Wilderness (Arbogast trilogy) (11 page)

It was 3:00am. Arbogast smiled as he watched The Killers, a Film Noir from 1946 starring Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner. It was Lancaster’s first movie. He loved this scene most of all. It was subtle for its time. If you watched the main characters and their small talk you would miss the bigger picture. It all happened in the background.
‘It’s all in the background,’
he thought,
‘what’s happening in this case that I can’t see – the connection that’s missing? Where’s my limping man, my missing link?’
Arbogast swirled the ice in his glass and hoped that Hanom Kocack would soon be able to fill in some of the blanks. It had been three hours since he had left the club and he suspected would not be able to phone until it was safe. He had been brought onto the case as ‘the expert’ from Major Crime. He snorted at the thought of it. If you could call finding a missing child after he’d died an accomplishment then he was definitely the best man for the job. He didn’t want to live through that again. He remembered having to tell the mother her son was dead and how she had pounded his chest ‘you said you’d find him,’ she screamed, ‘you promised you’d find him.’ He would never forget that. All the family had been there that day and every one of them had looked at him in that one moment in a mixture of disbelief and hatred. He knew it wasn’t his fault, knew they were all caught up in the moment but she was right – he had promised to find the boy and he supposed that he had, although what use was a corpse to a loving mother? What was worse was that the ‘Cat Sack’ killer was never found – all in all a resounding success. Arbogast still hadn’t been formally introduced to the Major Crime unit but they obviously had faith in him. The rank and file hated Major Crime which had formerly been Serious Crime but was changed in one of the regular departmental reorganisations, which in reality amounted to nothing more than a smoke and mirrors reshuffle which was supposed to point to progress. He knew from his time in CID that some of the constables didn’t like the ‘big guns’ as they called them. They saw only an elite group that they weren’t part of, people doing the glamour work, but that wasn’t the case at all. The truth was that they were the best in their field.  The unit worked across the Strathclyde Force area, with officers parachuted into investigations which best suited their experience. Regional CID teams were usually glad of the help and that had certainly been true this time. But was he overreaching with this ruse with Hanom? What if she didn’t phone and he never heard from her again? The Killers had ended now and he saw on the late night news that a CCTV picture of the missing child had eventually been found.
‘Thank god for that,’
he thought,
‘it’s taken three days to get that out of the system.
’
The picture wasn’t great quality and wasn’t in continuous video capture, rather the stop-start time lapse shots you sometimes see on TV during cases like these. There was Mary, hand in hand with the girl. Kovan had no luggage, no bags but was clutching something in her hand. The sequence showed footage from three separate cameras and followed their journey from outside the bus station through to the departure board and then onto the coach that would end up stalled and stranded in the worst blizzard in 50 years. The TV announcer said the Police had asked for anyone with information to come forward. They had had a good response the first time round but it was good to keep this in the public’s eye. Arbogast hoped it would do some good. He waited until about 4:00, but it was clear the call wasn’t going to come. He woke up later that morning, still fully dressed in yesterday’s clothes, and immediately left the house.

Arbogast thought the investigation was going well. That is to say everyone was busy all the time even if they had yet to make that major breakthrough. The public appeal had helped fill in some of the blanks and they were fairly certain now that Mary Clark had at least been telling the truth about her movements. Witnesses had seen them leave the train and make their way to the bus station. More than sixty people had got in touch to say they’d been on the bus although only about a dozen could remember seeing the pair on board. They hadn’t appeared to be talking much on the bus but Arbogast didn’t think that unusual. How much English is a 5 year old from Turkey likely to know? Rosalind Ying had also identified the van the child had been smuggled into the country from CCTV footage taken at Hull. The border control people said it was far from an exact science and that this must have been one that ‘slipped through the net’. Just that day, they had explained, they had found a container in a cargo ship with five dead Afghan nationals onboard. They’d suffocated and probably paid thousands for the privilege. Back in Lanarkshire the team still hadn’t tracked down ‘Hot Gossip’ who wasn’t at her home address but they agreed they would need to warn her off and set an example. Arbogast hadn’t ruled out that she could be involved in the case but that information would follow in time. They had now interviewed everyone at Dales Travel and one common theme had emerged: although people had been wary of having Stevie Davidson on the staff, they had all said ‘he’d been alright.’ It seemed Stevie had gathered his colleagues together and told them about his past and that it was something that was not going to happen again. Most had respected his honesty but it seemed that Jean Jessop had been bad mouthing him for years, waiting for something to trip him up. Jean had been identified as Hot Gossip and Arbogast knew that they would find her eventually. Meanwhile the door-to-door enquiries continued and more and more paperwork found its way back the HOLMES team who were busy logging and cross referencing data from across the country, searching for correlations on anything that might spur them forward – but so far no joy. This was the grind, the real police work. People think of crime and punishment, but success is determined mainly through hard work and a little bit of luck. Arbogast looked at his phone for the 25
^th
time that morning but still had nothing from Hanom. At the morning briefing he updated the team on the evening’s work and they all hoped now it had been the right thing to do. Later, sat in the canteen with an undersized cup of powdered machine coffee, Arbogast looked out at the ice and snow, “and the piano played on,” he said to himself, “just tell me what’s in the fucking background please – I can’t see for looking.”

Sandy Stirrit had a feeling he might be onto something. His report last night had helped to generate fresh leads for the Police and more and more people seemed to be coming forward. Newswise it had been a quiet couple of months and it was great to finally get something juicy to sink his teeth into. The weather had been stretching their resources. Usually when it snowed everything stopped and the bulletins felt more like extended weather forecasts. People he met would always say ‘you must love it’ as they’d have their pick of snow stories, but in truth everyone hated it. Reporters hated finding snow stories and viewers quickly reached the point where they hated hearing about it, but they kept on doing it anyway. In the last 20 years bad winters had become rare, until recently when they had had three ferocious winters in a row.
‘Maybe the climate is changing after all,’
he thought, making a mental note to chase up the science after the big thaw had set in. This time had been different though and they had a bona fide drama which just happened to coincide with the weather or ‘snow hell’ as they called it in the newsroom. He had cut out the offending tabloid and stuck it to the wall. The ‘Snow Paedo’ headline had become legend. Sandy knew it was probably a mistake that would cost the paper dearly in court but the name had stuck. If they found the guy and he hadn’t done anything he could sue but then they probably made the call that a convicted sex offender wouldn’t want to bring any unwanted attention on himself, as if he could avoid that now. And so it seemed he didn’t matter. Stevie Davidson had turned into a commodity. There were no arrests so technically they could say what they liked. Arbogast had been keeping quiet on this and he didn’t want to cause him too much grief,
‘But Jesus, give a dog a bone would you JJ?’

Today’s big break had come quite unexpectedly. He’d been speaking to the Police media officer last night at the press call where they’d unveiled the CCTV footage. He had been told about the break in at the Kirk o’ Shotts but that they weren’t sure if it was connected to the case. The press officer assured him they had combed the area and found nothing, largely on account of the snow having masked every movement. There was nothing to suggest the church had anything to do with the investigation.

Eric Sanderson took a deep drag from his cigarette and shook his head as he watched the lunchtime news. The reporter said the police had botched the investigation. That they had searched a church less than quarter of a mile from where they had found Mary and missed a forced door and weren’t sure what, if any, relevance this might have to the wider case. The TV guy said this was despite there being more than a hundred officers in the area and despite the fact this would be an obvious place for two people trying to shelter to go. The reporter was on screen now, standing by the wrecked door which had been cordoned off with police tape. He said, ‘Could this have been sanctuary for the bus driver Stevie Davidson and for a young girl who have not been seen since? Sources at Strathclyde Police say there doesn’t seem to be evidence to connect this but, if they missed it first time around, what else might they have missed?’ Eric had seen enough he switched it off. ‘They know nothing, nothing at all.’

Rosalind Ying was furious. “Did you see that news report?” she said as she burst through the door. She stopped at Arbogast’s desk, hands on hip, towering over him. Arbogast was distracted by the swell of her cleavage before he remembered he was meant to be working.

“News report?”

“You’re fucking pal Sandy – saying we’d made an arse of the crime scene, had missed an obvious clue and didn’t know what we were doing,” she glared at him accusingly.

“Well in fairness Rosalind, we did miss a big bloody sign.”

Rosalind breathed deeply and shook her head. She raised an accusing finger, “Was this your doing?”

Arbogast stood up now and put his hand on where he though his heart might be, “On my life I don’t talk shop with Sandy, not during a live case anyway. He knows the score.”

Rosalind wasn’t convinced but her anger subsided, “I’ve had Pitt Street on the phone. The Chief Constable has made it very clear he’s not happy with the way this is going. It’s four days in now and we haven’t made any real progress. I think this might get passed over to him. I might be replaced.”

Arbogast could see the situation but took a different take on it, “It might be just what we need. If Stevie is out there,” he corrected himself, “if whoever is responsible for the disappearance of Kovan Kocack and Stevie Davidson is following all this it might work in our favour.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, look at it this way – if you thought the police looking into this didn’t know what they were doing wouldn’t that boost your confidence just a little?” He brought his thumb and index finger together as he said ‘little’. Rosalind could see he was off on a new train of thought.

“Perhaps,”

“Let’s hope so Rosalind. If he gets sloppy now it might be just the break we need.”

They looked at each other as if trying to guess what the other was thinking, to guess what leads might be uncovered if it played out that way. Arbogast become aware of a low rumble, a pulse of sound. He was still lost in the thought of landing a lucky break when he realised that his phone was ringing on vibrate. They both looked at the handset which was slowly making its way to the edge of the desk when he caught up with it.

“It's her.”

There had been a church on the site of the Kirk o’ Shotts since 1450. Perched on the top of one in a series of low undulating hilltops in the area, the remnants of much older glacial decline, this had seemed a good spot for worship. The building was plain to see for miles around and the chapel served to bind the people together. Through time Catholicism had become less catholic, giving way to the reformation and the ‘heretic’ Protestants. Wars had been fought and rebellions lost. The old chapel gave way to a new church in 1560, and sparked the start of a long pointless struggle with people who all knew they were right. Today the Kirk o’ Shotts hosted a congregation of less than two hundred, with more and more of the locals looking for answers elsewhere, but for those who remained the church retained a special sense of history. Today a new congregation had found its way to the building. Not concerned with theological discussions or of moral well being, but of the rights and wrongs of a live investigation.  The press corps had descended en masse to the Kirk following last night’s insights. Camera crews vied for space. Styled in the Jacobean-Gothic style the church had distinctive ridged gable ends, which gave the effect of steps leading to a central point. In the middle sat a small copper topped bell tower and weather vane. No-one knew today which way the wind blew as the metal cockerel had been frozen solid for a week. There was no real reason to be here other than to report on the lack of progress. ‘Perhaps there was nothing new in the investigation,’ one seasoned hack said, ‘but maybe this will give the police the kick start they need to get things moving.’ The Kirk’s minister had been tracked down but had nothing to say. From the car PC Frank Simmons wondered why he always got the shit jobs, as another reporter knocked on the patrol car window looking for an update.

Arbogast answered the call with his left hand so that he could still write with his right.

“Hanom?”

“Mister Arbogast,” Hanom said. She spoke with an accent but her English was excellent. Rosalind leant into the phone to hear. Arbogast wanted to turn on the speaker phone but he knew he would run the risk of drowning her out. Hanom didn’t wait for a reply.

“I cannot talk for long. I tried to phone you last night but it was not possible. We have been moved. We are being kept in some kind of skyscraper if that's the word? It’s not so nice. The area looks very poor and maybe no-one really lives here,” Arbogast wondered if she might be in a tower block somewhere, “You must find my husband, he will help me. We are locked in a struggle to free our family. I would leave Mr Arbogast but I cannot. They have my child, I am sure of it. I do not know why this is happening. We escaped Turkey for a new life away from our debts but these people would have me live like a whore. I cannot stand it but I must – for the love of Kovan I must endure this.”