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 café 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.’
‘My view absolutely,’ Pye concurred, pausing as a young waiter delivered their order. ‘Of course,’ he continued as he picked up a bap, ‘it could be argued that we’ve got a result already. We’ve identified Dean Francey beyond any doubt as the man who put Grete Regal in the Western General, and abducted Zena. And now Dean Francey’s dead. Whether we caught him ourselves or not, it’s still a tick in the plus column.’
‘We’ll let Isabel Cant spin that one,’ Haddock snorted. ‘You know as well as I do, Sammy, the result that matters is finding the person who paid for the job and, we’re assuming, put Dino and Anna Harmony away. That’s the only one that’s going to earn us a pat on the head from Sir Andrew, or from the DCC for that matter.’
His boss nodded. ‘I know,’ he admitted as he finished chewing. ‘I was just trying to make lunch go down better, that’s all.’
‘Piece together, you said earlier,’ the DS continued. ‘How do you see Anna’s role in this? We know she was in on it.’
‘You tell me; I’m busy eating.’
‘Okay. This thing was pre-planned; I’m guessing that Dino was smart enough to have nosed around in Garvald, and to have established Grete’s school routine with the wee one. He’d have seen that they walked along a pretty much deserted road and that he couldn’t have imagined a better spot to snatch the child.’ He paused to take a swig of his latte.
‘Obviously, killing the kid was not the objective or he’d have done it there and then; he was ordered to take her. He chose Sullivan’s Beamer for the purpose, and kitted it out by cushioning the boot.
‘If the snatch had worked, but what would he have done then? He couldn’t have looked after a captive five year old. He’d have needed help to do that, and if it was female help, so much the better.
‘That’s where Anna fits in. We’ll never know what story he spun her; maybe he told her he was looking after a niece. Whatever, it worked. She was besotted with the scrote, and she fell for it. So he sent her to Marks to buy clothes for the child, and said that he’d meet her there.’
Pye nodded. ‘I buy all that. If he hadn’t run into big Bob’s motor it would have worked.’
‘It would have worked,’ Haddock pointed out, ‘but only until they got wherever they were headed and opened the boot.’
‘True. It’s worth remembering that when Dino and Anna ran away from the scene of the accident, in different directions, neither of them knew that the child was dead. Sure Dino must have recognised that what he did to Grete left him in big trouble, but he may have thought he could get away with that.’
He nodded, as if to confirm his thinking. ‘I imagine that he called Anna, as soon as he was clear. Probably they arranged to meet, then he headed for North Berwick, to pick up his cash, his passport and maybe his dad’s van. He nearly managed it, only we got in the way. At some point, he or Anna must have heard that Zena had died. Without that, maybe he hoped she could be kept out of it, but with it . . . even he must have been smart enough to know we’d crawl over everyone who ever knew him, and there was Anna, having bought kids’ clothes that very morning, on her credit card.’
Pye stopped for breath