Dark as Night (7 page)

              ‘At least we’ll get a decent budget from the DCS now.’ Andy polished off his pint.

              Dani shot him a disapproving glance.

              ‘I only meant that it will become a full-blown murder investigation and not remain a missing persons’ case that gets forgotten in a few weeks.’

              ‘We’ll need to get the names of every jogger, dog-walker, courting couple and flasher who was roaming around the Balgray Country Park on Saturday evening. Christ, it’ll be one hell of a job.’

              ‘The question is – did he meet his murderer there, or did this person drive Nathan McLaren to Balgray?’ Phil looked at each of his colleagues in turn.

              ‘I doubt the car park’s got CCTV,’ Andy chipped in. ‘It’s just a gravelled area scooped out of the scrubland.’

              Phil rose from his stool. ‘Another?’

              Unexpectedly, Andy shook his head. ‘No thanks, Pal. I need to head off.’

              ‘Thanks for the offer, Phil, but I’ll have to be making tracks myself, tomorrow is going to be a tough day.’ Dani turned to Calder. ‘Can you give me a lift? I’ve put my wee car into the shop.’

              Andy shifted awkwardly in his seat. ‘Actually, I’ve got an errand to run on the way home, I really can’t.’

              Dani couldn’t hide her surprise. She’d banked on Calder going her way. He always had to get straight home for Carol and Amy. It hadn’t crossed her mind she’d end up stranded.

              ‘If no one’s staying for another bevvy then I’ll drive you, Ma’am,’ Phil said matter-of-factly.

              ‘But it’s out of your way,’ Dani argued.

              ‘The girls are with Jane tonight. It’s really not a problem.’

              Bevan thought she noticed Andy’s cheeks redden, although she quickly dismissed this idea. He wasn’t the type.

              ‘I’ll see you bright and early,’ he muttered, grabbing his jacket and swiftly exiting the pub.

              Phil raised his eyebrows as Calder allowed the glass panelled door to bang shut behind him. ‘I wonder where he’s off to in such a hurry.’

              ‘Aye,’ said Dani, swigging back the final dregs of wine. ‘Where indeed.’

*

Bevan noticed that her team had a different air about them today. The fact this was now a murder inquiry had made her officers more alert, she could already sense the tension in the room.

              ‘I want Dan and Alice to question Mhairi Henderson again today. Wait until she’s home from work. Once she knows that Nathan is dead, the girl may open up a bit more,’ the DCI announced.

              ‘What does the pathologist’s report tell us?’ Andy asked Bevan directly.

              Dani slipped a pile of photographs out of an envelope and began attaching them to the boards. ‘Nathan McLaren died some time on Saturday night. The pathologist can’t be any more precise than that. It’s been very warm since then and inside that black bag it became incredibly hot, even if the water brought the temperature down a little.’

              DC Clifton grimaced, observing the gruesome effect the heat had had on the corpse.

              The DCI continued, ‘Nathan’s body had been viciously beaten before death. But Dr Muir found fragments of material in his mouth and throat. This discovery, in addition to the blueness of the face, made the pathologist conclude that Nathan had died of asphyxiation.’

              ‘Was there any indication of what had been placed in his mouth?’ Phil enquired.

              Dani shook her head. ‘There was nothing in the bin bag or near the dump site. We have to assume the killer took it with them. Dr Muir suggested a scarf of some kind, or a small item of clothing, like underpants or a sock.’ She took a deliberate step forward. ‘Dr Muir discovered something else. While they were stripping the body, he was surprised to note that the wedding ring was missing from his left hand.’

              ‘It’s not so surprising, if Nathan was planning to meet a lover,’ Phil declared. ‘He’d probably taken it off.’

              Dani raised an eyebrow. ‘Aye, but the doc didn’t find it in his pocket. The ring was only discovered well into the PM. It was stuck halfway along Nathan McLaren’s oesophagus.’

              ‘Is that what killed him?’ Phil’s face had gone white.

              ‘Dr Muir believes that Nathan would still have been able to breathe with the obstruction there. It was whatever was stuffed in his mouth later that suffocated him.’

              ‘So, this killing might not have been premeditated,’ Andy suggested. ‘If the murderer’s only weapon was fists plus whatever came to hand to smother the victim.’

              ‘It’s possible. But there’s another aspect too.’ Dani shifted her weight from one foot to the other. ‘Dr Muir found evidence of recent sexual activity on the body. He believes that McLaren was subject to anal penetration at some time before his death.’

              ‘Rape?’ Alice Mann asked.

              Bevan shrugged her shoulders. ‘It’s inconclusive. There were physical signs of sex but no semen deposits. The perpetrator either used a condom or a foreign body to penetrate McLaren.’

              Andy Calder’s face had lost its colour. ‘Was McLaren a homosexual? Is that what he was doing in that park – cruising for a bloke?’

              ‘I think we have to assume that’s the case. Unless somebody here believes there’s another, more plausible explanation for Nathan McLaren’s presence in Balgray Park at 10pm on a Saturday night?’

              Bevan glanced around at the officers standing before her. Nobody uttered a single word.

Chapter 12

M
hairi Henderson lived with her parents in a detached house in Pollok. The young woman had not been home long from work when DCs Clifton and Mann turned up.

              Mhairi seemed surprised to see the police officers again. Mrs Henderson offered to make them all tea and Alice Mann agreed, thinking the girl might need it after they delivered the bad news.

              They sat in a large conservatory, which was semi-circular in shape and provided an impressive view out towards Crookston Castle. Mhairi had dyed her hair jet-black and her make-up was deliberately applied in order to accentuate dark, almond shaped eyes. She wore a piercing through her nose and was a least a couple of stone overweight. Her mother returned with the drinks and a plate piled high with cakes and biscuits. The fiercely independent Alice felt that Mhairi might do well to move out of home and into her own place, where she could regulate her lifestyle better.

              Dan shifted forward in his seat. ‘I’m afraid we have distressing news, Mhairi. Nathan McLaren is dead. His body was found yesterday.’

              The girl put a chubby hand up to her crimson mouth. Tears began to streak down her face. ‘What happened to him? Was there an accident?’

              ‘No,’ Dan continued gently. ‘We believe he was murdered.’

              Mhairi’s eyes widened. ‘Who would want to murder Nathan?’

              ‘Miss Henderson, you told us before that Nathan was having some problems with his wife. Did he give any indication of what might have caused these difficulties?’

              She looked uncomfortable. ‘I only knew about it because of working right next to him. Their phone conversations were really tense. One day, Nathan actually made a joke out of it. I suppose he needed to let off steam. After that, he would tell me the odd detail about what went on at home. I think he liked to have someone to confide in.’

              ‘Did you ever meet Jenny McLaren?’

              ‘Yes, a few times at work dos. She looked at me as if I was something that had just crawled out from under a stone.’ Mhairi said this without self-pity. ‘You know, the way that really thin and fit people do when faced with someone like me. My existence seems to actually disgust them.’

              ‘So you didn’t like Mrs McLaren very much?’

              ‘Have you met her? She’s horrible.’ Mhairi lifted her mug and took a tentative sip. ‘I don’t know why Nathan stayed with her. For the boys I suppose. They are both really nice.’ She sighed. ‘Poor things, they’ll be stuck with her now.’

              ‘Was there anything else that Nathan confided in you about? Did he have feelings for anyone other than his wife, for example?’ Dan opened his hands out with their palms facing upwards, trying to project an image of being as open and friendly as possible.

              Mhairi’s eyes began to search around the room for something other than the detectives to settle on. ‘I dunno, not really.’

              ‘This is important,’ Alice chipped in. ‘Nathan is dead now and we need to find his killer, to stop anyone else suffering the same fate. He wouldn’t want this person to get away with it. I’m sure Nathan would rather his secrets got out than a murderer went free.’

              Mhairi’s eyes shot back to the DC. This point appeared to have hit home. ‘Nathan never actually told me, but I knew. I had loads of gay friends at college.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘Gay men like me much better than straight ones. I think Nathan quite fancied one of the guys in our office. He’s a real hottie. We used to smirk at one another when he came near our desk and bent down to get stuff out of a drawer. I know it sounds bad, but it was like a release for Nathan – to be able to laugh about his feelings with someone else and not be condemned for it. I would
never
have told his wife. I’m not happy about telling you now, but you’re right. Nathan wouldn’t want a murderer to be loose out there because of
his
secret. He’d want to protect other men.’

              ‘Would you be prepared to make a formal statement about this?’

              She nodded. ‘Aye, as long as I don’t have to face Jenny McLaren, I would.’

*

DCI Bevan had left it for as long as she could before speaking with Jenny McLaren. Unfortunately, the woman insisted on seeing her husband’s body. A car was sent out to Giffnock to pick her up and ferry her to the headquarters. Bevan suggested that she bring a friend or relative with her, but not one of the boys.

              Jenny was accompanied by a lady who looked to be a good decade older. She introduced herself as Helen, a neighbour of the McLarens.

              Dani took Jenny’s arm and led her into a small room, where she could observe Nathan’s body through a glass screen. The pathologist had done the best job he could. The head had been carefully positioned so that only one side was visible.

              Mrs McLaren gasped when she saw him. ‘Why is his skin that colour?’

              ‘Your husband was in the water for several days.’

              ‘Is that what happens then – when a body’s been dead for a while?’

              Dani laid a hand on her arm. ‘Yes. Would you like to be left alone?’

              Jenny shook her head. ‘I don’t want to remember him like that.’

              The DCI led her out. They headed towards the relatives’ room. Alice had been instructed to take the neighbour elsewhere for a coffee. Dani helped Jenny into a seat.

              ‘I need to ask you some more questions.’

              Jenny looked up, her expression blank. ‘What about?’

              Normally, Dani would have held the woman’s hand at this point, but in this instance, she didn’t feel it would help. ‘As a result of our inquiries, we have reason to suspect that your husband was meeting someone in Balgray Park on the evening he was killed.’

              ‘Who was he meeting – what for?’

              Dani wasn’t sure if the woman was being deliberately bloody-minded. She cleared her throat. ‘I’ve spoken with Nathan’s therapist, who confirmed that your husband had been battling with his homosexual urges for quite some time.’

              Jenny’s bottom lip wobbled. ‘You think he was meeting up with a man.’

              ‘Had it happened before?’

              ‘I don’t know.’ She hugged her thin arms around that bony frame. ‘I found a magazine that was full of pictures of men, you know, in compromising positions. This was about six months ago. It was in his briefcase. I confronted him about it. That was around the time that I stopped sleeping with him. I was humiliated. It felt as if he was thinking about those disgusting men I’d seen in the magazine whilst he was making love to me. I couldn’t bear it. Eventually, I agreed to go to the counsellor with him. But for the first couple of sessions it seemed like the process was all for his benefit. The therapist was full of sympathy for Nathan and how he’d had to suppress his true desires for all these years. It was as if our twenty years of marriage meant nothing.’

              ‘So you stopped attending the sessions and Nathan carried on alone.’

              Jenny clasped her hands together, absent-mindedly twisting her wedding ring. This action reminded Dani of what had happened to her husband’s. ‘I believe that Nathan had already made his mind up about the future. Now I’d found out the truth he could finally live the life he’d always wanted.’ She looked up, her eyes full of pain. ‘Where did that leave me and the boys?’

              ‘You should have told us this when Nathan first went missing,’ Dani said quietly.

              She sighed in frustration. ‘Nathan was still the same man. I never thought for a moment that he would go out in the middle of the night to have sex in a
public park
. There was nothing
to
tell.’             

              Dani could appreciate her point. She left the room to fetch the neighbour to take her home. There was nothing to be gained now by haranguing the poor woman.

Chapter 13

A
ndy Calder was in a bad mood. Dani had noted this as soon as he entered her office alongside his colleagues. There was something about the way he plonked himself down on the sofa, keeping his shoulders hunched, which gave it away to his boss.