Munro’s forehead had a purplish tinge. ‘Because you have corrupted my fellow-officers?’
‘No. Because that company exists to give the girls a chance to keep and invest their earnings over a period and then to get out of the game, as I did, instead of being milked and sweated and dominated by some member of your sex, Mr Munro, until they’re old and ugly and flat broke. We probably rescue more girls from prostitution than all the social workers in the country added together.’
‘That is no different from the criminal who commits his last big crime in order to retire,’ Munro said indignantly, waving a boney finger at her. ‘But we will never agree. Never. Now, Mrs Heller, the photographs.’
‘Ah yes.’ She put her finger on the intercom, and withdrew it. ‘You can see the girls alone if you want.’ She managed to work up a leer and put a slight emphasis on the want.
Munro was a brave officer, but his Calvinist upbringing was weighing him down. The very idea of visiting scarlet women in their boudoirs terrified him. ‘No thank you,’ he said.
‘We give a small discount to serving officers.’
‘And pensioners, no doubt,’ Munro sneered.
‘That question has never arisen yet.’
Chapter Nine
It was nearly noon before the window was replaced and Keith and Molly got away from Dundee.
Keith, awakening, found that he could with some difficulty crack his eyes open enough to give him a blurred and distorted view of the world, but the view was hardly worth the pain. It was easier to let Molly sponge his face, dress him and prepare his breakfast, and to wait patiently while she visited travel-agents on his behalf and then fetched the car.
In the passenger’s seat, Keith leaned back against the head-rest and wondered why the position felt uncomfortably familiar. Then he remembered. When Molly drove, he always closed his eyes.
Molly started off grimly silent as she braved the traffic.
‘You’re going by Perth and the motorway, are you?’ Keith asked after a minute or two.
‘I hate that road through Fife. And I thought you couldn’t see.’
‘I can’t. But I didn’t hear you stop and pay a toll on the bridge. So what did you find out at the travel agents?’
‘Just a moment.’ Molly was silent again while she spurted past what sounded like a Corporation bus. ‘You were right. I put on a voice like Inspector Munro and said that I was Donald Illingworth’s sister.’
‘Did you find out where he is?’
‘Yes. I said that our mother was desperately ill and calling for him, so would they please tell me where he is.’
‘And where is he?’ Keith asked.
‘At the first one they thought I was daft, but I struck lucky at the second. They didn’t want to tell me, they said it was confidential, so I said that it was a matter of a legacy, and my brother would certainly sue them if he got cut out of our mother’s will because they’d been so stubborn, and in the end they told me.’
‘Where?’
‘You don’t have to shout. He’s in Madeira. Funchal. They showed me a brochure. It looks lovely. Keith, do you think we could go to Madeira some time?’
‘Possibly,’ Keith said. ‘Possibly. But meantime go through Edinburgh. I want you to describe the outside of the Personal Service building to me.’
‘I don’t like driving in Edinburgh,’ Molly said. ‘Is it important?’
‘I don’t suppose so, but it might be.’ Keith fumbled for the radio and switched it on. Jangling discords; something by Stockhausen, he thought, not the medicine for a man feeling depressed and uncertain. When they were safely on the dual carriageway he said, ‘Find me a nice, soothing tape, would you? Something easy, all melody. Is the Mendelsohn violin concerto in the car?’
‘You took it out. Anyway,’ Molly said, ‘I’d rather you told me what this is all about.’
‘Wallace said he told you.’
‘He thinks he did. But he was so vague and circumspect I still don’t know whether you’re in trouble or not.’
‘I don’t think I am,’ Keith said, ‘except for having quite a financial stake in solving a problem.’
‘You’re troubled in your mind, though. I can always tell.’
Keith eased himself into a more comfortable position. He was finding more and more parts of his anatomy that were grumbling about the activities of the previous day. ‘I was asked to deal with something in absolute confidence and without scandal, so I’d be daft to blab about the details.’ Keith seemed to remember saying much the same to Illingworth’s neighbour the night before. He paused and sorted out his thoughts. ‘I’ll tell you this much, and don’t you go telling a soul. I was asked to investigate because there was a bloodstain found and a lead ball. It looked as if somebody’d maybe been shot. It could have been an accident, a minor wounding or a suicide, but there could have been a murder. The other trouble was that any kind of scandal would trigger off financial losses that’d rub off on us. Even so, I was the one who wanted to call in the police; but I was persuaded to carry on until we could be sure that something really serious had happened.’
‘And now?’
‘Now I’m damn sure that something serious happened. But in the meantime a lot of other little signs –’ Keith broke off ‘No, not signs,’ he admitted. ‘Mostly hunch. Crystal ball and tea leaves. The man I had my fight with was working for a big contractor, a firm that’s none too scrupulous about how they get their contracts just so long as they get them. They’ve figured in one or two big bribes cases. We don’t know the identity of the victim for sure yet, but my guess is that he was connected with them one way or another. Otherwise I can’t see any reason for their interest, not one that makes sense all the way.
‘By process of elimination, the other man has to be the guilty one. And I’ve just found out his identity. He’s a man who sets a very high standard of honesty for himself and others.’
‘A pillar of virtue?’ Molly sounded disbelieving.
‘Not virtue,’ Keith said. ‘No. If, when I was younger, I’d been as much of a one for the lasses as you’ve always wanted to think, which I wasn’t, I’d’ve been a babe in arms compared to his one. His private life’s in one hell of a fankle. But he seems to be a genuinely honest man. He’s set his face against dishonesty, especially corruption with public funds.’
There was another break in their discussion while Molly slowed to let a faster car by and then pulled out to pass a Juggernaut. ‘There aren’t that many honest folk,’ she said. ‘The rest I could believe, but not the honest bit. You make him sound like Donald Illingworth.’
Keith felt himself jump. ‘You know him?’
‘It’s him is it? Not to say know. He’s been in the shop once or twice – he bought one of those copper powder-flasks. And I’ve seen him on the telly when he was making a speech about something. He looks as if he needs to put a little weight on and to relax a bit more.’
‘Or a bit less,’ Keith said.
‘I didn’t mean that. He only popped into my mind because he was at the Game Fair.’
Keith sighed. If he had only remembered to consult Molly he could have saved a day, a lot of driving, at least one fight and possibly two, the cost of a new window and the danger of being charged with assault. ‘You think he’s sincere?’ he asked. ‘Or could all that honesty be a sham?’
Molly deliberated for a couple of miles. ‘I think it’s for real,’ she said ‘I wouldn’t trust him with my grandmother in the middle of a crowd, he has that sort of look. But I don’t doubt his honesty.’
‘Could he be a brilliant liar? Like a secondhand-car salesman?’
‘No, it’s not just meeting your eye without staring, that sort of thing. I made a five pound error with his change, gave him a fiver too much. He didn’t notice until he was out of the shop, but he came back. Most men would’ve just shrugged and smiled No, I don’t think he’s two-faced, I think he’s just the sort of man who’d send my films and lenses back to me.’
‘Aren’t you rather setting yourself up as judge and jury?’ Molly asked.
‘I suppose I am. But the law is a very blunt instrument. Law and justice fit where they touch, and they don’t always make a very good contact. Sometimes they need a little gumption added.’
‘Mr Munro might not agree with you.’
‘Humph! That canting bloody highlander still has peat between his toes. He’ll have one hell of a job proving when I found out that there’d been a fatal shooting. I want to know why before I commit myself.’
‘If he’s killed somebody, nothing’ll make that right,’ Molly said in a small voice.
‘I’d like to remind you of something. Once upon a time, somebody stuck you with a knife. I chased him up into the hills. I was going to hand him over to Munro, but first I wanted to make him wish he’d never been thought of So I pulled my own knife, and every time he slowed down I gave him a fright that set him going again. After about three hours, he dropped dead I told you that I hadn’t meant to kill him, and you said that I should have meant it. All right, maybe you were just saying it to make me feel better, but there was a lot of sense in what you said If I find that he killed out of greed or lust or spite, Munro can have him and welcome. If he turned out to be a member of a terrorist organisation, I’d think that he’d forfeited any right to membership of the human race and I’d kill him myself But the probability is that he tilted at one windmill too many and killed a giant at last. So I want a chance to think it over if it turns out that he was striking a blow for honesty or defending the lady’s honour or something.’
‘There was a girl in it, was there?’ Molly said.
‘I didn’t say so. Well, maybe I did. There was, but her part in it seems to be negligible. According to her she was away before anything happened, and her story checks out so far.’
‘Really checks out? Or is this more crystal ball and tea leaves? Or a logical deduction that nobody with a swollen bust and lace pants could possibly tell a lie? I know how you think, Keith Calder.’ Molly spoke lightly, but there was a trace of anxiety in her voice.
Keith started to smile, but stopped quickly when his battered face objected. ‘You think you do,’ he said. ‘But you don’t. What you’re saying is that I’m a male chauvinist pig to exclude her because she’s female. Equal opportunities for murderesses.’
‘If you want to be silly about it.’
It was Keith’s turn to be silent for a mile or two. ‘Maybe you’re being coaxed in the direction of female chauvinism by Illingworth’s blue eyes,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t think I’m being chauvinist. I take a realistic view of the difference between men and women.’ (By God you do! Molly thought). ‘As far as we know, the girl had no,’ Keith tried to think of another word, and couldn’t, ‘connection with either man, she has a sort of alibi, and she drew attention to the bloodstain when she could have ignored it.’
‘Go on.’
‘All right, there’s one other factor. This wasn’t a woman’s crime.’
‘Aha!’
‘Not “Aha!”, but far from it,’ Keith said.
‘You’re always generalising about women.’
‘I don’t think I’m generalising. I try not to. People exaggerate the gender differences, it’s more fun that way. When you come down to it, the differences – apart from the hooray differences – are only on average. For better or worse, nature decided that your sex was going to specialise in reproduction and aftercare, and mine was going to be the provider and the defender. Some creatures are quite different, but that’s how it is with humans. So the average man can run faster than the average woman, but although I’m at least as fast as the average man there are some women who can run faster than I can.’
‘You’ve found out, haven’t you?’ Molly said. The acute listener might have detected a nice blend of pride and concern in her voice.
‘I can’t be sure how hard some of them were trying,’ Keith said. ‘On average, man has strength and aggression, woman has gentleness, patience and endurance. I don’t say that it’s fair, I don’t say that it’s always true, but on average that’s the way it is. So when you get more than one pointer, it’s only a freak that runs against the pattern.
‘Now, in this case somebody had to dismantle an antique pistol to get it down off the wall, produce muzzle-loading materials and load and cap it.’
‘I could have done that,’ Molly pointed out.
‘So you could. And this particular girl at least likes old guns as ornaments because they were on her wall, but I don’t think she knows a damn thing about them and she sure as hell wouldn’t have had powder, a ball and a cap lying about. She might have had access to Illingworth’s car, and what put us onto him in the first place was the likelihood of his having a bootful of muzzle-loading materials.’
‘He could have loaded it for her.’
‘He could, but I can’t see any reason why he should.’
‘All right,’ Molly said. ‘So she had access to his car.’
‘Next point, guns aren’t a woman’s bang, if you’ll pardon the pun. They don’t have the same phallic connotation for a woman as they do for a man, and women aren’t nature’s fighters and meat-gatherers. And again, she’d have had to improvise. Illingworth’s twenty-bore Kentucky is nippled for large military caps, and those would be all that he had with him. The nipple on the pistol was sized for a twenty-six cap, and there were signs that somebody had bodged up a larger cap with chewing-gum to make it fit. But women aren’t at home with mechanical things; they can learn to use them, but they’re never in sympathy with them. They’re better with animate things, they often make better dog-trainers, horse-riders and carriage-drivers than men. But a woman can only be taught to operate a machine; ask her to understand it, to improvise, and she’s lost. That’s why I don’t think a woman did this.’
‘Rubbish!’ Molly said, half-laughing. ‘You and your homespun philosophy! You just don’t think much of us.’
Keith laughed in his turn, and winced. ‘I think of you all the time,’ he said. ‘I think women are nice people. But I’m right about their mechanical ineptitude. That’s why, on average, they don’t make such good drivers as men.’
‘Rubbish!’ Molly said again. She pulled out to overtake.
‘There you are,’ Keith said. ‘A man would have changed down, but you pulled away with the engine labouring. You give me a tape-recording of a driver in traffic and I’ll tell you whether it’s a man or a woman, and I’ll back myself to be right eight times out of ten.’
‘You show me a graph of his blood pressure and I’ll tell you the same thing,’ Molly retorted.
‘You’re a female chauvinist sow,’ Keith said.
The argument lasted them as far as the Forth Bridge.
*
Keith never got the benefit of Molly’s description of the Personal Service building. ‘Put her along,’ he said as they reached the Newbridge roundabout. ‘I want to get home. I’ve things to do.’
‘Can you do them with your eyes bunged up?’
‘I can dictate some more of my book into the tape-recorder. Did I tell you I’ve got a good chance of laying my hands on a Ferguson Rifle? I’d like to get that bit dictated while it’s still fresh in my mind.’
‘Well, I’m not going to get pinched for speeding just in case you forget a bit,’ Molly said rebelliously. ‘There was a police car back at the roundabout.’
‘They never have a radar trap here. There’s nowhere to pull the offenders in that you can’t see miles off Anyway, it’s derestricted in a few yards.’
Molly speeded up slightly. ‘And I don’t want to cause an accident.’
‘It’s not fast drivers that cause accidents. Slow drivers cause accidents. Fast drivers die in them, though.’
‘Well then . . . Keith, that police car�
��s following us.’ There was a touch of panic in Molly’s voice. The car slowed again.
‘Don’t crawl,’ Keith said. ‘That’s the first thing to make them wonder about you. You’re sober, I think your driving license is up to date and the car’s insured for you. So shut up worrying.’
‘If you say so.’ Molly muttered to herself as another mile rolled away. ‘Keith, they’re coming up alongside. They’re signalling me to pull in. What have I done wrong?’
‘Nothing. There’s a lay-by outside Ingliston Showground. Pull in there.’
‘We’re just passing it.’
‘Then go down the Turnhouse slip-road.’
Molly turned down the slip-road and stopped. Keith heard another car pass them and park, and footsteps walking back. ‘Mr Calder,’ said a voice.
‘Two ugly coppers want a word with you,’ Molly said. She sounded shaky.
Keith forced up one eyelid for a second. ‘You’re not wrong,’ he said.
The two constables had heard the exchange but remained unmoved. ‘Mr Calder?’ one of them said again.
‘Me,’ Keith said. ‘The one on the left.’
‘Chief Inspector Munro wants you back in Newton Lauder.’
Keith digested this information on one level of his brain while another level said, ‘He’s in luck. That’s where we’re going.’
‘Were you, sir? Or were you heading for the airport?’
‘I’ve just told you I was on the way home. We turned down here because you signalled us to stop.’
The constable’s voice was disbelieving. ‘Came over the Forth Bridge, didn’t you? Would you mind telling me why you’re on this road?’
Keith had no intention of mentioning the Personal Service building. ‘If we went in by the Queensferry Road,’ he said, ‘my wife would have to drive in the worst of the Edinburgh traffic. No way does she do that while I’m in the passenger seat. This way we go through Gogarburn and onto the Ring Road.’
The policeman thought it over for a few seconds. It was a perfectly valid route. ‘Would you mind getting out of the car?’
‘You can see that I’m injured. I think you’d better tell me what it’s all about.’
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