‘OK. I mean, you’re the boss.’
At the foot of the stairs Valentine heard his name called.
‘Bob, you’re back to face the music, I see!’ It was Jim Prentice, still behind the front desk.
The DI turned around. ‘What are you on about, Jimbo?’
He leaned onto the desk, steadied himself on folded forearms. ‘Something up with your radio? And your phone as well?’
‘Have you been trying to get me?’
‘Oh, you could say that. Tried covering your arse for you as well but when Dino comes down here and stands over my shoulder whilst the dead signal comes back it gets a wee bit difficult.’
Valentine directed Sylvia to the stairs. ‘I’ll gather the team, sir.’
‘Jim, can you spare me the histrionics, eh?’
‘Well I presume you never heard about the press conference that was crashed by Captain Mainwaring. Or should that be Major Mainwairing? Major bloody knob anyway.’
‘Rutherford showed up?’
‘Aye. That’s not the best of it, though.’ Jim unfolded his arms and raised himself before leaning closer to the DI as he approached. ‘Your missing woman, the one with the dead boyfriend, well she’s only gone and turned up … Just about put up a three ring circus in the high street!’
23
When DI Bob Valentine entered the incident room it was as if the pause button had been pushed. Heads turned and frenetic pacing stopped, mid-stride. The lull in the room’s volume was less pronounced, but for a moment the street seemed to come closer, bringing with it the sounds of traffic and hard-hitting rain. Valentine stood in the doorway with the handle gripped tight in his fist, he had enough temper to slam the door shut, watch the dust bounce from above the skirting and see a few faces shriek but those days were gone. Giving into the whims of mood, in his condition, could be injurious to the already weakened muscle pounding inside his chest.
He removed his coat, placed it on the coat stand and made for the whiteboard where some of the DCs had gathered. ‘Back to work,’ he yelled. ‘Unless someone’s found a genie with three wishes going begging, we still have a murder to solve by our own efforts.’
DS Ally McAlister was the first to approach Valentine. ‘Think we need to have a bit of a chat, boss.’
‘Well let’s hope it goes better than every other one I’ve had this morning.’
‘Take it Jim’s been on the tom-toms?’
‘Waylaid on the doorstep, slavering like a cartoon dog with a string of sausages, so he was.’ Valentine pointed to the glassed-off office at the other end of the room. ‘Ally, Phil, Sylvia … in there when you’re ready.’
In his office, Valentine was greeted by a fresh scattering of yellow Post-it notes. He grabbed one, stuck it on top of another, and repeated the process till he had formed a little monument to the morning’s messages. The note on top caught his attention: his father had called and wanted a return call.
Valentine picked up the phone, dialled 0 for reception.
‘Hello, Jean, the message from my dad, was it urgent?’
‘Bob, hi, no I don’t think so. He’d tried your mobile but it was off … said something about a picture on the fridge you had left behind.’
‘What?’
‘That was it. Said he didn’t want to call but curiosity had got the better of him.’
‘That or he’d already seen today’s rerun of Antiques Roadshow … I’ll give him a bell later. Thanks, Jean.’
The rest of the notes followed a similar pattern. Missed calls to mobile. CS Martin had stacked up half a dozen of those on her own, each one with a pointer to the time of call which indicated she’d been keen enough to get hold of him that she’d rung every fifteen minutes for more than an hour. He was glad the calls seemed to have stopped, whatever her problem was he would need to give Dino time to cool off now before he did talk to her. A day or two would be ideal but he doubted that much time was available.
The office door opened, in walked Donnelly and McAlister.
‘Where’s, Sylvia?’ said Valentine.
The DSs looked at each other, Donnelly chimed first: ‘Lost your shadow, boss?’
Donnelly averted his gaze to the floor. For a moment, McAlister was left grinning to no one but himself.
‘Is that supposed to be funny, Phil?’ said the DI.
‘Er, no. Well, just a gag, y’know.’ Phil was not known for his sense of humour, Ally was the joker.
‘I’d say stick to the police work, son, but I’m not sure that’s your forte either. Is there something you have to say to me?’
Donnelly coughed on his words. ‘The press conference went a little worse than I was expecting, boss.’
Valentine saw that the DS was nervous, he let the remark about McCormack go. ‘You were anticipating the worst when I left, Phil, are you telling me you exceeded your own expectations?’
‘It was the first press conference I’ve ever headed up.’
‘Sounds like you’re trying to lessen the blow – just tell me what happened.’
‘The army showed up.’
‘I’m assuming you don’t mean the SAS.’ Valentine shook his head.
‘No. Just Major Rutherford. But he was enough.’
‘Jim on the desk told me there’d been some kind of kerfuffle.’
DS McAlister moved towards the seat by the printer. ‘Putting it mildly. We might have fared better if he’d actually abseiled through the windows with a squad of paratroopers.’
It was just a press conference, one of a thousand that had been held at the station, so Valentine struggled to take in what his officers were relaying. ‘Oh, come on. There’s only so much can go wrong at one of these things, and most of it comes from the hacks.’
Donnelly pulled out the other spare seat, sat. ‘It might not have been so bad if the chief super hadn’t got right behind him. She actually came along and told us he was to take the lead …’
Valentine erupted, ‘What? Are you bloody kidding me? Since when was this an army investigation?’
DS McCormack joined the group. ‘Sorry, I was on a call. What have I missed?’
Valentine’s bulging eyes, rimmed with red vessels, sent a stronger message than words.
‘Or maybe I shouldn’t ask?’ said McCormack.
Ally retraced the main points of the conversation, added in the fact that Major Rutherford had asked that the Fusiliers be kept out of the picture for the moment and CS Martin had agreed.
‘So we’re supposed to just keep Darren Millar’s involvement hush-hush?’ said McCormack. ‘That won’t be easy for long.’
‘He’s someone we’re seeking to assist with our enquiries,’ said Phil. He’d loosened off his tie and now he removed it. ‘It’s bloody humiliating, not to mention the fact that our hands are tied as far as the investigation goes.’
Valentine got up, pushed out his chair, moved from behind his desk. ‘That’ll be bloody right.’ He pointed at Donnelly and McAlister. ‘I want the pair of you out at Glencourse Barracks tonight. I want the full SP on Darren Millar, if he wet his bed once, I want to know. I want his every move cross-referenced with James Tulloch’s and what kind of relationship they had, if any, in this regiment. And if Major Rutherford or Dino doesn’t like that then they can take it up with the Home Secretary. Go, now!’
DS McCormack spoke: ‘And what about me, sir?’
‘You’re staying here for the minute.’ He checked Donnelly and McAlister for a reaction, continued: ‘You and I are heading out to the hospital again, Ayr this time, to see what sort of sense we can get out of Darry’s mother.’
‘Sandra Millar turned up?’
‘You could say that. More like thrust herself under the front wheel of a Suzuki scrambler some teenage lunatic was taking for a spin down the High Street.’
‘Is she all right?’
‘No, Sylvia, she’s unconscious. But when that changes, she’s going to have quite a few bloody questions to answer.’
24