out from the taillight?’
‘Don’t know … but the fact that she’s been lifted makes that seem even more ominous.’ Wrapping her arms round her upper body, Nikki focused her gaze on the scene, ignoring the glance Saj sent in her direction. There was no love lost between her and The Spaniel, but that wouldn’t stop her doing her best to find her.
A commotion near the outer cordon had both her and Saj spinning round.
Voice low, Saj exhaled. ‘Shit, it must be bad if Archie’s here.’
Nikki moved forward to meet her boss. DCI Archie Hegley was a large man, with a brusque Scottish tone and right now, his bulbous face was bright red and his breath came in quick pants sending off little puffs of vapour as he thudded over. ‘Parekh, this is a bloody mind fuck. Right got ma proverbials in a lather, this has. Now, I ken you dinnae get on with Springer, but you need to put that behind you. We’ve got to find her … find out what the hell is going on.’
Oh yeah … I’m just supposed to forget that she accused me of killing my husband, as if all she did was swipe a sweet from me. She snorted but on seeing Archie’s glare, tried to turn it into a cough. ‘Yes, sir. Course, sir’.
She lowered her head. She’d heard the tape of Springer’s call to the emergency switchboard and although she disliked the woman, she could clearly hear her puzzlement at what she was seeing. Nikki gave her bonus points for following the vehicle. It’s exactly what she would have done herself, yet she would have put money on it that Springer would have pulled into the side of the road and waited for back-up. Maybe the woman wasn’t quite as much of an arse as Nikki thought she was.
Archie was speaking again, his voice loud, harsh against the mumbles of the CSIs working the screen, causing them to look over. ‘Get to get to the bottom of this, Parekh. Right! They not done yet?’ He glowered over the inner cordon tape and Nikki thought for a moment that he was going to burst through the tape. Instead, he took a step back and exhaled. His entire body seemed to deflate like a burst balloon. He raked his fingers through his hair and cleared his throat. ‘Did something awful tae her at the weekend at the conference.’
Nikki and Sajid exchanged glances and waited. What the hell could he have done that was so bad? Archie Hegley was a straight shooter, but he was fair. Not often he was nasty for the sake of being nasty. Nikki nudged Saj and nodded towards their boss. Saj was better at dealing with the emotions side of stuff. With an exaggerated, but silent sigh, Saj shook his head and stepped forward. ‘Weren’t you leading one of the sessions, sir?’
‘Yep, that I was, Malik … that I was.’ He glanced up, his eyes lasering Sajid. Nikki shuffled her feet in the snow, feeling more dampness soak into her socks.
‘I was a bastard to that woman. Told her she needed tae show a bit of guts.’ His gaze moved from Sajid to Nikki. ‘Told her she needed tae be a bit mair like you.’
Ah! Nikki got it. Archie was wondering if Springer had only followed the van because of his harsh words … inside Nikki wondered if he was right. Had his casting her up to Springer been what had sent her off acting unpredictably? Voice calm, she looked at Archie. ‘Well, we’ll just have to find Springer then, won’t we?’
‘Felicity … that’s her name. Felicity!’
Felicity? She hadn’t known that. She’d never really thought of her as having a first name. Of course, she knew she must have, everyone did, but Nikki just hadn’t given it any thought and if she had, she’d have thought it might be something tough like Hilda or Eva – as in Braun or maybe like the big boss, who was cold to the point of iceberg.
She held her boss’s stare until they were interrupted by a yell from Fells. ‘Right, you lot. We’ve done all we can for now. Get your freezing arses over here and we’ll walk you through what we’ve got. Stick to the treads though.’
Yanking her gaze away from Archie’s, Nikki smiled a tight smile and squeezed his arm once. ‘Get back to Trafalgar House and get things sorted at that end, boss. Saj and I have this.’
‘Yeah, I’ve ordered the police helicopter out. It’ll be up soon and maybe they’ll find something.’ Pausing, he bit his lip. ‘Soon as yer done here, Parekh, I want you wi’ me when I speak tae her family.’
Family? The Spaniel? Really? Nikki bit her lip as shame washed over her. The woman had been abducted, was clearly injured, possibly dead and she was behaving like a witch. ‘Better if Saj goes with you, Archie. He’s more … you know … touchy-feely than me.’
She ignored her partner’s mumbled, ‘That wouldn’t be hard.’
‘Not that I couldn’t do it, you know, but …’
Archie cut her off. ‘I asked you, damn it, Parekh. For once in your bloody life just do as yer told, will you?’ and not waiting for her response he stormed off, coat wafting behind him in the slight breeze that had started.
When Saj snorted, Nikki rammed her elbow into his side. ‘Shut up … just shut up.’
She watched Archie trundle back to his vehicle, before ducking under the tape with Saj to approach Gracie Fells, who was standing beside Springer’s car. As soon as Nikki crouched to peer inside the vehicle, she could smell the lingering cordite in the air and her eyes were drawn to the driver’s seat. She flicked a glance at the CSI. ‘Gunshot?’
The CSI nodded. ‘Yes, difficult to estimate where she was hit because of the impact, but if she was sitting upright in the seat, chances are, it went straight through her chest or possibly her shoulder.’
Neither option was ideal, but if it had hit her shoulder, she might still be alive. The question was, how long would her abductors want to keep an injured woman alive? And if they dumped her in this weather, even if she was alive, the chances of her staying that way for long, were next to zero. ‘What did you find inside the car?’
‘Her phone was in the footwell of the passenger seat.’
That tallied with Nikki’s estimation of the recorded phone call. Springer seemed to somehow have lost her phone although thankfully it was on speakerphone so, although faint, they managed to pick up what she was saying.
‘Her bag’s in there too. Doesn’t look like it’s been rifled. A whole load of used tissues – more like she’d been crying than that she had a cold. We’ll find out when we get them back to the lab … not that her crying will necessarily have anything to do with what happened to her.’ The CSI moved back and pointed to the bloody slush. ‘She was dragged out of the vehicle. Blood trace on the car and onto the road. Difficult, because of the snow, to gauge exactly how much blood loss. Looks like they moved her to a larger vehicle – some sort of transit van, I reckon, judging by the car tracks. We’ll narrow that down when we get the casts back to the lab. But, if she saw a hand waving through the back lights, I’d reckon it was probably one of those ones you can borrow from any company, like Enterprise or the like. Those have an enclosed back and the doors open at the rear.’
‘That’s not going to make it any easier. We’ll have to check out van rental companies in the district as well as owners. Sooner you can get the make and model narrowed down the better.’
Ignoring Gracie’s annoyed tut, Nikki studied the rest of the scene as the CSI continued. ‘You can see blood drops and smears as her feet are pulled through the slush, then it looks like she was put into the back of the van. The vehicle skidded as it set off making these
