Lucy looked up. ‘But don’t hammer him. Or nail him.’
Rainer caught it straight away. ‘He’s a chip off the old block.’
‘Oh yeah,’ said Lucy. ‘He could open doors. Hope he’s not unhinged.’
Dana tried not to laugh, failed. ‘Okay, enough. The English language has officially lawyered up; we’re no longer allowed to abuse it.’ She gathered herself. ‘I want to know what Whittler was like before he went away – type of person, habits – especially sociability. Plus, I want anything we can get on why he went: it was almost certainly some kind of family mess, but I want some leverage on Whittler if we can. You have good instincts, you’ll be fine.’
Rainer blushed momentarily, which Dana found sweet. He turned to Lucy. ‘Do you know if the old man’s still there, Luce? It was a long time ago.’
‘Yeah, he still runs the place. I spoke to his new assistant this morning. He might be… nah, I’m out of puns now. He’s working today, I know that.’
Rainer turned back to Dana. ‘On it, boss.’
As he walked away Lucy leaned into Dana, their arms touching, and asked, ‘Was I ever that keen?’
‘I don’t think either of us were, to be honest.’
Chapter 14
Billy Munro had left a message.
‘Yeah, couple of the older guys I know reckon your best bet for those caves is around Piermont Lake, about nine or ten clicks north of the Old Mill Road. Seems there’s some caves on the western shore, though they’re mighty hard to get to. You may have to canoe into them. Could be they’re full of bats, so to actually live there you’d have to be batshit crazy. Hahaha… uh… Yeah, well… the dinosaur club here thinks there might also be a couple upstream from the lake a ways. ’Course, they’ve got memories like a sieve. But it might be worth a thought. Adios.’
Dana reached for the map Lucy had marked up.
Piermont Lake was ‘C’; the third and most likely alternative she and Lucy had discussed. Billy had said that there might be some options upstream. Her finger followed a thin blue line snaking its way north from the top of the lake, until it wiggled its last and ended where the contours jammed together.
Stuart Risdale coughed at the doorway.
‘Hey, Stu, pull up a chair.’
Risdale sat carefully, as though landing on sprigs of holly. A back injury from falling off a motorbike: his wife had regaled Dana with the details at some compulsory office picnic a few months ago. Mrs Risdale had put it down to a mid-life crisis with a tutting weariness: a women-together, what-can-you-do shrug that Dana identified only retrospectively.
‘No sign of the murder weapon yet. I just checked. But I asked them to work outside–in, so they could pick up other traces as they went: if the knife’s near the blood, it might be another hour or two before we find it.’
‘Okay.’ Dana was more interested in the map at this point.
‘You wanted me to push Forensics about Cassavette having a weapon? Well—’
Dana nodded. ‘Ah crap, yes, I did. Good catch. Any news?’
‘There’s no sign of a weapon of any kind – no ad-libbed grab item, and no gun or anything like that.’
Dana was surprised. Given Cassavette had been running a vigil for a few months, she’d figured he’d be carrying some kind of weapon. Maybe something like a heavy bottle: then he could claim he’d simply grabbed it from a shelf without planning it, if the burglar sued later.
‘So he went at someone armed with righteous indignation? Didn’t get something from the stock?’
‘Apparently not.’ Risdale shrugged and turned over a page in the bundle he was holding. ‘Well, in truth he might have been spooked. There was no weapon, but where he was sleeping we did find red hairs and a hairgrip.’
Dana smiled. Mike’s hunch about Cassavette using the ‘burglaries’ as a cover honed into view. ‘Oh, did we now? Cassavette’s as big and bald as they come. Mind you, that’s a stockroom and all the staff use it. So it’s possible it belongs to one of them. Could be an innocent reason.’
Risdale ran his tongue around his cheek to demonstrate his scepticism. ‘Sure, sure. Could be. Not quite so innocent if you find it inside the sleeping bag, though.’
‘Ah, and there was me thinking that if anyone was messing around, it was his wife.’
‘Hmm. She might still be: wouldn’t be the first couple where they’re both playing away games. There could also be a reason that doesn’t involve screwing around.’
‘That’s true. I mean, it might not be his sleeping bag, or he might have loaned it to someone who lost a hair grip. But… really… I’m not seeing that. Could you sleep in that without the grip poking you at some point?’ She considered. ‘Unless it only arrived there, you know, last minute.’
Risdale grinned. ‘My thinking, too. I’ve mentioned it to Mikey to pass on to the uniforms. Luce is searching the records on employees to narrow down the redheads; we can try them first.’
Dana stood, buckling for a split second when her knee didn’t lock into position. ‘Good, we’ll leave them to that. Take a look at this map, please, Stu. I’ve narrowed down the search area.’
Risdale had those kind of stiff army-style boots that strapped halfway up the calf; they squeaked when he stood up. Dana’s finger traced Piermont Lake.
‘I think Whittler’s been hiding in a cave somewhere on the shoreline here, or maybe upstream slightly… here. There’s sand in the soles of his boots.’
‘Yeah, Dakota Line. My brother goes fishing near there sometimes; not all of those lakes are sandy, but yeah. If I could?’
She stood back when Risdale bent over the map, as though his eyesight were as bad as his back. He straightened up with a grunt.
‘I suggest we start upstream and work down. Reasons being: your man would need water, and unless he has millions of purification tablets, he has to take a chance there isn’t a dead animal polluting the water. Hence, upstream is less risky. It’s safer to take the water where it’s running, not static: the faster it runs, the safer it is. Also, it’s partly psychological – white water looks cleaner than water that isn’t moving. Plus, it makes sense to camp as near to the water as you can without risking flooding.’
‘See, I’d never have thought of any of that. Yes, makes sense. The kind of cave I’m thinking of is going to be quite big; tall enough to stand up and move around in. Whittler isn’t wriggling through some tiny gap each time, I don’t think. But the entrance would be pretty well hidden, including from above. He might have camouflaged it.’
‘Okay. We’ll do some extra research online: we can access some military maps and photos. But we’ll be in the air in fifteen minutes, and there soon after. I’ll take three guys, an inflatable canoe and a drone. We’ll do an initial sweep and email some images.’
‘Excellent. Make it to Mikey, actually. I might be back in the ring with Whittler.’
Risdale moved to the door, turned. ‘I didn’t mean to sound bitchy in there, Dana. I saw the footage of the guy when he came in – I can’t believe you could even get a word out of him.’
‘Appreciate it. You were right, though – I haven’t asked him yet. It could well be the last question – What happened in the store? Either he’ll spill his guts, or he’ll look daggers and never speak to me again.’
‘True, true.’ He paused. ‘He probably did it. You know that, right?’
Dana smiled. ‘Quite possibly. But I’m guessing his home is going to be a hell of a window into his soul. Thanks, Stu.’
There was a small gap – maybe half a metre wide – between the rear wall of the vehicle servicing shed and a two-metre metal fence at the back of the station. The space was carpeted with tenacious tufts of grass and hosted a few brambles climbing a concrete post towards the light. Where the gap emerged on to the parking area there was a collection of windswept cigarette stubs. Dana could recall figures hunched from the chill, cupping their smokes and simultaneously cursing the weather and their own weakness. A metre past that, the gap turned and was hidden from view. In the narrow channel backed by weather-lashed breeze blocks the noise from hydraulics and drills punctuated a steady wind.