Against a Dark Sky (16 page)

Chapter Thirty Five

B
evan asked DC Calder to meet her for a drink in the hotel bar. Once she’d bought him a glass of wine, she confronted her friend with what Joy and Bill had told her in the café.

              Andy put a hand up to his forehead and rubbed vigorously at his temples. ‘The boys and I were enjoying some banter, but I honestly don’t remember saying that.’

              ‘Had you been drinking?’

              ‘I treated myself to a second pint, because it was a Friday night. I felt okay, but perhaps my tolerance for alcohol has reduced more than I’d realised.’

              ‘So you don’t recall exactly what information you might have divulged that evening?’

              He shook his head. ‘Christ, do you think that’s why Ronnie Sheldon is dead?’

              ‘I’m not sure. I’ll definitely need a list of all the folk who were in the Rob Roy Bar last Friday. I’ll get Driscoll to go in and get a statement from the landlord tomorrow morning.’ Dani sipped her drink.

              ‘Maybe he’s got CCTV cameras out front, so we can see who went in and out.’ Andy made the proposal half-heartedly. ‘I’m really sorry, Ma’am.’

              ‘You weren’t to know that my decision to meet with Sheldon would provoke this kind of reaction. Don’t beat yourself up. If the suggestion hadn’t come from Joy Hutchison’s dream, I wouldn’t have kept the thing quiet.’

              ‘Thanks, Dani, you’re a good boss.’ Andy shoved his glass aside, obviously having second thoughts now about the wine.

              ‘Look Andy, I really wish you hadn’t got such a downer on the Hutchisons. Of course I welcome alternative points of view, but your animosity towards Bill is beginning to undermine me in meetings. I’d even go as far as to say it’s starting to affect your judgement. I know you don’t have any time for all the spiritualist stuff they come out with, but the couple mean well. They’re a great source of information and let’s face it, in this case, we need all the help we can get.’

Andy had agreed to give Bill Hutchison the benefit of the doubt in future. Not long after, he retired to his room. Dani ordered a hot chocolate and decided to drink it downstairs. The fire was crackling in the hearth and it was interesting for her to observe the other residents coming and going after dinner.

              Within a few minutes, she had company. Bill and Joy entered the bar area, looking furtively about them until their eyes finally alighted upon Dani, seated at her table in the corner.

              ‘I’m glad we’ve caught you alone,’ Bill said conspiratorially. ‘May we sit down?’

              Dani pulled across a couple of stools. ‘Of course.’

              Joy’s expression looked almost mischievous in the dancing firelight. ‘We walked up to the Cairn this afternoon,’ she said. ‘Bill and I found the flowers.’

              Dani raised her eyebrows.

              ‘It was the bunch that the man hanging around the rental bothy must have placed there a few days ago,’ Bill explained.

              ‘Where are they now?’ The detective sat bolt upright.

              ‘In our room,’ Joy continued. ‘We thought it best not to bring them down here into the bar.’

              ‘Very wise. Was there any kind of note or message with them?’

              ‘It was obvious the bunch had been there a little while because the blooms were very much the worse for wear. There was a card tucked inside. It was completely blank except for the letter ‘M’.’ Bill gestured to the waitress and ordered them some brandies. Dani politely declined, saying she would stick to her hot chocolate.

              ‘I’ll need to bring over an evidence bag and get the bouquet sealed up first thing in the morning. Did you both touch the flowers?’

              ‘We handled them as little as possible and wore gloves, Detective Chief Inspector. We didn’t touch the card at all.’ Joy seemed rather pleased with herself.

              ‘And we replaced the flowers with a bunch we’d brought along ourselves. Otherwise it wouldn’t have felt right to remove them.’

              ‘Thank you both, it was an enterprising idea.’

              ‘Being back by the memorial reminded us of what an unsettling aura the place has. There is a great deal of negative energy there. It is why we don’t visit very often.’ Bill gratefully received their drinks, immediately taking a swig of his.

              ‘But we did have a good look around today, in case the man had left anything else behind. About half a mile away from the Cairn, is a ruined bothy. The police must have searched it when they were looking for Daniel Goff. It’s completely dilapidated now and there’s no roof, but Bill and I recalled it was lived in at one stage. Someone from the village owned it but we can’t for the life of us remember who it was. It might be something worth looking into. The dwelling is so close to where the children were found.’

              Dani felt she should probably end their discussion at this point, before she got her arm twisted into promising too much. The detective told the couple she would be paying them a call first thing in the morning and then promptly retired to her room, where she had quite a lot to think about.

              Bevan lay on top of the duvet and crossed her arms over her chest.

              The man who visited the memorial had laid flowers for someone with the initial ‘M’. They couldn’t have been for any of the children: Katrina Reid, Neil Hutchison or William Sanderson. None of the three had birthdays around this time either, she’d already checked.

              But the greatest conundrum of all for Dani was what the Ardyle tragedy had to do with the deaths of Joanna Endicott and Daniel Goff, if anything at all. It was with this question circling around in her head that the detective finally fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Chapter Thirty Six

D
C Andy Calder was doing his best to be helpful. He’d carefully bagged the bedraggled bunch of cheap carnations, was preparing to print the labels, and poised to send them off to the forensic lab in Glasgow.

              ‘There’s nothing distinctive about the flowers at all. It’s not as if they’ve even come from a florist. I’d put money on them having been purchased from a supermarket foyer or a petrol station.’

              Dani agreed. They looked like a last minute attempt at appeasement from a tight-arsed errant husband rather than a symbol of remembrance. ‘It’s the card that interests me. What is significant about the letter ‘M’?’ Bevan turned and waved DC Sammy Reid over to join them. ‘Did Katrina or any of the other children have a nickname?’

              ‘Katrina certainly didn’t. She even hated people calling her ‘Kat’. I couldn’t really say for the other two. They might easily have been called by a pet name at home. We’d need to talk to the parents to find out for sure.’

              ‘That’s what I’m trying to avoid,’ Dani replied dryly. ‘I don’t want the press getting hold of the idea there’s a connection between the two investigations. There’d be an immediate feeding frenzy. The pictures of those poor children would be plastered over the front pages of all the nationals, just like they were thirty years ago.’

              ‘My mum would be in pieces if that happened,’ Sammy responded with feeling. ‘She has dealt with things quite differently from the Hutchisons. Mum doesn’t like the tragedy to be mentioned at all.’

              ‘I can completely understand,’ Bevan said, thinking that she’d adopted a similar strategy to deal her mother’s death. A psychologist might take issue with the approach, but it had certainly worked for her, as it must have done for Mrs Reid.  

              Dani had arranged to borrow one of DC Kendal’s laptops. She took it with her into the office and sat down at her desk. The first person she was keen to look up, was Samuel McAlister, who had been Headmaster of the Ardyle Primary School in 1983. It turned out he retired from his position in 1991, continuing to live in the area until his death in 2003. His wife had died in 2006. The couple were survived by two children, who would now be aged in their late forties or early fifties. Dani decided to look into their son and daughters’ whereabouts more closely, if it proved necessary at a later stage.

              Jack Ford, the teacher who had led the group of children that got lost on the mountain, was 41 years old in 1983. He’d worked at the school for 8 years when the Ardyle tragedy occurred, mostly in charge of Physical Education classes. He and his wife had lived in a cottage in the town. They had two children; a boy called Michael, who was 13, and a girl called Jennifer, who was 9 at the time the children died.               Dani observed how Ford’s youngest was lucky not to have been one of the pupils out on the hillside that day. Presumably, she had been in the year below and her brother attending the High School in Callander. Ford was now in his early 70s and still lived in Ardyle. Bevan made a note of his address and returned to the main hall.

              DS Driscoll was back from interviewing the landlord of the Rob Roy Bar. He was holding a shiny disk in his hand.

              ‘Is that the footage from the pub’s CCTV camera, Dave?’ She called across to the officer.

              ‘Aye, I’m about to ask young Ian Kendal to have a look through it. Between him and Sammy Reid, they should be able to identify most of the local folk coming in and out. The landlord’s given me a list of the people he could recall serving, but he was very vague, Ma’am. I got the sense they were busy on Friday night.’

              ‘That’s enough to be getting on with. There’s not a great deal we can do with the information as it is, except cross-check it with any names that come up in the Crieff inquiry. Thanks, Dave.’ Dani approached Sammy Reid, wanting to pick his brains before he became ensconced in the Rob Roy’s CCTV recordings. ‘I’m going to pay Jack Ford a visit. Is there anything I should be aware of before speaking to him?’

              Reid made a face. ‘He’s not terribly communicative at the best of times, Ma’am. If you ask him questions about the Ardyle tragedy, I don’t expect it’ll improve his mood much. But Jack’s a decent man, his bark’s worse than his bite.’

              Dani felt she had a reasonable idea of what kind of man Jack Ford would be. As she reached the front door of his well-maintained little cottage and pressed on the door-bell, Dani discovered her pre-conceptions had been largely accurate. Jack was tall, lean and taciturn. Bevan would have said he was in his early sixties, if she didn’t know any different; his white hair was still interspersed with numerous dark strands.

              ‘How can I help you?’ He asked in a thick local accent, making the question sound as unfriendly as possible.

              ‘My name is Detective Chief Inspector Dani Bevan. I’d like to come in and talk to you if I may.’ She hoped he would be cooperative. Bevan didn’t have the authority to compel him to speak with her.

              He stepped back resignedly, grizzling under his breath, ‘I’ve only got ten minutes.’

              ‘I won’t keep you long,’ Dani responded brightly, stepping into a hallway with polished wooden floorboards and a grand staircase stretching straight up to the second storey. Ford led her into the kitchen at the rear of the property, which was small but had room for a circular table and a couple of chairs. She pulled one out and sat on it. ‘This is a lovely house.’

              ‘I’ve spent the last five years restoring it. The place was practically falling down when I bought it.’ Jack filled a kettle and placed it onto the little stove.

              ‘Have you lived in Ardyle all your life?’

              The man turned his dark eyes to rest upon her suspiciously. ‘I moved here with my family when I got the teaching job at the school. Been in Ardyle ever since, mind.’

              ‘And now you’re here alone?’

              ‘My wife died fifteen years ago.’

              ‘I’m very sorry to hear that.’

              ‘She had cancer, it happened very quickly. My daughter helped me through it. She lives in Stirling now with her husband and kids.’ Jack took a matching pair of mugs down from a shelf and laid them out carefully on the worktop, deliberately avoiding Dani’s gaze. ‘Are you here to question me about the man and woman who died up on Ben Lomond?’

              ‘Why do you ask that?’ Bevan was surprised by the question.

              Jack Ford spun around and rested his weight on the counter, his expression one of sadness and resignation. ‘Well, this is the second time there have been deaths up on that mountain. I was involved on both occasions, so I suppose that might make me a suspect of sorts. I was certainly treated that way by the police when the schoolchildren died. You’d have thought I’d murdered them if you’d heard the way DI Sheldon spoke to me.’ The kettle began whistling merrily and Ford turned back to his task.

              ‘In what way were you involved in the deaths of Joanna Endicott and Daniel Goff?’ Dani asked carefully, shifting forward in her seat.

              ‘Well, I wasn’t, obviously. But I helped out in the search. I used to be a volunteer with the Ben Lomond Mountain Rescue. For as long as I’m fit enough, I’ll always be willing to help out when a walker’s got into trouble. This town is really switched on to mountain safety. We prided ourselves on not having had a single death in the National Park for over thirty years. We can’t make that claim any longer, sadly.’

              ‘Which part of the mountain did you search?’ Dani took a cup of coffee from him and placed it on the table in front of her.

              ‘I was up on the north-west side of Ben Lomond, following the course of the Cailness Burn. We’ve had walkers wander out that far in the past. They just completely lose their bearings if they don’t have the right equipment. There’s an old abandoned farm at Cailness, which folk often head to for shelter. We found a group of lost teenagers taking refuge in one of the outhouses there once, a couple of years back.’

              ‘So you didn’t see Goff or Endicott while you were out on the hillside?’

              ‘No. Our search leader received the news they’d located two of the climbers at about mid-morning, but that there was still one chap missing. We carried on looking until late afternoon. We found nothing. At that point, I had no idea one of the climbers was dead.’ Jack cradled his mug to his chest.

              ‘Have you heard about the death of Ronnie Sheldon?’

              The man shifted from one foot to the other. ‘Aye, it was on the Scottish news.’

              ‘Have you had any contact with Sheldon since the Ardyle investigation of 1983?’

              ‘I didn’t much like the man, Detective Chief Inspector. When Sheldon finally left the town, it lifted a heavy burden from me and my wife. I would certainly never have sought him out.’ Jack hung his head and mumbled, ‘but I’d not have wished that fate on the man either.’

              ‘All Sheldon’s files relating to the case were destroyed by the fire. We have very little evidence left of what happened to the children on that night in 1983, Mr Ford. Why do you think those three youngsters got separated from the rest of the group?’

              Jack looked uncomfortable. His cheeks flushed pink. ‘Is this going to start up all over again!’ He blurted out angrily and then proceeded to take several deep breaths, deliberately calming himself down. ‘I had six children in my group. I’d sent them out in pairs to collect soil samples from the heathland. Suddenly, the mist descended on us and it was as dark as night. I called out to the students and three came straight back to me. Then, all of us set out to locate the others. The wind was getting up and it was becoming increasingly cold, so I sent the pupils back with Miss Harris to the schoolhouse and carried on looking for the missing children alone. I was out there all night. I never stopped searching until we discovered their poor wee bodies. I don’t know why they’d strayed so far from the rest of us. I could never understand it. I was sorry then and I’m sorry now. But it’s not going to bring them back, is it?’ Tears had escaped onto his lined cheeks.

              ‘Who was Miss Harris? I haven’t heard her name mentioned before.’

              Ford wiped his damp face with a handkerchief. ‘She was a trainee teacher who’d been with us for a few weeks before the tragedy occurred. She wasn’t much more than a child herself. I think the Headmaster knew her family and had offered the girl a placement at the school. Kathleen Harris was on the trip to help with the children. She was collecting samples with a couple of them when the weather changed. If Kathleen hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have been able to go off and look for the lost bairns. I needed her to lead the other students back to the village. She was a Godsend.’

              Dani stood up and placed her mug on the draining board. ‘Okay, thank you for talking to me. I know it wasn’t easy for you.’

              The old man followed her to the front door. ‘The incident made me lose my nerve. I was never able to take youngsters out on the mountain again. I couldn’t trust myself. I didn’t want another child to get hurt.’

              Dani laid her hand on his arm. ‘I know, Mr Ford, I know.’