Bred in the Bone (30 page)

Paralysis

Jasmine didn’t know how long she was unconscious. It felt like everything was blank only for a moment, but the coming-round part took ages, as though her senses were reluctant to report for duty given what they were going to be asked to deal with.

She opened and closed her eyes several times, her surroundings swirling sickeningly in the first few instances. There was a ringing in her ears and a host of different kinds of pain: shooting, throbbing, aching, searing.

She lifted her head and saw that the man in the overalls was sitting in a crouch against the opposite wall of the van, rocking with its motion. He looked early fifties, maybe older: portly but imposing, strangely baby-faced features above a jowly jawline, like someone who wasn’t genetically built to carry fat but had piled it on nonetheless.

‘You fuckin’ sit still and don’t make a fuckin’ sound, right? You fuckin’ make a sound, you get another fuckin’ slap, right?’

His eyes blazed with intent as he spoke, giving the impression he’d prefer it if she didn’t comply. There was no danger of that. She was shaking with fear, shivering like she’d been dunked in the North Sea. Nothing in her was ready to defy this person. She would do whatever was required to prevent him from hitting her again.

A slap, he called what he’d done.

Her face was beginning to swell, her lip leading the charge. She could feel blood stuck to her cheeks and taste it in her mouth. Her tongue probed a ravaged section of gum, springing back like she had licked a battery. At least one tooth was gone, possibly two. She suspected she may have swallowed them.

Amid so much other pain, she was still able to feel a sting too. They must have been on her even before she got to Darroch’s
address, and she had been so intent upon her surveillance that she had failed to notice that she was the one being tailed. She thought of his constant yakking into his mobile. He was getting instruction all the way, maybe before he had even left his flat.

Darroch had led her into a trap. Adding insult to multiple injury, he had made himself an easy mark, implying that he or his confederates didn’t rate her detective skills enough to have faith that she wouldn’t lose him on the follow.

She had no idea how long they travelled. She had a watch on but didn’t dare look at it, didn’t dare do anything that the pudgy man in the overalls might not like. She felt the van brake and accelerate, swaying as it cornered. She heard the hum of engines as vehicles passed outside, brief pulses of oncoming traffic and longer rumbles of cars overtaking.

For all she knew they could have been going around in a big loop. She could see nothing.

At one point she could hear the voices of pedestrians outside while the van was stationary, presumably stopped at lights. She thought for half a second about shouting for help or banging on the walls. She looked up at her travelling companion and saw him staring back. It felt like he could read her mind. She found herself shaking her head as though in answer to an unvoiced accusation: I’m not planning to make any noise.

Please don’t hit me again.

Please don’t hit me.

Artefacts

It was impossibly calm and quiet where Anthony sat, the sound of turning pages amplified by being the only affront to the silence of the room, though even that noise was swallowed by the insulation of a thousand leather-bound volumes lining the walls. There was no reverberation, no sound from outside, and a stillness to the air as though even the motes of dust had been ordered and alphabetised.

He could hardly imagine a greater contrast to the chaos of the station, where several phones were always ringing and voices constantly raised merely to stay above the din of each other. In this chamber at the Procurator Fiscal’s offices he felt like he was sealed off from the world, but inescapably prominent in his thoughts was the fact that he had been sealed off along with Adrienne.

It occurred to him that this was the first time they had been alone in a room together since that night. That they had been here for an hour before he realised this had to be a good sign, given that it wasn’t any ordinary room: it was like an awkwardness stress-test environment. Granted, they had some compelling reading matter to distract them, so he couldn’t gauge for sure what was going on between them in this sustained silence. Did this mean they were comfortable in each other’s company, or were they each immersing themselves in the task at hand because it helped them pretend like the other one wasn’t there?

He couldn’t speak for Adrienne, but he was happy she was here. Apart from anything else, he needed some solidarity right now. The sense of complicity made what he was doing feel a little less like career suicide, though maybe this only meant that it was a suicide pact instead.

He glanced up at the walls and bid himself a wry smile. Maybe
there was another reason they called him Beano: he spent so much time in print. So if he was going out, he was going out his way: sitting in a library, cramming at a desk, the fast-track graduate hitting the books and fast-tracking himself right out the door.

It was an unusual feeling, to knowingly pursue something even though he was aware that it would get him in serious trouble if the boss found out. Anthony had never done anything wanton in his life. As a kid he’d always worked hard, learned his spelling, got his sums right, done his homework, listened in class, never answered back. But sitting here right now he understood that he hadn’t done those things because he was afraid of getting a telling off from the teacher. He had done them because that was how he was brought up. This was
about
getting his sums right. It was about finding the correct answer, and he was moulded to do that in a way that deferred his consideration of consequences to the point of negligence.

It was easy for him, though. If he got bagged because of this then fuck da police: he’d move on. He’d moved on from worse. He’d be mightily angry about it, sure, but he wasn’t gambling with anybody else’s chips. Adrienne, by contrast, was a single mother with two kids to provide for.

‘Do you think this makes us maverick cops?’ he had asked her on the short drive over here.

‘No, I think it makes us
ex
-cops if we’re not extremely careful,’ she replied, leaving no doubt that she was aware of the stakes.

As per McLeod’s request, Dominic Wilson had looked out the records of the Teddy Sheehan prosecution, retrieving the files from the PF’s equivalent of the morgue. Anthony was aware that it was not a small favour. There was something between Wilson and McLeod, some quiet bond of trust, the confidentiality of this undertaking reflected in his also granting them this windowless chamber to peruse the documents. Nonetheless, the PF’s office was as gossipy and leaky as any cop shop, and it was hard to do anything out of the ordinary without somebody taking notice. You never knew who was watching, and you never knew who they’d tell.

There hadn’t been a murder trial per se. Teddy Sheehan’s lawyer had submitted a guilty plea on his client’s behalf at the hearing
following his hundred-and-ten-day lie-in after being charged. Subsequent hearings had been to determine the severity of the crime and the minimum term to be served under the statutory life sentence. The materials Dom Wilson had fished out were what would have formed the basis of the prosecution had there been a not guilty plea and the case gone to trial. Consequently, many of the documents were duplicates of the ones Anthony had been looking for back at Govan nick. Once again, Drummond’s efforts to erase the evidence had been thwarted by the existence of a remotely stored copy.

There were police statements, interview statements and, of course, the confession. It was tempting to skip to that first, but given that it was likely to be the least reliable document in the box, Anthony decided it would actually be most instructive to read it last. Just like a live case, it was important to put together both a chronology of the investigation and a chronology of the events, developing a wider picture so that every piece of evidence could be valued in context.

Julie Muir’s body had been found on the Sunday morning by Capletmuir resident Malcolm Vickers, who was out walking his dog. It was discovered among a waist-high crop of wild garlic, evidently dragged there out of sight. Mr Vickers rushed home and called the police.

Bob Cairns and Mitchell Drummond were first on the scene. They had happened to be in the area attending an incident in nearby Gallowhaugh.

There were crime-scene photographs, black-and-white ten by eights. Anthony spotted these as he lifted the document that had been on top of them, glimpsing enough to recognise what they were before concealing them again. Tentatively, reluctantly, and feeling uncomfortably voyeuristic, he uncovered them once more and forced himself to look.

To his relief, he was largely spared her face. She was lying on her back, her head turned to one side, her long hair draped over her features. There were close-ups of the marks on her neck, the tight pattern of bruising and abrasions. These were easier to look
at: they were just skin, just shapes. They could be anybody. It was the personal details that always got to him, the notes of uniqueness still sounding out through the cacophony of white noise that murder made as it turned the individual human form into anonymous and interchangeable shapes. It was the stories suggested by an unusual pair of shoes, an esoteric tattoo, a striking piece of jewellery. In Julie’s case, it was a ring. Her hand was resting on her chest, like a virgin in a medieval painting, drawing Anthony’s attention to how out of place this olde-worlde-looking item seemed against her trendy clothing.

According to the confession, Teddy Sheehan encountered Julie Muir on the pathway adjacent to the railway line, close to where she was found. He had gone out for a walk because it was a dry night, though not so dry back at home, where his sister was reportedly asleep on the settee having necked half a bottle of vodka. She was frequently asleep at that time, the statement said, though she would often wake up and continue drinking until passing out again or until the bottle was finished, whichever came first.

Julie smiled at him as she passed, which apparently made him aroused. He turned and caught up to her again further along the path, where he took off his belt, dropped his trousers and exposed himself. Julie got upset at this and began to scream. Startled by her response, Teddy grabbed Julie and put his hand over her mouth, trying to keep her silent. As she struggled, trying to scream louder through his muffling hand, he became more concerned about getting into trouble and dragged her into the wild garlic. Panicked and confused by the strange state of excitement in which he found himself, it was here that he looped his belt around Julie’s neck and strangled her.

Anthony marvelled at the phrasing of the confession, the insights it offered into Teddy’s mind, the little notes and minor details intended to lend authenticity to the narrative. It was a case study in why the polis weren’t allowed to pull this shit any more. Cairns had written down precisely the version he thought would play best if it came to trial, and got this befuddled, frightened and quite possibly beaten educationally subnormal suspect to sign at the bottom.

He thought of Brenda right at the very start of the video, rambling but impassioned as she poured out her heart to her guest, before Fullerton let her compose herself and told her to take it from the top.

‘Oor Teddy wouldn’t hurt a fly. Everybody knew that. All those wee bastards that used to call names and throw stones: he always ran away. Never so much as turned around and told them to shut it. And when I finally got to see him on remand . . . He was scared, so scared. I asked him if it was true, if he’d done it, and he said he wasn’t allowed to talk aboot it. What does that mean? Not allowed? By who?’

Anthony could guess.

What did they do to you, Teddy, he wondered. What did they tell you would happen if you didn’t stick to the script?

‘Jesus,’ Adrienne said, the first word either had issued since they began poring over the contents of the box.

‘What?’

‘She was pregnant.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Pathologist’s report. Nobody else seems to have been aware of this. None of her friends or flatmates mentioned it in their statements. Her parents didn’t know either.’

‘Did her boyfriend?’ Anthony asked pointedly.

There had been a statement from Ewart in the file, with a note to say it was strictly confidential. Supporting the contention that his relationship with her was of little relevance to the case was his claim that he hadn’t even been at his parents’ house that night, and had no idea Julie was planning to drop by. She had only visited the place once before, for a dinner party a few weeks previously, but he’d driven her there.

‘Can think of poorer pretexts for a surprise visit,’ Adrienne suggested, ‘than to confront your boyfriend with the news that you’re up the duff in front of his scandal-wary parents.’

‘Can I see the report?’

Adrienne handed him the pages, which he traded for the confession.

There it was, in the clinical bloodless prose that reduced all that was once Julie Muir to a technical read-out of her final state.

The victim was approximately three months pregnant at time of death
. . .

He scanned the rest of the report, the precise description of the injuries to her neck, the corresponding condition of internal organs, the estimated time of death.

The ligature used to strangle her suggested a combination of metal and a softer material, probably leather. This was consistent with Sheehan’s confession that he had used his belt.

She had not been sexually assaulted.

Anthony was about to put the report back down when he saw it.

‘Fuck,’ he announced.

The most vital piece of information in the entire document was at the very top, and they had both bypassed it in their hurry to get to the details.

‘What?’

‘The pathologist’s name – it’s Colin Morrison.’

Journey's End

The van had maintained a steady pace for a long time, indicating progress along the open road, and Jasmine hadn't heard any other traffic for a while. She had no way of verifying this, but she felt a growing sense of becoming further and further from anywhere populous. Thus when the van began to decelerate fear seized her, letting her know that her previous terror had been a mere overture. Truly, it was better to travel hopelessly than to arrive.

The van stopped and she heard a door open from the cab, though the engine was still turning. A fist banged on the side, close to her head, causing her to start.

‘Right,' said the pudgy man, opening one of the doors. ‘Come on.'

She emerged into a gathering gloom, rainclouds darkening the skies and making it difficult to gauge the time of day. She was outside an isolated cottage, hills and woodland stretching away behind it. She couldn't see any other houses. By a rough estimate of how long she had travelled, it could be Perthshire or it could be the Borders. She had no idea.

The van drove off again as soon as she was clear. She hadn't seen the driver at any point.

She was led towards the cottage, trembling with every step. She wanted to run, but it was as though she was caught in a tractor beam, paralysed by the knowledge that she would be caught and punished.

She took a closer look at the building as she walked across the weed-strewn path. The windows seemed strange: reflective and yet completely opaque. It took her a moment to realise that they were all covered from the inside by aluminium foil.

A cloying, chokingly fetid smell filled her nostrils as she stepped
inside, and she was struck by a fierce, humid warmth at odds with the absence of carpets or indeed furniture.

Nobody lived here. Nobody had lived here for a long time.

She could see light spilling from slightly open doorways either side of the hall, dazzling to eyes that had grown accustomed to the dimness of the van and the glowering conditions outside. It was too bright to look directly into the rooms at first, but down at floor level she could see wide plastic tubing running through the gaps between the doors and the frames, leading along the downstairs hallway and disappearing through a hole cut in a wall at the rear. It was a makeshift ventilation system. Her eyes caught a glimpse of foliage as she was directed up the stairs. It was a cannabis farm.

In the top hall she passed two more rooms turned into nurseries, before being led into a starker chamber. It was a single bedroom, though it didn't contain anything to lie down on. The floorboards were bare, and the only wall covering to speak of was a rampant outbreak of mould resultant of a humidity not normally found at this latitude. In the centre of the room was a wooden table with two foldaway chairs on either side.

The room had a single window, possibly the only one in the house not lined with foil. It gave a view to the rear, showing the rain begin to fall on the stark hillside behind the cottage.

She took a couple of paces forward, not knowing where to put herself. It looked like a cell, but for some reason she was relieved that it didn't have a bed.

Pudgy closed the door and stood just in front of it.

‘Take your clothes off,' he said.

Jasmine froze, revulsion over-riding the defensive impulses that had previously compelled her to obey. Instinctively she gathered her arms about herself. Pudgy took a surprisingly speedy step forward and punched her again.

She fell to the ground amid another explosion of light and pain, all of her previous hurts revisited and amplified by this further blow.

‘Take your fuckin' clothes off and put them in a pile,' he shouted.

He backed away again as she struggled woozily to her feet.

Her hands were shaking so much that she could barely grip the buttons on her overcoat. Slowly, she managed to remove it, fold it over and place it on the table.

‘Come on,' he said impatiently. ‘Get on with it.'

She became conscious of the little assurances she was giving herself:
he's
not taking my clothes off; he's keeping his distance; there isn't a bed in here. Any time she caught herself doing this, she recalled what Fallan had taught her.

We don't listen to fear properly. We feel it, but we try to explain it away. When we rationalise it, we're looking for reassurance. We're looking for reasons why it's going to be okay.

This was not going to be okay.

She had to listen to her fear, but equally she could not let her senses be overwhelmed by it. She could not give in to panic and desperation. She had to stay in control.

She undressed as commanded, placing all of her clothes in a pile on the table. Pudgy watched her, arms folded. She tried not to catch his eye, aware he was watching her the whole time. He was detached from what she was doing, but only in the physical sense. He was an intent voyeur, empowered by feeling no need to disguise his gaze. She was the one afraid to be caught looking.

He remained against the wall until she was finished. She flinched and backed away when she sensed him move, but he only came as far as the table to pick up the clothes. Then he retreated from the room and locked the door.

She was left standing next to the table, naked, scared and confused. Instinctively she went to the small window, driven by thoughts of flight. It looked paint-stuck, but she could use a chair to break it. What then, though?

This was why he'd asked her to undress; or at least she hoped so. No need for ropes and restraints when your prisoner is one storey up in the middle of nowhere and hasn't a stitch to cover herself against the November rain.

A moment of despair was dispelled by further panic as she heard footsteps announce his return. He unlocked the door and stepped inside, placing down a mug full of water and a chipped bowl.

‘Water in, water oot,' he muttered, smirking to himself, then withdrew once again.

Outside the rain grew heavier.

Jasmine sat down on one of the folding chairs, hugging her arms to herself though the room was stifling.

She was too scared even to cry.