The Reborn (7 page)

Chrissy was deep in thought, and not about witchcraft. ‘The hair’s quite long, could it have come from a wig?’

Wig manufacturers often threaded animal and human hair, then dyed it to the required colour. It was a possibility.

‘I could do a bit of research,’ she suggested. ‘Let you get on with something else.’

‘Oh my God!’ Rhona glanced at the clock. ‘I’m due at the strategy meeting in ten minutes. Slater will drip sarcasm if I’m late.’

‘Bill’s not back?’

‘His court case was scheduled for today. I haven’t heard the outcome yet.’

The meeting had already begun. Rhona slipped in at the back. Roy’s footage of the locus was on the big screen, Kira’s mutilated body reflected in the surrounding mirrors of the maze. Slater was in full flow, giving a rundown of their call to the scene via a 999 by the victim’s boyfriend, David Murdoch, who said he’d found her.

The way Slater said this suggested he was of the ‘first witness, first suspect’ school of thought.

‘The victim was last seen by David and two other friends, Alexandra Stewart-Smith and Owen Hegarty, sometime after eleven o’clock.’ Slater’s loaded pronunciation of the names suggested his interpretation of the difference in their social class. ‘According to all three of them, Kira said she was going for candyfloss and never returned. The ticket seller on the mirror maze confirms she did enter alone, he thought about half past eleven, and seemed anxious to get inside. He also said the tented structure could be accessed other than by the entrance and exit by slipping under the canvas. David’s clothes have been sent to forensics for analysis. As yet there is no sign of the baby.’

When it was Rhona’s turn, she showed them the enhanced image of the dentricles.

‘I lifted these from the wound site. They’re dentricles, microscopic but easily recognisable as traces from shark skin. Butchers’ knives and hunting knives often have shark skin handles, to stop hands slipping when covered in blood.’

They absorbed that information and she moved on to the hair.

‘It was lodged under the victim’s fingernail which might indicate a struggle with her attacker. Because of the colour and length and the fact it’s not human, we think it might have come from a wig.’

‘You’re suggesting the killer wore a bright red wig?’ drawled Slater.

‘I’m not suggesting anything, merely relating what we have at this moment.’

Detective Superintendent Sutherland intervened. ‘Our main focus must be the missing baby. What’s happening about that?’

‘We’re still searching the park and the Kelvin waterway, but no luck so far.’

‘The baby’s father?’

‘David Murdoch maintains he isn’t the father and Dr MacLeod says she can prove if that’s true. So far, the parents either aren’t saying or don’t know.’

‘Foetal abduction is unusual, to say the least. We need to know more about the psychology behind this. See if Professor Pirie is available.’

Slater’s face turned puce. If he thought he had all but obliterated the old team with McNab’s death, it looked as though he was wrong. Rhona masked a smile. If she couldn’t have McNab or Bill, she would settle for Magnus.

Slater appeared about to argue when a cheer from the incident room stopped him in his tracks. When Rhona had passed through earlier, the atmosphere had been subdued. A major incident involved a lot of organisation, many man hours, especially where the death also involved a missing child.

The roar and excited babble might mean the baby had been found. Slater, for all his girth, was quick on his feet. He threw open the door, ready to admonish the crowd.

Rhona caught a glimpse of Janice’s jubilant face and knew immediately the cause for celebration. Slater barked his order for silence, then demanded to know
what the hell was going on
.

It was Janice who answered. ‘Detective Inspector Wilson has been cleared of the assault charge, sir.’

Slater’s expression never changed. ‘I’m delighted to hear it. Now, can we get back to work? We have a missing baby, in case you’ve forgotten.’

The return to desks was accompanied by subdued but delighted murmurs. Nothing Slater said or did could diminish the importance of the news to the men and women in that room.

7

Rhona was shocked by how much Bill had aged in the weeks since she’d last seen him. She had never really considered his age before, even when she’d attended his fiftieth birthday party at the Jazz Club.

The last twelve months had hit him hard. Firstly there had been Margaret’s cancer diagnosis, then the assault on his daughter, Lisa, McNab’s murder and finally the court case. You didn’t have to be fifty to look old after a string of bad luck like that.

She had gone in search of him after the meeting, suspecting he was somewhere in the building, avoiding jubilant colleagues and awaiting Sutherland’s interview call.

She had finally persuaded Angus, the Duty Sergeant, to tell her where he was.

‘He doesn’t want to talk to anyone before he sees the Super.’

‘I’ll pretend I found him all on my own.’

Angus gave her a reluctant nod. ‘He’s in number six.’

The corridor was silent and empty. Bill had chosen the most far-flung interview room. No chance of anyone spotting him unless they walked the full length of the corridor. She wondered if he had heard the whoop of joy that had gone up on the announcement of his acquittal. Such an outburst of approbation would have embarrassed him. He would also believe it to be undeserved; Rhona knew him well enough to know that. Bill had been raised with the belief that whatever you were asked to do, you did it properly. That went for everything, from the mundane to the important. And in respect of McNab and the Gravedigger case, he believed he had not fulfilled that obligation, nor his duty.

When she opened the door, he was seated at the table, a full mug of congealing coffee in front of him. She wanted to go over and hug him, but didn’t.

The last time they’d met was shortly after McNab’s funeral. They’d sat in Bill’s local, and Rhona had tried unashamedly to stop Bill leaving the police force. Back then, they’d had no idea what the outcome of the assault charge would be. It was their individual guilt and despair over Michael’s death that had dominated the interchange.

He looked up as she entered.

‘Sergeant Willis refused to tell me where you were, so I came looking.’

‘You’re the first one to make it through his cordon.’ He gave her the ghost of a smile. ‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’

‘Your forensic evidence.’

‘You should never have said you did it.’

‘McNab reacted the way he did because of me. An assault charge would have finished his career.’

Everything he said was true. McNab was known for his ill-controlled temper. An assault conviction would have probably resulted in the end of his CID career.

‘McNab would never have let it go.’ She didn’t add,
if he were still alive
.

Bill acknowledged that with a brief nod.

Both of them knew that it wasn’t over yet. The disciplinary procedure would kick in now the court case had ended. Bill had disobeyed a direct order from a superior, which had resulted in an assault. There were mitigating circumstances and he was a respected officer, but whatever decision Sutherland made, would Bill accept it and carry on?

Before she could ask, the door opened and Angus stuck his head round.

‘The Super will see you now, Sir.’

Bill rose, his expression stony. If persuasion couldn’t make him stay, maybe the possibility of revenge would.

She put her hand on his arm.

‘Word is that Nikolai Kalinin is back in the UK.’

He gave her a half smile, acknowledging her last-ditch attempt, then he was gone.

Since Bill’s suspension, Slater had done little to pursue McNab’s killers. The investigation into Russian mob activities in Glasgow had been his baby. He’d put all the team’s effort into trying to nail Kalinin, and failed. Slater didn’t like to be associated with failure, so he’d mothballed the case, using the excuse that McNab’s killers had left the country. Intelligence suggested Kalinin had returned to Russia or was lying low on the Mediterranean, managing gambling interests there. With the best will in the world, the long arm of Scots law didn’t stretch that far.

But the death of McNab was like a canker at the heart of Bill’s team. The DI’s acquittal would ease some of the sense of injustice, but it wasn’t enough.

She chose to return to the lab via the park. The frenetic police activity of the past forty-eight hours had dwindled to a team of SOCOs still scouring the interior of the mirror maze, and a couple of uniforms conducting door to door enquiries with the inhabitants of the motor homes.

The funfair was back in business, or would be in the evening, apart from the Hall of Mirrors. According to the news, the murder had brought in the crowds, keen to look at the scene of such a unique and ghoulish crime. The fact that the baby had not yet been found, dead or alive, only serving to feed the frenzy of interest.

Past the site of the funfair, the park achieved normality. Open spaces, wooded river banks, cycle tracks and a rollerblading structure. Close by was an enclosed children’s playground. It housed a climbing frame and slide and a small roundabout, as well as two sets of swings, one with toddler-type seats. The play area was deserted. No chatting mums, no children. Maybe it was the time of day or maybe it was because of Kira and the missing baby.

As Rhona approached, a girl appeared, opened the gate and went inside. She took a seat on one of the swings and began to pull herself upwards.

Drawing nearer, she realised the girl was pregnant. And she
was
just a girl, not much older, at a guess, than Kira. As Rhona passed, a young male vaulted the low railing and called to the girl; the name sounded like ‘Mel’. The girl slowed the swing down and jumped to the ground before walking to meet him. They embraced.

Without getting closer Rhona couldn’t be sure, but the young man, his arms now about the girl, looked very like the photo she’d seen in the strategy meeting of David Murdoch, the dead girl’s boyfriend. If it was him, it suggested David was friendly with more than one pregnant teenager.

Rhona came to a halt, but the couple weren’t interested in her, only in each other. The girl was talking rapidly, the boy trying to calm her. Rhona could hear nothing of the interchange. She brought out her phone as though answering a call and surreptitiously photographed the pair.

Her first instinct was to send the image to McNab, tell him what she’d spotted. She even brought up his number before she realised what she’d done. She stared at the screen, angry with herself for not deleting the contact already, yet unable to do so even now. She thrust the mobile back in her bag. She would email a copy to DS Clark when she reached the lab, check if it was David she’d seen.

By the time she exited the park the pair had disappeared; the distant view was of a deserted playground, an empty swing swaying back and forth.

‘OK. Listen to this. Yak hair is considered to be the best material to use for wigs.’

‘Yak hair?’

‘Bear with me on this. The victim had hair under her fingernail. It isn’t human. So she picked it up from an animal. An animal that was dyed red? I don’t think so. More likely she was in contact with a dyed fur jacket, or a wig. I started with wigs. Basically, the most expensive ones are made with virgin hair which has never been chemically treated. Remy hair, human hair that has been treated, comes next in quality. Next best is a weave of human and animal hair. Further down the price scale it’s synthetic. Apparently yak hair is pretty good in a weave because it can be curled, permed, relaxed and coloured just like human hair.’

Chrissy had launched into full flow as soon as Rhona appeared. Now she’d paused for breath, Rhona told her the news about Bill.

‘Ya
beauty
!’ Chrissy punched the air. ‘All down to us of course.’

Chrissy took any forensic success to be a personal achievement.

‘It’s not over yet.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Bill was in with Sutherland when I left.’

Chrissy put her hands on her hips. ‘He won’t demote him. Sutherland’s not that stupid.’ She took in Rhona’s doubtful expression before going on vehemently. ‘Everyone hates Slater. They want Bill back. Sutherland’ll pretend to be the big noise . . .’

‘Which he is.’

‘But he’ll try to make Bill stay.’

‘I don’t think it’ll work.’

For the first time during the conversation Chrissy looked unsure.

‘I hope you tried . . .’

‘I tried,’ Rhona said more sharply than she intended.

Chrissy’s face fell. ‘Things will never be the same again, will they?’

‘Things change. Besides, you have Sam and Michael now.’

‘And who do you have?’

‘You know me. I like my own company.’

Rhona hoped her tone made it clear the discussion was at an end. Just to make sure, she changed tack.

‘Sutherland has asked for Magnus to be consulted on the fairground case. Slater wasn’t too keen, but he has no choice.’

Chrissy had a soft spot for the Orcadian professor of psychology and liked the idea of a discomfited DI Slater. The small consolation seemed to perk her up.

‘I’d better be going. I’d said I’d meet Sam about now.’

‘So when will you be back?’

‘I’ll come in for a couple of hours every day. See how Mum gets on. If it works out, I’ll do more.’

‘Great.’

Just the thought of having Chrissy back was like a shot in the arm.

8

Despite the coldness of the late afternoon, Magnus stepped out onto the balcony, where the wind coming up the river whipped at his body. The tide was in, surging from the western seaboard, up the 600 square miles of waterway that lay west of the Clyde. Below him, grey water seethed, white-tops like snapping teeth.