Sacrifice

'Who knew you planned to go sailing that morning, Miss Hamilton?'

'We didn't plan it,' I replied, knowing I was stalling. 'We hadn't even planned spending that weekend on Unst. It was a last-minute thing. But lots of people know we keep a boat there.'

'Do you keep your life jackets there too?'

I couldn't look at him. 'No,' I said. 'We keep them at home. In the attic. Duncan would have picked them up from home before we set off. They were locked in the boot of his car till we used them on Sunday morning.'

He frowned, stared down at his notes for a while. Then looked back up at me.

'Whose idea was it to go sailing? Who thought of it?'

'Duncan's,' I said. 'It was Duncan.'

I was taken to a cell, given more food and a note from Helen telling me to eat and rest. When I woke, it was nearly seven in the evening and Helen was standing in the doorway. She'd changed into a tailored black trouser suit and an emerald-green silk vest. Her hair had been washed and wound up on the top of her head. She looked nothing like the woman I'd ridden across country with the night before.

'Feeling better?'

I managed a smile. 'I guess.'

'Ready to go back?'

Back? Back to the islands? Early that morning, I'd watched them disappear over the horizon and told myself it was over; that that part of my life was finished with. Now, it appeared, it was not.

'Do I have a choice?' I asked, knowing what the answer was going to be.

'Not really. You can eat on the way.'

On the way to the helipad she was silent. I had a hundred questions but I didn't know where to start and, if I'm honest, I was a little afraid to. Helen wasn't my fellow fugitive any more; she was a senior police officer, probably in charge of a very serious investigation. And I was a principal witness. Having got this far, I didn't want to do anything to screw things up.

When the driver was parking she said, 'Stephen Gair has confessed.'

I'd been leaning back in the seat but at that I sat bolt upright. 'You're kidding me? He just admitted it?'

She nodded. 'He's been in custody since midday. It took two hours and then he cracked.'

'What? I mean, what exactly has he confessed to?' Stephen Gair had not struck me as the type to give in that easily.

'Well, everything. Selling babies to the highest bidder, for one thing. He says he worked with several of the less scrupulous adoption agencies overseas. Whenever a wealthy couple appeared they were told about a way of short-cutting the system for a price. It was all done by a sort of blind auction on the Internet. When a baby became available it went to the highest bidder. Up to a million dollars in some cases.'

Our driver got out of the car. He waved to the pilot, who nodded back, and the chopper's blades started to turn.

'George Reynolds, the director of social services, is in Lerwick nick, helping us with our inquiries. He's denying all knowledge, but if the babies went overseas with adoption papers, his department must be involved.'

'Who actually took them overseas?'

'A nursing agency. We're talking to them but so far they claim they didn't know anything was illegal.'

'And Gair admits substituting Cathy for his wife at the hospital?' The noise of the helicopter's engines was increasing and I had to raise my voice. Once we got out of the car, speech would become impossible again.

'Yep. Insists she was very well treated, that her illness followed its natural course and that in no way can he be held responsible for her death. He also says no one at the hospital knew anything about it.'

'So who helped him? Who arranged the ambulance?'

'Claims he did it himself. Chartered it privately. The nurse was hired for the occasion.'

I was thinking as fast as I'd ever done. Was it feasible? That no one from the hospital was involved?

'What about the doctor, the one who later claimed to be a policeman? The one who Caroline met?'

'He insists there was no accomplice. Says Caroline was confused.'

'She didn't sound confused to me.'

'No. She's at Lerwick now. We've got an identity parade lined up.'

'So you know who it was?'

'Let's just say we have some ideas.' Her face closed up. She was saying no more on that one. I tried another tack.

And Melissa?'

Helen held up one finger at the pilot. 'Gair admits killing her. She found out about the adoptions and threatened to go to the police. You're not going to like this, but he says he kept her in your cellar. A forensic team's been there for the last few hours.'

'You're kidding me,' I whispered, remembering Dana's insistence on looking round my cellar – her instincts right on the button, as usual.

'He'd handled the probate for the last owner and knew the house was empty. He even had a set of keys. He says he kept Melissa tied up and heavily drugged and once she'd given birth he killed her. He claims he acted alone.'

'Bullshit! He couldn't have done that without help. Kept a pregnant woman prisoner for months, delivered a baby. He's covering for someone.'

'Probably. He says he carved the symbols on her back. Got the idea from some markings around your fireplace. Apparently, he wanted to make it look like some sort of cult slaying, to draw attention away from him if she was ever found. Same with cutting out the heart. He can't remember what he did with the heart. Says he was under a great deal of stress at the time and that huge chunks of his memory are missing.'

'Bullshit! Bull-double-shit!'

'Thank you. But we worked that out ourselves. He is also admitting that Connor, the little boy he calls his stepson, is his own child. And Melissa, not Alison his new wife, was his mother.'

'Dana was right about that too.'

Beside me, Helen took a sharp breath. 'Well, we can DNA test, prove it conclusively, one way or another. Look, don't worry. A few more hours, maybe days and he'll tell us everything. Right now, we need to move.'

It took us just over an hour to get back. Helen spent the time reading and making notes, her body language giving very definite don't ask me now signals and I didn't want to push her. But shit…

First thing that occurred to me, as the helicopter took off, was that we'd never have made it to this point if Stephen Gair hadn't agreed to have his wife's dental records examined. Just days ago, Saturday morning, he'd been cooperation itself. Far from complaining – as he'd have had every right to – about my unethical behaviour, he'd allowed the confirmation that the body in my field was that of his wife. Of course, we were still, at that stage, a long way from working out how the switch had taken place, but even so, Stephen Gair had effectively given himself up that morning.

The helicopter banked and we were heading back over the North Sea to the islands. The sun was low in the sky, spreading its golden warmth over the waves.

Why the hell had he done that? Had he been tired of living with the guilt? I'd heard criminals often secretly want to be caught. Or had he deliberately played along, knowing the system was in place to protect him; that he had friends who could get him off the hook?

Were Dana and I being played that morning; encouraged to reveal just exactly what we knew before being… well, neutralized? Put out of harm's way before we could tell someone who might actually take us seriously? Three days later, Dana was dead and I'd narrowly escaped drowning.

Melissa had found out too much and she'd been dealt with; she'd suffered a protracted and terrifying death. I wondered what had roused Melissa's suspicions in the first place, what path she'd followed to discover more, at what point she'd become seriously afraid, whether she'd tried to escape. First Melissa, then Dana had paid the price for knowing too much. And it wasn't over. In spite of what Helen had just told me about Gair's confession, I knew it wasn't. Why the hell was I going back to Shetland?

We landed in a field close to Lerwick police station and the noise dimmed enough for Helen and me to be able to talk. She looked up from her notes.