‘No, it’s fine. I’ve got no plans so I’ll be there,’ Graham was saying as she pushed the door half shut.
‘This is Turner.’
‘Ava, it’s Luc.’
She opened her mouth to talk, catching sight of herself in the bathroom mirror, socks in one hand, mobile in the other, hair wild, mascara smudged beneath her eyes, skinnier than she’d been for years. It wasn’t a flattering look. She didn’t recommend a diet based solely on stress and insomnia.
‘Can you hear me?’ Callanach asked.
‘Yes … yes I can. Sorry, you caught me at a busy moment.’ A sheen of sweat suddenly glimmered on her forehead.
‘Shall I call back later? This can wait an hour or so. Where are you?’
Ava coughed, and forced some authority into her voice. ‘At home but I’m just on my way to an incident. Go ahead. Tripp’s covering it so I’ve got two minutes.’
‘You’re at home? I thought I heard Pax Graham’s voice before …’ Callanach sounded distant, foreign. But then he was – both things – Ava thought.
‘He stopped to pick me up en route to the scene,’ Ava thought on her feet, feeling sick, hating the ridiculous sense that she’d been caught cheating, ridiculous given that she was single even if things with Luc hadn’t been properly resolved. ‘It’s a shooting so all hands on deck. MIT went out for drinks last night and I left my car at the station. Is there an update on the trafficking case from your end?’ she asked, moving the conversation onto safer ground, wishing for the tenth time in as many minutes that she’d stuck to beer and not chased it with shots, and that she’d equally stuck to dull celibacy instead of trying to distract herself from the memory of the near miss with Luc by filling her bed with a convenient warm body. She’d broken her self-imposed rules pretty impressively. Drinking with her team was supposed to be limited to one quick glass, then head for the exit.
‘No, this relates to a Police Scotland missing persons case, Edinburgh area. Young man by the name of Malcolm Reilly. His DNA was put on the Interpol database two months ago. A body was found and we’ve only just had official confirmation that the DNA is a match. It’s a definite homicide. I’m sending an encrypted email with the details.’
‘Okay, I’ll have DS Lively take a look at it.’
‘It’ll have to be you, Ava. It’s a bad one. Interpol has been asked to assist local French officers. It appears to be an organ harvesting case. The victim’s been pretty much emptied out anatomically speaking.’
Ava sat down on the edge of the bath and ran a hand over her eyes.
‘You need me to go and interview the family,’ she said softly.
‘I’m afraid so. I’ll send you all the details. We’ll need Malcolm’s medical records, and we’re chasing known suspects from our end. When we have any potential names we’ll cross-check to see if anyone was in the UK at the time the victim was abducted.’
‘Okay, I’ll send uniformed officers in advance to break the news and offer support, then I’ll get on it later this morning. Give me an hour to check out the shooting then I’ll head directly into the station and take a look.’
‘Sorry to land this on you. Sounds like you’re busy enough already,’ Callanach said.
‘Until a few minutes ago we were almost having a quiet period.’ She paused. ‘How’re you doing?’
‘Fine.’
‘Good. That’s good. Well, I’ll call if I have any questions once I’m up to speed.’
‘Jean-Paul would like a conference call, tomorrow morning preferably. Is nine a.m. okay with you?’
The bathroom door opened. ‘Hey, Ava, we’d better … shit, sorry.’ Pax Graham exited quietly. Ava cursed inside her head.
‘DI Graham’s calling you Ava now?’
‘You’ve been calling me Ava since we met, Luc.’
‘When we met, you and I were the same rank.’
Ava tried to formulate a response, and failed. ‘We should probably talk some time, about things.’
Things, Ava thought. As if the dead bodies, trafficked women, and the ocean between them weren’t enough. Talking about things meant acknowledging the fact that for two years they’d pretended to be just friends when there had always been something more than that beneath the surface. Then at the moment it had been about to become something tangible, everything had gone horribly wrong.
She hadn’t sent Callanach away exactly, but the request for a Scottish liaison officer to work with Interpol had been good timing. Ava asked herself, for perhaps the millionth time, if in different circumstances she’d still have chosen Callanach to go. She knew better than anyone how hard it was for him to go back to France after everything he’d been through. For a while she’d persuaded herself that forcing him to return was in his best interests. That everyone had to face their demons at some point. Of course, Callanach facing his had meant that she’d been able to delay facing hers. Successful relationships had eluded her all her adult life. There had been a brief engagement a while ago, to another police officer who had turned out to be less than charming. There were the odd random flings over the years but nothing that had lasted beyond the magic make-or-break six-month mark. Then there was Callanach, and in spite of waiting for the right moment and making sure it was real, somehow it had all ended in pain, regret and devastation for them both. Not all of it was his fault, either. Ava had taken a long hard look into the face of potential hurt/failure/let down, and chosen to sever whatever affection lay between them. Irrevocably. The man she’d woken up with this morning was simply her way of decorating her very own poisoned chalice with an extra cherry. Well done her.
‘Ava?’ Callanach prompted.
‘Yeah, sorry, I was checking my diary. Sounds like we’re both going to be too busy to do any talking in the near future. Let’s leave it until we’re in the same country.’
‘Of course,’ his voice was abrupt. ‘I should let you go. Don’t worry about the conference call. We’ll exchange details by email. Tell Pax I said hi.’
He was gone. Ava closed her eyes while her hands stopped shaking.
She had to get a grip. Malcolm Reilly’s family needed her. Whichever poor soul was lying in a pool of his own blood and brains over at Dumbryden Gardens needed her. Her personal screw-ups were just going to have to take second place. Like always.
Ava stared through the hole in the glass pane at the crumpled body on the floor. The bullet entry wound was clear, as was the fact that the victim had been standing right next to a wall that had caught every fragment of bone, blood and grey matter expelled under bullet force from the exit wound.
‘Did the bullet go through the glass?’ Ava called inside to the technician who was busy collecting fragments from various kitchen surfaces.
‘Unlikely. We suspect something much larger and more blunt given the size of the hole in the pane.’
Ava opened the back door of the terraced house cautiously, careful to sidestep any glass on the floor. Only there wasn’t any.
‘Have you already swept up the glass for forensic testing?’ she checked.
‘No, nothing’s been moved from the scene yet. We need everything in place to track the likely journey through the property.’
‘Do we have an estimate for time of death?’ Ava asked, checking her watch.
‘Six