‘Sorry to hear that. Must’ve been tough.’ He wandered over to the wall dedicated to the Bloodsmith’s victims. ‘Have you noticed how none of them are smiling?’
Jesus, talk about a sudden change of topic.
‘What?’
‘They all look so sad.’
Same thing the Dunk had said about Jane Cooper.
‘How happy would you be?’
Charlie paused for a moment, head on one side. ‘Yes, but when these photos were taken, they’d no idea they would end up slit open with their hearts ripped out. It’s almost like they know they’re going to have a horrible death.’
‘Don’t be such a...’ She swallowed it down. Not helping, remember?
Besides, had to admit: he had a point. Normally, when it came to getting photos of the deceased from their families, everyone produced pictures taken at birthdays, anniversaries, barbecues, parties, graduations. Happy times. Something that showed the victim was a real person who was loved. But everyone on Lucy’s wall really did look sad, if not borderline miserable.
But then that wasn’t surprising, was it?
There was Abby Geddes, with her tired eyes and drooping mouth — she’d dreamed of being a molecular biologist, and ended up working in a call centre. Barely known by the people she worked with. And Bruce Malloch, with his brow puckered in a partial frown — who still had his ex-fiancée down as next of kin, even though she’d dumped him months before. Adam Holmes, with his serious face, mouth pinched — laid off from work a year and a half ago. Jane Cooper, with her gloomy Victorian-doll’s face — an orphan devoid of friends. Craig Thorburn, with a forced smile that didn’t go anywhere near his eyes — lying dead in his one-bedroom flat for three weeks before anyone bothered to report him missing. Malcolm Louden, with the bruises and haunted look — sleeping rough, while the closest thing he had to a friend was the old man he saw once a week to go shoplifting with.
Charlie rested his bum against the back of the couch, arms folded. ‘I know the profiles say the Bloodsmith doesn’t really have a type, but it doesn’t take a genius to see he likes them lonely and miserable.’
Lonely...
Lucy unpinned Bruce Malloch’s missing-person report from the wall and scanned down to the section saying who’d reported him missing: ‘ARTHUR POPE [MISPER’S LINE MANAGER]’. And Jane Cooper was reported missing by her family solicitor. Craig Thorburn was only reported missing by Oldcastle Dundas University because they finally noticed he hadn’t turned up to class for nearly a month. Ex-DC Malcolm Louden didn’t get reported missing until well over a week after the fact, when he failed to turn up for the planned raid on M&S’s booze aisle. There wasn’t even a missing-person report for Adam Holmes: he’d been found when his landlord went round to check on complaints about the smell coming from his flat.
‘Are you all right, DS McVeigh? You’ve gone even quieter than normal.’
‘The only victim reported missing by their family was Abby Geddes.’ Lucy unpinned the report. Even then, according to this, it’d taken her mother nearly a week to do it. How did it take a week to report your daughter missing, when she lived at home with you? What kind of crap parent did you have to be? ‘They weren’t just lonely, they were alone. Every single one of them.’
‘Suppose.’ Charlie looked over his shoulder at the wall of potential killers. ‘Doesn’t really help us any, does it?’
‘Maybe.’ Lucy cracked open her laptop and powered the thing up. Logged in... And swore.
‘What?’
‘No wireless.’ But then there wouldn’t be, would there? The bastard cut the phone lines last night.
‘Lucy?’
She clunked it shut again. ‘Grab your coat, we’re going.’
He followed her out into the hall. ‘Thought you said DI Tudor didn’t want you in till noon?’
‘Change of plan.’ Pulling on her raincoat and hauling the door open. ‘We’ll take your car.’ She stepped outside into the crisp morning drizzle. The sky was a blanket of gunmetal grey, so low it skimmed the top of Auld Dawson’s Wood, hiding the tips of the trees. Lucy stopped on the wet gravel. ‘Where’s your car?’
The only vehicle in sight was her dad’s old van, its pink paintwork glistening in the rain.
Charlie emerged out onto the driveway, pulling the house door shut behind him. ‘Got dropped off by a patrol car, remember?’
Oh, that was just... great.
‘Hmmm...’ Charlie ran a finger through the dust coating the van’s dashboard. ‘It’s a little unfair, isn’t it? Inspector Morse gets a classic Jag to swan about in, and you’re stuck with a prolapse-pink Bedford Rascal?’
The van’s windscreen wipers moaned and groaned, the drizzle building up in their wake, frosting over the view of muddy-green fields, before being swept away again. Miserable-looking sheep glared back at her, their coats flattened and darkened by the rain.
He wiped his finger clean on his trouser leg. ‘So, are you going to tell me what your earth-shattering epiphany is?’
Nope.
Less than a minute later she was pulling into the car park outside Sainsbury’s, perched on the northernmost edge of the Wynd, its flattened boxy warehouse not exactly fitting in with the general Edwardian gentility of the place. The locals had probably wanted a Waitrose.
She parked her horrible van as close to the entrance as possible.
‘Wait here.’
‘DS McVeigh, I’m Professional Standards, remember? I promise not to steal the credit for your insight, idea, or revelation.’
Might as well throw him a scrap to whet his appetite.
She hopped out onto the tarmac and pulled the school umbrella from the back. Snapped it up. ‘The shortest time the Bloodsmith’s gone without killing someone is three months.’
‘Yes, but Malcolm Louden was four and a bit weeks ago.’
‘Exactly.’ And with that, she turned around and marched for the supermarket’s entrance.
The savoury fug of sausage butties coiled its way through Divisional Headquarters, even though it was far too early for tenses. Half nine, and the place was nearly deserted — everyone off trying to keep Oldcastle from slitting its own throat.
Lucy marched up to the counter. ‘Morning, Bob.’
The Duty Sergeant didn’t look up as she signed in, just raised his pen from the sudoku book he was fiddling with and used it to point at a big bouquet of flowers sitting on a desk behind the counter. ‘Those came for you.’
It was clearly a cut above anything you’d get on a garage forecourt, or even in your more medium-sized supermarkets: a riot of pinks and yellows and reds and whites, framed with assorted greenery, all presented in a cellophane-wrapped vase of some kind.
‘Oh. Yeah...’ Lucy pulled her chin in. ‘Did you check that for razor blades, dirty needles and the like?’ Just in case they were another message from Sarah Black and her family of horrors.
‘Like I care enough?’ But he turned and plucked a small white envelope from the red ribbon holding the whole ridiculous package together. ‘Came with this.’ He tossed it onto the counter.
She took a deep breath and tore it open, keeping her fingertips clear of anything that might be sharp or contaminated. A small card fell out onto the scarred wooden surface, the words churned out on the florist’s printer:
Dear Lucy,
I hope this note finds you well and that these flowers will in some way help convince you to have dinner with me tonight. As an added incentive, I know the owner of La Poule Française?
All the best, and with warmest wishes,