Buried Secrets (DCI MacBain Scottish Crimes Book 1) Read online

  Buried Secrets

  A DCI MacBain Scottish Crime Thriller

  Oliver Davies

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Fifteen years ago

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  12. Three days ago

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  A Message from the Author

  Prologue

  I slid into the low booth of the Gellions Pub and set my whiskey glass on a scuffed coaster as the music from the nearby session swelled back to life. A fiddler set the pace, ripping into the tune at a speed I thought the other musicians surely wouldn’t be able to match, but each one launched into the notes with the same fervour as the next, and soon, the song was tripping all around the pub, between tapping feet and chattered conversation.

  I scanned each of their faces and instruments, searching for one in particular, but I saw only the usual suspects: the old man with the mole on his nose, the guitar player who always seemed so afraid to be there, the trio of fiddlers who came in together, the piper with five different whistles and flutes arrayed around him. I sighed and settled back in the booth, taking a sip of my whiskey. I’d been coming here for five years now, ever since I retired, knowing this had been one of her regular haunts, but she was simply gone, disappeared into the mists. And yet, I knew I would still be here the next week and the week after that until I found something, anything.

  I’d listen to the music a while longer and then head out, I decided. After all, there was nothing like a pub session. The musicians existed in their own little world, gathered in a circle with their backs to the rest of the pub as a dozen conversations rose up all around them. Each week saw a different combination of players mingling with the core crew of regulars, and though they had never played together before, it didn’t matter. The tunes still flowed, if not flawlessly then joyously, from their instruments, and I couldn’t help but smile, even as that old familiar loneliness wriggled in my heart.

  The session broke for a short rest, and I drained the last sip of my whiskey, sliding across the cracked leather to the edge of the booth. As I stood and reached for the cane leaning in the corner, a man stepped into my path, the concertina player with the mole on his nose. He smiled at me, the craggy wrinkles of his face deepening.

  “What’s the crack, son?”

  “Just on my way out.”

  “You’re here every week. You always leave halfway through.”

  “You’re perceptive.”

  The old man shrugged. “I’m nosy. Have a drink with me before you go. Pub owes me a free one for all my hard work up there.” When an old folk asked you to have a drink with him, you couldn’t really say no, so I sighed, leaned my cane against the wall, and eased my way back into the booth while the old man signalled to the bartender who no doubt knew his order by heart.

  “So what brings you here every week?” the old man asked. His hands were gnarled, his knuckles swollen, and I wondered how he played the tiny keys on the concertina as fast as he did.

  “Plenty of people come here every week,” I said.

  “And yet none of them have that same look in their eyes. You’re looking for something… someone?” He grinned slyly at me. Old folk were too damn perceptive. I supposed I should really lump myself in with him, too, since I couldn’t have been that much younger than him, and I’d made a living out of being perceptive.

  The bartender arrived with two short glasses of whiskey and set them before us without a word. “Fine, yes. I used to know a bodhran player. She played here a lot. I guess I’m hoping I’ll see her here one of these days.”

  “Old flame, eh?” He winked.

  I sighed, took a sip of my drink. “Something like that.”

  “How d'you meet?”

  “Long story.”

  “My friends love long stories.” He nodded towards the broken circle of musicians behind him. His eyes flicked between my face, the cane, and the smattering of pale scars across my knuckles. “I bet it’s one hell of a tale. I can always tell.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Thanks for the drink, but I should be going.”

  “Maybe I know this woman,” the old man said before I was halfway out of the booth. “I know most everyone who’s come through this pub. You tell your story, maybe I can help you out.”

  I paused. Looked at him hard. “You’re serious.”

  “I’ve been playing here for thirty-odd years. Indulge an old man.”

  “You don’t get to play that card when we’re almost the same age. Fine. If,” I held up a finger, “you buy me another drink.”

  A grin cracked the old man’s face, deepening the wrinkles all around his eyes and mouth. “Deal.”

  So I picked up my drink in one hand and my cane in the other and followed him across the bar to the array of benches and chairs squeezed together haphazardly in a corner. My knee ached dully as I threaded my way through the jumbled of instrument cases across the floor, and the old man pushed me towards an empty stool.

  “My new friend here has a harrowing tale of romance and intrigue for us.” His eyebrows shot into the stratosphere as he spoke, gesturing my way. “He-- What’s your name?”

  “Callum MacBain.”

  The young guitar player choked on his beer. “Callum MacBain? Like DCI Callum MacBain?”

  “Yes,” I said, squinting at him. “Do I know you?”

  He set his glass down and wiped beer off his face. “No, sorry. My parents were kind of obsessed with your cases when I was young. They followed your investigations almost religiously.”

  That was just a little creepy, but it was also nice to know that someone appreciated my work back in the good old days.

  “A DCI, really?” the old man repeated. “Then this ought to be good.”

  He settled into his seat, staring at me expectantly, and I looked around the circle at all the matching faces. Every instrument had been set aside, and the musicians were wholly waiting on me, my words, my story. I hadn’t spoken of my working days in a while now, since most of my friends were cops themselves and had either been there with me or heard about it just after the fact. I found myself almost eager to dredge up the past.

  “Okay. I’ll tell you about the case that brought us together. It all started with a missing kid, a theft, and a new partner…”

  One

  Fifteen years ago

  I sat at my desk, pretending to do paperwork. The pages lay before me, half-filled out, and I held a pen in my hand so that it seemed I had only just paused in my writing. Instead, I looked about the room. I’d always liked watching the other inspectors and the constables hurry from point to point, papers or keys in hand, on their way to do some important task. I would love to have one of those important tasks for myself, rather than be stuck finishing up the paperwork for a petty theft I’d solved the week before.

  “DCI MacBain.” Sergeant Jones appeared beside my desk, and I looked up at her with one eyebrow raised, as if I cou
ldn’t believe I’d been interrupted in the middle of my oh-so-important paperwork. “Chief Inspector Dunnel wants to see you in his office.”

  “Did he say why?”

  DS Jones shook her head. “Just that he wants you to come now.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant. I’ll go see what he wants.”

  She nodded and left as I heaved myself out of my chair with a sigh. I really hoped this wasn’t about the slightly... unorthodox approach I’d taken with my last case. I was not in the mood for another lecture.

  I made my way across the large room towards Dunnel’s office. Glass partitions separated the floor into sections, and desks, all topped with messy stacks of paper and ancient computers, dotted the spaces in between. The writing on the whiteboards, listing crime statistics and open cases, was smudged on a couple of rows, and someone needed to sort through all the postings on the bulletin board and remove the outdated ones since there wasn’t a speck of open cork to be seen.

  I knocked on Dunnel’s door, waiting to enter until I heard his gruff voice call me in. I stepped inside, saluted, and sat in the chair before his desk when he motioned towards it. Chief Inspector Rick Dunnel had grey, close-cropped hair and stubble across his face, though today, it looked as if it needed a trim. He was a slim man, though tall, the stiffness in his spine as he sat in his chair a match to the rigidity he applied to his job. He’d replaced my mother as Chief Inspector in Inverness upon her retirement, and he had yet to live up to her legacy.

  “Callum, good. There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.” Dunnel had a low, gravelly voice, but I was pretty sure he purposefully pitched his voice down an octave as if that would give him more gravitas.

  I sighed, shifted in my seat. “Sir, if this is about my last case--”

  “It’s not,” he cut me off. “Though believe me, we will talk about that. No, it’s time for you to get a new partner.”

  My eyes widened. “Sir, I thought we agreed that I would be able to work alone for a while.”

  “That was three years ago, Callum. It’s time.”

  “I like working alone.” Reilly, my old partner, and I had done well together, but the few, short-lived partners I worked with after him hadn’t been able to keep up with the way my mind jumped from point to seemingly unrelated point, and I quickly grew irritated with how often I had to slow my thought process down to explain things to them. So Dunnel and I agreed that I could be my own partner for a while.

  “I’m sorry, I should have been clearer,” Dunnel said, eyes slightly narrowed. “Your new partner is already here. This is not a discussion.”

  “Where?” I asked. We were alone in his office, and I hadn’t seen new faces in the station.

  “The gym. Follow me. I’ll introduce you.”

  Dunnel stood, leaving me with no choice but to step outside with him. He led me across the station, past my desk, to the stairs on the far side of the room. The basement housed the gym, training facilities, and locker rooms, and the whole space smelled musty like old, dry sweat mixed with the sawdust that was constantly leaking out of the training dummies. Dunnel pushed the gym doors open, the hinges squealing for a bit of oil, the light that spilt out white and uneven as the bulbs flickered. There were only a few people inside: a man jogging on a treadmill, another lifting weights, and a pair squaring off on the sparring mats.

  Dunnel and I approached the fighters and waited for them to finish. We didn’t have to wait long. The woman blocked her partner’s punch, stepped inside his guard, foot hooked around his heel, and with one twist of his arm and her hips, bore him to the ground where he landed with an audible thump, pinning his wrist to the ground, her other hand on his throat, and her knee on his chest.

  “Fletcher,” Dunnel called, and the woman looked up from her partner, a grin on her lips. Strands of black hair had escaped from the bun piled atop her head to frame her face, her eyes bright and blue against her flushed face. The bun showed off the undercut at the back of her scalp, just barely edging up over her ears, one of which glittered with several silver studs and hoops. She helped her wheezing partner stand and then stepped off the mats to join us, nodding respectfully to Dunnel.

  “Callum, this is Tara Fletcher. She recently made inspector and transferred up from Glasgow. She’s your new partner.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Fletcher smiled and held out her hand. I shook it, eyeing her. She seemed young, especially for an inspector, but she’d taken that man down like she was simply knocking a box over, and there was an easy confidence in her stance that I liked. Not that I would tell her that.

  “Callum MacBain,” I said instead. “Look, I don’t know what the chief inspector has told you, but I--”

  “Let me guess,” she interrupted. “You work alone.” She deepened her voice as much as she could and planted her fists on her hips, brow furrowing. A moment later, she broke out into a grin again and laughed. “Come on, man, where’s the fun in that?”

  “One case, Callum,” Dunnel said. “If it doesn’t work out, then fine, you can be a lone wolf or whatever it is you want.”

  “Fine. One case,” I agreed.

  Dunnel clapped me on the shoulder. “Brilliant. Because I already have one ready for you.”

  Two

  Alec MacGowan sat in an unassuming white car across the street from 21 Crown Drive, watching the darkened windows and the silent yard. The day was overcast, the clouds spilling shadows across the street and threatening rain. He knew he should wait for nightfall, but he was jittery, on edge, and he wanted this job done as quickly as possible.

  When he was sure the house was empty, he left the car and strode across the street, hands stuffed in the pockets of his black rain jacket, its hood pulled up to ward off the day’s chill and to hide his bright red hair. He ignored the front door. Instead, he walked down the narrow alley between this collection of townhouses and the next. A wooden fence, taller than he was, enclosed the small yard at the back, but it was easy enough to step on a stack of forgotten bricks, plant his hand on the top of the fence, and swing himself over, his feet landing silently on the stone patio on the other side. He crouched there for a moment, listening. But the neighbourhood was silent, its inhabitants still away at work.

  Alec tested the sliding glass door but found it locked. He pulled a metal strip from his inside pocket and slid it into the seam between the door and the wall, wiggling it around until he felt the lock pop, and he was able to pull the door open. He stepped into the kitchen, the appliances small and a little outdated, and the wooden cabinets scratched in several places. A table with mismatched chairs sat just outside the kitchen, between Alex and a set of French doors, though they seemed completely unnecessary since there was a second, normal door leading out of the kitchen and dining room right beside them.

  Alec shut the glass door behind him. Now, if he were a deed to a castle, where would he be? He ghosted across the dining room floor and poked his head into the short entrance hall, looking in on the den just to his left. The leather chairs looked plump and comfortable in front of a fireplace just waiting to be lit. He made his way up the staircase, nosing around until he found the master bedroom. The bed dominated the floor, and bookshelves covered one wall, full of paperbacks and pictures of the Highlands outside the city. If he were a deed to a castle, he supposed he’d been in here.

  So he searched the room, rifling through the dresser drawers, the jewellery box, and the spaces between the books, pocketing a few shiny bangles to throw any investigation off his true target. And he needed the cash. His employer wasn’t paying him for this little break-in.

  He found the deed tucked in a leather folder on the top shelf. Dust puffed into the air as he lifted it, and he sneezed. Dust allergies were not all that helpful for someone in his profession. Alec opened the folder and flipped through the papers inside until one caught his name: the deed of ownership to the Castle of Old Wick. He glanced through the rest of the papers, just to make sure there was nothing else of value there, bu
t it was mostly old tax returns and the contract for the townhouse. Alec folded the deed and put it in his inside pocket for safekeeping, then placed the leather folder back where he found it. Time to get out of there before the owners came home.

  And as if he summoned them with the thought, Alec heard the front door swing open. Boots stamped off the day’s dirt on the welcome mat, and a woman’s sigh reached his ears, followed by the rustle of her coat rustle as she hung it up.

  Alec cursed silently. The window by the bookshelf opened up right over the front door and dropped straight to the ground where someone would definitely see and hear him if he tried to climb out. He ducked out of the bedroom, unsure if the door had been open or closed when he arrived, leaving it open since that seemed right as he snuck along the short hall by the bannister, praying that the woman's head was not about to appear between the wooden slats. He breathed a sigh of relief when he heard her walk into the kitchen.

  Alec opened one of the doors on the other end of the hall, right at the top of the stairs. The roof was shallower on the backside of the house, and he should be able to creep along it and drop to the ground in a blind spot.

  A lamp clicked on as he pushed the door open. A small, tousled head appeared from under a mound of blankets, sleepy eyes turning to look at him.

  “Mum?” a small child asked. He was still dressed in his uniform jumper, though it was rumpled from his nap. His expression cleared and leapt straight to fear when he realized that it was a man standing in his doorway and not his mother.