Page 36 of Watching You
‘Sure,’ Midnight said, making notes as they spoke.
Midnight Jones was their human hub, dealing with all the vital admin that Connie hated and that she insisted Baarda notget sidetracked by. She was organised, astute, available to help twenty-four hours a day, and was an impressive profiler herself albeit with a more technological leaning.
‘And Brodie, we had a solicitor’s letter delivered here for you.’ She frowned as she spoke and they all knew it was bad news before she delivered it. ‘I opened it in case it was urgent. It’s from your ex-wife’s lawyer.’
‘Go on,’ Baarda said.
‘Now that your ex has changed her name since remarrying, she’s asking your agreement to change your children’s surname too. Something about maintaining the family unit so things are less confusing for them.’
Connie opened her mouth to speak but Baarda held up a hand.
‘Thanks, Midnight. Could you scan the letter and email it to me, please? I’ll deal with it.’
‘Brodie, she can’t just—’
‘I said I’ll deal with it, Connie,’ he interjected. ‘Can we talk about the Edinburgh murders instead?’ His voice was giving nothing away, but there was no mistaking the clenched muscles in his jaw and the narrowing of his eyes.
‘Of course,’ Midnight said. ‘I started with Dale Abnay’s body. There are no other missing persons in the Edinburgh area who seem to have similar interests to Abnay regarding the incel group, so it doesn’t look as if his disappearance is part of a wider plan or group retribution. I checked in with DS Salter who let me have his mobile messages and emails. There was nothing there to suggest any active threat, no planned liaisons with people who are red flags, and no debt. However, he did have an app on his mobile confirming that he was a hiking enthusiast – it shows the trails he’d walked previously – so it looks as if he was genuinely at Jupiter Artland for recreation.’
‘That’s a diverse CV then. “In my spare time I enjoy hiking and imagining the violent repression of women.” Mr Abnay was just full of surprises. Do we have verification of the planned kidney donation?’ Connie asked.
‘We do. There are emails from the donor service, proposed dates for the operation, advice for recuperation and a request for him to take independent medical and legal advice before he signed the documentation. Things never progressed that far, though.’
Another woman burst into the room holding hands with a much older lady. The younger of the two was a carbon copy of Midnight but grinning from ear to ear, and waving into the camera.
‘Wooly!’ she cried. ‘Look!’ She held up a handful of early summer fruit from the garden then popped a raspberry into her mouth.
‘Dawn,’ Connie said. ‘That looks nice. And hello Doris. You two look like life is treating you well.’
‘It certainly is that, dearie,’ Doris said. ‘The garden’s giving us so much fruit and veg, we don’t know what to do with it all. I’ve got jam coming out of my ears! We miss you down here. Time for a visit before you two go gadding off again?’
‘Wooly!’ Dawn said again. It was her pet name for Connie, and she was the only person in the world who could get away with giving her a nickname, but Midnight’s twin, though fate had been cruel at birth and left her with severe special needs, had the sweetest of souls. Doris, in her seventies with purple hair and huge, colourful earrings and beads, had left London to live with the sisters as the mother figure they so badly wanted. Together, the three of them had created a home as full of joy as any Connie had ever visited.
‘We’ll make sure to visit you in the beautiful West Countrybefore we leave the UK,’ Connie said. ‘A proper visit this time, not just an hour.’
‘Careful, Dr Woolwine, we’ll end up domesticating you if you’re not careful. You won’t want to leave,’ Doris said. ‘I need to cook for you for a few days, anyway. Put a bit of meat on those bones. You do look thin, lovey.’
‘Thank you, Doris,’ Connie said. ‘I will eat whatever you put in front of me.’
‘Okay, that’s enough chatter, back to work,’ Midnight said, giving her sister a kiss on the cheek.
‘Righty ho, time to bake some tea loaf, I think. Come on, Dawn. Let’s leave this lot to it!’
They left in a burst of chatter and laughter.
‘As I was saying,’ Midnight continued. ‘Dale Abnay’s offer of a kidney appears to be real and valid. Also, I couldn’t find any suggestion that money was going to be exchanged, although that’s not something I’d expect to see in writing anyway.’
‘Okay. What about Archie Bass? Has anything turned up on him?’ Baarda asked.
‘No. Edinburgh had a spate of murders of homeless people a few years ago, but nothing recently. This one is much less puzzling than Dale Abnay, though. Homeless people can be prey to drug users, mentally ill people, or just someone with an amount of rage who feels like finding an easy target. Without CCTV – the only cameras there were focused on the rear doors of the property to catch burglars going in or staff removing goods – it’ll be hard to pin down a suspect. Interestingly, neither Abnay nor Bass had any close, regular ties in the community other than Bass’s sister Jane, who saw him only sporadically, and Leslie Wolfe, who wanted the kidney. Both men would have appealed to a killer who wanted victims where there would be minimal public outcry.’
‘That’s a good point,’ Connie said. ‘Let’s move on to talk about Divya Singh.’
‘Different set-up, really impersonal modus operandi. Whoever killed her really didn’t want to get their hands dirty, same as using a gun but without the possibility of having to look a victim in the eyes,’ Baarda noted. ‘There are a lot more possibilities here. We can’t exclude people who knew her. There was an insurance policy on her life, it could have been a personal vendetta, potentially she was a victim of a racist attack. It could even have been mistaken identity or a thrill-killer.’
‘This killer certainly doesn’t have poor impulse control,’ Connie said. ‘The scene looks chaotic but the kill was the opposite. They attacked her away from CCTV, away from witnesses, not even with a view from a window. It was fast and left no possibility of survival, and they didn’t leave a forensic trail. That’s a perfectly executed murder. In terms of categorising it, it’s more like a professional hit.’
‘An assassination?’ Midnight asked.
