The Ghost of Helen Addison Read online

  He surveyed the anaemic landscape, the colour bled out by winter’s death. ‘Et in Arcadia ego,’ he murmured. Yet, despite the land’s dun seasonal garb there persisted a certain brutal handsomeness to the place. Leo gazed over towards the loch. A quintessentially Scottish scene. A ruined castle, wreathed in mist and clad in masses of gushing ivy, sat upon the largest island of a little archipelago. Spirals of vapour smoked off the braes on the facing bank, which were bearded by snowy brakes of native timber and serried ranks of commercially planted conifers. A mile to the south, the height of these slopes crested to almost that of a Graham then abruptly plunged, cloven by a great pass, a gateway to the west coast. A thin cataract tumbled in silvery slow motion from this distant promontory. Momentarily, the sun blinked from behind a cloud, drenching the crown of Ben Corrach in light as though it had been painted in oils, and making the water which sat in its lap sparkle. Leo felt a surge of joy in his lungs as he descended the muddy incline towards the hotel.

  He tottered awkwardly with his heavy luggage, taking care not to slip, watched by two amused uniformed policemen who were glad of this mildly entertaining interlude to the boredom of guarding the crime scene perimeter. Leo was aware of their stares. He was used to people finding humour in his eccentric attire and gait, but he prided himself on paying it no heed whatsoever. He was more concerned by what lay behind the young coppers in the near distance: an extensive thicket of rhododendron from within which sprouted the branches of bare elms and rowans. It seemed chillingly familiar to him. A sense of foreboding welled up within him.

  At that very instant the beast, sitting alone in the darkness of its cellar, amusing itself with thoughts of its dire deed, opened its eyes wide, as though disturbed by an awareness of Leo’s arrival. His coming had already been foretold in code by its dark ancestor on the other side, by means of the strange runes. It would observe its adversary carefully, and consider what steps need be taken.

  Nothing was off limits.

  The hotel lobby was splendidly furnished and presented a predictable Highland interior. Some logs burned cheerfully in the grate, dwarfed by a magnificent mantelpiece constructed from carved, varnished maple. A couple of newshounds sat in the lounge area, chattering loudly and unselfconsciously to their editors through their mobile phones. Leo walked to the unattended reception desk. He placed his cases down and pinged the bell with his open palm. The cold air from outside lingered in the folds of his coat like an energy. As he waited he noted a just-about passably decent rip-off of Landseer’s Monarch of the Glen.

  ‘Do you like the painting, sir?’ came the voice of a man who had arrived behind the counter.

  Leo turned to face the speaker, a friendly-looking fellow in his seventies. His socialist sensibilities were always offended by being addressed as ‘sir’ by an older person.

  ‘It has real character,’ replied Leo diplomatically.

  ‘It is by a locally based fellow. They have a kind of artistic community, just down the road.’ He reached out his hand. ‘Bill Minto,’ he said. ‘You must be Mr . . . ?’

  ‘Moran,’ replied Leo as he shook the hotelier’s hand. ‘Leo Moran. I telephoned earlier.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Minto, checking the book. ‘Apart from a few of the newspaper chaps you’re our only new guest this week. As you can imagine.’

  Leo raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement.

  The man glanced at Leo’s hands and felt a pang of sympathy. The melted skin reminded Minto of the burns on his torso, which he had sustained on active service.

  ‘How long have you had the place?’ enquired Leo, changing the subject. He didn’t wish to be drawn into a conversation about his reasons for being in Loch Dhonn. Apart from anything else, It would antagonise the police if he suggested to anyone that they had resorted to using psychics.

  ‘Since nineteen-eighty.’

  ‘It’s most impressive.’

  ‘Thank you,’ replied Minto gratefully. He had narrow grey eyes, an earnest smile, and his Borders accent had a slight whine to it. ‘It wasn’t always like this. When we arrived – you should have seen the state of it. The business was barely ticking over. A few more years of neglect and the whole damn structure would have perished from damp. Now we’ve got two hotels – we also own the Ardchreggan, on the opposite bank.’

  ‘How wonderful,’ said Leo.

  ‘Bill! Bill!’ rang out a disembodied female voice. A tall woman wearing a green woollen twinset and a pearl necklace, her greyish hair coiffured into a bird’s nest, poked her big face into the lobby from the back office. Irritation was written on her masculine features.

  Gosh, thought Leo, she’d scare the weans.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you were with a guest. Welcome, Mr . . . ?’

  ‘Moran, dear,’ said Bill Minto, finishing the woman’s sentence.

  She glared momentarily at him. ‘Well, I’m Shona Minto, Bill’s wife,’ she said, proffering her hand to Leo. She shook with a hearty, almost crushing, grasp. ‘Sorry for interrupting, my husband has forgotten to unlock the cellar trap for the drayman. Again.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir. My wife will see to you,’ said Minto, smiling apologetically before scurrying away.

  Shona’s affected accent grated on Leo as he completed the formalities of registration. He had the feeling that she was less interested in the reason behind his visit than the fact that his credit card hadn’t expired. He insisted on finding his own way to his room, slightly anxious that she was going to offer to carry his luggage for him in her manly grip. She would have been a farm girl originally, Perthshire stock perhaps, a big, strapping lassie able to hold her own with the menfolk before she headed to Edinburgh and worked on her diction. Leo speculated that in her earlier days she had doubtless been a Girl Guide leader, adept at camp, her strong arms unrolling canvas and hammering in pegs, her watchful eye lingering a little too long on the lassies in their bathing costumes as they emerged from the river.

  Leo’s room was suitably grand: dark-stained furniture, a high double bed, an en suite bathroom. He noted approvingly the neat pile of logs in the hearth. A framed series of watercolours of local wildflowers and fauna decorated the walls. He placed his luggage at the foot of the bed. His window looked northwards over the loch; he glanced down at the police activity below, noticing with a shiver the thicket of rhododendron. He drew the heavy curtains. It would be dark soon, and he wanted to seek out Stephanie’s detective. Leo felt slightly nervous; he had an ambivalent view of the police. He recognised that there were many excellent, well-intentioned people in the ranks, but he distrusted their increasingly militaristic training and could never forgive their being deployed as an arm of the state against organised labour and the disturbing relish many coppers seemed to take in assaulting decent working men. Also, Leo worried excessively about the pervasive influence of Freemasonry within the police. Furthermore, he had good reason to know that certain officers would enthusiastically mount anyone who remotely fitted within the frame. And then hang them upon the wall.

  So before setting off he took an immodest swig from his hip flask, then sprayed a jet of cinnamon-flavoured breath freshener into the back of his mouth.

  2

  OUTSIDE, the police had rigged up some arc lamps which illuminated the increasingly gloomy surroundings as the brief winter dusk fell. Leo strode over to the crime scene tape and addressed the constables who had been amused by his arrival earlier.

  ‘Excuse me, gentlemen. I wonder: could you enquire if Detective Inspector Lang is available, if you may be so kind?’

  ‘He’s busy right now, sir,’ replied the shorter of the two. Leo could remember when the Glasgow polis wouldn’t recruit a fellow under five feet eight, and had to draft in big Hieland laddies from the country who weren’t undernourished like their city peers. ‘Who should I say wanted him?’

  ‘My name is Moran, Leo Moran. I believe he’s expecting me.’

  ‘Just one moment, please, sir,’ replied Constable Shorty
dubiously. He turned away and made a call into the shortwave radio that had been clipped to his utility belt, then turned back to face Leo. ‘You’re to come through, sir. I’ll walk you over to the incident room.’

  The taller cop was clearly surprised at Leo’s admittance, but politely lifted the tape in order that he could pass underneath.

  Lang came out of the Portakabin before Leo and the constable reached it.

  ‘Sir, this is the gentleman who asked to see you,’ said Shorty.

  ‘Mr Moran?’

  ‘How do you do. Please, call me Leo.’

  ‘Detective Inspector Lang,’ replied the cop as he performed a perfunctory handshake. He was a quiet-spoken, straightforward, tired-looking Ayrshire man in his late forties, whose once red hair had been washed to a sandy grey by the passage of time. ‘Good journey?’ he asked automatically.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Let’s get away from here,’ said Lang as he ushered Leo in the opposite direction from where the press pack were milling around, obviously not wanting to stir their interest with his eccentric new acquaintance. They strolled along some shadowy red-blaes paths flanked by rhododendron thick with shiny green-leather leaves. They rounded a corner and Leo clasped his shooting coat around him tightly, feeling an inexplicable surge of cold. He stopped.

  ‘This is where it happened, isn’t it?’

  Lang deliberately narrowed his eyes at his companion and flashed him a knowing smile; even in the dying light Leo could easily have guessed the locus from the plethora of forensic kit dotted around. In fact, the twine that had been pegged out on the soil where Helen Addison’s body had been found was visible from where they stood.

  ‘Look, it’s just a formality, but would you mind telling me where you were during the early hours of Thursday?’

  Leo stiffened, momentarily reliving his adolescent trauma when cops, piqued by his knowledge of a certain serious (although non-fatal) crime, had grilled him mercilessly, thinking him an accomplice. He hoped that Lang didn’t suspect him regarding Miss Addison; he probably just wanted to assert the power dynamic between them at the outset. In truth, the detective had only reluctantly agreed to entertain this oddball because there were no strong leads in the case. He was a pragmatic man at heart; however, the canteen chat about Leo’s astonishing insights at the time of the Monday Murders case had intrigued him, and he was open to the slim possibility that certain people possessed unorthodox powers as yet unexplained by science. He had consulted his colleague Carolan, who had led that investigation and whose judgement Lang trusted, to vouch for Leo before he acceded to Stephanie’s rather left-field request that he speak with him.

  ‘That’s easy – I had taken to bed with influenza.’

  ‘Can anyone corroborate that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Would you be willing to take a DNA test?’

  Lang’s breath was stale, that of a man who had worked hard for a considerable period of time without enough food. Leo timed the rhythm of his breathing so as to avoid inhaling the worst of it.

  ‘Certainly.’

  Lang smiled thinly. ‘There was no alien DNA. Neither were there any prints or anything else of forensic interest.’ He produced a packet of cigarettes from his gabardine and offered Leo one.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Do you mind if . . .’ began Lang, already lighting up.

  ‘Go ahead. Passive smoking is one of my few pleasures in life these days,’ said Leo, slightly disingenuously, considering his fondness for a good cigar.

  They walked on.

  ‘So, this . . . power of yours, how does it manifest itself?’

  ‘I see images, when the mind is in an unconscious or semi-conscious state.’

  ‘When you’re dreaming?’

  ‘Usually. But also when my mind is idling in an alpha state, during daydreams, meditation, spiritual contemplation, general reverie. Or sometimes an idea can just bubble up into the conscious mind, as clear as day. My peepers needn’t be shut. The vision can be of an event past or present, and it may recur, oft-times with different details or from a different perspective.’

  ‘What about seeing the future?’

  ‘Yes, there are certain visions that I have experienced that I believe were of things yet to come. Precognition, as it is known.’

  ‘And with this case?’

  ‘It came to me in a dream.’

  ‘What did you see, precisely?’

  ‘First I was walking through a dark wood, as though alongside the killer. Then I saw a black-gloved hand thrusting a blade into a white nightdress, again and again. There was a great deal of blood.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Apart from that initial vision, just some random images when I was in church, none of them obviously helpful.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘A dark figure standing by a loch, upon which was an island.’

  ‘Can you give me a description of the individual?’

  ‘No. It was just a dark figure in the middle distance. Except . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was wearing some sort of robes. And oddly-shaped headwear; it was a bit crooked, and came to a point.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘I saw a smith working at a furnace. I had the sense of two young men, their features obscured, wrongly suspected of the crime. One of them was in a police station; the other one, slightly older, possessed not the wits to cope with his predicament.’

  ‘It’s not much to go on,’ said Lang, sighing out a stream of cigarette smoke.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ replied Leo, a look of disapproval flashing across his face as Lang casually cast his fag end to the ground. He had to resist the urge to stoop down and bury it. ‘The visions are usually oblique, their content often symbolic. The trick is reading between the lines, detecting the gist, working out what Providence is trying to impart. For example, the solitary dark figure suggests we are only looking for one man. Look, Detective Inspector, I realise that this sounds outlandish, but I believe that Helen wants me to help her. And she deserves my help. I’m hopeful that my being here at Loch Dhonn will stimulate my powers. In the meantime I must beg of your forbearance.’

  ‘I’ve checked you out. Carolan said you were of some help with the Monday Murders. Although if you ask me anyone could have worked that one out.’

  ‘Nonetheless, Detective Carolan will also have told you that there were details I had knowledge of, details that no one – not even the killer – could have possessed.’

  ‘Carolan said something else about you.’

  ‘If it regards charges brought against me for lying down in front of a lorry on the M8, that was a peaceful protest against the invasion of Iraq. I take the view that rather than breaking the law I was supporting it – international law.’

  ‘No, not that.’ For a dreadful moment Leo thought that Lang was going to dredge up his interrogation from 1976. He needn’t have worried – all police memory and record of the teenage Leo’s interviews were long-since lost, not least because his inquisitors had in fact become convinced of his innocence. Instead, Lang said, ‘He told me that you drink far too much.’

  ‘I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me,’ quoted Leo.

  ‘Well, get this – if you wish to remain around here then know that I will permit no drunkenness. The whole of Scotland’s fixated on Loch Dhonn at the moment.’ Lang stopped and gazed distractedly into the sky. ‘Although this case would drive Samson to drink. As a detective you become somewhat hardened to violent crimes – a wee bitty callous even – but some . . . some stay with you for ever. You wouldn’t be human otherwise.’

  ‘And this is one?’

  ‘Yes. This is one. For certain offences, extreme ones such as this, well, I’d have the scaffold, quite frankly.’ Lang eyed Leo and punctuated his next words with jabs of his index finger. ‘You can have no official capacity in this case whatsoever. The press would have a field day. As far as everyone
is concerned you are simply a tourist staying in the local hotel, here to enjoy the scenery. If we happen to converse from time to time then let’s keep it discreet. If they identify you as a soothsayer I’ll disown you as a crank and have you removed. Understood?’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘And you are not to go near the family.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because they’re upset enough without finding out we’ve had to enlist the services of Mystic Meg.’

  ‘So, what happened?’

  Lang sighed. ‘The murder took place in the middle of the night, approximately between the hours of two and four according to the pathologist who attended the scene. No one knows why the victim was out, no one knows why she was clad only in her nightdress on a cold night. There were no late-night text messages summoning her from her bed, or calls to her mobile or the family’s landline, nor did anyone hear shouting or knocking for her. According to her parents she had occasional bouts of sleepwalking during childhood, but not, as far as they were aware, during adolescence or adulthood, and there is no record of mental illness or any recent upset within her personal life.’

  ‘It seems extraordinary that she was abroad in the dead of night, almost as though she was summoned to her doom under some vampiric influence,’ interjected Leo.

  ‘She lived with her parents and teenage brother up in the village. She was last seen by her parents, bidding them goodnight and going up to her bedroom at just after ten the previous night. She was a the new district nurse at the local surgery, enjoying her job, enjoying being back home.’

  ‘And enjoying her romance with Craig Hutton?’

  ‘Yes. He’s being questioned in Glasgow.’

  ‘He didn’t do it. I suspect the boyfriend was one of the innocent young men from my second vision.’

  Lang didn’t reply. He was a good man, but in many ways a typically suspicious, world-weary cop. Yet his cynicism didn’t extend to treating the world and his brother as a suspect, and he disliked the groupthink that pervaded the force. It wasn’t ‘them and us’, he believed; it was criminals and everyone else – or rather, serious, violent criminals and everyone else. Lang couldn’t help but like many of the fly men he had encountered earlier in his career. He would process them diligently and help put them away if required – that was what the law demanded – but he wasn’t about to get high and mighty about people who often stole only to feed a desperate addiction, or because they fell hopelessly into bad company and bad habits. Craig Hutton was innocent, he felt sure, and he was slightly ashamed of the way his fellow officers had bullied and manipulated the lad when he had been brought in to be interviewed. They were lacking in compassion and devoid of either intelligence or instinct.