Perfect Silence Page 10

  ‘That’s not unusual,’ the unit director told them. ‘We share resources with all the government-funded institutions in the city. The advisers travel around and see the women where they live, so those women don’t have to go into public places. For the women living at the shelter, it avoids them potentially bumping into someone who might be violent or want to silence them. For the residents of our unit, it also means they steer clear of old haunts where drugs might be passed over, or the temptation to go to a pub might be too strong, or unhelpful acquaintances might be remade. There will be benefits advisers, housing consultants, medical professionals, even lawyers who have come into contact with both women. All of them would have been vetted, of course, and there will be a record of each occasion on which they came into contact with either of the young women.’

  ‘We’ll need to take these files back to the police station,’ Callanach told him. ‘We have to cross-reference and find those people who worked with both women.’

  ‘Of course,’ the director agreed. ‘May I ask … We’ve kept Lorna’s baby here for now. We’re able to provide care for her in a familiar environment, and the last thing we want to do is suggest that the situation is hopeless … but I suppose I’m asking if you are any further forward in terms of locating Lorna. Sooner or later I will have to make longer-term plans for Tansy.’

  ‘I understand,’ Callanach said. ‘Early this morning, uniformed officers identified CCTV footage of someone pushing the pram into the lane where it was found, but it’s black and white, very grainy, and it was raining at the time. We have no clear facial features to help us identify her kidnapper, but it is believed to be a tall male. The CCTV clip only lasts a few seconds before the man goes round a corner. We have no vehicular details. I need to ask you to keep that confidential for now. A press release will follow shortly.’

  The director nodded. ‘I’ll see you out,’ he said. ‘Is your instinct that Lorna’s kidnapping is random – that she was simply unlucky – or that someone chose her for a reason, Detective Inspector?’ he asked as they walked quietly through the corridors. ‘We’re obviously concerned about the safety of the other mothers here.’

  Callanach glanced across at Tripp. It was the question that had been on all their minds since Lorna had been taken, and the answer was becoming increasingly obvious. ‘We don’t believe it’s a coincidence,’ Callanach said, his French accent all the more pronounced when he was speaking quietly. ‘I’m afraid it seems as if Lorna was targeted. There are too many similarities between her situation and Zoey’s. Also, if the kidnapper wanted any random girl of Lorna’s age, it would have been much easier to take someone who wasn’t pushing a pram. There have also been two other attacks in the city in the same timeframe, with drug users being targeted for some vigilante treatment. It’s possible that all the crimes are linked, but we don’t yet know how or why.’

  ‘I see. Thank you for being so open with me. You evidently have your hands rather full at the moment.’ The director paused outside a room in which a nurse could be seen feeding a baby as she chatted to another woman who was busy filling out a chart. ‘Poor little thing,’ the director said. ‘Life is so cruel. Tansy had a mother who was shaping up to be the sort of parent she really needed. Imagine growing up never knowing where your mother was, if she was dead or alive even.’

  ‘That’s Lorna’s daughter?’ Tripp asked, wandering into the room.

  The nurse giving the feed smiled at him. ‘It is,’ she said. ‘Would you like to feed her?’

  ‘Oh no, I’ve never held a baby,’ Tripp said. ‘I’d be terrified I might drop her.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Callanach said. He sat down in the chair next to the nurse and held his arms across his chest for the baby to be placed safely into. Supporting her head, he held the bottle at an angle, feeling the baby wriggle then settle as she began to feed again. ‘She’s smaller than I’d imagined,’ he said. ‘Is this okay?’

  ‘That’s absolutely fine,’ the nurse said. ‘Do you have children of your own?’

  ‘No,’ Luc replied quietly, stroking the baby’s face with his free thumb as she sucked.

  ‘Well, you should,’ the nurse said. ‘Just look at you.’

  Luc concentrated on the tiny face beneath him and tried not to wonder if he would ever have children. In his twenties he’d have sworn that a family wasn’t on his horizon. Now, in his mid-thirties, it was a more pressing consideration, complicated by the fact that his body was showing no signs of recovering from the post-traumatic stress disorder that had rendered him impotent after the rape allegation. His body softened into the cushions behind him as the baby lost interest in the bottle, her eyes starting to close as her fingers squeezed and relaxed around his thumb. She fought sleep for another minute as Tripp, the nurse and the administrator watched silently, then snuffled into a contented rest.

  ‘She’ll need winding,’ the nurse whispered. ‘Why don’t you let me take her now?’

  ‘Is there any news on Lorna?’ the administrator asked while Callanach gently transferred the baby to the nurse.

  ‘Nothing yet,’ Tripp whispered. ‘We’re working round the clock, trying to trace her last movements.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ the administrator said. ‘It’s so unfair, really. She was such a troubled girl when she first came to our attention, and now when she’s finally getting herself straightened out and making progress, this happens. It just seems cruel.’

  Callanach stood up, noting the baby smell that lingered on his clothes. ‘We’re going to do whatever it takes to find her,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll keep her in my prayers,’ the nurse said, putting Tansy over her shoulder and gently patting her on the back. ‘Do call if we can help at all. There’s someone on duty here twenty-four hours a day. Tansy needs her mummy back, don’t you, sweetheart?’

  ‘You’re a natural at that, sir,’ Tripp said as he and Callanach got into the car to head back towards the city centre.

  ‘End of conversation,’ Callanach said, taking out his notebook and turning to the page with Tyrone Leigh’s details. ‘I’ve got the full file on Sandra Tilly’s boyfriend. Not the sort of person you’d want in a relationship with a woman who runs a domestic abuse shelter.’

  ‘Previous for blackmail, you said, sir,’ Tripp replied, as he stopped at traffic lights. ‘What were the circumstances?’

  ‘He found out that a next-door neighbour was sleeping with her boss. Apparently a car was appearing at her house during the working day and he got curious. When she couldn’t pay what he was asking, the woman had no choice but to turn to the police for help.’

  ‘Are we going to his home address?’ Tripp asked.

  ‘No, he works at a hardware store. I think he’ll feel more compelled to get rid of us with straight answers here than on his home turf. Pull over,’ Callanach said. They walked into a cavernous store that was piping various announcements regarding that day’s deals across the air. The manager spent a few minutes trying to persuade them to see Tyrone out of work hours, then got called away to resolve a pricing problem. The deputy manager had no problem summoning Tyrone immediately.

  ‘You can’t come to where I work,’ was Tyrone’s opening gambit.

  ‘You’re a potential witness, Mr Leigh,’ Callanach said. ‘Does it really matter where we ask to talk to you?’

  ‘You know fucking well how this is going to look to my boss,’ Tyrone said.

  ‘Ah now, see, you want to watch your language,’ Tripp said mildly. ‘Bad language is what people use when they’re feeling defensive. Would you be feeling defensive for any reason at the moment?’

  ‘I don’t have to take this shit,’ Leigh said, pulling his head up and squaring his shoulders. ‘I’ve done nothing.’

  ‘You’ve done things before,’ Callanach said. ‘Does your girlfriend, Sandra, know you once blackmailed a woman? I’m guessing not, given her job.’

  ‘And threatening behaviour,’ Tripp added. ‘Was that the same victim, or some
one completely different?’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ Leigh said. ‘We need to go into the car park if you want to discuss this.’

  Callanach glanced around at the patchy green walls of the staff room and picked up a grubby mug from the sink. ‘I think here is fine,’ he said. ‘Presumably you declared your convictions when you got this job, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise to your employer.’

  ‘Wanker,’ Leigh said.

  Callanach ignored the half-hearted insult. Tyrone Leigh had already lost the fight. ‘You bumped into Zoey in a supermarket once, and you knew about her stepfather. What else?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Tyrone moaned. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’

  ‘You didn’t like that she was offhand with you when you met her,’ Callanach said. ‘So much so that your girlfriend had to explain Zoey’s personal circumstances. Do you always get that annoyed when people aren’t as friendly as you’d like them to be?’

  ‘She was always snooty. It wasn’t just then.’ Callanach crossed his arms and waited for Tyrone’s brain to catch up with his mouth. ‘Sod it,’ Tyrone said after a pause.

  ‘Tell us about the other times you saw her,’ Tripp said.

  ‘It was only ever coming in and out the back door of the shelter. Sandra and I both work shifts, so I pick her up when I can. I used to hear Zoey outside the back door on her phone sometimes.’

  ‘You mean you waited out of view and listened,’ said Tripp. ‘I’m guessing Zoey would have made those calls elsewhere if she knew she was being overheard.’

  Callanach looked him up and down. Tyrone Leigh was a meathead. He’d have thought Sandra Tilly would have figured that out for herself, given her career choice, but then there was no accounting for attraction. Leigh was big, burly and stupid. Too stupid to withstand more than a couple of minutes of questioning without giving information away. Not at all within the profile boundaries of the kidnapper they were looking for.

  ‘Tell me about the conversations you overheard,’ Callanach said. ‘How did Zoey seem?’

  ‘Same as all of them,’ Tyrone said. ‘Scared. Stressed. Fed up with living in the shelter. None of them are grateful, not really. Maybe for the first week or so, then it’s all about how soon they can get a flat and how little space they’ve got. Don’t know how Sandra puts up with them.’

  ‘Think carefully,’ Callanach said. ‘I want details. Did you hear her say any names on the phone? Did she talk about anyone in particular? Did she have any plans for the future?’

  ‘I once heard her talking about her brother,’ Tyrone said. ‘She’d been trying to get in touch with him, but he hadn’t seemed bothered about calling her back. She was angry about that. Said she’d left the address of the shelter for him and all – that’s a straightforward breaking of the rules. I don’t know who she was talking to. Other calls were to mates, making plans to see them.’

  ‘Do you know someone called Lorna Shaw?’ Tripp asked him.

  ‘Is she the girl who’s gone missing?’ Leigh asked, his voice going up a notch, hands in the air. ‘Aw no – no, you don’t. You’re not making out I had anything to do with that one. I never even heard that girl’s name before it was on the news. What’s she got to do with Zoey anyway?’

  ‘Have you come across a man called Mikey Parsons?’ Callanach asked.

  ‘Now I’ve really got no fucking clue what you’re talking about,’ Tyrone huffed.

  ‘Or Paddy Yates? Both men have had their faces cut open in the last few days,’ Tripp said.

  ‘That’s fucking great, that is. So this is just find a sucker and pin every bit of shit you can on him, is it? No, I don’t know either of them and I think I want a lawyer, if you don’t mind.’

  Callanach motioned to Tripp that they could wrap it up and took a step towards Tyrone. ‘Mr Leigh,’ he said, ‘we’ll leave you in peace now. But if you hang around at the back of the shelter any more, I’ll find a reason to arrest you. If you listen to those women’s conversations when they don’t know you’re there, I’ll make sure your boss knows all about your criminal history. And if you don’t tell your girlfriend about the blackmail and the threatening behaviour in the next forty-eight hours, I intend to make sure she has all the information necessary to make an educated decision about whether or not she should continue to be in a relationship with you. Is any part of that unclear?’

  ‘Froggie bastard,’ Tyrone said, pushing his face towards Callanach’s but keeping his feet where they were. Callanach noted the false threat and smiled.

  ‘I think you have some paint pots to stack,’ he said. Tyrone held his stance, scrunching up his mouth in protest but unable to come up with a sufficiently good comeback to risk the consequences. Eventually he stepped away, turning his head and spitting on the floor as he went back into the store.

  Callanach’s heart sank as he watched him disappear. He had proved to be just another dead end. Lorna Shaw was out there somewhere, waiting to be rescued, and they still had absolutely no idea how to find her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Leverhulme School was housed in one of Edinburgh’s most impressive privately owned buildings, at the end of Millerfield Place, and resembled a grand old hotel more than an educational establishment. Parents had the option to send their boys there for the day or the whole term, depending on their views of boarding. The school catered for eleven- to eighteen-year-olds, and the air was almost tangibly thick with hormones. Ava stared at the deep red brick facade and the ornate chimneys, knowing the beauty of the outside would be matched by the pomposity of the souls inhabiting the place. Day fees alone were in excess of forty thousand pounds a year. Boarders could pay double that. Her own boarding school days had been spent avoiding the bitchier girls and being unavailable to befriend the really dull ones. Ava had sought normality in the midst of entitlement and oestrogen. Escaping to university had been the most liberating experience of her life.

  ‘Did you have to forcibly send Salter home or did she go willingly?’ Ava asked DS Lively.

  ‘I didn’t tell her I was doing any more work on the case tonight,’ Lively replied. ‘And she looked grateful to be going. Whether Christie wants to admit it or not, she gets tired faster than before.’

  ‘I imagine the scarring from the wounds – both internal and external – is painful. She’ll have lost fitness and muscle as well. Keep an eye on her hours,’ Ava said. ‘So the headmaster agreed to let us in then? Not to doubt you, but …’

  ‘Ma’am, would I lie to you, then turn up at the door of one of Edinburgh’s finest schools – or so it says on their website – and demand entry unannounced?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ava said, walking towards a pair of wooden doors above which the school motto was carved in Latin. The right-hand door opened as they neared it.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector, please do come in. I’m the headmaster, Anthony McGowan.’ The man extended his hand. It rested limply in Ava’s when she grasped it. She tried not to shudder.

  ‘I’m Ava Turner, and this is Detective Sergeant Lively,’ Ava said, hoping her sergeant wasn’t pulling faces behind her at the overblown grandeur of the entrance hall. Gilt work enhanced the beams and matching fireplaces adorned each end of the hall. Oil paintings the size of hockey goals hung on the walls, depicting famous battles, and leather furniture that might have sat around for centuries tempered the formality of it all. Ava’s heart sank. The phrase treading on eggshells was going to be such an understatement when they explained their purpose in visiting the school that she might as well have broken down the front door.

  ‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ Lively said, crossing the hall to rub his hands in front of one of the roaring fires, which really weren’t necessary.

  ‘Thank you,’ the headmaster replied. ‘We feel very privileged to occupy such a historic house. Would you like some tea while we chat?’

  ‘Actually, Mr McGowan, we’re here to identify the owner of this key,’ Ava said, pulling the plastic bag from her pocket and holding it
aloft. ‘Its owner might have witnessed a crime and we’re keen to talk to them. Do you know where it might have come from? It’s on a Leverhulme School fob.’

  The headmaster’s face indicated that the marked key fobs might not be used in the future.

  ‘Ah, that would involve you going into the student areas, I’m afraid, and that is a slightly complicated procedure. Do you have any paperwork with you that would facilitate such an activity?’ Mr McGowan asked, his voice professionally sugary in spite of the turn in the conversation.

  ‘It’s just a lost key,’ Ava said. ‘It’s late in the evening. I’m sure all your students are tucked up in their dorms so there’s no risk that we’ll come into contact with any of them. Of course, we expect a member of your staff to remain with us for the duration of our visit. We’re not intending to take any liberties.’

  The headmaster cleared his throat and took a deep breath, nostrils flaring dramatically. ‘I hope this doesn’t sound more heavy-handed than I intend it to, but I am extremely well acquainted with some of Police Scotland’s most senior figures. I’m not sure they would be very impressed to hear that an officer had requested access without the legal steps being taken.’

  ‘We don’t need to take any legal steps, if you consent to us being on the premises,’ Lively said.

  ‘From the school’s perspective, it’s more discreet,’ Ava said. ‘No paperwork, filing of grounds, court hearings, publicity. This way, we come in, we look, we leave. If we find nothing of relevance, it’s as if we were never here.’

  The headmaster made a small sound in his throat that might have been a suppressed expletive. He sighed. ‘I can allow you thirty minutes, then I must insist on locking the doors for the night. What you’re holding is a key to a student day locker, for those pupils who do not board with us. There’s no number on it, so that the locker cannot be accessed if the key is dropped and picked up by someone other than the rightful owner. I’ll show you to the corridor.’