Whirligig E-Book

Andrew James Greig

• Herausgeber: Fledgling Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 430

Beschreibung

*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 CWA JOHN CREASEY NEW BLOOD AWARD* and *Shortlisted for the BLOODY SCOTLAND MCILVANNEY PRIZE 2020* Just outside a sleepy Highland town, a gamekeeper is found hanging lifeless from a tree. The local police investigate an apparent suicide, only to find he's been snared as efficiently as the rabbit suspended beside him. As the body count rises, the desperate hunt is on to find the murderer before any more people die. But the town doesn't give up its secrets easily, and who makes the intricate clockwork mechanisms carved from bone and wood found at each crime? Whirligig is a tartan noir like no other; an exposé of the corruption pervading a small Highland community and the damage this inflicts on society's most vulnerable. What happens when those placed in positions of trust look the other way; when those charged with our protection are inadequate to the challenge; when the only justice is that served by those who have been sinned against? This debut crime novel introduces DI James Corstophine – a man still grieving for a wife lost to cancer; his small close-knit team of passed-over police and their quiet Highland town. He's up against a killer who plays him as easily as a child. For a man whose been treading water since the death of his wife, he's facing a metaphorical flood of biblical proportions as he struggles to understand why these murders are happening, and who is behind each carefully planned execution. All the time, the clock is ticking.

Leseprobe

To our children, for they carry the future in their hands.

Other Titles by Andrew James Greig

The Girl in the Loch (Storm Publishing 2024) https://geni.us/485-cr-two-am

A Song of Winter (Fledgling Press 2022) https://t.ly/pXDWd

The Devil's Cut (Fledgling Press 2021) https://t.ly/SN225

Whirligig (Fledgling Press 2020) https://t.ly/Ktuxl 

Prologue

The old oak whispers in the dead of night, fresh leaves rubbing against each other as a cool breeze catches the branches in a playful embrace. The tree stands alone in the glen, deep roots lying exposed on the surface where a rough track has worn away the thin topsoil. Higher up in the tree and concealed by the canopy, a rabbit gently swings suspended from a wire. The rabbit slowly descends through the hours of darkness, the movement so slight that it appears not to move at all. Minute increments, just one small step at a time. Measured.

The rabbit’s head is held at a quizzical angle, as if this aerial view of the ground below were a novelty. But the rabbit’s eyes are dull with death and stare uselessly as they bulge out of a furry face, morphed into an agonised sneer. The neck is broken and a wire snare holds the animal tight in a deathly grip. The wire continues higher into the tree where it joins with a peculiar mechanism constructed from bone and exquisitely carved wood. This arboreal ossuary is alive insofar as the other untrusting occupants of the tree are concerned and they watch its movements and listen to the rhythmic creak of its mechanical heart with suspicion. Each measured drop of the rabbit provides fresh impetus to bone gears transmitting rotary movement via the main pulley, meshing with each interconnected neighbour in an intricate ballet of bone wheels, cogs and spindles, all held in place within a skeleton case of polished branches and carved twigs. In the heart of the caliber silently beats a balance wheel, a perfect disc of silver and gold.

As the stars wheel around the tree, clockwork on a celestial scale, so the tree-borne mechanism performs an intricate dance to its creator’s tune. Dawn touches the eastern sky, and a blackbird bursts into song, notes falling over each other in pleasing progressions. A robin, then thrush and small flock of goldfinches join the chorus until the solitary tree is alive with songs enough to welcome in another day. The mechanism reaches a conclusion and a bone shaped like a barbed javelin falls out of the tree onto the rough tyre tracks below, a well-used route for vehicles following the lay of the land along the valley floor. As the bone falls, it pulls a captive filigree metal thread that snakes sinuously down from the tree. The wire passes through a carved contraption shaped like a wishbone, holding the edges apart to present a gaping noose just above normal walking height. The wire is mostly concealed in the tree’s shadows, the leaves and branches serving to obscure any pattern to a casual observer. The birds quieten as the mechanism speaks, the more timorous fly off to find a quieter spot from which to proclaim the dawn. The blackbird studies the mechanism with a bright black eye until all motion stops, then finally satisfied that it offers no threat, returns to the important business of announcing that this is his tree. The Hanging Tree.

IFRIDAY 06:21

The front door slammed with such violence that the whole house shook, quivering timbers seeking comfort in the cold embrace of stone. Margo tensed in her bed, feeling the floor shake in sympathy. Nervously, she lay waiting for the angry wasp sound of his quad as it disappeared down the lonely track that led away from the isolated cottage. Only when the engine noise had faded did she allow herself to finally relax. He’d be gone all day, setting traps for the rabbits, laying poison for the birds of prey, shooting the mountain hares. Death. Death and violence were all she ever associated him with now.

Her hand tentatively reached out from under the covers and felt her face, flinching as her fingers encountered the bruise around her eye. It wasn’t too bad. She had become a connoisseur of bruises, burns, broken bones. All of them her own. She could tell without looking that her eye would be swollen, the redness around the socket already turning to purple and black as ruptured blood vessels had spilt their red cargo overnight. She mentally ran through the foundation she’d apply, the beauty products she’d accumulated that artfully concealed the worst of the damage. Now that he was gone the nervousness left her like a shed skin, a protective coat that was no longer needed. A butterfly flickered in her womb and the nervousness returned – but this time it was a visceral feeling, this time the nervousness was for a life other than her own.

Margo had hoped, in the way that so many women do, that the announcement she was bringing his baby into the world would change him. Turn him from a sadistic bully into the man she’d always wanted him to be: tender, loyal, loving. Loving. The word hung in her mind like some impossible concept, a young girl’s dream of how her life should have been before it had turned into a living nightmare. Instead, the announcement had only made him worse and whatever demons drove him had been merciless in their response, leaving her concussed and broken on the cold stone kitchen floor. Her first thought had been for the baby, barely more than two months old. The second missed period had confirmed the truth of it to her and the doctor had made it official. She remembered the doctor’s troubled eyes, they had shown concern, worry. “Is there anything you’d like to ask me, anything worrying you?”

Margo had attempted gaiety when she’d responded in the negative, and knew she’d failed when the doctor had lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone. “You know we’re here to help. With anything, anything at all.” She’d almost run from the surgery, afraid that everyone could see through the artfully applied make-up and see the battered woman underneath.

It was their pity she desperately wanted to avoid. Their pity and judgement delivered with all too knowing eyes. The gamekeeper’s cottage at least offered her the privacy to keep herself to herself, hide herself away, hide secrets that should never be allowed to escape. She swung her legs out over the side of the bed, a sharp intake of breath as a healing rib complained, then to the bathroom to wash and repair what damage she could. Her face stared back at her, expressionless, beaten in spirit as well as in flesh. Margo waited in vain for the tears to flow. They never did these days. She told herself that she was out of tears, but she knew the truth of it. Tears were for those who still had hope, who still gave a fuck, if only about themselves. She glanced down at her belly, too early for any tell-tale bulge to show but she felt different, her breasts felt different. She felt as if she was about to come into flower for the first time in her life and that frightened her more than he did.

Mounted on his quad bike, Oscar seethed with anger, a litany of thoughts constantly revolving in his head and finding release in vocal outbursts as he manoeuvred the quad down the glen.

“Stupid bitch. Fucking pregnant. Who wants a fucking kid?”

The bike kicked under him as the tyres hit potholes and stray rocks and he found some pleasure in forcing the quad back onto the track, wheels expertly placed within the ruts of previous journeys. The back of the quad was laden with snares, illegal snares designed to kill outright – or hold any unfortunate animal in agony until he had the pleasure of ending a life. A rifle was strapped into place beside him, although the local deer population would scatter out of the glen at the first sound of his coming. He glanced at the third item in his arsenal, a tin of strychnine masquerading as engine oil, wondering how much he would need to force an abortion, then turned his attention to the track ahead.

For some unaccountable reason the memory of his parents came unbidden into his thoughts, their holier-than-thou pronouncements more often than not accompanied by the lash of the belt whilst he grew as feral as any wild animal.

“Fuck them!” he announced to the air. A fresh wave of anger broke over him as he faced the certain knowledge that he was in no way equipped to bring up a child himself. Anger had accompanied him all his life, a constant boiling of emotion under the skin. His peers understood it and knew when to back off. Like the deer, they valued self-preservation and took care wherever Oscar was concerned. As a result, he found from an early age that he was accepted as a leader, someone who acted as a beacon to those whose personal inadequacies and failings found a natural home in his company. His disciples only served to amplify his worst excesses, applaud his cruelty and encourage him to transgress those lines even they would not dare to cross.

Oscar had left a trail in life as obvious as the one formed by his bike, crossing the glen day in, day out, in all weathers. His employer knew enough about him, more than enough to hold him on a tight leash. But Oscar didn’t care; he worked the job diligently, burning heather, feeding the pheasants and grouse, killing anything else with an enthusiasm his employer chose not to notice. He was cunning, though. Any tagged eagles he poisoned had their transmitter signals masked, tin foil wrapped around the leg until the bird resembled nothing more than a turkey ready for the oven. Oscar took great delight in transporting the corpse, sometimes for a hundred miles or more, until the signal was allowed to be detected far away from the estate he worked. Sometimes he enjoyed targeting other estates, other gamekeepers who had looked at him in the wrong way. A rare smile touched his lips as he considered the latest victim of this ploy, due in court this week. The smile swiftly disappeared as he saw the oak tree approaching. One day he’d burn the fucking thing down. It stood in mute judgement every day, since that silly bitch had been found hanging from its contorted branches. Perhaps the laird hadn’t expected him to take the job, not when he had to face the tree every working day. But the job was the only one he’d ever been offered, and the cottage came with it – somewhere he could live without the pressure of eyes boring into his back. Plus, there was the bonus of work satisfaction, the killing. He’d almost inadvertently made the glen one of the top shooting ranges in Scotland, the number of birds that flapped inanely towards the guns increasing year on year.

It was, he decided, a mutually beneficial arrangement. One that also suited the inhabitants of the little highland town where he’d been born, growing into something uncontrollable until he was ostracised to this lonely glen. Suited him, and suited the local police, tired of facing him after every violent episode.

“Fuck them!” He spat this last expletive out as he thought of the police, the regular beatings he’d suffered in the holding cell after each arrest. Nothing stuck, no charges were ever brought to a satisfactory conclusion – he’d made sure of that.

The tree loomed close now, dominating the otherwise treeless landscape. A burn bubbled alongside the track, heather clung to sparse soil, the purple flowers scenting the chill morning air. Higher up the glen, bright yellow gorse and patches of broom signalled summer’s approach and then a dark mass of cash crop conifers hugged the distant mountains until they too thinned out in the upper reaches. It was, in its own primitive way, quite beautiful. Oscar saw, but did not comprehend. He slowed down his approach. In places the tree roots lay exposed on the ground where the bike tyres had worn away the surrounding soil. He stood up in his seat to avoid having his bones rattled by the action of tyres over the uneven roots, and his head was at a perfect height to catch the near invisible wire noose that lay in wait.

The force of the impact caused the wire to bite deeply into his neck, almost severing his head from his body as his cervical vertebrae parted with an audible crack. The quad bike carried on without him, before a random stone tipped it into the burn, flooding the engine. The ensuing silence was broken only by the wet gurgling sounds Oscar made as he jerked uncontrollably on the wire, a percussive countermelody to the soft bubbling sound of the burn. Shit and piss stained his rough clothing as his bowels opened involuntarily, pooling under his twitching marionette body to mix with the blood pumping from a neck wound. The wire had opened his flesh to form a gaping red grin, a second mouth, mute and savage. The last thing he saw was the hanging rabbit’s quizzical death face, looking more like a final valediction of justice before his world faded into nothingness.

The kinetic energy absorbed by the tree destroyed the mechanical construction in the branches above. Carefully carved and engineered bone cogs flew in all directions, the wooden infrastructure turned to matchwood. The parts landed silently in the surrounding heather or fell pattering like tiny hailstones where they impacted the track. Only two steel wires remained, suspending the rabbit and Oscar aloft where they performed an aerial pirouette, bloodied bodies coyly facing each other then slowly turning away again. The sun shone through the branches and leaves, the dappled light lending a theatrical touch to the macabre scene. Before too long, the first flies scented the feast and nature began the inevitable process to reclaim her own.

In the cottage, Margo was dressed, her long red hair tied back into the ponytail that Oscar preferred. She viewed her face critically in the mirror, make-up and arnica barely disguising the darkening bruise despite layers of foundation. She pursed her lips, applying bright red lipstick as a distraction, a ruse to focus attention away from her eyes. The sheets would need to be washed; she’d bled during the night. Margo stripped the bed, efficient in her movements even though she held herself awkwardly, body stiff on one side where pain gnawed at her ribs. A new sheet pulled from the chest of drawers, fresh pillowcase, all in white and scented with a hint of coconut from the gorse blossoms she’d collected, imprisoned in a muslin bag.

She held the bag in her hands, pulling it tight towards her face to drink in the perfume. She felt imprisoned too. Trapped in this loveless relationship, captive in this isolated cottage, yet she was the jailor as well as the captive. If only… Margo stopped it there, she could no longer countenance any repeat of that mantra, no exploration of what might have been. If only! The words rang hollow, repeating in her mind despite her willing them to stop. “You’ve made your bed and now must lie in it.” Her mother’s voice: judgemental, strong with the certainty of religious fervour. Hateful. Margo’s inability to blindly follow that same narrow path of righteousness her parents trod had driven her to this, unloved, discarded, unfit for the kingdom of heaven. Was it any wonder she had ended up like this? Knocked up, knocked about – just another piece of human garbage nobody cared about.

The day stretched in front of her like a forbidden prize; hours without Oscar and his vicious quips, his punishing fists. This time would end too soon. The sound of the quad bike heralding his return would start her shivering with fear, painfully aware that any wrong move, any misplaced step, comment or perceived inadequacy would be sufficient cause for him to lash out. She started with the kitchen, scrubbing the floor clean of her blood where she’d fallen last evening, rearranging the furniture, righting fallen chairs. Her eyes fell on the knife rack, a housewarming present from one of the few women still willing to accept her as one of their own. In her darker moments she’d imagined uses for those knives. A swift end to her own misery, a long deep cut up the arm to expose the maximum arterial vein, blood fountaining out in reducing pulses. Or him. Taking a knife to him. She’d imagined it often enough, but it would have to be deep, and accurate – otherwise he’d finish her in a moment.

The child inside her, though. What could she do? She couldn’t stay with him, yet she had nowhere else to go. The only way out of the glen was along the track and it would have to be by foot. He had the only transport. He’d see her for sure, watch her as she stumbled along the rough track, waiting to ambush her and deal with her as he wanted. He didn’t want the child and she knew he wouldn’t hold back from punching her in the stomach in an effort to loosen the foetus’s tenuous hold on life. Her hands instinctively cradled her womb, eyes wide with fright as she realised how trapped she was, how trapped they both were.

IISATURDAY 11:54

“Good God!” Detective Constable Frankie McKenzie held her nose in mock horror, face gurning in apparent disgust as she entered the back office. “If that’s your aftershave, Phil, then I have to tell you it’s meant to attract a woman, not make her pass out.”

PC Philip Lamb stood adjusting his uniform, placing his cap at the regulation angle as he admired his reflection in the mirror he’d placed on his desk. It hadn’t escaped Frankie’s notice that this was the first item he’d used to personalise his space, an indicator as to his narcissistic tendencies.

“Some of us don’t need any help to attract the opposite sex. It’s not my aftershave – you’re the detective, you work it out.” He turned away from his reflection to grin at her, the grin lessening as he caught sight of her expression and he pointed a finger surreptitiously towards the DI’s office as way of an explanation.

“Not another Tinder encounter?” The smell of aftershave pervaded the station. She’d caught the first tell-tale whiff at the duty sergeant’s desk and the intensity of strong perfume had only increased as she approached the source. Frankie checked to see if the DI’s office door was shut before venturing any further comment.

“No, this is Uniform Dating. She’s a nurse.” The young constable was enjoying himself, acting as the fount of all wisdom.

Sometimes being the only female in the office carried a weight of responsibility over and above her job description, from acting as surrogate agony aunt to sole spokesperson for women’s equality whilst at the same time being ‘one of the boys’. It was, she felt, an impossible circle to square, especially when faced with a barely post-pubescent constable. She could see the duty sergeant’s expression as he looked up from his screen at the front desk, a study in long suffering.

“Haven’t you got a beat you’re meant to be walking?” He spoke in a slow Highland drawl, leaving plenty of space between each word to allow them room to breathe.

“Sorry, sergeant. Yes, sergeant.” PC Lamb marched smartly out of the room, new polished boots squeaking with eagerness. They both watched him go, fresh-faced youth facing the world with misplaced confidence, and exchanged a shared look. The duty sergeant added emphasis by a slight shake of his head before painstakingly adding data to his screen, one finger after another as slow as his speech.

Frankie crossed over to her desk, catching the eye of DI James Corstorphine as he looked up from his screen, isolated from the general hubbub behind his office window. She smiled a welcome, but not too welcoming, preferring to keep a professional distance between them. She felt a twinge of sorrow for him and his increasingly desperate attempts to find some sort of meaningful relationship since losing his wife five years previously. It was in danger of becoming the office soap, Corstorphine’s forlorn love life, his membership of evening classes, rambling groups. At least he was able to laugh off those failed encounters that made it into the public domain, and with a town as small as this – that was almost all of them.

Frankie logged onto her computer and began entering the petty crimes she’d accumulated during the morning shift. Two shoplifters, both just girls really. They’d been cautioned previously, time and time again, almost ridiculously slapdash in their inability to steal clothes or cosmetics without drawing attention to themselves by giggling uncontrollably. She’d tried her best to talk the store out of pressing charges, but it was one time too many. Frankie paused, taking the opportunity to look at the welcome spring morning sunshine through the station window. She couldn’t really blame the store, they were struggling to make ends meet as it was. Chances were it would never get to court anyway, too much pressure on the Procurator Fiscal’s Office to bother with two silly young girls. The threat of being taken to court and getting their names in the local press would be enough for the parents to come down hard, so it would be a result whichever way she looked at it. The window beckoned again, sunshine streaming in. Perhaps a tour of local farms, checking up on any rustling or fly-tipping activity – that would seem a sensible use of her resources for the afternoon. Thank God for a small-town police station, she thought to herself, nothing ever happens here. It was a sentiment shared by the entire staff, although they’d only ever be caught complaining about the lack of any proper policing work more becoming of their talents. The trick was to not complain too much, just in case they decided to transfer you somewhere busier – like Inverness.

Her attention was drawn back to the front desk as a distressed woman’s voice increased in volume. The duty sergeant stood slowly, flapping both hands palm downwards in an effort to calm the woman. The unnatural deliberation of the manoeuvre served only to agitate the woman to greater volume, the pitch of her voice sliding upwards towards hysteria. Frankie spun her seat around to see what the fuss was about and recognised Margo McDonald immediately.

“Bloody hell, what now?” She spoke the words under her breath, although the noise at the front desk was sufficient to drown out anything she said. Margo was what represented ‘trouble’ around here, and her uninvited appearance at the police station front desk was worthy of investigation. She joined the desk sergeant, his grateful glance offering fulsome thanks for the welcome interruption.

“Margo, just take a breath. What’s the matter?” The distraught face on the other side of the reception desk was covered in sweat, with mascara forming panda rings under her eyes – at least it looked like mascara.

Frankie took an executive decision. “Margo, come through here. You look like you need a seat.” She keyed the door release and led the way into the back office, Margo following her like an obedient child with a hand held tight onto an overnight bag, swollen to capacity. “Hamish, could you get us both a cuppa?”

The desk sergeant happily relinquished responsibility and moved with ponderous intent to the station kitchen to leave the two women alone. The DI peered up from his screen, but Frankie shook her head. Whatever this was, it was easier with just the two of them.

Margo collapsed in a chair, her eyes wild, darting from side to side like a trapped animal. One hand cradled her stomach, the other sought sanctuary on the desk between them as her bag was released to the floor, holding the wooden surface tight as if to steady the world. She tried to speak, but only primitive noises escaped in between desperate gasps for air.

Frankie held up a hand. “Take it easy. Just get your breath back and we can talk then. There’s nothing that can’t wait. We’ll get you a nice cup of tea. Things are always better with a cup of tea.”

Margo stared at Frankie as if she was the embodiment of her mother. Stock phrases coming hard on the heels of each other. Trite. Meaningless. She felt her breath returning to a more normal rhythm . She had left the cottage early that morning, gathering what few possessions she owned and bundling them into a bag in sheer panic in case Oscar came back and caught her in the act. He still hadn’t returned home since he had left for work the previous morning, and her fear had grown with every passing minute as she waited for the sound of his quad bike coming back up the glen. Oscar’s normally foul mood had reached new depths since she’d given him the news, far worse than normal, and she envisioned him drinking the night away until he reached that point where he was capable of doing anything.

No sleep had come to her. She’d lain in bed with the longest kitchen knife held tightly clasped in her hand, a cold sweat beading her skin and every sense straining in the dark for any sound of his approach. As soon as the grey light of dawn touched the eastern horizon, she took the one chance she might ever have to escape him completely. She would have to run away, far away from here, somewhere he could never find her. It was in that state of blind panic she’d first seen the shape as she hurried down the track towards the tree, causing her to stop suddenly with blood freezing in her veins, a cold pit forming where her womb lay. The shape rotated slowly and as the face turned towards her she saw dark shadows around the head resolve into crows. They flew off, cawing displeasure at being disturbed from feasting on his eyes, tempting morsels providing an aperitif to the main course. Her first instinct was to be sick, dry retching causing her to stagger away from the sight.

Margo made a detour around the tree, climbing some way up the rock-strewn slope to avoid having to see or smell the sight again, then once securely back on the rough track she half-ran, half-walked in a mindless fugue until she found her feet had taken her to the police station. The reaction now came in waves: horror, shock, relief, all jumbled together in an incoherent mix of emotions. She sat facing the policewoman, her placid patience an antidote, and felt the feelings inside her recede. Margo fixed Frankie with an empty look and Frankie felt unable to stare back into eyes so devoid of hope, making a show instead of picking up her notebook and pen and placing them on the table. An unnatural silence held the air between them, broken only by Margo’s breathing becoming less ragged, more measured. Two mugs of tea arrived, held in Hamish’s overlarge hands. He set them down on the table, swept a practiced eye over Margo and decided she was safe to be left – for the moment.

Margo waited until the duty sergeant had returned to the front desk, as if she wanted to share a secret that was just for the two women to hear. “It’s Oscar. He’s killed himself.” Her voice was low, at complete odds to the banshee howl she’d issued at the front desk.

Frankie’s pen stopped in mid stroke and she engaged with Margo’s eyes at last. They appeared as dark pools, hauntingly pretty in their own way, but unsettling in the depth of anguish they displayed. They say you can read a person’s soul in their eyes. Frankie wondered, not for the first time, what horrors this woman sat opposite her had endured, to give her eyes like this.

“Are you sure he’s dead, Margo? Could he just be unconscious or something? We ought to get an ambulance out to him just in case.” She adopted a sensible, business-like tone. “Now, where exactly is he? Can you tell me what happened?”

Margo’s expression remained the same, but her voice now held a hard, sarcastic edge. “He’s hanging from the Hanging Tree, covered in shit, blood and flies. His head’s half off. It will take more than a fleet of fucking ambulances to bring him back!”

She laughed then, leaning back in her seat and baring her teeth to the overhead fluorescents. Margo felt lighter, almost happy for a brief moment. She felt one of the chains that had held her captive finally break, offering her a degree of freedom that had never before seemed possible. She smiled beatifically at Frankie as she composed herself once more.

Frankie felt a chill run down her spine. The woman was quite possibly insane, she might have even murdered Oscar. She tore her eyes away from Margo, risking a swift glance towards the front desk. Hamish was already making slow and steady progress towards them.

“Margo, we’ll have to check, you understand that?” She spoke more calmly than she felt. “Hamish here will take you to one of our rooms where you can have a lie down if you want. There’s a toilet and washbasin if you need to freshen up.” She stood up and Margo reached for her untouched mug of tea. “It’s OK, I’ll carry that for you.”

Frankie carried the mug, the surface of the tea forming miniature waves as her hand betrayed her nervousness. Margo made to pick up her bag, but Frankie forestalled her. “We’ll keep that safe for you here for the moment.”

Hamish led Margo into a holding cell, the euphemism for ‘one of our rooms’ needing no translation.

“I’m sorry, but we don’t have anywhere else to put you for the moment.” Frankie offered as way of an apology. The duty sergeant locked the door, the metallic clunk reminding Margo of another of her mother’s favourite phrases, ‘One door opens and another closes.’ Margo took the mug of tea through the hatch, and sat on the mattress, ignoring them both.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can. Have a wee rest and we can take your statement later.” Margo didn’t respond, sitting with both hands clasped around the mug as if in prayer. They walked the short distance back to the office in silence, each concerned with their own thoughts.

“I’ll get an ambulance sent out.” Hamish’s measured tone helped Frankie calm down. Something about the manner in which Margo had delivered her message had unsettled her more than she liked to admit. “And I’ll keep an eye on her,” he added.

“Thanks, Hamish.” She flashed him a quick smile, grateful for his stolid presence. There were only the five of them working the station: two constables, including the one fresh out of training, the two detectives – herself and DI Corstorphine, and Sergeant Hamish McKee. A small team more closely integrated than the larger stations, more like a family group than work colleagues. She tapped on the DI’s door, and the pungent aroma of aftershave washed over her as she entered his office.

“I saw Margo MacDonald. What’s up?” Corstorphine leant back in his seat, one eyebrow raised in his familiar interrogative stare. She stood in the doorway, working out her phrasing before speaking. It was a habit that led people to believe she was more slow-witted than she was, a perception she was in no hurry to correct.

“She said Oscar has killed himself. He’s hanging from the old oak by the Gamekeeper’s Cottage in Glen Mhor.” She refused to use the colloquial term for that particular tree, preferring to let the past be dead and buried. “I thought we should take a look before anything else.”

Corstorphine nodded, his expression unchanging. “When was this meant to have happened?” His tone betrayed a detective’s caution, treating every statement with a distrust learned from years of hard-won experience. He unwound his lanky frame from the comfort of the leather swivel chair he’d inherited from his predecessor, reaching for a mobile and a set of keys.

“She found his body this morning and last saw him early yesterday morning, so some time in the last 24 hours, presumably.”

“He’s an unlikely candidate for a suicide.” Corstorphine voiced what Frankie had already considered. Some people are suicides-in-waiting. They give the impression of drowning on dry land, a futility of purpose, of having already given up the struggle. Oscar was the type who’d face down death, wrest the sickle from death’s cold bone fingers and enjoy laying about him until stopped by a greater force.

“We’ll take the Land Rover. That track’s fairly unforgiving on the suspension.” He led the way to the station car park, the midday sun failing to dispel the mood that was settling on them both. Murder, suicide – it was academic at the end of the day. A potential dead body awaited them, and even though it was an individual whose passing would be celebrated in some quarters, the next few days were going to be heavy with onerous paperwork and unpleasantness.

IIISATURDAY 13:07

The two detectives sat in the 4x4, staring at the figure swaying in front of them, blue strobe from the Land Rover roof lights catching the body where it hung in the tree’s shadow. It was apparent even from a distance that he was dead; the neck wound alone would have killed him in seconds. DI Corstorphine turned off the engine and they dressed awkwardly in white forensic overclothes, pulling on blue latex gloves, incongruous in the rural setting, before reluctantly approaching the scene of crime. The heather’s perfume was insufficient to mask the earthly stench emanating from the body, a tang of iron from the blood discernible over more common odours. Tattered ribbons of flesh hung out of Oscar’s eye sockets where sharp beaks had penetrated, and the steady hum of flies increased in volume as they approached the body.

Frankie held back her breakfast which repeatedly threatened to make a reappearance and raised the office SLR – taking shot after shot of Oscar’s corpse, zooming to focus in on his neck. She spotted the rabbit dangling beside him, strangely companion-like in death and added a few shots of that unlikely pairing. The wires disappeared into the leafy canopy above, but she took a few photos anyway.

Corstorphine turned away from the macabre sight. He’d seen dead bodies before, it came with the job – but not like this. Oscar’s body hung there like a medieval sacrifice, the gaping second mouth screaming silent obscenities at his back. He allowed himself time to process the image as he walked back towards the quad bike they had just passed, down the track, spotting snares spilled on the ground as the bike had toppled into the burn. He retrieved the rifle from its side holster, sniffing the barrel to confirm it hadn’t had recent use and took the keys out of the ignition. On second thoughts, he carefully fetched the engine oil tin, examining it suspiciously with a fair idea of what it contained. Looking back towards the tree, fresh tracks indicated where the quad had left the path, no other tracks were obvious. The rifle and tin were placed in the back of the Land Rover, wrapped in a plastic sheet.

“Sir!” Frankie’s voice carried a note of query. “What do you make of this?”

He followed the line of her arm to a white stick lying beside the track, immediately under the tree. It was a bone harpoon, more like the kind of thing he’d expect to see used by an Inuit fisherman than lying incongruously in some Highland glen.

“Could be one of Oscar’s tools of the trade.” His response was neutral, unsure of the purpose of such a tool. “Wouldn’t put it past him to have something like that for getting at rabbits in burrows, perhaps setting snares from a distance.” He stooped to pick it up in a gloved hand, then noticed a gear wheel, partially obscured by the heather overhanging the path. “Now that’s interesting!” Frankie paused from photographing the harpoon to look at the object he held up into the sunlight. It was a gearwheel, each tooth perfectly identical to the next as they wrapped a geometric pattern around the rim of a circular bone disk. He turned it, admiring the skill with which it had been manufactured. “Was Oscar much of a creative artist?”

“Not to my knowledge, sir. He’s...” She paused, rearranging her words to account for the past tense. “He was creative with his fists but more well known as a piss artist.”

Corstorphine nodded thoughtfully, placing the gearwheel into a plastic bag. He peered up into the tree, wondering whether he was still capable of emulating childhood feats of tree-climbing heroics to look more closely at the wire support. “See if there’s anything else unusual around here.”

They both undertook a fingertip search of the track, picking up tiny fragments of carved bone and wood and placing them into evidence bags as they went, with Frankie painstakingly photographing each item and location.

“You don’t think it was a suicide, do you, sir?”

Corstorphine held her gaze for a long second before shaking his head deliberately. “No, Frankie. It doesn’t feel right, not with all this paraphernalia under the tree.” He looked back at the quad bike, calculating the likely speed and force of impact. “I’d say someone set a snare for him.”

Frankie nodded, moving upwind of the body to remove herself from the smell which wasn’t even obliterated by the DI’s aftershave. She held aloft her evidence bag. “What about these gears?”

He frowned. The gears were a complete mystery and would make their job that much harder to do. Then there was the dead rabbit hanging next to Oscar’s corpse in a manner that suggested someone was having fun at their expense.

“Would you say Margo could have set all this up?” He looked up into the tree again, searching for inspiration, something that would tell him what had happened here. He tried to envisage Margo climbing into the branches, setting a snare for her man.

“She had the motive, sir. It’s public knowledge he knocked her about.” She sounded doubtful. Margo was a doormat. Whatever spirit she once may have possessed had been beaten out of her by Oscar. But the manic laugh, the spark that lit her face when she seemed to rejoice in his death?

“We can question her under caution when we get back.” He looked up from scrutinising the ground around the tree. A vehicle was making tortuous progress along the track. “Here’s the ambulance,” he said unnecessarily.

It took four of them to release Oscar’s body from the tree and cut the wire from above his head with some difficulty. “Try not to touch the wire, it may hold forensic evidence,” Corstorphine advised as the body was manhandled into a body bag. The ambulance crew zipped it up, noses wrinkling up against the smell, and laid it down on the gurney, securing the body into place with straps. The two detectives guided the ambulance as it executed a multi-point turn, stopping it as the wheels started to sink into the soft ground each side of the track, or threatened to drop into the burn at the end of each laboured turn.

When the ambulance was safely away, Corstorphine manoeuvred the Land Rover under the tree and climbed onto the roof to release the captive rabbit into another evidence bag. From there he could reach the lower branches with ease and he climbed gingerly into the upper reaches of the tree. The stronger of the wire snares was securely wrapped around a stout branch, where the force of Oscar’s snaring had caused the wire to dig deeply into the bark. It was the rabbit’s snare that caught his attention, though, looped around a large bone wheel that had jammed itself in between two smaller branches.

He called down to Frankie. “Pass up the camera.” As he grabbed the strap, he caught her questioning gaze. “The whole bloody tree will have to be a crime scene.” His mind was engaged with how to manage an oak tree and its surrounds as a forensic crime scene. They didn’t teach this at police college.

They left the tree wrapped with police tape, instructing anyone unlikely enough to be in the vicinity of the deserted glen to not cross this line, and drove on to the cottage. The small sunlit stone building sat peacefully in the glen, making the nightmarish scene they’d recently left behind appear all the more unreal. Corstorphine pulled on another set of latex gloves and tried the door. It was unlocked and in unspoken agreement they entered. The rooms were spotless, kitchen knives all in place in a wooden rack, bed made. They opened a few drawers, nothing out of the ordinary. The drive back to the station was interspersed with little in the way of conversation, both detectives too wrapped up in their own thoughts.

“Can it be a coincidence he chose that tree to set a snare?” Corstorphine queried Frankie, the knowledge surrounding how the tree became known locally as the Hanging Tree all too much to the forefront of their minds.

“Who, sir? Oscar – or whoever laid the trap for him?”

“I think we can dispense with the idea of a suicide.” Corstorphine drove in silence for a while, concentrating on keeping the Land Rover’s wheels inside the existing track ruts. “I don’t know what’s going on with the gears lying around the tree, but nobody goes to that much trouble if they’re killing themselves. The question we should be asking is who had the motive?”

Frankie sighed heavily. “Who didn’t have a reason to kill him? He’s been making lifelong enemies ever since he reached nursery school!” She stared out of the Land Rover window, distant mountains wreathed in clouds threatening an end to the sunny spell they’d been enjoying. The change in weather chimed with her own mood, the day’s early promise fading away. She had been a young girl herself when the tree was christened, a lonely baptism of one solitary young woman ending her life. “Do you think any motive may have a connection with the tree then, sir?”

“Probably just a coincidence.”

“But why leave a rabbit up there?” Frankie voiced just one of the questions that worried them both. Snared like a rabbit. Hung in the Hanging Tree. Bits of artfully constructed bone gears littering the ground. It made no sense, and Oscar wasn’t likely to be offering them much assistance.

“We’ll start with Margo, she must know something.”

“You think she’s a suspect, sir?”

“At this stage, everyone’s a bloody suspect.” He slowed as the vehicle reached the road, checked each way and then moved off at a faster speed towards the town. “But do I think Margo killed him?” The silence that followed them back into town provided the only answer they had.

They sat in the interview room, Frankie and Corstorphine on one side of a table with Margo facing them. Three mugs of coffee sat untouched, thin tendrils of steam curling up into the stale air. Frankie switched on the voice recorder beside her, announced who was in the room and advised Margo that she was providing a witness statement of her own free will before Corstorphine spoke. He took the time to study her. She’d been beaten, and recently – the bruising was evident enough around her eyes despite the layers of make-up.

“Before we start, Margo, do you need to see a doctor? I can see someone has knocked you about.” Corstorphine had seen her wince as she lowered herself onto the hard chair, and the hand she had clasped to her side before crossing her arms protectively across her chest.

“I’m fine.” Her response was sharp.

“Alright.” He sighed, tired of always being seen as the enemy in these scenarios. “I want you to go over everything that happened before you saw Oscar this morning. Try and remember every detail, even things that seem unimportant, like changes in his routine. Did he appear unduly worried? Anything that you can tell us may help.”

Margo sucked in short shallow breaths to avoid the pain in her ribs and watched the police through narrowed eyes. They didn’t think she’d done that to him? Left him hanging in a wire noose, just another wild animal – she wished she had. If only she had the strength of will to fight back. If only… she smiled, that tired old mantra again.

“We had a fight two days ago. I told him I was expecting.”

Frankie’s eyes widened as she instinctively focussed on Margo’s stomach, seeking confirmation of the first tell-tale bulge. Corstorphine just nodded encouragement for her to continue.

“Oscar wasn’t impressed. He let me know he didn’t want a child. Tried his damn best to get rid of it there and then!” She spat the last words out. “He was never that good with words, preferred using his hands.” She laughed mirthlessly at her own joke, missing the quick glance that the detectives exchanged.

“And then?” Frankie prompted.

“He left the house yesterday morning, just after six, as usual. Oscar liked to be up early in case any animals were stupid enough to still be on the hills. I lay in bed for a while, then did a wash. The sheets were bloody.”

“What did you do after that?” Corstorphine asked. “Did anyone come to the house, or did you see any hikers on the path? Anyone that can substantiate your story?”

“Well, it’s like a bloody motorway some days. I had thought about opening a café, maybe selling some home-made cakes. You know, make some money on the side to pay for foreign holidays.” The sarcasm met with a stony response. She breathed deeply, and then wished she hadn’t as a lancing pain stabbed her in the side. Margo shifted position on the chair in an effort to get more comfortable. “No, nobody comes up the glen. There’s fuck all reason to do so. It goes nowhere, there’s no big hills to climb, no fish in the burn and no trees to cut down.” She paused her diatribe for a second. “Except the one.”

“So, what did you do the rest of the day?” Frankie again, searching for details that might help colour in the outline she’d given them.

“Made the fucking bed with clean sheets, cleaned the kitchen floor where I’d bled all over it and prepared Oscar’s meal for him. The rest of the time I just looked out of the window and wished I could run away.” She blinked away the tears that were starting to form, angry to display any sign of weakness in front of these two. She hurriedly carried on. “When Oscar was late for his dinner, I thought he’d be down the pub.” Her eyes met theirs, the anguish in her gaze catching them both unawares. “Then I was worried. I can just about manage him normal, like, but when he’s drunk... You’ve no idea what he’s like. He wanted the baby gone, I knew that.” She could feel the memory of the knife in her hand as she’d lain there, nerves stretched so tight she was unable to sleep. “When he hadn’t come back this morning, I took my chance, packed my bag and left. I thought he’d see me on the track, and I couldn’t run because of the pain in my ribs. Then I saw him, hanging from that tree. I couldn’t work out what it was at first, then I saw it was Oscar.”

Her head tilted to one side as she relived the moment, unconsciously mimicking his stance as he swung bloodily from the wire. “I was happy,” she stated simply. “He couldn’t hurt me any more. Then I thought whoever did it might still be around and I had to run, even though it hurt my ribs. You know the rest.”

Corstorphine regarded her steadily, the eyebrow refusing to lift. Insofar as anyone told the truth, this was as close as it got. “Who’d want to do this to him, Margo?”

She laughed, the sound short and sharp like a fox’s cough. “Who wouldn’t?”

Frankie asked her again. “Seriously, Margo, if you know anyone who may have done this, we need to know.”

Margo considered. If she gave them a name they’d let her go, otherwise she could be held here for bloody hours.

“There’s a gamey Oscar set up some months ago. Left a dead eagle on his beat. He’s up before the court in Inverness some time this week. Oscar said he’d know who did it, found it funny.”

“Do you have a name?” Corstorphine queried. Frankie’s pen hovered over her notebook.

“John Ackerman. His patch isn’t that far from Inverness. Everyone knows it’s a setup. You don’t shit in your own bed.”

Frankie closed her notebook. “This interview is terminated at eighteen-forty.” She switched off the recorder, whilst Margo looked at them quizzically.

“You’re free to go, Margo. Get yourself checked out at the hospital – do you want us to run you there?” Corstorphine’s offer was met with a hostile stare.

“Think I want to be seen in a police car? No thanks. I’ll make my own way.”

“Where will you be staying, Margo? In case we need to get back in touch.” Frankie queried as she held the door open.

Margo stared blankly into some middle distance. She’d set out this morning without any destination in mind, save anywhere away from Oscar. Now there was only one place she could go. “Back home.”

“Before you go…”

Margo turned to see Corstorphine holding out a set of keys. “From the quad bike,” he explained. She took them in silence and left the interview room. Frankie escorted her to the front desk where Hamish handed over her travel bag. They stood watching as she retrieved a purse, making a show of counting her money out in front of them before abruptly leaving.

IVSATURDAY 19:11

Corstorphine left Frankie at the station in the act of pinning a red thread between Oscar’s photograph and a yellow post-it inscribed with John Ackerman’s name. As crazy walls went, this one was looking particularly sparse and he had little confidence that their first suspect would prove to be the killer. Frankie had put Margo’s name up on the board, but Corstorphine had a feeling that line of enquiry was a non-starter. Whoever had set the snare for Oscar had planned his death carefully, more like a military operation than the desperate act of a newly-pregnant woman. The forensics report would come later, once the SOC unit had made the round trip from Inverness and finished investigating the scene of crime – a tree, that would be a first for them.