Against the Clock, John Carson [digital ebook reader txt] 📗

you two have going on,’ Alex said, holding a little plate with some lemon chicken and white rice.

‘You’re quite safe, Alex,’ Robbie Evans said, dishing out some food. ‘Glad you could join us.’

‘Me too. Thanks for inviting me.’ Alex smiled at him, then went to find a seat to take the weight off her feet.

‘Sparks, no,’ Muckle said to his dog, whose nose was at the same level as the table. The Shepherd wagged his tail and went to sit next to his master.

Harry put a hand on Katie’s arm as she was walking past. ‘Thanks again for putting up with us,’ he said. ‘DSup Stewart has made sure that Police Scotland will foot the bill for this lot, and he’s already put in for the stipend for putting our guests up. And as I said earlier, we’re going to make sure you’re taken care of. No arguments.’

‘Please don’t worry about it, sir. I’m just glad to have you all in the house. It fills it up and makes it less lonely.’

‘Just make sure my laddie helps you with the clearing up.’

She laughed. ‘I will.’

They were in the dining room, crammed around the table, some sitting, some standing. There was general chatter, then the conversation turned to the case. Lillian was sitting next to Vern and they were chatting away.

‘I was talking to Tom Barclay this afternoon,’ Muckle said between mouthfuls of rice. ‘There were no witnesses to the dumping of the body at the leisure centre, but one young lad said he thought he saw a minibus parked there earlier. He thought about tanning it, but went on his way.’

‘Did he say whether there was any writing on the side?’ Stewart asked. ‘Or get a number?’

‘No, nothing like that. He thought the place was maybe opening up again, but there were no other cars or buses there.’

‘I’ll give Tom a call and get him to canvass the area again. The press officer is getting us on the news tomorrow,’ Dunbar said.

Lillian looked over at Stewart. ‘Sir, while you were away to Joppa with the team, we were tossing around ideas regarding the two latest missing girls, Ashley and Simone.’

Stewart swallowed his food and washed it down with some water. He didn’t want any carbonation to fill him up. ‘And what did you come up with?’

‘We were thinking about what the girls were doing in their spare time leading up to their abduction. Comparing notes about each girl. They were two years apart in school, so we wondered if they socialised with each other after school. Their friends said yes. However, there was one other thing they had in common.’

There was silence in the room now. ‘Come on then, Lily, spit it out. The floor is yours.’

‘They rode the same school bus.’

‘I thought that was an American thing?’ Alex said.

‘So did I,’ said Lillian. ‘But it’s a thing here. I’m not sure about every school, but up at Broomhouse High, there are such a lot of kids getting out at once that they would overwhelm the public transport system. It’s because they share the grounds with St. Francis’s. Two schools emptying out would be a nightmare, so they put on school buses. They sit on South Gyle Broadway. The kids get on an assigned bus and it goes round a pre-determined route, and they get dropped off at certain points.’

Harry clicked on what she was getting at. ‘Are the buses from private contractors?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ashley and Simone got on one run by Walter Scott Travel?’

‘Yes, they did. They sat near the front, so whoever was driving would have heard them talking.’

‘It’s possible,’ Harry said. They had talked about their little trip over to Dalgety Bay. ‘We have nothing concrete, though,’ he continued. ‘A lawyer would have it laughed out of court, and we have no grounds for getting a search warrant. We need concrete evidence that something is going on. So we’ll keep on digging. Mike Morton’s drivers are hiding something, I’m sure. That bus company is connected somehow.’ He went on to tell them what Dougal Dixon had said about the teacher, Marshall Mann.

‘I still think that’s a bit ropey, him being a bloody teacher and a bus driver. I mean, they’re not the best paid-people, but it just doesn’t ring true,’ Stewart said, finishing up his fish supper and looking for somewhere to throw the wrapper away. He eyed up a nice spot behind the couch but then handed it to Alex, who had put her hand out for it. ‘Cheers, Alex. You’d get a promotion for that if you were based at my station.’

‘I’m sure Robbie would like a promotion.’ She smiled at Stewart.

‘I’m sure he would, but he didn’t take my chip wrapper away.’ Stewart dug his pinkie nail between two teeth.

‘Shove your promotion up your arse,’ Evans said in a low voice so only Dunbar heard it.

Stewart looked across at him, and for a moment Evans thought the DSup had heard him. He shovelled a handful of chips into his mouth.

‘That halfwit Dougal Dixon also told us that a bus goes to the Gyle Centre on its last run, drops passengers off and goes off-service to their base along the road at the back of the airport,’ Stewart said. ‘It got me thinking. Ashley and Simone were last seen there, and they couldn’t be spotted on CCTV from the centre. We know those Walter Scott buses don’t have CCTV like the Lothian ones do. What if those lassies got on the bus and stayed on because they were flirting with the driver? We know Marshall Mann has a thing for young lassies being on his bus. Dixon told us he’d seen Mann with a teenager on his bus along at the garage. What if they got on his bus and he took them along there?’

There were murmurings in the room.

‘We’ll go along in the morning to talk to Morton and ask him who was driving the midday shift when the girls went missing,’ Harry said. ‘Also, Lillian,