‘Yes, but you like him. And I don’t mean like, like, I mean you identify with him.’
Lucy started the engine and crawled the van over to the exit gate. ‘He killed a homeless man.’
‘I know.’
The gate buzzed open and Lucy accelerated out onto Forbes Drive.
‘But...’ Charlie held up a finger. ‘A: Benedict’s a former child prodigy.’ Another finger. ‘B: he was prevented from reaching his full potential.’ Finger number three. ‘C: he has a difficult relationship with his father.’
‘I do not have a...’ She cleared her throat. ‘I didn’t have a difficult relationship with my father. My father loved and supported me.’
‘You do realize that your therapist submits formal reports to O Division, don’t you?’
Lucy took her foot off the accelerator, letting the Bedford Rascal drift to a halt outside a dimly lit kebab shop. Then turned and stared at him. ‘You’re reading my therapy reports?’
‘Of course we are. How else are we supposed to know if you’re OK to be at work, or what support you need? Do you really think we don’t care if you’re going off the rails or not?’ He pointed at her head. ‘No pun intended.’
‘My therapy reports?’
‘Oh, don’t worry, it’s not some sort of blow-by-blow recording of your sessions, just a high-level summary: Dr McNaughton’s impressions, how he thinks you’re getting on, that sort of thing. It’s all on a strictly need-to-know basis.’
‘You don’t need to know!’
‘Anyway, where were we?’ A frown, then one last finger joined the others. ‘D: Benedict Strachan killed someone, too.’
Lucy’s jaw clenched. ‘Don’t you dare!’
‘I know, I know — the situations were completely different. He had a choice about that, he chose to go out and murder Liam Hay; you didn’t have any option. While Neil Black deserved everything he had coming.’ Charlie brought one shoulder up, palms facing the van roof. ‘I’m just saying: maybe that’s why you’re spending all this time chasing about after Benedict Strachan when you’re supposed to be out catching the Bloodsmith instead?’
‘My shift ended nearly four hours ago! What I do in my spare time isn’t anyone’s—’
‘Is it just your spare time, though, DS McVeigh? Again, I’d remind you: your — therapist — sends — in — reports.’
That did it: she was going to bloody well kill Dr John Dickhead McNaughton.
Lucy hauled on the handbrake. ‘Get out.’
‘I’m on your side, Lucy.’
‘Are you deaf? Get — out.’
‘Come on.’ Charlie tried a chummy smile. ‘You wouldn’t leave a fellow police officer stranded out here in the middle of Kingsmeath, would you?’
‘GET OUT OF THE VAN, BEFORE I THROW YOU OUT!’
‘Jesus. All right, all right, I’m going.’ He climbed down onto the pavement. ‘You know, I really am on your side, Lucy. Take a deep breath, OK, and—’
She put her foot down, letting the van’s forward motion slam the passenger door shut.
He could bloody well walk home.
The van’s headlights swept across the front of her house as she pulled the thing into the driveway, gravel scrunching under the wheels.
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’
No sign of her Kia Picanto, just an empty oil-spotted stretch of chuckies where it should’ve been.
‘You were supposed to bring the damn thing back with new tyres!’ Hauling out her phone and... swearing, because it was still broken. Funnily enough.
Bloody garage.
Lucy clambered out and slammed the driver’s door. Sod the neighbours. Then grumbled her way around the van, making sure everything was locked, and slumped her way into the house.
She dumped her keys in the bowl, hung up her raincoat, stuck her new brolly in the umbrella stand with all of Dad’s old walking sticks, then opened the sideboard’s drawers. Rummaging through the contents for her old phone. The charger was in there too, which was about the only bit of luck she’d had today.
She took both through to the kitchen, swapped over the SIM card from her broken phone, and put the old handset on to recharge: one red bar, glowing away on the battery icon.
Next: another two paracetamol and a pair of aspirin, washed down with a big glass of cold water. And finally: a bag of peas from the freezer, pressed against the back of her head. ‘Urgh...’
Lucy stood there for a while, eyes closed, till the throbbing headache eased a bit.
Bloody Benedict Bloody Strachan.
And she did not identify with him, thank you very much.
The phone still displayed that single red stripe, so Lucy left it charging. Plucked the Blairrachan Garage business card from the corkboard by the fridge, made a cup of tea and took both through to the living room. Gave the useless gits a call from the landline, scowling while it rang and rang and rang.
‘Aye, aye, you’ve got through to Blairrachan Garage, we’re a’ awa’ the noo, but you can leave a messagey oan the thingie aifter the beep.’
Beeeep.
Well, of course there was no one in, it was after nine on a Thursday night.
‘This is Lucy McVeigh. Where’s my car, Fergus? You promised me it’d be back today!’ Then hung up with as much venom as she could muster with a thumb and a button, and stood there, seething for a while.
When her jaw unclenched, she had a sip of tea and went over to stare at her murder board in all its frustrating and ineffable glory. And, of course, she had a new victim to add to the wall.
Lucy nipped out to the hall and dug a chunk of paperwork from her raincoat pocket. AKA: everything she’d managed to nick from Operation Maypole about ex-DC Malcolm Louden. She stood there, frowning at the pocket. There was something else in there. Something heavy.
‘Sod.’
It was the little bunch of keys she’d found yesterday, down near that meat-packing place. Supposed to have handed those in at the Lost and Found.
Ah well, they’d just have to wait till tomorrow. They went in the bowl with her house, car, and van keys, then Lucy took the printouts through to the living room and pinned them up with the others. No crime-scene photos yet — just the one of Louden’s back, with the broken tattoo — but she could print those out tomorrow, when she was back in the office, along with anything else the teams had found out about him.
Right: so now they had a software engineer; a molecular biologist/call-centre worker; an unemployed project manager; a debutante/part-time bookseller; a philosophy student; and an ex-detective constable/homeless person. They didn’t look alike, they weren’t all the same age, they weren’t even all the same gender, but something had to connect them.
A long breath hissed out of her.
Not getting anywhere tonight at all.
A little light winked away on Dad’s old answering machine. Probably a marketing call, or a scammer, or something. It wasn’t as if she’d given the landline number out to anyone. But she pressed the button anyway.
A loud bleeeeeep sounded, followed by:
‘Did you know the Scottish Government has put aside money to help you buy a new boiler? Well—’
Delete.
‘Miss McVeigh? It’s Mr Unwin, from Unwin and McNulty. I just wanted to remind you that your father’s ashes are here and ready for collection whenever you feel ready. There’s no rush.’
Delete.
‘Congratulations! You may already have won—’