Dark Flight (24 page)

It was the most Bill had ever learned about Stephen. Despite the child’s colouring, Bill had always imagined him as Scottish. He hadn’t really registered that Stephen had spent his entire childhood in Nigeria.

‘He speaks English with a Glasgow accent,’ Isa smiled. ‘He is fluent in Hausa.’

‘Is Stephen afraid of anyone?’

Isa considered this before he answered. ‘He drew a picture once of a man with tribal scars on his face. When I asked him who the man was, he said it was the devil.’

God could not exist without the devil. Every force in the universe has an opposing force. As a child, Bill had been as frightened by the Old Testament God as by the devil. Vengeful and ever watchful. The stuff of nightmares. He wondered if they still frightened kids at Sunday School.

‘Have you any idea if the man is real?’

‘All fears are real when you are six years old.’ Isa spoke as though he understood fear and had lived it himself. ‘I am a refugee,’ he explained, reading Bill’s expression. ‘I was a boy soldier in Niger.’

Bill tried not to show his thoughts. Not sympathy, but the realisation that Isa probably knew how to kill, swiftly and skilfully.

‘Would you be willing to come to the police station and make a formal statement?’

‘But I’ve told you all I know.’

Bill tried to look encouraging. ‘Sometimes giving a
proper statement reminds us of things we’ve forgotten.’

Isa struggled for a moment, then looked resigned. ‘I would be happy to cooperate.’

The main church hall was hushed when he re-entered.

The pastor stood on the dais, his hand raised over a sea of bowed heads.

‘Luke 21:36 says: Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.’

A murmur of ‘Amen’ rippled among the bowed heads like a breeze over a barley field. Bill muttered his own ‘Amen’.

The pastor walked with Bill to the door. ‘You spoke to Isa?’

‘He’s agreed to come to the station for further questioning.’

A flicker of worry shone in the pastor’s liquid brown eyes. ‘Isa was eight when he was captured by rebels and forced to become a soldier.’

‘So he knows how to kill?’

‘We all know how to kill, Inspector. That doesn’t make us murderers.’

Bill acknowledged this in silence.

‘Isa is frightened of the past and of the future,’ the pastor said.

‘Is he here legally?’

‘The Home Office is considering his case. If they send him back he will be killed.’

Going to a police station was like a death sentence for Isa. No wonder he looked scared.

‘Tell Isa I’ll be in touch if I need to talk to him again.’

Pastor Achebe looked satisfied with this small concession.

‘Have my team sampled every adult male in your congregation?’

‘All, Inspector, including myself.’ The pastor smiled as though he had made a joke.

Every time Pastor Achebe looked pleased with himself, Bill felt he had been fooled in some way. Weren’t men of God supposed to tell the truth?

He left the pastor at the door, saying goodbye to his flock. Bill drove to Pitt Street instead of heading home. A murder enquiry continued whatever day of the week it was.

The office was quieter than on a weekday but those on overtime were working just as hard as usual.

DC Clark looked up with relief when Bill came in. ‘I tried your mobile, but it was switched off.’

‘I was at church,’ Bill told her.

‘Mr Devlin’s dead.’

‘What?’

‘Carole’s husband died five years ago. He was a British engineer working in the oil business in Nigeria. He was killed when an oil rig was taken over by rebels. His family was originally from Nigeria but he was born in London.’

‘Then who the hell was our Devlin?’

‘That I don’t know yet.’

The imposter had Devlin’s passport. It was his
photograph inside. And he’d believed the guy, even allowed him to be alone with the body. Once again Bill wondered if he was losing it because of his worry over Margaret.

‘Passports are stolen all the time,’ Janice said, sensing his anger. ‘You weren’t to know.’

Her reassurance only made Bill feel worse.

‘The fake Devlin took photos of Carole’s injuries. Why?’ he said. ‘If he was the murderer he already knew what he’d done.’

To walk into a police station like that, he’d have to be either completely innocent or a very cool customer; or thought he was above the law.

Bill turned to Janice, who was watching him expectantly. ‘Check with the Foreign Office,’ he said. ‘I want the names, addresses and photographs of all Nigerians with diplomatic immunity currently in the UK.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Janice realised where that line of thought had originated.

There had been an incident two weeks earlier. A posh flat in Glasgow’s west end, where the tenant had complained of harassment by a landlord. He’d come to his neighbours for help after the landlord had gripped him around the neck. The neighbours had encouraged him to call the police. He had, but then chickened out. When Janice checked up, the landlord turned out to have diplomatic immunity, which meant the police couldn’t prosecute without the permission of the UK Crown Prosecution Service and the Foreign Office. In most cases this resulted in nothing more than a
warning issued by the Head of Mission of the foreign country involved.

Bill went to his office and sat back in his favourite chair. Through the window Glasgow was still enjoying its Sunday morning slumber, with only the occasional pedestrian or car going past. He let his thoughts run free. The fake Devlin had been courteous, but there was an underlying arrogance in his manner. Bill had the impression Devlin viewed him as a lackey whom he would rather not deal with. But the big question was why did the false Devlin want to see the body?

Because he wanted to be sure that Carole was dead?

Because he wanted to be sure she had been circumcised?

That was why he came to the police station, why he pretended to be her husband. And he didn’t care about Stephen, because he already knew where he was.

Bill carefully examined his hypothesis. It was a leap of faith, based on intuition and simple logical deduction. He had no concrete proof, yet instinctively he knew he was on the right track.

If they found the fake Devlin, he would lead them to the killer, because he had organised the kill.

CHRISSY STARED AT
the text message. Just two words. ‘I’m sorry.’ She checked the time of arrival: 2.30 a.m. The middle of the night. Why had Sam needed to apologise in the middle of the night? She was the one who had dumped him. But she hadn’t dumped him. She had told him she couldn’t see him while the investigation involved his church and everyone in it, the pastor included.

A strange sense of unease lifted the hair on her forearms. Was Sam in trouble? She texted back: ‘don’t b. r u ok?’ The resulting image suggested the text had gone, but then a message appeared telling her it had failed to deliver.

Chrissy frowned at the screen. This had never happened before. Sam was obsessed with his phone. He always answered text messages right away. She used to joke with him about it. How could he play jazz piano and answer texts at the same time?

Chrissy rang the number this time. She wanted to hear Sam’s voice. Only that would convince her he was okay.

The unfamiliar tone that resulted prompted her to phone the provider, who told her that the phone must be out of range of European transmitters.

But Sam was in Glasgow. She had been with him on Friday night, all night. Her continuing sense of unease made her phone the jazz club number, but no one was about at this time on a Sunday morning. Her last port of call was Sean. Chrissy knew she had woken him by the sleepy tone of his voice. She explained she was trying to contact Sam but there was something wrong with his phone.

‘That’s funny,’ Sean replied. ‘He didn’t turn up last night and I couldn’t reach him either.’

‘But he always answers his phone.’

They both fell silent.

‘Maybe he’s ill,’ Chrissy suggested.

‘He usually phones in. He’s very reliable.’ Chrissy sensed the growing worry in Sean’s voice.

‘I’ll try the church first. He goes there every Sunday. Then I’ll try his flat.’

‘Good idea. When you find him, tell him we could use him tonight.’

Chrissy said goodbye, aware that Sean was almost as concerned as she was. He was right. Reliable was Sam’s middle name. He wouldn’t leave Sean in the lurch.

She made herself a coffee and moped about the flat for a while. The last thing she wanted was to phone the Nigerian Church of God during the Sunday service.

When she finally reached Pastor Achebe, he was decidedly unhelpful.

‘Sam was not at this morning’s service.’ He made it sound as though it was Chrissy’s fault.

‘There seems to be something wrong with his mobile.’

The pastor didn’t offer an explanation or sympathise with her dilemma. ‘May I ask who’s calling?’ His tone was nippy.

‘Chrissy McInsh. I’m a friend of Sam’s. We met when I came with the forensic team.’

Silence. Then, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you.’

The phone clicked down. Chrissy muttered a curse under her breath. The pastor either didn’t like her or didn’t like her connection with the police. What happened to his philosophy that love was greater than hate?

The next-door tenement to Sam’s was in the process of renovation and covered in scaffolding. A chute for broken stone ran the height of the building into a waiting skip. Someone had decided the skip was for general use and had thrown in old pieces of fitted kitchen cupboards.

Chrissy glanced up at Sam’s window. The curtains were drawn. She checked her watch. Three o’clock. Maybe Sam was ill and staying in bed? If so, should she disturb him?

She’d told him she didn’t want to see him until after the investigation was complete. Now she was back here on his doorstep. This was madness. Chrissy turned to walk away, then something caught her eye.

The bag of clothes was wedged in the skip between a chipboard door and a crumbling block of stone. Chrissy reached in and pulled out Sam’s jumper. The one he wore against the vagaries of the Scottish
weather. He’d bought it in a Cancer Research shop. It was dark-blue heavy-knit wool. Thick and warm. His favourite.

Her worry was fast changing to fear.

Sam wouldn’t throw his favourite jumper away.

Chrissy made for the front door and pressed the buzzer for his flat. She waited, instinct telling her there would be no answer, wishing she’d accepted the spare key Sam had offered.

She rang the buzzer for five minutes until an irate neighbour pushed up his window and told her to ‘Fuck off!’

Chrissy returned the compliment.

When he slammed down the window, she buzzed one more time in defiance, then left, still clutching the jumper.

The lab was eerily silent, but going home didn’t seem an option when she was this worried. It was better to have something to do. Rhona had left a detailed list. It read like a guilt trip. Leaving an investigation as difficult and emotive as this one wasn’t something she’d done by choice. Chrissy set to work on the Velcro from the child’s shoe.

General skin cells found at a crime scene were not great sources of DNA for routine analysis. Skin cells rubbed off in sweat were better. The DNA material they got from urine, blood and semen richer still. But Velcro had a habit of removing skin cells, microscopic but plentiful.

The Velcro fastener was rich in DNA. Chrissy
eventually identified Stephen’s own pattern, his mother’s, his granny’s and someone else’s.

When she checked against the database, the search threw up a match from the samples she’d taken at the Nigerian Church of God. Stephen had been there more than once. He was a Sunday School pupil. It was highly probable that a member of the church had helped Stephen fasten his shoes. Most likely his Sunday School teacher, Isa. But the DNA profile was not a match for Isa.

According to the results, Sam had touched the Velcro on Stephen’s trainer, even though he’d told Chrissy he’d never met either the missing boy or his mother.

THEY ARRIVED IN
the late afternoon to find the city shrouded in red dust. Rhona only realised they’d landed when they thumped down on the tarmac. She’d tried to watch their descent, mesmerised and frightened at the same time, but the dust cloud that engulfed the runway was too thick.

The jolt when the wheels hit the runway jerked her against McNab. The roar of the backward-thrusting engines drowned out her apology.

They taxied towards a white two-storey building fronted by a row of pink oleander bushes. A large sign announced their arrival at Mallam Aminu Kano Airport. McNab was already unfastening his seat belt.

Rhona must have looked relieved they were down, because he gave her a quick quizzical ‘Okay?’

She answered by undoing her own belt and standing up to retrieve her forensic case from the overhead compartment.

Then the door opened and the overwhelming smell of heat and dust swept in.

They were met in the luggage retrieval section by a smartly dressed man who told them his name was Abdul Bunda. He showed them a card with the insignia
of the British High Commission. His intervention began the quick movement of their bags through customs via a firm handshake between Abdul and a custom’s officer. If money changed hands, it was too quick and discreet even for Rhona’s sharp eye.

Abdul showed them to a white car waiting under the spreading branches of a tall mango tree, its doors standing open. The driver lay across the front seat, snoring softly, his head in the fresh air. Abdul shouted something in Hausa, waking him so swiftly that he hit his head on the doorframe. Rhona had to smother a laugh. Abdul gave her a smile in return, his teeth blinding white.

He indicated that she and McNab should sit in the back, while he sat beside the driver and issued brisk instructions.

As they left the airport, the sun was setting on the horizon, its red rays diffused in the lingering dust cloud.