Absolution (41 page)

‘He’s not daft, that’s for sure.’

She smoothed out the first photograph on the table, flattening its creases with her thumbnail. ‘So what was he hiding? I would like to know why he killed Malkie Steele. I really would like to know that.’ She noticed McAlpine had finished his drink. ‘And one day I’m going to ask him. I’m going to ask him how he went from being this innocent little boy’ – she handed McAlpine Lorna’s photograph of the children on the beach – ‘to someone who could do that.’ She handed over the picture of Malkie Steele’s crushed face.

‘Somebody offered him money,’ said McAlpine, looking at the menu, feeling a bit peckish.

‘You don’t go up to a twenty-year-old with no record for anything and offer him forty grand to kill somebody. Davy Nicholson was right; there’s more to it than that. I’ll get you another before I go up the road. You want a toastie, Mick?’

‘Aye, cheese and ham. I’m just away to the gents.’

‘What about you, sir?’

McAlpine didn’t answer. Costello got up and went to the bar as McAlpine picked up the photograph and turned it to get a better look. Four children on a beach. Three boys standing at the back. A sand-boat with its flag flying. A wee girl with long blonde hair flying in the wind, a beautiful face with perfect features, fine arched brows and large grey eyes, wide and innocent. And one of the little boys was gazing at her, his own eyes full of devotion…

‘Do you want salad with it?’ said Costello, turning back to him, but McAlpine had gone.

Batten bolted his toastie and drink, and disappeared off, while Costello finished hers at leisure. She was just reaching under the seat for her bag to find her notebook and pen when Anderson eased into the booth opposite her.

‘I thought you were on your way home,’ she said.

‘I am. But this came through just after you left. I’ve only been waiting two days, although it was urgent.’ He handed her a fax headed Parks and Recreation Department. In two seconds Costello’s forefinger had run down the list of names and dates and come to a halt. She looked sharply up at Anderson. ‘How did you know?’

‘I didn’t. Just something the Boss mentioned, about a case he was involved in once. A young woman who died following an acid attack.’

‘Leaving a baby daughter, named after her mother. Well, the pronounceable version of her mother. Geertruijde – Trude. Who would now be – twenty-two, say?’

Anderson nodded. ‘We don’t really
need
to dig out the records on that case.’

‘But we’re going to. Well, I’m going to. First thing tomorrow.’

McAlpine parked the car in a lay-by and turned off the engine, taking a few moments to calm down. It had taken thirty-eight minutes to drive the forty-seven miles from Glasgow to Culzean, bypassing Ayr and then taking the high coast road, thrilling but not legal. He had stopped on the way and bought a half-bottle of Jack Daniel’s. This was too good not to celebrate. He got out of the car, and twisted the cap off the bottle. The alcohol hit his bloodstream and was welcomed like a long-lost friend. He was about to meet another.

He was in heaven, a dark and windless heaven; the air hung expectant, waiting. The darkness was intense. He could sense her; she had been speaking to him all along, whispering in the darkness. He just hadn’t been listening.

He stood there, his eyes closed, seeing her face in his mind’s eye, tasting her on his lips.

He saw movement on the beach, a young man moving through the moonlight, silhouetted against the darkness of the waves as he ran along the waterline. A man out for a run on a beach with a dog, a white glove or bandage on his hand, punching the air as he ran.

At midnight.

McAlpine watched him run into the distance, into the darkness.

He came to the white cottage, Shiprids, sidestepped two planters filled with something woody and spiky that had been cut back for the winter, and walked on, passing a little red car parked covertly under the hedge. The cottage was dark and deserted, no sign of life. The little old lady protected the lane like a sentinel. But
she, his angel,
had pulled him from the car. She was here, he knew that now.

He walked down the lane to the sea, listening to the gentle hush and rush of water he could no longer see now the moon had passed behind a cloud. She had been here; here, then gone.

He walked along towards the castle, to the little white cottage, much further than he remembered from that night. He saw the sign with the two swans, their necks entwined, the words
Keeper’s Cottage
wrapped in a diamond of lighter wood. The swans were for her, de Zwaan. The swan. And a diamond. It was only yesterday that he had sat at the side of her bed and held her hand, that fragile hand, watching that little tendril of blonde hair fall over the pillow. He smiled, twisting the imperfect blue diamond in his pocket. At last he was going to give it back to her.

Sea birds squawked from their rest on the high point of the cliff, disturbed by some noise. There would be caves along here, cavern haunts of smugglers and cannibals. Things secret and things hidden. Yes, he would have kept
her down here, tucked away like a treasure, away from the Christopher Robins of the world.

She was drifting and whispering through his mind, beautiful, so beautiful, with her grey eyes and lovely hair, as she lifted his head from the water and leaned forward to kiss him, reclaiming what was hers. She was telling him to come back, to come back to her, that she did not want to live only in his dreams, in his nightmares, but with him.

He turned up a makeshift path towards the little gingerbread house, towards its still flickering candle-flame. His feet stumbled clumsily over driftwood on the path as he looked for signs of life. But he could see and hear nothing apart from the constant noise of the waves and the occasional sea bird.

He pushed the door gently with one finger. The wrought-iron doorknob rattled. He turned it slowly, and the mechanism released immediately, the door swinging open, revealing the kitchen, a huge oak table in the middle.

He recognized the smell immediately. Turps and oil paint. Paintbrushes were suspended in cleaner over at the sink, hanging from a wire contraption used by professional artists.

Stained rags had been left behind the taps; two canvases, sized and primed, were drying on the wall, far enough away from the Aga so that they did not dry too quickly and warp. Watercolour paper was stretched on boards, ready to be used. It could have been Helena’s studio. There was even the same type of scalpel she used, a pile of them lying next to a cloth marked with pigment. He picked one up, waving it from side to side, as if conducting an invisible orchestra.

Two cups stood upturned on the draining board, among an incongruous mix of palettes and dippers. Underneath the smell of the paint and the smell of fuel in the Aga, he could smell dog. A square of carpet topped by a woollen rug
covered in dog hair lay in front of the stove. Two bowls lay on the floor, one full of water that looked fresh, the other speckled with brown flecks. He tasted a memory of the dog in his dreams, a huge wolf-like creature with yellow eyes and wicked teeth.

He walked slowly into the hall, past the door to the half-built veranda. The hall at least had a rug covering the bare boards. The stairs, five feet wide, only two inches on each rise, were more suited to a hotel than to a cottage this size.

He paused for a minute, waiting and watching, tapping the scalpel on the wood of the banister. There was no noise, apart from the deep
tock
of the granddaughter clock in the corner of the room, the incessant whisper of the sea, the wind walking around in the rafters above his head. And in the noise there was stillness, as if nothing would move from here, as if time and space were standing still.

He crossed the hall into the other room. This was a room that was never lived in. It was tidy, with dusty, unread magazines stacked neatly in the corner, and paintings – good paintings – hanging on the wall. There was an open fireplace stacked with sun-bleached driftwood, but the window had never been opened to let the freshness of the sea-salt breeze inside.

In the darkness beyond the glass he saw her again, the image of her, on the bonnet of the car, that dark stormy night, the wind blowing the hood of her cloak from a face suddenly highlighted to white by the lightning, just as he opened his eyes and focused through the pain and the rain. His eyes clearing as she brought the stick down on the windscreen, again and again, closing as the glass shattered. He could feel the relief of being dragged upwards and out through the window, his feet kicking against the seat. She
had lashed out at the glass with her heel, so she could pull him clear without cutting him. He could remember it now, could remember it all.

He went up the stairs, the treads creaking underfoot, measuring each tread with a tap of the scalpel on the handrail.

At the top of the stairs there was a bathroom, or at least a small room with a sink, a bath and a toilet. There were no blinds or curtains at the window, and the floorboards were bare. He could make out a white towel, a pile of clothes left on the floor in a heap, but no make-up, no trappings of femininity. Nothing.

He went up the rest of the stairs, feeling his way in the darkness, feeling that somebody was here in the house with him, breathing, keeping it alive. The old plaster walls were warm, flaking in his hand as he climbed the stairs. In the darkness, he saw a picture on the wall, a photograph, the only photograph. He was beside it, level with it, before he could make it out. He had seen it before, one fleeting glance across Graham’s desk, the day he had learned the truth about how Robbie died. The photograph was grainy – it had been blown up from a smaller picture – and the colours had faded; the blue sea had drifted off to a metallic green, and chemical deterioration over the years had edged the figures with brown.

Two men and a woman, squinting their eyes against a strong Continental sun, were hugging each other in front of a yacht moored in some Mediterranean port – Monaco? St Tropez? The land rose in chocolate-box hills, white stucco houses freckled a hill scarred by a fine line that might have been a funicular railway. A road ran off the picture to the right, a promenade of open-topped cars and beautiful women. The taller man, the one who looked like Steve McQueen, had the even sun-tanned look of somebody who
spends every daylight hour out of doors in a sunnier place than the west coast of Scotland.
Your brother didn’t hesitate – just went straight in to get him.
A dark man in a T-shirt – John? Jan? – was laughing, living for the moment.
He’d been tortured before being shot.
And, between them, there she was, a sunhat on the back of her head, her hand in the pocket of her denim shorts. Her brown feet bare on the wooden deck, in a balletic pose. All three were smiling, laughing, happy. A portrait of tragedy.

Warm fingers of love caressed his heart. She had been here, waiting for him, all along.

‘Hello again,’ he said, tenderly. On the glass his fingertip traced the lines of the yacht, the metal stanchions, the white rope looping from one to the other, the dark blue hull, the name of the boat hidden as
she
leaned like a swan twisting its neck towards its mate.

It was an insignificant noise, a slump of something soft hitting a wall, the ghostly flit of somebody moving across floorboards. McAlpine turned to the bedroom and looked in through the door. She was standing there in the mild darkness, her hands over her mouth, her back against the wall. The moonlight danced on the halo of blonde hair crowning her pale face, her eyes closed slightly, and a small sigh forced its way from her mouth as she slowly but steadily collapsed to her knees, a slow stain of red seeping through her white gown, spreading across the dusty floorboards. Her eyes flickered, closed. Then opened, trying to focus on him. Her hands grasped her dress, then as she crumpled full length on the floor, she reached out, pointing at him, her hand quivering.

Then she lay still, a question poised on the most perfect lips he had never kissed.

He stood motionless, watching as the persistent stain of red began to seep across the floorboards.

He tried talking to her, words of comfort, anything he could think of. ‘Come back to me, come back, come on, honey.’ He pulled off his jacket, wadded it up and pressed it to the centre of the wound. She convulsed, moaning slightly, a slow involuntary sound from deep within. All the time he talked to her, hiding his own panic and confusion. Her head tilted back slightly; a faint trickle of blood was born at the side of her mouth and began a meandering path across her cheek. Thin arms fell outstretched, like a marionette with broken strings.

‘No, no, no, not again,’ whispered McAlpine, doing the first-aid stuff, straightening her head, clearing her airway, the familiar procedure clearing his mind. He folded her arms across her wound, holding the jacket firm. ‘You hold that there now.’

He pulled his mobile phone from his pocket, his other hand a comforting pressure on top of hers. ‘You hold on. Keep calm. And keep breathing.’

She moaned again.

He glanced at his mobile, knowing they were low on the beach, a huge cliff behind them. The signal would be weak. Was there a phone here? What about the figure on the beach? ‘Connect, connect,’ he said to his mobile. The display flashed at him, casting faint blue light – emergency calls only.

‘Thank God,’ he said.

‘Indeed.’ A floorboard creaked behind him. ‘I knew you would come, Alan.’

McAlpine didn’t turn round but stayed crouched, allowing the mobile to be lifted from his grasp, snapped shut and
thrown across the room. He continued to press his hands to the wound, his fingers going deep into the crimson darkness of her dress. Blood was spreading out from under her as well now. Oh, God.’ He closed his eyes and prayed for her to keep breathing. ‘George?’ McAlpine’s mind was slow, emotion clouding his thoughts, but he kept his voice calm, authoritative. ‘I would like you to call an ambulance. She is badly hurt.’

‘Nemesis, Alan; that’s all it is.’

McAlpine held his hand to her forehead, smearing blood on her beautiful face. The dim light made her look as though life had passed already. Then he saw a single, weak pulse flutter under the skin of her neck. ‘You shouldn’t have done this,’ he said through a pall of sorrow. ‘This one is innocent.’