Anderson had had a terrible night, drinking endless cups of coffee in the canteen, going through the conversation with Rogan O’Neill again and again, looking at photograph after photograph until the grit in his eyes blurred one face into another. They had taken him through every big case he’d ever worked on, considered anybody who might bear a grudge. They’d delved into his personal life only to find it squeaky clean. They’d gone through his entire career with a fine-tooth comb, digging up nothing except memories of the old DCI. And Colin could not help but think that if Alan McAlpine was here, they would be out on the streets pulling the city apart. He knew they were putting him through the motions to keep him busy, and he was grateful for something, anything to do. He had refused to talk further to Brenda, but had helped to draft the statement for her appeal, even though he knew it was getting him nowhere.
He had fallen asleep around half past six, ten minutes’ shut-eye with his head down on the canteen table. But his sleep was even more tortured than his waking hours. His back was sore, his head was sore, and – worst of all – there was still no news.
Like Troy and Luca, Peter Anderson had disappeared into nowhere.
When he woke at the back of nine, Burns suggested some fresh air, some exercise to get their brain cells working. They walked back in silence, down Hyndland Road – Anderson in a borrowed coat, hunching his shoulders against the slight smirr of snow – ignoring the few very early morning commuters heading into town. As they turned into the lane, Anderson heard feet crunching in the gravel behind him.
‘Colin? Colin?’
He turned. Helena was standing there, holding her hood up with a gloved hand. She looked as though she had spent most of the night crying, her eyes red raw, her lips swollen and chapped.
‘Colin, how are you?’
‘Not good.’ He nodded at Burns, who raised a hand and went on without him. ‘Worst time of my life.’
‘How’s Brenda?’
Anderson didn’t answer. He couldn’t tell Helena that he had hardly spoken to his wife, how much he blamed her. What was he supposed to say? Helena took his silence as a sign of distress.
‘Oh, Colin, I am sorry. Have the police come up with nothing? Surely…?’
‘Not much. All paedophiles are being checked out; all my old cases are being reviewed and they’re bringing everybody and his dog in for interview.’ He shut his eyes, trying to hold it together. ‘I can’t believe it, can’t admit it to myself…’
Helena had been a policeman’s wife for too long to say the customary, calming: Oh, I’m sure he will be all right. ‘If there’s anything I can do, anything at all…’
‘Not that I can think of.’
‘Sorry, Colin, I’m going into hospital today. I should have been there at ten, I’m just on my way now…’ her voice trailed off.
Anderson couldn’t think what to say. ‘Good luck,’ was all he could manage.
She nodded tearfully, and turned away through the slush.
Behind him, Costello gently peeped her horn. She was sitting in her white Corolla, barely visible through the mist on the windscreen. She popped the passenger door open for him.
‘Quinn has put me off the case.’
‘Join the club.’
‘I wanted to let you know that I have faxed Batten most of the details – of Peter, I mean. He might want to talk to you, off the record.’
‘You could lose your job over that.’
‘I’d like to see them try. But Quinn was OK about it. I’m going off to see Lauren now. If she knows anything, I’ll find out.’
‘I know you will. Thanks.’ He looked out at the dull rain, and the puddles being whipped into wave-lets. The forecast was for it to turn colder before they got through the day. ‘The temperature’s falling,’ he said. ‘Peter’s never seen a white Christmas.’
‘Well, he’ll see this one.’ She pointed as a few snowflakes settled on the windscreen.
It was snowing seriously now, but the air inside the Botanic Gardens was warm and cloying. Costello had made it clear: the Kibble Palace, the older part of the Botanic Gardens, at eleven. It was a fine building, and she was glad the burghers of the city had got their collective finger out at last and refurbished it. The glass of the circular Victorian dome was clean and sparkling, covered by a doily of snow where iron met glass. Costello walked in, keen to get out of the cold, immediately undoing the collar of her jacket and shaking the snow from her scarf before stuffing it in her pocket. She just hoped she would stay awake.
Littlewood had been clear: Let Lauren run with the conversation; listen, prompt but do not lead. Costello had had little experience of paedophiles, even less of supermodels – but when he said, Treat her like a battered wife in denial, she felt on more solid ground. She would be polite, interested and empathetic, no matter how much she wanted to slap the truth from Lauren’s pretty but empty head.
Costello walked round the glasshouse, rehearsing the interview, breathing in the smell of damp earth, compost and warmed air. Her schoolfriend’s granddad had had a greenhouse that smelled like that, of paraffin and sweet peas, and at the right time of year, they’d always had the smell of home-grown tomatoes on their fingertips, the taste on their tongues. How innocent those days had been: two little girls with an old man in a greenhouse at the bottom of a deserted garden. The memory brought her back to her reason for being here.
The café was a temporary-looking arrangement with pseudo wrought-iron tables and chairs on uneven slabs, and a chalk-written menu offering cappuccino spelled badly and Irn Bru spelled correctly. Two women sat with three wheelchair-bound children. Two of the kids were eating soup; the other, a boy with cerebral palsy, was being fed from a spoon during pauses in his constant writhing. Costello wasn’t aware that she had been staring but the boy caught her eye, and large brown eyes stared back at her, intelligent and kind. Costello smiled, feeling awkward now about turning and walking out. She waved at him and went to stroll round the pond, where large sleepy koi carp, mottled silver and white against gold, gently undulated under the water lilies. She walked up to them slowly, not wanting them to dart away as her shadow fell.
Lauren McCrae was late; it was nearly ten past. Costello assumed it went with the job. She gazed at a large tree which stopped abruptly a few feet from the glass roof, trimmed to stay within its limitations, and stroked its trunk. ‘It grows well in warm climates,’ a slow Canadian drawl said from behind her.
‘No chance here then,’ said Costello. ‘This snow will be making you feel at home.’
‘Kind of.’
They walked on round the pond, the clack of McCrae’s boot heels following her. Costello glanced sideways at Lauren. ‘Do you mind if I say something first? This is Glasgow, Lauren, in December. Sunglasses tend to draw attention, especially indoors. I’m assuming that’s not what you want.’
‘I guess I just get used to being recognized everywhere I go.’ Lauren pulled the Raybans from her face, but not before glancing over her shoulder.
Costello would not have recognized her. The natural sheen of Lauren’s super-healthy beauty seemed to have worn off in the last twenty-four hours. Her eyes looked red and puffy, as though much-desired sleep had passed her by. She folded down her collar, shaking her hair free, and continued to walk slowly, her catwalk glide looking a little ungainly on the cobbles.
Costello considered how to approach the conversation, in the light of Littlewood’s revelations; like approaching the koi, she presumed, slowly and steadily. She knew she couldn’t push.
‘Do you fancy a sit down and a cup of tea? I’m not sure what it will be like in here.’
She noticed, again, that nervousness about Lauren, the slight hesitation before answering. ‘Yeah, sure.’
They settled on one black coffee and one black tea, in dubious-looking waxed paper cups with cardboard butterfly wings for handles. Costello warmed her hands on her cup, holding it under her chin. She was impatient, but she had to win this woman’s confidence. Peter’s safety might depend on it. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘This may be pretty vile.’
‘Can’t be as bad as that stuff they serve at the hotel. Rogan calls it pure Madeira, I don’t know why.’
Gain her confidence, thought Costello, she’s here to tell you something. ‘Glaswegian for crap,’ she explained.
‘Why? Madeira’s a lovely island. I was there last year on a photo shoot.’
‘Not the island, the cake. It’s the powdery yellow cake you get at Christmas once all the good stuff with icing and marzipan and sultanas is finished. Nobody likes it, hence… pure Madeira.’
Lauren looked a little bemused. ‘The diet of you people never fails to amaze me. Is it true you deep-fry your candy?’ She stretched out long beautiful fingers tapering to perfect nails.
‘Sometimes. Is that a French manicure?’ she asked, in an effort to break the ice.
‘What? This?’ Lauren splayed her long-boned fingers on the plastic table. ‘Oh, I had it done yesterday.’
Costello hid her own discoloured nails, one black from a fight with the photocopier, another bloodied and ripped to the quick. ‘So, Lauren, what can I do for you?’
‘Nothing really.’ Lauren’s forefinger circled the top of her cup.
Costello lowered her voice. ‘Lauren, in my job I have seen everything and heard everything. I have had the decency to meet you. So, you should tell me what’s bothering you.’
Lauren said, ‘It’s about me.’
‘So, let’s talk about you.’
Lauren looked around again, fingered her sunglasses, then thought better of it.
‘Whatever it is, it was bothering you when we interviewed Rogan.’
‘How did you know that?’ She seemed surprised.
‘I’m a policewoman, remember? I’m trained to see these things.’
Lauren raised the coffee to her lips and blew on it gently. Costello knew when to stay silent. ‘I’m sorry?’ She realized Lauren was speaking, but so quietly she had to lean in to hear.
‘He’s a good man,’ Lauren was almost whispering, urgently. ‘Very loyal. He’s loyal to his friends, he’s loyal to his business, to his fans, and he’s loyal to me. You know why he brought me back to Scotland?’
To escape a criminal investigation? ‘From the sunshine of LA to Glasgow?’ Costello looked up through the glass overhead. ‘I’d have to think a long time about that one.’
‘Because a long time before he met me, he had a girlfriend who lost a baby. So, this time, he wants it all to go right, and he wants his baby born on Scottish soil. He wants to be in control.’
‘How romantic.’ Costello pulled a deliberate face. ‘In control? That’s a strange way to put it.’
‘He just wants to look after me – is that so bad?’
‘So, why do you keep looking over your shoulder? Does he have you followed?’
‘He looks after me. He doesn’t like me going out on my own.’
Costello felt her way in. ‘Loyal, you say? Well, that’s the Rogan I remember from years ago. Loyal to his friends. He never left the boys behind – his success was their success.’ She sipped her tea; it tasted like tar. ‘Dec Slater and Jinky Jones were there in my day. They were all very close.’
‘They still are.’
‘Still close to each other or still close to Rogan?’
‘Both,’ said Lauren. Again that trace of bitterness.
‘Rogan seems very much in love with you.’ Fishing again.
‘I know. I know.’ Her voice faltered.
‘So, why did you leave the States?’ asked Costello, bluntly.
Lauren’s reply was immediate, practised. ‘Like I said, Rogue wants the baby to be born here.’
‘The real reason?’ Costello’s question punched the air. ‘Why so quickly? You were out of there in a matter of days.’
‘You know then. It wasn’t Rogan…’
‘So, tell me?’
Lauren sighed. ‘I don’t understand how it happened, but some pornographic stuff went through our computer system, and it carried our address. Our IP address, I mean. But it was somebody else using it,’ she insisted. ‘They could have been anywhere in the world. The computer guys said it was sophisticated and designed to cause us as much trouble as possible. The house was full of people coming and going – PR people, police, you know. I just had to get out of there. Rogan was worried about the stress having an effect on the baby.’
‘I can understand that.’ Costello patted the slim tanned hand.
‘Oh, it was no sweat, we just jumped on a plane. The hotel’s OK and we bought the castle quickly enough. We’d looked at it on the net from LA.’
As you do, thought Costello.
Lauren had her supermodel face on again. ‘Well, I thought we were getting a place of our own, then I find Dec and Jinky are moving in with us.’ Her voice was more bitter than before. ‘I guess Rogan felt he couldn’t leave them behind, not after all these years.’
Costello felt her skin creep, and she phrased the next question carefully, getting the conversation back on track. ‘But surely porn’s not unusual for a bunch of blokes? You should see what some of the Neanderthals back at the station look at, and that’s the cops I’m talking about.’
Lauren moved slightly in her seat. ‘I don’t care about that. It wasn’t Rogan.’ She was definite about that. She sounded almost bored with the subject, as though it really didn’t bother her. Yet she looked around uneasily, and Costello was alarmed to see Lauren’s face turn waxy grey. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t feel well. I have to find the toilet.’
Luca stretched up to look through the keyhole into the room beyond. He had already tried the keyhole in the big door but he couldn’t see anything apart from a small sliver of light at the side of the key.
This other door was easier. The keyhole was clear. He could see Troy lying on a narrow bed, with his bedclothes piled on top of him all higgledy-piggledy like a great pile of washing. Luca rattled at the door, but it would not open. So, he tried pulling. Nothing.
He leaned down to put his mouth against the keyhole. ‘Oi,’ he said quietly. ‘Oi, Troy?’
Nothing.
He put his eye to the hole again, but Troy hadn’t moved. He stood up, and went to the other door – the big, solid door – but he couldn’t get it to budge. He didn’t like this; he couldn’t work out what was going on but it didn’t seem right.
He didn’t like it here any more, he decided. He wasn’t going to stay until his mum came to get him; he was going to get out now and go and find her at the hospital. He went back to the smaller door and pushed really hard, not caring if anyone heard. The door opened a wee bit, then a bit more. Troy looked as though he had been asleep for ever. Not a normal kind of sleep. Luca watched him for a while, watched how he was breathing, in a funny way, not in and out like a normal person. It was the kind of breathing his mum did sometimes when she had to lie on the floor. There was something wrong with Troy – the shape of him, the colour of him – it didn’t look normal at all.
And he hadn’t eaten his dinner. The Monkey Meal lay cold and congealed in its tray at the side of the bed, and the drink was untouched, the straw still in its polythene sleeve. Troy always ate his tea, he shovelled the food in. Luca’s mum said that boys who ate like that got tummy ache. Troy said he ate like that because he was always bloody starving. Luca sniffed at the chips, and opened the lid of the burger roll. It smelled of cold mustard, but it had not been touched. Troy’s face was wet and waxy, and little rivulets of water were running down it. His hands looked really strange; they were big and puffy and turning black, as dark as his sleeves. And he still had not moved. He must be hungry by now so Luca knelt on the stinking floor and pulled the straw from its sleeve. He pushed it into the top of the cup and gave it a wee suck. The cola was flat but cold. He held it to Troy’s mouth and whispered in his ear, ‘Here’s some juice.’ But the cola just dribbled down the side of Troy’s face as Luca squeezed the side of the cup.
Luca sat back. ‘Oh, dear,’ he said.
He rubbed Troy’s arm, gently at first, then a bit more roughly, but he did not wake. He nudged the bed, jumping back as a movement ruffled under the bedclothes. Luca lifted up Troy’s duvet and came face to face with the rat. The rodent raised itself on its hind legs, and tensed, whiskers twitching. Luca caught sight of the two yellow spickles of teeth.
All he felt as it jumped was a flick of pain on the side of his face.
Anderson was being sick again; streams of vomit flooded from his mouth, staining the water in the toilet pan a deep dark brown.
DS Littlewood opened the door. ‘You OK?’
‘Not really,’ Anderson grunted, ripping off sheet after sheet of toilet paper and wiping his nose and mouth. ‘I’ve seen a lot in my time, but nothing like that.’
Littlewood leaned against the wall and lit a forbidden cigarette under the extraction current of the Vent Axia, as Anderson made his way to the sink and started washing his face with cold water. ‘You shouldn’t have looked at those pictures. They shouldn’t have been left there.’
‘How can you work with people like that? How can you stand it? Jesus!’
‘In Vice we got stuff like that through all the time. Until some bastard pushed it too far. It got me demoted and cost me a few grand on my salary – but, God, it felt good. It’s always good to know the enemy,’ Littlewood said. ‘But if that’s the reason these kids are being taken, it means they’re still alive.’
Anderson looked up sharply. Littlewood chewed noisily on his gum, refusing to meet his stare, clearly having thought better of uttering the words snuff movies, which nevertheless hung deafeningly in the air. He looked at his watch, he couldn’t help but count the hours, the minutes: 15 hours, 23 minutes. ‘But you don’t think it is, do you? And don’t bullshit me.’
‘Years on Vice tell me no. These children could have been taken at any time but three have gone together, which suggests an organization. We don’t know of one, and I doubt our intelligence is that poor. But you can argue it either way round. The Rogan thing is a nice excuse to have a poke about, see if he’s up to those tricks. But he – or whoever it is in his entourage, if it is them – has never taken more than one kid a year; two in fourteen months is as close as he gets. This is something different. There’s something else we’re missing.’
‘So, why are you and Quinn putting so much weight behind it then?’ Anderson asked. ‘That’s where the resources seem to be going.’
‘Because we’re being told to. We’re being leaned on to collect intelligence about what the Rogan tour is actually up to.’ Littlewood sighed. ‘A report from the LAPD says they’ve found over four thousand images on the computer in the O’Neill household. Four thousand and not one kid in them was over the age of twelve. Somebody in that set-up likes them young. Let’s hope Costello comes back with something.’
‘But that won’t bring us any closer to Peter, will it?’ said Anderson.
‘I doubt it.’ Littlewood shrugged. ‘I’d rather just find the kids. Work it back from there. You could pick a hundred kids off a hundred street corners, but they chose these three. There’s something about these three.’
‘What? What is it?’
‘Who knows? Something,’ Littlewood said, vaguely. ‘Let’s see what Costello comes up with. The way to break these guys is through the women. A pregnancy will change Lauren’s priorities – we couldn’t have asked for better. If that doesn’t work…’ Littlewood formed his podgy hand into a fist, ‘… I’ve heard Rogan’s trying to double the reward money. If I beat information out of him, do I still qualify?’
Lauren was away from the table so long, Costello thought she’d done a runner. So, she phoned the station for an update.
‘The morning news broadcasts have all carried the story,’ Wyngate reported. ‘So, we just have to hope someone’s memory gets jogged. And you’ve to meet Mulholland outside HMV in Sauchiehall Street as soon as you’re free.’ Before Costello could ask why, she had to ring off. Lauren was striding across the canteen, oblivious to people gawping and wondering where they had seen the tall blonde before. She had reapplied make-up to hide the redness around her eyes. But the dark glasses were slipped on again as she sat down. The wall was going up again. She picked up her cup, decided her coffee was cold, and put it back down.
‘Lauren, does anybody know you are here?’ Costello asked. Lauren shook her head, but the expression on her face had changed; she had come to some kind of decision.
‘No, nobody.’ Then she began, speaking like a child. ‘You know how some women who live with guys will put up with anything?’ The plastic table wobbled, and she put out a slender tanned hand to steady it. ‘Their friends say: I really had no idea what was going on. Do you believe them?’ She was trembling, like a smoker desperate for nicotine. ‘I don’t feel like sitting here any longer. Can we walk?’ Lauren was already on her feet, her suede bag slung over her shoulder.
‘Yes, of course.’ Costello followed her, searching for casual conversation to keep Lauren talking.
‘You think people will change, but they don’t.’
Costello pursued her, ‘Anybody in particular? Jinky Jones? Dec Slater?’
‘Why do you keep going on about those two?’ She kicked at a loose stone on the path with the toe of her boot. ‘God, they are faithful to him, closer than brothers.’
‘Lauren, how long has this been going on?’ Costello asked, not sure what ‘this’ was.
‘Since we met. He cares, I know he cares, but it doesn’t stop him. And they are there all the time, watching me, so I don’t put a foot out of line.’ Lauren paused and turned round, her eyes wide.
Costello said nothing, not quite sure of the track of the conversation. They walked on for a few minutes. Eventually Costello looked pointedly at her watch. ‘I have to ask you, Lauren…’ She halted directly in front of her. ‘I have to ask you: Do you think Rogan is involved, in any way, with this porn stuff?’
Lauren was instantly dismissive. ‘Are you crazy? Not Rogan. He’s not the type.’
Of course. They never were. Costello handed over her card. Lauren lifted her glasses, and Costello looked at the bruise on the back of her hand. She was also looking closely at Lauren’s lovely face. No, she hadn’t been mistaken; there really was another bruise, smaller, fainter, beside her right eye. She raised her hand as if to stroke it, and the sunglasses came down like a curtain.
‘If you need me, any time – day or night – that’s my number. You just call me,’ said Costello, thinking that Lauren suddenly looked like the loneliest person on the planet. ‘You have got to talk to somebody about this.’
‘I thought I was talking to you.’ Lauren shook off Costello’s hand, and strode off through the jungle of exotic vegetation, her boot heels clicking into the distance. The interview was at an end.
A week ago Costello would have said Lauren McCrae was one of the luckiest women in the world but, as her granny used to say, in rare moments of sobriety: There’s nothing like having your own front door.
It didn’t feel like a Saturday. As Christmas came closer all routine slid out of focus. It was the day after the shortest day of the year. And it wasn’t that the light was fading; it had never been there to fade. The snow had eased off a little in the mid-morning, but the forecast said more was on the way and that the wind was going to get a bit rough by nightfall.
The office of McDougall, Munro and Munro was old-world, plush but understated, delicately perfumed with the odour of old leather and good brandy. The office of Munro Property was on the top floor of the old family legal firm, and Mulholland and Costello had been halted at the first hurdle; they had to get past the reception desk before they could proceed any further. So, they were hanging around. Vik just wanted to get this over with and get out of there. And to make matters worse, Costello was in a foul mood after failing to get anything concrete out of the supermodel, and then getting frozen while he had kept her waiting outside HMV. He had come over from Partickhill Station and that meant driving past the end of Frances’s street, so he had stopped. Either she hadn’t been in or she hadn’t answered the door. He walked over to the window of the reception area, pretending to be interested in the traffic below while furtively listening to Frances’s message again. She had left it in the early hours of the morning, a long message saying she hoped they got the wee boy back; she was upset about it, her face was sore and she was going to her bed. She’d phone again when she was up. Then a sniff, a little laugh, she’d got the hang of the mobile now. After a pause she’d said she’d like to spend Christmas with him – actually said it – and then she added So, I’ll say goodnight, in that low husky voice of hers. She still hadn’t phoned back, and there’d been no more messages. He sighed, closed the phone, switched it to silent and put it in his pocket. He didn’t know why he had been detailed on this cyanide thing. He was angry at being sent to trace the credit card; that was a job for a complete plonker – any of the uniforms from downstairs could have done it, even wonderboy Smythe who was still hanging around Partickhill getting Brownie points – but DCI Quinn had sent him. She had been quite clear – Anderson’s boy going missing would not make any difference; the detail for today would remain as planned. She was covering her back, and they knew it.
Across the road, the tinsel in the window of Water-stone’s bookshop had half fallen down, and a column of red Squidgy McMidges shivered in the wind on either side of the doors. Mulholland looked at his watch again, then fished out his phone once more – still no more messages. He listened yet again to the one that he already had, then he texted Frances – hope u r feeling better, luv u – and pressed Send.
A discreet buzzer sounded. The receptionist said, ‘He’ll see you now, if you’d just like to go up in the lift…’
The lift was vintage, like an open cage. Costello shivered. ‘Imagine getting your hand caught through the bars,’ she said. ‘And having it slowly amputated as the lift goes up…’
‘A real bundle of laughs you are, Costello.’
On the upstairs landing, opposite the lift, was a picture of a commanding white-haired lady, like a badly painted portrait of the Queen. The eyes seemed to follow Costello and Mulholland across the carpet, as did the eyes of the dead fox that hung around her neck.
‘I hope it bloody strangles her,’ Costello hissed.
Douglas Munro, LLB (Hons), was casually dressed in expensive cashmere, with a slight tendency to fat round his waist, his hair sprinkled with grey at the temples.
‘I’m DC Mulholland, this is DS Costello,’ announced Mulholland, stepping in front of Costello, showing that he was in charge. This time she was content to let him. ‘It’s very good of you to see us on a Saturday, sir.’
‘Just clearing my desk for the Christmas break,’ he answered. ‘And of course I would be pleased to help in any way I can. Do come through into my office.’
Mulholland discreetly flexed his fingers. Munro’s welcome was like shaking hands with a dead haddock.
‘Would you like some coffee, tea? I’m sure Stella would rustle something together for us.’
‘Coffee would be fine, thank you,’ said Mulholland.
‘You know Stella, don’t you? She’s been in a terrible state since, well, since she knew she saw that wee boy.’
‘We’ve had quite a few witnesses through our doors recently,’ said Costello, evasively, adding a no thanks to coffee. Munro ordered coffee for himself and Mulholland, and a glass of water, over the intercom as they sat down in his long narrow office. It was mostly mahogany and burgundy leather, with sepia photographs and slightly faded oil paintings of the previous occupants on the walls. Only the architect’s models of building developments around the city gave a clue to the current use of the room. Mulholland noticed another photograph of the haughty white-haired dame wearing a showy pearl choker. On anybody else it would look cheap, but she had the type of face that said ‘money’. A wearily overweight spaniel sat at her feet. Both the spaniel and its owner bore a resemblance to the main portrait over the desk.
Munro smiled as he caught Mulholland looking. ‘That’s my mother. And that’s her father – my McDougall grandfather – up there. The family have a long legal tradition.’ He clasped his fingers together, leaned forward and said, ‘Right, how can I help you? Something about my credit card?’
‘The platinum one, MasterCard.’ Mulholland reeled off the number from memory, visibly impressing Douglas Munro. ‘Do you still have it in your possession?’
‘Hold on a mo.’ Munro eased himself from his chair, took out his wallet, had a quick look and pulled a face. ‘Yes, it’s in my wallet.’
‘You haven’t noticed it missing?’
‘Can’t say I have. I don’t use it often but it’s always in my wallet, and I don’t leave it anywhere. Why?’
There was a knock on the door.
‘Stella, come in. Of course, you have all met, haven’t you,’ he said.
Stella nodded as she laid a tray on the desk, with a silver coffee pot, two china cups and saucers, and small biscuits perfectly arranged on a doily. From the tray she lifted an envelope and handed it to Douglas. ‘Excuse me,’ she said to Costello, ‘but do you have any news yet?’
‘Nothing, but we are working on a few leads.’
Stella shot her a look that suggested they should be out looking rather than sitting in this office. ‘Douglas, the police have actually just phoned, looking for the keys to three properties; the two on Rowanhill Road and the one on Crown Avenue. Shall I go down with them?’
‘Just routine, sir,’ Mulholland reassured him. ‘The search teams will be going through the whole area.’
‘Fine, fine. You never think of these things, do you?’ He nodded. ‘Of course, Stella. Get a taxi if you want. It’s only Eve who’s coming in, so I can lock up here. But can you help these officers with something else before you go? It’s about my credit card.’ He showed her the credit card then slit open the envelope with a fine knife.
‘Miss McCorkindale, have you ever seen anything on Mr Munro’s statements that you can’t explain?’
Stella shrugged. ‘No. But the next statement will be in any day now – you know what the post is like this time of year. I can fetch the most recent for you.’
‘Please do. Does anyone else have access to your card, Mr Munro, apart from Miss McCorkindale?’ asked Costello brusquely, tiring of the charade. Children were missing, the search sounded as though it was stepping up, and they might need all the ground troops they could muster.
‘Nobody else. It’s not a joint card.’
‘Your wife?’
Stella glanced at Douglas, who was taking a glass of water from the tray, popping a capsule from its tinfoil with a well-practised thumb.
‘Does anybody else have use of this credit card?’
Douglas swallowed hard. ‘Only Stella. May I ask what the purchase was? There’s obviously something on my card you are concerned about.’
‘Just part of an ongoing enquiry,’ said Mulholland.
‘I was a lawyer; my discretion is assured,’ said Munro. Costello noticed that Stella had silently left the room. But she hadn’t seen her go.
‘There was a purchase made from a firm of chemical suppliers in the USA.’
‘Really?’ Munro raised his eyebrow, as if that had interested him. ‘And I take it you can’t tell me exactly what?’
‘We might have a problem with malicious product tampering, cyanide probably. The cyanide seems to have been purchased on your card.’ Costello watched Munro’s face; his amazement seemed genuine.
‘Is that what the product recall in the papers was all about? A painkiller, isn’t it?’ Munro emptied the contents of his cup down his throat. ‘Well, it’s obviously very serious but I don’t think I can help you any further.’
‘You can phone the credit card company in our presence and let us hear your recent purchases.’ Costello nodded at the phone. ‘You can get sight of a current statement on the computer while you’re at it. It would help us know whether it’s fraud or something else.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Now,’ smiled Costello.
Five minutes later they knew.
‘That’s the only one I don’t recognize.’ Douglas Munro’s hand was trembling as he touched the screen, indicating an innocuous line of typing in a long list of items. ‘You want a printout of that, I assume.’
‘Thank you. We’ll take it from here.’ Costello got up to go, noticing a Squidgy McMidge paperweight on the table, his purple head on a spring so it would bounce. She remembered Peter having one and couldn’t resist giving it a small pat for luck. She shivered, then pulled herself together. ‘Squidgy did them a fair turn at the Rowanhill School do yesterday,’ she beamed at Munro. ‘Were you there?’
‘Yes. No.’ He seemed uncertain. He smiled briefly at Costello, suddenly slightly wary as he realized he was now talking to the organ grinder, not the monkey. His eyes flitted from the midge back to her face. ‘I mean, yes, I heard he did us all proud, and no, I didn’t make it along there myself. We’re all big Squidgy fans in this office. Evelynne Calloway’s a very talented young lady.’ Munro tipped up the little purple face of the midge, and the head tick-tocked on the spring. ‘He’s so much more than a cartoon. He’s an absolute gold mine.’
‘Isn’t he just?’ said a female voice from the waiting room. It was the auburn-haired woman in the wheel-chair Costello had seen briefly at the fair. The tartan rug round her legs was scattered with flecks of snow, which had not yet had time to melt.
‘Hello, Miss Calloway, we were just talking about your sister,’ said Douglas.
‘So, you were talking about me, Mr Munro?’ Eve Calloway said, knocking the snow from her rug on to the deep-pile carpet as she watched the couple walk to the lift door – well, not a couple really, she thought. The girl was dressed rather formally. So was the guy. She had seen them before; he was the cop at the fair with the hippie chick. Police. Of course. She even fancied she could see a thin film of sweat on Munro’s top lip. He ignored her as he walked past, fishing a bubble pack of Headeze from his pocket. He pursed his lips when he realized it was already empty, and threw it into the nearest waste-paper basket.
Stella busied herself in the reception area, getting tagged keys from a locked cupboard, then moving one of the chairs in the waiting room so that Eve’s wheelchair could fit neatly into the corner. Eve knew the secretary was wary of her; she had been since Eve was a wee girl chanting rude rhymes at her from her garden gate. Stella McCorkindale had the type of face that terrified children, with bulbous eyes behind glasses that kept sliding down her nose. When Eve was young, Stella had had a goitre, which Eve had fantasized was a small baby Stella had eaten that had got stuck in her throat.
But now Stella was a master at throwing Eve looks of distaste, the vague implication being that her employer had better things to do than sort out two dysfunctional sisters and a demanding midge.
‘I’ll be with you in a minute, Eve,’ said Douglas.
She smirked, rippling her fingertips on the arm of her wheelchair. She could wait. She’d waited a long time to have this conversation with Douglas Reginald Munro. She’d started researching him the minute Douglas came sniffing after Lynne. The only person she could not track down was a wife; there were lots of girlfriends, and a mother, but no wife. Douglas made his money by conning stupid women out of their houses. Stupid women like Lynne – he was the ‘single lady with property and no brains’ specialist. Lynne had no property and no brains so she half qualified. She could have found out all about Munro if she hadn’t been so besotted, but love is blind – deaf, in Lynne’s case – and she would not listen. Which was why Eve was here, to give Munro one chance to redeem himself. If he left Lynne alone, she would sign. If not, she wouldn’t. She didn’t add that he would then be lucky to see the New Year in. She imagined the majestic stag in her sights, the cross hairs between its beautiful brown eyes, as she gently squeezed the trigger. She started to smile at her own cleverness but disguised it as a coughing fit, all the time watching the body language of the man. Was he nervous? Scared? Did he know?
Eve pretended she was adjusting her cushion, still observing Douglas as he stood in his office, quietly talking on the phone, jangling the keys in his trouser pocket. Private school, old money, his family had business ties that went back generations. She looked at the portraits round the waiting area; all that acumen and education – to come down to a bloody piranha like this.
Douglas turned, hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. ‘You had better go, Stella. Take the keys and get a receipt. I’ll lock up here. Do you mind, Eve? I’ll be another few minutes here.’
‘Be my guest,’ said Eve. ‘I’m not exactly going to stand up and jump the queue, am I? My legs don’t work,’ she explained to Stella.
She smiled a sardonic smile. ‘So I see.’
‘Thanks, Eve; I’ll be as quick as I can,’ Douglas said, closing the door with his foot.
‘He’s got one of his headaches again, hasn’t he? I keep telling him he should wear his specs or get his eyeballs lasered or something. But men never listen, do they? Vanity thy name is man!’
Stella just smiled vaguely, and fiddled with the buttons on the phone, as if unwilling to get involved.
‘Is that Douglas’s mum? That portrait?’ Eve carried on blithely. ‘You can see the family likeness, can’t you?’
‘Yes. She’s a lawyer too, still does a little legal work even now. Douglas does the property development. I quite enjoy it.’ Stella gathered some files, tying them with a ribbon. She was getting ready to go.
Eve sat still, noticing Douglas’s jacket hanging on the coat stand. ‘Stella, can I ask you something?’
‘I’ll certainly try to help you, but it might be better if you asked Mr Munro.’
‘No, it’s nothing like that. I just always wonder… actually, to be honest, I panic… about fire exits. Since my accident, if I get into a lift, I immediately start to worry about how to get out. So, how do I get out of here – if the place goes up in flames?’
Stella looked round her, thinking. ‘Well, we’re supposed to use the stairs. But as you can’t…’
‘… walk…’
‘… then Mr Munro would have to carry you.’
‘Oh, dear. One of these days it’ll happen and I’ll regret all the chocolate I eat.’ Eve patted her huge stomach. And she laughed the little laugh she knew made her look very pretty. ‘Douglas wouldn’t let me roast to death, would he? He’s a nice man, in spite of being a lawyer.’
‘That reminds me…’ Stella swung her coat round her shoulders. ‘I was going to put this through your door.’ She handed Eve an envelope addressed to Lynne Calloway. ‘It’s the valuation Douglas did for your house.’
Have I really just had it valued? ‘Always better to know where you stand with these things,’ said Eve, marvelling at her own acting ability.
Stella slung her handbag over her shoulder. ‘Did your sister get her little mystery solved last night? She was expecting a visitor and thought she’d missed them. The only people I ever see are the two of you and the old lady with the grey hair – a friend of yours? She has terrible trouble with your front step.’
‘Margaret?’ said Eve. ‘She’s an old friend of Mum’s. But the trouble is, she and Lynne can’t stand each other. So, she always comes when Lynne is out.’
‘And does she stay the night to help look after you?’
‘I do need some help sometimes, and I can’t always rely on Lynne,’ Eve said pathetically, looking at the walls. ‘Yes, sometimes I need all the help I can get.’ She rubbed her leg pathetically, then tucked her blanket round her. ‘Is Douglas’s wife feeling better? I heard she was poorly.’
‘Indeed,’ said Stella curtly, not looking at her.
‘You’d better go, in case the boss comes out and finds us jabbering.’
‘Cheerio.’
‘Bye then,’ said Eve, alone at last.