Fenton's winter

by Ken McClure

  "If you say so."

  "I do. Now that we have established that, let's drink to the end of this damned business." Tyson opened a desk drawer and took out a half full bottle of malt whisky. "Fetch a couple of beakers will you? Glass ones."

  Fenton lay along the sofa with his head on Jenny's lap and closed his eyes while she played with the curls of his hair.

  "That's nice," he murmured.

  "Nothing is too nice for the hero of Princess Mary."

  "I just hope the police picked up Saxon," said Fenton.

  "You know, I still find it hard to believe that Nigel Saxon was the cause of all this," said Jenny distantly.

  Fenton opened his eyes. "What do you mean?" he asked.

  "Well, he was brash and loud but basically I always thought of him as weak, just like a big labrador dog. I just can't picture him killing someone in cold blood. Can you?"

  Fenton thought for a moment then said quietly, "I agree but he must have done unless you have a better idea?"

  Jenny shook her head. "No, but there's something not quite right about it…"

  "What do you say we concentrate on something else?"

  "And just what could that something be?" asked Jenny with a smile.

  Fenton drew her to him and left her in no doubt.

  The atmosphere in the flat might have been considerably different had Fenton known that, while he had been making love to Jenny, Nigel Saxon had not been safely in police custody. In fact, he was not even in the country for he had taken an afternoon British Airways shuttle flight from Glasgow to London Heathrow and had subsequently boarded an Olympic Airways flight to Greece.

  Fenton was furious when he heard the news from Charles Tyson and immediately blamed Jamieson. "All he had to do was pick him up. I suppose he gave him a lift to the airport and carried his bags into the terminal!"

  "It wasn't the Inspector's fault," said Tyson calmly.

  Fenton looked sceptical.

  "James Dodds phoned Saxon Medical after you called him yesterday. He saw no reason not to and thought that they should be aware of the problem with their product. He called them before he called the police so Nigel Saxon knew the game was up even before Inspector Jamieson had been informed."

  "I'm sorry," said Fenton.

  Fenton left Tyson's room and closed the door quietly. His thoughts returned to Saxon and his anger was reborn. He swallowed it for the moment but, for the rest of the week, it lay in his stomach like a lead weight.

  Press and television coverage of the end of the 'Princess Mary Affair' was extensive and raised a number of questions and issues for ambitious politicians to exploit. Was the screening procedure for National Health Service products adequate? they asked. Perfectly so, said the government of the day. Clearly not, hollered Her Majesty's Opposition. Once again the government had been found lacking. The air vibrated with the sound of stable doors being slammed. The thalidomide tragedy was resurrected. Why had we not learned our lesson? The American Food and Drug Authority had banned thalidomide in the United States; the odds were that they would have spotted the problem with Saxon plastic as well. Nonsense, retorted the Health Department. Cover-up! cried the Opposition. Heads must roll! bayed the press and cast on their knitting.

  "Ye Gods, it's all so predictable," complained Jenny as she put down the evening paper. "If one says black the other says white."

  The financial press had a different set of priorities. They paid lip service to the 'awful human cost' but it was the financial mess that Saxon Medical had created that really captured their imagination. Had the money involved in the take-over actually changed hands? they wanted to know and, if the license had been sold by Saxon, had the responsibility been transferred with it? Would International Plastics be liable to lose millions, not only in the loss of the product, but in law suits brought against them for compensation by the relatives of the victims?

  Speculation along these lines had already done damage to International's share prices but the company remained silent, saying nothing in public, although it was not too hard to guess what they were saying in private. Fenton supposed that cohorts of their lawyers would be working round the clock in an attempt to shed blame.

  Saxon Medical took a different approach. They simply shut up shop and went to ground. John Saxon, founder of the company and Nigel's father, walled himself up in his Georgian mansion in a Glasgow suburb and refused to see anyone. The workforce had been paid off and Nigel, of course, had fled to Greece.

  No public mention had been made of any police interest in Nigel Saxon and, as yet, no enterprising journalist had sought to forge a link between Neil Munro's death and the Saxon plastic tragedy. This gave Fenton an idea for it occurred to him that a conviction against Nigel Saxon would be of monumental importance to International Plastics. If the company could establish that Saxon had known about the defect in the plastic before the license had changed hands surely the deal would be deemed to have been fraudulent? It was very much in International's interest that Nigel Saxon be brought to justice. The thing was, International knew nothing of any criminal involvement in the Saxon Plastic affair. What would happen if he were to tell them?

  Fenton thought about it for the rest of the afternoon and began to like the idea. Surely in the circumstances International Plastics would mount their own investigation, employ the best agents in the country to track down Saxon, ferret him out, bring him back?

  There was, of course, Interpol. Fenton had been brought up on films where Interpol were brought in but, on reflection, he could not recall a single real life incident where Interpol had played a major successful part. Once across the channel it seemed like it was home and dry for the villains. Even the occasional international arrest seemed to flounder in a welter of legal wrangles and territorial jealousies. The more he thought about it the more convinced he became that a private operation, based on sound mercenary principles stood the best chance of making Saxon pay for what he had done.

  To Fenton International Plastics was a name from the newspapers. He had no idea where the company was located and no notion of how to go about approaching them. The trouble with large companies, he felt, was that so few people of importance seemed to be accessible within them. Such fish always surrounded themselves with smaller fish who, in turn, surrounded themselves with even smaller fry. Fenton could see himself splashing around in the water margins for some time, being shunted from one two metre square office to the next and having to explain to frayed collars and cuffs that what he had to say was not for their ears.

  That in itself would be a problem, for suggesting, even obliquely, to a minion that what he had to say was not for his ears would be tantamount to an Israelite expressing agnostic tendencies while crossing the Red Sea. The resulting maelstrom of obstruction and red tape could be fatal to the spirit.

  Fenton told Jenny what he had in mind. She exploded. Fenton had never seen her so angry. He reeled as her temper ignited like a stick of dynamite. "How dare you?" she blazed. "Is there no end to your arrogance?

  Fenton sat, wide eyed and speechless on the couch. He could not believe what was happening. "Arrogance?"

  "Yes arrogance! You always know better. The police are stupid. Interpol are useless. Everyone is incompetent where you are concerned. Well, understand this! Nigel Saxon's arrest is a matter for the police, not you. Leave it alone! I have had enough. Do you understand? Just forget it or…or I'll leave you." Jenny burst into tears and Fenton got up to gather her in his arms. "All right," he promised quietly. "I didn't realise."

  Jenny banged her fist on his shoulder. "I know damn it," she said. "I know."

  Jenny's outburst had shaken Fenton but it had been what he needed for he now recognised that the hunt for Nigel Saxon had become for him an obsession. It irked him so much that Saxon appeared to have gotten clean away with his crime that he had thought about little else for many days to the detriment of everything else in his life. He promised Jenny that there would be no approach to International Plastics,
no more talk of Nigel Saxon. They would go back to being Tom and Jenny, the folks who lived on the hill.

  Jenny drew the curtains and turned up the gas fire as the wind got up outside. She switched on a small table lamp and put an album on the stereo before lying along the couch with her head on Fenton's lap. For once, the wind contributed to the feeling of cosiness inside the room. Fenton's fingers played the opening bars of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on the back of her neck.

  "Tom, I'm sorry," said Jenny softly.

  "Don't be. You were right."

  "I do love you."

  Fenton kissed her hair in reply.

  The music, the warmth, the soft lighting and the hiss of the fire lulled them into a comfortable drowsiness. It was shattered when the telephone rang. Jenny got up to answer it and padded out into the hall in her stockinged feet. She came quickly back and stopped in the doorway looking ashen. "It's for you," she said. "I think it's Nigel Saxon!"

  Fenton rose like an automaton. He felt cold all over as he sidled past Jenny into the hall and picked up the receiver. Slowly he said, "Fenton."

  The dialling tone filled his ear and brought instant relief. He let out the breath he had been holding and put the phone down. "No one there," he said, knowing that Jenny was standing behind him.

  "It was him, I know it was," said Jenny evenly.

  "Maybe a wrong number, someone who sounded like him."

  "He asked for you by name. Saxon has a distinctive voice and he phoned here several times to ask how you were when you were in hospital. It was him," said Jenny in an unwavering monotone.

  "But why? Why phone me? He knows Neil was a friend of mine. I would be the last person in the world to help him." said Fenton.

  "I don't know why. I only know it was him."

  Fenton rubbed the back of his neck.

  "What are you going to do?" asked Jenny.

  "Nothing I can do," replied Fenton.

  In spite of their efforts to re-create the earlier peace of the evening the phone call had ruined it. The warmth, the music, the cosiness were still there but the mute telephone rang in their ears until bedtime. They had gone to bed and were just on the point of falling asleep when it rang for real.

  "I'll get it," said Fenton getting out of bed and hoping against hope that it would be anyone in the world rather than Saxon.

  It was Nigel Saxon.

  "You've got a nerve," hissed Fenton.

  "Just hear me out, that's all I ask.

  "Well?" snarled Fenton, continuing to listen against his better judgement.

  "I know what you all think but I didn't kill Neil Munro. Believe me. I didn't do it."

  "Is that the best you can do Saxon?"

  "All right, all right, I know it looks bad, that's why I made a run for it but I didn't do it!"

  "Then give yourself up."

  "My feet wouldn't touch and you know it. All the police want is a nice quick conviction to regain some credibility and I fit the bill to a tee. No, there's only one way I can prove my innocence."

  "Go on."

  "I have to give the police the real killer."

  Fenton paused before saying, "Assuming that it isn't you, and I don't say for one moment that I believe you, how do you propose doing that?"

  "I think I know who the real killer is."

  "Who?"

  "I don't want to say just yet, but when I'm sure I may need your help. What do you say?"

  Fenton was in a quandary. What did he say? What would Jenny say? Was Saxon lying and, if so, what was his angle? What did he have to gain? Could he be telling the truth? "How long before you're sure?" he asked.

  "A day, maybe two."

  "Two days, then I tell the police."

  "Thanks."

  "Where are you?"

  The phone went dead.

  Fenton returned to the bedroom, half afraid to meet Jenny's eyes. She said, "It was him, wasn't it?"

  "It was him."

  "Why? What in God's name did he want?" asked Jenny in exasperation.

  Fenton told her.

  Jenny held her head in her hands and said, "Oh my God, what next?" She slapped down her palms on the bedcovers and looked up at him. "Promise me one thing," she said. "If Saxon suggests any kind of meeting, you won't go alone. Take Ian Ferguson or Steve Kelly, or better still tell the police but don't go alone."

  "I promise."

  Fenton fell asleep but woke at two and was unable to drop off again. He lay in the darkness listening to the sound of the wind but felt so restless that he was obliged to get up before he woke Jenny with his constant changing of position. He pulled on a dressing gown and went to the kitchen to make coffee.

  When he came through to the living room it was icy cold so he relit the gas fire and huddled over it while he faced up to the old questions. A stream of doubts turned up again like unwelcome relations on the doorstep. Why could real life not be like the films with a beginning, a middle and an end? Goodies and baddies and never any doubt which was which. Things had just appeared to have resolved themselves nicely when this had to happen. The arch villain turns up pretending to be innocent and the big question now was, was he pretending?

  "Are you all right?" came Jenny's voice from the bedroom.

  "Sorry, did I wake you?" said Fenton.

  "No, it's always the same when I get a night off. I waken up anyway."

  For two days the question had to wait like a garden gnome with a fishing rod. Fenton had almost decided to phone the police when Saxon called at seven in the evening and said, "I know who killed Munro and tonight we can prove it."

  The word 'we' rang out loud and clear in Fenton's head. He asked what Saxon meant.

  "I want you to be here in the flat when he admits it," said Saxon.

  "Who's he? What flat?" asked Fenton.

  "I am back in Edinburgh. I have a flat here that nobody knows about. Will you come?"

  Fenton felt distinctly uneasy. "What's the plan?" he asked.

  “ I want someone here, quietly concealed in the flat, to witness what is said when my visitor comes."

  "All right," said Fenton, feeling that he was jumping in with both feet. "Where are you?"

  "Do you promise? No police?" asked Saxon.

  "I promise," said Fenton.

  Saxon gave an address in the New Town. It had the suffix 'a'.

  "Is it a basement?" asked Fenton

  "Yes."

  Fenton was scribbling down the address on the phone pad when he sensed Jenny at his shoulder. "You haven't forgotten what you agreed to do?" she asked.

  "I said that I would not contact the police but I did not say I would be alone," said Fenton. He picked up the phone again and called Steve Kelly. They arranged to meet in a bar near the west end of Princes Street.

  "Whisky?" asked Kelly when Fenton arrived.

  Fenton nodded and looked around to see if there were any seats free. There were not so they stayed standing at the bar. "What's going on?" asked Kelly, handing Fenton his glass and sliding the water jug towards him. "I thought this thing was all over."

  Fenton added meat to the skeleton of the story that he had given Kelly over the phone and ended by saying, "That's as much as I know."

  Kelly let his breath out through his teeth and whispered, "Good God, how do I let myself in for these things?"

  "In this case, you didn't. I let you in for it and I'm grateful," said Fenton.

  "Where is this place exactly?"

  Fenton told him.

  "At what time?"

  Fenton told him.

  "Then we've got time for another one?"

  Fenton ordered two more whiskies.

  As they left the pub Kelly pulled up the collar of his overcoat and thumped his fist into the palm of his hand. "God, it's cold."

  He was right. Frost hung in the night air and painted haloes round the street lights as they walked east along Rose Street, once the haunt of the city's whores but now appropriated by the bars and boutiques of the trendy.

/>   They had to step off the pavement as a crowd of young men spilled out of one of the bars full of liquored bravado. By their clothes and accents they were from well to do families. One of them bumped into Kelly who ignored him but the drunk put his hand on Kelly's shoulder and said aggressively, "Who do you think you are shoving?"

  "Go play with your train set Alistair," said Kelly with a look that made the drunk back off.

  "How did you know my name was…Alistair," asked the drunk, looking more confused than dangerous.

  "It always is," said Kelly. They walked on.

  The streets quietened suddenly as they took a left turn and walked down into the New Town. Solid Georgian frontages guarded by black iron railings lined their way, presenting their credentials on brass plaques as they passed. Architect followed solicitor followed surveyor. An occasional interloper from North Sea Oil, an occasional dentist for the private mouth.

  "They say," said Kelly, "That on dark nights…you can hear the dry rot sing."

  "Here it is," said Fenton, looking up at the street sign. "Lymon Place." They were standing at the top of a steep hill that curved elegantly down to the left in quiet darkness, the pavement slabs glistened with frost as he checked a few numbers. "It's on the right," he said.

  24a was half way down and it was in complete darkness. Fenton opened the iron railed gate at pavement level and descended the stone steps to the basement area. Kelly followed and they skirted round a blue painted barrel which, in season, would contain bedding plants.

  The brass knocker sounded loud and hollow but there was no reply. Fenton tried again and they waited in silence while their breath rose visibly in the freezing air.

  "I don't think there's anyone there," said Kelly, sounding less than disappointed.

  "He said nine o'clock," said Fenton.

  Kelly checked his watch but said nothing. Fenton tried turning the handle of the door. It swung open with surprising ease and quietness and the street lights were reflected in an inner, glass door. Fenton tried that too.