Dark Flight (5 page)

Worry and a desperate need to see his mum had taken him inside, to find the hall strangely still. He’d stopped, unprepared for the feeling that gave him. The door to the bedroom stood open. The smell of pee was stronger, even though his mum had changed the bed. He could see the edge of the white sheet through the open door. He’d glanced inside. His gran was in her chair, head slumped forward.

He’d stood, hesitant, at the door.

‘Gran.’ His voice was as small as a mouse’s squeak.

His gran hadn’t looked up. He took one step in, then stopped when he saw the blood. He’d turned and run into the kitchen . . . and saw HIM standing over his mum’s body.

Stephen’s terrified mind blanked out the picture. A scream rose in his throat, but the sound never emerged to echo around him in the darkness.

RHONA STUCK
a copy of Stephen’s photograph above her desk. It made him seem real and very much alive and that’s the way she wanted it.

She had been involved in a number of child abductions and murders in her career. They didn’t happen often, thank God, but when they did, they left their mark on everyone involved. Most murders in Glasgow were committed by one villain on another, and they usually involved drugs. Respect for the victim as a person had to be there, although at times it wasn’t easy: the murderer and the victim were often interchangeable in their history of violent behaviour. The biggest killer in Glasgow was alcohol abuse. Homicides were at the bottom of the list after suicides, accidents (often drink-related), and drug abuse (at least two a week). Fifty to sixty homicides a year, which meant one a week. This week they had two. She didn’t want to think about a possible third.

The disappearance of the child had brought home to her that she hadn’t heard from Liam for at least two months. He had promised to keep in touch, but warned her that his voluntary service post as a teacher in a remote Nigerian school didn’t allow for regular letters,
phone calls or emails. All she’d had since his departure was one text to say he’d arrived safely.

No doubt Mrs Hope, his adopted mother, was in regular contact. Rhona couldn’t blame Liam for that. After all she had given up her son when he was days old. The woman who raised him deserved his love and attention, not her.

It was a guilt trip she was used to taking. It didn’t help Liam, or herself, and it certainly wouldn’t help Stephen.

Under a low-power microscope the thread that tied the bones together was revealed as a generic cotton thread, available over the counter in hundreds of general outlets and haberdasheries. Nothing there to go on, except the likelihood that it was a UK make.

The bones were a different matter. Both bones proved to be forefingers. Neither epiphysis had fused onto the shaft of the bone, which indicated the owner or owners were likely to be younger than thirteen, although girls’ bony end plates tended to fuse earlier. To be sure of gender, they would need to perform DNA analysis. GUARD would use radioactive carbon to date the bones, so they would know when the owner had died. The bones would also carry trace indications of the geological region their owner came from. Strontium isotopes remained unchanged in ratio as they passed through the food chain. They were the same in the soil, in the plants that grew in that soil, in the animals that ate those plants and in the humans who ate those animals. The geology of a particular location could be linked to the bone chemistry of a human
being. So she would discover where the owner spent their childhood, even if she would never know whose hands the bones had come from.

Such a quantity of information to be gleaned from something so small and fragile. The question was why were the bones in the garden in the first place?

The toxicology report on Carole Devlin had revealed the presence of mefloquine, an anti-malarial taken from one to three weeks before visiting a malarial area and four weeks after coming back. So Carole Devlin had been somewhere recently where malaria was rife. If Carole and her son had been in Africa, did the boy bring the fetish back from there?

Rhona paused for a moment, letting her mind wander from the present to the previous night. So often in her relationship with Sean, she had been the taker and he the giver. She had come home from work needing someone to take away her thoughts of the day. Never in the time she had known Sean had he done the same.

He had refused to come to her bed. ‘I stink of drink. It’s better if I sleep in here.’

It was as though being angry had drained his blood of alcohol. He’d sobered up quickly, made himself coffee and gone to bed.

At dawn he’d slipped in behind her, his body cool and scented from the shower. He curled his nakedness around hers, flicking her nipples between his thumb and forefinger. There was a speed and desperation about his movements, as though she might stop him.

She thought of Carole Devlin spread-eagled on the floor, the act of love metamorphosed into an act of
hate, but the whisper of Sean’s voice on her neck had calmed her.

‘I love you.’

She was shocked at the words neither of them had spoken before. He hadn’t waited for an answer, rocking himself urgently against and with her. She felt his cheek wet on her shoulder and had a sudden rush of tenderness for him. Immediately it was over, he’d risen and begun to pack. Her body was chilled and empty without him.

She sensed his reluctance to discuss the previous night. He was reluctant even to discuss his journey, so she did not question him.

‘You can reach me on the mobile,’ he’d told her as he called a taxi.

‘Are you sure there’s a flight?’

‘I booked last night before I got drunk.’

And so they’d parted with the awkwardness of a one-night stand.

Even now, thinking back, Rhona could not decide if Sean hated his father, or hated the fact that his father was dying.

‘
HOW DID CAROLE
die?’

Bill Wilson regarded the man sitting in front of him. The skin was a deep ebony, polished like teak. The voice was measured and educated with a clipped edge that suggested English public school.

He had turned up at the police office first thing that morning. Shown his passport at the desk and said the dead woman was his wife.

Bill wondered how much information he should give this man who claimed to be Carole Devlin’s husband. He could be kind and keep it to a minimum, or describe in detail and watch his reaction. It might be one way of assessing whether or not this man had anything to do with Carole’s death.

‘Why don’t you tell me?’

Mr Devlin absorbed that remark. ‘I take it, by your question, that I am a suspect?’

‘When did you last see your wife?’

‘She left Nigeria a month ago, taking Stephen with her. Her mother was sick and needed her help.’

‘You kept in touch?’

‘I was offshore. It is difficult to keep in touch.’

‘You are an oil man?’

He nodded almost imperceptibly.

‘How long have you been married?’

‘Five years.’

‘Your wife was raped, then killed and mutilated.’

Shock rippled through the ebony features. ‘What do you mean, mutilated?’

‘The pathologist described it as female genital mutilation.’

‘He circumcised Carole?’

‘I believe that is a common occurrence in your country?’

‘In young girls, unfortunately yes. It is regarded by some as the path to womanhood.’

Bill tried to gauge whether Devlin’s show of distaste was real or for his benefit. ‘Where were you yesterday?’

‘London. I saw the appeal on the news and caught the first flight up this morning.’

Bill accepted this for the moment. The full details of Mr Devlin’s movements would become clear in time.

‘Would you be willing to identify the body?’

‘Of course. What about Stephen?’

Bill had purposefully omitted mention of the missing boy, wondering how long it would take his father to do so. ‘We found your son’s footprints at the crime scene. We hope he ran away and is hiding.’

It was no more than had been on the news.

‘Stephen is not my son. Carole and I married when he was nearly two.’

‘Do you know who the father is?’

‘We never discussed it.’ The tone suggested he wanted to know, but Carole wouldn’t tell him.

‘To your knowledge, did Carole keep in touch with Stephen’s father?’

‘According to Carole, Stephen’s father never knew he existed. She hated him, I think.’

Mr Devlin was painting Stephen’s father as a murder suspect. Bill wondered if he was doing it on purpose.

‘Carole and I met in Nigeria. She was working with a British construction company in the north and visited Lagos occasionally. We met at a party. Stephen was a year old by then.’

‘You didn’t mind that she had a child?’

‘Stephen had a nanny. His presence did not affect the time we could spend together.’

It was an odd answer, or Mr Devlin had not understood the question.

‘I mean, did you mind that she had a child by another man?’

He looked surprised to be asked. ‘It was of no consequence.’

Bill wondered if Stephen was also of no consequence.

Devlin was driving what looked like an airport-hired car, a blue Vauxhall Corsa. He’d agreed to follow Bill to the city mortuary. Bill could have sent a junior officer, but wanted to see Devlin’s face when he looked at the body of his wife.

When they got there, Dr Sissons was busy elsewhere. A young mortuary technician called Sandra showed them through. She looked no older than his
daughter, Lisa. Filling your day with dead bodies seemed a strange occupation for a young woman. No stranger, he reminded himself, than the job of a policewoman. At least the people you dealt with in here were no danger to your person, provided you wore two pairs of surgical gloves and made sure you did not come into direct contact with infected blood.

Washed, with the effects of the autopsy carefully disguised, Carole Devlin had been given back some dignity. Bill was glad to replace the previous image in the kitchen with this one. In death she looked peaceful, the horror washed away with the blood. The white sheet, tight to her chin, gave the impression of a cold sleep.

Bill watched as John Devlin looked intently at the face. He touched her hair gently, smoothing it back in a gesture similar to Rhona’s when she first viewed the body.

‘Can I be with her on my own?’

Bill, sensing the emotion beneath the carefully controlled demeanour, agreed. ‘I’ll be in the waiting room.’

There was a coffee machine that gave you a choice of three different types of coffee. Bill pressed a button at random. The murky brown liquid that emerged was too hot for his liking. He added some water from the water cooler. It tasted foul. He was looking around for somewhere to dispose of liquid and cup when an agitated Sandra appeared at his elbow.

‘Detective Inspector Wilson . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘There’s something I think you should see.’

She didn’t wait for an answer but quickly led him through to an office that housed a computer system.

On the screen was an image of the mortuary, Devlin standing beside the sheeted body of his wife, head bowed as if in prayer.

‘I’d left the camera running by accident,’ Sandra explained. ‘When you left the mortuary, this is what happened.’

The screen image changed abruptly. The scene was now Devlin making his request and Bill leaving. Immediately the door closed, Devlin looked around, as if to make sure there was no one else in the mortuary, then he pulled back the white sheet and exposed Carole Devlin’s naked body. Decency made Bill want to look away, but Sandra gripped his arm.

‘Look!’

Devlin was examining the breasts. His hand hovered over a nipple. For a moment, Bill thought he would touch it.

Bill had heard of this before. Bereaved men wanting a last sexual contact with the body they had loved and lost. He was seized with the terrible realisation that if something happened to Margaret he would want the same.

Beside him, Sandra gave a small distressed sound.

Devlin had deserted the breast and was standing at the pelvic region. He reached down and pushed open the legs. Bill’s stomach lurched. If this hadn’t been a recording, he would have felt compelled to walk in on Devlin, stopping what might happen next.

Devlin was examining his wife’s mutilation.

He produced a mobile phone and took three photos in quick succession.

It was over. The sheet was pulled up and Devlin assumed his thoughtful pose.

‘Why did he do that?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bill answered truthfully.

Most people wanted to remember their loved ones alive. Photographing a sexually mutilated body seemed abhorrent to Bill. Voyeuristic, even. Or maybe Devlin wanted to see what the murderer had done so he could hate him even more? In the interview, Bill had sensed Devlin was holding something back. Maybe Devlin had an idea who the murderer might be and that idea was linked with the circumcision?

Shock and disbelief at the cruelty of fate often rendered people incapable of standard human reactions. In different cultures, people behaved in different ways. Sometimes with weeping and wailing and beating of breasts. Sometimes with what resembled cold indifference. Occasionally with obsession about every aspect of the death, however horrific.

Bill wondered what cultural background John Devlin came from. From brief research, he’d discovered Nigeria had a number of faiths, including Animism, Christianity and Islam. As well as multiple faiths it had many different tribes, all of whom, it seemed, distrusted and often hated one another. Devlin sounded as though he had been educated in England. How much of Africa still ran in his blood?

When John Devlin emerged, Bill was waiting for
him. Carole’s husband had the air of someone who had achieved something positive, however small.

His tone was gracious. ‘Thank you for letting me be with her on my own.’

Bill gestured at the machine. ‘Do you want some coffee?’

‘Thank you again, but no.’ He pulled out the mobile. ‘I must call my company and explain why I am not in London.’