The Night Hunter (19 page)

I move aside to let Parnell stand in front of me; he palms his mouth with his hand and nods slowly. ‘That’s Mary’s.’

‘OK, we go on.’ Simon points to the ground next to the shoe and the SOCO moves forward with his camera. Ten flashes in quick succession, then he places a yellow triangle down and waves that he is ready. Simon gestures that they should be careful to walk round. There is another signal to Costello to keep Parnell back; he is worried about what we might stumble across. Our column moves on, quicker now, walking with more purpose. Simon checks the palm-held. The dog is still walking away from the signal but she is moving confidently, pulling to get into a thicket of younger pine trees. She sits again.

‘Here!’

Simon points and says quietly, ‘There’s another shoe there, and a pile of black material over there.’

He points to the dark rags, soaked through in the rain. He reaches forward and lifts it carefully with a gloved hand, not enough for it to clear the ground, but enough to make out the zip and two legs … black jeans. Simon turns slowly, making sure that Parnell is not within earshot.

I nod. ‘Mary’s.’

Simon says to me, his voice low, ‘Abducted, driven to a remote spot, chased, stripped. This is only going to have one outcome.’ He backhands the rain from his brow. ‘Parnell shouldn’t be here.’ He lifts his radio and I don’t quite catch what he says but I do hear: ‘Don’t care, but use all your personal charm to get him out of there, and keep him away.’

We are moving again now. The dog moves on to find a black zipped sweatshirt then a light blue T-shirt, darkened with the rain. I register the rips in the fabric. Simon points ahead; a white bra is strewn on the grass in a clearing, its white lace stained black.

Or red.

The SOCO leans forward to photograph it.

Simon raises himself from his crouching position and lifts his radio. The whole team is silent, only broken by the steady pant of the dog.

The group has barely moved five metres when the dog stops again, and sits down.

There is nothing to be seen. The torch beam sweeps back and forth. Nothing.

Simon looks at the palm-held. ‘She’s brought us round in a circle. Mary should be here.’

‘The dog has found her mark,’ says the handler, looking around him.

‘OK, we need to get a grid up here,’ says Simon. ‘Check all this area out; she must be round here somewhere. According to this, we should be right on top of her.’ Absurdly he looks at his feet.

I stare, looking down, moving the grass with the toe of my shoe, looking for anything, but there is nothing. ‘How close can she be?’

‘Can I let the dog go?’ asks the handler.

‘Yip,’ says Simon, standing back slightly.

The dog pulls her head free and takes a few steps forward into the longer grass, towards my feet, and snorts hard. Then she sits down again, staring at the grass, ears pricked as if she is listening to something that the rest of us cannot hear.

The dog handler sweeps his gloved hand through the grass and withdraws it. Veins of blood.

I am closest so I kneel down and carefully part the grass, noting the drips of blood, the larger stains.

‘If you find anything don’t touch it.’

I know there will be only one thing to find. I part the grass again, seeing the way the dog reacts, her ears pricked eagerly. The source of the scent is here. Then something catches my eye, a small disc on a blade of grass. One centimetre in diameter, glistening, the edge of it more visible. The underlying colour is flesh beige.

The chip.

I
am sitting on my big red velvet settee back in my Glasgow flat, watching the clock, trying to calm my mind. It’s gone ten a.m, and I can’t sleep. I stare high into the ceiling cornices, following the patterns. Simple stuff but it allows the thoughts and images in my head to bend and collide, letting them twist and reform into something else, something better. I feel as if my body has given up on me but my mind refuses to surrender.

The police did not find Mary. They took us off the hill. Costello leaned against the car talking to me. She asked me if I knew that Mary had a chip. I didn’t, so I doubted that many people did. She wanted to know if I knew anybody that Parnell owed a lot of money to. I had no idea but we agreed that it did not make sense: taking her away in a car then walking her across country, when the car could have been in Glasgow in an hour. And why her? Why not the kid? He’d be the soft target.

I am intrigued by where the chip was found, up in the hills, like Lorna had been, or the Katrine girl. Mary had been running. Like Sophie.

Is there something I am missing? Something I am so familiar with that it does not register? The last time I saw Sophie in this flat was the twenty-first of March. It was a Wednesday. That was fifteen days before she went, of her own free will. I do not know when she really went missing. I was lying on this settee as I am now while she was in the bath, bleeding. I left her alone. I try to think of anything that she said but all I can see is Charlie hiding in that cupboard.

Sophie, too, went into hiding.

Alex Parnell had broken down once we were back at Ardno and even I found it difficult to watch. The serial number on the chip was a match to the one that had been inserted in Mary’s arm. He was to stay at Ardno with two officers for company. They had instructions not to leave him on his own. I was taken down to Partickhill station to discuss what I knew. I’m not sure who Anderson is more suspicious of. I am sure if I was pretty, he would suspect me and Parnell of having an affair. Costello had more than suspicions once we got to the matter of Mary’s bruises; she was ready to hang Parnell by his gonads until he sung soprano and told us what he had really done with his wife. She had a minor rant to Anderson, pointing out one obvious fact: only Parnell knew that the chip was there. Whoever took her knew the security code of the gate.

‘Or they could have taken her over the back wall, there’s a gap in it.’

‘It was noted,’ said Anderson coolly.

‘Have you found a connection between Parnell and Sophie?’ I asked.

‘Yes. You.’

That conversation was at eight o’clock this morning.

My phone rings. It’s Parnell’s number. I pick it up. His voice is rushed. ‘I can’t speak long but you and that guy, ex-cop …?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’re looking for your sister, aren’t you?’ He did not pause to hear the answer. ‘Well, I want you to find Mary. You can go where the law can’t. I have a security company, you can have anything you need. I want my wife back. Understand? Tell him he can name his price.’

‘I’ll mention it to him,’ I say and cut the call. Is Parnell playing with me? I can’t tell.

Now the phone beeps again, a text message
. ‘U busy?’

I recognize the number. Billy.

It bleeps again before I can answer. ‘
I’m outside. Can we chat?’

At this moment, even Billy is slightly more appealing than the mess that is rolling in my head. I text back.

The reply is immediate.
‘Put the kettle on.’

The downstairs entry buzzes before I get to the kitchen. Minutes later Billy comes in, red in the face and wheezing after climbing the stairs. He half collapses against the worktop, dropping a Morrisons carrier bag on the floor.

‘What the fuck! Do you need oxygen to get up here? You get a good view down on to Everest from your window?’

‘Shut it. Coffee?’

‘Yeah, you got a dining table?’

‘In the living room.’ I point the way through.

‘Nice flat. Any chance of a bit of toast?’

‘No. I’ve heard from Parnell. He wants us to find Mary.’

Billy makes the disgusting slurping noise that I now know is a sign he is thinking. ‘Really.’ He seems unimpressed. ‘Yeah, he lost Natalie Thom, now he’s lost his wife. Bit careless.’

‘When you met me, did you come to that meeting to see me because of Sophie? Or because you knew that Parnell was my employer?’

‘Can I be enigmatic and say both? You just count your fingers after you shake hands with him. You ever seen him hit Mary?’

‘Never saw it. So does he know you – Parnell? He doesn’t recognize you.’

‘He’s too arrogant, and I was deskbound in those days, but I know him all right.’ Billy shakes his head. ‘You know he married her within months of Natalie being killed? Natalie and Mary were best pals at uni.’ He tuts a little, happy with his implication. He then echoes my thoughts. ‘He had a hand in the design of Ardno. But why have a security gate logging you in and out the front gate then not be bothered fixing a gap in the back wall?’

‘They kept coming out to fix it, but never did.’

‘Who?’

‘Builders from his company, I presume. A fat one with a limp and a wee guy who whistles badly.’

‘So you would know them again?’

‘Of course. Has this got anything to do with Sophie?’

‘Well, when you started looking for her, he got you under his wing sharpish. Right where he could keep an eye on you. Neat.’ He shrugs. ‘Toast would be good.’

‘So would a lottery win,’ I reply. Before I have left the room Billy has removed his jacket and dropped it on the floor; he then kicks off his shoes. By the time I come back through with the tea, toast and Marmite he is massaging his foot with both hands. He has two holes in his left sock. The stink of stale cheese is horrendous. ‘My mother always says that sore feet show in your face.’

‘I knew your face must be like that for a reason. Nature is not that cruel.’ I pick up my Snoopy mug of tea from the floor beside the settee and take it over to the small pine dining table. I notice that Billy has emptied the Morrisons bag; a pile of buff files lies on the table top.

‘What’s that?’

‘Stuff about Mary. I’ve been having a chat with a few folk.’

I look at my watch: less than twelve hours have passed since the call at Eric’s house. It seems a lifetime away. Billy has been busy.

‘Just remember that Costello is a smart cookie; she’s keeping you close so that she can keep an eye on you too.’

‘Yes, I know. I’ve nothing to hide.’

‘So where were you when Mark Laidlaw went into the water?’

At times my lack of emotion serves me well. Deadpan, I reply, ‘Nobody knows when Mark Laidlaw went into the water.’ I take four photographs out of a folder and point at the numbers on them. ‘Should you have these?’

‘Copies. Elvie, I’m devious, not friggin’ stupid.’

‘Either you’ve had these all along or you got hold of them very quickly.’ I shuffle through the rest of the pictures.

‘Never ask a question you don’t want to know the answer to. Three women, maybe four. Mary could be five.’

‘So it could be kidnap? You don’t think Parnell has just paid someone to throw her in the Clyde?’

‘No, with his money, he’d have taken his private yacht out to sea and dumped her where the tide is stronger. But for the moment, go with me. Tell me if I’m right or wrong.’

‘Why me?’

‘Because DCI Anderson is straight as a die. But Costello needs a break on this case. If we hand this to her she’ll go easy on us. Anderson will play it by the book but Costello we can bargain with.’

Billy is right. I look through the photos and hand them back. He places them down and then swaps two of them over. ‘This first one is Lorna Lennox, then Gilly Porter, then Sophie McCulloch; we might add Mary to the end. And Katrine, the unknown girl on the hill. We need to look at Lorna.’

‘Why?’ I pull my face slightly.

‘Because we know her end point. That might lead us to the others.’

I look at the photos again.

‘With Parnell’s connections, Anderson will get a big budget to investigate the Mary Parnell case. I’d like to piggyback that case with these three women, Operation Beluga. I think Costello has similar thoughts. But you and I don’t really think they’re all connected, do we? Not all.’

‘It’s too different, the way she was taken.’

‘Yes, but Mary was never allowed out on her own. There was violence there, control. The stalking and watching element is there, but the execution – for want of a better word – is not there. And those three were all their own people.’

‘Mary wasn’t.’

‘As far as you know.’

‘Runners can be observed, they have a uniform, a routine. The Night Hunter has no need to speak to them, he just needs to observe. Mary didn’t run, so maybe another approach was needed.’

Lorna, Sophie and Gillian were smilers, Mary less so. Perhaps she is the most striking of them, but not the prettiest. There is no photograph of Katrine. Billy’s phone rings; its weird plinky-plink ringtone gets on my nerves.

It’s Costello – she is blunt and to the point. ‘Tell Elvie we’re coming to search her flat. We know you’re both there.’

‘I think she heard that.’ His eyes look at the files, willing them to disappear.

‘Has Parnell been in touch with you?’

Billy raises an eyebrow. ‘Yes.’

‘Asking you to find Mary?’

‘Yes.’

‘I bloody knew it! Look, I want you to do what he asks but keep us informed every step of the way.’

‘We’re always willing to help.’

‘And if you don’t I’ll have you both done for con—’

‘Yeah, heard it,’ he says and cuts the call. ‘I presume you caught that.’ He looks at his phone. ‘That’s interesting. Her back is right against the wall and she knows it. It’s my investigative genius she is after really, of course. I’m going to need a fresh cup of coffee.’ His eyes wander round the room, over the old fireplace and the pictures on the mantelpiece. ‘Is that Sophie?’

‘Yes.’

‘Nice picture. Who’s the raven-haired wee sweetie with her?’

‘That’s me,’ I say.

‘Bloody hell, hen, what happened to you?’

‘Long story.’

It has not been a good way to spend a Sunday. The whole world seems to have gone mad. Billy lifted the files and left just before Costello appeared with a whole search team. They are going through the flat here, and then Parnell’s in Glasgow. Later they’re going up to search the property at Ardno. She advised me that I could object.

I don’t give a shit, and said so.

In the end, though, they are polite and quick. They move through the flat, two going into each room. They ask which room Sophie used when she slept here and which room was mine. Where was I when Sophie was in the bath, what did I see? I sit down on the red settee and again tell Costello what happened that night. When did I last do the washing? she asks. Sophie has been missing for sixty-seven days. Of course I’ve washed the towels.

Costello is particularly annoyed about that and her expression reaches a new height of sourness. ‘We could have had blood or DNA or all sorts on that. I suppose you’ve changed the bed sheets as well?’

‘Mine, yes. Don’t know about hers.’

She breathes out, her fingers playing with her hair, thinking hard.

‘Would the bath be any good?’ I ask. ‘I never have a bath. I use the shower and I’m rarely here. The shower is not over the bath. I’m thinking … plughole?’

She smiles at me. ‘Fuck! What else am I missing? I’m just so tired.’ She goes through and talks to some white suits who promptly trot out of the bedroom and into the bathroom.

‘Two bathrobes on the back of the door, Elvie?’

‘The black one is mine.’

‘And this one?’ She holds up the pink one at arm’s-length in gloved fingers. ‘Sophie’s? Bag and tag. We can take you up to Ardno as soon as we’ve finished here, if that’s all right? You need to be present when we search your flat there. Does Parnell have a key to it?’

‘Probably,’ I say.

‘Elvie, did you ever see Mary talk to anybody else? She hasn’t spoken more than a few words to her parents since she married Parnell. She only seems to see you or him, or both of you.’

I search my mind. ‘No, just the book group. I ran her there, went off with Charlie and came back to get her, then ran her home. Otherwise she was never out of my sight. That’s why I was employed, and she knew that.’

‘As a bodyguard rather than a nanny?’

‘As a spy rather than a bodyguard. Parnell is not thick; I think he was keeping tabs on her even when I wasn’t there.’

‘Maybe that’s the real reason for the chip. Chipped, beaten and spied on. Poor kid. Her phone just has calls to you, Eric Mason and Alex on it. She lived in a bubble.’

I remember a day when Charlie and I had been down at the lochside. Mary had stayed up on the road. I heard Mary laugh, not something I heard often. She was on the phone. I replay it in my mind. Not her touch pad phone? There was no sweeping of the finger … In my memory she was tapping buttons, using an older phone. Did she have two phones?

‘Did Charlie say anything?’

‘He saw nothing. He’s being interviewed by a play therapist but Parnell insists on sitting in, so it’s not ideal. The boy doesn’t want to speak until his dad approves. Is he like that with his mother?’

‘No, he jabbers away like a wee monkey.’

‘Her parents get a card from Charlie every now and again but they don’t speak.’ She pulls out her phone and checks it. ‘Funny, I don’t see Mary as the type of person that would cause an estrangement. She seems a bit weak-willed, a follower.’ She closes her phone; something has displeased her. She gets called from the bathroom. I hear her say,
That’s great
and
Get it back to the lab.

She reappears, her mind back on the job. ‘We need to get moving now, you have five minutes to get your stuff together.’

By half past four they have already gone through the apartment above the dining room with all kinds of forensic stuff. The flat is tiny so I couldn’t be shuffled about and kept out of the way as they look under cushions, look at my books, examine Charlie’s drawings on the fridge door. It took a tenth of the time it took them at the Glasgow flat.