Shadow Man, page 18
The crime scene tent is just visible from the footbridge, a flash of white amongst the green. Mahler ducks past the hopeful-looking reporter from Moray Firth Radio and picks his way along the approach path towards the blue and white tape, wondering what it is about the Islands that always sets the hair prickling on the back of his neck.
It’s the way the light changes, he tells himself, the switch from sunlight to gloom as the paths lead deeper into the trees, but he knows it’s more than that. In the centre of town, the river is sun-painted, silver-bright, a backdrop to a thousand tourist selfies. But at the Ness Islands, it’s faster, darker. More treacherous—
‘Careful, sir, it’s slippery as hell just there!’ Cath Fraser holds up a warning hand as Mahler climbs down the bank. ‘We’ve already had to fish a wee SOCO out of the burn.’
‘No wonder.’ Fergie, following on Mahler’s heels, swears as he trips over a fallen branch. ‘All that rain last night, eh? Going to bugger up the forensics, that.’
Cath runs through her report as Mahler looks round at the scene. A jogger out for a run had seen it and called it in. ‘Thought someone had been fly-tipping and dumped a bag of old clothing at first. That, or a wino sleeping off a skinful of White Lightning. Then he took a closer look, and . . .’ she pulls a face. ‘Got a hell of a shock, poor guy.’
‘Hardly surprising.’ A white-clad figure backs out of the tent and turns to face them. ‘Your man here is definitely not looking his best.’ Marco McVinish pushes back his hood and wipes his sweat-damp forehead. ‘Fiscal’s been and gone, by the way – and giving lunch a miss today, I suspect. Lukas, Fergie, you ready? I warn you, it isn’t pretty.’
‘Is it ever?’
Mahler pushes back the tent flap and looks in. A bundle of old clothing, or a semi-comatose drunk sleeping off his hangover? Yes, he can see why the runner might have thought that, at least at first glance. Half-hidden by the brambles and dock leaves, Donnie Stewart’s body would have been a slumped, amorphous heap. Until the lumpy, bloated things like deformed starfish resolved themselves into fingers on bruised and bloodied hands. Until he’d seen the dark, misshapen football with its ooze of grey matter and the empty eye-socket staring skywards . . .
‘Poor bugger died hard, I’m afraid.’ Marco holds back the tent flap to let them out. ‘Seems to have pissed someone off very badly indeed. A seriously unpleasant someone.’
‘Remind you of anything?’
‘Come on, Lukas, you know better than that. Yes, the level of violence used is on a par with Morven Murray, but that’s about all.’ He glances at Mahler, sighs. ‘Fine. I can’t rule out the same person being involved in both murders. That do you?’
‘For the moment. Any sign of defensive wounds?’ From the position of the body, it looks as though Stewart had been attacked from behind. But if he’d managed to fight back, even a little, there’s a chance some forensic evidence will have survived the previous night’s rain.
‘Hands are such a mess, it’s impossible to say at this stage. But I’m hoping he landed a punch or two on the bastard, aren’t you?’
‘Crazy place for the killer to pick, though,’ Fergie points out. ‘If he wanted to top Stewart, why do it somewhere so public? There’s always folk down here, the place is hoaching with dog walkers.’
Mahler shrugs. ‘Stewart and the killer decide to meet for some reason. But they don’t trust each other enough to choose somewhere too obviously deserted. Why not pick here?’
And though people walk through the Islands at all hours, they tend to stick to the main walkways. After the first bend, this path gets steeper, the trees and bushes encroaching more and more. If the runner hadn’t taken that second look . . . Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, Mahler thinks. I found myself in a dark wood. And for Donnie Stewart, this had been the darkest wood of all.
Fergie nods. ‘Aye, maybe. And it would fit with the Doc’s theory about two people being involved in Morven’s murder.’
‘It would.’ And yet, something’s not quite right. The shape of it’s too unformed, too plastic . . . too many unknowns, Mahler thinks. Had Stewart been a willing accomplice? Or even the instigator – but no, that doesn’t fit either. There had been nothing at Stewart’s flat to show he’d had the slightest interest in Morven. The man had been a loner, a drunk fighting the battle for sobriety and losing it little by little every day. But he’d been a peaceful drunk, mostly. And crucially, one with no history of violence against women.
The scene team is still working around them, tagging, photographing. Mahler turns to ask McVinish a question, and a glint of white by one of the bushes catches his eye. He waves over one of the SOCOs. ‘Something?’
The white-suited figure inches its way down the slope. ‘Could be, aye.’ A purple nitrile glove brushes a residue of mud from the object, and holds up a fragment of white plastic. ‘Looks like the casing from a smartphone or a mobile. Well spotted.’
‘Just the casing?’
More brushing and peering. The man marks the spot and straightens up. ‘So far, yes. But we’re still working our way down the bank, so we’ll see what we get.’
Mahler nods. An intact phone would have been too much to hope for, he supposes. But if the SIM card or any of the memory chips can be recovered . . .
‘Mightn’t be our boy’s, of course,’ Fergie observes. ‘You’d think the killer would have made off with it, wouldn’t you?’
Mahler glances at the tent, and back up at the path. ‘If he’d seen it, yes. But in the heat of the struggle, he might have missed it – or simply not had time to search for it.’ And given all the hours invested in this case with so little to show for it, surely they’re overdue a run of better luck? He turns to Marco McVinish, who’s stripping off his nitrile gloves.
‘As much as you can give us, Marco, as soon as you can, yes?’
The pathologist gives him a weary look. ‘Naturally, Sherlock, naturally. Let’s hope this marks the end of our rather bloodthirsty summer, shall we? It’s not what Inverness is used to – in fact, by my reckoning, we’ve just used up our unexplained deaths quota for the next five years.’
At Burnett Road, Mahler leaves Fergie assembling the team for a briefing while he reports to June.
‘In the Ness bloody Islands?’ She shakes her head. ‘Unbelievable. But at least we can tie him into the Morven Murray case now. How are the forensics looking?’
Distinctly damp, due to the recent rain. And the man who’d discovered the body had promptly gone into meltdown, tripping over his own feet and generally stamping all over the immediate locus as he scrambled to get away from the corpse. Neither of which, Mahler decides, is going to brighten June’s day.
‘The scene was . . . as you’d expect,’ he tells her. ‘Confused. But the search for the rest of the mobile is ongoing. If anything’s found, it could be the breakthrough we need.’
‘Good. What else?’
‘The PM’s this afternoon. I’ll be attending as soon as I’ve briefed the team, and—’
June shakes her head. ‘Fergie can do that. You need to be here, doing your job – which is overseeing your team, by the way, not harassing bereaved relatives.’ She opens a file, slides a sheet of paper towards him. ‘Ross Campbell. I’ve had my ear bent by his sister about you haranguing a sick man in his own home.’
‘She’s made a complaint?’
‘No, thank Christ, but it was bloody close. What the hell did you think you were doing?’
‘Campbell’s in major financial trouble. And I think Cazza MacKay’s got him over a barrel.’ Mahler tells her what Anna Murray had observed at the memorial service and how Campbell had reacted when challenged. ‘Cazza MacKay’s boys don’t strike me as grieving fans, ma’am. They were there to intimidate Ross Campbell, and they scared him half to death.’
‘Is that what he said?’
‘He denied it. But he was clearly agitated, and—’
‘And you carried on questioning him. A man only recently out of hospital with a heart condition.’ June shakes her head. ‘Christ, Lukas, what were you thinking?’
‘I was thinking we were this close to getting something concrete to pin on Cazza MacKay, ma’am.’ And Mahler’s betting once they’d got that, a proper, drains-up investigation of the bargain-basement mafioso would turn up skeletons by the closetful. Including any dealings with the man called Hollander. If he actually exists, that is. As far as Mahler’s concerned, the jury’s still very much out on that one.
June nods. ‘I get that. I do – and if we’d the slightest chance of Campbell standing up and telling us that’s how it was, I’d let you off the smacked wrist. This time. But how do think what you did would stand up against an actual harassment charge, if Campbell decides to take it further?’
June opens the bottom drawer of her desk, glares at the empty space formerly occupied by her stash of fags, and shuts it again. ‘Look, I’m not saying you’re wrong. God knows, there’s a nice wee cell in Porterfield I’d love to introduce Cazza to. But Cazza MacKay doing a bit of dodgy business with Ross Campbell is not our priority right now.’
‘Surely being hassled by Cazza’s heavies for money strengthens Campbell’s motive for killing Morven? Her will makes him the main beneficiary.’
‘True. But you can’t tie him into Stewart’s murder, can you?’
Mahler shakes his head. Since leaving hospital, Campbell’s barely set foot outside his house. And according to his neighbours, his 4×4 hasn’t moved from his drive in days. ‘Not at the moment. Not physically.’
‘No. And without that link, you’re nowhere. So either find something that’ll stick, or get off the man’s back. What about this Ryan guy Anna Murray told you about, the one you’re meant to be prioritising?’
‘At St Salvator’s College, St Andrews, until three months ago, then the trail goes cold – but he’s an Irish national, so he may have returned there. We’re checking call logs, trying to tie down his last known movements and liaising with the Gardai as a matter of urgency.’
June nods. ‘Urgent. Fine. That’s what I’ll be passing on to the Chief when he gets back from his strategy meeting at Tulliallan – and these two murders are what you’ll be focusing on. Which means directing the enquiries, not dotting about all over the place, playing cops and robbers with Cazza MacKay. That clear?’
Has she forgotten about Kevin Ramsay? ‘Three murders, surely, ma’am?’
June shakes her head. ‘Morven Murray and Donnie Stewart – there’s a clear link there, so you carry on leading them. But I’ve just got word that Andy Black’s finally got the all-clear from the Doc. He’s back on Monday, so he’ll be taking over Kevin Ramsay. You and Karen can bring him up to speed first thing.’
32
TUESDAY, 1 JULY
Her parents’ house is silent when Anna lets herself in. Not unusual these days, but the quality of the silence feels subtly different. She drops her bags in the hall and stands still for a moment, listening. There’s no answer when she calls out, no sound of movement in response. When she still can’t hear anyone she checks the kitchen and the living room, but there’s no sign of her mother. And the back door is locked, so her father can’t be working in the garden.
Anna touches the side of the kettle. Completely cold, which is even more unusual. Her mother’s usually never without a cup in her hand – she runs on tea, according to her father. So why—
Movement in the garden. Swift, fleeting, just on the edges of her vision. A figure? She unlocks the door and runs down the path, but there’s no one there. She turns to go back indoors. And a hand touches her arm.
‘What are you doing out here?’ Her mother, headphones round her neck. An iPad raised aloft as though she’d been planning to bring it down on the back of Anna’s head. ‘I thought you were a burglar!’
‘Christ, Mam, you gave me the shock of my life! Didn’t you hear me calling you?’
‘Do you have to use that kind of language?’ Her mother lowers the iPad. ‘If you must know, I was listening to that Radio Scotland interview with Morven, the one they did when she got the Elevenses job – they’re repeating it, seeing it’s a month since . . .’ she takes a ragged breath, looks away. ‘If you were looking for your dad, you’ll not find him here. He’s out defacing lamp posts with his “Yes Inverness” pals. Not that the other lot are any better, mind.’
‘I thought . . . it doesn’t matter.’ She was sure she’d seen something. Someone. But it had been the merest glimpse, more a suggestion of movement than anything concrete – it might have been one of the neighbours’ cats, for God’s sake. Is she really going to say anything to unsettle her mother, when she’s looking a little more together for the first time in weeks?
‘Do you fancy a cup of tea?’ Anna puts her arm round her mother’s shoulders and steers her back inside. ‘I’ve brought back some things from Morven’s flat I thought you might like to see.’
‘Was everything okay? I always thought it was such a shame she didn’t use it more often. That lovely flat, lying empty half the year.’
‘Fine.’ Anna puts the kettle on to boil, gets two mugs from the dishwasher. ‘I checked the locks, turned the heating down, that sort of thing. And I found a few bits and pieces I hadn’t been expecting.’
And this is the moment she’s been putting off, the moment when she tells her mother about Morven’s letter giving her the flat. It shouldn’t be so difficult, she knows that. Why can’t she find the words? For a moment, as the kettle boils, they hang there on her tongue. And slide away, unspoken, as she watches her mother rummaging through the holdalls full of Morven’s things she’d brought back from Morven’s flat.
‘You know, I haven’t seen half of these.’ Her mother looks up and gives her the closest thing to a smile Anna’s seen since Morven’s death. ‘And where did you get these albums? They’re beautiful!’
‘I thought you’d like them.’ Before catching her train at Queen Street, Anna had gone into Paperchase and bought half a dozen scrapbooking albums. ‘I know you handed over all your clippings to the police, but I found these at the flat, stuffed in the back of a cupboard. They’re not in any sort of order, but I thought we could work on them together. Build a collection, if you like, to remember her by.’
Her mother looks up, the glint of tears in her eyes. ‘That’s such a nice thought. I know you didn’t always get on, but she was your sister, Anna. And she was really proud of you. I still have some of the older cuttings, though. Let me go and see what I have left.’ She dabs at her eyes and stands up. ‘I always meant to get everything organised, but . . . you always think there’ll be another day, don’t you? You always think there’ll be plenty of time.’
Anna watches her mother go. She’s looking better – sounding better, too, now she’s got something concrete to do. She’d refused any sort of counselling when it had been offered, but maybe putting together this collection could prove to be a kind of therapy for her. If it does, it’ll help Anna assuage some of the guilt she’s feeling right now. Because when she’d loaded up the bags, she hadn’t been thinking of her mother. She’d been thinking research.
Morven wasn’t big on IT, but she’d been big on her own publicity. The flat had been stuffed with it – photos, press clippings, even old publicity shots, all jumbled together. And now it’s here, the record of Morven’s entire existence contained in these two holdalls. Waiting for Anna to give it form again. To give it life, if she can.
Morven had known her killer, Mahler said, known and trusted him enough to let him into her suite late at night. Not room service, because she’d ordered the champagne earlier in the evening – so she was expecting someone to call. Someone important. Someone she’d thought it worth making a fuss of, at any rate. Or someone she needed to placate.
Connor. The name flashes into Anna’s mind before she can stop it. That and Mahler’s comment about masks. But it isn’t him. It can’t be. Conn didn’t do masks – whatever he felt, whatever he thought, it was written on his face. And he was crap at keeping secrets. Except you, her mind whispers. He was pretty good at keeping you a secret, wasn’t he? Until Morven found out . . .
No. She can’t – won’t – believe Conn capable of something so brutal. And if she’s right, she’s looking at the means to prove it. What she’s brought home in these bags is Morven’s entire life from university onwards. More than the collection her mother had given the police, much more. What she’s looking at is an archive.
And somewhere in that archive is the clue to Morven’s killer.
33
WEDNESDAY, 2 JULY
Burnett Road Police Station
Another 7 a.m. briefing. Another victim’s bloodied remains, disassembled in brutal monochrome and pinned across the whiteboard. Mahler listens to Fergie’s summary of the post-mortem on Donnie Stewart. Fergie’s doing his best to keep his voice matter-of-fact as he recites the list of injuries the man had suffered, but Mahler can feel the atmosphere in the room changing as the team take in just how badly Stewart had been beaten.
‘And a ruptured spleen,’ Fergie concludes. ‘Report’s on its way to you, boss, but basically the guy was beaten to death. And if I don’t have to see what that looks like ever again, I’ll be a happy man, believe me.’
‘Okay.’ Mahler looks round the room. They’re struggling with what they’ve just heard. Feeling angry, feeling frustrated. Feeling sickened. But not helpless – he can’t afford to let them feel that, even for a moment. He points at the whiteboard. ‘Donnie Stewart and Morven Murray. Two brutal murders and a killer running around free – not in Glasgow, not in Edinburgh, not in London. Here. Not how things are supposed to be, is it? Not in Inverness. But this is what we’ve got. And it’s up to us to deal with it – not the big boys from down south. Us.’
