‘I thought you didn’t believe in evil?’ he asked her, immediately aware it wasn’t the wisest thing to do.
It was an argument they’d had many times before and one they’d never resolved. Winter was sure true evil existed and he had the photographs to prove it: fatal stabbings, shootings, torture and mutilation. Rachel, however, believed only in the evil that men — and women — did. Her job was to catch them, not psychoanalyse them.
‘I don’t,’ she fired back at him. ‘But whatever it is that resides in people that can make them carry out evil things, this was pretty damn near to it. It was a real jigsaw job for the pathologist — fragments all over the scene.’
‘So what were they able to establish, evidence-wise?’
‘Not much. There was no sign of a murder weapon. There were various tree branches and bits of brick that could have done the job but none with any remnants of her on it. Even after a few months of Scottish winter, they’d still have carried traces. The best guess was he’d thrown it across the ice on the far side of the island, knowing it would soon melt into the lake.’
‘You said “he”. Definitely a man then?’
‘Not definitely. It was always assumed it was a man from the sheer ferocity of the attack but nothing was ruled in or out.’
‘What else?’
‘The snow had conserved some lividity, enough to suggest she’d died where she was found. That made sense anyway; it was stretching things to suggest she’d been carried over the ice to the island after she was killed. She’d walked there.’
‘So she knew him?’
‘Probably. Or else she didn’t walk there with him but walked on her own and he met her there.’
‘You buy that?’ he asked doubtfully.
‘No. The extent of the violence, the number of blows — that wasn’t an attack on a stranger. I’m sure they walked there together and he murdered her, left her there to rot, then walked back across the ice on his own, knowing full well that any trace of him would soon melt away.’
The investigation had gone on for months but it petered out in the end. Like all unsolved murders, the case was never officially closed but practicalities took over and people got moved on to something that became more pressing. They pulled out the stops again a year after the murder, got TV and newspapers down to the lake and tried to push every button they could but nothing. Well, almost.
‘My dad’s main suspect — in fact, his only suspect — was a guy called Laurence Paton. He was twenty-three, a student teacher at Jordanhill in Glasgow. There was no evidence against him, nothing concrete to go on, just my dad’s well-practised copper’s nose.’
‘Why this guy?’
‘He was at the lake for the reconstruction on the anniversary. My dad spotted him and something set off his spider sense. He says there was something overly nervous about the guy. Paton said he was just there out of curiosity because he’d read about the killing and thought it was terrible. Plenty of other people were there on the same basis, right enough.’
‘But your old man didn’t believe him?’
‘He’s not an old man,’ Rachel snapped. ‘But no, he didn’t. He hauled Paton in for a chat but got nowhere. Paton said he’d been in Glasgow the weekend of the murder and had been in various pubs. No way anyone was going to be able to confirm or deny that after so long though. My dad couldn’t budge him but was sure Paton was hiding something. He could smell it.’
Winter looked out of the window, Inchmahome popping in and out of the mist like a ghost winking at him, and now realised why she had stared so fixedly at the view, why she had been so desperate to grab the binoculars and study it.
‘What did the other cops think?’
Rachel shook her head.
‘They didn’t make Paton for it. Said they had absolutely nothing tying him to the girl and they should look elsewhere. My dad was sure though. He never stopped thinking of Paton as his number one guy. He never stopped thinking of the case full stop…’
Rachel let her voice trail off.
‘And he still hasn’t?’ Winter guessed.
She shook her head sadly.
‘It was his last case — the last one of any significance anyway. He had done his thirty years and was due to retire. It wasn’t the way he wanted to go out though. He felt he’d let the girl down. He couldn’t even find out who she was. He had…’
Rachel lost her words again and Tony slipped his arms round her, sensing her mounting distress.
‘Go on, if you’re ready to.’
‘I’m fine. It’s okay. He had always kept an eye out for the case and for Laurence Paton. For years, it seemed not to bother him as much. Or at least I thought so. But in the last year… he hasn’t been well, not himself at all, and he keeps talking about the Lake of Menteith and the girl. He’s really not well, Tony. I’ve been kidding myself that he’s getting better, that he’ll be okay, but he’s not.’
‘What exactly is wrong with him?’
She breathed deep, composing herself before answering but still choking on her words.
‘Alzheimer’s. They say it’s at a relatively early stage, certainly of its detection, but the symptoms seem to be progressing quickly. He’s moved out of the house and into a home. He’s always looked after himself with no problem since my mum died but… well, it’s his decision.’
‘And you’ve known about this for how long?’
‘Christ, Tony, don’t give me a hard time over it, please. I’ve known for over a month but I’ve been in denial, I suppose. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you but, if you remember rightly, you weren’t exactly forthcoming with details about your own parents either, were you?’
It was a low blow but she was right. Winter’s mother had died when she was hit trying to save him from a speeding car. He was only five and had been playing in the street when he shouldn’t have. He knew it was his fault, no matter what anyone said. His father followed suit less than four years later, dead from chronic liver failure and a broken heart. When they’d first met, Winter had let Rachel believe that his parents had both died in a car accident. He’d always reasoned that was preferable to telling her the truth — his unwavering belief that he had killed them both — and admitting it was the source of his unhealthy interest in death.
‘Yes, okay,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve apologised for that enough, don’t you think?’
‘I just thought you might understand why sometimes it’s difficult to tell other people about your parents.’
‘I do,’ Winter conceded, pulling her closer in. ‘So how bad is he?’
‘Bad enough. He doesn’t want to be a burden to anyone else but this Inchmahome case is eating away at him. It could even be the trigger for his condition.’
‘Trigger?’
Rachel rubbed at her eyes and let a sigh slip wearily from her lips.
‘No one knows what causes Alzheimer’s. Beyond the fact that the principal factor is old age, no one knows why some people get it and others don’t. They think that smoking increases the chance of developing it. They think that high-blood pressure and high cholesterol levels are risk factors. They think that stress can cause it. They think but they don’t bloody know.’
She was getting louder and losing the fight to control the anger that was rising inside. She exhaled noisily and continued.
‘There’s two proteins that they suspect gather in clumps in the brain and cause the problem. One is beta-amyloid and they’ve been talking about that for years. The other is tau protein and the research on it is relatively new. Either way, they think that stress can cause neuropathological changes that lead to the formation of the proteins. Prolonged stress over something like this bloody case could be enough to trigger it.’