Autographs in the Rain

by Quintin Jardine

  a proper video system.'

  'Who says?'

  'I say. We say. The police, who are expending considerable time and

  money investigating the consequences of other farmers too shortsighted

  to invest in proper protection against theft. We say you'll have to, and you

  can be dead certain that the insurance companies will back us up.'

  The woman flared up again, her Latin eyes flashing. 'You can't threaten

  me like that.'

  Martin grinned at her, amused by her reaction. 'Sure I can,' he told her.

  'I can back it up too. Don't make me have to; install that equipment.'

  She seemed to capitulate; finally she smiled at him. 'Okay, okay,' she

  exclaimed, raising her hands in token of defeat. Til need to speak to Mr

  John, my bank manager, maybe . . . it's really him who runs this place ...

  but I'll do it.'

  'Is that Andrew John?' the detective asked.

  'Yes. His office is in Edinburgh, but he comes to see me down here.'

  'I know Andrew; I'll speak to him, tell him what the situation is. I

  shouldn't think there will be a problem.'

  The smile left her face in an instant. 'No!' she snapped. 'You no' do

  that. That's my business; I'll deal with it.'

  'Okay then, but you make sure you do. I'm going to send Detective

  Sergeant McGurk back here on Friday; I'll expect you to show him a

  functioning video setup.'

  'If you say so,' she grumbled. 'But I have an alarm; I have a video system.

  Kath,' she called to another, younger, woman, who was loading feed into a

  dispenser. She stopped, laid down the big paper sack, and walked towards

  them, a big strong-looking girl in the inevitable black rubber boots.

  'This is Kath Adey,' said the Spanish farmer. 'She's my manager, and

  she lives here.' She pointed to a cottage on the far side of the tank complex.

  'She sees everything, and she has a loud voice to shout "Help", if she needs

  to. Don't you, Kath?'

  Sure do, Mercy. You want to hear?' she asked the policeman.

  I'll take your word for it. Have you got plenty of groceries in that

  cottage?'

  The manager frowned. 'I need milk, but otherwise I'm okay. Why?'

  'Because if you're the only alarm system this place has for now, you

  cannot leave it until proper equipment is installed and running. Whatever

  happens, suppose you have an emergency call telling you that your granny's

  house is on fire and she's stuck on the roof, you do not leave that stock

  unguarded. Clear?'

  The woman frowned at him, and nodded. 'Clear.'

  'Do you have the number of the police station in Coldstream?'

  'It's in the book, isn't it?'

  'Look it up. Keep it handy. Just in case. I'm not saying that anything

  will happen, but still... It'd be nice if you and Ms Alvarez could get these

  fish to market rather than have someone else do it.'

  He looked back at the Spanish owner. 'Friday, remember.'

  She sighed. 'Okay, Friday. You send your man back on Friday.'

  He gave her a friendly smile and made to turn back towards his car.

  'He'll be here,' he said. 'Count on it.'

  He drove carefully back down the rough track, turning at last on to a

  road which led to and through the border town of Coldstream. As soon as

  he was in open country, he eased his speed and dialled the central number

  of the Bank of Scotland.

  He had to speak to two successive switchboard operators, human screens

  between bank managers and an admiring public, before finally he was put

  through to Andrew John's office.

  'I'm sorry, Mr Martin,' the banker's secretary told him, 'but Mr John's

  out of the office until Thursday. He has a series of meetings in England.'

  'Too bad. I need to talk to him about one of his clients. Make me an

  appointment first thing on Thursday. I'll come to him.'

  Q46

  Age for age, Naomi McConnell was as attractive as her daughter; from

  Ruth's disclosure of the age difference between her parents David

  Mackenzie knew that she was in her early sixties, but she could have passed

  for ten years younger. He found it hard to believe that she had been retired

  from teaching for two years.

  'This is very distressing,' she said, as she ushered the policeman into the

  sitting room of her neat bungalow on the outskirts of the seaside town of

  Ayr. In common with most Glaswegians, he had been taken there by his

  parents as a boy; in common with many, he had not been back since.

  'For all that he was eighty, I was really shocked when I heard that he was

  dead. With all that golf he played, he always struck me as such a fit man

  that I thought he'd go on for ever. Now, to learn that there was something

  suspicious about it...

  'Ruth told me that someone drowned him in his bath!' she exclaimed.

  - 'We don't know that for sure, Mrs McConnell,' the policeman cautioned.

  'It's a possibility, but it'll probably never be any more than that. There

  were no signs offeree on the body when we found it; we do believe that he

  was drugged though.'

  'Drugged?' She looked and sounded astonished.

  'We suspect that he may have been taking tranquillisers, or possibly

  having these administered to him.'

  'My God. What sort of a world is this? Or what sort of a world was he

  living in?'

  'That's exactly what we have to find out. That's why I'm here; to ask

  you what you knew of your brother-in-law.'

  Ruth's mother drew herself up in her chair. 'As much as I wanted to, and

  that wasn't much. I hope I'm not incriminating myself here, but I never

  liked John McConnell. The last time I saw him was at Max's funeral... my

  husband's funeral... five years ago. Since then we've exchanged Christmas

  cards, but that's been it.'

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  AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN

  'Why did you dislike him?' Mackenzie asked.

  'I don't know for sure, but it was instant, I can tell you that. There was

  something creepy about him; I remember the way he looked at me this first

  time we met, and a few times after when I caught him off guard. I felt as if

  he was sizing me up.'

  Tm sorry to be blunt, but do you mean sexually?'

  'That's exactly what I mean. I felt as if the man was undressing me with

  his eyes.'

  'What about his wife?' he asked. 'What was she like?'

  'Cecily?' Naomi McConnell threw back her head in a gesture which

  David Mackenzie had seen in her daughter. 'I never knew whether to feel

  sorry for him, or for her. In the end, I suppose I felt sorry for them both.

  They endured a sad, barren marriage for almost forty years, and they always

  seemed bored in each other's company. Max and I visited them as a duty

  rather than a pleasure, and entertained them on the same basis.'

  The detective looked at her. 'Did Mr McConnell's attentions to you ever

  go beyond glances?' he asked, cautiously.

  She drew in her breath. 'Well, I learned early on never to dance with

  him,' she snorted, with remembered indignation. 'In fact, I remember once,

  oh, nearly twenty years ago, at a party we had here when Max retired, I saw

  him dancing with Ruth. She was barely in her teens then, but she was a

  well developed girl. I probab
ly let her over-dress a bit that night; she was

  gorgeous and didn't even know it.

  'Anyway, as I said, I saw John dancing with her, and I just wasn't having

  it, so I walked over to the record player and stopped the music. He looked

  at me afterwards, and it was the only guilty look I ever had from him. I

  thought about asking Ruth if anything... anything untoward had happened,

  but she didn't seem flustered so I let it lie.'

  'Your suspicions were spot on though.' Mackenzie blurted the words

  out in spite of himself.

  'You mean ...'

  He nodded. 'Ruth told me exactly the same story yesterday. In the

  circumstances, and given her age, she seems to have handled it pretty

  well.

  'Tell me,' he continued quickly, 'how did your husband feel about his

  brother?'

  'Max tolerated John, but they were never close, by any stretch of the

  imagination. No, there was something between them. He never said so

  1

  outright, and I never asked him, but I think that he either suspected or knew

  that John had had an affair with Lorna, his first wife. Mind you, to listen to

  Max talk about her you'd think she'd had everything in trousers. He was

  very hurt when she left him, and he stayed bitter about her for the rest of his

  life.

  'She went off with a man John worked beside, in fact. Max held a bit of

  a grudge over that too.' She paused. 'Now he did feel sorry for Cecily; he

  thought it was sad that such an obviously a-sexual woman like her should

  be married to a man like him.

  'I asked him once why they'd married in the first place, all he said was

  "Respectability". He believed that his brother was promiscuous; he even

  said to me that he thought he probably cruised the red light district of

  Glasgow in that big car of his.'

  'So all in all, Mrs McConnell, you did not regard your brother-in-law as

  a very nice man,' the detective summed up.

  'Not a bit,' she agreed. 'He was mean too. "As tight as a fish's ..." Max

  used to say.' She laughed.

  'And yet, in the last few months of his life, he gave away all his money

  and virtually all of his possessions of value . . . everything apart from his

  Naomi gasped. 'Ruth didn't tell me that. If that's the case, I can only

  suppose that the old fool compromised himself with a woman in some way,

  and that she blackmailed him.'

  'Maybe,' Bandit Mackenzie murmured. 'But if she was blackmailing

  him, why did she take a video camera into his house, on the day he died?

  That's the biggest mystery of all.'

  They looked at each other across the room.

  'You said that your husband's first wife went off with a workmate of his

  brother.'

  'Colleague,' Mrs McConnell laughed. 'John was management and never

  slow to let you know it. He didn't have workmates. But yes, Lorna went off

  with a colleague. I never knew his name though, and Max never mentioned

  it.'

  'Perhaps John kept in touch with her.'

  'Quite possibly, but she can't tell you anything now. She died about

  fifteen years ago. I remember John phoning to tell Max about it, to see if

  he wanted to go to her funeral. As far as I know, he didn't even send

  flowers.'

  160

  'Damn,' said the policeman, his frustration showing. 'Another closed

  door. I tell you Mrs McConnell; your brother-in-law couldn't have covered

  his tracks better if he'd tried.'

  162

  47

  Way back, when the world was young and James Proud was merely an

  Assistant Chief Constable, he met a young CID officer whose vision,

  commitment, and intensity were such that he made a bigger impression on

  him than any man had ever done before. He had marked that young man as

  one who, some day, would command the force, and from that time on had

  taken a personal interest in his career development.

  Bob Skinner had known nothing of this at the time; he had been totally

  focused on his twin ambitions of cracking every crime he confronted and,

  possibly even more difficult, raising, as a lone parent, his young daughter

  to womanhood. He had been given time in each CID posting to gather

  experience and establish his track record, but once he had come within

  sight of the top of the ladder the rest of his climb had been rapid.

  As Sir James Proud looked at him across the coffee table in his spacious

  office, he knew that only one act remained to bring about the final fulfilment

  of his vision; his own retirement and the installation of his protege as Chief

  Constable.

  Yet it was something which the two men had discussed only tentatively

  in the past, and never once in those conversations had the deputy allowed

  himself to anticipate the time when he would sit permanently in the Chief's

  chair.

  Even after an extended period in charge, during his boss's enforced

  absence on sick leave, Skinner had subtly avoided any detailed discussion

  of the future, or at least of the post-Proud era; so much so that the veteran

  wondered whether he might have developed an agenda of his own.

  If he had, Proud mused, it was unlikely that Assistant Chief Constable

  Theodore Chase featured in it prominently, if at all. Bob Skinner was almost

  invariably tolerant of the views of others; he demeaned his own skills as a

  man manager, yet he had gathered around him the most gifted team of

  detectives on any British force, and in spite of his own inclination to keep

  hands on, had given them the leeway they needed to achieve results.

  Ted Chase, though, was the exception; rule-defying, rather than rule

  proving. From the moment that he had settled himself into Jim Elder's old

  chair, the newcomer to the Fettes Command Corridor had set out an agenda

  which seemed to have been designed to challenge Skinner's position and

  authority.

  His peremptory appointment of Jack Good had started the rot; technically,

  the Chief could have vetoed it, but Chase during his excellent interview

  had subtly established that, in the event of his appointment, he would have

  some say in the choice of his personal staff.

  TJien there was his paper; his damnably well-crafted paper on the

  conimand structure of the force, and of the benefits of the Deputy being a

  mirror image of the Chief Constable, rather than someone whose different

  attributes and skills ... however admirable they might be, as the document

  had made a point of acknowledging ... had in the past caused crises in the

  relationship between the police command and the elected board which

  supervised its operations.

  Proud Jimmy had hoped that Chase would have backed off, if not in the

  face of Skinner's clear hostility, then of his own mildly discouraging signals.

  But he had not; the man's ambition was built of strong materials. The old

  Chief had bought time by the simple ruse of saying that he wished to give

  Chase a chance to find his feet in Edinburgh, while he considered his

  thoughts at length.

  He knew that this was merely postponing the crisis point, the moment

  when he would either have to tell Chase to fall into line, or put his paper up

  for discussion
by the Board. Had no other considerations applied, he would,

  of course, have told the ACC what to do with his paper on Day One. However,

  he had more than a suspicion that, if he did that, Jack Good might carelessly

  allow a copy to fall into the hands of Councillor Agnes Maley, Bob Skinner's

  arch enemy. Although Sir James had contrived to have Maley removed