‘I thought you were meant to be—’
‘You wanna better result? Try looking for people who didn’t fall off the globe thirty years ago, you utter divvy! I’m doing me best here.’
Yeah...
‘Fair enough.’ I limped across the road again to the Black Bull’s back door. ‘Do me a favour, though?’
‘What, another one?’
‘DS Watt’s got a warrant for locating Leah MacNeil’s mobile phone. He’s an idiot.’
‘And you think calling us a “lazy tosser” is going to make me want to help youse?’
I leaned my walking stick against the pub wall, closed my eyes, pinched the bridge of my nose with my free hand, and did my best not to swear. ‘I’m sorry, Sabir. You’re a tech guru, and DS Watt’s an idiot, and I want to find Leah MacNeil before Gordon Smith tortures her to death.’
‘Bleedin’ heck: you and the melodrama.’ A wet raspberry noise. ‘Hold on.’ The phone scrunched and squealed for a minute. Then Sabir was back. ‘Right, let’s see what’s on the system...’ Keys rattled. ‘OK... Jesus, your lad Watt’s spellin’s appalling.’ More keys. ‘He’s got it set up all wrong too. Give us a minute...’
I ducked back into the warmth, retrieved Henry and the printout, gave the lacquer-haired harridan a big smile, then headed outside again. ‘Any idea where she is?’
‘Can you shut yer gob for two minutes and let us werk?’
Fair enough.
We limped out of the lane and into the square, wind shoving against my spine, drizzle stabbing the nape of my neck. Past a tiny, closed, windowless newsagent’s with a big advert for Tunnock’s on one side of the door and a sandwich board screwed to the wall on the other: ‘HAS OLDCASTLE CHILD-STRANGLER STRUCK AGAIN?’
Knowing our luck? Definitely.
Across the square and down a cobbled road lined with wee shops, two banks, a huge Ladbrokes, cafés, and chemists. The only thing open was a small pub, the sound of a singalong in full-throated roar as we went by, bringing with it the funky scent of spilled beer and crowded bodies.
And nothing from Sabir’s end yet, but the clatter of oversized fingers on a noisy keyboard.
We’d made it as far as the Co-op on Bridge Street, cutting across the car park to the relative safety of the overhang above the main doors, before he was back.
‘You still there?’
‘Where else am I going to be?’
Henry got tied up outside, and I hobbled in, grabbing a basket on the way past.
‘One, you’re entirely correct: DC Watt is an idiot, and I am a tech guru. Two: I’ve fixed it so it werks now — muppet didn’t understand a mobile’s IMEI number and its phone number aren’t interchangeable. Three: I’ve been through the data they’ve got.’
‘And?’ Limping along the aisles to the one with face creams, shampoos, medicines, and various toiletries.
‘Got her phone being handed off between cell towers heading north up the M9 between Linlithgow and Junction Nine. Then it goes dark about three and a half miles south of Stirling. Either she’s switched it off, or it’s outta battery, like.’
Two cheap toothbrushes went in the basket along with a couple of bottom-of-the-range toothpastes. ‘Address?’
‘It’s the Stirling Services: they’ve gorra food court, tourist info centre, petrol station, and a Travelodge. So unless your Leah’s stopped for a touch of the early-evening budget-hotel delight, followed by a romantic Berger King, I don’t think so.’
‘Sod it.’ Down the aisles again, looking for the pet food.
‘Till she terns it on again, the system can’t find her. You want us to set up an alert, if she does? Straight to yer phone, like.’
‘Thanks, Sabir.’
‘Now, if ye’ll excuse us, I’ve got a werld to save.’ And he was gone.
Franklin wriggled out of her soaking jacket and collapsed into the chair opposite mine, mouth pulled into a grimace. ‘Bloody hell...’ Plucked a napkin from the table and scrubbed the water from her face. ‘Absolutely starving.’
‘Hold on a minute...’ I finished adding Leah’s mobile to my contacts, picking a different text-alert sound and ringtone so it’d be obvious when she tried to get in touch. Then pushed the bottle I’d ordered across the table to Franklin, flecks of condensation beading on the glass. ‘Got you a Cobra.’
The Chinese restaurant was tucked down a side street, within view of the putting course and seafront beyond. Warm in here, even as rain drummed against the steamed-up window, the air rich with five spice and sesame oil.
Franklin leaned over to one side and peered under the table. ‘Where’s Henry?’
‘Back at the hotel, tucking into a tin of own-brand meaty chunks in gravy and filling the room with wet-dog stench.’ I called up the map on my phone and placed it on the table between us. ‘According to Leah’s mobile provider, Gordon Smith is heading north.’
Franklin frowned at it. ‘Going back to his brother’s farm on the Black Isle?’
‘That’s Mother’s guess.’
She picked up the menu and frowned at that instead. ‘He’d be an idiot, though. Surely he knows we’d be waiting for him?’
‘And you don’t get away with killing people for fifty-six years by being an idiot.’
‘Szechuan ribs, crispy seaweed, Kung Pao chicken, egg fried rice.’ Franklin turned and waved at the waitress. ‘You want to split a thing of noodles?’
‘I’m getting some anyway; we can share, if you like.’ I wheeched a couple of fingers across the phone’s screen, scrolling up the A9, past Perth and on to Inverness. ‘He knows we’re after him, but he doesn’t know we can track Leah’s phone... Assuming she switches it on again.’
The waitress wandered over and Franklin ordered, then thrust the menu at me.
‘Can I have the spring rolls, salt-and-pepper king prawns, and... mushroom chow mein?’
‘Oh, and a thing of prawn crackers!’
Soon as the waitress was gone, I zoomed out the map. ‘There’s a lot of Scotland you can get to from Stirling.’
‘Yes, but most of it’s easier from the M90. If you’re heading north from Edinburgh, why not go straight up to Perth? Why the detour?’
Good question.
One thing sprung to mind: ‘Think he’s got property there?’
‘Not according to the Land Registry. The place in Clachmara was it.’
‘What about his brother, or his wife?’
Franklin raised an eyebrow. ‘Now that’s worth chasing up.’ She looked up as the waitress returned with a heaped bowl of prawn crackers. Had to be enough there for at least six people. ‘Perfect, thanks.’ Franklin scooped up three or four of the curled white discs and stuffed them into her mouth, one after the other. Eyes closed. Making happy humming noises as she crunched.
I bit the edge off one — still hot from the deep fat. ‘Unless Smith’s going the long way round on purpose? Tootling along in his ugly old Mercedes, staying off the main road so we don’t catch him on the ANPR cameras. Thinks he can sneak up to the Black Isle without anyone noticing.’