a couple of seconds earlier this time. The view was different: this time the paint was still in the can. The chucker had it held to her shoulder like a shot putter about to release. She was leaning forward and her face was in shot; it was indistinct, but I could see her. I went into the Media Player menu and found zoom, then blew the image up to double size. That still wasn't definitive, so I went to full screen and rolled the clip again, starting from scratch and pausing at the exact moment I wanted. This time the shot was as big as I could make it, but that was big enough. I could see the face clearly in the crowd, eyes wide and angry as she steadied herself to throw. On the keyboard, I hit Control and 'P' simultaneously. The high-speed, high-definition colour printer that Susie and I share made its usual preliminary clicks and hums on its table by the side of the desk, then buzzed as it set to work. Inside half a minute, a photo-quality version of the image on screen was complete.
I picked it up from the tray and handed it to Morrow. 'There you are,'
I said. 'That's as good as you're going to get.'
'And?' he exclaimed, impatiently.
'And I can't identify her. Sorry.'
The young sergeant's face fell. 'Bugger,' he muttered.
'Life is real and life is earnest, Ronnie,' I told him. 'It's very rare that we get a ride for free.'
'I know,' he conceded, with a nod to my homespun philosophy. 'I was just hoping this would be one of those times. Looks like we'll have to do it the hard way after all.'
'What for?' I asked.
'What do you mean?' Ricky Ross shot back, sharply.
'You know what I mean. Unless Ron here gets very lucky and gets a print match off the tin…' Morrow shook his head, dolefully '… or that face turns out to be well known to the police…' The detective looked at the printout and shook his head once again,'… tracing her is going to be bloody difficult, and costly in terms of manpower and everything else. Is it worth it?'
My friend gave me a strange look. 'Are you telling me this was a stunt?' he asked.
'Of course I'm bloody not! If it was, then I didn't know about it. Do you fancy asking Miles if he set it up just to make sure that we got on the front pages of the tabloids?' Ricky didn't need to answer that one. 'No. So all that I'm saying is this. If you decide to drop it, Ronnie, Susie and I will understand.'
The young DS shrugged his shoulders. 'Fair enough. I'll tell my boss that when I report back. It may well go that way.'
I ejected his disk from the computer and handed it back to him. In doing so I glanced at my watch; it was just after midday. 'Would you guys like some lunch before you head back?' I asked. 'It's no bother.
It's my turn to make it today. Lucky for you, for one thing they did not teach Jay in the army was how to cook.'
Ricky grinned. 'Next time I'll fix you up with someone from the Catering Corps. Thanks for the offer, Oz, but I said I'd get the boy here back for two o'clock. I'm impressed, though. You still actually do your own cooking?'
'Sure we do. We food-shop on-line at Tesco, but we fix it up ourselves. It gives us the illusion that we're still real people.'
'You've never been a real person, Blackstone,' he countered, affably.
'Since I met you, you've been my worst fucking nightmare.'
I glowered at him, then looked over his shoulder. The door was open and Janet had come bouncing into the room. 'Oops, sorry,' he murmured.
'Thanks,' I said. 'I'd appreciate it if she didn't pick up the one word she hasn't learned yet.' As Morrow picked up his laptop, I scooped my daughter up in my arms and walked our visitors to the door.
'Have you got a date for Mathew's Tale yet?' asked Ricky, as we walked down the steps in front of the house.
'Three weeks or so, I think. I'm expecting the producer to go firm any day now. Why?'
'Because we're doing the security.'
I wasn't surprised to learn that. He seemed to pick up most of the freelance minding work in Edinburgh. 'See you around then,' I told him as he unlocked his Jag with a remote.
'Goodbye Sergeant,' I called out as Morrow settled into the front passenger seat. 'Sorry I couldn't help you.'
Actually I wasn't sorry at all. Imagine the can of worms I'd have opened if I'd told him that the paint-chucker was Andrea Neiporte.
Six.
I had plenty to think about as I stuffed some whole meal pitta breads with pastrami and coleslaw. What to do about Mrs. Neiporte? I thought about confiding in Ricky and asking him to sort the problem for me, but came down against that very quickly. There was still a lot of the copper in him, and I reckoned that he'd be more than likely to go down the official route. That was something I still did not want, for my Dad's sake.
Instead, I decided to tell Jay about it, or at least tell him as much as he needed to know, namely that my Dad had a nutty patient who had tried to put the black on him, and that my attempt to deal with it apparently hadn't worked. It was only right that I do that; after all, his job was to protect my family, so if I knew of a threat, he had to know too. I intended to brief him, give him the photograph… which I'd kept… and leave it to him. I had no idea how he'd go about dealing with the problem, but he was very much my man.
Whatever he did, I was sure it would be effective, and it would be discreet. When I'd interviewed him for the job, I'd noticed that there were sections of his CV… like most of the army bits… that were only described in broad terms. I didn't ask him about them, because I didn't want to make him have to lie to me. So I called a guy I know called Mark Kravitz who's involved in pretty dark and sensitive areas, and asked him instead. After Mark's report back, I had no qualms about hiring him. 'Disincentivising' is a bit of a buzz word these days, after that Spooks series on telly. It seemed that he had been pretty good at it.
When the pitt as were ready… Ethel was responsible for feeding Janet, and herself… I called him in his cottage and told him to come up. Jay had a nice set-up and he knew it; the gatehouse, a Freelander to run around in, and a salary that was better than he'd have been on with any security firm. Of course he didn't just sit on his arse all day, waiting for the bad guys to turn up. He had installed geophones … movement sensors… around the perimeter of the estate, and he was careful to make sure that they were always working. Property maintenance was in his job' description too, but mostly on a management basis. He might do the odd small job himself, but mostly he'd hire trades-people, and he supervised old Willie, the full-time gardener we'd inherited when we'd bought the place.
I was waiting for him in the kitchen as he let himself in through the back door. I'd fetched a couple of isotonic drinks from the fridge, and was taking the top off one when the phone rang.
'Oz.' It was Susie, and from the way she said my name I knew that something was up. Normally there's a laugh in her voice when she speaks to me, or to wee Janet. When it isn't there, it usually means that one of us is in trouble.
My third… and final… wife knows me better than anyone else in the world, probably better than even Jan did, for all that we grew up together, and certainly better than Primavera… she and I barely knew each other as real people at all, or at least until it was too late.
Susie's never seen me as I thought I was, or at least as I wanted people to see me. Even when we were just friends, she's always been able to see inside, to the bare bones, and to read bits of my mind that even I didn't really know were there. And I suppose it's always been true the other way round as well. As well as being different types, we're opposites as personalities, you see. Susie's always had this tough front… no surprises; it came from growing up as Jack Gantry's daughter… yet I've always been able to see the vulnerable wee girl inside. Me? For years I made such an effort to be user-friendly, I even fooled myself for a while, but as I've said, not her. She loves me, though, in spite of it, even if she was afraid to say so for a while. And I love her. One of the Sunday colour supplements described us as 'Scotland's golden couple'. Can you imagine that?
'Sorry,' I replied.
'What do you mean?' Susie snapped, not sounding at all golden.
