‘I’ve known flimsier,’ Haddock muttered, in the corner.
‘When they saw her, in what direction was she heading?’
‘Always south; that’s from the green to the tee,’ said McGurk.
‘The green’s where the flag is?’
‘I see you’re learning the game, ma’am.’
Stallings laughed lightly. ‘I’ll leave it to you boys.’
‘Don’t count me among them,’ the sergeant advised her. ‘I’m too tall. They don’t make clubs for people who are six feet eight.’
She turned to Haddock. ‘How about you, Sauce?’
The young DC nodded. ‘I play at Newbattle.’
‘Are you any good?’
‘Mmm,’ he mumbled.
‘What does that mean?’ said McGurk. ‘What’s your handicap? Twenty-eight?’
‘Actually, it’s two, Sarge. By the way, it wouldn’t be difficult to get clubs to suit your size. I’m sure if you asked the pro here he’d fix you up.’
‘But before then. .’ Stallings interrupted.
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Haddock seemed to come to attention in his chair. ‘I spent all yesterday evening working through my list of artists and art teachers, checking them all out. I’ve eliminated most of them, but there are four I still haven’t been able to contact by phone. Their names are Maeve O’Farrell, Ghita Patel, Josie Smout and Sugar Dean.’
‘Sugar?’
‘That’s the name I was given by the secretary of the Merchant Company. She’s on the art staff at the Mary Erskine school.’
‘I reckon you can take Ghita Patel off the list,’ McGurk told him. ‘The dead woman wasn’t Asian.’
‘Do we have addresses for the other three?’ Stallings asked.
‘Yes. O’Farrell stays in North Berwick, Smout’s in Pennywell Medway, and Sugar Dean lives in Meriadoc Crescent.’
‘Where?’ The sergeant’s voice was suddenly sharp.
‘Meriadoc Crescent, number eight.’
‘That’s just on the other side of the hill.’
Haddock was out of his chair in a flash. ‘I’ll get round there.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ said Stallings. She led the way out of the office. ‘My car.’
‘You know the way there, ma’am?’ The inspector stared at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he stammered. ‘It’s just that, you being new to the city. .’
‘Ever heard of satellite navigation, Sauce?’
She programmed the address into her TomTom, and let its voice guide her out of the car park, and down towards Queensferry Road, then left on to Clermiston Road. Less than five minutes later she drew up outside number eight Meriadoc Crescent, a semi-detached bungalow that stood on a steep incline. As the two detectives stepped out into the quiet street, they saw, between two houses on the crest of the hill, a lane that seemed to lead straight into the woods.
Stallings was frowning as she walked up the path to the front door of number eight, and pressed the buzzer. She waited for thirty seconds, then pressed it again. ‘Bugger,’ she swore quietly.
‘Excuse me.’
The voice came from the doorway of number six, the other half of the semi. It belonged to a lady of mature years, and fixed habits; even at ten to nine she was dressed for the day, in tweed skirt and cardigan. Her grey hair showed all the signs of being regularly permed. She gazed at them severely. ‘Are you looking for the Deans?’ She barked on without waiting for a reply: ‘You won’t find them in, you know. They’re on holiday, up at their cottage in Appin.’
‘Actually,’ said the inspector, firmly, to break her flow, ‘we’re looking for Miss Dean.’
‘Sugar?’ Her forehead seemed to acquire an extra ridge. ‘And you are?’
‘We’re police officers, Mrs. .’
‘Holmes.’ No forename was offered. ‘Police officers, indeed.’ She stopped short of a sniff of disapproval, but favoured them with a look of distaste. ‘We’re not used to having police at the doors in this street. What’s Sugar been up to?’
‘Nothing at all. We simply want to establish her whereabouts.’
‘Well, she’s not here,’ Mrs Holmes snapped, as if she was anxious to move them on before other residents observed the encounter.
‘Could she be with her parents?’
‘She might be. More likely off with that boyfriend of hers.’ The woman’s lips pursed. ‘She’s asking for trouble, that lass: the lad’s barely out of short trousers, and her a teacher too. I thought there were laws against that sort of thing.’
‘There might be,’ said Haddock. ‘What age is he?’
‘He can’t be any more than eighteen. He’s only left school last month.’
‘It’s all legal and above board in that case,’ the DC told her cheerfully. She replied with a glare that reminded him of the Sunday when his Free Presbyterian grandmother caught him listening to Radio Forth.
‘But she does live with her parents?’ asked Stallings, distracting her from her prey.
‘Yes, she does. She moved back in with them last year when she got the job at Mary Erskine. I must say, it surprised me that she was taken on there. My granddaughter’s at George Watson’s; they don’t have types like her there.’
‘Can you describe Sugar for us, Mrs Holmes? We’ve never met her.’
‘Describe her? There’s her hair, for a start, pure black; I’m sure she dyes it. She’s a pretty girl, I suppose, but the way she dresses, the miniskirts these girls wear nowadays. .’
‘She wears a mini-skirt to work?’
‘Oh, no. She wouldn’t get away with that at Mary Erskine.’
‘Do you know how she goes to work? Does she drive?’
‘In the winter John, her dad, takes her. But in the summer, I think she’s been walking. I’ve seen her going up the lane there in the morning, and coming back in the evening.’ In that moment, Mrs Holmes’s expression began to change; her eyes went somewhere else for a few seconds, then focused again on Stallings. ‘There was a body found yesterday, wasn’t there?’ she said, in a different, softer voice. ‘You don’t think that was Sugar, do you?’
‘We don’t think anything at the moment,’ the inspector replied. ‘Right now, we’re trying to identify her, which is why we need to establish where Sugar is, and that she’s all right. Do you have a telephone number for Mr and Mrs Dean’s cottage? Or an address, even?’
‘I’ve got both. Just you wait there a minute.’ She turned and went back indoors.
As they stood on the path, Stallings looked up at Haddock. ‘Bloody hell, Sauce,’ she murmured. ‘I fear, I really do. .’
‘Me too, ma’am.’
‘Here you are!’ Mrs Holmes re-emerged, brandishing a slip of paper. She made her way across a small lawn to the low wall that divided the two properties and reached out to hand it across. Haddock stretched a long arm and took it from her.
‘Thanks, Mrs Holmes,’ said Stallings. ‘I’m sure she’ll be up there with them, but we need to make sure.’
‘Let’s hope so.’ It was as if she had become a different woman. ‘The poor lass. She’s not that bad, you know. She’s always got a cheerful smile about her, at least.’
‘When did you see her last? Can you remember?’
‘Just before the schools broke up; in fact, it was that very day, yes, the Friday before last. She was heading up the hill to the lane, as usual.’
Eleven
There were occasions when Mario McGuire regretted not having chosen the other career paths that had been open to him, not only as a youth but through most of his adult life. His mother had been of Italian stock, the daughter of one of Edinburgh’s most successful businessmen, and he had been the only boy among three grand-children.
Before diversifying into the delicatessen and importing business, his grandfather’s fortune had been built up through a chain of fish-and-chip shops. His mother’s attitude to the young Mario’s career choice may have been coloured by her own childhood memories of the smell of cooking fat, as she had fought a protracted battle with her father over her son’s future.
In the event, Papa Viareggio had died when Mario was sixteen, and the running of the business had passed to his uncle, Beppe, who had no desire to take a young protégé on board, especially as he had the ambition that at least one of his daughters would join him.