The Wild Coast, page 19
Chrissy sounded as though she was persuading herself of that fact.
‘Maybe I should call Janice?’ Rhona said. ‘Check if he did turn up?’
‘Torture yourself if you must. Alternatively, we could look and see if there’s anything back on the DNA samples from Achmelvich? Find out if it is our missing Callie?’ Reading Rhona’s expression, she gave in. ‘Okay, you call Janice. I’ll check if the results are through.’
Janice heard the door open and looked up in hope, but the welcome chorus wasn’t for McNab. Where was the stupid bastard?
The last she’d heard of his whereabouts was a message from Rhona late last night saying he was with her. If he’d stayed there, Rhona would have had him up and in here well before this.
She checked her mobile for the umpteenth time, in the hope of a text at least, promising his imminent arrival. If he didn’t show his face soon, it would be too late to speak to the boss before the interview scheduled with Derek Henderson.
If he wasn’t here by interview time, would she have to reveal that, or do the interview alone?
She decided to make herself scarce in the interim. Hide out at the coffee machine, like McNab did, in case the boss appeared and asked questions she couldn’t answer.
As she rose to leave, her mobile rang and, seeing Rhona’s name on the screen, she quickly answered.
They both spoke at once. She to ask when Rhona had last seen McNab. Rhona to ask if he was with her.
‘He left my place late last night,’ Rhona told her. ‘I tried to make him stay, but he was having none of it.’
‘Well, he’s not here now,’ Janice told her. ‘We have an interview with Derek Henderson in ten minutes. If he’s not here for that, I should speak to the boss.’
There was silence for a moment before Rhona said, ‘Can you leave it a little longer? I think he may have gone round last night to see that guy Ollie in Tech, who forewarned him about the video. He seemed to be trying to put things right with everyone involved in this.’
Janice thought about that for a moment.
‘Okay. If he’s not here in time for the Henderson interview, I’ll do it myself. But after that I have to go see the boss. And definitely before the strategy meeting.’
It was the best she could do, Janice decided as she rang off. McNab was her partner and she owed him that. Although at times he didn’t act as though he needed or even wanted a partner.
She went by way of the coffee machine and, making a silent wish, bought two coffees. One of which was a two-shot espresso. All the way to the interview room she held out hope she might find McNab already there, but when the officer on duty outside opened the door for her, only Derek Henderson sat at the table.
And he definitely wasn’t happy.
‘You’re late, officer . . .?’
Janice sat down, placing the latte beside her and the espresso where McNab should have been.
‘Detective Sergeant Clark,’ she told him. ‘My partner, Detective Sergeant McNab, has unfortunately been delayed.’
Henderson gave a little smile at that, and eased himself back in the seat.
Janice immediately had the impression he was glad it might be just the two of them and that Derek Henderson believed he had a way with the female of the species.
‘I understand you want my statement on the incident at the croft campsite when my daughter, Lucy, disappeared?’ he said pleasantly.
‘I’d like to ask you a few questions about that, yes,’ Janice agreed. ‘Your wife and children came in yesterday to give their accounts.’
She watched as the truth of this dawned, wiping the semi-smile off his face, replacing it with anger.
‘I was not informed that they were coming in,’ he said in a stilted voice.
‘The disappearance of Caillean Munro is being treated as an abduction, Mr Henderson. A serious crime which the children wished to speak to us about.’
‘The children requested it or was it my wife?’ he said icily.
‘The children,’ Janice confirmed. ‘They also requested that Dr MacLeod be there.’
‘The woman who dug up the body?’ he said, sounding incredulous.
‘The forensic scientist who exhumed the grave, yes. Lucy specifically asked for her. They had become friends as I understand it.’
He was staring at her, fury in his eyes. ‘I did not agree to that. As her father, I should have been informed. I wish to make a formal complaint about this.’
Janice nodded. ‘You’re free to do that, of course. However, we did get permission from Mrs Henderson.’
The mention of his wife did nothing to lower his level of anger and his fists clenched. For a moment she thought he might hit her and questioned her stupidity at interviewing him alone.
‘There is an officer just outside the door,’ she said to defuse the situation. ‘I could call him in?’
Henderson mustered himself. ‘I’ll answer your questions. Obviously, I want the missing girl found as soon as possible. Anything I can do to help, I will.’
‘Good,’ a male voice said as the door was flung open.
Janice’s heart rose. ‘My colleague Detective Sergeant McNab, who as I said was unavoidably delayed,’ she said for McNab’s benefit.
‘Mr Henderson.’ McNab gave him a nod of acknowledgement, then took his seat beside Janice and, picking up the coffee, drank it swiftly down. ‘I apologize for my late appearance. I was with my superior, Detective Inspector Wilson, who is in charge of the case. He is very keen that we follow up on the information given to us by your children, Lucy and Orlando. We’d like to do that now.’
45
Day seven
On entry, McNab had immediately sensed the anger emanating from Henderson. He’d experienced such bottled-up anger himself many times, although rarely with a woman, but he suspected that wasn’t the case with Henderson.
With his introduction and story about visiting the boss, he’d sensed Janice’s relief. He’d also watched as Henderson’s fury depleted. The clenched fists were released, the pulse which had been obvious in his neck had slowed. He had a hold of himself.
McNab looked to Janice, who gave him an almost imperceptible nod. Then he addressed Henderson.
‘Your son, Orlando, told us he saw you enter Callie’s van on the evening she disappeared.’
The look on Henderson’s face moved from instant shock through calculation to certain denial.
‘Orly couldn’t have seen that, because it never happened,’ he said, feigning bemusement.
‘You did not enter Callie’s van that night?’ McNab said.
‘I did not,’ he replied, sounding more assured now. ‘Or at any other time,’ he added.
‘So your DNA will not be found in there?’ McNab said.
‘I did not enter the girl’s van,’ he repeated.
He seemed pretty sure of himself, McNab thought, which suggested he was certain he’d left no trace behind.
‘We will require a DNA swab and your fingerprints.’
‘Of course, Sergeant. I’m happy to do that. As I was saying when you came in, I want to help in any way that I can.’
‘So, Mr Henderson, have you any idea why your son would tell us he saw you enter the blue van if he hadn’t?’
Eventually Henderson shook his head as though in complete bewilderment, then plumped for a sorrowful expression before saying, ‘Francine mollycoddles Orly. He says and does things to get her attention.’
‘How would that get her attention, exactly?’
Henderson folded his arms and gave a sigh of irritation.
‘Francine and I are going through a rough patch. I lost my computer sales job a while back and things got difficult. I eventually got a new job . . .’
McNab interrupted him. ‘Doing what exactly?’
‘I work for a security firm now, CompuGuard. Anyway, I took my family on holiday to Arisaig to try and make it up to them. Although I think Orly’s still angry with me.’
McNab didn’t think the reason for Orly’s disclosure was to get his mother’s attention, and said so.
‘You see, Orly didn’t tell his mother that he saw you enter the blue van. He only told Dr MacLeod. In fact, when asked by Dr MacLeod why they hadn’t told their mother this, he and Lucy said they didn’t because it would make her cry.’
Henderson seemed briefly put out by this, then gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I was seeing other women for a while. But not any more. The kids must have heard us arguing about it.’
Janice came in at this point. ‘Your wife said you tried to invite Callie to join you when she came back from her kayak trip. She said you’d been drinking and were quite insistent.’
He tutted his annoyance at this. ‘My wife exaggerates. I was merely being neighbourly. The girl was on her own. It was a lovely evening and we were sitting outside. That’s what happens at campsites. Folk are friendly.’
‘But in Callie’s case maybe not friendly enough?’ McNab said.
‘Just what are you insinuating?’ Henderson said testily.
‘That later that night you tried to get to know Caillean Munro a little better.’
‘I’ve already told you, I did not visit her van. If Orly saw someone go in, it wasn’t me.’
McNab signalled to Janice that she should move on to the next topic.
‘Why did you walk to the burial site the morning Lucy disappeared?’ she asked.
Henderson looked surprised by the question. ‘Why does my walk along the beach matter?’
‘Because Lucy followed you there.’
‘What?’ he said stupidly.
‘Your daughter followed you there, shouted on you, but you seemed to be too interested in the deposition site and ignored her.’
‘I went walking all the time when we were at the campsite. And fishing. And I never heard Lucy call after me. I had my earphones in listening to music a lot of the time.’
‘You walked straight to the grave and stood there for a while, looking at it. Why did you do that, Mr Henderson?’ Janice asked.
‘The grass and wild flowers looked dead,’ he said, as though the question had been nonsensical. ‘I simply wondered why.’
It was a good answer. In fact, most of what he’d said had been credible.
Except the bit about entering Callie’s van. McNab found himself believing the child on that and not the man.
The question was, could they prove it?
46
Day seven
Rhona looked round the meeting room, searching for McNab’s auburn head among the gathered incident team, and eventually spotted it near the front, next to Janice.
So he had turned up, but had he talked to DI Wilson yet?
As she threaded her way through the crowd, Bill appeared to take centre stage. Behind him, the screen came alive and on it was the image of the three stick men she’d sent him earlier.
Bill had told her she would be on first, to bring them up to date with what she and Chrissy had discovered. If their findings were confirmed, then it would change the nature of the investigation.
Placed side by side, at first glance the stick men looked identical. Each fashioned from birch wood, with added alder twigs, all tied together with common garden twine. The gouged-out mouths gaping in what Rhona thought symbolized a silent scream.
Although they looked the same at this level of magnification, each had a different story to tell. A story only revealed in the forensic lab, through her and Chrissy’s determined efforts.
Spotting her presence, Bill immediately called her forward.
‘Dr MacLeod contacted me earlier with information that directly affects our investigation. I invited her here to explain how and why.’
Rhona stepped onto the low dais.
‘Firstly, we have now identified the body on the beach as that of a young French woman called Eléa Martin from Nice, and not the missing Caillean Munro. We established this via the blood and articles of clothing found in her tent, and through the photograph taken at Gear Bikes where she hired her bike to cycle the NC500.
‘Eléa, like Deirdre, was strangled. So the way they were killed was the same, although Eléa was then pushed off the cliff to the beach below and set up to appear as though she’d drowned. Both victims were, as you know, dressed in similar short wetsuits, and also looked very much alike.’
She continued. ‘Now to the stick men you see behind me, which we believe form the signature of the killer.
‘The first, to your left, is the stick man discovered hanging in Caillean Munro’s campervan.
‘Next to it is the one retrieved from the mouth of the first victim, Deirdre Reid, when we exhumed her body from the machair near Arisaig. By the state of the body’s decomposition, and taking into account the nature and soil of the burial site, we believe she died approximately one month ago, although she was reported missing from Glasgow two months ago.
‘The final image is of the stick man we found in the sand next to Eléa Martin at Achmelvich, north of Arisaig.
‘Let’s take a closer look at each one.’
Rhona magnified the first image, so that the rough bark and grooves in the wood became clearly visible together with the twine used in its construction.
‘I can confirm that nothing of interest was found on this one, no DNA evidence of Callie, or whoever constructed it.’
She moved to the second image and magnified it, which brought a surprised murmur from her audience.
‘Note the difference. On this one there are darker stained areas on both the bark and the twine. These, when examined, turned out to be a mixed profile of blood. One of which is Deirdre’s. The second blood sample may have been deposited by someone snagging their finger when constructing the stick man, or perhaps bleeding from a dry skin hack or eczema. It is definitely not Deirdre’s blood.’
Rhona paused there briefly as her audience absorbed and tried to comprehend what was being said.
She now switched the magnification to the third image, emphasizing that although it looked identical to the second, at closer quarters you could see that it was tied together somewhat differently.
‘On this one, the dark patches of blood are also clearly visible and are a match for Eléa Martin, victim number two, adding weight to the idea that it may be part of the killer’s signature to paint the stick man with the victim’s blood. In this case there was no mixed profile. However, we did manage to retrieve skin flakes and blood from under Eléa’s nails, which suggests she fought her assailant at some point.
‘The most significant finding in all of this is that the DNA profile obtained from the secondary blood on the second stick man does not match that of the skin and blood we extracted from under Eléa Martin’s nails.’
As the implication of this swept through the team, the babble grew. Bill let them voice their thoughts and emotions, before he quietened them, to clarify . . .
‘This suggests we can no longer assume that we are chasing a single perpetrator despite both the signature and modus operandi being the same. Since no details of these have been made public, then the likelihood of a copycat murderer seems unlikely. Which in turn suggests the abductions and killings could be the work of a group rather than an individual.
‘A group who target young women of similar appearance who either live in the area of the student strip or, in the case of Eléa, are visitors to that area.’
When the surprised talking finally died down and the investigation team dispersed, Bill asked Rhona to come to his office. Waving her to a seat, he closed the door, then took his place across the desk from her in the well-worn leather chair she’d seen him use since they’d first met.
‘So, there may be more than one killer?’ he said.
‘Forensically, it points that way. I felt we should be aware of the possibility. It doesn’t mean for certain we don’t have a copycat killing.’
Bill acknowledged that. ‘Just because we haven’t announced key details, doesn’t mean they’re not out there. Not every officer keeps his mouth shut, especially if the papers offer enough money. There are corrupt officers in every force.’ He caught her eye and held it. ‘And at the moment we, here in Glasgow, are under scrutiny. It took us too long to discover the truth about Deirdre Reid. Plus all the rumours and counter-rumours about goings-on at the student strip.’
Rhona wondered if this in essence was a conversation about McNab, but wasn’t prepared to ask outright.
Bill sat back in the chair. She’d seen that look before. She mimicked it herself on occasion as though looking for divine inspiration, even when the answer could usually be found by looking through a microscope.
Eventually Bill broke the silence. ‘I received a full disclosure from Detective Sergeant McNab last night regarding the CCTV footage taken at the Blue Arrow and subsequent voicemail sent to your mobile. And I have spoken to him in person this morning.’
Rhona’s relief at this revelation was tempered only by her thoughts on what would come next.
‘You can’t think McNab would sexually assault a woman?’ she heard herself say.
Bill’s serious expression didn’t change. ‘In the light of the rumours focusing on the student strip, I have no choice but to launch an investigation. For that to happen, we must locate the young woman involved. At this moment, no accusation on her part has been made. As far as I am aware, she only sent McNab’s voicemail to you. However, I suspect it may yet be circulated either online or sent to various newspapers.’
‘Then she or someone with influence over her is pursuing a vendetta against McNab,’ Rhona said sharply.
Bill didn’t argue with her on that.
