Candles and Roses (27 page)

But he’d fucked that up, too. He’d been too rough, too out of control, and he’d freaked the girl out. She hadn’t needed to call the fucking police, but he couldn’t really blame her for that. Now he was on their radar too, and they’d be thinking that worst of him as well. He’d be lucky not to end up with something on his record.

It was Hamilton he really blamed for all this. Aye, he’d always been a drinker, but not like he was now. She’d egged him on to it—kept up with him glass for glass when she wanted—as well as giving him plenty of reasons to drown his sorrows. She liked him best when he’d had a few, she reckoned. But that was just because then he became even more reckless with his money. She always knew the end of the night was the best time to screw a few more quid out of him.

Things were already well and truly tits up. He was desperate for money and the debts were mounting. Some of his suppliers were already refusing his business, and a couple were threatening legal action. In the past he’d just about kept his head above water with this place, struggling through the winter months and dragging in enough of the tourist custom in the summer. But it had always been touch and go and he’d been eating into the last of his redundancy money to cover any unexpected expenses.

In the last year or so, business had really fallen off. Partly that was the economic climate. If this was an upturn, Christ knew what another recession would look like. Partly it was the competition. The other local hostelries offered a much more attractive proposition to the passing trade than this place ever would, and there were new cafes and bars opening that gave the tourists more and better places to go.

Mainly, though, it was him. He was neglecting the place. He was a bloody miserable host. The Armstrong girl had attracted a bit of extra custom at lunchtime, but he’d buggered that up. In the evenings, apart from a handful of regulars, the place was largely dead and there wasn’t much sign the tourist season would change that, especially if this sodding rain continued.

And Lizzie Hamilton had chipped away at what little savings he had left, that small cushion he’d been intending to stash away. There was always something she wanted or needed, and she always gave him the impression he was on a promise if he just kept paying up. It took him a long while to realise the promise would never be fulfilled.

That was why, in the end, he wasn’t sorry about what had happened. The bitch had owed him one, in every sense, and he wasn’t going to feel guilty for having finally taken what he’d been owed. It was no more than she’d deserved.

He was standing in the yard at the back of the bar, slightly baffled now that he was out here. That was happening more and more, another product of the drinking. He’d find himself confused, forgetting how to carry out tasks that had once been second nature.

The rain had slowed for the moment to a fine drizzle. The yard was a gloomy place at the best of times, hemmed in by buildings on all sides, cluttered with old casks and other discarded paraphernalia. On an afternoon like this, it was mainly lost in shadow. He’d intended to turn on the external lights before coming out, but of course he’d forgotten.

He was gazing round the debris of the yard, trying to recall what had brought him out here, when his nose caught the odd, acrid scent. It took something for him to discern any kind of smell, accustomed as he was to the fug of his own rarely-washed body. But this was something striking, unpleasant.

He turned, wondering where it was coming from. And then he glimpsed, or thought he had, some brief movement from the corner of his eye. Something in the shadows. ‘Who’s that?’ he said, taking a stumbling half-step forward. The stones were damp underfoot, slimy from years of neglect, and he felt his feet slipping under him. He reached for some purchase, but found nothing and toppled headlong towards the grey slabs.

As he fell, he saw someone or something moving towards him, but he was already disorientated and couldn’t make out what he was seeing. Something familiar was his last half-thought, or something unexpected. Then his skull hit the solid stone and he was lying, prone and motionless, as the slow rain continued to fall.

***

‘I may have something.’ Horton was leaning on the door of the office, watching McKay, who looked lost in his own thoughts. She’d never thought of him as a pensive man, and she could imagine he’d be chafing to take some action, make something happen.

‘Anything would be welcome.’

‘Well, don’t get your hopes too high just yet, but something interesting on Robbins.’

He sat up straighter, all attention. ‘Go on.’

‘We’ve been trawling through the ANPR data, hoping for some sighting of Robbins’s car between here and Manchester around the relevant dates. Not much luck with that. We picked up a couple of sightings, but only on the A9 up at this end so they don’t prove he went further south. From the movements looks like just local trips.’

‘When you said you had something, I was maybe expecting some good news, you know?’

‘Just setting the scene,’ she said. ‘So we got nowhere with that. But then we found something slightly more interesting. A sighting of his car on the A9 north of Inverness on the night before his daughter went missing—that is, the night before she first failed to show up at Gorman’s place for work.’

‘So? He could have been going anywhere.’

‘He could, but he wasn’t. This is where it gets interesting. The camera on the A9 is one of the permanent ones, but at the time there were also a couple of temporary ones on the A832 across to Avoch and Fortrose. Checking car tax and insurance at the start of the tourist season, presumably. He was picked up by both of those, so must have been heading to Fortrose or beyond.’

McKay had found himself a new piece of gum and was chewing hard. ‘So he was in the area the night his daughter went missing?’

‘We don’t know for certain when she disappeared. But she wasn’t seen locally after that night.’

‘Christ.’

‘And there’s more.’

‘Think before you speak, Ginny. You really don’t want me to have reason to kiss you, do you?’

‘Jesus, no,’ she said. ‘But I’ll tell you anyway. I started thinking about him travelling to Manchester. I tracked back over the last year or so, looking for other sightings of his car. There were plenty. Tracked all the way down the A9, M90, across to the M74 and M6, all the way into Manchester. It’s a journey he’s done fairly frequently, for whatever reasons. But none of the timings tie into when our victims went missing.’

McKay frowned. ‘You think there might be other victims?’

‘There may be, but that’s not my point. The point is he spent a lot of time in Manchester, whether for his business or for more dubious reasons. Maybe tracking down our victims? Who knows? But he was there a lot. I’ve also checked flights. He also made some day trips down there by air over the same period.’

‘Doesn’t prove anything, though, does it? We know he’s got a business office in Manchester. Could be there for countless reasons.’

‘Of course,’ she said, slowly. ‘But what interested me was why the only times he doesn’t seem to have made a trip down there are the times our victims went missing. We know precisely when Joanne Cameron disappeared, but timings for the other two are more approximate. Even so, there’re no sightings of his car in any of the relevant periods, even though normally he’s up and down there at least every two to three weeks.’ She paused. ‘So I got Josh Carlisle to do a bit of more checking. We’d missed something.’

‘Go on.’

‘We’d been focussing on the 4x4. But Carlisle did some digging and realised there was a second vehicle.’

‘Which we’d missed?’

‘It’s not registered to Robbins personally. Josh thought to check the business. Jack Robinson Media or some such. It’s obviously a company vehicle, at least notionally, with the business shown as registered owner and keeper. A small Ford van. So we checked on that and guess what. According to the ANPR network it made a trip to Manchester that fits perfectly with the Cameron disappearance.’

‘Jesus,’ McKay said. ‘Anybody ever told you you’re a fucking genius, Horton?’

‘Many people, but never you,’ she said. ‘And, in fairness, I think it’s Josh you should be thanking.’

‘So what about the other dates?’

‘Same deal. Return trips to Manchester in both cases in the relevant periods around the disappearances. Even more interesting, we can find no other trace of the van being used outside the city centre except on those three dates.’

McKay was on his feet. ‘Which, at the very least, means Robbins has some interesting questions to answer. Let’s go and talk to Helena. “Any sign of anything suspicious” was what she said. I think we’ve got that with knobs on.’ He was grinning widely. ‘Jesus, Ginny. Seriously, bloody well done. Really bloody well done.’

‘Like I say, Josh did all the hard work,’ she protested.

McKay was already heading off down the corridor. ‘That’s all well and good,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘But there’s no way on God’s earth I’m going to kiss
him
.’

CHAPTER THIRTY

‘No sign of his car,’ McKay said. ‘Bugger.’

Slightly to his surprise, he’d had no difficulty persuading Helena Grant to take this seriously. He’d realised, as he outlined the ANPR evidence to her, that he really had begun to lose perspective on the case. He’d somehow half-expected Grant to dismiss his arguments, tell him yet again he was obsessing over Robbins. He knew—had known for a long time—he was letting his feelings interfere with his more rational judgement, and he hadn’t the energy to disentangle what those feelings were or why they mattered.

He was slightly startled when Grant exclaimed: ‘Jesus, Alec. You were right.’

‘You think so?’

‘Well, it looks that way, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s still circumstantial till we’ve checked everything out. But there’s only so much you can put down to coincidence. The only times that van’s been driven to Manchester tie in with the three murders? Be interesting to hear what story he comes up with.’

McKay nodded. ‘Though we’ve done a bit more checking. It was driven to Manchester one previous time, about nine months ago. Other than that, just a handful of sightings round Inverness.’

‘That might just mean there’s another victim we don’t know about.’

‘It might. We’ve only been back twelve months so far, but that’s all we’ve found.’

‘Sounds like we’ve more than enough to bring Robbins in for a chat, anyway.’

‘A chat under caution?’

‘I’d have thought so,’ Grant said. ‘A pretty bloody formal chat.’

So here they were, standing outside Robbins’s house, with a couple of uniforms in a squad car for back up, about to issue the invitation. Grant had decided she ought to be in on this, and they’d left Horton back at the office still chasing down whatever evidence she could find. McKay might have resented any other senior officer muscling in, but he knew Grant well enough to recognise she was more concerned with being there if anything went wrong than with snatching a piece of any glory.

For the moment, all of that looked academic. The gravelled drive was empty and the house looked unoccupied. As they approached the front door, heads bowed against the incessant rain, McKay looked up at the blank windows. It was late afternoon, but the rain-soaked sky made it feel like evening. If Robbins had been here, some lights would be showing. He pressed the bell with no expectation of a response.

‘We can leave our two uniformed colleagues to alert us when he gets back,’ Grant said from behind him. ‘It’s only a matter of time.’

‘Aye, I know. I just want that bugger sitting on the other side of an interview table.’

Grant had unfurled a pocket umbrella. Ducking under it, she strode along the front of the house, peering in at the windows. McKay pressed the bell again, holding it down firmly.

‘Alec,’ Grant said.

‘Aye?’

‘Come and look at this.’ Her face was pressed against the sitting-room window, a hand cupped round her eyes.

‘What is it?’

‘Have a look.’

McKay reluctantly released the bell and stepped over to join her. ‘Christ. See what you mean.’

It was difficult to make out the interior, but it was clear the place had been left in a mess. A table had been overturned, and papers and books were scattered across the carpet. Beyond them, a flat-screen computer monitor lay face down on the floor.

‘Some sort of struggle?’ Grant said.

‘You’re the senior officer,’ McKay said, ‘but I reckon this justifies us entering the house, don’t you?’

‘I’m happy to take responsibility for that, Alec,’ she said, ‘as long as you take responsibility for actually getting us in there.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’ The window in front of them was double-glazed and looked like it might pose a challenge. McKay trudged back to the side of the house, where a passageway led to the rear garden. Its entrance was blocked by a heavy wrought-iron gate sealed with an equally substantial padlock.

McKay gazed at it for a moment, then said: ‘Ach, bugger it.’ He grasped the wet metal with both hands, raised a foot to the horizontal iron bar in the centre of the gate, and hoisted his wiry frame over it.

‘Jesus, Alec,’ Grant said from behind him, ‘you’ll do yourself a mischief.’

He was halfway over, legs straddling the top of the gate. ‘If I slip now, I’ll do myself more than a fucking mischief.’ He lifted his remaining leg over and dropped on to the path inside the gate, slipping only slightly as he landed. ‘Piece of cake,’ he said, ‘and I even managed not to end up on my arse.’

At the rear, there was a large garden, laid mainly to lawn. As McKay stepped forward, a security light clicked on, startling him momentarily. To his immediate left, there was a rear door to the house and, further along, a pair of solid-looking French windows. With no expectation of success, he tried the door. To his surprise, the handle turned and the door opened.

He stepped inside and found himself in the kitchen, a showpiece of granite work-surfaces and stainless steel appliances, none of them looking much used. He clicked on the lights. ‘Mr Robbins?’