Perfect Silence Read online

  Ava risked a look at Callanach, who was staring open-mouthed at Overbeck.

  ‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Ava said. ‘We’ll need to say something to the press, but I’d like to keep quiet about the doll for now.’

  ‘Agreed. Work out a statement with the media team. You can put my name on the bottom of it if that keeps the communications pressure off you during the investigation.’

  ‘I will, thank you,’ Ava said.

  ‘I don’t want the number three to be reached. You understand that, right? Edinburgh has had enough death to last it a while. See to it that the funding I’m extending is an effective pre-emptive strike, Turner.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I understand,’ Ava said. ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘I know you will,’ Overbeck said.

  Ava and Callanach walked slowly out of the office without speaking. They were on the stairs down to the next floor when they both stopped at the same time.

  ‘What just happened?’ Callanach asked.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Ava said. ‘But honestly, at the moment, I don’t care. We need extra officers working with MIT if we’re going to stand any chance of finding Lorna Shaw in time. I’m sure there’ll be a price to pay later, and I, for one, plan on staying out of Overbeck’s way until she’s back to her normal foul-mouthed self.’

  ‘Maybe she’s really changed,’ Callanach said.

  ‘Maybe a prince on a white horse is about to ride through the station, throw me on the back of his trusty steed and whisk me away to a world where birds land on my hand and sing to me, and I never have to see another dead body again,’ Ava said.

  ‘Ma’am,’ Salter called up the stairs to them. ‘We’ve got another slashing victim in the city centre. Worse than before. The paramedics called us. They’re not sure the victim will make it. The sergeant and I are going straight to the hospital. Everyone else is waiting for you in the briefing room.’

  ‘All right, Salter,’ Ava called back, raising her eyebrows at Callanach. ‘Then again, maybe not.’

  Chapter Eleven

  The Meadows recreation area in the city, due west of Arthur’s Seat, provided a vast green space for city dwellers’ use, with long paths to jog or walk, tree cover providing shade for summer picnics and tennis courts for the more adventurous.

  ‘Were you always told not to walk through the Meadows at night?’ Salter asked Lively as they parked the car and headed for the area where the victim, now lying in a hospital bed, had been found.

  ‘You’re joking. If I’d been attacked and killed, my parents might have got a few quid from the local rag for the story. They’d have been delighted,’ Lively laughed.

  ‘Don’t joke about it,’ Salter said. ‘No parent wants to lose a child.’

  Lively’s footsteps stalled. ‘Christie, I’m sorry, that was stupid of me, I didn’t mean …’

  ‘I know you didn’t,’ Salter said. ‘I just think about what happened more when we’re at crime scenes like this. Somehow it seems worse when the victims are homeless or prostitutes. Imagine dying and thinking no one really cares.’

  ‘That’s what we’re here for,’ Lively said. ‘We pick up the pieces and make sure justice is served, even for people the rest of society has dumped. We’re the last-ditch family, or something like that.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Salter smiled. ‘That’s a good way of looking at it. Right. The victim, Paddy Yates, will lose his left eye, the surgeon said. The nerves on the side of his mouth aren’t expected to recover either.’

  ‘How long until he’ll be out of surgery and able to talk to us?’ Lively asked.

  ‘Tomorrow lunchtime before they’ll let us in the same room as him,’ Salter said. ‘Not that it’ll do any good. The paramedics I spoke to found an empty Spice packet in Paddy’s pocket. He was completely incomprehensible but still on his feet. It’s amazing how Spice users stay upright with all the crap they’ve got in their systems.’

  ‘Aye, should call them Weebles, not zombies,’ Lively said. Salted looked at him blankly. ‘Never mind, girl, you’ve to be a certain age to remember that one.’

  The tennis courts were a stone’s throw from the children’s play area. Huddled at the base of the climbing equipment was a bundle of cardboard boxes, a shopping trolley, and bin bags overflowing with clothes and tatty old sleeping bags.

  ‘How’re we doing over here?’ Lively called out cheerily as he approached.

  ‘Fuckin’ polis,’ was the response.

  ‘Did any of you happen to witness the incident?’ Lively continued unabashed. ‘Only there’s a man having his face stitched back together as we speak, and he’s not the first. We’d be grateful for any help you can give us.’

  ‘Like you’ll fuckin’ do anything about it,’ one of them muttered.

  ‘Got any money?’ another asked.

  Salter looked across the park at a nearby row of cafes. Most were closed, but one was catering for the evening student crowd and still serving hot food. ‘Tell you what. See if you can remember anything that might help, and I’ll buy each of you a hot meal, waitress service and all. Your choice of coffee or tea, but no booze.’

  A general muttering followed, then one of the huddle of men spoke up.

  ‘Paddy had taken that zombie shit. He’d been standing up, just staring, away with the fairies for about two hours. Stupid prick. Couldnae even speak his own name by that point.’ The man drew a bottle of unidentified clear liquid from his sleeve and took a long swig. The odour Salter caught from it was more reminiscent of a hardware store than an off-licence. ‘Then he started walking round in circles, all the way round the edge of the playground. Must have done twenty laps. Walked into that bin over there every friggin’ time. Could we have the cash instead of the meal?’

  ‘No, you cheeky git, you can’t,’ Salter said. ‘Did you actually see Paddy get attacked?’

  ‘We heard it,’ another of the men said. ‘Sounded like someone had cut his balls off. I never heard a man scream like that in my life, poor bastard. Didn’t make him run or nothing though. He just staggered out from behind those trees looking like someone had run his face through a shredder. I nearly puked.’

  ‘You must have checked around to see what had happened,’ Salter said. There was a shuffling between the men and a long pause. ‘Come on,’ Salter said. ‘You saw something. Now really isn’t the time to get huffy about sharing information with the police.’

  ‘Give it to her, Stonk,’ one of the men said, elbowing his companion sharply in the ribs.

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ the one known as Stonk replied. ‘Give me a minute.’ He got slowly to his feet and began the painful process of lifting one layer of clothing after another, checking through endless pockets and cursing intermittently when he came up empty. ‘Where did I put the wee bastard?’ he muttered to himself.

  ‘What exactly is it you’re looking for?’ Salter asked.

  ‘The key,’ he said, letting the vowel sound extend as he gleefully presented it, dangling from his fingertips.

  Salter watched DS Lively drift across the play area to a small copse of trees, where uniformed officers were pointing at something on the ground. His timing wasn’t coincidental. Now that Stonk had actually produced what might prove to be relevant information, Salter would have to take a formal statement from him, and that meant spending at least an hour writing it out, checking it through with him and sitting in the vicinity of fumes that would haunt her clothing until they next made it through the wash. She sighed.

  ‘All right. Where did you get the key and why is it relevant to the attack on Paddy?’

  ‘We saw three blokes running away. One of them dropped it,’ Stonk said. ‘I went over to pick it up.’

  ‘How far away were they from you?’ Salter asked.

  ‘They were taking off down that path, just to the right of the trees, where your man is now,’ said another, pointing.

  Salter stared and tried to estimate the distance. It was at least thirty metres away. ‘Are you
telling me you saw an object this small fall from a man’s pocket as he was running in the semi-dark? Forgive me, but that seems unlikely.’ There was a lack of reply and an uncomfortable ducking of Stonk’s head into his multiple hoods. ‘I see,’ Salter said, the picture clearer as she imagined how the scene must have played out. ‘Paddy screams, you all listen to see what’s happening and then you hear the joyful sound of metal falling onto the concrete. How quickly did you manage to get up to see if it was a coin that had been dropped?’

  ‘That’s not nice,’ Stonk said. ‘I’m helping you.’

  ‘And I appreciate it, but an accurate picture would be more helpful than the one you’re giving me. So you didn’t actually see it fall then, you just heard a metal object hit the floor and this was what you found?’

  ‘Aye, maybe,’ Stonk said. ‘But it was in the right place at the right time. That’s got to count for something.’

  Salter rubbed a tired hand over her eyes. ‘You three stay here,’ she said. ‘I’ll need a statement from each of you. Do you want dinner before that or after?’ Predictably, there was a chorus response in favour of before. She called a uniformed officer over to stand guard so that none of her witnesses could disappear before she returned from the cafe with their food, not that they were likely to get difficult until after their bellies were full. Still, a deal was a deal.

  ‘Sarge,’ she shouted, holding out a gloved hand for Stonk to give her the key. She walked over to find Lively staring at a patch of ground that even in the dark she could see was crimson.

  ‘They cut deep this time, much deeper than with Mikey Parsons. That’s a lot of blood right there,’ Lively said.

  ‘Apparently three men ran from the scene. This was picked up afterwards, over here, and it was heard hitting the floor at the same time as the men ran. It needs logging as evidence.’ She dropped it into a bag that Lively produced from his pocket.

  ‘Could have been from anyone,’ Lively said. ‘They might just have kicked it when they ran.’

  ‘I know, but it’s enough that I’ve to buy them all dinner,’ Salter said.

  ‘Right you are. I’ll have one of the uniforms go and start taking statements. Bloody mess this is. Two attacks days apart, same Z mark on the face. What sort of animal does that to a bunch of men already down on their luck?’

  ‘The sort that don’t want to run any risk at all of a victim fighting back or being able to identify them,’ Salter said. ‘Cowards.’ She wandered off towards the lights of the cafe, hands shoved deep into her pockets, head down.

  Ava inspected the key. ‘How good are the descriptions they gave of the men running away?’ she asked Lively and Salter.

  ‘Three figures that looked male, all wearing dark clothing with hoods up. Can’t accurately state height. Average weights, not obese, too tall to be young kids. Didn’t see any faces. That’s the best we can do,’ Lively replied.

  ‘And the witnesses themselves? If one is very poor and ten is perfect, how are we rating their reliability in terms of them being made to look absolutely ridiculous by a defence lawyer?’ Ava asked.

  ‘It really depends if you regard being drunk, potentially stoned and possibly with some mental health issues as affecting credibility,’ Lively said.

  ‘It’s a one, ma’am,’ Salter added.

  ‘Great,’ Ava replied. ‘Prognosis for this victim?’

  ‘He’ll live. Lost a lot of blood though. Might easily have died from shock alone. We phoned the hospital when we got back. He’s out of surgery but has lost an eye. They say his vital signs indicated severe amounts of drugs in his system, so to be frank, he’ll be sod-all use in terms of identifying his attackers,’ Lively said.

  ‘Right, let’s process the key for prints, DNA and any useful fibres. It has a tiny fob on it. Have you checked that out yet?’ She peered closer at the key, turning the bag over in her hands.

  ‘Not yet. We came straight to see you,’ Salter said. ‘Quite a large area of the Meadows had to be sealed off and by the time we left there were journalists grilling the officers at the cordon. It seemed likely you’d need an update as a priority.’

  Ava hit the space bar of her computer and brought the screen to life. ‘“Pro Libertate”.’ She squinted to read from the fob, typing the words into a search engine. ‘Blue and white quarters, with a unicorn.’ She hit the enter button and waited. Seconds later a website appeared, displaying photos of happy young men and women under a decorative banner across the top of the screen, and the legend ‘Scotland’s future leaders, educated here today’ written in bold script below the words ‘The Leverhulme School, Edinburgh’.

  ‘That’s an independent school not far from the city centre,’ Ava said. ‘Its pupils must use the Meadows as a thoroughfare into the city. What we have here is probably a locker key.’ She turned to Salter. ‘What was your impression of the witness who produced it?’

  ‘He was reluctant to hand it over at first, but when he did I got no sense that he was lying, ma’am,’ Salter said. ‘Although I had offered them a hot meal if they gave me anything concrete to go on,’ she added slowly, her tone acknowledging the fact that such inducements were likely to produce results just for the sake of the food.

  ‘Feels like a hiding to nothing, but we can’t leave it without checking it out. Lively, get the key through forensics so we can take it to the school and follow it up. We’ll need a public appeal for witnesses in the Meadows at the relevant time, anyone who might have seen three men leaving the area quickly. You handle that, Salter. I also want to pursue a line of enquiry to see if we can link Lorna Shaw with either Mikey Parsons or the latest slashing victim, Paddy Yates. Same dealers, same drugs, known common associates or hangouts, anything at all. Concentrate on Lorna first, then double-check all the same information for Zoey, just in case they ever crossed paths. We now have three victims who’ve been on the wrong end of a blade, and one more still missing. I want to know what the common factor is.’

  Lively seemed to be having a problem with his neck, tipping his head with increasing jerkiness in Salter’s direction. Finally Ava realised what he was doing. ‘How are you holding up, DC Salter? I’m happy to accommodate you coordinating in the incident room if the crime scenes are proving difficult for you.’

  ‘They’re not, ma’am, and whilst I appreciate the sergeant’s concern, I’d prefer it if he’d stop trying to send messages behind my back. With respect, it makes him look like a complete prat.’

  ‘I agree with you on that score, Constable.’ Ava smiled. ‘Although he means well. Just take it a week at a time, and make sure you come to me if you feel you’re being coddled. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ Salter said.

  ‘You can go, Constable. I’d like the appeal for information to go out while it’s still fresh in people’s minds. If we don’t get a lead soon we’re going to have to set up an undercover operation. I won’t leave the city’s homeless population to get butchered with no one out there to protect them, but uniforms aren’t the answer. More importantly, if we can find whoever’s assaulting the city’s drug addicts, it might just lead us to Lorna Shaw.’

  Salter and Lively turned and moved towards Ava’s office door.

  ‘Not you, Sergeant,’ Ava added, waiting until Salter had left before continuing. ‘DS Lively, you’ll have noticed that we’re busy at the moment. We have one dead young woman, two badly injured vulnerable members of our community and a missing mother whose baby needs her. Is there any particular reason you appear to be choosing this week to pick fights with the Detective Superintendent?’

  ‘To be fair, ma’am, no one needs to pick a fight with the Evil Overlord. She just seems to have taken a shine to me. What can I say?’

  ‘That was more than enough, so let me issue a very clear order. Stay out of her way. Don’t break any more rules. Do not add to my to-do list, and sort this case out immediately so that I have every pair of boots back out there looking for Lorna Shaw. The only response I require is confirmation that
you have heard me and understood.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Lively said, managing by some miracle not to smirk.

  ‘Good. Now get on with it,’ Ava said.

  Lively walked towards the door, stopping as he held it a few inches open. ‘You’re more like her than you realise sometimes, ma’am.’

  Ava stared at him. ‘Leave now, Lively, before I make a phone call that will deprive you of that hard-earned pension you’re waiting to collect.’

  Lively smiled, shook his head and did as he’d been told. Ava didn’t need to threaten to fire him. She was pretty sure Overbeck already had that in hand.

  Chapter Twelve

  The mother and baby unit was eerily quiet, as if even the babies appreciated the direness of the situation and weren’t bothering their mothers. An effort had been made to make the place homely, but there was no mistaking its institutional feel. Cheap prints hung limply on the walls. The kitchen was functional more than welcoming. Each bed was the same, with unadorned white duvet covers. It was far from inhospitable, but it certainly wasn’t where any girl dreamed of ending up, Callanach thought, and it wasn’t somewhere you’d want to stay very long. Much like Zoey’s domestic abuse shelter, it was a stepping stone rather than a destination.

  Tripp and Callanach had spent the morning interviewing the residents, asking the same questions of each of them. Had Lorna Shaw seemed scared? Had she confided anything out of the ordinary? Did she have any reason for running away? The answer from each new mother to every enquiry was the same. No, on all counts. Lorna loved her baby. Regular voluntary blood and hair samples showed that she was both alcohol and drug free. She had kept every appointment. Lorna had even begun talking about returning to education part-time when her baby was a little older. She had plans – that was the message Callanach took from the interviewees. Motherhood had given her hope.

  Presented with her files, Tripp had begun the task of cross-referencing each person involved in Lorna’s care with Zoey’s. More names came up in both girls’ files than they had been expecting.