The flight attendant chose exactly the right moment to interrupt our discussion. WHS accepted his lunch tray; I passed on mine but took a small bottle of red wine, then settled down with my Scotsman.
The lead story was a banner heading about the latest cost estimate for the Holyrood Parliament building. The subject ceased long ago to excite me… and the rest of the Scottish nation, I suspect… but for the broad sheets it's an ever-ready club with which to batter the fledgling legislature about the ears, and to demonstrate to the world that our celebrated national parsimony is alive and well. I read it nonetheless, whistling in spite of myself at the numbers they were claiming.
The back page seemed to be in the same spirit, a ritual castigation of our unfortunate rugby players in the light of their latest mauling in the southern hemisphere. It cut no ice that it was only the constant press carping that had driven the Scottish authorities to fill the team with grand-maternal Aussies and Kiwis who couldn't quite make their own national sides. It cut no ice that rugby union isn't even our third choice as a national sport; genuine, round-ball football, golf and bowls all come before it. They had been gubbed by a side with ten times the resources, but they were still a national disgrace.
I was annoyed, and a bit scunnered… there's a real Sunday Post word for you… when I fought my way to pages two and three, folding the pages awkwardly, it being a real bugger to read a broadsheet on a plane while trying to balance a glass of wine on a tray table.
My crabbitness… another from the D C Thomson lexicon… lasted for as long as it took me to cast my eye on the lead story on page three. The headline read 'life police struggle to identify pig farm couple'.
My gasp must have been audible, but fortunately W H Smith had just spilled a piece of chicken cacciatore down his trousers and was otherwise occupied. I got a grip of myself quickly, and focused on the story.
'Senior detectives in life' I read silently, 'admitted last night that they had so far failed to identify human remains found yesterday on an intensive pig farm near Arncroach in East life.
' The bodies, believed to be those of a man and a woman, were badly decomposed, making it difficult for police to estimate how long they had been there. Asked for a comment, Detective Inspector Tom Reekie, of North East life CID, said that, initially, the deaths were being treated as suspicious, until cause of death could be established.
'A post mortem examination will be carried out today in Edinburgh by a team including a pathologist and a forensic anthropologist.
'Inspector Reekie confirmed that identification was impossible at this stage, but that a number of possible lines of inquiry were being pursued. He said that other forces, not only in Scotland but throughout Britain, had been advised, so that they might check their missing persons files.
'However it is understood that life police themselves are pursuing the possibility that the bodies might be those of American-born Walter Neiporte (37), and his wife Andrea (29), who have been missing from their home in the fishing village of Pittenweem for several weeks.
Police sources said that relatives of the couple were being contacted in the USA and England, so that DNA samples might be obtained for comparison testing.
'Neighbours of the missing couple described them last night as 'strange', and 'distant', although work colleagues described Mrs.
Neiporte as a 'popular, friendly woman '.
'The farm where the bodies were discovered, Lesser Saltgate, is operated by Mr. Sandy McPhimister, ofKincraig. It is one of several that he owns in the area and has been the subject of repeated complaints from neighbours concerned about lack of supervision, the standard of husbandry, and about smells coming from the premises.
'It is understood that the bodies were discovered by SSPCA inspectors called in after complaints were received of a particularly foul smell.
They were said to have been concealed in the troughs and covered in pig feed.'
The last part made my stomach turn over: I imagined that Walter and Andrea had become part of the food chain.
The stories were accompanied by head and shoulder photographs of the missing couple; instantly a cold fist gripped my stomach. It didn't go away until I had convinced myself that hers was so dated and so grainy that there was no chance of Ronnie Morrow, assuming he read the story, picking her out as the woman who had chucked the paint at Susie and me.
Mind you, I had to work hard to convince myself.
Twenty-Seven.
Jay Yuille was waiting for me at Glasgow Airport, with the engine running as usual in the hope that the police and the security people wouldn't give him a hard time. I tossed my bag on to the back seat, then climbed into the front beside him. I don't like acting the toff at the best of times, and I wanted to see his reaction close up when he saw the Scotsman report.
He didn't bat an eyelid; he scanned the story then handed me the paper.
'What's this, Jay?' I asked him as he pulled away, waving to a copper who was peering through the glass at me in the front passenger seat.
Automatically, I waved at the guy too. As I did so I saw Wylie H Smith rushing off towards the taxi rank: remembering the way he'd been sweating on the shuttle, I hoped he didn't sit too close to his client… for both their sakes.
I turned back to my minder. 'Looks like a domestic tragedy to me, boss,' he replied, quietly.
'for sure, but…'
'But nothing, Oz: I've seen cases like these before. People get involved in something, thinking they're on to an easy mark and that they're smart enough to control the situation, take their profit and bugger off. But they're not that smart, and all of a sudden they find out that they're not in control. When that happens, the consequences can sometimes be terminal.'
'But this isn't any old case, is it?'
'It is as far as you're concerned.'
'Come on, Jay, let's stop pissing about. I sent you after these people and we both know that.'
I saw his nostrils flare slightly. 'No, sir. This is how it was. You perceived a threat to your security, you did not want to go to the police, so you asked me,' he leaned on the word, 'to look into it. You did not send me anywhere. That's the way it was.'
'Not exactly.'
'Yes, Oz, exactly. You'll recall also that we agreed no questions would be asked about my methods?'
I nodded. 'Yes, I remember that.'
'Well don't fucking ask any then,' he said, quietly.
'You mean I have to live with this, and that's it.'
'Yup, live with it. That's more than the Neiportes are doing. Tell me something; do you really give a shit that they're dead?'
I felt my mouth twist. (Being me, I probably filed the gesture away subconsciously for use on a future movie. The truth is that art imitates life, not the other way around.) 'No,' I admitted. 'Not one tiny turd.'
'The truth is that your only worry is that it might come back to you.'
'I suppose.'
'Then stop worrying. It won't.'
'You certain of that?'
'Dead certain, you might say.' He glanced across at me as we headed west along the motorway. 'But that's not really your only worry, is it? You're scared you might have replaced one threat with another; the Neiportes with me.'
Scared wasn't quite the word, but I murmured, 'Maybe.'
'Then don't be. I came to you recommended, didn't I?'
'Yes, highly.'
