‘No,’ she replied, flustered, ‘I’m from . . . a homeless charity. We had a call, you see. But if the police are dealing with it . . . with her, that’ll be fine. I’ll report that, and then we can close our file.’
Once outside the pub, she walked a few yards away before excitedly fishing her phone from her pocket.
‘It’s me. She’s safe! The police in Gayfield picked her up. We could go and get her from them.’
‘Thank God! That’s wonderful news, sweetheart,’ the man replied. ‘Oh, thank you, God! Thank you! I’ll meet you back at the car. It’ll take me about ten minutes or so to get there. I’m on my way already.’
‘OK. Then we’ll go straight there and pick her up, eh?’
‘Hold on, hold on, lovey,’ he replied, sounding anxious. ‘No, I’m not sure we can do that, quite. You know what’ll happen, like the last time. Like I said. Remember? We don’t want anyone trying to take her away, those Social Services types or anything. We don’t want to get tangled up with them again. They don’t understand the difficulties and everything. The police would be bound to involve them. Wouldn’t they?’
‘Maybe, but . . .’
‘The important thing, sweetheart, is that she’s safe. We know that now, eh? Now we know that, I’ll be able to track her down myself, in a jiff, and bring her back home. Myself. Don’t you worry, Lambie, not now that we know she’s safe, eh? That’s the only thing that matters, isn’t it, my love? She’s safe!’
‘Do we have any notion who the drowned lady is, yet?’ DCI Bell asked. She had turned sideways to her inspector, and was looking out of her office window onto Arthur’s Seat and the parklands surrounding it. She appeared, Alice thought, distracted and out of sorts and was holding a postcard behind her back, twirling it round and round in her fingers. On her desk, poking out from a Co-op carrier bag was pack of sandwiches and a bottle of Diet Coke.
‘I don’t know at the moment. I’ve circulated her details throughout the force, including a photograph taken by Jim this morning inside the ticket office.’
‘Have we got DNA, prints?’ the woman demanded.
‘The mortuary’s going to see to that. I’ve got DC Cairns lined up to go once we get the warrant.’
‘Mmm. We’ll not get one, of course, not till we’ve got some clue as to who the hell she is. And I don’t like them hanging around, not when they’ve been in the water like that. They go off quickly. Nor does Jardine, as I know to my cost. Any press involvement?’ DCI Bell added, finally turning to face her subordinate.
‘Not yet. I thought I’d give it another day. If she was killed, whoever did it doesn’t know we’re on the lookout yet. I’d rather keep it that way a little longer.’
‘Of course, if this wondrous new all-Scotland regime was operational this floater wouldn’t be troubling us at all, she’d be someone else’s problem in all probability, not ours. Creamed off to the specialists, the lucky things. No descriptions in missing-person reports matching her? Nothing at all?’
‘Nothing so far. But it’s early, we’ve only just fished her out, got her back on dry land.’
‘True. Now, look at this –’ the DCI said, handing the postcard to Alice and adding, through gritted teeth, ‘bloody Mauritius, if you can believe it!’
The picture on the card showed a beach, its white sand extending into infinity and turquoise waves lapping the shore. ‘Wish You Were Here’ had been crossed out hard, several times, with a red pen. Alice only got a fleeting view of the handwriting on the back but it looked vaguely familiar.
‘I bought the ticket you know,’ added DCI Bell hotly.
‘To bloody Mauritius, you mean?’
‘No, not to bloody Mauritius – where have you been? The lottery ticket that the bastard won with. I bought it for him!’
‘It should’ve been me?’
‘Well, it should. Thanks to me, Eric Manson and his missus will now be permanently swanning round the globe, golf-sticks uppermost, enjoying a sun-kissed early retirement – all thanks to me! And he’s rubbing my nose in it. But no more,’ she said, ripping the postcard into little pieces.
‘We’ll just have to hope he remembers his friends on his return, Ma’am. Otherwise on our retirement, like everyone else, we’ll be eating our pets in our unheated hovels, and cleaning public lavatories daily for a few pence until we can collect our pensions at the age of a hundred and fifty-five.’
‘Eric remember us? Fat chance of that, Alice. He’ll be drinking himself senseless at Muirfield or . . . ‘
‘Who paid for the ticket?’
‘He did. But I chose it. I made that one in a million selection. Payment’s a technicality, neither here nor there.’ She let out a long sigh. ‘Anything else I should know about our floating friend?’
‘Yes. In a front pocket of her trousers, there was a fragment left of what appeared to be a Lothian Buses ticket. We also found, or rather the scaffolder who discovered her found, what seems to be a broken badge beside the body. Most of the printing on it has disappeared but it seems to say “O-O” and below that “AN”. It may have been washed up independently of her, or fallen off her clothes. The pin’s intact. I’m working on it now.’
‘O-O? AN? What does it mean? Could it have fallen off anyone else, another workman or the one who found the body?’ the DCI asked, dropping her multi-coloured confetti in the nearby wastepaper bin. Half of it fell on the floor but she did not pick it up.
‘No, Ewen Macdonell didn’t drop it, he found her and it, and no one else could have dropped it either. We were all suited and booted. Anyway, the rock’s submerged every high tide, it’d be washed off. Either it came with her or on her.’
The office was quiet. Everyone was away, eating their lunch, jogging or cramming some hurried shopping into their already hectic schedules. Alice sat down in front of her computer, the badge in its polythene bag staring up at her. Thoughts of food were preoccupying her too, and picturing the DCI’s sandwiches in their carrier, she had a sudden idea. It seemed a long shot, maybe even a waste of time, but it had to be tried. She found the website on her computer, then picked up the phone and dialled the contact number there. The Manchester headquarters of the Co-op directed her to their Scottish headquarters on Dalry Road, Edinburgh, a building she was familiar with and only minutes away from St Leonard’s Street.
Once she realised who it was, the bored human being in the Human Resources department who took the call could not have been more eager to co-operate, to participate, to assist. Their employees were, she confirmed, usually supplied with a personal badge, one with the Co-op logo on it and the employee’s name below. Yes, they did, indeed, hold photographic identification of their staff, assuming the employee had a passport. Otherwise, they would only have a copy birth certificate. But, she explained, apologetically, their business at HQ was usually with staff absences only of a week or more, at the point at which the absence might be, or might become, a disciplinary matter. Shorter absences were handled by the managers of the individual stores. The managers knew the shift patterns of their workers, which absences had been agreed, the difference between the genuinely ill and the shirkers, and dealt with the problem of day to day cover. Only persistent, unsanctioned absences were reported to them together with long-term sickness problems. Of course, she said, sounding thrilled to be personally involved in solving the mystery, an e-mail could be sent to all those managers to get a list of all recent, unexplained staff absences. She could do it on her head.
‘I’ll only need those relating to females . . .’ Alice paused, recreating in her mind’s eye the dead woman’s face. ‘Say, between 16 and 30.’
‘No problem. For the whole of Scotland?’
‘No, let’s begin with Edinburgh and, if necessary, radiate outwards. Also Rosyth and Kincardine, Bo’ness and Grangemouth . . . any stores you’ve got near the shores of the Forth.’
‘And for all our services?’
‘Sorry?’
‘We’re not just food, anymore. Do
you want the same information from our funeral care services, travel services, banking, insurance?’
‘Mmm . . .’ Alice hesitated, interrupted before she could respond by the woman’s lively voice, unable to resist offering more advice: ‘Given her sex, age and everything, our food stores are, by far, the most likely,’ she volunteered.
‘OK. Let’s begin with the food stores. I’d like the e-mails directed here ASAP, but just from the food-store managers. We’ll start with them. Tell them it’s urgent, will you? We need all absences in the relevant category for a period of four to five days or less, but up to and including today.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yes, ask them for a brief description of each woman, each absentee – hair colour as a minimum, please.’
‘Forgive my cheek, you’re the police and everything, not me. But, surely, they might have dyed it? Wouldn’t colour of eyes be better?’
‘Does anyone remember eyes? As long as the managers describe the hair colour when they last saw the individual, that’ll do. Our lady was dark-haired. Gentlemen prefer blondes, they say. So, while countless brunettes become blondes, surely not many blondes go in the other direction, wouldn’t you think?’
‘No, you’re wrong! I did, and, you know what, my IQ went right up. Which are you? No worries. I’ll get onto it this very minute.’
Over the next four hours, responses from the branches flooded into the station. Females in the right age group had failed to show up, during the period in question, only within the capital, at the Nicolson Street, Pitt Street, Easter Road, Granton Road, Oxgangs Road and Portobello High Street branches of the Co-op. Photos of only six of them were held at the Manchester HQ, and copies of them were sent to St Leonard’s Street. Of the ten named individuals, four were eliminated on the basis of their fair hair, one because she had already turned to grey. Only two of the remaining brunettes had the letters ‘AN’ in their names: Miranda Stimms and Jane Cook, and the latter, though hailing from Musselburgh, was dark-skinned, of Afro-Caribbean descent. Miranda Stimms was an employee in the Pitt Street store, in Edinburgh’s South Side.
The manager of the Pitt Street store, a Mr Wilson, was busy with a customer when Alice approached him. Rocking forwards and back on his small feet like a music-hall policeman, he was trying to placate a woman who was determined to buy three products all containing Paracetamol from his shop. An anxious-looking assistant stood nearby, wringing her red hands, obviously defeated in the argument and having called on her superior for help.
‘Sorry, but we don’t make the rules,’ the manager repeated in an avuncular fashion, a fixed smile on his face.
‘I need the Calpol for the wee one,’ his customer pleaded. ‘He’s teething. His cheeks are that red.’
From his buggy, the wee one held her hand. His nose was streaming, but he seemed untroubled by his condition, all his attention being focused on the confectionary display at the checkout.
‘That’s fine. But then you’ll have to put back either the Lemsip or the tablets, I’m afraid,’ the manager replied, holding out his hand for whichever one she returned.
‘But they’re for Bob. He’s got the flu, he specially asked for them both, he needs them both, he’s got a fever!’
‘Sorry, Madam, but it’ll have to be one or the other.’ The man still held his hand out, periodically crooking his fingers to show that he did mean business.
‘That’s no good, that’s what she already said,’ the customer spat, glaring at the assistant. ‘I’ll just have to go to Boots, then, won’t I?’
So saying, she let go of her wire basket, allowing it to clatter onto the ground, and flounced off empty-handed.
Exchanging a timid glance with her boss, the assistant bent to pick it up. A puddle of cream was spreading underneath and, the second she lifted it, a trail of droplets leaked from the split carton.
A man, his trolley swerving to the side, accosted her, inquiring peremptorily, ‘Bananas? Where’d I find bananas?’
‘First aisle on the right,’ she answered, still on her knees, scarcely looking up.
‘We’ll need the mop, Suzy,’ the manager said, adding as an afterthought, ‘and the wet floor sign.’ One problem solved, or at least as solved as it ever would be, he turned his attention to the next one, the policewoman.
‘I’ve come about Miranda Stimms – we spoke on the phone,’ she began, introducing herself.
‘Oh, aye, Mandy,’ he replied, ‘our absentee. Better follow me to my office. It’ll be quieter there.’
With the door closed in the windowless space, he gestured for her to take the seat opposite his desk. ‘Office’ seemed too grand a word for the room. It appeared to be as much of a storeroom as anything else; tins of dog food were piled high in one corner and cleaning materials, including a couple of long-haired mops in buckets, occupied the other. An unclean, vinegary smell pervaded the air.
‘When did you last see her?’ she began.
‘It’ll have been yesterday. She was supposed to be in today, but she’s not turned up. She does three four-hour shifts a week. I phoned her, then I checked with Irene, her best pal, to see if she knew where she was, but she had no idea what was going on.’
‘Has this happened with her before?’
‘No. She’s very reliable, very conscientious, actually. Mandy’s not been with us long, only about six weeks but . . . this is quite out of character. If anything she was over-worried about things, over-anxious. Sometimes I told her to relax, lighten up. She seemed old for her years. What’s she done?’
‘She hasn’t done anything. How old is she?’
‘Twenty-one – that’s what her application said, anyway. That’s all I have to go on. She didn’t have a passport and she was still looking for her birth certificate . . . she was supposed to hand it in.’
A young man barged through the door, a tray of poussins in his hands.
‘Where am I to put the wee birds, Mr Wilson?’ he asked, brandishing them in front of his boss.
‘Knock next time, Raymond, please. Beside the chickens, in the chill cabinet.’
Once the youth had left, the manager explained, apologetically, ‘He’s learning disabled. New to the job, too.’
‘Could you tell me what Miranda Stimms looks like?’
‘Aye,’ he nodded, ‘she’s a “babe”, if you get the picture. She’s dark-haired, a good figure. I thought of her like Catherine Zeta-Jones in the old days – you know, the Welsh girl that married Gordon Gecko or whatever he was called. An hourglass shape . . . a fox. He’s one of those sex addicts, I heard. Done him no good, either.’
‘I’m sorry to ask you, but could you look at this photograph,’ Alice asked, handing him one of the shots taken by Jim Scott in the temporary mortuary.
‘Jesus!’ said Mr Wilson, sitting back in his chair, blinking rapidly, dropping the photograph on his desk.
‘Is that her?’ the policewoman asked.
‘Yes. But she’s not a fox any more. What happened to her?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out.’
5
If he set about the exercise with military precision he would find her, he told himself. He must. Lambie, so weak, so loving, was depending upon him, and, this time, he would not let her down. He paced the length of his office, thinking as he walked, rehearsing in his head the logical sequence that would inevitably occur. His phone went, distracting him, and recognising the number, he switched it off. No problem. Salesmen, he told himself, persist or get sacked. Kevin, the Cute Cards Company’s representative, would call again for sure. Not that he would be buying any more of their overpriced stationery in a hurry, not with Frankie Boyd setting up in competition to them. He’d offer a much better price, in all likelihood on far more amenable terms too.
‘Boss?’ A man’s head, topped with a halo of red hair, appeared round his door.
‘Yes.’
‘We’ve got a big order to go to Berwick, they need it yesterday. Can I get a c
ourier?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, immediately turning his back on the man to let him know that there would be no further chat, and waiting motionless until he heard the door close once more.
He sat down on the edge of his desk and lifted his cup of tea to his lips. The police had picked her up. So she was safe. But, in this day and age, she would not be kept in a cell or anything. No, they’d involve the Social Services, what with her being a child and everything. She was tall but still a child, anyone could see that, surely? What would they do with her – speechless, twitchy and, obviously, not normal? Lost in thought, he put down his cup untouched, and started to bite a fingernail, pulling at a ragged end. First of all, they would have to find a temporary home for her, and that would either be a children’s home, if they still existed, or, more likely, a foster home. And school, they would be bound to think about a school because education was the law. But, if she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, speak, what then? They’d not put her in a normal secondary school, would they? They couldn’t. That would be monstrous, did not bear thinking about. Imagining it, he began to sweat, could feel the moisture collecting on his brow.
No, they would opt, surely to goodness, for a special school. They’d be bound to. They’d be kinder there. Please, Lord, he prayed, help me find her, keep her safe, keep my child safe until I find her. Let me get to her first. Tears now pricking his eyes, he switched on his computer, intending to check out children’s homes and special schools in Edinburgh.
‘Boss?’ the same man’s head appeared round the door again.
‘Not now, Jake!’ he bellowed, embarrassed, turning his head away, angry that anyone should witness his weakness. Instantly, the door clicked shut and he returned his attention to the screen in front of him. Googling ‘Special Schools in Edinburgh’ brought up eleven possibilities, of which fewer than half appeared to cater for secondary school pupils. Four of them specialised in youngsters with communication difficulties, including those ‘on the autistic spectrum’, as their websites phrased it. They were based in Drumbrae, Abbeyhill, Liberton and Bruntsfield, respectively. Deciding to start with them, he wrote their addresses and details in his pocket notebook.
Troubled Waters Page 5