The Dunk had a point.
The Bloodsmith didn’t—
Her phone rang, deep in her pocket.
‘Sodding hell.’ She placed the burger back in its Styrofoam coffin and sooked her fingers clean. Used one of the Dunk’s napkins as a makeshift glove to haul her mobile out and answer it. ‘McVeigh.’
A woman’s voice, slurred and heavy, as if every word weighed a ton. ‘I heard... it was... it was on the news juss... just now.’ Judith Thorburn. Again. Sounding even less sober than last time.
Don’t swear.
The Dunk raised an eyebrow at her, spork poised with a glistening mound of stovies balanced on the end.
‘Judith.’
He pulled a face and rolled his eyes.
‘They say... say you’re not... and he’s getting away with it!... He’s...’ Silence.
‘Judith, we’re investigating as fast as we can, I promise you.’
‘My Craig...’ A sob. ‘My little boy. I need his... his heart back! How am... how’s he supposed to rest without... without his heart?’ Her tears howled down the phone. ‘I want my baby’s heart back!’
‘I know you do, Judith. I know you do. We’re doing everything we can.’
‘I need his... heart.’ Then the line went dead.
Lucy sagged in her seat, head back, face screwed up.
‘Sarge.’ The Dunk hissed air in through his teeth. ‘I don’t mean to be insensitive or anything, but is it not a bit late for Judith Thorburn to play the doting mother? Last time I checked, she hadn’t spoken to Craig for about six months before the Bloodsmith got him.’
‘Does it matter?’ Estranged or not, it was impossible to deny the pain in the poor cow’s voice.
He didn’t answer that right away, just sat there frowning. Then: ‘No, I suppose not. You don’t know what you’ve got, do you? Not till it’s gone.’ He munched on another sporkful of stovies. ‘Anyway, yes: why does the Bloodsmith redo his “help me” messages?’
Lucy ate in silence for a bit, mulling it over. ‘What if it’s not a cry for help, what if it’s... a prayer? A sort of votive offering.’
‘Like, when you go to the Wailing Wall and fold up your prayer and stick it in the cracks?’ He nodded. ‘I can see that. And we bleached away his prayer at the cottage, so he had to write it again.’ The nod turned to a frown. ‘Didn’t need to do that at Bruce Malloch’s house, because it wasn’t cleaned off in the first place.’
‘But he wouldn’t know that — the blinds were down, remember?’
‘Oooh...’ The Dunk’s eyebrows went up. ‘Unless he broke in.’
‘Maybe he didn’t need to? Not if he helped himself to a set of keys when he killed Malloch.’ A dribble of Marie Rose escaped, snaking its way down Lucy’s wrist. She caught it with her tongue. ‘This thing is impossible to eat without it going everywhere.’
‘Adam Holmes’ flat must be driving the Bloodsmith up the wall. Whole place has been redecorated: his prayer’s missing, and he can’t paint it up again, because there’s people living there. Shouty, horrible people.’
‘We should check — see if the shouty, horrible people have had any weird notes pushed under their door lately. Or graffiti.’ Lucy crammed the last chunk of meat and sauce and bun into her gob. ‘Woosnrrrrrnoodnoo cheg mgnnno ooghnoow cwooemszheennn?’
‘Not with your mouth full, Sarge!’ The Dunk’s next two sporkfuls were done with exaggerated care. ‘God, it’s like having lunch with a Labradoodle.’
She wiped her hands on a napkin. ‘I said, “We still need to check the other crime scenes.” You rude little sod.’ Tossing the soggy, smeared napkin into the now empty Styrofoam container. Then had a tidy-up with a second one. And a third.
The Dunk went back to eating like a normal person. Munch, munch, munch. ‘Want to do it on the way home from school? Jane Cooper’s place is in Castleview, and Craig Thorburn’s Blackwall Hill. Not that far out of our way.’
‘Done.’ Lucy opened her tea and took a sip. Lukewarm, slightly bitter from being over-brewed, the teabag floating in the beige milky liquid like a drowned man. ‘Finish your stovies, then we’ll go see a precocious little girl about an altruistic gesture.’
‘Bloody hell...’ The Dunk stared as the pool car drifted to a halt. Eyes wide, mouth hanging open. The windscreen wipers thunk-squeaked back and forth, bringing the place into focus, before the rain blurred it all away again.
St Nicholas College, Auchterowan, sat just outside the little town, down a wide avenue of trees that shivered in the downpour. And. It. Was. Huge.
Looked pretty old, too: a vast Scottish baronial pile, complete with turrets, corbels, and steep-sloping roofs. Tall, narrow, mullioned windows. What looked like an old vampire’s castle looming up behind one corner.
A gatehouse, complete with raised portcullis, sat about a third of the way down the drive, with what was either a drained moat, or a ha-ha stretching away into the distance on either side. As if they were expecting Visigoths to come charging over the hill at any moment.
And the Dunk just sat there, gawping. ‘Can you imagine how much this place must be worth?’
‘Yes. Now any chance you can actually drive us over there?’
‘Sorry, Sarge.’ The Vauxhall’s gearbox made a horrible grinding noise as he struggled it into first. Then kangarooed forwards a couple of feet and stalled dead.
‘Not making the best of impressions, here, Dunk.’
‘No, Sarge, sorry, Sarge.’ That familiar pink tinge was working its way up from the collar of his polo neck again. But he finally got the car going, taking them up to the gatehouse, where a striped barrier was lowered to block their way.
A middle-aged man in a bowler hat and black suit stepped out in front of them, hand up, face like an unhappy spud. One of his ears was all folded in and swollen, and his nose had been broken so often it was barely there. Broad shoulders, big hands. That, and his black suit, made him look like a boxer on his way to a funeral. ‘Can I help you, sir? Madam?’
The Dunk shrank back in his seat, hands so tightly wrapped around the steering wheel his knuckles stood out like a row of white skulls. ‘I...’
God’s sake.
Lucy produced her warrant card and leaned across the car, holding it up so the porter could see. ‘Police. We need to talk to someone about a pupil of yours.’
‘Hmmmph...’ The shattered nose came up. ‘I shall have to contact the headmaster. Wait here.’ Then he stomped away back into his lodge again.
‘Hoy!’ Lucy gave the Dunk a serious thump on the arm. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’
The blush deepened. ‘It’s not my fault, OK? I have... issues with—’
‘Right.’ And just like that, the porter was back. Didn’t make a sound, just appeared at the driver’s window, like a disapproving ninja. ‘You’re to go up to the main hall. Park out front.’ He produced a pair of lanyards and thrust them in through the window. ‘Wear these at all times.’ Then he raised the barrier and scowled at them until the Dunk finally got his finger out and drove off.
Up close, St Nick’s looked even bigger, towering over the pool car as the Dunk parked where he’d been told to.
A boy was waiting for them: mid-teens, tall and thin in a dark-grey suit, white shirt, and patterned burgundy tie. He was wearing a black academic gown over the top, reaching down to his knees, with a single gold epaulette on the left shoulder. Sheltering under a large black golf umbrella with the school crest on it: a mailed fist clutching a scroll and quills, with a Maltese cross on one side and three daggers on the other. The top half of a rampant lion roaring over the top of the shield, and ‘FIDES