Quinn sat behind her desk and looked out over the empty office. Everybody was somewhere else, doing something that probably was going nowhere. She sighed. She felt sick – for the first time in her career she didn’t have a clue what to do next. She had put a quiet unofficial trail on anybody in Rogan’s entourage who left the hotel for any reason. Littlewood would debrief Costello about Lauren. He had ideas; no evidence but at least he had ideas. The house-to-house was up and running again, properly this time, but there was nothing coming in. Alison McEwen was a waste of space, but well known. Lorraine Scott had had to be sedated when she was told about Luca. But she was a ‘well kennt face’ also. Or was the eyewitness mistaken? It wouldn’t be the first time, and it would mean they were back to thinking about a single perp. Yet nothing had come down the wire, not a whisper, not a sniff.
Brenda’s appeal had been emotional, but she was a crabbit-looking woman. The evening news report brought in a whole load of phone calls, mostly from people they had already checked. Miss Cotter and Miss McCorkindale were two names the computer threw at them all the time. But Quinn was too tired to see a connection, apart from all the legitimate connections people who live so close would have. Although part of Glasgow, Partickhill was its own little village, so the same characters popped up again and again. What might seem like coincidence was actually perfectly logical.
Through the glass, she saw the door to the Incident Room open, and Anderson came in. He looked awful; he had aged years. Burns followed him in and took two plastic cups of water from the machine. They stood looking at the wall charts, the search results, the side wall map of the USA. She knew Colin’s eyes would constantly come back to the picture of a happy smiling Peter, his arms round the mouldy feathers of Pat the Penguin.
In the short term, Granny had come over and had taken Brenda home, and Graham Smeaton’s mother had offered to drop Claire off at the Anderson house. Three generations of women, waiting for two generations of men to come home. But Brenda’s removal had made Colin calmer and, for the moment, that was all Quinn could wish for.
Maybe Batten would come up with something. She certainly hoped so, as she had run out of ideas. She watched Anderson turn to look directly over her head and out the window behind her. He closed his eyes slowly, and then opened them again. He had been looking over the skyline of the city, thinking exactly what she had been thinking – that Peter was out there somewhere.
They walked down Gordon Street and up into the Sauchiehall Street precinct, Lewis striding out, Costello with her hands buried in her jacket pockets, deep in her own thoughts. She was trying to retain every word of her conversation with Lauren. She’d wanted Littlewood to debrief her asap, yet here she was tracing the cyanide, first with bloody Mulholland, now with bloody Lewis. Mulholland had disappeared off back to the station, no doubt to see if the gorgeous Fran had dragged herself from her bed yet. Costello had had to suffer the intimate details of Lewis and her boyfriend’s early morning shagfest on her own. She halted mid-step as Lewis swerved to look at the window of Watt Brothers.
‘Those are nice shoes, aren’t they?’ said Lewis.
‘I think we should get on with our job.’
‘Two minutes to try on those shoes won’t do any harm.’
‘Turning up on a date with the wrong shoes won’t do any harm, but getting on with our job might do Peter Anderson some good. Just a thought.’
But Lewis would not be shifted. ‘I have a blue D&G dress – would they go with that, do you think?’
‘I don’t know your blue dress and I really couldn’t care less. I think we should get round to Bijou Bytes – the internet café where they do nice chocolate croissants, remember? Where they get deliveries of cyanide?’
‘Do you think they’ll give us something to eat?’
‘I was rather hoping for the name of the person who asked for the cyanide to be delivered there.’
‘Not a chance. Too bloody clever, this guy. But we might manage to get an E-fit out of them. No wonder you’re on your own, Costello. You’re too focused on your job. You really are quite boring. You have all the sex appeal of a road accident. Do you know, you have the same first name as my spinster great-aunt?’ she said tauntingly.
‘Was she called “Sergeant” as well? If my name ever passes your lips again, you’re dead meat.’ Costello quickened her step, enjoying Lewis’s struggle to keep up.
‘You’re so funny,’ squealed Lewis.
Costello stopped and turned, blocking Lewis’s path. She looked up into the face of the taller woman. ‘I’m as funny as a Rottweiler with piles, and don’t forget it,’ she hissed.
Lewis took a step back, noting the sound of real menace.
Costello slowly turned round and walked on in quiet fury. It was midday but the shadow of night was still hanging over the city. It was cold, wet, and the snow had soaked through her shoes. But she had a full stomach and a home to go to. She thought of Troy, walking back through the light snow… and Luca and Peter. She was glad when the Christmas lights of Sauchiehall Street started to twinkle in her view, some sign of goodwill to all men.
Bijou Bytes’ shopfront was constantly open to serve straight on to the street, and the queue for hot coffee was strung out, as tired folk struggled with the last of their Christmas shopping.
It was much warmer in the shop itself. Bijou Bytes made all their own bread and the sweet smell of dough and yeast hung heavily, clogging the air.
‘Want me to deal with this?’ asked Kate Lewis, in a way that wasn’t an offer.
‘Aye, go ahead,’ Costello said. ‘I’ll stay out here and phone Littlewood. Just get this over with asap; we need to get back to the station.’ She scrolled down to Littlewood’s number.
‘How did you get on with Lauren?’ Littlewood demanded, before Costello could say a word.
‘She told me nothing, John, but she hinted at a lot. She does seem scared. There’s something there all right, but it wasn’t the time or the place for her to tell me. I’ll talk to you the minute I get back. Anything at all happening at your end?’
With a snarled ‘Naah!’ Littlewood put the phone down.
Costello snapped her phone shut, and leaned against the window of the shop. She needed to get her head clear and think deeply about Rogan O’Neill and the little Lauren had told her; there was a picture there that was not clear yet. Now she had to deal with this detail about the cyanide case while hoping Dr Mick Batten was having a productive working breakfast. Costello looked round her – this was a cosmopolitan city, so why should it not have its share of perverts and paedophiles?
This part of Sauchiehall Street was full of small specialist coffee shops with umbrellas over wooden tables. Somebody had said it looked like Paris after a nuclear holocaust. But in Glasgow, never a city of pretence, what you saw was what you got; the umbrellas were there to keep the rain off the smokers who preferred to die from lung cancer than pneumonia. Some Japanese tourists walked past, no doubt on their way to the Willow Tearoom to eat a toasted scone while their arses got sore sitting on a Rennie Mackintosh chair. They’d be better off in Bijou Bytes, where at least the seats looked comfortable, Costello thought.
Through the open shopfront, Costello could watch Lewis as she spoke to the manager. A hand was moving, demonstrating a height slightly smaller than herself. Lewis was being given a description, so something was moving. She turned away, noticing a row of Squidgy McMidges hanging over the bread counter. Squidgys were like shoplifters – once one had been pointed out, they were bloody everywhere.
The conversation drew to a close. Lewis nodded her thanks, folded up her notebook, and walked out of the shop, rolling her eyes heavenward.
‘Was that phone call anything good?’ she wanted to know. ‘Any news?’
‘Nothing. How did you get on?’
‘Well, the number belongs to that computer in the corner, but there’s no CCTV on it and the security camera is focused on the till. I have a list of everybody who’s worked here over the last year, eight of them in all. Nothing’s ever been delivered here from the States, except one item which was handed in at the shopfront… a wee box in a Jiffy bag, the manager called it. Maybe more than a month ago, but she can’t be sure. It was addressed to here and to somebody called Margaret. Turns out one of their regular customers had asked them to take in a delivery that she had ordered over the café internet…’
‘And don’t tell me – said regular customer hasn’t been seen since.’
‘Spot on. “Margaret” apparently worked at the jewellers’ over the road. She said the package was a clock, a surprise birthday present for a colleague. They wanted it to be delivered here in case she caught wind of it before the official presentation.’
‘So, she collected the clock – or, to be correct, a package from the USA with a delivery address that is now a dead end. And description?’
Lewis looked at the sky, recalling. ‘Older, female, grey-haired, heavy build – well, fat – small, wore a hat, thick glasses. ’
‘All removable.’
‘Yes. The only strange thing was that she had trouble getting up the step. She had a bad leg. Better check out the jewellers’, eh?’
‘It’s why we’re here,’ muttered Costello. ‘We’re following in her tracks.’
The windows of Cornerstone Jewellers were covered with gold tinsel and fake snow. Costello shivered. ‘Why do I feel a sort of premonition that they will have never heard of Margaret or her colleague’s birthday?’
It took only two minutes in the jewellers’ shop to establish that their staff had indeed never heard of ‘Margaret’. They had no idea who the police were talking about and they could not recollect anyone of that description. They offered their surveillance tapes, but Lewis said no thanks. ‘Margaret’, whoever she may be, was clever enough never to have set foot in the place. ‘Margaret’ had hand-picked the staff of Bijou Bytes – helpful but not the brightest – for her purpose.
‘Margaret’ had played them every step of the way.
The Willow Tearoom was crowded with Christmas shoppers, but Douglas was known there so the waitress showed him and Lynne to a table at the furthest point of the mezzanine. They sat on the tall Rennie Mackintosh chairs and ordered pancakes and coffee for him, toast and Earl Grey for her. Lynne, becoming a little nervous, was wondering why Douglas had brought her to this sweet little coffee shop that sat, peculiarly, above a jewellers’, and wondered what, if any, significance there was in that.
‘Sorry I was late,’ Douglas said pulling his coat off and placing it on the back of the chair. ‘Stella was called away to give the police access to some property. God knows what they expect to find.’
‘I was a little late myself,’ she said, lying through her teeth. Actually, she had been kept waiting in the sleet in Sauchiehall Street for more than ten minutes, her scarf round her mouth as people coughed and sneezed as they went past. ‘Why were you working the Saturday before Christmas? You work far too hard, darling.’
Douglas leaned forward and started drumming his fingers on the table. He had something on his mind. ‘Look, Lynne… I had something really nice planned for us – over Christmas.’ He smiled. ‘Really special. But I had a meeting this morning that means I have to be involved in an unexpected project, last-minute but very profitable.’
‘Oh.’ Her light-blue eyes opened flirtatiously. ‘Something really special?’
‘Very special, but not till this other thing is over. Is that OK?’
He was nervous as he asked, his fingers still drumming away on the tabletop; he could hardly look her in the eye. She was touched. ‘If it has to be, it has to be. I know the stress you’re under,’ Lynne replied, lost for a minute in the fantasy that she was a corporate wife.
‘And on top of that, I had the police in the office this morning.’
‘About the keys? You said.’
‘No, something else I appear to be mixed up in. Have you seen this stuff about the recall of some painkiller?’ He pulled a copy of that morning’s Record from his coat pocket, his hand shaking slightly, and passed it to Lynne. ‘They’re claiming that a particular batch might cause stomach problems – to prevent panic, I suppose – but it’s much worse than that.’
‘It’s all cheap nonsense, what they sell at that shop; I would never buy anything there. What does it have to do with you?’
Douglas leaned forward. ‘Keep this to yourself but from what the detective said, I think there’s a product tamperer about. Cyanide.’ He took a bite of his pancake. ‘Imagine that, cyanide!’ He backhanded a crumb from the side of his mouth and added quietly, ‘Lynne, people are actually dying from this stuff!’
Lynne paused, a piece of toast halfway to her mouth, her throat suddenly dry. ‘And…?’
‘And now they’ve traced the cyanide and lo and behold, it was bought by me.’
‘I don’t understand…’
‘Over the blasted internet. The cyanide – would you believe it, cyanide – was bought on my credit card.’
‘How did that happen?’ asked Lynne quietly.
‘They’re not sure about that. Somebody with access to my card. Or the number.’
‘Stella?’ asked Lynne, too quickly, as she thought of the many times Douglas had left his jacket lying around their living room. Around Eve.
Douglas laughed. ‘Don’t be daft. I asked a friend about it – an educated cop, not one of those Neanderthals that came to see me this morning. He said anybody could just have copied the strip on my card, he knows a fair bit about the mechanics of it all.’
‘It’s ridiculous to think you could have had anything to do with it.’ Lynne went on the defensive. ‘And they came to your place of work? What if you’d had an important client there? Can’t you lodge an official complaint?’
‘Oh, I shall expect total exoneration and an apology. But in the meantime – yes, you’re right; it would be very damaging to my professional reputation if it became known. Which it could, easily; your sister was right outside my office door and her mouth is like Radio Clyde.’
‘Eve? What on earth was she doing in your office?’
Douglas chewed a mouthful of pancake, giving himself time to think. He decided on an edited version of the truth. ‘I think she’s concerned that I’m leading you astray, me being married and all that.’ He finished with a convincing lie. ‘I told her it was none of her business.’ In reality, he had just looked at the pathetic, obese figure in the wheelchair and hadn’t listened to a word. But he had told her to mind her own business. Once he had the house on Horselethill, Eve would be out on the street. Even if it cost him the price of a wee ground-floor flat at the far side of Maryhill, he’d still be quids in.
But he shivered as he remembered the chill of her stare.
‘Good.’ Lynne took a sip of Earl Grey, only half listening, thinking about the habit Douglas had of leaving his jacket lying over a chair in their front room, where anybody – well, anybody in the house – could get to it. There weren’t very many people it could be. She felt a small creep of betrayal in her stomach, and pushed her toast away, thinking about that well-fingered photocopy of Douglas walking away from court. ‘So, getting back to your credit card, why would somebody do a thing like that – poison innocent people?’ She spoke mechanically, thinking it through.
Douglas nodded as the bill was put in front of him. ‘Because they’re a mad psycho, who probably never had a job, and thinks the world owes them a living because they were hard done by.’ He reached into his jacket pocket, then realized he’d put his wallet in his coat pocket. As he dug deep he pulled a face. ‘What on earth…?’ He flicked a packet on the tabletop where it landed in a saucer. The writing on the tinfoil strip was plainly visible.
Headeze.
Anderson was trying to contain his anger but nothing was moving forward. The boards were not getting any fuller; in fact, more and more leads were being explored and found to go nowhere.
He could think logically as far as the next move, the next person to speak to, the next thing to investigate, the next line to pursue. Then he would remember that they were looking for Peter, and his heart would crumple. Then he felt so scared he couldn’t function, so he had to stay calm, stay on the fringes of the investigation, though trying to get an overview of it all. He watched Wyngate as yet another statement, originally filed as ‘possible’, proved to lead nowhere. Yes, the guy had been driving his cab at the time of Peter’s abduction but he had seen nothing. It was dark, snowing and very busy – what did the police expect? Anderson took the red marker pen and struck the taxi driver’s name off the board as Wyngate typed two lines, pressed Print, clipped the original notes to the page, signed it off and filed it. His mind kept going back to what Littlewood had said – they were missing something.
Mulholland wasn’t faring much better. He was swanning around in a dwam over Frances who, no matter how many times he texted and phoned her, just wasn’t answering. He was getting edgy and bad tempered with everybody except Lewis, with whom he giggled like an imbecile. They had been teamed to interview recently released paedophiles. Littlewood had voiced his own opinion – that the offender would return to the scene of his first offences – he would be there, in the shadows.
Simple.