Birthdays for the dead

Nah: home. We re keepin our end low key, didn t think they d want a Crown Office task force camped out on their doorstep, like. Sabir turned and lumbered towards the hotel entrance, wide hips rolling from side to side, feet out at ten-to-two, like a duck. The father s just about holdin it together, but the mother s in pieces. How bout your lot?

I followed him through the automatic doors into a bland lobby. The receptionist was slumped over her phone, doodling on a day planner.

I know Yeah Well, it s only cos she s jealous

Sabir led the way to the lifts and mashed the button with his thumb. We re on the fifth floor. Great view: Tesco car park on one side, dual carriageway on the other. Like Venice in spring, that. The numbers counted their way down from nine.

So: you here on a social, or you after a favour?

I handed him a photograph. The doors slid open, but Sabir didn t move. He stared at the picture, mouth hanging open.

A snort from the reception desk. No I swear I never No Told you: she s jealous.

The doors slid shut again.

Sabir breathed out. Holy crap

Chapter 3

The bitter smell of percolating coffee filled the fifth-floor conference room. One wall was solid glass patio doors at the far end opening out onto a balcony the others festooned with scribble-covered flip charts and whiteboards.

Sabir unfurled the top of his Burger King bag and pulled out a handful of fries as he lumbered across the beige carpet. I followed him.

Two men and two women were clustered at the far end of the room, perching on the edge of tables, gathered around a stocky man with salt-and-ginger hair and a face gouged deep with creases and wrinkles. Detective Chief Superintendent Dickie. He hooked a thumb at the nearest whiteboard. Aye, and make sure you pull all the CCTV footage they ve got, this time, Maggie. Don t let the buggers fob you off; should all still be on file.

One of the women nodded no-nonsense pageboy haircut bobbing around her long, thin face. Yes, Chief. She scribbled something down in a notebook.

DCS Dickie settled back in his seat and smiled at a lump of muscle with no chin. Byron?

Yes, right The huge sergeant straightened his wire-rimmed glasses. When Helen went missing last year, Tayside Police talked to all of her friends, classmates, and everyone at the hairdressers she worked in on Saturdays. No one saw anything. Stable enough home life, wanted to go to university to study law. No boyfriend. Liked gerbils, Lady Gaga, and reading. He turned and pointed at a corkboard covered in about thirty head-and-shoulder shots of young girls, all reported missing within the last twelve months: just before their thirteenth birthday.

Rebecca s photograph used to be up there

One of the pictures had a red border around it ribbon held in place with brass thumbtacks. That would be Helen McMillan: hair like polished copper, grinning, wearing a white shirt and what looked like a school tie.

A frown crossed Byron s face. According to Bremner, she was only a twenty-five per cent match with the victim profile.

Sitting on the other side of the group, DS Gillis ran a hand down his chest-length Viking beard, long blond curls tied in a ponytail at the back of his head. When he spoke, it was in a Morningside-sixty-Benson- amp;-Hedges-a-day growl. Far as we know, Helen s never kept a diary, so we ve no idea if she was planning to meet anyone the day she was abducted. Told her mother she was going window shopping after the hairdressers shut on Saturday wanted a new phone for her birthday. Last sighting we have is her leaving the Vodaphone shop in the Overgate Centre at five thirty-seven. After that: nothing.

Dickie made a note on the whiteboard. Our boy seems to have a thing for shopping centres. What about social networking?

Sabir cleared his throat. Goin through everything again: got this new pattern-recognition software that spiders her friends too. So far it s all about who s gorra crush on who, and aren t Five Star Six dreeeemy. He clapped a hand down on my shoulder. It smelled of chips. In other news.

Everyone looked, and nodded well, except for that hairy tosser, DS Gillis a couple even waved.

A smile deepened the wrinkles around the chief superintendent s mouth. Detective Constable Ash Henderson, as I live and wheeze. To what do we owe Then quickly faded. Something s happened, hasn t it?

At two thirty yesterday afternoon, a team of council workers were repairing a sewage main in Castleview. I pulled out the photograph I d shown Sabir and handed it to Dickie. It was an eight-by-ten big glossy blow-up of a trench. The earth was dark, almost black, in sharp contrast to the bright yellow council digger in the background. A tattered fringe of black plastic surrounded a scattered mess of pale bone, ribs and femurs and tibia all scraped into a jumble by the digger s back hoe. The skull lay on its side, the right temple crushed and gouged. We got a match on the dental records last night. It s Hannah Kelly.