“Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”
“I think you should get the other police cars away somewhere and come back on foot,” said Hamish. “If we wait here, we’ll catch her – or them.”
♦
The owner of the cottage was tracked down. He said a woman had paid him cash for a three-month rent and had left a month’s deposit. He had rented it cheap because the place was in such a mess; he’d planned to get the house demolished and then sell the ground as a building plot.
Asked where the contract was, he said the woman had told him they needn’t bother, and he was too glad of the money to insist.
♦
Blair sweated it out, terrified all the time that the search would lead to Ruby. They had footprints but no fingerprints, and footprints weren’t on file.
He wasn’t too nervous about them finding any DNA, because the forensic lab was one of the most inefficient in Scotland. They were backed up with requests for DNA anyway, and most of the results were taking over a year to arrive.
♦
Hamish and Jimmy waited all that day and far into the night, but no one came. “Maybe whoever it is passed the police cars on the road and decided not to go back,” said Jimmy.
He drove Hamish back to the hospital in Strathbane. Hamish was examined and given painkillers. “We’ll need to take that Land Rover of yours away and give it to forensic,” said Jimmy as they left the hospital.
“What’ll I do for transport?”
“I’ll try to get someone over with an unmarked police car. Who on earth do you think was behind this? Someone associated with Cyril?”
“No, if it had been someone associated with Cyril, I feel I might be dead now. It was all very amateur. I feel in my bones that the woman was the only one in the cottage.”
♦
Blair was beginning to feel very uneasy. Daviot was raging about a police officer being kidnapped. The forensic team had been sent back to the cottage to go over it again.
In the evening, he made his way to Ruby’s flat by a circuitous route. “This is a mess!” shrieked Ruby. “It was on the telly. If they get me, they’ll lock me up and throw away the key. If they get me I’ll have tae say it was you.”
“It won’t come to that,” said Blair soothingly. “I want you to write something and then it’ll be all over.”
♦
Daviot called Blair into his office the following day. “There’s been a development,” he said. “This letter, addressed to me, was handed in by a small boy. He said a woman gave him a pound to deliver it. Unfortunately, his description of her could apply to every woman in Strathbane.”
Blair read the letter out loud, just as if he did not already know every word of it.
“Dear policemen,” he read. “I’m sorry about Macbeth but he led me to believe he would marry me and then he cheated on me. I won’t do nothing like that again. A Friend.”
“Dearie me,” said Blair. “Our Hamish has been at it again. He’s a devil with the women.”
“I did hear something to that effect.” The one time Hamish had ridden high in the superintendent’s esteem was when he had been engaged to Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, for Daviot was a snob. He was furious and amazed when Hamish broke off the engagement. Then there was this unsavoury business of Macbeth trying to marry a hooker.
“I think we should keep this quiet,” said Daviot. “If it got out, it would be a slur on the whole force. Also, the gangs are joining up with the neo-Nazis to attack immigrants. That should be our first priority. Tell Anderson and the others that we can no longer spare any time on Hamish’s kidnap.”
“We’ve put a policeman on guard outside Macbeth’s station.”
“Call him off now!”
♦
Hamish was about to take a cup of tea out to PC Logan on guard outside when the man met him at the kitchen door.
“I’ve been called off,” he said. “They’re standing down the investigations.”
“Why?”
“Trouble with the gangs.”
After he had gone, Hamish sat down to think. But he could feel a migraine coming on, a result of the blow to his head. He quickly swallowed two migraine pills and went to lie down in his darkened bedroom.
He fell asleep at last and woke later, feeling better. His dog and cat now followed him everywhere. He turned his mind again to the problem as to why the investigation into his kidnapping had been abruptly ended. He left a message on Jimmy’s mobile phone, begging for information.
Jimmy phoned back an hour later. “I don’t know what happened, Hamish. One minute it was all systems go on your case, and the next we were being told to stand down. Blair knows something. All I could find out was that a letter to Daviot was delivered this morning. Blair was summoned, and after that everything to do with you stopped. I’ve looked for that letter but there’s not a sign of it, and no report has been written.”
“Whoever it was didn’t seem to want to kill me, just keep me prisoner,” said Hamish. “What would have happened if I’d been kept there several months, say?”
“If you’d ever got out of it, you’d have probably found they’d have closed up your station.”
“Blair!” said Hamish suddenly. “I bet he’s behind this.”
“Come on, Hamish. That’s going a bit too far.”
“Does Blair know any woman, sort of thickset?”
“Women run at the sight of Blair. The only people he knows are the prostitutes he used to nick when he was on the beat.”
“Like who?”
“I was leaving headquarters with him and he stopped to speak to one being brought in by Aileen Drummond.”
“Do me a favour and get her name and address.”
♦
Hamish drove down to Ruby’s flat in the docks. It was raining hard. He climbed up the stairs, wrinkling his nose at the smell. He hoped she had decided not to go out on her beat in such a filthy night. Maybe she didn’t have to. If Blair was behind this, he thought, then he would have had to pay her and pay her well.
He knocked on her door. A cautious voice from the other side asked, “Who is it?”
“Blair,” said Hamish.
The door swung open. Ruby let out a gasp as she recognised Hamish and tried to shut the door but he jammed his foot in it, wrenched it open, and forced her back into the room.
Ruby went and sat down on a sofa. She lit a cigarette with trembling fingers while Hamish locked the door and came to stand over her.
“How did you ken?” she asked.
Hamish pulled up a chair and sat opposite her. “Why did you let Blair put you up to this?” he asked.
“He asked me tae do it,” said Ruby. “You cannae refuse a polis.”
She crushed out the cigarette and began to cry. Hamish watched her heaving figure unsympathetically. He did not believe in tarts with hearts, and his recent experience with Irena had really soured him.
“I don’t want to go to p-prison,” wailed Ruby.
Hamish saw a box of paper tissues on the sideboard and took it over to her. “Pull yourself together,” he said.
Ruby gulped, shuddered, blew her nose, and wiped her eyes. “Can I have a wee dram afore you take me in?”
Hamish went back to the sideboard where there was a row of bottles. Blair must have been generous, he thought cynically, because Ruby can’t be making much on the streets these days.
Ruby asked for a rum and Coke. Hamish poured her a reasonable measure and took it back to her.
She gulped it down. He saw the fear in her eyes and felt a reluctant twinge of pity.
“How did you get into the life, Ruby?”
“I wisnae always like this,” said Ruby. “Ruby McFee is no’ my real name. I was born Mary Ashford and I was a nice child. This was down in Glesca. My dad died and my mother married again. When I was fourteen my stepdad took me round to his brother, Shuggie Leith, saying I had to stay with him for a bit. The brother raped me, his pals raped me, and then they put me on the streets. One o’ my punters fell for me, a nice wee man called Sandy McFee who worked on the Clyde ferries. I ran away with him and we lived in a wee flat in Gourock. We werenae married but I took his name. He called me his ruby and so I became known as Ruby McFee.