home right now.’
Nine
‘I’m sorry, Sergeant,’ said the proprietor of the Mallard Hotel, as he walked back into the bar, ‘I’ve never seen her before, and neither has anyone else here.’ He handed the photograph back to Ray Wilding. ‘I’ve shown it to my family, and to all the staff on duty, but nobody recognises her.’
‘What about the off-duty people?’
‘There are a couple of them,’ the man admitted, ‘but they all tend to work alongside other people. It’s unlikely that she’d have been seen by one of them and by nobody else.’
‘Fair enough. Look, we may have some posters to distribute around the village. Would you display one for us?’
‘Sure, if you think it’ll help. One of my regulars might have seen her.’
‘Thanks, Mr Law. I’ll bring one down, if it comes to that.’
The detective left the hotel and turned into the first street on the right. He had almost reached the village hall when he saw Stevie Steele heading towards him. He waited until the inspector caught up with him, then led the way into the building. The pair drew stares from the playgroup children, and glances from one or two of their mothers.
‘Any joy?’ Steele asked, as he closed the door of their temporary office.
‘Not in the slightest. I did the deli, the chemist, one coffee shop, the Co-op, the butcher’s, the charity shop, the fruit shop, the Old Clubhouse and the Mallard Hotel. There was one old dear in the Co-op who gave me a moment of hope, until she decided that the girl just looked like her granddaughter.’
‘Is her granddaughter dead?’
‘I never asked. You had no luck either, then?’
‘Nah. I called into the golf club, the pro shop, the bank and the post office, like I said. Not a flicker, anywhere.’
‘And the DCC?’
‘He asked me if he was a suspect.’
‘But he didn’t know her?’
‘Of course he didn’t bloody know her: if he had that’s the first thing I’d have told you. Ray, if you don’t mind me saying so, that was a fucking stupid question. I feel that we’re off the ball here: let’s get back on it again, sharpish.’ He looked at the uniformed constable who was seated at a table by the far wall. ‘Any reports back from the uniforms on the beach?’
‘No, sir,’ he replied. ‘Nothing positive at any rate.’
‘Maybe Tarvil will get a result,’ Wilding suggested, in a slightly wounded tone.
‘If he had, he’d have called it in . . . or he’d better have.’
‘Excuse me, sir,’ the PC interrupted. ‘There are faxes for you, from the lab.’
‘More than one?’
‘Two.’
‘Let’s see them.’
He walked across and took them from the man as he held them out. He read through the first quickly. ‘That’s it, Ray,’ he said. ‘Confirmation: the bullet we took from Jane Smith matches the one that killed Stacey Gavin. We’ve got a double murderer on our hands.’
‘Is that good news or bad news, boss?’ Wilding asked. ‘Or was that a stupid question too?’
Steele grinned. ‘No, but that one was verging on the insubordinate. Sorry for snapping at you, mate. I guess being in the spotlight’s getting to me. To answer you, it’s got to be easier to catch one killer than two, so from that viewpoint, it’s probably good. The bad news is that we don’t have a single line of enquiry till we identify the victim, and even then, maybe not.’
He was in the act of laying the first report on the table when the phone rang. He waited as the constable answered. ‘Gullane incident room.’ Pause. ‘Yes, he’s here.’ Pause. ‘Yes, I’ll tell him.’ He hung up and looked at the detective. ‘Message from Mr McIlhenney, sir. He asks if you’ll call him at home straight away.’
‘I wonder what he wants,’ Steele mused. ‘He told me that nothing was going to get in the way of his paternity leave.’
‘Maybe he’s been told it has to,’ Wilding suggested.
‘And who’d tell him that?’
‘DCS McGuire?’
‘No chance.’
‘The chief?’
‘Sir James never interferes with CID operations.’
‘ACC Mackie?’
‘That would be overruling Mario: Brian Mackie wouldn’t do that. Let’s find out what it is.’ He took out his mobile, found McIlhenney’s home number in the phone book, and called it.
Louise answered. ‘Hold on, Mr Steele. He’s in the kitchen.’
‘Stevie.’ The familiar voice sounded in his ear. ‘Thanks for calling: there’s something I need to check, thanks to my wife’s idle curiosity. When Stacey Gavin’s body was found, did she have any possessions with her, any at all?’
‘Some change, a couple of felt-tip pens, and a half-finished packet of white chocolate raisins; they were all taken with her to the mortuary. Then, when we found out what had happened to her, they were sent, with her clothing, to the lab for DNA and fingerprint sampling, in case the shooter had touched them by accident, then returned to us when that proved negative. They’re still at my office in Leith.’
‘There isn’t a sketch pad?’
Steele frowned. ‘No, there isn’t; I’ve told you everything that’s there.’ He was silent for two or three seconds. ‘And yet,’ he went on slowly, ‘her mother told us that she often stopped to draw on her walks with the dog.’
‘Exactly. I’m sorry to cut into this new inquiry, but we’ll need to check it out. Maybe she didn’t take it that morning. Maybe she did and the officers at the scene missed it. Or maybe . . .’
‘Maybe the killer took it as a souvenir. I’ll get on to it straight away. Griff Montell’s minding the store at the office today. I’ll send him out to talk to Mrs Gavin, and to the Chettle woman as well, if necessary.’
‘Fine.’
‘I’ll keep you informed, yes?’
‘I’m on leave, remember, Stevie: too many phone calls and Lou will kill me.’ He chuckled, and his voice dropped to a murmur: ‘The odd e-mail wouldn’t be noticed, though.’
‘Whenever I can. There’s one thing, before I go: as we suspected, Gullane isn’t a separate investigation.’
‘After what Mario told me last night, that’s no surprise. Good luck: you’re going to need some, and soon.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ Steele muttered, as he snapped his phone shut, ending the call. He turned to the second fax from the lab: as he had anticipated, it was a report on the analysis of samples taken from the unknown girl’s body. He read through it slowly.
‘All internal organs normal,’ he said to Wilding, and to Tarvil Singh who had come into the office during his conversation with McIlhenney. ‘Oh, yes! The vaginal swab showed traces of nonoxynol-nine.’
‘What the fuck’s that?’ Singh exclaimed.
‘A well-chosen phrase, for once, Constable: nonoxynol-nine is the active ingredient, it says here, in contraceptive creams and gels, and it’s also used as a condom lubricant. The finding indicates that the victim had consensual sex in the period leading up to her death.’
‘Does it tell us what sort of johnny we’re looking for? Durex, Mates, Co-op own brand?’
‘That’s not as daft as it sounds: we might have to ask the lab to check which brands use it. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that a condom was used. It’s sometimes used as back-up by women who have diaphragms.’
