Time for the Dead Read online

  ‘What about CCTV?’

  ‘You’d have to ask security about that.’

  The hospital would be well covered, but checking out footage would take time. And time might be something Harry didn’t have.

  McNab departed before he vented any further distress or annoyance at either of the two nurses. The person it should be directed at was himself for arriving late, and the uniform who’d left his charge unattended.

  Reaching the car, he called Ollie in IT and told him to check for CCTV cameras at the Death Star, in particular the nearest exit to that particular discharge lounge.

  ‘What am I looking for?’

  ‘Cars arriving around 9.30, one of which will pick up Harry McArthur.’

  ‘The stabbed guy?’

  ‘His photo’s on file. I want to know who collected him from the hospital. Also,’ McNab continued, ‘find out what this number refers to.’ He quoted the number Harry had left behind.

  ‘Any idea what it might refer to?’

  ‘I haven’t a fucking clue, but,’ McNab said, clutching at straws, ‘Harry knew I was coming for him and he left that number behind. So it must mean something.’

  Back in the car now, McNab headed for the station, aware the boss wasn’t the only person he would have to face regarding Harry’s disappearance. He was going to have to tell Ellie. And he knew which interview he feared the most.

  43

  On arrival at the station, McNab immediately took himself off to IT to see Ollie, hoping he’d made some headway on either of the tasks McNab had given him. Going into the boss with nothing, other than to report that Harry had been snatched from under their noses, was McNab’s biggest concern at this point.

  Harry played me, McNab thought as he walked along the corridor. While all the time I thought I was playing him.

  But what if Harry had had no choice but to go?

  McNab found himself a great deal more worried by that interpretation of events.

  If he’d made contact with one of his junkie mates, that was a nuisance, but not a disaster. If he’d been coerced by one of Malky’s mob . . .

  But the nurse said he wasn’t distressed when he left, McNab reminded himself. And he’d been pretty late arriving. Maybe Harry thought he’d given up on him. Or maybe he simply needed a fix of his drug of choice.

  Having hated the idea of housing Harry at Ellie’s even for a week, McNab found himself now wishing he had been quicker off his mark this morning and was currently installing Harry at her flat.

  Ollie looked flustered as McNab appeared on his horizon and quickly pulled up a chair beside him.

  ‘Sorry, no time to go to the canteen first,’ McNab said, having arrived minus the usual offering of a burger or a sticky bun.

  ‘You’ve only just called me,’ Ollie said, obviously more freaked by that than the lack of a snack.

  ‘So?’ McNab demanded.

  ‘I’ve talked with security at the Death Star and they said they’d send the recordings through but nothing’s arrived yet.’

  ‘And the number I gave you?’ McNab tried.

  Ollie’s face brightened a little. ‘I think I might have something on that. You said your guy was a former soldier?’

  ‘Yes,’ McNab said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, service numbers are eight digits long.’

  McNab absorbed this. ‘Why would Harry leave his service number in the discharge book? Are you sure it’s not a phone number or a bank number?’

  ‘Maybe it’s not his service number,’ Ollie said, seemingly growing exasperated. ‘Maybe it’s someone else’s service number he wanted you to have?’

  Now there was a thought.

  ‘You don’t remember Harry’s number?’ Ollie tried. ‘You said you found his dog tag?’

  McNab recalled that night in the alley, the jangle of the metal dog tag lying in Harry’s blood. He remembered wiping it and the realization of what it was and that the details on it belonged to the poor bastard bleeding to death before him. ‘No, I don’t remember his bloody number.’

  Ollie nodded in a placating manner. ‘Okay, I’ll check the number he left in the book against online army records. If it’s a currently serving soldier, though, that’ll be more difficult. They’re secure. We would need a directive from above to do that.’

  ‘Right,’ McNab conceded. ‘Let’s try.’

  Then, picking up the waves of impatience coming from Ollie, he decided it was time to go, empty-handed or not.

  In a last-ditch attempt at being ahead of the game before engaging with the boss, he called Janice from the corridor.

  ‘Where are you?’ she said, her voice a conspiratorial whisper.

  ‘In the station. Why, what’s up?’

  ‘Meet me in the cafeteria now.’

  As McNab made his way as ordered, he ran over possible reasons why DS Clark should want to see him so urgently. Her tone had suggested she required them to speak alone, but why exactly?

  It could be that news had already reached her about Harry going missing. Or maybe something worse, McNab’s darker side suggested. For a morning that had begun so well, it was going seriously downhill now.

  Arriving first, McNab purchased two coffees and found a table as far from the other customers as possible. If he was going to be given bad news or a telling-off, he preferred the whole cafeteria not to know about it and DS Clark wasn’t one to mince her words.

  When she did arrive, McNab tried to tell by her expression how serious it was, but that wasn’t possible from the stony look she gave him. He pushed the coffee towards her.

  ‘Harry’s gone,’ he said, keen to get his story in first.

  ‘Gone where?’

  From Janice’s response, McNab now knew they weren’t there to discuss Prince Harry.

  ‘I’ll explain later,’ McNab said swiftly. ‘Just tell me why you brought me here.’

  Janice was eager to do just that. ‘The tests came back on the beach body. There’s no match with the DNA samples Dr MacLeod found in the woods.’

  ‘Okay,’ McNab said, trying not to sound too disappointed. ‘I’ll let Rhona know.’

  ‘But,’ Janice went on, a gleam in her eye, ‘the Kilt Rock guy was on the DNA database.’

  Which meant he’d been convicted for something.

  McNab sprang to attention. ‘Who?’ he demanded.

  ‘Paul Watson, suspected associate of one Malcolm Stevenson.’

  McNab recognized the name immediately. He would have known the face too, he thought, if there had been anything left of it to view.

  ‘If Watson was on Skye, it wasn’t for the scenery,’ McNab said.

  ‘Agreed.’ Janice met his look with one of her own. ‘Fancy a trip to Skye?’

  44

  They were drawing ever closer to the main road and Blaze seemed as focused as ever on heading that way. If he was still following Seven’s scent, then it appeared she’d been making her way there too.

  McNab’s call had of course changed everything, including Rhona’s need to locate and speak to Seven about what she’d found in the woods, because it no longer mattered.

  It seemed that the body on the beach had nothing to do with the group of medics. They no longer needed to be accounted for. Seven could go where she pleased, as could the others. Any search using drones, the police Twitter account and the local MRT could be called off. No more time needed to be wasted on that.

  What Sergeant MacDonald and the soon-to-arrive Major Investigation Team needed now was to concentrate on what they believed was a murder enquiry. As McNab had said, Paul Watson hadn’t been on Skye to view the scenery. Nor was it likely he’d fallen willingly from Kilt Rock.

  The five-strong group of medics would complete their survival training and leave the island. If one of them had been the injured party from the birch woods, Rhona would never know. The thought should have pleased her, but she found it did not.

  It was still a forensic mystery that she hadn’t solved.

  As
she trudged along behind the dog, a buzzing sound from above drew Rhona’s eyes skyward. The drone was clearly visible and, a few yards further ahead, the figure controlling it was already being greeted by Blaze.

  So this, she presumed, would be Archie McKinnon who’d caught her earlier trip with Blaze on camera. Rhona assumed a smile and went to greet him.

  ‘Archie?’

  ‘Aye?’

  Rhona held out her hand. ‘Rhona MacLeod. You captured Blaze and myself on camera a few days ago.’

  His face lit up. ‘So you’re Dr MacLeod. Very pleased to meet you.’ He bent to rub Blaze’s ears. ‘Your forensic assistant and I know one another very well.’ He gave her a quizzical look. ‘You out on another job or still on the last one?’

  Rhona didn’t see any harm in telling him, now that they knew the medics were all accounted for.

  ‘I was hoping to meet up with the female medic who was camping in the plantation. Blaze was tracking her, or I think he was.’

  ‘Blaze doesn’t get things like that wrong. What does the girl look like?’

  Rhona gave him a brief description of Seven.

  ‘Aye, she was here. Caught the 56 bus for Dunvegan and Glendale.’

  ‘Did you speak to her?’ Rhona said.

  ‘Just passed the time of day.’

  ‘She didn’t say where she was headed exactly?’

  ‘No, but she was dressed for walking and had a sizable backpack. Did you need to speak to her?’

  Rhona dodged the question and said, ‘We met up yesterday. We were worried then about her fellow medics. They were out on survival training and there was the body on the beach.’

  Archie nodded. ‘Aye, I saw the Twitter messages. But they’ve identified the body, so they’re not worried about the soldiers now.’

  ‘I only learned that on my way here,’ Rhona said in surprise. ‘News travels fast on Skye.’

  ‘Like lightning. No doubt the big boys will be over from the mainland now.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Rhona asked, wondering if Archie knew even more than she did.

  ‘I heard the body on the beach was a dealer, called Paul Watson. He’s been here before. If he’d still had a face, the MRT folk would have likely recognized him.’ He watched Rhona as his news sank in. ‘You heading back to Portree or to Glendale?’

  ‘I left my jeep up at the turning circle near the trig point.’ Rhona indicated the nearby hill.

  ‘Then you’ll be needing a lift,’ Archie said.

  The journey in Archie’s pickup proved to be enlightening. Rhona realized her sojourn on the island had been an isolated one. Jamie had regaled her with a few stories, but Archie, it seemed, was the source of all knowledge. And Archie’s take on the dead guy matched what McNab had told her.

  ‘Although Watson wasn’t the name he went by on the island,’ Archie said. ‘Here the kids called him the Snowman, but he didn’t only visit at Christmas.’

  Archie’s feelings about the Snowman were obvious by his tone. ‘He would arrive, spend a week pretending to be a tourist and offload his cargo, using blackmail and intimidation to do it, but never in sight of the law. Then he stopped coming and we learned he’d been jailed.’ Archie hesitated, as though he wasn’t sure if he wanted to say any more than that.

  Then, ‘My nephew was one of the ones he had in his clutches, although we didn’t know it at the time. Came back in a bad way from Afghanistan. We all thought coming home to Skye would cure him. It didn’t. Nightmares. Violent flashbacks. He used to hit walls with his bare knuckles. Anything to get the rage out.’

  ‘What about help from the MOD?’

  ‘Six months’ rehabilitation. After that you’re the NHS’s problem.’ He paused. ‘For Alistair the cocaine was a way out of all that.

  ‘So,’ he continued, ‘I was mightily glad when that Glasgow detective nailed Watson and put him away. That’s one man I’d like to shake hands with.’

  ‘No one’s taken the Snowman’s place?’ Rhona said.

  ‘If they have, I don’t know about it.’

  ‘And your nephew?’

  ‘The SSAFA charity’s Highland branch tried to help . . .’

  The ‘but’ hung in the air unsaid between them.

  Rhona didn’t want to know, but was compelled to ask.

  ‘Ali died a year ago. Exposure, up on the Cuillin.’ Archie turned to Rhona. ‘Some bad memories don’t go away.’

  They drew into the turning circle where Rhona’s jeep was parked.

  ‘But,’ Archie met her eye, ‘there were a few folk, myself included, who might have cheerfully considered nudging the Snowman off Kilt Rock if they’d known he was back in business on the island.’

  It was clear Archie was worried that someone local had done exactly that.

  ‘Will you be working with the Major Investigation Team when it arrives from Glasgow?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s one on the way?’ Rhona said.

  ‘By helicopter, later today, according to Lee.’

  Chrissy would be pleased about that, Rhona thought, since it might extend her time here a little.

  She thanked Archie for the lift. ‘One other thing. Is there a bus back from Glendale later today?’

  ‘You mean one the lassie might catch?’

  Rhona nodded.

  ‘If she was planning a walk to Healabhal Bheag, she wouldn’t make the return bus. I told her that,’ he added. ‘She didn’t seem bothered, so I guess she planned to camp out. I did warn her the weather’s closing in again. More snow and high winds forecast for tonight. She said she was used to storms, although in Afghanistan it was sand rather than snow that caused them.’

  So Seven must have been intent on deserting her campsite in the plantation, after saying she was staying put. Folk were of course entitled to change their minds. But why then would she leave her tent and supplies behind? The Duirinish peninsula was a wild overnight stay without the proper equipment.

  But it was Archie’s final remark that caused Rhona the most concern.

  ‘She’d already had an accident during the lightning storm. Had a dressing on the back of her head. Said a branch broke off and hit her.’ At this point Archie looked pointedly at Rhona’s bruised knuckles. ‘Looks like you had an argument with something too.’

  The late rising sun was already contemplating its return below the horizon. Rhona switched on the jeep’s lights and, as it bounced down the rough track towards the tarred road, contemplated her next move.

  When Archie had expressed his desire to shake the hand of the detective who’d locked up Watson, what she hadn’t told him was that she knew who his hero was.

  Detective Sergeant Michael Joseph McNab.

  45

  The incident room was a hive of activity. McNab made his way through the throng, taking a quick dekko at the board as he passed. The Sandman investigation was ongoing, but as far as he could see, nothing new had presented itself in the last few hours, apart from a dead drug dealer on Skye being identified.

  Bracing himself, he knocked on the boss’s door.

  He had gone over his story about the loss of Harry in his head. It hadn’t sounded good then, and it wouldn’t when said out loud, but it was the only one he had.

  Detective Inspector Wilson was on the phone even as he’d shouted to McNab to come in. McNab stood to attention just inside the door and awaited the conclusion of the conversation, where the boss appeared to be using the words ‘Yes, sir’ too frequently for McNab’s liking.

  When the conversation came to its conclusion, the manner in which the boss put down the phone didn’t bode well for what McNab was about to report.

  ‘Well, Detective Sergeant?’

  The boss, like Rhona, had an ability to suss out a lie, or even a half-truth, much like a bloodhound catching a scent. McNab suspected DI Wilson had already caught a suspicious smell and was currently pursuing it, and he, McNab, was on the trail he was following.

  When he didn’t immediately answer, DI Wilson
said, ‘Rumour has it that our stab victim has been collected from the hospital and not by us. Is this correct?’

  ‘It is, sir,’ McNab said after a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘Would you like to fill me in on what’s happened, Detective Sergeant, or shall I believe the reports I’ve had?’

  McNab found himself clearing his throat like a recalcitrant schoolboy.

  ‘I arrived at the hospital to pick McArthur up, sir,’ he said. ‘He’d been sent to the discharge lounge. When I got there, he’d signed himself out.’

  There was a moment’s silence that seemed to last an eternity to McNab.

  ‘You missed out the bit where you were late, and the officer on duty had been recalled, since you were definitely going to be there. He checked McArthur into the discharge lounge for safety’s sake and reported back to the station.’ The boss paused here like the calm before the storm. ‘Where the hell were you, Detective Sergeant?’

  At this point McNab decided honesty wasn’t the best policy. ‘I slept in, sir.’ Even as he gave his weak excuse, he was squirming at the recall of what he had actually been doing.

  The boss’s steely stare suggested he didn’t believe him. As DI Wilson opened his mouth to make this plain, McNab decided to come clean, in as minimal a way as possible.

  ‘Ellie was there,’ McNab muttered under his breath. He hurried on, ‘And I lost track of the time, sir. Sorry, sir.’

  DI Wilson was regarded as mild-mannered. That was not strictly true. His outward manner was not gung-ho, but underneath there was a steel which McNab both admired and would have liked to emulate. In truth, DI Wilson had been a substitute father to him within the force and was the sole reason why he’d not yet been chucked out on the streets to find another profession.

  A short silence followed McNab’s confession, which he hoped was a good thing.

  ‘And just where were you planning to put McArthur if you had collected him from the hospital?’ his mentor said, changing the subject, much to McNab’s relief.