Final Cut (12 page)

They both contemplated the thought that the skeletal remains would never be identified and the killer never found.

Rhona broke the silence. ‘I’ve got to head back to the lab.’

‘What about tomorrow?’

‘The funeral’s at eleven.’

McNab’s brow darkened. ‘The meeting with the super is at nine. I’ll call you when it’s over.’

Rhona left him at the table, staring into his coffee. He looked terrible, hollow eyed and haunted. She suspected the disciplinary inquiry wasn’t allowing him much sleep. Whatever the outcome, it didn’t bode well for him. If Bill took the rap, McNab would never forgive himself. If they believed McNab’s story, then he was in trouble. Either way was bad news. They might have caught the Gravedigger, but he’d left his mark on them all, including Magnus, the psychologist they’d called in to help. Rhona contemplated calling him and asking his advice on her meeting with Emma. She’d promised to get back in touch. Maybe now was the time.

20

Magnus looked different. It took a moment to register that his long hair had been cut off. He no longer resembled a Viking warrior. Rhona felt a little saddened by that.

She stood back to let him enter. Tom covered the initial awkwardness by coming running to see who the visitor was. Magnus scooped the kitten up. ‘What’s your name?’

Rhona told him.

‘Hey, Tom.’ Magnus rubbed the ears and was rewarded by a rolling purr. When he set Tom down, the kitten scuttled off towards the kitchen. Rhona hesitated in the hall, not sure which room to use. She opted to follow Tom. In the kitchen they could sit with the table between them, which seemed appropriate somehow. She waved Magnus to a seat and offered him a whisky. ‘It’s Highland Park.’

He smiled. ‘I converted you, then?’

‘I like the taste.’

Magnus had championed the Orcadian whisky at one of their first meetings, using it to illustrate Rhona’s sense of smell. His own highly developed sense of smell had played a large part in the search for the Gravedigger.

She poured two drams and offered him a jug of water. He added a little and swirled the mixture round the glass. Rhona did the same. They took a sniff before tasting.

‘So, how have you been?’ Magnus got the question in first.

‘Fine,’ Rhona lied. She had no intention of telling anyone about the nightmares, particularly him. She caught him studying her expression. He would know she was lying. She waited for him to delve further and was glad when he didn’t.

‘What about you?’

‘Fine.’ He looked down. She suspected they were both being minimal with the truth. ‘The university gave me some time off. I spent it in Orkney, as you know.’

Rhona nodded. She had visited him there, staying a few days in his house overlooking Scapa Flow. In those surroundings things had been easier between them. The mutual attraction had still been there, but neither had acknowledged it and they’d parted amicably.

‘It’s good to be back at work.’

Things got easier after that. Rhona explained about the car crash, Emma’s disappearance and reappearance nursing the skull. Magnus was obviously shocked by the story.

‘The news never mentioned a child was involved in finding the remains.’

‘McNab didn’t tell you?’

Magnus looked puzzled. ‘I haven’t spoken to McNab.’

So McNab hadn’t followed Bill’s orders and called in the psychologist. Rhona decided not to elaborate on that.

‘There’s more,’ Rhona went on. ‘The skeleton was well concealed under a pile of branches but for some reason Emma poked her hand in and retrieved the skull.’ She paused for a moment. ‘She says she heard it calling her.’

Magnus’s brow furrowed. ‘Calling her?’

‘I know it sounds daft, but there it is. Now she insists there’s another body doing the same.’ She handed him the printout McNab had given her.

He studied it for a few moments. ‘You’ve searched the wood for other remains?’

‘Bill sent in specially trained dogs. They’re not totally reliable but in this case they didn’t show any more interest in the wood, apart from the deposition site. The child is obviously distressed by this and insists she’s right.’

‘So where do I come in?’

‘I have permission to take Emma back to the wood tomorrow morning. She was wandering about in there for some time before they found her.’

‘And you thought she might have seen something that’s preying on her mind?’

‘Yes.’

‘I suppose it’s possible. There’s a fine line between imagination and reality, especially with children as young as Emma. Is the girl under stress at home or school?’

‘The mother left her partner recently. That’s all I know. McNab’s been dealing with the family. It seems Emma’s taken a liking to him.’

Magnus contemplated this.

‘What if I come with you? Would that help?’

Rhona had considered this option before calling Magnus and decided it might be more productive than just asking his advice. There was, however, the issue of McNab.

‘I’ll have to run it by the mother first and . . .’ Rhona decided to come clean. ‘DS McNab will be going down there with me.’

‘And he won’t want me around?’

Rhona explained about the disciplinary investigation. ‘McNab blames himself for Bill’s predicament.’

‘As do we all,’ Magnus said grimly. ‘Check with the DS first. If he’s willing, I’ll come along.’

They made small talk after that, both keen for the meeting to end. They said goodbye at the door. For a moment Rhona thought Magnus would embrace her, the way he had done in Orkney, dispelling the awkwardness between them. Part of her wanted him to, but she folded her arms.

‘You’ll let me know, then?’ Magnus looked sad, as though he had been reading her mind as well as interpreting her body language.

When she closed the door on his echoing footsteps, Rhona realised just how nervous she had been that seeing Magnus again would serve only to feed the nightmares.

21

‘Do I have to come in?’

‘I don’t want to leave you in the car.’

Emma made a face and opened the door.

Claire reached for her daughter’s hand and they walked together towards the entrance. The hospice looked over the river. On sunny days the view from the garden was quite beautiful. Today a freezing mist clung to the sluggish, oily water.

Claire hesitated for a moment before she pushed open the glass door, aware that this time there would be no welcoming smile from her mum. She wished once again that she’d stayed overnight at the hospice the previous Sunday. She’d turned the offer down, anxious to end the day as normally as possible for Emma’s sake.

Susan Richards looked up as she approached the reception desk. ‘Claire.’ She opened her arms and gave her a big hug, then stood back and looked at her. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I should have stayed.’

‘She didn’t want you to, you know that.’

Susan was right. Her mother had insisted she take Emma home. Let the child sleep in her own bed.

‘I think she knew,’ said Claire.

The nurse nodded in agreement. ‘Carol called me in after you left to give me her instructions in the event of her death.’ She chuckled. ‘I get the feeling she’s keeping an eye on me to make sure I carry them out.’

Claire felt Emma’s little hand tighten in her own.

‘I have Carol’s things in my office.’ Susan bent to speak to Emma. ‘Your gran left something special for you.’

They walked along a familiar corridor. Through open doors, Claire saw groups of visiting relatives. She wished she could turn back the clock and be like them again.

Susan ushered them into a room where a large picture window gave a view of the nearby suspension bridge. Her mum had had the same view. My bridge to the stars, she’d called it.

She handed Claire an envelope. ‘A list of the six people she invited to the funeral. She joked that there were only six left alive she liked, apart from you and Emma. She asked me to post the invitations as soon as I knew the date. I understand you were an only child?’

Claire nodded. ‘Mum didn’t have me until she was forty. I was a bit of a surprise. She’d been told she was unlikely to have children.’

Susan handed Emma a cardboard box. ‘Your gran asked me to give you this.’

Emma laid the box on the table and removed the lid. Inside was a photograph album.

‘Your gran spent a long time on that. She said it was a record of your family’s history. Photographs and stories. She told me some of them.’

Emma replaced the lid and clasped the box to her. Claire felt her own chest tighten.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ said Susan.

‘You’re coming to the funeral?’

‘My name’s on that list.’

Claire sat for a moment in the car park, watching pedestrians cross her mum’s bridge to the stars. This would be the last time she came here. She felt suddenly bereft, as though losing this place was the same as losing her mother.

‘OK?’ she asked Emma.

A small voice answered yes, the tone upbeat.

Claire glanced in the driving mirror and saw the album, now out of its case, being hugged to the girl’s chest.

She took the route alongside the river. The mist had lifted and the opposite bank was no longer a mysterious place on the other side.

‘I’m going to call in at Granny’s house. Make sure everything’s all right.’

They’d been checking on her mother’s house once a week since she’d moved into the hospice. Their visits had been swift and perfunctory. Devoid of her mother, the house had taken on a different guise, its emptiness almost threatening.

Claire stood shivering in the small hallway. She had left the heating on to avoid burst pipes, but not set it high enough to warm the place. She turned up the thermostat and was heartened to hear the boiler roar into action.

Emma followed her in, still clutching the album, heading upstairs to the small room she’d called her own when they’d stayed over. Claire made for the kitchen. Past midday in midwinter, the room was already darkened by shadow. Claire switched on the light and busied herself filling the kettle and spooning loose tea into the pot. Her mother had always insisted on
real tea
, as she called it. None of those floor sweepings in a paper bag. The fridge stood open and unplugged. On her earlier visits Claire had brought milk with her, but today she would have to drink the tea black.

Seated at the table, she sorted through the mail. There were three condolence cards which she set to one side, a couple of circulars and an invitation to join the postcode lottery.

She turned her attention to the large brown envelope Susan had given her. It contained an order of service, which included the Twenty-third Psalm, a favourite of her mum’s, and her chosen eulogy:

Claire slipped the poem back in the envelope, unable to read any farther. She took a deep breath and picked up the list. There were only three names she recognised on it, including Susan. Her mother had been a keen member of the lunchtime club in the local community hall, so she assumed the extra names had been her erstwhile companions there.

The last item was a smaller envelope addressed to her. Claire studied the old-fashioned handwriting, the swirling ‘C’, the intricate ‘r’. It was from her mother. She put it in her handbag, unable to read its contents.

She had no idea how long she sat there, listening to the silence, noticing the film of dust that lay over everything, knowing that it was now too late to tell her mother the truth.

When she felt the familiar darkness begin to press down on her, Claire rose and walked to the window. Dusk was claiming the day, the horizon bruised in red and blue. A trick of the light on the dirt-smeared window split her reflection. There were two faces now, hers and the other Claire’s. The one that told lies, the one that could do what she had done.

She felt a sob rise in her throat. She swallowed it back, desperate to hold on to what fragments of sanity she had left. She shifted her position and watched as her two selves began to merge, gradually becoming one again, reminding her that she had once been whole.

A cry from Emma broke the spell. Claire took the stairs two at a time. The door to the child’s room lay open.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘Someone’s been in my room,’ Emma said crossly.

Claire looked round quickly. The room appeared exactly the same as it always did.

‘What do you mean?’

Emma gestured to the window. Claire went over to check. The window was firmly shut.

‘There’s nothing here.’

‘Look!’ The girl pointed.

Immediately above the radiator, the lower pane had steamed up, leaving a zigzag pattern on the glass.

‘I wrote my name on the window in real writing, the way Gran showed me.’

Her daughter’s face was indignant.

‘It’s not there any more. Someone’s rubbed it out.’

Claire felt her fear turn to irritation. She did not have the time or inclination for another one of Emma’s games. ‘You must have touched the window. You’ve just forgotten you did.’

‘I did not,’ said Emma stubbornly. ‘I always rewrite my name every time I come, for Gran. Someone’s rubbed it out.’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘I’m not being silly. Look.’

Emma breathed on the glass and the shape took a clearer form. Claire could make out part of a capital ‘E’ written in the old-fashioned way, but the rest of Emma’s name had been obliterated.

‘See, Mummy.’

She didn’t know what to say. ‘I’ll check the rest of the house.’

It was an excuse to get away. She left Emma staring at the window and went on to the landing. Part of her wanted to ignore what the child had suggested, but another part felt uneasy.