The Devil's Due: A Cooper and McCall Scottish Crime Thriller by Ramsay Sinclair (good inspirational books .TXT) 📗

bat and ball games.” My voice was muffled from rifling through their forgotten equipment. “Oh, and a few ropes.”

“Cheeky,” McCall retorted. Wrong place, wrong time. “Be careful. Your grubby prints will contaminate it all.”

Tutting, I turned around to wave both of my gloved hands in the air.

“Fine,” McCall rolled her eyes in irritation.

“No signs of any struggle,” I paused, noticing an array of matches strewn over the dimly lit floor, pulled down in a hurry. “Pass me those forceps.”

McCall handed over a pair she was still holding. Closing the pincers around a few miniscule wooden sticks, McCall held a bag open to drop them into. My partner in crime peeked in too, picking up details I may have missed. Most women did have spectacular eyes for detail.

“Those ropes could have been touched. A bit hard to tell though, they’re stacked close together,” she commented, although Gavin’s body didn’t have any rope burns. “Let’s hope they don’t plan on using them for some other unlucky bugger.”

“Our killer must have needed the shed for a reason,” I mused. “If somebody committed a murder, they wouldn’t waste time fannying around in a shed. It’s unnecessary. Anyone could have caught them.”

“I’m going to radio the guys.” McCall switched on our radio, desperate to contact DCI Campbell and our CID constables.

I stood back, taking my gloves off, feeling a need to scrub until red raw. My phone buzzed, sending me searching deep into a variety of pockets. Where was my flipping phone?

“Hello?” I finally accepted the desperate call, which delayed slightly. We were too far away from a building to obtain a strong connection. It lagged for a while, before DC Taylor’s voice carried through, almost bursting an eardrum.

“DI Cooper, sir?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” I awaited some kind of reply, listening to a bunch of static crackling instead.

“I can’t hear you very well, Sir. In case you can hear me, the number on Gavin’s arm had nothing to do with his time in prison,” DC Taylor revealed, leaving me to groan internally. “But we did find something else. Gavin was sent to prison for raping and accidentally overdosing a young girl. He was imprisoned for three years before being released on good behaviour.”

Good behaviour? How do criminals get away with that? Of course, they’ll behave well. They aim to escape prison. Especially sexual offenders. Prison is a hell hole for them.

“The girl’s name was Emily Harper, Sir. Her father lived by the Bay and—” DC Taylor cut off completely, replaced by a frustrating, halting signal loss.

“Hello? DC Taylor? Oh... typical!” I shouted at my phone, pressing the red button. McCall watched quizzically, patiently staying put until our team reached us. Further away in the distance, we could just about see our team heading over, fronted by DCI Campbell. “Emily Harper. Sound familiar to you?”

A seagull screeched ignorantly above us. Pesky bird. I followed its sweeping movements from the waterline to high above Sammy’s sailing club. Then, it changed paths drastically, motivated by an oncoming gust of wind. My seagull flew higher, right above a line of waterside houses. Houses by the bay. DC Taylor mentioned those specific buildings. Granted, the connection took longer than a minute to piece itself together with my neural network firing on a lower level than usual.

“Harper!” I clicked in realisation. “I knew that name sounded familiar. Our bunch of statements at the office included Jack Harper’s piece of paper. He lives up there.”

“Of course. So?” McCall didn’t quite follow my gist until I remembered she had no clue what I was talking about.

“DC Taylor couldn’t find anything linking to our photographed number,” I explained. “But he called to explain what Gavin went to prison for in the first place. Well, before our shitty signal cut out. Statutory rape with a girl called Emily Harper. Most likely close relatives. Jack Harper lives right over there.”

McCall inhaled excitedly. “Close enough to Gavin’s crime scene. He mentioned working night shifts within that statement. I remember nearly spilling coffee all over that sheet of paper. That places Jack Harper out all night when Gavin was murdered.”

Bingo.

Officers on our team filtered in, all tuned to separate paces. DC Cillian Murphy, probably the fittest of them all, reached us first and mock saluted. Then DC Eileen Shipman and DC Tony Hall joined. DCI Campbell was far behind us lot, struggling to step over dozens of rocks without slipping. If he weren’t such a stubborn, strong-willed man, people would have offered to help. Nevertheless, he made it over eventually.

“Is this the evidence DS McCall warned me about?” DCI Campbell reached for our bags, observing the evidence within.

“We have reason to believe ropes are missing from inside. A few matches were scattered over the floor, and I swabbed the blood from outside,” McCall confirmed. “DI Cooper mentioned the shed lock wasn’t broken into, that our murderer possessed a set of keys.”

“Ah, a spanner in the works,” Campbell grumbled. “Having questioned people in the sailing club, they all appear innocent. All of them could confirm their whereabouts and stay true to their statements. For a few without, they’re writing them tonight for collection whenever possible,”

“Our killer could be close, a friend or neighbour perhaps? The sailing club is very limited in security. Their front entrance is all knackered wood and old-fashioned locks. Any modern criminal could get in quite easily,” I suggested truthfully, angling towards Jack Harper. “What about all of you? Find anything remotely worthwhile?”

“Only the usual. Peoples privately owned boats. Nothing dodgy.” DC Hall sighed, chomping a piece of gum.

“A compelling insight as usual, DC Hall.” I turned to Shipman. “DC Shipman, tell me you found something worth a rat’s arse?”

DC Murphy found my insult hilarious. He and Tony frequently wound each other up, behaving like primary school children. ‘Harmless fun’, apparently.

“Alrighty then.” I sighed and nodded to the evidence bags. “Get this sent off for forensics testing, and I want to keep these matches as evidence at our office. Who knows what our killer could be planning