A Dark Shadow Falls (20 page)

              Dani emptied the pastries into a bowl and placed a large pot of coffee on the table. ‘Now, if we can put our class differences aside for a moment, we may be able to work as a team on this.’

              Andy shot his boss a dirty look, not quite sure what she was insinuating with that comment.

              Dani rested her hand on his shoulder and smiled broadly. ‘James brought me some important information last night. I think if we put our heads together, we may be able to start piecing out this puzzle.’

              Irving helped himself to a croissant, filling Andy in on Eric Fisher’s intimidation of his sister.

              ‘So we might be expecting a visit from the scum-bag at any moment,’ he replied.

              ‘Hence my decision to meet here. I don’t want to miss our friend if does decide to call by.’

              Andy reached into his jacket pocket for a notebook and dropped it on the table, flicking ahead to a clean page. He began jotting down notes. ‘Can we assume from this, just for the sake of argument, that Eric Fisher is actually innocent of murdering his family.’

              Dani nodded. ‘But we keep an open mind.’

              ‘And because of Bill and Joy’s handiwork in Falkirk, we know that the burglaries on their estate were carried out by Oliver and Dean Sanderson, who used their carpet-cleaning business as a front to find out when the properties would be empty and then did them over. Neither man had any violent convictions. We’re assuming that these crimes are unrelated to the murders of the Fishers, the Macallans and Morna Murphy.’

              ‘I spoke to Bill yesterday. He told me that Oliver Sanderson retired from the army a couple of years ago. He was diagnosed as suffering from PTSD after witnessing an IUD explosion in Kandahar. Bill thinks that’s why the pair never damaged the photograph of Rita McCulloch’s grandson. Sanderson may even have known Christopher.’

              James finished off his pastry, taking a sip of coffee to wash it down. ‘Dani filled me in on some of the details last night.’

              Andy shot him a suspicious look.

              ‘Before she made up the
sofa
for me to sleep on,’ he added for clarity. ‘Do you really think that these murders are the work of a serial killer?’

              Dani took up the mantle. ‘We don’t get that many pre-meditated murders in Scotland, not outside of the big cities, anyway. There are enough points of similarity to make me think there’s one killer.
However
, when it comes down to motive, I’m absolutely clueless. Morna Murphy’s murder gives the appearance of being sexually motivated, yet there was no sexual assault on the body and there were no wounds to the genitals or breasts as one would expect. Morna had lovers and was physically attractive, like Peggy Fisher, who we also know to have had an affair. This fact could have made them a target for the killer. But the Macallans don’t fit this pattern at all. When we take out the theft of the cash box, it’s difficult to see who would want that harmless couple dead.’

              James considered this for a moment. ‘Is there anything that connects these people at all? Have they ever come into contact with one another in the past?’

              Dani nodded, admiring the solicitor’s logic. ‘I’ve got Phil looking into it. The only possible link we have so far was something Diane Beattie suggested. All of the families had been featured in the local press for some reason or another in the months before the murders. Callum Fisher and the Wheelans because of the lad’s footballing achievements, the Murphys because of Lyle’s high profile role on the council and Phil has informed me that Nancy Macallan was in the Bankfoot Chronicle with her class two weeks ago, after winning a ‘Scotland in Bloom’ trophy for the school garden.’

              ‘All of which has brought them to the attention of our killer,’ Andy concluded.

              ‘So Peggy’s lover, Mark Bannerman, who disappeared just after she and her kids were killed, is
he
your prime suspect for the other murders too?’ James glanced from one detective to the other.

              ‘I think he’s got to be,’ Calder declared, ‘especially if Fisher is still clinging to his claim that an intruder butchered the family.’

              The lawyer leaned back in his chair. ‘Then we need to somehow second guess the guy.’

              ‘How do you mean?’ Dani asked.

              ‘These killings are becoming more frequent,’ he explained. ‘The man is bound to strike again. We need to work out who his next victims are going to be and try to get to them first.’

              ‘How are we going to do that?’

              ‘Have you got a bigger sheet of paper?’ Andy enquired.

              ‘I think I’ve got a sketch pad of Dad’s in the bedroom, hold on, I’ll have a look.’ Dani left the room, returning a few minutes later with a large pad. She ripped off a clean sheet. Andy cleared away the plates and cups so Dani could place it down on the table. Calder leant over it with his pen poised.

              ‘Okay, our first victims were the Fishers; Peggy, Callum, Skye and Kyla. They’d spent their whole lives living in Dalkeith. Next, we have Morna Murphy. She was a similar age to Peggy. Again, she’d lived all her life in Dundee. Then, there’s the Macallans; Kenneth and Nancy. They were older than our previous victims, but again, had their roots in Bankfoot. All the targets were local to the east coast of Scotland. We’re talking about well-established Scottish families.’

              Dani looked carefully at the spider diagram Andy had created on the page. ‘You’d better add Peggy’s maiden name to the information we’ve got on the Fishers. It was Wheelan. Mark Bannerman first made contact with Peggy through her parents. He and his father were building their extension.’

              Andy added Pat and Rob Wheelan to his diagram. The three stared closely at the information they’d collated.

              ‘We’re looking for some kind of pattern, yes?’ James said. ‘It could be geographic, or to do with education or profession.’

              They gazed intently at the words for a good ten minutes.

              ‘I’m just not seeing it,’ Dani muttered, her voice filled with exasperation.

              ‘Unless it’s the name thing,’ Andy Calder said flatly.

              ‘What do you mean?’ Dani turned to face her colleague. ‘What’s significant about the names?’

              ‘Well, it’s like what we were discussing the other day, when your dad was moaning about Bryant Construction destroying the Macfie Cairn on Colonsay.’

              Dani was puzzled. She had no idea what Calder was driving at.

              ‘The major clans, like the Macfies and the Campbells, they all had subsidiary families - those folk who were always loyal to that particular clan. The names on this list are
all
clan names. In fact, it’s more than that, they’re all subsidiaries of two particular clans, although they were closely associated with one another. These people are all connected to either the Macdonalds or the MacGregors.’

Chapter 37

D
ani stared at the detective constable with a mixture of both awe and scepticism. ‘How on earth do you know that?’

              ‘I told you before. It was the only topic I was interested in at school. At one point, I’d memorised every clan name in Scotland and knew who they’d been loyal to before the Union. I used to give the kids at school with pro-English surnames a hard time in the playground. Nothing serious, just a wee shove in the dinner queue once in a while. They had absolutely no idea why I was doing it.’

              James took a step forward. ‘Alright, it’s a connection of sorts, but where does it take us?’

              ‘I think we should sit back down and have a wee history lesson. Andy, tell us everything you know about the Macdonalds and the MacGregors.’

              They pulled up their chairs and listened, whilst Calder entertained them with tales of Jacobite uprisings and religious divisions. ‘Probably the most famous story relating to the Macdonalds is the Glencoe Massacre.’

              ‘I’ve actually heard of that,’ Dani chipped in for good measure.

              ‘In 1692, the staunchly protestant William and Mary were on the English throne, yet the majority of the Scottish Highlanders remained Catholic. They were sympathetic to James VII, who was in exile in France. William and Mary, fearing a rebellion north of the border, insisted that an oath of allegiance be sworn to them. Alexander Macdonald of Glencoe made it a point of honour to delay taking the oath until the very last moment. Due to a mix-up, he didn’t actually swear allegiance until a week after the deadline. So the English Secretary of State decided to make an example of him. Letters of fire and sword were issued against the Macdonalds, with an eye to dispersing the clan entirely, as had been done to the MacGregors a century earlier.

              This bloody task was given to the troops of Campbell of Glenlyon. The Campbells had enjoyed the hospitality of the Macdonalds for two weeks. Then, on the night of the 12
^th
-13
^th
February, they murdered forty of their hosts, in cold blood. But many of the Macdonalds managed to escape. The clan was not successfully broken up, as the English had hoped. In fact, the atrocity intensified anti-English feeling, even in the Lowlands.’

              ‘So all those people were massacred and it was for nothing in the end?’ James said.

              ‘Aye, that’s pretty much the case. As you can see from this list, there are still plenty of Macdonalds left in Scotland. The Campbells never succeeded in wiping them all out.’

              ‘What if someone’s trying to finish the job now?’ Dani said quietly.

              ‘Some ghostly member of the clan Campbell, you mean - back from the dead, sporting a kilt and sporran and wielding his claymore?’ James chuckled at the vision that had formed in his head.

              ‘Not a
ghost
James, a real, living and breathing man. Somebody who believes that he’s ridding Scotland of a disloyal element – a person who feels as if the Union itself is in danger.’

              ‘The Union
is
in bloody danger,’ Andy Calder snorted. ‘We very nearly left it and we still might.’

              ‘
Exactly
,’ Dani replied. ‘We’ve been living through turbulent times. Whichever side of the fence you happened to be on, we cannot deny that the referendum caused divisions; between husbands and wives, sons and daughters.’ As she glanced at the men opposite her, Dani could imagine quite clearly which side both had been on. As for herself, Dani’s Welsh heritage had made it very difficult to come to a decision.

              ‘Well, I suppose it is a motive,’ James conceded. ‘So how do we try and work out who might be next? There must be hundreds of Macdonalds in Scotland.’

              ‘There are other patterns here too,’ Dani stated decisively. ‘We’re only looking at eastern Scotland for starters. We have to assume that our killer lives somewhere within this radius. In fact, we’ve got a computer system at headquarters that could give us a good idea of where the perpetrator is based, if we enter the locations of the murders into the programme.’

              ‘We’ve hardly ever used it,’ Andy put in.

              ‘That’s because serial murders are so rare in Scotland,’ his boss replied. ‘I can ask Phil to run the data today.’

              ‘Is it safe to assume that our guy is keeping an eye on local media to select his next victims? If he spots someone with the right name, they become his target.’

              ‘Then we need to do the same.’ Dani felt the coffee pot and discovered it was stone cold.

              ‘That’s going to be a huge task.’ Andy sighed heavily. ‘We really need another piece of evidence to narrow the search.’

              They didn’t have a chance to discuss this possibility any further. All three heard a noise outside. It sounded like a milk bottle being kicked over. Dani got to her feet. ‘Andy, if you go round the back, I’ll check the front.’

              ‘Sure thing, Ma’am.’

              ‘What can I do?’ James asked.

              ‘Make some more coffee,’ Dani called over her shoulder, as she jogged down the hallway to the front door.

              Dani opened it gingerly and scanned the path. There was nothing. She stepped outside and kept close to the wall of the house, following it round to the left, where a passage ran along the side of the property. As she turned her head to look down the alleyway, Dani saw a tall figure, dressed in dark clothing, pressed up against the brickwork beside the kitchen window. The DCI moved forward and stood firm at the entrance, shouting into the gloom, ‘Eric, I know you’re here to see me. I’m prepared to talk to you. There’s no need for this ‘cloak and dagger’ act.’

              The man abruptly turned. As he did so, Andy leapt out of the bushes and grappled him into an arm lock. ‘Drop it!’ Calder commanded.

              Dani could see then that Fisher had a long sliver of broken glass in his hand, which immediately fell to the stony ground. She strode down to join her colleague.

              Eric turned his face towards her. ‘DCI Bevan. I need to talk to you urgently. I don’t mean anyone any harm.’

              ‘Then what’s with the weapon?’

              ‘Self-defence, Detective. If you’d spent a year in Saughton as a child-killer, you’d know what I meant by that.’ The man eyed her defiantly.

              ‘Bring him inside,’ she instructed Calder.

James had done what he was told and made a fresh pot of coffee. Tactfully, he had removed their notes on the Fisher case and tidied them away out of sight.

              Calder led Eric to the table and indicated he should sit down. Dani poured him a coffee, which he gulped at greedily.