Autographs in the Rain

by Quintin Jardine

  'His girlfriend. He mentioned that he was in bed with her when big

  Symonds phoned him from Gala.'

  'And Symonds? We know, do we, that he actually did go to the hospital?'

  'Aye. Two nurses in the A and E remembered him. They said he was

  in a right state; he took some persuading that his father wasn't there after

  all.'

  'I wonder if Lander has more than one girlfriend, or if Mercy Alvarez

  gave him an alibi, just as she and ACC Chase gave him one for the night

  when her farm was done.'

  Pringle gave a soft hum. 'Aye, now there's interesting right enough.'

  'Especially,' said Martin, 'since I seem to recall the lady saying to me

  that she didn't know the other farms that had been robbed. Dan, maybe

  Anders is bang in the frame for this girl's murder, but we know for sure he

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  didn't act alone. There's the footprints, and more. There were two tanker

  trucks so that means at least two people.

  'No,' he said sharply. 'At least three. On the tape, after the girl was

  killed, both trucks drove up at once.

  'Dan, don't get too pleased with yourselves, you and McGurk, for nailing

  Anders.

  'I understand why you let Geoff Lesser talk you into charging him at

  that point, and leaving him with him. I'm not as patient as you, though; not

  on this. I don't just want this guy; I want them all.

  'The two of you, get back in there with your prisoner, take the gloves off

  and lean on him; I want names out of him.

  'You tell him from me that the Crown Office will press for every day he

  holds out on us to become another year added on to the judge's

  recommendation on the minimum sentence he serves before parole. If he

  wants to be out of jail before he's fifty, he'd better talk to you.'

  'All right, sir,' murmured Pringle, with a sigh. 'Can it really not wait till

  tomorrow, though? The boy's locked up, and Jack's just about to go on up

  the road. He's having problems at home,' he added. 'Mary's no' happy

  about the move.'

  'Tonight, Dan. I sympathise with McGurk, but unless you can find

  someone else experienced to sit in with you, it's down to him. If he likes,

  I'll ask Karen to talk to his wife, and you and I can see what we can do.

  'But I want Anders leaned on, and I want it done now.'

  The Head of CID paused. 'Oh, and just in case you think I'm copping

  out, I'm about to delight Mrs Martin by spending the rest of my Sunday

  night digging up insurance company managers. I intend to find out the total

  insurance loss on all three farms.'

  'What's wrong?' she asked. 'Have I been too pushy? Or have I just made a

  total fool of myself?' She looked at his profile in the faint green light of the

  car's instrument panel; smiling as he gave a small involuntary shudder, as

  if he had just switched off his auto pilot.

  'I'm sorry, Lou,' he said. 'I was miles away there.'

  'I asked you whether I had upset you, back there on the moor. Will I find

  myself with a new minder tomorrow?'

  'Christ, no,' he exclaimed. 'You've stunned me, that's all. You took my

  breath away. I mean, what brought it on?'

  'I don't know for sure,' she answered, laughing softly to herself. 'But

  thinking back, I remember wondering whether, maybe, for all my adult

  life, the man I've been looking for is the sort who puts Irn Bru in a hip

  flask.'

  'Shh for a minute,' he said. 'Let's pull in somewhere for a bite, and

  damn the punters. We can't talk about this in the car.'

  After they had climbed down from the moor their circular route had

  taken them through Kelso, Duns and on to the Al at Grantshouse. Neil

  looked at the road signs and saw that East Linton was only half a mile

  ahead. He turned off the single carriageway trunk road, into the half-hidden

  village, drove across the Tyne bridge and pulled up close to the Drovers'

  Inn.

  Happily, the roadhouse was quiet and they were shown straight to a

  table for two in the dining room upstairs. They ordered a glass of white

  wine for Louise, a bottle of sparkling mineral water and two seafood platters

  with side salad, then sat silently as the wine was poured and the bottle

  opened.

  She smiled at him, mischievously, as he took his first sip. 'Like I said,' |

  he began, Tm stunned. Gob-smacked. I don't know what to think, and I

  sure don't know what to say . ..

  'Other than this. I find you very attractive; but I'm not talking about the

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  publicity photo or the face up on the big screen. You're beautiful on the

  inside, Lou, and that's where it counts.

  'But what I don't understand is what the hell you can see in a big dumb

  polisman like me, given the world you live in, with all these bloody

  superstars and everything.'

  She ran the tip of her right index finger round the rim of her glass, which

  lay untouched on the table. 'Much the same thing. I haven't felt the faintest

  flicker of attraction for a man in the last three years, although . . .' she

  smiled again, '. . . my line of work being what it is, I have had a few

  propositions put to me.

  'You're not like anyone I've met, not in a while; not for as long as I want

  to remember. You're a warm, open-hearted, caring man, and you are not in the slightest affected by who I am ... or by the person I'm supposed to be.

  Nor by any other of those bloody superstars, if it comes to it.

  'You see through all that; when you look at me, I can tell you're just

  looking at Louise Bankier from Bearsden, and that's all I am.'

  He shook his head. 'Not all. It's who you are, and it's enough. Maybe

  I'm afraid to look at the face up on the big screen. Maybe she would

  overwhelm me.'

  'No. You look through her to get to me; you just strip her away.'

  'So what are you saying? What are you asking? Are you asking anything?'

  'I don't know. I'm afraid to say any more than I have. And I don't know

  what to ask of you. I do know this, though; I mustn't trifle with you. You

  don't deserve any more hurt in your life, and I certainly won't be the one to

  inflict it.'

  'You couldn't,' he told her. 'Not you; it's not in you to hurt me or anyone

  else. Anyway, I'm beyond hurt now, beyond any hurt I can imagine, at

  least. I've found my truth, my certainty, and that's my shield.'

  'But what about the loneliness? Does your shield protect against that?'

  He looked at her for a while, without replying, spinning his glass in his

  fingers, watching the bubbles in the water, as if he was considering

  something. Finally, he laid it down. 'Let me tell you a story; a true story,

  true as I'm sitting here.

  In the days and weeks after Olive died, I experienced certain physical

  things, signs you'd call them, of her presence around me, on another plane.

  The very d;iy after, in fact, I lay down on the sofa, alone, and closed my

  eyes for the first time in over twenty-four hours. As I lay there, I felt a line of pressure above my eyes, firm yet not painful, not like a headache.

  'I knew that it was her; I knew instinctively that part of her essential

  being ... we use the word soul, and it's as good as any other . . . was
/>
  merging with mine, binding us together.

  'A few weeks after that, I had a dream. I was drawn towards, and

  eventually came to a bridge. I could see her on the other side, but I couldn't

  cross; she knew I was there. She wasn't smiling, but she was content that I

  could see. I knew then that she had brought me there.

  'The bridge was grey, and so was everything around, but I knew also

  that, when I can cross, I'll see colours the like of which I've never imagined.'

  She made as if to speak, but he held up a hand to stop her. 'No,' he said

  softly. That's not the story.

  'A few months later, the Big Man insisted that I take the kids and go off

  to his place in Spain for a couple of weeks. So we went out there, and lay

  beside the pool, and went to the beach, and all the time, I felt this great

  space around me, empty, yet not empty.

  'Then, one night I was lying in bed in Bob and Sarah's guest room,

  asleep, and dreaming about Olive. All of a sudden, I woke up.' He snapped

  his fingers suddenly, making her jump. 'Abruptly; just like that.

  'There was someone there, lying beside me. It was her; she was there, in

  my arms. We couldn't speak, either of us. We just hugged, and we cried.

  Then after I'm not sure how long... more than a couple of seconds, anyway

  ... she just faded, melted away, leaving me alone, but with a huge feeling

  of relief.

  'I lay there for a while, until eventually, I went back to sleep, back into

  the dream from which I'd awakened. But next morning, it was all still

  there, as clear as it had been at the time.

  'Now I know, Lou, that inevitably, you're sitting there thinking, "The

  poor man," or some such, and that it was all part of the same dream. Yet

  what I've told you is as pure a truth as I can give you. Just like you, I've had

  many dreams; bad ones, good ones, dark ones, bright ones . . . aye, even

  wet ones when I was a teenager.

  'But I've never, ever, had a dream that I could touch. I've never, before

  or since, had a dream that cried on my shoulder . . . and neither, I'll bet,

  have you.'

  She looked at him, unaware of the tears in the corners of her eyes and

  shook her head.

  'Olive told me many things in that wordless encounter,' he continued.

  'Most of all, though, she told me to be patient, that it would take as long as

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  it took, but that it would be all right. Until then, she was letting me go to get

  on with my life.'

  He frowned. 'Why did I tell you this? Yes; the loneliness. There is none,

  not any more; it left me that night. I find the patience part of it difficult

  from time to time, but when I do the kids are there to get me back on track.

  'So don't you worry about hurting me, love. It's the other way round;

  given what you've been through, it's me who has to worry about hurting

  you.'

  'As you said earlier,' she told him. 'You couldn't if you tried. It's not in

  you.'

  His eyebrows rose as he topped up his water glass. 'Are you so sure? I

  know enough about your career to remember that a while back, you won an

  award for Wuthering Heights. Back there on the moor, don't you think you

  might have been replaying the role?' He grinned. 'Imagine me as Heathcliff!'

  She laughed, a suppressed giggle at first, until it escaped into a long peal

  of beautiful sound. 'Not for a minute,' she exclaimed, more Glaswegian

  than he had ever heard her, and loud enough for two other diners to turn

  and look towards their table. 'Heathcliff didn't even carry a hip-flask, far

  less fill it with ginger.'

  Geoff Lesser was not a happy man. He glared at Pringle as the two came

  ijace-to-face in the divisional HQ's reception area. 'I was halfway back to

  Glasgow,' he complained. 'What the hell's this about?'

  'Let's just say we've had a change of heart,' the superintendent growled.

  'We've decided to offer your boy a deal, but it'll be take it or leave it, and

  it'll be now. I'm sorry to mess you about, but the Legal Aid'11 pay for it, as

  always.'

  'Yes,' said Lesser, with a hint of a grin, 'but slowly as always.

  'But what do you mean a deal? My client denies all charges, strenuously.'

  'He can get as strenuous as he fucking likes. Strenuousness does not

  impress juries, and you know it; they expect Strenuousness. They're

  impressed by evidence, and on the basis of that, Anders is on the Peterhead

  bus already.'

  'Ah, but he will say that someone could have burned that coat and that

  baton in his shed, someone who wanted to frame him for the robberies. As

  you rightly said, he had visited all three farms, in the course of his everyday

  visits, and in attempting to sell them his systems had himself pointed out to

  the managers their vulnerability to the type of theft which was subsequently

  committed.

  'What appears to be evidence for the Crown, is in fact evidence for the

  defence.'

  Pringle nodded, amiably. 'Time will tell, sir.

  'Let me guess,' he continued. 'I suppose he did a runner after he received

  an anonymous telephone call warning him that the police would be after

  him for the girl's murder.'

  'Very good, Superintendent. You've worked out what happened.'

  'Oh, that I have, Mr Lesser, that I have. Come on and let's see what the

  poor victim of miscarried justice has to say about it.'

  The detective led the way back to the interview room, where Jack McGurk

  and a uniformed constable were sitting, silently, with Raymond Anders.

  The room was blue with cigarette smoke.

  'Right,' Pringle barked at the prisoner. 'You can put that out right now.

  It took me long enough to give up; I'll be buggered if I'll indulge your

  habit' He snatched the cigarette from the man's hand and ground it out in

  the ashtray which lay on the table.

  He switched on the tape. 'This is a resumed interview with Raymond

  Anders, by Detective Superintendent Pringle and Detective Sergeant

  McGurk, Mr Geoff Lesser, solicitor, also being present. Prisoner remains

  under caution.' He looked at the constable and jerked a thumb towards the

  door. 'You can go, son.

  'Right, Anders,' he began, setting himself down on a chair. This

  afternoon was the ritual dancin'. This is the serious stuff now. You're cooked

  for this and no messing; since we saw you this afternoon, the technicians

  have found blood remnants on a scrap of the coat you burned.'

  'I didn't burn it!' the prisoner protested. 'Someone else must have.'

  'This is after you had the anonymous call that caused you to do a runner?'

  Anders' eyes narrowed slightly. 'Yes. It must have been. It would have

  been the same bloke, likely.'

  'Ah,' said McGurk, speaking for the first time. 'A bloke with a set of

  keys to your house?'

  'No, of course not.'

  'Son,' Pringle sighed. 'The jacket and the club were burned in an oil

  drum inside your garden shed. That was a daft thing to do, but I suppose

  you didn't want the neighbours to see you. However,' he looked at Lesser

  and let out a great bellowing laugh, 'it wasn't nearly as fucking daft as

  locking the shed door a
fter you'd done it.'