Absolution Read online

  Absolution

  Absolution

  CARO RAMSAY

  MICHAEL JOSEPH

  an imprint of

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  MICHAEL JOSEPH

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published 2007

  1

  Copyright © Caro Ramsay, 2007

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright

  reserved above, no part of this publication may be

  reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,

  or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,

  photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior

  written permission of both the copyright owner and

  the above publisher of this book

  978-0-14-191885-3

  To Jessie Ramsay

  Born 1904

  You can tell a Sheffield lass,

  You just cannot tell her much.

  White.

  Nothing but white.

  No sense. No awareness. Only white.

  Nothing.

  Then breathing.

  Rhythmic breathing.

  Nothing more than the ebb and flow of life.

  She slept.

  Pain picked at her as she emerged slowly from the depths. Her hands were strapped to her sides, and she could feel bindings cutting into her wrists. The pain in her face – cracking, burning – was unbearable.

  Thirsty. She was thirsty.

  She tried to lick her lips, but her tongue was swollen, and as immobile as leather. Something rigid filled her mouth; she could taste chloroform and rotten meat. She sensed her face was covered, her mouth and nose blocked. Panic rose until she could not breathe, and she tried to roll her shoulders to break free. Deep-seated agony skewered her stomach, and she lay still, thinking she might die if she moved again.

  A voice, indistinct, insistent, was repeating words over and over.

  There was a distant memory… Somewhere… too far away to be recalled…

  She felt a prick in her forearm and sank down deep into the dark once more.

  PC Alan McAlpine climbed the concrete stairs to the DCI’s office, past the rusty filing cabinet that had been stuck on the first-floor landing for two years. The yucca that crowned it, never a vital specimen at the best of times, had died in his absence.

  ‘Alan?’

  He hadn’t noticed DI Forsythe pass him on the stairs, and turned at the sound of his voice.

  ‘Good to see you, McAlpine. How are you? We weren’t expecting you back for a while yet.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said bluntly.

  ‘Sorry to hear about your brother – Bobby, was it?’

  ‘Robbie,’ answered McAlpine mechanically.

  ‘No matter how heroic he was, it’s still a terrible accident.’

  McAlpine’s only response was a casual shrug of thin shoulders.

  ‘How is your dad coping?’ Forsythe persisted.

  McAlpine flicked his eyes up the stairs, wanting to get away. ‘He’s as you’d expect.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  McAlpine looked past him to a powdery, white patch of damp plaster. An image of his mother screaming burned into his consciousness, sobs racking her emaciated body so violently he heard her rib crack, as loud as rifle-fire. The doctor holding up the syringe, tapping it to draw clear fluid into the plastic chamber, putting his knee on her chest to hold her still as he exposed bare wasted flesh to the needle…

  He glanced at his watch. ‘My mother’s fine,’ he said flatly.

  Forsythe tapped him on the arm, a touch, nothing more. ‘If there’s anything I can do, just let me know. We’ve missed you in the office.’

  McAlpine nodded up towards the DCI’s office. ‘Do you know what he wants me for? Graham?’

  ‘DCI Graham to you,’ corrected Forsythe. ‘There was an acid attack on Highburgh Road, about two weeks ago, the 26th.’

  ‘I know. So?’

  ‘Surveillance at the Western, a watching brief. The lassie got it right in the face, very nasty. She’s been in a coma until now, but there are signs of recovery. The minute she talks, we want somebody there.’

  ‘So I’m bloody babysitting.’

  ‘Think of it as a gradual return to work. You start tomorrow, day shift for now. All those pretty nurses in black stockings, they’ll be all over a handsome wee laddie like yourself,’ Forsythe chuckled. ‘Gives a new meaning to getting back into uniform.’

  On the twelfth day she woke. She lay not moving, and knowing she could not move, her face dry and crusty, so tight she could feel it crack. Something had happened, something so painful, she couldn’t remember. And something else had happened – something wonderful…

  Her brain gently probed each of her senses.

  Her eyes were covered; she had a feeling of daylight from somewhere, yet all she could sense from her eyes was cold emptiness, a void where something warm and comforting used to be.

  Her ears were full of fog, but she could hear somebody trying to move around and not cause disturbance, the flick of newspaper pages, swing doors opening and closing, soft bleeps and pings, the constant low hum of fluorescent lights, whispers…

  She couldn’t breathe through her nose, but she could still smell burned flesh, and fresh air tinged with the tart smell of anaesthetic.

  There was a tube in her mouth. Something was keeping her breathing, wafting air in and out of her lungs, pain on the breath in and pain on the breath out, a peaceful calm in between.

  She sensed somebody, someone else breathing, their face close to hers, a touch on her arm. She couldn’t tell them she was awake. She wasn’t sure she wanted them to know…

  PC Alan McAlpine was bored, more bored than he’d have thought possible while still breathing, and he’d only been on duty for ten minutes.

  Glasgow, July, and midday on the hottest day of the year. The sun streamed in through the high Victorian windows of the Western Infirmary to highlight the dancing dust motes. It was his own fault. He’d told DCI Graham he’d rather be back at work than sitting at home watching dust settle.

  And here he was, back at work – and watching dust settle. On a Saturday.

  The cheap plastic seat was making his bum numb and his brain wasn’t far behind. Five minutes finished the Daily Record quick crossword. He made a start on the Herald’s wee stinker and got stuck at five down. He started doodling ampersands in the margin, waiting for inspiration.

  Nobody spoke to him. He was invisible – though he’d been smiled at a few times by a slim red-headed nurse, her light blue cotton skirt swinging as she pass
ed. Her shoes squeaked annoyingly on the lino, leaving a little trail of marks.

  She had fat ankles, ugly feet. His interest died.

  His glance kept returning to the clock, the jerky long black hand showing how slowly time moves for the living.

  He thought he’d better phone home and find out how his mum was doing. Not that he really wanted to be told.

  When she woke for the third time, they were close by, waiting for her to come round. A voice spoke – a man’s – low, monotone. She picked up the words ‘baby’, ‘daughter’, ‘doing fine’…

  She heard a scream, a strangled cry that rose to a howl; felt skin rip from the roof of her mouth, blood swamp her throat The tide of air stopped. She choked.

  The ventilator tube was abruptly removed, and something else was thrust into her mouth, something that gurgled and bubbled as it sucked the blood out.

  A hand patted her as if comforting a frightened horse. Another voice –female – spoke kindly as the needle went in, and she felt herself floating again…

  A baby. A daughter.

  Their daughter.

  They had almost made it…

  PC McAlpine was staring into space. The smell of disinfectant reminded him of the morgue. The blue lino, great stretches of it as far as the eye could see, made him think of water, of somebody screaming and Robbie jumping into the darkness. Robbie having the breath crushed from him as the water enveloped him – screaming and more screaming. The blue hardened through his half-shut eyes, revealing itself as lino again.

  He jerked fully awake when he realized the screaming was real, then felt a little foolish when he remembered where he was. The summary file of her admission had fallen on to the floor. Its contents, a single sheet of A4 paper, had floated out.

  That piece of paper – the only key he had to her previous life. The file at the station was suspiciously thin. Ten badly typed pages, the sole result of days of police inquiries, had told him a grand total of nothing. A search of her bedsit had apparently thrown up nothing untoward. He decided to go and have a look for himself. The girl, early twenties, had been admitted, minus a handbag, a driving licence, a credit card. The only eyewitness statement said that a woman had walked out of a house; that a white car, maybe a taxi, had pulled up. The witness had not connected the car to the woman at all; the first thing she knew was when the car pulled into the traffic and she noticed the woman – ‘youngish, blonde, slim but very pregnant’ – lying on the pavement. Six thirty on a bright summer Sunday evening in Partickhill. Nobody else saw anything.

  McAlpine started to rub his temples, and something that had been curled in his subconscious began to flex and stretch. Why had she not screamed? Why had she not ducked or…? And who was she? Where was her paper trail – National Insurance, mortgage, wages, tax? She had nothing. She had swept away every trace of her existence as she moved. So she had something to hide. And she was clever. Skilful.

  He tensed in his chair, one ankle flexing rapidly up and down as his mind raced. He could feel a tingle of excitement: this was no longer a surveillance job; this was an intellectual pursuit. But who had she been hiding from? Who had tracked her down? And how? It suddenly dawned on him that DCI Graham had guessed there was more to this story and had rostered his star pupil, knowing he would rise to the bait. McAlpine smiled to himself.

  Well, two could play at that game.

  And DCI Graham would come second.

  The redhead emerged from the room, dressed now in a white uniform, her shoes still squeaking. McAlpine looked past her through the door, catching a glimpse of a slim, tanned foot lying on a sheet, and was shocked. He hadn’t expected the victim to be so young, so fragile. The foot framed itself perfectly in his mind, clear as a photograph, before the door closed.

  ∗

  The fourth time she woke, the squeaky shoes came close almost immediately. ‘Lust relax now, sweetheart.’ Cold liquid dripped into the corner of her mouth, rolling sweetly over raw skin. She raised her head for more, feeling the skin round her lips crack, saw a shadow hover over her, then recede. ‘Second time she’s done that today.’

  ‘It’s been a fortnight but that’s her oxygen stabilizing at last.’ The tube in her mouth twitched, the voice receded. Then returned, louder. ‘Your daughter’s doing fine, the wee darlin’. She’s along in the baby unit for now – we’ll bring her in to you in a wee while –’

  A harder voice, interrupting from the door. ‘What do those police expect?’

  ‘To question her, I suppose. She didn’t do this to herself.’

  ‘How’s she going to tell them anything, the state she’s in?’

  The softer voice remained with her, droning on, confusing her. It was like a badly edited film: she was watching herself from a distance, closing the door, coming down the stairs carrying her bag, then clutching the handrail outside the door as a contraction hit her.

  And?

  On the street, falling…

  Her skin on fire, her eyelids burned through, the pain in her eyes, the world going dark.

  Then nothing.

  The red-headed nurse squeaked along the corridor, a cup of tea in her outstretched hand. PC McAlpine took it, knocking her hand slightly, spilling a wave of tea down her white uniform.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, getting to his feet. He smiled: he knew how to use his charm. ‘Have there been any phone calls about her? Anybody asking after her? Any visitors? Anything?’

  ‘No. No one. The hospital chaplain came immediately, and his assistant’s been in a few times to see her and the baby. Just doing the usual. Apart from that, nothing.’

  ‘So who is she? Any ideas?’

  ‘Is that not what you’re supposed to find out?’ She raised a saucy eyebrow.

  ‘You must have some idea.’ He smiled again.

  ‘She has no face,’ replied the nurse, all sauciness gone, and McAlpine’s smile faded.

  ‘And when she was admitted? Was there nothing on her, no wee bit of paper with a phone number, a contact-in-the-event-of-an-emergency?’ He gave her the full benefit of his charm.

  ‘I was on when she was admitted, and she had an overnight bag, that’s all. There was nothing that said anything about her.’ She began to sense his frustration. ‘Honestly.’

  ‘But has she a name?’

  ‘We gave her a number. She was in labour when they brought her in, so we did an emergency section, just past midnight. It was a wee girl. We’ve put her in with her just now.’

  He sat back down, anger burning inside him, knocked the cup of tea down his throat and handed it back to the nurse.

  Pregnant? Acid in her face? He shuddered at the cruelty of it.

  With the warmth of morphine in her veins, she imagined the pain waving to her as it went, floating away on a sea of blood. It left her senses so sharp she could hear water gurgle in the pipes next door, could distinguish between the different phones at the end of the corridor. She could hear the policeman outside, stirring a cup of tea, the spoon tapping against the side of the cup. She could hear her daughter, breathing beside her…

  In… out… in… out….

  She could listen to that for ever.

  They were talking about one of the policemen outside. ‘He’s lovely, isn’t he, even though he’s so short? Kind of bite-sized? Huge kind brown eyes, like pools of–’

  ‘Sewage?’ the older voice suggested. ‘He’s not a Labrador. ’

  ‘He doesn’t have a girlfriend, you know.’ There was a slight giggle. ‘I bet I get a date with him before the end of the week.’

  ‘Too good-looking for his own good, that one,’ the other voice warned. ‘It’ll be tears before bedtime.’

  She heard the creak of the door opening, a bump as it closed, then silence. She tried to imagine his face, a noble handsome face, eyes of burnt umber, hair the colour of sun on mahogany, and tried to give him a smile before he faded away to a cloud of morphine.

  It was quiet in the hospital in the hour of the dead, tha
t slow hour between 2 and 3 a.m. It reminded McAlpine of the night shift at the station. The clock clicked round, its tick ominously loud in the silence of the corridor, and music floated through from the IC station, where a nurse had a radio on quietly. He’d been sitting here, on and off, for the best part of four days. For something to do, he got up and went to the coffee machine down the landing.

  The door of IC 2/3 opened; the red-headed nurse and the older one came out and returned to the station.

  McAlpine also walked to the station, where he sat and sipped the vile coffee, deep in thought. He knew there was something nagging at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t quite touch it. He crushed the cup in his hand and chucked it in the bin. He heard a noise, a faint squeak. The door of IC 2/3 had been left open, and it moved slightly to and fro in the draught.

  He looked up and down the corridor. Nobody was paying the slightest attention to him. The older nurse was on the phone, and the redhead was looking at her knee, picking something from the skin.

  He got up, placed his hand on the steel handle of the door.

  The room was a tomb of dark silence. He looked round, giving his eyes time to adjust. He had a vague sense of freshness, the smell of sea salt, not the stale air of his mother’s room. In the dull light he saw the incubator in the corner, empty, the white cellular blanket rumpled at the bottom. They must have taken the baby away for a wee while, to do whatever nurses do to babies.

  She was lying in state. She could have been in a sarcophagus, the only movement the slight rise and fall of her stomach as the ventilator hissed and sighed life into her. He was unable to pull his eyes away, transfixed by the gauze that covered her face, her death mask, tantalizingly opaque, lines of blood beneath it like butterflies trapped in a web. He knew she was beautiful.

  He stood back and took a deep breath.

  He crossed himself.

  Her feet looked cold in the blue light. He picked up each foot delicately by the heel and smoothed the white cotton underneath. Fine delicate feet with long elegant toes, a dancer’s feet, fragile and cold under his hands. Chilled. His finger traced the length of a vein on her instep, then caressed a little flaw round the base of her toe, a perfect white smile of a scar.