Dark as Night (6 page)

              Andy said nothing, he simply accelerated onto the motorway and gripped the steering wheel tightly, until his knuckles turned white.

              As they approached the car-park of the Pitt Street Headquarters he finally said, ‘is it okay if I drop you off here, Ma’am? I’ve got a couple of errands I need to run.’

              ‘Of course.’ Dani got out of the seat and closed the door. She stood and watched as Andy swept the car around and sped away from the entrance, his tyres screeching loudly in the process.

*

Andy knocked on the kitchen window. He could see Mae Mortimer pottering around inside. She jumped at the noise and put a hand up to her chest. Then her face broke into a smile when she saw who it was. Calder waited whilst she unlocked the French doors and pushed them open.

              ‘Sorry to skulk about. I wasn’t sure anyone was in, there wasn’t a car out the front.’ Andy stepped over the threshold, placing a kiss on his aunt’s cheek.

              ‘Mine is in the garage. Gavin is at work. I suppose it’s hard for a policeman to shake off his habits. Your first instinct is to check round the back, isn’t that right?’ Mae gave a playful wink, padded over to a cordless kettle that looked as if it was quaintly old-fashioned but was clearly bang up-to-date and flicked it on.

              Andy chuckled. ‘Aye, and you wouldn’t believe the kind of stuff we discover that way.’

              ‘Oh, I think I can imagine. Now, to what do I owe this pleasure?’ She folded her arms across her chest.

              Andy ran a hand through his hair, leaving it standing up in little tufts. ‘A man went missing, on Saturday night.’

              Mae narrowed her eyes, blinking rapidly. ‘What do you mean?’

              Calder described the details of Nathan McLaren’s disappearance. He tried to watch her reaction closely. But Mae turned swiftly to prepare the coffees and he couldn’t see her face properly.

              ‘Do you think there might be some kind of connection to Donny’s case?’ She stopped what she was doing, lowering her head.

              Andy moved across the room and placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘At first, I was shocked by the similarities. But now, I’m not so sure.’

              Mae turned round, lifting her eyes to meet his. ‘What do you think is different?’

              ‘There were problems in this guy’s marriage. The wife told us this morning. They’d stopped having sex months ago and were seeking counselling. It looks now as if Nathan has left of his own accord.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It made me wonder if you and uncle Don had been having any difficulties before he -,’ Andy let his words trail away, seeing the dark shadow that passed across her face as he spoke them.

              Mae took a step backwards and then slapped him hard on the cheek. ‘How dare you come here and ask me that.’

              Calder touched the hot skin, shocked by the severity of her reaction. ‘I’m sorry. I should have used official channels. I put that far too bluntly.’

              Abruptly, Mae seemed to realise what she’d done. Both hands flew up to cover her mouth. ‘No, it’s me who should apologise. I shouldn’t have hit you, it’s unforgivable.’

              ‘I understand it’s tough, with all these memories being brought back. I just thought this time around we might actually be able to get some answers.’

              Mae lightly touched his stinging cheek with her fingertips. ‘I’ll need to put some ice on that. Otherwise they’ll be a bruise.’

              Andy caught her wrist, pulling her towards him. Mae shifted up so that she was sitting on the counter top, tipping her head back so that Andy could place his mouth over hers. They kissed urgently and Andy slipped his hand up her skirt. He pulled at her underwear, desperate to enter and possess the woman before him, as if this would heal the wound they both shared.

              He pushed himself inside her and they moved together in a steady rhythm, making no sound except the occasional gasp for breath. Then Andy cried out, as if he were in pain, withdrawing from her and turning away to secure his trousers, avoiding her gaze. ‘Shit. I didn’t realise I was going to do that. It really isn’t why I came here.’

              Mae put out her hand and brushed the palm against the tiny hairs on his neck. ‘It just happened. Don’t beat yourself up, Andy. It’s because we both miss him so much.’

              Calder twisted back and pulled her to him again, needing to feel her heart beating close to his chest. ‘I know I should be feeling awful but I don’t.’ He whispered the words into her ear, nuzzling his face into her neck and gripping her tight, not ever wanting to let go.

Chapter 10

‘I
t’s just nostalgia, with a hint of mid-life crisis thrown in,’ Phil said with a chuckle, pulling his chair up to the desk.

              ‘What is?’ Calder snapped, striding in at the tail end of the conversation.

              Bevan turned towards him and smiled. ‘Phil’s going wild camping with some of his uni mates on Kintyre this weekend.’

              Andy raised his eyebrows. ‘Not planning on breaking the law I hope DS Boag. Be careful, or you’ll wake up to find DCI Bevan shining a torch in your face at 2am.’

              Dani laughed.

              ‘We’ve checked out the legislation very carefully, as it happens. There are several landowners who are happy to open up their fields for public use.’

              Calder placed his hands in the air. ‘Fine by me. What you get up to during the weekends is your own business. Live and let live is my motto.’

              Boag grinned. ‘Alice has supplied me with the transcript of her interviews with McLaren’s workmates, Ma’am.’

              ‘Anything of interest in there?’ Bevan enquired.

              ‘Nathan was generally acknowledged to be a quiet and capable work colleague. His boss rated him very highly. Apparently, he was one of the best financial systems analysts in the business.’

              ‘Whatever the hell that means,’ Andy chipped in dryly.

              Dani wondered what was eating him, but concentrated on Phil’s briefing instead. ‘Is there anyone at the office who McLaren confided in – a pal he went for drinks with, perhaps?’

              ‘One of the female employees seemed to know him quite well.’ Phil scanned the sheet. ‘Mhairi Henderson.’ The DS spotted Alice Mann by the coffee machine and called her over. ‘What did Miss Henderson tell you about Nathan?’

              Alice addressed the DCI. ‘Mhairi is on Nathan’s project team, they’ve got to know one another very well over the past few years. She didn’t have any idea of where he might have gone, but she was certainly aware that Nathan and his wife hadn’t been getting along for a while.’

              ‘Could this woman be the girlfriend?’ Andy asked.

              Alice shook her light brown bob. ‘No, Mhairi is only in her late twenties and she’s really quite overweight. My feeling was that she was a non-threatening confidante for McLaren. If you saw her, you’d know what I meant.’ The DC shifted from one foot to the other, looking awkward, as if she’d broken an unspoken rule of political correctness.

              But Calder nodded assuredly, indicating he understood perfectly well. ‘This lassie could be very useful to us then.’

              ‘Yes,’ Dani agreed. ‘It might be worth speaking to her again outside the office environment. Did you build up any kind of rapport with her?’             

              Alice made a face. ‘It was Dan who Mhairi seemed to open up to. I reckon she thought he was cute.’

              ‘Good, then I’ll send DC Clifton to talk with Miss Henderson again. You can tag along too, Alice, so she doesn’t feel nervous being alone with him. We want her comfortable and relaxed. That way she might let something slip.’

              Alice nodded. ‘Right you are, Ma’am.’

              DCI Bevan’s mobile began ringing insistently. She answered it and listened in silence, ending the call politely. ‘That was Jenny McLaren. She believes that her sons’ posters may have elicited some fresh information.’ Dani turned towards Calder. ‘Come on, let’s go and check it out.’

*

Cormac and Ewan were both at home with their mother. It was the McLaren’s eldest son who took charge when the officers arrived.

              ‘A lady came to our door this morning. She’d seen the poster we put up in the window of the Quick Stop Shop on the High Street,’ he explained breathlessly.

              ‘Do you have the name and address of this woman?’ Bevan immediately asked.

              ‘Yes, I’ve written it all down,’ Jenny added, handing over a sheet of paper, ripped from a memo pad.

              ‘What did she say?’

              ‘She recognised the picture of Dad,’ Ewan continued, jittery with excitement. ‘The woman was walking her dog in Balgray Park late on Saturday evening – just before ten, she thinks. According to her, Dad passed her on the path that runs beside the reservoir.’

              ‘Was he alone?’

              Ewan nodded. ‘Yes, she said he was.’

              Bevan and Calder exchanged glances.

              ‘Did Nathan go to Balgray often? Did he jog there, or fish perhaps?’ Dani directed this question to Jenny.

              ‘No, we’ve been to the country park from time to time for a stroll, but it certainly wasn’t somewhere we went to regularly.’ The woman looked bemused. ‘How did he get to the reservoir without the car?’

              ‘That’s a question that we’ll have to look into,’ Dani said gently. ‘First, we will need to speak with this witness ourselves.’

              The DCI promised to inform the family of any progress on the lead as soon as they were able. Then she ushered Calder out of the house, intending to return to headquarters as swiftly as possible.

*

The air was warm, but there was a strong breeze blowing across the reservoir, making the grey water lap up at the artificial shoreline. Dani felt the landscape was bleak and unappealing.

              After gaining a formal statement from Mrs Kathleen York of Duncan Terrace, Barrhead, the DCS agreed to provide Bevan with a search team. The uniformed men and women were stretching out in a semi-circle across the scrubland, sniffer dogs straining at their leashes just a few strides ahead.

              Dani scanned the area with her binoculars.

              ‘It’s a perfect place to dump a body,’ Andy commented evenly.

              ‘Aye, it’s the first thing that crossed my mind when Ewan mentioned the location. But there’s a seven mile network of paths here and the only witnesses to what goes on in much of it are the wildlife.’

              ‘Nathan must have got here by car at that time in the evening. There would have been very few buses still running,’ Calder went on. ‘Which means that someone else brought him, or he took a taxi cab. My guess is that he didn’t stray more than a mile and a half from the Balgraystone Road car park.’

              ‘Which just leaves the area around the reservoir itself.’ Dani gazed back out at the rippling waves. ‘Nathan may have jumped off the railway bridge into the water. He would have been heading in that general direction from the spot where Mrs York saw him. It was becoming dark by ten. It would have been difficult for anyone to have observed him go in.’

              The pair of detectives walked along the path which circumnavigated the reservoir. As they drew closer to the brick built bridge which carried the Neilston Railway line over the water, DCI Bevan gestured for one of the search team to follow them. The nearer they got, Bevan noticed the officer having increasing trouble keeping the German Shepherd on its lead.

              ‘Can he sniff out a cadaver even if it’s in the water?’ Dani called across to the man.

              ‘Oh, aye, as long as it’s near enough to the surface.’

              ‘Let him go, then.’

              The sleek animal immediately streaked across the shrubland to the water’s edge. The dog poked its nose around the base of one of the bridge’s supports. Bevan and Calder trotted over to see what he’d found.

              The uniformed officer knelt down and patted the dog on its head. ‘Good boy, what have you got for us, eh?’

              Andy stepped gingerly down the bank, resting his hand against the mossy brickwork for support. The dog was nuzzling a black bin bag which was caught in the circling current between the vegetation and the bridge. The two men hauled it up out of the water.

              Dani could recognise the smell from several feet away. ‘I’ll call out the white coats,’ she shouted over. ‘Just leave it there for now. We’ll set to work getting a cordon rigged up.’

Chapter 11

‘W
ell, it certainly wasn’t suicide,’ Andy stated sagely, as they supped their pints in the newly refurbished pub across the road from headquarters.

              ‘We won’t get the PM results back until tomorrow.’ Dani lifted her glass of white wine and took a mouthful.

              ‘But we’re sure it’s Nathan McLaren?’ Phil enquired.

              ‘Yup,’ Andy supplied. ‘His face was badly bloated and there was some decomposition evident, but it was obviously him.’

              ‘I’m not going to inform the family officially until I’ve got confirmation from the pathologist. I’ve told Jenny we’ve found a body, of course, and that she should prepare herself for the worst.’

              ‘The McLarens are going to have a bloody awful night then.’ Phil whistled through his teeth.

              ‘Yes,’ Dani said carefully, placing her glass down on the table. ‘But it would be far worse for her to have seen him in that condition. The corpse looked grotesque. He’d obviously been in the water since Saturday night. I’m not an expert, but from what we saw, the man had been badly beaten about the face and torso.’