'Did you tell the police about Sandra Murray's visitor?' asked Kelly.
'No, did you?'
'No.'
'Here we go again,' said Fenton.
Fenton got up and went over to the window. 'The rain's stopped.' he said. He drained the contents of his glass.
It was very late and the streets were practically deserted as Fenton walked home. The temperature had fallen with the clearing of the skies but the air was still and the stars twinkled brightly above him as he rounded a corner and saw the source of the eerie white light that lit up chimneys on tenement roofs. A full moon hung in the sky like a communion wafer. A cat fled from a dustbin and dissolved in shadow.
Fenton fell into a troubled sleep but kept waking at almost hourly intervals until at four o'clock he got up and made coffee. He had gone through each member of lab staff in turn at least three times and had still failed to find any motive for killing Neil. It was safe to eliminate all the females for Neil's murder had demanded physical strength but that left all the men. The motive had to be linked to the Cavalier organisation Fenton decided. That was the link between Saxon and the fair haired man. It was reasonable to propose that that was the connection between Saxon and the killer in the lab.
Charles Tyson? He had defended Saxon plastic throughout and had done everything possible to dissuade him from pursuing the faulty plastic angle. What was more Jenny had noticed that he had known what Ross had been talking about when he mentioned the 'Tree Mob.' He was also unmarried and never spoke of his personal life. But what about Ross himself? Ross had told him about the club in the first place but that might have been cleverness on his part, a ploy to make himself the least likely suspect…Fenton gave up. There was no way he was going to guess who the killer was. The fair haired man was the key to the puzzle. He must know who Neil's killer was. Fenton resolved to contact Jamieson in the morning.
Fenton phoned Kelly when he got into the lab and Kelly agreed to come too. They arranged to meet at noon and adopted Fenton's suggestion that they should use the Honda to avoid lunch time traffic and parking problems.
At a quarter to twelve Kelly phoned to point out that, as it was blowing a gale and the rain was almost horizontal the Honda might not be such a good idea. He would come round for Fenton in the car.
Kelly cursed as he tried to reverse the Capri into a small gap that they had found after crawling up and down side streets near the police station and found it particularly difficult because of the rain and condensation on the windows. 'Hell, that'll do,' he decided, abandoning the effort for neatness and leaving the car with its nose jutting out.
They ran up the hill, keeping close to the wall in an effort to avoid most of the weather but took it full in the face as they rounded the corner at the top with fifty metres or so still to cover before reaching the shelter of the police station.
'Do you think God has something personal against Scotland?' asked Fenton, shaking the water from his hair in the doorway.
'I think it's a character building agreement he has with John Knox,' said Kelly. 'Let's face it, if you were having a good time you'd only feel guilty.'
Jamieson looked up from his desk as Fenton and Kelly were shown in by a constable who seemed strangely reluctant to let go of the door handle after opening the door for them. Both had to enter sideways.
Jamieson clasped his hands together under his chin and said, 'Don't tell me. Let me guess. You have a suspicion that the Queen Mother did the Brighton Trunk Murders?'
Fenton grinned painfully and conceded Jamieson's right to some come back over his behaviour in the past. He told the policeman of their visit to the Murray house and what Sandra Murray's brother had told them about what a man pretending to be from the Blood Transfusion Service had asked at the house.
Jamieson knew the name Sandra Murray well enough. 'Hit and run death, up the Braids way?'
Fenton nodded.
'And you are saying that she knew about the Saxon Plastic problem?'
'Maybe not the details, but she knew that Neil Munro thought that there was something wrong with it.'
'And that's what this fair haired man wanted to find out?'
'It seems like it.'
Jamieson sucked the end of his pen in silence for a moment then said, 'Did Murray tell you any more about this man?'
Fenton told him about the ring and watched Jamieson's expression change. The policeman put down his pen and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands before saying quietly, 'That lot.'
'You know them?' asked Fenton.
'Oh yes, I know them all right,' sighed Jamieson. 'We all know them. The force is now full of senior officers who have tangled with that bunch and ended up giving road safety lectures to five year olds.'
'You are serious?' asked Fenton in disbelief.
'I'm serious,' said Jamieson quietly.
Fenton looked at Kelly who shrugged as if to say, I told you so.
'But you are the police. I thought…'
'I know what you thought,' interrupted Jamieson. 'You thought I could nip up to Braidbank, pick up Sandra Murray's brother, and get him to identify the man?'
'Well, yes.'
Jamieson shook his head and said, 'Let me tell you what would really happen. Assuming Sandra Murray's brother was willing to co-operate, and if he knows anything at all about this mob he wouldn't be, we would start making enquiries. A few days later I would be directing traffic in Princes Street and Murray would be running for his life.'
'You can't be serious,' Fenton protested.
'I am,' said Jamieson. 'These buggers have so much power it scares me shitless.'
Fenton was shaken by the admission. 'So where does that leave us?' he asked.
Jamieson ran his finger round the inside of his collar and said, 'Now that you have told me this I am obliged to go see Murray and ask him formally if he thinks he could identify the man. Frankly, I hope he says no or there could be another hit and run accident in Braidbank within the week.'
Fenton was having difficulty in coming to terms with the frankness of Jamieson's admissions but he did have an idea and said so. Jamieson grimaced and Kelly smiled. Fenton said, 'Murray told me that his sister was the scientist in the family and that he was an artist. If he really is an artist, a brush and paint artist that is, he might be able to sketch the man for you and no one would ever know how you got on to him?'
'Sounds a good idea to me,' said Kelly.
Jamieson took his time but finally conceded that he too thought it was worth considering. He said, 'If we could find out who the man was without his knowing it would give us time to build up a case against him. We could go in strong.'
Kelly suggested that he and Fenton should approach Murray and keep the police out of it in Murray's own interest. Jamieson agreed but Fenton sensed that he was uncomfortable. He wanted to say something else but it was having a difficult birth. 'Gentlemen,' he began, tapping his finger tips together, 'With your agreement…' The words struggled over invisible barriers. 'I would like to keep this on…an unofficial basis for the time being.
Fenton and Kelly waited for an explanation and it was even more laboured when it came. 'Frankly, once a report is written…I can't be sure who is going to see it.'
'I see,' said Fenton. He said it calmly but felt anything but. 'Perhaps it would be better if we met on neutral ground next time?' Jamieson nodded, relieved to see that Fenton had taken the right implication from what had been said without any further explanation being necessary.
It was still raining heavily when they got outside so they made a dash for the car although it was all to no avail when Kelly dropped the keys into the overflowing gutter in his haste to unlock the door. His curse was lost on the wind as Fenton turned his back and held up his collar while he waited.
'Did I dream that?' asked Fenton when they were safely out of the rain.
'If you did I had the same one,' said Kelly.
Jenny looked aghast. 'But they are the police!' she protested. 'They don't say things like that!'
