player. Jet-black hair combed straight forward, and small, piercing eyes.
‘I’m DI Cash.’
‘They’re Lothian and Borders,’ Young informed him.
‘Bit lost, gentlemen?’ Cash asked.
‘I was out here a few days ago,’ Fox began to explain, ‘interviewing Alan Carter about his nephew.’
‘You’re the Complaints?’
Fox sensed a hardening of tone. Doubtless Young’s face was hardening too. Normal enough reactions.
‘We are,’ he concurred.
‘Then I was right first time – you are a bit fucking lost.’ Cash smiled at Young, and Young smiled back. ‘This is a suspicious death-’
‘Not murder yet, then?’ Fox interrupted. But Cash wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of an answer.
‘Why don’t you just go back to strip-searching your own kind to see if they’ve pocketed any paper clips from the stationery cupboard?’
Fox managed a twitch of the mouth. ‘Thanks for the advice, but I’m here for fingerprints.’
Cash stared at him. ‘Fingerprints?’
‘Mine,’ Fox explained. Then, patiently, as if to a child: ‘I was in the living room and hallway. Might have left prints. If I give them to Scene of Crime, they can be verified and eliminated.’
‘Up to us to decide that,’ Cash stated.
‘Of course,’ Fox accepted. Cash’s eyes stayed on him for a moment, then moved to Young.
‘Go fetch someone.’
Young headed into the house. Fox saw that the door jamb was splintered. A crowbar had been used to open it. He walked over to the window ledge, lifted the flowerpot, and showed Cash the key.
‘Kirkcaldy CID didn’t tell you?’ he guessed.
‘They didn’t.’
‘Well, you know what it’s like: this is their patch. Don’t expect any favours.’
‘I might say the same thing.’
Fox gave another twitch of the mouth, nearing a smile this time.
‘You’ll give us a statement about the deceased?’ Cash asked.
‘Whenever you’re ready for it.’
‘How often did you meet him?’
‘Just the once.’
‘What did you think? Good guy?’
Fox nodded. ‘Wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him, though.’
‘Oh?’
‘Seems to me he didn’t suffer fools – or family – gladly. Plus he ran a security firm.’ Fox slipped his hands into his pockets. ‘I was here again afterwards,’ he went on. ‘Not long after the body was discovered. The papers on the table had been disturbed; strewn about the place.’
‘Anything taken?’
‘Couldn’t say.’ He paused. ‘You know what Carter was working on?’
‘I get the feeling you’re about to tell me.’
‘Lawyer called Francis Vernal. Died in suspicious circumstances. Gunshot. Reckoned suicide at the time. About thirty miles from here…’
‘Francis Vernal? That was back in the eighties.’
Fox shrugged. One of the overalled figures was emerging from the cottage. She removed her hood and overshoes.
‘Which one of you?’ she asked.
‘Me,’ Malcolm Fox replied.
He followed her to one of the vans. She climbed into the back and found everything she needed. The portable scanner, however, refused to work.
‘Flat battery?’ Fox guessed.
She had to resort to the back-up of ink and paper. The result was signed by both of them, after which she handed Fox a wet-wipe for his fingers. This was followed by a DNA swab of the inside of his cheek, and the plucking of a couple of hairs from his head.
‘I can’t afford many,’ Fox complained.
‘Need to get the root,’ she explained. After everything was sealed into pouches, she locked the van.
‘Sorry about that,’ she said, heading back to the cottage.
‘When was the last time you had your prints taken?’ Naysmith asked.
‘Been a while.’ Fox saw Cash watching them from the living room. The DI gave a little wave, as if granting them permission to leave. Naysmith, however, had started walking in the direction of the Land Rover.
‘Bit of quality,’ he said, peering in through the driver’s-side window.
‘Mind you don’t leave any prints,’ Fox warned him.
Naysmith took a step back and looked around. ‘Question for you,’ he said. ‘Why leave your car out here when you’ve got a garage?’
Fox looked in the direction he was pointing. A track led up the slope behind the cottage, ending at a ramshackle building.
‘Afraid it might collapse?’ Fox guessed. But all the same, he started trudging uphill, Naysmith a couple of steps behind him.
The garage was padlocked. The lock looked old. The doors comprised vertical slats of wood, weathered and warped by the elements.
‘There’s a window here,’ Naysmith said. By the time Fox reached him, he had wiped at it with a handkerchief, without helping them gain much impression of what was inside.
‘Tarpaulin, I think…’
They walked around the garage, even gave it a kick in a couple of spots, but there was no easy way in.
‘Give me a sec,’ Fox said, walking back down the slope again. There was no one in the hallway of the cottage, so he moved briskly past the living-room door and found the small kitchen. Keys hung from a row of hooks to the left of the sink. He ran an eye along them and chose the likeliest candidates. As he was turning to leave, he saw Cash emerge from the living room.
‘What are you doing there?’
‘Looking for you.’ Fox slipped the keys into the inside pocket of his jacket, removing a business card at the same time.
‘So you can reach me to arrange that interview,’ he explained, handing it to Cash. Cash looked at it, then back at Fox.
‘I know you’re all excited,’ he said in an undertone, ‘not normally getting to play with the big boys and all that, but I need you to bugger off now.’
‘Understood,’ Fox said, managing his best to look and sound humbled in the presence of a Murder Squad detective. Cash escorted him to the front door and looked to left and right.
‘Where’s that work-experience kid of yours?’
‘Call of nature,’ Fox explained, nodding in the direction of the trees. He walked towards his car, opened it and got in. Cash was at the window again, watching. But after a couple of moments he turned away, and Fox got out of the car, heading back to the garage.
The second key unlocked the padlock, and they were in. Naysmith had been right. A tarpaulin was draped over what looked like another vehicle. There was dust everywhere. A workbench boasted rusty tools. Home-made shelves had buckled under the weight of old paint cans. There was an electric lawnmower for the patches of grass to the front and rear of the cottage. Along with the rolled-up extension cable, it was the newest thing visible.
Naysmith had lifted a corner of the tarp. ‘Not exactly roadworthy,’ he commented. ‘More what you’d call a write-off.’
Fox went to the other end of the vehicle and lifted another corner. The car was a maroon Volvo 244. It seemed fine until he lifted the cover further. There was no glass in the rear window.
