Dark Flight (12 page)

The light had faded, leaving a faint red glow to wash
the western sky. It had transformed the coal bing into a prehistoric volcano. In the foreground the river shimmered red, like a ribbon of blood. The police divers had managed an hour’s search before giving up for lack of light. They would return at dawn tomorrow.

A westerly breeze fluttered the cordon tape. Rhona breathed in its freshness.

A group of teenagers had found their way onto the railway bridge and were peering down on the floodlit scene. Rhona wondered about her attackers. If they used the farm ruins as a meeting place, they could have seen something. She scanned the group, but there were no checked caps or white tracksuits. McNab was approaching them, having had the sense to block their escape across the river with a couple of uniforms.

He waved down at Rhona, gesturing to her to come up.

‘Why does he want you?’ Chrissy asked, puzzled.

‘I saw kids here earlier. He wants me to check if they’re among that lot.’

Chrissy gave an exasperated sigh.

‘Look, you go on. I’ll meet you at the club.’

‘I’ll be drunk by the time you arrive,’ Chrissy threatened, as Rhona walked off.

The final span on this side of the bridge had been demolished, leaving a drop of a metre. McNab was waiting to pull her up.

There were four in the group. Two girls, one blonde, the other a streaked auburn, and two boys, both with blond highlights, all mid teens. Dressed in sports gear, they might have been out for a run, were it not for the
intricately gelled hairstyles of the boys and the girls’ thick make-up. They appeared defiant and scared at the same time. McNab had that effect on people.

‘Recognise any of them?’

Rhona took a good look at the two males. When she said no, there was an audible sigh of relief from the skinnier one.

‘Mine were taller. One with freckles, the other had a tattooed hand.’

At her words, the blonde girl tried to exchange a look with the other, who pointedly ignored her.

‘You know who we’re talking about?’ McNab aimed his question at Blondie.

It was the other one that spoke. ‘Naw.’

These four needed lessons in body language. What they said and the moves they made when they said it, didn’t match. Rhona wasn’t the only one who had spotted that.

McNab was moving in for the kill.

‘Okay.’ His voice had an ominous quality, not lost on any of them. The skinny boy was squirming, his expensive trainers scuffing the stone.

When necessary McNab could lie with ease. ‘Since this is a
murder
enquiry, you’ll all have to accompany me to the police station.’

‘Murder?’ Skinny looked aghast at the others. ‘Jesus. Malchie’s murdered somebody!’

The cooler girl gave him a withering look. ‘You stupid bastard.’

‘Right, ladies and gentlemen, where does this Malchie live?’

The worried one coughed up the information pretty quickly. McNab told the two uniforms to escort the four home and get their details.

‘My dad’ll kill me,’ Skinny told him.

‘Then I’ll charge
him
with murder.’

Rhona couldn’t disguise a smile as the four left. ‘You could have been kinder,’ she suggested.

‘And not get a name and address for Malchie?’

‘This isn’t about earlier?’

‘Not if you don’t want it to be.’

‘But if Malchie thinks he might be charged with sexual assault, it might make him talk?’

‘Great minds think alike.’ McNab gave her the same boyish grin that had attracted her in the first place. ‘Malchie and mate like to party in the ruins. Chances are they’ve seen something and will want to tell us about it.’

Rhona glanced down, searching for DI Wilson among the figures that still criss-crossed the crime scene. ‘We should pass the info to Bill.’

‘If we don’t head there now, someone will get word to Malchie and he’ll be gone. If he’s there, we’ll bring him back with us.’

MALCHIE LIVED NEAR
the primary school. The only thing growing in the front garden was a pile of rusting metal. The contrast with next door’s neat lawn and flower beds must have irked his tidy neighbour every time he looked out of the window.

A woman opened the door to them. She was thin and nervous, her eyes darting from them into the sitting room. Rhona suspected she was about to tell them Malchie wasn’t home, when a voice called, ‘Who is it, Ma?’

McNab shot Rhona a questioning look.

She nodded. It was Malchie, all right. A coldness crept through her. Facing him might be more difficult than she had imagined.

The woman glanced at McNab’s badge then stood aside to let them past. ‘My man’ll be back soon.’ The warning seemed to frighten her more than them.

Malchie jumped up from the settee as McNab stepped into the room.

‘You stupid bitch,’ he threw at his mother.

The woman shrank back and McNab stepped between them.

‘Malcolm Menzies?’ McNab flashed his ID.

‘What is it to you?’ Malchie’s expression suggested he wasn’t home to visitors, especially the police. That changed when he caught sight of Rhona.

‘Is this one of them?’ McNab asked Rhona.

If McNab thought Rhona’s presence would bother Malchie, he was mistaken. Malchie made a show of licking his lips and slowly looking her up and down, lingering at her breasts and more pointedly at her crotch. Then he squeezed his hands suggestively and gave her a sly smile.

Rhona forced herself to meet Malchie’s penetrating gaze, her mouth dry, her skin crawling, blood rushing to her face.

Her voice surprised her by its strength. ‘Yes.’

McNab addressed Malchie, his voice as cold as ice. ‘You met Dr MacLeod earlier on the waste ground.’

‘We . . .’ Malchie paused for effect, ‘
brushed
against one another so to speak.’

‘You and another youth assaulted Dr MacLeod.’

Malchie shook his head in amazement. ‘No way. We were looking for rare plants. Rare plants grow on those bings, you know.’

McNab was barely controlling his temper. If the mother hadn’t been there, Rhona suspected he would have throttled Malchie.

‘If Dr MacLeod presses charges . . .’

Malchie liked that idea. ‘Two against one. We win.’

‘The CCTV footage says otherwise.’

For a moment Malchie was thrown, then he came back, sharp as ever. ‘Doesn’t work.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong.’

Doubt crossed his face.

‘Under-age drinking, smoking dope . . . sexual assault.’ McNab gave a disappointed shake of his head. ‘And all on camera.’

There was a wee gasp from the mother. ‘Malcolm . . .’

‘Shut it!’ Malchie licked his lips again. His eyes darted from McNab to Rhona and back again. ‘What do you want?’

‘We want to know who’s using the round building on the waste ground.’

For a moment, fear clouded Malchie’s weasel eyes. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Think,’ said McNab. ‘Think very hard.’

‘You are the Crime Scene Manager, you are not in charge of the investigation.’

‘He was part of the crime scene,’ McNab insisted. The stubborn look suggested Bill was being unreasonable.

Malchie stood between two uniforms a few feet away. He was watching the disagreement with relish.

Rhona butted in. ‘We were worried someone would warn him before we checked with you.’

If Bill was surprised at her standing up for McNab, he didn’t show it.

‘Malchie and his mate assaulted Rhona while she was waiting for us.’

‘What?’ Bill shot Rhona a look.

‘We thought we could use that to make him talk . . .’ Rhona petered out at Bill’s expression.

‘And when did you become a detective, Dr MacLeod?’

The question stung her, not because he asked it, but because of the tone of his voice. Bill didn’t use sarcasm normally, at least not on his team.

Bill gestured to the two uniforms to bring Malchie over.

He swaggered towards them, the sly look back on his face. ‘They threatened me,’ he whined. ‘Forced me to come down here.’

Bill let him finish, not taking his eyes off Malchie’s twisted face. ‘Okay, son. Here’s the story. I’m detaining you on suspicion of an assault on a forensic scientist working at a scene of crime.’

‘Like fuck!’

Bill looked at McNab. ‘What age is he?’

‘He says fifteen . . .’

‘Take him home and pick up a parent,’ Bill told McNab. ‘I’ll see you down at the police station.’

Malchie cursed his way to the police car, the swagger turned to a shuffle.

‘I’m sorry,’ Rhona said.

Bill’s face had collapsed into weariness. ‘You’ll need to come to the station and make a statement. We can hold him for six hours then we’ll have to charge him or let him go.’

‘He looked frightened when we mentioned this building.’

Bill glanced around at the dark entrance. ‘Who can blame him? It looks like a tomb.’

‘But it wasn’t,’ Rhona reminded him.

Chrissy sounded pissed off when Rhona called her. ‘How long will you be?’

‘I don’t know. I have to go to the station and make a statement.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then?’

‘Chrissy – the altar, don’t mention it to Sam, will you?’

‘As if.’

The altar was significant, but it shouldn’t be in the public domain until Bill decided.

CHRISSY THREW THE
mobile in her bag and picked up the plastic cup, temporarily masquerading as a real glass. She would have preferred a shooter bottle with a straw but Glasgow was contemplating taking its first steps in combating pub assaults with broken glass. A recent report condemning it as the most violent city in Europe demanded some response. Broken bottles were a weapon of choice for many villains, not in here, but in many other bars.

She took a mouthful. Decanting the drink had made it warmer. She would have to start asking for ice.

Sam was on the piano tonight, covering for the absent Sean. Music was one way of trying to forget the minutiae of the day . . . and the smell. ‘That Old Black Magic’ seemed oddly appropriate in the circumstances.

Sam smiled over at her, sending a pleasant shiver up her spine. If she wanted to go home with him, she would have to last until midnight and she had to be up early. Common sense told her to wait for the weekend, but she felt the need for human company rather than sleep. If Rhona had been here they would have talked it through, laid the day’s events to rest, at least for tonight.

Sam threw her a quizzical glance. Did she plan to stay?

Chrissy nodded and ordered another drink.

Rain smattered the pavement with puddles. Sam guided her around them, his arm about her shoulders. She was glad of the dark. That way no one looked at them, or shouted racist comments. Chrissy could give as good as she got, but Sam didn’t like her to. He would put his hand on her arm and tell her quietly that it didn’t matter. But it mattered to her. She wasn’t ashamed of their relationship, she was ashamed of the people of the city she loved, behaving like that.

Tonight there was no anger, just pleasure in walking together through the dark wet streets.

‘Does it rain like this in Kano?’

‘Much worse. When the rains come, the force of water is strong enough to dig trenches.’

‘In tarmac?’

‘No, the tarred road becomes a river. But such roads are scarce, especially in the old city. There they are red clay. Concrete in the dry season, mud in the wet.’

‘The wet season lasts all year here.’

‘You’re lucky.’

Chrissy looked up at the rain illuminated in the yellow of the street lamp. ‘How can it be lucky to have rain all the time?’

Sam tipped his head back and savoured the drops. ‘Because the rain makes things grow. Nothing grows without it.’

Even her vivid imagination could not conjure up a world where rain was welcomed.

‘The woman who died . . .’ Sam said as they walked on.

‘Yes?’

‘She was a member of my church.’

Chrissy came to an abrupt halt. ‘Your church?’ She said the word
church
as though it were poison.

He looked puzzled. ‘You are a Catholic.’

‘I was indoctrinated as a Catholic.’

‘And you no longer believe?’

Chrissy opened her mouth to agree but something stopped her. ‘I don’t go to church,’ was the best she could manage.

‘Carole Devlin was a member of the Nigerian Church of God.’

Chrissy gave a silent groan. ‘How do you know?’

‘Pastor Achebe spoke to me when he saw the photo in the newspaper.’

‘Why didn’t he call the police?’

Sam looked uncomfortable. ‘The church is a place of refuge.’

Chrissy digested that. ‘Meaning people go there who are illegal immigrants?’

‘Possibly.’ Sam was cautious.

‘The police need to speak to anyone who knew Carole if we’re going to find her killer.’

‘I know.’

‘What about Stephen?’

‘I never saw either of them, but according to the pastor he would come to church with his mother.’

‘And the husband?’

Sam shook his head.

‘I’ll tell DI Wilson tomorrow.’

‘Good.’ He seemed relieved.

‘Where is this church?’

‘We meet in a hall on Maryhill Road. I will give you the pastor’s mobile number.’