Ken McClure - Eye of the raven

Steven felt a chill run up his spine as he recalled that there had been no mention of broken fingers at the trial and none in any of the news reports he’d read. He started to check frantically through the cuttings, willing there to be some mention but still nothing. If that was the case… how the hell had Combe known that Julie Summers’ fingers had been broken?

Steven felt his pulse rate rise and he tapped his right thumbnail rapidly against his teeth as he tried to see some way that Combe could have found out about Julie’s fingers. Prison talk maybe? Convicts tended to know a lot of things about their fellow prisoners’ crimes and the prison grapevine was notoriously efficient. He supposed that it was even possible that Little had come into contact with Hector Combe at some point — maybe during some psychiatric assessment procedure — but he would have to find out for sure before he could rest easy. If it turned out that this was the case he would put Combe’s knowledge down to that. If however, it should turn out that there had been no contact between the two, he would be on his way to Scotland to investigate something very disturbing indeed.

It had just gone midnight when Steven finally admitted defeat. He had failed to find any reference to Julie Summers’ broken fingers anywhere in the press cuttings or any mention of them in the extracts of prosecution submissions made at David Little’s trial. He sent a brief e-mail to Sci-Med asking them to investigate whether or not David Little and Hector Combe could ever have crossed paths in the prison system and informing them that he would be travelling to Scotland next day on the first available shuttle flight; he’d be in touch.

This was one of the advantages of working for Sci-Med. Red tape was kept to a minimum and investigators were given a free hand to carry out their assignments as they saw fit. Sci-Med administrators were there to support front-line people, not the other way around as had become the case in so many government departments.

As he considered the prospect, Steven found he had mixed feelings about returning to Scotland. True, it was the place where he had met his wife, Lisa — who had been Scots — and where he had spent many of the happiest times of his life, discovering that particular poignancy that beautiful scenery can have when you are in love — but it held bad memories too.

In the early days of their courtship, spending time together had been difficult and largely limited to when Lisa could manage to escape the yolk of caring for an ageing and increasingly demented mother. Lisa had been a nurse at a hospital in Glasgow when he had been sent there during the course of an investigation, which for him had turned into something of a nightmare and from which he had been lucky to escape with his life.

Yet only eighty or so miles away were the rolling hills of Dumfriesshire and the romantic, lonely shores of the Solway Firth where it was so easy to lose your heart to Scotland. It was a region that so many tourists overlooked as they made their way north to the tartan theme parks of the highlands. This was where the village of Glenvane lay with its little cluster of whitewashed houses and cobbled yards born of an age when horses tilled the land and the pace of life had been slower. This was where his daughter, Jenny, lived and was happy among people who cared about each other. Steven had seen the good side of Scotland and the bad, the generosity of its people and their meanness of spirit. When they were good they were very good but by God, when they were bad, they didn’t bear thinking about.

As the aircraft banked over the Firth of Forth to begin its final descent into Edinburgh Airport it afforded the passengers sitting on the left a grandstand view of the two bridges spanning the estuary below. They were bathed in morning sunshine, the huge red cantilevers of the older rail bridge appearing particularly dramatic, standing tall as a continuing testament to Victorian engineering.

As he looked to the west, Steven wondered with some trepidation what the day would bring. He had arranged for a car to be waiting for him at the airport and his plan was to drive out to the village of Upgate in Lanarkshire to speak with the Rev Lawson about his interview with Hector Combe. He was assuming that Lawson would actually be there. There had not been time to contact him or make any more formal arrangement.

As luck would have it, they were testing the prison sirens when he reached Carstairs. At least, he assumed that it was a test sounding in the absence of any sign of any other activity. It seemed reasonable to believe that there would have been plenty had there been a real escape in progress. He still found it an eerie sound however as he looked up at the tall perimeter fence and wondered what the residents in the nearby houses must think when they heard it go off. He imagined doors and windows being double-checked on dark wet nights, fearful glances being exchanged and TV volumes being turned up.

Steven moved through the village slowly until he found the sign directing him to the B road that led over to Upgate, the one that the Rev Lawson would have used on the night of Combe’s death. Like most of the roads around here it ran over bleak moor land, making travellers wonder what it must be like to live here in winter and hoping — as they noticed their mobile phone signal disappear — that the car wouldn’t break down.

Steven’s rented Rover coped without problem and he entered Upgate, looking for a church spire as an indication of where he might find Lawson. There were no other high buildings in the village so he found it without difficulty and turned off into what he read was Mosspark Road to stop outside the less than imposing building of St John’s. He guessed that the grimy Victorian villa standing next to it would be the manse. A metal plaque confirmed this when he reached the gate.

He walked up the cracked and weedy front path to knock on a front door that hadn’t seen paint in many years. His second knock was answered by a woman in her fifties who seemed more than a little put-out to have callers. The lines on her face suggested that she hadn’t smiled much in the last thirty years. ‘Aye, what is it?’

‘ Is the Rev Lawson at home this morning?’ asked Steven.

‘ He’s no’ here,’ snapped the woman.

‘ Will he be back soon?’

‘ Depends.’

‘ On what?’ asked Steven, struggling to maintain a civil smile.

‘ Them at The Firs.’

Steven tried a blank stare instead of asking another question and the woman eventually said, ‘The meenester’s ill. He’s in The Firs. A nervous breakdoon, they say. Ah dinnae ken; a’body’s hivin them these days. A load o’ shite if ye ask me. Ah kin remember a time when folk got oan with their lives without all this brekdoon and stress nonsense.’

Steven figured that a nod might be the best way to pave the way ahead. After a moment he asked, ‘How do I go about finding the Firs, Mrs…?’ asked Steven.

‘ McLellan; ah’m the meenester’s cleaner, no’ that he pays me ower much. Tak a left at the end o’ the street and it’s aboot twa miles oot on the Ayr road. Gie him ma best wishes and tell him he’s oot o’ toilet roll.’

‘ Will do,’ said Steven.

Steven found The Firs without difficulty although he saw the sign a bit late, thanks to overhanging tree branches, and had to back up on the road before negotiating the narrow entrance that led to a an imposingly long drive lined with the trees that had, he presumed, lent their name to the house. He parked on the gravel outside the front door of a large red sandstone villa with an ugly concrete box extension tacked on to its left-hand side. A notice board by the side of the steps leading up to the door proclaimed the house’s credentials as a Church of Scotland Rest and Recuperation Home. Steven took encouragement from this. If the place wasn’t actually a hospital — psychiatric or otherwise — there must be a good chance that Lawson’s condition might not be as serious as he’d feared.