by EJ Lamprey
‘Wow! Excellent! The garage man?’
‘The garage owner, Greg Wilkins.’ He nodded. ‘I tell you, the Grasshopper Lawns lot is making us look bad. But get this. When he was being picked up, his apprentice went white, ken, and asked if this was about the women. So they brought him in too, and he said he’d seen how many of their clients had died. So the garage files have been seized, too, to cross-check against the list. Wilkins himself denied everything, says he never heard of any of them, but his fingerprints match the partials we found on the front door bolts at the house. Then he swore it was an accident; Susan fell and knocked herself out, and he panicked and ran. Still denying he’s ever even heard of the others, and demanding a lawyer. Accident is one thing and pinning murder on him will be quite another, he’s nae been so clumsy with his other customers. Still, we can charge him on Susan while we check his files and his alibis. Have we got a completed list of exact dates yet?’
‘I can pull one off in an hour. Some of the dates have to be approximate, because in some cases it was a week or more before the bodies were found. How much other detail will you need?’
‘Och, the dates are key. Any information where the women were seen last will help – I ken we have that in a couple of cases. He was pure shocked we’d worked out the tap trick. This is a weight off my mind, ken.’
‘My aunt will be thrilled. There’s a bloke she wants to meet that she really liked the look of. When will they officially cancel the cover?’
‘They already did.’ Iain got up to pour himself a cup of coffee. ‘Took the team off standby about ten minutes after he confessed. Dinwoodie won’t collect the phone until Wilkins has been formally charged, but she’s no longer being actively tracked, she can have her date in peace. I hope, if she likes him, she doesn’t tell Donald where she’s going. That was some act he pulled at the Italian restaurant, eh?’
‘She did say she’s never telling him again! She’ll still have an escort, as William and Vivian absolutely love trying out every restaurant and gastro pub in the area, but at least she’ll have a bit of privacy now, not us listening to every word they say. I’ll let her know, then get that list out for you.’ She glanced involuntarily at the clock on the wall and Iain followed her glance.
‘Och, that’s your shift over, isn’t it?’
‘Nae worries. I’m taking this one personally. I want to see the scunner locked up for good as soon as possible. Anyway, Drew’s studying tonight so I didn’t have any plans.’
She rang Edge quickly to pass on the news.
‘Excellent!’ Edge’s voice on the phone warmed with satisfaction. ‘Perfect timing, too. Ben’s on instant messaging right now asking me again if I won’t change my mind about tonight. And Kirsty, if he is anything like his bio and photos, he is perfect. Wait until you meet him!’
‘Oh aye. Don’t get your hopes up. Have you even talked to him on the phone yet? I thought not. Probably got a voice like a canary on helium. That’s no uniform I ever saw, either. For all you know he’ll have an impenetrable German or Polish accent along with the squeaky voice. I’m not ordering my niece-of-the-bride outfit yet.’
When Kirsty had finished teasing her aunt and ended the call, she grinned across at Iain.
‘She’s got a feeling about this one. You have to admit it would be ironic if she really did meet someone as a result of the investigation.’ She crossed to the coffee machine and was adding sugar to her mug when she noticed the printer blinking a light at her. ‘Damn, we’re out of paper.’
‘Something from Central? I’ve not had an email to say something’s coming through.’
‘There’s one printout waiting at least, the light’s blinking.’ She put down her coffee to open the printer and fed in new paper, then idly picked up the first sheet whispering through. ‘Oh, good, it’s the latest updates from Gemma, the procurator fiscal reports they re-examined. That’ll give us better dates. The header sheet says seventeen pages!’
Iain jotted a note and looked up from the file he was reading. ‘That’ll take a while. Honestly, we’ve got him safely in hand for forty-eight hours at least. If you want to leave it until tomorrow you can.’
‘No. I’ll start on what we’ve got, then slot in the new dates as they get confirmed.’
~~~
Edge checked her appearance with satisfaction. Brown wasn’t normally her favourite colour but the new honey brown hip-length coat and matching slacks, teamed with a creamy silk blouse, looked casually and effortlessly elegant. She started emptying her handbag into the one that went with the outfit – it was smaller, so she left her diary and her own mobile phone. She hefted the police one thoughtfully; she’d switched it off gleefully as soon as she’d finished talking to Kirsty, but it was the only number Ben had for her, so she dropped it into the handbag. She had no intention of switching it on ever again, but if he was late – but she didn’t want to think of him being late.
Her eyes were bright and she smiled mockingly at her reflection. ‘Don’t be too disappointed,’ she warned herself aloud, and Mortimer wound himself around her ankles plaintively. She picked him up at arm’s length, deposited him back in his favourite window seat, and brushed his ginger hairs lightly from the soft clingy fabric.
‘Only strangers are perfect,’ she told him. ‘If Ben’s as good as he looks, he’d never have needed a dating site, eh? But you never know. You’ve got food, relax and have a good evening. All going well, I’ll be back late.’
He sank obediently into a supine position and she smoothed his ears affectionately, picked up her handbag and let herself out. William’s big 4x4 was already at the kerb and she hurried over to scramble into the back seat. William twisted his head round to grin at her.
‘You look pink with excitement. He’s not that hot, from the photies, you know. Of the lot you showed us, Nick’s the man, if you ask me.’
‘Hush!’ She couldn’t help grinning back. ‘You like Nick so much, you date him. Don’t tease me, I’m really looking forward to this, and I’m really nervous!’
~~~
‘I think we’ve got a cause of death for the natural-looking ones,’ Kirsty told Iain, and handed over two autopsy reports. ‘The autopsies at the time were fairly cursory – after all, these were older women – but this is the second report noting a tiny puncture wound. Both were routinely checked as injection sites, in case of a drug overdose, but no drugs were found. The second report, though, there’s been a note added that if it wasn’t a brooch or a pin, if anyone had injected a bubble of air at the injection site, it could have caused the victim’s death.’ She glanced up at the clock again, and wearily picked up the last report. So much for an hour to create the list; the last two hours had simply flown by, but her timeline was at last nearly complete. This hadn’t been the last death, just the most difficult autopsy as the victim wasn’t found until over a week later, but the date had finally been narrowed to a forty-eight hour window and she filled it into her summary, then skimmed down the list, frowning.
There was a gap seven months ago, and another last April, when the only older woman who had died in remotely similar circumstances had been strangled. The murder was unsolved, and on her list only because a carnation in a water glass had been found on the scene. Apart from those two gaps there was now a complete list going back nearly two years, but the dates were a little erratic. Susan had died on the tenth, and there had been a definite in Falkirk on the eleventh, a month earlier. The February victim had been on the tenth, and the January one – the one she had just updated – either the tenth or the eleventh. Well and good, but the slight shift in dates was very marked once one jumped back a year.
The May victim last year had been on the twentieth, and there was no confusion about the date, or question mark about the death. She scrabbled to the bottom of the file of printouts and found the discarded lunar calendar, checking the dates with rising certainty.
‘Iain! I’ve found the date link. It was the lunar calendar, but not full moon – new
moon! That could help us find the two missing ones. Now that we know the exact date we can check every single recorded death in those two months.’
‘Oh?’ He put down the file he’d been working on and came to stand behind her as she gave him the lunar calendar, then pointed to the dates on her summary. He swore under his breath and hurried back to his desk to check his own notes.
‘Damn! This January death, is that definately not before the tenth? Our guy was in Majorca. He left that morning. It was one of the few dates he had an absolute alibi, but the original estimate of date for that death had been between the ninth and the eleventh. That lets him out!’
Kirsty stared at him, then down at the lunar calendar, and felt a shock of unease.
‘Iain.’ Her voice cracked and she had to clear her throat. ‘Iain, it’s the new moon today. And my aunt has gone to meet a man who asked her three times to meet him on this date.’
‘Phone her.’ He crossed back to her desk as she dialed her aunt’s familiar mobile phone number, and saw from her face the call had gone straight to voice mail. ‘She’ll have our one with her.’ His voice was sharp. ‘That’s the only number he’d have, she’ll have taken it with her.’
Kirsty punched the number in, then mutely shook her head. He picked up his own Airwave, ready to punch buttons. ‘Where was she going, I’ll get a car out there?’ Kirsty shook her head again, dry-mouthed. Had Edge even told her? She’d gone completely blank.
‘Kirsty, concentrate.’ Iain was stern. ‘Do you have Vivian’s number?’
‘I – yes, I do.’ She dug her private phone out of her handbag and found Vivian’s name in her list of contacts. The phone rang three times, then went abruptly to voicemail. With hands that, despite herself, shook slightly, she clicked on redial.
‘Yes?’ The voice, impatient and familiar, definitely wasn’t Vivian’s, and hard to hear against strident orchestral music.
‘D-Donald? Is that you?’
‘Yes. Who is this? Vivian can’t take any calls right now.’ A tenor voice added itself uncertainly into the background, and went fairly spectacularly off key. ‘Ouch.’ Donald added and the music moved away, then was abruptly muffled. ‘That’s better, I’ve shut the door. Who is this?’
‘Kirsty, Kirsty Cameron. Where on earth are you?’
‘Rehearsals. It’s not going well, but Vivian’s about to sing. Can I get her to call you back?’
Kirsty looked up at Iain, eyes huge with horror, and he took the phone from her.
‘Donald, Iain McLuskie here. We were trying to get hold of Edge but her phone is off, we thought Vivian might be with her. Would you know where she is?’
‘On another date, apparently,’ Donald said resignedly. ‘But William’s on duty, and he’s taken La Pinkerton along for company. Vivian’s very unimpressed. Do you want William’s number?’ He called out the number for Iain to write down, then added, ‘He doesn’t answer the phone, by the way. Disapproves of people using them in public on aesthetic grounds, so you’ll have to send him a text. Is everything all right?’
Iain looked at Kirsty, now so pale he could see the freckles scattered on her cheeks and nose.
‘Not sure. You wouldn’t know where they were going, would you?’
‘Whistling Haggis, in Fife. Seven fifteen,’ Donald said promptly. ‘Iain, does this have anything to do with the attacks? Brian told me he’d been pulled in for questioning after two women he dated had been targeted in some way. He was never given details but he knows they’d died.’
‘Nothing to worry about.’ Iain evaded the question. ‘Thanks for your help, have a good rehearsal.’ He rang off as Donald started to ask something else. ‘Whistling Haggis, in Fife. I’ll radio the Fife lot, ask them to swing by and check all is well, but she’s okay, you know. William’s there. I’d be a lot more anxious if she was meeting someone called Tom but she isn’t, is she?’
‘No, he’s called Ben. Why Tom?’
‘One of the reports I was reading. We’re re-interviewing witnesses, and apparently one of the victims was off to meet someone called Tom. It was the only name we’ve not found a profile for.’ He held up his hand as the phone was answered, and talked briefly to his Fife counterpart. The desk phones rang again and Kirsty automatically picked up the call.
‘I feel such a fool,’ the woman caller told her. ‘It’s about my friend, Margery Spitzen. She died last September and a poliswoman was round yesterday asking me questions. Do you know what I’m talking about?’
‘Aye, I do. Why do you feel a fool?’ Kirsty made her voice friendly and encouraging and the woman gasped slightly.
‘I told her Margery was meeting someone called Tom. The thing is, Margery liked to call herself Geri, you know, like that Spice Girl. I knew the name went with Geri, and for some reason I thought Tom and Jerry, you know? But I just went shopping, and I was putting the frozen stuff away and I thought, oh how silly, it wasn’t Tom and Jerry. It was Ben and Jerry. Like the ice-cream. So I thought I had better phone in and let you know.’
‘Hold on, please.’ Kirsty covered the mouthpiece with her hand. ‘Iain, it was Ben. Not Tom. Are the Fife guys going there?’
‘They’re stretched pretty thin, but they’ve got a patrol car out not far from there answering a call. They’ll go on to the pub afterwards.’ He fidgeted as she thanked the witness in a voice that she managed to hold steady. As soon as she put the receiver down he clicked the phones through to the regional call centre.
‘Tell me in the car. Ben is now officially a person of interest in the case, we’re getting over there.’ As she scrambled up and followed him to the car he threw back over his shoulder, ‘I’ll drive. I sent William a text; Donald said he doesn’t like using his phone in public. Gave him a couple minutes to see it, said we’d phone at seven ten. I’ll get Control on the radio as we go.’
The powerful cruiser, lights strobing, made short work of the town streets and snarled up the hill to the main road as Iain, concise and calm, updated the Control room with the situation, then clicked off.
‘Time to phone William. Kirsty, lass, you have to pull yourself together. They weren’t even meeting until seven fifteen and it isn’t that yet.’
‘Ken.’ Kirsty glanced up at him with huge eyes even as she dialed William’s number. ‘It’s the shock, that we might have missed it. Missed the new moon significance, missed that call, it really shook me up. William, dammit, pick up!’
~~~
Edge sighed inwardly as Miss P’s happy laugh rose above the buzz in the bar. In the mirror above the bar she could see her neighbour was flushed with excitement as she sipped a tiny sherry, one finger daintily extended. Vivian would never, ever forgive her for accepting a date on a rehearsal night and had very nearly cancelled going to the rehearsal. Only the reminder that she found sitting in one position for more than ten minutes at a time profoundly uncomfortable, and that William would be on guard duty, resigned her to letting Edge out without herself or Donald, but she hadn’t been pleased. For her part, Edge was as glad to be meeting Ben away from her sharper-eyed escorts.
‘Suzi!’ She jumped as Nick, looking more impossibly handsome than ever in a long leather coat, put down two shot glasses and hitched himself gracefully onto the next bar stool. ‘Please don’t tell me you’re here on a date, not after turning me down so often? ‘
‘Well – why are you here, Nick?’
‘Okay, I’m on a date. But only because you wouldn’t accept my invitations.’ His voice was warm and teasing. ‘She hasn’t arrived yet, though. Is your guy late?’
‘No, I’m early.’ She made her smile as false as possible, and hoped it would deter him. He pushed one of the shot glasses towards her.
‘Saw you sitting here and couldn’t resist. See, I remembered your favourite – cream liqueur. While we wait.’ He lifted his expectantly and tilted it, ready to click glasses and she glanced away, annoyed. She really didn’t want to meet Ben with liquor on her breath. In the mirror she could see William
grinning at her, obviously highly amused by the awkward situation, but she refused to make eye contact. He reached into one of his cavernous pockets and brought out his mobile as she let her eyes slide past him. As she scanned the room in the mirror for Ben she was momentarily surprised to see Brian tucked away in an alcove, out of sight of William and Miss P, watching her thoughtfully. Nick touched her arm to regain her attention.
‘You look absolutely gorgeous, by the way. He’s a lucky lad, but at least we can catch up until either one arrives. Maybe we should introduce them to each other and go off by ourselves, eh?’
She forced a smile, and made sure that it looked forced. Talk about bad timing. He was still dangling his shot glass in his fingers, still waiting, and she reluctantly lifted hers to click against his. They both drank, and she pushed herself back from the bar as she set her glass down.
‘Now that you’re here to keep an eye out, I’ll nip to the loo, okay? Two minutes.’
‘Hurry back,’ he said lightly and added, as she reached for her jacket, ‘I’ll watch it for you. Then I know you’ll come back. Missing you already.’
‘That,’ she told him severely, ‘is beyond corny.’
He laughed, but finally looked slightly offended and she hurried to the Ladies and switched on the phone. No messages, and no text from Ben to say he was running late. One missed call from Kirsty, no doubt to nag about being careful again. She hesitated, but it wasn’t seven fifteen yet, so she couldn’t call him. She switched it off, dropped it back in her bag, checked her makeup in the mirror and finger-combed an errant strand of hair back into her topknot. They’d agreed quarter past, in case she was held up on the Forth Road Bridge, but surely he’d be here by now? Tardiness was one of Edge’s pet peeves, which was why she was so early herself, and there was a slight frown between her brows as she walked back into the main room. Nick was watching the main door, looking discontented, but flashed his gleaming smile at her as she sat down again.