A Song for the Dying

44

A couple of the strip-lights clicked and pinged, flickering in the dusty gloom. From somewhere deep inside the archives, hidden behind the metal shelves packed with boxes, came the sound of a murmured conversation.

I limped deeper into the maze.

Left. Right. Left again — PC Simpson appeared around the corner, flinched and staggered to a halt, eyes wide.

He leaned on one of the shelves, puffing. Belly wobbling with each breath. ‘You trying to give me a heart attack?’

‘She here?’

He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Next right, keep going past the poll tax riots, and right again. And be nice to her, OK?’

Then he squeezed past and disappeared into the darkness.

She was exactly where he said she’d be.

Alice sat, cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by open file boxes, leafing through a stack of forms, shoulders trembling. A sniff. Then she ground the palm of her hand into her eye socket. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be, he’s a-’

‘Detective Superintendent Knight’s right.’

‘He’s a dick. And so’s Docherty.’

Another sniff. ‘I don’t have a grasp on the case. Dr Docherty said the Inside Man was after his old victims and I said no. But he was, wasn’t he? Dr Docherty was right and I was wrong.’

I hooked my cane on a shelf and squatted down in front of her. ‘What if he got it right because he did it? Because he abducted them?’

She looked up at me, eyes all pink and puffy. ‘What am I doing here, Ash? I’m out of my depth. I’m useless and horrible and I shouldn’t be on the case, and if Henry and Dr Docherty couldn’t catch the Inside Man what…’ Her shoulders trembled. ‘What chance did … did I … ever have?’

‘Come on, don’t do this.’ I leaned forward and pulled her against me. Her hair smelled of hotel shampoo and stale Jack Daniel’s. Her forehead hot against my neck. I gave her a squeeze. ‘Shhh… It’s just the PTSD talking, like you said. Maybe you should have some of that MDMA? Go play a violent video game, or something?’

‘I shouldn’t be-’

‘You’re the cleverest person I know; you shouldn’t be doing yourself down like this.’ I pulled away, brushed the hair from her face. ‘Docherty’s a prick, that’s all there is to it.’

She sniffed and nodded. Heeled the tears from her eyes again. Managed a little smile. ‘Being hungover doesn’t help…’

I sat on the ground, stretched my legs out. Pointed at all the files and paperwork. ‘So where do we go from here?’

Simpson lumbered out of the shadows, with a mug in one hand and a green paper towel in the other. ‘Here.’ He handed them both to Alice. ‘Tea. And some gingersnaps.’

She held the mug against her chest. ‘Thank you, Allan.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Where’s mine?’

‘You’re not upset. And I’m not a bloody teaboy.’ He nudged the archive box next to me with his boot. ‘I hope you’re going to put all this back where you found it, Henderson. Place is bad enough as it is.’

‘Like it’d make any difference. Your domain’s a disaster area, Simpson, you should be ashamed of yourself.’

He leaned his elbow against a shelf. ‘And don’t get me started on them tossers from Operation Tiger-Sodding-Balm.’ Both hands came up, elbows jammed into his sides, fingers wiggling as his voice jumped up half an octave. ‘“Oh, we’re the Specialist Crime Division, we don’t need to sign things in and out, we’re so sexy!” Tossers. Come on, is it really that hard to check the damn box out, then check it back in again? What’s the point of having procedures if no bugger pays any attention to them?’

I leaned back, drummed my fingers on the lid of a file box. ‘Who’s been messing with the boxes? All of Knight’s team? Just some of them?’

Simpson puffed his cheeks out. ‘Let’s see… I’ve caught that DI Foot down here rummaging through stuff more than once, and DS Grohl…’

‘What about Dr Docherty?’

‘Pffff… He’s the worst of the lot. Soon as the MIT got called in he was down here digging about like a kid in a sandbox. No respect, any of them.’ Simpson straightened up. ‘Anyway, some of us have work to do.’ He turned and stamped off into the maze. ‘And make sure you put everything back where you got it.’

I swung the Suzuki around the roundabout and into Shortstaine. Into the rows of identical cookie-cutter houses in pale brick and pantiles. Cul-de-sacs and twee road names. Labradors and 4×4s.

Alice slapped a hand down on the papers in her lap, holding them in place. ‘I know he’s in a position to skew the profile away from himself, but-’

‘And he’s always talking up the letters. He had unsupervised access to the archives. Every time you disagree with him, he tries to make it look as if you don’t know what you’re talking about, or he buries your opinion.’

‘That doesn’t mean he’s the Inside Man.’ She smiled at me, squeezed my arm. ‘It’s sweet, but you don’t have to make him a suspect, just because he was mean to me.’

‘I paid his room a visit last night, while you were bringing up your dinner. No sign of him. Bed was still made.’

She turned over another sheet, ‘Well … maybe he’s got a lover in town?’

‘He’s got panties and a bra in his suitcase. Lipstick and earrings too.’

Left onto Camburn View Avenue — the woods loomed between the houses, their tips catching the sun as it struggled through the dove-grey clouds.

‘That doesn’t mean he can’t have a lover.’

I glanced across and she shifted in her seat.

She shrugged. ‘What? Transvestites need love too.’

Right into Camburn View Crescent. A pair of patrol cars sat a third of the way down the road, the SEB’s dented Transit van parked between them.

‘Thought you’d be banging on about him having identity disorder issues and putting on a fake face.’

She frowned as I pulled in behind the second patrol car. ‘Well, the need to adopt a different personality would fit in with the revised profile. And the persona he displays professionally fits the power-obsessed narcissist exposed in the letters…’ A hand drifted up to fiddle with her hair. ‘Are we really considering him as a viable suspect?’

‘Thinking about it.’

More twiddling. ‘What do we know about his childhood?’

‘Social Services got called in twice. Once for wilful fire-raising, and once because they thought his parents were beating him. Wife divorced him for something sexual, don’t know what yet.’ But him wearing women’s underwear probably featured in there somewhere.

The frown deepened, pulling wrinkles around her eyes. ‘Arson’s a typical indicator of psychological problems, and if his parents were abusive… Can we see the reports?’

I opened the door and climbed out. My breath fogged in the shadow of the homes. ‘Someone’s working on it.’

She stuffed all the papers back into her satchel and followed me down the pavement to the cordon of blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape. The same plukey officer from Monday was guarding the line. His eyes goldfished, and he snapped to attention. ‘Guv.’

‘No sausage roll today, Constable Hill?’

His hand flinched up and wiped imaginary crumbs from his fluorescent yellow waistcoat. ‘Sorry, sir.’ He licked his lips. Then pulled up the tape so Alice could duck underneath.

I nodded towards the house. ‘They find anything yet?’

He leaned in and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘One of those little plastic baby key rings. It was in the back door.’

Another constable made us sign in before she’d let us into the house.

Inside, almost every surface was covered by a thin patina of silver or black dust, clear rectangles marking where prints had been lifted with tape. The lock was intact, no splintered wood.

Raised voices came from upstairs — ‘You should be out there finding her!’

‘We’re doing everything we can, sir, please, you need to calm down, OK? Deep breaths.’

No sign of anything broken in the lounge, or the kitchen. A stack of mugs and plates were lined up on the draining board, all covered with fingerprint powder. In the daylight, the window overlooked a postage-stamp garden with a bird table in one corner and a whirly washing drier.

An SEB tech was just outside, on his knees at the open back door, dusting the white UPVC with amido black, earbuds in — nodding in time to whatever the music was.

I tapped him on the shoulder and he nearly fell off the step. ‘Gah! Don’t do that!’

‘Where’s the key fob?’

He pointed at the stainless-steel flight case in the middle of the floor. ‘Doesn’t fit the lock though. Well, you know, it goes in, but it won’t turn.’

‘You try it in the front?’

‘Doesn’t fit there either.’ He sat back on his haunches. ‘You here to talk to the husband?’

‘Any sign of a struggle? Break-in?’

‘No so much as a squint picture on the walls.’

‘Don’t forget to check the flowerbeds for footprints.’ I headed back through into the hall. Stopped. Lowered my voice as the argument continued upstairs. ‘She knew him. She came downstairs, she opened the door, and she went with him. Didn’t put up a fight.’

Alice looked up the stairs. ‘Would she know Dr Docherty?’

‘You don’t understand: she’s pregnant. Pregnant!’ The voice got louder. ‘What if he hurts our baby?’

‘He was her therapist for a while, after the attacks.’

Laura’s husband — what was it, Christopher? — appeared at the top of the stairs. Both hands were linked over the back of his head, as if he was trying to pull it into his chest. ‘He can’t hurt our baby. You’ve got no idea how hard it was to get this far!’

A uniformed officer emerged behind him. She’d ditched the fluorescent waistcoat and the stabproof vest, her black fleece hanging open — showing off the black T-shirt underneath. ‘We’re only trying to help. Maybe there’s someone you could call? A friend, or relative?’

Christopher turned all the way around, mouth pinched tight shut… Then he stopped and stared at me. ‘You.’

I nodded. ‘Any chance we can have a word?’

I let the curtain fall back into place. ‘That’s Sky TV arrived.’ Making it four TV crews, half a dozen photographers, and a handful of journalists.

Christopher sat on the edge of the bed, folded forward so his chest rested on his knees, still pulling his head down. ‘Why can’t they just go out and look for her?’

Alice sat down next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s not your fault.’

‘Of course it is. I’m supposed to look after her. I promised.’ A shudder. ‘Especially after last time…’

I leaned back against the windowsill. ‘Who else knew you were living here?’

His head came up. ‘No one. Not even my mum knows where we are. We run this place like something out of a spy movie. Laura…’ His head went down again, voice wobbling. ‘She doesn’t want anyone to find us.’

Alice gave the shoulder a little rub. ‘Has she been seeing anyone for her anxiety? A doctor? Or maybe a therapist?’

‘She did all that years ago. She’s not paranoid, she’s just… She wants us to be careful, that’s all.’

Not careful enough.

I took out my notepad. ‘When did you notice she was missing?’

A sigh rippled through him. ‘We’ve been sleeping in different rooms for a couple of weeks. She’s too hot, with the baby, and she needs to spread out. When I got up to pee at three, her light was on. Sometimes she falls asleep with a book, so I went in to switch it off, and she wasn’t there.’ He rocked forwards and backwards, making the bed creak. ‘I checked everywhere. Going room to room, switching on all the lights. Ran up and down the streets, shouting for her. Oh God…’

‘So you last saw her…?’

‘I took her up a cup of camomile tea at eleven before I went to bed.’ He picked at the duvet, wrapping the cover around his fingers.

Alice looked at me, face pinched, then back to him. ‘Christopher, I know this is going to be difficult, but if you keep focusing on what happened last time, it’s going to eat you.’

‘What if you can’t find her?’

‘We’ll find her. But I need you to understand that just because she was raped and cut open last time, there’s no reason to… What’s wrong?’

He stiffened. Sat up. ‘Raped?’

Alice pulled her chin in. ‘When she was abducted?’

‘She wasn’t raped! Who said she was raped?’

Alice nodded, kept her hand on his shoulder. ‘A lot of rape victims don’t tell their partners. Sometimes they feel guilty — even though there’s nothing to feel guilty about — it’s not their fault, it’s-’

‘She would’ve told me.’ He folded back over again. ‘We don’t keep secrets from each other. Ever.’

The media scrum faded in the rear-view mirror, then disappeared as we turned back onto Camburn View Avenue. On the radio, an old Foo Fighters song clattered to a halt, and the pips filled the car. ‘It’s nine o’clock and you’re listening to Castlewave FM. News now, and we’re joined in the studio by Dr Frederic Docherty. Dr Docherty-’

I turned off the radio.

Alice ran her hands around the wheel. ‘Maybe he didn’t rape her eight years ago?’

‘Why wouldn’t he rape her? He raped Ruth Laughlin.’

She took us out onto the main road, heading for Cowskillin. ‘Or maybe he didn’t rape her till after she was drugged?’

‘Perhaps he couldn’t get it up? Or there wasn’t time? Or perhaps she just didn’t tell Christopher? Misplaced guilt, like you said. Or-’ The phone in my pocket rang — not the official one, the burner. I dug the thing out. Pressed the button. ‘What?’

Wee Free McFee’s voice snarled out of the earpiece. ‘You found my little girl yet?’

‘We’re looking.’

‘Tick-tock, Henderson. Tick-tock. Your fat friend’s not looking so good.’

‘He needs a doctor.’

‘And I need my daughter. You remember how that feels, don’t you? Knowing she’s out there and some bastard’s got her?’

Houses and shops swept by as Alice took the turning marked ‘CITY STADIUM’. The First National Celtic Church spire rose above the houses. A drop of rain spattered against the windscreen.

‘You still there, Henderson?’

‘We’re going as fast as we can, OK? As soon as we’ve got something I’ll call you.’

‘Your fat friend’s only got one eye, doesn’t need two ears as well, does he? Why don’t I stick one in the post for you?’

‘We’re…’ I closed my eyes and dunked my head off the window. Held it there. The road vibrations burred into my skull. ‘I remember what it feels like. We’re doing everything we can. We’re going as fast as we can. We’ll find her.’

‘You better.’