Dark Flight Read online

  ‘Hey!’

  Rhona jumped, startled at Chrissy’s sudden appearance.

  ‘You’re in early.’ Chrissy smothered a yawn.

  ‘The strategy meeting on the torso’s at ten o’clock, and I’m due at GUARD again at nine.’

  ‘Have you checked your email yet?’

  She had been too busy to think about it.

  ‘Sam sent you something about the bones.’

  Chrissy’s expression didn’t herald good news.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You’d better read it for yourself.’

  Sam had forwarded his mother’s reply.

  Rhona skimmed it, then began reading it again with a sense of unease. It was a clear warning that anyone touching the bones was in imminent danger.

  Rhona was a scientist through and through, but she knew the power of the spiritual world over those who believed. Sam’s mother believed. And she was frightened.

  The bleaching light of the meeting room rendered Dr Sissons even more stone-like than usual. McNab threw Rhona a glance as she entered and she acknowledged it. Bill Wilson sat at the head of the table with his usual cup of cold coffee, his mind elsewhere. DC Clark looked nervous, shifting in her seat like a child in a classroom under the watchful eye of a teacher.

  If Stephen was dead then it was because the people in this room had not found him in time to prevent it. That was the unspoken thought in everyone’s mind, except perhaps Sissons. He was only responsible for telling them how a victim died.

  Sissons began his report on the torso. He brought up an image on the big screen, the crossed scars clearly visible. There was an audible intake of breath from DC Clark. She was the only person in the room who hadn’t seen the child’s torso. Bill threw her a swift look and she shook her head, indicating she was okay.

  They were subjected to the story of the decapitation and blood letting, the examination of the stomach contents and internal organs.

  ‘The child died within twelve hours of eating his last meal, which was, I am reliably informed from forensic, a typical Burger King. The boy was also suffering from a parasitic disease known as bilharzia or schistosomiasis. Schistosoma parasites can penetrate the skin of people who wade, swim, bathe, or wash in contaminated water. Within several weeks, worms grow inside the blood vessels of the body and produce eggs. Some of these eggs travel to the bladder or intestines and are passed into the urine or stool. I have sent a specimen to the City Hospital in Edinburgh for confirmation.’

  ‘So the child wasn’t brought up here?’ Bill asked.

  ‘He could have become infected on a visit.’ Dr Sissons motioned to Rhona. ‘Dr MacLeod will be able to deduce from his bone mineral content where he was brought up.’

  Rhona had spent almost an hour with Judy Brown at GUARD. It had proved an interesting meeting. She told the assembled group what she had found out.

  ‘The crossed bones at the scene of the first murder are male, approximately six to eight years old,’ she told them. ‘The study of the mineral content suggests an area near Kano in Northern Nigeria. The torso bones are still being analysed. However . . .’ and here she pulled out the email she’d received from Sam. She explained Sam’s origins and the fact that he’d sent an image of the bones to his mother in Nigeria.

  ‘His mother says,’ Rhona read the email out loud: ‘“Where did you find these? They are very powerful black magic and should not be touched.”’

  ‘Is that all?’ Bill broke the disbelieving silence that followed her words.

  ‘No. There’s more.’ She cleared her throat and read on. ‘“The bones choose their next victim.”’

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’ Bill reached for the email and read out the rest. ‘“The bones signify the chosen one. A previous human sacrifice supplies the bones that attract the next sacrifice.”’

  ‘Jesus!’ McNab muttered beside her.

  Sitting next to DC Clark, Rhona felt her flinch and stiffen. When Rhona turned to comfort her, Janice’s eyes were wide with fear.

  ‘It is, of course, nonsense,’ Sissons’s clipped authoritative voice shattered the sense of unease.

  ‘To us it is,’ Bill went on grimly. ‘But to whoever took Stephen, it is not.’

  ‘There’s one bit of good news.’ The rest of the team looked at Rhona as though they needed it. ‘I examined the shorts taken from Abel. One of the pockets had plant material and soil in it not dislodged by its time in the water. The soil is a type of coal dust.’

  They waited while she went on. ‘We’re still analysing the dust. Mines can have distinctive components in their coal seams. If Abel was kept in or near a coal shaft, we might be able to locate its whereabouts.’

  Bill was already going over in his mind how many old mine workings there were in the central belt of Scotland. Dozens in Glasgow alone, most of their locations long forgotten. It was only when housing estates showed signs of subsidence that old mine workings were suspected.

  Rhona went steadily on. ‘The plant material checks out as two types of trichomes from a plant called Echium vulgare or viper’s bugloss. It’s rare and is found on Glasgow bings, the spoil heaps found near former mines. Picking the plant or even brushing against it is painful and causes a rash.’

  ‘Okay. So we think Abel may have been kept near old mine workings.’

  ‘Or in one?’ McNab suggested.

  ‘How does that help us find Stephen?’ Bill asked.

  ‘I think Stephen was lifted over the wall into the back alley,’ Rhona explained. ‘The other SOCOs found partial tyre prints. When we lifted these we found coal dust, of a similar make-up, in the tread marks.’

  ‘Eureka!’ McNab’s exclamation echoed Rhona’s own thoughts when she’d found the match.

  Bill was thinking out loud. ‘If there was a van someone must have seen it. How can you bundle a kid into a van and not be seen?’

  ‘The alleyway has eight-foot walls either side,’ Rhona reminded him. ‘Only someone in an upper flat would see over the wall.’

  ‘Okay, we go back. We ask again.’

  It was Janice’s turn to report. She produced the school jotter and flipped it open at the page with the drawing of the man. ‘Stephen’s teacher insists a father wasn’t mentioned either by Carole Devlin or Stephen.’

  ‘Whoever the man in the drawing is, Stephen doesn’t like him.’ Rhona’s use of the present tense brought them all up sharp.

  ‘Stephen had . . . has one friend at school, a little girl called Yana.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I went round to their house but there was no answer. I’ve tried twice since. When there was no reply on the number the school gave me, I contacted the university. Dr Olatunde is on leave. He is visiting his family in Nigeria.’

  ‘Did he take his daughter with him?’

  ‘Miss Stuart didn’t seem to know he was away. She was going to phone him, tell him I would be in contact about Stephen.’

  ‘And you let her?’

  Janice looked confused. ‘I thought teachers weren’t allowed to give out information on their pupils without—’

  Bill cut her off. ‘You’re a police officer, DC Clark, in case you’ve forgotten. We don’t warn suspects we’re coming.’

  Janice drew herself up. ‘He wasn’t a suspect, sir.’

  ‘Everyone’s a suspect, detective constable!’ Bill snapped.

  Rhona shot him a look. His eyes were red rimmed, his skin grey. Bill was a boss who led his troops by example, not by ridiculing their mistakes.

  Rhona filled the stunned silence. ‘Is there any chance Stephen was taken out of the country?’

  McNab shook his head. ‘They would need his passport. And he would have to be with a parent or guardian.’

  ‘The guy who professed to be Carole’s husband?’ Rhona asked.

  ‘No sign of him. But all major UK airports have been given a description,’ Janice told her.

  If the man who called himself Devlin was using another identity, pas
sport control would be unlikely to spot him.

  ‘The Met are checking up to see if they have anything on our Mr Devlin. The CCTV picture is grainy. The lab’s working on it, but without a better image or DNA . . .’ said McNab.

  ‘Our contact in the Met is sending up details of their Adam case,’ Bill added.

  ‘The forensic reports?’ Rhona asked.

  ‘Those too. Okay,’ Bill ordered, ‘I want a map of all coal mines in and around the Glasgow area as soon as possible. Janice?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Rhona stood up. ‘I’ve already contacted the mining museum at the Victoria Colliery in Newtongrange. I’m going down there now.’

  ‘So we need to find a disused mine that matches your coal deposit . . .’

  ‘And has viper’s bugloss growing on it.’

  14

  SAM HARUNA SAT relaxed and easy on the hard chair of the interview room. Bill was more used to seeing him serving behind the bar or playing the piano. They had even talked jazz pianists together. Bill had professed a liking for Bob Alberti and Sam had agreed with him.

  ‘Everything I Love CD with Harry Allen on saxophone.’

  ‘Track?’ Bill tested him.

  ‘“Drifting”.’

  Bill liked the young Nigerian. According to Sean, he was a reliable worker. His manner with people suggested he would make a good doctor. Just the sort of immigrant Scotland needed.

  He had no reason to ask Sam to come down here, apart from the email. When he’d called the jazz club, Sam had agreed immediately.

  ‘You’re not under suspicion of anything,’ Bill had assured him.

  Sam had sounded relieved. ‘That’s good.’

  Bill had already ordered a trawl for any West Africans living in Glasgow. He wasn’t comfortable about it, but it had to be done.

  He’d taken Sam into the interview room because there was nowhere else quiet enough to talk. After the strategy meeting, the station had exploded into action. Bill couldn’t help but think that without more to go on, it was mostly displacement activity.

  The air in the room smelt of stale cigarette smoke and, faintly, of urine. It wouldn’t be unheard of for interviewees to quietly piss themselves while sitting in here. Bill made a mental note to have the cleaners douse the place in bleach again.

  ‘Where did you learn piano?’

  ‘A Baturi taught me.’

  ‘Baturi?’

  Sam smiled. ‘The Hausa word for a European. He had a piano in his house in Kano. I had a job as a kid, helping in his garden. I watered the plants first thing in the morning and last thing at night. He loved those plants. He had a big verandah. Blue morning glory and big white scented moonflowers wound all the way up. He paid me in piano lessons.’ Sam leaned forward. ‘But you didn’t ask me here to talk piano or plants.’

  ‘No,’ Bill conceded. ‘The bones . . .’

  ‘My mother believes those things she said.’

  ‘And you don’t?’

  Sam thought for a moment. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Do you pray?’

  A week ago Bill would have said no and meant it. But not any more. If the truth were told, he was praying there was a God, praying with all his heart and soul.

  Sam was reading his mind. ‘Do you believe in God?’

  Bill felt uncomfortable. It was a question he’d never been asked, not even by Margaret. He tried to be honest. ‘Like most folk I prefer to hedge my bets.’

  ‘I do the same with juju. I could never say I don’t believe, just in case . . .’

  ‘Are there many Nigerians in Glasgow?’

  ‘You mean a secret juju society casting spells on the good Scottish people of the city?’ Sam grew serious. ‘There are a few but I’m not in touch with them. I have become a Baturi.’

  Bill wondered how true that was.

  ‘But I will say this. The person who made that fetish believes.’

  ‘Believes what?’

  ‘That having sex with a child can cure you of AIDS. That killing a child will make you more powerful. The child’s spirit enters you and gives you new life.’

  A shiver ran down Bill’s back. ‘The torso in the Kelvin had the blood drained from it.’ He watched Sam’s face closely as he spoke. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Life blood contains the spirit of the child. They will drink it.’

  ‘They cut off his penis and testicles.’

  ‘They will dry them and grind them down for medicine to make men more virile.’ Sam covered his eyes. ‘I am ashamed to say these things. They are like poison in my mouth.’

  Bill pushed the jotter across the table. ‘Stephen drew a picture of a man. Can you recognise it?’

  Sam’s face paled under the ebony skin.

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘It is a child’s drawing . . . I couldn’t be sure.’

  ‘But it looks like someone?’

  Sam was struggling with himself. ‘The facial scars . . . three horizontal on each cheek just above the corners of the mouth.’

  Bill looked more closely. They had concentrated on the pencilled cross through the head. But Sam was right. Stephen had drawn three scars on each cheek.

  ‘Dr Olatunde has those. They are the markings of his tribe. Oyo, I think. They’re very distinctive.’

  The same Dr Olatunde whose daughter was Stephen’s friend?

  ‘How do you know this man?’ Bill asked him.

  ‘He’s a teacher in the medical department of Glasgow University.’

  On the way to the university, Margaret’s text came through on the mobile. Bill immediately drew up on a double yellow line.

  Today. 2pm. M.

  He leaned back against the headrest, nausea sweeping over him. He never felt sick. Had never experienced that chilly sweat before the rush of bile. Margaret had been sick all the time when she was pregnant with the kids. She used to carry a couple of plain biscuits everywhere with her. Nibbling them when she thought he wasn’t looking, to stave off the nausea. Sometimes she would ask him to pull over so she could be discreetly sick in the gutter. The irritation he’d felt then stabbed him now with remorse.

  He wound down the window and gulped in fresh air.

  A yellow oilskin jumped from a scooter and walked purposefully towards him, notebook in hand. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen, his face spotted with adolescent red. ‘You can’t park there.’ There was righteous indignation in his voice.

  Bill flashed his ID. ‘Get lost or I’ll book you!’

  The red blotches met one another in embarrassment. ‘Sorry, officer.’

  He retreated to his scooter. Bill felt bad, throwing his weight around. He should save that for the real villains.

  ‘Get a grip,’ he muttered to himself. What bloody use was he like this? He texted back: I’ll be waiting. It took ages stabbing in the letters, his fingers too blunt and sweaty for the keys. He felt like a big helpless child. The experience of feeling sorry for himself was as new to him as the nausea. Both tasted bitter in his mouth.

  15

  THE BIG GASOMETER on the northern side of the M8 no longer wore the Mr Happy sign and the slogan ‘Glasgow’s Miles Better’. Now ‘Glasgow with Style’ was a fashion capital, full of chic designer clothes and pavement cafes. But the outer housing schemes had not had the luck of their inner-city neighbours. Glasgow, a working-class city, was divided as never before, with the poor getting poorer and the well-off ever richer.

  Rhona tuned into the lunchtime news and listened to Radio Scotland’s version of the torso story. There was genuine shock at Stephen’s disappearance and the macabre find at the mouth of the Kelvin. Not something for The Pride of the Clyde to tell their tourist passengers as they chugged down the river from Broomielaw Quay to the Braehead shopping centre.

  Child murder and abduction horrified the public. It was the last and greatest taboo. Even hardened criminals hated men who preyed on children. Everyone had their place on the
morality ladder. Child killers didn’t even reach the bottom rung.

  Rhona turned off the radio when the news ended, giving her the peace to think. She hadn’t wanted to lay too much emphasis on the botanical evidence, but it was a breakthrough. Viper’s bugloss was rare. Locating the sites where it grew was the best clue they had. Coal deposits were trickier and would depend a lot on what she could find out at Newtongrange.

  She had phoned ahead and explained the purpose of her visit. The library was manned by volunteers two days a week, Monday and Thursday. The seriousness of her quest had brought in a volunteer just to see her, despite it being Wednesday.

  It took forty-five minutes to reach the Edinburgh ring road. Even Edinburgh’s outskirts were tidier than Glasgow’s, the ring road enclosing Scotland’s capital city like a curved arm. To the right, where the slopes of the Pentlands housed the longest dry-ski run in the UK, flashes of light marked skiers weaving their way down the artificial surface.

  She had printed out a route map from the internet before leaving. It seemed pretty straightforward. The first major roundabout after the Lothian Junction. The Victoria Colliery was well posted in brown-and-white tourist signs. Three miles on from the roundabout, she swung right into the Visitor Centre car park.

  The library and offices were across the road in what looked like an old primary school or village hall, a big red colliery wheel outside the front door. Mike Davies, volunteer and ex-miner, was waiting for her in the library. A dapper man in a tweed jacket, his fresh-faced complexion belied his years. Behind thick glasses, his eyes were friendly and concerned.

  ‘A bad business,’ he muttered when she offered her thanks. ‘I’m glad to help.’

  He’d already laid out photocopied maps pinpointing former mines in the Glasgow area, and a set of books on the mineral make-up of each.

  He left her to it, bringing her a mug of tea and a slice of cake five minutes later. ‘We get well looked after here. The cafe in the visitor centre sends over home baking.’

  ‘Just what I need.’

  The rich tiffin cake tasted delicious, especially since she had missed lunch somewhere along the way.