Career of Evil

She was naked, tied by one wrist to the headboard, partially covered by a heavily bloodstained sheet. The baby lay beside her on the mattress, wearing only a nappy. Strike could see that it looked shrunken, unhealthy.

As he bounded across the room to free her, his other hand already scrambling for the mobile to call an ambulance, she spoke in a cracked voice:

“No... go away... get out...”

Strike had rarely seen terror like it. In his inhumanity, her husband had come to seem almost supernatural. Even as Strike worked to release her wrist, which was bloody and swollen, she begged him to leave her there. Laing had told her that he would kill her if the baby was not happier when he returned. She did not seem able to conceive of a future where Laing was not omnipotent.

Donald Laing had been sentenced to sixteen years’ imprisonment for what he had done to his wife, and Strike’s evidence had put him away. To the last, Laing had denied everything, saying that his wife had tied herself up, that she liked it, that she was kinky that way, that she had neglected the baby, that she had tried to frame him, that it was all a put-up job.

The memories were as filthy as any he had. Strange to relive them while the Mini moved past sweeping slopes of green, sparkling in the strengthening sun. This scenery was of a kind that was not familiar to Strike. The sweeping masses of granite, these rolling hills, had an alien grandeur in their bareness, in their calm spaciousness. He had spent much of his childhood perched on the coast, with the taste of salt in the air: this was a place of woodland and river, mysterious and secretive in a different way from St. Mawes, the little town with its long smuggling history, where colorful houses tumbled down to the beach.

As he passed a spectacular viaduct to his right, he thought about psychopaths, and how they were to be found everywhere, not only in run-down tenements and slums and squats, but even here, in this place of serene beauty. The likes of Laing resembled rats: you knew they were there, but you never gave them much thought until you came face to face with one.

A pair of miniature stone castles stood sentinel on either side of the road. As Strike drove into Donald Laing’s hometown, the sun broke through, dazzlingly bright.

16

So grab your rose and ringside seat,

We’re back home at Conry’s bar.

                         Blue Öyster Cult, “Before the Kiss”

Behind the glass door of a shop on the high street hung a tea towel. It was decorated with black line drawings of local landmarks, but what attracted Strike’s attention were a number of stylized yellow roses exactly like the tattoo he remembered on Donald Laing’s powerful forearm. He paused to read the verse in the middle:

It’s oor ain toon
It’s the best toon
That ever there be:
Here’s tae Melrose,
Gem o’ Scotland,
The toon o’ the free.

He had deposited the Mini in a car park beside the abbey, with its dark red arches rising against a pale blue sky. Beyond, to the south-east, was the triple peak of Eildon Hill, which Strike had noted on the map and which added drama and distinction to the skyline. After a bacon roll purchased at a nearby coffee shop and eaten at an outside table, followed by a cigarette and his second strong tea of the day, Strike had set out on foot in search of the Wynd, the home address Laing had given sixteen years previously when he joined the army and which Strike was not entirely sure how to pronounce. Was it “wind” as in breeze, or “wind” as in clock?

The small town looked prosperous in the sunshine as Strike strolled up the sloping high street to the central square, where a unicorn-topped pillar stood in a basin of flowers. A round stone in the pavement bore the town’s old Roman name, Trimontium, which Strike knew must refer to the triple-peaked hill nearby.

He seemed to have missed the Wynd, which according to the map on his phone led off the high street. He doubled back and found a narrow entrance in the walls to his right, only large enough for a pedestrian, which led to a dim inner courtyard. Laing’s old family home had a bright blue front door and was reached by a short flight of steps.

Strike’s knock was answered almost at once by a pretty, dark-haired woman far too young to be Laing’s mother. When Strike explained his mission, she responded in a soft accent he found attractive:

“Mrs. Laing? She’s no been here for ten years or more.”

Before his spirits had time to sink, she added:

“She stays up in Dingleton Road.”

“Dingleton Road? Is that far?”

“Just up the way.” She pointed behind her, to the right. “I dinnae ken the number, sorry.”

“No problem. Thanks for your help.”