Against the Clock by John Carson (best mobile ebook reader TXT) 📕

friends are over there. They were at one of the stalls, and when the two of them turned round, Abi was gone. They looked for her, but they couldn’t see anything. It’s so crowded that all they saw was a sea of faces.’

Harry stepped away from the Petersons and said to Gregg, ‘Have uniforms search all the cars that are leaving, just in case, but quite a few cars have probably left already.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Harry saw DI Frank Miller walking towards him, Calvin Stewart by his side.

‘We were just talking to the fat bastard who runs the bouncy castle. Right lippy wee fucker he is too. Miller here is going to run his name through the system, but I say we should take all their names. There might be more than one kiddie fiddler working here.’

‘Good idea.’ Harry looked at Miller. ‘We’ve found out that a teacher who taught at North Merchiston Primary School, where the girls went, works as a bus driver for the same company that was hired to take Alice’s class on the school trip to Glasgow.’

‘Was he at the centre the day Alice went missing?’ Stewart asked.

‘He had a day off that day. The boss, Mike Morton, was driving the coach. It was a smaller company then, so he did a lot of the driving himself.’

Karen Shiels was standing nearby and approached Harry. ‘Sorry to interrupt, sir, but we spoke to Zoe Harris’s parents, and the father is a tram driver, but he’s only been doing that for two years. Before that, he was a bus driver with Walter Scott Travel.’

‘We knew that back when we were investigating the disappearances,’ Miller said. ‘But the case went cold. There was no motive for the abductions. It wasn’t our finest hour.’

‘Aye, well, now we have the wee lassies back, and there are three other lassies missing, so we’re going to do whatever it takes to get them back,’ Stewart said.

‘We need to take what information we have about the missing girls and compare it to the three victims. Because now we have a third missing child, just like five years ago,’ Harry said.

‘I’ve noticed one thing,’ Karen said. ‘Little Abi is eight, the same age as Zoe Harris when she was taken. The other two are fifteen and seventeen, the same age as Sandra and Alice when they were found.’

They looked at her for a moment, waiting for her to carry on.

‘Spit it out then,’ Stewart said.

‘Maybe whoever took the girls two weeks ago was trying to replace the two older girls who died. But then he reverted back, taking a girl who was the same age as Zoe when she was abducted instead of abducting a thirteen year old.’

‘Which means?’ Dunbar said.

‘Which means, maybe he’s going to take three girls the same age as our victims were five years ago, starting with Abi. And that means the two girls he took in the past couple of weeks are surplus to requirements.’

‘It looks like the girls died of accidental means,’ Stewart said. ‘It’s possible that he didn’t murder them.’

‘Sandra, the oldest victim, had old restraint marks on her wrists,’ Harry said. ‘So he’s not averse to hurting them, or at least restraining them.’

Stewart looked at Karen. ‘If you were this guy, where would you keep them?’

‘Somewhere I was comfortable with, but also a place it wouldn’t be easy for the girls to get out. A house I owned is the obvious choice.’

‘They could have had Stockholm syndrome,’ Dunbar said. ‘They were only young when they were taken, so maybe he used some kind of threat against them at first. Then, after a while, they became compliant.’

‘That’s true. It’s happened many times before,’ Harry said, taking a few steps towards Nickie Peterson. ‘Can I ask you where you live?’

‘Polwarth.’

‘What school does Abi go to?’

‘North Merchiston Primary.’

‘Who’s her teacher?’

‘Mrs Morton.’

‘Thank you.’ Harry turned back to Dunbar. ‘Another pupil from North Merchiston Primary School.’

‘I thought you were going to say her teacher is that Marshall Mann joker.’

‘I want everything there is to know about him.’

‘You think he’s involved?’ Stewart asked.

‘I’m not sure. I mean, he was out with a bus and came back when we were there.’

Dunbar approached Nickie. ‘When you and your husband parked up, were there any buses, coaches, anything like that?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Just cars and a couple of vans.’

‘What were the vans like?’

She shrugged. ‘Just white vans. One almost side-swiped us.’

Dunbar looked up to where the cars were parked and didn’t see any vans up there now.

Harry’s phone rang and he stepped away from the others. He answered Ronnie Vallance’s call and spoke to him briefly. Then he joined the group again.

‘That was my DI, Vallance, calling from the mortuary. Sandra Robertson was around three months pregnant when she died.’

Twenty-Five

Harry was feeling tired by the time they got back to their station at Fettes. They had left Karen, Simon Gregg and Robbie Evans to head up the coordination down at Silverknowes.

A couple of younger CID officers from their own station were there, helping to man the phones.

Muckle McInsh was there with Vern.

‘Another wee lassie taken?’ he said to Dunbar. ‘This is no coincidence, boss.’

‘I know. I have a feeling we’re being played here.’

‘CID are faxing the files on the missing girls through now,’ Frank Miller said.

‘How’s family life with you, Frank?’ Harry asked as Lillian got the kettle on.

Calvin Stewart was complaining he was hungry and could ‘eat a fucking deid horse right now’, and a CID sergeant reminded him that a local fast-food restaurant served burgers that tasted just like that.

‘Anybody else wanting scran?’ Stewart said, taking his wallet out. Nobody did, and he gave the young man some money to go and get a KFC.

‘I might faint otherwise,’ Stewart said, looking at the others. ‘I can man one of the phones if need be,’ he said.

Dunbar doubted that the senior officer could answer a call in a professional and courteous manner. He watched as Stewart picked up a ringing phone.

‘What’s that? Fucking Lord