SNATCHED BAIRN: Scottish Fiction

by Anne Bone

  Laird had been questioned again after the witness had come forward. He had claimed he didn’t know the school in question, and denied that he had been hanging about any school. He continued to state that on the day of Mary’s disappearance he had been out of the town, and had been walking in Deeside. He wasn’t for moving on this, and it was his insistence that he had been in Deeside that caused Dave and Jane to wonder whether he was telling the truth, but rather than a pleasant walk he had been there for more sinister reasons.

  They reviewed the information they had: firstly, he had claimed that he hadn’t returned to the caravan until well after dark; he had claimed that he had been caught out and had walked further than he had planned, so it was dark once he returned to the car. He was unsure exactly at what time he had returned to the caravan, but it was likely to have been about seven or eight that night. This had been verified by the neighbour, who had heard his car around that time. He claimed that he had travelled to Aboyne, a large village about thirty miles from Aberdeen. He had described how he had parked in a small isolated car park where he then took a pathway up into the hills. Given the distance, it would have taken him about an hour to travel home. It would have given him time, they calculated. If he had taken Mary at three o’clock, he could easily have got her out of the town, disposed of her and returned by eight o’clock.

  So, was he using his alibi as a way of covering up where, in fact, he actually had been? It was worth a punt. Dave and Jane thought it was worth driving out to Glen Tanar, which was just outside Aboyne, to at least see where he claimed he had been. Dave drove, and as they negotiated the winding road towards the area he had described, they realised that if he had disposed of Mary here they would have one almighty job trying to find her. The area was dense, with forestry below the hills which were covered with scrub and heather. When they found the car park he had claimed to have stopped in, it was empty apart from a squad car.

  They had arranged to meet up with two local Bobbies who were already waiting at the car park. They heard that this place was popular at the weekends, especially in the summer, but during the week it was often only the odd dog walker who used it. They saw the pathway that left the carpark and weaved its way through the trees, Denny, the local constable, advised that the path went through the forest for about a mile, before it began the steep decent up the hill. There were, he informed them, several pathways up on the hill. He reckoned that if you didn’t know the area then it would be easy to take a wrong one up on the hill and get lost.

  Jane and Dave stood in the middle of the car park and looked. ‘Christ, he could have put her anywhere. Do you think that it’s worth bringing out some dogs and organising a search?’ he asked his boss.

  ‘Well, it might be worth a look, we haven’t anything else at the moment to go on. If this is where he brought her, she could be anywhere. So yes, let’s do that.’

  While Dave went back to the car to radio through for the team to organise police dog handlers to come and meet them, Jane continued to speak to the local officers. ‘So, would anyone else use this area who would notice anything, locals for example?’

  Denny rubbed his chin as he thought, ‘Jimmy Thom the local keeper would be coming back and forward past the car park, would he not?’ he asked his colleague. ‘He would be the likely one, there aren’t many cars passing this place, unless they are coming to walk.’

  ‘Aye, right enough, he would now,’ answered the other man, rubbing his hand across face as if it was all a bit too much for him to think about. Jane was already feeling slightly irritated with the slowness of the response.

  ‘So, could you then go and speak to this Jimmy Thom, and ask him whether he noticed a green estate car in this car park a week past Monday?’

  ‘Aye, we could. It might just take a whiley to find him,’ Denny took his cap off and rubbed his hands over his head, as though this too could be an onerous task, ‘he’s of’en up the hill this time of the year… but we’ll go awa’ an’ try.’

  They slowly walked towards the squad car and drove off. Jane sighed. For goodness sake, surely they realised that two senior officers visiting a car park in the middle of nowhere meant they were investigating a serious crime.

  Dave returned and informed her that he had radioed through, and they were going to organise a couple of dog handlers to meet them. ‘Where on earth do we even start though?’ he asked as he surveyed the area. ‘It’s been sometime, so any scent will be likely to have faded.’

  ‘Yes, I know. And there had been a sunny weekend since Mary’s disappearance, so if it’s right that this place attracts people at weekends, any tracks will have been well and truly trampled on. But what else have we got?’

  As they returned to the car and waited for the dog handlers to arrive, they found that their conversation ceased. Both were left with their own thoughts. Jane felt the sense of doom override her already fatigued mind. She had hardly been home since that dreaded call had come in about a child going missing. When she had been home she had hardly slept. She was, she thought, operating on adrenalin fuelled by a never ending river of coffee. She was feeling jittery, maybe that was more due to the fact that she had been out of the office now for nearly two hours and, therefore, her source of caffeine had been unavailable. Glancing around her she wished she could be more optimistic, but she couldn’t. If Mary was somewhere here, she could be hidden anywhere in the denseness of this place.

  Jane hadn’t had much support from her husband, Sean: he had done nothing but moan at her. When she had got home all she needed was to soak in the bath, and try to remove the terrible headache that had dogged her over the past few days. She recognised it as a stress response, and accepted in herself that she was incredibly stressed, but she needed to hide this from her team. Being at home should have provided her with the place where she didn’t have to hide it, but she found this was not so. In fact, she thought that being home with Sean had increased the stress, not reduced it. She had fallen out with him big time the previous night. She had arrived home dog tired, hardly able to get her legs to carry her up the path of their three-bedroomed semi-detached home. She had in her mind how she would run a deep bath, take a glass of wine and just try and ease the tension in her body. This hadn’t turned out as she had hoped.

  Sean had in his mind other ideas, and had bought last minute tickets to the theatre. He was full of energy as he pottered around the kitchen placing the shop-bought lasagne into the oven to heat up. He didn’t appear to notice how drained his wife was, as he detailed how he had managed to purchase the tickets for the play, and how lucky he had been to secure these when the play was a sell-out. He had arranged, he told her, to meet friends in the bar before the curtain went up, so he urged her to hurry up and change so they could eat and be there in plenty of time.

  She had stood and watched him. Although he had welcomed her with a cursory kiss on the cheek, she didn’t think he had actually looked at her since. Surely he would realise how knackered she was, and how if she went to the theatre she would more than likely nod off before the first scene ended. It was absolutely the last place she wanted to be tonight, but when she voiced this, he had muttered and sulked, saying that he had wanted to see this play for ages and if they didn’t go tonight then he would miss it. She had, after all, not been around much over the past few days, and surely now she had got the perpetrator she could spend some time with her husband. Surely!

  She had relented, and instead of the long soak she had had a short shower. It had revived her, and she had eaten the lasagne and drunk the glass of wine he had handed her. She had found it hard to be jolly as he chatted away with his friends in the theatre bar, and the second glass of wine had worked its magic: she had fallen into a soft slumber even before the first act was finished.

  He had had to nudge her more than once to wake her up, complaining that she was softly snoring. She tried unsuccessfully to stay awake and really just needed to go home. By the interval she had no energy left to go and stand at the
bar again, and said she would just stay in the stalls. He was not happy, and this did not change throughout the second half, when she did manage to stay awake. She could feel his bad mood vibrating beside her.

  They had hardly spoken during the short car journey home, but once they had closed the front door it had erupted. He had shouted at her, telling her how embarrassed he had been and how she had spoilt the whole play for him. He had continued to rant as she stood and looked at him. He had no idea, she realised, no idea of how much she hadn’t wanted to go out tonight. When she voiced this he had turned to her, and the old argument that her job was more important than their marriage was raised yet again.

  She felt the small piece of residual energy drain away. Not this again, didn’t he realise that they had been trying to find a missing child? There were few other types of case that would drain any police officer of whatever rank as much as this. He didn’t understand this, as surely as a senior officer she could distance herself from actually getting involved. She had, at this point, decided that there was absolutely no point in explaining. If he hadn’t understood the job of a police officer by now, regardless of what rank you were, then he would never understand it.

  She had ended the row by removing herself from the room and going upstairs where she got ready for bed. It hadn’t helped that he had followed her, still ranting about how little she considered him and how she would be better married to the job. She had tried very hard to block him out, being far too tired to retaliate, so she ignored him. After she locked herself into the bathroom to wash her face and clean her teeth, she sat on the loo and placed her head in her hands. She just wished she still had her own flat, a place where she would have found peace and solace after a hectic day. A place where she would have been able to soak in the bath, then lie on the sofa flicking from channel to channel watching rubbish, all of which would have allowed her mind and body to gradually release the tension.

  By the time she left the bathroom and returned to the bedroom there was no sign of Sean; he had stomped off back downstairs no doubt to brood and sulk. She got into bed and turned the light off. She knew that even though she was exhausted it was likely that she would now struggle to sleep, her mind whirling from the onslaught. She heard him come to bed and felt his distance as they lay backs turned, the centre space like a huge gulf that had opened up between them. Or perhaps this gulf had always been there, it had just been plastered over and now the plaster had cracked.

  They had woken to a very frosty atmosphere and had spoken very briefly. She was the first to leave and had told him she would, if all went well, be home about six tonight. She only caught the end of his mumblings which were that she was not to worry about him, he was planning to go out tonight. As she had driven to work, she couldn’t help think that perhaps her marriage was not going to work as she had hoped, but she didn’t want to waste any more energy considering this until she had found some closure to this case.

  As it happened she didn’t manage to get home by six; it was nearly seven thirty by the time she left the office. The afternoon spent at the car park unfortunately hadn’t produced any evidence that Laird had taken Mary there. The dogs had sniffed around and the scent they had been given from one of Mary’s pieces of clothing hadn’t produced any form of excitement at all. They had appeared to be more excited about other smells and nothing had been found.. It was disappointing, but the local lads would continue to make enquiries to see whether anyone had seen anything.

  When Jane reached her home it was in darkness; Sean wasn’t at home. She had been prepared to try and talk through their issues, to try and find some resolution and smooth over their disagreements, but it seemed that this could be shelved.

  When she entered the house, she saw evidence that he had been home. There was dishes left in the sink showing the remnants of the supper he must have eaten. She searched to see whether he had left something for her, but there was nothing. It looked as though he had only used one plate. She opened the fridge, took out some cheese and found some bread, a sandwich would do her. She then realised that tonight she would be able to have her long soak in the bath, and maybe even then lie on the sofa and flick the remote. She couldn’t help but be relieved that her husband wasn’t here; it was like having her own place again without all the hassle.

  Chapter 22

  November 1984

  Nothing had been found. Jane and Dave had become resigned that they were not going to find Mary’s body. They had undertaken a number of searches in the Deeside area, but nothing had turned up. They had one witness who had recalled seeing Laird’s car in the car park beside the forest walk. This had confirmed that he had been telling the truth, that he had been in the area. The witness had thought it was strange as the car was parked there after dark. He had sighted it at around seven on the Monday evening, so this also meant that it was in the timeframe where he could have taken Mary, driven out to the spot to do whatever he had done and disposed of the body. The problem was the area; it was huge, with countless places where the body could have been concealed.

  Dave and Jane had interviewed Laird again at the prison. They had appealed to his sense of duty, although neither really believed he had one, a duty, for the child’s mother’s sake, to tell the truth about what he had done with Mary. He continued to deny he had had anything to do with her disappearance, and became fractious when they continued to press him. Finally, they realised he was not going to talk, so they retreated, frustrated that they were no further forward.

  It was now six weeks since that dreadful day. Jenni’s mood had deteriorated and she was now being treated for depression. The doctor was worried, as he observed the young woman’s mood sink, diagnosing that she was clinically depressed and prescribed anti-depressants. He was watchful, assessing whether these were having any effect, because if they didn’t then he would need to persuade her to attend an appointment with a psychiatrist. Something she had refused up to now, exclaiming that she knew why she was feeling so bad, she just needed her daughter back and she would be fine.

  The doctor had been concerned enough to ask Jenni’s mother to call him if she was worried, telling her that she needed to keep a close eye on her daughter. He wasn’t saying the words that they both knew he was meaning, that was she was at risk of harming herself.

  Christine was worried, and knew that while she needed to return home ever Friday and return every Monday this couldn’t go on indefinitely. She had been very clear with Alex that until Jenni was stable she needed to care for her. He had whinged and complained that she needed to get on with her life and get over it. This had led to another argument where Christine had fought her daughter’s corner, furious that he still didn’t understand how terrible it was for her. She was grieving without having a body to grieve over.

  At least Marcus had kept to his word; he would arrive every Friday, sometime in the afternoon. They had agreed that Christine would fill the cupboards and freezer with meals so she didn’t argue when he placed a wad of money into her hand, advising her that he was grateful for all the cooking, and thankful that meant he didn’t have to worry about food when he was staying.

  Christine had got into a routine of arriving on a Monday, and having a “handover” with Marcus as to how Jenni had been over the weekend. They had both become her carers over the past month, and as carers they were watchful and concerned as to whether she would eventually turn the corner and emerge from the blackness she found herself in. Christine would spend her time shopping, cooking and cleaning. She liked to keep herself busy, Jenni wasn’t much company. She had taken to her bed. She had been persuaded to return to her own bed as Christine had convinced her that if she kept sleeping in Mary’s bed the sheets and duvet cover would have to be washed, as they were going to stink. This was something that Jenni could not contemplate. She would lose her daughter’s smell and therefore she agreed to sleep in her own bed. Christine was aware that when Marcus stayed he would sleep beside her, and this at least meant that she was safe. Sh
e found herself not being able to fall into a deep sleep in the small box room that was the spare bedroom, and had now become hers. She listened carefully to the movements of the flat, hearing her daughter some nights wandering throughout the rooms. She would get out of her bed and go and find her. Often she found her in Mary’s bedroom sitting on the bed, clutching one of the child’s cuddly toys, or standing in front of the wardrobe, the doors wide open, staring at the tidy rail of small clothes that hung on the hangers.

  Christine had been vigilant since Doctor Jamieson had raised his concerns that she may self-harm. He meant suicide, she knew that. He had told her that if Jenni did try and harm herself he would have no choice but to section her, and place her in Cornhill Hospital. She tried to get through to her daughter, but it was like the light had gone out, her eyes were dead. She was detached and lost in her own world. It was as if she had regressed to being a young child again. She was compliant, she would go and shower when she was told to, she would eat her food when she was told to, and she would answer in a flat monotonous tone when a question was directed at her.

  Christine was thankful for Beth Paton, who visited once a week and offered to call more often if they needed her to. After that first trip out when they went for the walk, Jenni refused to repeat this. She said she didn’t have the energy and so Beth didn’t push her to. Beth had reassured Christine that she understood where Jenni was at the moment, she had sunk deep into her grief, and Beth recognised this as she had been there herself before. She had used the garden as her refuge, but this wouldn’t be where Jenni would find her way to hold onto life, there would need to be something else, something that would penetrate her being and allow her to see a glimmer of life.