Mulholland had been swinging backwards and forwards on his chair, plaiting the fingers of his gloves and letting them spring loose. He wished Fran hadn’t simply handed them back without asking to see him. He was even more miserable that his quick visit out to her house had been unsuccessful – she hadn’t been in. He’d bought her a pink mobile phone, got it registered and charged up with a full card, just so he could tell her if he had to work on, but all he could do was leave it behind her storm door with a note. Was she really playing hard to get, as Lewis suggested? He didn’t think that was like her.
He was supposed to be reading through his script for the press conference, but he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He heard a phone ringing, checked it wasn’t his, and went back to his script. But a glare from Colin Anderson, who was on his own phone, told him Costello’s phone was ringing, and had been for a while. Anderson’s pointed gesture implied strongly that Mulholland should answer it.
‘Hello, Dr Robert Garrett from Gartnavel Hospital here.’
‘Yeah?’ Mulholland answered, only half listening.
‘I was told to ask for DS Costello. I’ve been speaking to a DC Irvine and Professor O’Hare,’ said the voice on the telephone.
‘DS Costello’s not available at the moment.’ Mulholland looked up. Costello was nowhere to be seen, and there were no notes on her desk, so he decided to play it by ear. ‘This is her phone. I’m DC Mulholland, on the same team as DS Costello.’
‘Oh, right. We were told to notify you if we hardened up any details of the fatalities I told DC Irvine about earlier.’
Mulholland was paying attention now; this was big. He listened, a smile slowly dawning on his face. Dr Garrett was innocently filling in the blanks; in fact, he was being very helpful indeed.
He pulled his own notebook from his pocket. ‘Sodium cyanide. And it was in a capsule?’ Mulholland narrowed his eyes in concentration, then turned away, aware of Anderson hanging up his phone and looking over, trying to listen in. Mulholland held tightly on to his pad and scribbled it all down, even to the description of the half-dissolved capsule one of the victims had vomited up in the ambulance.
Mulholland himself felt sick but thanked Dr Garrett, then sat and had a good look for Costello’s notebook. He saw Wyngate chewing on his bottom lip like a cow looking over a wall, looking at the door for Costello then back at her desk where Mulholland now sat.
He didn’t find much except a log of where Costello had been and for how long, but not why. He noted Sarah McGuire’s phone number, the same number for Karen and a different one for Thomas McGuire. He was itching to get to Quinn before he had to film his TV statement.
‘You didn’t see any of that,’ he told Wyngate. ‘I’m taking this to DCI Quinn.’
‘Taking what to Quinn?’
‘You’ll be told as and when. Keep quiet about it.’ And he walked away.
Wyngate was uneasy. His sense of unease increased when Mulholland met Lewis in the doorway and she pulled him to one side, stretching up on her toes to speak into his ear, excited, apparently desperate to tell him something, forcing a fold of yellow paper into his hand. Mulholland pulled out his notebook and they went into the corner to compare notes. Wyngate watched them together, two smart young people in designer clothes, both hungry for promotion. Costello’s phone rang again, but nobody seemed inclined to answer it.
DS Costello was tucked up in a corner of the empty canteen with her jacket wrapped round her against the chill. The canteen had stopped doing hot food due to staff shortages but Agnes had said she’d fry her an egg and stick it in a soft roll. For now, she was drinking a cup of hot black tea and she had her mobile phone and a load of jumbled thoughts for company. She rummaged in her handbag for the original notes on their yellow paper, but she could only find her Post-it note. Puzzled, she started searching again, and then went through her pockets, just in case. But nothing. Maybe Gail had taken them with her. For the first time in days, her mind seemed to be clearing itself of its migrainous fog, and she wondered if the bang on the head had done her some good.
Logic was telling her that a leak at some factory somewhere would have had a bigger impact by now, and the Poison Unit would have identified it. This was something more local. All the victims came from within a two-mile radius of the two hospitals. Gail had said the painkillers at Sarah’s house were Headeze, and she wondered if Sarah had regained consciousness yet. Where were those capsules bought? That was what Costello wanted to ask her. And what of Lars Lundeburg? She had phoned the hospital to find out that he actually lived in Gothenburg and had already returned home, after what he thought was the worst bout of food poisoning he had ever had. But the nurse she had spoken to had left a note for a nurse called Malin, who was Swedish herself, and had chatted away to him in more depth than the rest of them.
For the moment, Costello was stuck. She was staring at her street map of the West End when the doors of the canteen flew open, and Wyngate marched in, bouncing a Christmas tree and dropping pine needles everywhere. He slung it on the nearest table and gesticulated to Costello that maybe she should be upstairs. She shrugged. Nobody had invited her anywhere and she had some important phone calls to make.
‘Can I ask you a question? Do you carry any painkillers with you?’
‘Why? You not well?’ asked Wyngate.
‘I just want to know. What about you, Agnes?’
‘I’ll have a painkiller or two in my bag, got a bad back,’ said Agnes.
‘I just have my inhaler,’ said Wyngate, trying to be helpful. He searched his pockets but found nothing. ‘Did you know that Vik Mulholland… oh, hang on,’ he said, wandering out the room and muttering that he’d be back in a minute.
‘Can I see your painkillers, Agnes?’
Agnes shrugged and went off to get her handbag, as Costello pulled her jacket further round her, wishing that Kate Lewis had not soaked the fringe of her hair quite so enthusiastically. It was cold now, chilling her face, and her brain hurt as though she had eaten too much ice cream too quickly.
John Campbell had asked for some headache capsules the week before he died. There was that telltale blister pack, twisted but identifiable in the photograph. But had father and daughter taken two capsules from the same packet? Or was one a cover for the other? And where had bloody Wyngate gone?
Agnes came toddling out from the kitchen. ‘This is what I have, hen.’
She proffered an old bubble pack of Transprofen. The tinfoil backing was marked and bent, and two of the capsules were poking their way through. If somebody she knew offered her that, Costello thought, she would probably take it, though she would have no idea whether it had been tampered with or not. And if somebody gave her the whole strip, she might walk about with it for months. She could see a plan there. She thought of Littlewood taking his blister pack of chewing gum from his pocket, popping out the pellets of gum and sticking them in his mouth without looking. But medication? Those packets were tamper-proof; after the baby food scare and the Tylenol case, they carried security labels and seals.
‘Can I use these, Agnes?’
‘That’s what they’re there for.’
‘Thanks, Agnes; I’ll buy you some more.’
Costello glanced at her watch. She was still waiting to hear back from a Dr Garrett at Gartnavel Hospital; she should really go upstairs and check if the good doctor had phoned. She started to gather her things together, pausing as she picked up Agnes’s capsules, taking time to turn the bubble strip over and over, then frowning. She popped a capsule through its tinfoil backing, its plastic coating sticking to her sweating fingers, and pulled the two halves apart. A fine white powder spilled out on to the canteen table. She pulled another one apart, this time taking care to spill the contents on to a napkin, then she tried to refill the capsules with salt and slide the two halves together again. It didn’t work; she couldn’t even work out which went over which. Then she realized that the warmth of her hands was softening the walls of the capsule. So, she deduced, if she chilled one and warmed the other, it should be possible to fit them back together. The tinfoil backing was so battered, after weeks at the bottom of a typical female handbag, she couldn’t tell if it had been tampered with or not. The tinfoil backing was fractured and split over the capsules, but secure round the edges. Costello looked at the blister pack sideways. No breach. She could see no way of getting at the capsules and replacing the foil. And anyway she couldn’t even begin to think where an ordinary person would get their hands on sodium cyanide. Her mobile sounded, bouncing across the table in front of her. O’Hare was brusque to the point of rudeness. He was calling in; he’d be there in about ten minutes. And he rang off.
‘Great,’ she said, wondering how many bosses she could cope with at any one time. For some reason McAlpine came into her mind for the second time. Follow the money.
Anderson put the phone down and took a deep breath. He had never, ever heard his wife use language like that, but she had every right to be angry, and he himself was going to kill Lewis and Irvine when he got hold of them. They should have told him. Did they think a chatterbox like Peter wasn’t going to tell his mum about his wee adventure – running away, and the nice policewoman… he looked up at the sound of his name and his anger faded. Slightly.
He saw Helena across the office, walking with her usual elegant confidence, her long navy coat swinging from her shoulders as she made her way towards him. She looked as though she had been out in the rain; a wet knitted hat, with her short hair tucked inside it, emphasized the pallor of her face and the darkness of her eyes. Anderson could smell her as she approached. She always smelled faintly of turpentine and of Penhaligon’s Bluebell. It was her trademark scent.
Helena smiled at him as she approached the desk, saying hello to John Littlewood and Gordon Wyngate on her way past. She was carrying a large carrier bag from John Lewis full of gift-wrapped parcels, swaying slightly as if it were too heavy for her, and a brown paper package on a string. He was glad the office was half empty. He felt his heart lift at the sight of her.
‘Not interrupting, am I?’ She looked apologetic, and her voice was low and soft, like an old charcoal drawing. ‘I know you must have a lot on your plate but I just brought these in.’ She rested the bag of gifts on the floor beside his desk.
‘A welcome interruption, believe me. How did you get on at the hospital?’
‘Well, I got the green light. I don’t know whether that makes me more or less nervous, but at least the end is in sight.’
He pulled a chair out for her. ‘I took your tyre in this morning. They’ll call when it’s ready. I was late for work anyway. Claire had a bit of a bad turn last night.’
‘Is she OK?’ Helena sat down, her face concerned.
‘Yes, it was just a throat infection that got out of control. She was unlucky to have a couple of parents who didn’t get the prescription in time.’ He shrugged. ‘But they bounce back. This morning she was sitting up in bed, demanding food and talking back, so no change there. It’s when my kids are quiet I worry about them.’
‘Well, there’s a present in there for her, but you have to give it to her now as I managed to get my hands on a dragon outfit for Peter. Two minutes on the internet and I found a supplier just half a mile away. I picked it up when I came out the hospital today. I had to hide it quick when I saw him in Byres Road.’
‘Byres Road?’ Anderson asked, slowly. ‘So, you were there then? I’ve just had an earful from Brenda. What the hell happened?’
Helena pulled a slightly puzzled face. ‘Well, he was just wandering about. Were you doing a reconstruction or something? I looked for you but you weren’t there.’
‘No, I wasn’t there,’ Anderson said, barely trusting himself to speak.
Helena was oblivious. ‘And there’s something in there for you, just a wee bottle, for helping me out last night. Colin, I was wondering about tomorrow night and the…’
Helena was cut off by Costello popping her head round the door. ‘Col, can I have a w–. Oh, hello, Mrs McAlpine.’
Costello’s eyes flitted between them for a moment. Anderson was looking furious about something, something more than just being interrupted.
‘I’ll be on my way then,’ Helena said, nodding a goodbye to Anderson.
‘Bye then,’ said Costello briskly.
Anderson watched her leave and then became aware of DCI Quinn leaning against the door of her office, watching the whole situation. She said nothing; she just re-buttoned her jacket and turned back to her office, closing the door with her stilettoed heel.
‘You knew, didn’t you?’ he said accusingly to Costello. ‘They lost Peter.’
‘Irvine was told by Lewis to say nothing, but she told me in the loo. She was going to tell you herself.’
‘She should have come to me immediately,’ he said coldly.
‘She’s young. She knows how close Quinn and Lewis are. She was scared,’ said Costello. ‘I’d think twice about getting on the wrong side of those two.’
‘No, you wouldn’t, you liar.’
‘I would if I was at Irvine’s level. She’s keen to get on.’
‘Didn’t help the wee man though, did it?’ Anderson felt the colour rise in his face. ‘I think I’m going to get Lewis and Irvine in here and disembowel them both with a stapler.’
‘Go easy on Irvine.’ Anderson tried to turn away from her, but Costello leaned over to speak quietly in his ear. ‘Can I give you a piece of advice?’
‘No,’ he snapped.
‘You need that kind of hassle like a hole in the head. She is your best friend’s widow.’
‘Don’t know what you mean.’
‘Well, you’re fond of her, aren’t you? You both lost Alan, and it would just be too easy to misconstrue the emotions that got stirred up as something else. And…’ Costello’s pinched face was earnest. ‘She has no family. It’s Christmas and she has nobody. I know from experience what that’s like. I’m used to it. She isn’t. So, don’t…’
‘Take advantage of her? What kind of guy do you think I am?’
‘That’s not what I meant…’
‘Thanks, but Helena and I have always got on well. She’s simply the wife – widow – of a good friend. End of story.’
‘As long as that’s all it is.’ She handed over a file.
‘Costello!’ A not-so-discreet cough made them both turn, and DCI Rebecca Quinn summoned Anderson with a gesture that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. ‘My office, now, please, both of you.’ She left, clearly expecting them to follow.
‘Well, better get this over with quick then,’ Anderson muttered.
‘They said that about the First World War,’ Costello muttered behind him.
Quinn sat down on her chair, ramming it backwards with a foot on the leg of the desk. Costello and Anderson had followed her in before they saw O’Hare was standing, leaning on the filing cabinet. He seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders.
‘Three more deaths, Costello. Three deaths, and you told me nothing. Do I need to remind you – Duncan Thompson, Barbara Cummings, Moira McCulloch?’
Costello glanced at Quinn’s desk and recognized her own yellow notepaper. She then looked at O’Hare but he looked straight back, his face unreadable. She turned her glare to Quinn. ‘Those are my notes.’
‘Really? Lewis and Mulholland gave them to me.’ Quinn picked them up between her thumb and forefinger and waved them in the air.
‘That was my investigation,’ Costello’s voice was quiet and angry.
‘I can second that. I witnessed that call coming through on her phone.’
‘Yes, I know that. But you didn’t tell the rest of the squad, so how was DC Mulholland supposed to act on this in your absence?’
‘I wasn’t well. I…’
‘You are either at your work or you are not. And if you are not, DS Costello, this station will try and do its best to carry on without you,’ said Quinn with consummate sarcasm.
Costello snapped back. ‘All I had was three names. I had been told to wait for a call back from the Poison Unit. If I’d come to you with that, you’d have accused me of wasting your time and told me to wait until they rang back, wouldn’t you? I am a detective, you know.’
‘Debatable,’ said Quinn. ‘So why were you in the canteen, stuffing your face?’
‘I passed out because I hadn’t eaten for forty-eight hours, ma’am. I’ve been doing just a tad overtime lately. And I was thinking…’
‘New experience for you.’
‘… about the case.’ Costello put the map in front of Quinn, forcing her to look at it. ‘Look! The Western is here, Gartnavel’s there. Headeze is only sold by the Waldo chain.’
‘What?’ Quinn interrupted.
‘The painkiller I suspect carried the cyanide. Waldo is here in Byres Road. There are a few in town, and there’s one out in Anniesland, but I think we need to look at this one first. John Campbell lived here,’ Costello stabbed with her forefinger, ‘up on Partickhill Road. His daughter was going from the tennis club – here – to where she lives down here in the Mearns.’ Costello’s finger darted from one side of the map to the other. ‘She would drive down Byres Road, past this branch of Waldo.’
By now O’Hare was leaning in, looking. ‘Lars Lundeberg, the one who survived, is at Glasgow Uni and lives in student accommodation in…’ He spun his finger, locating a street. ‘There, Peel Street. He walks past Waldo to get to Uni.’
‘But it’s Christmas and he’s gone home – to Gothenburg not Peel Street. Somebody is supposed to be phoning me about him, or maybe they already have and nobody’s told me,’ said Costello, sulkily.
‘And Barbara Cummings worked in Rowanhill Library,’ O’Hare continued as if she had not spoken.
‘But lived on the south side,’ said Quinn, reading Mulholland’s notes. ‘Did she drive?’
‘Eyesight too bad, I would have thought. So, if she used public transport, that could put her on Byres Road as well.’
‘DI Anderson, go out and get somebody to check up on this. Find the next of kin and ask if the deceased ever took Headeze and where they did their shopping. Same with Duncan Thompson. He lived on Novar Drive. And Moira McCulloch, she’s out in Bearsden. Now, Anderson,’ prompted Quinn. ‘Do it now.’
Anderson got up and threw Costello a quick look as he reached the door, not the time or the place, as Quinn and O’Hare looked at the street map.
Costello broke the silence. ‘I’ve been trying to work out – is this product-tampering meant to hit Waldo supermarkets? If so, what’s the point? It can’t be blackmail, as we’ve had no demands.’
‘But the Poison Unit would have noticed a pattern if it was more widespread. We’ve put out a nationwide alert. No response. This seems local,’ said O’Hare. ‘Doesn’t make any sense.’
‘So, what is the point?’ said DCI Quinn.
‘I think somebody is going to commit murder and get it put down to the tamperer while everyone is dropping like flies,’ Costello said urgently. ‘I mean, look at Sarah McGuire. Say she gave it to her dad meaning to kill him – mightn’t she take a little herself by way of a wee contingency plan in case we got too close? She would know to eat something to retard absorption. I remember you said it yourself, Prof – John Campbell had a thin stomach wall and he hadn’t eaten anything, so he died quickly. But on a full stomach, with a healthy stomach wall, absorption is slowed so you’re more likely to survive.’
‘Indeed,’ said O’Hare, with faint amusement.
‘Sarah was dead keen to find out how much of her inheritance is left undamaged. She inherits all three flats above her dad’s as well, you know…’
‘How hard was that smack on the head, Costello?’ asked Quinn, slowly.
‘I’m serious.’
‘I was worried you might be. Forget it. One step at a time. Check the availability of cyanide, check out all possible motives, the shop, the staff, the family, the friends, who knew who, whether there’s any interconnection between the families. All credit to the good professor for picking it up. Get the store to withdraw stock and put a warning in the press – something general; I don’t want a panic. Though with our track record, I hope we bloody nail it before anybody else dies. We’ll keep the countrywide alert on red, just in case this is only the first tampering that has been picked up. It could be happening all over the place.’ She turned her gaze to Costello. ‘Please, Costello, just do what you are told, and report back to me. And don’t go off at any tangents. Do you understand?’
Costello stood her ground. ‘At the risk of labouring the point, Sarah knew her Dad was getting headaches from being kept awake by the noisy tenants upstairs. Sooner or later he would take a Headeze. All Sarah had to do was tamper with a few boxes and give her dad one. If nobody notices the deaths are due to poison, so nobody asks for a toxicology report, well and good, she gets away with it. If somebody else is found to have died from the poison, there is absolutely no connection, and she still gets away with it. Her dad setting his house on fire is a fantastic stroke of luck, until I notice the smell. And even when we have a whole cluster of them, Sarah just has to point out she’s a victim as well, and guess what – she gets away with all of it. It’s ingenious. I could quite admire her if she wasn’t such a stuck-up cow.’
O’Hare was gazing out the window at neutral ground, having no desire to get caught between these two. He was saved by Anderson knocking at the door.
‘We’ve got Wyngate on to it, ma’am; he’s good at this kind of thing,’ he said, taking the spare seat.
‘Glad somebody is.’ Quinn marked something in her diary, apparently ignoring Costello, who was breathing heavily after her outburst. ‘Oh, and DI Anderson – while you’re here – please don’t let members of the public wander round our investigation room unaccompanied.’
‘Who?’ he asked, confused at the sudden change of subject.
‘Tall woman, long dark coat. Ten minutes ago?’
His lips tightened. ‘That was the Boss’s – DCI McAlpine’s – widow, ma’am.’
‘Yes, I know. She’s an artist, isn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not a member of Strathclyde police.’
Anderson did not respond; he just looked Quinn straight in the face. It was her gaze which dropped first. ‘No, ma’am, but her husband was.’
‘Rebecca?’ said O’Hare. He reached out to put his hand on her shoulder but she pulled away.
Costello took advantage of Quinn’s fire being drawn elsewhere. ‘DCI Quinn? You told me Lewis gave you those notes. Did you ask her how she got them?’
‘It doesn’t matter. The information should have been given to me straight away.’ Quinn opened a drawer, attempting to end the conversation.
Anderson stood up, ready to go; Costello did likewise but leaned lightly on Quinn’s desk, pulling herself up to her full five feet five. ‘But just for the record, those notes were actually on my person and were removed from my person when I was unconscious. In fact, they were removed from my handbag while I was waiting for confirmation of the facts,’ she emphasized. ‘So, a theft occurred while I was on an active enquiry, a theft of important information pertinent to that enquiry.’ Costello pulled her jacket round her. ‘You might like to think about that before I make a very public complaint.’
‘Are you threatening me, DS Costello?’ asked Quinn.
‘Yes, DCI Quinn. Goodbye,’ she said airily, and walked out the room. Anderson, following her, added a cheery goodbye of his own.
Costello slammed the door of the locker room. A uniform, following her in, sensed trouble and did a prompt U-turn.
‘I’m sorry?’ said Mulholland who was examining his eyebrows in the mirror.
‘Do I look like I enjoy getting my arse ripped off by Quinn? You should have come to me with what Garrett told you, instead of leaving me standing there like a right fucking idiot.’
‘If those papers were important, you should have kept them safe.’
‘They were in my handbag.’
‘They were on the floor of the loo.’ Mulholland didn’t stop his preening. ‘Make your point, Costello, or leave me alone. Your big mistake was that you were sitting on information, and you got caught out.’
‘I fainted in the toilet.’
‘So, faint in the Incident Room in future.’
‘I was still on an active line of enquiry.’
‘Good for you.’ Mulholland flicked his fringe a few times with his fingers. ‘Maybe you could get away with that crap when you were McAlpine’s blue-eyed girl, but not now.’
It was half past five and pitch dark when PC Smythe pulled up beside the railings outside number 3 Crown Avenue. He wasn’t due back on duty at Partick Central until much later but he’d found he couldn’t sleep. He’d read all the reports as they came in, and he’d heard a rumour that the Partickhill team was about to get bogged down in another investigation, something to do with product tampering. It was OK to say airports and ferries were being watched, but the truth was you didn’t have to smuggle a kid out of Scotland, most of the country was empty. But nothing justified the laid-back behaviour of some of the search team, thought Smythe. Searching was a boring, cold, relentless, unrewarding job. But it had to be done. He’d been told often enough that he was young and idealistic. But if two missing kids wasn’t something to get idealistic about, what was the point of the bloody job? One sloppy short cut could make the difference between life and death.
He got out of his car and walked along the front of the terrace, then under a beautiful blond sandstone archway into the lane. He looked up, catching the gargoyles and angels in the beam of his torch. The lane was little used by cars. It had been grassy, with two indistinct tyre tracks that somebody had once tried to cover with stone chips. Now it was a patchwork of snow, ice, stone and moss. Smythe’s steps sounded hollow as he went into the darkness beyond, and he held his torch a little higher.
Thirty yards or so in, the lane divided into three. He tried to orientate himself, swinging his torch from left to right in a wide sweep. The track to the left went along the back of Crown Drive; the other, to his right, would go up Crown Avenue. The third, nothing but a short-cut footpath worn by habitual but unofficial usage, disappeared into the darkness. His heart sank – how many more such little ways existed, gifts to any child abductor? Were any of these even on the search grid?
He shone his torch along the side of the terrace, where the wall dropped to a height of ten feet or so. He couldn’t see any of the back courts from here so he continued on a good fifty yards, past an island of broken-down garages, their front doors hanging off, their roofs caved in. He shone his torch inside, over broken lawnmowers, old bedsteads, junk of every kind; an Aladdin’s cave to any kid.
He was getting cold, the chill was eating into his bones, and he was unnerved by the sheer isolation of the place. He’d bet his bottom dollar this place wasn’t even on the search grid. He pulled out his mobile and photographed the garages; not a good image, but it was something to show, some proof.
He turned his torch off and went back to his car, immediately turning the engine on and putting the heating up full blast, blowing on his hands to get his fingers working again. He looked up at the houses. Four storeys? Five, if they had a converted basement. Multiply that for the entire West End … And the evening search team were content to sit on their fat arses!
He wished there was somebody on the case with a conscience, a detective with kids. He had heard about a Detective Inspector Colin Anderson.
Smythe put the car in gear and drove up the hill towards Hyndland Road, and Partickhill Station.