Missing Believed Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

weekend. He didn’t look good, but they say he’s making progress. He’s not making it quick enough, if you ask me.’
    ‘Takes a bit of getting over – a heart attack.’
    ‘Yeah. I don’t suppose we’ll see him back for a while. Give you a laugh though – guess who was in the next bed to him when he was in intensive care?’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Only one of Tony Palmer’s thugs, Gus Daniels, that’s who.’
    Bill had been trying to get something on Tony Palmer for years, but the man was slick and didn’t even have a criminal record, despite being the biggest gangster in Dundee.
    Sue laughed. ‘That must have made Gus’s day, being banged up in hospital beside the copper who’s been trying to nail you. Pity we weren’t able to get anything on him and his partner, Phil Beattie, we could’ve banged them both up in prison. A couple of pretty boys would have been welcomed with open arms.’
    ‘Luck of the draw, Sue. One thing’s for sure, Phil won’t be getting his leg over for a while yet. According to Andy, Gus was smashed up pretty bad in that car crash in January, when we were chasing the Templeton Woods’ killer.’
    ‘Speaking of Tony, you ever get anything on him for the zoo caper he pulled?’
    ‘Not yet. But sooner or later he’ll slip up and when he does I’ll get him.’
    ‘You wish. He’s a slippery customer, our Tony.’ Sue turned her attention back to the heap of files on her desk. ‘Are you going to faff about all day, or are you going to help me sort out these files?’
    Bill continued scrubbing at his shirt. ‘Bloody coffee stain’s not coming out.’
    * * * *
     
    The reception area of Dundee Police Headquarters was accessed at the rear of the building, up a flight of steps and through a door into a fairly large vestibule. Opposite the door were the elevators, and to the left of them the glass partition separating officers from those waiting to be seen. At this time of the morning it was empty, except for Detective Inspector Kate Rawlings, pacing the floor.
    Kate knew she should stop, sit down and wait patiently for the super to come and collect her, but her nerves were frazzled. First had been the drive into Dundee during the rush hour and a near miss with a lorry running a red light at the Forfar roundabout. Then the lack of a parking place when she arrived outside the large modern building that was police headquarters, which meant she had to park in the multi-storey car park, a dark cavern of a place. And now she’d been kept waiting for almost half an hour, and she suspected the constables behind the glass partition were talking about her. She was ready to spit nails by the time the super appeared.
    Kate memorized the number as the super entered it into a keypad on the wall. She knew from experience she would be ridiculed if she had to ask for help because she couldn’t open the elevator doors.
    ‘After you.’ Superintendent Logan smiled benignly and touched her elbow. ‘This office will be larger than you are accustomed to,’ he said as the doors closed.
    ‘Yes, sir.’ Kate was careful to keep her voice calm and respectful. It was an unfortunate state of affairs, but women in the police force sometimes had to tolerate a sexist attitude from their male colleagues.
    This was one of the reasons she hadn’t wanted to be pulled away from Forfar to head up the Central CID team. She was respected in Forfar. She wasn’t sure she would be respected in Dundee. Earning that respect would be difficult and would be even harder than usual because she was also expected to keep control of Eastern Division, which would mean dividing her time between the two teams. The chief constable had said he was impressed by her organisational abilities and there were no doubts in his mind she would take both teams in her stride. Likewise, there were no doubts in her mind that if she did not, it would be professional suicide.
    ‘I’ll introduce you to the team and then let you get on with it,’ the