Fifty Fifty (Detective Harriet Blue #2)(42)

‘No, no,’ Whitt protested. ‘I really –’

‘What the hell was that all for?’

‘I needed a screamer,’ Tox said. ‘A real screamer. Not someone faking it. We’re being scientists today, darling.’

Sandy looked unconvinced. A man in a grey uniform was running up the slope towards them, his hand on his belt.

‘What’s going on?’ He wiped at a sweaty head of black hair. ‘Who’s in trouble?’

‘You are,’ Tox said.





Chapter 55


‘I’M DETECTIVE INSPECTOR Tate Barnes and this is Detective Inspector Edward Whittacker.’ Tox paused when he got to Sandy. ‘And this is … our associate. We’re investigating the abduction of Caitlyn McBeal.’

‘Oh,’ the man said. He brushed at the front of his grey uniform, fiddled with a name badge that read Bill Perkins: Security.

‘William Perkins. You’re the security guard who gave police a statement about that day, aren’t you?’ Tox folded his arms.

‘Yes.’

‘Interesting.’ Tox glanced at the sunshine streaming in through the side of the lot. ‘Same day of the week. Same hour of the day that Caitlyn was apparently abducted. Wind direction seems to be more or less the same. You hear the screams of a woman, screams that last fifty seconds and you come running.’

‘Yes.’ Bill shifted uncomfortably.

‘You were down there in your little security guard’s hut on the first floor just now, were you?’

‘ Uh-huh.’ Bill cleared his throat.

‘That’s where you said you were at the time of Caitlyn’s alleged abduction.’

‘Yep.’

‘So all the variables are the same as they were on that day. But you said in your statement that you didn’t hear any screams,’ Tox said. ‘You said you heard no screams, no scuffle on the third floor. You said you didn’t see a white van exit the driveway anywhere around that time.’

The security guard looked intently at Sandy. She was the safe place to look. Whitt and Tox’s eyes bored into the man’s face, assessing every muscle twitch.

‘Were you where you were supposed to be on that day, Mr Perkins?’

‘Yes.’ Bill straightened. ‘I was.’

‘Really?’ Whitt raised an eyebrow.

‘Yes.’

‘What if, for example …’ Tox mused. ‘What if I took your head, Bill Perkins, and I put it in the gap of the sliding door of my van here.’ He gestured to the van. ‘And I slammed the door closed, over and over?’

Bill swallowed, looked at Whitt for help. There was none.

‘Would your answer still be the same?’ Tox asked.

Bill started to back up, then turned and ran.

‘Answer the question!’ Tox called. The security guard put his head down and ran for his life. Tox sighed, pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one.

‘He wasn’t in the guard hut that day,’ he exhaled. ‘I don’t know where he was, but he wasn’t there.’





Chapter 56


AFTER SANDY LEFT them, the two men walked to the edge of the car park and leaned on the concrete wall, Tox smoking, Whitt trying to contain his inner horror at his partner’s ‘experiment’. They looked over the edge and across a wide, empty netball court to a narrow green lawn where students were filming interviews with handycams, sitting on wooden benches, now and then glancing at written notes as they narrated their works.

‘Maybe Bill the Security Idiot was in the bathroom,’ Tox mused. ‘Maybe he has a girlfriend on campus he was visiting. Maybe he was listening to music. Whatever the case, it’s possible Linny Simpson was telling the truth. Someone did try to abduct her, and she screamed her head off, and no one heard her.’

Whitt didn’t know if that made him feel better or worse.

‘But the van doesn’t make sense,’ Whitt reminded him. ‘No white van came or went during the times Caitlyn would have been taken.’

‘ Where is she?’ Tox growled. ‘If we could just find her, this would all make sense.’

The two men watched the people on the lawn below them.

‘What are these chumps up to?’ Tox wondered aloud. Whitt looked across the lot at the young people with their cameras.

‘Film class, looks like.’

‘Maybe they have some footage from that day.’ Tox blew smoke into the wind.

‘They’d have heard the screaming though,’ Whitt said. ‘Wouldn’t they?’

‘Not with those headphones on,’ Tox said.

Whitt followed nervously as Tox descended the concrete stairs to the little garden. The students stopped their filming and assessed Tox as he arrived among them. Four of them were gathered around a single camera, thick headphones clamped to their heads. They took down the headphones.

‘S’up?’ Tox jutted his chin at the leader of the group, a lanky late-teenager with a shaving rash and long, greasy dreadlocks.

‘Nothing much,’ the boy answered.

‘What’s this?’ Tox gestured to the group, the cameras.

‘Film assignment.’

‘Been doing it long?’