Unsolved, p.5
Unsolved, page 5
He leaves the engine running while he gets out to check the mail, sifting through the jumble of circulars and bank statements, extracting a couple of items addressed to him. He throws his letters into the seat behind him and pauses to look back one last time, his hand on the top of the open car door.
He is running, giving up on his marriage when he should stay and fight. But for the first time in years, he is more afraid for himself than his family. He can feel himself sinking, the old dark thoughts returning. If he doesn’t save himself, he is going to drag them under.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ABERDEENSHIRE
The first place he goes is the last place Layla Mackie was seen. Start at the end. He steps from the car and slams the door so it echoes into wild countryside, awed at the vastness of the landscape.
The track is bordered by slumped drystone walls and barbed wire. Yellow gorse prickles beside them, and smallholdings and farms cling to the hillside as if they could be washed off it at any moment. The sky is huge, the sense of space intimidating.
Cal walks the road that leads to the stables. As he passes under the shadow of a wood that is up a steep bank and behind a wall, he can see horses grazing in some of the fields, their coats thick with mud. The owners retired to Spain a few years ago and it is the daughter who runs the place now.
He won’t go there today. First, he needs a sense of what he is dealing with: the possibilities and likelihoods. He needs to know the questions to ask. He also needs to fast-forward through the initial stages of the process. Usually, he would be better prepared. He’s agreed with Sarah that this will be different – less polished, more fly on the wall. He’ll take the listeners along with him from the start. That’s the only way he can get it done.
As he stands gazing across the distance, following a line of pylons with his eyes, Cal returns in his mind to the blank cell-like space where they spoke, he and Dubois. He can almost smell the antiseptic tang of the floor cleaner. Regret for the missed opportunity fills him. The country is delighted Dubois has gone, glorying in his unpleasant end. Cal knows it’s irrational of him, but he still finds it impossible to believe that Dubois was a man on the verge of suicide. The air of mischief, anticipation at revealing to Cal how clever he was in deceiving the experts; the request for chocolate. These aren’t the actions of a man not intending to stick around. Even without those final taunts.
Could someone else have played a part in asphyxiating the killer with his torn bedsheet? The institution claims a mistake with shifts meant usual checks weren’t made in the night, but isn’t that a bit too convenient? Or maybe Cal is deluding himself. People can sink into depression in a moment, can act before they have time to think straight. It happens every day.
Dubois was an outpost on a road for Cal: fame and fortune, or at least a steady income and some recognition. But those final words have turned him into something else, something he is afraid will haunt him forever.
He returns to the road and takes out his recording equipment. Poetic narratives have become his trademark. Where others have a newsy, reportage style, he chooses to flesh out the world, tries to draw his listeners into the places and communities he sees. It surprised listeners at first, probably lost him some hard-bitten crime followers, but he is unapologetic about it – for him the people left behind are everything.
CHAPTER NINE
EPISODE ONE: THE HORSE CAME BACK ALONE
The single-track road that leads to Hightap stables is a lonely place, even in daylight. The walls that border it are generations old – slumped but not tumbledown, each stone placed by hand. They are jacketed in a greeny-blue lichen that looks like it belongs under the ocean. But the shingle beaches of Aberdeen’s coast are twenty miles away, battered by the salty might of the North Sea.
Thirty-five years ago, a chestnut thoroughbred named Ruby charged riderless into the stable yard, her body shaking and blood pouring from a gash to her leg. Her reins were tangled; one stirrup was missing. Stable hands reported a foam of sweat on the mare’s back, her eyes rolling in terror. The clotting blood showed that it had been some time since her injury. It was almost dark.
Searchers walked the road for hours looking for the rider, initially convinced there had been an accident – perhaps a collision with a vehicle, or the horse spooking and throwing her. They pictured the woman lying injured, unable to get to help. As the temperature fell, volunteers returned for blankets, flasks of warm tea, so that when they found her, they would be prepared. But they found no sign of an accident – no tyre tracks, damaged walls or verges. Gradually they extended the search area – she had been gone for hours, could have ridden far into the hills, so they roamed the moorland. As it grew dark, they kept calling her name but no one answered.
The name they were calling was Layla Mackie.
No one has ever answered that call. Throughout the night, volunteers increased from local farms and the hotel where twenty-one-year-old Layla waitressed. In the following days, barns and outbuildings were searched. Nothing has been seen of her since that day. It is as if she vanished into thin air.
In the weeks after her disappearance, suggestions were made that Layla wanted a different life. Her friends from school had moved on, to university, jobs, marriage, but her world had barely changed. It is possible that this influenced the effort put into tracing her. But more than three decades later, Layla’s bank account – into which she had saved £917 – has not been touched. There have been no credible sightings.
Layla’s family believe the answer lies in the community. They believe they know who is responsible. That man still lives there, in the shadow of a lonely mountain. All her parents, Tam and Jean, want now is to find out what happened to their daughter.
This is Finding Justice, and I am your host, Cal Lovett.
CHAPTER TEN
LAYLA, 1986
Layla loves this time in the morning. When she isn’t on breakfast shift at the hotel or too hungover to get out of bed, she drags on her boots and coat and walks through the fields to the stables as early as possible, not stopping to eat first.
Doug, the stable owner, lets her ride in return for the work she puts in. Sometimes she teaches, but patience with hysterical children isn’t her forte, so when she can she volunteers for the mucking out, grooming, filling the hay ricks and checking the water troughs. She isn’t afraid of hard work; the driving rain or snow doesn’t put her off. She knows that’s one of the reasons Doug likes her. On sunny days there is no shortage of help. When the mud is ankle deep and the wind is tearing into the hill, Layla will still be there.
Today the dawn is a line on the horizon, grey clouds moving fast across the lightening sky. There is a bite in the air but it’s not as sharp as the cold winter mornings when the darkness lingers and it feels like she’s the only one left on the planet.
‘Morning.’ Doug is already leading two horses into the bottom field. He will have been out for the last thirty minutes feeding them. ‘Ruby and Joey need doing.’
Layla nods, slips into Ruby’s stall gratefully. The mare shakes her head up and down, anxious to be out. Her breath steams in the cold air. She shoves her nose into the head collar Layla has taken from the hook outside, spooks at the wind as she steps into the yard.
‘Easy girl.’ Layla strokes her soft neck, buries her nose in the horse’s sweet-smelling flank for a moment. ‘Steady.’
Ruby’s hooves clack on the concrete as she follows Layla to the end of the block where Joey, an old faithful of the stables, patiently sticks his head over the door for his head collar and lead rope to be fitted. He walks calmly out when she pulls back the bolts; he would take himself to the field if they let him.
Joey nudges Layla with his nose. She rubs his muzzle affectionately and digs in her pocket for a treat for him while Ruby side steps and angles for her share. Flanked by the pair, one lead rope in each hand, she takes the track to the field, feeling a sense of calm and rightness she only gets in fleeting moments like this one, away from people and life and the sense of purposelessness that has plagued her since school.
An hour later, all the horses are fed and turned out, their stables mucked out and fresh sawdust added to their beds, water buckets refilled. Numb with cold, she follows Doug into the farmhouse kitchen where his wife, Sal, is frying bacon and his daughters are getting ready to walk up the track to catch the school bus.
He holds the door for her and she slides in past him, feeling his breath on her face. It makes something in her stomach flip.
She leaves her muddy boots in the porch, nodding at the girls as she slides across the tiled floor in her socks and sinks into a chair, rubbing at her hands to warm them. One of the collies noses her and she strokes its head then shoves it away so it returns to the range.
‘All right, Layla?’ Sal is never particularly warm to her. ‘Bacon?’
‘Thanks,’ she says, the feeling creeping back into her fingers and the cosy kitchen dissolving her unease. ‘If there’s some going.’
She pours herself a tea from the ever-present pot on the table and takes a piece of toast from the rack, ravenous. During the day the stable hands and riders use the kitchen off the tack room to make themselves hot drinks and microwave food. Access to the main house is a privilege reserved for the most devoted and Layla knows others resent her for it. Sometimes she wonders if Sal resents her too. She is never as easy with Layla as she is with the other helpers.
Sal sets a plate of bacon on the table and Doug sits opposite Layla, passing her a bag of floury rolls so they can make fat sandwiches, dripping with grease and warmth. His feet touch hers under the table, so she bends her legs, draws her toes under her chair. As she squirts ketchup onto her bap, Layla feels Bridget’s eyes on her, glances up and meets her gaze. Bridget’s curiosity slides away quickly, her cheeks flame.
The girl must be thirteen. Layla knows she is jealous of her freedom to stay here for the day with the horses, has heard her begging her parents for the day off before the shows. Bridget has no idea that Layla burns with jealousy at the difference in their lives.
Doug and Sal are strict with both girls, have high expectations of what they can and will achieve. It’s only now she has been spat out at the end of her education with nothing to hope for that Layla sees this is the true gift. Not the freedom and the disinterest that characterised her own parents’ attitude to school. It’s not that they don’t care, she thinks, more that they have never believed that she had it in her to rise to the top.
So she didn’t. She messed around, flirted, smoked and drank her way through her teenage years, enjoying her popularity, not noticing that most of the others had plans and were studying in the background, however much they claimed to be slacking off. In the last couple of years those friends have fallen by the wayside, largely deserting Aberdeen for Glasgow and Edinburgh, meeting new people and forging new lives. When she sees them in their university holidays, she feels more alone and adrift than when they are away.
‘Girls, time to leave.’ Sal points to the clock and Bridget and her younger sister Paula grumble as they slide their feet into boots, pick up bulging schoolbags and pull waterproof jackets on over their blazers. The sun is a phantom in the sky, shrouded by cloud – it doesn’t look like rain. But this is Aberdeenshire, and in half an hour it could be completely different. The changing moods of the weather are the only constant.
‘How long are you here today?’ Doug speaks through a mouthful of bacon sandwich and Sal slaps his arm in admonishment.
Layla finishes her last mouthful before answering.
‘Not on shift until evening.’ She wraps her fingers round the mug of tea, feeling the heat rushing back into her cheeks now she is out of the cold and has eaten. ‘I can stay as long as you need.’
‘I was thinking you could exercise Ruby this morning, then maybe take Dapple for a slow hack – see how that stiff leg is doing.’
Sal looks sharply at him.
‘And who’s going to teach the lessons, like?’
‘Will you not be around?’
Sal gestures at the post-breakfast carnage in the kitchen.
‘Aye, but I have plenty to be getting on with and I wouldn’t mind a ride.’
Layla knows from experience that Sal will not thank her for trying to clear up the kitchen. There’s an invisible line that she’s acutely aware of – she is not family. But she feels the tension in the room, knows it is caused by their differences in opinion on her.
‘I could do one of the lessons,’ she offers. ‘You could take Dapple…’ She doesn’t want to offer the golden task but she feels she has to. ‘Or Ruby.’
‘No. I want Layla to ride Ruby,’ Doug tells Sal. ‘You can take Daps.’ He slaps his hand on the table and pushes back his chair, conversation over. Sal picks up a pile of dishes, carries them to the side and drops them in the sink. The splash they make is the only sound that breaks the uncomfortable silence.
Layla follows Doug to the door with her head down, careful not to look at Sal, feeling the venom in the air as well as the usual thrill of pride.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LAYLA, 1986
Breathless with the rush from stables to shower and out again, Layla wraps the apron strings twice round her waist, glowering at the head chef. He is red in the face, sweating as the orders pile up in front of him, little white slips fluttering in the breeze from the fan, plates sweltering under the heat lamps. The rostered chef is sick and the kitchen porter AWOL. Again.
‘This isn’t my job,’ she protests.
‘It isn’t my fucking job either, but you were here last and if that useless shit hasn’t turned up then someone has to do it. We can’t have the fucking dishes piling up, can we? Stop your whinging and get on with it.’
He dings the bell. ‘Service!’ and one of the other waiting staff scuttles forward.
‘You need to sack the useless fucker,’ she hisses, pulling out pots that have been piled into the vast sinks and picking up lumps of concealed food to allow the plug to unblock. ‘This shouldn’t be my problem.’ She raises her voice. ‘I did my nails, for fuck’s sake.’
‘Can you hear that?’ The chef bellows, holding a sweaty paw to his ear. ‘Can you? That’s the sound of precisely no one giving a shit.’
She grits her teeth, loads as many plates as she can into the tray and slides it into the industrial dishwasher, pulling the lever to lower the top down. She presses a button and immediately the sound of water pounding the dishes fills the nook of the kitchen, shutting out the effing and blinding as Chef vents his anger on the commis chefs. One gets a clip round the ear. He looks like he might cry.
‘Anyway,’ Chef yells during a lull in service, as she gulps water from a pint glass and sets it on a high shelf. ‘It’s your bastard boyfriend who should be here as cover, not me.’
‘He’s not my boyfriend.’
‘I live in the next cottage, I ken what goes on, you wee slapper.’
He’s joking with her, trying to make amends, but Layla feels irritation creep across her skin, doesn’t want to be yoked to Stephen. It’s casual, that’s all. Not exclusive. She wonders what else he hears through the walls. The bruise on her back still hurts when she lies on it.
Two hours later, she is bedraggled; flushed from the relentless steam and grime, irritated by the sympathetic looks from the other waiting staff, none of whom have offered to swap with her. Released for ten minutes, she stands outside the back door to the kitchen, breathing in the smell of the pines and furiously sucking on a long overdue cigarette.
‘All right, lovely Layla.’
She smiles, huffs her fringe out of her face when she sees Glen rounding the corner in the darkness. The barman is rolling an empty keg. She notices the muscles through his white shirt, pouts, wishing she wasn’t so sweaty, so red in the face.
‘They’ve had me washing the pots,’ she whines, enjoying the way he fumbles the crates when she speaks to him.
‘That’s not on,’ he says, his voice soft, and she holds his gaze a beat too long, enjoying the effect it has. He steps closer.
‘Laaayla, coffee!’
Irene’s voice punctures the moment and she rolls her eyes, stubs the cigarette out on the wall and throws the butt at his feet. She touches his arm as she passes.
* * *
‘Wait up.’
Layla pretends not to hear Stephen. She increases her pace on the gravel, crunching quickly to her car, a small packet of leftovers warm in her hands. Chef isn’t always an unreasonable bastard. Sometimes he gives her spare food for her mum and dad. Her mum is always excited to unwrap the parcels. She plates them up like they’re in a restaurant. It makes Layla feel ungrateful and sad, maybe because she sees this food every day, eats it regularly, scrapes it into the slop buckets. It doesn’t seem special to her at all.
‘Layla, wait!’
Stephen has to run to catch her. He grabs her arm tight and whirls her around. She almost falls but he pulls her against his chest.
‘What the fuck, Layla? Why are you ignoring me?’
‘Ow. Get off. I didn’t see you.’
She rubs her arm. He leans down to kiss her, hard. She wriggles, barely concealing the sense of revulsion she feels, annoyance at him rising inside her. Sometimes she gets like this. Doesn’t want to be touched, doesn’t want to talk to anyone.
‘Are you coming to the pub tomorrow?’ His gaze is constant. His arms fix her in place, allow no wiggle room. ‘I haven’t seen you in ages.’
‘You saw me the other night. A lot of me.’
‘Aye, I don’t mean that.’ His hands on her make her hot and uncomfortable so she pulls away. ‘Don’t be like that.’
