‘You’re definitely bleeding.’ Charlie pointed as she climbed in behind the wheel. ‘Are you sure you’re safe to drive, DS McVeigh?’
She slammed her door and cranked the Bedford Rascal’s awful engine into life. Threw it into gear and screeched out of the car park.
If she couldn’t call it in, she’d just have to do this the old-fashioned way.
The police station on Forbes Drive looked more like a high-security prison, with its high boundary wall topped with razor wire and punctuated with CCTV cameras. But that was Kingsmeath for you.
On the plus side: it was a damn sight closer than driving all the way back to DHQ.
It wasn’t a huge station: just big enough for half a dozen officers, all of whom must’ve done something pretty terrible to end up here. In any normal city it would’ve been part of the Great Police-Estate Selloff, but that would leave Kingsmeath without a visible police presence, and that was just asking for trouble.
Lucy waited in the tiny canteen — barely big enough for two kitchen cabinets, a microwave, kettle, sink, fridge, and a small round table — checking her watch every two minutes and sighing. How long did it take to get a sodding lookout request under way?
She pulled another green paper hand towel from the dispenser and ran it under the cold tap, dabbing it against the huge throbbing lump growing out the back of her skull. Wincing at every touch. The first lot of paracetamol hadn’t even put a dent in her blistering headache, and the second dose wasn’t helping much either.
Bloody Benedict Bloody Strachan...
When she checked the paper towel it was still spotted with soggy scarlet patches, but at least they were getting smaller. Lucy dumped the sodden stained wodge in the bin, with the others, and dug out another fresh towel.
A knock on the door.
About sodding time.
But it wasn’t the Duty Sergeant who slipped into the room, it was the Charlie from Professional Standards. ‘There you are.’ Jerking his chin up. ‘How’s the noggin?’
‘Are you following me?’
‘Given how upset you were, back outside the train station? Yes.’ He leaned against the room’s tiny table. ‘Besides, when you drive a bright-pink Bedford Rascal, covered with copulating sausages, you’re not as hard to track down as you might think.’
Lucy pressed the dry towel against her lump. ‘I’m fine.’
‘I see.’ He picked at his nails, not looking at her. ‘Your colleagues are worried about you, DS McVeigh.’
‘Are they now.’ She made herself a cuppa, filching one of the day shift’s teabags, and helping herself to a slug of semi-skimmed from a carton marked, ‘DUNCAN’S MILK ~ HANDS OFF, YOU THIEVING BASTARDS!!!’
Didn’t bother making Charlie one, because sod him.
He kept his mouth shut while she was doing it, though, so that was something.
Lucy leaned back against the work surface and took a sip, scowling at him over the rim of her mug. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Have you considered going to Accident and Emergency? You must’ve hit your head pretty hard.’ Glancing at the bin with its collection of bloodstained paper towels.
Did they go out of their way to recruit only the most annoying of bastards for Professional Standards?
‘I’m not your enemy, DS McVeigh, I’m really not.’
‘Then why — are — you — here?’
‘DCI Gilmore thinks I should keep an eye on you, help out where needed. Said you were under a lot of pressure, what with the case and Sarah Black and this guy who’s been harassing you and everything. Said it would be a shame to lose you.’
There was no mistaking the threat in that last sentence: play the game, or else.
Lucy cleared her throat.
Antagonizing the little git wasn’t helping, was it? If anything, it was making things worse.
‘Is that right.’
‘Have you seen the size of the bump on the back of your head? It’s like a hard-boiled egg.’ He pointed at the notice pinned up above a shabby old piggy bank. ‘And you should really put money in the kitty for that cuppa.’ He wandered over to the canteen’s narrow window, peering out through the grime, across the barbed wire to the grubby terraces and council flats. ‘If I’m honest, what concerns me the most is that someone’s been following you. Slashing your tyres. Knows where you live. I mean, what if they’re working for Neil Black’s family?’
Hark at Captain Sherlock.
Lucy bit back the sarcastic reply, opting for something more neutral instead: ‘I had already thought of that.’
He stood on his tiptoes to get a better look. ‘Even worse: what if it’s the Bloodsmith? Your visit to the cottage where Abby Geddes died was all over the news yesterday. Today it’s all about our finding DC Malcolm Louden’s body in the woods. He knows you’re getting closer.’
She sipped her tea.
Dr McNaughton wasn’t the only one who could do the silent treatment.
Charlie looked over his shoulder at her. ‘It’s worth considering, isn’t it? Apart from anything else, you saw him, which means you’ve got a physical description. You can circulate it around the Division, see if he’s come up in the investigation.’ Staring out the window again. ‘Someone has to know who this guy is.’
She let him have a little more silence.
Charlie gave up on the view, turned, and rested his bum on the windowsill instead. ‘Look, we appear to have got off on the wrong foot. So, how about we get you over to A & E, have you checked over for a concussion, then I can buy you a collegial drink.’ One hand against his chest. ‘As an official representative of Professional Standards. Show you we’re not all horrors.’
‘I don’t drink.’ Not any more, anyway. Not after what happened last time. She forced a smile. ‘But thank you for your kind—’
Another knock on the door, but this time it was the Kingsmeath Duty Sergeant who stuck his big bald head in. ‘You McVeigh?’
She hid the illicit tea behind her back. ‘Any news?’
‘Lookout request’s active, citywide. Got a patrol car popping past the halfway house on Stirk Road every now and then, but they lock the doors at nine, so...?’ A shrug. ‘Got someone watching the train station, too.’
‘What about his mother?’
‘Officers on their way now. And I got the Automatic Number Plate Recognition team to put a flag on her BMW, just in case she does a runner to Aberdeen or Dundee with the boy hiding in her boot.’ He nodded, setting his chins rippling. ‘Now you are going to remember it’s fifty pence in the kitty for that tea you pilfered, right? We might not chuck scallywags in the cells here any more, but wayward police officers are another matter entirely.’
Lucy clomped out into the car park, round the back of the station, bathed in the wan yellow glow of a security spotlight that didn’t seem able to get properly going.
Charlie followed her over to the Bedford Rascal.
‘So, Benedict Strachan gets picked up, night in the cells, then back to prison tomorrow. You OK with that?’ Climbing inside and fastening his seatbelt.
Lucy stared at him. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘Coming with you to A & E. I can pick up my car tomorrow.’
She tightened her hands around the steering wheel. ‘I’m not going to A & E.’
‘Ah... You’re not thinking of going after Benedict Strachan again, are you?’ A sigh. ‘Do you never worry that you’re a little... obsessed with him?’
‘I dobbed him in, didn’t I? Just now — you saw me!’