Her question cut in just as I was reaching for my second sandwich. I stared at her. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘There’s something else bothering you. I can tell. Since you walked in here there’s been an underlying tension in you, Pops. What’s up? Have you and Sarah had a row?’
‘No!’ I protested. ‘Absolutely not. Those days are over forever, I promise you. If there’s a tension in me it’s because lately I’ve been thinking just how much I regret every single day that she and I spent apart.’
That was true, and it seemed to satisfy her, but it wasn’t the whole truth. The rest was that I couldn’t wait to get home to see how the pregnancy test worked out.
Thirty-Four
‘What I don’t understand, boss,’ Haddock confessed, ‘is what we’re doing back in Edinburgh. I thought we were going to tackle Hector Mackail today.’
‘Not quite,’ Pye told him. He was perched on the edge of the sergeant’s desk in the busy CID room in Fettes. ‘He’ll keep; he’s not going anywhere. I want to brace Sullivan about Anna and that party before we get that far. But before we even do that, I have a theory that I want to chase down.’
‘Is that what your mysterious phone call to Jackie Wright was about?’
‘Spot on.’
‘Fine, but where is she?’
‘Where’s who, Sarge?’ a female voice asked.
He turned to see the DC standing in the doorway. ‘Good,’ he muttered. ‘That’s one effing mystery solved.’
‘Did you get anything?’ Pye asked her.
‘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 well: 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,