viewing going, Sammy?’ he asked.
Young Constable Pye looked up at him, bleary-eyed. ‘I’ve got nothing so far, sir,’ he answered, quickly. ‘The fact is, I’m still working out how to tackle it. I’ll tell you now though, unless I get lucky, this is going to be a long job.’
‘I’m under no illusions about that. How will you go about it?’
Martin’s assistant pointed to the television screen on the table at which he sat. ‘Well, sir, as you can see from that, there are a lot of people on these tapes.’
‘Which bank is this?’
‘This is Dalkeith, where the first robbery took place.’ He pressed the pause button on the video player, and stood up to face the Head of CID. ‘I’ve decided to run through each bank’s tapes at least twice, to familiarise myself with the faces. That’s not as bad as it sounds, I can fast-forward, and I can cut out obvious non-runners . . . old people, young girls delivering shop takings or getting change, handicapped people and so on.
‘My reasoning is that we’re looking for a male, probably in his thirties or forties, somebody with the potential to scare a guy like Nathan Bennett into silence. On my first run-through of each tape, I’ll note down all the possibles by date and time reference, then go through them again, concentrating on their appearance.
‘If I see the same face at more than one bank, that’ll ring an alarm bell.’
Martin nodded. ‘That sounds like a pretty fair plan. But are you sure you’re happy to tackle this on your own? I could give you a team of watchers if you thought it would it help.’
Pye shook his head. ‘No, sir. You and Mr Skinner are right. We could fill this room with people, yet everyone would still have to look at all the tapes. I’ve always had a good memory for faces. I’m confident that if there is a lead in here, I’ll find it.’
‘Okay, Sammy,’ said the Head of CID. ‘I’ll go with that. Have you got any feel for timescale yet? I don’t have to tell you how important this is.’
‘I know, Boss. Let’s see.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s mid-day Tuesday. If I find a suspect quickly, I’ll give you a shout at once. Failing that, how would it be if I report progress at close of play on Thursday?’
‘That’s acceptable.’ The DCS stepped towards the door. ‘I’ll let you get on with it.’
‘I’ll tell you one thing, sir,’ said DC Pye just as he reached it. ‘After this I won’t be wanting to watch telly for a long, long time.’
29
‘Want to talk about it?’
Tall even in his open-toed sandals, Bob looked down at Sarah, who grinned back at him as they made their way down the high dune. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked her.
‘You know damn well. You’ve been in another world since you got home this evening. Not one word of more than two syllables has passed your lips, and when I suggested that we should take the boys for a walk before we ate, you jumped at it.
‘I know you, husband, and I know when there’s something chewing at your brain. What is it? The bank robberies? Lord Archergait?’
He nodded as he side-footed his way down the slope, holding Jazz steady in his front-slung carrier. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘It’s both of those things.
‘We have our best people on each inquiry, yet so far each one’s as cold as a witch’s tit.’
‘Tit,’ Jazz repeated, enunciating clearly.
‘Yes, Jazz,’ said Sarah quickly, throwing a mock-frown at Bob. ‘Like the birds in our new garden. Bird, bird, okay.’
‘Bid, Mummy, bid,’ he shouted back at her.
They cleared the last of the dunes, and stepped out on to the path which led eastwards from Gullane’s curving mile-wide beach. Mark trotted on ahead of his adoptive parents, who strode out to keep him in sight.
‘It’s early days in both investigations, honey.’ She took his hand in hers as they walked.
‘Sure, but that’s the time when our hopes of success are best. With every day that passes the trails go colder, it gets tougher for the team.
‘What have we achieved today?’ He broke off. ‘Careful, Mark! The path falls away there. Keep close to the fence.’
‘Well,’ asked Sarah, breaking the silence which followed. He looked down at her. ‘What have you achieved?’
‘Sum total? We’ve established that someone walked into the ante-room of Archergait’s Court and slipped cyanide into the water carafe which Colin Maxwell had just refilled. We’ve also established that no one saw him do it.
‘As for the robberies, we’ve established that Malky McDonnell, our last living lead, is well gone. Not exactly what I call progress, on either front, my love.’
‘What about Maxwell?’ She sounded hesitant. ‘Are you sure . . .’
He laughed, ironically. ‘Wee Colin? I suppose you’re right to ask the question. There’s no argument that he filled the jug that poisoned the old boy. We’ve only got his word for it that he left the room empty and unlocked afterwards. He even stopped Brian Mackie from taking a drink from the carafe.
‘Sure, we could lift him and question him for twenty-four hours. We could give him a really hard time. At the end we might even be able to charge him. There’s only one thing wrong with that scenario.’
‘What’s that?’
‘No way did the poor man do it!’
She stopped in her tracks, pulling him to a standstill too. ‘Have you ever been wrong?’ she asked him.
‘Sure, as you well know. But not this time.’ He tugged at her hand and they resumed their walk. ‘Listen, we’re not being unprofessional about this. We’ve done checks with every chemist in town, to see if anyone’s been buying cyanide lately. Colin certainly hasn’t. And we’re also going round all known users of the stuff, to see if any have stock discrepancies. So far, no one has. ‘I asked Norman King, Archergait’s son, about Colin. He says that he and his father were good pals, going back to the old boy’s days at the Bar. They played golf together at Murrayfield. Quite often they partnered each other in the monthly medal.
‘No, love, trust me on this one. Colin Maxwell is not a murderer.’ He smiled at her. ‘Before you suggest it, he isn’t one of our bank robbers either!’
He looked down. Jazz, in his carrier, was sound asleep. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘That’s enough of the shop talk. Look what it’s done to the wee man.’
They walked on, to Freshwater Haven, and the spring from which it took its name, then round to the east sands. Normally the white beach was deserted, but on this warm evening two riders were exercising big, thoroughbred horses, letting them stretch their legs along the water’s edge. They caught up with Mark, who had stopped and was gazing down at them from the grey wall of a ruined cottage.
‘Whose are they, Uncle Bob?’ he asked.
‘I have no idea, son. Quite a few people around here own horses.’ He was on the point of asking whether Mark wanted a horse, but bit the words back. ‘
Leaving the galloping horses behind, they headed up from the beach and found a narrow path which ran for over half a mile around the edge of Muirfield golf course, before leading them back to the bridle path by which they had descended to the beach. By the time they reached home twenty minutes later, Jazz was stirring, but Mark was beginning to flag.
‘This is the best thing we’ve done as parents,’ said Bob to Sarah, as they watched their older son sitting on the front doorstep, wearily shaking the sand from his trainers. ‘I wish I had been brought up in a place like this.
‘How was school today, Mark?’ he called out.
‘Great,’ cried the youngster.
‘See what I mean?’
Sarah smiled as she took the boys off to prepare for bed, leaving Bob to set out their supper of salmon and
