Final Cut (15 page)

Emma, on the other hand, apparently refreshed by her sleep in the car, shot into the house with barely a backward glance and immediately called for Toby to come out and meet Magnus.

‘How did it go?’ Claire asked.

‘It went well,’ replied Magnus.

‘Emma found something?’

‘She indicated a place we should look,’ said Rhona.

‘And you believe her?’ Claire sounded dismayed.

There was a noise from above, footsteps running over bare floorboards and Emma’s voice calling Toby’s name.

‘Emma’s a bright little girl and very perceptive. All her senses are highly developed, especially her hearing. She remembered hearing falling water when she was lost that night. She led us to a small lochan with a waterfall.’

‘Are you going to search this place?’ Claire asked Rhona.

‘I have to run it past the officer in charge, but I will recommend we do.’

By now they were in the sitting room, where a bright fire burned in the hearth. The curtains were shut against the gathering dusk. It should have been a comfortable and safe domestic scene, but Claire looked even more drawn than she had at the funeral. She had obviously wanted the excursion to end her daughter’s involvement in the case and was now faced with the opposite outcome.

‘I hope Emma’s not wasting your time,’ she said sharply.

‘I think you did the right thing in letting her go with us,’ Magnus assured her.

Claire didn’t look as if she agreed.

‘The drawing she sent to DS McNab . . .’ Rhona began. Claire’s head jerked up, her expression fearful. ‘It doesn’t match the location she took us to.’

Magnus said, ‘Emma’s a little confused about this and we didn’t question her on it, but I wondered if there was something else troubling her. Something that the discovery of the skull brought back.’

‘Of course there is. Her granny just died.’ Claire sounded exasperated.

‘Emma says she drew the picture before all this happened.’

‘What?’ Claire’s voice had risen in pitch. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I wondered if there was something traumatic in Emma’s past . . .’

‘No. Nothing happened that would have made her draw such a horrible picture.’ Claire stood up. ‘If you don’t mind, I’m very tired. It’s been a long day and I want to get Emma’s tea ready.’

Rhona and Magnus rose to join her.

‘Of course,’ Rhona said. ‘And thank you for letting us speak to Emma.’

They heard the front door being locked behind them as they headed for the car. Glancing back, Rhona spotted Emma’s small face peeking between the curtains at an upstairs window.

In the gathering dusk, Rhona concentrated on finding her way back to the main road. Beside her, Magnus sat in deep contemplation. As they neared the outskirts of the city, he asked whether she wanted to get something to eat. Rhona readily agreed. Breakfast seemed like a lifetime ago.

‘I could fix you something at the flat?’ offered Magnus.

Rhona hesitated before answering. She hadn’t visited Magnus’s place since the Henderson case and wasn’t keen on stirring up old memories. Magnus was reading her expression, something he was good at.

‘It’s OK. We can go to a restaurant.’

Rhona decided to banish her fears. ‘No. If you’ve got food, I’ll eat it.’

The flat was just as Rhona remembered; a chess game in play on a low table, large leather armchairs, double doors to the balcony that looked over the river. They had drunk whisky here and played mind games. Magnus had been more confident and assured then, arrogant even. It was the Henderson case and his part in it which had changed him. That role had almost ended his professional career. In the end the authorities hadn’t held Magnus culpable, even though Rhona suspected he continued to blame himself.

While Magnus busied himself in the kitchen, Rhona called the police station to be told that neither DS McNab nor DI Wilson was available, so she asked to speak to DC Clark instead. A few minutes later Janice came on the line. Her voice sounded choked, as though she’d been crying.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘The Procurator Fiscal’s decided there’s enough evidence to proceed against the DI. He’s been suspended until the case comes to court.’

‘My God.’ Rhona’s heart plummeted. ‘And McNab?’

‘He got off with a warning.’

‘Is Bill there?’

‘They sent him home.’

Once Bill had been charged, the Fiscal would have wanted to remove any possibility of access to case papers and witnesses. Bill would have been told to leave immediately. Rhona could imagine the scene and the reaction of his colleagues. Anger welled up in her. The whole thing was hideous. She contemplated calling Bill at home, then decided to leave it for now. He needed to be with his wife and family. Margaret was his strength. He would need her more than ever now.

‘Is McNab there?’

‘He went out after the announcement. I don’t know where to. You could try his mobile.’

‘He’s not answering. If he calls in will you get him to phone me?’

‘I’ll try,’ Janice promised.

Rhona snapped her mobile shut and threw it into her bag. She’d been thinking about Magnus’s career and all the time Bill’s was coming to an end. A conviction for assaulting a prisoner in custody could see him at worst dismissed, at the least dropping a rank and being moved out of CID altogether.

She glanced at her watch. It was after six. McNab could be anywhere and was more than likely drowning his sorrows. She’d smelled whisky on his breath yesterday in the café. He’d been alert and definitely not drunk, but she suspected he was using alcohol to get him through the day.

Magnus came in, carrying cutlery. ‘What’s happened?’ he said when he saw her face.

‘They’ve charged Bill with assault and suspended him.’

He swore under his breath. ‘Is there anything we can do?’

‘Nothing.’

‘But there were mitigating circumstances.’

‘They know all about those,’ Rhona said bitterly.

‘What about McNab?’

There was no love lost between the two men, but you wouldn’t have known from Magnus’s concerned expression.

‘He got off with a warning.’

‘What do you want to do?’

Rhona had already accepted there was little she could do. ‘I’ll keep trying McNab’s number. Meanwhile, we eat, if that’s OK, then talk about Emma.’

The microwave pinged in the kitchen.

‘Not home-made, I’m afraid,’ said Magnus ruefully.

Rhona didn’t care. She suspected the food would stick in her throat anyway.

They sat together at the table and he produced a bottle of red wine to go with the casserole. ‘You can always leave your car here and take a taxi back.’

Suddenly Rhona didn’t want to spend the evening alone worrying about Bill and McNab. ‘I’ll do that.’ She gestured to Magnus to fill her glass.

Magnus didn’t talk as Rhona made an attempt at the food. It was tastier than she’d anticipated and better than the meals she had in her own freezer.

‘Local Italian restaurant,’ he told her. ‘I ask them to freeze some for me.’

‘Beats my supermarket buys.’

Magnus refilled her glass.

‘Wine’s good too. Let me guess. Italian?’ Rhona glanced at the label.

When she’d cleared her plate, Magnus put on coffee and brought through a plate of biscuits and cheese. All very civilised, she thought, realising how much she had missed sitting down to a meal with another human being instead of the cat.

They’d finished the wine, so Magnus brought a bottle of Highland Park and two glasses to the coffee table. Rhona checked her phone one more time before she settled into the armchair. The alcohol had taken the edge off her horror at the news of Bill’s suspension. Her usual reaction when something bad happened was to find a way to fight back, and throughout the meal her brain had been doing just that, running endless scenarios where she might yet intervene to help Bill. At the same time she knew that as soon as Bill decided to go down this route there was nothing anyone could do. McNab had made it plain enough that he’d been the one responsible for the assault, and even that hadn’t helped.

‘Hey.’

Magnus’s voice broke into her reverie.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘There’s nothing to be sorry about. Bill’s your friend.’

‘Yes, he is.’

‘What happens now?’

‘They’ll bring in someone to take over his caseload, including this one.’

‘Do you know who?’

‘I’ve got a pretty good idea.’

Detective Inspector Geoffrey Slater had been parachuted in once before. He hadn’t endeared himself to DS McNab or the rest of the team then, and was unlikely to do so now, especially in view of McNab’s state of mind.

‘And I’m not sure he’ll be interested in Emma’s stories about other bodies.’

‘So a replacement DI might not sanction a search of the loch?’

‘Time and money on the whim of a kid?’

Magnus looked worried. ‘I didn’t want to say anything at the time, in front of Emma or her mother, but I got the feeling we weren’t the only ones in that part of the wood.’

‘I never saw anyone.’

‘Neither did I.’

‘So?’

‘I caught a scent that seemed out of place.’

Magnus’s highly developed sense of smell had become legendary during the Henderson case, proving to be both a blessing and a curse.

‘It’s amenity woodland,’ Rhona reminded him. ‘It’s open to the public.’

‘I know.’

‘Which means anyone can walk there.’

‘But why trail us?’

‘You actually think someone was following us?’

‘I’m not sure. I think it’s a possibility.’

She tried to recall whether she’d had any sense of this. Emma and Magnus had been in the lead, she at the back. Surely if someone had been following them, she would have noticed?

‘There weren’t any cars parked when we came out, or when we arrived,’ she said. ‘I suppose someone could have entered the woods elsewhere, seen us and followed out of curiosity.’

Magnus didn’t look convinced.

‘How come we never heard anything?’ Rhona asked.

‘If they moved when we moved, we wouldn’t have heard them.’

They’d made plenty of noise as they walked, plus Magnus and Emma had kept up a running conversation. Rhona herself had been preoccupied with both the video recording and her thoughts.

‘I took a video en route,’ she said. ‘I can check, see if it picked up anything.’

‘Yes, do that.’

Rhona, unconvinced, changed the subject. ‘What else did you learn from Emma?’

‘She told me her father died when she was small. They used to live in Glasgow, but her mum wanted to move to the country.’

‘Did she say why?’

‘She said her mum feels safe there.’

‘Safe from what?’

‘That’s what she didn’t want to tell me. She didn’t want to talk about Nick either.’

‘Did Emma really remember the loch or did she just come on it by chance?’

‘I thought she was just wandering about at first, then she suddenly said she remembered hearing running water.’

‘She never told McNab she’d been near water,’ mused Rhona.

‘She was frightened and probably concussed that night. I don’t think she remembered until she began to retrace her steps.’

‘Or she made it up when she saw the place.’

‘She talked about it before we found it,’ said Magnus firmly.

‘Did it ever occur to you that Emma visited those woods before the crash?’

‘She says she hasn’t. They haven’t lived in the cottage for very long.’

‘This still doesn’t explain the drawing.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ he agreed. ‘And I don’t think Claire will be keen for us to question Emma again.’

Claire sat alone in the sitting room, staring into the fire. Emma was no longer moving about upstairs. She imagined her daughter sitting on the bed, staring into the darkness. Claire didn’t dare go up the stairs. She didn’t want to hear that humming noise again. She didn’t want to open the bedroom door and find the child like that.

She took refuge in the kitchen, switching on the radio to fill the void of silence. The constant stream of news that dominated the airways between four and six o’clock didn’t distract her. She’d hoped that the excursion through the woods would prove to the police that this was all a product of Emma’s imagination. Instead the opposite had happened.

She took a pizza out of the freezer and began to unwrap the cellophane, her hands shaking. This had gone far enough, she decided. She would not let her daughter be interviewed again. But what if there was something in that loch in the woods? What if they did find another body?

She slid on to a chair, the partly unwrapped pizza discarded on the table. The crushing pain was back, weighing so heavily on her chest she could barely draw air into her lungs. She fisted her hands, pressing the nails deep into the palms, concentrating solely on the discomfort that brought. The knife she’d used to pierce the cellophane lay discarded on the table near by. She stared at it, willing herself not to reach out. She tried to move her mind to a good place. A place where she’d been happy. She conjured up Emma’s tiny face, hours old. The feeling she’d had nursing her child, Dougie, the proud father, by her side. The image brought calm for a few moments.

She rose and walked to the sink. The nail marks on her palms showed up as four crescent moons. She turned on the tap and carefully washed her hands, soaping them well before rinsing. In the background, the forecast promised that the bad weather would return, with blizzards expected over the Christmas period. As if on cue, flakes of wet snow began to hit the darkness of the windowpane, dissolving immediately to trickle their way down the glass.

The police would not disturb them over Christmas, whatever they found in that wood. She turned her attention to the window in her mother’s house. Maybe she’d overreacted, fuelled by her underlying fear and her daughter’s vivid imagination. Perhaps her mother had had the window replaced without telling her? There had been nothing else in the house to suggest an intruder, she reminded herself. Nothing except Emma’s story about the writing on the window, and that didn’t prove anything. Even if Nick had gained entry to the bungalow, there was nothing there to point him here, to Fern Cottage. She needed to remain strong and calm for Emma’s sake.