The moron behind the wheel went pink, lips pinched tight together in silence.
‘He doesn’t know, Mr Henderson. He’s young. And a bit thick. Come on, deep breaths.’
I thumped back in my seat. ‘Don’t see why you needed me on this anyway.’
‘Because you’ve got some sort of weird rapport with Helen MacNeil. And things are hard enough as it is.’ Mother seemed to deflate a couple of sizes as darkened fields flashed by the windows. ‘We had to do a risk assessment and now the SEB are refusing to search the basement. They won’t even go into the house. If this was any normal deposition and crime scene, we’d have big plastic marquees up by now, spotlights, generators; there’d be a specialist team digging the garden up and another one going through that kill room with an electron microscope.’ A shudder. ‘But it’s not a normal crime scene, is it? No, of course it isn’t, because if it was, some DCI would’ve waltzed in and wheeched it off me by now. It’s an utter crapfest, so no one else will touch it with a six-foot cattle prod!’
She had a point.
‘What am I supposed to do, Mr Henderson? If I put people in harm’s way and something happens, I’m screwed. If I don’t put them in harm’s way, I’m not doing my job, and screwed. Either way: screwed.’ She slapped both hands over her face again and smothered a small scream.
‘You finished?’
A small bitter laugh jiggled out of her. ‘Probably. Top brass have been trying to get shot of me for six years now, well, this’ll be the perfect opportunity.’ She turned in her seat and scowled at the driver. ‘You want some career advice, Constable Sullivan? Never have a heart attack on O Division’s dime, because if you do the bastards will treat you like a soiled nappy full of radioactive poop!’
PC Sullivan, quite sensibly, kept his mouth shut.
There was hope for the boy yet.
A small village flashed past, the streets empty, the trees thrashing in the wind, overflowing gutters spilling small lakes across the square.
‘You hear anything back from N Division?’
Mother sagged even further. ‘They sent three patrol cars to Smith’s brother’s croft. No one there.’ Her mouth turned down, lips puckered, like she was sucking on something bitter. ‘Said it looked like no one had been there for years. All abandoned and manky. No Gordon Smith. Wherever he’s disappeared to, it isn’t there.’
A Mobile Incident Unit sat in the middle of the potholed road, about two houses back from the warning fence, lights blazing out in the darkness. It wasn’t one of the swanky new ones, either — little more than a grubby shipping container done up in Police Scotland livery with a mobile generator chuntering away behind it.
Mother undid her seatbelt as PC Sullivan parked alongside. Sat there, staring out through the rain-strafed window at Helen MacNeil’s house. ‘Maybe we should wait till morning?’
‘You know what Oldcastle’s like: entire police force leaks information like a colander.’
Sullivan stiffened. ‘That’s not—’
‘Yes it is, and keep your gob shut.’ I grabbed my walking stick. ‘We hold off till morning, this place will be swarming with soggy journalists, wanting to know what it’s like living next door to a serial killer. Won’t take much for her to put two and two together.’ Turned my collar up, and climbed out into the storm. Let the wind slam the car door shut for me. Then banged my hand down on the roof three or four times, raising my voice over the wind. ‘DI MALCOLMSON, ARE YOU COMING OR NOT?’
Her door opened and she joined me on the pavement, face a sour sagging scowl. ‘This is what I get for answering my phone after midnight. I never learn...’ Hunching herself up, lumbering after me as we shouldered our way through the gusts to Helen MacNeil’s front door and the relative shelter of her grubby caravan. She rang the doorbell, then tucked her hands deep in her pockets. ‘And how come I’m “DI Malcolmson” now, you always used to call me Mother.’
I frowned at her. ‘You’ve been calling me “Mr Henderson” ever since I turned up.’
‘I thought you were upset with me for some reason.’ She took a hand out again and patted me on the back with it. ‘Ash.’
Ah, why not: ‘Mother.’
Still no sign of life from the house, so I leaned on the bell again, keeping my thumb there as it drinnnnnnnnged. Ringing on and on and on and on and—
‘WHAT?’ The door was yanked open, and there stood Helen MacNeil, wrapped up in a tatty old blue dressing gown, bare legs and feet poking out the bottom. Glaring at us with puffy eyes. Short grey hair flat on one side. Fists ready.
Mother looked at me. Raised her eyebrows.
Coward.
I stepped forwards. ‘Helen, can we come in, please? I’m... afraid we have some bad news.’
She sat there, staring at me.
I shifted on the couch. ‘Are there any questions you’d like to ask?’
Helen MacNeil looked down at my phone again, clutched in her trembling hands. At the image filling the screen: a smiling young woman in an ugly orange-and-brown one-piece swimming costume, face covered in freckles, mousy-blonde hair tucked behind an ear, rolling sand dunes behind her.
PC Sullivan emerged through the living room door, carrying two mugs in each hand, steam rising off them in the chill air. He put the lot on the rickety coffee table, then held one out to Helen. ‘Milk and three sugars.’
She blinked. Shook her head. Voice hollow and distant. ‘This has to be a mistake...’
And again, Sullivan had the common sense to keep his gob shut.
Mother helped herself to a mug and did the same.
Typical.
‘Do you recognise the photograph, Helen?’
‘Gordon wouldn’t hurt Sophie. He wouldn’t. He’s been like family to us, ever since I was a wee girl. This is bollocks!’
‘It’s definitely her, though, in the picture?’
‘I... It’s...’ She placed a fingertip on the screen. Then placed my phone on the coffee table, stood, and marched out of the room.
‘Pffff...’ Mother looked at me over the rim of her mug. ‘You have to feel for her.’
‘And are you planning on chipping in at any point, or do I have to do everything now?’
A smile, then Mother leaned forward and patted me on the knee. ‘But you’re doing so well.’
‘You can stuff your patronising—’
Helen marched back in, holding out a Polaroid. ‘Look.’
It was almost identical to the one we’d found hanging up in next door’s basement. Taken either just before, or just after it. The main difference being that in this version, the woman in the bathing suit was holding a beaming toddler in a pink sundress, floppy white hat on its head. Pinholes speckled the white plastic edges of the photo and its colours were more faded too. A slight grey patina to the whole thing.
‘Gordon and Caroline took them for a bank holiday weekend in Aberdeen, when Leah was eighteen months. I was three years into my sentence...’
I turned the Polaroid over: ‘BALMEDIE BEACH’ printed on the back in neat black felt pen.
‘Had it pinned above my bed, in my cell. And every time I saw it, I’d think about them,’ Helen narrowed her eyes at me, ‘and what I’d do to you when I got out.’
The Polaroid clicked down against the coffee table. ‘I’m sorry.’
Her chin came up. ‘So what if Gordon had a photo of Sophie in his house? He was like a grandfather to—’
‘There’s another photo. It’s...’ What good would it do, telling her what he’d done to her daughter? No parent should have to know that. ‘Sophie didn’t end her own life. She was murdered.’