Against a Dark Sky (9 page)

Chapter Twenty

I
t was late by the time the detectives returned to the Carraig Hotel. The large party who’d been staying there the previous week had now departed, leaving the place strangely quiet. Andy had asked Dani if she fancied an after-dinner drink. She could tell he was keen to discuss the latest developments in the case. But Dani was exhausted and told him she was retiring straight to her room.

              The DCI kicked off her shoes and lay back on the duvet. Her heavy eyelids were just closing as the mobile phone at her side began to chime. She barely had the energy to flick it open.

              ‘Were you still awake?’

              Dani shook herself into alertness at the sound of Sam Sharpe’s transatlantic drawl. ‘Of course,’ she replied.

              ‘How’s the new case?’

              ‘Becoming increasingly complicated – how’s life in the fair city of Richmond, Virginia?’

              ‘We’ve had a couple of homicides, drug-related we think.’ With the pleasantries over, Sam’s tone became more serious. ‘Have you seen the papers?’

              Dani sat up straight. ‘Not in the last twenty four hours, no.’

              ‘Perhaps you should have a look. The US media haven’t taken too kindly to Gordon Parker’s murderer being found innocent. I’ve mailed you a link. I just wanted to say that none of the information they’ve used came from me. I’ve no idea where they got it from.’

              Dani was really worried now. ‘Okay, I get the message,’ she said warily.

              ‘I’ll let you get back to sleep. I know how hard you’re working right now. Goodnight.’ With that, he was gone.

              Dani quickly checked her inbox. It didn’t take her long to discover what Sam meant. Several of the US nationals had covered the story. It would just be a matter of time before it broke over here. On the front page of the New York Times was a photograph of her and Sam walking up the steps towards the High Court. The headline read: ‘The special relationship?’ with the byline: ‘Did the secret romance between two detectives allow the killer of a US citizen to walk free?’

              Dani didn’t want to read on, but she forced herself. The reporter accused her of making crucial mistakes in the gathering of evidence, errors which had allowed Erskine’s lawyers to get him off. The implication of the entire article was that Dani was a sad, single woman who was too busy romancing an American cop to concentrate on nailing a killer. The accusation really stung. It was exactly the kind of reputation she had worked so hard to avoid. Added to that, it was all her own bloody fault.

              Dani tossed the smartphone to the other side of the bed, wriggled out of her clothes and climbed under the covers, reaching out a hand to switch off the light. Her last thought before drifting away into blissful oblivion was that whatever the outcome of this debacle, as far as she and Sam Sharpe were concerned, things were well and truly over.

Bevan was still reeling from her phone conversation with DCS Nicholson when she stood up to take the morning briefing. Dani hoped her discomfort wasn’t too obvious. Andy Calder did seem to be looking at her oddly, but she dismissed it as simply her imagination. Dani outlined the Met’s investigation into the attack on Amit Batra and invited comments from the team.

              DC Reid was the first to offer a response. ‘Do we think Daniel Goff is now in London, then?’

              ‘Good question. If we believe that the camera stolen from the Batras’ house was Goff’s and there was something on it that might be incriminating to him, we’ve got to assume he’s our prime suspect for the break-in and the assault on Amit,’ Dani explained.

              DS Driscoll stood up to speak. ‘How can it be possible for Goff to move around the country so easily? We’ve got alerts out for his arrest in all the airports, train stations and motorway services in the UK.’

              ‘He must have an accomplice. A friend who is driving him around and giving him a place to hide,’ Andy suggested.

              ‘Then we need to check the CCTV on the motorways between Scotland and London.’ Dani looked towards Driscoll. ‘Can you arrange that please, Dave?’

              ‘We’ll just have to hope they didn’t travel via the back routes, if they did, we’re screwed.’ Andy crossed his arms defensively.

              ‘I cannot believe it’s possible to drive into London without getting caught on camera somewhere. The man isn’t superhuman. He’s bound to have slipped up.’

              DC Reid stepped forward again. ‘Maybe you’re right and Goff isn’t superhuman.’

              ‘What do you mean?’ Dani listened with interest.

              ‘No one saw or heard this intruder except Tanisha and Amit Batra, right? Well, Amit is in a coma and can’t tell us what actually happened that night, which leaves Tanisha as the only source of information. The neighbours didn’t hear a thing. What if there never was any intruder? Tanisha Batra could be making the whole thing up. She discovers that her husband was having a fling with Philippa Graves, right? They have a blazing argument and Tanisha’s drunk, which skews her judgement. She goes up to the bedroom, where she knows Amit keeps a baseball bat in the wardrobe. Tanisha goes downstairs with it and beats him around the head. The guy wouldn’t have stood a chance.’

              Dani took up the mantle, ‘when she calmed down and saw what she’d done, the woman panicked, deciding to make it look like a break-in. She smashes the back door and disposes of the few valuable items she finds to hand. Tanisha had no idea the camera was significant. It may prove to have no bearing on Amit’s attack at all. Then the woman wipes the place free of prints.’

              ‘Tanisha
was
very late in calling the police. By the time she got around to it, there would be no chance of them catching up to any thief who’d fled the property,’ Andy added.

              ‘It’s certainly worth investigating. I’ll ask DI Long to take a look at the forensics on the house and see if it’s possible the whole thing was an inside job.’

              ‘It might be an idea to check the back garden and the neighbours’ bins,’ Reid chipped in. ‘If she had to get rid of the valuables in a hurry, there wouldn’t have been many places she could have stashed them.’

              ‘Excellent work, Reid. It would certainly be a bonus to be able to get hold of that camera and see what’s on it. Let’s hope Mrs Batra cracks under pressure and tells us where it is. For the time being, however, we focus on two possible scenarios. Firstly, that Goff somehow travelled to London in order to get his camera back from Batra. Amit disturbed him in the process and ended up receiving a beating which left him in a coma. And secondly, that Tanisha Batra attacked her husband after finding out about his relationship with Philippa Graves. She staged the burglary to cover her crime. Andy will assign tasks. The rest of you can return to concentrating on the Joanna Endicott case.’

Andy knocked on the door of Dani’s makeshift office. He entered more hesitantly than usual and appeared to be holding something behind his back. Bevan couldn’t interpret the strange expression on his face. He took the seat opposite her.

              ‘Have you seen today’s Informing Scotland?’ He asked carefully before placing the folded newspaper down in front of her. ‘I think you should take a few minutes to read it, Ma’am.’

              Having been given the heads-up by Sam, she already had a fair idea what it would be about. After smiling grimly at the dated photograph of her on the front cover, Dani scanned the piece, stopping dead when she got to the half-way point. The story was pretty much taken word-for-word from the American press, until the section she was currently staring open-mouthed at, which provided an account of Bevan’s early life and career.

              Somehow, the journalist had found out about the death of Dani’s mother. She supposed it wouldn’t have been difficult. But here were all the wretched details, laid out in black and white before her. Dani immediately worried that her father might have seen it. Although she knew the daily papers wouldn’t have reached the island of Colonsay quite yet. She’d have to call him sooner rather than later.

              Andy’s voice snapped her back to the present. ‘I didn’t realise your mother had committed suicide,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m very sorry.’

              Dani cleared her throat. ‘I was eight years old when it happened,’ she began. ‘Mum had suffered from depression ever since I’d been born. I don’t believe Dad really knew how bad it was. Mum had been drinking to cope, but it was in secret. She covered it up pretty well. Until one day, when I was seven and a half.

              It was the end of school and I was waiting for Mum to pick me up from the gates of the village Primary, where we lived in the Welsh valleys. She didn’t come, so I decided to walk back home by myself. It wasn’t too far, just a mile or so. But it involved taking the country road which snaked up to our cottage on the side of the steep valley. There was no pavement for much of the way. As I was walking, it had begun to get dark. Somewhere along a winding section of the road, a car must have hit me. It knocked me into a ditch that bordered the small stretch of forest which lay on both sides of the track.’

              ‘Did the car stop?’

              Dani shook her head. ‘No. It’s possible the driver never even saw me. I was unconscious for a while. When I woke, it was properly dark. The police thought I’d been down there for several hours. Mum never noticed I was gone. She’d fallen asleep and was out of it until Dad got home at about half past six. Of course, when he realised I wasn’t there he panicked. A full search of the village and surrounding areas was instigated. No one had seen me since the end of class at three thirty. Dad was beside himself. One of the villagers discovered me in the ditch at around nine o’clock. I spent the night in the local hospital, with Dad by my side. I had a mild head injury and a broken ankle, was terribly cold and in shock. I remember very little about it to be honest.’

              ‘What happened to your mum?’

              ‘Dad sent her to a special clinic to get help, where she finally received the right medication to treat her depression. But she couldn’t forgive herself for what had happened to me. Once she’d sobered up, Mum was horrified. When I’d been released from hospital, Social Services wouldn’t allow me to go back home. I spent a year with a foster family in a nearby town. They were very good people, kind and loving. Dad visited every day, but he had to work, so couldn’t look after me full-time. When I was taken into care, Mum really declined. She took an overdose of tranquilisers one morning after Dad had left for school. It was a serious attempt to end her life. Mum knew that no one would find her for at least eight hours.’ Dani turned and stared out of the tiny window, catching a glimpse of the Lomond mountain range in the distance.

              ‘Poor woman,’ Andy muttered.

              ‘Without Mum at home, Dad was allowed to have me back. He employed a child-minder to pick me up from school and make me tea. But Dad couldn’t bear to stay on in the village. He must have been on the lookout for jobs elsewhere because within three months we’d left. Dad became the Headmaster of the primary school on Colonsay and we began a whole new life.’

              ‘No wonder you don’t drink,’ Andy said, almost to himself. ‘Don’t worry about this article,’ he added, more stridently this time. ‘The people who work with you will understand. Nobody blames you for Erskine getting off the hook. We’ll nail him on a re-trial.’

              Dani managed the flicker of a smile. She could shrug off most things, but her mother’s death was different. She was going to have to work hard not to let this knock her off course. DCS Nicholson had given her a dressing down earlier this morning, telling her not to allow her private life to compromise her work as a police officer. She couldn’t have agreed with him more. Sam Sharpe could easily be banished from her heart. Moira Bevan, on the other hand, was a more difficult ghost to exorcise. But if Dani was going to continue to do her job properly, then she’d have to do it, once and for all.

Chapter Twenty One

I
t was late by the time Dani got back to the Carraig. She didn’t fancy going into the dining room to eat and decided to order room service instead. Andy had driven home to Glasgow for the evening. Hearing the tale of Dani’s mother must have left him with the pressing need to see his wife and baby, she thought. 

              As Dani was passing the desk in the lobby, a receptionist in a smart tartan blouse called her over. ‘Detective Chief Inspector!’ she announced, with a knowing smile on her perfectly made-up face. ‘A bouquet of flowers arrived for you this afternoon.’

              The woman bent down beneath the counter and brought out a pretty spray of white and yellow roses, a small envelope protruding conspicuously from the centre of the foliage. Bevan took the bouquet from her in a business-like way, feeling more apprehensive than pleased to receive them; such was the effect of today’s unwelcome developments.

              She waited until reaching her room, closing the door firmly and kicking off her shoes, before plucking out the card and reading the message. Dani felt a prickle of excitement mixed with confusion as she realised who they were from. James Irving. Apparently, he had seen the newspaper reports about her on the web and felt compelled to express his moral support.

              Dani placed the flowers on the dressing table and positioned the buds into the most attractive arrangement possible, stepping back to survey her handiwork. It was a lovely gesture and one which Dani felt was made in the spirit of friendship. For that, she was immensely grateful. Anything else would have put her in an awkward situation professionally. She’d already got on the wrong side of DCS Nicholson and didn’t fancy doing it again.

              After eating, Dani made herself take a long bath. Then she slipped into a comfortable, full length nightdress before sliding between the cool crisp sheets, relishing the size of the hotel’s king-size bed. She mustn’t have been asleep for very long when something woke her. Dani automatically swung her legs across to the side of the bed and reached for her mobile phone. The sound came again. It was a soft and unsure knock on her bedroom door.

              Dani put on the hotel’s complementary bath robe and peered through the spy hole. Standing on the other side of the door, his face oddly obscured by the convex lens, was Bill Hutchison. Dani immediately opened up.

              ‘Mr Hutchison, how may I help you? It’s very late.’

              The man appeared jittery. ‘Yes, I apologise. I just couldn’t sleep. Can I speak with you for a moment?’

              Dani opened the door wide and allowed him to enter, pulling across a chair for him to sit on. Bill glanced at the flowers on the table but made no comment on their presence in the room.

              ‘I read the piece about you in the Scottish press,’ he began awkwardly. ‘I’m very sorry for your loss.’

              Dani dipped her head in recognition. ‘I lost my mother a very long time ago.’

              ‘As we did our son, Detective Chief Inspector, and it doesn’t lessen the pain.’ Bill leaned forward, his face crinkled in concentration. ‘It suddenly struck my wife and I, as we read the newspaper report this afternoon, how your mother had died in the exact same month and year that our Neil did.’  

              Bevan experienced a tiny jolt of surprise at receiving this news, but tried not to show it. She hadn’t before made the connection. ‘It’s a strange coincidence, certainly.’

              ‘It means there must be a reason why you are here, DCI Bevan. My wife and I knew we had to come to Ardyle, as soon as we heard the news of the lady’s death on the mountain. Now, we discover that the detective leading the case suffered a similar loss to us, at one and the same time. It is very significant, Ms Bevan. It suggests the two cases are connected. Don’t you see? God has called us all here for an important purpose.’

              Dani looked closely at the man’s drawn and grey features, feeling an immense pity for him and his wife. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Hutchison. I really can’t agree with that assessment. I am here investigating Joanna Endicott’s death because it is within my rank and jurisdiction to do so. Coincidences exist everywhere in life if we choose to highlight them. I think you’d better go back to your room and get some sleep.’

              Bill’s face seemed to crumple. ‘At least bear it in mind, Detective,’ he pleaded.

              ‘Of course. I always keep an open mind during a murder inquiry. But I cannot operate on signs and portents, Mr Hutchison. My team need solid evidence.’

              He nodded resignedly, standing up and making his way towards the door. As Dani watched him depart, Bill suddenly turned and said. ‘You worked on the Richard Erskine case, did you not?’

              ‘Yes, I did.’

              ‘He is a very evil man, Detective Chief Inspector. He will undoubtedly kill again. Next time, you must ensure he goes to prison for life.’

              Dani was taken aback. ‘Do you know Richard Erskine?’

              ‘No, I do not. But Neil has spoken with Erskine’s unfortunate victims, Ms Bevan. Our son tells us everything.’ With that, the man was gone.