A Deviant Breed (35 page)

Dunbar sighed. ‘I hope not, Falk, or the case I thought we had just about got sewn up, is starting to fall apart at the seams.’ Falk looked a little puzzled by his reply as Dunbar headed back down the path towards his car.  He stopped and looked back.  No amount of wishful thinking could override what his finely honed instincts were telling him.  It
was
him – but not the same ‘him’ as Falk had in mind.

He was not wrong: deliberate, cruel and agonizingly slow and exquisitely painful, and almost identical to the horrific end Morag Inglis had met at Obag’s Holm.  The only difference, no convenient stone stoop; in its stead, the sturdy trunk of a young spruce.  Why did he always get the weird ones?

Every so often Laughing Boy’s camera flash lit up the scene eerily, which created the illusion of the tree flinching.  A fitting monolith indeed, Dunbar thought, as he limped back down the track to his car.  He was dog tired, his eyes stung and head ached like he had been rabbit-punched.  He had not been home at all the previous night, but had stolen a couple of hours at his desk and spent the bulk of the night driving around in the hope of catching sight of Vasquez’s car.  And sleep was still not an option. 

He needed caffeine, strong and black, and lots of it.  That Turkish place in Old Town; what was it called?  Would they be there?  They’re Turks, of course they would, if it was only to clean up after the night before, or to count the takings, smoking and talking.  That was the secret of their success.  Not the talking and smoking, their work ethic. Work late, rise early and provide good service – and good coffee.

It was that, or a large Americano.  He checked his dad’s watch, yes, at that time of the morning, he could get one of those at Waverley Station if nowhere else.  Fatigue had set his mind wandering.  He had to get back to the city, back to the white-board.  Back to the drawing board, get focussed, get thinking – via a coffee shop.

He stopped when he reached his car, which he had parked on the only level space in a rutted turning area loggers had carved out of the woodland.  He surveyed the plantation, the location and its accessibility.  Questions whirled around his addled brain as he searched his mind for a pattern of behaviour, and tried to visualise the chain of events.  Why there?  Answer: because of the heavy police presence around the Lammermuirs – maybe.  He had called for discretion, but it is impossible to blend in with the surroundings wearing hi-viz and driving liveried police vehicles.  And why had the killer left the head attached this time?  Answer:  because, if it was who he thought it was, he was not directly associated with Morag Inglis or Mary-Mo English, therefore no ritual gesture was required.  Perhaps, and if so, why had he been killed? – and why in that horrendous fashion?  Whatever the answers, his case looked like going up in smoke just as sure as that poor wretch chained to that tree back there.

Dunbar dropped his walking stick into the passenger foot well, and was just about to get into his car when Molineux and Watt arrived.  He groaned and stiffened. 
Not now!
    Not when he was so close and yet so far away from solving this riddle.  Not when he was so damned tired.  Dunbar turned to face them.  He leaned on the roof to take the weight off his right leg; would not do to show Bob Molineux the slightest sign of weakness.  Molineux, smug and well rested, was first out of the car.

‘We have come by some fuzzy CCTV taken off a camera mounted on one of Vasquez’s neighbours’ houses from the night before Vasquez gave your team the slip,’ he announced, as if he personally had made a breakthrough.  ‘Some paranoid bastard that thinks students keep vandalising his car and killing his annuals by pissing in his window boxes.’

‘Let’s hope his paranoia pays dividends,’ Watt interjected, having finally extricated himself from behind the steering wheel.  Really?  “Now why don’t you two just fuck off back to HQ where you can do the least damage and let me get on with my job?”  was what Dunbar wanted to say.  Instead he chose silence.

‘I’ve told DI Tyler to rush it over to Fettes to see if the geeks can clean it up.’  Molineux added.  Again Dunbar did not respond.  He would have sooner heard it from one of the team, but it did offer a sliver of hope.  Molineux looked up the path and grimaced. ‘Is it Dr Ferguson then?’

‘Hard to tell, sir.  What’s left is charred beyond recognition,’ Dunbar replied. ‘But if I was a gambling man, my money’s on Vasquez.’

His two immediate supervisors exchanged puzzled looks. 

‘That much we know, Alec,’ Watt grunted.

‘Hence the man-hunt,’ Molineux added. ‘He’ll turn up.’

‘No, what I meant was – I think he already has.  My money’s on that poor bastard up there being Dr Vasquez.’

Molineux and Watt were momentarily thrown by that. 

‘
What!?
Molineux gasped.

‘Why?’ Terry Watt added, stepping closer.

‘Because he still has his heid.’  There and then, in that location the vernacular seemed somehow appropriate, and his theory – so obvious when said out loud and seemed so clear, somehow irrefutable.  Granted Dunbar was just as confused – but Molineux and Watt, they were clueless, which alone was worth the price of being wrong, if only to see the look on their faces.

‘That’s it?  Because the sick bastard didn’t chop the head off this time, you think it’s our main suspect,’ Molineux sniped. 

Suddenly he was
our
main suspect. When did that happen?  Molineux had wanted Archie English arrested less than twenty-four hours ago.

‘In this case that’s been the M-O,
sir!
That’s why I think it’s Sebastian Vasquez chained to that tree and not Dr Ferguson.  Ferguson’s head would have been removed.’

‘So where’s Ferguson if –?’

‘I dread to think,’ Dunbar cut in.

Molineux regained his composure and went on the offensive again.  ‘Perhaps it was a mistake to assign such an attractive DI to your team, Alec,’ he said, slyly changing tack.

‘What do you mean by that?’ Dunbar asked, through gritted teeth, understanding the inference perfectly well. 

‘That she might have proved too much of a distraction.’

So that was why he had dragged himself out from behind his desk.  He was preparing the grounds for his defence when the top landing started asking questions. His DCI was distracted by a pretty face, shapely figure and spectacular arse.  Dunbar could imagine him whining those very words to the chief constable. 
He
– in his capacity of departmental commander, should have realised sooner and taken charge of the investigation,
blah, blah, blah
.  Dunbar eyed each of them in turn, shook his head and turned to get into his car, then hesitated.

‘Then you’d better take it up with the chief – it was his idea.’

‘It’s just that, well, you do seem to have taken your renowned forensically keen eye off the ball on this one, Alec –
umm?
’

Dunbar got in behind the wheel, hung out of the door and half turned to look back at them.  ‘No – the ball’s still in play, sir!  Want me to – call the press office and
debrief
Christina Dean.  Or shall I leave her de-briefing to you –
sir!?
For the press pack when I get back, sorry –I’m knackered, lack of sleep, I meant
brief
of course.’

Dunbar chortled as he drove away.  Watt gagged as Molineux spun around, but Dunbar’s tyres were already chewing up the dirt track. A speculative aside, but judging by both Watt’s and Molineux’s reactions, it was true. 
He was
shagging the comely but vacuous Ms Dean, well, well. 

***

Zoe had phoned to apologise, and had left a voice-mail on his phone.  Her contact was not on campus, was not even in Dundee as far as she could tell.  In fact he had been acting real weird just lately.  Ever since Shaggy uncovered that head – Murray was it?  Whatever, the second one anyway; and she was unable to access the database.  She added, in passing, that she was beginning to wonder if he was using again.

Dunbar rang her back. ‘Using? Using what? Who?’

‘Plug!’ she replied. ‘Back on the skunk or worse.’

‘Why do you say that?’ The caffeine must have kicked in or had she just pricked his instincts?

‘Well, it’s just – he’s been all over this dig from day one.  Just add trowel – instant expert.  I wouldn’t mind but he was only taken on as a digger.’

‘Not a mature student then?’

‘Kind of, but he was never going to sit his degree!  He pestered the life out of Shelagh and got his sponsor from the drugs programme to get him on her case as well.  To be fair, he’s dead keen, a proper grafter.  We think he’s been crammin’ though – and pumpin’ Seb, to impress Shelagh.’ She was rambling but it was good, and at more than one level.  They had talked more in these past few weeks than they had in the previous year and what he was learning about Plug was forming into yet another plausible theory.

‘He even talked Seb into lettin’ him crash at his place.’

‘He’s been living with Vasquez?’

‘On and off, we thought it was maybe a gay thing at first, ‘cos Seb’s – well, doesnae matter.  Turned out he was just pickin’ the mon’s brain for brownie points.  But then just lately, he’s like, Mr-no-show – skipping lectures and stuff.  Now the mon’s gone AWOL.’

‘So he was really into it and then, all of a sudden, not so?’ he asked.

‘Ohh, like
sooo
into it, couldnae get enough o’ it.  Shaggy wrote a wee song he calls ‘Obag’s Poet’.  Plug fancies himself as a street poet, yeah?  Did a bit of busking when he was homeless and that.’

‘A poet.’

‘Yeah, come over all Burns-ish since the dig got underway. Tryin’ te tell the tale in vernacular rhyme.’

‘Interesting.’

‘I didn’t say he was good.’ She chortled.  ‘Had like – a total sense o’ humour meltdown over Shaggy’s song, but it’s no’ se bad.  Shaggy wants te put it in oor repertoire but –’

‘So he’s keen but a wee bit touchy about the subject?’ he cut in.

‘Oh, aye, a queer moody bugger, is oor Plug. But then, when that fruitcake Archie used te come up Plug was the only one that bothered with him.  He got on everyone else’s nerves so he did.’  She chortled.  ‘But Archie didnae want te talk to mere diggers.  Plug’d get really pissed off about it.    Went from callin’ him bro te a stuck up wee retard.’

‘Bro?’

‘Yeah,’

‘Did he refer to everybody in that way?’

‘Err, no not that I – don’t think so.  Why?’

‘Just wondered.’

‘Anyway, when Murray’s head turned up an’ he was like – right inte what you lot were doing.  Started talkin’ about becoming a CSI, kept buggin’ Eugene’s wee mate about it while they were tryin’ to get their job done, an’ buggin’ me about askin’ you stuff.’

‘Did he ever borrow Vasquez’s car?’

‘Yeah, I’ve seen him drive it, why?’

‘Let it go, Zoe – no more digging, literally or figuratively until I’ve cracked this case and forget Holmquist’s database.  I’ll use the proper channels for the DNA.’

‘And Seb?’

‘Still looking for him.’

‘For him!’ she parroted.  ‘Not – at him anymore?’

‘Does Plug have an address in Dundee?’

‘Plug?’  she repeated.  Then the penny dropped.  ‘Oh God, Dad, please tell me he –’

‘Stay in Dundee, Zoe.’ he interrupted. ‘And stay out of Plug’s way, but call me if he shows up, okay?’ 

‘Okay,’ she replied.

‘Dinnae breathe a word, just stay put unless Plug comes around.  If he does, put distance between you and call me.’ Dunbar ended the call and immediately pressed speed dial. ‘
Neil!’

‘Boss,’ came the immediate response.

‘Find that lass that stopped Sebastian Vasquez at Carfraemill and get his picture to her.  Ask her if that’s the guy she spoke to?’

‘He produced his ID, sir.’

‘
Ach!
  How many o’ us have got through a door by flashing our library cards when we didnae have our ID on us? All it takes is a thumb over the image, mon.’

‘Will do, sir.’

On reflection, it probably was not a ruse Neil Conroy had never used.  He was not the kind of detective to go out on a job without his ID, or try to blag his way into anywhere.  Dunbar sat back in his chair and stared at his monitor screen and sipped his coffee.

‘M-two,’ he said softly.

22

The patrols scattered around the Lammermuirs remained frustratingly silent.  It meant that they had been no sightings of the suspect, or that they were all asleep on the job. Dunbar also received negative responses from the covert static obs points in Braur Glen, and along the approach roads.  Where would he take Ferguson, if not there?  It would surely be somewhere symbolic, a place that meant something to him, to Morag as well, if they were in cahoots.  Yet another educated guess, when he sorely needed hard facts.

Briony Tyler had filled the down time ploughing studiously through Archie’s wordy manuscript and her dedication had finally paid off.  Tucked away in a meandering chapter on the distinct topography of Braur Glen Archie had included an acknowledgment of his grandfather’s contribution to the search for Obag’s Holm.  For no apparent reason the old man had banned Archie from ever exploring that area, and being a respectful grandson, Archie had obeyed; until that was that mysterious blogger rekindled his interest and by then his grandfather had passed away. 

Archie concluded that his grandfather had known all along that Braur Glen was the site of Obag’s Holm, but being a deeply religious man, he would have considered the glen tainted by the ungodly legendary activities of the Inglis Clan and thus kept it secret.  To Archie it made sense, his grandfather would have worried that should anyone find out, it might have become a place of pilgrimage for pagans, Satanists, necromancers and their ilk. His grandfather had even disapproved of his wife entertaining their grandson, as she had his mother before him with ghoulish tales of the Witch of Obag’s Holm.

Tyler concluded that if Fraser English knew, perhaps his daughter did.  Was it a place she associated with her childhood abuse?  It was certainly a place her father’s depraved acts of incest could have been carried out without fear of discovery.  Had she drawn parallels with her ancient namesake’s lust for vengeance?  It would explain why that place was chosen to rebury her father’s head and Murray’s there.  And is that why Peter Nairm became so determined to join the professor’s team?  At his mother’s behest?

If Dunbar was impressed he hid it well leaving her feeling quite deflated.  As it happened he was, but it her discovery had come too late to influence events and he was far more concerned with what was happening now than what might have happened back then.

***

Frustratingly, the search for Mary-Mo English had also drawn a blank.  She had dropped off the radar, once agency workers and an element of private enterprise crept into the care-in-the-community-programme.  Living rough or from prostitution, or probably both, was as much as anyone who had handled her would venture.  One former social worker was traced to Moffat and local officers despatched to glean as much as they could from her.  She vaguely recalled a young and very agitated man had turned up at the hostel looking for Mary-Mo, as she preferred to be called, some years back.  When he discovered that she had moved on he had tapped the manager for money.  When she refused, and the moment the duty manager was distracted by a client, he had tried to break into the drugs cabinet.  The police had been called but he had got away.  No harm done, no police action. 

Trying not to lead the witness, but out of sheer desperation the officer suggested the name of Peter Nairn to her.  After a moment or two the former social worker had nodded.  Yes, that was it!  She had made a poor joke about her favourite brand of oatcakes which had gone right over the junkie’s head.  Whether he ever found her she had no idea, but he never came looking again and Mary-Mo never returned either.  In her experience, “people who have lived on the streets know where to look, know who to ask.”  People like Plug Nairn. 

Dunbar’s immediate thought of a likely site to find him – them, was the former Heathlands Hospital site at Wishaw, but that drew a blank; it was now a thriving business park.  Inevitably Dunbar got sick of twiddling his thumbs waiting for that breakthrough that was not coming.  The suspect –
suspects
had to be in Obag’s old stomping grounds and it was these where he and Tyler headed.  He also sent Falk on another all-points check to make sure everyone out there still had their head in the game.  It is far too easy to lose concentration on a job when all you seem to be doing is waiting.

***

Finally a break of sorts came.  A resident at Ramsay Garden had phoned the local authority to complain about an illegally parked car.  A traffic warden attended and issued a fixed-penalty ticket, but that did not satisfy the complainant; he wanted it moved.  The traffic warden, in a rather off-hand and officious way, according to the resident, had insisted upon abiding by the rules.  The owner had to be given an opportunity to pay the fine before his vehicle could be clamped or impounded.  So the indignant resident, who paid a small fortune for his street parking permit, lodged a formal complaint with the council, and when he got no joy, the police.  Despite having explained that it was not a police matter, the officer who took the call had the presence of mind to PNC the car.  It was Sebastian Vasquez’s Volvo estate.  The suspect had switched vehicles and was probably now using Ferguson’s car. 

The call to the family liaison officer (FLO) was relayed to the missing doctor’s frantic wife and was interpreted by her as offering a glimmer of hope.  Dunbar was far less optimistic but quietly instructed the FLO to make all the usual soothing noises.  Frustratingly, Mrs Ferguson did not know her husband’s car registration number and claimed that his documents, along with all his personal papers, were kept locked away in his prized antique bureau.  The key, of course, was on the same key-ring as his car keys, so Dunbar gave the order to force entry and retrieve the registration document.  Mrs Ferguson baulked and insisted her objections be placed on the record, which they were, and then the officer complied.  After a brief search they found what they were looking for, and to Mrs Ferguson’s horror, a lot more than they bargained for.  A large collection of pornography, some downloaded from the internet, other images taken with a Polaroid camera, and all explicit images of young women, some pre-pubescent girls at the time the pictures were taken; all being sexually abused.

Dunbar groaned upon hearing the news.  As if he did not have enough to do.  ‘Briony, get on the blower – I want a forensic team and officers from the high-tec unit up there pronto.  And if they cannae drag their arses out from behind their desks, any competent detectives that are available. Tell them te seize all relevant material including the doctor’s computer,’ he growled. ‘Oh, and ye’d better tell ‘em te alert CEOPS, it might tie-in to a network they’re already looking at.’

‘Yes, sir.’ 

***

They were now looking for a silver grey C Class Mercedes.  In no time a traffic patrol, who gave their location as Polwarth, responded.  A vehicle of that description had passed them travelling in the opposite direction, heading east at Maxton at least an hour earlier.  They only recalled it because the driver, its passenger and car did not seem like a match to the vehicle.  They had not given chase for fear the suspect vehicle they were on alert for might slip through the cordon while they were checking it out.  And that is exactly what had happened. 
Sods law
: when you need traffic cops to act like traffic cops, they don’t.

Any doubts he had dissolved with the next call.  Neil Conroy had spoken to PC Claire Johnstone, who having seen the picture, confirmed that Dr Vasquez was not the driver she stopped at Carfaemill.  The man had given that name and was wearing the Doctor’s ID around his neck, and did flash it at her, and yes, he must have obscured the image slightly.  She had stressed rather defensively that the man driving it clearly knew a lot about the dig and did have a beard, but wore his hair in short dreadlocks. At last they could put a name to their suspect, Peter Nairn – aka Plug!

‘Think, think, think!’ Dunbar snarled as he weaved his car along the twisting ‘A’ road towards Gordon, permutations of the possible sequence of events scrolling through his head.

‘Either Vasquez had rumbled him or simply wanted his car back and got more than he bargained for.’ he thought out loud.  Tyler concurred with a nod. ‘Plug took him out to the reservoir and used what he had with him to get rid of the guy, a chain and petrol with the freshly cut branches the loggers strip off the trunks – to keep the blaze going.  Green wood, it wasn’t ritual or by design – it was just what came to hand.’

‘Why didn’t he just kill and dump him?’

‘Because he’s a junky nut-job that’s obsessed by the history of Obag’s Holm!’ he shot back.  ‘And it’s in keeping with how Morag Inglis dealt with her enemies.’

‘Why Vasquez? He was his friend – wasn’t he?’

‘Friends might be stretching it.  Acquaintances with a shared interest, but friends?  I don’t imagine Seb made friends very easily – but can imagine how much he would enjoy the company of a sycophant.  And even if they were, didn’t I read that they punished their own worse than their enemies, if they betrayed the clan?’

‘Yes, that – yes, I seem to –’

‘I dunno’, maybe Vasquez threatened to report his car stolen if he didn’t bring it back,’ he cut in, his mind now racing. ‘That would have alerted us to Plug’s involvement.’

‘Betrayal,’ Tyler responded.

Dunbar nodded. ‘To his drug addled mind, yeah – who knows? He has no idea we’re onto him, so he probably would have risked driving around in Vasquez’s motor, but not if he threatened to report him for nickin’ it.  In that event, Plug would have to silence him.  He’d probably already switched vehicles the night before and had Ferguson in the boot – or stashed away someplace.’  Dunbar drummed on the steering wheel with frustration. ‘Maxton, Maxton – that’s south o’ here.  He’s avoided the obvious routes to Braur Glen but –’

‘Giving our patrols a wide berth,’ she speculated.

‘Yeah, but they weren’t looking for a Merc then. Where the hell is he heading for?’

Tyler shrugged. ‘Still got Archie English’s phone number?’

‘Yes.’

‘Call him, ask him if he can think of any other significant landmark or places likely to resonate with Morag Inglis other than Braur Glen?’

Tyler made the call, and much to his chagrin, cut Archie short before he could expand on the depth research he had done into his broader family clan that led him to his conclusion.  “What satisfaction would an Inglis take in smiting an enemy on their own ground?”  Was the question he posed, before furnishing the information she sought.

‘Humes Castle,’ she said, shoving her phone into her pocket.

Dunbar tapped it into his sat-nav. ‘There!  Hell, we’re almost on top o’ the place.’  He hung a hard right onto a single carriageway road.  Tyler had been right, the over-steer being a rush when you had it in sport mode; he nearly lost the back end into the dyke.  They saw the Mercedes parked in the small car-park at the foot of the ancient ruins that loomed above them. Dunbar blocked the Merc in.

‘Back-up –
now!
’ he barked, already half way out of the door.

Tyler was on her phone immediately. He walked as fast as his right knee allowed towards the steep steps carved into the hill.  She followed after him with his stick and thrust it at him.  He batted it away.

‘We might need it, sir!’ she said nervously, as she drew her telescopic Kasco and flicked it open.  He snatched his grandpa’s kebbie and slapped it into his other palm. 

***

Humes Castle, a faded beauty, ravaged by war, age and neglect perched on a natural motte, a rocky outcrop. The overlaid castellated repairs that gave it its distinctive outline were an eighteenth century addition that made a lie of the ruin.  Behind that fairytale facade ruined lives were going about a grim but ancient business, one as familiar to the fortress as the original stones that still remained. 

A few bent trees and gorse scrub covered their approach and a stiff breeze carried what noise they made scrambling up the pathway from the west side.  As Dunbar hobbled up the steep embankment, he wondered how many had done so before, in a futile attempt to breach those awesome defences.  His thoughts also ran to the poor devils that never made it.  Having scaled the steep slope, Dunbar gulped down air, but not from exertion.  They worked their way around the impregnable walls to the east side to discover the padlock on the wrought iron gate had been forced off.  It lay shattered on the ground but still clinging to the limp chain it had secured. They were definitely in the right place.  Good old obsessive Archie. 

Part relic part folly, Humes Castle, now an idyllic place but no stranger to executions, and being the ancestral home of Morag’s sworn enemies, it was the perfect place to exact revenge.  Yes,
if
denied access to Obag’s Holm where better to strike a blow against her foes?

The violence of the past and present were about to converge inside that ancient redoubt, and once again its walls would echo with the pitiful cries of a condemned man. 

Dunbar met Tyler’s frightened gaze.  He forced a weak smile of encouragement and whispered,
“Once more into the breach” –
the only Shakespeare quote I know.’

‘Henry the Fifth had an army, sir, and reinforcements
are
on their way,’ she replied, between sharp breaths in similarly hushed tones.

‘You didn’t see what he did to Vasquez.  We can’t wait.’

Tyler rotated the Kasco in her palm, seeking reassurance from its firmness and the words of her self-defence instructor after being issued with it.