Sacrifice

by Sharon Bolton

  Dana had also mentioned terminations, but that made little sense. Terminations are available everywhere in the UK; why on earth would significant numbers of women travel all the way to Tronal for what they could get in their hometown?

  If only I could go with Helen to Tronal. I’d know the questions to ask, be able to spot anything that didn’t fit, far better than she could. But it was impossible; if any sort of trial came out of all this, I would be a key witness. I couldn’t keep interfering in the official investigation.

  I started going through the list one more time.

  The first thing that jumped out at me were those blessed initials. KT. Keloid Trauma: problems arising from previous perineum scarring. I flicked to another screen and typed ‘Keloid Trauma’ into the Google search engine. Nothing, but the term had been coined to describe a condition particular to Shetland so maybe it hadn’t yet made it on to the world wide web. I went into the hospital archives and ran a similar search. Nothing. I started checking all the KT entries again. First of April, a baby boy, born on Papa Stour. Then, on 8 May, another boy, born here at the Franklin Stone. On 19 May, a third boy – of course, they were all boys. But the sex of the baby couldn’t possibly have an impact upon perineum scarring, could it? On 6 June, Alison Jenner had had a little boy on Bressay; later in June another delivery at the Franklin Stone.

  Hang on a minute. That name meant something. Alison Jenner. Where had I heard that before? Jenner, Jenner, Jenner. Shit, it had gone.

  Stephen Renney was in his windowless office, eating a sandwich and drinking Fanta from a can. He sensed me standing in his doorway, looked up and then started making those slightly embarrassed, fidgety movements we all make when we’ve been caught eating alone. As though eating were some sort of not-quite-respectable indulgence instead of the most natural thing in the world.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, giving the time-honoured response, and looking slightly embarrassed myself, as though I’d caught him on the loo.

  ‘Not at all,’ he responded, ridiculously forgiving me. He stood up, motioned to a chair. I took it.

  ‘I wanted to ask you something. About Dana Tulloch.’

  His forearms were on the desk and he leaned forward. I could smell tuna fish on his breath.

  ‘Mr Gifford said you’d found no traces of any sort of drug in her system and—’

  ‘Miss Hamilton . . .’ He leaned forward some more and I tried not to back away; it smelled as though he’d been eating cat food.

  ‘I know you can’t discuss specifics with me and I really don’t want to put you in a difficult position, but—’

  ‘Miss Hamilton—’

  ‘Please, just give me a second. I’ve been speaking to an anaesthetist friend of mine this morning. She mentioned some drugs that would incapacitate someone but that wouldn’t normally be tested for in a post-mortem. I just wondered if you—’

  ‘Miss Hamilton.’ Stephen Renney had raised his voice. ‘I didn’t carry out Miss Tulloch’s post-mortem.’

  ‘Oh!’ I said. Had Gifford mentioned Stephen Renney or had I just assumed?

  ‘I’ll get a copy of the report, of course, but I don’t think it’s come through just yet. I can check for you.’

  ‘So who did?’ I demanded, manners out the window.

  He frowned at me. ‘I never actually saw Miss Tulloch. She was only here for a couple of hours and I was in meetings. She was taken to Dundee. I understand her next of kin, a policewoman, requested the transfer. The PM was carried out in Dundee.’

  ‘Of course, I’m sorry.’ Helen hadn’t mentioned it, but there was no real reason why she should. It certainly made sense that she’d want Dana’s post-mortem to be carried out by people she knew and trusted.

  ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’

  Well, I know a dismissal when I hear one. I shook my head, thanked him again and left.

  Back in my office there was an email from Gifford asking for my help in theatre that afternoon. He had a full list himself and a patient with a ruptured appendix had been admitted that morning. It would save him rearranging his list if I could do it. I’m not qualified for general surgery but the appendix was well within my region of expertise. I checked my messages – one from Duncan, the rest all non-urgent – and went down to theatre.

  The patient was a thirty-year-old male, fit and healthy. I opened him up, fumbled around for a few minutes and removed the offending piece; swollen like a drum, no wonder he was in pain. Just as I finished closing and the patient was being wheeled out to recovery, Gifford came in. He was still gowned up and his gloves were covered in blood. I glanced down. So were mine. The other staff had left theatre and we were alone. He unhooked his mask from one ear.

  ‘Will you have dinner with me?’

  I left my mask in place. ‘When?’

  He shrugged. ‘Tonight?’

  I managed to look him straight in the eye. ‘How kind. I’ll see if Duncan’s free.’

  He reached out and took the mask from my face. As he did so, his gloved fingers brushed my cheek and I couldn’t help the shudder. He saw it, of course.

  ‘I’ll ask again.’

  I wondered if I had blood on my face. ‘I’ll email you the hospital’s policy on sexual harassment.’

  He laughed. ‘Don’t bother. I wrote it.’

  He stood still for a moment, looking at me, and from beneath the harsh, antiseptic smells of theatre came a scent so warm and familiar it made me want to step closer, breathe it in, catch hold of his clothes and press them to my face. Then he turned and left and the scent was gone. I found I was shaking. The scrub nurse came back into the room and started collecting up instruments. I thanked her and left, praying I wouldn’t bump into Gifford on the way back to my room.

  I spent an hour on the wards, then decided to check on my appendix patient. He was awake but drowsy. His wife sat by his side, his young son, about fifteen months old, perched on the edge of the bed. His mother held him with one hand, his father with the other, and he bounced gleefully. It can’t have been comfortable but if my patient wasn’t objecting, neither was I. I checked him out, aware that something at the back of my mind was nagging me, and agreed he could go home the next day if he got plenty of rest.

  I stopped by the canteen, bought a chocolate muffin and carried it back to my room. I made fresh coffee, sat down at my desk – and remembered.

  The family group: the appendix patient, his wife and baby son. I knew who Alison Jenner was. She was Stephen Gair’s second wife, the woman who was step-mum to his son by Melissa.

  So why the hell was her name on the list of Shetland births? She hadn’t given birth; Melissa had. Stephen Gair had admitted that his son, Connor, was Melissa’s child. How could Alison’s name be included on a list of women who had delivered that summer? And why did her entry include the KT reference?

  I found the list and checked, just in case I’d been mistaken. There she was. Alison Jenner, aged forty, gave birth to a little boy, 8lbs 2oz, on 6 June. Surely that couldn’t be coincidence, it had to be the same woman. OK, think! The Gairs only had one child. So, either Stephen Gair had been lying about Connor being Melissa’s – and why the hell would he? – or the entry must be referring to Melissa’s son.

  I double-checked the number of entries with the KT initials after them. There were seven that summer. I pulled up the corresponding list for the subsequent period, from September 2005 through February 2006. Couldn’t see anything. Then I went back, to the previous winter. Nothing. I went back again, to the summer of 2004. No KT entries. I kept on going back until I spotted them again. In summer 2002 there were five entries with KT after them, born in various centres around the islands, all baby boys.

  A tightness was forming in my chest as I went further back, examining whole years at a time. 2001 was clear; so was 2000. In the summer of 1999 there were six KT entries. Boys.

  I wanted to switch off the computer, get into my car and drive home, collect the horses and ride for miles along the
beach. Better still, run up to Kenn Gifford’s office, lock the door and take off every stitch I was wearing. Anything to take my mind off what was now staring me in the face.

  I stayed where I was and I brought up more screens.

  I went back to 1980 and that was enough. The pattern was unmistakeable. Every three years, between four and eight baby boys had their deliveries recorded as KT.

  Every three years, the female death rate on Shetland made a modest but unmistakeable blip. The following summer, some unusual little boys were born. KT; it had nothing to do with Keloid Trauma, that was a smokescreen, the condition probably didn’t even exist. KT stood for Kunal Trow.

  I flicked back, faster and faster, to the earliest year the computerized records showed. They began in 1975. I needed to go further back.

  I stood up, on legs that felt none too steady, and walked as fast as I dared along the corridor to the service lift. It arrived within two minutes and – by some miracle – was empty. I pressed B for basement and went down.

  The floor seemed empty. I followed the signs and walked down a corridor lit by occasional electric bulbs. Several had blown. As I walked, I looked out for switches on the walls. I did not want to find myself trapped in pitch-blackness down here, scrambling around for switches that didn’t exist.

  I reached the end of the corridor. Most hospital archives are a mess and these were no exception. They were housed in three basement rooms. I pushed the door of the first. Darkness. I felt around on the wall for a light switch. The room sprang into a grimy light. I could feel the dust in my throat. Everything was in large, brown cardboard boxes, stacked several high on steel shelving. The labels were mostly turned to the front. I walked along the shelves, keeping one eye firmly on the open door. I doubted these rooms were visited more than a couple of times a year. If a door slammed shut, locked from the outside, Tora could say hi to a pleasant few days of starvation and terror.

  I didn’t find obstetrics and opened the door to the second room. Same layout as the first. This time I wedged the door open. In the third row I found them. It took a few minutes to locate the box I needed and pull it down. Inside were ledgers, handwritten records of births; the manual equivalent of the lists I’d been looking at on my computer. I found the year I was looking for, 1972, and flicked to July. On the twenty-fifth of the month, there it was. Elspeth Guthrie, aged thirty-five, on the island of Unst, a baby boy, 7lbs 15oz. KT.

  I’d been crouching down over the box and I sank to the floor. I sat amidst years of accumulated dust and debris, getting filthy and not caring.

  I could think of only one reason why birth records should be falsified to the extent of recording the adopting mother as the birth mother: something was so badly wrong with the real birth that it would bear no investigating. Duncan’s birth mother had been killed. Just like Melissa had been; just like all the others had been.

  Every three years island women were being bred in captivity like farm animals and then slaughtered. I wondered whether the legends of the Trows had given some maniac the idea in the first place, or whether the stories had sprung from real events taking place in the islands over the years; known about but never discussed, never openly acknowledged, because to do so would be tantamount to admitting you lived among monsters.

  I’d intended to find the record of Kenn’s birth too, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Enough was enough.

  I pushed myself to my feet, put the lid back on the box and lifted it back on to the shelf. I tucked the ledger under my arm and left the room, willing myself not to run; I switched off the lights and made for the lift. Then I changed my mind and went in the opposite direction, heading for the stairs, telling myself all the while to stay calm, act calm; no one knew what I’d found out, I was safe for a while. I just had to keep my head.

  How the hell were they doing it? How do you spirit away a live woman, at the same time convincing all her relatives that she’s dead? How do you hold a funeral with an empty coffin? Had no one ever taken a last peek and found a pink-lined casket of bricks?

  I’d made the ground floor. I was ridiculously out of breath. I stopped for a second.

  They couldn’t use semblances – the equivalent of the dying Cathy Morton – for all of them. It just wasn’t feasible that enough seriously ill women would be found. The Cathy/Melissa switch had to have been a special case. I was back to hypnosis and drugs, to the involvement of enough people to make sure the procedures were never questioned: the doctor would administer the drugs, pronounce death, comfort the family; the pathologist would fill in the forms, make out reports for corpses that didn’t exist; relatives would be discouraged – under any number of pretexts – from viewing the bodies.

  I was back on my floor.

  Kirsten. Poor Kirsten, my fellow equestrian. I’d knelt by her grave, tidying the spring flowers and feeling a close empathy because of the way she’d died. But she hadn’t been down there. She was still in my field, the real grave site, she had to be. The instrument sweeps had been a sham – even the most recent, carried out that very day. If Detective Superintendent Harris had been present . . . well, I’d be interested in finding out where and when he’d been born.

  I wondered, briefly, if I’d found out where Stephen Gair had been getting his babies from. Except it still didn’t add up. The numbers involved – an average of just two per annum – still seemed far too few to attract the sort of revenues Helen and I had found. Plus, the babies I could name – Duncan, Kenn, Andy Dunn, Connor Gair – had all been adopted locally. The chances were others had been too. Money might have changed hands but it couldn’t explain the massive amounts – several millions each year – that were coming in from overseas. And it would be too big a risk, surely, to abduct women, keep them prisoner and murder them, just to be able to sell their babies to the highest bidder. No, whatever motive was driving these people, it had to be more than money. The babies being sold were coming from another source.

  My office appeared as I’d left it. The coffee had brewed and I poured myself a mug, spilling a good quarter of it in the process. I had to get a grip or the first person who saw me would know something was up. I think the desk phone must have been ringing for some time before I reached out and picked up the receiver.

  ‘I was just about to try you at home.’ It was Helen. I couldn’t tell her yet. I needed to get my head together first. If I opened my mouth I’d probably babble like an idiot.

  ‘Where are you?’ I managed.

  ‘Just leaving Tronal. Boy, the wind’s getting up. Can you hear me?’

  A flash of panic so sharp it was painful. I’d forgotten Helen was going to Tronal. ‘Are you OK? Who’s with you?’

  ‘Tora, I’m fine. What’s wrong? What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing, just tired,’ I managed, telling myself to calm down, to take it easy. Big, deep breaths. ‘How was it?’

  ‘Quiet sort of place. Only a few women, most of them asleep. Couple of babies in the nursery. We’re going back in the morning. I’ll be staying on Unst for a few days.’

  ‘Will I see you soon?’

  She was quiet for a second. I could hear the boat’s engine in the background and the whistling of the wind. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ she said at last.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, then because it didn’t seem enough, ‘I’m on my way home. Dunc and I are going out to dinner.’

  ‘Great, cos look, I wanted to ask you something. Something personal and I didn’t really get chance this morning. Is now a good time?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. Now was a great time. I was ready for just about anything; anything that didn’t require thinking, moving, speaking.

  She lowered her voice. ‘Thing is, I have to start thinking about Dana’s funeral. I’m her next of kin, you know.’

  I knew that; my friendly local pathologist had told me so. Dana’s funeral. I closed my eyes and found myself in the midst of a sad, solemn gathering. We were in an ancient church, cathedral-like in its dim
ensions, softly lit by tall white candles. I could smell the candle smoke and the incense that drifted down from the high altar.

  ‘I know you hadn’t known her very long,’ came Helen’s voice from a distance, ‘but . . . I think . . . well, I think you made quite an impression. On me too, come to that. It would mean a lot if you could be there.’

  Dana’s flowers would be white: roses, orchids and lilies; stylish and beautiful, like the woman herself. Six young constables, uniforms gleaming, would carry her to the altar. The back of my throat started to hurt. Tears were rolling down my cheeks and I could no longer see the room around me. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Of course I will. Thank you.’

  ‘No, thank you.’ Helen’s voice had deepened.

  ‘Will it be in Dundee? Do you have a date in mind?’

  ‘No. I’m still waiting to hear from your place about when they can let her go. They need to keep her for a while. I can understand that, of course, I’d just like to get things moving.’

  And the vision froze, the uniformed pall-bearers stopped moving, the candles flickered and went out. ‘She’s still here? In the hospital?’

  I didn’t expect her to hear me, I could barely hear myself, but the wind must have died at just the right moment because she did.

  ‘Just for a little while. I have to go. I’ll see you.’

  She was gone. I blinked hard. My face was wet but my eyes were clear. The room that had been swimming just a second ago was thrown into sharp focus. I could see again. I stood up. I could move again. And, praise the Lord, I could think again.

  I grasped, in that moment, the true and complete meaning of the word epiphany. Because I’d just had one. There was much I still didn’t get, but I understood one thing with perfect and absolute clarity. Sorry, Helen, couldn’t oblige after all. I was not going to be one of Dana’s mourners, biting lips and dabbing eyes as we watched her elegant, weightless coffin carried to the grave. I would have no part in the age-old ritual of committing her body to the earth or the flames. This was one funeral I was going nowhere near.