if there had been anything in it about a night visit from a gentleman
caller I'd have remembered.
'Let's just check while we're here.' She led the way across the grass
to Gaynor Weston's front door, and opened it with a key from the
labelled bunch in her pocket. Switching on the lights, she trotted up
the short flight of stairs to the attic room which the dead woman had
used as an office.
The laptop lay on a small desk, plugged into a wall socket. Quickly
Rose opened it and looked at the small keyboard, until she found the
start-up button in the top right-hand corner. The two detectives waited
as the machine booted up. 'Do you know these machines?' asked the
chief inspector.
'Yes. No problem.' Steele placed the cursor on the apple symbol in
the menu bar and dragged it down until he found a folder headed
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'recent applications'. He triggered it open and looked at the software
list. 'Right,' he said briskly, 'Claris Organiser; that'll be it, if there's
anything on here.' He opened the program, revealing a fresh, clean
diary page for that day. Swinging the arrow up to the menu bar he
selected Calendar, and a different page appeared showing four full
days. Steele clicked on a tab at the side of the page. The display
changed once more, setting out a full month. Several of the dates
showed appointments.
'Look at the last one,' Rose whispered, pointing at the screen. 'It
says; "Write to Ray", on the afternoon before her death.'
'But there was no note,' said Steele.
'No; yet I'll bet this was a woman who kept her appointments.
Let's look at the rest.'
They went back over the month. In the two weeks before the reference
to her son, there were no entries, none until two words: 'St Martha's',
and a time: '10am'. Three days before that was a further entry, 'Terry
Futcher; 8pm', and on the Saturday before, 'NW, Ray; Aberdeen.'
'This is all personal stuff, Steve. No business appointments at all.'
Rose scanned quickly through the month. 'But I don't see anything
here that helps. Can you go back?'
The Sergeant nodded, clicked on a minus symbol at the top of the
page, and the previous month's listings appeared. He read through
them, carefully. 'There,' he said, with a slight nod of his head towards
the display. 'Look at the entry for the twenty-eighth; "Deacey, dinner, OH ; 8pm" OH means Oldbams, I guess, but who's Deacey? Surname
or forename?'
'Who knows? Let's see if he features earlier. Run over the previous
months.'
The sergeant scrolled back through six more months of entries:
they revealed four more visits by 'Deacey', the first of them, as Joan
Ball had said, seven months earlier. There were also three entries
referring to theatre dates with the same person.
'Looks like Mrs Weston's third arrow,' Rose murmured. 'Our
mystery man.'
'Let's see if the mystery's answered here,' replied Steele. He went
back to the menu bar and selected 'Contact list'. A series of names
and telephone numbers appeared, listed alphabetically. Nolan Weston's
name was there, also Terry Futcher's; there was no Deacey, no listing
beginning with the letter 'D'.
'Bugger,' the sergeant swore quietly.
'Never mind, Stevie,' said Rose. 'He might not be listed in here,
but with a name as unusual as that, it shouldn't take us long to fit a
face to it.'
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23
'It's a step forward, Brian; but don't let the team get too carried away
about it. Even if you identify and trace this Deacey character, you're
still a bit away from placing him at Oldbams on the night ofGaynor's
death.'
'Not if his DNA matches the trace Dorward's lot found on that
glass.'
'Straws on the wind, man, and you're clutching at them.'
'We'll see. There's another straw as well. There was an entry on
Wednesday, reminding her to write to her son.'
'I wonder if she ever did?'
'You bet she did. She was thorough and methodical, this woman.
That letter's kicking around somewhere. I'm going back to see the lad
tomorrow morning; I'll take Maggie with me.'
'Just you do that, mate. But that's enough for today. Call me over
the weekend if you have to, but otherwise, I'll see you next week.'
Martin replaced the receiver.
'Are you a step nearer to tracing Doctor Death?' asked Alex, as he
turned towards her.
'Don't use that term even in fun,' he replied, a little sharply. 'I've
been dreading the tabloids picking it up. So far this has been a quiet
low-key investigation into what most of them have decided is a suicide,
thanks to the careful wording ofAlan Royston's press release.'
'Maybe if you were a bit more forthcoming the person you're after
might came forward.'
'Maybe if you buy a bikini, it'll be warm enough for you to go
swimming in the sea tomorrow. People do not walk into police
offices asking to be locked up for life; not as a matter of course,
anyway.'
She beamed across the table at him as he resumed his seat, sipping
at his coffee, which had cooled during Mackie's call. 'Surely this
might be the sort of person who would do just that. Helping a friend
to die must be an awful thing to do; I'll bet that whoever did it, it's
preying on their mind right now. I'll bet they'd love to get it off their
chest, whatever the consequences.
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'Why don't you let Brian Mackie call a press conference and explain
exactly what's happened? I'll bet it would work.'
He looked back at her, unsmiling. 'For a cautious lawyer, you're
throwing a few bets around tonight. You're also forgetting basic legal
principles. If Brian did that, he'd have the Fiscal down on his neck in
an instant for compromising the whole investigation, and prejudicing
a future trial.'
'Okay, he doesn't need to spell it all out, just enough to let the
press draw conclusions.'
'Alex, I don't care whose daughter you are; just leave the police
work to us, okay.'
Her gaze dropped as she sat back in her chair, hurt by his snub.
Then tossing her napkin onto the table, she stood, picked up her mug
and stepped silently into the kitchen. She was pouring herself more
coffee when he appeared in the doorway.
'You can get your own!' she snapped.
'Alex, love, I'm sorry,' he said, 'I didn't mean to bite your head
off.'
'Well, I meant to bite yours,' she fired back, unappeased.
'Sorry, sorry, sorry. Let's not shout at each other all night. We've
got unfinished business, you and I, from a couple of nights ago. You
know it as well as I do, but you've been dodging the subject ever
since.'
Alex had never been able to sustain anger for any length of time;
she had never been sure whether this was a strength or a weakness.
'Okay,' she said, quietly. 'Truce. Let's talk: I've been working myself
up to have it all out with you tonight anyway. That's probably why I
was so snippy.' She picked up her coffee, walked past
him, back into
the living room, and sat on the long sofa, staring across the room,
without a hint of a smile.
'I don't want to break off our engagement, Andy,' she began. In
spite of himself, he felt his heart take flight in his chest... and then
she shot it down. 'Yet I think you're right: we need to stand back from
each other and take a look at our future together and how it would be.
For unless each of us gets what we have a right to expect out of life, it
isn't a future I want to contemplate.
'From where I stand,' she looked at him for the first time, a light
smile on her lips. 'or in this case, sit, I have as much right to a career
as you have. You, on the other hand do not have the right to put
pressure on me about having children; or to make me feel guilty about
not having them - as you've done already.
'I want what my step-mother has; a successful professional life,
built up to the point at which she can adapt her work to suit her
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circumstances. The age difference between my Dad and Sarah is
about the same as it is between you and me, yet they've made it
work. Yes, even after Pops' mid-life crisis - in spite of it - they've
made it work. If you want to be jealous of anything, Andy, don't
make it my job, be jealous of them, for they are what we should be
aiming to be.
'We should be thinking long-term, but you don't seem capable of
that.'
His green eyes seemed to lose their sparkle as he looked at
her. 'You're getting it off your chest, all right. I wonder if you
realise just how calculating you sound. Does love come into this at
all?'
She turned on him. 'Of course it does, and do I love you. But
taking for granted comes into it too, and that's what you do with me.'
He opened his mouth in a retort, but she cut him off. 'Ask yourself
this. Just lately have we been making love, or have we just been
fucking? I know the difference. Do you?'
'Let's try not to wound each other any more than's necessary, eh,'
he whispered.
She softened at once. 'Oh I'm sorry,' she exclaimed, taking his
hand. 'You know what I mean though.'
He nodded his blond head. 'Yes, I know, I know. So what do you
want to do about it?'
'I'm going to move out, Andy,' she said. 'I really don't want to
break off our engagement, far from it: but please understand; I'm still
learning to be me as an adult. I think I need room to finish the
process.'
'Christ,' he chuckled, 'you're more grown up than me in some
ways. Where will you live?'
'I'll buy a flat. I still have the money from selling my student flat in
Glasgow; and my furniture's in store. It's a sensible thing to do; when
you and I have ourselves sorted, and when eventually we do get
married, maybe I can rent it out. In the short term, Gina, my pal in the
office, has room to spare at her place in Comely Bank. I'm going to
move in there with her.'
She paused. 'I want you to leave me for a week, till I get things
sorted. Then maybe we could go out for dinner next Saturday, like we
used to, and start again from there; try to build a more comfortable
relationship.'
'Okay,' he agreed, still reluctantly. 'When will you go?'
'Tomorrow. Then I'm taking a couple of days off at the beginning
of next week.'
'All planned, eh?' ,
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She smiled at him, cautiously. 'It was time for someone to be
decisive, wasn't it?'
'Yes, sweetheart, I suppose it was. Tonight though . ..'
'What?'
'Let's make love.'
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24
'You're not serious,' gasped Mackie, with sudden, shocked incredulity.
He pulled his car to a stop on the Greenway.
'How I wish I wasn't,' said Maggie Rose. 'Neil asked Mario to
have a drink with him last night; he told him then.'
'Ahhh,' murmured the superintendent. 'I really was trying not to
think about it. Andy and I saw them at the Western yesterday, when
we went to see the Prof. Later on, we agreed that we hadn't if you
know what I mean.
'I supposed there must be something, but still ... Olive; lung
cancer; poor lass, that's terrible. How's Neil handling it?'
'Mario knows him better than anyone. He says that inside he's
scared stiff, but on the outside he's putting on the strongest face he
can. He and Olive have decided that they're not going to treat it as
some dark secret; they're going to tell all their friends what's
happening, and how things are going, all the way along.'
'Are they going to operate?'
'They can't; it's too advanced. She goes into the Western next
Wednesday to start chemotherapy.'
'How long will she have to stay there?'
'Just a couple of days once a month, with top-ups on a day-patient
basis.'
'And what are her chances?'
Rose smiled. 'Neil says she's going to make it. He won't contemplate
any other outcome, and neither should we.'
'Oh God,' muttered Mackie, still shaken. 'Let's just pray that he's
right.'
'Brian,' said his deputy, grim-faced once more, 'if you believe in
prayer, give it all you've got.'
They sat in silence for a few seconds, until it was broken by the
insistent hooting of a bus, its driver furious to find a car blocking the
lane which he regarded as his exclusive property. 'Ah, bugger off!'
snarled the superintendent, with uncharacteristic ferocity, but he
slipped into gear nonetheless, and moved off.
They drove on for a few more minutes, heading westward along the
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Glasgow road, until they arrived at the junction with Murrayfield
Avenue. Mackie took a right turn, drove for two hundred yards up the
sloping street, then turned left. Nolan Weston's house was only a few
yards from the corner.
It was Saturday, and so the detectives were not surprised when the
surgeon opened the door; he on the other hand looked decidedly
puzzled. 'Mr Mackie,' he said, 'I wasn't expecting you this morning;
especially since you interrogated my son yesterday without my
permission.'
'I'm sorry if that upset you, sir, but the opportunity arose so I took
it. I don't think any harm was done, do you?'
Weston shook his head. 'No, I don't suppose it was.' He smiled. 'In
any event, I keep forgetting that Ray is eighteen. You don't need my
permission to talk to him, do you.' Maggie Rose had been on the
verge of telling him that very thing.
'Come in, please,' the professor continued. 'I haven't met your
colleague.' Mackie introduced his deputy as he led them through to a
small sitting room which opened into a semi-circular conservatory.
The garden beyond was lush and well-tended, and rich with the colours
of autumn.
A heavily pregnant woman sat in a bamboo armchair on the left of
the glass room. She smiled at Mackie, who nodded in acknowledgement.
'Ah yes, you met my wife yesterday,' said Weston. 'Avril,
this is Chief Inspector Rose. Now, what can I do for you?'
'We need to speak with your son again, I'm afraid,' said the
superintendent. 'Something else has come up, and it involves him.'
'Very well.' He took a pace towards a door in the right-hand corner
of the room. Rose could see that it led to the kitchen. 'Ray,' Weston
called. 'Come on in here.'
A few seconds later a young man ambled into the room. He was
tall, at least six feet three inches, but fine-featured and rake-thin, his
dark hair flying in all directions from his high forehead. There was a thick slice of buttered toast in his right hand, 'Wh' is it?' he mumbled, then saw the two detectives. 'Oh, hello.'
'Morning, Ray,' said Mackie. 'Sorry to bother you again. This is
DCI Rose. She and I need to ask you a couple of things. First, have
you had any mail in the last couple of days?'
The youth shrugged his shoulders. 'Not yesterday, that's for sure.
Today, I don't know. Dad?'
'I haven't sorted the post yet,' the Professor answered. 'Let me have
a look. It's still on the hall table.' He left the room; the others waited
for him in silence, Raymond munching on his toast. When he returned
he was waving a brown A5 envelope. 'This is for you. Aberdeen
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postmark.' He handed the letter to his son.
The detectives looked on as he tore it open and peered inside.
'There's a note,' he said, withdrawing a slip of paper and handing it to
Mackie. It was a short message, a simple scrawl in a strong hand. The
detective read it aloud. 'It says, "This arrived today" and it's signed
"Beano". Who's he?'
'My room-mate.' Raymond peered into the brown manila once
more. 'It's a letter.' He shook it free and held it up for the detectives to
see, a simple, cream-coloured envelope. As he looked at the handwritten
address, his face paled. 'Dad,' he whispered, plaintively. 'It's
from Mum.'
'Then I think you should read it alone, Ray,' his father said.
'Yes,' Rose agreed, 'but first, do you have a letter opener. Professor?
That envelope has to be handled carefully from now on. We don't
want any more fingerprints on it.'
'Why?' asked Weston, puzzled.
Rose took the letter from his son, holding it by a corner, and
looked at it. 'It's post-marked Thursday. The day after Mrs Weston
died. We need to find the person who posted it, and chances are his
prints are on this.'
'I see.' The surgeon went into the kitchen and returned with a thin-
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