‘I think so.’ Wright took a memory stick from her pocket and brandished it. ‘This has a section of CCTV footage copied on to it. And it may have what you’re after.’
She crossed the room to her computer, fired it up and inserted the stick in a USB port, then opened it with a click. Two more moves and a still image appeared on the screen, showing an area of the Fort Kinnaird car park, and the corner of a building.
‘There’s a camera on a pole beside the electrical store,’ she said. ‘It covers the front of Marks and Spencer up to the corner of the T K Maxx building. Check the time; it’s the same as when the collision happened between Mr Skinner’s car and the BMW. Now look.’
With Pye and Haddock peering over her shoulder, she hit an arrow to start the movie. For a few seconds the scene was undisturbed, save for a blue Nissan reversing out of a parking space. Then a dark-haired woman in a cagoule and a black skirt ran into the frame from the right, moving awkwardly, on high-heeled shoes with a thick sole. The DC waited until she was in mid-screen then froze the image once more.
‘I’ve got a still close-up image as welclass="underline" at least, as close as the operator could give me. But what do you think of that?’
‘Anna Harmony,’ Haddock declared. ‘Those shoes are a dead giveaway. She must have been waiting for Dino in the car park. She wasn’t just his girlfriend, gaffer, she was his accomplice.’
‘Looks like it,’ Pye agreed, ‘but how far was she involved? That doesn’t tell us conclusively she was only waiting there for Francey, Sauce. Could she have been in the car as well?’ He frowned. ‘Could she have bolted out the other door? There’s one man can tell us. Have you got Bob Skinner’s number on your phone?’
The DS nodded.
‘Then call him and ask him.’
Haddock walked to a corner of the noisy room, his phone to his ear. His colleagues waited, watching him for a full minute as he spoke, until he finished and returned to them. ‘He says he was concentrating on Francey at first, but he’s pretty certain she wasn’t in the car with him.’
‘So Dino went to Fort Kinnaird to pick her up,’ Pye muttered. He looked at the still figure on the computer monitor once again. ‘She’s carrying bags,’ he said, ‘two of them.’ He leaned close, bending over and peering at them. ‘It’s not very clear but from the colour, they could be M and S.’ He straightened up. ‘Come on, Sauce, we have to nail this down. Let’s go back to Davie Street.’
‘Celia and Ilse might have classes,’ Haddock pointed out.
‘Then the door gets kicked in and we send a joiner to repair it. The chief constable can pick up the tab.’
Thirty-Five
The door stayed in its frame, for Ilse Brogan was at home when they returned to the student flat. She was pale faced and shocked, with tear bags under her eyes. ‘I’ve just seen you on telly,’ she mumbled through a handkerchief as she let the detectives in. ‘I can’t believe it. There couldn’t be a mistake, could there? If there was a fire . . .’
‘No,’ Pye said, quietly. ‘There’s no mistake, Ilse. Anna had a locker at Lacey’s. There was a brush in it, and we found hair samples for a DNA comparison. It was her, beyond a doubt. Same with Francey; we got a familial match with a sample from his sister.’
‘So the bastard got her killed.’
‘She got herself killed,’ Haddock murmured. ‘She didn’t have to be there. That was her choice.’
‘And Dino took that kid? You’re sure of that too?’
‘Again, completely. He did more; he put her mother in a coma.’
‘Did Singer know?’ she asked.
‘We think she knew something,’ Pye replied. ‘What we want to find out is, how much. How far was she implicated and why? We need to look in her room. Once we’ve done that, we need you to be frank with us.’
The young woman blinked, then whispered, ‘Okay. It’s this way.’ She led them down the hall, past the bathroom to the last door on the left. She stood watching as they put on disposable gloves and began to search.
Pye moved to the built-in units. He opened the wardrobe; a few garments remained, three dresses and a couple of jackets, but most of the hangers were empty. Six pairs of shoes stood on the floor, neatly ordered. He checked the rack of drawers at the end; they had been cleaned out.
‘Here,’ Haddock called out. The room’s single bed was close to the window. He reached across it and picked up a carrier bag, branded with the Marks and Spencer logo, then emptied its contents on to the duvet. They were clothes, a young girl’s clothes. He peered at the label on a woollen jumper. ‘Five year old. And there’s a till receipt.’ He picked it up and read. ‘Dated yesterday morning, just after nine.’
‘Talk to us, Ilse,’ Pye said, quietly.
She leaned against the doorframe, still dabbing lightly at her eyes. ‘I don’t know much,’ she began. ‘And I’ve never seen that bag before. All I can tell you is that Singer left early yesterday morning, eight at the latest, and came back a few hours later, I think around two. She went straight to her room and shut the door, hard. I was studying in mine, so I never saw her, but I could hear noises, stuff being pulled about, drawers opening and closing and so on. That went on for about half an hour, then she left again. Celia was in the living room. I heard Singer tell her that she had to split, and that she’d be gone for a long time, maybe for good. Then she said, and she said it really loud, “Whoever comes looking for me, tell them you didn’t see me leave and you know nothing.” Then I heard Celia ask her what was the matter, and she said something like, “My crazy boyfriend, he screw everything up.” Then she swore in Polish, and I heard the door slam.’
‘What time did she leave?’ the DCI asked.
‘It must have been three o’clock.’
‘Did you speak to Celia about it after she was gone?’
‘Of course. She said Singer had taken her suitcase. She only had the one that she used when she went back to Poland to see her folks, that and her big shoulder bag. And she was still wearing those big “fuck me” shoes that she’d gone out in earlier on.’
‘You could have told us this last night,’ Haddock said.
Ilse winced and chewed her lip. ‘I know, but we thought we were helping her. You see, we thought she was running away from bloody Dino, and that she needed a head start. If we’d known she was going off with the idiot, of course we’d have told you.’ She sighed, heavily. ‘Are we in trouble?’ she whispered.
The detectives exchanged looks. ‘We’ve just locked Jagger up for something similar,’ Pye told her, severely. ‘But he helped them both, and he kept quiet about it. You thought you were helping Anna for the right reasons, so we won’t hold it against you. Besides,’ he added with a gentle smile, ‘we don’t have a spare cell down at Fettes.’
‘Thanks. I’m sorry, really.’
‘It’s okay.’
She frowned. ‘So,’ she ventured, tentatively, ‘the thing with the poor little girl. Are you saying definitely that Singer was involved?’
‘It looks that way,’ Haddock replied. ‘The child wasn’t murdered, if that’s any consolation to you. She died from natural causes, technically, if being stuck in the boot of a car can be called natural.’
‘The mother? Will she live?’
‘The last we heard from the hospital, she was still unconscious, but stable. She’s got a chance.’
‘Fingers crossed.’
‘That won’t help a fractured skull and swelling on the brain,’ Pye said. ‘Come on, Sauce. Repack that M and S bag and bring it. Let’s go and see if we can piece this thing together.’
Rather than return to Fettes, the two detectives took a break in compensation for a missed lunch, and walked a short distance to a cafe in Nicolson Street that Haddock knew. As they waited for their lattes and pastrami-filled baps to arrive, the chief inspector broke the silence.
‘Are you knackered?’ he asked.
‘Moderately,’ his sergeant admitted. ‘But I’d only admit it to you. After that run-in with the communications woman this morning, nothing will stand between me and a result.’