had never mentioned Chase's notorious paper either, any more than had
Ruth, who had typed it. He might still not have known about it, but for a
series of heavy-handed hints from Good, which had eventually provoked
him to exclaim one day, in his own small office, 'Jack, exactly what the
fuck are you talking about?'
It had to be that damned paper that lay behind Chase's smirk. Yet if it
was, why was his aide so clearly shiteing himself?
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'Ah, what the hell' he thought as he turned into his driveway, "the boss 'II
tell me when he's good and ready:
He drove his car into the garage, checked with Marie that Lauren and
Spencer were fine, then walked the short distance round to Louise Bankier's
safe house. As he opened the garden gate, he saw, almost hidden behind a
tall hedge, a silver-grey Renault Megane hatchback. He glanced at the
registration: Glasgow. Of course, Lucy's. Lou had mentioned that her sister
was bringing her father through to see her.
He rang the bell; its echo had barely died before Louise swung it open.
'Hey,' he said, trying to look severe. 'I thought I told you not to do that;
take a look through the peep-hole first.'
'I saw you coming up the path; and eyeballing poor wee Lucy's car too.'
He smiled as he noticed that she sounded more Glaswegian than ever. 'Come
and meet the guys,' she said.
Warren Judd and Elliott Silver had been gone by the time he had arrived
the evening before to pick her up. He studied them both carefully, but
politely, as she introduced them. Judd was a short, stocky man, about his
own age, he guessed; he flashed him a smile and was taken aback by the
hostility in the look which he shot back. Silver was ten years younger, in
his late twenties, of medium height and light build, with soft features and,
unlike his colleague, possessed of a ready, endearing smile.
Behind them, at the window another man stood. He was big; at least six
two, bulky shoulders in a denim shirt, black hair cut close. Mcllhenney's
eyebrows began to rise, unconsciously, until Lucy walked over to him and
took his arm. 'This is Barren Mason, my boyfriend,' she said. 'He's never
met my famous sister before.'
Louise smiled at them, then exclaimed, with more pride in her voice
than he had heard before, 'And last, but the opposite of least, the most
important man in my life; Malcolm Bankier, my dad.
'Dad, this is Neil Mcllhenney, who's sort of looking after me while I'm
here.'
The old man in the armchair made to push himself up on a thick brown
cane. 'You stay there, Mr Bankier, please,' said the detective, laying his
left hand gently on his shoulder and offering him his right. He settled back
then shook it, with a gnarled, twisted, arthritic claw, looking not at Louise,
but at his younger daughter, who was perched on the broad arm of the
chair.
'Who is he?' he exclaimed. 'She got another man?'
'Shh, Dad,' whispered Lucy. 'No, that's not it.'
The old man's face seemed to brighten up. 'Ah, he's yours then,' he
cackled. 'Lucy's got a fella.' The young woman flushed.
'No, Mr Bankier,' said Neil. 'I'm not so privileged. I work for Louise.
I'm responsible for her accommodation while she's in Edinburgh. I just
looked in to check on her schedule for tomorrow.'
'Work for her, you say?' His voice, though wavering, still kept its cultured
middle-class Glaswegian tones. He waved his stick at Judd and Silver. 'Like
these two?' Suddenly, his eyes narrowed, and he beckoned the policeman
tfwards him. As Mcllhenney leaned over, Malcolm Bankier nodded towards
Warren Judd. 'That wee chap there,' he hissed, loudly enough for everyone
in the room to hear, 'watch him. Seen him before somewhere. Don't like
him.'
Neil could think of nothing to say to fill the embarrassing silence, but
the old man did it for him. 'Thought I'd seen you before too,' he said.
'With Louise; long time ago, when she was a lass and my wee Lucy was a
baby. Not you though; someone else. Sorry.'
Lucy Bankier glanced up at her sister, who nodded. 'Come on, Daddy,'
she said. 'Lou says tea will be ready; let's go to the dining room.'
'She never said a bloody word,' Mr Bankier grumbled, but he allowed
her to help him to his feet, and out of the room.
When they were gone Louise looked apologetically at Judd. 'I'm sorry
about that, Warren,' she said. 'His memory's all over the place these days.
He hasn't a clue what he's saying.'
'Don't worry about it.' The producer laughed, but, it seemed to
Mcllhenney, without real humour.
'I do though. For example, I worry for my sister, left in Bearsden to look
after him. I give her nursing help, of course, but he goes through them at a
rate of knots; I've had to move agencies twice. The Alzheimer's has changed
his personality completely; for one thing it's made him a dirty old man ...
and I'm not just talking about his toilet habits.
'It makes me so sad; he's only seventy-five you know, and he wears a
bloody nappy, yet there are men in their eighties who've as fit as fiddles.
This started off as one of his better days, too.'
'Well,' exclaimed Judd, brusquely. 'We'd best leave you with him, then.
As we agreed, don't you worry about tomorrow. Boy Wonder and I will
take care of that. See you on Monday, to start the New Town shooting.' He
turned on his heel and left the room, Silver in his wake.
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AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN
'Your dad's not as wandered as all that, is he?' Mcllhenney murmured.
'He's right about friend Judd for a start.'
'He never did like Warren,' she snapped. He felt rebuffed; she saw it
and apologised at once. 'I'm sorry, Neil; I'm just a bit touchy on that subject.'
'So'she, I reckon.'
'Don't take it personally.' Then she smiled. 'No,' she said. 'Take it
personally if you like.'
She paused, and looked at him. 'You know who he mistook you for,
don't you?' she asked.
'I can make a pretty good guess.'
'How much has Bob told you?'
'Very little; only that you two were close a long time ago. But last Friday
night when we drove back from Gullane, I knew who you were talking
about. He was the one, eh? The big hurt, twenty-five years ago.'
'Yup,' she admitted. 'And isn't it strange now, that Dad should mistake
you for him, you two being such good friends and colleagues and
everything.'
She sighed. 'Daddy was furious, you know; furious with Bob, when we
broke up. I never talked about him afterwards, you know, but once when I
was visiting home, when Lucy would be about fourteen, he said something,
in front of her, about having seen him on television.
'I had to tell her the whole story. Until that moment I hadn't realised just
how angry he had been.'
She laughed. 'And then, on Monday evening, when he called in, she was
here, and they met. I wondered how she'd react, but you know, she just
melted. She fell for him on the spot, just like me two and a half decades
before her.
'I te
ll you, it's just as well he loves his wife, or Bob Skinner could do
untold damage in my family still!'
He chuckled. 'Speaking of families, I must get back to mine. I gather
that you've called off your meeting tomorrow.'
'Yes. Glenys and I are having another day with the script; the guys can
finish the location recces. There's only one I want to do myself.'
'Where's that?' he asked.
'You'll find out,' she told him, mysteriously. 'On Saturday.'
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I I
56
'Where did you find her, Dan?' asked Andy Martin.
",'She turned up at her house in Coldstream, just after five o'clock. Two
uniforms spotted her and detained her until McGurk picked her up and
brought her up here to Galashiels. We're just about to question her.
'So far she's brassing it out, though: she claims she has no idea why we
want to talk to her. McGurk was smart enough not to play along with her
though. He's said nothing at all to her, other than that she's wanted for
questioning. We've let her stew in it so far, but we're ready to talk to her
now.'
'Have you seen her at all?'
'Not yet.'
'Has she seen a lawyer?'
'She was allowed to phone her lawyer in Coldstream. He's a real old
country lawyer with more sense than to go anywhere near a criminal matter,
so he's sent up the young lad in his office who does what little Sheriff
Court work he has.
'He's just arrived, but he can see her at the same time as I do. Jack
sneaked a quick look at him. He says he looks still wet behind the ears, but
full of himself, puffed up like a rooster.'
'Nah,' said Martin dryly. 'There's a difference between a rooster and a
lawyer.'
'What's that?'
'A rooster clucks defiance . . .'
The Head of CID cut across Pringle's laugh. 'What does McGurk think
about the woman?'
'He reckons she's lying in her fucking teeth.' The superintendent glanced
across his office at the sergeant. 'Mind you, Jack's still a bit upset, after
finding that poor lass. He's desperate to nail someone for it? I'll make up
my own mind about her.'
'Go and do it, then,' |p Martin. 'Just remember, though; McGurk
N
192
j
doesn't know as we do that it couldn't have been her hitting the girl on the
tape.'
'No, but you don't know that wasn't her we saw framed in the lights of
that lorry.'
'True,' admitted the Head of CID. 'Go do it then.'
Pringle hung up and nodded to McGurk. 'Come on.' He led the way out
of the room downstairs and into the waiting area. He spotted the lawyer at
once from his sergeant's description; no more than twenty-five years old,
smooth-cheeked, looking precociously pompous in a pin-striped suit.
'Mr Mark Taggart?' the policeman asked.
'Yes!' the young man exclaimed. 'Inspector, I insist on seeing my client
at once, or must I speak to your superiors?'
'That's "Superintendent" to you,' Pringle barked. 'Dan Pringle, divisional
CID commander, and don't fucking threaten me, son. Now you come on
wi' us and you'll see your client.'
'But I want to see her alone,' the young man protested.
'So does DS McGurk here, but we're all going to see her together, and
you're going to keep your mouth shut and let us get on with our interview.
This is a murder investigation, as I'm sure you know by this time ...' The
young lawyer gulped, almost comically, leaving Pringle to guess that any
briefing he had been given before he left Coldstream might have been less
than complete.
'Your client hasn't actually killed anyone, son, but she still has a few
questions to answer about her possible knowledge of the crime. I'm not
going to caution her at this stage; if I decide to in the light of anything she
says, I'll stop the interview and advise you at once.
'Until then, you're in there because of my generosity of spirit, and that's
all.'
Mercy Alvarez was waiting for them in a small, windowless room at the
rear of the ground floor of the divisional headquarters building. The air
was thick with cigarette smoke as the two detectives entered; Pringle felt
an old familiar pang. The woman glared at them through the blue haze, but
said nothing.
The female constable who sat silently with her rose and made to leave,
until Pringle shook his head, signalling her to stay. He placed twin tapes in
the recorder on the table, then switched it on, identifying everyone in the
room for the record.
'We've got a problem with you, Ms Ah '; ' the superintendent blurted
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AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN
out, as soon as he had completed the formalities.
'What you mean?' she snapped.
'Well, there were only a handful of us who knew that as of Friday, you'd
have video security installed on your farm. There was you, there was Jack
and me, and there was our boss, Mr Martin.' He paused. 'Oh aye, and there
was Kath Adey.
'All of which makes it very iffy that last night someone should have
broken into your site and emptied out your tanks. In view of the short time
that's gone by since the last robbery, it makes me wonder whether someone
tigped off these guys that they only had a couple of days
''What?' Mercy Alvarez interrupted, her dark eyes widening. 'Country
Fresh? Is been robbed?'
'Good,' said Pringle. 'I'm impressed by that reaction; maybe I was meant
to be. But I'm not convinced. Someone told that gang that they had to do
your place before Friday. Now it wasn't DCS Martin, and it wasn't DS
McGurk, and it wasn't me. So that just leaves you.'
'Superintendent!' Mark Taggart exclaimed.
'Shut up, you! Did you set up your own farm to be robbed, Ms Alvarez?'
The woman's face twisted in anger. 'No I did not!' she spat. 'Anyhow,
you miss someone out? What about Kath?'
Jack McGurk shook his head. 'We don't think it was her, Ms Alvarez.'
'Why not?' she shouted. 'Why you accuse me, not her?'
The burly superintendent leaned across the table. 'Because no one's
bashed your head in, and chucked you in a fish tank,' he said, quietly.
'Because you're not lying in the fucking mortuary up in Edinburgh, with
your brain beside you in a stainless steel dish.'
Dan Pringle was long past the stage in his police career when he believed
that he could be surprised by anyone or anything. But right there, right
then, Mercy Alvarez surprised him; she fell off her chair, in a dead faint.
An hour went by before a doctor certified that she had recovered
sufficiently for the interview to proceed. She was so shaken that Pringle
was convinced there and then that she had known nothing of her manager's
murder.
His tone was gentler when he resumed his questioning. 'Let's start again,
Ms Alvarez,' he said. 'When was the last time you saw Miss Adey alive?'
'At four o'clock yesterday afternoon, when I left the farm, to go home.'
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