The Silent Conversation, page 2
Another silent victim of Eric Manson.
Elizabeth Davies had then shrugged at his silence and closed her file. She asked about the blonde detective he worked with, DI Costello. ‘That might be interesting,’ she said. ‘Two women fronting the programme.’
‘She’d be a nightmare,’ warned Anderson with such conviction that Davies looked alarmed. He wrote a name down on a bit of paper and slid it over to her. ‘That’s the officer you want to speak to.’
It was quarter past eight; he needed to get a move on. After getting dressed, he walked across the quiet hall to his son’s room. The house was peaceful, an unusual interlude in what Costello called ‘The Andersons’ before humming the theme tune to The Waltons.
He could hear Claire upstairs talking, her boyfriend answering back, Skyping each other. Downstairs, Brenda was in the kitchen putting glasses, plates, cutlery on a tray, turning the oven on to warm up the serving dishes. He still felt vaguely uneasy about viewing the programme – it didn’t seem right to beam the tragedy into everybody’s front room. Watching it might trigger forgotten details, regrets, mistakes, things they should have seen, things they could have done to get there sooner, to save those women their terror.
Or save them, full stop.
Standing in the beam of sunlight coming in the window, he looked at Moses, snuffling in his cot, the mobile dancing in the draught. Anderson walked over and was hit in the face by one of the brightly coloured balsa wood balloons. The room was still unbearably hot, and he was concerned about Moses’ chest; the wee guy didn’t do too well in extreme heat and extreme cold. Norma the wiry mongrel had settled in her usual position across the doorway, ears up, tail thudding on the carpet, keeping one eye on the stairs, one eye on the cot. Anderson smiled at her before turning to look at his son sleeping, checking the ease of his breath.
Snuggling down in his favourite chair, enjoying the draught, he closed his eyes, listening to the gentle creak and whirl of the mobile as it danced and drifted. The TV programme was on soon. Wyngate was coming round to watch it, and Costello was going to try to make it. It’d be good to see them again.
‘Did he fall asleep eventually?’ asked Brenda, closing the oven door, wafting the heat away from her face. They had the back door open and the midge screen down. Norma had already left the guests in the front room where they waited for the TV programme to start, and trotted down the hall to the kitchen as soon as she had scented the naan bread.
‘Yes. Well, I think so – every time I got up to walk away, his eyes were wide open before I got to the door. I swear he’s bloody at it sometimes.’
‘Oh, behave! Take that tray through. I’ll be there in a minute with some drinks. Do you want a beer?’
‘Non-alcoholic, yes.’
By the time Anderson had entered the front room, Costello had taken her boots off and was sitting with her feet up on the coffee table. She had a hole in the toe of her left sock.
‘Oh, this is going to be good. I bet he makes a right arse of himself!’ Costello snuggled down in her boss’s big white sofa, took a piece of pakora and dipped it in sauce, taking care not to drip any on the fine brocade. She felt a wave of nostalgia for when Colin Anderson was a DS and his living-room floor was covered by Lego and the air scented by nappies drying on the radiators.
She even missed her boss’s wife being in a foul mood. Brenda was almost civil to her these days, still scowling but agreeable with it.
‘When’s it on?’ asked Gordon Wyngate, peering at the muted TV screen, feeling slightly sick with nerves.
‘It’s on this channel so we won’t miss it – in fact, it should be starting any minute …’ Anderson glanced at his phone, wondering where the evening went. Brenda appeared with a small plate of naan breads which Costello dived on as if she hadn’t seen food for a fortnight, despite the fact she had to jam the pakora down her throat to make way for the starters.
‘So why did they offer him the job?’ asked Wyngate.
‘Because he has been blessed with cheekbones that most guys would die for, and …’ said Anderson.
‘And he can read.’ Costello munched her naan, licking off onion relish. ‘And that’s about it.’
‘It’s a wee bit more than that, Costello,’ said Anderson, handing Wyngate a Bud Light and Costello a Coke before bumping the other settee round, so he could get a better view.
‘That’s right – it was more than that,’ agreed Costello. ‘They wanted somebody with dark hair so they looked better on screen with the wholesome Kathy.’
‘That’s rubbish,’ said Anderson, settling in.
‘It’s not, you know – I read that bloody email. I think he’s dyed his hair. Last time I saw him, he was going a bit grey – looked like a startled pigeon was perched on top of his napper.’
‘He has that thing,’ said Wyngate wistfully, ‘that he’ll be even more attractive with a hint of grey. I bet he’s …’
‘Shh, they’re doing a bit about Johnny Clearwater,’ muttered Anderson.
‘So the four books, the three documentaries haven’t been enough? Why are they going through it again?’ moaned Costello.
‘I think it’s the anniversary,’ suggested Wyngate.
‘And there’s nobody better to talk us through one of our most enduring and troubling, cold cases than the mother of the boy who went missing that hot summer afternoon.’ The voice of Kathy Lamont. ‘Now, Naomi Clearwater appeals for your help in finding out what really happened to little Johnny exactly four years ago today. It’s rarely been out of the headlines, but please, each and every one of you, pay attention. You may have a vital piece of information, you may hold the key to his disappearance in June 2017. Here’s Naomi. Please help get the wee boy back to his family where he belongs. This was recorded in Cellardyke, ten miles from St Andrews, at the Stewart Hotel, the very place where she last saw her only child.’
The screen changed to a soft green landscape, then focused on the lone figure of Naomi, talking as she strolled over the lawn of the Stewart Hotel. Her lined and troubled face, red-eyed, looked straight at the camera as she repeated the words that her son was alive and that somebody out there knew him, knew of him; he was the boy next door or the new boy at school. The camera caught a tear gathering slowly in her eye before tumbling down her cheek. The scene pulled back to show the lawn full of children playing. Then, slowly, the children faded and all that was left was the empty stretch of grass running down to the stream.
Wyngate and Anderson, the two dads, let out a long sigh.
‘They’re looking for a body,’ said Costello. ‘Somebody should tell her that. Anything else’s cruel.’
‘But no body has ever been found. There’s hope.’
‘No proof of life has been found,’ snapped Costello. ‘Johnny Clearwater’s dead and hidden under a patio somewhere. They keep flinging money at it, especially trying to appease the media. It’s emotional nonsense.’
The others had to accept that Costello had a point. It was Naomi Clearwater, the force of her personality, her fragility and, it had to be said, her social connections, and those of her husband, that had kept Johnny very much the focus of the media.
‘She’s made a career out of being the distraught mother,’ said Costello. ‘I think her man would rather move on. It’s been four years.’
‘That’s a horrible thing to say,’ said Wyngate, then apologized as technically he had disrespected a senior officer. Costello didn’t notice.
‘Well, honestly, how long are they going to spend on it? How much heartache do you want that family to go through? The future is in front of you. Operation Aries spent too much money, far too much money – and why? Because she’s middle class and pretty, and because her man is a jumped-up lawyer with God on his side. And it’s not often God is on the side of a lawyer, let’s face it.’
‘I think if God was on his side, then his son would still be with him. Oh, here we go, the bit we’ve been waiting for. I’ll put the sound up a bit.’ Anderson sat back, pressing the volume on the remote. He, too, was feeling nervous; he wanted to see what the BBC had done with the investigation he had worked so hard on.
The camera started on the road through Glen Croe, filmed at dusk, or maybe at dawn. The view was low to show the height of the rock wall towering above the road, the famous road known as the Rest and Be Thankful. The panning shot rolled along the tarmac to the one vehicle stuck at the red signal on the temporary traffic light. The camera tracked up the boot of the Toyota Prius to the back of the head of the driver, then to his hand reaching out to the car radio, his fingers turning down the volume of Deacon Blue, ‘Queen of the New Year’. The engine quietened as it idled, then cut out.
The only sound now the gentle rhythmic thud of the windscreen wipers. Through the front window, the tarmac strip rolled down the glen, into the darkness, only a faint green light showing on the road from the single pole of the other traffic light.
There was a dull thud.
The screen went black.
Against the metronome of the windscreen wipers, the screen lifted from darkness. Anderson felt himself drawn in as he tried to ignore the changing views of the moor above the road, looking down upon the car, the amber lights flaring and dying in the darkness, pulsing over the naked body lying on the bonnet.
A familiar voice: ‘I was sitting there waiting for the light to change. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that sound. She fell from the sky. I couldn’t do anything …’ And so the voice faded again, drifting behind the soundtrack of the car, the wind and the rain. The screen filled with the ascension of the rock wall.
Anderson remembered. It hadn’t been raining the night Lorna Lennox fell to her death. A brave young woman, she had taken her chances and run away from Manson after he had kept her alive for what, weeks? Months? Long enough for her to be emaciated, so much that she managed to slip her manacles, removing the skin on her thumbs and wrists, and found her way out of the tunnels to the water clock, and into the black night, on to the top of the moor with no way of knowing where safety was, in what direction she should go.
So she ran.
Maybe she had spotted a light and ran towards it – the headlight of a car over in the far glen – but was so crazy with fear she misjudged it. Or maybe she just ran as any direction was away from what she was leaving behind. She ran off the top of the rock wall and fell to her death.
On the TV, Kathy Lamont was talking again. The trailer clip had passed. They had changed the subject and now words scrolled across the bottom of the screen highlighting dates and times, email addresses, confidential phone line numbers. She spoke about some Bernepoo puppies that had been stolen from a breeder in Lothian. Kathy went through each pup, pointing out the markings with the notion of making them too hot to handle, ramping up her loveliness by holding a similar puppy to her ample chest.
Anderson muttered something about that being the best way to get them drowned, but at four grand a pop, they could be dyed and moved to Ireland or south of the border. The item finished, a close-up on puppy and cleavage. Then there was a pause, and the lighting in the studio altered slightly, becoming more subdued. In the background were the ghosts of civilians manning the phones, a few uniformed cops wandering back and forth, looking busy and giving an air of authenticity. Kathy turned in her seat, looking directly to the camera, and started reading the autocue.
‘And now, to talk about what it was actually like to solve one of the worst cases in Scottish criminal history, we’d like to welcome to our team Detective Sergeant Viktor Mulholland …’
Anderson, Costello and Wyngate cheered.
Brenda rushed into the room, leaning on the back of the settee. ‘Is that him on?’
‘Listen …’ muttered Anderson.
‘As part of one of our most successful cold case squads …’
‘Who’s that, then? Successful cold case squad?’ asked Costello, genuinely confused.
‘Us,’ snapped Anderson. ‘Be quiet.’
The camera angle changed and panned on to Mulholland, looking incredibly relaxed and handsome, with the right degree of concern and approachability. He said good evening and his three old colleagues started to clap. Wyngate nudged Costello’s shoulder, causing her to jerk her hand. The sauce on the half-eaten pakora dripped and slid down the white brocade of the sofa, leaving a dubious-looking skid mark.
THREE
Costello stretched out on her settee, thinking about going to bed, but she had eaten too much korma at Colin’s while watching Vik on TV. She was dog-tired but too wired to sleep. And it was bloody hot. The big windows that looked down to the river were wide open, but the draught was cold; the minute she closed the windows, the room was like an oven again. The time for sleep had passed, but she didn’t want to spend another long night staring at the ceiling or flicking through Netflix. She yawned.
She could rewatch Eyes and Ears. She wasn’t that interested in Naomi Clearwater’s continuing search for her son, but she had been genuinely engaged by the segment they had filmed about Eric Manson and the Night Hunter – those spooky night scenes up on the moor, the creepy water clock slowly turning, passing the time for nobody. She could watch it on catch-up so she could fast-forward through the missing fishing boats and stolen designer dogs, items included so that they ticked the box for community service TV. She didn’t need to watch it to know what the Night Hunter case had been about; she had lived and worked every minute of it. But she was curious to see what the programme had made of it – that fine line between sensationalism and fact. From what she had seen, even with Wyngate’s excited mutterings and Anderson slurping his non-alcoholic beer, the director had been careful, getting a forensic pathologist who had not worked on the case to talk about it with medical precision. The victims had been represented by the photographs that had been released to the press at the time they had been abducted. There had been no heightened dramatic reconstructions of the horrific injuries these women had suffered, the starvation, lying in their own filth for week after week. They’d gloss over that in case the Daily Mail readers got upset. Those poor women, one taken after another, then another, until the investigation team had made the connection. It was Elvie McCulloch, the sister of a missing woman, who had put the case together, with one great irony: her sister was not one of Manson’s victims.
Costello pressed play, thinking how enthusiastic she was in those days. Now she was tired of her work, tired of the lack of reward, tired of the police service being the public whipping boy. Even this programme was, in its own way, a celebration of the killer. It had ended with a still of Manson, a few years younger than he had been when his mother died, his wife left him and he went insane. The feature didn’t fade out to an ‘in memory of’ followed by a slow procession of photographs and the dates of the incredibly short lives of his victims. Costello tried to remember the exact sequence of events, but her one overriding memory was of those dark tunnels, as cold and black and frightening as they had been when the prisoners of war had tunnelled them out of the hillside.
Those poor women – and right now, somewhere in the world, there would be women, kids and men, still held captive, still being tortured and exploited. Costello sighed. Human beings were a load of sick fucks and the good guys did not seem to be winning the war.
Her colleagues – younger, cleverer, smarter colleagues – were being promoted over her, when she still thought of herself as the young smart one. She was tired of them and they were tired of her. Probably, if she was honest, she was slightly more than a little pissed off with herself, a constant feeling of unease with the way the world was going and the way she was struggling to find her place in it. Maybe it was genetic; her mother had taken refuge in a bottle, taking a step sideways when she was the age Costello was now. Was that ahead of her? Her eyes looked at the television and then along at the digital display of the clock.
The date.
She was still contemplating the fact that the year was nearly half over when she heard a noise out in the hall and lifted the remote to reduce the TV volume: the lift coming up, the door opening, then quiet chatter. She silenced the TV altogether and sprang to her feet with more energy than she thought she was capable of. Going out to the hall, she walked towards the front of the flat, then stopped and listened hard.
She could hear Vik Mulholland, coming out of the lift, fresh from the success of the programme. Peering through the spyhole, she could see Vik and Elvie on the landing; they’d been an item for years now. She didn’t know the other man, the one complaining that the pizza was burning his fingers. Costello did recognize the voice: a new constable – John somebody – who had been drafted in as a babysitter for Mulholland, although the rumour was that he was redundant already because Elvie McCulloch was ever present.
Vik made a comment about not being able to get the key in the lock. The younger man said something that Costello couldn’t hear but it made Vik laugh. Then Elvie took the key and opened the door.
Vik Mulholland had sipped from the poisoned chalice of fame; he was on his way to becoming a public figure. Costello couldn’t blame him, the dreadful year he had suffered.
It crossed her mind, only for a moment, to open the door and say hello, turning into that praying mantis of a neighbour that she detested. The thought was dead as soon as it had been born.
She had wondered if they might become friends, living across the landing; it had been a good solution to the problem of what to do with the flat.
After the shock of Mrs Craig, her neighbour, dying and leaving the flat, and most of her possessions, to Costello, she’d heard that Vik needed a ground-floor flat as he couldn’t manage the stairs of his mother’s flat where he was staying. Costello had suggested, not entirely seriously, that they move into the empty flat in the meantime. It was a big apartment, three bedrooms with the same view of the river. And it had a car park and a lift.
