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‘No comment, although his lawyer is indicating that her client won’t deny an improper relationship with Droopy, but she’s almost taunting us that we don’t have direct, admissible evidence of his complicity in the murders, and you know what?’
‘Go on.’
‘She’s right. We get this wrong, and the bastard is looking at five years for corrupt practice, but walking for the murders. He’ll be out in two.’
Ross exhaled heavily. ‘No fucking chance, not happening, not on my bastard watch. Get yourselves back here, and we’ll come up with a plan. How much of Townsend’s detention clock is left?’
Max looked at his watch. ‘He arrived at the nick at half two, and it’s 6 p.m. now. I don’t want to interview him again tonight, as we’ll only get the same result, and in any case, he’ll need to go into a rest period.’
‘Shit, it’s gonna be tight, if we don’t interview until the morning and the clock expires at two thirty, I’ll get the custody extension in place, we’re gonna need every second of the twenty-four hours. Fucking shit situation. I much preferred when lawyers had to serve habeas corpus writs on us before we’d tell them where the clients were.’
‘If you can pause swinging the lamp for a minute, we’ll head back. We’ve sneaky shit to plan.’
76
HELENA MCCALL WASsitting in her huge, beautifully plush lounge in the palatial home on the outreaches of Glasgow, a flute of Krug Champagne in one impeccably manicured hand, as she only half watched the enormous TV that was set into the wall.
Once again, she was home alone. Her husband had gone away on ‘business’ in London, doing something, she knew not what, and frankly she didn’t care. She reached into the ice bucket and refilled her flute with the straw-coloured liquid, and watched the tiny bubbles lazily rise, the anticipation of the drink hitting her tongue increasing as she raised it to her lips. She sighed as the cold, crisp Champagne washed over her tonsils, soothing her as it did. She knew that she really did drink too much, and drinking Krug at two hundred quid a bottle on a Tuesday evening wasn’t a great look, but fuck it, she thought. She knew that Angus would do that annoying head shake if he could see her now, before he disappeared into the gym in the basement for yet another workout.
She knew her role in the relationship was as arm-candy for Angus, and the fact that she was literally half his age was further evidence of this. Essentially, she was there to look good at social events, so Angus could enjoy the envious stares he got from his contemporaries when he arrived with his arm around her narrow waist. It was basically a business relationship, and it always had been, ever since he’d wooed her when she was working in one of Glasgow’s lap-dancing clubs, and she was mostly okay with this. A wardrobe full of designerclothes, lots of jewellery, plenty of holidays, and an Aston Martin on the drive came with the small cost of having to shag him every now and again. She looked at the Rolex on her wrist, and saw that it was almost midnight. She sighed and took another deep draught of the Champagne, and was just in the process of refilling the glass when a piercing shriek erupted.
‘Fucking alarm,’ she said, leaping to her bare feet, and running out of the lounge and into the marble-floored hall. She keyed the code into the alarm keypad, but the hideous noise continued unabated. She tried again three times without success, the screaming seeming to get louder. She looked at the control panel, something she rarely did, and saw the words on the LCD display. ‘Error code 754’. Jamming her fingers into her ears, she went to the lounge and picked up her phone, scrolling for the number of the alarm company. The alarm was dodgy, to say the least, and she’d almost rather not have one. It wasn’t as if the feared Angus McCall was likely to get burgled, was he?
The phone vibrated in her hand, and she saw on the display that it was her husband calling.
‘Angus?’
‘Is everything okay? I’m getting an alarm message on the phone,’ he said, his voice mildly slurring and gummy.
‘Fucking alarm, darling. Went off for nothing, I hadn’t even set it.’ She had to yell to be heard over the squealing.
‘I’ll call … company … fix …’ said Angus, although she only caught half of his words such was the volume.
‘What?’ she bellowed.
His voice was drowned out by the racket. The phone buzzed in her hand again, she looked down to see a text from him.I’ll call the alarm company.
She ran up the marble staircase to the master bedroom, went to her bedside drawer and pulled out a small box, where she kept some earplugs, and jammed them into her ears, sighing at the sudden respite from the din.
The phone buzzed in her hand again.Engineers are close by on another call, be there soon. Love you xx
Helena sighed with relief, as the noise seemed to get even louder. ‘Come on, you bastards,’ she yelled at the top of her voice.
Fortunately, the alarm engineers were as good as their word, and within ten minutes a small van had swung into view on the CCTV screen by the gates at the bottom of the long, sweeping drive. She pressed the button on the panel, and watched as the gates swung open and the small white van passed through.
Helena went to the front door and stood there, as the van pulled up outside the house and two people jumped out. One was a small, wiry older man, the other a taller, lean guy with a shaven scalp. Both wore sweatshirts with a logo and the name ‘AGF-Home Security Solutions’.
‘Mrs McCall?’ bellowed the younger one.
‘Yes. It’s been going off for fifteen minutes, and I hadn’t even set the bloody thing,’ she yelled back.
The younger man nodded towards the house, and she led the way, her hands over her ears, trying to keep the overwhelming noise at bay.
They went into the house and she pointed to the alarm control panel in the far corner.
The older one reached into his bag and came out with some kind of meter, with wires attached, and he plugged one end into a small port in the white box, and looked at the readout.
‘We have an error code, and it’s showing some faults upstairs. We’ll need to physically check them. There’s one in each bedroom, are we okay to go and check?’ the older man said.
