‘I…’ Ally began with optimism, before giving it up as a lost cause. ‘No, I doubt it.’ Her shoulders slumped.
That woman might have been vulnerable or afraid, or at least put upon by some bad boyfriend using her to run risky errands for him. What use had Ally been to her that day? None at all. She should have noticed something was obviously dodgy. She could have helped her if she had kept her wits about her, been smarter, instead of getting in a tizz waiting for Gray to pop the question. But then again, she’d learned recently how she was absolutely no judge of character. Oh aye, that she now knew.
Images of how that day had played out returned to her now: that poor woman coming in, her head down as though to hide her face; Dad, as proud as punch, working away at the jewellery in front of the camera lens; Gray tossing her aside as though twelve months meant nothing at all.
‘Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything at all?’ the man’s voice broke through her thoughts.
‘I told you what I saw,’ Ally said, pained, and far too snappy.
Jamie gave her a dismayed look, crumpling his full lips, bringing down his brows. ‘Right. Well, if you think of anything, or if you ever suspect someone is coming in here trying to trick you into disguising hot property again…’
‘All right! I get it,’ she interrupted, gripping her elbows in a defensive hug. ‘We’ll be extra vigilant.’
Across the room, Edwyn was echoing this warning, going on and on about how they’d be keeping an eye on the repair shop and how, if they so much as removed one padlock and chain from a bicycle or cleaned UV security marker from a laptop, he’d know about it.
‘Your friend could work on his dealing-with-the-public-skills,’ Ally muttered, watching the Chief Inspector holding forth. ‘Isn’t that something they teach you in police school?’
She cast her eyes down Jamie’s uniform, considering asking if he was still in police school, or if he’d had any training at all. Were Special Constables proper police officers or just well-meaning helpers?
‘He’s only doing his job.’ Jamie was putting his notebook away. ‘Trying to keep the Cairngorms National Park a safe place for everyone.’
‘Before we spoke to you, we met the news crew,’ Edwyn was telling the room. ‘We reviewed their footage, looking for images of the woman. Sadly, there weren’t any.’
‘That’s a pity,’ said McIntyre.
‘I hate to say it,’ Jamie all but whispered to Ally, ‘but that Füssli, the reporter? She was on this stolen property thing like a wasp at a picnic. I wouldn’t be surprised if you found yourselves back on the telly by bedtime.’
Ally only nodded, absorbing this information. She didn’t want to react in case her dad noticed. He could find out this particular bit of news if, or more likely when, Füssli broke it. He’d already had one big shock, and Ally had done more than enough overreacting for one day as well.
It was dawning on her that she’d done it again; made a fool of herself in public. Still, the way that Chief Inspector had spoken to her dad had really been too much. Charlie McIntyre was nothing but kind and helpful, if a little clutter-brained, but his heart was in the right place, and the officers had stridden in here like they were busting the HQ of some Scottish crime syndicate, or at least it had felt that way to Ally in the moment.
She felt herself shrinking. She wasn’t good at judging things these days. Her moods were erratic. It wasn’t a nice feeling, not being able to trust her own judgement. Gray’s parting gifts to her had been low self-esteem and chronic trust issues. She was jumpy these days too. She hated it.
‘We’ll be off, then,’ Edwyn announced.
Jamie Beaton fell in behind him on his way to the door. Sachin ran to turn the key and let the pair out into the sunshine, and the whole shed took a deep breath of the cool outside air.
As he left, Jamie threw Ally a sympathetic smile that made her feel even worse somehow, and later that evening, thinking back, she’d cringed with shame, trying to forget how defensive she’d been under the firm, calm scrutiny of his brown eyes.
4
Three and a half hours after his shift was supposed to end, Jamie turned the key on his apartment door on the second floor of the grey-harled block of flats above the chippy on what passed for a high street in Cairn Dhu. The summer weather hadn’t held and the clouds had rolled in making it feel like a dull, damp autumn evening.
There’d been a drug raid planned for an address over an hour’s drive away, where a young lad, well-known to the constabulary, had been taking delivery of some suspiciously heavy, dense parcels through the Post Office. A raid was needed to find out if they were one of the few persistent coke dealers living on ordinary streets across the Highlands. The officers had hung around the station waiting for a warrant that never came. Edwyn finally admitted it wasn’t likely to happen tonight and told Jamie he might as well go home, especially since he wasn’t being paid for overtime. In fact, as a volunteer Special Constable he wasn’t being paid anything at all. He was living off his savings now and even they were running dry.
Starving, he’d parted with a fiver for a chip roll and a Fanta and taken his food upstairs. Inside, it was warm and stuffy. At least it felt like summer in here. He’d pulled off his boots, lining them up neatly beside his running shoes by the door. Well-ordered and tidy, just how he liked things.
He ate joylessly in front of a programme about farming that he didn’t understand a word of. There’d been something up with the TV since he moved in; it was stuck on the local channel where half the programmes were in Gaelic, plus the subtitles didn’t work at all.
He took brisk bites between swigs straight from the can, barely tasting the good, crisp, salty chips. The novelty of living over a chip shop had worn thin a couple of weeks ago, shortly after he’d transferred here, and around about the time he was questioning why on earth he’d thought putting in an application for a post so far from Edinburgh was a good idea.
He’d tried his best with the flat, but hadn’t forgotten this was only a temporary, summer home. It had come furnished; if a lumpy bed, wonky TV, drop-leaf Formica dining table and a sofa counted as furnished. There was a kitchen but it was so pokey he only used it for toast and tea.
He tried to work out what the presenter was saying to the farmer, something gripping about hay bales. Even as he stared at the screen he found his mind wandering, dragged back to that repair workshop and the angry Ally McIntyre. She had wild red hair that hung over her shoulders in a mix of coils and waves and there’d been a pink neon light shining from somewhere behind him getting caught in her curls so they glowed an extraordinary violet.
She hadn’t been angry, of course; she’d been afraid. Frightened people lash out. Rule 101 of human psychology. The more intimidated she had felt, the more she’d glowered. She loved her dad, that much was obvious, and she’d been prepared to stick up for him, and it had all turned into hot fire within her.
He knew that anger too well. He’d been eaten up by it as a teenager. It had got him into run-ins with the Edinburgh beat officers who’d taken him home at fifteen to his shamefaced dad after finding him soused on Buckfast at the cemetery, pulling the heads off daffodils.
