‘Fuck off.’
‘Here’s the truth,’ Pye told him. ‘When your son was sixteen years old, he appeared in the Sheriff Court in Haddington, where he pleaded guilty to seventeen counts of theft from cars, and fourteen counts of malicious damage. He was put on probation for two years. When he was eighteen he was found guilty of taking away a vehicle from the car park in St Andrews Street, North Berwick. He was fined five hundred pounds, and put on probation again. There’s no getting round that, Mr Francey; next time he’s in court, he’s going to prison.’
‘You lot would just love that,’ the father retorted.
‘Get real,’ the DCI said. ‘I’ve never met Dean. I don’t know him, so I had no preconceptions . . . until he took off. Now . . . I’m investigating a car theft with serious consequences, and he’s put himself right at the top of the list of suspects. So please, for his sake, help us.’
‘Tae do what? Tae put him in jail?’
‘Can we get off this fucking boat?’ Pye snapped. He was no sailor; the gentle swell of the harbour at full tide and the combined odours of fish, seaweed and oil were beginning to affect him.
Francey looked at him, a sneer in his eyes, then turned and climbed the few rungs of the steel ladder that was bolted into the quayside. The two detectives followed suit.
On solid ground once more, Haddock took over from his boss. ‘Mr Francey, Dean’s doing a bloody good job of putting himself in jail without your help, but the longer this goes on, the tougher it could be for him. I’m not going into detail, but a car that he knows and had been in was stolen from its garage over the weekend. It turned up this morning in Edinburgh, and the driver ran off. The description we have fits your son.’
The father shook his head. ‘Naw, he was here all morning,’ he protested.
‘Do me the courtesy of looking at me when you lie to me,’ the DS said. He turned and nodded towards the old granary behind him. ‘There are upwards of half a dozen flats in that building, overlooking your boat. If he was here, he’ll have been seen by at least one of the residents, for sure. And anyway, what were you doing here, the pair of you? The tide would have been out.’
He gave the man time to consider, then went on. ‘I understand you wanting to protect your son; my dad would do the same for me, if he had to. Now tell us, when did he turn up here, honestly?’
Francey’s shoulders slumped. ‘Just after twelve,’ he murmured. ‘We were supposed to go out at half ten, tae check the pots. Ah wasnae best pleased when he never turned up, for missin’ the tide costs me money. Ah could hae done it maself, but thought he was comin’ so Ah waited.’
‘Does Dean live with you?’
‘Naw. He’s got a one-bedroom flat in a buildin’ on the main street.’
‘We’ll check that,’ Pye said, his equilibrium recovered, ‘but I don’t expect he’ll be there waiting for us. Do you know of anywhere else he’d go in a crisis?’
‘He might go tae Donna’s, his sister’s, Ah suppose.’
‘Where does Donna live?’
‘Musselburgh, near the station.’
‘Alone?’
‘Naw. She’s married tae a fireman. Ah can phone her if ye like, tae see if he’s there.’
‘I think we’d rather ask her that. Give me her address and we’ll pay her a call.’
‘She’ll no’ be in. She works at the university. Levon, her man, he might be. He works shifts. Ah could phone him.’
‘If you want to phone anyone,’ the DCI suggested, ‘you could try calling Dean himself, and tell him to go to the nearest police office.’ Behind him he heard Haddock speaking on his mobile. He waited for him to finish.
‘That was Lucy Tweedie,’ the DS announced. ‘Her troops have found what they think is the stolen bike, abandoned at the station. If he caught the train they think he might be on, it’ll be due in Edinburgh in two minutes. She’s asked the transport police to meet it and she’s given them a description.’
‘If he’s thinking straight,’ Pye countered, ‘he’ll have got off earlier, at Musselburgh if he’s going to his sister’s. Call him please, Mr Francey, then give me your phone.’
The fisherman dug out a scratched and battered mobile from his overalls, peered at it and poked it a few times, before holding it to his ear for a second then handing it over.
The DCI listened to it ring seven times, then change tone as it was answered. ‘This is Dino. Cannae talk the noo’, so leave us a message or call us later.’
‘And this is the police, Dino, one of the officers you pedalled away from. When you pick this up I want you to do one thing and one thing only. Go to your nearest police office and tell them that you’re wanted for questioning by Detective Chief Inspector Pye and Detective Sergeant Haddock, stationed at Fettes. Do it, and this morning might not go too badly for you. Ignore this message, and it will.’
He made a note of the number showing on the small screen, then ended the call and handed the phone back to Francey. ‘I want your address,’ he told him, ‘Dean’s address and your daughter’s address, plus any other places where he might go. If he calls you, tell him to hand himself in. Do not, repeat not, give him any assistance. If you do, we’ll know, for we’ll be monitoring your mobile. We’ll see you again, no doubt.’
He turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Haddock to note the addresses. It was only when they were both inside their car that the sergeant turned to him and said, ‘What were you on about there? We can’t monitor his mobile.’
The DCI smiled. ‘I know that, and you know that; but he doesn’t know it, and neither does his son. Come on, let’s pick up Maxwell from the police station, and have him introduce us to his girlfriend. We still need to get her fingerprints for the scene of crime people.’
‘Should we involve her parents?’
‘According to the boy, she’s eighteen so we don’t need to. Let’s print her and have Lucy Tweedie explain to them after the event.’
‘Maybe there’s one other thing we should do, Sammy. Dean Francey’s photo will be on file because of his convictions. I know Mr Skinner said he didn’t get a good look at the BMW driver this morning, but if we run it past him, maybe it’ll trigger something.’
Pye nodded. ‘We’ll do that; and something else too. We’ve both had a good look at young Mr Francey. The Fort Kinnaird security people said they’ve got some video of the driver hightailing it through the centre. Let’s access it and see if their running styles are similar.’
Twelve
‘I can’t be one hundred per cent certain,’ Bob Skinner began, ‘not as in under oath, but there is a very good chance that Francey’s our man . . . sorry, your man.’
‘Thanks, gaffer,’ Sauce Haddock said, over the landline in the North Berwick police office. ‘We’ve just looked at video footage we had sent to us from the car park and we’re agreeing with that. We had a better look at him than you did, and we’re one hundred per cent certain.’
‘What did I tell you about calling me “gaffer”?’ Skinner chuckled. ‘Those days are over.’
‘You’ll always be the gaffer to us, sir. You’d better learn to live with it.’
Replacing the handset on its cradle he turned to Pye. ‘He . . .’ he began, stopping when he saw that the DCI was on his mobile, and looking grim faced.
‘Indeed,’ he heard him murmur. ‘Yes, I’ve got that. Call me back when you hear more from the hospital. Thanks.’ He ended the call.
‘That was Jackie,’ he said. ‘She’s in the mobile HQ at Fort Kinnaird. She thinks we’ve identified Zena.’
‘She thinks?’ the DS repeated.
‘Provisional, but it looks likely. Just after nine o’clock this morning a woman was found by a cyclist at the roadside just outside a village called Garvald, out beyond Haddington on the other side of the A1 from here. She was unconscious with obvious head injuries. The bloke called the three nines, and she was rushed to Accident and Emergency. We attended too; the assumption was that she was a hit-and-run victim . . .’
‘Fucking assumptions,’ Haddock growled.