Michael grimaced. ‘There are bikes, for the holiday let folk, at Sunnyside.’
‘But how could he have transported Yvonne on a bike?’
Maggie bit back an impatient sigh. ‘You know what an opportunist Nick is. Maybe he saw Lulu leaving, took his chance to lure Yvonne to Sunnyside, did . . . whatever he did to her, took her somewhere in her own car with a bike in the boot, left her there, took her car to Craibstone Wood, cycled back to Sunnyside. Stopping now and then to make trades on his phone to give himself an alibi.’
‘So you think he disposed of her body somewhere else and then left the car at the wood so we’d think she’d gone for a walk and got into difficulties? She’s dead, isn’t she?’ Michael moaned.
‘We don’t know that,’ said Maggie. ‘He might be keeping her somewhere. Trying to make her reveal our location.’ As soon as it was out her mouth, she knew that wasn’t helping.
And sure enough, Michael choked up. ‘Torturing her, you mean?’
Duncan wasn’t liking this one bit. He went, ‘There’s no reason to think that.’
Maggie made herself breathe. ‘What exactly did the police say, Michael, after you told them you thought Nick might be responsible for Yvonne going missing?’
‘They were sceptical. I mean, Nick’s hardly spoken to her for twenty years. They obviously feel he couldn’t have much of a motive, even after I told them about Yvonne helping you disappear. And then he’s got this supposed alibi.’
Maggie got up. ‘You need to put pressure on them to look at tracking data for his phone. If he was on the move while making the trades, the tracking data will show the phone wasn’t at Sunnyside.’
‘Oh, he’ll have got round that too somehow, won’t he?’ Michael was hunched over in his chair.
‘But it’s worth a try. Come on now, Michael. You give them a call, aye?’
Phone in hand, Michael stared stupidly at the screen.
‘You tell them they’ve got to look at the tracking data for Nick’s phone because you’re sure he’s involved in whatever’s happened to Yvonne.’
‘All this is pure speculation!’ went Duncan. ‘We have no idea what’s happened. Nick could be completely innocent!’
‘Well,’ said Maggie dryly, ‘not completely.’
She and, she suspected, Michael were one hundred per cent sure that Nick had done something to Yvonne, but Duncan didn’t want to believe it. In the last twenty-two years, he’d had regular mad turns when he’d had doubts about Nick’s guilt and wanted to contact him.
At first it had been fine. In those early months of their new life in Wales, Duncan had never even mentioned Nick. He’d spent all his time fussing round Isla, his wee princess. Eventually, though, he’d started wondering aloud how Nick was getting on. They had always said it wouldn’t be forever, that Duncan would go back sometime and try to help him. Maggie had had to play the ‘Isla and I need you more’ card, and point out that Duncan didn’t know how Nick would react if he turned up again in his life – and if anything happened to Duncan, what would become of Maggie and wee Isla? Duncan loved the two of them to pieces, so this argument had always won the day. Maggie had also played on the fact that Nick, according to Yvonne and Michael, was doing well. It wasn’t healthy for him to have Duncan in his life. ‘He’s better off without the warped obsession he has with you, eh?’
Duncan hadn’t needed too much persuading.
But, from time to time, she’d find him going through an old album Yvonne had given him, smiling over the photos of Nick as a toddler and young child.
‘So full of life and fun,’ he would sigh.
Maggie could see what he was thinking: Could Nick really be such a monster? Have we made a massive mistake and done him a horrendous injustice?
And she’d have to get in his face, remind him of everything Nick had done, get him back in that moment when he’d stopped the pram. ‘Isla would have been killed if you’d been a second later!’
Now, she could see she was going to have to get the wee boy Duncan had left behind out his head and get psycho Nick back front and centre.
She went, ‘Are you conveniently forgetting what he did to Isla?’
Duncan sighed.
While Michael made his call, Maggie put the kettle back on and brought them all more tea. Then, as Michael sat back in his chair, Duncan said, ‘Well?’
‘The DC said they’ve already looked at the tracking data for Nick’s phone. The phone was in the house, in Sunnyside, the whole time.’