Torch (10 page)

She examined
the text of the letter again. The words were all written in lower
case except for an occasional capital letter. The capitals didn’t
make a word, but they did look familiar. With a flash of insight
and excitement, she realised why.

Out of the bath
and dressed in Greg’s bathrobe, Rhona fetched her laptop, powered
up and opened her anonymous email. The letters were in a different
order, but they were definitely the same as the capitals in
MacRae’s letter..

I C H B U N R T
E B T H

The more Rhona
stared at the characters, the more she realised this couldn’t be a
co-incidence.

She began by
isolating the three vowels. She would assume there were at least
two words, maybe three, each with a vowel. She made up ‘BURN’ ,
then concentrated on the other letters. Once she separated the word
‘THE’, it was easy.

BURN THE
BITCH.

The person
sending the emails was the person writing the letters.

The sharpness
of the buzzer interrupted her. When she answered it, the male voice
on the intercom was a mixture of belligerence and apology.

‘It’s Karen’s
friend. I need to talk to you about MacRae.’

‘Come up.’

He stood in the
hall taking in the polished French tiles, the glistening glass
chandelier, the deep rug. Rhona wanted to tell him she felt the
same when she saw Greg’s flat for the first time, that her flat was
a mess of cat hair and forensic journals. Instead she pointed the
way through to the even more palatial sitting room.

Jaz’s jacket
was damp across the shoulders and the dark pony tail glistened with
rain. The dog looked equally drenched.

‘Can I get you
a coffee? Warm you up?’

Rhona thought
he was about to refuse then he seemed to relax and nodded, rubbing
his hands together in front of the fire.

‘Yeah. That
would be great.’

When she
returned from putting the kettle on, Jaz was sitting on the couch,
the dog sprawled at his feet.

‘Some
place.’

She smiled.
‘Yes, but unfortunately not mine.’

‘Oh.’ He looked
perturbed. ‘I thought...’

‘I live in
Glasgow,’ she explained. ‘This is a friend’s place. He lets me stay
when I come through.’

‘Good
friend.’

‘Yes, he
is.’

Rhona went back
to the kitchen to make the coffee. Through the open door she
observed his profile, almost feminine with the ponytail hanging
over his shoulder. Rhona wondered if she had been wise to let him
in, especially when Greg wasn’t here. There were a lot of things
lying about the place, things that could be slipped into his
pocket, sold later for drugs or drink. Rhona chided herself as she
poured the coffee. Just because Jaz was homeless didn’t make him a
criminal.

She brought
through the coffee.

‘The night
after we talked about Karen, were you hanging about outside?’

Belligerence
was back in his reply. ‘Aye, I was. I’ve been watching MacRae too.
Waiting for him to do something about Karen. I even gave him a copy
of this.’

He handed Rhona
a drawing of a man. Rhona studied it.

‘This is very
good.’

‘I used to be
an art student.’ Jaz’s voice was bitter. ‘Before I screwed up.’

Rhona wanted to
ask him what had gone wrong with his life, how he had ended up on
the street. Instead she asked why the person in the drawing was
important.

‘I think he
killed Karen.’

‘Then you
should show the police the drawing. Tell them why you think he’s
the killer.’

His face
darkened. ‘Yeah, right.’ He took the picture from her, stuffed it
in his pocket and stood up. ‘Thanks for the coffee.’

‘Where are you
going?’

‘Not to the
fuckin police anyway.’

Rhona caught
his arm. ‘Don’t leave yet. I’m sorry... I don’t know your
name?’

‘Jaz,’ he said
relenting. ‘My friends call me Jaz.’

‘Well, Jaz. I
think it’s time we talked properly, don’t you?’

When Jaz left,
Rhona went through to Greg’s office and faxed the drawing to
Chrissy and asked her to look through all the fire video footage
they had. Some fire raisers liked to watch the results of their
exploits. Maybe there was a face in a crowd that fitted. She would
check the Edinburgh footage herself.

Rhona sat down,
suddenly tired. She knew she was only skirting the problem. At
least when she had biological materials to work on she felt she was
doing something constructive. The only person who seemed to have a
handle on the arsonist was MacRae. And it seemed he had given
up.

She called DI
MacFarlane and asked him for MacRae’s address. He was silent for a
moment, ‘You’re wasting your time. Sev’s already made up his
mind.’

‘Then I’ll have
to change it for him.’

Chapter
16

Lothian Road
was choked with traffic until she got beyond Tollcross. MacFarlane
had given her directions to MacRae’s flat. Take a right at
Tollcross and head up the hill past Bruntsfield Links. Viewforth
was somewhere on the right. She missed the turn off and had to pull
in and ask a Big Issue seller, stationed out the Royal Bank of
Scotland. He pointed her back the way she’d come.

‘Second on the
left,’ he informed her cheerily.

She bought a
magazine in thanks.

MacRae’s flat
was on the top floor of the block. She pressed the buzzer and
waited. She was about to press again when he answered gruffly.

‘Yeah?’

‘It’s Rhona
MacLeod. Can I come up?’

There was a
period of heavy silence, then the door buzzed open.

He was waiting
at the door, looking as though he’d hastily pulled on trousers,
wearing a towel round his neck, his upper body and hair still wet.
Behind him the room emitted a smell of alcohol and shower gel. He
had obviously been in the shower when she buzzed.

‘Sorry,’ she
said.

He looked her
up and down, a smile playing his lips. ‘About what? My body?’

‘I thought we’d
got past that stage,’ she shot back at him.

‘What
stage?’

‘The ‘women are
for laying stage’.’

‘Never. Call me
old fashioned if you like.’ He threw the towel to some hidden spot
behind the door and waited, hands on hips.

‘Can I come
in?’ she asked pointedly.

He stood back
to let her past. ‘Be my guest.’ He closed the door behind her. ‘So,
Dr MacLeod. What is it you want?’

‘DI MacFarlane
said you refused to help in the arson case.’

The sarcastic
smile dissolved. ‘MacFarlane thinks I’m a nutcase,’ he said
quietly. ‘This time he’s wrong.’

The thought
crossed Rhona’s mind that she could walk away from this man, report
her findings to Bill Wilson, take a few days off, visit Sean in
Amsterdam. The scenario was an attractive one.

‘I think we can
help,’ she said, dismissing escape from her mind.

MacRae’s voice
was low and angry. ‘Take my advice, lady. Go back to Glasgow.’ He
reached for a tee-shirt from the back of a chair.

‘You never
listen to anyone, do you?’ she flung at him. ‘No wonder your wife
left you.’

He turned, his
face furious. ‘What did you say?’

Saying it once
was stupid. Repeating it would be insane. Rhona did it all the
same. ‘I said, no wonder your wife left you.’

A nerve played
the corner of his mouth. The scarring that crept over his shoulders
looked blue. He was so close she could smell him. A mixture of soap
and anger.

‘For your
information, Gillian left me because of this.’ He pointed to the
scars. ‘She didn’t like to see it, or feel it.’ His voice was
running out of anger. ‘It reminded her of what I do.’

There was hurt
in his eyes.

‘Sean doesn’t
like what I do either.’

MacRae
shrugged. ‘Then we’re two of a kind.’

‘Except I don’t
give up.’

‘You don’t have
a child.’

Rhona opened
her mouth to tell him she did have a child, that she had tasted the
same fear. Instead she said: ‘MacFarlane said Gillian took Amy
north.’

‘As far away
from me as possible.’ MacRae smiled grimly.

‘Then she’s
safe.’

He turned away,
dismissing her. ‘I’ve told MacFarlane all I know.’

‘Jaz gave you
important information and you did nothing about it.’

He reached for
a half-empty bottle of whisky and tipped some into a glass.

‘I was busy.’
He threw back the whisky.

‘Then I’ll have
to deal with it alone.’

‘Don’t let me
keep you.’

His door banged
shut as she reached the bottom of the stairs. All the way down,
she’d hoped he would call her back.

Chapter
17

The street was
narrow, dipping down steeply and curving beneath the thoroughfare
above. Edinburgh had a multitude of streets like this. Roads under
roads. Layers of houses whose basements sat lightly on the past.
Dig in your basement in the Old Town and you were likely to find a
cobbled street, or the remnants of a medieval sewer. Ghost tour
companies thrived on the warren of pathways and hovels that lurked
beneath their more modern counterparts.

Rhona reached
the address Jaz had written on the drawing and parked outside on a
double yellow line. MacFarlane should be with her in ten
minutes.

After waiting
twenty minutes Rhona locked the car, ran through the rain and
ducked into the low entranceway, hoping the squat door would be
open. She was in luck. Someone had wedged the door tight against
the frame with a piece of wood, but it wasn’t hard to free it and
push her way in.

The building
was in semi-darkness, the air musty. Rhona ran her hand along the
wall, searching for a light switch. It gave a reassuring click but
nothing happened. Whatever Mary Queen of Scots was using for light,
it wasn’t electricity.

In front of
her, a staircase twisted out of sight after six stone steps.
Splashed with green light from an overhead grating, she thought she
could see well enough to descend it. Rhona had just reached the
bottom when she heard the muffled sound of footsteps above her.
There had been no call to check for her presence, something she was
sure MacFarlane would have done, after seeing her empty vehicle
outside.

The green light
was cut off as a figure began its descent. This room was larger
than the one upstairs, although lower in height and with nowhere to
hide. Rhona did her best, pressing herself behind the curve of the
staircase. Whoever was coming down would sense her soon, if they
hadn’t already.

When the figure
lunged at her, Rhona was ready. Already lower than the guy, she
brought her knee up as hard as she could, catching him full between
the legs. He doubled up, swearing obscenely.

Rhona launched
herself up the staircase but a hand gripped her ankle, bringing her
down heavily on the stone steps. Now it was her turn to swear.

‘Rhona?’ MacRae
was lying on his side, knees to chin, his face as green as the
stairwell light.

‘What the hell
are you doing here?’ she said, rubbing at her grazed shins.

‘You asked me
here, remember?’ he reminded her in a choking voice.

‘I didn’t ask
you to attack me.’

‘Why didn’t you
call out?’ He was dragging himself onto his knees, his expression
changing from agony to anger.

‘Why didn’t
you?’ she threw back at him.

‘Christ,
woman!’

‘Don’t ‘Christ
woman’, me! I was here doing the job you refused to do,
remember?’

‘Move over,’ he
groaned, pulling himself onto the step beside her, cradling his
crotch. ‘I’ve heard of ball breakers, but you take the prize.’

She caught his
eye and started to laugh.

‘No,’ he
pleaded painfully.

‘What do we do
now?’ Rhona said.

Without torches
a search in the squat was useless. They had abandoned the attempt
and were now sitting in the Saab. MacRae reached over and opened
the glove compartment.

‘You’re not
looking for a drink?’

‘Too right I
am.’ MacRae raised an eyebrow, extracted a can of Irn-Bru, opened
it and drank it in a oner.

Rhona decided
not to rise to the obvious bait.

‘So, what did
you think of the letters?’ he finally said, flattening the empty
can in his fist.

‘I’m pretty
sure four are from the same person. I’m not a handwriting expert,
but the tone and style are the same, plus the sexual innuendo. Your
report to MacFarlane said the last four major fires have been
deliberately started, in your opinion, by the same man?’

MacRae stared
out of the window. There was no rain now, just a biting cold wind
that seeped through the joints in the old Saab.

He nodded. ‘A
letter for every major fire.’

‘Plus the
warning to MacFarlane suggesting the next fire will be tonight,’
Rhona paused, ‘and the latest letter threatening you... and
me.’

He shot her an
annoyed look. ‘MacFarlane showed you that?’

She nodded.

‘Well I hope
you like shit, lady, because it looks like we’re in it.’

‘Deeper than
you think,’ Rhona handed him the photocopy. She gave him time to
read it through before saying, ‘The capital letters make up the
phrase at the bottom.’

He shrugged,
not overly impressed. ‘So? We’re dealing with a nutcase here. He
likes to hide insults inside his other insults.’

‘He likes to
email them too.’

He read her
expression and she saw realisation dawn in his eyes. When he spoke,
his careless tone had gone. ‘The wanker’s been emailing you?’

‘I’ve had three
anonymous emails sent to the lab. They were just a string of
jumbled capital letters. Those letters.’

‘And?’

‘I didn’t try
to work out what they said... until now.’