Chapter 5
FIFE
It was obvious that Mrs Howard didn’t sample her own cupcakes, if the older woman behind the counter was indeed the proprietor. She was slim, with a pretty face framed by blonde hair.
‘Help you?’ a younger woman said, smiling at them.
‘Police. We’d like to speak to Mrs Howard.’ Art looked at blondie and saw the smile slip, confirming this was Mrs Howard indeed.
‘That’s me,’ blondie said.
The younger woman looked at Art and Cameron. ‘It is. She really is Mrs Howard.’
‘I believe you,’ Art said, shifting his gaze towards Mrs Howard. ‘Is there somewhere we could talk in private?’
Her cheeks turned a little red and she nodded. ‘Through the back.’
The assistant looked at them all in turn, wondering if she should come through too, but Mrs Howard looked at her. ‘Keep an eye on the shop, Francine,’ she said.
Francine looked as if she was going to argue at first, but then thought better of it. Jobs weren’t thick on the ground in Cupar, and this was better than sweeping streets.
Art wasn’t a breakfast person, but the smell of the cupcakes was starting to make him hungry.
The door opened and a woman came in, holding a toddler’s hand.
‘Do you want a cupcake, Joey?’ the mother asked.
The little boy smiled and nodded and pointed to one of the glass-fronted cabinets.
Yes, Mummy, I’d like to get my high blood-sugar level kicked off at an early age, Art imagined the boy saying.
He gently nudged Cameron, who took the hint and followed Mrs Howard through a door marked Staff only.
There was a short corridor that led to an office. If Art expected to hear and smell a bakery going full tilt, he was sadly disappointed.
‘We bake the cakes off-site,’ she said, as if reading his mind. ‘Please, come into my office.’
Art had one last look through the back where stacks of boxes were, presumably for delivering cakes, if that was your thing. A roller door was on the back wall, large enough for a small van to reverse through.
The office was surprisingly large and a window looked out onto the back of the property.
Two uncomfortable-looking medium-backed chairs sat against a wall, looking like they’d been whipped from a function room in a drunken dare. They were probably brought out to sit in front of the desk either during a job interview or a dressing-down, Art thought.
‘Don’t just stand there, grab a fucking chair,’ he whispered to Cameron.
The younger detective grabbed one and dragged it over, then the second one for himself.
Art always checked strange chairs for suspicious marks and stains, but neither chair looked to be guilty, and they were free of dust, so he sat down, Cameron right next to him.
‘It’s a big room,’ Art whispered again, throwing his colleague a look to tell him that, although he liked him, he didn’t like him that much.
Cameron scooted over.
‘Thank you for agreeing to speak to us, Mrs Howard,’ Art said. ‘I’m DI McKenzie, this is DS Reid.’
Cameron nodded and took his notebook out.
‘Call me Katherine,’ Mrs Howard said, as if she expected the men to tell her to call them by their first names.
‘We’re here to talk about you and Mr Duvall,’ Art said, ignoring her request.
Mrs Howard took in a deep breath and Art watched her face. He’d been on the other side of many an interview table in the station where people looked exactly like Mrs Howard was looking right now: like she was deciding whether she was going to lie or not.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said.
A look passed between Art and Cameron. They’d heard this before: the interviewee starting off by saying they don’t know what the police are talking about.
‘Let me get right down to this,’ Art said, his tone changing. ‘It’s about your relationship with Maurice Duvall.’ He couldn’t say Maw-reece in front of this woman.
‘Maurice?’ Neither could she, apparently. ‘We’re just friends.’
‘Friends?’ Cameron said. ‘We heard differently.’
‘Did you now? From that nosy old cow, no doubt.’ There was a sharper edge to her voice now.
‘We heard that you and Mr Duvall are having a sexual relationship,’ Art said.
Mrs Howard put a hand to her mouth, and her eyes went wide.
‘What?’ she said after her hand was back down on the table.
‘Me and Maurice? That’s ridiculous. We’ve been friends since school.
Sometimes we walk our dogs up at East Lomond Hill trail.
Beside the big masts. Nothing else. And yes, we sit in his car with the dogs and have a wee cuppa if it’s cold outside.
That Wendy should mind her own business. ’
Art nodded. ‘Okay, I agree. But we’re more interested in whether you spotted DCI McRae, who has been listed as a missing person. Maurice seems to think you spotted him at the trail.’
She shook her head, her anger not quite willing to let go yet. ‘It was a guy in a suit. Maurice just mentioned it because it seemed so out of place.’
‘You didn’t see his face?’
‘No. He could have been anybody. But I saw him get into a car.’
Art perked up at this. ‘Can you give us a description?’
‘It was a blue Volvo.’
‘Do you know the model?’ Cameron asked, not holding out much hope.
‘An XC40. I could tell by the shape. My mum has one, and before you ask, it wasn’t her.
Hers is silver. And, no, I didn’t get the number plate.
Fifi was jumping around with Henry in the back at the time the suit got in the car.
And that isn’t a euphemism for anything else, although that Delgado woman would have you think otherwise.
’ She looked at them in turn. ‘Henry’s my poodle. ’
‘Did you see if he went off in the car?’ Cameron asked. ‘Or if there was a blue VW Golf there?’
‘The car didn’t move. I think the suit got out of a VW before he got into the Volvo. It was still there when Maurice pulled out of the space. He had to go back to his office, and I was coming back here to the shop to do some paperwork.’
‘How did Wendy Delgado know you and Maurice went up to the trail?’
‘I have no idea. But she had made a snide comment to Maurice before.’
‘Bumping gums,’ Cameron said.
‘What?’ Mrs Howard said.
‘It’s an expression she used.’
Mrs Howard shook her head. ‘Manky old cow. I’m surprised she didn’t make a pass at you.’
Cameron looked at his notebook again, not wanting to make eye contact with Art.
‘I don’t think we’re her type,’ Art said.
‘You’ve got a pulse, haven’t you?’ she said.
Art resisted making a face, not one like Mrs Howard had just made, doing an impression of Fifi about to launch some dog vomit in the back of Maurice’s car, but it would have been close had he not reined it in.
They wrapped up the interview and she promised she would be in touch if she remembered anything else about the little Volvo.
Outside, a warm air was blowing as they walked back over to the police station.
‘Why would the boss be meeting somebody up at a trail?’ Cameron asked.
‘I don’t know. It might not have been him. If it was, maybe he was meeting a woman. I had a drink with him on a Friday in the bowling club and he always liked a good time with women. Maybe he met one who was married and they were meeting in secret. I wish we could figure out where he went.’
‘Maybe he wanted to start a new life,’ Cameron said. ‘Some people do, you know. Live off the grid.’
‘Nah. Not Alan. He wasn’t into chopping down trees for firewood or drinking his own piss.’
‘I said living off the grid, not living on an island with cannibals chasing after him,’ Cameron said.
‘Both have the same appeal, if you ask me,’ Art said.
‘Anyway, that’s not his style. He wouldn’t just up sticks and leave.
Talking about piss, I need one now,’ he said, going into the police station.
Cameron wondered if Fifi and Henry liked a cupcake before they started shagging on the back seat of Maw-reece Duvall’s car.
Somehow he thought Wendy Delgado would know about it if they did.