by Val Penny
“Piss off, Frankie.”
“Am I getting a chocky doughnut, then?”
“Aye,” Jamie grinned.
***
Jamie was disappointed to see Frankie at the reception desk when he walked in.
“Where’s Jenny, cuz?” he called over to Frankie.
“Dunno. Not even a phone call. And she’s well late now.”
“Well, she must be somewhere, her coat’s here. She looks good in red.”
“Well she’s not anywhere, as far as I can see.”
“She’s usually early. Wonder what’s up.” Jamie rubbed his hands together. It might be spring according to the time of year, but with its wide glass front and the open garage at the back, the showroom was cold.
“She maybe went to get cakes,” Frankie suggested hopefully.
“Without her coat? I doubt it!” Jamie retorted.
“Well, she was probably out on the lash last night and slept in.”
“Could be, but I still can’t see her leaving last night without her coat.” Jamie shrugged and turned away, trying to hide his disappointment. “It’s fucking freezing in here. I’ll make us a coffee first to warm us up, then I’ll try phoning her.”
“Phone her first, Jamie. You know you want to.”
When Jamie wandered back to reception from the office he plonked a mug of coffee in front of Frankie.
“Her mam says she never went home last night. Do you know if she was going out with pals or the like?”
“I don’t know. You gave that guy a test drive in the Bentley and I went home. A fellow came in just as I was leaving, but Jenny said she would see to him because she would stay on and lock up with you.” Frankie smiled. “I thought, aye aye, nudge nudge, say no more. So off I went. I picked up the twins from their child minder on the way home. You know?”
Jamie frowned. “She wasn’t here when I got back, and the showroom wasn’t locked up. I was pretty pissed off about that. But I couldn’t see nothing missing, so when the guy said he wanted to think about the Bentley, I just locked up and came home.”
“Nothing was missing except Jenny, you mean.”
“I didn’t know that. I thought you’d both just buggered off.”
“Like we’d ever do that. Your pop would skin us alive when he got hold of us. Do you think I’ve got a death wish?”
“Funny accent the man had,” Jamie said. “European or something.”
“Jamie?” The head mechanic, Gary, called across the showroom. “Where’s that old blue Volvo that was waiting to go through its service?”
“What old Volvo? I don’t know. Don’t you keep a log of all the cars you work on?” Jamie asked angrily.
“Aye, but we didn’t get to this one yesterday. It was just waiting outside for us to get started this morning. The customer asked us to give it a service, then put it up for sale. Said he had a buyer for it who’d pay eight grand, but he might need a test drive first. I told him he’d need a brain test if he was paying that much for that car. But it seems like he was right; it must have been sold. ”
“So what happened to the paperwork?” Jamie shouted. “We've not sold any fucking old Volvo. Where is the damn thing?”
“No idea.”
“So what do I do now? Jenny’s not in, and a fucking car has gone missing. This is a truly rubbish start to the day. Pop is going to bloody skin me.”
Frankie shrugged, “Phone Jenny’s mam back? Maybe the man she spoke to took the Volvo.”
“I suppose I should. I don’t fancy it though. She shouts. I don’t think she likes me. Then what do I tell Pop about the car?”
“I think you’ll need a chocky doughnut before you do that. I know I will!”
“I’ll need more than a fucking chocky doughnut, Frankie, if we’ve lost one of his customer’s cars.”
***
Hunter felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. A call from Charlie Middleton (the desk sergeant at the station), when he was in the middle of searching George’s home, couldn’t be good news.
“Charlie? What is it? A young woman missing? I don’t suppose the girl just took off with a boyfriend?” Hunter listened to his desk sergeant for a moment. He could hear a woman screaming in the background. “I take it that’s the girl’s mother making that racket? Well, put her into an interview room with a cup of tea. We’ve got about all we can from here just now. I’ll come back with young Myerscough and leave Rachael with Bear to finish up. Send a van out for them. There’s a lot to come back to the station.” Hunter looked at Tim. “Looks like you and I are going to have a loud conversation with an anxious parent in relation to something we know nothing about. Come on, young Myerscough, back to the ranch!”
“Another little slice of Heaven,” Tim grinned. He caught the car keys Hunter threw at him and drove them away from the leafy trees in Gilmerton Road and back to the station at Fettes.
Chapter Five
Jane Renwick looked up from her computer to see Mel standing looking awkward.
“Mel?”
“I can’t find any family connected with George at all. He certainly never married here, and he’s not named as the father on any birth certificates, as far as I can see. He could have been married before he came here, but he arrived when he was still a teenager, so it is unlikely. Makes me think he was on his own, because he never made a claim for a wife to join him.”
“Hmm. Do you want to tell the boss he’ll have to do the identification, or shall I?” Jane smiled.
“No contest, DS Renwick; you’re the sergeant,” Mel grinned. “I’m off to make a coffee. You want a camomile tea?”
Jane nodded and turned back to the screen in front of her.
***
Hunter and Tim grabbed hot drinks for themselves and their interviewee from the machine and entered the interview room. The room was small and dark. The only window had bars across it and was almost at the height of the ceiling. Even Tim couldn’t see out of it. The smell in interview rooms was never fresh. It didn’t matter how much disinfectant the cleaners used or how much air-freshener the officers sprayed around after the rooms were used. They always smelled of dirt, body odour and farts. This room was no different.
The woman, sitting on the plastic chair facing the door, looked up at Hunter and Tim through streaks of mascara.
“Mrs Kozlowski?” Hunter asked.
“Miss. Bastard went off before Jenny was even born, didn’t he?”
“DI Wilson and DC Myerscough,” Hunter said, as he and Tim sat down.
“You’re tall,” she said to Tim. “I seen your name in the paper. Your dad in the nick or something? And you’re a cop? That’s funny,” she said in a flat tone of voice.
Tim had heard this jibe too often to be riled by it. Certainly, Tim knew his father’s fall from grace had been nothing short of remarkable: former Chief Constable of Lothian & Borders Police, then Justice Secretary in the Scottish Parliament, now a guest of Her Majesty in HMP Edinburgh. Tim acknowledged the irony, but did not appreciate it. He had joined the police force, originally, to emulate his father. He had stayed to show he was different. He was grateful to DI Hunter Wilson for challenging him to do that. Tim knew that Hunter despised his father, yet he had taken Tim under his wing.
“You need our help because your daughter is missing, I understand?” Hunter went on, apparently ignoring her comments. “How old is she, Miss Kozlowski?”
“Jenny only turned 18 today.” The woman started to sniffle. “But she wouldn’t just go off.”
“So she’s an adult. Could she have gone out to celebrate her birthday with friends, last night?”
“Even if she had, she’d tell me. And she’d have come home.”
“How long has she been missing?” Hunter asked.
“I don’t know! About a day, she hasn’t been seen by those numpties she works for since five o’clock yesterday evening. Fancy leaving her alone with that man coming in.”
“What man?” Hunter asked.
She
stared at Hunter and Tim as if they were idiots. Then the woman glared at Hunter as she raised her voice.
“She phoned yesterday to say that a customer arrived late. He wanted to test-drive a Volvo that was sitting there, and, as she was the only person there, she was going to have to go with him. She works at Thomson’s Top Cars, you know. Those idiots who play at running the place just left her alone with a man who’d just come in. Now she’s missing. Who would do that?”
Hunter caught Tim’s glance and raised his eyebrows.
The woman continued, “Then, she had plans to go out with a pal for a bit of late-night shopping and a bite to eat at Nando’s before she came home. She likes Nando’s.” She dropped her gaze from Hunter’s eyes and fiddled with the piece of tissue in her hands.
“Go on, Miss Kozlowski,” Tim prompted quietly.
“I was on night-shift so I wasn’t going to see her till tonight, but then I gets a call from that wee smart-arse whose dad owns the showroom. His dad’s in the nick too, you know.” She nodded at Tim. “I gets woken up this morning, just after I’d got to sleep, with the phone ringing. It’s that Jamie asking where’s Jenny, he’s bought cakes for her birthday and she’s not in yet and she’s late. I ask you, what’s cakes got to do with it? Where’s my daughter?”
“Did you ask him where she might be?” Hunter asked.
“Have you ever tried to get any sense out of that one? It was bad enough when the foreign guy was there, but now it seems like they’re just playing at it.” Ishbel Kozlowski looked drained. Tim wondered just how much sleep the woman had had. “He tells me Jenny left without locking up last night and now she’s late and she’s in trouble.” She paused. “She’s in trouble my arse. He doesn’t know how much trouble he’s going to be in if anything’s happened to my Jenny. She’s all I’ve got.” Her tears began to flow again.
Hunter sighed and glanced at Tim.
“So Jenny went on a test drive with a customer, alone?” Tim asked.
“Yes. It was near closing time.”
“Did she leave a note of the customer’s name? Or take a copy of their driving licence?”
“No.”
“Did Jenny leave a note of the route the test drive would take?” Tim asked, more in hope than expectation.
“No.”
“Jenny has not been seen since she left the showroom with the customer?”
“No.”
Tim tried again. “So she didn’t meet up with her friend as planned?”
“No! No! No! Do you understand? No!” Ishbel Kozlowski screamed at Tim.
“Do you know any more about the car that was taken for the test drive?” Hunter asked in an evident attempt to calm the woman down. It worked to the extent that she stopped screaming.
“No, but Jamie does. I stopped listening to his excuses and came to you. You need to find my Jenny,” the woman almost whispered in despair.
“Miss Kozlowski,” Hunter began, “it is not long since Jenny was last seen, and she is not a child who needs permission to go out—”
He was faced with another wall of noise coming from the furious mother.
“If you would let me finish,” he said quietly. “I was going to say that as you are sure this is so out of character, and Jenny was technically still seventeen when she went missing, we will set up a missing person enquiry now. Do you have a clear, recent photo of Jenny?”
The woman pulled out her mobile phone.
“Isn’t technology useful?” Hunter smiled.
Chapter Six
It had been a long day for Hunter, and it was not over yet. He returned from the formal identification of George Reinbold and switched on the coffee machine in his office, hoping the smell of the coffee would erase the taste of death in his throat. Not that the cure would last long. He knew Meera had insisted on doing the post-mortem herself. Hunter had to be there too, for George. He gazed out of his office window across the car-park to the trees beyond. The spring sunshine belied the chill in the air and the chill in his heart. Who had so brutally murdered George? Why was he the victim to such a calculated attack?
Hunter would find out. He would get his revenge.
“Nadia?” he shouted brusquely.
“Yes, Sir?” The nervous PC was in front of him before he had drawn breath.
“Nadia, the post-mortem for that murder victim, George Reinbold, is this afternoon. Have you ever witnessed a post-mortem?”
“No. No, Sir I’ve never had the opportunity.”
“Well, today is your lucky day. The rest of the team knew George Reinbold, so it will be too difficult for them. I want you to accompany me to the morgue this afternoon.”
“That sounds like the worst date in the world!” Mel caught the last part of the conversation as she stuck her head into Hunter’s office. “I was just looking for Nadia. I didn’t want to lose her on her first day.”
“I’m going to my first post-mortem today with the boss.”
“So I gathered,” Mel grinned. “What time is Dr Sharma doing George?”
“Meera Sharma and David Murray both insisted on working George’s post-mortem. Their way of paying respects.”
“Each to their own. Will it not be difficult for you, Boss?” Mel wrinkled her nose.
“It will. I'd welcome a little respect from you, Mel, please.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“So 2.30 pm at the morgue. Because this death occurred as a result of criminal activity, the post-mortem will be carried out by Dr Meera Sharma. She is a forensic pathologist, Nadia.”
“Okay, Sir. Why a forensic pathologist?” Nadia asked.
“Forensic pathologists investigate deaths where there are both medical and legal implications. In this case, George was shot. We know he was murdered.”
“I understand,” Nadia said.
“Good. We’ll meet in the car park after lunch, Nadia.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Rather you than me,” Mel teased Nadia as the two DCs left Hunter. “Want lunch in the canteen before you go? Or are you going to watch the proceedings on an empty stomach?”
***
Nadia had never been to a mortuary. The approach to the Edinburgh City Mortuary made her shudder. It is situated in the area of Edinburgh known as The Cowgate. Nadia guessed that the area derived its name from the historic practice of herding cattle down the street on market days.
Although the day was bright, the street seemed dark. Nadia looked around at The Cowgate and saw it was a canyon of a place. The street was only one lane wide in each direction and the pavements were narrow. She stared at the steep gradients leading off to either side. Nadia glanced at Hunter and noticed he was frowning. There was nowhere obvious to park, so she gripped on to the handle of the car door as Hunter swung the car into the morgue car park and drew up at the rear beside the anonymous black 'private ambulances' outside the morgue. His silence throughout the journey had done nothing to put Nadia at ease.
Hunter marched in without comment as Nadia trotted along behind him.
“Doctor Meera Sharma, may I introduce DC Nadia Chan,” Hunter said, unusually formally. Nadia noticed that Hunter was upset and badly affected by this death.
“This is so sad, isn’t it?” Meera said.
“Sad doesn’t touch it, does it?” Hunter asked. “I need to know all you can possibly find out for me. I need to find the bastard who did this and lock them up for good.”
“Come on then,” Meera said. “You get togged up and let’s see what we can learn.”
Hunter and Nadia put on the white tunics, shoe covers, hats and masks that had been left for them.
“Distinctive smell here, Sir.”
“Once smelt, never forgotten. Come on. I hope you don’t have a weak stomach.” Hunter led Nadia through to the post-mortem room.
“Afternoon, Hunter,” Dr David Murray called from across the room. “I will be assisting Meera today, it only seemed right for George. And I hear you have a newbie with you?”
“Yes, DC Nadia Chan. She’s new to the team. The others had all worked with George. I thought it would be too hard for them, so I volunteered Nadia to witness the post-mortem with me today.”
“Your colleagues don’t have a great reputation for seeing out the whole autopsy anyway. Didn’t the big guy faint last time?”
“Bear? Yes he did. Hopefully Nadia will fare better.”
“We shall see.” David Murray smiled at Nadia before pulling up his mask.
“Let’s see what’s here,” Meera began. “We have a white male, aged 73, and identified as Professor George Ernst Reinbold, former Professor of Criminology at Napier University in Edinburgh, later Manager of Criminal Scene Investigators in Lothian & Borders.” Meera paused for breath, and Nadia noticed she had tears in her eyes.
“This is hard on everybody, Meera,” Hunter said softly.
She nodded, and carried on speaking softly into the microphone attached around her neck.
“There is a single bullet to the forehead yesterday morning. It would appear he was shot at close range. Forensics may be able to tell us the calibre of weapon if the bullet has been found?” She looked at Hunter.
“I honestly don't know yet. I haven't been told,” he replied.
“It must have been so hard for the CSI team,” Meera said.
“I called on the team from Glasgow. It would have been too much for our CSIs, Meera.”
“Of course,” she said. “It won’t be long until you’re all one force, will it?”
“Don’t remind me. I’m still not sure that will work well, but nobody asked me.”
Meera smiled and then turned back to the corpse in front of her.
“Brain destroyed in the blast, and the rear of the skull shattered. Fragments recovered. David, will you get those weighed for the report?”
“Yes, Meera.”
“Would spray from George’s blood have hit the gunman, Meera?” Hunter asked.
“It always depends on how close they were. But the powder burns around the entrance suggest this shot was made at close range, so yes, it probably would. You should call in a ballistics expert to help answer as many of your questions as possible. They will report separately.”