An hour later Farrell walked up the driveway of the Linds’ family home. He didn’t know how he was going to face Laura. If he hadn’t spent the night with Clare, then he might have followed up on his hunch last night and the twins might still be safe.
Ringing the doorbell he braced himself. However, it was DI Moore who answered the door; her calm demeanour no doubt exactly what Laura needed right now.
‘She’s in the kitchen,’ said DI Moore. ‘Take it easy, she’s only just holding it together.’
Farrell nodded his acquiescence and made his way through the house. He stood in the doorway to the kitchen. Laura was slumped at the kitchen table, an expression of undiluted agony on her fine-boned face. Farrell longed to comfort her by folding her in his arms, but didn’t want to overstep the mark. He cleared his throat before speaking.
Laura jerked upright as though someone had slapped her. As she saw Farrell framed by the doorway she sprang up from the chair with such violence her chair overturned with a crash. Her lips drew back from her teeth in a snarl.
‘You bastard!’ she screamed. ‘What have you done with them?’
Before Farrell could react she launched herself at him, flailing with her arms and managing to rake his cheek with her fingernails before he managed to pinion her arms to her side. He stared at her in consternation.
‘Laura, it’s me, Frank. You do know that I had nothing to do with the abduction of the boys? It was someone pretending to be me.’
She pulled away from him and sat back down at the table, her expression still hostile. DI Moore stuck her head round the door to see what all the commotion was about, but he signalled to her to leave them be and she silently slipped away again.
‘I don’t know what to think,’ Laura shouted. ‘How can I trust my own judgement any more? I believed it was you last night, not some monster intent on abducting my kids.’
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Farrell said. ‘He’s my identical twin. No wonder you were fooled.’
‘Bollocks,’ she yelled. ‘You haven’t got a twin. I think I’d have remembered.’
Quickly, he gave her the main facts of what he had uncovered. Her expression started to soften but then hardened again.
‘Why wouldn’t John have said anything?’
‘Only the immediate investigative team know. We couldn’t risk it getting out into the public domain. Not at this stage.’
‘Even if all this crap is true, how do I know it’s really you this time and not that maniac back to mess with my head?’
Farrell thought hard. He had to win her trust and fast. Time was running out.
‘I know that you have a mole on your left hip bone and that you lost your virginity on 30 September 1975 at about ten o’clock, to a young fool who didn’t deserve you,’ he said.
Laura’s face flamed, and she ran into his arms. Behind him DI Moore suddenly cleared her throat, making them both jump. How much had she heard, wondered Farrell? He led Laura over to the table, sat her down then pulled out the chair opposite, taking out his notebook.
‘I don’t understand. Why didn’t John tell me any of this? He’s not normally so secretive.’
‘He probably didn’t want to worry you. After everything you’ve been through recently.’
‘So, if I hadn’t been such a self-absorbed cow he might have told me and I would never have handed my kids over to that nutter?’
‘Laura, that’s not what I meant …’
‘If anything happens to them, I will never forgive myself. Never.’
‘I know this is the last thing you feel like doing right now,’ Farrell said, ‘but we’ve got very little time and I need to know every tiny detail you can remember.’
Slowly and painstakingly, he took her through the events of the preceding night. She admitted that a few things had seemed a bit off. His voice had sounded a bit different and his eyes were the same but very cold.
‘Did you notice any tattoos?’
‘None that I could see.’
‘Could you see his forearms? He’s supposed to have a Gemini tattoo there?’
‘Yes, but I don’t recall any tattoo. Mind you, I doubt I would have noticed one way or the other.’
‘He really looked so like me you couldn’t tell us apart?’
‘I’d only met you once since you were back. He was so convincing. I can’t believe I handed my poor boys into the hands of that monster. Promise me you’ll catch him before he hurts them. Promise me!’
His empty promises ringing in his ears Farrell tore back to the station and tracked down the SOCO team that had attended in the early hours of the morning. Despite the fact that they should have been off duty hours ago they were still hard at it. These crimes had everyone on edge at the best of times but now the lives of DCI Lind’s kids were at stake. It was personal.
‘What have you got for me, Janet?’ he asked a grey-haired woman in her fifties who was peering over some fibres with a magnifying glass.
‘Not a lot. No prints whatsoever. Bastard must have wiped the door handles when she wasn’t looking. He was smart enough to refuse her offer of coffee as well.’
‘That’s it? There’s nothing else?’
Janet glowered at him.
‘I didn’t say that,’ she snapped.
‘What then?’
‘It was raining last night. We managed to lift a print from the path to the front door, where the gravel had worn away. But the most interesting thing is the soil residue both outside and in the front porch where he must have wiped his feet. It had an unusual composition, which I fed into the national database. Interesting that he was so meticulous with everything else but not with his feet,’ she pondered.
‘This guy does nothing by chance,’ said Farrell. ‘I’m guessing either this is a false trail or he wants to be found.’
‘The clay came from a quarry out at Locharbriggs,’ she said. ‘It’s the only match locally I’ve been able to find.’
‘Thanks, Janet, you’re the business,’ said Farrell over his shoulder as he sped away up to the MCA room.
Up on the wall were large-scale Ordnance Survey maps with pins showing the locations of all empty buildings with religious significance. Farrell briefly updated them on the lead on a possible locality and he and DS Stirling stared at the relevant sections with deep concentration. Farrell saw it first.
‘There! A disused church beyond the quarry. Get on to the Council. I need the specs of that building. Hurry!’
DS Stirling got on the phone right away while Farrell quickly touched base with the rest of the investigators. The phone rang. Farrell snatched it up.
‘DI Farrell speaking,’ he snapped.
‘Now, now, Frank, what’s got you sounding so tetchy?’ said a voice that sent shivers up his spine.
Farrell froze and signalled frantically to Stirling to start a trace. A deathly hush fell on the room as all eyes turned his way.
‘Who’s speaking?’ Farrell asked.
A mirthless laugh grated in his ear.
‘Oh, I think you know,’ the voice said.
Farrell betrayed no sign of the rage engulfing him as he spoke calmly into the mouthpiece.
‘How are those little boys? Are they well?’
‘You mean are they both alive? Well they are at the minute. How long they stay that way depends on you.’
‘Go on,’ said Farrell.
‘Any preference by the way?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Any preference for which one lives and which one dies?’
Farrell was close to losing it by this time. He glanced over at Stirling, whose fingers were dancing over the keyboard.
‘My preference is that neither dies, that everyone walks away from this, including you. Help me make that happen,’ urged Farrell.
‘And wipe the slate clean?’ asked the voice, with a hard edge. ‘I think you’re full of shit, Frank. That’s what I think.’
‘What about a straight exchange: me for the boys? How about it?’ asked Farrell.
‘It’s tempting, Frank. Let me get back to you on that one. Got to go, got little mouths to feed.’
‘Wait!’ yelled Farrell.
Too late. The connection was terminated. Farrell rounded on Stirling.
‘Did you get a location?’
‘Sorry, he broke the connection with a couple of seconds to spare. Bastard knows what he’s doing.’
‘We’ve still got a possible location from the clay residue,’ said Farrell, desperate to be doing something.
He glanced at his watch. It was still only ten thirty. He was damned if he was going to waste a single second.
‘Listen up,’ he commanded. ‘Unless I get information to dictate otherwise, we’re going to launch a covert surveillance operation on the church out by Locharbriggs quarry. I want the area completely surrounded from all sides but the emphasis is on covert. I don’t want him to know we’re there. Complete radio silence must be maintained once everyone is locked in position. I also want roadblocks set up at all possible entrances and exits but again these must be far enough back as to be completely invisible from the church. Leave for all available personnel is cancelled until further notice. We’ll need uniforms as well. Bring out their best and brightest. Notify Firearms; they need a team on standby at the location ready to respond when I give the signal. We’ll need an ambulance and a doctor specializing in emergency medicine standing by, just in case. I want DI Moore replaced with a uniform and a meeting in the conference room at eleven thirty with her and the super, to sign off on the operation and offer their input.
‘DCI Lind, Sir?’ asked Mhairi, who had furiously been taking notes.
‘I reckon he’s going to have to sit this one out,’ said Farrell. ‘His place is with his family. Assuming we get the go-ahead from the super I want all involved officers to attend a briefing in the conference room at noon. Remember one thing: failure is not an option.’