‘Why was the gun lying to the left of him? His head was slumped against the table and the gun was to the left, not the right.’
She stared at him.
‘Not one of the anomalies?’ he guessed.
‘No,’ Pitkethly conceded, writing a note to herself.
‘What then?’
‘Alan Carter’s prints are on the gun – no one else’s. There’s a good thumbprint slap-bang in the middle of the grip.’
Fox made show of holding a revolver. His thumb was high up on the grip. He tried bringing it lower down, but it felt awkward.
‘And a partial fingerprint halfway along the barrel,’ Pitkethly added, tossing the pen on to the desk and folding her arms.
‘No prints anywhere else?’
‘You’re sure he didn’t seem worried about anything?’
Fox shook his head. ‘But then he probably didn’t know at that point that his nephew had been released from custody.’
‘Let’s not get carried away, Malcolm.’ The use of his first name came as a jolt to him. She needed him. She needed him on her side.
‘You have to bring Paul Carter in,’ he said quietly.
‘I can’t do that.’
No, not to his own police station, not to be interviewed by his own friends.
‘I can ask the questions,’ Fox offered.
She shook her head. ‘You’re the Complaints. This is… this is something else.’ When he looked at her, she met his eyes. ‘There’s no proof Alan Carter didn’t pull the trigger,’ she said quietly.
‘But all the same…’
‘Anomalies,’ she repeated. ‘Carter ran a security company. He might have made enemies.’
‘On top of which, he was doing some research into an old case.’
‘Oh?’
‘He was surrounded by the paperwork when he died – didn’t Scholes tell you?’
‘He said the place was a bit of a tip…’
‘Tidy enough when I visited. But afterwards, looked like someone had been through it. Scholes and Michaelson were first on the scene. Michaelson gave Teddy Fraser a lift home, leaving Scholes alone in the cottage…’
Pitkethly closed her eyes, rubbing at her eyebrows with thumb and forefinger. Fox sat down across the desk from her.
‘Honeymoon’s over,’ he told her. ‘You’ve got some big decisions to make. First one should probably be to phone HQ. If you know anyone there, talk to them first.’
She nodded, opening her eyes again. Then she took a couple of deep breaths and picked up the receiver.
‘That’ll be all, Inspector,’ she said, her voice firm. But there was a momentary smile of thanks as he got up to leave.
14
In the car back to Edinburgh, Naysmith asked Fox if he still wanted information on Francis Vernal.
‘I can do it at home tonight,’ he offered.
‘Thanks,’ Fox replied.
‘And in case you were thinking that Kirkcaldy’s boring…’ He took a folded printout from his pocket and handed it over. ‘Here’s what I already discovered about the place.’
It was a newspaper report about a Yugoslav secret-service agent, sent to Kirkcaldy in 1988 to assassinate a Croatian dissident. The story was back in the news because the assassination had failed, the gunman had been jailed, and he now claimed he had information about the murder of Swedish prime minister Olaf Palme.
Fox read the piece aloud for Tony Kaye’s benefit. ‘Unbelievable,’ was Kaye’s only comment, before turning the hi-fi on.
‘Alex Harvey again,’ Naysmith complained.
‘The Sensational Alex Harvey,’ Kaye corrected him, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. ‘Part and parcel of your musical education, young Joseph.’
‘Terrorists and bampots, eh?’ Naysmith offered, eyes fixed on Malcolm Fox. ‘We never seem to be rid of them.’
‘We never do,’ Fox agreed, reading the article a second time.
They decided to have one drink at Minter’s. It was mid-afternoon and the place was dead. Fox went outside and called the offices of Mangold Bain.
‘I’m afraid Mr Mangold’s appointments diary is full,’ he was told.
‘My name’s Fox. I’m an inspector with Lothian and Borders Police. If that doesn’t clear me some space today, tell him it concerns Alan Carter.’
He was asked to hold the line. The woman’s lilting voice was replaced for a full minute by Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
‘Six o’clock?’ she offered. ‘Mr Mangold wonders if the New Club might be acceptable – he has another meeting there at six thirty.’
‘It’ll have to do, then, won’t it?’ Fox said, secretly pleased – the New Club was one of those Edinburgh institutions he’d heard about but never been able to visit. He knew it was somewhere on Princes Street and filled with lawyers and bankers escaping their womenfolk.
Back in the bar, Kaye and Naysmith were waiting to hear if they needed to go back to the office or could call it a day. Fox checked his watch – not quite four. He nodded, to let them know they were off the hook.
‘That calls for another drink,’ Kaye said, draining his glass. ‘And it’s your shout, Joseph.’
Naysmith rose from the table and asked Fox if he wanted another Big Tom. Fox shook his head.
‘Somewhere else to go,’ he said, glancing at the TV above the bar. The local newsreader was telling viewers that there was no further information on the explosion in the woods outside Lockerbie.
‘Some sick sod’s idea of a practical joke,’ Kaye muttered. ‘Unless you think the Yugoslavs are back, Joe…’
Half an hour later, Fox was at Lauder Lodge. When he opened the door to his father’s room, he saw that Mitch had a visitor. There was a half-bottle of Bell’s open on the mantelpiece.
‘Hiya, Dad,’ Fox said. His father looked sprightly. He was dressed and his eyes sparkled.
‘Malcolm,’ Mitch said, with a nod towards the visitor, ‘you remember Sandy?’
Malcolm shook Sandy Cameron’s hand. The three of them had attended Hearts games together when Malcolm had been a boy, his father always keen to remind him that Sandy had almost become a professional, back in the day. Years later, the two men had played indoor bowls for a team in the local league.
‘Decent measure,’ Fox noted, watching Cameron switch his tumbler to his left hand so he could shake with the right.
‘Whisky shandy,’ Cameron explained, angling his head towards a bottle of Barr’s lemonade on the floor next to the chair.
‘Don’t know how you can bear to dilute it,’ Mitch Fox said, draining his own glass.
‘Maybe you should learn, Dad,’ Malcolm chided him. He dragged another chair over and joined them. ‘How are you, Mr Cameron?’
‘Can’t complain, son.’
‘Sandy was just reminiscing about the ice rink,’ Mitch confided. Fox reckoned they’d be stories he had heard half a dozen times or more. ‘A hell of a skater you were, Sandy. Could have turned pro.’
