by Zach Abrams
“There's a couple more formalities we need to check with you,” Donny interrupted. “Can you tell me where you were between the hours of twelve noon and two pm last Thursday 3rd November?”
“I was on duty here in the control room. I had a meal break for about half an hour but was here for the rest of it. The inspector here can confirm that, and if you want, you can check the control room logs.” Griffiths nodded his agreement.
“One more thing,” McAvoy added. “Can you tell me your whereabouts on Sunday night the 6th November?”
“I was home with Peggy, just the two of us.”
“Nobody came round or called?”
“I never saw anybody, but Peggy's sister called and I spoke with her. Probably about nine pm.”
“I think that's all we need for now. Thank you for all your help and for being so candid in your responses. We'll need to have your statement written up and signed.” Sandra was satisfied she had everything they needed and didn't want to prolong the agony. Kennedy hadn't contributed anything that they hadn't already known, but she hadn't really expected him to. She'd had to go through the motions all the same. It would be up to Fife constabulary how they wanted to deal with Kennedy.
* * *
Alex's day was going from bad to worse. After oversleeping and having to race about to arrive in court on time, the rest of the morning went from dead slow to stop. On arrival, he managed to pick up a tuna baguette from the cafeteria to further abate his hunger, but in his rush to eat it, a large dollop of mayonnaise covered fish dropped from the end and landed on his lapel. He immediately wiped it off but a large dark stain remained on the light grey material and his vain attempts to clean it only made the stain worse. He didn't know if it was real or his imagination but Alex worried that the fishy smell was still there as well. Alex, who always took a pride in his appearance, was mortified at the prospect of appearing to be slovenly on the witness stand. The court building was warm so he removed his jacket and carried it over his arm, thereby mitigating the problem.
Alex checked today's run of business for the court and realised there was going to be a long wait before he would be called. He took the opportunity to talk to some of the procurator fiscal's staff and receive updates on different cases being heard which he had an involvement in, before going to the witness waiting room to read through his papers. The case he was attending today related to a series of break-ins. A team working under Alex's command had been successful in tracking down and apprehending the three brothers who were responsible for the crimes. There was no credible defence as they were caught in possession of stolen goods and a search of their garage found considerably more. Nevertheless, their lawyer, supported by Legal Aid, had encouraged them to plead 'not guilty' and several months after being caught the brothers had finally found their way to court.
Alex had a clear recollection of what had happened and of the evidence he would be expected to give but he diligently re-read his case notes to ensure he wouldn't forget anything important. Satisfied that he was up to speed, he put the notes away and instead picked up the papers Phil had handed him on the way out of the office.
Turning his full attention to the Stevenson/Kerr cases, he read through the profiler's appraisal and wasn't surprised to see his own assumptions being confirmed. The assailant was clearly intelligent and probably middle class with a reasonable or good understanding of police and forensics procedures. He was likely to be middle-aged, above average height, healthy and possibly athletic or a fitness enthusiast. There had been a show of strength and arrogance in his acts suggesting he was used to wielding power. The post mortem attack on Kerr indicated he was very likely to be a closet gay or possibly bisexual and he was seeking to punish Kerr for enticing him. To cover his back, the profiler also made a disclaimer statement that as the assailant was very intelligent, he could be trying to lead them in the wrong direction by providing false clues.
Alex exhaled loudly, tossing the notes back into his bag and, just at that point in time, the fiscal's assistant came through the door to advise him that one of the brother's had not turned up. He had given an excuse claiming he had broken his arm and the Sheriff had granted a continuance.
“Shit, what a bloody waste of time,” Alex exclaimed as he collected his jacket and brief case and made his way out the door, calling for a car to pick him up as he walked.
For the second time that day, Alex ran up the stairs to his office, taking them two at a time, and arrived at eleven, only moments before Sandra and Donny returned.
“What's been happening?” he asked Phil.
“Two minutes, Boss, and I'll only need to say it once. Here's Sandra.”
“What in God's name's happened to you?” Donny exclaimed eyeing Alex's weary looking face and badly creased and stained jacket.
“Long story, save it for another time,” he replied, but couldn't help noting the serious concern showing in Sandra's eyes.
“I'm fine,” he followed up. “Now has that warrant come through yet?”
“That's only the start,” Phil replied. “It's just come in and we're ready to go as soon as you are. I've arranged with Connor to have a couple of his lads come in with us to save time. But I've got some even better news, we've also had a sighting of Black and it's been confirmed. He's in Birmingham, staying at the Britannia in the city centre. He'd been trying to disguise himself, grown a beard and dyed his hair, but it's him all right. There's no doubt. We've got enough on him now to put out an arrest warrant. To hell with protecting him, we can just bring him in. If it's okay with you, Boss, we can give the boys from Brum the go ahead and have Black lifted and we can have him up here later today or at worst by morning.”
“Go for it,” Alex confirmed. “Now let's see that lock-up. Phil, Donny, get it set up for thirty minutes time. Sandra, I want to see you in my office now. I want you to give me a debriefing on this morning.”
Alex strode through followed by Sandra, the door closing behind her. His eyes were all over her, absorbing her, looking for some sign, praying almost, that their interaction of the previous night hadn't just been a drunken fumble.
He needn't have worried, “I was hoping more for another sort of debriefing,” she whispered.
He couldn't keep his hands off her; he grabbed her shoulders and drew her to him, their mouths meeting firmly, almost desperately. His hands found their way down her back and over her buttocks pulling her body to his, enveloping her.
It was several seconds before either of them surfaced from their embrace, both gasping for breath but still holding tightly, their cheeks touching and their bodies inseparable.
“This isn't the time or the place, but I want you,” Sandra said.
Alex stood slightly away. “I don't think you need me to tell you my feelings on the matter. I'm so sorry about last night.”
“We'll have other times,” she answered, “maybe even tonight. But what happened after you left? You haven't told me yet.”
Alex ran through the details of his search for Craig, bringing him home and Helen being so upset and needing comforting, carefully missing out her attempts at seduction. He explained about not getting home until very late and falling asleep once he'd sent her the text.
“I don't think I slept at all last night,” she replied, “first waiting to hear what had happened and then hoping you'd call back. Maybe tonight's not a good idea, we want to both be awake for our first night together.”
Alex laughed, a tight bitter laugh. “You're right of course. I suppose there'll always be problems though, but we want to give ourselves a decent chance.”
“I'd prefer an indecent one if we're going to have a chance.”
“God, with jokes like that you must have been spending too much time with Phil. And talking about Phil, we'd better get moving for this search. Before we go, you'd better fill me in on Fife.”
“And you can tell me about your morning, or maybe better not,” she said looking at his stained and crumpled jacket.
; The four of them, accompanied by two of Connor's technicians and a couple of regular officers, made their way out to the West End and the small lane which housed the lock up. Mr Singh and his son came out of their shop to see what was going on and were chased away, the uniformed officers set up a cordon to afford them some privacy.
For what appeared to be no more than a single garage, the locking system was sophisticated. The padlock key from the safe wasn't usable here either, but that wasn't a problem as it only took them a few minutes to disable the locks and lift the roll-up shutter door. Inside the garage, their disappointment was almost palpable when they found the space stacked high with good quality brown wood furniture and object d'art. At first they thought their efforts to suit up to avoid contamination were wasted until crawling through the jumble of collectables, Sandra found two medium-sized safes hidden against the back wall.
Although not raining heavily, there was a clawing smur of dampness in the air and they were wary of exposing the furniture to the open air unprotected. They found a solution by having the scene of crime officers check for any evidence from a number of the largest items nearest the door then moving them outside covered by a tarpaulin. The space this created enabled them to juggle the contents within to establish what was there. It was fortunate so many of them were in attendance as it became a complicated logistical task to move the assemblage of heavy items without causing damage or losing potential evidence. The main focus of their attention was the two safes. Alex didn't recognise the makes or design. Each was light grey in colour and stood the size of a domestic under-counter fridge. They each had an electronic keypad and a key lock. Although they were desperate to gain access, they were wary as the technician warned he hadn't seen this particular design but had come across an eastern European make which was vaguely similar and incorporated a device to damage or destroy the contents if the door was improperly opened. The same technician used his mobile to photograph the safe and send the picture back to Connor for advice. Connor came back within a few minutes to tell them an expert was on his way but it would take a couple of hours to have him there.
Alex realised there wasn't enough time to usefully go away and return and decided instead to make use of the hiatus by taking the team round to Byres Road for a bite of lunch. The uniforms were left to guard the lock-up while they were away.
The high street was very busy, filled with shoppers and students alike, many milling around, browsing charity shops or just seeking a break in the middle of a damp, driech Tuesday. They looked in several shops, restaurants and pubs before finding a sandwich bar with a spare table large enough to take them. They gorged on filled ciabatta rolls and doughnuts.
Sandra's fatigued appearance and Alex's dishevelled one gave cause to a few exchanged glances from the others, but Phil, normally the lead in such matters refrained from comment. However, Donny couldn't help himself and, showing unusual bravery, asked Alex if he'd be leaving his jacket at Oxfam on their way out. Alex sportingly accepted the criticism and replied he couldn't as it wasn't good enough for them.
They were on their third round of tea when the call came in to advise them that the lock expert had arrived. Alex quickly settled the bill and they rushed back to the lock-up.
Five minutes of technical wizardry and both doors slid open exposing their contents with no ill effects.
Rather like traditional council employees attending road workings where one man digs while four stand supervising, Alex, Sandra, Donny and Phil oversaw the technicians carefully removing, and labelling the contents of the two safes.
The stash from the first one looked like a pirate's hoard. There were stacks of banknotes and bags containing gold coins, each safely encased in a small plastic sleeve with a stick-on label describing the coin's type, description and age. There were boxes of jewellery and watches and there was a small velvet bag containing a dozen or more diamonds, each of respectable size and more than one carat.
The second safe was practically empty but its potential value to their investigation by far surpassed the first. There were four, identical, small, plastic boxes, approximately four inches by three by three-quarters of an inch and each carried a small identification plate stating “HD My Passport,” the identification tag for a Western Digital external hard drive for use with a computer, either for additional storage of for security back-ups.
“These could be gold dust,” Phil stated, vocalising what they were all thinking.
“I'll keep hold of these,” the technician stated. “One of our people will need to try them first to check that they're virus free and that they've not been booby-trapped.”
“I don't know about that,” Alex replied. “This is my investigation and I'm not letting them out of my sight.”
A discussion ensued and it was decided the technician would hold on to the discs but travel back in Alex's car. This was given top priority and the two of them left straight away while the others finished checking over and cataloguing the contents of the lock- up, safely packaging what they wanted to take away before re-sealing the building and applying new police locks.
Once back in Pitt Street, specialist computer experts were summoned to take custody of the disks and check their accessibility. It didn't take them long to report back that they had no problems opening the disks but all the data on them was encrypted and locked behind secure access codes. The next stage would be to try to break the codes and the encryption system, and that was unlikely to be a quick job.
Alex stressed the urgency and then resignedly left them to it, returning to his own office.
Sandra and the lads had not yet returned, so seeing his phone blinking, his first task was to check his voicemails.
The first few messages were fairly routine advising or confirming arrangements for meetings, training courses and the like. There was a courtesy call from Bill Forbes, following up on their chance meeting at 'La Brava' and suggesting a coffee together and then a call from Charlie Hunter saying he had something really interesting to tell him.
Alex dialled through. “Hi, Charlie, I just got your message and you've got me intrigued.”
“I'm glad you've come back. I just wanted to tell you we followed up on your lead to check out Geoff Thomson and it proved most interesting, quite amusing actually, if it wasn't so serious. If you've got a few minutes, drop in and I'll tell you all about it.”
“How can I resist an invitation like that? I'll be straight over.”
“Good, I'll have the coffee ready.”
Only a few minutes later, Alex knocked on the door then stepped into Hunter's office and, true to his word, there was a fresh cafetiere of filter coffee sitting on the table along with a couple of mugs, sugar, milk and a dish piled high with shortbread fingers and chocolate biscuits.
“Is this how you normally live or is it a special occasion.”
“Well, it's not too often we manage to lure you along here, but in truth there's some compensations come with this rank, at least in this office, so enjoy.”
Having hardly eaten the day before, Alex had already compensated today starting with a healthy apple but then descending to the tuna baguette, mostly eaten although he'd worn some, a ham and cheese ciabatta and a large jam doughnut. Alex didn't usually eat sweets and cakes, and although it was some time ago, he could still taste the doughnut's sickly sweetness. However, he was grateful for the hospitality and camaraderie and didn't want to appear ungrateful so he nibbled on a shortbread biscuit while relishing the nutty richness of the freshly brewed beverage.
“Much as I enjoy your company, are you going to tell me what's happened?”
“You always were impatient, Alex. You need to learn to relax and appreciate the better things in life and, let me tell you, this is one of them.”
Alex looked up expectantly.
“You'll remember our conversation on Sunday? Well, I decided to give a try to what we were talking about. I told Thomson we were short-listing a few candidates to work in his department and we'd li
ke him to interview them as we'd be particularly interested in his opinion. He sounded quite chuffed, especially when we told him he'd be carrying out the interviews himself. We never made any promises to transfer who he wanted but there was a fairly strong inference.
“Anyway, we set him up with five candidates. Two were men who had very good credentials, experienced officers with good to excellent computer skills and sound financial understanding, one aged late twenties and the other in his thirties. Three were women. The first was aged in her forties and married with three kids, rather plain looking but impeccable experience, the job description could have been written for her. She's an experienced officer with a degree in psychology and a diploma in accounting. She's had experience working in our data control department and even had a three-month secondment with the serious fraud office. The second one is aged late twenties and again seems fairly plain looking, a little bit plump but not really fat, no bust but quite a pleasant looking face actually, but she's deliberately made herself up not to make the best of herself. Now for the third one, it's no doubt wrong for me to describe her like this but she's a real dolly bird, could have been a model, a real looker. She's twenty-six years old. Both of the younger women have okay experience but nothing to compare with the other three.
“It's actually genuine that we're looking for more staff to transfer to this department and all five of them applied along with a few others. We briefed the five of them and the last girl in particular as to what this is all about.
“As we spoke about, we set up the interviews in one of our rooms and had video and sound recording switched on. We have signs all round the room stating that video recording is used in the room so he can have no complaints. It's like we expected. After a few minutes he forgot about the cameras and just acted his normal self, or maybe it would be more accurate to say abnormal self.
“The first three interviews went as we might have wanted and expected. He'd designed a series of questions and he'd asked the same ones to each of them and took notes of their answers. He'd then gone on to ask some more open questions and tried to draw out how keen each of them were and what their main interest was and their reason for applying. It was quite professional and impressive, to be fair, except that judging by his notes and his probing he seemed to take a negative approach to the older woman and she'd been the best sounding candidate. In summary, that may have looked a wee bit suspicious but nothing untoward. Everybody forms their own natural prejudices and, while we may not like it, we can't legislate against it.