booksnew/source/incubus-source/C14.txt

<h2>14</h2>

<p>"This should make it easier," Donal Bulloch said. The CID chief leaned back in his seat, tall and grey-haired and with the kind of suntan he could only have got from the solarium at his four day conference. Beside him Scott Cruden looked cadaverishly pale.</p>

<p>"If she's toting a baby around, she'll be easier to find. At last it looks as if foul play is ruled out." Cruden observed. </p>

<p>"Unless kidnapping's been decriminalised," Bulloch corrected. Then he gave a smile. "No, you're right Scott, we don't know if this is really a snatch. They could have known each other, very likely did. But from what we know so far, this is a very odd case. Two odd cases. I think we'll have to get to the bottom of them."</p>

<p>He turned to David. "Mr Hardingwell tells me you went round to see him." It was both question and a statement. David was perfectly straight in his reply.</p>

<p>"I thought I'd best be informed rather than go into any situation blind."</p>

<p>"Not like Lamont, then, forgetting to call in for assistance. That could have been dangerous. I expect better of you. Next time, shout for back-up."</p>

<p>Helen blushed to her roots. "Sorry Sir, won't happen again."</p>

<p>The chief superintendent nodded, closing the matter. David had shown him all the tapes, in the same sequence as he'd seen then that morning in John Barclay's office, though this time he included the collapse of the woman they'd thought was Thelma Quigley.</p>

<p>"I don't think they were acting together," David told the senior officers. "From what Helen got from colleagues and the girl's parents, she had only gone for some Christmas presents. We'll get back to them to try to find a connection, but it doesn't seem likely. It does give us another mystery, and of course we must find the baby, even if it hasn't been reported missing."</p>

<p>"We've got a start on the girl anyway," Helen put in. "When we find the one, we'll turn up the other."</p>

<p>"What about this other thing?" the chief butted in. He leaned forward and put both hands on his desk. "You said the McDougall woman's diaries say she had a child before? Some years back?"</p>

<p>"I'm checking that out too. There was evidence of an infant in the house and I've sent a sample to forensics. They should come back later today or tomorrow morning. What I'm concerned about is the history. We know McDougall disappeared. Soon after that, she starts talking about a baby in her diary. Pretty sketchy stuff, and leaving a lot of gaps, but it's pretty definite. Then she brings a baby to the mall and dies. Now this one gets taken."</p>

<p>He thought before continuing, gauging whether the moment was right, then ploughed ahead.</p>

<p>"But I'm also concerned about the first case. The entries in the diary start just after a baby went missing in Edinburgh. I discovered that when I spoke to McDougall's mother. Her daughter disappeared on the same day as a child was killed, or at least presumed dead after an accident."</p>

<p>"I remember that," Bulloch interrupted. "In the sixties, wasn't it? Duncryne Bridge it was. I used to take a stroll up there myself in my younger day. A friend of mine, old Phil Cutcheon was involved in that. He's retired now. Strange case. The lorry driver did time for it, even though they never found a body. He'd have gone down for the accident anyway, but it was a celebrated case of the day."</p>

<p>"I was wondering, "David said, "and I know it's a long shot, whether McDougall developed a habit. I mean, there's a lot of coincidences. She went missing on that day, at the same place, as far as I can make out. Her diaries begin to mention the child. She's been seen by the neighbours pushing a pram, carrying a baby, going back five years or so. Maybe more. There's something not right here."</p>

<p>"I agree," Bulloch said. "Find the girl, and find the child. The pair of you work on this together, but try to hurry it up, all right? Give a bulletin to the patrols for the moment and if you need more manpower, we'll see what we can do."</p>

<p>In the squad room, David made coffee for each of them. Helen opened her folder and brought out the picture of Ginny Marsden. It was clearly the girl they'd seen come into the mall and lift the baby from the pram. The photograph showed her the way she'd been when she came striding along, coat flapping, past the shop windows. She was fair haired and on the cusp of a smile and bright intelligence sparkled in her eyes.</p>

<p>"So why would she lift a baby?" David asked. Helen raised her eyebrows and cocked her head to the side in a facial shrug.</p>

<p>"There's something creepy about the whole thing," he added and Helen could only agree.</p>

<p>"I could see that. She had no such intention when she came in. Then she passed the pram and everything changed. She looked as if she'd taken ill. I thought she was about to collapse."</p>

<p>"Maybe she heard the baby crying?"</p>

<p>"Possibly, but nobody lifts a baby from a pram just because it's crying. You take your life in your hands doing that. I'm getting some of the shots enhanced. Surveillance have some scanner programme that can improve the definition."</p>

<p>They got the results of the dried skin back from forensics in the early afternoon while David was reading through the rest of the notes that were scrawled in the old exercise books he'd found in the dead woman's house. Every now and again he'd pause and write something down.</p>

<p>It was no caul. It was skin, but not human. Bill Caldwell in the lab sent down a note to say that it was an integument of some kind, like a sloughed skin, but it was neither human nor any mammal they'd heard of and that meant any mammal at all. He suggested there might be a reptilian connection but could not be sure, and because of that he could give no clue as to the age.</p>

<p>David cast his mind back to the previous day when the thing had tumbled from the shoebox, drifting the floor, feather light and translucent. It had crumpled as it hit the floor, as delicate as rice-paper. He had definitely seen a head and two arms. A skinny chest. The rent was down the back, just as he had seen in his dream. It had been no lizard.</p>

<p>But had it really been human? He did not know the answer to that.</p>

<p>Helen called him up to the photographic lab within the hour. Derek Horner, a small man with thick-lensed glasses sat at a keyboard in front of a screen. His fingers moved a trackball and he typed in commands every second or so. On the screen, Ginny Marsden turned round in slow, regular jerks as the scanner reeled the tape on. A square zeroed in on her face and shoulders, like the targeting system on a computer game. Almost instantly the picture expanded. It was fuzzed slightly, but Derek said he could clean that up no problem. He did. The girl's face jumped into clarity, almost face on to the camera. It was the same as the girl in the photograph, without any shadow of doubt. They could see the curve of the baby's head snuggled in to her chest. It was turned in against the fabric, almost side on to the lens.</p>

<p>"Can you enhance the kid?" David asked.</p>

<p>"That is it enhanced. I doubt we could do much better. It's a good system here, but it won't do miracles. Forget anything you've seen on Blade Runner. That technology's fifty years from now at the very least. I can tickle up some definition, but it's not going to improve much."</p>

<p>"Why is it out of focus?" David was used to cameras. He'd been using them since he was nine years old, taking pictures of the birds which flew into the garden and nested there. At the distance, even allowing for movement, both faces should have been clearly defined.</p>

<p>"Beats me," Derek told him bluntly. "Maybe an aberration in the lens. Maybe an odd shadow from somewhere. I can lighten it up a little." He hit a few more keys and the area around the baby's face visibly brightened in comparison to the rest of the picture. Even then it was still grainy and indistinct. Just a blur, but oddly shaped.</p>

<p>"You sure that's a baby?" Derek wanted to know. On screen the small head looked slightly elongated and the front of the face flattened. The eyes might have been closed but they seemed large, dark shadows on the squashed face.</p>

<p>"It's got a face only a mother could love," Derek said. Helen laughed. "Takes one to know one."</p>

<p>Derek printed out a copy of the enhanced image, skilfully adding what approximated to skin tone. Ginny Marsden's face was exceptionally clear, but the baby was still just a blur.</p>

<p>"Looks as if it's melted," Helen said jokingly. "We can't use that on a poster." She held the picture up again when they got back to the office. "There's something wrong with this," she finally said. "It doesn't look right. I know we couldn't see it on screen, but I got a weird feeling when I saw it. I'm getting the same feeling from the picture. It's really creepy."</p>

<p>David said nothing. His thoughts were occupied with other problems. He'd been back to the notes again, collating his own markings. While the exercise books, mostly tattered and brittle with age, were sketchy and undated, he could work out a sequence. Since the first mention of the baby, the sickly-sweet coo-ings of a new mother, there had been other entries, sometimes months apart, sometimes a whole raft of them that would continue for a month without missing a day.</p>

<p>They all mentioned the baby. <em>Baby Grumpling </em>was the term most often used. Never a first name. She would write down the details of the day, how he needed fed, how he needed changed. And only once, in a book that looked newer than the rest, Heather McDougall had spoken of the poor baby's skin rash, how it needed swabbed constantly with baby oil and then how it had peeled off like a sunburn, leaving him all pink and healthy again.</p>

<p>Could that have been the caul? David thought. Not according to Caldwell in the lab. That hadn't been human.</p>

<p>Yet on the same page where she'd marked a note, the woman had written.</p>

<p>"<em>I kept it to show him when he grows up. How sick he was. And now he's all better again and hungrier than ever. I think he'll drain me like a prune, God love him.</em>"</p>



<p>Ginny Marsden's feet led her west, taking her towards the bus station close to St Enoch's hospital where Heather McDougall had twitched and writhed as she died. It was a long walk, past the museum and the art galleries and across the park where the steam tumbled through the ornamental gardens. Up on the bare branches, a crowd of crows sat hunched and sleepy, silhouetted against the pale overhead, winter vultures waiting for the sun. They fluttered uneasily when she was directly underneath, but she never noticed. On the overpass, where the bridge soared over the river, the traffic was light at this time in the morning, most of them trucks and double-trailed rigs hitting the road before the rush. Underneath the span she could feel the ground vibrate with their passing.</p>

<p>Her feet hurried her on, out towards the bus station and when she reached it she found the waiting room empty but for a slumped drunk in a far corner. She sat patiently, huddled inside her coat, holding her bundle tight, watching the single deckers come roaring in to collect their early morning passengers. She had no clear idea in her head until a bus came in and sat shuddering close to the door of the long waiting room. Almost reluctantly she got up, forced the door open and stood beside the bus until the driver noticed her. He gave her a cheery grin, hit the handle and the doors wheezed open on hydraulic hinges. She stumbled on the steps, righted herself, paid with a ten pound note which caused a delay while the driver rifled his own pockets for change and then went up to the back. The bus moved out ten minutes later, heading west out of the city towards Kirkland which was miles out into the country. There were four other passengers, two of them workmen in dirty donkey jackets, hats pulled down over their eyes as they caught some extra sleep. Nobody bothered to look at her. It was still too early.</p>

<p>Half an hour later, the bus pulled into a town she had passed through before but had never visited. She looked out of the window, aware of the dim reflection of her own face in the dirty glass, and saw the sign boasting Levenford Castle and the double-humped, elephant's back logo of the rock on which the ancient monument stood.</p>

<p>She had no real plan, but somehow, instinctively she knew she should get off here. The sky was still dark, but there was a small cafe close to the bus stop where early travellers were queuing for plastic cups of coffee. She got in line, still clutching the baby tight. She found a corner seat. A bulky man in a heavy leather jacket sat opposite her and lit up a cigarette. She did not look at him, even when he tried to strike up a conversation with her.</p>

<p>Ginny felt the baby stir against her and turned away. The coffee was bitter, but warm and she sipped it slowly while the infant twisted, trying to get closer to her body heat. She waited in the cafe until the sky lightened and the day began to brighten. The two women behind the counter who had worked non-stop since she'd arrived kept looking over at her curiously. Finally one of them came over with two cups.</p>

<p>"You look as if you could use another, love," she said kindly, her wrinkled face in stark contrast to her jet-black hair. She pulled a chair and sat down opposite Ginny.</p>

<p>"New baby, is it?"</p>

<p>She nodded. The infant stirred again. It turned, squirming hard, moving fast. The older woman reached out, pulled the lapel of the coat back, the way women do when taking a peek at a baby.</p>

<p>For a split second, her expression simply sagged as if all the muscles had been cut. </p>

<p>The musky scent came rising up, invisible but thick on the stale, smoky air. The woman blinked twice, as if her eyes were burning and itching. She shook her head just a little, as if she'd been startled, and then the motherly expression came right back into her lived-in face.</p>

<p>"Oh, isn't he gorgeous," she said.</p>

<p>Her friend, behind the counter, called over. "Don't you go giving that baby your cold now, Margaret."</p>

<p>Margaret coughed, covered her mouth quickly, and gave the girl a big, even smile, showing a wide array of false teeth. "Had this since October. It'll be the death of me," she said, reaching reached into her own purse to bring out a packet of cigarettes and a cheap plastic lighter. "So will these. Mind if I smoke?"</p>

<p>The girl shook her head absently. Margaret paused, dipped into her purse again and took out a silver coin. She handed it over to the girl, pressing it into her palm. "Just for the baby's luck, love. Can't let a baby be without a bit of silver."</p>

<p>"I need somewhere to stay," the girl said. Her voice was hollow and had a slight, but definite tremble. There was something about her eyes that spoke of trouble, but she didn't look to Margaret as if she <em>was</em> trouble.</p>

<p>"Got a bit of bother honey?" she asked, her seamed face crinkling into a mask of concern. There were dozens of people passing through the cafe on winter mornings, office workers heading up to the city. Boys with shaven heads coming down for the early sitting of the court, some of them in ill-fitting suits borrowed to make an impression, others beyond caring. You got farmers down on the highland train and road diggers getting a hot drink inside them before going out in all weathers to earn their bread and early arthritis. It was unusual to see a young girl with a baby at this time of the day. She had sat for two hours, waiting for the light, avoiding everybody. Of course she was in bother, Margaret could see that, and so close to Christmas too.</p>

<p>The girl said nothing. She was slender and pretty with fair hair that looked as if it could use a brush. Her coat, though, looked well cut and expensive, good and heavy for the weather. Her face was pretty, but her eyes had bags under them, as if she was short on sleep, or maybe in the middle of a heavy period. Her pinched expression spoke eloquently of some sort of distress.</p>

<p>"Is there a place to stay?"</p>

<p>"Sure there is. There's a hostel up the top end of College Street. You just take the first on the left and keep going until you get to Ship Institute. You can't miss it because there's a big boat up on the wall. The hostel's just across the road from that, and they'll let you stay there until you get fixed up, and they'll help you find a place."</p>

<p>Margaret pushed the other cup towards the girl, indicating that she should drink. The top of the baby's head was just visible under the lapel and the woman thought it was a damned shame the wee thing didn't have a hat for this weather. Once again she thought the girl must be in some serious bother. She smoked her cigarette while the girl sipped and was about to light up a second when the door swung open, trailing in a billow of cold air, and half a dozen men came in, bricklayers and plasterers from the Castlebank Church renovation, ruddy faced and foot-stamping as they tried to shed the cold. Margaret went back behind the formica counter to help with the order and soon had the eggs and bacon sizzling on the hot plate. When she'd finished serving the workmen, she looked over to the corner. The girl was gone, leaving her coffee-cup sitting on the table. She hadn't even seen her move. She hoped the hostel had a coal fire going.</p>

<p>Nina Galt, the assistant manager at the hostel showed her the small room with its own stove. It had a bed and a square of carpet and a surprisingly pleasant view out of the window across a well-laid little public park where the shrubs were iced with a thin layer of snow. There was no television and no phone. The big armchair sagged in the middle and the stuffing in the arms looked lumpy and old. Nina gave the girl the booklet which listed the social services, the benefits office and anything else a homeless youngster might need. She asked few questions, except for a name and a previous address. As she left the room to go back downstairs to the common area where indeed there was a big coal fire roaring in the grate, she stopped, about to turn back and tell the girl there were spare bottles and teats for baby feeding., but something stopped her. She continued on her way, wondering how many more youngsters would turn up in the next few days. For some reason, there were always more of them at this time of the year and it made her think of Victorian fathers throwing their errant daughters on to the street and telling them never to darken the doorstep again. It was a damned shame, but there was nothing she could do about it. All she could do was get them settled in and give them a roof for as long as they needed.</p>

<p>The next day the girl was gone. </p>

<p>But at night, unknown to anybody, she had gone through the agony again.</p>