‘A suspect, yes, but that’s all he is for now. We need more on him, from both victims’ friends. Griff’s been through Zrinka’s palmtop and found some names there. Not many, though: she wasn’t part of a student crowd, like Stacey.’
‘Is there an Amy among them?’
‘Yes, Amy Noone, seven Blinkbonny Vennel, Comely Bank.’
‘I suggest you start with her. She was there the night Zrinka met Harry, so she may have known Padstow too.’
‘I’ll do that.’
‘You’ll look up Hope Dell too, for contact details for the other band members?’
‘I will, but she’ll have to wait till tomorrow.’
‘Sure,’ McGuire agreed. ‘You’re running things on the ground; you set your own priorities.’
Steele was about to hang up, when he spoke again: ‘Hey, Andy tells me that he’s got a DI vacancy in this division, and no obvious candidates. It has to be one of the great numbers of all time. If I didn’t need you myself I’d have put your name in for it. Too bad: it’s fucking beautiful up here; Maggie would just love it.’
Thirty-six
Maggie Rose had been conscientious throughout her police career. She had never taken time off duty without reporting the fact to a supervisor, and so it was second nature to her to pick up the phone at three o’clock and call Brian Mackie.
‘Hi, Mags,’ he said, as he answered, with warmth in his voice, ‘how’s your day going? Is Mary Chambers up to speed on everything that’s coming up in the division?’
‘It’s fine,’ she replied. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m surprised by the way that people have been coming up to me privately and wishing me good luck. I never knew they felt that way about me. It’s really touching. As for Mary, she’ll be fine; you won’t regret accepting my recommendation, I promise you.
‘Actually, it’s a good time for her to be taking over: the next couple of months will be as quiet as it ever gets. The football season’s over, so she won’t have the fortnightly turnout at Tynecastle to police. That’s the most consistently stressful part of the job, especially when the big teams visit, and Hibs.’
‘I agree with that, for sure. But don’t you go off worrying about Mary either. She will have my full and active support, I promise you, until the moment she gets fed up with me hanging around and asks me respectfully to go away. Even then, she’ll have it, if from a greater distance.’ He paused. ‘You don’t have any plans to bugger off sharp tomorrow, I hope. You’re not leaving without ceremony, I promise you that. . even if it is only a temporary absence.’
‘No,’ she conceded. ‘I’ll be a good girl. I hope nobody’s expecting a riotous assembly, though. Willie Haggerty’s leaving do may have turned into a right session, but in my condition that would not be appropriate.’
‘No, no.’ Mackie laughed reassuringly. ‘It won’t be ambulances at midnight, I promise. Besides, you’ll have Stevie there to look out for you.’
‘If his investigation allows, I will. I wonder how it’s going. I haven’t spoken to him since breakfast.’
‘Positively, from what I hear. I’ve just had a call from Mario, on the road back from Perthshire. They’ve got a suspect, a guy who seems to have been involved with both of the victims.’
‘An ex-boyfriend? That’s a break. It’ll surprise Stevie too: he’s convinced that these killings are ritual, that the women were selected more or less at random and that there’s something behind them, a sort of purpose.’
‘Is he indeed? Stevie’s a damn good analyst. Still, he could be right in part: ritualistic killings but with sexual jealousy as the motive.’
‘He won’t be worried about his theory being right or wrong as long as he gets a result. Nor will my ex; even less so, I reckon. Have they traced this man, this lover they had in common?’
‘Not yet, but they’ve got a scent and they’re after it.’
‘In that case I may be eating alone again tonight.’ Suddenly she realised how hungry she was, having missed lunch at Aldred Fine’s request. ‘Brian,’ she said, ‘I didn’t just call you up to pass the time of day but to check out of the office for a while. I have a hospital appointment in half an hour.’
‘That’s very formal and proper of you,’ he replied. ‘You’ll never bloody learn, will you? Divisional commanders are their own bosses in these things. Anyway, your kid’s a hell of a lot more important than the job. I’ll see you tomorrow; get on your way.’
Maggie hung up, picked up her bag, took her coat from its hook and left her office. She looked in briefly on Mary Chambers, then headed for the car park.
The mid-afternoon traffic was relatively light, and so she arrived at the Royal Infirmary five minutes early for her three-thirty appointment. When she entered the MRI scan reception area, she was surprised to find Aldred Fine waiting there.
‘I didn’t expect you to be here,’ she told him.
‘All part of the service,’ he replied, as jocularly as his appearance allowed.
As she looked at him, all the experience that she had amassed during her years in the police service told her, beyond reasonable doubt, that he was lying.
Thirty-seven
Stevie Steele looked out of the window. ‘Mrs Boras wasn’t kidding,’ he said. ‘It is a nice view.’
He was standing in the living room of Zrinka Boras’s apartment in Castle Street, looking out of the window across Princes Street and its gardens. The great grey castle, on its rock, was bathed in the light of late afternoon as the sun made its way west.
‘Must be worth a fortune too,’ Griff Montell murmured. ‘A duplex in the heart of this city is a rich girl’s home.’
‘Yes, but we knew that already.’ He looked across the room to the desk at which the South African was sitting. Like the rest of the house it was tidy, with pens and paper-clips all in their proper containers, with a pile of grey business cards placed in front of the flat-screen monitor, and with a phone to the right corner, within easy reach. ‘Are you into her files yet?’ he asked.
‘Sure, boss, no problem. She’d never heard of computer security, or so it seems. I can answer your website question: she had one. There’s a folder here.’
‘I have the answer already.’ Steele showed him a business card that he had picked up. ‘It’s there,’ he said.
‘Want me to look at it?’
‘Not right now.’
‘I can access her e-mail if you like; the password’s memorised to let me in with one click.’
‘Do that later too. First I want you to look for a list of contacts. We didn’t find anything for Dominic Padstow on her PDA, but maybe she kept an entry on him here.’
‘She kept fuck all on her PDA, apart from a few notes of sales made, and a couple of phone numbers, for example Harry Paul’s and Amy Noone’s. I suspect that it was a Christmas gift she never really got round to using. Give me a minute and we’ll see what’s here.’
Steele stood back and watched as the detective constable opened the program menu, found an office package and opened it. ‘Nothing here,’ he declared, after a minute spent searching. ‘There is a calendar, though, and she has appointments on it.’
‘How far back does it go?’
‘Let me see.’ He began to click on an arrow, moving the display back month by month. ‘A couple of years,’ he announced eventually. ‘This computer’s newer than that, I’d say, so I guess she transferred files from an earlier model. There are regular entries, and quite a few of them involve the letter D, as in our man.’ He chose one at random and clicked on it, watching as it opened into an extended note. ‘Right; this one’s for November the second, the year before last, and it says, “Four p.m., Dom, Harry Potter and the Giblet of Fire”. I guess they went to the movies.’
‘You mean “goblet”,’ said the inspector. ‘As in “and the Goblet of Fire”.’
‘No, I don’t; that’s what’s here. Either Zrinka couldn’t type or she had a wry sense of humour.’
‘Can you check every entry and print them out?’
‘Sure, but I’d rather do it back at the office.’ He produced a small blue plastic object from his pocket. ‘I could copy all the files I need on to my flash drive.’