None but the Dead (30 page)

‘Do we know if Muir was off the island at that time?’ DI Wilson asked.

‘We don’t,’ McNab said.

‘I suggest you don’t alert him, but that you speak to Dr MacLeod and organize a routine DNA swab of all those connected to Sam Flett and Inga Sinclair. We’ll check the airline
services from here. I’ll get DI Flett to do the same for the ferry.’

‘Then he’ll find out,’ McNab said. ‘The only secrets here are the ones they want to keep.’

‘We’ll ask for a list of vehicles crossing around that time. We won’t say who we’re looking for.’

The boss has no idea how it works up here.

‘Can I talk to you, sir?’

A pause.

‘Go ahead, Sergeant.’

McNab proceeded to run his mouth off, big time. Would he have been so honest if he’d been standing in front of the boss? He didn’t think so. His first admission was that Rhona had
dealt much better with the isolation and the outsider feeling than he had. Maybe because she’d been brought up on an island like this. He felt like an alien, with bad breath and a rank smell.
The ‘Glasgow Detective’ was a label used more as an accusation than a description. Okay, he was hated in Glasgow too, but it didn’t bother him there, because it didn’t
usually arise from the people he was trying to help. Sanday inhabitants were for the most part law-abiding and had been policing their island themselves for a long time. Hence no police station.
McNab had the distinct feeling that they thought he’d somehow brought trouble with him, or at least made it worse by his presence.

‘And they could be right, sir.’

‘You believe had you done things differently, Sam Flett might still be alive? And the child might not be missing?’

That about summed it up.

The boss took his studied silence as an admission.

‘I’ll be in touch with the post-mortem findings on Sam Flett,’ he said. ‘You set up the DNA screening with Dr MacLeod. As for the search, go over old ground again,
including outbuildings previously searched. If her abductor is local, they’ll know where you are all of the time. They could be playing cat and mouse with her body.’

‘Maybe she’s still alive, sir,’ he ventured.

The silence this time was on the boss’s side.

‘Keep in touch, Sergeant.’

McNab rang off then and went downstairs. The bar was still deserted, but this time he did pour himself a drink and chose a whisky.

‘You’re certain?’

‘Not certain,’ Chrissy hesitated. ‘It was out of context, and he was dressed differently.’

Rhona was very aware that clothing and location could play a big part in witness identification. She also knew that eye-witness testimony was notoriously unreliable. In the past it had put
numerous innocent people behind bars. Nowadays, the psychology behind how and why witnesses ‘recognized’ someone from a scene of crime was established, but not yet fully understood.

‘But you think there’s a possibility it was Derek Muir?’

‘I do.’ Chrissy paused. ‘Also, Bill’s been trying to speak to McNab about the DNA screening programme. Is he answering his mobile at all?’

‘Intermittently,’ Rhona said. ‘I’ll find him and sort out a schedule.’

‘Looks like your twenty-four-hour window might not be enough,’ Chrissy said.

There was no answer to that, so Rhona didn’t offer one.

The search would eventually have to be scaled down. The people of Sanday had work to go to, farms to run, families to look after. If a large-scale search hadn’t found
Inga by now, it was unlikely to. Perhaps her remains would eventually be discovered years from today, like the numerous other graves that littered Sanday, from Neolithic times through to the
Vikings and the possible Beth Haddow. Rhona didn’t want to think of that being the outcome, but the more time passed, the likelier it became.

Thick velvety darkness enveloped the car as she made her way back to the cottage, her headlights picking out shadowy buildings, the concrete remnants of the last time the island had been at war.
Back then, when government forces had invaded Sanday, the people had accepted their presence, even when it had forced locals off their land and allowed their crops to wither in the fields.

The latest invasion of police personnel hadn’t been so welcome.

For many islanders the interest the police had shown in the decades-old grave at the schoolhouse had been deemed disruptive and unnecessary. Sam Flett had definitely been one of them. The theft
of the skull and the interference with the soil evidence could have been prompted by such disquiet. On the other hand, both actions could have been done to try and protect the identity of the
victim.

And now a possible sighting of Derek Muir near Jamie Drever’s flat in the run-up to the discovery of his dehydrated body. Scotland was a small place, and plenty of folk from Orkney
travelled to Glasgow for a variety of reasons. But . . .

Rhona didn’t hold entirely with the ‘there’s no such a thing as coincidence’ theory on crime. Life had a habit of ignoring carefully formulated theories on what did or
should happen.

By ferrying them about and providing local information, Derek Muir had been close to the investigation. According to her most recent discussion with McNab, he’d run Jock Drever’s
name past the Ranger the day he’d arrived. So Derek had been forewarned and forearmed about their interest in the man. What he couldn’t do was wipe out his trip to Glasgow, if indeed it
had ever happened.

Assuming it had, and he had gone to visit Jock Drever, why would he tie up the old man and interrogate him? Had it had something to do with the unearthing of the remains at the schoolhouse? Was
that even possible time wise?

For a scientist, it seemed her imagination was taking over.

Imagine the imaginable
.

As she turned a bend in the road, her headlights picked out the strange red-brick building, the only war edifice not to be concrete clad, although it did have a series of concrete supports,
perhaps to protect against the shockwaves of any nearby bomb impact. Standing at right angles to the road, the mortuary, like all the other buildings, had been searched and nothing found. One thing
had struck her at the time, and a memory of it swept back now.

Unlike the other buildings, the floor of the mortuary had been raised by at least two feet of manure and sandy soil. How so much of this mix had got inside, she had no idea, except perhaps it
being used as a shelter by cattle who’d managed to get in through the doorway. The smell had been pungent, the quantity of muck rising almost as high as the two windows that sat one on either
side.

At that point she recalled Inga’s boots and the remnants of something similar on them. When surveying the building, she’d given no thought to soil sampling, but talking to Chrissy
about it had strengthened the need.

Rhona pulled into the side of the road, and switched off the engine.

The walk across the darkened field to the mortuary wouldn’t take long. With her forensic torch to guide her path, her only concern was that livestock using the building as shelter might
take umbrage at her visit.

Once out of the vehicle, she realized the night was thick with sound. A short-eared owl, registering her presence, barked in alarm, its flight illuminated by the beam of her flashlight. A group
of cows mooed loudly at her passing, but thankfully shifted away rather than towards her. Then her light caught the red-brick wall as it loomed, an ominous shadow before her.

Beyond lay the dark mounds and white hollows of the dunes. After that the moving waters of Lopness Bay. She felt as though she was walking into the past. Seventy-odd years ago a young woman had
wandered through here on her way to a shell-sand beach, never to return. Yesterday a little girl had perhaps walked this way in her wellington boots and anorak and not come back either.

The owl’s worried alarm call had followed her here and was now joined by the warning beat of the sea. Under her feet, the grass ended and the churned-up sand, manure and mud began.

Rhona hesitated, but only briefly, then made her way towards the seaward end of the building, and the dark open portal of the old mortuary.

Inga’s mother was alone this time, and when she opened the door to him, he could read her terrified thoughts and sought immediately to reassure her, although the words he
used weren’t really comforting.

‘We haven’t found Inga yet.’

Her face, initially showing signs of panic, now dissolved into despair. McNab wasn’t sure which expression was worse.

‘May I come in?’

She nodded and he followed her into the sitting room, where she sat down next to the fire, staring at it rather than him.

‘You’ll stop the search soon,’ she said.

‘We’ll scale it down, but we won’t stop.’

Huddled into herself, she barely acknowledged his reply.

‘Can I ask you a few questions?’

‘I don’t know any more than I’ve told you.’

‘It’s about your life before you came here.’

Her eyes flicked up at him. ‘I told you about that.’

‘Do you have a photograph of your former partner?’

‘Why?’ She regarded him suspiciously.

‘If you have one, may I see it?’

She seemed to give up on the answer or denial she’d planned and rose.

Leaving the room, she returned a few minutes later and handed him a passport-size photograph. ‘That’s Joe. I threw out the rest,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why that
one survived. Maybe to give me a focus for my hate.’

McNab studied the face in the photograph. Dark-haired like his daughter, and handsome in a bullish way. He was clean-shaven in this, but McNab sketched in the three-day stubble.

‘His height?’

‘About the same as you, but broader.’

‘What did he do as a job?’

‘Shipyards for a while, manual work, some time on a fishing boat.’

‘If he was to come here looking for you, what would happen?’

Now the fear was as bright and hot as the fire that burned behind her.

‘There’s no way he would know to come to Sanday. I’ve been very careful about that.’

‘Would Inga be able to contact him?’ McNab tried.

She shook her head. ‘Inga wouldn’t do that. She knew . . .’

‘About the beatings?’ McNab finished for her.

Her face crumpled. ‘I don’t know. I tried not to make a noise, but sometimes . . .’

‘Did Joe ever threaten or hurt Inga?’

She shook her head.

‘But you thought he might?’

‘I was afraid . . . if she tried to intervene. That’s why I left.’

McNab looked again at the photograph. ‘How recent is this?’

‘It was taken about ten years ago.’

There was no easy way to tell her, so he came right out with it. ‘I may have seen this man. Here on Sanday.’

‘What?’ She sprang to her feet in shock.

‘He came off a fishing boat docked in Kettletoft harbour.’

She covered her mouth with a shaking hand.

‘He warned me not to take her away from him. He warned me.’ She looked at McNab with pleading eyes. ‘Please. You have to get her back.’

‘Can I use your landline? The signal here . . .’

‘Of course. It’s in the hall. Will I make us some tea?’

McNab nodded, not because he wanted tea, but because she needed something to do.

DI Flett listened intently as he spun his latest tale, then talked about the police launch and the coastguard. McNab felt immediately out of his comfort zone when dealing with
the sea rather than inner-city streets.

‘We’ll make contact with any fishing boats in the vicinity. See if we can track him down.’ There was a moment of silence before DI Flett said, ‘Well done, Detective
Sergeant.’

More used to reprimands than being congratulated, McNab had no idea how to respond, so hung up instead.

Inga’s mother was waiting anxiously in the living room.

‘What are you going to do?’ she said, handing McNab a mug of tea.

‘You said he never hurt Inga,’ McNab reminded her. ‘If I’m right and the man I saw was your former partner and he has snatched Inga, there’s no reason to suppose he
would hurt her now. His intention may have been to hurt you by taking her.’

That made a sort of sense to her.

‘Until we check this out, I’d rather you didn’t mention it to anyone. If he is here, it might alert him.’

‘Okay,’ she said, although she didn’t look convinced.

‘I’ve called PC Tulloch. He’s on his way and will stay with you overnight.’

She looked relieved.

‘I’ll make up a bed for him on the couch.’

Her mention of the couch reminded McNab of his own sleeping arrangements. He’d fully intended going back to the hotel, but in view of the latest developments, he decided he should call in
on Rhona on the way back and let her know what had happened.

The schoolhouse was in darkness when he passed. McNab had little time for the paedo, but if they did find the girl with her father, it would let Mike Jones off the hook, for
this one at least.

Feeling the undercarriage hit the raised grassy centre of the track, he slowed down. Having got himself on the right side of DI Flett, he didn’t want to ruin it by wrecking a police
vehicle. That thought made him recall being brought here by Derek Muir the night he’d arrived on Sanday. How he’d run Jock Drever’s name past the Ranger.

McNab tried to recall the man’s reaction. There had been, he thought, no disquiet at his enquiry. Most of the uneasiness had been on his own side, as he’d looked out on the emptiness
of Sanday and realized what he’d come to.

If it was Muir that Chrissy had spotted on CCTV, he could have been in that part of Glasgow for any number of reasons. With nothing at all to do with Jock Drever.

And yet
.

Derek Muir had exhibited little emotion about any of the subsequent events that had happened on Sanday. McNab had read this as the natural reticence of an Orkney islander. Sam Flett, on the
other hand, had been much more emotional in his dealings with the police, on both the cold case and Inga’s disappearance.

I even thought the old guy had lost his wits. Particularly over those muslin flowers
.