Dark as Night (3 page)

              Jenny McLaren had opened the door before they reached the top step. Both officers held up their warrant cards.

              ‘Please come inside,’ the woman said quickly, ushering them into a square hallway which was dominated by a twisting staircase. A series of doors led off in various directions. Mrs McLaren took them through the one on the right, which conveyed them into a light sitting room with a bay window facing the front garden.

              ‘Take a seat,’ she added absent-mindedly, perching herself on the arm of the sofa.

              Dani examined the woman’s appearance closely. She was late forties, thin and wiry. Jenny McLaren had the physique of a runner and she wore her hair cropped short.

              Calder pulled out his notebook. ‘You called the police station at 7.30am this morning,’ he began. ‘You were concerned about your husband?’

              ‘I’m more than concerned.’ She glanced at a little gold carriage clock which sat on the mantelpiece above an electric fire. ‘Nathan didn’t come home last night. There’s no message from him on the phone or email.’

              ‘When did you last have contact with Mr McLaren?’ Andy leant forward, feeling sweat begin to prickle beneath his stiff collar.

              ‘Nathan took our boys to the Fair at Glasgow Green yesterday afternoon. We thought they might be too old for it, but they met up with a few of their friends and wandered about the stalls and rides for a while. The three of them were home just after seven. I’d left some food out but they’d eaten burgers from a stall.’

              ‘You didn’t go along with your husband and sons?’ Dani prompted.

              She shook her head. ‘It wasn’t really my kind of thing. Besides, I’m training for the Edinburgh Marathon next month, I needed to put some hours in yesterday.’

              Bevan nodded with understanding. Her boyfriend James was also taking part in the race. It had dominated his every waking moment for the past few weeks.

              ‘What happened after your husband returned home?’ Andy felt an increasing sense of unease.

              Jenny lifted her head and looked straight at him. ‘The boys went up to their rooms. Nathan and I watched television in the snug for an hour or so but I wasn’t feeling very well. I shouldn’t have pushed myself so hard in the heat. I had an awful headache. I went up to bed at around 9pm. Nathan said he wouldn’t be long himself.’ Jenny paused, as a lump formed in her throat. ‘That’s what makes it so odd. When I woke in the morning he wasn’t there beside me. I could tell he hadn’t come to bed all night.’

              ‘Had you taken a sedative of any description?’ Andy enquired.

              ‘No,’ Jenny replied carefully. ‘But I had a couple of Codeine tablets for my headache. They tend to knock me out.’

              ‘Did Nathan know you’d taken a painkiller?’ It was Bevan who asked this question.

              Jenny looked bewildered, as if she had no idea where this line of inquiry was leading. ‘I suppose I might have mentioned it, when I was heading up to bed. I honestly can’t remember.’

              ‘Okay. Are your sons at home?’ Andy glanced out into the hallway. He could hear no sound of movement in the house.

              Jenny’s cheeks flushed. ‘They’re both in bed. That’s what teenage boys do on a Sunday morning. I haven’t told them their dad’s missing yet. I’d like to do it myself.’ The woman looked panicky.

              Dani said gently, ‘we wouldn’t officially declare your husband missing at this stage. He is 52 years old with no health problems. Your husband has been away overnight somewhere without informing you. The traffic is awful around Glasgow right now. He may just have got held up trying to return home.’

              Jenny’s face became taut with anger. Bevan noticed then that the woman had been quite badly sunburnt the previous day. ‘You think Nathan’s been in an all-night strip joint in Sauchiehall Street and now he’s sleeping off his hangover in some tart’s bed? You don’t know my husband at all. He’s a devoted family man. Nathan has
never
been away from home without telling us before. I don’t care about the types of folk you usually deal with DCI Bevan. My Nathan is different to them.’ She raised a thin finger and waggled it at the detectives. ‘This is a missing persons’ case and I demand it be treated as such.’ 

Chapter 5

‘I
don’t know why Alice Mann thought this was a case for Serious Crime,’ Bevan stated irritably, as she climbed back into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. ‘She’s usually got such good instincts. The guy’s clearly tried to have a night off from that old battle-axe and ended up oversleeping at his girlfriend’s place. I hope he can come up with one hell of a decent cover story. I wouldn’t fancy facing the wrath of Jenny McLaren.’ Dani chuckled to herself, shooting a look at Calder, who she expected to be joining in with the joke.

              Instead, the detective constable’s face was totally impassive. Behind his dark glasses, Dani couldn’t work out his mood at all.

              Finally, once they’d manoeuvred their way out of the estate and merged into the slow-moving wall of traffic on the M77, Calder pushed his shades up onto the top of his head and cleared his throat. ‘Ten years ago, on the Saturday of the Glasgow Fair weekend, a man from Paisley went missing. The scenario was very similar to the one we’ve just heard from Mrs McLaren. The man was called Donald Calder and he was 41 years old. He was my Da’s wee brother. We’ve never heard from him since and the polis never found a body.’

              Bevan shifted herself around to face him. ‘I didn’t know that, Andy. I’m really sorry. Did the police have a theory about what happened to your uncle?’

              ‘Oh aye,’ he chuckled dryly. ‘It was something along pretty similar lines to the one you’ve just proposed for Nathan McLaren’s disappearance.’

              Dani cringed. ‘I see. So I’ve finally become that boorish, knuckle-headed copper stereotype we’ve always mocked, eh?’

              Andy laughed, this time in better humour. ‘If I didn’t know about Uncle Donald’s case then I’d be saying the exact same thing.’

              Dani twisted back around and settled into her seat. ‘Come on then, it looks like we’re going to be in this jam for a good while yet. Why don’t you tell me every single detail about the day Donald Calder went missing?’

*

By the time Bevan and Calder returned to the Pitt Street Headquarters it was late afternoon. The DCI called all the officers who were present to congregate around DS Phil Boag’s workstation. There was by no means a full house. The team had been operating on a shift rota for the entire weekend. Many of the officers had already clocked off for the day.

              Dani pulled across one of the flip charts and wrote Nathan McLaren’s name in the centre of it. ‘This man,’ she prodded at the sheet with her felt tip, ‘has been missing from his home in Giffnock since 9pm last night.’

              One of the DCs at the back of the group raised his eyebrows and smirked.

              ‘Aye, I know. Under normal circumstances we would be assuming that this chap was enjoying himself so much somewhere that he’d lost track of the time. But in this instance, I think we need to take it more seriously than that.’ Bevan nodded towards Calder, indicating he should take over.

              ‘McLaren spent most of yesterday on Glasgow Green, along with several thousand others. He was accompanying his two teenage sons. They are Cormac, aged 15, and Ewan, 17. The lads had arranged to meet up with friends from their High School. His wife, Jenny, remained in Giffnock and ran a 15km course around the town. She’s in training for the Edinburgh Marathon. We know that Nathan and his sons returned to their detached, five bedroom executive home at just after 7pm. Jenny McLaren last saw her husband when she went up to bed with a headache at 9pm. He’s not been heard from since.’  

              ‘Any serious debts, or recent problems in the marriage?’ Phil looked at his colleagues expectantly.

              Andy shook his head. ‘Nathan McLaren is a systems analyst at a financial services company based on York Street. Obviously, the offices are closed right now, but his wife scanned over their most recent bank statements. The figures look pretty healthy.’

              ‘As for the state of the marriage,’ Dani added. ‘That’s anyone’s guess. I didn’t warm much to the wife, but it could be the stress and worry making her cranky. I can’t see Jenny McLaren opening up to us about marital disagreements willingly, though.’

              ‘Even if it helps us to find her husband?’ Alice Mann chipped in.

              Dani shrugged her shoulders. ‘The woman seems fairly highly strung.’

              ‘We’ve had cameras set up all over the Green these past three days,’ Phil interjected. ‘There could be footage of Nathan. We might get a sense of what he and the boys got up to. I mean, if the teenagers were off with their mates, what did Mr McLaren do with his time?’

              ‘Good idea. Can you sift through the footage, Phil?’

              The DS nodded.

              ‘So, why are we taking such an interest in this missing persons’ case?’ DC Alice Mann fixed her intelligent gaze upon the DCI. ‘We wouldn’t normally get involved in a domestic circumstance like this, unless a body had turned up.’

              Dani allowed Calder to reply.

              ‘On the 30
^th
July 2005, my uncle, Donald Calder, accompanied his two young children to the fair on Glasgow Green. His wife, Mae, was suffering from a migraine and stayed at home. Donald and the kids returned to the family house in Paisley at just after five. Like Jenny McLaren, Mae had taken painkillers
and
a sedative before retiring early to bed.

              When my aunt woke up the following morning, Donald was gone. He’d never come to the marital bed that night. The entire Paisley area was scoured for signs of him and appeals made on local radio and even on Crime Scotland in the days and weeks that followed. No trace of my uncle was ever found, not even a body.’

              This information was greeted by silence.

              After several uncomfortable minutes, Phil decided to break the tension. ‘This could be a coincidence. Nathan might still turn up alive and well.’

              Andy nodded. ‘Aye, I agree. But we can’t ignore the similarities.’

              ‘Do we have any pictures of the two men?’ Alice suddenly asked.

              ‘Jenny provided us with a recent shot of Nathan McLaren.’ Dani glanced at Calder.

              ‘I can get you plenty of photographs of Donald
and
newspaper cuttings about the disappearance. There should be stacks of information in the files too. They’re all back home at my flat, but I can fetch them here by first thing tomorrow morning.’

              ‘Good,’ said the DCI. ‘If Phil coordinates the CCTV trawl then I’d like Alice and Dan to make a trip back to Giffnock first thing. If Nathan still hasn’t turned up by then we need to get proper statements from all the family members. You two might be able to develop a better relationship with Jenny McLaren. It seems Andy and I have got off to a bad start on that score.’

Chapter 6

A
ndy didn’t really like returning to an empty flat. He knew Carol and Amy were enjoying themselves in Troon. He’d been receiving a constant barrage of text messages and photos. The weather was so good that they’d spent most of the time on the beach. Calder was forced to look at endless shots of his mother-in-law’s ample form squeezed into a fancy bathing suit that looked like an exhibit from the Chelsea Flower Show. She was building sandcastles with Amy and beaming with pride.

              He had to hand it to Carol’s mum. She was great with kids. His own granny had barely laid down a fag for long enough to play with him or his sister. His Da’s parents were long dead. Andy couldn’t recall what they looked like at all.

              Pouring a small whisky and setting the glass down on the coffee table, Andy looked closely at the photographs laid out before him. He’d dug out all the old boxes and albums he could find, selecting those shots which included his uncle.

              There was one of Donald in his late teens, with Andy sitting on his lap. He must have been about four or five in this picture. To anyone coming across this snapshot, they’d assume the two boys were brothers.

              His grandmother would have been a fair age when she had Donald – well into her forties. It was more common to be an older mum these days but would have been unusual back in the sixties. Andy wondered why there’d been such a big age gap between his father and Donald. He supposed it had simply happened that way. There were no IVF treatments in those days. You had a bairn whenever Nature decided it was acceptable.

              Calder had a thought. Maybe there’d been miscarriages in between. The idea had honestly never occurred to him before. It wasn’t something that was on his radar as a young lad. Only since Carol had begun looking into fertility treatments had he started considering these things properly. It wasn’t a topic he would have dwelt on otherwise.

              Andy glanced back at the photo. Don was wearing a pair of flared jeans and his dark hair was worn long and loose. Typical seventies get-up. Calder had adored his uncle. Don played the base guitar with a band for a while, when he was in his early twenties. Andy had thought he was a kind of Rock God. He couldn’t have been more impressed if the guy was Jim Kerr himself.

              Calder chuckled quietly, taking a slug of Scotch. Then he felt the tears prickling at his eyes. He saw the image of his Da’s face before him, back when they were told that Don was missing. It was as if his bone structure had suddenly turned to jelly. Jack Calder was heartbroken. The jury was still out on whether Andy’s father had ever properly recovered.