would have called it a hunch. In Ollie’s case, it was something more. As a super recognizer, he was rarely wrong, but without a face that folk could identify, it didn’t really help them.

  Still, the guy in the images might just be an ordinary punter whose interest in Karen came from seeing her on the police appeal.

  Or something more threatening than that, a small voice told him.

  ‘So we keep checking for Karen from last night and throughout today. And for her stalker.’

  Ollie nodded his agreement. ‘Now for the lorry guy,’ he said.

  They’d tried the mobile number Eleanor Jackson had given them, to no avail. Mrs Jackson could have messed up the number. Perhaps even on purpose, by switching a couple of digits. After all, she’d been pretty pissed off by the end of the interview.

  Ollie brought up a photograph. ‘This is an Eric Jackson, long-distance lorry driver with—’ He quoted a company name. ‘He’s been doing that for a while. Forty years or so with various firms. Initially in the UK and Ireland, then abroad.’

  McNab studied the image, which looked like a recent passport photograph, all washed out, with staring eyes and definitely no smiling permitted. Jackson didn’t look like anyone you might welcome into your country. McNab suspected his own passport photo would fall into the same category.

  Ollie continued, ‘Mr Jackson can be away from home frequently and for long periods, as his wife stated. He isn’t, however, out of the country on a job at this particular moment in time.’

  ‘You’re telling me she lied?’ McNab said sharply.

  ‘Not necessarily. Maybe his schedule got changed or he came back earlier than expected,’ Ollie suggested.

  ‘Or maybe she didn’t want us talking to him,’ McNab offered a different explanation. ‘You’ve tried making contact again?’

  Ollie nodded. ‘With no success.’

  ‘But he is in the UK?’

  ‘According to his company, he is.’

  Maybe the marriage of forty-four years wasn’t as perfect as they’d been led to believe, McNab thought. He recalled the anger Eleanor Jackson had shown at, as she put it, the dragging up of things from the past. The way in which Mary’s disappearance had broken up families.

  Eleanor Jackson had never explained why she’d hadn’t kept in contact with her younger sister, but she’d alluded to the disappearance of Mary McIntyre as being connected to it.

  McNab thought back to his reading of McCreadie’s interview with Eleanor as a sixteen-year-old. She’d sounded like a stroppy teenager, duly pissed off that her life had been disrupted by the disappearance of a girl who she didn’t even like and who she believed was simply hiding to get attention. And that may well have been the case. Mary had crossed her dad and his belt threat a few times, according to her sister, Jean. Even Jean had considered the possibility – or false hope – that Mary would suddenly appear, safe and well.

  Would he like to be reminded about some of the things he’d said or done aged sixteen? Back when he thought being handy with a chib was a useful skill on the road to adulthood?

  That was a question that didn’t need answering.

  Plus it had come from McCreadie’s notes. A crime fiction guy. Who was to say it wasn’t fiction he was writing back then too? If it was, then no wonder Eleanor Jackson was so angry about it.

  Something had happened to the Marshall family that had made them move house and split up. And that something seemed to rest with their youngest daughter, Karen. Maybe that was why Eleanor didn’t want anything more to do with her sister.

  What was it Robbie McIntyre had said? We were as happy as any other family on that street.

  McNab checked the time. Robbie McIntyre would be coming in shortly. He’d rung the station as soon as he’d hea
rd from his sister Jean about the death of Alec McLaughlin.

  McNab had a few questions for Robbie too. Regarding McLaughlin’s musings. Plus the interesting fact that it had been Robbie who’d been McLaughlin’s alibi for Mary’s disappearance.

  51

  She was dreaming. Either that or she was dead.

  She was running towards the den because Mary was waiting there for her. They would be together again. She would say she was sorry. She would make amends. Her sins would be forgiven. She couldn’t bring Mary back to life, but she could join her in death.

  But just as she ran faster and faster, a figure stepped out to stop her.

  A man whose voice sounded familiar, although it came from long, long ago.

  Then she was back at the wedding, watching, waiting. She wasn’t wearing the white dress her sister had wanted her to put on. Her mother and sister had pleaded with her, shouted at her, threatened that she wouldn’t go to the wedding at all unless she wore that dress.

  Then she’d screamed at them the reason why she wouldn’t wear the bloody dress.

  Her shocked mother’s face floated in front of her. Eleanor’s voice called her a liar. After that they’d retreated and her father had been called.

  Sending the two women away, he’d come and sat beside her on the bed.

  ‘It’s because of Mary, isn’t it?’

  It was, but not the way he thought.

  She wanted to tell him everything, but horror and shock closed her throat again.

  The dream, for it was a dream, abruptly ended there and her eyes sprang open to darkness. She was lying somewhere in the dark. Her searching fingers touched something soft and Karen realized she was in a bed.

  Was it her bed? Was she back in Rowan Cottage?

  She reached out for Jack, but of course he wasn’t there.

  He would never be there again.

  She dragged herself up and cried out in pain as her left wrist buckled under her.

  She was hurt. Why was she hurt?

  An image appeared, shocking in its power. She was ducking as the crow flew at her, cawing, its claws catching in her hair. The knife, already in the act of slicing her wrist, clattering into the sink. Then the spray of blood like a filigree fan. She smelled metal, tasted it on her lips.

  The bird wouldn’t let go. Wouldn’t let her pick up the knife again. Wouldn’t let her finish the job.

  So she’d run outside, flailing, trying to get free of the crow. She was running along the path and then . . . nothing . . . until the woods and Jack’s grave. And what he’d reminded her of.

  The innocents.

  What had she been planning to tell the police? Who had killed Mary? But she didn’t know. Or she couldn’t be sure.

  But you suspect, a small voice said. You suspect you know.

  I was a child, she heard herself repeat. I didn’t understand what was happening. I didn’t know.

  A line of light appeared in the darkness and Karen realized a door had just opened. Someone was here with her, but who?

  A voice spoke her name.

  So it was him. He was here.

  52

  Robbie – or Robert – didn’t look as good as the last time they’d met. In fact he looked terrible. McNab realized he was gazing at a mirror image of himself when he’d last been on a bender, which he was glad to say had been some time ago.

  ‘So someone killed the old bastard,’ Robbie said. ‘And not before time. How did the fucker die? I hope it wasn’t quick?’

  ‘Where were you last night?’ McNab said.

  ‘With my partner, having too much to drink, as you can tell from my demeanour. Can’t hold it the way I could when I was younger.’

  ‘So you have an alibi,’ McNab said. ‘Just like the one you supplied for Alec McLaughlin forty-five years ago.’

  Robbie’s face shifted through a series of emotions.

  ‘Why did you do that? Protect McLaughlin?’ McNab said.

  Robbie came back at him immediately. ‘I told the truth. McLaughlin didn’t take Mary. He couldn’t have. He was a creep, but he had no access to a vehicle. The priest did. Father Feeney had a van, owned by the parish. That van was at the chapel. Mary was at the chapel and she disappeared from there.’

  ‘So Alec didn’t see you having sex with a male in the woods?’

  Robbie stared at him, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘It wouldn’t matter if he had. He was there so he didn’t take Mary.’

  ‘This guy you were with?’

  ‘I told McCreadie where I was and who I was with. He wasn’t a suspect.’

  It couldn’t have been easy back then to give McLaughlin that alibi, knowing that McLaughlin could well report Robbie for what he’d been witness to. Robbie had been a minor at the time, which had made what he was doing doubly illegal in the Scotland of 1975.

  Robbie had told McCreadie the truth back then, even though it had been dangerous for him to do so. So why would he lie now?

  ‘Okay,’ McNab said. ‘Write down the full details of where you were last night and who saw you there, and sign it.’

  As he rose to go, he felt his mobile vibrate in his pocket. Without reaching for it, he said, ‘One more thing. What do you remember about Eric Jackson?’

  ‘Eric who?’ Robbie said.

  ‘Eleanor Marshall’s boyfriend at the time.’

  Robbie looked lost by the request. ‘Eleanor had loads of guys after her. She was a looker. I don’t remember any of their names.’

  McNab left Robbie to it, fairly certain he’d had nothing to do with dispatching McLaughlin. Once outside, he checked his mobile to find a missed call from the man he’d just been talking about. Smart McCreadie.

  Did he have time for Mr Fiction to pump him for some more police info, or alternatively to be handed a small clue at a time of J. D. Smart’s choosing?

  McNab swithered and then came down on the side of any further information being always welcome, whoever it came from.

  ‘Detective Sergeant. Thanks for getting back to me. I really appreciate it.’

  ‘What’s up?’ McNab said cautiously.

  ‘Can you spare the time to come up to Stirling?’

  ‘Not really,’ McNab said. ‘As you can imagine as a former detective, we have our hands full here.’

  ‘Yes, I heard about Alec McLaughlin.’

  McNab didn’t ask how he’d heard, since he was aware McCreadie had a network of probably more informants within Police Scotland than Chrissy.

  ‘I’ve asked Professor Pirie to come, and Marge, Karen Marshall’s friend from the Raploch cafe.’

  McNab felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. Why the gathering? Was there something he was missing?

  ‘I’m in regular touch with Professor Pirie,’ McNab said, almost truthfully. ‘Can he inform me about whatever you’re discussing?’

  ‘It’s better if you learn this first-hand.’

  McCreadie’s insistence was beginning to jar. ‘I believe I’m of more use here,’ McNab told him.

  As he was on the point of killing the call, McCreadie’s voice broke in again.

  ‘Please, DS McNab, this is vitally important.’

  ‘But not so important that you can’t come to Glasgow?’

  A moment’s silence, then, ‘I can’t leave her alone in the house.’

  ‘Can’t leave who alone?’ Was he jabbering on about his housekeeper?

  ‘I have Karen Marshall here, but she’s in a poor way.’

  McNab was almost speechless. ‘You have apprehended Karen Marshall, without informing the police?’

  ‘I have just informed you. She’s agreed to see Professor Pirie and Marge. She is in a poor state mentally and physically, and very frightened by the prospect of the police. However, I think she’ll respond to you, especially since you and Professor Pirie work so closely and well together. Hence the call.’

  McNab didn’t believe the last part of his pretty speech. As for the rest . . .

  ‘I’ll be th
ere as soon as I can,’ McNab said and cut the call.

  McCreadie’s announcement still ringing in his brain, he went in search of Janice, finally locating her in the canteen with a mug of tea and one of the ring doughnuts Ollie liked so much. He ordered a large black coffee and joined her.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she said, spotting his fraught expression.

  McNab led with the news that wasn’t freaking him out.

  ‘I’ve spoken to Robbie McIntyre, who came in after hearing about McLaughlin,’ he told her. ‘He’s writing down what we talked about. Can you check on him and let him go? Unless, of course, you have anything you want to ask him yourself?’

  ‘He has an alibi for last night?’ Janice said.

  ‘Out drinking with his partner. He looked like that was true.’

  ‘You get which places they drank in?’

  ‘He’s supplying a list,’ McNab said.

  ‘So that’s not what you’re pissed off about?’

  ‘McCreadie says he’s found Karen Marshall.’

  ‘That’s good news, isn’t it?’ Janice sounded bewildered by his reaction.

  ‘He’s keeping her at his place. Smart says she’s only willing to speak to the Prof and her pal Marge. Not the police.’

  ‘But you’re going anyway?’

  ‘According to McCreadie, I’m to blend into the background and await further orders.’

  Now Janice could see where the annoyance came from. ‘That doesn’t sound like you,’ she laughed.

  McNab realized she’d been doing that a lot today. Must be the engagement, he decided. Seeing he wasn’t going to rile Janice regarding Smart’s capture of their prime witness, he changed the subject.

  ‘So we’re still on for a drink tonight?’

  ‘I’ll have to check with Paula first.’

  ‘About what? Me or the drink?’ he joshed.

  ‘Oh, she’s well keen to finally meet you,’ Janice said with yet another laugh.

  McNab retreated at that point, wondering if meeting his partner’s significant other was a great idea after all. On his way to the bike, he considered inviting Ellie tonight as his own significant other. Although asking Ellie to an engagement drinks party might not be a good idea. Plus there was no guarantee that she would act as an ally.