Janie tiptoed through the living room in her socks, trying not to make a sound as she gathered all her things for the day. On the couch, buried deep under a mound of spare duvet and blankets, Izzy DeVilliers snored like someone who’d drunk rather too much of Manda’s special Russian vodka the night before. Poor girl was going to have a head like an Orange Day parade when she woke up, but she only had herself to blame. Well, herself and Manda, maybe. Janie was glad she’d stopped after the first shot glass.
It occurred to her as she stooped to lace up her boots that she wasn’t entirely sure Izzy was old enough to drink. She’d have to check the record sheet from her arrest at the hotel. Except that she’d persuaded the duty sergeant to lose the paperwork when she’d first heard Con’s little sister was in the cells. That might come back to bite her if she wasn’t careful.
At least Manda had the day off too, another reason why the two of them had got stuck into the vodka. Janie left them to their slumbers, let herself out and hurried down the tenement stairs.
Outside, the air hung wet with a smir of rain. That annoying stage between fog and downpour that somehow managed to soak you through without you noticing. She hurried to the bus stop, pleased to have timed it perfectly for once, and was soon back in the warm.
On the bus, she pulled out her notebook and flipped through to the pages where she’d taken down Izzy’s description of her attackers the night before. Well, not so much of her attackers as the injuries she’d inflicted on them. A broken nose could be easily explained, and there were probably hundreds seen by A and E on any given night. Likewise, broken fingers were probably ten a penny. A ruptured testicle was a rather more esoteric injury, and the kind of damage that a well-placed kick to the knee could inflict would almost certainly both need medical attention and be remembered by whichever doctor administered it.
By the time the bus pulled up at the stop closest to the police station, Janie had called in several favours, and now there was nothing she could do but wait for her various contacts to get back to her. She wasn’t entirely sure why she was doing this. Not while in the middle of a murder investigation and looking into two other suspicious deaths. There was the connection with Fielding, of course. That was how she’d justify it if it ever came back to her. She couldn’t see DI McLean being upset, but Ritchie was a bit more of a stickler for the rules. And McIntyre might act like everyone’s mum, but she could be sharp as a paper cut if she wanted to be. Janie had seen her tear strips off enough constables, sergeants and even inspectors to know better than to cross the detective superintendent.
The major incident room was quiet when she let herself in, only a few of the night shift still hanging around to pass on the little information that had dribbled in overnight. Most of the talk was about DI McLean’s car, and how someone had managed to steal it from right underneath their noses. Reg, the duty sergeant when it had happened, was chewing up the furniture and shouting at anyone unfortunate enough to cross his path, as if it were his fault entirely that it had happened. Janie was glad she’d missed him when she came in.
She logged in to one of the terminals. Working through the routine emails didn’t take long, even if she wasn’t kidding herself there’d be more to deal with soon enough. DI Ritchie would be calling the morning briefing in a few minutes, and Janie glanced at her phone hoping something might have come through. Still no reply. She logged off the computer and stood up, scanning the room for the familiar figure and not seeing it anywhere. That was strange. It wasn’t as if he could easily hide.
‘You seen Lofty?’ she asked of a uniformed constable as he scuttled past, clutching a load of folders to his chest.
‘Phoned in to say his wife’s being induced today,’ came the answer, and then the uniform was gone. A little curt for a constable addressing a sergeant, but she let it go. She should have remembered about Lofty’s wife. He’d been unusually surly recently – he must have been worrying about her. Having a break during paternity leave might do him good.
Her phone rang as she watched DI Ritchie stride into the room, followed by a gaggle of detective constables. About time they had some new blood in the place, even if what they really needed was experienced officers. She checked the caller, one of her friends who worked at the Royal Infirmary.
‘Hey, Ali. You got my text then?’
‘Aye, Janie. Wondered about that. You’re not usually one to miss a chance for a chat. This all a bit hush hush?’
Alison Perry had been one of her closest friends at school, but their careers had taken different paths since and they only met up occasionally now. An A and E nurse, she could be a useful source of information sometimes, and a dreadful gossip the rest.
‘I was on the bus. Didn’t want to upset any of the other passengers.’
‘Fair enough. Can you tell me what this is all about then? Only I think I might have dealt with your two miscreants last night.’
Janie looked up at the clock, then over at the crowd gathering for the morning briefing. Sandy Gregg was there, so they had at least one detective sergeant to cover. If she slipped out now before anyone noticed, she could always catch up later.
‘You at work now?’
‘Aye. Shift’s no’ over for another hour. Then I’m away to my bed.’
‘OK, Ali. Can’t tell you on the phone, but I’ll be over in about a half an hour. Buy you breakfast.’
The squad car she’d cadged a lift from dropped Janie at the main entrance to the Royal Infirmary forty minutes after she’d snuck unnoticed out of the morning briefing. She’d sent a quick text to DI Ritchie and Sandy Gregg whilst en route, hoping she wasn’t volunteered for some unpleasant duty or shift in her absence. If her hunch paid off, it would be worth it.
She found Alison getting herself ready to leave A and E at the end of what had clearly been a long night. Janie hung around until the clock swung to the hour, then followed her old school friend to the staff canteen and bought her a coffee.
‘Probably shouldn’t have this,’ Alison said as she sipped her latte. ‘Going home and straight to bed, and I don’t need anything keeping me awake.’
‘Bad night, was it?’
‘Ach, I’ve had worse. It just never ends, though. Especially now the nights are long and dark and it’s getting cold. Folk are just accidents waiting to happen.’ Alison took another sip from her mug, put it carefully down on the table and rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands. ‘You didn’t come here to talk about me though, did you? It was the bloke with the ruptured testicle and the wrenched knee, right?’
‘The same. And if he had a friend with a broken nose and fingers, I owe you big time.’
‘Might take you up on that.’ Alison reached into the pocket of her nurse’s uniform and pulled out a thin sheaf of printed A4 sheets, placed them face down on the table and slid them over as if she were in some spy movie and any moment now James Bond was going to walk in and sweep her off her feet. He could do worse, Janie thought. Ali had always been pretty, even if the exhaustion on her face was doing its best to hide the fact.
‘That’s technically confidential information, so you didn’t get it from me. Two men, I’d say late thirties, early forties? Came in around ten last night. I didn’t deal with them myself, that was Cara. She says they told her they’d been drinking, slipped on the steps at the top of Fleshmarket Close, and tumbled down them together. It’s plausible. Happens more often than you’d think. One bloke loses his footing, grabs at his mate for support, the two of them end up at the bottom with broken bones.’
‘So they might have been telling the truth then?’ Janie asked. Fleshmarket Close wasn’t so far from the place where Izzy said she’d been attacked, but it wouldn’t have been much fun getting there with a ruptured testicle and blown out knee.
‘It’s possible. Cara reckoned they were hiding something, though. They said they’d been drinking, but they didn’t seem all that drunk. Not like the usual evening crowd we get to patch up. And the one with the injured bollock? That’s not something I’d associate with falling down the stairs. That’s a Saturday night brawl kind of injury. Come to think of it, so’s a busted knee.’
‘Well, if they’re who I think they are, they were both taken out by a teenage girl not a lot taller than me. They thought she was an easy target.’
It was perhaps a measure of how tired Alison must have been that she barely raised an eyebrow at this. ‘Well good for her. Friend of yours, I take it?’
Janie considered the question for a while before answering. She hardly knew Izzy DeVilliers, and yet the young woman was crashed on her couch right now. There was something about her Janie couldn’t help but admire. ‘Aye. I reckon so.’