S Bolton - Sacrifice

'Bit of a tricky one,' I agreed.

'You're telling me. Now, because of certain markings on the body, and because of a ring found in your field, you started to think that more than one woman might have been murdered.'

I nodded again.

'So, you looked up mortality statistics on the islands.' She bent down and picked up the notes I'd made at the hospital. 'If your figures are correct…'

'They are,' I interrupted. She frowned at me.

'If they're right, they indicate – I admit – a definite pattern. Every three years, the death rate among young females does seem to increase. OK, now we move from fact on to theory. You theorize that a number of these women…'

'Around six every three years.'

'Right. A number of these women were abducted. Their deaths were faked – in a busy, modern hospital – and they were held some- where against their will for a whole year.' She looked down again. 'Your best guess is this island called Tronal. During that time they were… impregnated?' She grimaced. So did I.

'Or they could have been in the early stages of pregnancy when they were taken,' I said. 'Like Melissa was. There are just so many stories on these islands about young women, pregnant women and children being abducted, about human bones being discovered. God, this place has more mass graves than Bosnia.'

'Umm. And these crimes are being committed by grey-clad men who live in underground caverns, love music and silver and fear anything made of iron?'

I said nothing, just glared.

'OK,' she said at last, 'back to the missing women. You think while they were being held prisoner they had babies. Then they were killed. Their bodies were brought back to the mainland and buried in your field.'

Helen stopped.

'Yes,' I said. 'That's what I think happened.'

She said nothing.

'It's exactly like the legend,' I rushed on. 'The Kunal Trows steal human wives. Nine days after their sons are born – it's always a son because they're a race of males – the mothers die.'

'Tora…'

'Melissa Gair was killed between a week to ten days after giving birth.'

'Whoa, whoa… Is it remotely possible to fake death in a hospital? Really?'

'Not so long ago, I'd have said definitely not. Now, I think it could be.'

'How?'

'Quite a lot of people would have to be involved: several of the medical staff, maybe an administrator, definitely the pathologist. I'm not sure you could fool a trained medic, but a layman, especially a distressed relative… if there was a lot of fuss, plenty of distractions… and if the patient was very still, maybe heavily drugged into a coma-like state.'

Helen was whirling the wine round in her glass, staring at the patterns it made. She was giving nothing away but I sensed she was listening.

'And I think they use hypnosis,' I went on, thinking what the hell, in for a penny…

She stopped twirling. 'Hypnosis?' she said. Seeing the look on her face, only the fact that she hadn't already clapped me in handcuffs and phoned her colleagues gave me the courage to go on.

'Hypnosis isn't hokum,' I said quickly. 'It's been scientifically proven. Plenty of psychiatrists practise it. You can alter someone's perception by planting ideas in their head. I think it just possible that a grieving relative could be shown an apparently lifeless body and be led to believe that person was dead.'

Helen was silent. Then her head started to shake. She wasn't buying it.

'All the stories I've read emphasize the Trows' ability to hypnotize people.'

'They're just stories.' She looked incredulous. As well she might. But she hadn't been in my shoes for the last ten days.

'I don't think so any more. I'm sure my boss at the hospital can do it. There was an incident a short while ago with my horse. He put me in some sort of trance; made me do exactly what he told me. And I think he's done it a couple of times at work too. He puts his hands on my shoulders, looks me in the eye and talks to me. And my mood just changes. I feel calm and happy to do whatever he says.'

Helen's head was still now, but I couldn't tell whether she was convinced or not. And there are drugs that can do what you said – make someone look dead?'

'Absolutely. Just about any sedative, if you take enough of it, will drop the blood pressure so low that finding a peripheral pulse would be all but impossible. It's risky, of course; you could easily give the patient too much and end up killing them. But a skilled anaesthetist would probably manage it.'

I gave her time to think about it. And I thought about the skilled anaesthetist I knew.

'How much of this did you discuss with Dana?' she asked.

'I didn't get chance. But I left messages. I told her about the Trow legends. And I know she took me seriously because she has all the books upstairs. She didn't say anything to you when she called?'

Helen sighed and took another gulp of wine. It was arguable which of us was drinking fastest. We needed to slow down. I, especially, needed to slow down.

'No,' she said. 'She wanted to see me. I could tell she was worried. She didn't want to talk on the phone.' 'She learned too much,' I said, wondering if I'd ever be able to deal with that knowledge. Because of me, because of the messages I'd left her, Dana got too close to whatever was going on up here. She'd paid the ultimate price for my meddling.

As if sensing my thoughts, Helen put a hand on my shoulder. 'I'm not dismissing the stats you found, but I'm struggling with this Trow business. We still only have one body. Let's work with that, shall we?' She stood up. 'Come on, let's see what Dana has to say about all this.'

I looked up at her stupidly. What was she planning, a seance?

'Let's go and check her computer. I know her passwords.'

I shook my head. 'Her desk is empty. The police took it.'

'Oh, you think?' she said, and turned to go upstairs.

IN THE MAIN BEDROOM HELEN HOPPED UP ON TO A CHAIR IN front of the large oak wardrobes and opened the middle of three cupboards that ran along the top. Then she handed down a small canvas suitcase trimmed with red leather. Something large slid around inside. She pulled open the zip and took out a small laptop computer that I recognized immediately.

Helen grinned at me but there was no light in her eyes.

'The desktop belonged to the Force. This was her own. Dana always copied everything important. Really sensitive stuff she only ever put on here.'

She carried it through to the spare room and fiddled around with leads for a few seconds before opening the laptop. The screen sprang to life. I glanced towards the window. The blind was drawn but I was sure traces of light would be seen outside.

Helen was already busying her way through Dana's filing system but I was too edgy to sit down and join her.

'Helen.'

She looked up.

'You should know the police are almost certainly looking for me.'

She leaned back in her chair and raised her eyebrows. It was such a Dana-like gesture that I didn't know whether to smile or sob.

'They want to question me about what happened here today – I mean yesterday. I sort of checked myself out of hospital earlier. Unofficially.'

'Do they know you have a key to this house?'

I shook my head.

'They'll probably work it out. We need to get a move on.'

I joined her at the computer. We were looking at a list of files, each one numbered.

'Dana gave her cases different numbers from the official ones,' Helen explained. She was clicking on the bottom of the pile, where the more recent cases were likely to be.

'She was strong on security,' I said, remembering Kenn Gifford's comments about Dana's paranoia.

'She was right to be,' snapped Helen. 'The average nick would make a sieve look watertight. Here we go.'