She always felt nervous around police, doubly so in a station. Sitting in the reception area of St Leonard’s felt like being in the belly of the beast. She knew that was unfair, most cops were on the right side, here to protect, blah, blah, blah. But she’d grown up in the eighties and nineties, from the miners’ strike to poll-tax riots, she was on marches protesting Section 28 and the Criminal Justice Bill. She did her fair share of drugs back then and the cops she encountered were always confrontational, viewing her as the enemy, a feeling she threw right back at them.
Two chubby-cheeked babies in uniforms and protective vests came through the revolving door, laughing and chatting. They were about the same age as Hannah. She tried to imagine her daughter as a police officer, upholding a law even if that law was fucking stupid. Jenny hadn’t actively encouraged a disrespect of authority in Hannah but she must’ve picked it up over the years, it was an undercurrent in everything Jenny did. She remembered standing with Craig looking at Hannah as a baby sleeping in her cot. The pair of them were a little high, not too much, they were parents now. They’d talked about their hopes for her, Craig asked if Hannah could do anything to disappoint her. Jenny told him either become a cop, join the army or vote Tory. That set them giggling so much Hannah woke up and had to be cuddled back to sleep.
Fiona’s leg shoogling next to Jenny brought her back to the present. She was angry Craig had jumped into her memories. But they had a kid together, that would never go away. Which made everything he’d done worse. Jenny looked at Fiona, she had a kid with Craig too and now look where they were.
She placed a hand on Fiona’s knee to stop the jiggling and Fiona jumped. She shook her head too hard, she was a ball of crazy right now, ready to blow. Jenny remembered her assaulting Seb and smiled. It was wrong but fuck it, morally justified, surely. Absolute moral values were bullshit, everyone secretly knew it.
‘Jenny.’ Thomas had emerged from somewhere and Jenny thought of Mr Benn which she watched as a kid, the serene shopkeeper who magically appeared each episode.
He looked as tired and stressed as all of them. In Fiona’s case it was sleepless nights worrying for Sophia, in Jenny’s it was anxiety about Dorothy. Jenny felt bad, her mum was in hospital and here she was in a cop shop trying to bring her wanker ex-husband to justice.
Jenny and Fiona rose and Jenny was surprised when Thomas stepped forward and hugged her. Not just a greeting, a full, deep gesture, a shared love of her mum. Jenny was happy Dorothy had found love after Dad. Daughters were supposed to cling to the memories of their dads, treat a new man with suspicion, but Jenny was glad. We find love where we can, who the hell has the right to judge? She thought of Liam down at Leith waterfront, how she’d blown it again running off like that. But there was something in his face that she clung to. Maybe the embers could be brought back to life, maybe they had a second chance. Everyone deserves a second chance.
Thomas released her and she felt awkward, but didn’t notice the same in him. He led them upstairs to his office, large and functional, great view of Salisbury Crags out of the window. It was early morning but there were already a good few souls on the cliff, more scrambling around the top of Arthur’s Seat to the right.
‘How’s your mum?’ Thomas said as he sat.
‘Good,’ Jenny said. ‘She’s being discharged today, I’m going there after this.’
Jenny had stayed at the hospital until the early hours, after everyone else had gone home, and quietly sobbed next to Dorothy’s bed while she slept. She couldn’t put into words why she was crying, that was the point of tears, you didn’t need words. When she finally left, the sun was climbing in the sky and she stood at the entrance with her eyes closed, imagined she was a lizard on a rock.
Thomas nodded. Fiona looked anxious in her seat. There was so much to discuss, about Dorothy, Einstein, that fucking heroic dog torn to pieces, about that foot, for fuck’s sake. But she had to stay focused on Craig and Sophia for Fiona’s sake.
Jenny looked at Thomas and tapped her phone screen. ‘The message?’
Fiona looked like a balloon about to burst.
‘We’ve got nothing so far from the number.’
Fiona jumped out of her seat. ‘What about triangulation?’
Fiona had been sending Jenny constant emails and messages, researching everything from tracing texts to Craig’s client list.
Thomas shook his head. ‘Triangulation works best with calls, and even then it needs time to get an accurate fix.’ He pointed at the phone in Jenny’s hand. ‘This is a silent text, he’s using software to hide location data. We’ve got tech guys on it, they can sometimes reverse engineer around it, but it takes time.’
‘We don’t have time.’ Fiona paced around by the window, her silhouette against the skyline like a caged bird.
‘It’s the content,’ Jenny said. ‘He knows we’re looking.’
Thomas put his hands out. ‘If he’s taken Sophia, he would assume we’re looking for him.’
‘There’s no fucking “if”,’ Fiona said, rubbing her wrist.
Jenny shook her head. ‘Come on, Thomas, it reads like he’s been tipped off, you know that.’
‘I know.’
‘And you know who we’ve spoken to already, so it has to be one of them.’
Thomas tilted his head. ‘Not necessarily, but I take your point.’
Fiona stopped pacing for a moment. ‘So what the fuck are you doing about it?’
‘Fiona,’ Jenny said. It was half-hearted though, Thomas was trying to help but she understood the heat of Fiona’s anger.
Thomas went on calmly. ‘We’re bringing all three in for questioning.’
That surprised Jenny and took the wind from Fiona’s sails.
‘We are taking this seriously, believe me.’
‘What can we do to help?’ Jenny said.
Thomas looked at Fiona, hanging by a thread. ‘It’s best if you leave it to us.’
Fiona laughed, a bark that shocked Jenny.
Jenny shook her head. ‘You know we can’t do that, right?’
Thomas looked from Jenny to Fiona then back again. He knew.