EIGHTY-FOUR

2 P.M.

Every time Kim looked at her watch, she saw the face of a little girl looking back at her.

A little girl who was likely going to die if they didn’t find Nazeera in time.

And here she was pissing about at a scrapyard chasing the only lead they had.

‘Second home for you?’ Bryant asked.

He knew how much she loved spending time round scrapyards searching for rare motorcycle frames and parts, but not particularly this one.

Dickie, the owner, dressed in a shirt and tie and slacks, which for some reason annoyed her. The scrap business wasn’t for folks in shirts and ties. It should mean tee shirts, sweatshirts, oil-stained jeans and dirty fingernails. It was as though Dickie was trying to give it a legitimacy that it just didn’t need, and that made him seem disingenuous and not totally honest.

She’d bought a few bits from him years ago, but she’d since found other dealers that she preferred to buy from.

Nevertheless, his face showed a hint of recognition when she walked in the door.

It took all her energy not to roll her eyes. The reception area had been altered since her last visit. It was painted in a pastel blue with a couple of soft chairs and a coffee table. There was a self-serving coffee machine on a dresser-type cupboard and even a little basket of pre-packed biscuits.

The whole thing offended her sense of what a scrapyard should look like.

‘Do I know you?’ Dickie asked as she approached.

‘We’ve met,’ she acknowledged, taking out her identification.

He frowned. ‘I don’t think I know you in that way. Hang on, you build bikes,’ he said, demonstrating an impeccable memory.

‘I do indeed. I need to check on a vehicle you bought around six months ago.’

Realising that was something he could easily help with, he took a ledger from beneath the desk. Despite the upgrade in decor, they still didn’t have a computerised system.

‘Allegedly, six months ago, so let’s also try the month before and the month after.’

‘Six months is a lot of entries.’

‘We’ll wait,’ Kim said, resting her elbows on the reception desk.

He opened the ledger at the beginning of March. ‘What am I looking for?’

‘A red Citro?n van with a registration plate ending TYL.’

‘Okay,’ he said, using his finger to travel down the page.

Although Kim couldn’t see the detail of every entry, she could see that the records listed date, make, model, fee paid, action taken and then a final column for resale. Very few entries had any monetary amount listed.

Kim knew that at least ninety-five per cent of every car scrapped was recycled by law. Scrap dealers bought and sold metals that ended up at a remelt plant and were cast into recycled raw materials. Metals were bought and sold by weight. The most valuable item by far was copper.

She watched silently as March turned to April which turned to May.

Finally, he looked up. ‘Nothing.’

‘And every scrap vehicle makes it into the ledger?’

‘Of course. What are you accusing me of?’

‘Just saying there’s a lot of different handwriting in there. Not one member of your team could have made a quick sale for a few extra quid in his pocket?’

‘If he did, he wouldn’t be a member of my team.’

‘If you knew about it,’ Bryant interjected.

He offered them a look that said he knew everything that happened in his business.

‘Can you show me April again?’ Kim asked.

He sighed heavily before turning to the page and combing the entries again.

‘What’s that?’ she asked, pointing to an entry that had been Tippexed out and overwritten.

‘Probably a spelling mistake.’

‘Doesn’t explain why all the columns have been changed,’ Kim observed.

He shrugged. ‘I couldn’t tell you.’

‘I thought you knew everything that went on in your business,’ she said, tipping her head.

‘It’s Tippex,’ he replied, raising an eyebrow.

‘Is it possible that someone sold on the vehicle and covered it up?’

He shook his head. ‘They wouldn’t.’

Kim didn’t find that statement to be a compelling argument. People committed acts of theft in the workplace every day.

‘Do you remember the vehicle? Apparently it’s quite ugly and hard to forget.’

‘I don’t remember,’ he said without giving it any thought.

She paused for a second. ‘Dickie, how many people come in here on a daily basis?’

‘Dunno. Ten, twenty.’

‘Let’s give you the benefit of the doubt and say ten. I came in here a few times six years ago and you remembered me. I can’t be bothered to do the maths but…’

‘It was twenty-one thousand, nine hundred days ago,’ Bryant interjected. ‘Roughly.’

Kim ignored him and continued. ‘But you can’t recall if you bought an ugly old Citro?n van just six months ago?’

‘Yeah, weird, eh?’

Kim continued to hold his gaze, but although he coloured, he only shrugged in response.

She turned and left the building.

Peter Harris said he no longer had the van, and Dickie the scrap man said he’d never taken ownership of it. One of them was lying. She just didn’t know which one.

And that was the sound of her one promising lead smacking into a brick wall.

Or was it?

She turned to her colleague. ‘Hey, Bryant, do you remember that time a few years back when I asked your advice?’

‘Yeah, I think so, but it was so long ago that I?—’

‘Well brace yourself cos I’m going to ask again.’

‘I think I know what’s coming. There’s an address burning a hole in your pocket and you want to ask if we should pursue it.’

‘Gold star for you. Do we go and see her and ask her to rake it all up again when it’s not even our case, with very little chance of being able to get justice for her, or do we leave it alone and assume that it has nothing to do with our sicko?’

‘Dangerous to make assumptions, guv,’ he said, demonstrating a change of heart from his earlier opinion.

She nodded her agreement. ‘Oh, Bryant, I do like when you offer good advice.’

He chuckled. ‘Especially if it agrees with what you were going to do anyway.’

For once, he wasn’t wrong.