‘Did the tests on Stacey Gavin show up the same stuff?’ asked Wilding.
‘No, but remember, that post-mortem was delayed for more than twenty-four hours. It might have dissipated in that time. That said, there was nothing, no information from her friends, to indicate that Stacey was sexually active in the time leading up to her death.’ He looked at the report again. ‘Hey, the swab showed something else: two grains of sand.’
‘Does it say which beach they were from?’
‘Tarvil, shut up.’
‘Sorry, boss, but they are clever bastards at the lab. So the guy got his end away with the girl, and then he killed her.’
‘Maybe, but we can’t assume that: we have to find him, and then prove it.’ He turned back to the report. ‘Stomach contents . . . tell us nothing, other than that she died hungry. She hadn’t eaten breakfast, and her previous meal had been absorbed . . . apart from . . . This is interesting. A piece of fibre found trapped between two of her back teeth turns out on analysis to be lemon grass.’
‘Lemon grass?’ Singh exclaimed. ‘What’s that?’
‘You married guys should do your share in the kitchen,’ said Wilding. ‘Us single blokes don’t have any option. It’s a plant, a favourite ingredient in eastern food, especially in Thailand.’
‘Do we go back round the restaurants, then?’
‘Maybe,’ said Steele, ‘but let’s not build our hopes up; it’s in pretty common domestic use these days too. Still, we’ve got to start somewhere. There’s a Thai in the main street, isn’t there?’
The sergeant nodded. ‘That’s right, boss, but it doesn’t open at lunchtime. I checked on my rounds, but there was nobody in.’
‘Then find the owner or the manager and talk to him. Show him the photograph; it’s a long shot but we have to take it. If we get lucky and he recognises her, find out if you can who else ate there.’
Ten
‘I have to tell you, ma’am, that being back in uniform hasn’t been on my agenda ever since I moved into CID, and certainly not in a position like this one . . . even if it is only temporary.’
Detective Superintendent Mary Chambers was normally a confident, assertive woman, and so the anxiety that was apparent on her face surprised Maggie Rose. ‘For God’s sake, don’t call me “ma’am”,’ she replied. ‘You’re about to take over my post. I suppose I thought the same, but then I was offered promotion when Manny English retired, and I didn’t hesitate for long. Don’t worry about the uniform side of it, though; if you don’t want to wear it about the office, don’t bother.’
‘Och, I know, the ACC told me that too, but that’s not really what concerns me. Your job’s high profile: you have to be seen out and about on big occasions. I’ve never been in the public eye before, not in the way I will be as acting divisional commander. Since I came through here from Strathclyde, I’ve only worked with a small circle of people, on the Drugs Squad and in this office. That’s going to widen a hell of a lot.’
‘So?’
‘Maggie, you know what I’m working up to saying. A gay cop might be acceptable in the closed world of criminal investigation. But among the Charlie Johnstons of this world, it’s going to attract attention and cause more than a little gossip.’
‘Fine, but I think you’ll find that for every old diehard like Charlie, there’s a young copper like Sauce Haddock, who’s more than ready to tell him that his head’s up his arse. You live with another woman. So? What business is that of your junior officers, or seniors, for that matter? In the twenty-first century, what’s wrong with it? When I was a kid I had a great-aunt. She was a district nurse and she lived with another district nurse. In those days they still called women like her spinsters; today they’d call them lesbians and no thinking person would have a problem with them being so.’
‘They call us other things too.’
‘Thinking people don’t. Listen, Mary, do you think the foot-soldiers of our division have had no one to whisper about until now?’ She laughed. ‘There’s me for a start. My first husband, a cop, left me and took up with his cousin. Then I moved in with another cop, a junior officer to boot, got myself pregnant and married him, all in that order. After me, honey, you’ll be light relief. You can handle any of that crap. If I thought there was any chance of it hurting you, and I did consider it, I wouldn’t have leaned on Brian Mackie to have you stand in for me.’
‘I didn’t think anyone could lean on him.’
‘Okay, “given him strong advice”, if you’d prefer that. He might be an assistant chief now, but Brian and I go back a long way. If I give him a firm recommendation, I do not expect him to reject it.’
‘Does he know about me?’
‘He didn’t, until I told him. When I did, he didn’t bat an eyelid. He’s like most senior officers in this force: he’s of the Bob Skinner school. Unless your private life harms your job performance, and if it’s legal, it has nothing to do with us: that’s the DCC’s rule.’
‘And a good one it is,’ said Chambers, smiling at last. ‘Have we anything else to do here? Otherwise I need to get back to CID.’
‘No, we’re fine.’
As her successor left the room, Maggie leaned back in her chair, and as she did, without any warning, she felt her daughter kick inside her. In that instant, she saw her world from a completely different perspective, as she always did when she was reminded of the awesome thing that she and Stevie had achieved. In that instant, her accomplishments, her career, the route to command that she had carefully planned for herself, were as nothing alongside the vibrant life force that she could feel within her.
In that instant, Stevie’s forecasts, and her own plans to use her maternity leave were swept aside, all replaced by an absolute certainty that when she left her job on the following Friday, she would never return.
She contemplated picking up the phone, calling Brian Mackie, and telling him of her decision, there and then. She might have done so, too: her hand was reaching out for it when it rang.
‘Call for you, ma’am,’ the telephonist said.
‘Okay.’ She waited.
‘Mrs Steele?’ The hospital: nobody in the job ever called her that.
‘Yes.’
‘This is Aldred Fine, your consultant. I left a message on your machine last night: I asked you to call me this morning.’
‘My husband picked it up: he said it was routine. Mr Fine, I’m very busy here, I wasn’t proposing to call you until next Monday, when I’ll be on leave.’
‘I’d like to see you before then, Mrs Steele.’
‘When?’
‘Today.’
She felt a strange fluttering in her stomach. ‘But if it’s routine . . .’
‘I’m always circumspect when I leave a message on a machine. It’s something that’s arisen from the last routine scan we did, hence my use of the word. I need to discuss it with you.’
The butterfly that had been fluttering in her stomach turned into a dragon. ‘I’ll be there in half an hour,’ she said.
Eleven
At first, Griff Montell was unsure whether he had entered a gallery, a studio or a shrine. After two minutes with Doreen Gavin, the mother of Stacey, he was in no doubt.
The murdered artist’s work was everywhere in the spacious detached house, in the entrance hall, on the wall beside the staircase as it rose to the upper floor and in the drawing room into which he was shown. A portrait of her parents hung over the fireplace: there was a lighted candle on either side of the frame.
‘There’s more, you know,’ the bereaved mother said. ‘It’s in Stacey’s studio, up in the attic. I plan to rotate
