She grinned back. ‘Probably.’ Then she was serious again. ‘Pops, how do you stand legally with this thing you’re doing for Eden? Isn’t private investigation regulated these days?’
‘Not completely, although it’s on the way,’ I told her. ‘But I’m covered. I’ve got one of the new investigator’s licences, although,’ I added, ‘I don’t plan to use it much.’
I left Alex to her new career and headed back down the stairs to my own office. I was passing June Crampsey’s room when she caught sight of me through the glass wall and waved to me to join her.
‘Have you heard any more about the child murder?’ she asked. I closed the door and stepped inside.
‘No,’ I said, warily. ‘But suppose I had, I might not be able to share it with you. If my ex-colleagues tell me something, it will be out of courtesy and nothing else. I’d have to respect their confidence, unless it was about to become general knowledge. I’ll help the Saltire whenever I can, but I’m not one of your reporters, June.’
‘I understand that,’ she replied, quickly. ‘I wasn’t looking for specifics, rather for general information: what lines of inquiry they might be following, stuff like that. DCI Pye isn’t saying anything at the moment.’
‘If that’s so,’ I assured her, ‘it’s because there isn’t anything he can say. Who’s covering the story for you? Lennox Webster, your crime specialist, I assume.’
‘Yes, she’s on it,’ June confirmed.
I paused, thinking about practicalities and ethics. ‘Okay, pretend you’re her,’ I suggested, ‘and ask me some non-specific questions as an expert source.’
She smiled. ‘Such as?’
‘What are the priorities of the investigation likely to be?’ I began. ‘Answer: there are likely to be three. Number one, identify the child, if that hasn’t been done already. Two, identify the driver of the car in which the body was found. Three, establish cause of death. Practically, of those the third is the most immediately important. Until you do that you don’t know what you’re dealing with. Suppose you get lucky and catch the driver straight away, you need to know what the offence is.’
‘Abduction and murder, surely,’ June exclaimed.
‘No,’ I contradicted her firmly. ‘Nothing is sure until you have all the facts. The only assumption I’d be making is that the child didn’t climb into the car on her own and pull the boot lid shut.’
She looked up. ‘She was in the boot? You didn’t mention that earlier and Pye didn’t tell us either.’
‘In that case, you never heard me,’ I retorted.
‘You sound as if you actually saw the child, Bob.’ Her blue eyes were piercing. ‘It was you who found her, wasn’t it?’
I nodded. ‘The guy drove into my car,’ I admitted. ‘But you must not print that.’
‘Bob,’ she protested. ‘That makes the story even bigger.’
I like June, and I respect her as a journalist, but I glared at her. ‘Rubbish,’ I snapped. ‘The story can’t get any bigger. It’s a dead child; nothing tops that.’
At once, I regretted my anger. ‘June, one day I’ll have to stand in the witness box in the High Court and tell a jury what I saw, but until then I do not want to be a public player in the story. Look, I’m not trying to order you here; I’m asking you as a friend. If my involvement does leak, from within the police force or anywhere else, you’ll have exclusive rights to anything I can say without breaking sub judice rules, but until then, sit on it, please.’
She sighed, then smiled. ‘You know,’ she murmured, ‘I had this same conversation with my dad once.’ June’s father is Tommy Partridge, a retired detective superintendent. ‘The circumstances weren’t quite the same but the principle was. He said much the same as you did; I ignored him and ran the story. It drove a wedge between us for a couple of years. So this time,’ she paused for a couple of seconds, ‘I’ll do what you ask, as a way of making up to him.’
I remembered the incident. I was head of CID when it happened and I was hard on Tommy. I made a mental note to call him, tell him what had happened, and apologise for my lack of understanding.
‘Pye said there were no signs of physical assault,’ June continued.
‘There weren’t,’ I confirmed, ‘none that I could see. That’s another reason why I’m advising you to back off from labelling it murder. You might have to recant on it.’