Snared (16 page)

Chapter Forty-Nine

F
orrester stormed into the office, clapping his hands as he headed to the whiteboard in the middle of the office space. “Come on, gather round.”

The rest of the team congregated, with Vicky standing nearest.

“Sorry. Forty minutes late isn’t acceptable — especially when I demand punctuality from you lot.” Forrester put his hands in his pockets.
“
I’ve just had my nuts toasted by the Super and I’ve not eaten so I want this done quickly. Given the fun we had out in Barry, I want a full update on where we are. Mac?”

“The SOCOs still haven’t finished their search yet. As tight-lipped as my ex-colleagues in the south, so I don’t know if there’s anything useful yet. DC Woods, where are we with these cages?”

Karen cleared her throat. “The bad news is loads of places sell them across Dundee. The good is I’ve got a guy coming down from Aberdeen to help me look at the ones in Barry. He’s pretty much a UK expert on animal cages.”

“Takes all sorts, I suppose.” Forrester scratched at the hair on the back of his head. “What do you hope to get out of it?”

“Well, hopefully he can nail it down a bit more than us looking for a metal cage. He reckons he can get make, model, the works. Maybe even tie it back to a supplier.”

MacDonald nodded. “Make sure he’s reliable, yeah?”

“Will do.”

“Sounds decent.” Forrester scribbled on the whiteboard. “Are we anywhere on the car?”

MacDonald shook his head. “Woods and Buchan have been going through CCTV from the industrial estate. Nothing
concrete
. The number plate search using the ANPR system has come up blank, which means they didn’t go through the Kingsway or the low road.”

“The Riverside.”

“Right. We’re looking at other possibilities but the CCTV teams are now actively looking for anything that matches our description.”

Vicky raised her hand. “Given we’ve just announced the fact we’re looking for a car to the bits of Scotland who can bother with watching the news, I seriously doubt they’ll use it again.”

“Agreed.” Forrester loosened his tie — the tie pin now hung
vertically
. “Those Fife schoolgirls are in the clear, by the way. They’ve admitted posting stuff on the message board but they were all on some sort of school trip when Rachel and Paul were done. If they know anything, they’ve not spilled anything so far.” He stared at Vicky. “You next.”

Vicky nodded. “Zoë, everything we’ve got is predicated on the links you’ve identified between these accounts on xbeast and real people. Have you managed to prove how reliable it i
s ye
t?”

“I’ve been working with a couple of colleagues in the Met.” Zoë tugged at her bra strap through her t-shirt. “They’ve got dummy accounts set up on there for this sort of thing. They posted some stuff, I posted some stuff. We used police accounts, mobiles, home broadband, mobile broadband dongles, even dial-up. They were all traced back to the correct IP address. In two cases we put a couple of chains of IP address maskers in there, which we managed to unpick successfully.”

“Good work.” Vicky checked her notebook. “The alibis for John and Brian Morton both check out. Turns out Brian was in the hospital on Wednesday, under John’s supervision.”

“I meant to speak to you about this earlier.” Forrester tucked his hands into his armpits. “Mac mentioned we’re still running surveillance on them. Is that right?”

“We are. And the Muirheads.”

“Have we actually got anything to show for it?”

Vicky shrugged. “John Morton took his brother out to Tesco on Saturday.”

“That’s it?”

“Afraid so.” Vicky shook her head. “They were in when the
battery
hen farm attack was supposed to have happened.”

“You think this is a red herring?”

“Looks that way.”

Forrester rolled up a sleeve. “I’m cancelling the surveillance as of now. This fat boy in his scooter’s an idiot but he’s not involved. Get Kirk and Buchan back in.”

“Will do.”

“Where are we with the Muirheads, Mac?”

MacDonald grimaced. “Their lawyer’s threatening to sue.”

“What for?”

“Anything he can find. Guy called Fergus Duncan.”

“Bloody hell. Look, I don’t trust them. We’ve still got surveillance on them?”

“Yeah.”

“Scale it back, but keep an eye on what they’re up to.”

“Will do.”

Forrester rolled up the other sleeve. “If we can confirm the link, I’ll be a bit more comfortable. I’ll get the press release updated and get on the phone to a few contacts so it goes in the overnight editions.” He scribbled a note on the board. “Mac, can you please pick up the NCA strand again? I’m feeling a bit exposed here, especially after both Raven and the Super just asked me about it.”

“Got a few contacts I could use. Been thinking the National Wildlife Crime Unit in Livingston might be a better bet. They’re nationwide and specialised in this sort of thing. Could drive down there this afternoon.”

“I’ll join you, Sergeant.” Forrester adjusted the first sleeve,
making
it the same length as the other one. “You got anything else, Mac?”

“Still looking into the cat bin case in Fife. Nothing so far.”

Summers held up his hand. “Sorry, sir. I just finished my review of the Fife case files. I found a note at the back of the file referencing a car speeding away. Matches the loose description of ours.”

Forrester put his palm over his eyes. “Buggeration. We just went on the record with the media saying we’re dealing with just the two cases.”

“Sorry, sir. Should’ve caught you before.”

Forrester scowled at him. “You’d forty minutes to brief Mac or Doddsy.”

Summers blushed. “They were both busy, sir.”

Forrester glared at him for a few seconds before turning to Vicky. “Can you pick up on this Fife case and see if there really are any ties to the other two?”

“Will do, sir.”

“Really don’t want to look like a bunch of idiots with this.”
Forrester
looked around the room. “Dismissed.”

Chapter Fifty

“. . . had this to say. ‘On Thursday we, uh, received a call-out to Invergowrie to the west of the city. A woman ha —’”

Vicky reached over to snap off the radio.

Considine pulled up outside the sheltered housing, a sprawling complex of concrete blocks and mossed tiles. “Not like hearing your own voice, Sarge?”

“Does anyone?”

“DCI Raven certainly likes the sound of his own voice.”

“And DCs looking to make DS shouldn’t be saying that aloud.”

“Right, aye.” Considine looked around, pink blotches climbing his neck. “Doesn’t look like Reed’s here yet.”

“We’ll wait.”

“Summers got himself right in the shit at briefing, didn’t he?”

Vicky glanced at him. “That’s a bit pottle.”

“A bit what?”

“Pot calling the kettle black.”

“Right, with you now.” He frowned. “How?”

“You’ve a tendency to keep things to yourself, don’t you? Early sharing of information is critical.”

“Okay. I’ll try harder next time.”

“Don’t you get on with Summers?”

Considine shrugged. “I’m not a fan of rugger buggers like him.”

“And here was me thinking you DCs were thick as thieves.”

“Thick as pig shit, more like.”

Vicky laughed before spotting Reed trudging their way. “Speaking of rugger buggers.” She got out, meeting him by the entrance. “Thanks for driving up from Glenrothes, Constable.”

“Just want to make sure us Fifers get a fair hearing, that’s all.”

“DI’s orders?”

“Something like that.”

“Nothing to do with you not mentioning this car when we came out last week?”

Reed narrowed his eyes. “No need to be like that. One tiny part of this case might overlap with yours. Big deal.”

“This woman lived round there, right?”

“Aye. Irene Henderson.”

“And this guy saw a car speeding off?”

“That’s about the size of it.” Reed smirked. “Not sure what you want to get out of it.”

“Come on.” Vicky pressed the buzzer and nodded at
Considine
. “You lead.”

Considine stood up taller and nodded. “Sure thing, Sarge.”

The door was answered by a middle-aged woman, wisps of smoke from her cigarette misting the entranceway. “Can I help?”

“Looking for an Irene Henderson.”

“Aye?”

“Is that you?”

“It is, aye.”

“Can we ask you a few questions?”

Irene stared at Reed as she sucked on the cigarette, the tip
glowing
orange. “This about those wankers who put me in the bin?”

“It is, aye.” Reed nodded, stepping in front of Considine. “These detectives are investigating crimes in Dundee that might be related to yours.”

Irene leaned against her front door and exhaled through her nostrils, red lines of scar tissue tracing up her nose. “You still haven’t caught who did that to me. Why should I care about anyone else?”

Vicky nudged Reed to the side. “Ms Henderson, I’m Detective Sergeant Vicky Dodds. I’ll give you two choices. Talk to us here or at the police station in Dundee.”

Irene stabbed a finger at her own chest, her pink t-shirt rippling as the flesh underneath wobbled. “I’m the victim in all of this. I don’t want to speak to you, here or in bloody Dundee.”

“Ms Henderson, the people who committed the crime against you haven’t been apprehended. We believe we may have some leads in the case.”

Irene folded her arms. “Like what?”

“Here or Dundee. Which is it?”

“Fine.” Shaking her head, Irene pulled the door fully open. “In you come.”

Vicky followed her down a tight corridor. The cream, textured wallpaper was marked in a few places. The lounge was at the end, the small room stinking of stale cigarette smoke, the air thick with it. A carriage clock ticked away on the marble mantelpiece beneath a landscape painting — men in straw hats tending to a boat on a river, the canvas dark and brooding.

Irene sat in her armchair in the window, reaching over to a bronze ashtray in the middle of a long coffee table covered i
n a
 brown and ivory checkerboard pattern. She picked up a cigarette that had been carefully stubbed out so as to be relit. “Do you mind?”

“We do, as it happens.” Vicky perched on the front edge of a sofa, Considine slumping alongside. Reed remained standing. She got out her notebook. “Tell us what happened the night you were taken.”

Irene sighed and put the cigarette back on the ashtray. She stared out of the window, eyes narrowing further, then glanced at her ashtray. “Sure I can’t have a fag?”

“Once we leave.”

“This is stressing me out just thinking about it.”

Vicky held up a finger. “Once we leave.”

“Right, right.” Irene took a deep breath, eyes on the cigarette. “People ask me if I regret what I did. I don’t. That cat had it coming to it. The little bugger used to walk right through my garden. I used to chase it off but it’d be back doing its business the next day. It knew what was coming to it.”

Vicky exchanged a look with Considine. The woman was unrepentant, even with an entire country lambasting her for her
behaviour
. “Did you see a car that night?”

“Aye, right before it, a car pulled up outside the door.”

“This is the black car you mentioned in the statement you gave to DC Reed?”

“Aye. I was feeling pretty edgy, as you can imagine. I’d had all this hate mail since it was all over the bloody papers. I went to the door and opened it on the safety chain thingy. Three people were standing there wearing balaclavas.”

Vicky frowned. “You’re sure there were three?”

“Aye. Three. One of them grabbed me, taped my mouth up and shoved me in the back of the car. They drove me to the other side of town and dumped me in the bloody bin outside a factory.”

“Can you describe them?”

“Not really.” Irene sniffed and rubbed at her nose. “There was definitely one woman in the group, though, I remember that.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Definitely.”

“What about the others?”

“I’d say there was a man, for certain. The third one, I don’t know.”

“Were they androgynous?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means they could pass for being either a man or a woman.”

Irene scowled. “Like a trannie?”

“No. A
cross-dresser
is a man wearing the clothes normally associated with a woman, but I’m talking more in terms of build, you know, smaller, no obvious curves or bumps.”

Irene shook her head. “I didn’t get a good look at them.”

“And nobody saw this happen to you?”

Irene laughed. “This is Fife, sweetheart. Nobody sees anything.”

“This car you saw. What kind was it?”

“Just a black car driving very fast.” Irene nodded at Reed. “That’s what I said when the officers came round. Wasn’t it?”

“It was.”

Vicky showed her the sample photos of the cars from the other sites. “Was it like any of these?”

Irene looked long at them before shaking her head. “Sorry. Can’t remember. It was dark. Didn’t get that good a look at it, like I told him and his mates.”

“But it was black?”

“Aye.”

“And it was a saloon like these?”

“I think so.”

Vicky held up the pages again. “But not like these?”

“These ones look too fancy.”

“So it was a cheaper make?”

“Could’ve been, aye.”

“Right.” Vicky scribbled it down. “You said you got a lot of hate mail?”

“Aye, and cat shit through my letterbox.”

“Was any of the mail particularly threatening?”

“It was all particularly threatening. That’s why I gave it to the police.”

Vicky reached into her bag, retrieving a copy of one of the
poison
pen notes. “Was there anything like this?”

Irene squinted at it. “Can’t remember, sorry. I got a load of mail when the story was in the papers and again after what happened to me.”

“Okay, that’s helpful.”

Irene picked up her ashtray. “Can you let me have my fag now?”