In Loving Memory

by Gerald Hammond

  When the supply of Honeymilk ran out that morning, young Miss Laird made it clear that she was by no means satisfied. Honey was happy to deliver her to June for topping-up from the feeding bottle while she herself retired upstairs. Honey was in the shower when she heard the doorbell. Coming downstairs ten minutes later she found Kate in the kitchen, restored to her usual immaculate state and nursing an already somnolent Minka while June washed up. Once burped, the baby settled down contentedly under June’s eye and the two ladies adjourned to the sitting room. The room was comfortably warm from the central heating but the imitation coal portion of an electric appliance, placed in front of the dead ashes of the previous evening, conveyed a spurious impression of an open fire.

  ‘How did you get on?’ Honey asked.

  ‘They’re thorough, I’ll say that for them. When they left it was after midnight. I looked across but there were no lights on here and there didn’t seem to be much point disturbing you. I made them sandwiches, which was all they’d take. They looked at the window the thieves had jemmied to get in and they tried every possible surface for fingerprints. Of course they found about ten thousand fingerprints but those that aren’t mine will turn out to belong to Phil or my cleaning lady. I gave them details of the camera. I said that my husband might have it with him but that we’d be very upset if it was gone for good because it held photographs of an occasion that had great sentimental value and could never be repeated. Don’t laugh, it was almost true. What happens next?’

  ‘In an ideal world,’ Honey said, ‘the entire CID would be dashing around, shaking down every known fence or tealeaf and looking out for anything on your stolen list. In this less than perfect world there simply isn’t time for that sort of concentration on every break-in. Unless somebody was killed, of course. You didn’t have the foresight to lure a stranger into your home and brain them with the poker?’

  ‘Never thought of it.’

  ‘A mistake. Your chattels would have become clues. You’d have had everybody looking for them instead of waiting for some of them to surface if a thief or a fence comes a cropper. You’ve notified your insurers?’

  ‘I phoned. They’re sending an adjuster.’

  ‘Stay vague about the camera. Meanwhile, I’ll see what I can do.’

  Kate’s face drooped with depression and her voice, usually penetrating to the point at which Honey had to make a conscious effort not to flinch, had dropped to a level at which Honey found it quite tolerable. ‘Honey, you’re not cheering me up much,’ she said. ‘I can’t see you dashing around, intimidating – what do you call them? – snouts. Not with a young babe in arms.’

  Honey laughed. Hearing her own laugh always surprised her with its warmth and richness. ‘You watch too much TV,’ she said. ‘I don’t need to dash about. What do you think is the investigator’s principal tool?’

  Kate looked vague. Evidently she had never paused to consider how the police might do their job. ‘I don’t know. Fingerprint kit?’

  ‘Telephone,’ Honey said. ‘Backed up by fax and email. I have an informant – I suppose you’d call him a snout. He knows most of what’s going on. After you left here last night I phoned him, gave him the details and mentioned the reward. I don’t know that he can find your camera but I know that he’ll try.’

  Kate reached for the handbag beside her chair. ‘Do you pay him?’

  ‘Keep your filthy lucre. No. In a sense, I paid him long ago. In those days he had a junk shop and wasn’t too fussy about what he bought or sold. I’d have run him in like a shot and he knew it. Then a dishonest policeman – you’d probably call him a bent copper – got hold of him and tried to shake him down for money by threatening his daughter with prosecution as a street-walker. I knew the girl and I knew that she wasn’t any such thing. To cut a long story very short, I got it dropped and the copper was given the push. Her father can’t do enough for me. He has two antique shops now and he’ll buy and sell absolutely anything. I’ll still run him in if he slips up, but until that day he’s a heaven-sent source of information.’

  ‘What an exciting life you lead!’ Kate glanced at her watch. ‘I have to go soon. The insurance man will be coming and then I’ve got my cleaning lady. She’ll help me to put everything back together again.’

  ‘You can manage a coffee before you go?’

  They had coffee. When Kate rose, Honey escorted her to the door. There was some mail on the doormat. There was also a large, padded envelope with neither address nor stamps on it. Honey opened this first. It contained a Nikon camera. She held it out. Kate grabbed it and slid the little door so that it sprang open. Together they looked inside.

  ‘The memory card’s been taken out,’ Kate said. Suddenly, she looked ten years older.

  ‘It held the only copies?’

  Kate looked puzzled. ‘I don’t get you.’

  In Honey’s line of work it soon became habitual to think all round a situation. She had come to expect her colleagues to follow her trains of thought. ‘Neither you nor your friend,’ Honey said patiently, ‘had downloaded the contents of the memory card into a computer to store it or view it or to make prints, in order to wind yourselves up again? Because, if so, your happy snaps will also be in the computer’s memory and that’s another set to worry about.’

  ‘No, nothing like that, thank God. We had a quick scroll through, looking at them on the camera’s little screen, and that was all that we—’

  ‘Let’s take the details as read, shall we?’ Honey said firmly. After dalliance with a much loved husband at bedtime the previous evening she preferred to keep her memories pristine and not sullied with images of Kate and a stranger who was becoming more and more weird in her imagination. ‘So we have to concentrate on the memory card. If I understand digital photography correctly, the camera has no memory of its own and with the memory card or memory stick removed you can safely return his camera to your still loving husband. Does he know yet that you’ve been burgled?’

  Dumbly, Kate shook her head. ‘I haven’t spoken to him again.’

  ‘Tell him as soon as you can. You’d better leave the rest of the problem with me,’ Honey said. ‘Keep the camera. Buy another memory card for it. Take a few photographs on it. Tell Phil about the burglary.’

  ‘Shall I tell him that I had the camera with me?’

  ‘If you can be quite sure that he’ll never discuss the crime with your cops. After that, you can go on listing everything you can think of that’s gone walkies while I make use of my favourite investigatory tool.’

  Rather than keep Honey back from her telephoning, Kate was in a hurry to escape. The return of the camera without the memory card had caused her to look more rather than less miserable. Honey saw her to the door and took a look at the weather. The day, which had started damp, had turned bright and clear. She looked into the kitchen. It was the habit of Mr Potterton-Phipps, at the first mention of missed periods or morning sickness, to heap gifts on whichever daughter-in-law was expecting his grandchild and Honey’s sisters-in-law, once they were quite sure that their childbearing days were over, had passed on to Honey much expensive baby gear. This had included several cots, which made it possible to have one in each room so that Minka could be put down to sleep in almost any room without the bother of moving cots around. Minka was sleeping soundly in one that always sat, out of the way of all draughts, between the cooker and the big dresser. June was finishing the washing up.

  ‘I have some phoning to do,’ Honey said. ‘But Pippa will need a walk. You can leave Minka with me and walk the dog.’

  June started to dry her hands hastily. ‘She won’t get much sleep if you’re talking on the phone. I can take the pram and keep Pippa on the lead until we’re away from traffic. We’ll go up the farm track. The beds can wait until I come back.’

  Honey smiled secretly. This had been her intention all along, but she could not have suggested it without enduring an interminable complaint, which would have included a summary of how many pairs
of hands June had been blessed with.

  Chapter Three

  As soon as Honey had the house to herself she phoned her informant. Mr Briar had left home and was not to be found at either of his shops. She left urgent messages and eventually he called her back as she had known he would. He was one of the few people who could be trusted to return a call.

  ‘You got the camera?’ he asked.

  ‘I did, and I’m deeply grateful. I would have been several times more grateful if the memory card had still been in it. There was some confidential material in the card that my friend would not want to fall into other hands.’

  She heard his indrawn breath. ‘I don’t know about that, Mrs Laird. I’m a jeweller, no’ a photographer.’

  ‘You’re a . . .’ She hesitated long enough between choosing the words crook and fence that discretion had time to prevail. ‘. . . a great help,’ she substituted. ‘Was the card still in the camera when it left your hands? I take it that it did leave your hands?’

  ‘Oh aye.’ Though he had lived in Edinburgh for forty years there were traces of his rural origin in Mr Briar’s voice. ‘It was a part-exchange. Whether there was still a card in it I would not know.’

  Honey made a horrible face at the wall. This did not look good. The camera could have changed hands as part of the price of some hot goods. With a modern digital camera it was easy to inspect the photographs still in the memory card or stick given a computer and also a programme, at least one example of which was obtainable free over the Internet. Or else they could be viewed on the camera’s screen though to a tiny scale. The memory card might have been viewed and stolen by an employee in Mr Briar’s shop, or even a prospective customer, or it might have been traded with the camera and discovered by the purchaser. ‘This is important,’ she said. ‘Can you find out from your staff whether the card was in place when the camera was traded. Who did you pass it on to?’

  She did not expect him to name names so she was not disappointed. ‘Leave it with me, Mrs Laird,’ he said. ‘I’ll do all that can be done.’

  ‘Please do.’ The message seemed to be in need of ramming home. ‘This is no longer a matter of getting a favour from an old friend. If my friend and neighbour suffers blackmail over what’s in that camera or if that material gets out in any other way, I shall be very angry indeed. Have you ever seen me really angry, Mr Briar?’

  She heard his swift intake of breath. She could see him as clearly as if he had been in front of her – fat and pasty in a too-tight suit that had acquired a shine over the years. ‘As it happens, Mrs Laird, I have. Like when Rory Mac tried to kill a witness you were protecting. And when two tykes on day release from Saughton beat up a tart to rob her. You put the fear of God into them, the fuzz, the probationary staff and the psychiatric service. I’m told that when the parole board heard that you were coming to address them, they went and hid in the lavatories.’

  ‘That story,’ Honey said, ‘was greatly exaggerated. But please believe, if it had been true, my wrath if those pictures ever get public will make that incident look like a childish tantrum.’

  ‘Please, Mrs Laird, leave it in my hands.’

  Honey rather thought that she was not getting the run-around but there would be no harm rubbing the message a little further in. ‘Your staff have handled stolen goods. There may be a very serious outcome. You’ve heard the expression “heads will roll”?’ she enquired grimly. ‘Heads will not merely roll. They will bounce, bungee jump and explode on hitting the ground. If you don’t want your head to be one of them, get that bloody memory card back for me.’

  She disconnected, wondering why she was taking so much trouble and expending favours that could have been used on worthier causes.

  *

  For two days, Honey heard nothing except for the plaintive telephoning of Kate Ingliston. At first she had withheld the bad news. Why make Kate miserable when it could serve no good purpose and all might yet be well? Eventually she could no longer defer making a progress report. The only comfort that she could offer to Kate was that no news was, for the moment, good news. Quite possibly the new owner of the memory card had discovered Kate’s photographs but was quite unaware of the identity of the subjects and was retaining the photographs for his own delectation and the amusement of his (or her) friends. Kate could only hope that those friends did not include any of her own acquaintances. Even so, it was not a comforting subject for thought.

  Phil had returned home but, in accordance with Honey’s suggestion, Kate had bought a new memory card to replace the stolen one and embellished it with the postcode. She had then taken several perfectly innocuous photographs of the neighbourhood. Phil was now happily recording his visits to industrial installations in Scotland. Before leaving for his foreign tour he had spent an afternoon printing his recent photographs and transferring to disc the images of any that he wished to preserve. Thus he had no reason to look further back in the memory card.

  Honey felt impatience at the waiting and uncertainty, but she wondered why she should care. It was not as if she liked Kate a lot. It would be no skin off her nose if Phil came across the proof of his wife’s infidelity. But Kate had offered her friendship unasked and comfort when comfort was needed. She was a friend of sorts and when an almost-friend sought her help it would have been against both her fellow feeling and her professional pride not to do her utmost. Besides, Honey thought wryly, we all need somebody to look down on.

  On the Thursday morning, she returned from a visit to her doctor to the news that Jock Briar wanted her to call him back. Her mind was full of other news. Her milk being almost over, she had been given an injection to halt the remaining trickle. Minka would have to make do with the offerings of other mammals while her mother, who had been patient for long enough, would at last have freedom to get out and about, unencumbered.

  Once she had conveyed the news to June, who was delighted to realize that she would now be the major player in Minka’s care and maintenance, she decided to return Mr Briar’s call.

  Jock Briar answered the phone in person. ‘Mrs Laird,’ he said. ‘I have done my best. I have put the word about that your friend is offering a reward for the return of the memory card and that you’ll put the boot in if anyone tries to be clever. There’s only one man – well, a couple really, man and woman – who are regularly in the market for photies that might have value for the black, or as porn. I’m assuming that that’s what we’re talking about?’ He waited, but Honey made no comment. ‘Right. They’ve heard nothing and they promised me they’ll let me have first offer if it turns up. I suppose they can’t recognize it without looking at what’s in it?’

  ‘Knowing the man it belongs to, I’m sure that his postcode will be on it – the same postcode as mine. Now come to the point, Jock. Pee or get off the pot. Is this just to report no progress?’

  ‘No’ quite,’ Jock said. ‘It’s to say that my assistant tells me the camera was bought by Jem Tanar. The card was still in it. He paid cash.’

  Honey glanced out of the window but no pigs were to be seen in flight. Jem Tanar was a shoplifter, teenage or very little more, who specialized in minor items of jewellery. Honey had come across him in the process of another and more pressing investigation and had not been impressed. That the young tearaway would part with cash for a camera was improbable; more likely was that in the process of haggling over the disposal of some booty he had ended up accepting the camera as part payment. That Jock Briar was prepared to name names suggested that Jock was worried.

  ‘You’ve been in touch with him?’ she asked.

  ‘No’ really. I’ve left messages for him, warning him to get in touch, but devil a word have I had back. His ma hasn’t seen him. I’ve put the word around his cronies. I can’t do more. I thought it best to warn you.’

  Looking at it from Jock’s point of view, Honey could see a degree of logic. It was certainly better to warn her than to let things slide. ‘All right, Jock,’ she said. ‘I’ll take it from here.�
��

  Once again she had recourse to her premier investigative tool, the telephone. She put the word around her colleagues that she wanted to see Jem Tanar. He seemed at first to have dropped out of sight, but after a day or two a CID sergeant tipped her off that young Tanar, for activities that even his broadminded mother would not have approved, rented a room in a tenement flat behind Ferry Road.

  Honey knew that Sergeant Blair had a magic but strictly illegal touch with locks. ‘Would you meet me there?’ she asked.

  ‘Delighted.’ The sergeant had a special soft spot for Honey. ‘What time?’

  Pippa would be in need of a walk. ‘Give me an hour.’

  ‘It’s a date,’ Sergeant Blair said wistfully. Clearly he wished that it were so.

  Honey’s first call was in the kitchen. ‘I have to go out,’ she told June. ‘Keep pouring milk into the Mighty Midget until told to stop. I’m taking Pippa.’

  *

  The day was grey and the wind was cold, but Pippa was delighted to be walked around the observatory again, an area that had been deemed to be too steep for Honey during the latter stages of her pregnancy. Honey was glad to stretch her legs again and to admire the view across the Firth of Forth to the Kingdom of Fife. The Range Rover still arrived at the given address precisely on time. Sergeant Blair’s unmarked Corsa dead-heated with her.

  The tenement rose grim-faced from the usual bald and impersonal Edinburgh street, a canyon through solid buildings, made narrower by the vehicles parked and apparently abandoned on each side. The stairway was well above average, being swept, recently painted and smelling of almost nothing but disinfectant. Honey took Pippa with her for little reason other than that Pippa had an ultra-sensitive nose for scents that might be of interest to the police. Additionally, it gave Honey confidence to be accompanied by a large, black dog although Pippa had a soft mouth and a gentle heart. Two floors up they came to a dark blue door embellished by a simple number. With the sergeant on one side of her and Pippa on the other, Honey knocked. There was no reply and no neighbour showed any interest. The silence was oppressive. She knocked more loudly.