Autographs in the Rain

by Quintin Jardine

  charged effect, according to Grogan.'

  He looked at Louise. 'Any idea what they might have been?'

  She nodded back at him. 'Yes. They were hair spray; we're due to start

  filming this morning, and since we're shooting in street locations, I had

  arranged for the make-up person to call at the house first thing and fix me

  up there.'

  'Who dropped them off?' asked Andy Martin, quietly. 'Who knew they

  were there?'

  Louise looked up at him, for a few seconds. 'They've been lying there

  since Thursday. Elliott Silver brought them with him when he arrived for

  our meeting. I remember telling him just to leave them in the hallway.'

  'This is the same guy,' Mcllhenney exclaimed, 'who tried his hand with

  Lou a while back and got sent down the road.'

  'But Neil...' she protested, twisting round to look at him.

  'But what, love? Tell me something; does he have a car here, or does he

  travel by taxi?'

  'He has a hire car. Why?'

  'Because when I was running down Craiglockhart Avenue, I heard a

  motor, taking off sharpish.'

  Skinner looked at Martin. 'Talk to him, Andy. Have a serious talk with

  him. Where's he living, Lou?'

  'He's renting a flat in the New Town. On India Street, in fact, where

  we're due to begin filming this morning. You'll find his address in my Filo,

  in the hall.'

  'You better postpone that. Your director could be busy for a bit.'

  Til call Warren; he's in the George Hotel.'

  'Don't worry about that,' Skinner assured her. 'I'll call in on him myself.

  'Meantime,' he continued, 'what are we going to do with you? Maybe

  we should move you into a hotel suite?'

  'No,' Mcllhenney retorted. 'Lou stays here.'

  'But Neil,' she said. 'What about the kids?'

  'They'll be fine.' He looked at the DCC. 'Anyway, we may wind up

  locking up Mr Silver before the day's out...' He frowned. 'But even if we

  don't. We're finished pissing about now, Boss, aren't we?'

  'Too right,' said Skinner. 'If Lou is going to stay with you, then we

  make this a fortress. Armed officers front and back from now on, round the

  clock. Spence and Lauren get taken to school and brought back by car.' He

  paused. 'Better still. They can come to ours; it's near the end of the school

  term, so a couple of weeks or so at Gullane Primary with Mark won't harm

  them at all.'

  'Deal,' said Neil, looking at Lou. 'You okay with that, love?'

  She hesitated. 'I'm okay with it except for one thing. I don't want to put

  you in danger.'

  He laughed. 'Try and keep me out of it. Okay, Boss,' he said to Skinner,

  pushing himself up from the sofa. I'll keep the kids off school this morning.

  They'll think it's Christmas come early.'

  'Fine. I'll pick them up this afternoon . . . unless Silver confesses

  everything.'

  'Which you don't think he will?' asked Mcllhenney, quietly.

  Skinner drew in his breath in a familiar hiss. 'No, I don't,' he admitted.

  'If it was him, then delivering those aerosols personally was a stupid thing

  to do. And this boy hasn't done a single stupid thing so far.'

  'Apart from persecuting Lou in the first place,' Mcllhenney growled.

  'That will turn out to have been very stupid.'

  'Indeed,' the DCC agreed, moving towards the door with Martin. 'And

  taking a shot at me, even if it was a blank. That too.

  'Right, Andy,' he said, as Mcllhenney saw them into the small hall.

  'You'll brace Silver right away.'

  The Head of CID nodded. 'Yup. I'll have to postpone my divisional

  232

  AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN

  heads' meeting this morning anyway. Dan Pringle's in court with the guy

  we nailed for the fish farm jobs.'

  'Mmm,' said Mcllhenney idly. 'We saw one of them yesterday, on the

  edge of the moors just off the Carfraemill to Kelso road. A big one it was,

  too ... with a video security system, you'll be glad to hear.'

  Martin stared at him. 'Is that so?' he murmured. 'Dan Pringle showed

  me a list of all the trout farms on his patch, and I'm dead certain there

  wasn't one there.'

  AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN

  67

  Policemen are used to being wakened from their slumber in the middle of

  the night to be told of catastrophe, disaster and death. Film producers, on

  the whole, are not. Warren Judd looked a bundle of nerves as he perched on

  a chair in his Balmoral Hotel suite, sipping black coffee from a jug provided

  by room service. He was shivering, not from the cold, for the room was

  warm, but from nerves.

  'Do you know how the fire started?' he asked, his voice shaky.

  'We're still in the realms of theory,' said Skinner, truthfully. 'I won't

  speculate.'

  'But you do know that that man, Glenys's partner, is dead?'

  'His name was Clarence Sparrow, and if he isn't dead, he's a bloody

  phoenix.' It was the policeman's turn to shudder as he recalled what Matt

  Grogan had shown him under that tarpaulin. 'Glenys Algodon got out by

  the skin of her teeth, and of her back. She'll be in a lot of pain and discomfort

  for the next few days, and she'll have a new hair-do for a while, but she

  will be all right.'

  'And Ms Bankier definitely wasn't there? You're sure about that? I mean

  if the fire was that bad . . .'

  'Mr Judd,' the DCC said, slowly. 'I have spoken to Louise. She is shocked,

  but in good health.'

  'Why wasn't she there? Where was she? We start shooting tomorrow; it

  isn't like her to have late nights while she's working.'

  'She had a dinner-date; she hadn't got back when the fire started.'

  'Dinner date? With whom?'

  Skinner frowned as he looked at the producer, sensing old passions, old

  jealousy within him. But he sensed nothing else.

  'With Neil, her bodyguard,' he told him, abruptly. 'They went out for

  the day, they had supper and then they went back to his place.' Judd's cup

  slipped in his fingers, spilling coffee on to the Balmoral's expensive carpet.

  'She . . .' he whispered.

  234

  'The DCC stared at him hard. 'Neil's a fine man,' he murmured evenly.

  'One of the very best of people; as is Louise, as Louise has always been, as

  she was when I knew her first, when you were not as much as a black cloud

  on the far horizon. She deserves someone like him, and if you ever grudge

  her that, mister, or reproach her, or wish her anything but the very best of

  luck, then in Neil Mcllhenney and me, you will have made two of the worst

  enemies that a man could possibly have.'

  'But who is he?' Judd croaked.

  'He's a policeman. He's my executive assistant. Lou's been under our

  discreet protection since she's been in Edinburgh. She has a stalker, a

  persecutor. Before tonight there have been two incidents, one in London and one in Edinburgh. Neither was a lethal attack; tonight's was.

  'We're looking for a slim-built man in his late twenties, who signs himself

  John Steed in e-mails, but whose name that, quite certainly, is not.'

  'What about my movie?' the producer exclaimed. 'Are you shutting me

  down?'

  Skinner grinned. 'Whether I would or wouldn't do that is academic.
r />   Your co-producer won't have it, and that's that. You're going to lose today,

  while we make revised security arrangements for Louise, but you should

  be able to start shooting tomorrow.

  'However, from now on, no one is going to know where Louise is staying;

  neither you, nor your director, nor the co-stars . . . not even Glenys, when

  she recovers. That knowledge stays within my team.

  Til also be putting a man on set, so that no one can booby-trap any of

  your props. You'll be responsible for checking everybody on set. You see

  one unfamiliar face, you shout bloody murder.'

  Judd nodded his head. 'Whatever you say, boss. I'll call the unit manager

  right now and tell him to stand everyone down for twenty-four hours. We

  can reschedule and make up the loss over the next couple of weeks.

  The only days I can't change are the Hogmanay street party stuff... but

  that's wild footage, doesn't involve the cast . . . and next Saturday and

  Sunday; we've got the okay to shoot the big closing scene in Parliament

  Hall. We set up overnight Friday so we can film both days if necessary.'

  'That's fine. No worries there. There's only one other thing you're going

  to have to do. Telly have been to the fire scene already and the press will be

  all over it very soon, so my media manager is going to have to issue a

  statement confirming that there's been a fatality.

  'Sparrow's parents will be advised of his death first thing in the morning.

  235

  4_

  Once that's done, I want you to issue a statement expressing regret and

  explaining that the house was occupied by members of your production

  team, including Louise Bankier's assistant.

  'You should add that Lou is shocked by Clarence's death and by Glenys's

  injury in this tragic accident. You can lie in your statement. I can't.'

  He left the producer in his suite, to come to terms with everything that

  had happened, and to begin revising his schedule.

  236

  68

  Elliott Silver's address had been easy to find. Louise Bankier was one of

  those traditionalists who still carried a Filofax, rather than an electronic

  notebook. And like all Filo-freaks, she updated hers daily and took it with

  her, everywhere she went.

  Neil Mcllhenney found it without difficulty, scribbled it on a clean page

  in the 'notes' section and handed it to Andy Martin, as he was leaving.

  Martin enjoyed driving through the empty streets of the city at night,

  listening to the frying sound of the tarmac beneath the wide tyres of his

  MGF, driving fast through lights which normally were blocked with daytime

  traffic. He zipped through Holy Corner and Bruntsfield, on into Lothian

  Road and past the new office blocks which had changed Edinburgh's skyline

  in recent years, finally taking the unnecessarily complicated route which

  led him to India Street.

  Elliott Silver had made his temporary home on the basement level of a

  tall grey tenement building. He parked in the street outside, looked around

  the other vehicles until he found a Mercedes A-class, with the rental

  company tag still hanging from the rear-view mirror. He laid a hand on the

  hood, but it told him nothing; it was cold.

  The Head of CID trotted down the steps, checking his watch as he went:

  4 a.m. 'The man should be well asleep,' he murmured to himself, as he

  rang the doorbell. There was no answer; not until the third ring. Eventually

  the blue-painted door swung open, framing a leggy blonde woman, wrapped

  in a silk dressing-gown, back-lit and made transparent by the hall.

  'Yes!' she snapped. 'What the hell is it? Where's the fire?'

  'Craiglockhart,' he said, 'but it's out now.' He flashed his warrant card.

  'DCS Martin, Edinburgh CID. I want to see Mr Silver. Is he in?'

  'What's up, Grade?' a sleepy man's voice sounded from the depths of

  the hall. 'Is it some drunk? Cos if it is . ..'

  'It's the police, Mr Silver,' Martin called out. Then the man stepped into

  view and he recognised him, even unshaven, in boxer shorts; a face from a

  Quintin Jardine

  hundred screens, and many more magazine covers. That of Ralph Annand,

  Louise's co-star.

  Unbidden, Martin stepped into the hall. 'Elliott Silver,' he repeated, 'I'm

  told he's living here. Is that true, and if so, is he here?'

  'Yes!' The third voice came from the bedroom door; a man, fair hair

  tousled, leaning naked against its jamb. 'I'm Elliott. Now what the fuck do

  you want?'

  'As little as I can get away with,' Martin replied, his legendary patience

  wearing thin. 'Where were you between midnight and two o'clock?'

  v'Here, in bed.'

  'Okay.' He turned to the woman, thumb jerked towards Annand. 'Him I

  know. Who are you?'

  'Grade Annand,' she replied. 'Ralph's wife.'

  'Right.' His green gaze flashed back to the director. 'So who's to say

  you didn't slip out. Were you in bed alone?'

  Elliott Silver gave a long bored sigh and shook his head.

  'So who else is here?'

  'No one, Mr Policeman.'

  'But you weren't in bed alone.'

  'No.'

  It was Andy Martin's turn to sigh. 'Okay,' he asked, 'which one?'

  Silver flashed him a wicked, triumphant smile. 'Both of them, Mr

  Policeman. Shocked?'

  'To the core, sunshine,' said the detective, 'to the very core.

  'Now go and get some kit on ... all of you . . . and get your sore and

  sorry arses back in here. Because it's my turn to shock you.'

  238

  69

  Skinner's car stood outside the Balmoral, no obstruction to traffic, since it

  was only just after five. He thought about driving home but saw no point in

  wakening Sarah, or the baby, earlier than necessary. And so, instead, he

  drove down towards Fettes, stopping only to pick up a couple of filled rolls

  in an all-night cafe in Stockbridge. The night security staff came to

  something approaching attention as he parked in his reserved space, opening

  the door for him before he reached it.

  Tiredness was beginning to catch up with him as he unlocked his office;

  he debated whether to grab a couple of hours' sleep on the couch, or to

  attack the rolls instead. His mind made up, he switched on the coffee filter

  which stood, ever ready, in the corner. The bread was fresh from the baker's

  oven, not too well fired, buttered and filled with egg mayonnaise. He ate

  them with pleasure, and chased them with strong coffee, then looked around.

  'How many mornings like this, Bob?' he asked himself aloud. 'Caught

  in limbo in the nothing hours; nothing happening, nothing to do but think.

  Too many, especially in the time between Myra and Sarah ... Christ, in the

  time between Sarah and Sarah.

  'I was worried about big Neil, too, facing the same thing. Then he goes

  and surprises the shit out of me; him and Lou. Fucking big dark horse that

  he is! Let's hope, eh?'