Sacrifice (16 page)

‘Mammalian hearts are all very similar in structure,’ I said, trying to sound professional, knowing I was failing miserably. ‘They have five major pipes, called the great vessels, coming out of them: the superior and the inferior vena cava, two pulmonary trunks and the aorta.’ I touched the heart, turned it round. Blood, already starting to clot, poured from it and splattered the table. The WPC gave a faint gasp. I clenched my teeth together and took a deep breath. ‘They also have two chambers, the left and right ventricle, both with thick, muscular walls, the left substantially bigger than the right. Also a right and left atrium. They’re all here.’

‘You don’t have to . . .’ began Dunn, but I did. I had to prove to them all, and to myself most of all, that I was not going to be freaked out – not for more than a few minutes anyway – by something I’d seen and handled countless times before. I picked the heart up and put it on the scales.

‘Human hearts typically weigh 250–350 grams,’ I said. The electronic reading on the scales said 345 grams.

‘Within the range,’ said Dunn.

‘It is,’ I agreed. ‘And there’s an outside chance this is the heart of a big adult male. Over six foot and powerfully built. But if I was putting money on it, I’d say it came from a large pig.’

The relief in the room was almost strong enough to reach out and touch. I was ordered back into the other room and questioned again. More police arrived. They dusted for fingerprints, walked the perimeter of the property with dogs and removed both the heart and the strawberries. Still no sign of Dana.

Eventually, Dunn came to join me on the sofa.

‘You need to get some rest now,’ he said, almost gently. ‘I’m leaving a couple of constables in the house for the rest of the night. You’ll be perfectly safe.’

‘Thank you,’ I managed.

‘Duncan’s back on Saturday, right?’

I nodded.

‘You might want to find somewhere else to stay tomorrow. This is almost certainly some sort of sick practical joke but I don’t like the fact that whoever got in here did so without breaking in. We’ll be checking who might have keys to the house. A change of locks probably isn’t a bad idea.’

I nodded again.

He reached out, touched my arm, seemed unsure what to do next and ended up giving it a feeble pat. Then he got up. ‘Try to get some rest, Miss Hamilton,’ he said again. Then he left.

I went upstairs thinking that, as practical jokes go, it was the least funny I’d ever heard of. And besides, it didn’t feel like a joke to me. It felt as though someone was trying to scare the shit out of me.

13

‘
TOR, I FOUND
the ring.’

‘What? You did what?’

It was seven forty-five the next morning; I was running late and driving too fast. Duncan had called to say he had an extra meeting scheduled – a really important one – and wouldn’t be home till Saturday evening, if that was OK. He’d sounded so excited about the potential deal, so fired up, that I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about what had happened the night before. I couldn’t ruin a really big opportunity for him. I’d be OK for another night, I told myself. I could always sleep at the hospital.

So instead, I’d told him about all the stuff that had happened the previous day, things that had seemed so important at the time: finding the ring on my boot, checking the various registers and visiting both the Hawick family home and the graveyard. Speaking far too fast, praying he wouldn’t notice how shaken I still was, I’d even told him about my plans to carry out an illicit search of dental records. He’d listened
patiently until I’d just about done, then dropped his bombshell.

‘I found it,’ he was saying, ‘months ago.’

I couldn’t take it in. The ring had been stuck to the bottom of my wellington. It had been buried beneath six feet of peat with the dead body of its owner.

‘Where? How?’ I managed.

‘In the bottom field. Last November, I think, before you came out. I was laying concrete to put the fence posts in. I just saw it, lying on a pile of earth. I must have dug it up.’

‘But, what . . . you never said!’

‘I didn’t give it much thought. I wasn’t even sure what it was. It was filthy and I wanted to get the job finished. I threw it into my tool box and forgot about it.’

And suddenly, it all made complete sense: the ring had been in Duncan’s toolbox. I’d dislodged it when I’d been looking for something to cut the wire around Charles’s leg and it had landed, to be found shortly afterwards, on the stair. It had been nowhere near my wellington and – more importantly – nowhere near the grave. The fence that Duncan had built around our bottom field was a good hundred yards downhill from where I’d tried to bury Jamie. The ring was a total red herring after all.

‘But how did it get there?’ Red herring or not, it still didn’t add up.

‘Good question. Assuming it really is the wedding ring of the woman who died – Kirsten, was that her
name? Is it possible it wasn’t? How clear was the inscription?’

‘Not very.’ I hadn’t even been completely sure about the letters. Only the date was clear and, as I’d discovered, several weddings had taken place that day.

‘Tor, you’re not really going to check dental records, are you? At best it’s a waste of time and at worst highly unprofessional, probably even illegal. Don’t get involved any more.’

It’s not often Duncan asks me to do something. When he does, I nearly always agree.

‘No, of course not. You’re right.’ I meant it, too. It had all gone far enough.

‘Good girl. I’ll see you tomorrow. Love you.’

He hadn’t said that in a long time. By the time I was ready to respond, he’d hung up.

I was on the edge of Lerwick now and drove quickly to the hospital. I glanced at the car clock. I was going to be ten minutes late. I parked the car and jumped out, wincing. It occurred to me that I might be coming down with some sort of summer flu bug: every limb was aching, I had what seemed like a raging hangover even though I’d drunk nothing the night before, and felt like I hadn’t slept in a week. And now I was ten minutes late for a bollocking from Kenn Gifford.

He was waiting for me in my office, looking out of the window, already dressed in blue surgical scrubs, his long hair scraped back in a ponytail.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, turning round.

‘Been better,’ I replied.

I might feel like shit but Gifford wasn’t looking his best either. His narrow eyes were little more than slits in his face and the shadows under them had deepened.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ I said. ‘Duncan phoned on my way in. Slowed me up a bit.’ I told Gifford about Duncan finding the ring. When I’d finished, he nodded.

‘I’ll call Joss Hawick. It’s almost certainly not his wife’s ring, but if he wants to pursue the matter he can call into the police station to identify it. If it is hers, it looks like we have a pilfering problem; a particularly distasteful one, at that, if someone is robbing the morgue. I’m sorry all this is happening, Tora, it can’t be easy settling in with all these distractions. Can I get you a coffee?’

‘Thanks,’ I said, and he walked over to the coffee-maker in the corner and poured two cups.

‘Do you have some sort of master key?’ I asked.

He turned round, a steaming mug in each hand, and raised his eyebrows.

‘I lock my office in the evening but you managed to find your way in and organize breakfast. Do you have croissants baking as well?’

‘I’ll happily nip out to the bakery. Mr Stephenson’s been waiting three months for his bypass and I’m sure another half-hour won’t hurt. But, no. Having a master key – and using it – would be pretty unprofessional, don’t you think? Unless, of course, you’re a cleaner. Like the one who was in here when I arrived and who let me stay and make coffee. Just
thought you might need it.’ He handed me a mug. The warmth in my hands was comforting, like a hug from an old friend. He was standing very close to me and I didn’t move away.

‘DI Dunn came by earlier,’ he said. ‘He wanted Stephen Renney to confirm the heart wasn’t human.’

‘And . . .’ I prompted, although I was pretty certain I’d been right the night before.

Gifford led me to two easy chairs in the corner of the room. He motioned for me to sit and I did. So did he.

‘From a pig,’ he said. ‘Andy’s got people checking all the butchers on the islands. If anyone bought a heart in the last few days he’ll soon know about it.’

‘Is he still going with his practical-joke theory?’

Kenn nodded. ‘I think he’s right, don’t you? Why would the killer, assuming he’s still around, take such a huge risk? Supposing you’d seen him last night.’

Then I’d be dead right now.

‘Andy’s done his best to keep details under wraps,’ continued Gifford, ‘but this is a small place. Things get out. Any number of people might know that you found the body, about the missing heart, about her stomach contents. As jokes go it’s not particularly tasteful but there are some very odd people around.’

‘And I’m not exactly Miss Popular.’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ He stood up. ‘You need somewhere to sleep tonight,’ he said. ‘I’d offer my spare room, but I’m not sure how that would go down with Duncan.’

Suddenly I couldn’t look at him.

‘Is Inspector Dunn making much progress with the murder investigation?’ I asked, partly because I was sure the island police would have been more forthcoming with one of their own than they had been with me, and partly because a change of subject seemed to be called for.

‘They’ve pretty much ruled out the victim being a local woman,’ he said. ‘She matches no one on the missing-persons list. Andy has his team combing similar lists for the rest of the UK. When they find a possible match they’ll use dental records to confirm identity.’

Dental records that were, at that moment, in my briefcase. I must have looked guilty as hell, but if he noticed he gave no sign.

‘It’s not exciting, it’s not glamorous, but it’s good solid police work and sooner or later it should get results.’

‘You’d think so, but . . .’ I stopped. Kenn had known Dunn since school, he’d known me for a matter of days. Where did I really think his loyalty was going to lie?

‘But what?’ he prompted.

‘It just seems . . . sometimes I think . . .’ I stopped. Kenn was looking at me, waiting for me to go on. I was in for it now. ‘He just doesn’t seem to be taking it terribly seriously. First the body was an archeological find, then the victim couldn’t possibly be local, and then last night was a practical joke. It’s like he’s trying to play it down all the time, make out it’s less serious than it is.’

Kenn was frowning at me, but whether he didn’t believe me and was annoyed, or whether he did and was alarmed, I really couldn’t tell.

‘Dana Tulloch thinks so too,’ I went on. ‘She hasn’t said anything, she’s far too professional for that, but I can tell the way she’s thinking sometimes.’

He sighed. ‘Tora, there’s something you need to know about Sergeant Tulloch.’

‘What?’

‘I’m probably breaking all sorts of professional confidences now but, well, Andy Dunn and I go back a long way.’

‘I know. You all do up here.’

He smiled. ‘This is not Dana’s first sergeant’s job. She was a sergeant in Dundee. She also did a spell in Manchester. Neither job worked out and she agreed to two transfers. I get the impression this is her last chance in the force.’

I was amazed. ‘But she’s just so . . . competent.’

‘Oh, she’s bright enough. IQ off the stratosphere. One of the reasons she’s lasted so long. But there are other problems.’

‘Such as?’ I didn’t like this. The previous day I’d found myself warming to Dana, even starting to like her. It didn’t feel right to be talking behind her back.

‘I don’t remember much of my psychology but I’d say she shows signs of obsessive compulsive disorder. I think there’ve been eating problems in the past, maybe there are still, she’s very slim. And she has a compulsive interest in order and organization and external appearances. She’s been known to throw a
complete tantrum when someone moves a stapler on her desk.’

‘So she’s tidy.’ I glanced round my office: utter tip, as usual. ‘Christ, we could all do with having that problem.’

‘Look at the way she dresses. Have you ever seen her less than immaculate? How does she afford that on a police sergeant’s salary? And what about the car she drives? Not only is it a Mercedes but it looks like she just drove it out of the showroom. Every police officer I’ve ever met has a car like a municipal dump. You can’t see the carpet for fag ends, the remains of takeaway dinners and Mars bar wrappers. That’s if you get one of the more refined ones. Her car gets vacuumed every day.’

‘What are you saying?’

He walked over to my window. ‘She’s believed to be seriously in debt,’ he said to the seagulls outside. Then he turned round to me again. ‘She can’t stop spending money. Money she doesn’t have. And she can’t work as part of a team. She’s secretive. Drives Dunn up the wall and makes her very unpopular with her colleagues. If people question her methods, she always assumes the problem lies with them; that there’s some sort of conspiracy to get at her.’

I remembered her actions the previous evening, working with me rather than any of her colleagues, not letting them know where she was or what she was up to. It had seemed odd at the time; now it made more sense. And that was before her accusations against Gifford and Dunn, or her persuading me to
carry out an illegal search of confidential records. Oh great, my new best friend was a fruit-cake!

‘Dana Tulloch needs professional help, in my view,’ said Gifford. ‘You, on the other hand, need to come to terms with what’s happened and move on.’

‘You mentioned that before.’

‘And it bears repeating. This case may never be solved.’

I looked at him and shook my head.

‘Ask any police officer,’ he continued. ‘The chances of solving a murder are always greatest in the first twenty-four hours. Just one day goes by and the trail starts to go cold. This trail is two years cold and our friend down in the morgue matches no one on the missing-persons list and no one who had a baby on the islands that year. She almost certainly wasn’t local.’