We all laughed in a relaxed unison. If anything, the teacher should aim to gain a few more. Spying the gates we entered outside of a grubby window, glass tainted by a dozen or so fingerprints from the kids, I wondered about the neighbourhood itself.
“Did you ever see anyone suspicious outside the gates?” I asked. Lucy probably had a dozen tasks to get on with, and we were undoubtedly distracting her away from her job. Still, she didn’t seem to mind all that much. “A white van of any kind?”
“There are always vans driving by, but none that overly stuck out to us. Is that how--?” the blonde woman began.
“Yeah,” McCall explained. “Could you do us a favour and warn the staff to be careful in case the van comes by again? We’re not entirely sure of the scale this crime is on. We’re trying our best.”
Striking a classy pose by setting one leg on top of the other, Lucy leant a kindly word of comfort. “I’m sure you are. During the murder case, I was losing hope, but you guys redeemed yourselves by catching the killer. I trust you all, even if my own life was in your hands.”
We accepted the flattery. It wasn’t as easy as it sounded. We had a lot of duff starts across the years.
“As for the rest of the parents, they’re barely letting their kids out of sight. I don’t blame them either. It’s a scary thing, knowing it could’ve happened to anyone.”
“That’s what we’re trying to work out,” I acknowledged her comment. “Whether it’s a targeted attack or not.”
“Ah,” Lucy pursed her lips together knowingly. “I know not to pry too far with your affairs at CID. I usually end up wishing I hadn’t.”
Finally draining the last dregs of coffee, McCall ended up with a foam moustache and discreetly tried to wipe it clean.
“What about you, Lucy? Did you see or hear anything on the 13th, between the hours of two to three in the afternoon? Any sounds of a disturbance on the street or Mrs Carling crying? Screaming, maybe or calling for help?” I specified.
Lucy scrunched her nose up in contemplation. “Nothing, I’m sorry. None of us heard a thing. Not even the teachers outside on duty.”
“That’s alright.” I cleared my throat. “Not many people did. We only got two statements from the neighbours that live across this road, and all they heard was a bunch of school kids playing on their way home from school.”
We’d combed through them in a matter of seconds and found nothing of use. No description of the vehicle, nor the person inside the van.
McCall, now clean, perked up. “Mrs Carling was perplexed when she arrived at the station. Passersby would have surely noticed the state the mother was in and reported it here?”
“Again, nobody noticed anything strange taking place. But then again, I wasn’t there, so I can’t be certain either,” Lucy reinstated for the second time around.
After branching off into various different conversations, the interaction between the eager-to-please teacher and us lasted for a couple of hours, much longer than any of us had expected it to. Lucy was overly helpful, and we owed her a favour.
McCall checked her wristwatch and did a double-take when she realised the late hour it had gotten to. Time was always slipping through our fingers, whether we wanted it to or not. The playground was suspiciously silent, as the children had officially finished school a while ago.
“We didn’t mean to keep you for quite so long. We should head to the station before DCI Harvey has our heads off for reporting back too late,” McCall winced, coffee-stained tongue a light shade of brown. “There will be a lot to do at the station. Sorry for keeping you, Lucy. You probably had classes to teach.”
“It doesn’t matter. Sarah is much more important than reading the class another book and practising handwriting. They would have gotten someone to cover me, anyway.” Lucy waved McCall’s worries away in a flash. “It was truly a pleasure to see you again, even if the circumstances aren’t much improved. I hope we don’t meet in a manner like this again,” she joked lightly and held out her significantly delicate hand for us to shake.
“Agreed. Take care, Lucy.” I shared a rapid handshake with the timid woman.
“Bye, Lucy. Keep yourself safe.” McCall repeated the action, earning us a wave in return as we traipsed back out into the adverse weather. For now, the horrible, sleet style rain had passed overhead, ready to come out again another day.
“Well, that was insightful,” McCall sighed in satisfaction. “Lucy is a breath of fresh air. Always good to see a familiar face.”
“It is, but we didn’t get many details about the kidnapper, which is the reason why we came. We don’t have that long till the exchange. Looks as if we’re going in pretty blind as to who our criminal is.” I lowered my tone, to which McCall threw me an unimpressed look.
“Welcome to Finlay Cooper, the talking clock,” she introduced me in a fake game show host voice.
“What? I’m only telling the truth.”
“The morbid truth. But you’re right.” She pinched the skin between her eyes out of stress. The noise bouncing from her kitten heels scraped against the pavement when she dragged her feet. “I’ve never seen you so shy before. What happened in there?”
“Believe it or not, I felt guilty for how I came across when we last met Lucy. I was trying to redeem myself.” I didn’t see much use in lying.
“I see. Well, I’d say it was successful. You were polite and didn’t trip over your words. I would have been impressed by you,” McCall said.
“Thanks.” I was pretty chuffed with how well I’d behaved. “I didn’t even make a dodgy joke, did you notice?”
“Finlay Cooper is a changed man,” McCall drawled in satisfaction. “It’s kind of frightening, watching you grow up like this. I feel like a proud mother watching her baby fledgling hatch. I taught you well.”
15
Approximately forty-four hours later, our CID team were down at the station extremely early, joined by an extremely anxious Mr and Mrs Carling. There was an undertone of suspense in the office that felt like the day before an exam. You know you’d have to perform well but were always nervous as heck, wondering if they’d added in a trick question just to throw you off course.
That very morning, I had to pad softly past Abbey, who was deep in slumber. I’d ended up choosing odd socks in the dark, and seemingly, Tony had too. I’d heard from his past office stories that his wife was also a light sleeper. That explained his hurried choice of tie: patterned and nauseating.
DCI Harvey was writing in an old school method on the whiteboard, showing us a badly drawn diagram of how things were going to go down today. A tightly scraped back bun showcased her nymph-sized ears that were usually hidden.
“Today is the day we’ve all been waiting for. The day that we get your daughter home,” she addressed the couple solely for the latter part before turning her attention to the team. “Now, all of our efforts today will be handled skillfully. Communication is of the utmost importance. That being said, are all of our radios working and tested?”
“Aye,” we repeated in grave unison.
“We’ll have some undercover delta teams joining us at the location, placed strategically on the streets or in cars to give us their assistance. We don’t want the kidnapper getting spooked before Sarah’s been handed over to us. If you'd direct your attention to the whiteboard.” DCI Harvey was assertive, and nobody dared to argue. “Does anyone have a pointy stick anywhere? I feel this presentation would be much more effective if I could point properly.”
The prime suspect of the office that was most likely to have an object fitting that description rigorously rustled in his desk drawer and produced an adjustable back scratcher.
“Here you are, Guv. Never fails me, this beauty,” Cillian gave a token scratch to prove it. “It appears to be multifunctional too, now that you’re using it as a pointing stick. Best two pounds I ever spent.”
“Thanks, DC Murphy,” DCI Harvey accepted the stick with the ghost of a smile. Even in such
a dire situation, we could count on him to make us chuckle.
When Harvey flipped the double-sided whiteboard over on its mechanical joinings, the fresh side revealed a giant printout of a bird's-eye map. The printout was stuck on there with blu-tac and, armed with a whiteboard marker, the DCI put an X on the spot.
“Here’s where Mr and Mrs Carling will be placed. Straight in the middle and somewhere that’s easily accessible from the street. The kidnapper will probably pull up curbside and do the exchange from the van. There’s going to be the tech warehouse behind the Carlings, and that’s a potential exit route for our kidnapper, should they choose to run on foot and escape either through or around the building. DC Hall and DC Taylor, I’d like you to wait southside in a vehicle. Now, that’s the opposite side of the warehouse, meaning your view of the exchange will be obstructed. You’ll have to stick to your radios to hear what’s happening.”
Tony and DC Taylor nodded in understanding. The wooden desk was beginning to numb my backside, but we couldn’t complain. DCI Harvey might have had our necks if we did. Barely pausing, she carried on spilling information.
“You two would be the fittest in a chase,” she explained the reasoning for putting the young constables there. “Sorry, the rest of you, but we’re no match for their strength.”
Rebecca begged to differ but managed to stay quiet. The Carlings watched this unfold with the utmost fascination, faces freshly tear-stained and gaunt from burnout.
“DC Wilson,” the instructions were coming fast and furiously, “and DC Murphy.” Both Rebecca and Cillian paid attention to the whiteboard at the sound of their names. “You two will be stationed east of the Carlings on Ferris Way. The suspect will most likely enter from that side, but then you can use the vehicle to block his exit, should they choose to double back.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Rebecca replied for them, and Cillian threw a subtle salute towards the front of the office.
The slim superior turned to both McCall and me, circling the leftover spots. “DI Cooper and DS McCall, your car will be positioned to the west. You’ll be able to see both the Carlings, a few delta team members and, of course, the two I just allocated the east to.”
We held our thumbs up to convey we were certain of our place.
“I will be parked up at the garage repair shop, which means I’ll be outside of the square completely. Hopefully, I’ll be able to see the van coming from a mile off. As soon as I catch sight of the suspect vehicle, I’ll radio you all the signal so that you can sit tight until Sarah’s handed over.”
“What about the other exit routes the kidnapper could take? There’s four in total.” Rebecca held her hand up. “Holden Way leads to a dead end, so we can manage that one quite easily. But there’s Fulmar Way and another two exits on Ferris Way.”
“Uniformed teams will be deployed,” DCI Harvey assured everyone. “We severely outnumber this kidnapper, presuming they’re alone. I trust that we’ll get them.”
Mr and Mrs Carling sat gravely, desperately nodding along with our briefing.
“We’ve got all the information we have so far on our kidnapper. DC Taylor is going to summarize that for us. Go ahead.” Harvey handed over the floor.
DC Taylor was busy staring down at his pocketbook full of notes. “Thank you, ma’am. So far, we know our kidnapper operates quickly and fairly unnoticeable. According to Mrs Carling’s statement, the kidnapper was approximately five foot eight and burly. We can presume it’s a man from the build she described to us,” he reeled off the bullet points written. “Strong enough to carry a girl off without hesitation, this guy could potentially be strong enough to take someone down in hand to hand combat. Just a warning.”
McCall interrupted. “Our kidnapper has no reason to be armed or no suspicion that he is, but all of you be careful. Our safety is just as important.”
“Yes, sarge,” the constables agreed, sharing apprehensive looks with each other.
DC Taylor snapped his black book shut and took off his new, thick reading glasses. He gratefully sat back down, glad to be out of the immediate spotlight.
“Now, we wait,” he chewed a piece of chewing gum restlessly, the minty fresh scent stinging our nostrils on account of its strength.
DCI Harvey rolled her shoulders back and placed the stick down upon a surface, seemingly finished with its use. “Our kidnapper messaged you, asking for all the money in cash. We’ve managed to get that sorted for you, all in this briefcase here.” She lugged out a heavy, leatherette one. “I know it all seems a bit movie-like, but this is exactly as they requested. It’s easy to open and show the kidnapper if they ask to see the money first, and it’s enough to keep them sweet.”
The Carlings stood up to accept the money, muttering as many grateful thank you’s as they could utter.
“Which one of you wants to be in charge of the briefcase?” She scrutinized the parents. “Whoever is holding it will have to have face-to-face contact with the kidnapper and interact with them. I know it’s frightening so--”
“I will,” Mr Carling held a veiny, weathered hand out to accept it.
Mrs Carling also stepped forward, tugging at her husband's jacket, the first proper contact I’d witnessed them make today. “Bob, you don’t have to. I can do it,” she suggested bravely, raising a thin eyebrow at him.
“I can do it.” He refused to accept anything but. “I’m Sarah’s father. She needs me to do this. I’ve been a coward sitting here for too long.”
“You don’t have to prove anything, Mr Carling,” DCI Harvey said but let go of the briefcase, anyway. “Sarah will be glad just to see you, rather than having you front and centre. Do you remember the signal we agreed upon in case anything that we haven’t accounted for happens?”
They delved into length about the backup options and motions, which would signify to us in the cars that things weren't going as planned. McCall checked her watch and the wall clock simultaneously, willing for time to rush by so that we could get going. DC Taylor joined us, neatening his tie out of habit.
“Nervous?” I muttered so that the Carlings wouldn’t be able to hear.
“Nearly bricking it,” McCall admitted. “Everyone else is feeling the same by the looks of things in here. It’s like someone’s sucked out the usual fun in here and replaced it with dread.”
Peering around the office, she had a point. Even Cillian appeared sullen and gnawed at a loose piece of skin on his finger. Rebecca was sitting still, a rarity for the normally wired detective, and Tony was wringing his hands free of the sweat gathered there.
“On the bright side, there’s the possibility of getting Sarah back,” DC Taylor said optimistically, wiping his glasses with a clean cloth. I heard a static sound when he touched it, the fibres making a few of his hairs stand on end. “That’s what all this effort is for.”
“Always positive,” McCall warmly admired his outlook. “Only another four hours to go.”
“Who’s the talking clock now?” I teased and tried to quell my racing heartbeat, disguising it with a fake grin. Glancing around our office, we soaked in the peace and quiet whilst it lasted, each one repeating our own mantras before we went out there into the uncertain circumstances.
16
We were in position on the serene streets and scenery that surrounded the warehouse. It was the time of day where kids were still in school, knackered parents napped at home, and employees were busy on their shifts. I’d parked up the Volvo on Ferris Way as planned. We blended in with a number of parked cars belonging to the warehouse workers. Cillian and Rebecca were only roughly visible, and we had to squint to see them properly.
The warehouse stood tall, and the appearance of its dim structure was sobering enough for us, let alone the employees. Whoever decided upon the exterior design should have been sacked. It was utterly depressing, especially if you were signing your life away to work twelve-hour shifts there.
Mr and Mrs Carling were positioned in front of the rusted iron rungs and c
lutched each other in suspense. They stood in the middle of a practically abandoned car park which led onto our road, property of the warehouse owners too. Mr Carling visibly shook and wouldn’t stop cranking his neck in every possible direction for a sight of the kidnappers' vehicle, and Mrs Carling shuffled tensely on the spot. Every so often, they would stare directly at us, eyes open wide in fear.
“I hope we can pull this off. Fifteen minutes to go.” McCall bit the inside of her cheek, every bit as worried as the parents. She was seatbelted and checking our wing mirrors habitually. It wasn’t hard to tell we were on edge, for McCall was tapping thunderously upon her thighs, and my hands quivered. Purely from adrenaline, I convinced myself.
The electronic numbers on our car clock changed every sixty seconds, flowing through the minutes like a leaking tap that simply wouldn’t stop, no matter how many times you willed it to.
“Have a little faith in us all, McCall. We’re CID. This is what we do… sometimes.” My words were of no comfort.
“We’re a ragamuffin crew at best,” she said in a monotone voice, paranoia getting the better of her as we kept our eyes firmly peeled on the corners of the square.
“Please stop referring to us as pirates. Look, there’s some of the delta team there.” I pointed out the window towards a couple of guys dressed in warehouse uniforms. They were discreet, scruffy work overalls with a company logo on the back. They stood in a small group, pretending to have a private conversation as work pals.
“Tony and John should also be directly opposite us, behind all the greenery.” McCall tried to gesture to their whereabouts, but the tall gates restricted our view of them.
“Everyone in position and receiving me?” an affirmative but kind voice crackled over the police radios. DCI Harvey.
“We can hear you,” I replied whilst McCall spied through the windows. “We’ve got eyes on the Carlings. Briefcase is still in hand.”
Abduction in Dalgety Bay Page 13
