to speak ill of the dead, or anything, but still …’
‘What’s the favour?’
‘Well, you’re still friends with Henry, aren’t you?’
‘Henry who?’ Frown. ‘What, Forrester? The occasional Christmas card maybe, but I’ve not seen him for years.’
‘Thing is, Dr McDonald has to start again from scratch; be a big help if she could discuss the case with him. Maybe see if he’s got any of his original files?’
‘So give him a call. Get him to courier everything over.’
Down the other end of the balcony, Gillis snapped his phone shut, then ground his cigarette out against the wall and let it fall to the tiles at his feet.
Dickie stared out across the retail park. ‘She says she needs to see him. Face to face.’
Gillis lumbered over. ‘You tell him yet?’
‘“Tell him” what?’
A smile cracked the space between the cigarette-stained moustache and bristling beard. ‘Shetland. You’re taking the Doc up to see your old mate, Forrester.’
I pulled my shoulders back, chin up. ‘Take her yourself. You’re the one looks like a bloody Viking.’
‘The old git doesn’t want anything to do with the case. We need his help. You’re his friend. Go up there and talk him round.’
Dickie sighed. ‘Come on, Ash, you know what Henry’s like: once he digs his heels in …’
I scowled at them. ‘Shetland?’
Gillis squinted back. ‘You don’t want to help us catch the bastard? Really? What kind of cop are you?’
‘It’s only a couple of days, Ash: three or four tops. I’ll square it with your boss.’
Dr McDonald wasn’t the only mental one. ‘I’m not going to Shetland! We just turned up two bodies and—’
‘It’s going to be nothing but hanging around waiting for lab reports in Oldcastle now anyway. That and processing three hundred door-to-doors.’ Dickie nodded towards the meeting room, where Dr McDonald was gazing up at the birthday cards. ‘When we catch the Birthday Boy we’ll need her up to speed for the interviews. I want a full confession, in stone, not something he can wriggle out of in court six months later thanks to some slimy defence lawyer.’
‘I’m not your bloody childminder! Get someone else to—’
‘Ash, please.’
I stared out into the rain … Four days about as far away from Oldcastle as it was possible to get and still be in the UK. Four days where Mrs Kerrigan’s thugs couldn’t find me. And maybe, once Henry had seen how much of a disaster Dickie’s new criminal psychologist was, he’d drag his wrinkly arse out of retirement and help me catch the bastard who’d murdered Rebecca. Four days to convince the old sod that four years in Shetland was penance enough for what happened to Philip Skinner. It was time to get back to work.
I nodded. ‘OK. Flying from Aberdeen or Edinburgh?’
Gillis’s smile grew wider. ‘Funny you should ask that …’
‘Can you slow down, please?’ Dr McDonald tightened her grip on the grab handle above the passenger door, knuckles white. Eyes screwed tightly shut.
I changed down, burying the accelerator pedal into the Renault’s carpet. Yes, it was childish, but she’d started it. Outside the car windows, a residential road blurred past, skeletal trees raking the grey sky. Drizzle misted the glass. ‘Thought you were supposed to be a psychologist.’
‘I am, and it’s not my fault air travel terrifies me, I know it might seem illogical, statistically you’re more likely to be killed by an electric toaster than die in a plane crash in the UK – that’s why I never make toast – but I can’t …’ She gave a little squeal as I swung the car around onto Strathmore Avenue. ‘Please! Can you slow—’
‘You’ve no idea how fast we’re going: you’ve got your eyes closed.’
‘I can feel it!’
My phone rang. ‘Hold on …’ I pulled the thing from my pocket and thumbed the green button. ‘What?’
A man’s voice: ‘We’ve got another one—’
Dr McDonald snatched the phone out of my hand. ‘No, no, no!’ She held it to her ear, listening for a moment. ‘No, I will not put him on: he’s driving, are you trying to cause an accident, I don’t want to die, why do you want me to die, are you some sort of psychopath that you want random passengers to die in car crashes, is that your idea of fun?’
I stuck my hand out. ‘Give me the phone back.’
She switched the thing to her other ear, out of reach. ‘No, I told you: he’s driving.’
‘Give me the bloody phone!’
She slapped my hand away. ‘Uh-huh … Hold on.’ She looked across from the passenger seat. ‘It’s someone called Matt, he says to tell you you’re a “rotten bastard”.’ Back to the phone again. ‘Yes, I told him … Uh-huh … Uh-huh … I don’t know.’
‘Matt who?’
‘When are we going to be back in Oldcastle?’
‘Who the hell is Matt?’
‘He says, while you’ve been “poofing about” in Dundee, the ground-penetrating radar’s turned up what looks like a third set of remains …’ She tilted her head to one side, frowning as she listened. ‘No, I’m not telling Constable Henderson that … Because it’s unnecessarily rude, that’s why.’
Well, at least that explained who Matt was: the head of Oldcastle’s Scenes Examination Branch always did have a mouth like a sewer.
Another body.
Don’t let it be Rebecca. Let her lie quiet and safe in the ground until I get my hands on the bastard who tortured her to death. Please.
I threw the car into a right. ‘Ask him if they’ve ID’d the second body yet.’
‘Constable Henderson wants to know if you’ve ID’d … Uh-huh … No … I’ll tell him.’ She looked at me. ‘He says you owe him twenty pounds, and—’
‘For God’s sake: did they get a bloody ID or not?’
Left onto another street of prison-block tenements.
‘He says they’re still excavating the remains.’ She held a hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Apparently the Procurator Fiscal
