The wild coast, p.13
The Wild Coast, page 13
‘The film The Blair Witch Project got a special screening a while back where stick dolls were handed out. Did any of them end up in the clubbing scene?’
‘Oh, you mean like the creepy twig men that were hanging from the trees?’
‘That’s them,’ McNab confirmed, although he knew nothing about the tree reference.
‘I didn’t hear about the special screening or I might have gone. Plus I never saw or heard of any stick figures along the strip. Can I ask why?’ Holly said tentatively. Then, ‘Does it have anything to do with Deirdre Reid?’
‘Did you know her?’ McNab asked.
‘Not personally, no. But I recognized her from the picture you put out as someone I’d seen clubbing.’
‘Okay, thanks,’ McNab said, thinking it was time to ring off.
‘Will I see you tonight?’ Holly asked, before he could.
‘Working late, sorry,’ he managed.
‘I’m a late bird myself,’ she offered.
‘I’ll text you when I finish,’ McNab told her, aware he would have to reveal that their coupling had been captured on CCTV, probably sooner rather than later.
‘Okay.’ She sounded placated. ‘Now back to work for both of us.’
McNab experienced a mixture of relief and guilt in equal quantities. It was a feeling, he realized, he was familiar with. He would speak to Holly about the CCTV footage, he decided, at the right time. In the right place. Over the phone was neither of those.
He tried to turn his thoughts to what she’d just told him. She hadn’t been aware of the circulation of stick man figures. She hadn’t known about the special showing of the film. Had it ever really happened?
He found himself intrigued to learn what Janice had discovered, so he headed for the nearest cafe and, ordering up a triple espresso, called her.
This time, she answered. ‘Hi, partner, where are you?’
McNab told her.
‘Okay. I got your message after I’d spoken to Millie, but before Lisa.’
‘And?’ he asked.
‘Seems Sam was telling the truth. Deirdre liked horror movies. Did join a film group at GFT and did go to a special showing of Blair Witch with some of them, where they gave out replicas of the stick men in the movie. Very creepy, Lisa said. Apparently Millie wanted to burn it, but Deirdre wouldn’t hear of that. Just laughed.’
When Janice paused there, McNab said, ‘Anything else?’
‘No, that’s it. What about your club trip?’ Janice said.
‘Same dead end,’ McNab told her. ‘Although apparently there’s a trio called the Stick Men. Who could have known that?’
‘I did,’ Janice told him. ‘Three musicians. All blokes. Sort of rock. With a light round them . . .’
‘Stop,’ McNab pleaded. ‘You make me feel old.’
‘They’re older than you,’ Janice told him, echoing Holly’s earlier words.
‘So what now?’ McNab needed direction and hopefully from someone who hadn’t been lying – or fibbing, as he liked to think of it.
‘It’s getting late,’ Janice said. ‘We could meet back at headquarters and prepare a joint report before we finish for the day?’
McNab didn’t want to do that. All he could think of now was food and possibly a beer.
‘You need to get back to your one true love,’ he told her. ‘I need to go home and eat. We’ll write the report first thing tomorrow.’
‘Right. See you in the morning . . . early,’ Janice stressed, sounding pleased.
McNab sat, looking into his empty cup. What did he plan for tonight? He thought of Rhona, who should be heading back to Glasgow by now, with the body of possibly the next victim.
He thought of Sean, waiting for her there.
He thought of Ellie, who had so often waited for him, before eventually giving up and departing. He thought of Holly, who for some reason sought his company.
But you haven’t been honest with her either, he thought, staring into the empty cup which seemed at this moment to symbolize his empty life.
Lifting his phone, he brought up a picture of Deirdre, alive and smiling for the camera, then thought about her buried on that beach miles from home.
That was what he had to focus on. Rhona, he knew, would be doing exactly that.
30
Day five/six
Now back on solid ground, the body on its way to the mortuary, the evidence en route to the lab, Rhona let herself relax.
She’d found a phone message from Chrissy on landing, telling her briefly how the strategy meeting had gone, including, ‘Wait till you hear what Magnus said about the stick man!’ and finishing with, ‘Am off home now. Come in early so we can talk!’
Rhona was bound for home too, and looking forward to a hot shower and ordering in something to eat.
While waiting for the helicopter to return to Achmelvich, she’d been treated to tea and scones at the campsite’s wee cafe. Plus she’d had the opportunity to chat with Murdo MacKenzie, who’d reported the missing cyclist.
He’d seemed aware that she couldn’t discuss the body in the cove, nor what evidence, if any, she’d found in the missing girl’s tent. So they’d talked of Achmelvich and the shoreline north and south of it.
‘The coves around Arisaig are sheltered,’ he’d told her. ‘Here it’s a bit wilder, although just as bonnie. Folk from abroad can’t believe they’re in Scotland, especially when it’s good weather. You should see their faces when they see the white sands and blue water. Mind, if they arrive on a wild day . . .’ He’d laughed. ‘They don’t mind the weather, really. They choose to visit Scotland and sometimes that’s what they get.’
Rhona had spoken of her love of swimming along the coast here, and her last visit to Achmelvich.
‘Aye,’ he’d said. ‘It’s a wee bit of heaven. Although, after what’s happened . . .’ His face clouded over.
‘Bad things happen everywhere,’ Rhona had reminded him.
‘But they shouldn’t, and definitely not here.’ At this point he’d looked directly at her. ‘We get a lot of lone campers come to Achmelvich, young women in particular. They feel safe here. Maybe not any more.’
Rhona hadn’t responded to this, for what could she say? Except that, according to Lee, Donald and Jean McIver at the croft campsite had voiced the very same concern.
As she was dropped at the flat, she noted the light was on in the sitting room. There were two possible explanations for that: either she’d left it on this morning or Sean had been to the flat – and perhaps was still there.
She checked her watch before slipping the key in the lock. Surely he would be at the club by now? She found herself hoping that was true. All she wanted was to stand under the shower, eat, then write up her notes.
She could manage a few words for Tom, should the cat permit her that privilege, but that was about all.
As it was, she got her wish, with a little extra. The flat was empty apart from Tom, who, perhaps scenting her presence, abandoned his rooftop wanderings to appear at the kitchen window, dropping silently onto the window seat to greet her, briefly but fondly enough to make her feel welcome.
The little extra was a note from Sean to accompany the aroma of marmite de la mer from the slow cooker, with a French stick waiting alongside.
Her plans to order in before the shower no longer required, Rhona headed to the bathroom, emerging fifteen minutes later to ladle herself up a large bowl of fish stew, breaking off half of the French loaf to go with it.
Seated at the table and suddenly joined again by Tom, she noted that it may have been the fish stew that had brought him back from his nocturnal wanderings and not her after all.
Replete now, she poured herself a glass of chilled white wine, ignoring the red already opened by Sean, and took herself through to the sitting room, Tom leading the way.
The setting sun was bathing the room in a dusky glow and from the bay window she could see a reddened cloud hanging between Kelvingrove’s twin towers, making them even more magnificent than usual.
She hadn’t had the opportunity to write her notes up in situ. No forensic tent, and only five hours to capture the evidence before the incoming tide swept the scene clean, she’d relied on recording her thoughts as she worked, plus the photographs she’d instructed Marie to take.
She studied each captured image, initially without her voiceover, so that she might look at them afresh before listening to her recording.
The smells and sounds that had surrounded them were brought swiftly back to life. The call of the gulls watching them at work, the wash of the sea as it steadily advanced behind them. The veil of salty scent and seaweed masking the smell of decomposition.
And beyond all of this, the face of a young woman who’d undoubtedly been alive not that long before. Her twisted and broken body testament to how she had died.
But who was she? The girl from the tent in the dunes? Or Callie, who’d disappeared from the campsite at Arisaig?
No matter how dispassionately she studied the evidence gathered at the recent locus and wrote her findings down, she knew in her heart and her mind that all three women were linked. The presence of the stick man was testament to that.
Chrissy had stated that the police hadn’t as yet revealed the stick man aspect to Deirdre’s story, so neither Callie’s disappearance nor the body in the cove could be attributed to the work of a copycat perpetrator.
Having finished her notes, she sent a copy to the lab computer and, moving her laptop to the coffee table, slid down to nestle her head against a cushion. Tom, curled by her side, adjusted his position to accommodate her.
She knew it would be better to go to bed, but the thought of rousing herself enough to accomplish that seemed too much of an effort at that moment.
As she dozed off, her brain filled again with the sound of the sea.
When Sean arrived later to scoop her up and carry her through to bed, Rhona thought at first she was merely dreaming. Not until the duvet was pulled over her, and she caught the scent of him, did she realize the truth of it.
‘Thank you,’ she managed to murmur before she descended into sleep once more, a single image playing out in her head. The stick man figure, clothed in a strand of slithery seaweed, its end stuffed into the gaping hole of the figure’s mouth.
When the early sun woke her, she registered that she was alone in the bed. Had she dreamt Sean’s arrival? Rising, she went through to the kitchen, remembering that first night she had brought him home and found him here in the morning, a stark naked man making coffee while whistling an Irish tune.
It made her smile, even now.
She checked the spare room where he would go so as not to disturb her when he arrived late into the night. The mound beneath the duvet, the dark head on the pillow, showed her that her hunch was right.
Stepping out, she quietly closed the door and went for a quick shower. Chrissy had ordered her to come early and she would, of course, obey. Besides, she had no doubt Chrissy would be ready with the coffee and a plentiful supply of well-filled morning rolls.
Earlier than usual, Kelvingrove Park seemed quieter, the walking and cycling contingent she normally met lower in number. The university cloisters were equally empty. Term time was over, as were the exams, and nowadays you didn’t have to come read a noticeboard to see if you’d passed.
Rhona enjoyed the bustle of the university campus when the students were around, but there was also pleasure in the empty echo of her footsteps as she walked through the famous cloisters to her lab.
The enticing scent when she entered reassured her that Chrissy had indeed purchased their breakfast rolls and put on the coffee machine, and she found herself grateful once again that Chrissy had abandoned the porridge-for-breakfast phase she’d recently had to endure.
‘Black pudding, egg and tattie scone or square sausage, egg and tattie scone?’ Chrissy said as she entered.
‘Black pudding.’ Rhona gave her a wide smile.
Chrissy pushed her choice towards her and went to fetch the coffee.
Ten minutes later, rolls consumed and second coffee poured, they were ready.
‘Your story or mine?’ Chrissy said.
Rhona could almost taste Chrissy’s desire to offload whatever had been said about the stick man, so nodded at her to go ahead.
‘Magnus said that the stick figures found in Deirdre’s mouth and hanging in Callie’s van would be better described as Twanas, which are evil, and are likely to be the killer’s signature. Like in the film The Blair Witch Project.’
She checked for an indication that Rhona knew which film she was talking about. When Rhona nodded, Chrissy continued. ‘Deirdre, as we know, was kept alive for maybe a month before he killed her. Maybe Callie, identified now as Caillean Munro, might be too.’
Chrissy watched her reaction to that for a moment before saying, ‘I saw the stick man you found when I logged in the evidence last night. Where was it exactly?’
‘Buried a little in the sand close to her head,’ Rhona told her.
‘So it had been in her mouth?’
‘Probably. We can check for her saliva.’
‘How did she die?’ Chrissy said. ‘Was she strangled like Deirdre?’
‘Unlikely.’ Rhona explained about the broken shape of the body. ‘I transferred my report and the photographs late last night. We can take a look together.’
‘Might it be Callie after all?’
‘You said she’s been identified?’ Rhona said.
‘They got her name through the vehicle registration. A Caillean Munro owned it . . . owns it,’ she said determinedly. ‘They checked her address. She hasn’t been there for months. A neighbour said she’d moved in with her boyfriend, but didn’t know where.’
‘And this boyfriend hasn’t got in touch?’ Rhona asked.
‘Not from the van picture the police circulated on social media. Maybe now they have the driving-licence photo of Caillean, he will.’
‘So Callie had a boyfriend, who never reported her missing?’ Rhona said.
‘I wondered about that too. Even if she went off kayaking on her own, surely they would have kept in touch?’
‘Can I access the licence photo?’ Rhona said.
‘Sure thing.’ Chrissy brought it up on the computer screen. ‘It’s not great,’ she said.
Chrissy was right, it wasn’t a good photo, but could the body on the beach be Callie? Rhona brought up her set of images and, choosing one of the victim’s face, sat it alongside for comparison.
‘Well,’ Chrissy offered eventually, ‘it could be, but we can soon find out if this is the Callie from the van, we’ve got plenty of DNA evidence to compare. What about the missing girl from Achmelvich?’
‘No one saw her, but we have various items of clothing and other assorted evidence I retrieved from the tent. The bike, the local police believe, was likely on hire, which is fairly common for folk on the NC500. They have a serial number from the chassis which should hopefully lead to a bike shop.’
Chrissy was viewing the other photographs. ‘Same black and pink wetsuit and the stick man . . .’ she said angrily. ‘This won’t end until we get him.’
Rhona nodded. ‘So we’d better make a start.’
31
Day six
She hadn’t mentioned the missing pillowcase and its contents to Derek, either last night when he finally came home or this morning at breakfast.
In fact, he’d been the one to mention it, just before leaving for work.
‘I was looking for my fishing line and eventually found it in the cupboard with the T-shirt I got fish blood on.’ He’d looked questioningly at her as he’d said this.
‘I was going to steep your T-shirt in bleach to get the stain out. I know it’s your favourite,’ she’d managed to say.
‘Will that work?’
She’d nodded.
‘Great. It’s in my room on the chair.’
When she’d heard the door close behind him she’d gone up to check and there it was, alongside the pillowcase. There was, however, no sign of the fishing line or the empty Durex sachet.
Derek had moved into the spare room when they’d come back from Arisaig. He hadn’t said why and she didn’t care. She was more than glad not to have to lie beside him every night. Although every time he went out with his mates, she feared he might crawl back in with her on his return.
If or when that happened, she would go in with Lucy, she decided, just as she’d done at the campsite. The sudden thought of the campsite reminded her of something else she hadn’t broached with Derek last night or this morning.
Today’s visit to the police station.
If she had, all hell would have broken out. She shuddered at the thought. Of course she could, would have said that the police told her she didn’t have any choice, not in a murder enquiry. They needed to talk to the children. Lucy in particular.
She tried to imagine what Derek’s expression would have been at that. Guilt? Or just rage?
But if she’d already left him and taken the kids, what could he do about it?
She had a place ready, albeit temporary until she could work something else out. She had a suitcase packed and already in the boot of her car. She planned to tell the kids it was another wee holiday, just with her, because the other one got spoilt.
After the interview, she would head there.
And what about the T-shirt?
She lifted it and, stuffing it back into the pillowcase, decided to take it with her.
When she called the kids for breakfast, she put on her best and most cheerful face.
‘Guess what? We’re going on another holiday.’ She hurried on before they had time to register her words properly. ‘A friend of mine doesn’t need her holiday cottage for a bit, and she said we could have it.’
She’d expected Orly to look worried by this. In fact, the opposite happened. He adopted what she interpreted as a look of relief.
‘Is Dad coming?’ Lucy asked.
‘Dad has to work, so can’t come, but we’ll be fine on our own, won’t we?’ She hurried on, buoyed by the reaction so far. ‘I’ve packed for us and we’ll set off in a wee while.’
