that point I thought he was a joyrider, caught at it.’
‘I suppose, boss,’ he conceded. ‘Can you give us a description?’
‘Not a very good one, ’cos I only saw him full-face for a second, through a car windscreen, but I’ll be amazed if you don’t pick him up on one of the CCTV cameras they have in this place. Twenty-something, white, thin faced, grey hoodie, jeans, trainers. Slim built,’ I added, ‘and hell of a quick on his feet.’
‘Did you do a trace for the owner of the vehicle?’ Pye asked.
I sighed. ‘Sammy, I’m not a cop any more,’ I reminded him.
‘But still . . .’ He looked at me as his junior had, as if I’d betrayed him in some way. Then he nodded. ‘You’re not, are you,’ he conceded. He turned to Haddock, ‘Sauce . . .’ stopping short as he saw that the lad was on the phone already to the comms centre.
We waited for no more than a minute for him to finish the call. ‘It’s registered to Callum Oliver Sullivan,’ he announced when he had its results, ‘of nine St Anthony’s Place, North Berwick. Age thirty-seven.’
‘So he wasn’t the driver, then,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t be that wrong in my age estimate. Find out what you can about Mr Sullivan; occupation, employer, whether he’s on any criminal intelligence database, marital status and most important of all whether he has a daughter aged five or six.’
‘And you said you’re not a cop any more,’ Pye murmured.
He had me there. ‘Sorry, Sammy,’ I conceded. ‘That was me at my worst. I never needed to teach you guys your job, but I never could stop myself. My excuse this time is, I discovered this poor wee lass. Because of that I see it as my bounden duty to find the bastard who did this to her and to put him down, whether I’m a serving police officer or not.’
‘Understood, Chief,’ Haddock said.
I shook my head. ‘Don’t call me that any more, Sauce, please. Sir Andrew Martin; he’s your chief constable now. My name’s just plain Bob.’ I paused.
‘Now,’ I continued, ‘the media will be arriving soon, for sure, and it would not be good for me to be seen here when they arrive. God knows what they’d read into that. Any statement you need for the investigation, I can give you somewhere else. In the meantime, you should ask that redhead over there with Jack Lemmon to move her jeep, so that I can get the fuck out of here. I’ll be at the Saltire office for a while, if you need me. After that, well, you have my mobile number, I think.’
‘Yes, we do,’ Pye concurred. ‘And you’re right about getting out of here. I’ll have her shift the thing right now. Will she be a useful witness, do you think?’
I shrugged. ‘She might give you a more detailed description of the bloke in the hoodie, but that’s all.’
‘If he’s left his DNA in there, and he’s a known car thief,’ Sauce pointed out, ‘that’ll give us the best description of all. You didn’t touch anything inside did . . .’ He blushed slightly, as he saw my raised eyebrow. ‘No, of course you didn’t,’ he added.
‘I switched off the engine,’ I admitted, ‘but no, son, I didn’t leave any prints to confuse the CSIs.’
I looked across at the Grand Cherokee and saw its driver climbing up behind the wheel. As I dug my key out of my pocket and headed for my own car, Sammy Pye called after me.
‘We’ll keep you in the loop, sir. Promise.’
I nodded. ‘Thanks.’
‘We still need you, gaffer,’ he added. ‘It’s not like the old times. Things have changed, and not for the better.’
Three
‘Should you have sounded off to Mr Skinner like that?’ Sauce Haddock ventured, as he watched a silver Mercedes cruise carefully out of the shopping centre car park.
Sammy Pye shrugged. ‘Why the hell not? The whole world knows he’s dead against the unified police service.’
‘The vast majority of serving cops were too, but we’ve got it now. He’s got to live with it like the rest of us. Then there’s the small matter of our new chief constable being his best pal . . . and practically his son-in-law as well.’
‘You’re behind the times, chum,’ the detective chief inspector said. ‘Andy Martin and Alex Skinner have split up, and for good this time, from what I hear. As for Andy and him being close, not as much as before.