Perfect Remains. Helen Fields

Callanach replied. ‘It would be good for them to get working on something else.’

      ‘No breakthroughs?’ she asked. ‘That’s tough.’

      ‘It’s wrong,’ Callanach muttered. ‘For a murderer to be so meticulous in their planning, to have thought so far ahead. It’s completely at odds with the chaos or fanaticism it takes to kill.’

      Ava sat forward, transforming from colleague to detective as she considered it. ‘That’s because you’re looking for a well-organised murderer. You’ve stopped thinking about him or her as a person. Whoever did this couldn’t employ those sorts of skills from thin air. You’re looking for someone who’s meticulous in their whole life, probably obsessively so, who’s never missed an appointment or favourite radio show, who reviews their time expenditure each month on different activities, who diarises when they last changed their sheets. Look for the person first. You’ll meet the killer later.’ Ava got up. ‘So I can take two from your team?’

      ‘As long as one of them is DS Lively,’ he said.

      ‘Not a bloody chance,’ she answered.

      ‘Do you have an hour or so available for a drink this evening?’ Callanach asked as she headed out of his office. Ava stepped back inside to answer.

      ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

      ‘If it’s about last time …’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s been a difficult transition moving here.’

      ‘The station is awash with rumours about your move from Interpol. There’s always gossip when an outsider takes rank instead of promoting internally. I understand you want to settle into the job before starting to socialise and that’s perfectly sensible,’ Ava said.

      ‘Actually that’s not …’

      DC Barnes walked in, which Ava took as either a cue or an excuse to leave, Callanach wasn’t sure which. Barnes’ face was alight with a mixture of concern and adrenaline. ‘We think we’ve got another one, sir. A woman’s been missing since last night. Her assistant called it in.’

      ‘What’s the link with Elaine Buxton?’ Callanach asked.

      ‘The woman left work as usual but there’s no sign of her entering her home. Similar age to Elaine, single, no children. Totally out of character for her to go off the grid. Missing person report’s available in the briefing room and we’re bringing in the assistant for more information. We’ve got units at the woman’s home and are making the usual enquiries with colleagues.’

      The briefing room was buzzing. Callanach took a seat at the back as he prepared to listen to what information had been gathered, notebook ready on his lap. Ava Turner opened the door and looked in quizzically. He beckoned her in.

      ‘I was coming to collect my extra bodies,’ she whispered. ‘What’s going on?’

      ‘Another woman is missing,’ he said.

      ‘Mind if I stay and listen?’ she asked. He shook his head and she took the seat next to his.

      Jayne Magee’s face appeared on the screen. There was a slightly suppressed intake of breath from everyone watching. Callanach didn’t know why it was so shocking, only that the surprise came from what was around her neck in the photo. The sergeant who’d taken the missing person report began to speak.

      ‘This is the Reverend Jayne Magee, thirty-six years of age, Caucasian, Scottish national. Her administrative assistant, Ann Burt, called in her disappearance when Jayne failed to arrive for a meeting this morning at the Cathedral Church of St Mary in Palmerston Place, part of the Scottish Episcopal Church. What rang alarm bells is that she appears not to have been home last night. Her assistant says Jayne had no plans. The Reverend had told Ann she was looking forward to a quiet night in with a curry. Her only vice, apparently. When she failed to attend the meeting this morning and couldn’t be reached by phone, the assistant went to her house. She has a key and let herself in. There was no sign of Jayne. No bag or coat and in the fridge the curry they’d talked about was sitting untouched. Ann had emailed her at seven yesterday evening, passing on a query and got no response. Usually, the last thing the Reverend does every night is to check emails and respond to them. Ann Burt said she was curious about it last night but assumed something had come up, either illness or an unexpected visitor, and didn’t pursue it with a phone call.’

      ‘Where’s her home?’ Lively shouted from the far side of the room.

      The sergeant shifted images and the screen flashed up a map of the city. The cathedral was marked with a blue cross and a red dot denoted what Callanach presumed was the home.

      ‘She lives in a detached house in Ravelston Park, across the river from the cathedral and roughly north-west. She always walks to and from work, even in the worst weather, and we’re told she was on foot yesterday.’

      ‘So, she left St Mary’s at?’ Callanach asked.

      ‘Around seven p.m. She’d been there for choral evensong, stayed to chat with a few people then gone home. There’s no sign of a break-in or a struggle, nothing missing that the assistant can identify.’

      ‘I see the similarities,’ Callanach said, ‘but do you not have anything more tangible that connects this to Elaine Buxton?’

      ‘Only this.’ A new photo filled the screen. As one, the people in the room leaned forward to make out what they were looking at amidst the green tangle in the picture. ‘Here, at the very bottom, is where Jayne Magee’s mobile phone was found. Just inside her front garden, at the roots of a bush. Whether she dropped it or someone else discarded it, we don’t know. It’s been sent off for prints and data.’

      ‘She could have been trying to make a call, perhaps worried that she was being followed, was disturbed and dropped it,’ Salter suggested.

      ‘Or whoever took Magee didn’t want us tracing the signal and getting a location,’ Ava muttered. ‘I’ll manage without your lot,’ she whispered to Callanach. ‘Looks like you’ve got work to do now.’ She left.

      That wasn’t much to go on as far as linking the cases went. If it was the same person who’d taken Elaine, the one thing they knew was that Jayne Magee might not have much time left. Callanach rose to his feet, running a hand through his mop of hair as he walked to the front. It took all of two seconds for the noise level to reach a point where he couldn’t be heard.

      ‘Arrêtez,’ he snapped, reverting to French in his frustration. ‘Stop. There is no time.’

      Someone tried a derisive oohing at Callanach’s loss of temper, only to be met by DS Lively cutting in.

      ‘We’ve work to do and the inspector’s trying to organise things. So if whoever that was can’t get a grip, then get out of the goddamn room,’ Lively yelled.

      Callanach stared at him a moment, then opened his notebook to go through the list he’d compiled during the briefing, wondering if Lively had suffered some sort of character changing concussion. No doubt it wouldn’t last long.

      ‘CCTV footage, see if we can catch any part of her journey home. Neighbours, anyone who might have seen her near her home last night. Presumably the forensics team is already there?’ There was a nod from the officer who’d given the briefing. ‘Find the last person she talked to before she left the church. Ask what sort of mood she was in, what they discussed, what she was wearing. I want diaries, computer, make the mobile a priority. Tripp, you and Salter find anything that might connect her with Elaine Buxton. I want a full background on them both, from childhood to date. Understand?’ There were nods all round. The piss-taking was conspicuous in its absence, which showed Callanach that everyone thought what he was thinking. The clock was ticking. ‘Good. Now get back to work.’ The team filed out swiftly, buzzing with the combination of adrenaline and pressure. The next twenty-four hours would be crucial.

      Lively managed to be in Callanach’s office before him. ‘I’d like to