The Reborn (16 page)

‘Like McNab didn’t?’

The warning in Petersson’s words left her cold. ‘He was in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ she said.

‘No. McNab was in the right place at the right time. Kalinin made sure of that.’

19

David Murdoch was waiting in an interview room, and Bill took a moment to study him through the one-way glass before going in. He was tall and rangy, long legs in tight jeans stretched out under the table. His hair was carefully arranged, a poker-straight fringe combed sideways, no doubt held in place with gel or spray. The hairstyle seemed to be constantly on his mind. He periodically smoothed the fringe as though in the interim it might have had the audacity to curl.

Bill had read David’s statement. He’d studied all the statements, and they matched; David, Owen and Sandie all agreed that Kira had wanted candyfloss. They hadn’t been willing to wait in the queue, so they’d gone to the dodgems without her. When the ride was over and Kira still hadn’t reappeared, they’d crossed to the Waltzers. After that ride, David had gone looking for her.

Bill checked the boy’s personal details. David Murdoch was seventeen years old. His mother was dead and he lived with his stepfather. He had no brothers or sisters. He was in the fifth form at school, doing a mix of subjects, including Maths at Intermediate level – so not a match for Kira’s mathematical ability. Bill wondered what they’d had in common.

David stood up as he entered, looking worried.

‘Hi, David. I’m Detective Inspector Wilson.’ Bill held out a hand. ‘Thanks for coming in to see me.’ The hand in his was soft, and he caught a trace of scent – or was it hair gel? They sat down.

‘Why do you want to see me again?’ asked David.

‘I’ve taken over from DI Slater, so I thought we should talk.’ Bill paused. ‘I’m very sorry about Kira, David. I know you were good friends.’

David nodded wordlessly.

‘Can you tell me how you met?’

A glimmer of light appeared in David’s eyes.

‘It was in the park. She was sitting on a bench, reading a book. She spoke to me first,’ he added defensively.

‘You had things in common?’

‘Music, books. We both read a lot. And we liked the same films.’

He bowed his head so that the fringe obscured his eyes. Bill suspected they had filled with tears.

‘Do you feel up to telling me what happened the night she died?’

There was a snuffle from behind the curtain of hair. ‘I told them everything in my statement.’

‘I know. It’s just that it’s much better for me to hear it from you personally.’

David took a deep breath and began, echoing his previous statement. Was this just a well-rehearsed story, or were the events carved in his memory? This was the problem with recalling incidents; people began to repeat them like a mantra, and it could become hard to tell what was a true memory and what had become familiar through repetition. Nevertheless, there was no mistaking David’s horror and revulsion when he reached the point in the story where he’d discovered Kira’s body.

He stuttered to a halt. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s OK.’ Bill gave him a chance to recover, then said, ‘I keep wondering why Kira didn’t come back to you. Why she went into the Hall of Mirrors on her own.’

David looked up, similarly puzzled. ‘I wondered about that too. I asked her to go in there with me earlier, for a laugh. She wouldn’t.’

‘You didn’t mention that in your statement.’

‘I didn’t think it mattered,’ he said, perturbed.

‘Everything matters,’ Bill told him firmly. ‘Every second you were together that night matters.’

David looked worried. ‘No one asked me about it before.’

‘Is there any reason you can think of why she might have gone in there?’

David shook his head.

Bill changed tack. ‘Did Kira have a boyfriend before you?’

A flush crept up his neck. ‘Kira wasn’t exactly my girlfriend. I mean, we didn’t, we weren’t . . .’

‘Having sex?’

He nodded. ‘We cared about each other, but not in that way.’

A thought crossed Bill’s mind. He decided to voice it outright. ‘Forgive me asking such a personal question, David, but I promise it is relevant. Is that because you prefer boys?’

David blushed a little, then looked as though he might deny it. Finally, he said, ‘I haven’t made up my mind yet.’

Which helped explain why David seemed happy to accept Kira’s pregnancy, Bill thought.

‘Did Kira tell you who the baby’s father was?’

David shook his head.

‘Did you ask?’

‘We didn’t question one another about anything. If she’d wanted to tell me, she would have.’

They must have made a strange couple, but it seemed to have been working.

‘Was Kira still planning to go to Cambridge to study Maths?’

‘She’d decided to do Medicine here in Scotland so she could keep the baby.’

‘I thought an adoption had been arranged?’

‘She talked about that at first, but then she changed her mind. You can’t take a baby from its mother if she doesn’t agree,’ David added fiercely, sounding as though he was quoting Kira.

If Kira’s father had had his heart set on having the baby adopted and for his daughter to take up her place at Cambridge University, it seemed he would have had a fight on his hands.

‘Why did Kira change her mind about the baby?’

‘She found out she was adopted.’ David subconsciously put his hand up to his mouth, as though he’d said something he shouldn’t.

‘She told you she was adopted?’

‘I wasn’t supposed to say anything, but it doesn’t matter now.’ A flash of anger crossed his face. ‘Her parents didn’t tell her. She found out by accident. Can you believe that?’

‘How did she find out?’

‘She heard them talking about her, and the baby.’

‘Did her parents realise Kira knew?’

David shook his head emphatically. ‘No. She kept waiting for them to tell her, all through the pregnancy, but they never did.’

So the Reese-Brandons hadn’t been completely straight with him. Maybe they’d simply thought the fact that their daughter was adopted could have nothing to do with her death. They were probably right, but it did throw some light on why Kira was so determined to keep her child.

‘When you found Kira, did you look at her hands?’

A spasm of pain crossed the boy’s soft features. ‘I just saw the blood and what they’d done to her stomach.’

‘There was a message in mirror writing on the palms of her hands.’

‘What?’ David’s mouth fell open.

‘You know what I mean by mirror writing?’

‘You can only read it in a mirror.’

‘Can you write like that?’

He looked frightened. ‘No!’

‘Can anyone you know do it?’

‘Kira . . .’

‘Kira could do it?’

‘She tried to. She said Leonardo Da Vinci was a mirror writer. She was a big fan of his.’

Bill thought about Kira’s school records. She had been good at everything. Science and Maths, but also languages and music. It wasn’t surprising she was a fan of a polymath like Leonardo.

‘Do you think the person who killed her wrote on her hands?’ David whispered.

Bill didn’t answer.

A film of sweat had blossomed on the boy’s brow, making his heavy fringe stick to his skin. It was warm in the interview room, but not overly so.

‘Don’t you want to know what was written on Kira’s hands?’

‘I . . .’

‘Or perhaps you already do?’

‘I never saw any writing, I swear it.’

Bill waited a moment before continuing. ‘I understand Kira was in a girl gang?’

David looked startled. ‘It wasn’t a
gang
. Kira and her mates just got together sometimes.’

‘To do what?’

‘Play music, talk.’

‘Anything else?’

The dark flush was back, creeping up the boy’s neck to blossom in his cheeks. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘What did this gang call themselves?’

‘They didn’t have a name.’

‘That’s not what I heard.’

David darted Bill a look as though trying to read his mind.

‘I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but the gang was just a bit of fun. Kira was popular. Other girls liked to be associated with her.’

‘They liked copying her, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘Her clothes, hair, that sort of thing. Sometimes even the expressions she used.’

‘What about the daisy tattoo they all had done?’

David’s head, which had been sinking towards his chest, shot up. His face was completely scarlet now. ‘I never saw her tattoo.’

‘But you knew about its existence?’

‘Kira did it for a laugh. The others copied her.’

‘She didn’t tell them to have it done?’

‘Kira didn’t tell people to do things, they just did it to be like her.’

‘So the Daisy Chain gang all got pregnant, to be like Kira?’

There was a stunned silence.

‘She didn’t ask them to.’

‘So it wasn’t a pact?’

David shook his head again, vehemently. ‘Kira thought they were stupid. She said so.’

It was the first time in their conversation that Bill believed him.

20

The video footage was high quality, as you’d expect from Kira’s BlackBerry – or, to give it its full name, the BlackBerry Bold Snakeskin 24k Yellow Gold Luxury Mobile Phone. According to DS Clark, it had cost a grand. Bill couldn’t conceive of spending that amount on a phone.

‘It’s not the dearest.’

He looked at her in amazement.

‘The most expensive one I found online was half a million pounds.’

Bill forbore thinking about such extravagance. Bad enough that parents doled out a grand on a seventeen-year-old.

The mobile had been discovered near the spot they’d found the Reborn. Janice had supervised a forensic search of the area, which wasn’t easy given the thick covering of ground ivy. They had to be grateful that it wasn’t mid-summer when the ivy would have been supplemented by even more undergrowth.

The video clip had been downloaded from the camera and was now ready to play. Bill gave the IT guy a nod and he set it running. The baby – or doll? – was dressed in a pink sleep suit embroidered with a daisy motif, and appeared to be asleep. The camera hadn’t been positioned close enough for a clear view of the features. The clip only lasted a few seconds.

‘Just at the end there. I thought I saw it move,’ Janice said.

‘Play the clip again,’ Bill ordered.

Like Janice, he found himself imagining that the left eyelid flickered just before the end.

‘Can we find out if it really did move?’

‘We could slow down the clip, divide it into frames and compare them.’

‘Do that.’

A BlackBerry like Kira’s could have been sold easily and profitably on the black market. Whoever had attacked her hadn’t been interested in stealing her mobile or her wallet, even though it had had money and a credit card inside. The phone and the video clip had been left near the Reborn for them to find. But for what reason? To try and convince them that the baby was still alive?

Bill decided he would be interested to hear Magnus’s take on all of this. He checked his watch. ‘OK, I want the clip available in the forensic meeting in half an hour.’

Before that, he had his session with Superintendent Sutherland.

‘That is not your concern.’ The Superintendent’s expression was closed.

Bill replied nevertheless. ‘The team are still very angry about McNab. That won’t go away if they believe we’re not pursuing his killer.’

Sutherland looked irritated.

‘SCDEA are dealing with it in Scotland, and SOCA at the London end.’

Kalinin was known to mastermind a large international operation, dealing mainly in drugs and human trafficking. The Scottish Crime Enforcement Agency had the remit to tack le organised crime in Scotland. If SCDEA and SOCA their equivalent south of the border, were involved, it suggested the decision had been made to go after Kalinin on organised crime rather than for his involvement in McNab’s murder. If the serious crime agencies believed they had a better chance of nailing the Russian on his London record than simply on McNab’s murder, that made sense. It still rankled though.

‘So let’s leave them to get on with it, shall we?’

Sutherland began to shuffle papers, a clear sign that the interview was over. Bill took his leave.

He went through to his office and sat down in his chair, swivelling it around to face the window. McNab had often joked about this chair, saying that every time they heard it squeak, it meant the boss’s brain was working. This memory only served to feed Bill’s anger and guilt. He had failed his DS just when McNab needed him most.

He thought to himself that this would be the point in one of Margaret’s beloved crime novels where he would go to the filing cabinet and bring out the booze. Often fiction wasn’t that far from the truth. There
was
a bottle of whisky in the filing cabinet, but he was planning to leave it there for now. Good whisky shouldn’t be drunk to block out the frustrations and disappointments of life, but to savour its triumphs. He’d save it for when Kalinin went down.

The Super was right, in part. SCDEA was better equipped to pursue Kalinin, although it still stuck in Bill’s craw that he couldn’t handle it personally. But that didn’t mean he was about to give up. He knew one or two people at SCDEA who owed him a favour. Maybe it was time to call those favours in?

That decided, he switched his attention to the forensic meeting. Forensic evidence had become an intrinsic part of most enquiries, but it took an expert to recognise just what type of forensic evidence was pertinent to solving each crime. He was reminded of a rookie detective’s desire to DNA-sample all condoms found in the vicinity of an assault on a prostitute, until it was pointed out to him that that would involve a minimum of two hundred tests – not the best use of forensic or police resources.