The Book of Souls (The Inspector McLean Mysteries) (33 page)

'Boxing Day? And you've only just come to us now?'

'Aye, well. We'd had a bit of a row, see.' Harry Lubkin didn't meet McLean's eye, instead finding the polished linoleum floor quite fascinating, his chubby fingers even more so.

'A row, I see. Was this a common occurrence?'

Harry looked at his mother, said nothing.

'Whit a temper that girl has,' Mrs Lubkin filled the space. 'An' strong wi' it. You can see what she did to my poor wee Harry here. Black eyes, bruises all over. She fair near broke his nose.'

'Is this true, Mr Lubkin?' McLean reappraised the injuries on Harry's face, then took out his notebook and pen, flipped through to an empty page. He didn't think he'd be needing to take any notes, but it helped with the reassuring act.

'Yes, well... She can be a bit headstrong, inspector. But that's what I love about her.' Harry looked at his mother. 'Mostly we get along just fine. Sometimes though, well it all gets a bit much. She usually goes off and stays with a friend. That's why I didn't think much about it. But when she'd not come back for Hogmanay, I phoned around. Nobody's seen her all week.'

Mrs Lubkin made a small 'tsch' noise which spoke far more eloquently of her true feelings on the matter than any words she might have used. McLean looked at the two of them and began to understand.

'Do you live with your son and daughter-in-law, Mrs Lubkin?' He asked. She looked at him as if he was mad.

'Me? Don't be daft. I'd sooner take my chances at the old folks home.'

'So you're just visiting for Christmas and New Year.'

'That's right. Came over on the train Christmas Eve. I'd be heading back tomorrow  morning, but if she doesn't turn up I'll have to stay and look after my wee boy.'

McLean did some counting in his head. 'So you'd been staying a couple of days before she walked out. And she shouted at you, you say. Attacked Mr Lubkin here.'

'That's right. Called me some right filthy things.'

'And you spoke to her friends, you say.'

'I spoke to her mate Shelley, aye. But she's not heard anything,' Harry said.

'Does she have a mobile? Your wife, that is?'

'She left it behind.' The fat man dug into the pocket of his voluminous trousers and pulled out a tiny mobile, dwarfed by his great, fat sausage-fingers. 'Her purse too. Just took a coat and her keys.'

That all too familiar creeping cold sensation began to form in the pit of his stomach. Looking down at his notepad, McLean realised he'd started writing things down.

'Have you got a picture of your wife we could use, Mr Lubkin? Something we can run past the hospitals just in case there's been an accident.'

It was Mrs Lubkin who produced a photograph from the depths of her canvas bag. McLean took it, seeing a young, red-haired woman, not thin but neither in the same league as her husband. Trisha Lubkin. Quite what she was doing married to the Bunter sweating opposite him, he had no idea.

'I didn't get your address, Mr Lubkin.' McLean looked at the half-filled form that Sergeant Dundas had given him. Lazy sod couldn't even be bothered to process the initial contact properly.

'Liberton,' Harry Lubkin said. 'Up on the brae near the University. Usually when she's angry Trisha just walks up the hill to Mortonhall. That's where her mate Shelley lives.'

And suddenly it wasn't funny at all.

~~~~

48

Snow whipped through the skeletal trees, driven sideways by a cold, lazy wind. McLean hunched his coat up around his shoulders, trying to keep what little warmth he had taken from the van to himself, rather than sharing it with the rest of Midlothian. A motley crew of grumpy looking uniforms gathered around him, stamping feet and clapping hands together in the deepening gloom.

'Right, you've all got a picture of Trisha Lubkin, and you've each got a list of addresses.' He looked around the group for signs of assent, but wasn't surprised not to receive any. A blue-faced DC MacBride finished handing out the last of the photocopies and shoved his hands firmly back in his pockets.

'Now, we're assuming she walked up the hill. That was her preferred direction, and that's where her friend lives. Most likely destination for a woman in a light coat. I want you to split up and start knocking on doors. She was last seen around six thirty on the evening of Boxing Day. That's the twenty-sixth for those of you who're hard of thinking. I want to know if anyone saw her, or if anyone saw anything unusual that night.'

McLean shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, as if there might be some heat down there he hadn't known about before. The constables huddled around him in a small semi-circle, looking to each other for reassurance, or company.

'Come on people. The quicker we get started, the quicker we'll be finished.'

He watched them scuttle off, knocking on doors and peering through letterboxes. DC MacBride stood beside him, shivering slightly.

'You reckon they'll get anything?' he asked.

'Chance'd be a fine thing. She's been gone a week, Stuart. The trail was probably cold an hour after she left the house.'

*

The sound is so alien to her that it takes long moments for her to realise what it is. Lost in her world of misery, she has withdrawn so far that she isn't even sure she's alive. But now she can hear. The tap, tap, tapping of footsteps, echoing down a corridor. And with the noise come other sensations. First the warmth, all around her like an enveloping cocoon. Then there's the pain in her ankles and wrists, where rope chafes at her flesh. And finally the emptiness in her stomach, the parched dryness in her throat. She breathes shallow, trying to avoid the foul smells that surround her. Has she pissed herself? She can't tell, her skin is so numb against the harsh mattress.

'Help, please.' She tries to shout, but it would be easier to walk on water. Her voice isn't there; just a harsh outflow of breath. And then it occurs to her that the tap, tap, tapping of feet might be whoever brought her here, undressed her, tied her up.

A line of yellow flares across stone arches overhead. It's only the light seeping under a door, but after the endless darkness it's bright enough to hurt her eyes. She screws them shut as the door is pushed open, flinches as more lights are switched on overhead. Their buzzing is a swarm of angry bees.

She squints against the glare, trying to see who has come. But tied to the bed, exhausted by the hours of silence and darkness, she can barely move her head enough to see the walls.

'Ah, good. You're awake.' A man's voice, familiar from somewhere. But where? She tries to remember, but it's hard to do anything as the panic rises.

'Please, help me.' It's little more than a croak.

'I was worried, you know.' Soft, well-spoken, educated. What her mother would have called a trustworthy voice, God rest her naïve soul. 'You slept a long time. Much longer than the other ones.'

The other ones? She cracks open her eyes a bit more, wincing at the pain in her head. Her vision is blurred. Christ, she's still got her contacts in. How long can you wear them before they stick to your eyeballs? The man is standing a few yards away, quite still, watching her. She is suddenly all too aware of her nakedness and the way the ropes spread her legs.

'What do you want?' Each word rasps out of her throat as if it has been posted in a sandpaper envelope.

'What do I want?' The man seems to be considering this for a while. Then he comes closer and she can see he is carrying something. Closer still and he draws up a chair, sits down beside her. His features are indistinct, pink and blue to her dry, lens-filled eyes as he bows his head to the thing he is carrying. Opens it up. A large book.

'I want to read you a story.'

*

McLean didn't know the police station at Howdenhall well, but it had a canteen and that canteen had hot soup. As far as he was concerned, anything else was just window-dressing. He sat at the head of a table of uniformed officers, all tucking in, warming hands and generally looking relieved that their ordeal was over, at least for now. Beside him, DC MacBride went over the results of their door to door enquiries.

'We've got two possible sightings on the evening of the twenty-sixth. Both around seven thirty PM, both people who knew her as a local but didn't know her name.' He looked down the list, making squiggles against it with a chewed biro. 'The rest is just people trying to be helpful.'

'No sightings after then?'

'None.'

'Anyone see anything else? Any cars going slowly?'

'It's the brae, sir. They all go slowly. Uphill at least.'

McLean sighed. He knew damn well that it was too late. Trisha Lubkin had been abducted. If she wasn't dead already she would be soon. And they'd find her naked body under a bridge somewhere in the next day or two, carefully cleaned and laid out in the water.

'It's all wrong,' he said.

'Sir?' MacBride's spoon hovered in front of his mouth, soup splashing back into the bowl and over his papers.

'Anderson killed once a year. He was always in control. Never escalated. That's why we had such a hard time catching him.'

'Well, we know this isn't Anderson. He's dead. This has got to be some sick bastard copy-cat.'

'I know. But why go to all the trouble of copying Anderson and then kill twice in a month? Three times if we're being realistic about it.'

'Don't you think that's a bit premature, sir? I mean, she might just have got on a train and gone to London.'

'She had no money, no phone. She didn't get in touch with any of her close friends. It's possible she went to stay with someone else from work.' McLean tried to cling to that one small sliver of hope. With the holiday today and tomorrow it was almost impossible getting hold of anyone at the bank where Trisha Lubkin worked. Grumpy Bob was meant to be working on a list, but no, the hope was a waste of time. It was too much of a coincidence that she should disappear in exactly the same place as Kate McKenzie.

'I hate to admit it but I don't think we're going to find her alive.'

*

She feels strange. Not the oddness of being tied up for God knows how long, naked and drugged. Drifting in and out of consciousness, she can't quite understand the language the man beside her is speaking. It sounds maybe like Latin. Could be gibberish, what would she know? But the words stick in her head, swirling around in her mind, dredging up long-forgotten memories.

Like the time when she was a kid, down on the beach at Portobello, with wee Jimmy Shanks. They'd been smoking stolen cigarettes, then played 'you show me yours and I'll show you mine.' Christ, she must have been all of ten. But it wasn't that. Not her first sight of a boy's willy. It was after that, when they'd been going home and found that dog. Hit by a car, poor wee sod. Lying at the side of the road whimpering. All broken up and bloody. They'd thought it was funny, had taunted it as it tried to crawl away. Jimmy'd thrown rocks at it and she'd hit it with a stick. Why'd she done that? That wasn't her.

And then he's on top of her. How did that happen? She can still hear him reading the words from the book,  but he's pressing down on her, hands kneading painfully at her breasts, trousers round his ankles, that little boy's willy angry and large now.

She tries to struggle, but his voice fills her head. The dead dog wags its tail and curls back its lips in a snarling grimace of pain. She can see its teeth, flecked with spittle and blood. Close to her head. No, not the dog, the man. She remembers him now, talking to her from his car, offering her a lift, spraying something in her face that knocked her out, raping her.

'Get off! Ah, you fucker!'

She struggles against her bonds, his mad words fading away for an instant. Long enough for her to draw her head back and then snap it forward with all the strength left in her.

*

'How're you getting on with that list, Bob?'