The Reborn (2 page)

He contemplated calling her home number, but that was strictly against the rules. Her parents didn’t know about him, and Kira had forbidden him to call her there.

His next thought was the hospital. She was booked into the Maternity Unit on Alexandra Parade. Should he call up and ask if she’d been admitted? He could say he was the baby’s father, although if her parents were there, that wouldn’t go down too well.

He decided to check the area around the candyfloss van again, in case Kira had decided to wander about the nearby stalls. She wouldn’t go on a fast ride, but there was no reason she couldn’t try out the other amusements.

The nearest one was a ghost train. He checked at the ticket booth, although he didn’t hold out much hope. When he described Kira, the man pointed to a health and safety notice too small to decipher.

‘Nae pregnant lassies allowed in here,’ he rasped.

Next to the ghost train was a large black tent housing the Hall of Mirrors, which promised entrants a ‘Fabulous Freaky Time’. David approached the booth.

‘Did a pregnant girl with long blonde hair come in here?’

The young male behind the glass didn’t answer immediately, but his smirk said plenty.

‘What’s it to you?’

‘Did she or didn’t she?’

‘Aye.’

‘Is she still in there?’

The guy shrugged. ‘No idea.’

‘Can I check?’

‘Two quid.’

David handed over a fiver and took his change. As he pushed through the curtain, the guy shouted after him, ‘We’re closing in five minutes.’

David walked the orange lit corridor, cursing theattendant for conning him and fighting the urge to go out and demand his money back.

When the second curtain fell shut behind him, he was suddenly struck by the intense stillness, the way the sounds of the outside world were muffled. He knew instinctively that he was the only one in there, but he called Kira’s name all the same. When there was no answer he called again, but his voice was swallowed by silence.

‘Shit.’

On entry, he’d ignored the reflection of himself, now he peered at the squat body and stumpy legs the mirror showed him. Only his head was normal size. He consoled himself that at least his hair looked OK.

He wondered how Kira had reacted when confronted with a similar image of herself. She didn’t like being ‘fat’, as she called the last stage of pregnancy, although he loved to hug her rounded body and feel life jump against him.

Kira wasn’t in here, that much was obvious. He thought about turning and going out the way he’d come in, but decided if he saw that smirk again, he might just hit the guy.

He looked for the exit, and realised the mirrors were set out in a maze. It might take him longer than the threatened five minutes to find his way out. As if on cue, the drone of the generator faltered and the dim overhead lights flickered off and on again.

The guy in the booth must be doing it on purpose just to scare him. He swore under his breath and started running through the maze, darting down one path, then turning and trying another. After a few turns he stopped, ashamed of himself.

Thank God Kira wasn’t here to see him act like a big girl’s blouse.

As he turned his head, he caught a glimpse of something familiar in a nearby mirror, and as he swivelled for a better look, the image multiplied. Now it was reflected in three mirrors.

His breath caught in his throat as he recognised the object as a small blue shoe. Like the ones Kira was wearing.

His stomach twisted in a knot. He followed its reflection and picked it up, trying to convince himself that he was wrong. But he knew he wasn’t. This was Kira’s shoe.

Had she taken fright like him while looking for the way out? He stuffed the shoe in his pocket and set off again, following a cold draught which he hoped would lead to the exit.

When he turned the final corner, he saw her.

She was lying on her back, and his first thought was she had gone into labour. He ran towards her, shouting her name, then slipped on something and went down hard, his head slamming against the wood.

He came to moments later, his vision blurred, his ears ringing. When he lifted his hand it was covered in blood. He staggered to his feet, slithering on a mess of blood and other stuff he didn’t dare give a name to. He hesitated before getting any closer, not wanting to register what he was looking at.

3

Rhona was surrounded by shadows. In the firelight they seemed to advance and retreat, dancing about her. She liked the room this way. No lamps, the only light coming from the flames licking the coals.

She could hear the distant sounds of the funfair in Kelvingrove Park. In years gone by it had been housed in the Kelvin Hall, now a sports arena. She had gone there as a child with her father and now the carnival sounds conjured up memories of his warm hand enveloping hers, the scent of tobacco from his coat and the sweet crunch of candyfloss.

Her father’s ghost wasn’t the only one haunting her tonight. Detective Sergeant Michael McNab had been dead for six weeks, and the realisation that she would never see him again had only started to sink in.

For months after her father’s death, she had imagined him still resident in the cottage on Skye. She’d tried to convince herself that if she called he would answer, just as always. She’d never dialled the number, never dared. She couldn’t bear to hear it ring into the emptiness.

As for McNab, she felt his presence constantly, even now among the shadows. She imagined she saw his tall figure in every crowd, his distinctive auburn hair, that quizzical look he used to give her, his infectious laugh. She even heard his voice, and sometimes she forgot herself and answered. She’d fooled herself for a while by imagining he had been posted away somewhere – the police college, perhaps, or helping on a case somewhere rural. It amused her to think how McNab would have hated that. He’d never liked the wilds of Scotland, preferring the mean streets of Glasgow.

She had dreamt about him constantly, reliving his last moments over and over again. Eventually she could bear sleep no longer and had taken to spending the night sitting here dozing and waiting for a call-out, because concentrating on other deaths helped her to briefly forget McNab’s.

There had been no family members present at the funeral at Glasgow Cathedral, the only mourners his friends and colleagues. That was another thing they’d had in common: no family left alive. It had been her assistant, Chrissy, who told her that McNab’s mother was dead and he’d never known his father. All the time they’d been colleagues – and occasionally lovers – he had never told Rhona that.

You never really know someone. Not truly
.

She couldn’t blame him for not confiding in her. They had briefly played at being together, but it felt more like a game than a relationship. Nevertheless, when she’d ended it, he had reacted badly and it had taken DI Bill Wilson, his superior officer, to sort things out. Bill had dispatched McNab on a police training course to break his obsession with Rhona.

Bill had never chastised her about that unfortunate liaison. It was never wise to get involved with colleagues, and it was a particularly bad idea for the area’s Chief Forensic to sleep with a Detective Sergeant, as they had to work so closely together; but the habit was widespread. You were constantly in one another’s company, inhabiting a strange world that only those who were part of could possibly understand. Violent death drew people together, and sex was a good way to celebrate being alive.

When McNab had reappeared, she’d already moved on to Sean Maguire, an Irish charmer who played the saxophone in a local bar. She’d even gone so far as to allow him to move in with her – delightful at first, but inevitably a disaster. He had figured out her notes and learned how to play them, but she’d grown suspicious that she might not be the only tune he was playing. She had no proof, but the time she spent thinking about it disturbed her. So Sean had gone the way of the others and solitude had returned.

I can’t count on anything or anyone. I am better off alone
.

If McNab could hear her he would have mocked her self-pity and then made a pass at her, fully expecting the usual knock-back.

But McNab was dead.

An officer killed in the line of duty. It could happen to any one of them, which was why so many of his colleagues had been at the funeral, a hundred at least. McNab’s real family, the people he had worked with day after day. The people who would seek his killer, however long it took.

Chrissy had given the reading, and it was she and Bill who’d organised the funeral. Rhona hadn’t known McNab was a Catholic, although she’d seen him rub both sides up the wrong way by humming the wrong tune in the wrong bar.
It takes one to know one
, Chrissy had said.
And it’s easier to do it this way. The priest takes care of everything
.

It was more than that. McNab had saved Chrissy’s life and that of her then-unborn child, a little boy she’d named Michael in tribute. She might profess to be a lapsed Catholic, but she’d preferred to hedge her bets where McNab was concerned.
If it’s not true, it won’t matter. If it is, then I’ve seen him right
.

Chrissy’s voice had been strong as she’d recited Corinthians, Chapter 13. Rhona had heard a muffled sob beside her as DS Janice Clark had striven to contain herself. Rhona would have put her hand on Janice’s arm had she been able to control her own trembling. Most people there that day wouldn’t have been inside a church for years, but you didn’t need to be religious for the final proclamation to ring true.

As it is, these remain: faith, hope and love, the three of them; and the greatest of them is love
.

Chrissy had taken her place on Rhona’s other side and she’d felt a hand slip into hers as the predominantly male voices had risen in unison to sing ‘Be Thou my Vision’.

She was in the kitchen making coffee when the phone rang, just after midnight. She’d already spoken to Chrissy at eleven thirty; her assistant had taken to phoning during her nighttime breastfeeding sessions. According to Chrissy, her partner, Sam, managed to sleep through everything, only waking if she shook him. ‘He’s not got the right equipment anyway.’

These nighttime chats, Rhona knew, were more about her state of mind than Chrissy’s, although looking down at her baby son was bound to bring back thoughts of McNab. The calls didn’t last long, but she was always glad to hear Chrissy’s voice in what had become her solitary darkness. Chrissy had tried on one occasion to get her to seek counselling for post-traumatic stress, but to her shame Rhona had greeted the suggestion with frigid silence. After that, Chrissy had taken it upon herself to be her nocturnal companion.

When the phone rang again, she’d thought Chrissy had forgotten to impart some vital piece of news about baby Michael’s progress, like an imagined smile, but it was an unfamiliar voice she heard. The operative couldn’t tell her the full details, just that her presence was required at a suspicious death in Kelvingrove Park.

The street outside the flat was deserted, patched by darkness where a street lamp had failed. She unlocked the car remotely, shivering in the frosty air. In the distance rose the majestic edifice that housed Glasgow’s famous Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, and on the hill behind was the towering outline of Glasgow University. Surrounding all this lay the park, a place of Victorian splendour, its landscaped curves following the River Kelvin from which it took its name. Criss-crossed by numerous leafy walkways and cycle paths, it was a favourite haunt for all age groups in daylight but, like most inner city parks, it was not for the faint of heart after dark.

As she turned in at the park gates she saw the pulsating blue lights of three squad cars. There had been general disquiet among residents about the siting of the funfair, but their objections had been overruled by the city authorities – something they would probably regret now.

The entrance to the funfair was cordoned off, and a constable had taken charge. McNab had been the Crime Scene Manager on numerous incidents she’d been involved with, and Rhona was used to seeing his familiar figure, hearing his jocular welcome, and watching him eye up any female personnel he hadn’t yet persuaded into bed. The young constable who handed her the log book didn’t even know who she was and insisted on checking her ID before letting her pass.

Walking onto a scene knowing the team she’d worked with for so long – her family – no longer existed was the most difficult part of each new case. She’d thought her new role as an independent expert under the auspices of the university would help. She liked working alongside Roy Hunter, the former DCI who had developed a digitised crime scene management system that made
CSI Miami
look like a bunch of amateurs. Spherical High Definition recording of major crime scenes, software that incorporated every item of information gathered – maps of the area, post-mortem findings, her own forensic notes, including DNA and fingerprint results. All of this was regularly updated and available twenty-four hours a day via laptop, phone or PDA. A far cry from notebook drawings, and definitely the future of policing.

Despite her new status, the absence of McNab, Chrissy and DI Wilson, who was currently awaiting a court appearance for assaulting a prisoner, had only served to accentuate her feeling of isolation. So she was relieved when she spotted one friendly face in the guise of DS Janice Clark, who had been promoted recently and taken over McNab’s role as Crime Scene Manager.

‘Michael would be proud of you,’ Rhona told her.

‘He taught me everything I know.’

Rhona left a moment of silence before she spoke. ‘What’s going on?’

‘The body of a teenage girl was found in the Hall of Mirrors.’ Janice grimaced, and Rhona noticed she looked pale.

‘That bad?’

She gave a swift nod. ‘The pathologist is in with her now.’