Part 17 (2/2)

Without looking back, she sped all the way into the village.

Detective Inspector Robert Chamberlain was thirty-five, tall and wiry, with dark hair already showing signs of serious silver--brought on by his work, he had long ago told Bruce.

They had known one another forever, having met in the service. For a while they had worked for the Lothian and Borders Police in Edinburgh together, until Bruce had left and Robert had moved on. Throughout the years, they had remained friends. A year ago, when Bruce had found the body in the woods, he had been appalled by the lack of technique displayed by Jonathan and his men upon their arrival at the scene. Granted, they had never dealt with such a situation before. But since they hadn't, the proper steps to take would have been to alert the authorities with more expertise. Despite the fact that Bruce had long ago left the police force, Robert often discussed cases with him. On occasion, he had been able to trigger the right hint, clue or information to help Robert solve a case. And both were now deeply concerned about the disappearing girls and the murders.

Robert sat with Bruce in a pub in Edinburgh close to the Greyfriar's churchyard where the famous Bobby-- the terrier who came to his master's grave to sit vigil for a decade--now lay buried alongside the man to whom he had been so loyal. Robert looked particularly glum.

”Jonathan has told me that he's had men out,” Robert said, referring to the Ullingham constable. ”They've combed the woods, but not discovered a body.” He ran his fingers through his graying hair. ”'Tis difficult. So far, we've a woman missing for about a week, we think. In fact, she might well have disappeared just after you reached Edinburgh. I knew I needed you back here. And I'm grateful that you came.”

Bruce shrugged. ”I was restless. Needed to come anyway,” he told Robert. ”And, as it happens, it was a good thing I did return.”

Robert nodded. ”With Annie we're just guessing. We don't really know when she disappeared, because none of her 'friends' kept tabs on her.” He pushed the file on the table between them toward Bruce. ”Annie O'Hara. Northern Irish, came over from Belfast about five years ago. No known employment--legal employment, that is. She's been arrested three times in those years. Drug abuser, but not the haggard looking desperate kind as yet. She was picked up twice working the Royal Mile, and both times she was released--you know how that goes. Anyway, one of her friends realized that she was gone after five days or so and reported her missing, but she had no idea how or when Annie disappeared.” He shrugged. ”Who knows? She might have headed on back to Ireland, but since Helen MacDougal disappeared in like fas.h.i.+on a year ago, and was found by you, and then Mary Granger, just six months ago, and found by that fellow, Eban, in the forest, as well, I think there's a real possibility that Annie'll be found, too, and sadly, found deceased.”

”In the forest,” Bruce murmured bitterly.

Robert shrugged. ”Maybe not. Maybe the killer will find a new place to dispose of the bodies.”

”Why would he bother? Jonathan Tavish isn't too concerned. He doesn't consider it his problem at all-- because the women have disappeared from Glasgow, Stirling and now Edinburgh.”

”Well, he has a point in that the killer has to be operating out of the big cities.”

”We don't actually have a 'red light district in the village,” Bruce said. He was irritated with Jonathan, though. His old friend seemed to be more suspicious of his activities than worried about the fact that a real psychopath was on the loose, and probably growing more dangerous with each pa.s.sing day. He'd run into him in the village, just before leaving. Apparently Jonathan had been looking for him, wanting to know if he'd lost his wallet recently, if there was any possibility that he might be a victim of ”ident.i.ty theft.” Actually, he had to admit that Jonathan might have a point there. How else could he explain how his castle had wound up listed as being for rent. According to Jonathan, there was no Web site for the castle, and, thus far, the legitimate ones he had checked had never had a listing for the place.

Even seeking out the case of fraud, though, Bruce would have far more faith in Robert's knowledge-- and, naturally, the fraud department of a major force-- than he would in Jonathan. He understood Jonathan's resentment, but it didn't change the fact that Tillingham was small, and major crime was not a frequent event there.

”No. Of course, this is far more serious than Tavish is willing to admit,” Robert said. ”I don't blame him for not using all his local funds to mount an inch by inch combing of Tillingham Forest, not when we've got a disappearance with no guarantee that any foul play happened to this woman.”

Bruce sat back, shaking his head. ”The killer will return with his victim's remains to Tillingham. If we'd found just the one girl, then it might have been merely a convenient place for him to dispose of the body. But a second corpse discovered? He's using Tillingham as his personal refuse property, and he's going to keep at it. I even think there may be a 'why' behind it.”

Robert shook his head. ”Now, Bruce, y'are taking this far too personally. Tillingham is lush and deep. We've not got a thing on the killer yet because of the advanced stage of decomposition of the bodies by the time they were found. We don't have hair, fibers, s.e.m.e.n, anything. There's nothing personal about the fact that the bloke is hiding his heinous crimes there. It simply puts him in the cla.s.sification of an organized killer, a fellow who thinks it out and knows how best to keep himself from being discovered.”

”I suppose I do take discarded bodies in what is very nearly my backyard personally,” Bruce agreed. ”It means one of two very bad things. Either we have an organized psychotic on a methodical killing jaunt dumping bodies once he's had his jollies, or someone in that area knows that it's the perfect dumping site and is traveling farther from home for his victims.”

”You should have stayed with the force, Bruce,” Robert told him, shaking his head. ”You were good. We'd have never gotten the Highland Hills killers without you, you know. It was uncanny, the way you could read the fellow's mind.”

”Behavioral science,” Bruce said, waving a hand in the air. He didn't like remembering the ma.s.sive hunt they'd had a little more than ten years ago, seeking out a man who was kidnapping teenaged girls, raping them and leaving their mutilated bodies strewn across Edinburgh and its outskirts. Four girls had died in all; it had been a heartbreaking a.s.signment. ”We were able to get something from friends back then. I'd have never realized that there were two people involved if one of the witnesses hadn't mentioned that the last time she'd seen her friend alive, she'd been giving directions to a lady on the pa.s.senger's side of the car. Even then, I doubted myself at first.”

He hadn't; he was lying. It had been frightening, how much of a connection he'd had with the killers. There was a point, on a day when they had stood on a hillside just outside of the city, when he had suddenly known that the killer couldn't be acting alone, known that there had to be a woman involved, as well. How else could the killer have managed to lure girls who knew to be on the lookout for any strange man. From then on, little clues fell into place. Tire tracks had indicated a return to the city. The area around one of the schools had provided one pub, and he had taken to spending his time there, watching. A handsome young couple who held hands across the table and whispered constantly like foolish, snickering lovers had garnered his attention. He was never sure if he heard their conversation, imagined it or recreated what it might have been in his own mind. But suddenly he'd been certain, so he'd followed them.

One afternoon he tried to imagine the route they'd take if they had, indeed, been stalking the girls together. Getting his car, cruising the area of the school, he put himself into the man's mind, made himself think and feel as the killer had done. There had been the thrill of the chase and, aye, some brutal treatment to his wife.

Eventually he was certain he knew just how and when the couple had moved. How the wife, claiming to be lost, would lure the girls, ask directions, come back once the girl was on her way home, alone, and coax her into the car. There she was drugged. Traces of morphine had been found in the body, so he didn't consider that any great divining work on his own. Then she was taken to their flat, a ground floor apartment in a working man's area where the husband wouldn't be noted taking in a roll of bedding or carpet. Inside, the woman had held the girl at the man's command. And after he abused the terrified child, he'd have s.e.x with his wife, as well, the girl still alive but unconscious. Then the poor wee la.s.s would be taken into the bathroom and killed in the tub, so that the blood could be washed away.

He gave the scenario to his superiors who thought that he was daft. And even if he wasn't, they couldn't arrest a couple because he'd seen them in a pub and followed them to their flat.

But after a storm, he'd gotten a friend to take a cast of the tire marks left by the couple's car near the pub. They matched those found at the site where the girl had been found. It was not enough for a conviction, or even a trial, but enough to get them what they really needed through the court system--a DNA sample. The case had taken months, eating into his soul--and into his last precious moments with Meg.

Her illness had been the reason he had given for resigning. His proximity to the mind of the killer had been the reason he had never gone back.

”Aye, who would have figured that such a man would have a wife just as eager to perform that kind of cruelty on another.” Robert shook his head with disgust. ”They had a case like that in Canada, not long ago. The wife got ridiculous leniency. Her defense attorneys claimed she was a victim herself. Looks like no one is accountable for his or her actions anymore. Even in the Highland Hills case, the husband was locked up for good but his wife may be out in as little as ten years! But the point is, you made the difference in that case.”

Bruce felt a moment's severe discomfort. ”Back then, the authorities were on it with a pa.s.sion. Robert, you know as well as I do that if these were prominent la.s.ses, the press would be having a stink and Jonathan wouldn't be halfheartedly sending a few men out to look around in the forest.”

”That's sad, and always the case,” Robert agreed, drumming his fingers on the table. ”Aye, for a small country, we've had our share of loonies.” He lifted his hand, indicating the town. ”Edinburgh. It's where Burke and Hare practiced their ghastly trade, killing when they found out just how profitable it could be. Five years ago a fellow on the outskirts of town was killing one immigrant a month, in honor of social justice, so he claimed! He didn't like the fact that we weren't so 'pure' anymore. Tillingham, though...there's not been much violence there in centuries, as you are well aware. And what tragedies took place there always had to do with war, or feuding clans. This is definitely not clan retribution. Although.. Jonathan does seem to have his share of troubles when it comes to that forest. At least a dozen teens, intent on some hanky-panky, have come out of it screaming their fool heads off, convinced there's someone, something, there. The superst.i.tions grow. The local forces don't like going in there, so they only halfheartedly look for anything. Look, I'll see that the central office gets a crew out to search the forest. Will that give you any rea.s.surance?”

”Aye, it will,” Bruce told him.

”Now, as to the other...your American invasion?” Robert asked.

”They have rental forms and permits that look as legal as an international peace accord,” Bruce told him, grinning. ”I'm wondering if they're still not halfway convinced that I've been deprived of my land through some nonpayment of taxes and can't accept the fact that it's no longer mine.”

”No!” Robert said, laughing.

”Yes, actually. Just such a scenario was suggested by one la.s.s.”

”They don't know what you do, or who you are?” Robert queried.

”No, not even the Scotsman among them. Frankly, I found that rather suspicious.”

Robert shrugged. ”In this day and age? Maybe. And maybe not. In Glasgow, folks tend to get into being... well, from Glasgow.”

Bruce arched a brow at him.

”Now, Bruce, you know my own hometown by the Loch--'tis nothing there! Longing to be a police officer, there was nothing for me to do but come to the city. You know that's true. But don't worry on that front. If he's a Scotsman, I can trace his past for you by tomorrow. Actually, I can run traces on your entire group, though it might take a wee bit longer with the Americans. And once I've gotten copies of their doc.u.ments, we can set the boys in the white-collar crime units on the trail of whoever is renting properties and taking euro checks for them. Euro checks, eh?”

He shrugged. ”That's what she said.”

”Not pounds sterling?”

”I didn't pursue that yet. My hearing is quite good, though, and she did say euro check. This agency has probably purported itself to be something of a European finding facility, so I doubt that the use of a euro check--even for a property in Scotland--would have seemed that strange.”

”And you didn't send them packing immediately?” Robert said.

Bruce shook his head. ”It was late Friday night when I found the folks putting on their show.”

”Actually, it's a rather clever idea,” Robert mused. ”They're making a mint on graveyard tours and the like here, you know. People are ghoulish, that's a fact. They like a nice little chill, with the safety of knowing that the evil fellows practiced their wicked deeds centuries ago.”

”I believe they were in Edinburgh when they got the idea,” Bruce said.

”And how long ago was that?” Robert inquired.

”I don't really know.”

”So these folks have been to Scotland before?”

”Aye, so they have. Why? Is that important?”

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