elsewhere.
Ideally suited to Complaints and Conduct, his reviews eventually started concluding. But was that altogether a good thing, or was it CID’s way of telling him he didn’t fit in there?
Too scrupulous.
Too willing to sidestep problems.
When he caught his waiter’s eye, he told him he was finished.
‘Not as hungry as I thought,’ he offered by way of apology.
Back at the house, he switched on the TV and found multiple channels of dross. The news was focusing on a royal engagement and not much else. Fox lasted ten minutes, then went in search of his computer. He knew he could wait until morning: Joe Naysmith would stick to his word. But all the same, he typed Francis Vernal’s name into the search engine and clicked on the first of 17,250 links.
Half an hour later, a text came in from Tony Kaye.
Copycat blast – Peebles this time. Bloody kids!
Fox couldn’t think how to reply, so turned his attention back to the computer screen instead.
Copycat… Bloody kids…
As usual, Tony Kaye was seeing what he wanted to see. Fox wasn’t so sure.
Five
15
There was a lay-by near the spot where Francis Vernal’s car had left the road. A small cairn had been erected, with a plaque on it commemorating ‘A Patriot’. Someone had even left a bouquet of flowers. The flowers were shrivelled – could be they dated back to the anniversary of the crash. Mangold’s work maybe, on behalf of himself and Vernal’s widow.
Fox had brought his own car over to Fife this morning, leaving the M90 and skirting Glenrothes, heading for what was known as the ‘East Neuk’: little fishing villages popular with landscape painters and caravanners. Lundin Links and Elie, St Monans and Pittenweem, then Anstruther – pronounced ‘Ainster’ by locals. Francis Vernal had died on a stretch of the B9131, north of Anstruther. He didn’t play golf, but had a weekend place on the outskirts of St Andrews. Nobody was sure why he hadn’t stuck to the A915 – a quicker route. The only theory was a picturesque detour. Once you headed away from the coast, it was all farmland and forestry. No way to tell which particular tree his car had collided with. Another theory: mud left on the roadway by tractors had caused the car to skid. Fine, Fox could accept that. But something had happened afterwards. Not everyone who smashed their car then felt compelled to reach for a handgun. Had Vernal’s lifestyle caught up with him? Stress, a rocky marriage, too much drink. The drink makes him swerve off the road – maybe he wants to end it all. But he’s still alive afterwards, so he reaches into the glove box for the revolver.
A revolver: same sort of gun used by Alan Carter.
By him – or on him.
Fox ran his fingers over the memorial. Kids down the years had scratched their names into it. A couple of souped-up cars had flown past him a few miles back, stereos blaring, maybe driven by ‘Cambo’ or ‘Ali’, ‘Desi’ or ‘Pug’. Straightening up, he breathed deeply. Not a bad spot: peaceful. The drone of distant farm machinery, the half-hearted cawing of a few crows. He could smell freshly turned earth. A trudge around the vicinity provided no further clues. No one had left a bouquet resting against any of the trees. None of the news reports had been able to provide a photo of the car in situ, and even the few monochrome pictures of the site were speculative, apparently. Mangold was right: the Volvo had been removed and taken to a local junkyard before any forensics could be done. The early newspaper reports didn’t even mention suicide. It was a ‘tragic accident’, robbing the country of ‘a bright political talent’. The obituaries had been plentiful, but sticking to the same anodyne script. A book had been published a few years later, and half a chapter had been dedicated to the ‘mystery death’ of ‘political activist Francis Vernal’. The book had been a short compendium of unsolved Scottish crimes, but it produced no new evidence. Instead, its author had posed questions, the same questions Fox had been asking himself throughout his online reading of the previous evening. He’d printed out quite a lot of it, finishing one ink cartridge and replacing it with a spare. Back at his car, he lifted the heavy folder from the passenger seat and considered opening it. But then his phone buzzed, meaning he had a text message. It was from Tony Kaye.
Summat’s up.
Fox called Kaye’s number but he wasn’t answering. He turned the ignition key, did a three-point turn, and headed back towards Kirkcaldy.
The cop-shop car park was full, so he parked on the street outside. Single yellow line, so he had to hope he wouldn’t get a ticket. The sign next to the front desk stated that the Alert Status had been raised from MODERATE to SUBSTANTIAL. The storeroom was unlocked and empty, so he made for the interview room. Opening the door, he saw Paul Carter slumped in a chair. On the other side of the table sat Isabel Pitkethly.
‘Out,’ Pitkethly ordered.
Fox muttered an apology and closed the door again. Kaye and Naysmith were coming along the corridor towards him.
‘Might have warned me,’ Fox growled.
‘I just did,’ Kaye responded. Sure enough, Fox had another text message.
IR a no-no!
‘Thanks,’ Fox said, stuffing the phone back into his pocket. ‘So what’s going on?’
‘You should see CID,’ Naysmith interrupted. ‘They’re going mental.’
‘It would be nice if someone told me why.’
‘Some spotty little reporter,’ Tony Kaye obliged. ‘There’s a petrol station on Kinghorn Road and he went there to fill up his putt-putt-’
‘And,’ Naysmith butted in again, ‘he asks the attendant if he saw anything the night Alan Carter died. Turns out the guy did.’
‘Paul Carter,’ Kaye added. ‘He saw Paul Carter.’
‘Looking agitated.’
‘Stopped his car at the pumps, got out but didn’t do anything about filling it.’
‘Pacing up and down.’
‘Looking at his phone.’
‘Punching the buttons but not seeming to get an answer…’
‘We already know Paul Carter phoned his uncle,’ Fox felt it necessary to state.
‘But he was heading for the cottage,’ Naysmith stressed.
‘So half an hour ago it was a clear case of suicide, and now the nephew’s a murder suspect?’ Fox’s stare moved from Kaye to Naysmith and back again.
‘He’s going to go to jail,’ Kaye argued, ‘in no small part because of his uncle…’
‘If nothing else,’ Naysmith added, ‘it probably means he went to the cottage. Whatever they talked about, it ended with a gunshot and a corpse.’
They heard footsteps. Two men and a woman had come through the swing doors, led by Sergeant Alec Robinson. Robinson was stony-faced. The new arrivals took the measure of Fox, Kaye and Naysmith, then knocked on the interview-room door and went in. Robinson avoided eye contact with Fox as he headed back to his desk.
‘Glenrothes?’ Kaye speculated.
‘Aye,’ Fox said.
A minute later, the same three officers were leading Paul Carter out. He saw Fox and his colleagues and came to a stop.
‘I’m being stitched up here,’ he snarled. ‘I never did nothing!’
The two male officers gripped him by either forearm and led him away.
‘Hands off me!’
