The Reborn (20 page)

Magnus was aware that every letter in the Greek alphabet except one was used in the language of mathematics,
omicron
or ‘
o
’ being too close to the Roman letter ‘o’. He recalled, as a first year pupil in secondary school, being sent to sit at the back of a senior maths class. He had seen the strange symbols being written on the blackboard and hoped that one day he too would understand their meaning. Then, such symbols were like a foreign language the older students in the room understood, while he could only admire its strange forms.

Maybe Kira loved those symbols too, the ones less commonly used, and simply enjoyed drawing them on the page.

Magnus returned to their first appearance during Kira’s work on complex numbers. He wrote a copy on paper of what he thought each symbol was, then went online and checked on the Greek alphabet.

‘
ɩ
’ or the Greek
iota
he decided might be the English ‘i’. ‘
τ
’ he believed could be translated as ‘t’. He studied the next letter for a moment or two and decided it was
beta
. The fourth was
epsilon
. The next he didn’t have a clue about. In its slightly smudged state it could be anything.

He studied the alphabet again, then sought to enlarge the typeface in order to compare the symbols with the unrecognisable one, before giving up and moving on to the sixth, which, if he had been right first time, was ‘i’ again.

Symbol seven he decided was
sigma
used to denote ‘s’. He was now left with:

‘itbeγins’ which looked very like ‘itbegins’.

But what begins?

The phone rang as he sat back, satisfied by his translation but puzzled by its significance, if any.

He picked up the receiver.

‘Professor Pirie?’

He immediately recognised Dr Shan’s voice. ‘Yes?’

‘I tried raising the subject of his signing the dolls in general conversation as you suggested.’

‘And?’

‘It didn’t work.’

I bet it didn’t
, Magnus thought.

‘He has asked that you visit him again.’

Any request or interest from Dr Shan that Coulter deemed unusual would have either enhanced his ego or stirred his suspicions, or both. Magnus had given Dr Shan the job. He couldn’t now complain if he felt she had not carried it out to his satisfaction.

He decided to take a different approach.

‘Do you know if Coulter has sent the doll he was working on when I was last there?’

‘No. But I can check with the mail department for you.’ Dr Shan’s tone was conciliatory.

‘Thank you.’

‘When do you envisage coming back to see Mr Coulter?’

‘As soon as possible.’

This time he wouldn’t have to go through the original channels, not if he had DI Wilson with him.

25

Slater had known nothing of a possible pregnancy pact or the existence of the Daisy Chain gang, so there had been no interviews conducted with its members.

Bill had set DS Clark the task of contacting the girls’ parents. She’d reported back that the families involved had been angry at having their names given out by the school. No doubt Morvern’s principal would be taking the flak over that. As to the reported pregnancies, DS Clark had established that only Melanie remained pregnant, the others having chosen terminations.

Bill and Magnus drew up outside a two-storey sandstone villa. Minutes from Byres Road, the house was in a highly desirable location within walking distance of Melanie’s school.

They had already discussed how Bill planned to conduct the interview; Magnus was there to observe Melanie’s reactions to the questions Bill posed.

He pulled the old-fashioned brass door bell and listened as a clanging resounded in the spacious hallway. The young woman who opened the door was dressed in dark clothes and spoke with an accent he took to be Polish.

Bill showed her his ID and introduced himself. ‘We’re here to speak to Melanie.’

She looked wary, but stood back to let them enter, then indicated a door on the left. ‘In here, please.’

The room they entered was spacious and filled with a soft wintry light. Near the bay window a tall fern plant stood in a waist-high blue ceramic pot, its fronds reaching almost as high as the ceiling. They were urged to take a seat on one of the three thickly cushioned sofas which framed the ornate mahogany fireplace.

‘I’ll tell Melanie you’re here.’

When the girl arrived a few minutes later, she was alone. In black leggings and a patterned top, she was small and slight, apart from the bump of her pregnancy.

Before Bill could ask, she said, ‘Mother is at a medical conference in London. My father’s out of the country on business. I don’t need them here to speak to you anyway.’

Bill began his introductions. Melanie’s reaction to Magnus’s title was a guarded glance in his direction. They took their seats. Magnus next to Melanie on the sofa, Bill opposite.

‘You know why we’re here?’

‘I assume it’s about Kira,’ she said, her manner composed.

‘She was a friend of yours?’

‘We were in the same year at school.’

‘That’s all?’

‘We weren’t close, if that’s what you mean.’

Bill didn’t argue. Instead he said, ‘May I ask when your baby’s due?’

The change in topic took her by surprise, but she quickly covered it. ‘In three weeks.’

‘You must be excited.’

‘I’m having it adopted. I have a place at Edinburgh University.’

‘To study Law, I believe.’

‘How did you know that?’ she said, suspiciously.

‘I visited your school and spoke to your principal, Ms Porter.’ Bill watched her wariness change to anger. ‘I also know that Kira was a good friend of yours. As were Louisa Sommerville, Jocelyn Calderfield and Samantha Wells. In fact, you called yourselves the Daisy Chain.’

Melanie’s face flushed.

‘And that you all got pregnant around the same time.’

‘The school had no business telling you that. My father will be—’ she said angrily.

Bill interrupted her. ‘Kira was found with the words “daisy chain” written on the palms of her hands in mirror writing. Which suggests that whoever killed her and took her baby knew about your little group.’

‘That’s impossible – apart from us, only David knew.’

‘What about Sandie?’

Melanie curled her lip. ‘She wasn’t part of the gang.’

‘Why was that?’

‘Sandie acted like an idiot around boys. It was embarrassing.’

‘Yet she didn’t get pregnant.’

Intense irritation crossed her face, but she didn’t respond.

‘This pregnancy pact?’

‘What do you mean, “pact”?’

‘You were in a gang. You all got pregnant around the same time. That sounds like a pact to me.’

‘The pregnancies weren’t intentional.’

‘So Kira didn’t persuade you all to get pregnant?’

‘Of course not!’

Bill changed the subject. ‘May I ask who the father is?’

She lifted her chin. ‘That’s none of your business.’

‘If it helps bring Kira’s killer to justice, it is my business.’

‘My pregnancy is nothing to do with Kira.’

‘Then it won’t matter if you tell me the father’s name.’

She thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know his name. I was at a party. I got drunk and had sex with someone.’

‘Why didn’t you have a termination?’

‘I’d missed periods before because I was underweight. By the time I realised I was pregnant, it was too late.’ She glanced down at the bump. ‘Now I’m stuck with this.’

‘Kira chose not to have an abortion.’

She shrugged. ‘Kira always had to be different.’

‘Can you think of any reason why someone would hurt Kira and take her baby?’

‘No!’ She looked frightened at the thought.

Bill waited a moment before asking, ‘Why did you meet David Murdoch in the park the day after Kira died?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘I have a photo that shows you two together in the children’s playground.’

The question had unnerved her, but she rallied. ‘David was very upset about Kira. I was sorry for him.’

‘Is David the father of your baby?’

She laughed sarcastically. ‘David’s gay.’

‘Gay men can father children.’

‘Not mine.’

‘Do you know who the father of Kira’s baby is?’

‘No.’

‘Could you take a guess?’

‘She was having sex with someone. Not David. Kira liked to be the first to do things.’

‘So the gang decided to give it a try?’

She didn’t respond.

‘Was Kira frightened of anyone? The person she was having sex with?’

‘Kira wasn’t frightened of anyone, or anything.’ Her tone was admiring, almost wistful. Then she appeared to remember something. ‘Except clowns.’

‘Clowns?’

‘Kira was scared of clowns. We tried to watch a horror film with a clown in it one night and she totally freaked. She tried to pretend she wasn’t frightened, told us she’d seen it before, but she was lying. She made us watch something else instead.’

They left her in the sitting room, the Polish girl showing them out.

‘Well?’ Bill said to Magnus as soon as they were in the car.

‘I think there probably was a pact, or at least a decision to have sex, maybe even daring each other to see who could get pregnant first. It may be Kira was already pregnant and encouraged the others.’

‘So that another pregnancy would dilute the impact of her own?’ mused Bill.

‘These girls were all expected to be something more than just mothers. Maybe they were challenging that assumption.’

Bill recalled Ms Porter saying that it wasn’t always easy being clever.

‘The principal said Kira’s family were practising Christians, that’s why she didn’t abort the baby.’

‘Kira was old enough to have an abortion without their consent,’ Magnus reminded him.

‘Then maybe what David said was true. Kira discovered she was adopted and decided to keep her baby.’

‘Or as Melanie said, Kira always had to be different.’

‘I got the impression that Melanie was hiding something more than a pregnancy pact,’ Bill said.

‘I agree.’ Magnus looked thoughtful. ‘When she turned towards me, her breath smelt unpleasantly sweet, a symptom of the presence of excess ketones. Which suggests she isn’t eating enough during pregnancy, or she’s highly stressed.’

Bill recalled the girl’s unnaturally thin frame. ‘Or both.’

‘I think Melanie’s very frightened and not just about having a baby.’

‘Maybe she’s scared she’ll be next,’ said Bill grimly.

Melanie rose awkwardly from the sofa and went to watch the policeman’s car draw away from the kerb, putting her hands on the bulge of her belly. It felt taut, the skin stretched. She wanted her stomach to be concave again, to be able to trace her hip bones, to be empty.

Her heart had been racing during the interview. She’d felt sure they must have heard it. She wondered why the psychology professor had been there. She’d wanted to ask but had been afraid to. She’d thought if she told them Kira wasn’t a friend, they would just go away. It had never occurred to her that they would know anything about the Daisy Chain.

She fetched her mobile and brought up David’s number, then remembered the steel in his voice when he told her not to phone him, that they must stay away from one another. It had been at her insistence they’d met in the park. She left the window and sat down heavily on the sofa, pushing the mobile away from her, knowing David would be angry if she called. It was all Kira’s fault. The stupid gang, the tattoo. This thing inside her. And now Kira didn’t have to face any of it.

Poor Kira. Her baby cut out, removed, never to be seen again. There were times she wanted the same thing to happen to her. To wake up and find it gone. But she didn’t want to die like Kira. Who might have killed Kira? Her secret lover? But why would he kill Kira and take the baby she said was his? And why would he write ‘daisy chain’ on her hands unless he knew about the gang? Melanie looked down with loathing at the rippling bump that had taken over her body. What if she and the thing inside her were next on the killer’s list? She closed her eyes and forced herself to take deep, heart-slowing breaths.

How had it all gone so wrong? At the beginning it had been a bit of fun. They’d downloaded erotic novels and read them together, voting on their favourite scenes. Then Kira had told them she was having sex with someone, acting out what she’d read. She’d regaled them with every intimate detail of her encounters, then dared them to try it. And they’d played along. It had been impossible not to.

Taking chances had been her idea too. Testing fate, Kira had called it. Leaving it up to the gods. Then she said she wanted to see if she could get pregnant. She became obsessed with it. She wanted to get back at her parents, her father in particular. If she got pregnant, that would show him. Anyway, she’d assured them, if it happened, it would be easy to get a termination.

So Melanie had gone along with it, never thinking it could happen to her. She hadn’t had a period for months, not since she’d begun dieting. Besides, when you were high and drunk, you didn’t care. And now she was the one left to face the consequences. How unfair was that? She hadn’t even seen the guy, because of the mask and the darkness. It was an erotic fantasy that had turned into a nightmare. When she’d told the policeman she had no idea who the father of her child was, it was the truth. None of them had known except Kira, and Kira was dead.

Melanie drew herself up from the couch and went into the hall. Blanka had said her goodbyes until tomorrow, leaving a settled silence in the house that Melanie normally liked but which now made her uneasy. She passed the hall table with her mother’s list of emergency numbers beside the phone and slowly began to climb the stairs.