Gallery Whispers

  'Got ony mair Pepsi?' Neville reached into her bag and handed him a

  can. 'Thanks, hen,' said Impey as he opened it. The sergeant fought

  off an urge to make clucking noises.

  'Normally we give a' the cars coming off the ferry a quick once

  over, looking for familiar faces from the circulation list. Things might

  be quieter in Ireland these days, but old habits die hard, like. My oppo

  was up the ramp, and I was at the exit with a uniformed polis. It was

  fine till we got taste this bloke. He takes a look at the uniform coming

  towards him, shouted something at him and put his foot down. Ah

  didnae have time to wait for my oppo. My car was handy, so I jumped

  in it and got after him.'

  'Why would someone like Hawkins panic at a police ferry check?'

  Neville asked casually.

  'How the bloody hell would I know, hen?' Impey snapped at her,

  then turned once more to look at the back of McGuire's head. 'I

  couldnae be sure where he was going until he turned off the A74 for

  Moffat. That was when I phoned Mcllhenney, only he wisnae in, so I

  phoned your boss.'

  'He told me,' muttered McGuire, as he drove into the centre of

  Penicuik. 'I don't suppose you called anyone to ask for a number trace.'

  'Naw,' Impey replied. 'Ah was concentrating on the subject, wasn't

  Ah.'

  68

  'That's okay, for we did. Our man's driving a hired car. We're trying

  to dig up someone in Eurodollar to give us the hirer's details. Bugger.'

  He swore softly as the traffic lights in the middle of the small

  Midlothian town turned to amber. As he watched, helplessly trapped

  behind two other vehicles, their quarry hit the accelerator and shot

  across the junction.

  'Pull out and go through,' Impey urged.

  'Don't be daft, Joe. If he looked back and saw me do that, he'd

  rumble us for sure - if he hasn't already that is. Patience, man, he's

  got traffic in front of him; we'll catch him up.'

  Like a watched kettle, the lights seemed to take forever to change,

  but eventually the three police officers resumed their pursuit. For a

  time it seemed that McGuire's confidence had been misplaced, as

  they found themselves trapped behind two articulated lorries which

  had pulled out of a small industrial estate just beyond the town centre.

  They had reached Glencorse Barracks before the road cleared far

  enough ahead to allow overtaking, but once they had passed the

  obstruction, the inspector was able to put his foot down.

  They were nearing a stretch of dual carriageway, when Neville

  pointed to a coach less than two hundred yards in front of them. 'I

  think he's in front of that bus. I caught a flash of red just then.'As if

  to prove her right, the red Vauxhall pulled into the overtaking lane of

  the widened roadway and speeded up. McGuire accelerated steadily,

  keeping pace with it but being careful not to be drawn too close.

  Their target led them down the straight road towards Edinburgh,

  reaching, after five minutes, the double roundabout of the Straiten

  junction with the city bypass. At the second of the huge islands, the

  suspected Hawkins indicated right and swung off the Edinburgh road, heading eastwards.

  'Why are we going this way, I wonder?' McGuire mused aloud.

  'He's heading away from the posh end of the city.'

  'Maybe he's going south?' Impey suggested.

  'Maybe, but I doubt it, Joe. If he was heading, say for Berwick,

  he'd have taken another route. Unless, of course, he spotted us way

  back and he's been pulling our chains ever since. We'll find out when

  we get to the end of the bypass.'

  'How's that, like?'

  'Because if he heads for Leith, he's probably close to his destination.

  If he heads down the Al, then he's taking the piss and I'm going t

  have him. You got your firearm handy?'

  'Ah'm not carrying, Mario,' Impey confessed, sheepishly.

  'Christ, are you going out of your way to wind up Bob Skinner?

  Did you not hear his instruction at that briefing?'

  69

  'Aye, but Ah just dinnae like guns. Ah had a mate once shot himself

  in the leg with his.'

  'I hate to think where the boss'11 shoot you if he finds out you've

  ignored his order. Okay, Karen's armed and able to back me up, and

  we're only going after one bloke, but if we'd been after a team, you

  could have put us all in danger.'

  Impey growled. 'Ach you city polis. Yis are all fuckin' cowboys.

  Excuse my French, hen.'

  'C'est rien,' Neville replied.

  In a little under ten minutes they came to the junction which marked

  the end of the bypass. McGuire drew the Nissan a little closer to the

  red car, ready to cover his move, whether he headed north or south.

  Beside him, his sergeant shifted edgily in her seat.

  Their quarry took neither option. Instead he headed straight through

  the junction and turned into the service area on the other side of the

  wide Al. 'Going for petrol,' McGuire guessed. He slipped quietly off

  the roundabout, hanging back as far as he dared, then turned into the

  narrow access road, slowing to check that the Vauxhall had not turned

  into the motor lodge car park, but had indeed carried on to the filling

  station beyond.

  There were six pumps on the forecourt, all occupied. The red car

  stood a little back from them, waiting for one to clear. As he slid

  quietly behind him, McGuire could see the driver clearly for the first

  time, in profile as he looked at the pumps. He had lit a cigarette; his

  right arm was leaning on the open window. 'I can see the likeness

  right enough, Joe. And yet. ..' Something gnawed at the back of his

  mind.

  'Mario.' Karen Neville touched his arm, interrupting his search of

  his memory. 'One of the pumps just cleared. Why isn't he moving

  up?'

  'Maybe he needs diesel?' Impey suggested.

  'Unlikely in a hire car. Maybe he's just finishing his fag before he

  goes to fill up. Whatever, he's off guard and I'm having him. Otherwise

  I'll have to buy bloody petrol or he'll twig us. Karen, you take the

  passenger side. Joe, you stay here.'

  Mario McGuire was a big, easy-going man, until the action button

  was pressed. He opened his door and stepped out of the car, his gun in

  his hand in an instant. Swiftly and noiselessly, he closed the gap to the

  red car.

  The man inside was drawing on his cigarette; he started in surprise

  as Karen Neville stepped into his line of vision. In the same moment

  the inspector reached through the Vectra's open side window and

  pressed the cold muzzle of his Walther to the back of the man's head.

  70

  'Good evening, sir,' he said, in a quiet, conversational tone. 'Just in

  case you're in any doubt, we are police officers and that thing you feel

  against your skull is not a piece of pipe, or a banana or anything like

  that. It's a real gun, and they make me nervous, so if you move the

  wrong muscle you won't move any others, ever again.

  'Now, I want you to step out of the car, keeping your hands in the

  air; then I want you to lie face down on the ground
.'

  71

  21

  'Where is this man Impey now?' said Bob Skinner. He spoke quietly,

  but there was something in his tone which send a cold shiver running

  down Mario McGuire's spine.

  'On his way back to Dumfries, boss. I told him to get the you-

  know-what out of Edinburgh before you got your hands on him.'

  'Well the bugger can't run fast enough, or far enough. Wherever he

  surfaces again he's going to find out that my bite is a hell of a lot

  worse than my bark.'

  'Don't be too hard on him, boss. He was showing initiative; he just

  made an honest mistake.'

  'So did the captain of the Titanic. Thanks to that man and his

  monumental stupidity, I've had the commander of the Interpol task

  force on counterfeiting moaning down my phone for the last half

  hour. You were advised of this operation, as was every other Special

  Branch office in the country, including Dumfries and bloody Galloway.

  You were all told that they were watching a major software forgery

  centre in South Armagh and you were all given photographs of the

  agents involved.

  'In spite of that, because oflmpey's "honest mistake" we've ruined

  the culmination of the operation. The guy you lifted was following a

  courier; the purpose of that was to discover the bootleggers' main

  distribution route and from that to catch their customers with the stuff

  in their possession. The Interpol people even sent a fax to Impey's

  office warning him that the man was on the move. I've checked; it's in

  his in-tray and it was there when he left to check the ferry passengers.'

  McGuire scratched his chin. 'Oh shit,' he groaned. 'Poor old Joe.'

  'Don't waste your sympathy on the guy, Mario. He should have

  committed that information to memory, and he should have had that

  man's face imprinted in his brain. That's standard SB procedure as

  you know well. If Impey isn't up to following it, he isn't up to the job.

  But he won't be in it for much longer.

  'He'll have a very embarrassed chief constable waiting for him

  when he gets back to his office tomorrow morning, and believe me,

  Archie Deas is not a man anyone wants to embarrass.'

  72

  'What'll he do to him?'

  'Hang him up by his soft bits until they drop off, probably. Once

  they have, he'll stick him back in a uniform and post him to

  Auchencross, or some place like that, with a bike to get around on. At

  least that's what I've suggested to Archie that he should do.'

  He swivelled in his chair. 'What about Mr Steyn, the agent? Have

  you calmed him down?'

  'Just about. I've booked him into the George for the night, on our

  tab. He'll go back to Ireland in the morning.'

  'Take him out to dinner, just to show real contrition. Take Mags

  along if you like.'

  McGuire frowned. 'I can't do that, boss. I've promised to meet

  Neil tonight. He says he's got something to tell me.' The frown turned

  into his dazzling smile. 'From the way he sounded, I suspect that

  Olive's in the club again.'

  73

  22

  It seemed to Stevie Steele that while Joan Ball couldn't have been

  more than fifty-five, her hands looked as if they could have been

  ninety. They hung from her wrists like two claws as she spoke to her

  visitors, knuckles hugely swollen, fingers twisted cruelly into her

  palms.

  She caught the young detective's glance. 'What do you think of my

  talons, sergeant?' she asked, holding one up against the light from a

  table lamp beside her chair.

  'I think it's a damn shame. Miss Ball. Don't they make it difficult

  for you to live out in the country? I mean, you can't drive, can

  you.'

  'No, I can't. But I manage all right. The Social Services are very

  good; they provide all sorts of support. Home help; someone to do my

  shopping and so on. Then there are the disabled charity people; they

  helped me with adapting the house, and in other ways too. I have a

  brother in North Berwick who takes me about, and a sister in

  Edinburgh. And of course, Gaynor was a great help to me too, in all

  sorts of ways. For example she was good with a sewing machine, so

  she would alter clothes for me. I can't manage buttons or zips any

  more: too small and fiddly. She would replace them with Velcro

  fastenings. She was a very kind person, very thoughtful; I'll miss her

  a great deal.'

  Her steady gaze moved from Steele to Rose. 'I take it that you want

  to ask me more questions about her.'

  'You take it right,' the chief inspector replied. 'Did you see much of

  Mrs Weston in the two weeks before her death?' she asked.

  'Quite a bit, really; she was off work all that time.'

  'Did she tell you why?'

  'She said that she had a little women's trouble, and that she had

  been ordered to stay at home for a couple of weeks. No gentleman

  callers.' Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Rose. 'Would I be correct

  in guessing that it was a little more serious than that?'

  'Yes you would. Mrs Weston was very ill; without hope of recovery

  in fact.'

  74

  'I see. So she decided to end her life, and now you're looking for

  the person who helped her.'

  'How do you work that one out?'

  'Come on sergeant.' She threw him a withering look. 'Almost the

  first question I was asked when I was interviewed before was whether

  I had seen Nolan's car, or the man Futcher's, outside Gaynor's house

  that night.'

  'And you still can't recall seeing either one?' asked Rose.

  'No, because they weren't there. But that doesn't matter a damn.

  The covered parking at the far end of the square is never full. There's

  no car in my space, for example. If Gaynor had a visitor he could

  easily have put his car in there, or even left it on the approach road.'

  'None of the other residents saw anything parked on that road. I

  don't suppose there's any way of checking the other possibility. In any

  event, we're pretty satisfied that neither Professor Weston nor Mr

  Futcher were there that night, so we have to look for alternatives.

  'We've been through Mrs Weston's address book; as far as we can

  tell most of the entries and telephone numbers in there relate to

  business associates.'

  'Yes; that would be right. Gaynor's work was her life; her professional

  and social circles were pretty much interchangeable.

  However, I don't believe that there was anyone at work with whom

  she was particularly close.'

  'No one at all?'

  'I suppose you could talk to her secretary, and the other staff in her

  business.'

  'We have,' said Steele. 'The secretary knew of her relationship with

  Futcher, but that was all. The other three employees didn't even know

  where she lived, other than that it was in East Lothian. Rosamund, the

  secretary, is the only one who's ever been out there.'

  'However,' Rose continued, 'Mrs Weston once made a remark which

  suggested that there might have been a third man in her life. Do you

  know anything about that?'

  Joan Ball frowned.
'Gaynor never mentioned anything to me about a

  third man.' Rose groaned inwardly, but even as she did, the woman

  drew in a deep breath, clasping her twisted hands together. 'Nevertheless,'

  she went on, 'I did have a suspicion that there might be.

  Whenever she had a visitor she would always mention it at some point.

  I always knew when Futcher was there, or Nolan such ... a nice man,

  Nolan. I remember the times when Rosamund came to visit; if they had

  a rush job on, sometimes Gaynor would work at weekends.

  'But there were, I think three occasions on which I saw a car there,

  at night, following which she didn't say anything.'

  75

  'Can you describe the car?'

  'Four wheels and a roof, other than that I'm lost. I have no memory

  for colours, and I wouldn't know one make from another .. . other

  than Beetles; I used to have one of them. But this wasn't a Beetle.'

  'You can't be sure the visitor was a man, though,' said the chief

  inspector.

  'No, I can't, but the car was still there in the early hours of the

  morning on at least two of the occasions ... I'm a poor sleeper .. .

  but gone by my breakfast-time. Read into that what you will. I can't

  help you any further I'm afraid.'

  'Can you remember when these visits took place? That might help.'

  'Over the last six or seven months. The most recent occasion was

  about a month ago.'

  'Good. Even that gives us some extra help.' She stood, and Steele

  followed. 'Thank you very much. Miss Ball. We'll just go next door

  to Mrs Weston's now. I've brought the keys, and there's something

  inside I want to check.'

  Their arthritic hostess showed them slowly to the door. 'Enjoy your

  holiday,' said Rose.

  'I'll try. I'm going with a disabled group; they have people to help

  you pack and so on. I'd rather be on an ordinary tour, but it's for the

  best. The important thing is to get some warmth into these things.'

  She held up a ravaged hand to wave them goodbye.

  'She's a game lady,' Steele remarked as they stood outside in the

  evening darkness. 'Listen, ma'am, what did you mean about checking

  next door? I'm expected home at some point tonight.'

  'It won't take long. I want to take a look at Mrs Weston's laptop.

  She didn't keep personal appointments on her office machine. Maybe

  she had a computer diary out here. I looked at her Filofax myself, and