A Deviant Breed (33 page)

‘Hiya love, fancy meeting your old dad for lunch?’ He paused. ‘Ach, having a bit of a slow day – yeah? 
Great!
  That wee pub in Greenlaw?’ He cringed. ‘Argh’ ye’re’ in Dundee, I thought maybe,’ he checked his watch – his dad’s watch. ‘No, nae problem, I’ll call you back when I get up there.’  He hung up to find Tyler staring at him in disbelief.

‘What?  Can I no’ meet my daughter for lunch?’

‘You’re surely not going to ask Zoe to –?’ he was already heading for the exit.  If he was to make it to Dundee for anywhere near lunchtime he would have to get moving.  ‘Don’t get done for speeding,’ she called after him.

He stopped and leaned around the door. ‘Tell Falk to find Vasquez, then get an obs team pulled together.  I think we’d better have eyes on the bugger.’

***

Falk reported back that Vasquez’s car was not parked in its allotted space outside his flat and there was no sign of him. Chances were that he was on campus; it was within walking distance and only twenty minutes away by foot or ten on a bike. 

Tyler phoned the university pretending to be a ditzy student who had got confused about Vasquez’s lecture schedule.  She got quite a ticking off from the woman on the other end of the phone but had managed to establish his whereabouts.  She hung up mid-tirade as the harassed admin clerk explained that she had better things to do than play messenger to students that “couldnae get their idle backsides out of their pits in the morning”.  Next task was putting together a competent surveillance team at short notice.

DC Donald would have to do his best not to draw attention to himself, whilst lurking around the campus where Falk dropped him off.  Meanwhile Falk returned to brief the ad-hoc obs team they had scraped together.  He could have done with someone less imposing than a human-juggernaut like DC Iain Donald as acting spotter but sometimes you just have to go with what you’ve got.  He struck lucky with two eager young probationers; one, a spotty boy, whose tutor constable was tied up at court and the other, a female officer, on her CID attachment.  Her supervising detective sergeant was only too happy to palm ‘his proby’ off on them for the day.  He had run out of things she could do unsupervised, which her level of competence allowed. 

Having rushed back to his digs to get out of uniform and quickly into mufti, the other eager young probationer returned looking every inch the student, and way too young to be keeping obs on a potential serial-killer.  DCs Reece and Donald and two Task Force officers (TF) completed the team with Falk orchestrating the operation as a roving seventh pair of eyes.  Three cars, one pushbike and seven bodies should be enough to keep tabs on Vasquez without him realising he was being watched.  He was not likely to be surveillance conscious, and it was decided that the two inexperienced probationers, who looked by far the most convincing of the team to be wandering about a university campus, would be deployed as spotters only. 

Tyler watched with amusement as the two young constables tried their best to look unfazed by the task, and yet at the same time, struggled to contain their excitement.  This was grown-up stuff.  This was proper police work, the kind of action they had only ever seen on TV before, and certainly had not expected to be engaged in so early in their careers.

‘Spot him, give me a sit-rep, and back off the minute one of the others tells you that they has eyes on him – got it?’  Falk instructed.  They nodded and eyed each other.  ‘If he so much as makes eye contact with you – back off and pass him on.’  They nodded again. ‘And whatever you do – don’t engage in conversation with him, or anyone else if you can help it. Okay?’  More nodding.  ‘Right then, Posh Spice, you’re up first,’ he said singling out the girl, who had tried to dress down her smart trouser suit, swapping the blouse for a T shirt, her jacket for a designer fleece zipper, and by dragging a woolly hat down over her stylishly crafted coiffure. ‘One Direction,’ Falk growled turning to the eager young man.

‘Green Day,’ he protested.

‘Not with that hair-do, how do ye fit it under yer hat?  Never mind, I don’t care.  You’re mobile with DC Reece and the bad news – he has the worst taste in music ever! – You two,’ he continued turning to the TF officers.  ‘Draw straws, one of you is mobile with DC Donald once we get Posh Spice on site and him out of there, the other is on the pushbike.’ The taller of the two Task Force officers snatched up their car keys and grinned triumphantly.  Falk eyed the other. ‘You look like you could use the exercise – and don’t forget to wear a helmet – remember the Assistant Chief’s Cycle Safe Campaign.’

‘Anything you want to say, ma’am?’ he said, turning to DI Tyler.  She shook her head.

‘Okay, let’s go,’ Falk added, clapping his hands.

***

Inevitably Dunbar was running late, and blamed the traffic, not the fact that he had not allowed enough time having decided his course of action on the hoof.  Fortunately Zoe had no lectures to attend, and was both famished and in a forgiving mood.  Not wanting to risk bumping into Geary or Holmquist at Dundee University after Tyler’s conversation with the latter, he lured his daughter off campus with the prospect of Michelin-starred fare.

To save time she made her own way into the city and met her father at The Playwright in Tay Square; a neat, unfussy restaurant of clean crisp lines geared towards theatre-goers.  A series of flatteringly-lit mug shots filled one wall, portraits of stars of stage and screen.  Dunbar recognised some but not many.  Elspeth, being an avid fan of the theatre, or at least she made out she was, could probably name a few more.  An avid fan of the theatrical social scene was nearer the truth, but in all fairness, she displayed a more convincing appreciation of the theatre than he did.  Or perhaps she was just acting them off the stage?

Zoe had decided to forgo a starter and ordered her main course with a bottle of foreign lager with an unpronounceable name that translated to – expensive.  Dunbar picked the first fish dish he came to on the menu and asked for tap water.  He had never trusted the bottled water industry – or fads.  Why pay pounds for something he had been drinking for free since childhood?

‘Come here often?’ he joked.

‘
Durhh
, student! We work in these sorts of places, we don’t eat in them.  But I’ve heard good things so, cheers, Dad,’ she responded raising her bottle.  He chinked his glass of water against it.

‘How’s Elspeth?’

She always asked, but why?  She didn’t really care; hence he always got the feeling she was fishing, expecting him to announce a separation.  It had happened too soon for Zoe. She felt that he had rushed into marrying Elspeth, and in a way he had.  After all, he entered her life in a headlong rush; drugs raids are like that.  But any time would have been too soon for his daughter after the tragic drama that was her mother’s death.

Elspeth had been winding down after work, over a bottle of Chablis, with a couple of girlfriends when the police burst into the bar.  Shocked at first, then entertained by the ensuing melée, she had been happy to supply the rough-hewn but handsome acting-detective inspector with her personal details. They went on their first date the following week and married eighteen months later, after his promotion to detective inspector.  Once again it was a quiet registry office affair, without a blessing – and he certainly did not receive Elaine, Jim or Zoe’s.  He saw little enough of his daughter as it was, owing to the demands of his career, but, having been poisoned by her grandparents’ bias, Zoe took an instant dislike to Elspeth, and had refused to sleep under the same roof as “that woman”.  As a consequence, the limited time father and daughter spent together eroded to fleeting moments at school gates, sports days, annual leave and his rest days.  And only then
if
Elspeth had made herself scarce. 

It struck him as strange, how the job that did so much to drive them apart, was now drawing them together.

‘Ye know Elspeth – busy,’ he answered blithely.

‘I don’t really but, up in Aberdeen again?’

‘Geneva last I heard, but who knows, Texas, Dubai, Moscow?’ He shrugged and eyed her knowingly, having made his point.  ‘Racking up the air miles,’ he added.

‘Do I detect a soupcon of bitterness, Dad?’

He frowned and studied her.  She was growing up, using grown up words.  It felt good to be chatting over lunch, like adults, even if she couldn’t resist sniping about his wife. ‘No, it’s her job.’ Was that an honest answer? ‘But I do get lonely sometimes rattling around that house.’ That was. ‘You should stay next time you’re down our way.’

She nodded and said, ‘Yeah,’ but not very sincerely. ‘So what really prompted this?’ she asked, before pressing her glass to her lips.

‘Can I no’ visit my daughter without having an ulterior motive?’

‘No, you can’t. You’re in the middle of pretty bizarre murder case. Quality time, –Zoe did that irritating finger hooking thing as she emphasised those two little words. – ‘with me, has never been a feature of our relationship during any of your previous major investigations.  At least not that I can recall anyway.  So what’s up?’

That stung; probably because it was true. ‘Okay.’  He tensed; she sensed it.  She was his daughter after all. ‘I don’t want you anywhere near Braur Glen or Doctor Vasquez until we’ve put this thing to bed – especially Vasquez.’

Her eyes widened and mouth hovered open, her beer poised in her hand not to reach her lips. ‘Is he – are you –
Seb!?
’ she gasped.

‘We’re looking at him, but ye cannae tell anyone that.  I mean it, Zoe, nobody!’  She nodded, still struggling to take it in. ‘What do you know about him?’ he asked.

‘Seb?’ she repeated, still struggling with the idea that he was her dad’s number one suspect.  Dunbar nodded.  ‘He was my history tutor, in my first year.  And –’ she hesitated.

‘And?’

‘Well, he was really pissed off at me when I switched to archaeology.  Don’t know why.  The following term he took off to Edinburgh the minute they offered him the position he has now.’

‘I imagine he has rejection issues,’ Dunbar offered, without expanding.

‘I do remember he lobbied real hard for his place on the dig.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Absolutely, Geoff Coulter, his replacement here, was – still is – a bit pissed off about it.  But to be fair, the Border Reivers are Seb’s field of expertise – at least for the last –’

‘Let me guess, nine years?’ he cut in.

She nodded. ‘Thereabouts – maybe a bit longer than that, not sure, so don’t quote me.’ She suddenly eyed him suspiciously. ‘We are off the record here, right?’

‘What? Of course, yeah – off-the-radar, love. I shouldn’t even –.’

‘Fair enough, soz!’ she cut in. ‘Yeah, so, where was I? Oh, yeah.  Prior to that he was more yer Picts an’ Celts kinda’ guy.’

‘Do you have much to do with Allyson Holmquist’s research?’

‘Sort of, being involved with the Braur Glen dig.  Why?’

‘I understand she has information on her database that will link Sebastian Vasquez to Archie English.’

‘How?’

‘She has
his
and Archie’s DNA profiles.  I suspect they are brothers – or at least share the same mother,’ he replied.

Zoe was flabbergasted and sat bolt upright.  After a moment her pretty eyes hardened and bored into his.  ‘You want me to find out, don’t yer?  That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ he lied. ‘I’m – I had every intention of warning you off Vasquez but was on my way to Arbroath, and thought, why not do it in person?  I thought it would be nice to meet for lunch.’  Arbroath had not actually featured in his plan but, considering it now formed part of his deception, perhaps he should.  Arbroath was only another twenty or thirty minutes further north.  Why not?  What if his suspect’s parents did tip off their adopted son?  Would that be such a bad thing? It might force Vasquez’s hand, cause panic, maybe draw him out.

‘Arbroath?’ she repeated suspiciously.

‘Yeah, to see good ol’ Seb’s adoptive parents.’

‘He was adopted?’

‘Another of those off-the-radar details, got it?’  he said firmly.  Zoe nodded.  ‘He was adopted within days of being born, by a couple from Arbroath, Mr and Mrs Vasquez.  I have reason to believe that his birth mother was also Archie English’s mum.’

She fell silent and sipped her beer. ‘And Professor Holmquist has that evidence?’

‘Yeah, I believe so!’

‘But she won’t let you have it?’

‘There are legal obstacles, and according to her, ethical implications.’

‘She’s right and you know it.’

He agreed but did not say so. ‘I can get them – the legal way, but it would take time, and a little more evidence to connect Vasquez to the murders than I have at present.’

‘If I get kicked off my course if –’

‘Then don’t take that risk,’ he cut in. ‘I might be wrong.’

‘Just a quick look – a yea or nay? That’s all you need?’

‘If you can do it without compromising yourself – it would be a great help.’

‘I can’t – but I know someone who can.’

‘You can’t tell anyone why,’ he cautioned.

Zoe nodded her understanding; he called for the bill and checked the time. She scowled, reached across the table and grabbed his wrist.