Bleeeeeeeep.
MESSAGE TWO:
This is a message for DS McVeigh from PC Tim Dawson, night shift? DI Tudor got me to do all the PNC stuff on Dr John Christianson? Yeah, anyway, he said I had to keep you in the loop. So, I’ve been onto the Land Registry and they’ve got no record of him owning property in Scotland, other than the house on Birrel Crescent. And I couldn’t find anything when I did a PNC, so I had a word with the DVLA. They say he’s never been the registered keeper of a red-and-white Mini. Maybe he’s borrowing or renting it? Anyway, probably worth someone checking the car-hire places when they open in the morning. Cheers.
Bleeeeeeeep.
It didn’t help that she hadn’t got a sodding number plate either time she’d seen the car.
MESSAGE THREE:
Detective Sergeant McVeigh? Abid Hammoud, from the CCTV team, we spoke earlier? I’m kinda stunned, but we managed to find your Audi TT. Give us a shout and I’ll walk you through it. And don’t worry about the hour: we’re pulling an all-nighter, on a people-smuggling ring. OK, bye.
Bleeeeeeeep.
Just because they knew where the car was, didn’t mean Benedict Strachan was anywhere near it. Was worth a go, though.
She fastened her seatbelt and called Abid back. ‘Where’s the car?’
‘Your Audi TT’s tucked down a little alleyway off Lomas Drive. I managed to pull the footage from a police van doing a sweep for drug dealers. Can you believe it?’
Lucy started the engine. ‘Still there now?’
‘That, I can’t tell you. It was definitely there at twenty-six minutes past two this morning, and I can’t find it on any of the ANPR cameras in the area since. Which means it’s either still there, or the driver knows the network well enough to avoid every single camera. Difficult, but not impossible.’
‘Excellent work.’ Pinning the phone between her shoulder and ear as she hauled the van around in a juddering four-point turn. ‘While I’ve got you: I need you to find a red-and-white Mini for me. Didn’t catch the number plate, but I can tell you it’s got a dented roof and a cracked rear windscreen. Or it did when it scurried away from Ballrochie at about quarter past three this morning, heading east.’
‘OK, that’s going to be a challenge... Erm... Look, leave it with me and I’ll see what I can do. Not promising anything, though. OK.’ And he was gone.
She put the brakes on, just before the narrow, cobbled road turned into Shand Street, and dialled Control, wedging her phone in between the wheel and the instrument panel before heading off again. ‘It’s DS McVeigh. Who’s Duty Inspector tonight?’
‘Let’s see. OK: we’ve got Inspector Fred Murchison down as—’
‘Good enough.’ Accelerating down the hill. ‘Tell him we’ve got a possible location for Lucas Weir, AKA: Benedict Strachan. I’m on my way now. On my own. Off-duty. With no backup. After he tried to kill me, last night. So, you know, maybe someone would like to get a couple of unmarked cars over there ASAP?’
‘Not asking for much, are you?’ A groan. ‘Give me an address and I’ll see who’s free.’
Should think so too.
By the time the Bedford Rascal had made it as far as Lomas Drive, there was an unmarked Vauxhall cruising along behind her.
The road straddled the uncomfortable middle bit between Castle Hill and Cowskillin, not quite posh enough to be the former, and not quite post-war-housing-estate enough to be the latter either. The twin monoliths of Willcox Towers loomed on the right — both blocks twenty storeys high, their concrete façades painted green, blue, and red, as if that would make them any less horrific. They were set back behind a row of terraced buildings that featured kebab shops, all-night bakeries, and a lap-dancing club, lights glowing in the flats above.
A small street led between a bookie’s and a vape shop. Lucy drove the van into it, peering through the windscreen as Willcox Towers grew larger and larger.
No sign of Ian Strachan’s Audi TT.
A right turn at the end put her in front of the tower blocks on a street lined with cheap hatchbacks and knackered estate cars, where someone had sprayed a string of bollards with pink graffiti, so they looked like oversized knobbly willies.
On the other side of the road, a long row of lock-up garages was punctuated by a series of narrow alleyways. Which looked a lot more like Abid Hammoud’s description of where the Audi had been planked. The streetlights didn’t reach that far, though, leaving each one a featureless tunnel into darkness.
Lucy parked the Bedford Rascal across the front of two garages, opposite a half-dozen big council communal bins, grabbed her brolly and a torch, then climbed out into the rain.
That unmarked Vauxhall pulled in behind her and a couple of bruisers in cheap suits and heavy waterproof overcoats got out. If either of them was bothered by her standing there, all dolled up in a maxi dress and strappy leather wedges, they kept it to themselves.
The bigger of the two marched over. ‘You McVeigh?’ She must’ve barely fitted into the pool car — easily a head taller than her colleague, with broad shoulders and greying hair half trapped under a flat cap. She poked herself with her thumb. ‘DC Linton, and this is DC McKeeler.’ Hooking the thumb in his direction.
McKeeler bristled his soup-strainer moustache and nodded at Lucy, pulling out a pair of huge Maglite torches. ‘Sarge.’ He clicked them on and played the twin beams down the nearest alleyway as raindrops bounced off his big bald head.
‘But you can call us Bonnie and Tim.’ DC Linton’s smile wasn’t very warm. ‘No jokes about how he should be called “Clyde”, eh?’
Fair enough.
Lucy pointed. ‘CCTV on a police van spotted a red Audi TT down one of these alleys. Driver is Benedict Strachan, may or may not still be in the area. Consider him violent and uncooperative.’
A grunt from McKeeler. ‘Great. Drugs?’
‘Yup. And he’s probably got a knife, too.’
‘Right then.’ Linton cricked her head from side to side, rolling those massive shoulders. ‘Better get to it, hadn’t we?’
They searched the nearest alley, then did the next one along, Lucy tottering about on her stupid wedge shoes. Bloody things were eating her feet — crunching on the bones, gnawing at the flesh. And there were probably a whole heap of blisters forming under the straps, too. Should’ve listened to Charlie and taken a pair of sensible shoes with her after all.
Probably would have, if he hadn’t been such a dick about it.
By the time they’d searched alley number four she was seriously hobbling.
The three of them slogged on through the rain, torch beams roving across potholed tarmac and sodden brickwork.
Linton squelched her way into alley number six. ‘Maybe he stashed the Audi in one of these lockups?’
‘God, I hope not.’ Lucy limped in after her. ‘Can you imagine how many warrants we’d need?’
McKeeler slid his torch across a stack of soggy cardboard. ‘I wouldn’t leave an Audi TT anywhere near Willcox Towers: be lucky if there’s anything left of it by now. Whole thing: stripped down for parts.’
‘Come on, Tim’ — Linton marched down to the end of the alley — ‘it’s nowhere near as bad as Mason Court, or Millbank Park.’
‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t leave a dog unattended for fifteen minutes in Kingsmeath and not expect the poor thing to be up on blocks by the time I got back.’