Jackie Baldwin - Dead Man’s Prayer - A gripping detective thriller with a killer twist

He was careful to keep any note of censure out of his voice.

‘Did you recognize the handwriting?’

‘I hadn’t had much in the way of letters from her before but I did compare her signature with something I had on file. It matched, or I thought it did …’ she added miserably.

Turning away from them she rummaged through a file with shaking hands and produced a consent form. Farrell scrutinized the two signatures. They looked alike, if not identical. The abductor had done his homework. His radio crackled into life.

‘DS Byers here. There’s a David Nolan all right. He’s been off for months on the sick.’

‘Put a call in to Cornwall Mount and request a firearms team be mobilized as soon as can be arranged to surround Nolan’s house. He might or might not be armed but I’m not taking any chances where young kids are concerned. We’ll also need uniformed backup. Bring Lind and DI Moore up to speed.’

‘This man,’ said Farrell, ‘what did he look like? Tell me anything you can remember.’

‘He was tall, very tall. About your height and build.’

‘What colour were his eyes?’

‘Green.’

‘Are you certain?’

‘Yes. He had glasses on, but at one point he took them off, gave them a wipe and put them on again. Now I think about it he had cold eyes. His mouth smiled but his eyes didn’t. Oh God, what have I done?’ she moaned.

‘What colour was his hair?’

‘Dark, very dark. He had a lot of it. And a large beard covering most of his face, but very tidy.’

‘Any distinguishing marks? Scars, tattoos?’

‘I can’t remember anything like that but, thinking back, there wasn’t all that much of his skin visible.’

‘What was he wearing?’

‘He looked very professional, had a suit on, navy I think, and a red tie over a white shirt. He looked … respectable.’

‘What made you call the police if you had been satisfied he was genuine?’

‘Their mother called to say that Jamie had forgotten his lunchbox. I knew then.’ She started to sob again. ‘If anything happens to those little boys, I’ll never forgive myself. It was my job to keep them safe.’

Farrell placed his hand on her arm and gave it a squeeze. He said nothing. What was there to say?

‘Do you have any recent photos of Mark and Jamie?’

Janet McDougall jumped up and walked over to a brightly coloured wall display.

‘Here’s one. They were playing at the sandpit out back.’ She choked back a sob as she handed it over.

Farrell’s throat tightened as he beheld the two toddlers grinning happily into the camera, each with wide blue eyes and blond hair flopping over their foreheads. They were dressed identically in shorts and T-shirts and could have been clones of each other.

‘Can I see out the back where this was taken?’ he asked.

So desperate to help that she almost overturned her chair, Janet MacDougall jumped up and showed him through the kitchen to the back door. A large tray of small milk bottles sat untouched beside a plate of home-baked biscuits.

The backyard was securely fenced, with a large sandpit area, a tree with a low-slung tyre attached to a rope, and a few ride-on toy tractors and cars. Behind the yard was a private lane opening into the gardens of adjacent sandstone houses. While the fence was too high for small children to climb out, a reasonably tall adult could see into the yard and see the children playing when walking by.

‘Do you think he’s been watching us for a while?’ she asked, eyes darting everywhere.

‘Very possibly,’ answered Farrell. ‘I must get going now but, if anything else occurs to you in the meantime, here’s my card. Someone will be in touch to arrange for you to come into the station shortly to work with an identikit sketch artist.’

‘Wait, there’s one more thing,’ Janet McDougall said. ‘He left in a grey Primera car. I noticed the make because I’ve fancied one myself for ages.’

‘I don’t suppose you happened to notice any of the registration plate?’ asked Farrell.

‘No, sorry,’ she whispered.

After obtaining a rough description of what the two little boys had been wearing that morning, Farrell sped back to Loreburn Street with Mhairi to deposit the photograph and descriptions with DI Moore. As expected the two nursery assistants hadn’t had anything material to add.

DI Moore was sitting in a large room. Information was being fed to her from all directions. Calm and serene, she projected a quiet authority that was bringing out the best in the officers under her command.

‘Have you any objections to appointing DC McLeod as Family Liaison Officer, Kate?’ asked Farrell.

DI Moore turned to Mhairi.

‘Have you been a FLO before, Mhairi?’

‘No, Ma’am, but I am fully aware of all the duties and responsibilities that go with the position. I would like to be there for the family to help them through this.’

‘You must guard against getting too emotionally involved though; don’t lose your objectivity. Either or both parents could potentially be implicated.’

‘No, Ma’am.’

‘Even though I’m SIO on this one, Frank, I’d welcome your input as the case progresses. We’re lucky to have an officer with your experience. Child abduction not linked to marital breakdown is a rarity down here.’

Her phone rang as three young constables marched into the room bearing documents and files.

Farrell told Mhairi to wait for him at the car and swung by Lind’s office on the way out. He was worried about how his friend would be coping given his own recent tragedy. However, when he walked in to Lind’s spacious office he came face to face with a wall of people to whom Lind was competently issuing orders. As the last officer ran out the door with Lind’s instructions ringing in his ears Farrell updated him, each of them conscious of the clock ticking.

‘I don’t like it,’ Lind said. ‘Bastard has done his homework. Probably been planning this for some time.’

‘Did the super sign off on the firearms team?’ asked Farrell.

‘Yes, we’re going in at 12.30. I want you there, Farrell. There’s just enough time for you and DC McLeod to get round to the parents first. The father should be back home by now. He’d been on the way to Glasgow when the kids were taken.’

Farrell and McLeod drew up outside a detached redbrick house on the Lomax Estate out on the Edinburgh Road. There was a large grassy recreation area to one side with a sign saying ‘NO BALL GAMES’.

‘Must have a few bob,’ said McLeod, taking in the gleaming red 4x4 in the driveway.

Farrell wondered what drove people to live in these fancy little boxes with their upwardly mobile neighbours breathing enviously down their necks. He didn’t fancy it, that’s for sure.

Two little bikes with round chubby wheels and stabilizers were propped up against the side of the house. Farrell glimpsed a state-of-the art climbing frame in the back garden, despite the fact they had passed a swing park not two hundred metres away.

They were ushered into the house by PC Thomson, who had been waiting with the parents until Farrell could get there. The first thing that met their eyes on going into the hall was a studio portrait of the family. Farrell paused to study it, allowing Mhairi to precede him into the lounge. An attractive woman with honey blonde hair and dimples had her arms resting on the shoulders of two mischievous-looking toddlers, who were dressed alike and had an identical smattering of freckles across upturned noses. Their eyes were sparkling with merriment as though the photographer had just made them laugh. Positioned slightly self-consciously to the rear was a short thickset man whose eyes rested on his family rather than on the camera.