Candles and Roses (28 page)

The pervading silence suggested the house was empty. He made his way through to the front door, half-expecting it to be deadlocked. But again the door opened. If he was out, Robbins hadn’t made much effort to secure the place.

‘That was quick,’ Grant said, as he admitted her into the hallway. ‘You’ve obviously missed your vocation as a housebreaker.’

‘I’d like to claim it was down to my locksmith skills,’ McKay said. ‘Actually, the back door was unlocked.’

She followed him to the entrance to the living room, where he’d paused. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘we might want to treat this as a crime scene. Look.’

The room was illuminated only by the gloomy daylight from the front window, but the scene was clear enough. The disturbance to the room was more severe than it had appeared from outside. The computer had been dragged from the desk, along with a stack of files and papers. A vase lay smashed in the corner by the door, among a scattering of smaller ornaments. Not wanting to touch the light-switch, McKay pulled out a small flashlight and shone it across the carpet. ‘There.’

It was a dark stain, perhaps twenty or so centimetres across. As the beam from the torch reached it, it became clear that the stain was a deep red, darkening at the edges.

‘Not much question,’ Grant agreed.

‘There’s something else,’ McKay said. ‘Can you smell anything?’ He gestured towards the living room. ‘Stick your head in the door.’

Frowning, she did as instructed. The frown tightened into a grimace. ‘Christ, what’s that?’

‘I’m no expert,’ McKay said. ‘But I reckon it might well be chloroform.’

‘We better check out the rest of this place.’

It took them only a couple of minutes to search the rest of the house. Upstairs there were three bedrooms—one clearly used by Robbins himself, one set up as a guest room, and the third apparently used as an office and consulting room for Robbins’s counselling work—and a bathroom. All were empty and undisturbed.

‘We need to get a bulletin out on Robbins,’ Grant said. ‘You know his car reg?’

‘Not off the top of my head,’ McKay said. ‘But Ginny’s got all the gen.’ He pulled out his phone and dialled. Grant was already heading back out to the car to call into the FCR.

The phone was answered almost immediately. It sounded as if Horton was on the hands-free in the car. ‘Ginny?’

‘Alec? Was just about to call you.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Heading up to the Black Isle. With Mary Graham. There’s been a development, though no idea what it means.’

‘We’ve got what you might call a development here too. Before you tell me your troubles, have you got Robbins’s car reg? We need to track him down urgently.’

‘It’s in my notebook. Hang on. Mary—’

He heard some background noise, presumably Mary Graham finding the notebook in Horton’s cavernous handbag. Good luck with that one, he thought, but a moment later Horton was back on the line. McKay scribbled the registration down and hurried into the rain. ‘Hang on a sec, Ginny.’ Grant was sitting in the car with the passenger door open talking urgently into the radio. She gave him the thumbs up as he handed over the details.

The rain, which had seemed to be lessening while they’d been standing outside the house, had redoubled its force. McKay hurried back to the house, sheltering his phone inside the hood of his rainproof jacket. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said to Horton, and told her what they’d found in Robbins’s living room.

She gave a low whistle. ‘Well, that’s interesting,’ she said. There was silence for a second, as if she were thinking through what McKay had just told her.

‘So where are you heading?’

‘The Caledonian Bar.’

‘I’m guessing you’re not popping in for a quick pint?’

‘My standards aren’t high,’ she said, ‘but they’re higher than that. No, we had a call-out. One of the regulars. Went in for his usual lunchtime pint, but no sign of Gorman. Didn’t think much of it at first. Gorman’s not the most reliable of hosts. But then a couple of others turned up, and still no sign of Gorman. Reckon they were all getting thirsty. So one of them decides to have a look for Gorman out back. Assumed he was asleep or something. Checks out Gorman’s bedroom, but no sign. Gorman’s not the type to go out for a day-trip, so they check in case he’s had an accident in the cellar or something. But they don’t find anything till they go into the yard out back—’ She paused and he heard her swear. ‘Bloody lorries. I’ve a good mind to take his bloody number. Sorry—nearly sideswiped off the Kessock Bridge.’

‘Gorman?’ he reminded her.

‘Yeah, there’s apparently a yard at the back of the pub with access to the road, where Gorman takes deliveries. No sign of Gorman there either. But what they do find is one of Gorman’s shoes.’

‘What?’

‘Lying there in the middle of the bloody yard, like it’s fallen off his foot. So one of them talks the others into calling the police. And of course we don’t take it seriously but eventually a couple of uniforms pop in on their way past. And find a pool of blood out back.’

‘Which the regulars hadn’t spotted?’

‘In fairness it’s pretty gloomy out there apparently, especially on a day like today. They’d just thought it was a puddle. But our colleagues were a bit sharper. Enough blood that even this bloody rain couldn’t wash it away.’

‘What do they reckon?’

‘It’s still a mystery. They did a thorough search of the place, but no other sign of him. Checked the neighbouring properties but still nothing. They were reporting him as a misper when someone was alert enough to spot we’d interviewed him so I got a call.’ She paused. ‘Don’t know if I did the right thing, but something about it set the alarm bells ringing. I persuaded them to treat the place as a crime scene, at least provisionally, so that no-one tramples over it until we’ve had chance to have a look. Like I say, I was about to call you.’

McKay laughed. ‘You’re learning, Ginny. Forgiveness not permission. But, aye, I think you were right. I don’t know how any of this fits together, but it’s another bloody odd coincidence. Two pools of blood and two more missing people. Too many bloody coincidences. It makes me nervous.’

He turned, still talking, to see Helena Grant standing inside the front door, signalling to him. ‘Hang on.’

‘Got the bulletin out on Robbins,’ she said. ‘But I also got them to check the ANPR network while we were on. Sighting of Robbins’s car on the A9 north of Inverness, late this morning. Then another sighting on a temporary camera on the A832 west of Munlochy, heading east, a few minutes later. No sign of it returning according to the latest data.’

McKay nodded. ‘Back on the Black Isle, then.’ He spoke back into the phone: ‘I don’t know what’s going on up there, Ginny. But I want you to be bloody careful. It looks like we have another coincidence on our hands.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Mary Graham pulled up outside the Caledonian bar, not worrying about the double-yellows or being halfway up the pavement. It was barely 6pm but the rain was coming harder than ever and it felt like night had already fallen. The street ahead was deserted, except for one man under a flapping umbrella scurrying over to the fish and chip shop. The start of the bloody tourist season. Horton could imagine the families clustered miserably in their holiday lets and B&Bs, peering into the grey evening and wondering when the hell this was ever going to let up.

She’d been afraid the uniforms would have made a big deal of securing the crime scene, envisaging the bar draped in police tape and surrounded by flashing blues. The last thing they wanted, though she didn’t fool herself word wouldn’t already be getting round in a small town like this.

In fact, they’d handled it discreetly enough. The marked car was tucked around the corner and they’d obviously done nothing more than lock the main bar doors and shut the wooden gates to the delivery yard.

After a moment, the bar door opened a crack and a face peered out. ‘Aye?’

She was about to brandish her warrant card when the door opened further. ‘I know you. Alec McKay’s gopher.’

‘DS Horton to you,’ she said. ‘Or Ginny to my friends. You were at the Clootie Well.’ Murray something, she recalled.

‘Aye, come in,’ he said. ‘Make yourselves at home.’

The two uniforms—Murray and another she didn’t recognise—had been sitting by the doorway waiting for someone to turn up. It looked as if they’d been smart enough to minimise their impact on the crime scene, if that was what it turned out to be. The bar looked even more dreary and lifeless than when she’d visited with McKay, as if its last spark of hospitality had finally been snuffed out.

‘We OK to bugger off now?’ Murray was already gathering up his possessions. ‘Shift finished the best part of an hour ago.’

‘Anything else useful you can tell us?’

‘Not really. You’ll have seen what we reported. The pool of blood’s in the yard out back. I didn’t know what to do about that or the shoe. Didn’t want to disturb it if it was evidence, but didn’t want this bloody downpour to remove anything that might be helpful. In the end, we found a sheet of plastic in the back and laid that over them to keep the rain off. That’s the only thing we touched. Even kept our hands off the beer. Not that it was much of a temptation in this place.’

‘You did right,’ she agreed. ‘Though the examiners will whinge whatever we do.’

‘Aye, tell me about it,’ Murray said.

‘OK, push off then,’ Horton said. ‘But make sure you’re both contactable if there’s anything we need to check with you.’

She and Graham settled themselves in the corner vacated by Murray and his colleague to await the arrival of the crime scene examiner. He was, they’d been assured, on his way. No doubt at his own speed, Horton thought. In the meantime, there wasn’t a lot they could do. Murray and his colleague had already checked the adjacent properties and learned that all but one—an elderly woman who’d seen and heard nothing of interest—were unoccupied during the day, their owners at work. There was little point setting any more hares running until they’d a better idea of what had happened here.

‘Can’t even help ourselves to a bag of crisps,’ Graham said, morosely. ‘I’m starving.’

‘More than your job’s worth,’ Horton agreed.

‘Aye, and they’re probably stale in this place anyway.’

She was about to respond when her mobile buzzed on the table. McKay. ‘Alec?’

‘Aye, I’m heading in your direction. Another bit of news.’ She could hear he was on the hands-free now, voice raised against the white noise of the car engine, the repetitive brush of the screen-wipers. ‘I told you we put out a bulletin on Robbins’s car. No response to that yet, but it was tracked by the ANPR heading up to the Isle this morning. Then one of the FCR operators spotted the same reg in a call she took earlier. Some old bugger from Rosemarkie. One of those houses on the seafront. Phoning up to complain that some inconsiderate bastard had left a bloody great 4x4 parked outside his house all afternoon. Operator pointed out it wasn’t actually illegal to park on an unmarked public street, but the old bugger kept blethering on about how they’d taken his parking spot so he’d had to get wet on his way back from the supermarket. And they’d just left it there blocking his view of the sea. Like there’s anything to look at on a day like this—’

Horton reflected, not for the first time, that it was fortunate that McKay wasn’t expected to take 111 calls from the general public. ‘You’re saying this was Robbins?’

‘Aye. The old bugger had taken the number. When the bulletin came in, it rang a bell with the operator, so she checked back and—bingo.’

‘Do we know if it’s still there?’

‘No idea. The operator fobbed the old bugger off with a promise we’d check it out, and then promptly stuck it at the bottom of the priority list. There were no further calls, so maybe it’s moved on. Old bugger reckoned there was no sign of the driver and he couldn’t see into the back as the thing’s got tinted windows.’

‘Want me to go and check it out? I can leave Mary here to hold the fort.’

There was a pause, filled only by the incessant background noise on the line. ‘Aye, I suppose you can go and have a look. But I’m only fifteen-twenty minutes away. Don’t take any risks, Ginny. If there’s any sign of Robbins, get the hell out and call for back-up.’

‘I’m not an idiot, Alec.’

‘Aye, but you’re a police officer, Ginny. We’re all daft bastards when it comes to that sort of stuff. OK. Call me and let me know what you find, if anything.’

***

She left Graham to watch the bar and stepped back outside. There was no sign of the rain lessening, and its force was increased by the chill wind blowing off the sea. The street was deserted, except for the occasional passing car, and the lights of the bars and restaurants along the road looked welcoming but forlorn. On nights like this Horton sometimes wondered why she’d ever left the Home Counties. But then she knew the answer to that well enough.

She took the road through the town out towards Rosemarkie. In the short open stretch between the two adjoining villages, you could normally make out the open firth but tonight there was nothing but a haze of cloud and rain. She came down the hill into Rosemarkie and took the right turn down to the seafront. McKay had given her details of where the vehicle had been parked, down at the far end, just before the parking for the beach.

As she’d expected, there was no sign of it now. The few cars parked along that end of the front were standard saloons, with nothing resembling the large 4x4 she was seeking.

She parked up in one of the parallel spaces intended for visitors to the beach and dialled McKay’s number. He was either on the phone himself or in a dead spot, and the call went immediately to voicemail. She left a brief message saying she’d found nothing, and then prepared to turn back.

She hesitated for a moment, her attention caught by something in her peripheral vision. She had parked facing the sea and whatever she’d seen, or thought she’d seen, was off to her left, further along the shore, somewhere in the area by the beach cafe.

Probably just her imagination. Curious, though, she leaned over into the passenger seat and lowered the side window, peering into the rainy gloom.