Helen Fields - Perfect Remains - A gripping thriller that will leave you breathless

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I will repay the courtesy.’

‘Holding you to it,’ Spurr replied before the line cut off abruptly.

Tripp was standing outside his door waiting for the call to end. Callanach shouted at him.

‘I’m not your headmaster, Tripp. You don’t have to wait in the corridor. What have you got?’

‘Uniform says there’s no detailed description, but Liam Granger was cycling home from work down Orchard Road South, just off Ravelston Dykes and went past a man who he noticed because he was talking to himself in quite an animated way. Granger took a second look and saw the wheelie case. Didn’t notice his face or clothing. It was too dark for anything other than an outline. The cyclist assumed he was either mentally ill or drunk.’

Callanach strode over to the map on his wall clutching a red pen. He traced a line from Jayne Magee’s house into Orchard Road South.

‘He must have parked around this area here.’ Callanach pointed. ‘That walk would have taken five minutes pulling a heavy case. If he only had a quarter of an hour until she regained consciousness, he couldn’t have risked parking too far away.’

‘It’s a densely populated area, cars parked along that road all times of the day. We’ve knocked every door. No joy with anyone noticing unusual vehicles,’ Tripp added.

‘Send uniformed officers to knock doors in the vicinity of Elaine Buxton’s home. See if anyone noticed a man with a large wheelie case at about the time she got home. This is something he practised. He knew how to fold the body so it would fit, had the chloroform ready. And would you retrieve the photos of Elaine Buxton’s home?’

The photos were on Callanach’s desk five minutes later as Detective Constable Salter found a vehicle to drive them to Albyn Place.

‘Any news on DI Turner’s baby case?’ Callanach asked.

‘No, sir,’ Salter answered.

‘What’s on at the cinema at the moment?’ he asked. Salter blushed. ‘I just need something to take my mind off this case,’ he said, praying she hadn’t misinterpreted his question as an invitation.

‘I don’t know. My boyfriend downloads everything these days.’ Callanach offered up silent thanks for the mention of her partner. ‘You don’t seem the cinema type, if you don’t mind my saying,’ she noted.

‘What is it you think I do at weekends, then, Salter?’

‘Eat out at nice restaurants, drink wine, read newspapers, go to dinner parties. That sort of thing? I should probably fetch the car, sir.’ She fled and Callanach realised he’d put her on the spot. Still, her answers told him a lot about how he was perceived. Part of it was the stereotype attached to his nationality, he supposed, and too close to the truth of his old life for comfort. Not so for the past year. He’d closed every door, with only the ghosts of parties past for company.

Elaine Buxton’s apartment came into view with a ‘For Sale’ notice displayed prominently in front of it. Callanach guessed Elaine’s mother could neither afford to keep it nor wanted any reminder of the place from which her daughter had been taken.

‘Drive around the back,’ he directed Salter. He identified Elaine’s garage and studied the crime scene photos. He’d visited her home to get a sense of who she was, but hadn’t been inside the garage. Using keys taken from the evidence room, he clicked the automatic door and went inside. ‘The keys were found inside the hallway that leads to her apartment, correct?’ Salter checked the log and nodded. ‘Suggesting she’d dropped them there, that whoever took her was waiting for her inside but no one let him in or saw him there. No sign of a struggle, no noise, no trace evidence. It’s too clean. I think he took her from the garage, opened the door to the hallway and deliberately threw the keys into the corridor.’

‘Garage would have been locked though, according to her mother. The victim was very security conscious,’ Salter said.

‘There are bushes outside. He would have known her routine. Simple is best. He arrives here before her, it’s dark, he stands in the shadows behind the shrubbery, waits for her to activate the automatic garage door, bends down low and creeps in behind the car.’

‘He’d need to have been sure she was alone,’ Salter commented.

‘She didn’t bring men back here. He’d have known her well enough to be confident about that. By the time she’d stopped the car and the garage door was back down, he was waiting with the chloroform.’

‘You’re saying she couldn’t have avoided it, no matter what precautions she took. That’s not very reassuring for the rest of us. Why throw the keys into the corridor?’

‘To deflect attention from the side path which is how he got out of the garage, through the back door, presumably pulling a large wheelie case behind him. Come.’

He led Salter to a side door, leading directly from the garage onto a mud and gravel path back to the street. She went to walk out until he held up an arm to stop her.

‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Call it in to forensics. I want a team here looking for parallel impressions, gravel stuck deep into the mud in lines. The weight of her body would have made a substantial imprint through the wheels.’

The cinema question had been more than just small talk. He looked up what was on when he got home that evening and texted Ava.

‘Couple of hours paperwork on my desk,’ she replied. ‘If you’re still awake at half eleven, how about the late showing of Ice Cold in Alex at the cinema behind the Conan Doyle?’

He had no idea what the film was. It hadn’t come up in the reviews for the latest releases. As it turned out, the reason for that was because it was made in 1958. He found Ava with her legs propped up on the empty chair in front of her, dressed in jeans, a plaid shirt, and clutching the biggest box of popcorn Callanach had ever seen, eyes glued to the opening titles.

‘They re-run old films,’ she whispered to him. ‘So much better than watching on TV. And no bloody HD, super colour, surround sound nonsense. This is film the way it was supposed to be. Story first, everything else second.’ She offered the popcorn and he shook his head.

‘You’re really going to eat all of that?’ he asked.

‘Absolutely. And if you don’t have some, you’re missing the point.’

‘How’s your case going?’ Callanach took a piece of popcorn and played with it between his fingers.

‘Ssssh!’ was all the response he got and he forced his attention towards the screen. Detective Inspector Ava Turner was already immersed in a North African desert in World War II.

An hour and a half later, John Mills and Sylvia Syms had given Oscar-worthy performances, and Callanach didn’t move his eyes from the rolling credits until Ava stood up and coughed pointedly.

‘Now you can talk,’ she said. They went to a late night pub on Leith Street that also served reasonable coffee and sat in a corner, trying to ignore the couple next to them who were arguing loudly about wedding plans. ‘Your opinion?’ Ava asked, manoeuvring a tray onto the sticky table. On it was the coffee Callanach had requested and a brandy he hadn’t.

‘I think they should run away and get married in Vegas if it’s causing that much stress.’

‘Of the movie?’ Ava said, holding out the brandy glass. He raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s Friday night, in case you hadn’t noticed,’ she said. ‘I, for one, need a drink and drinking alone isn’t the Scottish way. Come on, admit it. The film was cinematic perfection.’

‘It was not what I expected,’ he said. ‘I mean that in a good way.’

‘Here’s to that,’ she said, taking a gulp. Her grey eyes appeared bluer in the glow of orange neon lighting. She looked every inch alive, as if just waiting for the next moment, the next challenge. For a second, Callanach wished he could climb into her skin and remember what that was like. ‘You’re going to ruin it by talking shop, aren’t you?’