bloody bombers?’
‘Nothing so far to indicate they won’t be charged,’ she said after a moment’s thought. ‘The house they were renting is a gold mine – material, blueprints and manuals, even a list of targets.’
‘Glasgow Airport again?’ her husband guessed.
‘RAF Leuchars,’ she corrected him. ‘And the naval dockyard. And our ex-prime minister.’
‘Whoever caught them should get a medal,’ Pears said, staring with purpose at the Justice Minister.
‘They might at that,’ Watson conceded.
‘Come on then,’ Alison Pears said to Fox. ‘Let’s hear this story of yours – might take my mind off things.’
‘Be gentle with the inspector,’ her husband suggested. ‘He’s had some bad news…’
She led him to a door in the corner of the room. It opened on to a study with wood-panelled walls and a fake bookcase. A small brass telescope stood on a tripod by the window. There was a two-seater brown hide sofa, and a swivel chair in front of the desk. Pears took the chair and signalled that Fox should take the sofa. The leather creaked as he settled.
She was dressed casually – baggy pink T-shirt, black joggers, Nike trainers. Fox wondered if there was a gym somewhere on the property.
‘Bad news?’ she said, echoing her husband’s words. Fox shrugged the question aside, ready with one of his own.
‘He doesn’t know?’
She considered the range of answers and evasions open to her.
‘Know what?’
Fox gave her a look that said: let’s not do this. ‘Neither of them do?’ he persisted, bringing out the matriculation photographs. ‘Wonder what they’ll say when I show them these. You’ve changed, but not quite enough to be unrecognisable.’
She studied the photos, saying nothing for a moment. ‘Andy knows I did some undercover work in my early years on the force,’ she eventually conceded.
‘But not that you posed as a St Andrews University student for two years?’
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘Though he may be wondering about it now.’ She was using her feet against the floor to swivel gently in the chair. There was a slice of lime in her glass, and she extracted it, placing it on a corner of the desk.
‘DCI Jackson filled you in?’ Fox surmised.
‘Some; maybe not all.’ She squeezed the bridge of her nose, as if trying to ward off a headache. ‘What’s this bad news you’ve had?’
‘Never mind,’ Fox said. ‘Let’s concentrate on your affair with Francis Vernal.’ He ignored the glower she gave him. ‘It was a way of infiltrating the Dark Harvest Commando?’
She was still giving him the same hard stare.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Fox went on. ‘It was a long time ago, you were a different person. And this isn’t the best time for it all to come bobbing up again.’ He paused, placing the photos back in his pocket.
‘I’ll tell you what it was,’ she eventually said, keeping her voice low in case anyone outside the door might be listening. ‘It was two years down the pan.’
‘Because of the car crash?’
She nodded slowly. ‘The whole bloody edifice just crumbled after that. Some were too scared to go on – they thought MI5 were out to assassinate the lot of them.’
‘And were they?’
‘I wasn’t MI5.’
‘You were recruited by Special Branch?’
‘They needed someone on the inside – a pretty face usually does the trick. But it couldn’t be a pretty face from south of the border, could it? The English were supposed to be the enemy.’
‘While you were fresh out of Tulliallan and looked younger than your years. So Special Branch managed to get you into St Andrews, where you could become political, burrow ever deeper and feed information back?’
‘If you know so much, why do you need me?’
‘I need you because a man was murdered, and no one at the time or since has done anything about it.’ He watched her for a moment; it was impossible to read her face. ‘The home address in Glasgow…?’
‘Short-term office let,’ she explained. ‘Used for mail drops.’
‘And all the time you were edging closer to Francis Vernal?’
‘Francis was the conduit. He was supposed to lead to the people we were really interested in.’
Fox was thoughtful for a moment. ‘He was with you that evening, the night he died?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you knew he was being tailed?’
She gave a slow nod.
‘Did you know about the money he kept in the car?’
‘He usually had some. Every meeting the DHC held, someone needed a bit of cash.’
‘For buying weapons?’
‘All sorts of reasons.’
‘According to Donald MacIver, there could have been as much as forty grand hidden in the boot – that was a chunk of money back then.’
‘Donald MacIver?’ She gave a wistful smile. ‘He lives in a fantasy world, Inspector; he always did.’
‘He remembers you fondly.’
‘It’s Alice he remembers,’ she corrected him.
‘How about John Elliot?’
‘I see him on TV sometimes.’
‘He’s never gleaned that you’re Alice Watts?’
‘We didn’t know one another back then – John was only interested in women who were on heat.’ She stared at him. ‘As far as I know, you’re the first to make the connection, so well done you.’ Her voice dripped sarcasm.
‘Alan Carter never got in touch?’
‘He’s the ex-detective?’ She watched Fox nod. ‘I didn’t know anything about that until Jackson mentioned it.’
‘Do you know the name Charles Mangold?’
She gave a heavy sigh. ‘This really can’t wait a week or two?’
‘It really can’t,’ Fox stated. ‘Charles Mangold?’ he repeated.
‘Francis’s partner in the law firm. He had a thing for Mrs Vernal, I seem to remember. Francis thought so, anyway.’
‘Mangold was paying Alan Carter to look into Vernal’s death. He wanted to prove something to the widow.’
‘What?’
Fox shrugged. ‘Either that her husband was a political assassination…’
‘Or?’
‘Or that he was a terrorist and sleazebag she’s been a fool to idolise all these years.’
‘You sound like you favour the latter theory.’
‘I think I do. You never met the wife?’
She shook her head. ‘I’d no interest in her. All I wanted was whatever information Francis could provide.’
‘Did you get any?’
‘Not much.’
‘But you went to quite a lot of trouble to seek it out.’
The glower was back. ‘Meaning?’
‘Sleeping with him.’
‘Who says I did?’
