A Deviant Breed (18 page)

He limped back down the glen, pondering the case.  What was the explanation?  There will be one, even if it only makes sense to the twisted mind responsible for these horrors.  And what is the killer’s tragic story?  There usually is one.  What connects the three – if it is only three heads?  And does it really hark back to what took place here three hundred years earlier?  More questions than answers, way more.  But each individual will have their own story to tell, and if he could establish a link, that might lead him to the perpetrator.

***

Shelagh Geary had regained her composure.  She distracted herself and her team of two by walking them through their dig site to discuss future phases of the dig.

‘Note the orientation of this glen from this point.  See how it tapers, flanked by almost sheer, rocky yet heavily wooded crags,’ she explained, pointing to the features in turn.  Zoe and Shaggy were following her directions but it did not look to Dunbar as if they were actually taking it in. ‘A small disciplined force could quite easily defend the position and overcome a greater force, or so they thought. However, this is not a battlefield.’ She fixed them and then cast her eyes towards the two detectives. ‘It’s a killing field, and it still evokes the sensation of a trap waiting to be sprung, but unfortunately for Morag – her enemies knew that.  They came with such strength of numbers as to negate her strategic advantage and overwhelm her defences.  Short of the remaining analysis data, I am convinced the majority, if not all of the skeletal remains we have uncovered were almost all victims of the Inglis Clan and that the myth of their ungodly activities is in some part true.’

‘The cannibalism and –?’ Shaggy began to ask.

‘Almost certainly.  As for why the bodies are headless?  Removed and mounted like our friend up there, across the region as a warning to others.’  Zoe baulked on being reminded.  ‘I know, I’m sorry.  But imagine a traveller or rival clan coming across such a sight.  Proof, if proof were needed that they were passing through an ungovernable, lawless, much disputed land – the notorious Debateable Lands, that’s a powerful message, a warning of their potential fate.’

‘So where are the bodies of the executed?’ Shaggy asked, looking around the field. ‘Why are we only finding Morag’s victims?’

‘Unworthy of burial in the eyes of their God-fearing persecutors, they were probably scattered for carrion across these hills or taken to local towns to be displayed as a warning.’

The three of them turned to face Dunbar and Tyler. ‘And now we have yet another twist to the strange tale of Obag’s Holm,’ he added, having caught the latter part of her theorising.

‘Indeed we have, but then again, as I always say: the unexpected
is
the rule rather than the exception at archaeological sites.’

‘And crime scenes alike.’ 

Geary looked around. ‘The minute I got here I felt that this place had the oppressive atmosphere of a charnel house, and that was before we unearthed enough bodies to fill a small cemetery.  Cut off as it is from civilisation, the cries of the dying would disturb only the crows.  I can picture her Pele Tower – her vantage point on the ridge, a dark, foreboding sentinel.  I doubt many travellers that passed this way reached their intended destination.’

Dunbar nodded his agreement. ‘Aye, it’s not exactly the place you’d pitch a tent for a happy weekend’s camping, is it?  Anyway, we’re heading back to Edinburgh.  We have a post mortem to attend.’

‘How do you do it, Dad?’ Zoe asked, looking at him blankly.

Her question threw him for a moment but he responded with a reassuring smile. ‘It’s not all that different from what you guys do.  Except, that in your case the bodies have been lying around a lot longer.’ His answer did not satisfy her.  ‘We’re no different than anyone else, Zoe. We’re just conditioned by the job, to deal with this stuff in a detached, dispassionate way but it does get to us too sometimes.’ Tyler nodded her agreement.  He looked at each of them in turn and around the vast site. ‘I think maybe you should take a break from this place.’

‘I can’t just walk away from this.  Anyway we’re on a tight schedule, especially if that blasted wind farm gets a green light.’

‘I meant –’ he began to say, only for the Professor to talk over him.

‘You’re only concerned with three corpses, Chief Inspector Dunbar –
three!
  Whereas, we’re seeking an explanation for mass murder, a three and half centuries old mystery
and
– well, you’ve seen what we’ve seen.  The parallels are axiomatic don’t you think?’

‘Self-evident,’ Tyler whispered.

Dunbar knew that and gave Tyler a stern look before nodding in his daughter’s direction. ‘Actually, I was talking to Zoe, but what I said applies to you all – if only in the interests of your safety.’

Professor Geary gagged, looked at the pale face of his pretty daughter and nodded emphatically. ‘Sorry, yes of course, I – it is perhaps a good idea, Zoe, but I must carry on.’

‘
No!
This is my first dig, I’m not letting some heid-case put me off,’ Zoe protested.

‘We’ll talk about it later then.  Meanwhile, would you two mind putting our equipment back in the vehicle?  I think today should be one of reflection not investigation.’ Zoe flashed a defiant glance her father’s way as she and Shaggy began to gather up their gear. 

Dunbar ran a hand over his daughter’s shoulder as she passed him. She stopped and met his worried look.

‘I’m okay, it’s just another freaky twist to all the other freaky shit that’s gone on around here,’ she said, before walking away.  Dunbar watcher her go.  It saddened him to think of how distant they had become, mainly on account of her grandfather’s unrelenting pain at the loss of his beloved daughter.

***

Maggie’s death was officially recorded as accidental. A selfish act of attention seeking that went horribly wrong was how the sub-text of the report read.  It brought Jim some comfort to believe that in her drunken stupor Maggie had not realised just how many pills she had popped and Dunbar had learned to live with that, even if he still believed that she fully intended to end her life.  Maggie was effectively trapped in a cycle of uppers and downers invariably washed down by vodka or gin.  Dunbar had been aware of her drinking but not of its extent.  After her death he had found empty bottles concealed all over the house, once he finally got around to clearing it out.  It was his father-in-law’s more painful charge had proved less easy to shake off, because it was possibly – no, probably true.

‘That bloody quack had nae right prescribing such strong sedatives and them
valiant
tablets.’  Jim never could get the word right.  ‘Maggie needed you, Alec, not that quack’s drugs.  She needed her husband – at home, not out boozing with his polis pals.’ Yet another uncomfortable truth heavily laced in a father’s denial.  It was that mantra that Jim had repeated over and over again that slowly drove a wedge between him and Zoe.  Maggie did need Valium, as well as other antipsychotic drugs.  But Jim was right about their relationship.  He should have spent more time at home.

***

Once they were out of earshot, Professor Geary continued. ‘As for me, I feel it is even more important that I try to discover the truth of what happened here.  If it is what is motivating the person you seek, it might also help you.’

‘I know you’re itching to get back into your trenches but that old guy up there, he was murdered in his home, Professor, and his body dismembered in the undertakers’ mortuary.  This isn’t just a case of trying to find out who buried a couple of heads anymore, I –’

‘And Allyson has compiled some fascinating data,’ she cut in. ‘Just look at what the science has told us already.’ The combined pressure of frustration and ego was getting the better of her. ‘We’re not randomly scratching around in the dirt, Chief Inspector.  Archaeology has developed techniques of remarkable sophistication, so as to arrive at the best and most accurate conclusions to the meaning of all this, and we are always thorough.  We do hate it when someone else comes along at a later date with a contrary opinion – much like you, I imagine.’

‘The difference being that you make intellectual assumptions based on historical records, artefacts and educated guesswork. I have to go with observable evidence: evidence that will stand up to scrutiny in a court of law, and of defence lawyers who are paid to hold contrary opinions.’

Geary conceded the point but wasn’t giving up. ‘Not only that, I have a field full of murdered souls no less deserving of closure.  Just because they’ve been dead longer doesn’t detract –’

‘You sure that’s what this is about?’  Dunbar cut in.  Geary bristled at the implication. ‘Sorry – uncalled for.  But while we’re on the subject of science, thoroughness and explanations, just remember, the only people that care about your bones are academics, historians and students of history. You’ll probably never know for sure who killed the people whose fate you’re investigating, whereas I’ve got the Chief Constable, the Justice Secretary, press and Joe public waiting for answers from me – and a chance of catching this killer. 
So!
  This enquiry takes precedence.  If I say back off, you back off.  And I’ll see what I can do about a permanent police presence while you work, just in case.  But not today – today this place is going to be crawling with polis.  Go study your artefacts and bones some more.’

***

The tablets had done their job and he was back behind the wheel.  They were more than half way back to Edinburgh when ‘the shout’ came.  One of the dog-handlers tracking south and west had apprehended a man acting cagey and evasive.  The officer described the man as in his late twenties, possibly early thirties, wearing camouflaged army surplus clothing with a full-face balaclava and gloves in his pockets. Tyler could barely contain her excitement. Dunbar remained sanguine.

‘Poacher maybe.’

‘No dogs, no gun, what looks like dried blood on his sleeve,’ Tyler countered.

‘Corpses don’t bleed.’

‘Not out of the question that there’s been transfer from the body to the sleeve of his jacket.’

‘Nae.’

‘But?’

‘No buts – just doubts.’

‘Too much of a coincidence,’ she added, clinging to hope.

‘He was heading in the wrong direction.’

‘The wrong direction – away from the scene?’

‘Yeah, sounds to me like he was keeping away from the roads.’

‘Having seen all the police activity.’

‘Our killer has to be using a car.  He wouldn’t abandon it.  All it takes is a PNC check and the games up
but
– never look a gift horse in the mouth, they say.  Tell them to bring him in – to us, not via the nearest nick.’ DI Tyler was happy to relay that order. ‘And then ring Falk, see if he’s got hold of Archie English yet.’

12

In all his service, little he had encountered smelled worse than an expertly eviscerated human body.  It was a stench that seemed to permeate every fibre of his clothing for hours afterwards. Professor Donnie Salkeld would insist that the sensation was entirely in Dunbar’s imagination.  He argued that he kept company with the recently and not-so-recently departed day-in-day-out, and had yet to detect the stench of death on himself afterwards.

‘Like farmers,’ Dunbar had countered. ‘They spend their working days paddlin’ around in cow shite and they cannae smell themselves either.’

Add harsh lighting and gleaming stainless steel to the nauseating milieu and you had the ingredients for the least favourite aspect of the DCI’s job. The fetid atmosphere and glaring lights of the pathology lab always threatened to bring on a migraine.  Donnie Salkeld knew this only too well, having imparted his expertise to Alec Dunbar on countless occasions.  As a result, while they awaited Salkeld’s arrival, seeing Dunbar pinch his nose and close his eyes was being misinterpreted as squeamishness by Tyler and the lab assistant Stella.  They shared knowing smirks every time he did it.  Or was there more to the assistant’s smile than Tyler was attributing to it?

Donnie Salkeld or his sidekick, the cerebrally intense and humourless Dr Andrew Lachlan or Slack Andy, as the senior pathologist liked to refer to him, had prepared the body but were nowhere to be seen.  Stella the Fella took the opportunity to walk DI Tyler through the process, and was being a little too tactile, as she guided her around the headless corpse.  With its rib cage already removed and chest cavity exposed, Stella explained the process by which her boss would set about determining the cause of death.

The inner bay plastic door suddenly swung open.  Donnie Salkeld strode into the room holding Eugene’s evidence bag aloft like a victorious gladiator entering an arena, closely followed by Andy Lachlan, who looked anything but amused.  Broad shouldered, thick set and short necked he gave the appearance his frame was frozen in a permanent shrug.  The lobes of his cauliflower ears almost rested on his massive trapezium muscles.  A pair of intense pale-blue eyes flanked a buckled nose beamed at them from beneath eyebrows constructed almost entirely out of scar tissue – the trademark battle scars of a former tight-head prop, one who had not only met, but relished the challenge of ferocious rolling mauls and brutally contested scrum-downs on countless occasions.

“Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk and big assemblance of a man!  Give me the heid,” he proclaimed, before passing the bag to Stella with the well-practised skill of an acting stand-off at the ruck. Stella received it in similar fashion and touched it down on a workbench.  Dr Lachlan shook his head and marched to his station.  Donnie Salkeld shared a knowing look with Dunbar as he stopped alongside the cadaver.  He braced his powerful arms against the stainless steel dissecting bench and fixed upon Dunbar.

‘The erstwhile Eugene Grant assures me that what I have is the body, and now the heid of one Wilson Farish.  Do you concur, Detective Chief Inspector Dunbar?’

‘It is.’

‘And who identified the deceased to you?’

‘We have a written witness statement from the undertaker Graeme McAleavey, who received the body into his care after a fire at the deceased’s home address.’

‘Was the body intact at that time?’

‘It was.  The head was removed post mortem, at the undertaker’s premises, by person or persons unknown.’

‘Then he should take better care o’ his charges.’

Tyler found Salkeld’s accent difficult to place.  It bore the crisp educated tones of a middle-class Englishman, punctuated by local vernacular, with the rasping echo of a true Scot permeating every word he spoke.  Which was he trying to be? An Englishman Scots would embrace?  Or a broad Scot non-Caledonians could understand?  She was undecided.

‘There!  Formalities dispensed with,’ he said, before turning towards Stella.  ‘See if there’s a brain in that napper would you, old chap?  And should we strike lucky, Andy would you be so good as to?’  Lachlan, peeved by his prompting responded with a blank stare.  ‘Sorry, doctor, but of course you will.’ Donnie Salkeld turned to greet the two detectives with a broad grin. ‘And who do we have here?’

‘DI Briony Tyler meet, Professor Donald Salkeld and, Doctor Andrew Lachlan.  Stella you already know.’

Lachlan barely nodded a greeting as Salkeld’s eyes flashed.  ‘Mine –
and
Stella’s pleasure too, if I’m not mistaken.’  Across the room Stella spun around and glared at him.  Salkeld hesitated as he took Tyler’s hand.  ‘
Whoops
, dinnae upset the hired help, they might doon tools.’  He kissed the back of Tyler’s hand while at the same time casting a quizzical glance in Dunbar’s direction.  ‘Inspector, ye say?’  He backed off to look her over. ‘Surely not!  Far too bonny for the polis; a movie starlet shadowing you, Alec, so as to gain insight for a forthcoming TV or film role,
that!
I could believe.’

‘Be assured, professor,’ she replied, but being the new face amongst familiar ones, decided not to rise to his blatant teasing.

‘Donnie, please. 
Ach!
An’ I’ve upset you, Lassie.’

‘I’m fine –
Donnie!
  I’m a police officer and quite used to much worse.’

‘Still, please forgive my clumsy chauvinism.  I’m the only boy from a brood o’ army brats, all the spawn of a Highlander drill pig, permanently set at maximum volume – machismo incarnate was RSM Ivan Salkeld.  I knew only military schooling, the camaraderie of the rugby field, squaddies and NCOs throughout my formative years.’

‘I’m a military brat too,’ Tyler interjected, a subtle hint that his excuse was not going to wash with her.  Dunbar eyed her curiously.  He did not know that.

‘Ah, I thought I felt a connection beyond the mutuality of our conjoined professions.  Sadly, university and surgical school brought little by way of refinement,’ adding from behind a bladed palm, ‘unlike my colleague, Doctor Lachlan here.  The very epitome of sober academic reserve.’

Lachlan half turned and scowled before directing his attention to what Stella was doing.

‘For when I was not wielding a scalpel in the dissecting room, I spent my time immersed in rugby’s subculture of alcohol, and other questionable behaviour, of a generally sexist nature,’ the ebullient pathologist continued. ‘You know the kind of thing.  Songs and salacious banter – immature boys’ own ribaldry and nonsense.  Ask your boss.  We clashed on the field and competed in the bar afterwards on countless occasions.  Is that not so, Alec?’

‘Too many,’ Dunbar replied. ‘And as I recall it, you seemed bent on bringing my playing career to a premature end.’

‘
Ach!
  As far as I’m aware the union code was and remains a contact sport.  Or would you wee Jed-bugger turf-surfers have it different?’ he asked, before turning back to Tyler. ‘They’d go to ground as soon as they saw a serious tackle heading their way.’

Salkeld grinned wickedly at Dunbar, who knew better than to be drawn by him on the subject.  At times Alec Dunbar wished his friend could resist the urge to show off and just deal with what he had on the mortuary slab.  But Donnie Salkeld had always been that way; holding forth in the bar after a hard fought game, entertaining everyone within earshot, and Dunbar had always been able to forgive him his eccentricities on account of the genius he laid claim to not being in any way an idle boast.

‘I offer this by way of explanation, in mitigation so to speak, Inspector Tyler, and beg your pardon of this humble oaf in medical vestments.’

‘Not easy,’ Lachlan muttered.

‘Humble?’ Dunbar repeated, over Dr Lachlan.

‘Forgiven,’ Tyler replied, rolling her eyes at her boss.

Salkeld ignored Dunbar and his dour colleague. ‘As you see my innate coarseness and vulgarity saw only one possible career path open to me, having wrested my hard-won first from the reluctant hand of academia.’

‘The stage,’ Stella muttered.

‘Town crier,’ Lachlan added.

‘
Pathology!
’ he announced, pointedly ignoring them. ‘Aye, this solo science, this lonely discipline reduces the risk of me offending nurses or relatives with my jibes and innuendo.’  Salkeld eyed the headless corpse and shrugged. ‘And I cannot offend my patients.  But I shall surely answer to them beyond the Pearly Gates.  Indeed, it also accounts for why Dr Lachlan also finds himself specialising in all things post mortem. You will note his singular lack of communicative ability; nae bedside manner – barely possessed o’ a graveside manner.’ Salkeld glanced in Lachlan’s direction.  Lachlan remained steadfastly po-faced.

‘What of Stella – old chap?’ Tyler asked, pointedly.

He turned and looked at their lab technician who stopped what she was doing, folded her arms and leaned against the bench, meeting his troubled expression with a raised eyebrow and a thin-lipped smirk.

‘Ahh, yes, but that’s mere badinage.  Stella is my –’ he stopped to think.  ‘Hermaphrodite-in-arms and accustomed to my boorish ways as I am hers – his –
either!
  You decide.’  Stella flashed an even sterner glare his way and again went ignored.  ‘Our sensitivities dulled in this quietus theatre where we strive to eke reason from death, and thus give meaning to a life extinguished.’

‘You don’t half talk shite, Donnie,’ Dunbar grumbled.

‘Hear, hear,’ Lachlan said without turning.

‘Really?’ Salkeld feigned hurt. ‘Unaided by alcohol, and working a very tough audience, I might add.  As adlibs go, I thought it was rather good.’

‘And I think you’ll find, Professor, it’s – “give me the spirit”,
not,
“give me the head”.’ Tyler corrected.

Salkeld snapped around and smiled.  ‘
Ah-hah!
A student of the Great English Bard te boot. 
I really
like this one, Alec, intelligent and hot!  He cringed.  ‘See – I cannae help myself.  But you’re right.  However,
spirit
didn’t fit the moment.  And the play?’ he asked.

‘Henry the Fourth, errm, Part Two?’

‘One has to have a detailed knowledge of his works to recognise one of the master’s more obscure lines.’

‘Lucky guess,’ she offered unconvincingly. Salkeld eyed her suspiciously. ‘We did a bit at school,’ she conceded.  ‘And I’m an occasional theatre-goer – but I particularly enjoyed The Hollow Crown series on the telly. I bought the boxed set and have watched them over and over.  Some of it must have stuck.’

Salkeld nodded approvingly, then leant over the corpse, ‘don’t watch much TV.’

‘I’ll lend you them sometime.’

‘Generous too, oh but I were ten years younger, my dear.’

‘Ten?’ Dunbar repeated.

Salkeld ignored him as he prodded and poked around a little in the chest cavity before turning to his attention to the neck. “Though this be madness; yet there is method in it.”  He eyed Tyler slyly.  She shrugged.  ‘
Hamlet
– and that one did fit the circumstance.  Cleaved off with a fairly sharp heavy-bladed knife, the head stolen and mounted on a spit, I hear.  You’re in pursuit of a seriously sick puppy my friends.’  He turned to Stella.  ‘The head a moment, if you would, old chap.’ Stella stopped what she was doing, turned and joined him. ‘Andy, if you’re ready?’ Lachlan took position at the table.

‘Hold it to the neck, would you?’  Stella complied.  Salkeld demonstrated with the aid of a large surgical knife.  Without touching flesh he mimicked the method and path of the incision the perpetrator had made.  ‘Using a large blade of at least this size, they raised the head in one hand and sliced across the back of the neck right to left, severing the tendons and soft tissue quite cleanly.  Bit of a hack job between the vertebrae, from front and back you see, evidenced by the cut marks in the bone and disk.  Then the offender rested the head flat again before cutting left to right across the throat.’  He moved around to the other side of the table. ‘Notice how, on the opposing side, the two cuts did not meet.  So a small incision was made upwards to slice through the remaining tissue holding them together.’ Again he showed how it was done with his own blade. ‘In fact a similar method of decapitation to that used in the removal of the second head the archaeologists discovered.  Crude and executed in a hurry obviously, but an efficient enough decapitation – for an amateur.’

‘Ummm,  well, as much as I’m enjoying the demo and crack, Donnie, and love to watch a maestro at work, we’ve got a suspect on his way in,
so!
’

Salkeld handed the head back to Stella and looked genuinely surprised.  ‘Already? I’m impressed.’

‘Don’t be, just do your thing and impress me.  Did he fall was he pushed?  Accident or with intent?’

The burly pathologist looked over at Stella, as she peeled the scalp down over the face to access the skull with her saw.  ‘He didnae take his own heid off, Alec.’

‘That much I know, and we also know it was removed post mortem.  How and why did he die?  Did he have help or did he not need it? This is the stuff I’m counting on you for, before charges are brought.  I’m particularly interested in the use of accelerants.’

‘That will take a little time,’ Salkeld answered, already focussed on the task.