Airport, now here she was criticising the accommodation that he had picked
out.
Louise Bankier defused the bomb inside him with a simple laugh.
'Compared to your flat in London, or mine for that matter, we're luxuriating
in space here,' she said. 'What about the South African movie last year,
when they wouldn't let us leave the hotel?
'Or that place off Malaysia where we did the location shots for that
awful sci-fi epic? You and I, and the make-up girl, had to share a room; and
the toilets . . .' She turned, grinning, to the big detective, moving across
towards him. 'French style, they were, and the shower head was directly
above you. Plus, there was no hot water on the island and the cold was in
short supply, so you had to . . .'
She stopped herself short, blushing slightly, and laid the flat of her hand
on his chest, still laughing. 'Believe me, Neil, this house is lovely, just
lovely. Plus, as Bob said yesterday, it's just like my mum and dad's place in
Bearsden.'
His anger was completely forgotten, dissolved by the music of her
laughter and the warmth of her touch. He looked from her to Glenys
Algodon. She was smiling too at the Malaysian memory, but he noticed
that she did not blush. She was almost as tall as her employer, with copper
coloured hair that at first he had assumed was dyed, until he saw that her
skin tone was a very light brown, indicating a mix of ethnic origin, a West
Indian grandparent, perhaps or a Mauritian.
'I suppose so,' she conceded. 'But do you really want Clarence here at
weekends?'
'I don't mind at all,' said Louise, 'if you don't, and if Neil's happy.'
Glenys's frown returned. 'Neil's in charge of my security,' the actress
explained. 'He's a policeman, like his colleague.' She nodded towards a
second man in the room, standing quietly beside the window.
'Excuse me, boss lady,' the secretary exclaimed, 'but what's this about?
When we talked about this project at first, you said that you might stay in
Glasgow with your father and your sister. Now here you are, holed up in a
bungalow in the sticks of Edinburgh, surrounded by coppers.'
Louise looked up at the big inspector. 'Neil,' she asked, quietly. 'Do you
want to explain?'
'Sure. Let's all sit down, though.'
'No, you go ahead. I'll make us all some coffee; I noticed that someone's
done some shopping for us.'
As she spoke the doorbell rang; Mcllhenney went to the front door and
opened it. A woman stood in the small porch; she could have been Louise
Bankier in her twenties. 'Hi,' she said, with a smile. 'You must be Inspector
Neil. I'm Lucy, Lou's sister.'
'Come on in.' The detective swung the door wide. 'She told me you
were coming through to see her.'
He led the younger Bankier into the living room, taking her coat from
her on the way, and hanging it on a hook in the hall. The reunited sisters
embraced. 'Good to see you, Luce!' Louise exclaimed. 'You pitched up at
just the right moment, as usual. I'm just about to make coffee. Come with
me; there's stuff I've got to tell you.'
The two women headed for the kitchen, leaving the policemen alone
with the secretary. 'Okay,' said Glenys sharply, as soon as the door had
closed. 'What is this?'
'I didn't introduce myself properly at the airport,' he began. 'My name
is Detective Inspector Neil Mcllhenney. I'm the executive assistant to
Detective Chief Constable Bob Skinner. We have reason to believe
'No bullshit!' the woman snapped. 'Plain talk, please.'
'Okay,' said Mcllhenney. 'Lou's got a stalker. Someone set off a smoke
bomb in her hotel room early Saturday morning; put her in hospital for a
few hours. A week before that, she was in Regent Street with my boss,
who's an old friend of hers; some bastard in a car, white male, dark Ford
Mondeo, fired a shotgun at them. It was a blank, but DCC Skinner didn't
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know that at the time. He's made a few enemies, so he assumed at first that
it was the real thing and that he was the target. Now we're assuming that
Ms Bankier was.
'As long as she's working in Edinburgh, she's under our protection.
Effectively, I'll be her bodyguard.'
'You mean living with us?'
'No, but I'll be very close. My house is a few hundred yards away, and
we've installed an alarm system that's linked to there and to the nearest
police station. We've got some toys in the garden as well, that'll pick up
anything heavier than a cat as soon as he steps over the fence.'
She looked at him. 'Your wife's gonna love that.'
'My wife is dead,' he answered, coldly.
She flicked an apologetic glance at him then looked down. 'Hey, I'm
sorry.'
'So am I.' Mcllhenney nodded across to the other, younger, man. 'This
is Detective Sergeant Stevie Steele; he's been detached from other duties
to the investigative side of this thing, and he'll report directly to DCS Martin,
our Head of CID and through him to DCC Skinner.
'First off, he's going to need to talk to you.'
'Sure,' said Glenys. All her earlier suspicion and aggression had vanished,
leaving only concern. 'Inspector,' she asked, 'you said that your boss is an
old friend of Louise. How old?'
' 'They were students together.'
'Ah. I wonder . . . Maybe it's him.' She smiled at Mcllhenney. 'Louise
has had a few male involvements in her life,' she explained. 'Warren Judd
was the most serious, but that's over a while now. Yet I've known for almost
as long as I've worked for her, that there was someone way back, someone
who left a mark on her that ain't never worn off. I don't want to get too
corny, but I've always thought of him as the love of her life.
'Friday before last, she told me that she was meeting someone for dinner.
She didn't say who, but from the way she said it, and the way she looked
... real nervous, unlike I've ever seen her ... I knew that it was him.
'I got to get a look at this guy.'
Mcllhenney turned to Steele. 'Stevie,' he murmured. 'You'd do well to
forget you ever heard any of that.
'And you too, Ms Algodon. That's a part of Louise's life that you'd
better keep very confidential.
'Now,' he snapped, suddenly. 'Sergeant.'
'Sure. Ms Algodon . . .'
'Glenys.'
'Glenys then. I know already from the Metropolitan Police that you've
reported a couple of people to them as, shall I say, unwelcome
correspondents. They were both interviewed immediately, and they were
both found to be innocent; just fans who had taken adulation a bit too far.
'Very quietly, we've confirmed already that neither of these men was in
Edinburgh on Friday night. One of them is dead, and the other is a recluse
who conducts almost his entire life over the Internet.
i'Can you recall what alarmed you about them?'
She shrugged. They were persistent, that's all; I thought they were
possibly obsessive personalities, so I took no chances.'
'You're qualified to judge, of course,' said Steele, casually, 'having a
degree i
n psychology.'
'How did you know that?' she shot back.
'Same way we know that your boyfriend, Clarence Sparrow, is a solicitor
and a West Ham season ticket holder. We take our job seriously, Glenys;
I'm sure you do too. I appreciate your ability to make sound judgements
about Ms Bankier's correspondence. Can you tell me how you base these?
'First of all, what volume of mail does she receive?'
'Probably less than you'd think,' the secretary told him. 'Louise has a
mature following, and the older you get, the less likelier you are to write
fan mail. These days more and more of it comes over the Internet. Louise
has a website, and there's an e-mail address attached.
'There is an official fan club, and we receive mail through that. Also
there are people who just write to "Louise Bankier, London" or "Great
Britain" even, and these are passed on by the Post Office.'
'Do you get much crank stuff?'
'Very little. Most people just write to thank Louise for a particular movie,
or for being like a friend to them. They ain't even looking for a reply usually, but they always get one, sometimes with a photograph, and it's always
signed personally, and with a little PS message. She even insists on signing
off her own e-mail, even if I draft it. I have her signature programmed in,
and we can add it.
'When I get nasty ones, as I do very occasionally, I never show them to
her. I send them a stern reply, signed by me, warning them off if necessary.
I don't burn them or shred them, though; I keep them for at least two years,
in case there's a repeat from the same source.
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AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN
'Almost invariably they're signed too, with return addresses. When they
come in the mail, I always check them out and the addresses are always
genuine. When they come in the e-mail, I pass them back to the provider,
for them to deal with.'
'Have you had any nasty ones, lately?'
'Only one or two in the last six months; we don't get all that many. And
as I said, they were all signed and addressed. They're in a file at the agency
in London where I'm usually based.'
'Fine,' Steele nodded. 'I can have them checked out. What about your
Internet correspondence?'
'Some, but not much. Net-heads are too scared of being blocked out.'
She paused. 'There was one message, though, a couple of months back,
that I didn't show to Lou. It came on Hotmail; it was unsigned and odd
enough for me to check it out with Microsoft.
'All they could tell me was that the holder of that mailbox was someone
called John Steed, and that he had logged on and registered through a cyber
cafe in Newcastle. Give me two minutes to boot up my laptop and I'll show
you it.'
She picked up a bag which she had laid on a chair, unzipped it and
produced a portable computer; clipped into the lid, beneath a transparent
screen was a photograph of a smiling black man. The detectives waited as
she switched it on and opened her e-mail folders.
She had just clicked on a file, and handed the computer to Steele, when
the Bankier sisters came back into the room. Lucy wore a worried look;
Louise followed behind her, carrying four china cups and saucers on a tray.
She laid one beside the sergeant, on a small table, as he looked at the
message, with Mcllhenney peering over his shoulder. 'Hi Louise,' they read silently.
This is a message to thank you for the major contribution you have
made to world cinema during your outstanding career. However, every
bitch has its day, as they say, and it's in the nature of things that yours
has to be over quite soon.
When that time comes, I hope that you will have a moment to
contemplate the effect that you have had on the lives of the millions to
whom you have provided an idle distraction, and that you will be
able to judge at that time whether the sacrifices you have made along
the way have been worth it after all.
John Steed.'
'What is it?' Louise asked.
'An e-mail I didn't show you,' Glenys confessed.
'Ah, one of them.'
'You know?' the secretary exclaimed.
'Of course I do,' Louise laughed. 'Not even an actress is vain enough to
assume that she only gets nice mail.' She held out a hand to Steele. 'Let's
see it.'
The sergeant glanced at Mcllhenney, who nodded, grim-faced. She took
the laptop from him and read. 'You see what I mean?' the secretary said
when she was finished. 'It's odd, but you couldn't call it threatening.'
Neil Mcllhenney and Louise Bankier exchanged meaningful glances.
'Until you see the signature,' said the detective. He looked at the others.
'You three are probably too young to remember the TV series, and no
bugger went to the movie they made a few years back.
'The name. John Steed; that was the name of the lead character. The
series was called The Avengers.''
148
43
Bob Skinner was rarely surprised; but even he was taken aback when Ruth
buzzed through to his office to say that Detective Inspector David Mackenzie
was at the front desk, asking if he might see him.
'The Bandit?' the DCC exclaimed. 'I wonder what the hell he wants.
Aye, sure I'll see him. Have someone show him the way up.'
When Ruth showed the Lanarkshire detective into the big wood-panelled
office, she recalled his mockery of her boss at their first, unfortunate meeting. "Somewhere along the line' she mused, as she saw the expression on his
face, 'he has learned respect.'
'Well David,' said Skinner, as she left. 'Does your mother know you're
out?' He grinned at the younger man's momentary confusion. 'I mean does
your divisional commander know that you're through here?'
'I've told Detective Superintendent Lillie that I had to come through to
Edinburgh to pursue my enquiries, sir.' He frowned. 'How did you know
she's a woman?'
'You'd be amazed by what I know. For example, you're an Albion Rovers
supporter . . .' The inspector's mouth fell open. 'Don't be embarrassed
about it, son,' Skinner laughed. 'It's the main reason why I like you.
'Tell me though, did you tell the lady whom you were coming to see?'
Mackenzie gave a slight, awkward grin. 'Not exactly. She'd have gutted
me like a fish if I'd told her that; I said I had to re-interview a witness.'
'But what if I hadn't been in? Didn't you think to call first?'
'I suppose I should have, but the thing is, it isn't really you I've come to
see. I want another chat with Ruth.'
'Not under caution this time, I hope.'
'No, of course not; she isn't back on the list. So far, I've drawn a blank
with my check on drugs-related deaths. The fatalities are nearly all on smack,
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