For the first time I noticed that the village was in darkness beyond the yellow glow of the flames. No street lamps, no lights showing in windows.
‘It’s been a hell of a night. Still, it could have been a lot worse.’ Strachan paused, a subtle change coming over his manner. ‘I heard a rumour earlier. That the police are treating the body that was found as murder. Do you know anything about that?’
Brody spoke up before I could answer. ‘You shouldn’t take any notice of rumours.’
‘So it isn’t true?’
Brody just stared back at him, stonily. Strachan gave a tight smile.
‘That’s what I thought. Well, I’ll say goodnight, then. I’m glad you’re all right, David.’
Brody waited until he was turning away. ‘I’m curious. You can’t see the village from your house. So how did you know about the fire?’
Strachan faced him. His expression was controlled, but I could see the anger under it.
‘There was a glow in the sky. And I’m a poor sleeper.’
The two of them held each other’s stare, neither of them giving an inch. Then, with a final nod in my direction, Strachan walked off into the dark.
Brody drove me back to the hotel. Since his house was down by the harbour, he’d rushed up to the community centre in his car when he saw the blaze from his bedroom window.
‘I don’t sleep much either,’ he told me, wryly.
Exhaustion gave me a sense of unreality as we drove through the blacked-out streets. I resisted the urge to lean back against the headrest and shut my eyes. Reaction was starting to set in, and the cuts and burns I hadn’t noticed before had begun to make themselves felt. The stink of smoke and burning clogged my nose and throat. I wound down the window, but the force of the wind made me wind it up again.
‘So how do you think it started?’ Brody asked, after a while.
‘I suppose Strachan could be right.’ My throat was still raw. ‘The power cut could have caused an electrical short or surge. The centre was a fire trap.’
‘Just a coincidence, then, that it burned down a few hours after we’d had an intruder? And after Fraser let slip this was a murder inquiry?’
I felt too shattered to think clearly. ‘I don’t know.’
He didn’t push the point. ‘Did we lose everything?’
Most of what mattered, I thought. As well as Janice Donaldson’s remains, my flight case and equipment had been in the clinic. My camera, my laptop containing all my notes and files, my tape recorder, all gone up in smoke.
But even as I was thinking that, I was already feeling in my pockets.
‘Not quite,’ I said, pulling out the USB bar. ‘I backed up my hard drive earlier. Force of habit. So at least we’ve still got a photographic record.’
‘Better than nothing, I suppose,’ Brody sighed.
‘There’s something else,’ I said. ‘I know who she was.’
I told him how the flaws in the skull’s teeth had matched those in the photograph of Janice Donaldson, the missing prostitute from Stornoway. Brody gave the steering wheel a little punch of satisfaction.
‘Well done,’ he grinned, enthusiasm briefly overcoming his natural restraint.
‘Well, we’ve only got the photos of the skull left, so it’ll still be better if Forensics can confirm it. With luck they might be able to salvage enough undamaged soft tissue from the cottage to try for a DNA match.’
‘If you say you know who she is, that’s good enough for me,’ Brody said. The implied confidence was flattering. I only hoped Wallace would be as readily convinced.
We were coming to the hotel now. A light on in the hallway told us that Ellen was still up. She’d been woken by the sudden quiet as the blackout had silenced the hotel’s constant heartbeat of central heating and refrigerators. Now the steady background vibration announced that the back-up generator was doing its job.
She looked horrified when she saw me. ‘Oh, my God, are you all right?’
‘I’ve had better nights,’ I admitted. I nodded at the light bulb, slightly dimmer than usual but still working. ‘That’s a welcome sight.’
‘Aye. Provided we’re careful, we’ve enough oil to keep the generator running for three or four days. With luck the power will be back on by then. God willing,’ she added dryly.
While Brody went to rouse Fraser, she ushered me into the kitchen and helped me off with my coat. It stank of smoke and was badly scorched, making her wrinkle her nose at the smell.
‘Shame it wasn’t fireproof as well as waterproof.’
I looked at where the Teflon-coated fabric had charred on the hood and shoulders. I could feel a corresponding sting on my own flesh, but nothing serious.
‘I’m not complaining,’ I said.
Brody returned a few minutes later with a sleep-bleared Fraser, whisky-breathed and still buttoning his shirt.
‘He’s not going to like it,’ he warned, when I asked him to radio Wallace.
He was right. But the superintendent’s anger was mollified to some extent when he learned I had a probable ID for the victim. I’d been going to ask when we could expect help to get here, but the connection was terrible. When it wasn’t cutting out altogether, his voice faded in and out of a wash of crackles.
‘We’ll…alk…orrow,’ I heard him say.
‘Modern technology,’ Brody sniffed, when I ended the call. ‘They replaced the old analogue radios with digital, but they still piggyback the signal off the mobile phone network. Any problems with that and you’re liable to lose the lot.’
Fraser made reluctant noises about going to examine the community centre, but there was no real point until the fire had died down. After taking a brief statement from me, he muttered excuses and went back to bed. Ellen had discreetly left the room when I’d called Wallace, but now she returned and began ushering Brody out as well.
‘Go and get some sleep. You look nearly as bad as David,’ she scolded.
She was right. The ex-policeman was haggard and drawn. He managed a weak smile.
‘I’m not sure which of us should be more insulted. But perhaps I will. It’s been a long day.’
‘We’ve another tomorrow,’ I told him.
‘Aye,’ he said, heavily. But I never doubted for a minute that he’d be there in the thick of it.
After he’d gone, Ellen filled a basin with hot water and brought out antiseptic and cotton wool. ‘Right, let’s get you sorted out, shall we?’
‘It’s all right, I can do it myself.’
‘I’m sure you can. But you’re not going to.’ She began to clean the cuts and grazes on my face. ‘Don’t worry. I used to be the unofficial nurse here before Bruce Cameron arrived.’
The wind moaned outside, but there was an easy silence between us as she worked. I wondered what a young woman like her, a single mother, was doing on a backwater like Runa. Eking out a living somewhere like this couldn’t be easy. Brody had told me she’d met Anna’s father on the mainland, so she’d obviously left at some point. Yet she’d come back out here. Was that because she actually liked the island’s isolation, or was it a retreat from something that had happened out there?
I thought again about the visitor who had been in the kitchen earlier, and who’d left her in tears. There couldn’t be many single men on an island this size, so it was hard not to draw conclusions about the reason for her secrecy.
Then again, what did I know? If I’d any sense I’d have been back home with Jenny now. I wished I could talk to her, and regretted not asking to use Fraser’s radio when I’d had the chance. I wondered what she was doing, if she was worrying about me. Probably.
You should never have agreed to do this.
What the hell was I doing on a bleak island miles from anywhere, nearly having died of exposure and then being burned to death, instead of getting on with my own life?
Except this was my life, I realized, in a moment of rare clarity. This was what I did. What I was. And if Jenny saw it as a problem, where did that leave us?
Ellen’s voice pulled me back to the here and now. ‘Is it true what people are saying? About the body?’
‘What are they saying?’
She gently swabbed a cut with antiseptic. ‘That it was murder.’
Thanks to Fraser, there probably wasn’t any harm in confirming what everyone on Runa almost certainly already knew, but I still felt reluctant to talk about it, even with Ellen.
‘It’s all right, I know I shouldn’t ask,’ she said, quickly. ‘I just can’t believe anything like that could happen here. The bar was full of talk about it earlier. No one can think who the victim can be, let alone imagine anyone from here being involved.’
I gave a non-committal murmur. This was exactly what we’d hoped to avoid. Now gossip and rumour would fill the vacuum left by the absence of hard fact, muddying the water and stirring up a silt of mistrust. And the only person to benefit would be the killer.
‘So will you be coming back to Runa for your next holiday?’ Ellen asked, deliberately lightening the mood.
I started to laugh. It hurt. ‘Don’t,’ I told her, wincing.
She smiled. ‘Sorry. But are you always as accident prone as this?’
‘Not usually. Must be this place.’
Her smile faded. ‘Aye, I can believe it.’
It was too good an opening to miss. ‘So what about you? Do you like it out here?’
She suddenly became preoccupied with a cut. ‘It’s not so bad. You should be here in summer. The nights are glorious. Makes up for days like this.’
‘But…’ I prompted.
‘But…it’s a small island. You see the same faces all the time. A few contractors or the occasional tourist, but that’s all. And, financially, it’s a struggle keeping your head above water. Sometimes I wish…ah, well, it doesn’t matter.’
‘Go on.’
Unguarded, her face showed the sadness I guessed she normally kept in check. ‘I wish I could get away from here. Leave this place—the hotel, the island—behind me, and take Anna and just go. Anywhere. Somewhere where there are decent schools, and shops, and restaurants, and people you don’t know, who don’t know you and your business.’
‘So why don’t you?’
There was defeat in the way she shook her head. ‘It isn’t that easy. I grew up on Runa, and everything I’ve got is here. Besides, what would I do?’
‘Andrew Brody told me you’d been to college on the mainland. Isn’t that something you could use?’
‘Been telling tales, has he?’ She looked as though she wasn’t sure whether to be angry or amused. ‘Aye, I spent a couple of years at catering college in Dundee. That’s where I learned first aid, all that Health and Safety nonsense. Fancied myself as a chef at one point. But then my father was taken ill, so I came back. Only temporarily, I thought. But then I found myself with a child to support, and jobs aren’t exactly plentiful round here. So when he died I carried on running this place.’
She raised an eyebrow at me.
‘Aren’t you going to ask?’
‘Ask what?’
‘About Anna’s father.’
‘Not when you’re putting antiseptic on my cuts, no.’
‘Good. Just so you know, let’s just say there was never any future there.’ Her tone made it clear the subject was closed. She went back to her swabbing. ‘So what else did Andrew Brody tell you?’
‘Not much. I’d hate to get him barred from the hotel.’
‘Not much danger of that.’ She laughed. ‘Anna’s too fond of him. I suppose I am as well, though don’t go telling him that, mind. He’s protective enough as it is.’
She paused. I guessed what was coming.
‘Do you know about his daughter?’ she asked.
‘He told me.’
‘He must like you. It isn’t something he talks about as a rule. The girl was a bit wild, from what I gather. Still, I can’t imagine what it must be like for him, not knowing what happened to her. He tried to track her down after he’d retired, but he never found her. So then he came out here.’
Her expression softened.
‘Don’t take this wrong. But in a way all this has been good for him. Given him a new lease of life. Some people aren’t made for retirement, and Andrew’s one of them. I think he must have been a pretty good policeman.’
So did I. I was glad he was here. More so now than ever.
Ellen dropped the bloodied cotton wool into a bowl. ‘There you go. Best thing you can do now is have a hot shower and get some sleep. I’ll give you some salve to put on your burns.’
A sudden gust of wind struck the hotel, making the entire structure seem to vibrate. Ellen cocked her head, listening.
‘Storm’s getting up,’ she said.
CHAPTER 16
THE RAIN STARTED
again during what was left of the night, reducing what remained of the community centre to an uneven mound of grey and black ash. Wraiths of smoke rose from it to be whipped away in the wind. One corner remained partially intact, a few feet of scorched wood that petered out to nothing. In places recognizable shapes still protruded through the wreckage: the corner of a fire-buckled steel cabinet, or skeletal chair legs that poked through the ash like dead branches through a grey snowdrift.
It was a dismal scene, made even more depressing by the dark, heavy clouds that obscured the tops of the low hills. The rain was coming down in near-horizontal sheets. And the gale seemed to have worsened, lashing everything in its path with what seemed like deliberate malevolence.
Brody, Fraser and I had gone out to the community centre as soon as it was light. I felt exhausted. I’d had less than four hours’ sleep and I ached all over. My shoulder throbbed relentlessly, wrenched during my escape from the fire. I’d hardly recognized myself in the shaving mirror that morning. The skin of my face felt sunburned, peppered with small gashes from the flying glass. My eyebrows and eyelashes had been singed off, giving me a strange, startled expression.
Still, as Strachan had said, it could have been much worse.
Brody and Fraser stood behind me as I studied the smoking wreckage. By rights I should have waited until a fire inspector had made sure that the structure was safe, but there was no telling when that would be. I was under no illusion that Janice Donaldson’s remains would have survived this second incineration.
But I had to see for myself.
The rain fell as if the sky were made from water, tamping down the ashes and dampening the outer layer to a black mush. Even so, it hadn’t beaten the fire completely. The debris was still smouldering from within. I could feel the heat from it on my face, contrasting the chill against my back.
‘Do you think there’s a chance anything could still be intact?’ Brody asked.
‘Not really.’ My voice was still hoarse from the smoke.
Fraser gave an irritable sigh. He looked bedraggled and miserable in the rain. ‘So why bother?’
‘To make sure.’
I could make out one blackened corner of my flight case, protruding from the ashes of what had been the medical clinic. It was open, its contents reduced to so much char. Just beyond it was the stainless steel trolley where I’d worked on Janice Donaldson’s cranium. The trolley was lying on its side, half buried under the remains of the roof. The skull and jawbone were nowhere to be seen, but I didn’t hold out much hope. The already calcined bones would have been shattered to powder by the impact. A few teeth might have survived, but nothing more. In any event, whatever was left would have to wait until a forensic team arrived to sift through the debris. It would take more resources than I had to carry out a proper search.
I brushed a piece of windblown ash from my face as I carefully picked my way towards the fridge. The dead woman’s hand had been inside it, and there was a chance the insulation had protected it. But that hope quickly died when I cleared away the covering of debris. The fridge’s white enamel had been burned black and the rubber seal had melted, letting the door swing open to expose the contents to the flames. Of Janice Donaldson’s hand, all that was left was bone, cooked to a dark caramel colour by the heat.
The individual finger joints had fallen away from each other as the connecting tissue had burned from them. They lay in the bottom of the fridge, still hot to the touch. I picked them out, allowing them to cool a little before bagging them. All my unused evidence bags had been in my flight case. They’d gone up in flames with everything else, but I’d brought a box of freezer bags from the hotel to use instead. When I’d collected what was left of the hand in one of them I rejoined Brody and Fraser.
‘That it?’ Fraser asked, squinting at the bag.
‘That’s it.’
‘Hardly worth bothering with.’
I ignored him and went to where an upright section of charred timber still stood in the ruins of the community centre. The wooden spar was blackened to charcoal. Attached to it were bright copper strands, all that remained of the centre’s electrical wiring. The plastic insulation around the copper had been burned away, but the wires themselves were intact, still stapled to the wooden post.
Judging from their position, they would have fed the light switch by the entrance. Seeing them, an idea began to form, too faint even to call a suspicion. I’d only managed to escape from the burning hall because the fire hadn’t spread as far as the doors. So it must have started at the far side, opposite where I now stood. I started to circle the wreckage of the centre, making my way round there.
‘Now what?’ Fraser demanded irritably. Brody said nothing, just watched, thoughtfully.
‘There’s something I want to check.’
I told myself I was probably wasting my time as I scanned the ashes and wreckage where the back wall had stood. Then something caught my eye. Crouching down, I gently brushed away the ash to reveal what I’d hoped I wouldn’t find.
Small metal puddles, gleaming against the charred wood.
The sight sent a chill through me. I’d attended enough fire scenes to know only too well what they meant.
This was no accident.
And then an even worse thought struck me, one I hadn’t even considered until now.
Oh, Christ.
Gripped by a new sense of urgency, I hurried back to Brody and Fraser. But even as I did I heard a car approaching, and saw Maggie Cassidy’s battered Mini bumping up the road towards us.
Her timing couldn’t have been worse. She climbed out, diminutive as ever in her oversized red coat.
‘Morning, gents,’ she greeted us, cheerfully. ‘I hear somebody had a barbecue last night.’
Fraser was already striding towards her. ‘This is off limits. Back in your car. Now!’
The wind flattened her coat around her like a cocoon as she held out her Dictaphone, as though to ward him off. There was nervousness in her face, but she did her best to disguise it.
‘Aye? Why’s that?’
‘Because I say so.’
She shook her head with mock-regret. ‘Sorry, not good enough. I slept through all the excitement last night, and I’m not missing out on it now. Perhaps if you gave me a few words, oh, say about how there’s now a
murder
investigation going on, and how you think the fire started, then I’ll be very happy to leave you in peace.’
Fraser balled his fists, glaring at her with such animosity I was worried he’d do something stupid. Maggie gave me a smile.
‘How about you, Dr Hunter? Any chance of—’
‘We need to talk.’
I don’t know who looked most surprised, her or Fraser.
‘You’re not talking to
her
!’
I caught Brody’s eye. ‘Let him be,’ he told Fraser.
‘
What?
You’ve got to be joking. She’s a bloody—’
‘Just do it!’
All his years of command cracked into his voice. Fraser didn’t like it, but he gave in.
‘Aye, fine! Do what you bloody like,’ he snapped, walking back towards the Range Rover.
‘Don’t let him go anywhere,’ I warned Brody. ‘We need the car.’
Maggie was watching me suspiciously, as though this might be some new sort of trick.
‘I need your help,’ I told her, taking her arm and leading her back towards the Mini. ‘We’re going to leave now, and I don’t want you to come after us.’
She stared at me as if I were mad. ‘What is this, are you—’
‘
Listen
. Please,’ I added, knowing too much time had already been wasted. ‘You want a story, I promise you’ll get one. But right now, I need you to leave us alone.’
The incredulous smile slowly died from her lips. ‘This is bad, isn’t it?’
‘I hope not. But I think it might be, yes.’
The wind blew a strand of hair across her face as her eyes searched mine. She gave a nod as she brushed it away.
‘All right. But there’d better be a front-page story for me in this, all right?’
I hurried back to where Brody and Fraser waited by the Range Rover as she climbed back into her Mini.
‘What the hell did you say to her?’ Fraser demanded as she drove away.
‘It doesn’t matter. Have you spoken to Duncan this morning?’
‘Duncan? No, not yet,’ he said, defensively. ‘He hasn’t called in yet. But, you know, I was going to take him out some breakfast later…’
‘Try him now.’
‘Now? Why, what’s—’
‘Just do it.’
He gave me a dirty look but reached for his radio. ‘Can’t get through…’ he frowned.
‘All right, get in the car. We’re going out there.’
Brody had been watching with a worried expression, but said nothing until we were in the car and Fraser was pulling away. ‘What is it? What did you find?’
I was staring anxiously through the windscreen as we left the village, scanning the sky ahead of us. ‘I checked the wiring back at the community centre. A fire caused by an electrical fault wouldn’t have been hot enough to melt the copper core. But there’s an area round the back where the wires were melted.’
‘So what?’ Fraser asked, impatiently.
‘It means the fire was hotter there,’ Brody said, slowly. ‘Oh, Christ.’
Fraser banged the steering wheel. ‘Will somebody please tell me what the fuck’s going on?’
‘It was hotter there because that’s where an accelerant was used to start it,’ I told him. ‘The fire wasn’t caused by a short. Somebody set it deliberately.’
He was still trying to work it out. ‘What’s that got to do with Duncan?’
It was Brody who answered. ‘Because if someone wanted to get rid of the evidence, it might not only have been the clinic that was torched.’
I could see from Fraser’s face that he finally understood. But even if he hadn’t there was no need to explain further.
Smeared across the sky directly ahead was a black trail of smoke.
The meandering terrain prevented us from seeing the source of the smoke. It seemed like every hill and bend in the road conspired to keep the cottage and camper van from view. Fraser put his foot down, tearing along the narrow road much faster than was safe in the atrocious conditions. No one complained.
Then we rounded one final bend, and the old cottage was revealed in front of us. So, too, was the camper van.
What was left of it.
‘Oh, no,’ Fraser said.
Most of the smoke we’d seen was coming from the cottage. There hadn’t been much left to burn, but the thick roof beams and timbers that had fallen in the day before were still smouldering in the ruins. If there had been anything in there that SOC might have salvaged, it had been destroyed now.
But it was the sight of Brody’s camper van that transfixed us. It had been reduced to a burned-out shell, tyres melted to misshapen lumps of rubber. The living quarters had been almost completely consumed, walls eaten away by the fire, roof partially blown off when either the gas cylinder or petrol tank had exploded. Thin trails of smoke rose wraith-like from it, only to be whisked away by the wind.
There was no sign of Duncan.
Fraser didn’t slow as he went off the road and on to the track, the heavy car slewing on the muddy surface as he stamped on the brakes. He jumped out of the car and ran towards the camper van, leaving the door swinging in the wind behind him.
‘Duncan?
Duncan!
’ he bellowed, charging across the grass. Brody and I ran behind him, rain whipping into our faces. Fraser lurched to a halt in front of the camper van.
‘Oh, Jesus Christ! Where is he? Where the fuck is he?’
He stared round wildly, as though hoping the young PC would suddenly come strolling up. I became aware of Brody’s gaze. There was the same awareness in his face that I felt myself, and I knew that he’d seen what I had.
‘He’s here,’ I said quietly.
Fraser followed the direction of my gaze. A boot was sticking out from under a piece of heat-buckled roof, the leather burned away to reveal charred flesh and bone.
He took a step towards the camper van. ‘Ah, no, Christ…’
Before I could stop him he grabbed hold of the panel and started trying to heave it off.
‘Don’t,’ I began, but as I started forward a hand fell on my shoulder. I looked round at Brody. He shook his head.
‘Leave him.’
‘It was a crime scene; none of us should touch it. But I understood why Brody didn’t try to interfere.’
‘I don’t really see it making much difference now, do you?’ he said, bleakly.
Fraser wrenched the panel free, letting the wind carry it away. It pitched and bounced along the grass like a grounded kite until it came up against the cottage. Fraser continued to tear at the rest of the wreckage like a madman. Even from where I stood, the smell of burned meat was overpowering.
Then he stopped, staring at what he’d uncovered. He stumbled back, as uncoordinated as a broken puppet.
‘Oh, Christ. Jesus fucking
Christ
, that’s not him. Tell me that’s not him!’
The body lay in the centre of the camper van. It wasn’t as badly burned as Janice Donaldson’s remains had been, but in some ways its scorched humanity made the sight even worse. Its limbs had drawn up, so that it was curled in a foetal position, pathetically vulnerable. Cooked into the flesh round its middle was a charred police utility belt. A fire-blackened baton and handcuffs were still attached to it.
Fraser was weeping. ‘Why didn’t he get out? Why the fuck didn’t he get out?’
I took hold of his arm. ‘Come on.’
‘Get off me!’ he snarled, jerking free.
‘Get a grip, man!’ Brody told him, harshly.
Fraser turned on him. ‘Don’t tell me what to do! You’re a fucking has-been! You’ve got no authority here!’
Brody’s face was uncompromising. ‘Then start acting like a police officer yourself.’
All at once Fraser seemed to sag. ‘He was twenty-one,’ he mumbled. ‘Twenty-one! What am I going to tell everyone?’
‘Tell them he was murdered,’ Brody said brutally. ‘Tell them we’ve got a killer loose on the island. And tell them if Wallace had sent out a proper inquiry team in the first place, your twenty-one-year-old PC might still be alive!’