Quintin Jardine - Private Investigations

A floodlight had been set up beside the red saloon, focusing on the boot. The child lay as Pye and Haddock had found her, tiny, helpless, her dead eyes shaming them all for allowing what had happened to her.

There was one other person in the tent, a very small man. He wore a face mask in addition to his tunic, removing it as he turned towards them.

‘Professor Hutchinson,’ McGuire exclaimed. ‘I thought you had . . .’

‘Not yet, Mario,’ the pathologist replied. ‘I’ve got a few weeks till I retire. Even then, I imagine I’ll probably help out on a part-time basis, if I’m needed.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. You’re too good to lose completely. Have you any initial thoughts about this? Can you give us a time of death?’

‘No more than three hours ago. I’m certain of that.’

‘And the cause? How about that?’

The professor frowned. ‘I can’t say yet,’ he replied, ‘and I’m not even going to hazard a guess. All I can tell you is that I see no sign of trauma. There’s no bruising to the neck, nothing to suggest strangulation.’

‘Asphyxiation?’ Haddock suggested.

‘That’s a possibility, Sauce,’ Hutchinson conceded, ‘but how? No, I won’t speculate; you’ll all have to wait until I’ve done the post-mortem.’

‘Soonest, yes?’ Pye murmured.

‘This afternoon,’ he promised. ‘I have one observation, though. If you take a look inside the boot, you’ll see that it’s been lined, with thick foam rubber; it’s even been fixed under the boot lid. Why? The only thing I can suggest is that it was done to protect the wee lass from being bumped around too much while the car was moving. That leads me to suppose that poor wee Zena was still alive when she was put in here.’

‘Zena?’ Pye repeated. ‘Why do you call her that? We haven’t identified her yet.’

‘There’s a name tag in the neck of her jacket, beside the maker’s label. I believe that’s what you detectives call “a clue”.’

‘Is there a surname?’

He looked up at the DCI, with an eyebrow raised. ‘No, but I don’t imagine there was another “Zena” in her school class, so it wouldn’t be necessary. I’m finished here,’ he continued, briskly. ‘The poor child can be removed to the mortuary. I’ll schedule the post-mortem for four o’clock.’ He pulled up the arm of his tunic to check his watch. ‘That gives you just over four hours to find out who she is and let her parents have a chance to see her before I proceed.’

The three officers left the tent; as he stripped off his crime scene outfit, Pye glanced across at an area of the perimeter where three television crews and other media were being marshalled by PC Jules Hoare.

‘Do you want to talk to them, sir?’ he asked McGuire.

‘No,’ the DCC replied, ‘but you should give them a statement. The midday bulletins will be coming on air very soon. Better all round if it’s based on the few facts we have rather than rampant speculation.’

‘Should I tell them that Bob Skinner was the one who found the child’s body?’

McGuire stared at the DCI. ‘Are you fucking crazy? Tell them that and it’s all they’ll report; on top of that they’ll hound him for quotes. If it was Joe Soap that had found her you wouldn’t have given a thought to naming him. Bob’s a private citizen now, and has as much right to that privacy as anyone else.’

‘Mmm,’ Pye murmured. ‘I’ll take that as a no.’

The DCC grinned. ‘You were winding me up, weren’t you? You do that, Sammy,’ he said. ‘What’s your plan of action?’

‘We find and interview the owner of the car. We search for the driver who ran off; the site manager says they have some CCTV footage of someone who might be him. We complete the identification of the girl.’

‘And there’s no chance the owner was driving?’

‘No. The boss . . . Mr Skinner, that is . . . was quite certain that the driver was in his twenties.’

‘Okay. You talk to the media. I’m off to Hawick.’ McGuire took a few paces towards his car, then stopped. ‘One more thing: no doubt Bob asked you to keep him informed of your progress. Be sure you do, otherwise he’ll bend my fucking ear, and I don’t want that.’

Pye smiled. ‘He did, and I will.’

As the DCC left, he signalled to the duty press officer, and headed in the direction of the corralled media. By the time he reached them, red lights were showing on the three TV cameras, and a clutch of portable recorders were thrust out towards him.

‘Morning,’ he began. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Samuel Pye. I’m the lead CID officer for the City of Edinburgh, and senior investigating officer here. I’m sorry to tell you that two hours ago, the body of a little girl was discovered in a vehicle, a red BMW, that had been involved in a minor collision in this car park. The driver ran off after the incident, before the child’s body was discovered. Obviously, finding him is very important to us. We’re looking for a thin-faced white man in his twenties, last seen wearing a grey hoodie and jeans. Any help the public can give us will be appreciated.’

He looked at the TV cameras. ‘I’m asking anyone who saw a person matching that description in this area at any time this morning to get in touch with us. Even if you can’t help us identify him, if we’re able to plot his movements that will be a help.’

‘Has the girl been identified?’ a female voice asked. Pye knew its owner, Lennox Webster, crime reporter of the Saltire .

‘No. That’s our top priority; somewhere there are parents who are facing some tragic news. We need to find them, and break it as gently as we can.’

‘So you don’t know her age.’

‘We’re guessing four or five; we’re asking schools and nurseries whether there have been any unexplained absences this morning. We’ve already established that no children of that age have been reported to the police as missing in the last few days.’

‘Do you know how she died?’ an STV reporter asked, breathlessly.

‘I’m sorry, we don’t. The pathologist’s initial examination found no signs of physical assault. That’s all I can tell you at this stage.’

‘But you are treating her death as murder, yes?’

‘We can’t, not yet. As of this moment we are investigating a suspicious death; that’s all I can say. That may change after the autopsy. In the meantime, I’m as impatient as you are to learn how this little girl died. Thank you.’

Pye forestalled any further questions by turning and walking away, heading back towards Haddock, who stood waiting beside the tent.

‘We’ve located the owner,’ the DS announced. ‘Callum Sullivan. There was no reply at his address when uniform called earlier on, but half an hour ago he walked into the North Berwick police office to see whether we’d found his missing car. The duty sergeant asked him, very politely, to wait there for us.’

‘Excellent,’ the DCI said. ‘And Zena? Did that name get any reaction anywhere?’

‘Not yet, other than this: we know that neither Sullivan nor his housemate Harris has a child of that name. However, he does have a daughter from a previous marriage. She’s called Kayleigh and she’s five years old.’

‘Let’s go and talk to him.’

Haddock nodded. ‘Oh yes, we should, for there’s more.’

‘How the hell do you get parked in this place?’ Sauce Haddock exclaimed. ‘It’s Monday, it’s winter and yet there isn’t a space to be seen.’

‘That’s the way it is here on most days,’ Pye replied. ‘I was stationed in East Lothian for a while, in uniform, so I was here quite often. Most towns this size wouldn’t have a manned police station any more, but all through the summer, and on most weekends, North Berwick is bulging with people. It’s a resort. There are a couple of caravan sites, there’s still property for holiday rent and on top of that there are loads of casual visitors, golfers and day trippers from Edinburgh. Because of that, parking’s always murder.’