The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime, Volume 8

Dead Close Lin Anderson

Doug Cameron stared wide-eyed into the darkness, his heart racing, fear prickling his skin. The dream. As fresh now as it had been seventeen years ago. For a few moments Rebecca was alive, the swell of her pregnancy as clear as her terrified expression, then she was running from him as though he was the source of her fear.

A police siren wailed past in tune with his thoughts, its blue light flickering his rain-splattered window. He rose and went to watch the squad car’s progress, leaning against the window frame, reminding himself that in forty-eight hours that sound would belong to his past. Just like the view from the bedroom window. Just like Rebecca.

When he felt steadier, he went through to the kitchen and began the process of making coffee, glancing at the photograph on the fridge door as he fetched out the milk carton. He’d taken the picture from the garden of his future home. A view of the flat-topped slopes of Dun Caan on the Island of Raasay instead of Edinburgh Castle. Not a bad exchange, he decided.

Cameron settled at the kitchen table, pulled over his work box and began the intricate task of tying a new fishing fly. The only thing that helped him forget the dream, and the past.

Detective Sergeant James Boyd woke with a start. Immediately his body reacted to its cramped position on the sofa sending waves of pain through his knees and lower back. Boyd wasn’t sure which noise had wakened him, the screaming baby or his mobile. Through the open bedroom door he could see Bev put their young son to the breast, silencing his cries. Boyd answered the duty officer in monosyllables, pulling on his trousers and shirt as he did so. He turned, sensing Bev in the doorway. She looked pointedly at him.

“I have to go to work.”

Bev said nothing, but her expression was the same as always. Tired, resentful, desperate.

“I’m sorry,” he tried.

“Will Susan be there?” she said sharply.

Boyd covered guilt with irritation. “She’s forensic. If there’s a crime she’s there.”

Bev turned on her heel, Rory still attached to her breast. The last thing Boyd saw before the bedroom door banged shut was a small chubby hand clutching the air.

When his phone rang, Cameron contemplated ignoring it. The only call he would get at this time was one he didn’t want.

“Glad you’re up, sir,” his Detective Sergeant’s voice was suspiciously cheery. “We’ve had a call out.”

“I’ve retired,” Cameron tried.

“Not till Tuesday,” Boyd reminded him.

Cameron listened in silence to the details. A serious incident had been reported at Greyfriars Churchyard, a stone’s throw from his flat.

“I’ll walk round,” he offered.

“No need, sir. I’ll be with you in five minutes.”

Cameron wondered if Boyd suspected he wouldn’t come otherwise.

Boyd’s car stank of stale vinegar, the door pocket stuffed with fish and chip wrappers, a sure sign he wasn’t eating at home. His DS looked rough, stubble-faced and bleary-eyed.

“How’s the new arrival?” Cameron asked.

“Only happy when he’s attached to Bev’s tit.”

“A typical male then.”

Boyd attempted a smile. Cameron thought about adding something, like “Hang on in there. Things’ll get better”, but didn’t know if that was true.

They were at the graveyard in minutes, sweeping past the statue of Greyfriars Bobby and through the gates of the ancient churchyard. Ahead, the pale edifice that was the church loomed out of an early morning mist.

A couple of uniforms stood aside to let the two men enter the mausoleum, one of many that lined the walls of the graveyard. Inside, the air was musty and chill. The light-headed feeling Cameron had experienced earlier returned and he reached out to steady himself against the doorframe, bowing his head to relieve the sudden pressure between his eyes. The beam from Boyd’s high-powered torch played over the interior, finally settling on a pool of fresh blood next to a stone casket.

“The caller reported seeing a figure run in through the gate. Then they heard a woman scream.”

Cameron said nothing. He wanted to make it plain that if Boyd expected to take over as DI, this was the time to start.

“We’ve done an initial search of the graveyard. Nothing so far. And no blood except in here.”

Cameron registered the oddity of this, but made no comment. He didn’t want to be drawn in. He didn’t want his brain to focus on anything other than his departure.

They emerged to find a parked forensic van and two SOCOs getting kitted up. Cameron watched as Boyd and the young woman exchanged looks. He walked out of hearing, not wanting to be party to something he couldn’t prevent. Besides, what could he say? Don’t piss on your wife or you could end up like me?

He had no idea what made him look up. The medieval stone tenement behind him merged with the back wall of the crypt. It was blank-faced except for one narrow window. The young woman who watched him was in shadow but Cameron briefly made out a pale face and long dark hair, before she stepped out of sight.

It took him five minutes to circumnavigate the building and gain entry. The internal stairwell spiralled swiftly from ground level, one door on each floor. He climbed to the second landing and knocked.

When the young woman opened the door, Cameron’s voice froze in his throat.

Cameron had been a detective long enough to read body language pretty accurately. Susan was on her knees on the muddy grass, Boyd trying hard not to look at her upturned buttocks. He stood to attention when he spotted Cameron. Another sign.

“I spoke to a girl living up there,” Cameron pointed at the window. “She says she was wakened by the siren. Didn’t see or hear anything before that.”

Boyd gave him an odd look. Cameron wasn’t planning to say the girl looked so like Rebecca it’d almost given him a heart attack, but wondered if the shock still showed on his face.

“Well the police dog was right. It is a grave, but not a fresh one.” Susan sat back to reveal a sunken area in the muddy trampled grass. “They buried plague victims here in medieval times. There were so many it raised the ground level by twenty feet. Heavy rain sometimes washes the top soil away, exposing the remains.”

Cameron stepped closer, his eye caught by a glint of metal.

“What’s that?”

Susan fished it out and wiped off the mud. “Looks like a brooch.” She handed it over.

Cameron felt the prick as the pin caught his thumb. Blood oozed from the wound to form a red bubble. The sight of it made him nauseous.

“The plague bacteria are way out of date,” Susan quipped, “but I’d renew your tetanus if I were you.” She slipped the brooch into an evidence bag. “I should have something for you on the blood in the crypt in twenty-four hours.”

“That’s Boyd’s department now,” Cameron told her.

He left them to it, giving the excuse of packing to cover his early departure. The truth was, in his head he was no longer a policeman. Thirty-five years of detective work had come and gone and the city was no better or safer now than when he’d begun. Worse than that, the dream this morning and the young woman he’d spoken to in the flat above the graveyard had only served to remind Cameron that the one case he should have solved, he never had.

It wasn’t much for a lifetime. Cameron surveyed the meagre group of boxes. Everything had been packed except the books. There wasn’t much shelf space at the cottage. He would have to be ruthless.

He started well, splitting the books into two piles, one for Cancer Research, the other destined for Raasay. There were at least half a dozen on fly fishing, all of which went on the Raasay pile. The last book on the shelf was one about Edinburgh’s past. Cameron recognized it as belonging to Rebecca. Not a native to the city, she’d taken an amused interest in its medieval history, both fact and fiction. The photograph fell out as he transferred the book to the Raasay pile.

Rebecca stood by a dark expanse of water, laughing as she tried to anchor her long dark hair against the wind. On the lapel of her jacket she wore a brooch. Cameron suddenly remembered buying her the brooch from a silversmith near Glendale as a birthday present — a swirling Celtic pattern not unlike the one they’d found in the ancient grave.

The flashback had all the power and detail of the original event. Rebecca standing next to the counter, her head bowed as she examined the selection. He could even smell her perfume as she turned to show him which one she’d chosen.

Cameron sat down heavily, his legs like water. This was how it had been when she’d first disappeared. The powerful, terrible dreams, the intensity of her presence. The fear that she was in danger and he couldn’t save her.

He had no idea how long he sat there unmoving before he heard the buzzer.

Boyd stood awkwardly amidst the packing cases. Cameron thought again how much he liked his DS. He wanted to tell Boyd he would make a good inspector but he shouldn’t let the job take over his life. Instead Cameron said nothing.

He’d laid the Edinburgh book on the Raasay pile. Boyd picked it up, checked out the cover and flicked through a few pages. Cameron was aware his DS was stalling for time. There was something he wanted to say, but didn’t know how.

“You don’t believe in all this stuff, sir?”

“What stuff?”

“Ghosts?”

Boyd’s eyes were shadowed from lack of sleep. The pregnancy, Cameron gathered, had been unplanned. The timing wasn’t good for him or Bev, Boyd had said. Cameron suddenly recalled his own reaction when Rebecca had told him she was pregnant. The worry and confusion mingled with his desire to say the right thing.

“We’re all haunted, one way or another, Sergeant.” Cameron handed Boyd the photograph. “This is Rebecca, my wife, taken just before she went missing. Look at the brooch she’s wearing.”

Boyd studied the picture. “That’s what I came about, sir. We’ve found something I think you should see.”

On the way, Cameron had this expectant feeling. It was something he’d experienced countless times on the job, the breakthrough moment, when the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place.

An incident tent had been raised over the plague pit. A foot below the surface they’d exposed a mummified body. Cameron could make out strands of long dark hair.

“There’s a lot of sandy soil in this section,” Susan was saying. “It leeched the fluids from the body. That’s why it’s preserved. The brooch must have been attached to the clothes.”

Cameron’s heart was in his mouth. “How long has it been there?”

“At a guess a couple of decades,” Susan avoided his eye.

Cameron stared into the grave. Was it possible that this could be Rebecca? That all the time she’d been buried here, half a mile from her home?

He recalled with utmost clarity the morning he’d returned from work to find the flat empty, Rebecca gone. She’d been tearful when he’d been called out the previous night. The pregnancy had made her vulnerable — something he’d resented, because it made his life difficult. Cameron still felt guilty at the relief he’d experienced when the door had closed on the sound of her distress.

The months following her disappearance had been hell. He’d been in charge of missing person cases himself, interviewed husbands about their wives, known the statistics that pointed to the partner as the prime suspect. He’d had to endure the same accusations himself.

It had all ended nowhere. No Rebecca, no body. And all the time Cameron had hoped she’d simply left him. That they were both alive somewhere, Rebecca and the child. This morning when the girl opened the door, her extraordinary likeness to Rebecca, for a moment he’d hoped...

“The girl in the flat. Have you spoken to her?”

The look he’d seen earlier was back on Boyd’s face.

“The flat’s unoccupied, sir.”

“Nonsense. I spoke to a young woman. She looked like...” Cameron stopped himself.

“According to the neighbours, the flat’s been empty for months, sir.”

Cameron took the stairs two at a time. He was already banging on the door when Boyd caught him up. Boyd let him go through the process three times, before he intervened.

“There’s no one there, sir.”

“I saw her, Sergeant.” Cameron was pissed off by Boyd’s expression. He might be about to retire, but he wasn’t senile yet. Cameron put his shoulder to the door.

The room was empty — of everything. For a terrible moment Cameron thought the dream that haunted his nights had somehow spilled over into the day. The fantasy of Rebecca being alive, of the child surviving had fuelled his daytime imagination. But why here? Why now?

Boyd was standing silently in the doorway.

Cameron pushed past, suddenly desperate to be out of that room.

“I don’t see how that’s possible.” Boyd looked again at the DNA results. Anyone working with the police had their DNA taken and stored on the database. It was routine. Susan’s tests on the blood traces in the crypt had come up with two types. One matched the boss, the other was an unknown.

“There must have been contamination when the samples were taken,” Boyd insisted.

Susan was adamant. “The only way for this to happen is for him to have bled in that room.”

“He cut his finger on the brooch,” he tried in desperation.

“That was afterwards.”

Boyd was at a complete loss. He would have to bring Cameron in, ask him how the hell his blood got in that crypt. Boyd didn’t relish the thought.

“What about the body?” he asked.

“Tests are ongoing. Superficially it’s the same build as Rebecca, but what’s left of the clothes suggest it may be older. We’re checking the teeth against Rebecca’s dental records. The brooch is the only real match and it’s not unique.”

Boyd had pulled the file on Rebecca’s disappearance and spent most of the previous night reading it. Seventeen years ago he hadn’t even joined the force so anything he’d heard about the boss’s missing wife was hearsay. Boyd wished he’d read the story sooner. It would have explained a lot about the old man.

He thought about the last few weeks, the boss’s odd behaviour. Boyd knew he hadn’t been sleeping. The DI had made a joke of it, suggesting it was excitement at getting out at last, but Boyd suspected that wasn’t the real reason.

He flicked through the well-thumbed documents in the file. There were transcripts of at least six interviews with Cameron.

“What if the boss did have something to do with his wife’s disappearance?”

Susan looked unconvinced. “Why? There was nothing wrong between them. No evidence of an affair...” She halted mid-sentence.

A sick feeling anchored itself in the pit of Boyd’s stomach. He had a sudden image of life repeating itself. The same stupid people doing the same stupid things.

“Susan...”

She held up her hand to stop him. “Don’t.”

The Royal Mile hummed with life in the late summer light. Cameron passed the usual mix of street artists and musicians circled by enthusiastic tourists. Near the Mercat Cross a young woman was regaling a group with stories of Edinburgh’s past. Cameron checked the nearby advertising boards for city tours.

The poster he sought had been on the wall of the flat. He’d spotted it when the girl opened the door. An advert for a ghost tour, one of several that roamed the old city, above and below ground. Like many Edinburghers Cameron had left that sort of thing to the tourists. Dead Close. Had he imagined the poster in the same way he’d imagined the girl?

He spotted a board for a ghost tour of Greyfriars Churchyard with a cancelled notice stuck across it. There was nothing advertising Dead Close.

In the end he found it by chance. Later Cameron would recall the entrance, remember it as the one in his dream, yet knowing there were scores of such archways lining the Royal Mile.

A young man wearing a long black cloak was calling a group to order outside a heavy wooden door, asking who among them was willing to cross the threshold of Dead Close.

The passageway was narrow, low and rough underfoot, dropping steeply. Cameron knew of Underground Edinburgh, the bowels of the older city beneath its current counterpart, but had never visited it before. He was fascinated by the narrow stone passageway, the small cell-like rooms to either side. It was bare and clean now, but the squalor in medieval times must have been horrendous. No wonder plague had broken out here.

The tour guide had brought them to a halt, encouraging the group to view one of the rooms. Cameron took his place at the back. The guide was telling the story of a child, separated from its mother when plague broke out and the city authorities quarantined the Close.

Cameron wasn’t shocked by the story, but by the room. Rough shelves housed a multitude of toys and sweets left by visitors who’d professed to sense the ghost-child’s loneliness. Cameron turned away, irritated by the guide’s tone, no longer willing to be part of this make-believe. It was then he saw the doll, wedged in the corner, three shelves up.

“We’re not supposed to touch the presents.”

Cameron showed him his ID card.

The guide lifted the doll down and handed it over. A ripple of excitement moved through the group. They were wondering if this was for real or just part of the tour. Cameron examined the doll. It looked just like the one he’d seen on the window seat in the flat, one eye dropped in its socket, the blue dress faded.

“I believe a young woman may have left this here. She was in her late teens, long dark hair?”

The guide looked blank. He must have taken scores of people round this place. “Wait a minute. There was a girl, a couple of nights ago. She joined just as we came in. I wasn’t sure she’d paid, but I decided to let it go.”

“Did she give a name?”

The guide shook his head.

This wasn’t fucking real. Boyd shifted his feet, discomfort showing in every inch of his body. Across the table the old man looked calm. Boyd tried to work out what he was thinking and couldn’t. Had it been anyone else, the interview would have been formal.

“You’ve never been in there before that night?”

Cameron shook his head.

“Then how did traces of your blood get on the scene, sir?”

“I have no idea.”

Jesus, he didn’t want this to end up as an investigation into an officer contaminating a scene of crime. Boyd contemplated keeping quiet about it, at least until the boss handed in his badge.

Cameron looked impatient as though he had no interest in the fact that his blood had been found in the crypt.

“What about the body? Is it Rebecca?”

Boyd hesitated. The tests weren’t complete yet, but there was no point keeping the old man thinking they’d found his dead wife. He shook his head. “Forensic think it’s much older.”

Cameron gave a small nod as though he wasn’t surprised.

“The girl I met in the flat looked like Rebecca. Our daughter would have been her age by now. Rebecca had an old-fashioned doll that was hers as a kid. It was the only thing missing from the house when she left.”

Boyd’s heart was sinking fast. He didn’t want the old man to go on, but couldn’t bring himself to stop him.

Cameron produced a china-faced doll in a faded blue dress. One eye hung low in its socket.

Something cold crawled up Boyd’s spine.

Cameron’s eyes were bright with excitement. “The girl I spoke to had this doll in the flat. There was a poster on the wall. It advertised a ghost tour called Dead Close. I took that tour. There’s a room dedicated to a child ghost. This doll was on the shelf.”

Cameron was staring at him, waiting for Boyd to respond.

What the hell was he supposed to say? That he’d had the flat searched again, even had Susan go over it forensically. That she’d been adamant no one had set foot in it for months. That this girl the DI kept going on about didn’t exist, except in his imagination.

Pity engulfed Boyd. Thirty-five years of service, on the point of retirement and the old man had lost it.

Cameron wandered down the Royal Mile, silent and deserted in the dark hours before dawn. It was the time he liked best. The right time to say goodbye. Without people, cars and lights the city felt like his alone.

Boyd had humoured him. Organized a search for the mysterious girl, but apart from the tour guide no one had professed to seeing her. The other occupants of the tenement continued to insist the flat had lain empty for months.

So he’d imagined it all, conjured up a daughter who didn’t exist? Cameron could have accepted that had it not been for the doll.

The rain had come on, beating heavily on his head and shoulders. Cameron was impervious to it, his gaze fastened on the arch leading to Dead Close. The Royal Mile had grown darker under the sudden downpour, the space around him airless, making it difficult to breathe. Cameron leaned against the stone wall, his legs suddenly weak.

He watched as a figure emerged from the archway opposite. The figure turned towards him, the swell of her pregnancy suddenly visible.

“Rebecca?”

The figure turned and for a moment Cameron believed she recognized him. A sob rose in his throat. Then she was off, hurrying up the steep cobbles of the Mile, turning left towards Greyfriars.

Cameron ran like he had never run before, yet always her fleeing figure was the same distance ahead. Fear drove him forward. He knew this time he must catch her up or else lose her forever.

He reached the Greyfriars gate, his breath rasping in his throat, his heart crashing. Ahead, the door of the mausoleum lay open. Cameron slithered across the rain-soaked grass and stood at the crypt door.

“Rebecca?” he called.

The moon broke through the cloud, dropping a faint line of light on the stone casket. Cameron could see nothing but that line of light yet every nerve and fibre of his body told him someone was in there and that they could hear him.

He poured out his heart to the darkness and shadows. He loved her. He should never have left her alone that night. He should never have stopped searching.

He fell silent as a figure stepped from behind the casket. Cameron called out Rebecca’s name, but the woman wasn’t looking at him but at someone else.

The shadow of a male loomed against the wall, then took form. Words were exchanged between them. Words that Cameron did not understand. His own voice was silenced, his body frozen in time.

The woman screamed and launched herself at the man. Cameron heard a grunt of surprise then saw him crumple and fall. Blood pooled at Cameron’s feet. He looked round in vain for its source, for there was no longer anyone there but him.

Boyd steeled himself and went inside the flat. Packing cases were stacked neatly in the hallway, each one with its contents detailed on the side. Two fishing rods stood upright in the corner.

He hesitated before pushing open the sitting room door. The place was empty. Boyd chose the kitchen next. He had been in this room many times. It was where the DI liked to sit. From the window, the castle stood resolute against the sky. Cameron’s tin box sat open on the table, a part-assembled fishing fly nearby.

Boyd listened outside the bedroom door. Maybe the old man was fast asleep? Praying wasn’t something Boyd did, but he made an exception as he pushed open that door.

Cameron was lying fully clothed on top of the bed. For a moment Boyd thought he was sleeping. The Edinburgh book lay open on his chest. The doll he’d pestered Boyd about sat in the crook of his arm. Blood running from his nostrils, eyes and ears had caked on his face and neck.

The book was just one of many that told the story of Edinburgh’s haunted places. Most of the stories were invented. This one was no different. Boyd read the passage the boss had circled.

The mausoleum is haunted by the ghost of the man responsible for quarantining Dead Close. He was killed by the mother of a child he’d walled in to die. The authorities executed the woman and she was buried in a mass grave with other plague victims. Visitors have reported seeing a pool of blood on the floor of the Mausoleum and hearing the woman scream.

Boyd closed the book and slipped it in a drawer of his filing cabinet. Whatever it said, he didn’t believe in ghosts.

Blood, on the other hand, was real.

They’d had no luck trying to find the person who’d bled in the crypt. As for the boss’s contribution — that was the warning they’d all missed.

Boyd wondered if the boss knew his life had sat on a knife edge. Maybe that was why he’d made up the story of the girl — the daughter he’d never had. Perhaps the old man just wanted one last chance to make things right.

The pathology report had stated that the brain aneurysm that killed Cameron had been developing for some time. He would have experienced all the symptoms; light-headedness, rapid heartbeat, nose bleeds and finally a massive drop in blood pressure as it burst.

Detective Inspector Boyd sat for a minute in the darkness of his office. Everyone else had gone. He picked up the phone and called home. After a few moments Bev answered.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Boyd said, happy just to hear her voice.

Bev lay on her right side, her swollen breasts leaking through the T-shirt. She was sound asleep, her breath coming in small puffs. Boyd went to the cot and looked in at the other male in Bev’s life, the one who had stolen those breasts. The lips were puckered from sucking, eyes moving behind blue lids.

“I know what you’re dreaming about,” Boyd whispered.

The eyes flickered open, a tiny fist thrust the air. Bev stirred in response as though the two were still attached, umbilical cord unbroken.

Boyd offered his finger. At his touch, the fist fastened round him. Boyd was amazed at its strength.

He undressed and got into bed, gathering his wife in his arms. Bev pressed against him, damp, smelling of milk. Boyd kissed her hair, her eyes, her mouth.