Dead at Third Man

by G R Jordan

  ‘No, but didn’t Mairi say before he had disappeared with two deacons? Get their names from her and then try the car-hire places and see if any of them have rented anything. And be quick, time’s of the essence. If the teams arrive, get a team searching around Bhuinaig and one over here at Garrabost.We might get lucky.’ Dear God, we need to get lucky.

  Hope reached the bottom of the track and nearly crashed into an oncoming police car as she drove onto the road. The house was at 18E. What sort of number was that? Rolling down her window as the car heated up in the sun, Hope scanned the nearby houses. They seemed to be a random mixture of numbers, not even keeping to the convention of one side even, one side odd. Dammit, where the hell’s this house?

  Her head pounded with the tension for she knew they needed something quickly, some line to follow and it started with the Anderson house. But everywhere she looked in the village she saw nothing but single numbers or crofts with a postfix of ‘A’ or ‘B’. Where was the ‘E’?

  Ahead of her, she saw a red van and a young man stepping out, a number of envelopes in his hand. The inscription on the side of the van indicated it was the post service and Hope drove quickly over to him.

  ‘Postie, police, come here please, quickly’

  The young man, who could not be more than maybe twenty-five, turned and then smiled when he saw Hope. Running over, Hope ignored his delighted face and simply shouted at him, ‘18E, where the hell is 18E?’ The man looked blankly at her. ‘Come on, you’re the damn postie, where is 18E?’

  There was a shake of the head. ‘What’s the surname?’

  ‘Anderson.’

  There’s only two Andersons here, I think.’

  ‘Get in! Show me where.’

  ‘I’d better park the van better—’

  ‘Leave the bloody van and get in. This is an emergency.’

  The man did as he was told but his face, which had been glowing when he saw Hope, was now losing colour as his dream customer was turning out to have a vicious tongue on her. Before he had done up his seat belt, Hope was already reversing the car and asking where the first house was. The young man pointed along the village and Hope sped out in front of a car causing it to beep its horn in anger.

  ‘It’s over on the right,’ said her nervous passenger and she mounted the kerb before bringing the car to an abrupt halt.

  ‘Stay here!’ Hope leapt out and ran down the drive but clocked that there was no number on the posts at the start of the drive. These townships were a nightmare with the crofts scattered here and there. At least in a Glasgow street, you could find the address without thinking too hard.

  Approaching a white house with flaking paint on the windowsills, Hope saw a young child playing in the rear garden. The girl had probably started school but only recently and Hope called to her. ‘Is mum in? Who’s looking after you?’

  The girl turned her head and hid behind blonde pigtails. ‘Kindly speak a little better to the child. Who are you?’ said a strong female voice. As she reached the garden, Hope looked towards the rear of the house and saw an older woman with a housecoat on and standing with a brush.

  ‘Does Declan Macaulay have a brother here?’

  ‘And who might you be, barging in here with all this noise, scaring our Catherine?’

  Hope drew a breath. The sun was beating down and she was sweating profusely causing her patience to be at a low level. She had only recently returned from this sort of heat but there you could just laze about, dip in a pool, lie on the beach. Here she was at full pelt and dripping. She grabbed her warrant card from inside her jacket.

  ‘DC McGrath, ma’am, and I am in a hurry. I need to know is this the house of Declan Macaulay’s brother?’

  ‘You scared our girl with your banging about and shouting.’

  ‘Ma’am, I have no time; is this the house of Declan Macaulay’s brother?’

  ‘Why? Is he dangerous? What’s he done?’

  Hope could feel the anger building up inside her against this old biddy. Why did people get so nosey when asked a straight question? Hope wanted to tell her he was coming for the older women of the village but her professional head won, and she said, ‘I need to know, does Declan Macaulay’s brother live here? Answer me that, please.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  And Hope was gone, back to her car, throwing her jacket in the back as she jumped into the driver’s seat. ‘Next house?’

  ‘Further along,’ said the postman. ‘Do you see the gate between the white and grey house? There!’

  Hope pulled out again and sped the few hundred yards before pulling up at the gate. The postman jumped out and opened the gate for her. At least someone’s useful. Without waiting for him to get back in, Hope drove up a stony path and headed for a newly built house further down the croft that came up to the roadside. The dust flew as she stopped the car before the house. Again, there was no number, but a woman came rushing out in an apron, her hands covered in flour.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she shrieked. ‘What the hell’s up?’

  Stepping from the car, her warrant card on show, Hope asked, ‘Does Declan Macaulay’s brother live here? I’m the police.’

  ‘Yes, my Alan, that’s his brother. They’re at the peats.’

  ‘Who went with them?’

  ‘Alan, Declan, and our Caitlyn, she’s just been so stroppy, I sent her up there to blow off some steam. She was rowing with me this morning-’

  ‘Stop, slow down. Have you got a picture of your husband and daughter, please? And a mobile number.’

  ‘Yes, of course, but why?’

  ‘Please, just get me them, and then I’ll tell you everything, but I need these items.’

  The woman hurried off into the house and Hope grabbed her mobile.

  ‘Macleod!’

  ‘Sir, I am at the Anderson house and the wife says that Alan, her husband, and Caitlyn, her daughter, went to the peats with Declan this morning. I’m getting some pictures, but I need a car down here as soon as possible.’ Hope saw the postman running towards her. ‘One moment, sir.’ Hope held a hand up to the postie. ‘Get back up to the gate, there’ll be a police car coming, you need to direct them down here.’

  The man stopped, bent over and breathed in deeply. His red top was now soaking with sweat from the exertion he had given to get to Hope and now he was being sent back. But he nodded and started back, albeit at a more lethargic pace than he had arrived at.

  ‘Sir, I’m getting the man’s mobile number; maybe we can ping it, see if we get a hit. Maybe these people won’t be sophisticated enough to think about that.’

  ‘Good idea, McGrath.’ She could hear the tension in the voice, his normal smooth delivery punctuated with the occasional cracking of the words. ‘We need to move on it so ring it to Stewart direct. Where would you take them? There’s nothing up here to indicate, McGrath, just a load of left-behind tools. It’s too dry for a tire track as well. I’ll get the area canvassed but we need to find something soon.’

  Macleod rapped the door facing the track that lead up to the peats. The house sat opposite and surely someone must have seen a car or something going up. His shoulders were aching, but he was unsure if it was the tension or the lack of sleep; either way, they were not a welcome distraction from his current duty.

  The door opened and Macleod saw a woman standing in a blue satin dressing gown with an oriental tiger motif on the right side, about chest height. Her dark, black hair was strewn about, and she seemed to be sweating as much as he was. The heat was everywhere it seemed.

  ‘Sorry to bother you ma’am, Detective Inspector Macleod. We are investigating an incident at the top of that peat track over there and I was wondering if you have seen anyone going up there this morning.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Inspector,’ said the woman, looking sheepish, ‘but this is the first I have seen outside. James is only back from the rigs last night and we have been getting caught up.’

  ‘Okay, sorry to have bothered y
ou, ma’am.’ Macleod went to turn away but then had a thought. ‘Did you hear anything at all?’

  ‘Sorry, I’d like to help but honestly, we didn’t hear much.’

  Again, he went to step away but then a kid’s tricycle caught his eye. ‘Do you have children, ma’am?’

  ‘Yes, I do, three.’

  ‘And are they here at present?’

  ‘Yes, why do you ask?’

  ‘While you were, catching up shall we say, what were your kids doing? I’m not trying to catch you out, or try to say they were unsupervised, I just want to know if they might have seen something.’

  ‘Who the hell’s that, Alison? Get back to bed, I’m not finished with you.’

  Macleod coughed delicately as the woman blushed. ‘James. It’s the police. They need to talk to the kids.’

  Within seconds, a man barrelled down the stairs in a dressing gown. ‘What’s the matter?’ His face was angry, possibly at being disturbed. Macleod held up a hand.

  ‘Nothing to worry about, sir, we are investigating an incident at the top of that peat bank road and I need to know if anyone in this house saw something. I understand from your wife that you were both indisposed, so I want to ascertain if your children saw anything.’

  ‘Kids, here now,’ shouted the man. A shy teenage girl appeared around one of the hallway doors, followed by a younger boy. The man explained what Macleod needed to know but both kids shook their heads.

  ‘Sorry, officer, we can’t help,’ said the man, apologetically.

  ‘Do you have a younger child,’ asked Macleod, ‘I saw the tricycle.’

  ‘Jono’s only four.’

  ‘All the same, can we ask him?’

  The man nodded and the woman disappeared before bringing back a small boy in her arms. The child looked warily at Macleod who tried to smile. ‘Have you seen anything today, Jono, anyone or anything at the peat bank?’

  The boy did not smile or flinch but just stared at Macleod. He knew he was not good with kids, but the child could at least flinch. ‘I’m sorry, does he understand?’

  The teenage girl stepped forward and took her brother from his mother and got down on her knees with him. ‘Jono, remember when you were looking out the window today. You said you saw stuff, you told me. What did you see?’

  ‘Jono saw car. It was big car.’

  ‘A car,’ said the girl brightly. ‘Good boy. What type of car?’

  ‘Big car.’

  ‘Do you have a car like it?’ asked the girl. The boy nodded and ran off leaving Macleod looking desperately at the parents. But he returned a minute later with a toy in his hand.

  ‘See, Jono has car.’ The boy held a toy van, one that resembled a transit. Macleod’s eyes lit up. Grabbing his mobile, he googled something and then held up a picture for the boy. The boy took the mobile and stared at the screen.

  ‘Is that the car you saw?’ asked Macleod. The boy shook his head. Pressing the screen again, Macleod handed the boy the phone again. He saw the boy’s eyes light up.

  ‘Jono car. That Jono car!’

  Chapter 24

  DC Stewart was stressed. To look at her, one would not have known it but that was due to the fear that people would find her out, realise she was not in control of everything. Her boss, DI Macleod had placed a lot of faith in her and right now she needed to come up with the goods for him.

  She had placed the call asking for the mobiles to be traced nearly fifteen minutes ago. Not only would the request need to be passed up to a higher authority who would deem whether or not the request was suitable, that is not interfering with anyone’s right to privacy, and then the mobile company would have to search and return the results of what state and place the mobiles were in when they pinged it.

  When Macleod had called in saying that he believed Irvine and some other goons had taken three people in a rented van, she realised just how serious the situation was and that they needed to find them straight away. How to do that was not so easy. Alerting all available units to stop and search any vans of that type was the obvious option but they had no idea where the van was. It could have been an hour or two since the abduction. Although the ferry was not an option, the time involved meant the van could be anywhere in Lewis, or indeed on Harris.

  Her telephone rang. It was not good news; all mobiles had stopped broadcasting to the masts over an hour ago and the last signals were on Point, close to where the Anderson party had been abducted. Damn, this was not what Macleod would want to hear. Stewart pushed her glasses back onto her nose and thought hard. They needed a helicopter, but the local coastguard was on a job and it was unknown when it would be available. The police helicopter was also assigned to something else at this time and she had been promised something would be coming as soon as possible. Even if it did, the van was still a needle in a large haystack.

  Come on, Kirsten, she chided herself, think girl. What would McGrath do? From the moment the senior DC had arrived, Stewart had been in awe. DC McGrath looked the part, all toned body and red hair, no need for any optical assistance and a voice that could rouse colleagues. It was always going to be hard to shine when she had such competition. And the DI clearly liked her, although word was, they had been through a lot together. Not easy to make a mark in that climate.

  Stewart picked up her telephone and called the rental company. It was the posher rental establishment, the one the tourists went to and they had a smart range of cars, from eco-friendly to a fleet of rental vans for daily hire. She had called already and established that the van in question was brand new, only arrived four days ago and had been loaned out simply because they were so busy. It had been checked over but the man on the desk seemed to know little about it.

  ‘Hello, it’s DC Stewart again,’ said Kirsten on hearing the tones of her previous contact answering. ‘I was wondering if you can take me over the specifications on the van we are tracing again.’ Taking a gulp of her green smoothie, Stewart listened to the man bleat on about the interior dimensions, the engine power and the air conditioning unit. These were not the details she wanted but she could not put her finger in what she did want.

  ‘And that’s about all I can tell you,’ said the man. ‘There really isn’t any more detail. I’m sitting with the brochure in front of me. I’m no car expert if you want the truth, so I’m just reading it off of this.’

  ‘Is your boss around?’

  ‘He’s currently delivering a car to some big wig coming off the plane.’

  Then it hit Stewart. They had not said, and no one had asked, had they? ‘Sir, do you know if this make of van has a tracker?’

  ‘Hang on, I’ll look.’ There was the sound of flipping pages for a minute. ‘No, it doesn’t.’

  ‘Are you getting that from the brochure, or do you know that for sure?’

  ‘The brochure, ma’am.’

  ‘Would your boss know for sure?’ Stewart had the bit between her teeth, and she was not going to be let down by someone who simply read the brochure.

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I can ring him for you,’ said the man politely.

  ‘No, sir. May I have his number to call him. This is most urgent.’ Stewart wrote down the number as he passed it to her. Almost immediately, she dialled it into the telephone and waited for the line to connect. But then her mobile rang. It was Macleod and she put it to her ear so that she had one phone on either side of her head. This wasn’t going to work, she thought as Macleod spoke.

  ‘Stewart. Anything from anywhere on the van?’ His tone was hurried, and not the usual calm, strong voice she was used to.

  ‘Negative, sir. The mobile tracing showed them to last connect with a mast in Point around when we think they were abducted. They could be anywhere in Lewis or Harris. I’m working on helicopters.’

  ‘Come on, Stewart, we need to get on this fast.’

  ‘Norman MacDonald,’ said a voice on the earpiece of the landline. Stewart placed the receiver down on the table and pressed the speaker function.
/>   ‘Sir, I’m muting you for a second.’ Stewart could hear the breath of outrage just before Macleod was cut off from speaking to the conversation. She left the line connected so he could hopefully hear what she was doing. It was not the best practice to basically tell your boss, albeit implicitly, to shut up, and she hoped she would get results from the hire company owner.

  ‘This is DC Stewart. We need to trace one of your vans which may be involved in a major incident. Did your staff advise you?’

  ‘He just said you were asking who had hired one of our vans, the new one as I believe. We’ve only just got that; I hope they haven’t trashed it.’

  ‘We need to trace it, sir. The name that was given we believe to be bogus and they paid with cash. In fact, according to the rental agreement they should be back with it very soon. Does it have a tracker? Your staff didn’t think so.’

  ‘Oh hell, that’s Michael on the desk. Nice kid, great with customers, lots to learn about cars and vans. It does have a tracker, but we haven’t put all the livery on the van to show that. You also need the app which the staff don’t have yet. It’s not meant to be out there, but we got swamped. I’m putting trackers on all the new ones. Just makes it easier if people break down and that as most people haven’t a bloody clue ab—’

  ‘Sir!’ Stewart interrupted. ‘I need you to get on that app and get me the position of the van, right now.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll be about forty-five minutes. I have a client just landing.’

  ‘The client will wait, sir. Do you have the tracking on your phone?’

  Stewart was using her special voice, the one she knew struck fear into men, one that demanded attention and respect and had lifted her from the class push-about to a constable working with the murder squad.

  ‘It’s not on the mobile yet but I can access it once I get back to the office.’

  Stewart took her jacket off and threw it onto the seat behind her. She had dressed in some black trousers and wore a green blouse. With her hair tied back, she hoped she wore that professional look McGrath did so well. But she was hot and sweating in the unusual Lewis heatwave and she was struggling to maintain her composure.