The Night Hunter Read Online Free PDF Page B

The police are impounding the Polo. Don’t worry.’
    The call is ended and I am not sure that I have spoken at all. Grandpa Cop’s expression has changed.
He says, ‘I’m sorry, the name Elvira McCulloch meant nothing to me.’
    ‘But the name Sophie McCulloch does?’
    ‘Of course it does.’ His voice has softened, I can see the granddad now. He smiles at me. ‘I think her photograph is on the wall in the office. A bonnie lassie.’ He puts his radio away without saying
you look nothing like her
.
    ‘I think I should tell you something.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘I recognize that woman.’
    ‘You know her?’ The notebook comes out again.
    ‘I don’t know her, but I was shown a photograph of her. A woman called Lorna Lennox. I’ve had a picture of every woman missing in Glasgow over the last two years put in front of me. That woman went missing on January the fifth.’
    He is looking at me, a suggestion of patronising humour flirting with his lips.
    ‘I am right.’ I add, to make it perfectly clear, ‘Read a bit further down on the MisPer list. There’s a picture of a woman with long dark hair, and someone standing behind her is hugging her.’ I demonstrate. ‘You must have seen the picture. She looks a bit like Ali McGraw.’
    ‘Ali McGraw?’ He nods to himself; that has sparked off a memory in him. He flicks the notebook closed. ‘Did I hear you’re being picked up?’ He stands to one side as a small queue of traffic goes past in convoy, all gawping at the Prius and the body covered in its plastic bag and wondering how the car came to hit a pedestrian out here. I look down the road to where David is sitting in another cop car, his face hidden.
    ‘Eric Mason is coming to get me,’ I say. ‘He works for Alex Parnell.’
    ‘Oh, Eric from the croft up at Succoth?’ he says. ‘The water clock man?’
    So he knows him. ‘We live next door to each other in Glasgow. I need to get my stuff out the car?’
    ‘Of course.’ He walks over with me, his boots scuffing the gravel as he chatters about Eric. He seems to know him well. ‘Better to wait up at my car. Eric can pick you up from there.’ He raises his hand. ‘No doubt we will talk again. You take care now, Miss McCulloch.’
    I watch him walk back to the body and say something to another officer. They lift up the top of the sheet and examine the face. There is a brief discussion then Grandpa Cop stands up, talking animatedly down his phone as he connects the chain of events. My sister is missing, then another missing woman falls from the sky just as I happen to pass. I look at the small bump lying on the ground like a traffic calming device. She has been missing for six months. Lorna’s family will now have closure and resolution. They will move on.
    Their not knowing is over.

SATURDAY, 2 JUNE
    J ust after midnight, I hear a sound reminiscent of a World War Two bomber struggling with a difficult take-off. The echoing roar is quickly followed by pinpricks of headlights through the dark, accompanied by a sudden gust of cold wind. Death must feel like that, a chilled breath of ice.
    Grandpa Cop claps his hands together. ‘It’s getting a bit nippy now. But here’s Eric in that old rust bucket of his. He’ll have you back up at Ardno within twenty minutes. Out the cold, nice brandy for shock.’
    A Land Rover, hazards flashing, is driving on the rocky verge, slowly overtaking two waiting cars. It stops beside me and as the door opens the smell of sheep and damp dog wafts towards me. Eric leans over, says nothing but pulls a filthy blanket from the hammock-like seat. He offers me a troubled smile.
    ‘Make sure that she gets back OK. Miss McCulloch, someone will probably want to talk to you tomorrow. You’ll still be here, won’t you?’
    ‘Yes.’ Can’t think I would be anywhere else.
    Grandpa Cop chats to Eric like they’re old pals. ‘How are things up at the croft? You got enough water to play with?’ He nods up into the hill. So the