Summoning the Dead: A gripping and spine-tingling thriller you'll find impossible to put down Read online

  ‘That sounds like denial to me. Aren’t you getting dangerously close to burying your head in the sand?’

  He paused. ‘Maybe you’re right. I’ll think about it.’

  ‘OK, but don’t come crying to me when you’re toppled over with stomach pain again, or worse, maybe headaches from a victim of a shotgun blast!’ McCormack kicked her bag into the footwell.

  As Valentine started the engine the radio came to life. The voice of Jim Prentice on the control desk sounded stressed, directing officers to a rural location.

  ‘I know that place,’ said Valentine.

  ‘Sounds like a farm.’

  ‘That’s exactly what it is. Ardinsh Farm – it’s out Cumnock way.’

  ‘They’re talking about getting the SOCOs – must be a new crime scene.’

  Valentine reached for the radio and spoke into the mouthpiece. ‘Jim, it’s Bob Valentine. What’s the story with Ardinsh Farm?’

  There was a gap on the line and then the desk sergeant replied, ‘If you stayed away from that Krispy Kreme in Braehead you might be able to hear what’s going over the radio, Bob.’

  ‘You’ve spoiled the surprise. I have a dirty big doughnut sitting here for you.’

  ‘Lovely. I might even get a chance to eat it before midnight.’

  ‘So what’s all the commotion?’

  ‘Excavator driver’s turned up an oil drum in one of the fields. Looks like an old corpse inside.’

  ‘Old? How old?’

  ‘Put it this way, it could pass for a pharaoh.’

  Valentine altered his tone. ‘No more jokes, Jim, please.’

  ‘Who’s joking? The corpse is mummified.’

  2

  As he replaced the radio receiver, Valentine gazed straight ahead. For a moment he said nothing, then exhaling loudly and pressing his back into the driver’s seat, he turned to DS McCormack.

  ‘Well, this could be a bit awkward.’

  ‘What do you mean, sir?’

  ‘Ardinsh Farm is – I mean was – Sandy Thompson’s place. It was in the family for generations.’

  ‘And why’s that awkward for us?’

  ‘Sandy’s dead.’

  ‘Oh . . .’

  ‘No, I mean he’s just died. I’m sure it’s his funeral today.’

  ‘And how do you know this?’

  ‘Cumnock’s a small town. I grew up there, remember.’ McCormack’s expression said she still needed convincing. ‘And my father’s going to Sandy’s funeral . . . I’m bloody sure it’s today. He was at the old spit and polish routine on his shoes when I left this morning.’

  ‘Right, I see why that might be awkward for the ones left behind, trying to grieve.’

  ‘No, it’s not that . . . Look, we need to get going.’

  Valentine put the car into gear and eased up the clutch. As the Vectra met the main road he was already deep in thought. By the M77 the detective wore a troubled expression that meant his mind was absorbed in the possibilities of another murder investigation on Ayrshire soil.

  It hadn’t always been like this. Ayr had been a bustling market town as long as he could remember, but somewhere along the way it had changed. It seemed more like a small city than the town he had spent most of his career in. It seemed, too, to have inherited all the social ills and associated problems of its larger counterparts in Scotland’s central belt.

  His own stabbing, in no less a target than the heart, had come as a shock to the local force. His subsequent death on an emergency-room operating table, and then his revival with the help of more than fifty pints of blood, had been the talk of King Street station for months. No one quite knew how to process a senior officer being attacked by a drug dealer in this way; there were some in uniform who still treated him like a sort of hero. But Valentine knew it was no badge of honour. The scar – thick as a man’s index finger – down his chest was not something he regarded with any degree of pride.

  He was lucky to come home after that night, as his wife was fond of reminding him every time the job got too arduous – or dangerous. Clare wouldn’t welcome the fact that he was starting on another murder investigation; neither would his two daughters. But this was his job; he knew nothing else, could do nothing else. The job was all he had known for the whole of his adult life, and perhaps even before.

  As Valentine’s car reached the outskirts of Cumnock, it didn’t feel like coming home – he could never quite call the place where he was raised home. This was the town where he watched his father battle on the picket lines with police waving fivers at the striking, starving miners. They’d burnt out their cars, the police, and no one travelled alone fearing reprisals for the never-ending violence. It was a war zone then, and for a time in his youth it was the distorted prism through which he viewed the entire world.

  He knew he wanted to be a cop in those early years in Cumnock. Not because he idolised the police, or harboured the types of beliefs he read about in Batman comics, but because he wanted to live somewhere better. Valentine wanted to live in a world where people didn’t behave like animals and brutes; he wanted to weed those out. He was a hunter, of sorts, only he didn’t know that then.

  ‘Is it far now?’ said DS McCormack.

  The sound of a human voice startled Valentine, broke his reverie and forced him to rewire his thinking to find a response. ‘Erm, no, not far now at all.’

  ‘What about the funeral, where’s that being held?’

  ‘I’m guessing it’ll probably be in the town. I can’t see it going farther afield. Sandy was on his own at the end.’

  ‘And what type of a man was he?’ McCormack managed to make her voice sound businesslike.

  ‘He was a farmer, Sylvia. What does that say about him?’

  ‘I just meant . . .’

  The DI cut in. ‘I know what you meant. He wasn’t known to police, to use the common parlance. I didn’t know him personally. We’d have nodded at each other in the Spar, y’know, but that was about it.’

  ‘Nothing to indicate he might be involved in this sort of thing then?’

  ‘What sort of thing? We haven’t even reached the scene yet.’

  ‘We know there’s a body.’

  ‘We know it’s mummified too, if Jim’s to be relied upon. But no, I wouldn’t think Sandy Thompson knew much about the dark arts of ancient Egypt. Probably couldn’t find the place on a map.’

  ‘People bury things in the country, under the cover of darkness – might be nothing to do with him even though it’s on his land.’

  Valentine started to slow the car. ‘Yes, in the absence of soon-to-be-cemented motorway flyovers, a nice secluded country spot seems to suit your average murderer with a corpse to dispose of quite nicely.’

  The DI brought the car to a halt behind a white police Audi with no one inside. As the detectives got out of the Vectra and peered over the top of a drystone dyke Valentine pointed to the white tent, surrounded by white-suited figures and uniformed officers. ‘Ally and Phil must be inside,’ said Valentine.

  ‘Must be, sir.’

  The DI tried to open a gate that separated the road from the field, but it wouldn’t budge. ‘It’s locked. We’ll just have to shimmy over it.’

  ‘I can shimmy well enough, boss.’

  In the long, wet grass of the field the officers trudged towards the tent. The ground was hard-packed but remained beset by occasional squelchy patches underfoot.

  DS McCormack was the first to break the silence. ‘I’m thinking, if Sandy Thompson just died, then how did the farm get sold off so quickly?’

  ‘Good question. Sandy would never sell whilst he was alive . . . and I heard of a few offers.’

  ‘So there must be family.’

  ‘No, there’s not. His wife died years ago, 1980 or something. They never had any kids except for the boy they took in, Garry.’

  ‘Was he adopted?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He was fostered for a bit from the boy’s home, Columba House. Look, you can s
ee it over there.’ Valentine raised his arm and extended a finger towards a large grey building on the edge of the low-lying moorland. It looked like it might once have been a hunting lodge but had fallen into disrepair. Large damp patches were exposed beneath the breaks in the seventies roughcasting, some windows had been boarded up and those that hadn’t been covered were smashed or cracked.

  ‘What a creepy old building.’

  ‘It was a very strange place. I remember the boys they had there said they were from broken homes. I don’t suppose that’s a phrase we use nowadays.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound very PC.’

  Valentine smirked. ‘I suppose not. They were all quiet kids when they came to the school. Silent some of them, like they were living in terror of authority. In the playground they were totally different – rough as bloody guts they were.’

  DS McCormack stopped still. ‘So this Garry, he must have copped for the lot.’

  ‘The farm? I doubt it. I’m not sure he was that integrated into the Thompson family. He worked the farm for a few years after Sandy went downhill, but it never lasted. I wouldn’t be surprised if the old boy had sold it on the fly to some profiteer on the basis that once he’d popped his clogs they can bring in the bulldozers.’

  ‘You know how that sounds, boss?’ McCormack hadn’t started to walk again.

  ‘I do.’ Valentine halted, turning round to face the DS. ‘I do, Sylvia. It sounds like we might need to consider doing a post-mortem on Sandy Thompson, but I’m not keen to march into his funeral today and tell them we’re putting the anchors on their wee ceremony, are you?’

  ‘Not really, sir.’

  ‘So let’s see where we are.’ He indicated the white tent. ‘Or more accurately, where Ally and Phil have got to. With any luck there’s a sound explanation for why the contractors are so keen to get started that they couldn’t wait until the day after Sandy’s funeral.’

  3

  The closer they got to the white tent which had been erected by the SOCOs, the louder the stray canvas straps flapping in the wind sounded. There was a full-height doorway in the tent, a long roll of canvas attached with straps at the top where the noise came from, and inside hung a fly screen. The screen seemed wholly unnecessary to Valentine in this weather, unless its purpose was to keep out the incessant drizzle.

  The detectives reached the opening and peered inside. It was Valentine who noticed Chief Superintendent Marion Martin first, but it was McCormack who commented.

  ‘The super’s here.’

  ‘What’s she playing at now?’

  McCormack straightened herself, leaned back from the flapping tent. ‘You know Dino, boss.’ The remark was supposed to be sufficiently vague as to attest to the CS’s niggling manner.

  ‘She’ll be playing the hands-on card. I can’t stand it when she’s like that – everything takes twice as long to get done.’

  ‘And logic goes out the window.’

  ‘You noticed that too?’

  ‘I noticed that she tends to focus on the end rather than the means.’

  ‘You’re being too polite. What you mean to say is she wants results without graft, wants her crime stats to be the top consideration. Well, it doesn’t work like that, Sylvia.’

  ‘No need to preach to the choir, boss.’

  DI Valentine removed his hands from his coat pockets and turned to face the tent. He prised the Velcro fastening free and forced his way through the new opening. DS McAlister was the first to acknowledge the officers.

  ‘Hello, boss,’ said Ally, breaking off his gaze to direct a nod in McCormack’s direction. He handed the officers two boxes, one with latex gloves protruding from the top and the other blue shoe covers. They mechanically snapped out the contents and put them in place.

  ‘What have you got for us, Ally?’ said Valentine.

  Before the DS had a chance to answer, the chief super opened into a yell. ‘Bob, over here!’

  Valentine exchanged glances with McAlister, who was already raising his eyebrows towards the tent’s roof.

  As he approached the CS, Valentine took in the scene. It was cramped in the tent; even with only two more officers arriving the place was now being negotiated in shuffles and halted steps. Two SOCOs, dressed head to toe in white, were peering over the edge of an excavation hole in the ground. There appeared to be a large object inside but it was too dark beneath the canvas to see clearly what it might be. The closer he got to the hole, the stronger the stench became. It was an unusual smell, not like the decaying flesh he associated with crime scenes – far mustier, almost spicy; one his late mother would have called fusty.

  ‘Well, what’s the story with the Thin Man?’ said CS Martin.

  Valentine was a little taken aback by the query, until it registered who was making it. ‘Case closed as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘Oh, shit . . . natural causes?’

  The DI wasn’t sure how to take Martin’s remark. Was she seriously disappointed that another human being hadn’t met their end in a suspicious manner? Because the alternative was that she was favouring murder.

  ‘Cancer – he was riddled with it.’

  ‘Can we ID him now?’

  ‘No. We haven’t a clue who he is. He’s not from the British Isles if the clothes and reports of his accent are anything to go by. I wouldn’t expect a result there either. He clearly didn’t want to be found; must have had his reasons.’

  ‘Yes, well, we have our reasons for wanting to identify him.’

  Valentine knew just what those reasons were, as far as the chief super was concerned. She wanted to see her force on the television again; she wanted the plaudits for solving the case that had attracted the public’s attention in such an unprecedented way. It was capitalising on the publicity the case had generated in the most obvious manner.

  ‘You know as well as I do that some cases are simply not solvable.’

  ‘We have enough cold cases piled up in that basement to sink a battleship, Bob.’

  ‘One more unsolved mystery won’t make any difference then. Look, can we move on? If you want the proof that crime never sleeps . . .’ He waved a hand in the direction of the ground.

  CS Martin inwardly fumed. ‘It’s the body of a minor.’

  ‘We’re in Cumnock, be careful with your pronunciation.’

  ‘Not that type of miner – though this one did come out the ground.’

  Valentine scanned the scene quickly. ‘I take it the doc has been and gone in his usual hyper-efficient manner?’

  ‘To be fair to him, he didn’t have to do much more than glance inside the oil drum.’

  Valentine crouched down towards the hole. He could see the rim of the steel barrel protruding above the earth; long scraping streaks, like teeth marks, had exposed the metal. A steel lid that had obviously once been attached lay at the foot of the drum. Valentine eyed the excavator tracks that sat either side of the hole and assessed that a protruding arm from the digger outside had caused the damage.

  As he got closer to the hole, he leaned on the rim of the drum and peered inside.

  ‘Here,’ said CS Martin. ‘You’ll need this.’ She handed him a thin pen torch.

  Valentine shone the torch’s beam into the barrel and flinched. A screaming pain entered the base of his skull and nausea washed over him. He thought he might vomit, but he steadied his grip on the rim of the drum and continued.

  In the light’s beam he could see two small hands, bony and black, like they were covered in leather. The hands were cable-tied and rested on the crown of a small head, too small to be a man’s. The figure looked to be in prayer.

  Valentine spoke: ‘Ally, was that the fiscal depute I saw out there?’

  ‘Yes, boss. He was a bit, how can I put it? Shaken up, even for Colin Scott.’

  The DI rose. ‘I can’t fault a man for that. Jim Prentice wasn’t kidding when he said the corpse was mummified.’

  ‘Horrific, isn’t it?’ said CS Martin.

 
‘I’ve never seen anything like it in my entire career. Those hands . . . you can still see the flesh. It’s like they’ve been frozen that way since the time of death.’

  ‘The drum was sealed, sir,’ said Ally. ‘The doc reckoned all the moisture had been locked out, effectively preserving the contents.’

  Valentine faced the team. He was pulling the latex gloves from his hands when he spoke. ‘Right, if the fiscal and the medic have seen this then I want the barrel removed from the ground and the contents examined.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Ally.

  ‘I want this forensic team doubled and the contents photographed and catalogued within the hour. Phil, get on to Wrighty. I want him to look at this today – no excuses – and if it’s not his thing, then he gets someone in – today!’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘We have a dead child, and a crime scene that has been remarkably well kept for us. If we can’t get a jump on this case through the boffins, then I don’t know when they’ll ever be of use to us.’ Valentine rubbed the back of his head; the dull pain had become an ache now.

  ‘Boss, what about door to door?’ said DS Donnelly. ‘There’s a farmhouse up there, I saw a for-sale sign, but . . .’

  The DI cut in. ‘No. Leave that for now. Any witnesses and suspects are likely to be long gone, or in need of very good memories. Did the doc say how long he’d been in there?’

  ‘No, though he did say at least twenty-five years.’

  ‘That’s what I was worried about. Hopefully there’ll be some more evidence in the barrel. If it’s preserved as well as the corpse then we might be lucky and find the poor lad’s bus pass or dinner ticket. Get it all looked at. And, Phil, don’t be a stranger to the phone. I want calls with every step of the way.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘Do we know who owns the property?’

  DS Donnelly removed a sheaf of paper from beneath his clipboard. ‘The site manager gave me this.’

  Valentine took the sheet of A4. ‘Blairgowan Construction. They’re not local.’

  ‘No, Glasgow, sir. And they’ve been about as helpful and accommodating as you’d expect them to be.’