Killing the Shadows (2000) (52 page)

“Since he’s that ruthless, you need to even up the odds a bit.”

“No. I know what I’m doing. I can’t take the chance of ending up with your blood on my hands. I can’t live with that.” Fiona undid her seatbelt and opened the door. “Please, Caro. Go home. I’ll call you later, I promise. I’m getting out of the car now, and I’m not going any further till I see you turn around and drive away.” She pushed the door wide and climbed out, then leaned back in. “I mean it.” She closed the door gently and stepped back.

Caroline smacked the flat of her hand against the steering wheel in a gesture of frustration, then put the car in gear and moved off. Fiona watched as she did a three-point turn and headed back in the direction they’d come from. As the taillights of the Honda disappeared round the corner, she turned to face the small door. She took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell.

There was a long moment of silence, then heavy feet thundered down a flight of stairs. The door opened to reveal a man in his late twenties dressed in work boots, jeans and a padded tartan shirt hanging loose over a grey T–shirt. In one hand, he held a mug of tea. His expression revealed a mild and friendly curiosity.

“Lachlan Fraser?” Fiona asked.

He nodded. “Aye, that’s me.”

“I’m sorry to disturb you so early…”

He grinned. “It’s not that early. And I’m not disturbed. How can I help you?”

“My name is Fiona Cameron”

His grin widened as he interrupted her. “You’re Kit’s bidie-in. Of course! I should have recognized you from that picture Kit’s got up in the bothy. Hey, it’s great to meet you at last.” He looked past her. “The man himself isnae with you, then?”

“No, I got a lift up with a friend of mine. I’m meeting up with Kit later. I’m supposed to pick up the Land Rover. Is that OK?”

“Aye, fine, nae bother.” Lachlan fished in his pocket and shooed her forward. “I’ll just get the keys.” He passed her and unlocked the Judas gate. “They’re in here. I’ll no’ be a minute.” He disappeared indoors and a light came on. He emerged moments later with a bunch of keys. “Follow me. It’s round the back. It’s got a full tank, and the jerry cans for the generator are all diesel led up,” he added over his shoulder as he led the way down a narrow alley to an area of waste ground behind the garage. Half a dozen elderly vehicles appeared to be parked at random. Lachlan headed towards a Land Rover that looked like a relic from some forgotten war.

“There you go,” he said, unlocking the driver’s door and standing back to allow Fiona to climb up into the driver’s seat. “You driven one of these before?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never had that pleasure,” she said ironically.

Lachlan took her through the vagaries of the Land Rover, explaining the four-wheel-drive, then waited while she manoeuvred it out of its parking space and into the mouth of the alley. Then he waved cheerfully as she headed out into the grey morning.

In the area under the jurisdiction of the City of London Police, there are three hundred and eighty-five separate closed circuit camera systems. Together, they employ one thousand, two hundred and eighty cameras. Smithfield Market is well served by their system, with almost every nook and cranny covered by one camera or another. Inevitably, some of the cameras produce better images than others, given the variation in lighting and lines of sight.

One of the first steps Detective Chief Inspector Sarah Duvall had taken was to bring every available videotape from the previous ten days to the City police station in Snow Hill, where she had set up her incident room. All through the night, detectives had been scanning the hours of videotape, trying not to lose concentration as they searched for Charles Cavendish Redford.

Duvall herself had managed four hours’ sleep. They had persuaded a magistrate to allow an extension to Redford’s custody, then she had snatched her nap. She hadn’t bothered going home to her riverside flat in the Isle of Dogs, just made her way to her own office and curled up on the two-seater sofa she’d had installed for precisely that purpose. Four hours was a lot less than her body craved, but it was enough to function on. Probably.

She was back in the incident room just after seven, eagerly scanning the overnight reports to see if anything confirming Redford’s involvement had turned up yet. When she had confronted him with the discrepancy between his statement and the discovery of the outhouse, there had been no flicker of discomfort. He had simply shrugged and said, “Isn’t that what you wanted? To catch me out in a lie? Isn’t that what criminals are supposed to do?” It went some way towards confirming her belief that he intended to give them nothing that could corroborate his confession.

Sooner or later, either one of her own team or one of the Dorset detectives was going to come up with that crucial piece of information that would tie Redford indisputably to Georgia Lester’s brutal murder. Anything would do, she thought bleakly. Anything at all, since all they had right now was a big fat zero.

As she flicked through what seemed to be a large pile of nothing, one of the officers called her name. She looked up to see him holding a phone. “Yes?”

“Can you pop down to the video room, ma’am? One of the lads there says he’s got something he wants you to take a look at.”

Duvall was out of the door before the phone was back in its cradle. Her long strides swallowed the corridor leading to the room where her officers were scanning the CCTV videos from the market. She’d scarcely crossed the threshold when one of the detective constables started speaking. “I need you to have a look at this, ma’am,” he said, his voice high and eager.

“What is it, Harvey?” Duvall stood behind him, looking over his shoulder at the screen. “Have you found him?”

“I’ve been looking at the tapes of the corridor you have to go down to get to the maintenance area. It doesn’t show the door itself, but you can’t get there any other way. Anyway, this is from the Friday, two days after Georgia Lester went missing.” He pressed play. With the jerky movement of time-lapse photography, a man came into view, seen from the rear. He was dressed in a white coat and dark trousers, with the jaunty-brimmed trilby-style hat worn by all the butchers for hygiene reasons. He appeared to be carrying a large plastic tray of packaged meat. Harvey pointed to the screen. “It caught my attention because you can see there’s something wrapped in black plastic in the tray. Just there, see what I mean?”

“I see it,” Duvall said cautiously. “But that’s not Redford. The body shape’s all wrong. Do we get him coming back?”

“That’s what I wanted you to see.” He pressed the fast forward button and the scene jerked into movement. Suddenly, a man came back into view. Harvey froze the frame when the man was about ten feet from the camera. “That’s the best view we get of his face.”

Duvall frowned. There was something familiar about the image on the screen in front of her, but she couldn’t place it.

Harvey looked up at her expectantly.

She peered into the screen, willing the image to become clearer. Then suddenly, something clicked in the recesses of her memory. It made no sense, but she was sure she was right. The implications of that were almost too terrible to contemplate. She straightened up. “Let’s get this enhanced, soon as possible. I’m going to get right on to the Met about this. I’ll be in my office. Well spotted, Harvey.”

A
s Fiona drove north out of Inverness, the weather slowly began to clear. She’d found road maps and Ordnance Survey sheets in the glove box of the car, and she headed up the Ag with the map spread over the seat next to her. Over the spectacular bridge that carried the road above the mingling of waters of the Beauly Firth and the Moray Firth, across the richly fertile farming land of the Black Isle, the sky gradually shifted from grey to blue, the morning mist burning off under the weak warmth of the autumn sun.

She checked the settlements against the map as she drove on along the quiet road. Not that there was much possibility of going wrong. Up here, there were scarcely enough major roads to allow a wrong turning. Alness. Invergordon. Then the bridge across the Dornoch Firth, the dun sands spread wet below her, before the turn inland to Bonar Bridge, leaving behind the low flatlands of the coastal region for the high hill country ahead.

Then she was driving along the narrow inlet of the Kyle of Sutherland, the dark water lined with heavy conifer forests, making somehow sinister the sunlit route into the wilderness that spread out ahead of her. As she turned up the River Shin towards Lairg, she could see she was entering the north-west Highlands proper, with sudden vistas opening ahead of rounded hills brown with heather, their rocky outcroppings grey and random. Scattered in the landscape were the ruined walls of croft houses, often just a pair of battered gable ends left standing. This was the landscape of the Highland Clearances, that brutal depopulation of the countryside where crofters had been driven off their land by rich landowners eager to make the easier money that came with rearing Cheviot sheep. Now the fragments of their homes were the only sign that this land had been the starting point for the Highland diaspora that had colonized the British Empire.

Fiona had never walked this side of the watershed, although the Assynt region in the west of Sutherland had been her destination on a couple of walking holidays in the past. She knew the springy feel of heather beneath her feet, the treacherous pull of peat hags, and the hard clatter of ancient stratified rock beneath her boots. If she was going to venture into the back country where Kit’s bothy was, she’d have to make a stop in Lairg. The light shoes and town clothes she had with her would be no match for this terrain.

Lairg was coming to life as she drove down the main street. Shops were opening up, a handful of people were out and about, making the most of the thin warmth of the morning. She found a parking space across the road from a mountain sports shop and jumped out of the Land Rover. Before she headed for the shop, she checked the storage area behind the seats. As well as three five-gallon cans of diesel, there was a lightweight fleece and a waxed jacket. Fiona picked up the fleece and held it to her face, drinking in Kit’s familiar smell. Please God, let him be all right, she said to herself.

Reluctantly, she replaced the fleece and jacket. They would be far too big for her, but they’d do, she decided. Then she crossed to the shop. Fifteen minutes later, she emerged, wearing fleece-lined Gore-Tex trousers, a lightweight thermal polo-neck shirt, a dark-brown fleece hat, hiking socks with cushioned soles and a pair of summer walking boots that had been reduced for a quick sale. They weren’t designed for this time of the year, but they were so flexible they wouldn’t need the breaking in that a heavier pair of boots would take. It was a reasonable trade-off, since she didn’t envisage having to travel far in them. She would be comfortable if she had to do any walking or scrambling, and that was the main thing. She’d also bought a handful of high energy emergency rations, instant heat packs and a first-aid kit. She had a good idea what might lie ahead of her, and she wanted to be prepared for all eventualities.

Back at the Land Rover, Fiona added Kit’s fleece and jacket to her ensemble, tossing her discarded work clothes into the storage space. There was one last thing she had to do. The time had come to recall The Blood Painter in all its details. She needed to be equipped for what she might find. She bought a pair of bolt cutters, a chisel and a lump hammer from the hardware shop. As an afterthought, she also added a craft knife with a retractable blade to her shopping basket.

Walking back to the Land Rover, she saw it was no longer alone. Parked behind it was a familiar Honda saloon. Leaning against the bonnet, Caroline stood, arms folded, a stubborn smile on her face. Fiona closed her eyes in frustration. When she came close enough to speak, she said, “This is not funny, Caro.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here. If you won’t let me come with you, at least let me cover your back. Let me be there to make sure you come out of this alive. Please?”

Fiona opened the back of the Land Rover and stowed her purchases. When she turned back, she said, “Have you got a mobile?”

Caroline grinned. “You think there’s any chance of a decent signal up here?” she asked, gesturing at the hills rising round the town.

Fiona managed a rueful smile. “Silly question. OK. Here’s what we do. You follow me up to the point where I turn off. It’s a mile or so out of town. There’s no point in you trying to go any further. According to Kit, the road’s too bad for anything other than a four-wheel-drive. You give me an hour.” She opened her bag and took out a notepad and pen. She opened the pad and scribbled down Sandy Galloway’s office and home numbers. “If I don’t come back inside that hour, it means I’m probably in need of help or else I’ve managed to get through to the police on Kit’s satellite phone. Either way, you call this number and ask for Superintendent Galloway. You tell him where I am and what I’m doing. I did send him a fax, but he might not think it was that urgent. Just a minute, I’ll give you the directions.” She opened the driver’s door and reached under the map for the e–mail she’d printed off what felt like half a lifetime ago. She held the sheet of paper out to Caroline, then snatched it back. “Hang on,” she said. “You have to promise that, no matter what, you will not attempt to come in there after me.”

Caroline gave a reluctant nod of agreement. “I promise. OK?”

“Mean it.”

Caroline held Fiona’s eyes for a long moment. “I swear on Lesley’s life.”

Fiona ducked her head in acknowledgement. “That’ll do me. Like I said, I should be able to call for help myself if I need it, but it might be that I can’t figure out how to work the sat phone. You’re my back-up.” She handed over the directions and took a deep breath. “Wagons roll.” She climbed into the Land Rover and started the engine. Her hands were sweating on the wheel, her stomach a tight clench. She knew the odds were stacked against her. They’d had a head start on her. They could have made it to the bothy an hour or more ago. She already knew the killer wasn’t totally committed to verisimilitude. Maybe he would drain Kit’s blood in one swift act rather than torture him for days, with all the attendant risks.