when another officer turned up to check through one of the boxes. But this was usually a short-lived respite since they were invariably lucky enough to know the whereabouts of what they were looking for.
There was no simple way to narrow it down. At first, Karen had thought the easiest way to conduct the search would be to go through everything that had originally come from St. Andrews. Boxes were filed according to case numbers, which were chronological. But the process of amalgamating all the evidence lockers of all the individual police stations throughout the region had dispersed the St. Andrews boxes through the entire collection. So that possibility was ruled out.
She had started by going through everything from 1978. But that had turned up nothing of interest, apart from a craft knife that belonged to a 1987 case. Then she'd attacked the years on either side. This time, the misfiled item had been a child's gym shoe, a relic of the unsolved disappearance of a ten-year-old boy in 1969. She was fast reaching the point where she feared that she could easily miss the very thing she was looking for because her brain was so dulled by the process.
She popped the top on a can of Diet Irn-Bru, took a swig that set her taste-buds jangling and got started: 1980. Third shelf. She dragged her jaded body to the bottom of the stepladder, still sitting where she'd finished with it the day before. She climbed up, pulled out the box she needed and cautiously descended the aluminium steps.
Back at the table, she did the paperwork then lifted the lid. Great. It looked like a charity-shop reject pile in there. Laboriously, she took out the bags one by one, checking that none had Rosie Duff's case number on its adhesive label. A pair of jeans. A filthy T-shirt. A pair of women's knickers. Tights. A bra. A checked shirt. None of them anything to do with her. The last item looked like a woman's cardigan. Karen lifted out the final bag, expecting nothing.
She gave the label a cursory glance. Then she blinked, unable to believe her eyes. She checked the number again. Not trusting herself, she dug her notebook out of her bag and compared the case number on the cover with the bag she was gripping tightly in her hand.
There was no mistake. Karen had found her early Christmas present.
Chapter 29
January 2004; Scotland
He'd been right. There was a pattern. It had been disrupted by the festive season, and that had made him fretful. But now the New Year was past, the old routine had reasserted itself. The wife went out every Thursday evening. He watched her framed against the light as the front door of the Bearsden villa opened. Moments later, her car headlights came on. He didn't know where she was going and he didn't care. All that mattered was that she had behaved predictably, leaving her man alone in the house.
He reckoned he had a good four hours to carry out his plan. But he forced himself to be patient. Senseless to take risks now. Best to wait till people had settled down for the evening, slumped in front of the TV. But not for too long. He didn't want someone taking their designer dog for a last pee bumping into him as he made his getaway. Suburbia, predictable as the speaking clock. He hugged the reassurance to himself, trying to stifle the ticking of anxiety.
He turned up the collar of his jacket against the cold and prepared to wait, his heart fluttering in his chest with anticipation. There was no pleasure in what lay ahead, just necessity. He wasn't some sick thrill killer, after all. Just a man doing what he had to do.
David Kerr swapped DVDs and returned to his armchair. Thursday nights were when he indulged his semisecret vice. When He was out with the girls, he was slumped in a chair glued to the U.S. series that she dismissed as "trash TV." So far that evening, he'd watched two episodes of Six Feet Under and now he was thumbing the remote to cue up one of his favorite episodes from the first series of The West Wing. He'd just stopped humming along with the grandiose swell of the theme tune when he thought he heard the sound of breaking glass from downstairs. Without conscious thought, his brain calibrated its coordinates and signaled that it came from the back of the house. Probably the