impressive, if not new. It was made up of carefully chosen separates, like
her own, all except the turntable from the Mission Cyrus range. She peered
at it. 'Amplifier, power amp, CD player, tuner, Systemdek turntable.'
She paused, and her eyes narrowed slightly. She bent and looked at the
recordings, lined on their shelves. Twelve-inch LPs and compact discs.
Straightening up she went back through to the kitchen and took the cassette
box, empty of tape or label, from the rack.
'Dave?' she called, stepping back into the hall. 'Have you come across
a tape player through there?'
The inspector emerged from the front bedroom. 'No. Why?'
She held up the box. 'He didn't have a deck in his system either. I was
just wondering what this was doing here. It was in the rack in the kitchen,
but Ruth could have put it there. I think she must have tidied up, after you
left her here the other day.'
He took it from her and looked at it. 'Maybe. We'll take it anyway. It
doesn't look as if it's been dusted, so we can always see if we can lift a
print off it, other than Ruth's, the old man's and ours.
'I don't know what it'll tell us though.' His wicked smile flashed back.
'Here, maybe she had a karaoke machine in that box. Maybe the old fella
was hooked on that as well!'
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1
36
When a man is six feet four inches tall and is brought up in Edinburgh,
there has always been a fair chance that at some time in his youth, someone
will persuade him to pack down in the back row of a scrum. (Today, when
a woman is six feet four inches tall, that fair chance becomes a certainty.)
In Jack McGurk's case, most of his classmates in his year at the Royal
High School had been vertically disadvantaged, and so, in his penultimate year, he had been pitched into the second row of the scrum and the middle
of the line-out.
He had done well in schools rugby, not because of any inborn technical
skills, but because his natural aptitude for violence in close-quarter
situations, particularly those on the blind side of the referee, quickly had
earned him a reputation which had made most opponents back off.
Unfortunately he had carried this trait with him into senior rugby; his
career had come to an end before his nineteenth birthday, two seconds after
he had squeezed the testicles of a twenty-six-year-old policeman, and one
time Scotland B flanker, named Andrew Martin, in the middle of a ruck.
A trip to Casualty, a bad case of concussion, and four lost teeth had been
all that it had taken to make him realise that the game at that level was
something entirely different, and that he wanted no part of it.
McGurk was fairly certain that ten years on there was little chance of
the Head of CID, even if he remembered the incident... and it had been a
fairly powerful squeeze . . . identifying him as the culprit. As it happened
he was wrong, but Martin was not a man to bear a grudge, particularly
since the referee, having seen the provocation, had been blind to the
retaliation.
The detective sergeant's jaw ached as he wandered into Raeburn Place,
the traditional home of Edinburgh Academicals Rugby Football Club, the
very ground where his brief flirtation with the game had ended. The Second
XV was the only side in action that afternoon, pitted against Jedforest
Seconds; he had decided to go along to the match out of nothing more than
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t
curiosity, to see whether Lander and his manager chum were any good at
the game.
The rain was hammering down as he wandered into the ground, under
his golf umbrella, and found shelter in the small grandstand. The first half
was almost over and, already, Jed were fourteen points down. He could see
why at the first line-out, when Arthur Symonds, on his own hooker's throw,
had the ball stripped from him easily by a smaller, but more committed
opponent.
'Look at that big lad,' a disgruntled Jed supporter moaned, in the general
direction of McGurk, as the nearest available listener. 'He looks like a
fucking tree stood among all the rest of them, but all he is is the fucking
fairy on top!'
Accies' scrum-half used the unexpected good possession to feed his
backs, but the inside centre was tackled in open field by a determined form
whom the detective recognised as Glenn Lander. Unfortunately the flanker
missed an easy opportunity to turn his man and regain possession. Accies'
scrum-half used the resulting ruck to reset his attack, before spinning a
long pass directly out to his left wing who crossed the line and ran behind
the posts.
'Look at them,' roared the Jed diehard beside McGurk. 'Boys against
men .. . and the boys are still stuffing us!'
Had it not been for the incessant heavy rain, which continued all through
the match, the policeman would have left at the half-time break. Instead he
stayed under his shelter and watched the debacle until the end. A further
converted try soon after the restart put the result beyond any doubt, and the
home side seemed content to contain their opponents from that point on.
Happily, the referee exercised merciful common sense; with almost
twenty minutes left to no-side, he abandoned the meaningless match because
of the deteriorating ground conditions. Thirty players, and around the same
number of spectators applauded his decision in evident relief, and, as a
man, headed directly for the pavilion and the sanctuary of the bar.
The tall detective, who had come to the match by bus, saw the sense of
this approach. As he hustled across the pitch, avoiding, like the rest, the
most churned-up areas, he saw a man in a waxed cotton coat and matching
flat cap walk over to Glenn Lander and speak to him. The young estate
owner, his face a mask of mud, turned as if to reply, then caught sight of
McGurk.
At first, it was impossible to read his expression beneath the camouflage,
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AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN
until he grinned, said something to the other man and, as he turned towards
the exit, headed in the direction of the policeman. 'Did you decide to follow
us, Sergeant?' he asked, just as they reached the pavilion. He was still
breathing heavily, evidence that at least he had tried until the end.
'Nah! I just got curious, that's all. I haven't been to a club game since I
chucked playing myself, so I thought I'd come along to see what you boys
were like.'
Lander gave a short breathless laugh; as he folded his umbrella McGurk
glanced at him and noticed that blood was seeping from a slight cut beside
his right eye, mingling with the mud. 'And what's the verdict?'
'The truth?'
'Plain and unvarnished.'
'You asked for it. You cover a fair bit of ground, but you never seem to
put your hands on the ball. As for your big pal Symonds, your fucking trout
can jump higher than him. You'd be better off at home looking after them.
'Sorry,' he added.
Lander shook his head. 'Don't be. Our coach is going to say a bloody
sight worse when he gets us in that dressing
room. I take your point about
the fish, really; we should be back at Howdengate trying to sort out
re-stocking. But if Art and I had stayed at home at such short notice, the
team would have been light. The club could have landed in hot water with
theRFU.'
'Unlike your two and a half ton of trout, which by now will be in very
cold water . . . frozen in fact.'
McGurk shook the young landowner's hand, then climbed the stairs to
the pavilion. Only the smaller of the two bars was open, and the lounge
area was crowded. He stood his brolly with the rest, edged up to the bar,
secured a pint of lager and turned away, to find Andy and Karen Martin
smiling at him.
'The game's much better watched from up here, Jack,' said the DCS. 'I
didn't know you were a member.'
'Guest,' the sergeant replied.
'Whose?'
He looked around. 'Yours, probably.'
'That's all right, then. This club needs all the income it can get. This
social or professional? I saw you speaking to one of the Jed lads.'
'Social really. Mr Pringle and I saw him this morning; him and that big
useless second-rower of theirs. He owns a trout farm, and the big lad's his
manager. You'll never guess what happened to them last night.'
Martin's vivid green eyes narrowed. 'You're joking.'
'I wish I was, sir. But when it comes to security, these boys just won't
take a telling.'
'Maybe not,' said Martin quietly. 'But you tell Dan Pringle from me that
I want an action plan from him at Monday morning's divisional heads
meeting. Three strikes, and someone's out.'
He sipped his orange juice, then shot the other man a curious look. 'Funny,
Jack, when I saw you there I wondered if you were considering a comeback.'
V At that moment the sergeant knew that he knew. 'I won't if you won't,
sir,' he answered.
'My days are long gone,' he chuckled. 'Do you reckon I did you a favour,
then?'
McGurk switched his pint to his left hand, put two fingers into his mouth
and withdrew a dental plate, with four upper molars. 'I didn't think so at
the time, sir,' he said, 'but I've still got a few of my own teeth left, so with
hindsight I reckon you did.'
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37
Bandit Mackenzie slid a plate of four chocolate doughnuts across his desk.
'Get outside a couple of these,' he said.
'One maybe. My diet's working.' Dell picked one up and dunked it in
her coffee. 'You're splashing out, aren't you?'
'I thought I should in the circs.'
'What circs?'
He looked at her awkwardly, even a little guiltily. 'Well, it's like this,'
he began. 'If we'd got a result this afternoon out of our wee bit of private
enterprise, I'd have been able to square your overtime with the DCI, no
problem. But I doubt if I'll be able to persuade him that an empty cassette
box counts as a result... not unless it turns out to have Bible John's DNA
on it.'
She laughed, ironically. 'How does your wife put up with you, Dave?
You're the slipperiest bastard I know. One of your saving graces is that
you're also the most transparent. I never had any illusions about being on
double time this afternoon.'
She grabbed a second doughnut and popped it into a brown paper bag
which lay on the desk. 'So I'll have this for later.'
He grinned. 'Still beats the St Enoch Centre on a Saturday though, doesn't
it?'
'I wouldn't know,' she answered. 'I'm a reasonably affluent single
woman. I prefer Princes Square.'
Mackenzie laughed. 'It's just as well I don't fancy you. You're way too
pricey for me.'
me. But your other saving grace is that you love your wife.'
'You're too fucking sharp by half, girl. You could wind up on point duty
somewhere if you're not careful.'
He reached into a side pocket of his jacket for the cassette box. 'Here,
stick a label on this, and get it to a technician on Monday.' But the container
he laid on the desk held a tape, the recording of his interrogation of Ruth
McConnell earlier in the week.
'Shit, wrong pocket.' He reached down to the other side, found the box
which they had taken from John McConnell's kitchen, and laid it on the
desk beside the other.
'Here, wait a minute . . .' He sat upright, eyes narrowing. 'They're
different sizes.'
The sergeant leaned forward, peering at the desk. She took the tape from
its box and tried to fit it into the other; it was too wide by a few millimetres.
Then what the hell is it?' she asked.
'I'll tell you,' Mackenzie said, quietly. 'It's a video eight cassette box.
And old John McConnell didn't have a camcorder.
'Gwennie; that big awkward bag your witness saw the woman carry into
the house. A pound to a pinch of shit, there was a video camera in it. The
bitch was filming him.'
She looked at him in disbelief. 'But why in heaven's name would she
want to do that?'
'Heaven's got nothing to do with this.'
He leaned back in his chair once more. 'Yes Sergeant, your overtime is
safe with me. The DCI will okay it for sure, when I report this to him. Who
knows, he might even okay some for me.'
He smiled. Til report it somewhere else too. I'm looking forward to
hearing what Bob Skinner makes of this.'
38
'I suppose I should thank you, McGurk,' Dan Pringle growled into the
telephone, 'although it might have occurred to you that it was down to me
to break the bad news to the Head of CID that my division's on the way to
becoming a laughing stock. I tried to call him this afternoon; I was going to
give it another shot tonight.'
'I'm sorry, gaffer, honest. I couldn't have known that DCS Martin would
be there, far less that he'd see me talking to Lander from the clubhouse bar.
But when he did, I had no bloody choice but to tell him.'
Pringle sighed. 'Aye, I know son. I'm just a bit pissed off, that's all, and
you're in line. "Three strikes and someone's out", indeed. Our Andy is not
known for his sense of humour either; not when it comes to the job at any
rate.
'So we'd better take him at his word and have an action plan in place for
Monday.'
The sergeant's heart sagged at the use of the plural. He knew what was
coming next.
'Did you have plans for tomorrow?'
'Well, yes, sir.'
'Aye, well so had I. We're both stuffed then. You said there are two
other substantial fish farms on our patch, didn't you?'
'That's right. In Berwickshire, just north of Coldstream, and down near
Langholm.'
'In that case, I want you to arrange for the owners of them both to meet
the two of us on site tomorrow, whether they like it or not. If our weekend's
buggered, so's theirs.'
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