The Night Hunter (21 page)

I
n the end Vera Haddow was easy to find – Mary had left enough clues – six stories up in a block of flats in Broomhill. It was getting away from Parnell and Charlie that proved difficult. Her flat is only a mile from my own flat in Glasgow, and I have a million and one reasons to drive down to Glasgow early on Wednesday morning. By half past ten I am standing on the concourse of the tower block, looking up, thinking what hell it must be to live here with a child. The residents seem happy, though, cheery folk who meet on the stairs and chat to each other.

In the lift I ask two of them what number Vera Haddow lives at, and they look at me with some suspicion. I say the paperwork I’ve been given refers to the wrong tower block, that I’m here about young Charlie.

‘Charles,’ I am corrected. But they accept my knowledge as some kind of proof that I’m legit.

One minute later I am outside her door.

She is a thin woman, of a similar type to Mary and Natalie, small boned and dark, her hair in a very modern spiky cut but her face much older, more weary. Her short nails constantly rake the white skin of her forearm as she holds the door open a crack.

‘Hello, I’m looking for Vera Haddow,’ I say.

‘Who’s looking for her?’

‘My name is Elvie McCulloch, I’m a friend of Mary.’ My name is not a surprise to her. ‘She came to see you? I’m worried about her.’

‘Mary? Is she OK?’ The door opens a little.

I can tell by the way she said it she knows something bad has happened, and she is not surprised.

‘I’m not sure. I’m trying to find her,’ I answer truthfully. ‘She mentioned you in a diary.’ I’m out of ideas now. ‘Why did she come to see you?’

She leans her head on the side of the door. ‘It was about Charles.’

‘Your son?’

The lips purse into something like a smile. ‘My Charles, yes.’ She explains. ‘My son is Charles Alexander Parnell but my ex-husband thinks my son is not good enough to inherit the name. Hence Mary’s son is also called Charles. I hope he fares better, for his sake.’ She holds open the door so I can see into the living room, where a chubby boy of about ten is staring at a huge computer monitor. Letters appear on the screen in a grid, he clicks on the mouse. Makes a word from the letters and moves on. He gets ‘hose’, then ‘stern’. His focus is total. He does not look up as we cross the narrow hall to peer into the living room. My mum used to give me a row for ignoring people like that.

‘That’s Charles. He doesn’t speak much, he has something like autism.’ Vera stands at the door, leaning against the frame.

‘That makes him a wee bit special,’ I say quietly, recalling my dad’s words to me. Charles finds the word ‘tins’ and moves on.

She looks at me and smiles, properly this time. ‘Well, the minute Alex noticed that there were issues, he didn’t want the boy around. My ex-husband is a perfectionist. I was acceptable but our disabled son was not. Alex wanted him to go into care. So I left and I took Charles with me. It was the only time I ever defied him.’ Her eyes flick along the narrow hall as if to say,
and this is what I got.

‘But why do you live here? Alex is a millionaire, he should support you.’ The boy finds the word ‘tern’.

‘I don’t want his money. I don’t want him tracking us down.’ She rubs her cheekbone at some memory that is still too close for comfort. ‘He doesn’t know you’re here, does he?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Mary just wanted to see Charles, to see what had become of us, to see how far Alex Parnell will go to get his own way. Take your pick.’ Her voice warms a little as she regards her child. ‘She knew the rot was setting in with Alex, another woman will be waiting in the wings somewhere. Mary realized she was expendable.’

Past tense. I watch Charles find ‘nest’.

‘Do you think he would do anything that would bring harm to Mary?’

‘Apart from the odd beating, a punch, a slap,’ she pauses, lost for a moment, then shrugs. She looks me straight in the eye. ‘Please don’t come back here again,’ she says politely. ‘We are happy as we are.’

The boy tries ‘tini’.

‘Of course,’ I say, then I turn to the kid. ‘You can get “shine” and “shiniest”, and if you look carefully, “itchier”.’

‘OK,’ says Vera. ‘Maybe you can come back after all.’

But she closes the door in my face just the same. I know that Alex Parnell can find anybody anywhere, Eric told me that. A closed door won’t stop him.

By ten o’clock Charlie is fast asleep in his bed, dreaming whatever troubled four-year-olds dream about. I’ve promised him that I will stay the night in his bedroom, on the big Mickey Mouse bean bag in the corner. Since Mary has gone, Charlie is becoming more distant from his dad and more clingy with me.

He shocked me at teatime, dipping his soldiers into his egg and telling me that his mum is with Sophie and that’s a good thing. If he hangs around with me while I look for my sister, he will find his mum. This logic seems to make him happy.

Once he’s safely asleep, I go out and sit in the garden with a strong coffee. I must have been out there for nearly half an hour when I hear Parnell’s car. He drives right to the rear of the house, gets out and waves at me. I wave back, welcoming him back to his own house.

‘Hi, how is the wee man?’ He walks across the patio towards me, places his briefcase on the wrought-iron chair opposite, followed by his phone and his car keys.

‘Charlie’s fine. Well, he’s asleep. I said that I’d stay with him tonight, in case he wakes up.’ I am telling him, not asking him.

He lifts his case slightly then places it back down with some unspoken change of mind.

‘He was getting grouchy so I thought it better he went to his bed rather than wait up for you. But he wants you to give him toast soldiers for breakfast tomorrow.’

His shoulders fall in some kind of resignation. ‘Yes, I suppose that’s best. Do you want anything?’ He gestures into the kitchen. ‘I’m going to get a drink. You mind if I join you out here?’

‘Not at all.’

He purses his lips. I can’t read what is going through his mind. Is this a powerful man rendered impotent or a guilty one trying not to get caught? He walks away across the patio to the house.

When he returns a few minutes later he has loosened his tie, his top shirt buttons are undone. His fingers are tight round a crystal tumbler of malt. He sits opposite me and the silence between us is restful and reflective. He closes his eyes, absorbing the quiet and dying heat of the day.

‘It’s only now that I can appreciate what you have been going through for the last four months. This is worse than when my mum died, just the worst thing.’ He takes a heavy mouthful of malt. ‘It’s an old cliché but it’s true: there’s nothing worse than not knowing – we have no idea where Mary is and we have no idea when we will get her back,
if
we will get her back.’

‘I know exactly how bad it is. That’s why I can’t sit and do nothing. I need to find Sophie.’

He places the tumbler on the table, glass against iron. The ice tinkles against crystal, the noise sharp and cold.

‘You shouldn’t drink much more of that, in case you get a call and have to drive.’

He smiles at me. ‘It’s good that you care. Not many people do.’

‘I’m sure that’s not true.’

He throws me a look of disbelief.

‘OK, maybe not for you, but they care for Mary. For Charlie.’

That gets a shrug of resignation. ‘Walk a mile in my shoes before you judge me, Elvie. I bet you’re sitting there thinking what a bastard I am. She told you about Vera, didn’t she?’

It crosses my mind that he has had me followed. So what? He doesn’t know about the diary. ‘I went to see her today; she doesn’t know any more than we do.’

‘Vera is a good girl. Not the brightest. You see me as a man who takes a young wife and hides her away in the middle of nowhere, who doesn’t let her mix or have any friends. A man with a big house, all the money in the world and a lovely son. A man who threw out his first wife when our son was born less than perfect.’

So he knows what was said. ‘That was running through my mind,’ I say glibly. ‘But like you say, I’d need to walk a mile in your shoes.’

‘Vera should change the record.’

‘It was a legitimate part of the investigation, as Billy would say.’

‘Leave nae stane unturnt,’ he quotes, mimicking Billy’s broad accent.

‘No matter what crawls out.’ I meet his eyes. He knows he doesn’t intimidate me. His gaze floats out to the middle distance.

‘Do you know what the problem is with women like you?’

‘Enlighten me.’

‘Sorry, that came out wrong. I’m tired.’ He rubs his face with his sleeve, looks round the garden as if he will find better words in the shadows. ‘You’re … nice; you’ve grown up in a nice world. Nice detached house in Eaglesham with your mum and dad, your sister, your brother, the family Volvo, the university. This little piggy went to law school, this little piggy went into medicine. Mary was cosseted, protected from the evils of the world. She sees it as a nice place and she’s wrong. The security, the anonymity you take for granted I have to buy. Charlie is my son, Mary is my wife. They are not normal by that definition alone. They are something of value. And I will do all I can to keep them safe. I get bloody angry when Mary doesn’t see that. You think I am controlling, but I’m just concerned for their welfare.’ He looks down into his glass. ‘Do you understand that I need to keep my family safe? I don’t know if I ever recovered from Natalie’s murder. Life can be gone in an instant. Now Mary is gone. Do you see why I would have done anything to avoid that?’

‘I do see it. But lack of freedom is not easy to live with.’

Alex talks on, like he has not heard. ‘Vera refused to see it. But I loved her and I loved Charles. There is absolutely no truth in what she told you – that I turned my back on them both because of the way he is. My marriage to Vera was perfect until he was born. And then he became the entire focus of her existence, she began acting more and more strangely and pulling Charles with her. He was a difficult child. We went to the best specialists to find out what the issue was. By the age of two he was starting to lose all the skills he had gained – the kid was going backwards. Toilet training wasn’t happening; he became clumsy, he had no expression. No more smiles for Daddy. We were told that all he needed was a bit of help, some extra attention and social exposure. And that putting him in care in those early years would be the best for him, so his stimulation was twenty-four seven. A therapeutic environment. But Vera was having none of it, she was his mother and she knew better. So she went to more and more specialists until we had diagnoses up to our armpits. It was a fucking joke. The more symptoms they mentioned the more of them Vera saw in Charles.’

‘Maybe she was just worried about him.’

‘Really? When he cried I wasn’t even allowed to pick him up. I wasn’t allowed to feed him or change him. I wasn’t allowed to put him to bed because I didn’t do it right. I wasn’t allowed to look in at him after work in case I woke him up. She even slept with him; her whole life was focused on the kid. I tried to get help for her but she said only she understood what wee Charles was like. And I was only doing it all to try and take Charles off her.’

I recall Vera’s account of the same story, seeing the common ground, but I could see each parent believing their own version.

Parnell takes a gulp of whisky, more than is good for him. ‘It’s bloody impossible to live a life like that, living in the same house as your family but never invited to be part of it.’

He looks over the glass, back to the middle distance. ‘It was not the way I wanted my life to go. Do you know, it was a bloody relief when she left. I could just come home and put the TV on, have a takeaway and a pint.’

‘I visited them, Alex. Your son is growing up without a garden.’

‘And that’s your idea of the breadline, is it?’ He is laughing at me now. ‘She chooses to live that way. There’s money in an account waiting for them; all she has to do is visit the hole in the wall and take it out. But she thinks that will give me control over her. Or that it will allow me to find out where she lives, as if I don’t know. I have money in a trust fund for him, for his future, yet he will never learn to eat properly because Vera prefers to spoon-feed him. It’s her that has the problem, not him.’

I say nothing, but my mind is turning. Those fingers over the keyboard, competent. Then Vera the first wife meeting Mary the second wife, and talking about Parnell the control freak – how did that meeting really pan out?

‘As it is now, I know where he is and that he’s safe, and when the time is right I will intervene. I know what he does every day. He’s in a new day care facility at the school and Vera goes with him as a classroom helper. I have contact with the woman who runs the place, we speak often.’

‘So in effect you’re looking over her shoulder all the time?’

‘You would think less of me if I didn’t.’

‘Fair point,’ I concede.

He takes another sip. ‘I do what I can. I will be there whenever they need me, and that’s the best I can do. Are you sure you don’t want to join me in a drink?’

‘No, one of us should stay sober at least.’

‘Are you and Hopkirk busy on Friday?’

‘Why?’

‘Because you are now. I want you to go and get Mary back.’

Q
ueen Street station on Friday afternoon is noisy, busy, sweaty and chaotic. From my seat at Costa, I watch Parnell walk over to a central bin and place the large holdall on the ground next to it. His instructions are to stay there for ten minutes as if he’s waiting for a travel announcement. The station is getting crowded now, so I walk around to keep the bin in view. There is that familiar prickle in my legs, usually a sign that I’m stressed about something. My watch says three-thirty, way too early for rush hour, but the station is filling up with groups of young people, student types. There is standing room only on the concourse now. I see Billy leaning against the wall at the toilet dressed like a jakey. A man is taking an outrageously long time in the queue at the coffee kiosk; every so often he scratches his ear then I see him talk up his sleeve. He has a mike on his wrist. Billy notices and gives me a shrug. Something odd is going on, there is expectation in the air. The station is too busy. I see a man wearing a blue top, his hat hiding a microphone and a radio. I’m looking around as if for a poster, or a notice of a special bus service, a sign to queue here for a concert or something, when a loud clang shatters the air.

Everything stops.

The first two chords of Michael Jackson’s
Thriller
ring out.

There are whoops of delight. People either look round or stand up. Then everyone in sight is on their feet, moving, dancing.

I lose sight of the bin. I look left and right and can’t see the guy at the coffee kiosk or the one in the blue sweatshirt. All I can see is a heaving mass of bodies moving to left and right, dancing like zombies. They are out of sync, and the music is too loud and distorted. I get up on a rail, trying to gain a viewpoint. Billy has had the same idea, but a young girl with auburn ringlets pulls him down, forcing him to join the dance. I see the guy with the blue shirt now, standing on a bench, screaming to be heard down his mouthpiece. I see him point to the North Hannover Street exit. I climb down and push my way through the crowd and out the door to see a man cycle off down the steep hill to George Square, a holdall strapped to his back. A holdall that was the same style, but not big enough to hold the money. There is no point in giving chase. I go back in. The zombie walk moves towards the far end of the station as one living mass, revealing the bin. The bag and the money are gone.

I run out the door down on to George Square but there is nothing to be seen. A motorbike goes past. At first it looks like there’s a pillion rider, but it is a large holdall strapped to his back. A big-enough holdall. The bike turns down a pedestrian lane behind some hoardings and is out of sight, moving north towards the motorway. The scream of the bike engine fades to nothing.

He is well away.

And so is the money.

‘Did you get anything?’ I’m sitting in the seat next to Costello; Billy sits opposite us. The café is busy, there’s a queue out the door and the air stinks of sausage rolls. Costello is biting the corner of her lips.

Billy is moaning; he has injured himself climbing on the rails at the station. ‘I feel like I have a wasp up my arse. I should be on danger money for this.’

‘Have you ever had a wasp—?’

‘Oh, shut up, you two.’ Costello calls the waitress over and orders. ‘And can you be quick? We only have five minutes.’

‘We close in four,’ says the girl without a trace of humour.

‘Make it very quick then.’

‘Just give me any bun you have left,’ says Billy.

The girl looks at him blankly, then heads slowly back to the counter.

‘So what did you get? We got nothing.’

‘A load of students walking about as if they’d shat their pants?’

Costello ignores him. ‘CCTV got three holdalls, all in the same brown and red pattern as the one that Parnell was asked to put the money in. The big one with the money was passed hand to hand to a bike outside, which went uphill through some roadworks, through the barrier, out the opposite way towards Springburn then away.’

‘That was all I saw. You probably got ten seconds more than we did.’

‘They knew the flashmob was going to go off – they took advantage. It worked very well. The three students we got hold of say they were asked to do it as an experiment to “quantify the reliability of eye witness statements”. We haven’t yet traced the root of that, all social media. Load of crap, of course, but they knew the flashmob was going live at some point so it seemed a legit experiment.’

‘The drop was well planned, though; they thought that through well.’

‘I’ll make sure they get a gold star,’ says Costello bitterly.

‘What is the point of those flashmob things?’ asks Billy. He’s trying to sit down properly, testing the weight-bearing capacity of his backside.

I shrug.

‘There is no point, that is the point,’ Costello tells him. ‘It’s called enjoying yourself. Not a concept I’m familiar with myself, I have to confess. Well, not lately.’

‘Not going well with Red Rum then?’

‘Piss off.’

Billy says, ‘I thought they were spontaneous. Flashmobs.’

Costello replies with ill-concealed contempt. ‘Within a few hours – yes, but all they need is the internet link. They’d told Parnell to be ready with the money. As soon as they knew when the flashmob was going live they told Parnell to be there pronto. There have been flashmob incidents all over the place. Summer madness. Last week it was Waverley station.’

Billy slurps his tea from an old-fashioned mug, rips some jam doughnut with his teeth then palms a Tramadol. ‘Are you tracking the chip in the money?’

‘Are we hell! I wouldn’t have the budget to track my granny round Marks and Spencer, never mind stolen money across Glasgow.’

‘Parnell’s team are tracking it,’ I say. ‘When it gets to its final destination, they’ll get in touch with us.’

‘And you will get in touch with me.’

‘Of course.’

‘No heroics.’

‘No.’

‘So now we sit and wait.’

Plinky-plinky-plink.

‘Billy, I will kill you if you don’t change that ring tone.’ Costello is getting stressed as his clumsy thumbs struggle to answer the phone before it goes to voicemail.

He answers it, listens. ‘The chip in the money has stopped moving. It’s in a bin in Milngavie Country Park. The money’s gone.’ Billy then listens intently to Parnell. ‘Yes … we’ll meet you there, sure. Yes, she’s here. Yeah, we know.’ Billy puts the phone down.

‘Well, they knew about the chip and took it out.’

‘Sounds familiar. What’s going on here? I suppose it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that the modern kidnapper has a device for checking tracking devices.’

‘So how do we find Mary?’

‘Parnell will have something up his sleeve. We’ve to go round to Park Circus for a meeting right now.’

‘Well, you’d better go then. Keep me posted, won’t you? If anything happens, I need to know. Shame we don’t have the budget to chase this.’

‘You mean you don’t have a pot to piss in now you have a nice shiny office, hen?’ says Billy, backhanding jam from his lips and smearing it on his face. Even Charlie has got the hang of that one.

‘Well, I’ll stand you the tea and doughnut.’ Costello gets up to leave, and her phone goes. ‘Hello, Matilda, what can I do for you?’ She sits down again, her face growing paler; her lips smile but her eyes crease. Conflict, a bittersweet memory. ‘Oh, that is interesting. Yes, you did the right thing to ask me. OK, I’ll sanction it. I do know that name, Sean McTiernan is a blast from the past. Thanks, Matilda. Don’t tell Parnell that we’ve spoken. Act like you’re doing him a big favour. I’ll deal with the dynamic duo at this end.’