by T F Muir
He stepped out of his car to the angry blast of a car horn. But he was too focused to be troubled, and raised his hand in apology. He stepped into frosted grass and stared at a car’s registration number plate. He didn’t need to pick it up to know whose plate it was.
He stared off to the Ochil Hills in the distance while he worked through the rationale. Rather than let the ANPR track him to the roundabout ahead, Black had removed both plates, prepared to risk being pulled over, rather than being tracked by the ANPR system, even for part of the way. The timing, too, was deliberate. Once he reached that roundabout, he could go anywhere in the country.
Gilchrist called Jessie. ‘He’s discarded the plates, so put an alert out on all channels for a silver Ford Fiesta without number plates.’
‘Which way’s he heading?’ Jessie asked.
He eyed the roundabout. Which way indeed? Eeny, meeny, miny, moe seemed as good a choice as any. First left put him on the road to St Andrews, Dundee, Perth, and any number of country roads in between. Straight ahead to Dunfermline, and more country roads. Next exit put him on the road to Kincardine, which could take him to Edinburgh, or the bridge across the River Forth and south-east to Glasgow. The final exit tracked back to Alloa through the village of Clackmannan.
His mind crackled alive with possibilities. Think, for crying out loud. Think. Which way? Black would have had no time to think. He was on the run, driving a stolen vehicle without any registration number plates.
But for once in his life, his sixth sense let him down.
‘Find out if the local Office has CCTV cameras in the area,’ he said to Jessie. ‘There can’t be too many silver Ford Fiestas driving around with no number plates. Alert Kincardine and Dunfermline. If he crossed the Forth, he might be heading for Glasgow, maybe Falkirk or Stirling. Alert these Offices, too.’ He was struggling to recall his geography, but he did know that the Scottish road network could put you in the back of beyond in no time at all.
Scott Black could be anywhere in a matter of hours.
Gilchrist cursed under his breath. ‘I don’t have a bloody clue where he’s heading, Jessie. But the longer we talk about it, the less chance we’ve got to find this guy. We need whatever help we can get. CCTV. ANPR. Mobile units. All Ports Alert on all channels. Get working on a TV appeal for this evening.’
‘I’m on it,’ Jessie said.
‘Oh, and one more thing.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Send someone to pick up Black’s motorbike. It’s on the side of the road where we parked the car earlier. The key’s in the ignition.’
‘What’re you going to do, Andy?’
‘Try to find that silver Fiesta.’
CHAPTER 29
In the end, Gilchrist chose the road to St Andrews and Perth, secure in the logic of his struggling rationale that Black would have headed north, and nowhere else. He accelerated to seventy, thankful for the heat blowing through the air vents. He kept his speed up, touching eighty in places. But the A977 was not designed for fast driving, and he had to slam on his brakes and tuck in behind slower-moving vehicles a couple of times.
He powered through Rumbling Bridge, held a steady sixty through Crook of Devon – renowned for speed traps – then leathered it on the final stretch to Balado before reaching the interchange for the M90. Again, instinct told him to head north, and he floored it to well over the ton – touching 128 mph at one point. But by the time he had to make another choice – exit left for St Andrews, or continue on the M90 to Perth – the Ford Fiesta was nowhere to be seen.
He made a snap decision and gave it one last shot, keeping to the M90. He pushed his speed through the ton again, but after a couple more minutes, realised he was literally spinning his wheels. He pulled on to the hard shoulder, and slithered to a halt.
He phoned Jessie. ‘Anything?’ he asked.
‘Zilch, Andy. The ANPR’s picked up nothing, and we’ve had no reported sightings of any car without number plates.’
For a moment, he wondered if he’d got it wrong, that Black had not thrown the plates away but simply swapped them for another pair. But he’d had no time to do that, and no one had reported stolen plates, so Gilchrist felt that he had to go with his logic.
‘They must have something on CCTV footage,’ he said.
‘We’ve got him in Morrisons, with a clear recording of the assault. When we arrest him, he’ll go down for that. As for the Fiesta, we’ve got it leaving Alloa, then it disappears and doesn’t resurface.’
‘He has to be somewhere, for crying out loud.’
‘I know that. You know that. We all know that. But where, is the big question.’
‘Let me get back to you.’
He hissed a curse. Christ, he’d been so close. If Martha Kerr hadn’t alerted Black, all they had to do was wait for him to return from his shopping, then arrest him. He gripped the steering wheel with a force that threatened to bend it. Shit. And fuck it. He slapped his hand against the dashboard, once, twice, then took a deep breath.
Getting angry solved nothing. He had to think back to what had happened, use clear and rational thought. He had to figure out how Black had manufactured his escape, force his way into his head, think like the man himself.
The five-way roundabout was the critical point. That’s where he’d made his mistake, chosen the wrong exit. In his mind’s eye, he replayed the scenario – Black pulling the Fiesta to a halt, stepping on to the road, ripping off the plates, throwing them away, driving off. But that roundabout could be a busy intersection, so someone may have seen something. They could put out an appeal on national TV that night. But it would have taken Black less than a minute to remove the plates, and how many cars had passed in that time? Or more to the point, how many of these drivers had paid any attention to what Black had been doing?
Not many, and none, came the answers.
Which told him that the TV appeal was a long shot.
Back to the five-way roundabout. Seeing it in his mind’s eye, Black driving up to it, slowing down, the choice of which direction to take already made. He put himself in Black’s shoes: on the run; no number plates; a need to stay off main roads; search for a hiding place and lie low . . . and ever so slowly the fog began to lift.
Lie low was the key. Keep hidden until the dust settled. Taking the quietest route was the answer. Which meant Black would have taken the Dunfermline exit, a road through open country where he would likely not come across traffic police.
He dialled Jessie again. ‘Any news?’
‘Jeez, Andy, give me time. No new reports in the last five seconds.’
‘I got it wrong,’ he said. ‘He’s taken the Dunfermline Road.’
‘You sure?’
Oh, he was sure all right, as sure as he was that he would live to one hundred and ten. But what could he tell her? That it was only a hunch, a sixth sense conclusion backed up by warped but logical thinking?
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I took the Perth–St Andrews road, and didn’t hang about. If Black had been on it, I’m sure I would’ve caught him. And the road to Kincardine would have put him into heavy traffic. So, by process of elimination, that leaves the Dunfermline exit.’
‘So you want me to tell the local Office . . . what?’
What indeed? ‘Get them to check for CCTV footage along that road, and if they can spare a couple of mobile units, send them that way. I suspect Black will have cut off on a side road, maybe parked in a farm track or some quiet lane. So they might get lucky.’ He fired the ignition and pulled back on to the M90. ‘I’m on my way. Probably be a good twenty minutes,’ he said, as another thought hit him. ‘Are you still at the cottage?’
‘Scrounged a lift into town. I’m at the local Office.’
‘What about Kerr?’
‘Being detained under caution on suspicion of harbouring a criminal and for attempting to pervert the course of justice.’ Jessie let out a heavy sigh. ‘But I’m telling you, Andy, there’s something not right with that
woman. She’s giving off all the wrong signals. It’s like she doesn’t understand the seriousness of the situation. And if she asks me one more time if I would like to buy that fricking motorbike, I tell you, I’m going to clock her one.’
‘Stay calm,’ he said. ‘And don’t interview her without me.’
Gilchrist picked Jessie up from the Alloa police station in Mar Place, but rather than head straight for the interview room, he decided to join the hunt for Black. The search-party needed all the help it could get. He reached the five-way roundabout and raced through it, while Jessie kept in touch with the local Office, getting an update on the mobile units.
When she hung up, she said, ‘They’re a good bunch to work with. Four mobile units they’ve put on it, and they’ve called everyone in from leave and are setting up door-to-doors.’
Door-to-door interviews were useful for flushing out the latest information, but more often than not were man-intensive for little result. All Gilchrist could do was drive around the area, search for farm tracks and off-beat roads not marked on maps, then check them out. But Black was at least an hour ahead of them now. He could be over sixty miles away, parked in some hidey-hole in the back of beyond. And the more time that passed, the deeper he would slip into hiding. The likelihood of their finding him that day was zero to twenty below.
Half an hour later, the futility of it all had become fact. Black had slipped the net. They could criss-cross the countryside, drive up and down dead-end dirt tracks until they ran out of petrol, or were blue in the face, for all the results they were achieving. But he kept at it until 4.30 p.m., by which time he’d racked up 120-plus miles, checking out dead end after dead end.
Time to call it a day.
‘Phone the local Office for an update,’ he said.
But no one had fared any better. No sightings were reported on any CCTV footage or the ANPR system. No new results from door-to-doors. Police units in surrounding counties – Clackmannanshire, Kinross-shire, Perthshire, Fife, Stirlingshire, West Lothian, Midlothian, and even as far afield as North Lanarkshire – all came up blank.
It seemed as if Black had completely vanished.
Well, he still had one point of contact.
‘What did you find out about Martha Kerr?’ he asked Jessie.
‘She’s lived in that cottage for the last twelve years. Before that, I couldn’t say. She has no criminal record, no driving licence, and seems to have no friends or family. Said her parents were killed in a car crash when she was sixteen. Never married. Lives alone. Keeps herself to herself. The local Office said they see her about town from time to time, walking down the street, carrying her shopping—’
‘Where from?’
‘Where from what?’
‘Her shopping. Where does she shop?’
‘Never got that far with her,’ she said. ‘And she seems perfectly happy to be locked up waiting for her interview.’
Gilchrist could detain Martha Kerr for a maximum of twelve hours. After that, he had to charge her, or release her. But he found her puzzling. According to Jessie, Kerr was simple-minded, but the ease with which she’d phoned Black behind their backs and warned him off – innocent or deliberate? – and the simplicity of her answer, warned Gilchrist that she was nowhere near as dumb as she was making out.
He had Jessie call to arrange a duty solicitor for her.
‘He’s here at the moment, DS Janes,’ she was told. ‘Representing another detainee.’
‘Don’t let him leave. We’ll be with you in fifteen.’
As it turned out, it was closer to twenty-five minutes by the time they reached Alloa. On the way, he and Jessie had discussed how to interview Martha Kerr. Jessie was tasked with establishing her personal background, and Gilchrist would focus on what, if anything, she knew about Black’s present whereabouts.
He followed Jessie into the interview room and took his seat.
Kerr sat opposite, humming a tune as if she had not a worry in the world. She still wore the same baggy jeans, but the anorak had been discarded, or binned, and been replaced by a moth-eaten cable-knit sweater. Her solicitor sat next to her, a man in his thirties with a shorn head and the tell-tale tip of a tattoo peeking from the collar of his grubby white shirt.
He slid a couple of business cards across the table. ‘Tom McGarry.’
Gilchrist slipped a card into his pocket without comment, while Jessie began the introductions, advising Kerr that she was being interviewed under caution, and that the interview was being recorded.
She gave her full name as Martha Margaret McFarland Kerr, and her home address as Raven Cottage, Alloa, Clackmannanshire.
‘No street address?’ Jessie said.
‘Never use it.’
‘Why not?’
‘No need.’
‘Are you married?’
‘No.’
‘So you live in Raven Cottage all by yourself?’
‘Yes.’
‘So what’s your relationship with Mr Kerr?’
‘He’s my brother.’
Gilchrist tried to hide his surprise, but was not sure he’d pulled it off.
Jessie said, ‘Older? Younger?’
‘Younger.’
‘How much younger?’
‘Eight years.’
‘Is he Robert or Bobby?’
‘Bobby, of course.’
‘What do you mean – of course?’
‘Well, Robert is such a false name, isn’t it?’
Jessie raised her eyes, but kept her tongue in check. ‘OK,’ she said.
Gilchrist placed his hands on the table to let Jessie know he would take over. ‘How often do you see your brother, Bobby?’ he asked.
‘Every now and then.’
‘Before today, when did you last see him?’
She shrugged. ‘March? April?’
‘Were you surprised to see him, just turning up like that?’
‘Not really. That’s what he’s like.’
‘Explain to me,’ he said. ‘What exactly is Bobby like?’
‘Impulsive.’
He let several seconds pass, before saying, ‘And?’
She shook her head. ‘He’s impulsive. That’s exactly what he’s like.’
‘You called him on your mobile when you went for the key. Why did you do that?’
‘I told you.’
‘Tell me again.’
‘To let him know you wanted to talk to him about his motorbike.’
Not strictly correct, but at that point it didn’t matter. ‘Why do you live in Alloa?’
‘Bobby had a business close by.’
He noted the past tense. ‘What business was that?’
‘I don’t know. I never asked.’
They were being toyed with, he felt certain of that. But he stayed calm. ‘Where do you shop in town?’
‘Morrisons.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I need to buy food.’
‘I meant, why Morrisons, and not some other store?’
‘It’s closer.’
‘The first supermarket you come to if you walk into town, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
Gilchrist frowned with confusion. ‘So why did you tell us that Bobby was shopping in Tesco?’
‘Because that’s where he said he was going.’
‘But he didn’t go there, did he?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘He went to Morrisons, the first supermarket you come to if you walk into town. But you knew that, didn’t you?’
‘No.’
He held his focus on her, to let her know he didn’t believe her. But she lowered her eyes to some spot on the table between them, and started humming again. ‘I suspect you’re lying to protect Bobby,’ he said. ‘So be careful how you answer this question.’
She frowned at the table.
‘What do you get out of it?’
Her gaze flickered to Gilchrist, shifted to Jessie, then returned to the table. But
for just that split second, Gilchrist caught her vulnerability. ‘What’s Bobby’s full name?’
She shrugged.
‘We can easily find that out, but it would help your situation if you told us yourself.’ He added, ‘So that we know you’re telling us the truth.’
She lifted her head. ‘Robert Matthew Kerr.’
‘You said earlier that you lost your parents when you were sixteen. They were killed in a car crash. So Bobby would’ve been only eight.’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘You must have been like a surrogate mother to him when he was growing up. Is that why you never married? Because you had to look after Bobby?’
‘Not really.’
‘Is that why Bobby never married, too?’ he said, just to gauge a reaction, which came in the next second.
She stared at Gilchrist, her mouth moving with indecision. ‘I . . . I . . .’
Gilchrist waited, aware of Jessie holding her breath.
McGarry looked as if he was about to interrupt.
‘I . . . I don’t know.’
For a moment, Gilchrist thought he’d managed to pierce her simpleton façade, but her answer trumped that. ‘Scott Black,’ he said. ‘Does that name mean anything to you?’
She frowned harder at the table.
‘Scott Black,’ he said again.
McGarry leaned forward. ‘Who’s Scott Black?’
Jessie said, ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out. We ask the questions, and she gives the answers. Got it?’
McGarry scowled at Jessie.
‘Martha,’ Gilchrist said. ‘The name Scott Black means something to you. It’s written all over your face. We can see it in your eyes.’
She shook her head.
‘How do you know Scott Black?’
The moment passed, and she lifted her gaze over his shoulder and started humming.
Gilchrist stood with a suddenness that startled McGarry. ‘We’re taking a break,’ he said to him. ‘You’ve got five minutes to bring your client up to speed with the seriousness of the trouble she’s in.’
Jessie suspended the interview for the record.
But Gilchrist had already left the room.
CHAPTER 30
