Chapter Five
Bill Murphy teased the paper cup from underneath the coffee machine spout. It required a special technique to get cup to desk without suffering first degree burns, and Bill hadn’t mastered it yet. Not to be beaten, he pulled his shirt-tail out of his trousers and used it to protect his fingers.
Coffee slopped onto the desk and his shirt when he laid the cup down. ‘Damn it,’ he said. It had been one of those days when his reactions had been slow, his limbs did not seem to belong to him, and his head felt as if it would explode.
‘What’s up?’ Sue Rogers closed the file she’d been studying and looked at him.
‘I’m knackered. That’s what’s up,’ Bill grumbled. ‘I spent most of yesterday with the couple from Hell. Their daughter’s gone walkabout again, and they’re convinced she’s been snatched by a paedo. I’ve got half the force out searching for her, and she’ll turn up, same as she did the last time, after a rave-up with her pals. Bloody waste of time, if you ask me. Then to top it all, that call out last night took forever. Body in a bag, they said. Bloody body indeed! Turned out it was a dog the size of a race horse. I could have been in my bed instead of spending most of the night freezing my balls off on Broughty Ferry beach.’
‘You should have taken time off this morning,’ Sue said. ‘I’d have covered for you.’
‘That’ll be right.’ Bill rubbed his shirt with a grubby paper napkin he’d dug out of a drawer. ‘A little birdie told me our new DI is descending on us today. And I’m already in the super’s bad books. Damn, I wish Andy was back.’
Andy Michaels was still on sick leave after suffering a heart attack a couple of months ago, and Bill didn’t want to admit to himself how much he missed him. But they had known each other from the time they could walk and talk. They had attended school together, belonged to the same gangs and shared most things, even the same girls from time to time. It was Bill’s idea to join the police force and Andy had gone along with it. But, after the initial training, Andy was the one who never doubted the wisdom of their choice of career, while Bill was plagued with doubts.
When Andy was promoted to detective inspector, Bill was glad for him. ‘Don’t envy you the extra responsibility and paperwork,’ he’d said. ‘Detective sergeant is good enough for me.’ But things had not been the same and there were times when he felt pissed off because he was being left behind.
Sue reached for another file. ‘Speaking of Andy, I had a phone call from a woman this morning. She wanted to talk to him about an investigation to do with her missing daughter. I tried to tell her Andy wasn’t available but she wouldn’t listen. There was something strange about her though – couldn’t put my finger on it, although I did wonder whether she might be having a panic attack.’
Bill groaned. ‘Not Mrs Fraser again? That woman’s driving me nuts.’
‘Don’t know. I asked for her name but she didn’t give it. Daughter’s name is Jade though, and she said there had been a development. Thought I might find something in these old files.’
‘It’s probably some nutter.’
‘Maybe, but she did ask for Andy by name. By the way, how is Andy? You seen him since he got out of hospital?’
‘Saw him at the weekend. He didn’t look good, but they say he’s making progress. He’s not making it quick enough, if you ask me.’
‘Takes a bit of getting over – a heart attack.’
‘Yeah. I don’t suppose we’ll see him back for a while. Give you a laugh though – guess who was in the next bed to him when he was in intensive care?’
‘Who?’
‘Only one of Tony Palmer’s thugs, Gus Daniels, that’s who.’
Bill had been trying to get something on Tony Palmer for years, but the man was slick and didn’t even have a criminal record, despite being the biggest gangster in Dundee.
Sue laughed. ‘That must have made Gus’s day, being banged up in hospital beside the copper who’s been trying to nail you. Pity we weren’t able to get anything on him and his partner, Phil Beattie, we could’ve banged them both up in prison. A couple of pretty boys would have been welcomed with open arms.’
‘Luck of the draw, Sue. One thing’s for sure, Phil won’t be getting his leg over for a while yet. According to Andy, Gus was smashed up pretty bad in that car crash in January, when we were chasing the Templeton Woods’ killer.’
‘Speaking of Tony, you ever get anything on him for the zoo caper he pulled?’
‘Not yet. But sooner or later he’ll slip up and when he does I’ll get him.’
‘You wish. He’s a slippery customer, our Tony.’ Sue turned her attention back to the heap of files on her desk. ‘Are you going to faff about all day, or are you going to help me sort out these files?’
Bill continued scrubbing at his shirt. ‘Bloody coffee stain’s not coming out.’
* * * *
The reception area of Dundee Police Headquarters was accessed at the rear of the building, up a flight of steps and through a door into a fairly large vestibule. Opposite the door were the elevators, and to the left of them the glass partition separating officers from those waiting to be seen. At this time of the morning it was empty, except for Detective Inspector Kate Rawlings, pacing the floor.
Kate knew she should stop, sit down and wait patiently for the super to come and collect her, but her nerves were frazzled. First had been the drive into Dundee during the rush hour and a near miss with a lorry running a red light at the Forfar roundabout. Then the lack of a parking place when she arrived outside the large modern building that was police headquarters, which meant she had to park in the multi-storey car park, a dark cavern of a place. And now she’d been kept waiting for almost half an hour, and she suspected the constables behind the glass partition were talking about her. She was ready to spit nails by the time the super appeared.
Kate memorized the number as the super entered it into a keypad on the wall. She knew from experience she would be ridiculed if she had to ask for help because she couldn’t open the elevator doors.
‘After you.’ Superintendent Logan smiled benignly and touched her elbow. ‘This office will be larger than you are accustomed to,’ he said as the doors closed.
‘Yes, sir.’ Kate was careful to keep her voice calm and respectful. It was an unfortunate state of affairs, but women in the police force sometimes had to tolerate a sexist attitude from their male colleagues.
This was one of the reasons she hadn’t wanted to be pulled away from Forfar to head up the Central CID team. She was respected in Forfar. She wasn’t sure she would be respected in Dundee. Earning that respect would be difficult and would be even harder than usual because she was also expected to keep control of Eastern Division, which would mean dividing her time between the two teams. The chief constable had said he was impressed by her organisational abilities and there were no doubts in his mind she would take both teams in her stride. Likewise, there were no doubts in her mind that if she did not, it would be professional suicide.
‘I’ll introduce you to the team and then let you get on with it,’ the super said, striding along the corridor.
‘Yes, sir.’ She lengthened her stride to keep up with him. She had heard about this bunch of jokers – a bolshie lot by all reports – and she was not looking forward to meeting them.
He stopped with his hand on the door handle. ‘They’re a hard-working, experienced team used to working on their own initiative. You’ll have to exert your authority from day one.’ He turned the handle and opened the door.
Kate seethed. It was obvious from his tone he expected her to have a problem. Well, she would show him a woman could run a team of bolshie cops as efficiently as any man.
The office was large and open plan. A cork board and whiteboard covered the wall at one end. Desks filled the rest of the space, but not all of them were occupied. Two men sitting furthest away from the door looked up from their work, while another one, she wasn’t sure if it was a man or woman, continued to tinker with a computer. The woman at the desk in front of her appeared engrossed in files. But the thing that caught her eye was the man standing next to her with his shirt tail hanging out.
The auburn-haired woman raised her head, and Kate heard her hiss, ‘Bill!’
He looked up with a start, threw something in the bin and quickly stuffed his shirt into his trousers.
Kate narrowed her eyes. That was the one she would have to sort out first. He was a mess of a man, untidy, sloppy and no self control by the look of it. If he was an example of the rest of the team she was going to have her work cut out licking them into shape.
* * * *
Bill waited until the super and the DI closed the door of Andy’s office behind them before pulling his shirt tail back out of his trousers. ‘Damned thing’s still damp,’ he grumbled.
‘You certainly made an impression,’ Sue said. ‘At least put your jacket on in case they come back.’
‘Is that what you call it, an impression? Did you see the way she looked at me? It was as if I was something that had crawled out from under a stone.’
‘Can’t say I blame her, you look like shit.’ She turned her attention back to the files.
After a few moments she looked up. ‘You know that girl you thought had gone walkabout? How old did you say she was?’
‘Fourteen!’
Sue closed the file she’d been studying and laid it beside two others she had set aside. ‘Have a look at these. You might find them interesting.’
Bill wandered over to her desk. ‘Why’s that?’
‘Well, over the last six years three other girls, all aged between twelve to fourteen, vanished into thin air.’
‘You thinking there might be a connection?’
‘Similar circumstances from what I can see. All of the girls had been playing around in the internet chat rooms before they disappeared. This recent girl who’s missing, didn’t you say her mother complained she was always on the computer?’
‘That’s why I brought it in and asked Jenny to have a look.’ Bill nodded his head in the direction of the young woman working on a computer.
‘Bit unorthodox, shouldn’t it be sent to forensics?’
‘Not if we want a quick result. Jenny’s better than any of those geeks in the lab and it can always be sent to them after she’s had a good poke around inside. Anyway, I still think this girl’s gone walkabout.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Gut feeling – besides she’s done it before, and I’ve met the family. Seems to me it’s similar to that other one three months ago. She turned up at her pal’s house in Arbroath.’
‘I’m sure that kind of reasoning will go down well with our new DI.’
Bill snorted. ‘Yeah, she looks a real tight-arse.’
‘It might be better if we cover our backs and not give her anything to complain about.’ Sue tossed the files over to Bill’s desk. ‘I reckon we should have another look at these old cases, don’t you? One of them refers to a girl called Jade.’
Bill frowned as he studied the last file – the one concerning Jade Carnegie. The other two had not rung any bells but this one did. He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes trying to visualize the family.
Slowly the picture took shape in his brain. The mother had been attractive; a slim, honey blonde, with anxious blue eyes. He recalled she had been some sort of teacher. Her husband had looked more like a man of the earth, with his checked work shirt and jeans. His shoulders were rounded and he had a perpetual stoop, which gave the impression he was uncomfortable with his height. Bill recalled he had dirt under his fingernails and remembered the man was a gardener. There had also been two kids. The boy who was about fifteen had been in tears. The girl was younger, a sullen little miss who had watched him with large emotionless eyes.
The couple had been out of their minds with worry, convinced their missing daughter had been abducted. He could remember the mother saying, ‘Jade’s a good girl, she’d never go off and not tell us.’ One of the things Bill remembered most from that first interview was the long uncomfortable silence that followed – a silence broken by the boy’s sobs.
For a time the mother had turned up at the office demanding to know what progress the police had made and what they were doing to find Jade. But they never found Jade and she remained on the missing persons list. After a time the mother stopped coming and Bill assumed she’d come to terms with her daughter’s disappearance. It had been a relief not to have to face her and make excuses for their failure, although he’d felt responsible for that failure.
He opened his eyes and sifted through the reports in the file hoping to find something they might have missed. But it was as much a mystery today as it had been five years ago.
He pushed the other two files to the side of his desk and retained the one he’d been studying. ‘I’ll have another look at this one,’ he said to Sue. ‘I was part of the original investigation into the Carnegie case.’
‘What about the others?’
‘I’ll have a look at them when I come back.’
Sue raised her eyebrows.
‘I’m off to see the family.’ Bill closed the file and buttoned his jacket.
‘Isn’t it early days to be doing that?’
‘I suppose so, but you said a woman phoned in and I’d guess it was probably Mrs Carnegie. I’d be interested to know what the new development is, plus check out how things have been for them since I saw them last.’ He was not prepared to tell Sue that something in Diane Carnegie’s eyes had got to him.