Blood on his Hands by Ian McFadyen

Author:Ian McFadyen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2019-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 51

What the school admin lady lacked in charisma and cordiality she more than made up for in results as, within two minutes of getting Mr Wisset’s approval to provide Carmichael with the information he wanted, an A4 sheet of paper spewed out of the printer and was handed over to him.

“Thank you,” remarked Carmichael, smiling broadly at the inimical face on the other side of the hatch.

“Is that everything?” she responded offhandedly.

“Yes, thanks,” replied Carmichael, a split second before the hatch was shut firmly in his face.

Carmichael allowed himself a wry smile before making his exit from the academy.

* * *

Cooper hadn’t expected to be greeted by three generations of the Heaton/Attwood clan, but when Jenny Attwood ushered him into the large lounge he saw Jenny’s daughter, Jade, and her mother, Mavis Heaton, sat anxiously side by side on the mammoth sofa.

“Before you ask, we’ve no idea where Sean is,” remarked Jenny, as she took a seat next to her mother. “I’ve not seen him since he left for work yesterday morning, he hasn’t called or texted and we’re all bloody worried.”

Cooper nodded sympathetically before taking out his notebook.

“I realise you’ve gone over a lot of this before,” he said, “but I’d like to ask you some more questions.”

* * *

As soon as he was safely inside his black BMW, Carmichael took out the A4 sheet of paper he’d been given by the admin lady and looked at the most recent calls made from Mrs Rumburgh’s line.

The report clearly showed that after 5pm there’d only been one call made, at 6:17pm, to a local number.

Carmichael pulled out his mobile and dialled the eleven digits to connect him to Brenda Rumburgh’s last known call.

The phone at the other end rang ten times before it kicked into voicemail.

“Hello, this is Mavis Heaton,” came the recorded message, “I’m sorry but I’m not able to…”

Carmichael aborted the call, placed his mobile gently onto the passenger seat and fixed his gaze through the front windscreen.

As he considered his next move, Carmichael’s attention was drawn to the figure of a young man in blue dungarees taking out a black bin liner from the bin on the other side of the car park, then replacing it with a fresh bag. A smile came to his face as he watched the man, whom he assumed to be the school caretaker, struggle firstly to find the right end of the new bin bag, then struggle even more to try and get the plastic to separate so he could get it open; a frustrating predicament that Carmichael had encountered himself at home on more than one occasion.

* * *

Hotfoot from his encounter with Mrs Hanif Senior and her daughter Nora, Watson entered the office at Kirkwood police station and spied Rachel Dalton’s head poking just above her computer screen.

“How’s it going, Rachel?” he enquired chirpily.

“Not brilliantly,” she replied. “I’ve got Geoffrey Brookwell’s mobile phone report from his service provider, but it doesn’t show anything that’s particularly interesting, and I’m just plodding through the statements we took and Stock’s forensic report.

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