Dagger Magic

"Now, then," he said briskly, "tell me which of the faces in that photo of mine are the ones you're interested in."

Taking his cue from McLeod, Adam produced the photo he had torn from his copy of the Edinburgh Evening News and laid it on the coffee table in their midst.

"Actually, there's only one," he told Lennox. "It's this woman here."

Turning the photo around so that Lennox could see it, he pointed out the figure that had claimed his attention earlier in the afternoon.

"As you're probably well aware," Adam continued, "today's accident out on the Lanark Road was the sixth incident of its kind since the beginning of this year. Given the circumstances, the police are interested in interviewing anyone who was present at the time the crash occurred. So far, this woman remains unaccounted for. Since you managed to catch her on camera, we were wondering if perhaps you might have some idea who she is."

Lennox was staring at the photo. When he looked up a moment later, he had an odd expression on his face.

"It's funny you should ask about her," he told his visitors. "She's the one I call my phantom lady."

McLeod remained carefully noncommittal. Without taking his eyes from Lennox's face, Adam asked, "Why is that?"

Lennox pulled a grimace. "Are you sure you really want to know? As stories go, it's pretty weird."

"You'd be surprised how often a so-called weird story can provide just the clue the police have been looking for," McLeod said. "Tell us what you know, and we'll make the best we can of it."

Lennox looked slightly dubious. "All right. But don't say I didn't warn you."

He rocked back in his seat, his face screwed up in a reminiscent scowl. "Beginning last December, I drew duty as part of a two-man team assigned to carry out a weekly survey of local traffic incidents. The survey was intended to supplement an editorial feature on defensive driving over the holidays, but it didn't stop there. When the first of these Lanark Road fatalities occurred, on New Year's Day, my mate Bill and I got sent out to cover the story. When we got back to the photo lab with my film, this woman you're interested in turned up amongst the spectators.

"At the time I didn't think anything of it," he went on. "She was just another face in the crowd. But then, about a month later, the second accident occurred. That same afternoon I'd been out with a couple of pals to see a football match over in East Kilbride. We were heading home along the Lanark Road when we saw the emergency vehicles converging on the scene. Since news is news, we stopped to investigate, and I took the usual battery of photos. You can probably imagine how surprised I was when I got this second lot of photos developed and spotted the same woman hovering in the background of nearly every shot."

He paused and bit his lip. "Maybe you're going to think I'm crazy, but ever since then, each time Carnage Corridor claims another victim, I've made a point of getting out there to take photos for the record. I always keep my eye out for the phantom lady, but I've never yet glimpsed her in the flesh. I don't know her name, still less what she could possibly be doing there. All I know is that when I get back home and develop the film, she's always present somewhere in the pictures."

He broke off with a hollow laugh. McLeod was quick to catch Adam's eye.

McLeod said, "Could we maybe see these photos of yours, Mr. Lennox?"

The photographer eyed him askance, then relaxed when he saw that neither of his visitors looked the least bit dubious or amused. Shrugging, he said, "Sure, why not? This thing's been eating at me for months. Maybe you people will be able to come up with a rational explanation."

He got to his feet and left the room. When he returned a few moments later, he had with him an accordion folder bulging with prints and notes.

"Here you are," he said, presenting the folder to McLeod. "If you have a look, you'll see for yourself I'm not making any of this up. I'll go make us some coffee."

He left them alone to go over the contents of the folder while he went through to the kitchen. The photos were clumped into chronological groupings, each grouping labelled and dated. Adam and McLeod shared the groupings out between them. Lennox's phantom lady was a ubiquitous presence throughout, a pale figure haunting the borders of nearly every scene.

In addition to the expansive collection of standard-sized prints, there were also a number of enlargements. The quality of the imaging was much sharper in Lennox's own prints that it had been in the newspaper version, affording Adam with a more detailed impression of a high-browed oval face framed in a shoulder-length mop of thick, dark curls. It was a face that would have been pretty, had it not been white and drawn with some inner tension, even pain. But Adam was quick to discern something else more worthy of comment than that.