Cameron wasn’t shocked by the story, but by the room. Rough shelves housed a multitude of toys and sweets left by visitors who’d professed to sense the ghost-child’s loneliness. Cameron turned away, irritated by the guide’s tone, no longer willing to be part of this make-believe. It was then he saw the doll, wedged in the corner, three shelves up.
“We’re not supposed to touch the presents.”
Cameron showed him his ID card.
The guide lifted the doll down and handed it over. A ripple of excitement moved through the group. They were wondering if this was for real or just part of the tour. Cameron examined the doll. It looked just like the one he’d seen on the window seat in the flat, one eye dropped in its socket, the blue dress faded.
“I believe a young woman may have left this here. She was in her late teens, long dark hair?”
The guide looked blank. He must have taken scores of people round this place. “Wait a minute. There was a girl, a couple of nights ago. She joined just as we came in. I wasn’t sure she’d paid, but I decided to let it go.”
“Did she give a name?”
The guide shook his head.
This wasn’t fucking real. Boyd shifted his feet, discomfort showing in every inch of his body. Across the table the old man looked calm. Boyd tried to work out what he was thinking and couldn’t. Had it been anyone else, the interview would have been formal.
“You’ve never been in there before that night?”
Cameron shook his head.
“Then how did traces of your blood get on the scene, sir?”
“I have no idea.”
Jesus, he didn’t want this to end up as an investigation into an officer contaminating a scene of crime. Boyd contemplated keeping quiet about it, at least until the boss handed in his badge.
Cameron looked impatient as though he had no interest in the fact that his blood had been found in the crypt.
“What about the body? Is it Rebecca?”
Boyd hesitated. The tests weren’t complete yet, but there was no point keeping the old man thinking they’d found his dead wife. He shook his head. “Forensic think it’s much older.”
Cameron gave a small nod as though he wasn’t surprised.
“The girl I met in the flat looked like Rebecca. Our daughter would have been her age by now. Rebecca had an old-fashioned doll that was hers as a kid. It was the only thing missing from the house when she left.”
Boyd’s heart was sinking fast. He didn’t want the old man to go on, but couldn’t bring himself to stop him.
Cameron produced a china-faced doll in a faded blue dress. One eye hung low in its socket.
Something cold crawled up Boyd’s spine.
Cameron’s eyes were bright with excitement. “The girl I spoke to had this doll in the flat. There was a poster on the wall. It advertised a ghost tour called Dead Close. I took that tour. There’s a room dedicated to a child ghost. This doll was on the shelf.”
Cameron was staring at him, waiting for Boyd to respond.
What the hell was he supposed to say? That he’d had the flat searched again, even had Susan go over it forensically. That she’d been adamant no one had set foot in it for months. That this girl the DI kept going on about didn’t exist, except in his imagination.
Pity engulfed Boyd. Thirty-five years of service, on the point of retirement and the old man had lost it.
Cameron wandered down the Royal Mile, silent and deserted in the dark hours before dawn. It was the time he liked best. The right time to say goodbye. Without people, cars and lights the city felt like his alone.
Boyd had humoured him. Organized a search for the mysterious girl, but apart from the tour guide no one had professed to seeing her. The other occupants of the tenement continued to insist the flat had lain empty for months.
So he’d imagined it all, conjured up a daughter who didn’t exist? Cameron could have accepted that had it not been for the doll.
The rain had come on, beating heavily on his head and shoulders. Cameron was impervious to it, his gaze fastened on the arch leading to Dead Close. The Royal Mile had grown darker under the sudden downpour, the space around him airless, making it difficult to breathe. Cameron leaned against the stone wall, his legs suddenly weak.
He watched as a figure emerged from the archway opposite. The figure turned towards him, the swell of her pregnancy suddenly visible.
“Rebecca?”
The figure turned and for a moment Cameron believed she recognized him. A sob rose in his throat. Then she was off, hurrying up the steep cobbles of the Mile, turning left towards Greyfriars.
Cameron ran like he had never run before, yet always her fleeing figure was the same distance ahead. Fear drove him forward. He knew this time he must catch her up or else lose her forever.
He reached the Greyfriars gate, his breath rasping in his throat, his heart crashing. Ahead, the door of the mausoleum lay open. Cameron slithered across the rain-soaked grass and stood at the crypt door.
“Rebecca?” he called.
The moon broke through the cloud, dropping a faint line of light on the stone casket. Cameron could see nothing but that line of light yet every nerve and fibre of his body told him someone was in there and that they could hear him.
He poured out his heart to the darkness and shadows. He loved her. He should never have left her alone that night. He should never have stopped searching.
He fell silent as a figure stepped from behind the casket. Cameron called out Rebecca’s name, but the woman wasn’t looking at him but at someone else.
The shadow of a male loomed against the wall, then took form. Words were exchanged between them. Words that Cameron did not understand. His own voice was silenced, his body frozen in time.
The woman screamed and launched herself at the man. Cameron heard a grunt of surprise then saw him crumple and fall. Blood pooled at Cameron’s feet. He looked round in vain for its source, for there was no longer anyone there but him.
Boyd steeled himself and went inside the flat. Packing cases were stacked neatly in the hallway, each one with its contents detailed on the side. Two fishing rods stood upright in the corner.
He hesitated before pushing open the sitting room door. The place was empty. Boyd chose the kitchen next. He had been in this room many times. It was where the DI liked to sit. From the window, the castle stood resolute against the sky. Cameron’s tin box sat open on the table, a part-assembled fishing fly nearby.
Boyd listened outside the bedroom door. Maybe the old man was fast asleep? Praying wasn’t something Boyd did, but he made an exception as he pushed open that door.
Cameron was lying fully clothed on top of the bed. For a moment Boyd thought he was sleeping. The Edinburgh book lay open on his chest. The doll he’d pestered Boyd about sat in the crook of his arm. Blood running from his nostrils, eyes and ears had caked on his face and neck.
The book was just one of many that told the story of Edinburgh’s haunted places. Most of the stories were invented. This one was no different. Boyd read the passage the boss had circled.
The mausoleum is haunted by the ghost of the man responsible for quarantining Dead Close. He was killed by the mother of a child he’d walled in to die. The authorities executed the woman and she was buried in a mass grave with other plague victims. Visitors have reported seeing a pool of blood on the floor of the Mausoleum and hearing the woman scream.
Boyd closed the book and slipped it in a drawer of his filing cabinet. Whatever it said, he didn’t believe in ghosts.
Blood, on the other hand, was real.
They’d had no luck trying to find the person who’d bled in the crypt. As for the boss’s contribution — that was the warning they’d all missed.