Torch by Lin Anderson Page A

She
breathed in. Her throat was clear, her eyes didn’t sting. There was
methane, but it was at a manageable level.
    MacRae’s
footsteps suggested he had headed left. Rhona swung her torch and
headed in the opposite direction.
    Not far along,
another channel met the main sewer. Rhona followed it. The roof
here was lower and she had to keep her head well down, sweeping her
torch in a wide arc in front of her, trying to ignore the excited
squeakings of disturbed rats. Ten yards further, just as she was
deciding to turn back, she spotted a series of long thin blue lines
on the curved brick wall.
    Rhona dropped
to her knees for a closer look.
    Rhona reached
up and caught MacRae’s helping hand out of the manhole. MacFarlane
looked relieved at their reappearance.
    ‘You shouldn’t
have gone down there without breathing apparatus,’ Sev told
her.
    ‘You did,’ she
told him.
    He shrugged.
‘Find anything interesting?’
    ‘Something was
dragged along one of the side sewers that run down to the Nor
loch,’ she told him. ‘I found fresh paint scrapings on the
wall.’
    MacRae looked
thoughtful.
    ‘Scottish Water
don’t know about this opening. It’s not on their plan,’ MacFarlane
said.
    ‘I think we
should find out what’s been dragged along the benching,’ Rhona
insisted.
    MacFarlane
looked puzzled. ‘What’s so special about a scrape of paint?’.
    Rhona looked at
MacRae to see if he was thinking the same as her.
    ‘It’s not the
paint,’ she told MacFarlane. ‘It’s where it came from.’
     

Chapter
18
     
    The train
wasn’t busy. Jaz would normally have hidden in the toilet and saved
himself the fare, but you couldn’t hide an Alsatian in a train
toilet. Anyway, it felt good to travel legally for once. He could
sit and watch the countryside go by instead of keeping an eye out
for an inspector.
    Funding the
train fare wasn’t his only problem. He would have to work overtime
next week to pay the rent. Finding Karen’s killer was proving
expensive, what with feeding the dog and the time he was spending
off the job. But he didn’t care. Karen should never have died.
    Outside,
Scotland threw itself past the window in a flurry of rain and the
odd beautiful moment when the clouds parted and the sun shone
through. They had passed the Highland boundary fault line and the
hills rose steeply wooded, on either side of the track.
    Going north had
been a split second decision. He’d seen MacRae saying goodbye to
his wife and kid in the station and jumped the train. He’d been
thinking of bailing out of Edinburgh for a while anyway. Poking his
nose into the attack on Mary had brought him too much interest from
some quarters.
    Jaz pressed his
face to the glass. The warmer air in the compartment had steamed up
the window. He wiped a patch and stared through, following the
skyline. Mist hung in tendrils among the sharp pine trees. Jaz
found himself remembering some of his favourite landscape
paintings, the images that had set him on course to Art College in
the first place. Soon, he promised himself, he would paint
again.
    He’d got on the
train two carriages back from MacRae’s wife and kid, then walked
through. As he passed them, the wee girl had reached out to pat the
dog, but her mother pulled her back, telling her sharply that not
all dogs were friendly.
    ‘Your mum’s
right,’ Jaz said. ‘But this one is. Look.’ He made Emps offer a paw
and the girl had shaken it in delight. MacRae’s wife had softened
then and let her stroke the big head.
    ‘My gran’s got
a dog called Bess,’ the girl had confided in him. ‘We’re going to
see her.’
    ‘That’s nice,’
he smiled back.
    He’d considered
sitting down next to them then thought better of it.
    ‘I’d better
keep going,’ he said. ‘Say goodbye, Emps.’
    ‘Emps. That’s a
good name.’
    He told her it
was short for Emperor, then with an attempt at a smile at her
mother he moved on.
    Settled in the
next carriage, he went over the other