Gallery Whispers

by Quintin Jardine

  man, you never forget them. The last time I saw her would be at our

  last consultation in DCO, when I had to tell her that her condition was

  terminal.'

  Simmers looked back at Mackie. 'Look, please tell me what this is

  about. Otherwise, this interview is at an end.'

  'Two patients and a lover, sir, all apparent suicides, with injection

  involved. The only three such suicides in this part of Scotland in the

  last three years. And you are the only common factor.'

  'Are you accusing me?'

  'No, sir, we are not. Not yet, at any rate. If you would give us a

  sample of your saliva, it might help to eliminate you altogether.'

  'In that case,' said Deacey Simmers, 'hold on, while I find a swab.'

  'We'll have to be present when you take the sample, sir,' said

  Pringle.

  'Why?'

  The detective's diplomacy reserve was totally depleted. 'Because

  however nice and chummy my colleague here might seem, we're both

  suspicious bastards. We have to make sure it's yours.'

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  86

  Andy Martin looked around the converted gymnasium. All but one of

  the desks stood empty; the long table against the wall was heavy with

  row upon row of processed forms.

  'Is that it, then, sergeant?' he asked.

  'It is indeed, sir,' said Karen Neville. 'The last Parisian policeman;

  the last Japanese journalist, all thoroughly checked out and

  cleared for action. The supply of eagle badges for the armed

  officers is upstairs, ready for issue at the security briefing on

  Monday, although I've no idea how we ensure that everybody

  wears them.'

  'We don't. It's up to the head of each security team to ensure that

  his people comply once they're issued. However the boss or I will tell

  them at the briefing that anyone found with a gun and without a

  badge will be arrested and locked up for the duration. Hopefully

  that'll get their attention.'

  'What's left to do, now that the paperwork's cracked?'

  'We have to check everybody's hotel accommodation, just to make

  sure that there's nothing ticking behind a bath panel, or in a toilet

  cistern, anywhere. Special Branch will co-ordinate that, but it'll be

  done by Major Legge's army team.

  'The first delegations, or at least their advance guards, start to

  arrive on Saturday, so that leaves tomorrow and Friday to get it all

  done, and the accommodation sealed off.'

  He glanced round the gym again. 'Everyone else has gone home, I

  take it.'

  'Yes, sir, Mario left to pick up his wife around fifteen minutes ago.

  I've been waiting for clearance on a Dutch joumo; it's just come

  though, so I'm off too.'

  'Fancy a drink?' asked Martin. 'Or have you got a date?'

  Karen was taken by surprise. 'I'm washing my hair tonight, sir - as

  we ladies say - so I'm okay for a quick drink. Yes, that would be nice.

  Where do you want to go?'

  'How about O'Neill's on the South Bridge? That's not far from

  where you live.'

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  'Fine. I can leave my car in Chambers Street overnight. It's close

  enough to home.'

  They drove in convoy across town, Karen leading the way. As she

  had guessed, parking was easy in the wide street so late in the day,

  and they found adjoining bays. For once, the skies were clear, and

  the night was cold and crisp as they walked the short distance to the

  bar, one of several with an Irish theme to have sprung up in the

  capital.

  As the burly, red-haired barman poured a pint of lager and a gin

  and tonic, Karen found a table in the corner. Martin set the drinks

  down and sat facing her.

  'So,' he began, awkwardly. 'How have you liked Special Branch?'

  'Very much.' She looked at him as he picked up his beer. She had

  heard from colleagues that the Head of CID had been a legendary

  ladies' man in the days before his engagement; but as he sipped his

  pint she found it hard to believe. He seemed shy, diffident and

  strangely insecure, by comparison with the powerful, assertive figure

  which he cut in the office.

  'D'you want to stay there?'

  His question took her by surprise, and worried her for a moment or

  two. 'Only if you're kicking me out of your office,' she answered, cautiously. 'I prefer it there.'

  He smiled at her: a quick, dazzling, engaging smile, backed up by

  a sudden sparkle in his green eyes, and in that moment she understood how the legend had come about. 'That's good,' he said, sombre once

  more. 'I hoped you'd say that, but I thought I should ask. Mario would

  have you in a minute.'

  'It's nice to be popular. Mind you,' she added, 'I thought I was in

  everyone's bad books a few weeks back.'

  'When you dated your Australian suspect, you mean? Yeah, at first,

  you probably were, but when I heard the full story from Mario, I saw

  that you were right. It was a means of keeping contact so you took it.

  You made a professional judgement, and I'll always back that.' He

  took another mouthful.

  'Things still okay on that front?' he asked.

  She grinned back at him. 'Down Under, you mean, sport? Yes

  thanks, we're getting along. It's not the most orthodox relationship

  I've ever had, with him nurse-maiding a wheelchair case, but it has its

  moments.'

  'What happens when he has to go home?'

  'He goes back to his oil rig. It's off Western Australia, but that's

  just another piece of ocean as far as Wayne's concerned. He says he'll

  give up his flat in Perth, and register my place as his home address.

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  That way the company will pick up the cost of his travel back here

  every time he has home leave.'

  'Good thinking, Ms Neville. What does he do on his rig?'

  'He's the drill-master. An important guy: makes a bloody fortune

  so he tells me.'

  'That's even better. You've landed on your feet in every respect; I'm

  happy for you.'

  She nodded. 'Thanks. I just wish I could say the same to you. I'm

  sorry about your breakup.'

  He winced. 'So am I,' he said, hesitating before adding, 'but better

  here than down the road a piece, as they say.'

  'You'll still be friends, though, won't you?'

  'We'll never be enemies,' he answered. 'Let's put it that way. But

  we can't go back to how it was before, when she was just my best

  friend's daughter. Some cuts go too deep.'

  'And is he still your best friend?' she asked, quietly.

  'Bob's been great. After I told him about it, he invited me down to

  Gullane and the pair of us went to the pub and had a few beers ... no,

  a right few beers. It was his way of telling me that some things will

  never change.'

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  87

  Neil Mcllhenney's in-tray was empty; he had worked his way through

  the papers which the DCC had referred to him for action or comment.

  He had finished an analysis of the relative clear-up rates, category by

  category, by each of the CID divisions. As he waited for Skinner's

  Monday morning summons he sat hunched over the desk in his small

  office, staring out of the
window.

  He had done a lot of staring, out of many windows, over the last

  couple of months, he realised. Almost invariably he thought of sunny

  days to come, of he and Olive, Lauren and Spence, enjoying a normal

  lifestyle once again. No decisions were being forced upon them by

  the education authority, but Olive knew that even if she won complete

  remission from her illness, her classroom days were over.

  They had discussed the respective merits of her accepting an offer

  to switch to the expanding quality control side of education, or of her

  resigning and setting up in business as a designer of computer-based

  teaching packages. Whichever option they chose, Neil understood

  that in reality it was another target to be pursued, another piece of the

  scaffolding which underpinned his wife's tremendous determination

  to beat her enemy.

  Deacey Simmers was the most important part of that support

  structure. And Neil knew exactly why Bob Skinner had excluded him

  from his meeting that morning with Brian Mackie and that tactless

  bampot Clan Pringle: it was because Simmers was the only item on

  the agenda. As he stared out into the crisp winter morning, he could

  picture the three of them grouped around the DCC's desk, the big man

  doing his trick of watching the driveway, seemingly far away, while

  absorbing every word that was being said to him.

  He was expecting it, but when the phone on his desk buzzed

  twice, he jumped nonetheless. He knew the signal, so he let it lie

  unanswered, rising instead and walking out into the corridor, past

  Ruthie McConnell's rabbit-hutch, as she called it, to Skinner's office.

  The red light outside was shining, but he opened the door and stepped

  in. Pringle and Mackie had gone.

  'Sit on the comfy ones,' his boss said, pointing to the informal

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  seating in the corner as he filled two coffee mugs. 'I know, I know,' he

  muttered as he poured, 'must cut down on his tar, but what's the

  alternative. Tea? A right poofter's drink that.'

  Mcllhenney slumped into one of the low chairs, took two coasters

  from a container and tossed them onto the rosewood table to protect it

  from the heat. 'Meeting go all right, sir?' He tried to sound casual, but

  failed.

  'You won't think so, I'm afraid,' Skinner replied, quietly, as he set

  down the two coffees. 'Clan and Brian brought their lab results with

  them. Simmers' saliva swab matches the trace that Arthur Dorward's

  lot found on a glass at the scene of Gaynor Weston's death. Also, his

  prints were on the envelope of the letter Gaynor sent to her son.

  'When the lads interviewed him last week, he admitted to them

  that he and she had been on intimate terms, let's say. But he said that

  the last time he saw her was more than two weeks before her death.

  On top of that, it turns out that he was a near neighbour of the man

  Murray, and called in on him quite regularly.

  'I can't take that lightly, Neil. It looks bad for your friend.'

  'Shit!' Mcllhenney hissed, his mouth tight set. 'Still, boss, if he

  twigged the position he might be in, we can allow him one wee lie,

  can't we?'

  'He still has to be asked about it, though. Mackie and Pringle have

  asked me to allow them to pick him up for a formal interview,' Skinner

  continued. 'They also want a warrant to search his house and his

  office for traces ofdiamorphine, and any other incriminating material.

  Inevitably the hospital will have to know that he's under investigation

  in connection with the deaths of two patients - there's no evidence left

  in the Bathgate case.

  'You know what that will mean.'

  'Sure. Even if we don't charge him straight away, he'll be suspended.'

  'Right. But I have to tell you this; on the basis of the evidence I

  have before me, his loving relationship with the dead woman, his

  presence in her house that night, his ready access to Anthony Murray;

  with all that allied to his professional skills, all my training and

  experience makes me believe, objectively, that he's guilty.'

  The DCC looked at his assistant, almost helplessly. 'Neil,' he asked.

  'In my place, faced with all this what would you do?'

  Mcllhenney smiled. 'Boss, you were right about me. I'm out of the

  same mould as Superintendent Pringle. If this was just an ordinary

  case and I was on it, the suspect would be sitting in St Leonard's right

  now, with a tape running and me shouting in his fucking ear.

  'But it isn't an ordinary case. And my wife's life is at stake here, so

  don't ask me for objectivity.'

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  The big sergeant looked his boss in the eye. 'I've been thinking

  about this for the last week, boss, since Deacey's name came up in

  this thing, and I can tell you it's bloody complex. It seems to me that

  you're telling me that you see him as a man who believes that he can

  exercise power over life and death, and square it with his conscience.'

  Skinner frowned, then nodded. 'I suppose I am,' he agreed.

  'Well I have to tell you ... and I have hellish difficulty saying it,

  because it makes me face up to something I'd rather avoid ... but

  Deacey Simmers' greatest pain comes from the knowledge that he

  doesn't have that power.

  'People in his care, people like Olive and me, we sit in his room

  and we listen to his words. They come in perfect order; words like

  inoperable, incurable, palliative and so on. We're literate; objectively we know what they mean. But subjectively, that's another matter.

  They're very precise those words, yet no way do they apply to Olive.

  'Even now as I sit here, I will not admit to you or anyone else .. .

  and most of all I will not admit to me ... that she's going to die.

  Deacey Simmers, though; from the outset he's told us that her disease

  indicates that she is. He's laid those words out for us. Then he's said;

  "Okay, now these are the treatments I have to offer. You will have

  them; then what happens is up to you and up to fate."

  'Deacey is a caring person, an inspiring person, and he's totally

  helpless in the face of many of the cases that are sent to him. Everyone

  who goes into his room gets the plain unvarnished truth, and yet he

  manages to send people out of there with feelings of determination,

  and flowing from that, hope against hope. He will never slam the door

  on anyone.

  'If you're saying that this man imagines that he has life-determining

  power and that he interprets that as allowing him to put people to

  sleep, then with the greatest respect, boss, and for the first and last

  time in my life, I have to tell you that you're talking bollocks.

  'Deacey knows better that anyone that for my Olive, and all the

  others like her, his treatments have the same chance of success as a

  snowball has of putting out a furnace. Yet even in the absence of that

  power which you say he's perverting, he gives us something; a sense

  of purpose which makes our situation bearable. He helps us to focus

  on that one chance in twenty.

  'No way did he kill Gay Weston or anyone else. I'll tell you this

  too. Behind that calm
facade of his he's lonely and fragile, and I get

  the feeling that sometimes he's overcome by what he does; yet he

  carries on, and that's what makes him what he is: a great man.

  'You let those two arrest him, boss, let the Fiscal charge him, and

  I'll promise you this. When he comes to trial I'll go into the witness

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  box and give evidence in his support, even it I have to leave the force

  to do it.'

  Skinner reached out and put a hand on his assistant's shoulder.

  'Neil, if it comes to it, you can speak for him with my public blessing.

  But let's see if we can avoid that.

  'It seems as if all of my best people have had a finger in this

  investigation at some time or another . .. except for you. The papers

  in these two cases are on my desk; take them away with you and see if

  you can come up with another suspect. I've told Clan and Brian to sit

  on their hands for another week. That's how long you've got.

  'Maybe you'll turn out to be as important to Mr Simmers as he is

  to you.'

  267

  There are those who believe that the Edinburgh International Conference

  Centre is one of the finest pieces of late twentieth century

  architecture in Scotland. There are others who believe that the great

  drum-shaped building is a blight on the skyline of the capital city.

  Andy Martin did not regard himself as a philistine, yet he was a

  confirmed subscriber to the latter view.

  A constable in uniform checked the Head ofCID's warrant card as

  he pulled up at the car park entrance, looking at it studiously before

  waving him on. He knew the chief superintendent well enough, but

  ACC Elder was on the prowl and he had no wish to start the week

  badly.

  Martin strode out of the car park and into the Centre. In the foyer

  area twin lines had formed as the delegates queued to have their

  briefcases searched and to pass through the metal detector gateways.

  The policeman walked past the lines and round the barrier. He was

  not carrying a firearm, but nevertheless he wore a gold eagle badge as

  a short-cut into the hall, since everyone without one was subject to the

  security check.

  Mario McGuire stood at the wide doorway of the main auditorium,

  looking across its expanse. 'Morning sir,' he called out. 'Come for a

  look at the sardine tin, have you? God alone knows how they managed