She spun away from the window. ‘What if I say it’s all a lie? I made it up to get him into bother?’
‘Then you’ll be the one under lock and key,’ Fox cautioned her. He placed his business card on the arm of the chair. ‘My number’s there – any sign of him, call me.’
‘You’re here to threaten me,’ Teresa Collins stated, pointing a trembling finger. ‘Three of you – that’s intimidation enough. Plus your story about him being out… This is me being told, isn’t it? Scholes and Haldane and Michaelson, and now you three.’
‘I can assure you we’re-’
‘I’ll go to the papers! That’s what I’ll do! I’ll scream blue murder.’
‘Will you calm down, Teresa?’ Fox had his hands held up in a show of surrender. He took a step forwards, but she had spun round again and pulled the window open.
‘Help!’ she screamed. ‘Somebody help me!’
Fox saw that Kaye was looking at him, waiting for a decision.
‘I’ll call you,’ Fox told Collins, raising his voice in the hope she might hear. ‘Later, when you’ve had a chance to…’
He signalled to Kaye and Naysmith that they were leaving. The neighbours upstairs were looking down at them from the landing.
‘She’s hysterical,’ Fox explained, starting his descent. Nobody from the ground-floor party had heard – or if they had, they couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. But the kids were outside on the pavement, facing Fox and his colleagues as they emerged. Fox had his warrant card out for them to see.
‘Back off,’ he told them.
‘Youse’ve raped her,’ one voice said accusingly.
‘She’s just upset.’
‘Aye, and who did that, eh? Youse did…’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ Tony Kaye burst out. ‘Look at my car!’
The contents of a waste bin had been tipped over the bonnet and windscreen: fast-food cartons, cigarette butts, crushed beer cans, and what looked like the remains of a dead pigeon.
‘Car wash down the road, only three quid,’ one of the gang suggested.
‘Five if you tell them you’re a pig,’ another added.
There was laughter, for which Fox was grateful. The situation was being defused – and Teresa Collins had stopped yelling and closed her window.
Tony Kaye, however, looked furious. He lunged at the youths, Fox hauling him back by his arm.
‘Easy, Tony, easy. Let’s just get out of here, eh?’
‘But these wee wankers-’
‘In the car,’ Fox commanded. Kaye waited another couple of beats before complying, using the wipers to brush aside some of the debris, and reversing hard to dislodge more from the bonnet.
‘Swear to God I’m coming back here with a bat,’ he muttered, as the gang jogged along by the side of the car, giving it the occasional kick or slap. He revved the engine and shot away in first, doing a U-turn that got rid of almost all the remaining rubbish.
‘Forget it, Kaye,’ Joe Naysmith said. ‘It’s Gallatown.’
‘Think you’re funny, eh?’ Tony Kaye leaned over and gave him a hard punch to the side of his head. ‘Laugh now, ya wee shite-bag…’
9
‘That was quick,’ Malcolm Fox said into his phone. Evelyn Mills was on the other end of the line. The eavesdropping operation had been given the green light.
‘My boss decided we didn’t need to refer it upwards,’ she explained.
‘Why not?’
‘My guess is, he reckons it might have been knocked back.’
‘I like the sound of your boss.’
‘He reminds me a bit of you, actually.’
‘Then I’m flattered. How long till you’re operational?’
‘Need a telephone engineer to help us with the landline.’
‘Us?’
‘I’ve got help: two youngsters from CID. Mobile phone will take longer – first things we’ll have access to are numbers called and calls received…’ She broke off. ‘You know all this already.’
‘True.’
He heard her give a short sigh. ‘It’ll be end of play today for the landline; some time tomorrow for everything else. Unlikely Scholes would bother e-mailing Carter, so I was going to skip the key-stroke surveillance.’
‘Fine by me. And thanks again, Evelyn.’
‘It’s what neglected friends are for, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Just one thing, though – Scholes isn’t an idiot. Might explain why he went to Carter’s house. It keeps their conversation private. Could be all we end up with are texts to arrange more meetings.’
‘I know.’
She gave another sigh. ‘Of course you do. I keep forgetting how much alike we are. Maybe that’s why we hit it off that time.’
‘Are you sure you want to say any more? This may not be as secure a line as we’d like.’
She was chuckling as Fox wrapped up the call.
‘Sounds like a result,’ Kaye commented. All three of them were crammed into the storeroom, door slightly ajar, Joe Naysmith keeping watch for spies and dawdlers.
‘Everything should be up and running by tomorrow. Home phone could even be tonight.’
‘That’s efficient. Care to share the secret of your success?’
‘No.’
‘Just her name, then.’
‘Plus,’ Naysmith added, turning towards his colleagues, ‘whatever it was you thought she shouldn’t be saying over a non-secure line.’ He jumped as someone thumped on the door, pushing it open. Superintendent Pitkethly stood there, face like thunder.
‘Would I be right in thinking the three of you just paid Teresa Collins a visit?’
Fox rose to his feet. ‘She’s made a complaint?’ he guessed.
‘In a manner of speaking. They found your name on a business card on her chair – when they went in with the stretcher.’
She saw immediately the effect her words had had, and kept quiet for a moment, the better to savour the discomfort on the three faces.
‘A passer-by saw her at her window, smearing blood on it from her wrists. He called the paramedics.’
All three men were standing now, eyes on Pitkethly. Kaye was the first to speak.
‘Is she…?’
‘She’s in hospital. Wounds don’t look too bad. Question is: what drove her to it? From the look of you, I’d say I’ve got my answer.’
‘She was hysterical,’ Naysmith blurted out. ‘We left her to it…’
‘Having calmed her down first, obviously,’ Pitkethly said, twisting the knife. ‘I mean, this is a woman who’s had a traumatic experience. Fragile enough to begin with, and with a history of drug use. I’m assuming you didn’t just walk away?’
‘We don’t answer to you,’ Fox stated, regaining a little of his composure.
‘You might have to, though.’
‘We’ll make our report.’
‘And will there be conferring beforehand?’ This question came from DCI Peter Laird, who had just arrived at Pitkethly’s shoulder. Fox sensed that there were other spectators in the corridor. He pushed past Pitkethly and saw that he was right. Laird wasn’t bothering to suppress his pleasure at this turn of events.
‘I mean,’ Laird went on, folding his arms, ‘you’ll want to make sure you’ve got your stories straight.’
‘She’s going to be all right, though?’ Joe Naysmith was asking Pitkethly.
‘Bit late to be showing concern,’ she answered him. Fox got right into her face.
‘Enough,’ he said. Then, to Kaye and Naysmith: ‘We’re out of here.’
‘Going so soon?’ Laird was waving with the fingers of one hand as they stalked down the corridor.
‘I’ll need those statements,’ Pitkethly called after them.
As Fox pushed open the door to the outside world, he saw Scholes hurrying in from the car park.
‘Looks like I missed the fun,’ he said with a grin. Fox ignored him, but Kaye gave him a shoulder-charge that almost felled him. Scholes didn’t react. His laughter followed them to the Mondeo.
‘Where to?’ Kaye asked.
‘Home,’ Fox stated.
They didn’t say anything for the first few miles. It was Naysmith who broke the silence. ‘Poor woman.’
Kaye just nodded.
‘Reckon we should have stayed?’
Kaye looked to Fox, but saw he wasn’t going to answer. He was staring out of the passenger-side window, forehead almost touching it.