Wilderness (Arbogast trilogy) (21 page)

“What do you mean?” Arbogast couldn’t believe what he was hearing, “I thought we had a car on him at all times?”

“Well yes we do. We had a patrol out at the wind farm but his car’s still there and there’s been a light on through the night at the office. It was only after one of the constables thought to look in that they realised there was no-one there.”

“This couldn’t get much worse really could it, did you check in with Eric Sanderson?”

“He said Onur was working late and that he hasn’t heard from him. The patrol car noted that he left at the usual time, about 5:30. They would have seen if two people were in the car.”

“Maybe, look thanks for keeping me in the loop. I’m going to make sure DCI Ying is OK and then I think I’ll have a chat with Mary Clark since I’m here anyway. DS Reid can sit in with me.”

“Good idea DI Arbogast,” he said, hesitating for a second before adding, “and take it easy John. Are you sure you’re fit to carry on?”

“Yes sir – we’re close now I’m sure we are. Thank you.” When Arbogast hung up he opened the door to the emergency room where Rosalind was being treated. He could taste blood in his mouth when he saw that she was breathing through a valve mask, and watched to check the breaths were constant. He didn’t see the doctor approach him with an outstretched arm; he was too busy watching as some kind of drug was prepared.

“Is she going to be OK?” he said to no-one in particular. As he was pushed from the room the masked doctor nodded.

“She’s in the best possible hands but you cannot be here.”

And then Arbogast found himself forced back out into the corridor, faced with a cold grey door and a million questions.

The daily news meeting had been much livelier than normal. Sandy Stirrit knew that he had a good lead on the abduction case. He had explained that the woman found on the bus was the same little girl who had accused her father of raping her in a secluded dungeon in the 1980s. Those old enough had mulled over the juicier titbits of that case while younger reporters watched, asking questions as they tried to remain part of the conversation, hoping to lend some latter day insight. Sandy knew that Arbogast would not have thrown him this scrap if there wasn’t something in it but the editor wouldn’t touch it.

“Look Sandy, if this ever gets solved, which let’s face it doesn’t look too likely, then this kind of thing is great. If we’re the only ones who have it then it’s perfect for a background report but you know the score just now, we can’t afford to be upsetting people with age old gossip. We’ve had our knuckles wrapped a few times recently when we’ve been accused of taking part in trial by media and we can’t afford another scandal. We have had the Scottish Government on already trying to punt a line about secure border controls and sensationalist reporting. The police are already getting pressure to get this case solved and I can’t see the justification of going after this guy. Check it out by all means but I’m not putting it on at this stage.”

Sandy hadn’t been happy at being fobbed off. He was supposed to be the senior reporter but there were few risks being taken these days. He sensed there might have been political pressure judging by the comments about the Government. The Scottish Parliament was still a young institution trying to make its mark and the communications guys were never far away when the reports were ‘off message’. The thing that annoyed him was how readily his masters snapped to attention. The fourth estate seemed to be losing its bite. Cuts and rationalisations had left them with an inferior product that less people wanted to watch. It was the same all over but the more it was cut, the worse it got. Sandy wasn’t going to let this go. He decided that if he wasn’t going to be allowed to actively report on the lead then he was still going to have a bloody good look at it.

Sandy’s first stop was to the archive section to root out any coverage they had on tape. He had his answer about four hours later. The case had made the news three nights in a row in 1985 before it died away, the daughter’s claim of incest having been dismissed. The reports themselves offered little in the way of insight but he was intrigued by another tape marked ‘SANDERSON ARCHIVE’. Taking his time Sandy spooled through and could see Mary as a young girl. She was dressed in a pair of blue denim dungarees and a white baggy t-shirt, topped with the most ridiculous crimped fringe. The grainy film caught the times. It had been a glorious summer’s day when the boy had gone missing. This was the next day ‘My father did this,’ she said directly to the camera ‘and he’ll do it again, he’ll rape another boy and maybe another girl,’ then from the background a younger Eric Sanderson appeared and touched the back of her shoulder where she seemed to flinch. Sandy rewound the tape.
‘Ever so slightly yes,’
he was sure she had moved. Eric explained that she was upset by the attention and that his daughter had never wanted to allow others onto the land and that the camp had annoyed her. The footage hadn’t run of course as it was libellous, although that hadn’t stopped the papers, if the old timer’s stories were anything to go by. He watched more of the raw footage and was intrigued by the house. It seemed to be circled in birch trees; they didn’t look too old, maybe ten years or so. The house sat proudly on the hill, brightly painted in white with black around the exterior windows and round the door. It was a fairly unremarkable old farmhouse. In the background he could see what looked like a well, which sat next to an outhouse, possibly a shower block. There was something about the picture which didn’t seem right. He looked and looked but for the life of him he couldn’t work out what it was.

Back at Glasgow Royal Infirmary Doctor Ellen Fitzpatrick was doing her rounds. She kept the ‘prisoner’ for last. She scolded her juniors for calling her that but it was true wasn’t it, she was a prisoner more than a patient. Mary Clark seemed to be making a good recovery and she would soon be out of her hair. As long as this whole sorry saga continued her life would be turned upside down. Constant media calls about the state of her health and the round the clock police presence was putting staff and patients alike on edge. Before she even entered the room she knew something wasn’t right – there was no policeman at the door and Doctor Fitzpatrick assumed the detectives must have come back to speak to her – maybe they had taken her away. The doctor made a mental note to bring the matter up with her junior staff. This was something that she should have been told about. But when she opened the door there was no-one inside. She became worried when she saw there was blood on the floor. She bent over and touched it, and realised that this was something that had only just happened.  As she bent over she could see a shape inside the bathroom through the door which was ajar. Peering into the gloom she gasped when she saw DS Reid lying on the floor. Quickly checking for a pulse the second thing Doctor Fitzpatrick did was to pull the alarm chord.

Mary Clark was loose.

Part 3

18

Glasgow, February 23
^rd
2010

Every fresh blow shook the plaster from the ceiling. The noise had been constant for 45 minutes and his patience was starting to wear thin. Graeme Short had lived downstairs from John Arbogast for just under six months, and was starting to really ‘get to know’ his neighbour. Graeme looked up wondering if the ceiling was going to give way and moved to the side of the room ‘just in case.’ Sometimes dust sieved down through an expanding crack. ‘
Right that’s it, I’m going to go up, whether he’s a cop or not.’
Graeme had just put his shoes on when the noise stopped. ‘
Next time, next time I’m actually going up there and give him a piece of my mind.’

Sweat dripped from Arbogast’s head as he crouched on all fours on the bedroom floor. He had tried to run for an hour on the treadmill but hadn’t quite lasted the pace.
‘You’re still out of shape,’
he thought, gasping for breath. Arbogast had transformed what was ostensibly the guest bedroom into a makeshift gym. The corner nearest the front window was filled by an unmade single bed, which he had taken from his mother’s house when he had sold it on. Opposite stood the treadmill which was rarely used, while in the middle of the room sat a bench press and dumbbells. This had all been bought in good faith but the flaw in the plan was that Arbogast lacked the basic motivation to train. Fast food grabbed on the hop and too much socialising in his spare time meant that there were occasions he could barely recognise his own face in the mirror – today it looked fat and fleshy. It was generally true, though, that one good run would pave the way for a three month health kick which got him back to square one and his preferred weight of thirteen stone. Although he had noticed that it had been getting harder to do. Today he would have preferred to have sprinted along the banks of the River Clyde with the bracing gusts of freezing air more refreshing than any session in the gym. But the hard packed ice was making getting about on foot a tricky business, as he had already found out at the Red Road flats. The weather was due to change and the forecasters said that a thaw should come in the next few days. Outside the trees were frosted and beautiful in sharp winter skies. Gone now were the inches of snow which had clung for so long to their bows. It wouldn’t be too long before life returned to normal.

45 minutes earlier

Arbogast was running hard. Running to escape the deadlock and running to free his mind. While he ran he reviewed the case. It had been a week since Mary Clark had disappeared. Despite the fact that more than forty officers were deployed in and around the area for the tower block search their key witness had managed to slip through the net, unnoticed in her stolen uniform. Forensics had confirmed the body in the flat was John Clark. He had been drugged, beaten, burned and left for dead in a filthy bath tub. They still hadn’t been able to speak to Madoch who had been out of the country but Arbogast planned on paying him a visit later as he had some pressing questions that he needed answered. Sanderson had checked out. He had complained about being contacted by the press about the 1980s allegations. He said he hoped the police hadn’t been leaking details. He would have to wait and see how that panned out. Onur Kocack too had gone to ground with all three of the family now missing. Arbogast pushed the machine up into a sprint mode and ran fast for five minutes. He knew there were too many apparently random ties in this case for them to be entirely coincidental yet Madoch seemed to be sitting at the centre. But would he risk his growing empire for the sake of a child
.
Finally as he gasped for air and inspiration his legs gave way and he stopped, panting and breathless on the treadmill, before collapsing on all fours on the floor.

Walking back into the living room, wiping the sweat from his brow with a filthy green towel, he sat down with his back sticking to the leather, and tried to picture where the investigation was heading. There had been pandemonium at the station after it had leaked out that Mary Clark had assaulted DS Reid and run off. They hadn’t gone public at first but one of the nurses had spread the word and before long it was out in the public domain. There had been calls for resignations and the case was made for police incompetency. The politicians had waded into the row, wanting to be seen to be doing something to help. Arbogast hated the process. Politicians would change things for the sake of change, with old discarded methods dredged back up and reused when they should never have been changed in the first place. There had been calls for Scotland’s five police forces to be merged into one but with one chief constable to oversee the whole country there were questions about increased political interference. All he wanted to do was find the child.

***

When the door opened the dim light from above flooded in, temporarily blinding them, as their eyes readjusted. The room was no more than 12 feet by 20. There was one damp and pungent mattress and an assortment of cushions, discarded from long dead settees. A slop bucket sat in the middle of the room. Hanom had woken up groggy. At first she thought she might have flu but gradually her memory returned. Hanom felt sick and deathly cold. Her guard returned every few hours, although how long it was really, was impossible to tell. He wore a hooded top which covered his face so it was difficult to make him out. When he came he said nothing, merely pointed, leaving food and sometimes replacing the bucket. She felt that the confined room should be warm but there was a constant flow of cool air so she knew there must be ventilation from somewhere. It was then the screaming started.

***

Arbogast couldn’t help but be impressed. Madoch House was the first in a planned street of new office blocks on Clyde Place. In Glasgow’s hey day as a bustling Victorian Port the area had been a warren of warehouses and quaysides. Cotton and tobacco harvested by American slave labour had flooded in on freight ships carrying illegally high loads. Later world beating engineering would become the city’s main cash cow with shipping becoming a global export. The decline had been slow but inevitable, with skilled labour giving way to mass unemployment. Today the 21
^st
century economy revolved around service sector call centres. The warehouses had given way to ‘urban space’ and long derelict hangers were demolished, leaving the future in the hands of the speculators. The city had recently built a new footbridge to span the Clyde and it was from here that Arbogast examined Madoch House. The bridge support looked like two arrows poised to fire but Arbogast was heading over not up. Standing at seven storeys tall Madoch House opened last year to much public applause. Arbogast liked it. The architects had tried to be sympathetic to the city’s overriding style and had built in a red fingered sandstone facade. It looked new but timeless. At
the moment the only tenant was Madoch himself. His office complex occupied the top floor. As Arbogast entered through the large revolving door, he could see that no expense had been spared on the interior. The ground floor was largely open plan with a single central reception desk currently home to a rather bored looking receptionist. Pulling himself to his full height Arbogast approached over the marble tiling.