by Lynne McEwan
‘We’re not handing this over to a MIT?’ asked Kate.
‘No, it’s ours. Opportunity to shine, Kate. Crack on.’ Shona ushered her back through the door. Then she set the timer on her phone and when it pinged one hour later she looked at the satisfying list of paperwork accomplished and headed out into the main office.
‘Listen up, folks.’ Shona paused for a beat as heads turned from computer screens and calls were ended. When she had everyone’s attention she continued. ‘Update please, Kate.’
DC Irving jumped up from her chair. ‘These are our suspects, ma’am.’ She began fixing a series of around twenty screen grabs of mixed quality beneath the timeline on the whiteboard. Shona was reminded of the game she’d played with Becca when she was little, matching pairs. Cards laid out face down, then turned over for a moment before being replaced in their original position. Shona’s eye for detail meant she’d quickly memorised the entire deck and their positions, but she always let Becca win. Becca was good at it too and rarely needed her help. Perhaps it was hereditary. The thought that she’d passed a useful trait on to her child gave a small moment of pride.
‘They’ve been careful,’ said Murdo, indicating the prints on the board. ‘Baseball caps, hoodies, headscarves. Keeping their backs to the cameras.’
‘Which suggests they could be local and know their targets,’ said Kate, studying the display with serious grey eyes. ‘Or that they’re from outside the area but they’re organised and did their homework. Either way, it’s likely they checked out the shops before they hit them, so there may be footage from a previous visit.’
‘But when?’ Murdo pointed to the surveillance video frozen on Kate’s laptop screen. ‘Do you not think you’ve enough on your plate with that lot?’
Kate nodded glumly.
‘Pairs,’ Shona said. ‘Ever play it as a child? It’s a bit like Snap.’ She began grouping together the photographs where the suspects showed similarities. ‘Tall individual, probably male. The Co-op theft was reported as two males, but a previous witness said a couple, so the smaller suspect is probably female.’ She held up another photograph. ‘There’s less of a height difference here and they’ve changed clothes. Heels? No, it’s in the build too, but they could have bulked up with layers of clothing.’ She stepped back for a moment before grabbing a marker pen and writing ‘suspect A’ on the board and gathering together all the prints of the tallest person.
‘Kate?’ Shona said, holding out the pen. Kate came forward, added ‘suspect B’, and placed all the pictures of the smaller individual in a group. The rest of the team made comments and pointed out details.
‘We could really do with Vincent to look at this,’ said Shona, inwardly cursing the temporary loss. ‘He’d check the videos for possible links in how they walk, posture and mannerisms, but from these stills I’d say we are looking for minimum two, but more likely three or four individuals.’
She picked up two of the clearest images. One showed the couple from the back, but with a partial profile of the man just visible beneath his pulled down baseball cap. In the other image, the female figure was seen from the front, her head dipped beneath the hood of her grey sweatshirt. ‘Is that a Nike logo?’ Shona showed the image to the team. A few of them nodded uncertainly.
‘Could be,’ said Kate. ‘I wondered if that was a strand of blonde hair?’ She pointed to a faint pale smudge at the woman’s collarbone.
‘Perhaps,’ agreed Shona.
‘I thought that was the cord from her hoodie,’ said Murdo.
‘Okay, get these two out to the press,’ ordered Shona, handing him the prints. ‘If we can get a possible ID on even one of these individuals, it will be a start.’
‘Press office want us to put up someone for interviews on this. TV and radio,’ Murdo said, passing the images to one of the civilian staff. Kate looked up, hopeful. Shona was tempted to let her do it, just to teach her an important lesson.
‘The press office should have more sense. Some smart-arse reporter will make a feeble joke, you know.’ Shona threw up her hands in frustration. ‘“Is breast now best following a spate of baby formula thefts?” or “Are Dumfries Police feeling like right tits after baby milk heists?” Now that, see that?’ She broke off and pointed at two smirking male support staff who quickly straightened their faces. ‘That is exactly the reaction I’m talking about.’
Shona turned again to her DC. ‘On camera you’ll be forced to respond, Kate. Smile and play along, be a good sport and we’ll look like we’re not taking this seriously. Slap him down and you’ll look po-faced and out of touch, that the police can’t take a joke. It’s a poisoned chalice. So, no interviews. A statement with an appeal for witnesses is the best fit until we have something positive to say. Understand?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Kate replied, looking suitably chastened.
‘Right everyone, back to work. Murdo, a word.’ Shona returned to her office, followed by her sergeant. The quiet hum of worker bees resumed as staff went back to their tasks.
‘Murdo, get an appeal out for our unidentified woman in the Solway Firth and send out the picture of the bracelet with it.’
‘Isn’t that Cumbria’s case? Division won’t like that.’
‘Well Division can lump it. I’ll not ignore a young woman’s death.’
‘What did Baird say? Shouldn’t you clear it with him first?’
‘It’s what I say that counts, DS O’Halloran. My manor, my rules,’ replied Shona, drawing herself up and lifting her chin in defiance. Her first boss, a Cockney bruiser with thirty years’ service, used to say that. He’d taught Shona all she needed to know about being responsible to the community you served. ‘Call in favours with tame journalists if you have to, I want maximum coverage for this.’
‘Okay, no problem. Will we be getting any more people? If we’re working the baby milk thefts and a suspicious death and also supporting Op Fortress, we’ll be pushed.’
It was true, Operation Fortress was bearing down on them like a truck with no brakes. It was a logistical nightmare. A dozen simultaneous early morning arrests involving uniform and CID teams, vans, sniffer dogs, the works. The culmination of months of surveillance, intelligence processing and planning. But it was Baird’s operation, his officers were dealing with it. That made it Baird’s problem, not hers. Her team would concentrate on the cases they had. ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No more staff. It will just be us as usual. Keeping it in the family.’
‘Does that mean there’s a chance of overtime?’
‘Do you want the Divisional response on that?’
‘Does it begin, not a snowball’s chance…’
‘…in hell?’ she finished. ‘Yes, Murdo. That’s the one.’
Chapter 5
Shona worked on until seven p.m. Then she told those team members who hadn’t already left due to family responsibilities to go home. DC Kate Irving, facing the prospect of another Friday night in front of the TV with a ready meal, volunteered to stay for a while and sift the calls coming into the control centre after the evening news appeal. Shona reckoned the interesting tips might not come until Monday, when those with something to gain or lose by talking to the police had weighed up their options, and time had worked on both their consciences and their sense of self-preservation. For now, the majority would be fantasists or curtain-twitchers who already had suspicions about their neighbours and relished a chance to air them. But every tip needed checking and Kate could give them a head start by prioritising the initial intel.
The half-hour drive back from Dumfries HQ to Kirkness was Shona’s buffer zone. A window of time in which to assess the business of the day and re-order her resources for the different challenges of home. She caught the end of The Archers on Radio 4, then switched to Classic FM as she left the A75. The road became narrower, winding down through the lanes until the first spirit-lifting glimpse of the bay. The tide had gone out, leaving a sheen of brightness on the mudbanks; a million tiny points of ligh
t sparkled in the evening sunshine. The first flames of autumn colour were tinting the far bank. Golden alders and larches, red rowans and the fiery glow of hawthorns licking upwards to the dark pines on the higher hills.
She parked the four-year-old Audi A3 next to Rob’s brand new Mercedes V-Class MPV, bought to collect B&B guests from Dumfries rail station in comfort but used mostly to ferry Becca and her friends around.
Rob called out from the kitchen as she came through the back door. She took in the ordered laundry room and stacked guest supplies with an involuntary stab of guilt. Since Rob’s outing with his brother Sandy to Carlisle races last weekend, he’d been a model of sobriety and contrition. Her worry that he’d been gambling again was beginning to feel like an overreaction. It was a day out with his brother, a letting off of steam built up by their first full season of demanding guests. It was the inevitable outcome of this period of adjustment, a single act he would not be repeating. He’d said all this in a profuse and credible apology at a lunch he’d made for just the two of them and followed by the attentive lovemaking only a relationship-threatening argument can inspire.
Rob had his back to her, washing up under the big window that faced out into the bay. He grinned over his shoulder as she wrapped her arms around him.
He turned and embraced her. ‘Careful. Tommy dropped off some fish. I’ve been making a pie. I stink.’ Rob’s mother had once cooked at the nearby exclusive Palnackie House Hotel. He’d done a cookery course there soon after his redundancy and when he returned to London, he had a complete plan, spreadsheets, the lot. He still had occasional thoughts of opening a restaurant in an empty building at Tommy’s boatyard. For the moment, he practised on the family. ‘If you’re hugging me now you must love me really.’
‘Who says I love you? I could just be using you for sex, all the while planning to callously discard you.’
‘Naw, you must love me. You followed me to this hell hole.’ His expression clouded.
She looked at him seriously, examining his tanned, handsome face and blue-grey eyes for clues. ‘You think this is a hell hole?’ Beyond the window, the curve of the bay was a serene smile, the calm evening a gentle caress.
He pulled her close again, nuzzling her neck, then leaned back grinning at her. ‘Course not, though your cooking could stand some improvement, lassie. That is a vision of hell. Lucky you’ve got me or we’d all starve.’
Shona glimpsed the pie in the eye-level oven, the golden potato crust browning nicely. Her stomach rumbled. Becca came into the kitchen wearing an acid yellow vintage top over leggings, her dark wavy hair loose around her shoulders. She had her mother’s heart shaped face and colouring, but her father’s height and cheekbones. She rolled her eyes at her parents. Shona detached an arm from Rob and pulled her daughter to her. At fifteen, Becca was already several inches taller than she was. She kissed her lightly on the cheek. For a second, Shona held them both in a fierce embrace, fixing the imprint of them in her consciousness, throwing a ring of protection around all that really mattered to her.
‘Muuum,’ Becca protested. Becca disdained, but never denied, these moments of affection. Perhaps her daughter loved her after all.
Rob detached himself. ‘Right, food, ten minutes,’ he said as he began laying the table in the kitchen. The jaunty theme-tune of The Enterpriser came from the small TV suspended below the kitchen cabinets. ‘Your pal’s on again.’ He indicated celebrity business guru Kenny Hanlon, all impossibly blond hair and loud suit, beaming like the risen sun from the screen. ‘When are we meeting him?’
‘Don’t remind me. The STAC reception is next week.’ She watched as the camera swooped wildly over the ecstatic studio audience. As the titles ended it came to rest on Hanlon, posed side-on, feet planted wide and arms folded. He turned, brandished a huge fistful of cash, and winked. The legend Your Business is My Business flashed up in neon behind him. ‘God, this is trash.’ Shona shook her head.
‘Don’t let the theatrical camp fool you. He’s got a good commercial head on him.’ Rob tasted the homemade ketchup he was stirring and nodded, satisfied. ‘Mind you, he should have a rabies shot the way he goes after some of the contestants.’
‘You a fan?’ Shona raised her eyebrows.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t go that far.’ Rob smiled diplomatically.
While Becca was upstairs finishing some homework, accompanied by the pounding rap of Stormzy, Shona quickly showered and changed into jeans and a sweater. Returning to the kitchen, she noted a bottle of chilled white wine, already half drunk, had appeared on the table, along with a glass of apple juice for Becca. When they were all settled with full plates in front of them Rob asked them both about their day. Becca responded with grunts and shrugs but her general mood suggested things hadn’t gone too badly. ‘I know better than to ask you for details,’ he said to Shona. ‘For operational reasons.’ There was an edge of sarcasm in his words.
In the early years of their relationship they’d both agreed their jobs stopped at the front door of their home. She’d talk about cases only in the broadest terms. Rob’s banking deals, when discussed at any length, quickly became an abstract string of numbers that Shona found a curiously impersonal way to spend your working day. But now Rob had no corporate life, no colleagues to confide in or grumble about the boss with. He was his own boss and could order his day in any way he pleased. She envied him the freedom. But it was a lonely sort of freedom, and perhaps a factor in his recent behaviour, the source of the restlessness and dissatisfaction she sensed below the surface of their life together.
‘Actually, I need to ask your advice about something,’ she began. He was surprised, but she could see his interest was piqued. ‘Managing rivalry in your team.’ She stopped short of detailing DCs Kate Irving and Ravi Sarwar’s worst excesses. But Kate’s constant sniping and Ravi’s baiting of his colleague was having an impact. She didn’t want to lose either; something needed to be done. She could give them a good talking to, but perhaps there was another way?
Rob barked a short, mirthless laugh and topped up his wine glass, draining the bottle. ‘In banking you don’t so much manage your team as keep them at bay with a pointy stick. It’s like swimming with sharks, they’ll gobble you up if you turn your back for a second. Want to keep them happy? Throw them a live victim and stand back while they try to tear each other apart.’ He took a large gulp from his glass. Then, pinching the stem, he rotated it between finger and thumb, frowning at the swirling contents, lost in dark and unhappy remembrance.
‘You must be so glad to be out of it.’ Asking him had been a miscalculation. In a bid to change the subject, she said. ‘So, what did you get up to today? Do anything special?’
‘Don’t do that,’ he snapped at her.
‘Do what?’
‘Question me like a suspect. I know you think I swan around all day wasting my time, but I’ve been busy.’
‘No point in lying to Mum. She’ll always bust you,’ Becca joked, but seeing the expression on her father’s face, quickly slid from the table and deposited her empty plate into the kitchen sink. Mumbling something about more homework, she fled upstairs to her room and slammed the door. Shona glared at Rob.
‘What?’ he shot back, draining his glass. ‘You think I’m gambling, but I’m not.’
Shona started to deny it, but he cut her off. ‘It’s all right for you,’ he continued. ‘If you’re not at work you’re down at your precious lifeboat. I spent an hour picking her up from school, then when we’re nearly home I had to go back because she’s left a course book there. Barely got a thank you. I spend half my time covering for you.’
‘You’re not covering for me,’ she snapped. ‘The school run is your job because you can fit it in around the guests. The B&B was your idea and I supported you when you left the bank.’
‘I knew you’d throw that in my face.’
‘I’m not.’ She paused. She’d had a long day and couldn’t face an argument. ‘It’s just when I run out the door,
for the lifeboat or the job, I need to know you’ll take up the slack at home. That’s what we agreed.’ She smiled and placed her hand on his arm, but he shook it off.
‘But you never wanted to move here.’
‘Not this again.’ She stared at him, puzzled by this sudden squall in the middle of a perfect evening. They’d bought their salary-stretching Camden basement flat as honeymooners, for its tiny outdoor space. For Sundays spent reading papers in the garden. For gastro pub lunches and browsing second-hand furniture in Camden Market. When Becca arrived, Rob had just landed a big bonus, so they bought the flat upstairs and knocked through. Growing up, Shona would only have entered a house like that as the cleaner. Though this house, High Pines, was beautiful, it had been chosen for its B&B potential. For Shona, it would never be quite the home their Camden maisonette had been. She had her own reasons for leaving London, but the fact remained that this had been Rob’s plan. ‘I could see you were miserable in London. I wanted what was best for you and Becca. We’re happy now, aren’t we? It’s working out? I love it here.’ She felt her resentment at his petulant, ungrateful behaviour spring up like a cold draught. ‘You can’t blame me for making a go of it.’
He frowned at his empty wine glass. ‘Becca hates her school, you know. I think she’s being bullied.’
‘She’s not said anything to me.’
‘Well now you’re here, why don’t you question her for a change?’ He got up, unsteady, nudging the table as he did so. The empty wine bottle toppled over and spun like a rudderless ship across the polished pine surface. Shona put out a hand to catch it, but it skipped over the edge and smashed on the tiled floor. ‘Rob, wait…’ The jagged glass nicked her finger as she bent to pick it up. She swore as she gingerly walked to the cabinet with the first aid box, sucking the wound and unwrapping a plaster. In the hall, she heard Rob’s footsteps and the front door slam.