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Shona was rubbing her temples as Dan tapped the office door and came in. ‘Anything I can do?’ She was about to give him a suitably short and pithy reply but the sight of his hopeful, boyish expression and anxious blue eyes stopped her. She sighed and pointed to the chair in front of her desk.
‘Isla’s family think she was using again,’ Shona said. ‘Where are we with the toxicology report?’
‘Still waiting.’
> ‘Do us all a favour, get down to Carlisle pathology. Make a nuisance of yourself until they hand it over. We’re losing momentum. If we don’t get a break soon, we may never know what happened to Isla.’
‘You think we should give up?’
She sighed again. Should she confide in him over and above her own team? He wasn’t even her officer, but pursuing this case, following her lead, might land him in hot water with his own boss. ‘Look, let’s just say my boss and your boss are of a mind on this. They want these cases filed and forgotten. I know you’re ambitious. You might want to think about your job prospects.’
‘I don’t need to think about that, boss,’ Dan said firmly. ‘Protect and serve, that’s why I joined up.’
She smiled at his youthful naivety. But why shouldn’t he mean it? She was just as resolved at his age and that hadn’t changed. Fairness, integrity, diligence. These were the values that mattered, not just clear-up rates and paper targets.
‘Off you go, let me know what you find. But Dan,’ she stopped him at the door, her warm dark eyes full of concern, ‘be careful.’
He nodded and was gone.
Shona returned to her desk. Craning her neck, she could see Murdo through the half glass panels of her office directing Kate, Ravi and two civilian assistants at the whiteboard, an action plan developing. On her screen, an email from Baird popped up requesting figures for a report. After his recent Skype performance, he could wait.
She scanned down through the heaving inbox. Among the internal memos, meeting reminders and inter-agency collaboration requests an email marked ‘BWV’ followed by Special Constable Johnstone’s collar number and the date caught her eye. Attached were the body-worn video files covering the incident with the suicidal individual at the bridge. She’d told Johnstone she would arrange for the man’s picture to be distributed, in case he made another attempt. It was a quick job, worth doing now. Besides, something about the incident, something half remembered, had been nagging at the back of her mind. Perhaps the video would show her what it was.
She clicked open the last file. There was the lifeboat arriving on scene, the searchlight illuminating the water, the terrified man clinging to the pier of the bridge. She could hear the Good Samaritan, the man in the scuffed leather jacket, reassuring him. Finally, he reached down and took hold of the jumper’s wrist. Shona paused the video, taking it step by step until she was sure.
She went to the office door and called Murdo. ‘Come and look at this.’
Next to the video, she pulled up the post-mortem pictures of the motorway victim’s clothes. Murdo’s eyes flicked between the moving image and the stills. ‘Clothes look the same, but is it the same guy?’
Shona froze the video at the moment the man was pulled to safety. ‘I think it is. Look at his hands. They looked odd at the time. I thought he was wearing fingerless gloves, but it’s bandages.’
‘The historic injury to the hands.’ Murdo nodded. ‘Was it another suicide attempt, him jumping from the van?’ he said, doubtfully.
‘I suppose we can’t rule it out but, I agree, there are simpler ways to kill yourself.’ Shona tapped the image on the screen with her finger. ‘The jumper made off before he could be detained. We need to speak to our Good Samaritan.’
Murdo sat down in Shona’s seat and played the video over a few times, peering at the screen. ‘That’s Tony Kirkwood. I’m sure of it.’
Shona leaned in, resting her hand on Murdo’s beefy shoulder, studying the man she’d seen through spray and darkness on the night of the rescue. His lean frame and deeply lined face said he might be a walker or climber. Shona put him in his fifties. ‘Do I know him? Who is he?’
‘Doubt you’ve met him. He’s not a fan of the police, was in bother a few times when he was younger. Ex squaddie. He runs Hobo, the homeless charity off Irish Road.’
‘Think he’ll talk to us?’
‘We can ask,’ Murdo replied.
Shona took her hand from his shoulder with a final pat. ‘Murdo, I swear there isn’t anyone you don’t know in Dumfries.’
Murdo frowned, considering the statement. ‘Bound to be one or two,’ he said, seriously.
‘Well, I’ve yet to meet them. Come on, get your coat.’
* * *
Hobo had a boarded-over shopfront painted in a livid shade of green gloss. It was streaked with a fine drizzle, the rain adding to its general air of misery. The door was locked but Shona could see a light on inside, spilling weakly through murky glass panels. She rattled the handle and Tony Kirkwood’s scowling face appeared behind the metal grill. He glanced at Murdo and his frown deepened. After a pause the door swung open. Shona and Murdo showed their badges as they crossed the threshold, but Kirkwood dismissed the IDs with a flick of his hand. ‘What do youse want?’
A single bare lightbulb hung suspended from the ceiling. Battered sofas huddled in corners, the wooden floor covered by an overlapping network of mismatched rugs. The smell of fried food and damp lingered. Kirkwood regarded them, thumbs hooked in his jeans pockets, a posture of sullen defiance he had been perfecting since an early age.
‘I was on the lifeboat called to Sark Bridge the other night. I saw you,’ said Shona.
