‘I don’t know. Probably the latter. I don’t remember deleting it.’
‘Do you have a home computer?’ I asked.
‘Uh, yes. A laptop. Hold on.’
‘What do you think?’ I said to Alyson as Ian left the room.
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s certainly worth covering.’
‘It feels right to me,’ I said. ‘I can’t explain it, but I feel like we’re on to something here.’
Ian returned and set the computer down on the coffee table. It took forever to boot up. Cunningham was still on his phone in the hall, pacing, but not talking, like he was waiting for something.
Ian brought up a browser and Facebook’s homepage slowly loaded. He clicked on the login icon, entered his email address and then his eyes went to the ceiling.
‘I don’t know if I can remember the password. It’s been years.’
‘You can just reset it if you need to,’ said Alyson. ‘Or we can even view it from my phone, unless you have it set to private?’
‘Oh, definitely private. But hold on, let me try something.’
He tapped at the keys, but was informed that the email and password didn’t match. ‘Ach, I’ll just reset it.’ The cursor hovered over the reset request, but then returned to the password box. ‘I just thought of something,’ Ian said and typed. He hit return and we were in.
‘Who’s this?’ I said as his profile picture appeared on screen. A wedding photograph by the look of it. Ian, fit, with dark hair, half smiling, half kissing a joyful blonde with a bouquet in the hand around Ian’s neck.
‘That’s Lyndsay. Ex-wife. Like I said, I’ve not touched this for years,’ he said.
I suddenly felt a little dizzy. ‘Can you cycle through your other pictures?’ I said.
He did, and with each new frame that appeared the more a sense of dread rose in my stomach and chest. Wedding pictures, then honeymoon pictures all on beautiful, white, sandy beaches.
‘This is Cancun, two-thousand-five,’ Ian said.
‘So, not your sons’ mother?’ I said, making a quick count in my head.
‘No, second marriage. Went tits up within six years.’
The screen was a celebration of her, of them. The last post was from 2007, birthday wishes for Ian and lots of kisses from Lyndsay and others.
‘Where is she now?’ I said.
‘Uh, out Lanark way with her new husband. Poor bastard. They have a farmhouse but I don’t have the address.’
‘You have a number?’ I said.
‘I do,’ he replied and went back to the hall.
‘You think it’s her?’ Alyson whispered. The picture on the screen was Lyndsay with a cocktail in her hand, grinning at the camera, a yellow flower in her hair.
I didn’t have a chance to answer as Cunningham returned. ‘The old man’s on Facebook. Full of pictures of the grandson. What are you looking at?’
Alyson was already moving for the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Tinto
‘It’s going straight to voicemail,’ Alyson said, moving the phone from her face and then returning it. ‘Mrs Watson, this is Detective Constable Alyson Kane. If you get this message would you please call me back, either on this number or by dialling one-oh-one and ask to be put through. It is urgent. Thank you.’
‘Keep trying,’ I said.
‘We need an address,’ Cunningham said. He was heading south in the general direction of Lanark, lights and siren blaring.
‘Three-four from control.’
‘Go ahead,’ I said into the radio Alyson had thrown into the back seat for me as we spun out of Ian’s street.
‘Roger, I have your check. Two Lyndsay Watsons in the Lanark area on Voter’s Roll.’
‘Roger, does either of them have an address that might sound like a farmhouse, rather than a street? Over.’
‘Affirmative. One of them is twenty-seven Kirkfield Gardens, but the other has a name, Tinto View. Over.’
‘That sounds likely. Can you pass me the postcode? Over.’
Alyson took Cunningham’s phone from him and entered the details into satnav while she continued to call the number Ian had given us.
‘If his account was set up as private, how would Halfpenny get access?’ Cunningham yelled over the noise from the roof.
‘I asked Ian what the password was. It’s his ex-wife’s name and then the date of their marriage. If Halfpenny managed to get just a bit of information on him, he might have figured it out. I bet it will be the same with Bradley Senior. God knows how long he’s been planning this,’ I yelled back.
‘Still nothing,’ said Alyson and put her phone away to concentrate on the other screen. She held it up to the dashboard so Cunningham could follow the directions.
It was dusk and light rain was falling. Cunningham was forced to slow as vision grew difficult. The screen stated we were five minutes away and the siren was cut as well as the lights. We left the town of Lanark, heading southward into the countryside. A few miles on and we traded tarmac for dirt on a private road.
I gave our location to control while Alyson was doing the same on the phone to Kate Templeton. In other circumstances I might have asked for a unit to start heading to our location, but with resources stretched to the limit, it was pointless without some kind of confirmation.
The farmhouse came into view, still just about lit by the ever-deepening purple of the evening sky. One main house and a couple of outbuildings made up ‘Tinto View’, well titled, with a hill of the same name an obvious feature in the distance behind the home.
‘One vehicle parked outside,’ said Alyson. It was a black Land Rover, new and fitting with the sort of wealth required to own a property like this.
Cunningham rolled the car on to the verge and turned off the engine. ‘It looks quiet enough. I don’t want to scare her. Alyson and I will go to the front door, you go around back. Take the radio,’ he said.
I nodded in agreement and stepped out onto the gravel drive. The rain fell against my bare arms and neck, cold and uncomfortable. The summer was over.
At the corner of the white-painted house I cut left, leaving the others to approach the front door. I followed the line of the garden fence, which stretched back a fair way and then along the back edge until I found a gate. I could hear the doorbell ringing and then three deep beats of the door. I pushed through into a well-kept garden. The soft trill of an aeration system sounded from the large pond to my right, orange shapes moving below the surface.
Small solar-powered lamps lined a path through the lawn to a large patio. The rear of the property was made up of large glass panels, the type I’d seen could be folded away. Again the doorbell and the thuds.
Through the first of the three large glass panels I could see the kitchen. The light was off but a glow could be seen from the oven door. I worked my way along to the next panel and I had a pull of the handle there, but it was locked tight. Through here was a living room. I cupped my hands to the glass. There was a lamp lit on a sideboard, though nothing else to suggest any life. Behind the last panel was an office. A laptop on a desk lit the chair behind it. The doorbell rang again, four beats of the door.
I cupped my hands again to the glass. A tumbler sat next to the laptop; amber liquid glowed from the light of the screen. To the back of the room I could see the door was open. It led to the hall. I tried to block out as much light as I could to see through. The shapes of Alyson and DS Cunningham moved against the glass of the front door. The bell and the banging again. And then I saw it. A figure shifted to the left of the front door. Not figure, figures. A hand was pressed against the mouth of the figure in front and something was being pressed to their neck.
I pulled away from the glass and fumbled with the radio, my hands shaking. I pressed down on the emergency button, opening my broadcast to the whole channel.
I whisper-yelled into the handset: ‘From three-four, the suspect Michael Halfpenny is at my location. Tinto View, a few m
iles south of Lanark. He is within the property and has the householder at knife point. That is confirmation that he is here and is armed. I am with DC Kane and DS Cunningham. Backup urgently requested.’
Control was responding, but I was busy looking for my phone, realising I had the only radio and, fuck, no phone thanks to those goons practically dragging me out of the house this morning. I turned the radio volume down and placed it on the seat of some patio furniture.
I returned to the glass panel and pulled at the handle and was surprised to feel it give. It slid away with a soft brush sound. I entered the office; more thudding from the door and three blasts of the bell. I moved around the desk and walked slowly to the door. From here I could see Halfpenny clearly, his left hand across the mouth of Lyndsay Watson, his right gripping a blade. It looked like a fishing knife, one that could be folded, but also locked in place. The tip made a soft divot in Lyndsay’s neck. My stomach churned and water was flooding my mouth. I swallowed it back, resisting the urge to vomit.
I considered rushing him, but there was a good fifteen feet between us and, in a panic, that knife was going in only one direction.
The bell again. The fist again. Halfpenny rocked back and Lyndsay’s cry was muted by Halfpenny’s hand. Tears streamed down her cheek. She was in purple silk pyjamas, her hands were pushed to her sides, fingers splayed.
I reached forward and turned on the ceiling light of the office. The pair of them stumbled against the flight of stairs they were standing at the base of. I extended my hands reassuringly.
‘Take it easy, Michael.’
The hand with the knife went to the steps behind him for a second to regain his balance and then the blade was back at her throat. He stood on the second step; Lyndsay had one foot on the first.
‘Who are you?’ he asked. I moved forward a little, but then stopped as I saw the tip of the blade make a larger dimple. Lyndsay’s eyes were on me, pleading.
‘We spoke earlier today. I’m Sergeant Colyear.’
His head was shaved and had been done in a rush. Small scabs dotted his scalp where he’d roughly dragged a safety razor. I guessed he’d anticipated his image being broadcast by the media.
‘You shouldn’t have come here. I told you, one more and I’m done. If you try to stop me, or take me in, I have no problem with adding one more, or several,’ he said, motioning at the door where the thudding and chiming had stopped. The letterbox flap was open and I watched it lower slowly back over Alyson’s eyes.
‘You’ve made a mistake, Michael. Easy,’ I said. He’d been trying to pull Lyndsay up the stairs with him, but he was small, while she was tall. He was unsteady and fell back, his backside coming to land on a step and Lyndsay lying backwards on top of him. She came to rest between his knees, still sobbing into his hand. Her left arm was flat against the wall, the other on the step. She was heaving wet breaths in through her running nose, unable to get any air through her mouth.
I then heard footsteps from the office.
‘It’s all right. I was just explaining to Michael how he’d made a mistake, that he’s come to the wrong house,’ I put my hands out to stop Cunningham and Alyson getting any closer. I exchanged a glance with both, there was small nod from Alyson, urging I continue. Cunningham stepped back into the office, tapping at his phone.
‘I’m right where I should be,’ said Michael. He was looking nervous now, his eyes switching between those present.
‘You’re where you think you should be, but please listen to me. Hurting her is pointless.’
I could hear the DS giving updates into his phone, I wished he’d take it outside.
‘That cop left me in that place. You have no idea the beating I got that night when he left me there. You don’t know how many times after that I was dragged into that room?’
‘It wasn’t his fault. There was some kind of breakdown in communication. There should have been a follow-up, Michael, but it wasn’t his fault,’ I said.
‘If he’d done his job, he wouldn’t have left me there, don’t tell me otherwise.’
There was acid in his voice, the knife turned a little in his hand.
‘OK, maybe you’re right. He shouldn’t have left you there, but please listen, I promise you, hurting her is no form of revenge.’
He tried again to move her up a step, but they were tangled together.
‘He’s right, Michael, listen to him. Please,’ said Alyson.
‘You’re the female detective who was at my house?’
‘That’s right. Please listen to him.’
‘Look, talk to me,’ I said. ‘When did you get out of that school?’
‘No, I think I’d rather just cut her throat and be on my way.’
‘If you hurt her, you know there’s no way out. Please. When did you get out of there?’
He was looking around, maybe assessing his options.
‘Sixteen, I guess? Then you could leave? Where did you go?’ I said.
‘Go? Where was I going to go? I was fifteen. I ran away and I knew it was close enough to my birthday that they wouldn’t come after me. I was on the street after that.’
‘Did the attacks continue up until then?’
‘What does it matter?’
‘It matters, Michael, because when we’re done here I’m going after him, and the janitor. I don’t even care if you make a complaint or provide a statement, nobody gets away with that.’
He scoffed and adjusted his legs, took a little of the pressure off Lyndsay’s neck.
‘Please st—’ she managed, but his hand was back over her mouth.
‘The attacks stopped about a year before I left. I guess I looked too grown up by then.’
‘Why didn’t you approach the police after that? There would have been an investigation,’ Alyson said.
‘Like there was investigation the first time I called you? Fuck off. I knew some day I’d deal with it myself.’
‘It was a long time before you did. You had a whole life in between. What happened?’
‘Who cares? Who fucking cares?’ he yelled.
‘Shit,’ I said and held my hands out again. There was a trickle of blood coming from Lyndsay’s neck.
‘I had to eat, didn’t I? Got sick of begging, got into emergency housing and went to college. Fixed computers for pricks I didn’t like. There, real Cinderella stuff.’
‘Was it this conversation about a first communion that sent you over the edge?’ I said. I wanted to communicate with Alyson, form some idea of how to get at him, but all I could do was keep him talking.
He laughed, that high-pitched cackle. He threw his head back as the laugh came out like barks. ‘Maybe, aye, maybe. But I think it had more to do with coming face to face with Father Stephen Livingston a few months before that.’
‘Face to face? How?’ I asked.
It was a moment before he answered. He seemed to relax a little. The knife was still at Lyndsay’s throat as she continued to suck in air through her nose, but the tip was visible, no dimple.
He took in a few deep breaths, resting his head on the step behind him.
‘I was driving to a call in Leith. Traffic was at a standstill with the tram-works, everything backed up at Great Junction Street. I’ve got the window open, radio on. I just happen to look in my side mirror and right there on the pavement two priests are walking, approaching where I am. They’re laughing and patting one another on the shoulder. You can’t miss that hair. I froze for a second – you’ll never know the fear that shot through me. But despite that, before I know it, I’m out of the van. I’m standing in the road with my hand on the open door. He’s no more than five feet away from me. The car behind me hits his horn because the traffic is moving again. Father Livingston gets a fright, I suppose, and looks at the road, looks at me. Right at me. Our eyes locked for a full few seconds. Then he goes on walking and goes on laughing. He didn’t recognise me. Despite how close that bastard was to me over years, the things he did, he didn’t know me t
o look at. Just another face in the street. I think that’s when I decided, Sergeant Colyear. That’s when I found out where he was, where he went. That’s when I found out why he visited Edinburgh on a Monday. That’s when I knew that to really hurt him, I’d have to make him live with pain, not suffer it for a few moments.’
‘Like Lyndsay? You think that making her suffer for a few moments will leave that police officer to live with pain the rest of his days? Because you’re wrong. That’s what I was trying to tell you. Yes, they were married, but that was years ago. Jesus, you should hear the way he talks about her now. He couldn’t care less about this woman you have terrorised and left bleeding. Look at her neck for God’s sake,’ I said.
He did, for a moment, but then the knife was back.
‘You’re wrong,’ he said.
‘Look, you were right about the priest and the janitor. You couldn’t have hurt them more. But you’re dead wrong here, I promise. Maybe you got a bit lazy with your research by then. Wait, go easy.’
It was a stupid choice of words. His teeth bared, he pushed again and Lyndsay let out a cry. More blood ran from her neck.
‘I just mean that you, what? Looked at Facebook, saw this police officer, madly in love with this woman. Yeah, that’s old news, Michael. They divorced a long time ago. You’ll be hurting plenty of people by killing her, no argument, but this police officer is not one of them. Please, let her go.’
He heaved a breath and laid his head back on the step behind him. I felt Alyson move beside me and I grabbed her wrist. She might have been right, but it felt too risky.
Michael was softly banging the back of his head off the step, the knife remained trained to Lyndsay’s neck. They stayed like that for a few minutes. I repeated the sentiment that he had the wrong person, again pleaded with him. This time he just listened. He lay on the stairs, silent. Then, his arm dropped. He still held the knife, but he now pushed Lyndsay’s back with his free hand and suddenly she was getting to her feet. I let go of Alyson’s wrist and she went to her. Great bellows of grief were coming from Lyndsay as Alyson gently placed an arm around her and led her back through the office.
Into the Dark Page 28
