Blood Lines (16 page)

‘Are you sure this is necessary?’ I asked as Jack had handed me a white coat that he’d stolen from a doctor’s locker.

‘It’s best that we don’t attract attention to ourselves. It’s hard enough for a stranger to pass unnoticed in the Highlands. At least if we wear the uniform they’ll think we are legitimate Sassenachs.’

We stopped outside Room 404, where Jack had been told Cattanach stayed. It was six in the morning, so the night shift were having a break before waking the patients. We didn’t encounter a soul.

‘Will we go in?’ I nervously whispered to Jack.

I was wary about bursting in on Cattanach, even though I was pretty angry at how much trouble this disappearing act had caused for me. Jack didn’t wait; he walked in without knocking. I peered over his shoulder. It was difficult; I had to stand on my tiptoes.

The stench of human excrement and blood was overwhelming.

‘Don’t look, Brodie! Just get the fuck out of here,’ Jack shouted as he tackled me backwards. I fell against the wall but it was too late.

I had seen her.

Alex Cattanach was unrecognisable from the woman we both knew.

The former female rugby internationalist was a shadow of her former self. When I had last met Alex she had been full of muscles and strength. A big-boned woman. As I looked at her the only phrase that came to mind was that ‘there were no big-boned people in Auschwitz’.

Jack broke the silence.

‘Jesus, what happened to her face?’

‘Shit, Jack, she’s been mutilated. There’s a pattern to the cuts on her face. What sick bastard could have done that to her mouth?’

Alex Cattanach’s mouth had been cut from her lips to her ears.

A sickening smile.

Cattanach moved, but not in recognition. Her blank eyes were motionless as she swayed. Her swaying drew our attention to the wall.

‘What the fuck has she written there?’ Jack asked.

There was no need.

We could both read the two-foot-high word written in blood and shit.

BRODIE

‘Do you mind explaining what you are doing here?’

The voice was soft and cultured; they speak the best Queen’s English in Inverness. The doctor looked like a tired teenager. He had come in whilst Jack and I were staring at the wall, staring at what Alex Cattanach had written there.

‘Sorry. Doctor…?’

‘MacPherson. Doctor MacPherson,’ he replied cautiously. ‘Are you family, may I ask? It’s only close relatives who are allowed to visit Miss Cattanach at the moment.’

The bags under his eyes indicated that it had been a long, hard night. Dr MacPherson reminded me of a bloodhound, with lanky brown hair falling like jowls around his face. I hoped that his resemblance to a bloodhound stopped with his looks.

‘Not exactly.’

In my impatience I interrupted Jack’s attempts to silence me with looks.

‘Doctor MacPherson.’ I noticed on his nametag that his Christian name was Callum.

‘May I call you Callum?’

‘No, you may not. I am Doctor MacPherson and I think even you can see that this woman is very ill and she is
my
patient.’ I had taken it as a given that he would consent to a chatty approach because of his age. I assumed he would like informality, but now he was pulling rank. ‘Now tell me why you are in her room, at this ungodly hour, without permission?’ he continued.

‘Doctor MacPherson, I understand that you have a very responsible job and I apologise for the fact that we didn’t inform you of our intention to visit … Alex.’

This caught the doctor’s attention. ‘Alex? You know her? You know her name?’

Jack saw his opening and a chance to trade his information for some coming the other way. Whilst Jack tried to repair any damage he thought I’d done, Alex was paying no attention to us whatsoever. Nor did she show any sign of recognising us. She was swaying back and forth, picking at the scabs on her face with fingernails that were broken to the quick. I felt sick to my stomach as I recalled how much it hurt just to break one fingernail. Her hands looked swollen and infected; mercifully, I couldn’t imagine what she had done to herself to make this happen.

‘Doctor,’ continued Jack, ‘Your patient is called Alex Cattanach and she’s a rather high profile missing person in Edinburgh. Can you tell me what’s going on here? I’ve seen a number of colleagues who have suffered a nervous breakdown from pressure of work, but none of them have ever self-harmed to such an extent.’

‘Is that what you think this is?’ asked the doctor. He gently took Alex’s hand and pulled her towards us. She was impervious to our existence. MacPherson ran his finger down her cheek, like a merchant touching an exquisite vase and pointing out the intricacies of its colour and pattern. I noticed the raw, jagged edges of the swirling patterns on her cheeks, the fresh black stitches holding her face together.

‘No – she wasn’t mad enough to do this to herself. It was this which facilitated the madness. Now, you know who I am and you know Miss Cattanach. I am the only one in the dark and I don’t like it. Please answer the question I first put to you. Who are you? And what is your business here?’

I was so mesmerised by the mess of Cattanach’s face, lost in her pain, that I didn’t hear the door open behind me.

Not until I heard Duncan Bancho’s voice did I realise he was there.

‘Thank you for keeping them here until we arrived, Doctor. I think I can answer your questions, although I understand all too well why you want to keep your identity a secret,’ he added, looking at me.

I could have protested that I wasn’t concealing my name but no one would have believed me.

‘I’ve been watching you, Brodie. I knew you couldn’t resist it. I knew you’d want to see it through, you wouldn’t leave a job half-finished. Looks like I got a bonus – you and Alex Cattanach in one swoop. Got you Brodie McLennan!’

As Duncan shouted out my name, Cattanach went berserk.

‘Brodie, Brodie, Brodie…’ On and on like a stuck record. Before anyone could stop her, she grabbed me, her brown eyes staring at me like a raven’s, cocking her head back and forth. Ravens are alleged to carry the souls of the dead; it looked to me like Cattanach was stranded.

‘Brodie.’

She whispered my name this time, stroking my hair with her shattered hands. ‘Brodie? Is that you? Or the ghost of Brodie?’

It was an odd thing to say, but this was an odd situation all round.

‘Alex, I am Brodie. I came to see how you are.’

It was a lie, but what else could I say? If I could have given the poor soul some comfort, it would have been a relief to me. I motioned with my hands for everyone else to stay back. It seemed to bring her some ease to touch me, to feel I was real. I put my hands out in the air in mock crucifixion. Alex wandered all around me, poking, muttering.

‘Your hair.’

It was like a bird’s nest – matted curls, frizz springing out in all different directions; even this pitiable woman had to comment.

‘It’s so alive. It’s alive. So like you. Unruly, wild.’

I heard Jack giggle; it was so inappropriate, he must have been nervous. Alex Cattanach’s hands pulled me towards her. Her frailness had me fooled, there was still a scrum-half in that traumatised body, and it was impossible to pull away.

‘I’m sorry.’

It was a whisper into my ear that only I could hear, the softness of the voice being lost before it travelled further. Maybe things would have turned out differently if DI Bancho had heard.

But he didn’t.

Bancho grabbed my arm.

I only knew I was being handcuffed by the coldness of the steel around my wrist.

‘Brodie McLennan, I am arresting you for the attempted murder of Alexandra Frances Cattanach. You do not have to say anything but anything you do say will be taken down and used against you in a court of law.’

I hit the deck quickly, managing to note that the linoleum floor was green and surprisingly warm.

The first thing I saw when I came to was Cattanach’s feet. The toenails were painted red, albeit badly chipped. The only thought in my head was that I never figured that Cattanach would paint her toenails.

‘I don’t blame you for being mad, Alex.’ My whisper was loud enough to be heard and taken down by DI Bancho. What a farce – that Cattanach and I had to be reduced to our lowest finally to understand one another.

‘I promise you, Alex, I’ll get the bastard who did this to you – no matter what it costs me.’

Bancho didn’t bother to write that down. I knew that I must follow the instructions that I give my clients and say nothing, but, as it’s said, a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client.

‘Detective Inspector, you can hold the suspect in my room, it’s just down the hallway.’

Doctor MacPherson had been watching too many bad cop shows and he was delighted to be part of the thrill of the catch. He couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice. I looked at his trousers to see if he’d pissed himself.

Detective Constable Peggy Malone had been standing outside. She came in at this point and addressed Bancho.

‘Duncan, we’ve discussed this. I don’t believe there is any need to handcuff this suspect.’

‘Suspect? You should see what she bloody did to that poor woman.’

Peggy showed the whites of her eyes dramatically, indicating that he should shut up. Bancho followed her look over his shoulder to Jack, who, God bless him, had his notebook out and was writing everything down.

‘Keep talking and acting that way, Duncan – there’s nothing the liberal broadsheets love more than a great police brutality story,’ he shouted.

‘Peggy – get him out of here,’ Bancho blustered.

We stopped to watch DC Peggy Malone bundle Jack out of the hospital. She looked more like a barmaid gently ejecting a customer at closing time than a hard-nosed cop warding off a potential grievance to the Police Complaints Board.

‘Stand up straight and get walking, Brodie. It’s bloody obvious that you were laying that on thick so that Peggy would think I was mistreating you.’

‘It’s true, that’s all that’s on my mind just now – I was trying to show you in your worst light. It doesn’t take much. Your girlfriend seems ready to believe anything bad about you – doesn’t bode well for your relationship.’

‘Get moving – what kind of arsehole do you think I am that I would take relationship advice from you? If you ever get released from Carstairs, you’ll die alone and be eaten by your cat.’

He kicked the door open to Doctor MacPherson’s office. The word had obviously spread round the hospital that a dangerous fugitive had been captured. Nurses, auxiliaries, even one or two older guys who looked like consultants, had somehow found that they had a pressing appointment in the vicinity. I can confirm the government has indeed employed more nurses in recent years.

‘Ah, Doctor MacPherson. I see you’ve come to watch.’ I couldn’t resist it – if he had lived during the revolution, he’d have been in the front row with his sandwiches.

‘I thought you might like to know, Miss Brodie, exactly what effect your actions have had on that poor demented woman.’

‘Brodie is my first name – Callum. You live in Scotland so you presumably know that under the Scottish system I’m innocent until proven guilty.’

‘I’m her doctor. What more proof do I need? Since she was transferred here from Raigmore Hospital, further to her initial injuries, Miss Cattanach has slit her veins open to provide enough blood to write your name on the wall on a regular basis. When she can’t get enough blood, like this morning, she uses her own faeces. All that is important to her is that she sees your name – your name on the wall.’

It did sound pretty damning to me, but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

‘And as her medical practitioner, you couldn’t think of ways to stop her from causing such damage to herself? Haven’t you heard of Crayola, Doctor MacPherson?’

Touchily, he seemed to take this as an insult to his skill as a psychiatrist. Duncan Bancho was enjoying this too much to stop him or step in; he stood with his back to the door, barring my escape, as MacPherson let rip.

‘You buried my patient in a shallow grave in Ruthven Barracks. She was still alive, but that wasn’t enough for you. You mutilated her face and wrapped her in a shroud. It was a lonely place – you must have been surprised when she was found breathing.’

I needed to find out what the evidence was against me so I continued to bait him.

‘Okay, I know she’s lost weight, but believe me, the Alex Cattanach I knew was a big girl – no jury would ever believe I could carry her up that hill.’

‘Sodium pentathol. As you well know, you drugged her so she couldn’t fight for her life. And tell me this: if you didn’t do it, how did you know she was taken up a hill?’

Over my shoulder I could sense Duncan taking a more professional interest in this. I wasn’t such a fool that I would admit the truth. A truth Duncan knew and would shortly remember. The alibi I’d given him when he had arrested me under Section Two could prove my downfall. Like a hyena, he circled me.

‘Brodie McLennan – you have already told me that you were at Newtonmore at the MacPherson Clan gathering when Alex Cattanach disappeared.’

‘So?’

I tried to sound nonchalant – but Dr Callum MacPherson stepped in; it was obviously a common name in these parts.

‘Newtonmore is only three miles from where Miss Cattanach was found,’ he said. ‘She had been staying in a hotel in Kingussie to attend the gathering. The Cattanachs are part of the MacPherson Clan – if I was the police I’d want to know what a McLennan was doing at the MacPherson games.’

‘You’re in deep shit, Brodie.’

‘With respect, Detective Inspector Bancho, her troubles are not as dire as those of Miss Cattanach. As a result of her trauma, she is suffering from a very rare psychological disorder – Cotard’s Syndrome. The patient believes that she is immortal – that’s why she cuts herself and attempts suicide daily. In her mind, the fact that she survived being buried alive means she is invincible. To her, the rest of us are ghosts. There is no cure, no drugs that will work on this condition. On Monday I am going to try a course of electric-shock treatment, which I understand may bring her some relief but to what extent I don’t know. Of course, if by some miracle she did recover, there would still be the mutilation to come to terms with.’