There was a wheezy silence.
Then, ‘Please, Sarge, don’t make me sit in front of whizzy security footage all day, I’ll barf every—’
‘He’s one of ours, Stan.’ She thumped the useless dick on the shoulder, and not gently either. ‘Get a couple of support staff to help, but I want his movements on my desk by close of play.’
The door banged open, and there was the Dunk, with a folder tucked under his arm. ‘Media’s arrived.’
‘Of course they have.’
‘Setting up shop out front, getting ready for the lunchtime news. Superintendent Spence’s doing a presser at one fifteen. You wanna hang around for it?’
‘Of course I do, Dunk. Can’t think of anything I’d enjoy more. Can barely contain myself with excitement.’
‘Fair enough.’ He held up his folder. ‘Got the stills printed off.’
‘Good boy. Give a couple to Stan the Man; he’s kindly volunteered to find Malcolm Louden on the CCTV.’
‘Ouch.’ The Dunk produced a picture of Louden in his nice new coat, and one of the little girl who’d given it to him. ‘Surprised you’re in the day, Stanny. Monster Munch tells me you ate two deep-fried doners from Kebabarama, last night. Your innards must be like a Damien Hirst installation.’
‘Oh God.’ He tipped forward until he was half-prostrate on the desk. ‘Told you it was something I ate.’
Lucy thumped him again. ‘CCTV footage, Stan. By the end of the day. Or you’ll have more than dodgy guts to worry about.’
‘Kill me now...’
Tempting. But they had other things to be getting on with.
She collected the Dunk and headed out into the corridor. Stopped dead.
‘Sarge?’ He blinked up at her.
That sod from Professional Standards, the one who’d been lurking outside DCI Gilmore’s office, was lurking again, with his dark-grey suit and stupid spiky hair. A Police Scotland branded mug in one hand. ‘Ah, Detective Sergeant McVeigh. Thought I might run into you here.’
‘Dunk?’
‘Yes, Sarge?’
‘Get the car started. I’ll be down in a minute.’
A shrug and the wee lump shuffled off down the corridor.
When he was out of earshot, Lucy made a show of checking her watch. ‘I’m in the middle of trying to catch a serial killer.’
‘I still need to talk to you, DS McVeigh, or can I call you “Lucy”?’
‘No. And I don’t have time for “guidance” and “support” right now.’ Or ever. She marched off after the Dunk. ‘Sorry.’ Not meaning it.
The dick from Professional Standards appeared beside her, matching stride for stride. ‘I can make a formal request, through the chain of command if you like, but it would be easier for us both if we could just sit down and—’
‘Thanks for your concern, but I’m busy.’ She barged into the stairwell, then took a hard right, shoving through the door to the ladies’ toilets — letting it thump shut in his face.
His voice was muffled by the wood, but still audible as she made for the cubicles. ‘You can avoid me all you like, DS McVeigh, but you’re going to have to talk to me sooner or later. Might as well make it now.’
No chance.
15
The Dunk hadn’t been lying about the media. A handful of outside-broadcast vans sat by the kerb in front of DHQ, cameras and presenters braving the rain to do pre-records for the one o’clock news. Some of them already packing up to head in for Superintendent Spence’s press briefing.
Lucy popped a couple of paracetamol from their blister pack and scowled out the passenger window at the assembled hordes. ‘Sod...’
There was Sarah Black, elbowing her way in front of the ITV camera crew, holding a placard with ‘LYING POLICE MURDERED MY SON!!!’ on it in blood-red letters.
How could they let her out so quickly? Did they even give her a slap on the wrists? Or was it just, ‘Here, you have a nice sit down, a cup of tea, and a biscuit, while we forget all about you assaulting that nasty police officer.’
Didn’t exactly make you feel valued.
‘Ignore her, Sarge. Woman’s a Dundee cake.’ The Dunk sped the pool car up a bit, till the lard-pale lump of Sarah Black was nothing but a smear in the rear-view mirror.
Ignore her?
Easier said than done.
The Dunk turned their pool car off Keirbarrie Drive onto Bradley Avenue. ‘I mean, how could anyone in their right mind eat even one of those things?’
Bellside School for Girls sat on the left, behind a chest-high stone wall topped with chain link. Presumably to stop a rogue hockey ball from flying out and beaning a passer-by. And to keep the precious, over-privileged little darlings safe from the dirty outside world, of course.
They’d added to the old Victorian building over the years: a swanky new glass-and-steel wing off to one side, a brutal concrete seventies block off to the other. Playing grounds — marked out for hockey, lacrosse, and football — that stretched nearly all the way down to the slate-grey river. The sky a solid lid of ash, raining hard enough to make the windscreen wipers creak back and forth in grubby arcs.
The Dunk pulled up at the gated entrance. ‘Because it’s not just the doner meat they deep-fry, it’s the whole kebab. Pita bread, salad, chilli-and-garlic sauce — it all gets battered and chucked in boiling oil.’ He wound down his window and pressed the big red button on the intercom fixed to the wall. ‘You’d have to be absolutely blootered.’
A buzzing whine fizzed out into the rain, followed by a woman’s distorted voice. ‘Yes? Do you have an appointment?’
He held his warrant card out at the camera. ‘Police. We need to talk to someone about a student here.’
‘And do you have an appointment?’
‘You want us to come back with a warrant? Cos we can, if you like. Only that might not look too good when it gets in the papers: “Private school refuses to help police catch killer, shock!”’
‘Hold on. I’ll need to check school policy.’
Lucy glared at him. ‘You’re not supposed to tell people we’re investigating a murder!’
‘Oh, come on, Sarge: these posh twats need to learn a bit of—’
The intercom buzzed again and the gates swung open.
He grinned back at her. ‘See?’ The Dunk slid the car through onto school grounds, following the signs for ‘VISITOR PARKING’. Nodding to himself, as if he was the wisest person in the whole soggy world. ‘You’ve just got to know how to talk to these people. Show even a sliver of weakness and they’ll walk all over you.’
‘I see.’ Mrs Pablo’s office was in the new glass-and-steel bit of the school, with floor-to-ceiling windows offering a panoramic view south across the playing grounds as the rain hammered down. The headmistress herself was a twinset-and-pearls type, her grey hair cut into a trendy layered bob, with discreet gold earrings and a shiny crucifix dangling from one of those expensive charm bracelets. She wielded the kind of voice that could probably slice across an entire hockey pitch to cut a kid in half. ‘And you don’t have a warrant.’
Not a question, a statement.
She hadn’t offered them a seat, just sat there behind an ‘executive’ desk with her fingers steepled beneath the point of her sharp chin.
Lucy pulled out a printout of the little girl and placed it on the blotting pad. ‘We’re not looking to get anyone into trouble; no one’s a suspect. We think this child might have seen something that could assist us, that’s all.’