The Night Hunter (8 page)

He nods to me, grateful that I am going to ask no more.

Billy slapped his arm. ‘You see, fair exchange.’

Jack gets in his car and I think he is about to drive off. Then there is a slight turn of his head, as if he has caught sight of me in the rear-view mirror. The window drops with a funereal hum. ‘You should talk to DCI Anderson.’

The words were said to me but it was Billy who answered. ‘Colin? At Partickhill?’

‘One and the same.’

‘Is he working this case now? Anderson and Costello?’ Billy was leaning in at the car window, as if doing that would stop the pathologist driving off.

‘They were not on the Lennox case, were they? And I wasn’t speaking to you.’

‘We’re a team. I have the charm and she has the balls.’

‘Why do I not doubt that?’

‘So should I go and speak to this Anderson?’

‘He will find you when he’s ready.’ Billy is sitting in the car with two coffees and four jammy Yum Yums. ‘I’ll drink this coffee. Don’t touch yours if you’re not going to drink it, then I can have it.’ He slurps at the lip of his cup noisily. I begin to get that surge of uncontrolled adrenaline; the ice is starting in my veins. The frustration is getting to me. I’m going to be sick or hit Billy if I don’t get moving.

‘Do you mind if I go for a run?’

He frowns as if I have just asked him if I can shit in his car. ‘Whit?’

‘It’s when you put one foot in front of the other, quickly. Not a concept you’ll be familiar with. I need to get out of here. You smell.’

‘Well, I will sit here and enjoy my coffee and Smooth radio. And my Yum Yums.’ He sniffs annoyingly. ‘Then I’ll stick the car up that lane and go for a wee snooze, OK?’

‘I need a run, I need to think.’

‘You’re off your fucking head, but on you go.’ He looks straight ahead and sniffs again. ‘You up to anything tonight?’

‘Babysitting. That is my job now, technically.’

‘Why? Where are they going, Parnell and the lovely Mary?’

‘The Action Medical Research do, I think. At the Hilton.’

‘Oh that, I’ve been stung for that one myself a few times.’ He wipes his nose on the sleeve of his jacket. ‘Off you go then, you have ten minutes. Remember to run in a circle. I’m not coming to get you.’

I slide out the car, peeling my jumper off and tying it round my waist, clipping my phone to my waistband. I warm up on the jog past the Kelvin Hall to the park, and then I run free. I switch off everything but the thoughts in my head. I hear no traffic, only the slap of my feet on the path. I run easily, breathing effortlessly. The pain in my limbs eases with the movement, the blood flowing, my joints are fluid. It feels good. Air floats in and out of my lungs, infusing me with energy. There is nothing like this feeling in the world. My mind focuses on Lorna running through the dark, scared and naked. She is someone that I never knew, yet in a strange way she has become more significant than Soph. Her death was shocking, it really happened. It happened to a human being called Lorna. Lorna laughed and loved and danced and worked, and I owe her something to make it right. I try to empty my head, looking at the trees in full green, verdant and luscious. The oldest trees, the sentinels of the park, stand tall and silent, reaching into the sky. They have stood there for nearly a century, there is nothing new. The autumn will follow the summer, there is death after life. This cycle that we worry about so much is nothing to them.

A jogger runs past the trees on the lower path. She is out of condition, overworking her lungs. She jogs down on to the flat path towards the fountain and I slow my stride so that I don’t catch up. I am watching her but seeing Lorna. Further down the grassy slope the grey stone eyes of Thomas Carlyle stare out across the path. The returning glance of the soldier at the war memorial meets Carlyle’s gaze with a look of complete indifference. The infantryman looks at the philosopher, as they have looked at each other for three generations, and nothing at all passes between them.

A sleek, muscled Rottweiler sniffs the grass behind the war memorial looking for the scent of a squirrel. I look around for my jogging pal and she runs into view on her second circuit. The man with the Rottweiler clips its lead on its neck chain and starts back up the slope to the high path, his hand raised in some acknowledgement to the jogger, who replies with a slight wave and crosses to the other side of the path. The dog pulls hard on its lead, head down, powerful shoulders straining. It opens its jaws as it gets a knee in the guts from its owner. But I have a mental picture of those jaws now. I slow my pace, imagining a dog coming up behind me, thinking of wolves and how they bring down prey.

My calf twitches again. I know what Lorna was running from.

Back on the road I run smoothly, getting a bit of a kick on before slowing to jog up behind the Kelvin Hall and the Transport Museum towards where Billy had vaguely indicated he would be parked. My mobile rings; it’s Rod. He asks me how I am, then tells me the police have been back at the house. More questions but nothing new. The visit upset Grant, who has now locked himself in his bedroom. Rod wasn’t aware that he had put a lock on his door. Rod is scared Grant will harm himself. I reassure him, thinking that it might be the best thing that he can do – then Mum would have to wake up and get him some help. I offer to kick the door in if he needs me to. Rod chuckles, thinking I am joking. We cut the call. I walk into the lane. A metal spike in the road prevents vehicle access. I hear a voice, Billy’s, telling someone to
fuck off
really loudly. I consider the tone – anger? But there is something else. I run round the corner of the block of flats and the Vectra is there, doors open. Billy is wrestling a teenager in a tracksuit. Another boy is rifling through the car. I nearly fail to see the third one who is right beside me, standing guard at the mouth of the lane. Luckily he totally fails to hear me, a benefit of silent footfall. I run past the first ned and kick the one who has Billy in the crotch. I sink my heel into the back of his knee and push hard. As he falls I spin so that my knee comes round and smacks him in the throat. I leave him to fall grunting and spluttering to the ground and tell Billy to get in the car. I jump over the bonnet while the second ned is still thinking what to do. Junkies do not think quickly. I slam the door on his arm; it bounces back and he falls to his knees. I give him a kick in the throat as I go past. I see Billy’s phone on the tarmac. The third junkie is on his way towards the car, a slim blade shining. I walk up to the skinny wee runt. His acne is not as bad as mine, and that incenses me more than anything. I am not scared of the knife in his hand. I walk up to him and bat his arm away from me so hard the knife goes flying, bouncing across the tarmac with the melody of a tubular bell. I grab him by the hair and slam his face into the wall of the flats. He is a featherweight. I hear his nose break, then his cheekbone. I stop. I pick up the knife and walk back round the car.

‘Just drive,’ I say.

‘But he’s in the way.’

‘Well, go over him or round him. Do you want me to drive?’ Now that I can see Billy’s face I know what the other intonation in his voice was: he was scared. He is quivering. He is an old man now, an old man who has had a bad fright. ‘You’ve hurt your wrist. Better go to the Southern and get it checked, old guy like you.’

‘We are driving past the Western,’ he says, pointing.

‘We need to go to the Southern because they will go to the Western.’

‘Did you hurt them that bad?’

‘Yes.’

‘You a black belt or something?’

‘No, just angry.’

‘You were expertly angry.’

‘Krav Maga. Israeli self-defence. Kind of. Go for the eyes, the throat, the knees. If they can’t see, breathe or run then they’re fucked, aren’t they?’

‘You’re bloody good at it.’

‘My dad sent me when I was wee, he thought I had aggression issues.’

‘Remind me not to get you angry.’

Billy wants to ask me something but can’t quite find the words. This is what Soph would call an awkward silence, but I can’t think of anything to fill it.

But Billy does. ‘You know, hen, if you ever decide that medicine is not for you, you could be a great addition to the SAS. I’d just reverse-parked the car up that lane so I could pretend I was driving out if the traffic proles appeared. I got out to use the phone and the wee skinny one jumped me, spilled my bloody coffee – well, your bloody coffee to be precise. Now is the point where you ask who I was phoning that was so important I got jumped.’

‘Consider it asked.’

‘Mr Parnell.’

‘You phoned my boss?’

‘Indeed. You don’t have to look after Charlie tonight.’

‘Is Mary OK with that?’

‘Mary does as she is told.’ He presses a button and the window drops.

I look into the footwell where my rucksack was. The wee toerag had rummelled about but everything was still there. ‘And why am I not looking after Charlie tonight? What am I doing instead?’

‘I told him you were needed on police business.’

‘Did you buy something off those guys before they tried to mug you?’ Now I put the window down, the flow-through drifts caffeine past my nose.

‘And now we need to speak to someone.’ His voice is a little clipped.

‘Who, specifically?’

But Billy is talking to himself, thinking as he goes along. ‘I bet the whole case has come up now for review. That’s why Anderson has been brought in. Jack gave us a heads-up about that one at least.’

‘So where are we going?’

‘The next best thing.’

‘We’re going to the hospital first.’

Two hours and three coffees later we are driving through a housing estate near Glasgow’s most desirable postcode. Spelled Milngavie, pronounced Mill Guy to separate those who belong there from those that just think they do. The phrase ‘Near Milngavie’ raises the value of any property by ten grand, Billy tells me as I drive. He left hospital with an X-ray, a strapped wrist and a prescription for Tramadol.

‘Pull in here,’ he says, pointing to a neat bungalow in Balvie Road, brown roughcast with a newly slabbed driveway.

‘Nice gaff,’ I say, more to annoy him than anything else. I was still thinking about that mark on Lorna’s leg. And Jack’s question about a dog. I needed to chat with this Anderson.

‘Do you think you can be nice in here and only speak when you think it is appropriate? And not hit anybody?’

I tell him to fuck off.

‘Watch your language, sweet cheeks,’ he winks at me.

A thought strikes me. ‘You’re not going to lie to them, are you? If you’re going to impersonate a police officer, I am …’

‘Oh, I spent my whole friggin’ life impersonating a police officer, so I’m not likely to stop now, am I?’

He rings the bell and the door opens so quickly it’s obvious we’re expected. Was this lady the reason for his distraction when he was jumped? She is a small woman, roughly the same age as Billy, with blonde hair dulled with grey, pulled back and twisted into a bun. She looks the sort that would do an Open University course or paint watercolours to amuse herself in her retirement. She is as unlike my mother as you could get, except for the restless look in her eyes. She too is looking for a loved one. I recognize her face from the news clip on the TV, and there is no mistaking the warmth in her eyes when she looks at Billy; their formal greeting has some false restraint about it. I retreat a little, not feeling part of this togetherness. They remind me of a pedigree poodle meeting a stinky mongrel. Billy introduces me as his associate and her smile slips a little when she sees me.

‘Oh, you have an associate now?’

‘Yeah, I use her to scare people,’ Billy says, moving into a narrow hall with a laminated floor and a lot of doors. The glass doors at the bottom end are half open; I can see beyond to the new extension. I can see she has a porthole window like Mary has. The shelves on this one are full of spider plants.

‘Christine’, as she is introduced, smiles at me and has the good grace to keep the smile when she notices the acne and the hairs on the side of my face as I walk past.

‘Now that the door is shut I can tell you who she is,’ says Billy as he walks purposefully into the living room.

Christine sits down on the chair by the window, looks at Billy and then back at me. I stay quiet, I have to speak only when appropriate.

‘This is Sophie McCulloch’s sister.’

Christine’s expression changes to one of five-star sympathy.

‘Sophie? I’m Gilly’s mother.’ She extends her hand for me to shake; her hold lingers.

Billy was the head of the investigation into her daughter’s disappearance, so these two have a professional history that has developed into something personal.

‘Please have a seat.’ She sweeps her arm out like BA cabin crew. ‘Sorry, what is your name?’

‘Elvie.’ I sit down on her coffee-coloured leather suite, pulling my tracksuit bottoms underneath me. She can’t help but glance at my trainers and her spotless carpet. Another thing she shares with my mother.

‘How are your parents coping?’ she asks.

I notice that Billy has sat down and made himself at home, leaning back with his legs crossed. ‘Just my mum.’

Christine nods.

‘I think she’s OK,’ I lie.

‘Every time I get a knock on the door I think that this might be it.’ Christine shudders slightly, and her forefinger caresses her chin as she looks at the photographs on the wall behind my head. I turn to look at the family portraits. Gilly has curly brown hair and a pretty smile. She’s wearing an open-collared white blouse revealing a small gold dolphin leaping on her breastbone. ‘But now the knocks on the door are getting fewer and fewer. And that feels so much worse.’ She starts to well up. ‘I can’t stand the waiting. I had to do something. She went missing on Thursday night, the fourth of March 2010. Not a night I am likely to forget, ever.’ She turns to Billy, her hand outstretched across the arm of the chair to rest on his knee.

Billy has the good grace to look a little embarrassed but pats her hand. ‘Christine, have you seen the news?’

‘Not that woman found in Argyll? Gilly?’ Her hand goes up to her throat. ‘Oh, please, no.’ She shakes her head.