“Grace keeps one of the spare rooms made up,” she said. “It’s at the back. It’s nice and quiet. You can have that.”
She took him upstairs and showed him the room. Then she said good night, leaving him standing just inside his room. He smiled, and blew her a kiss.
2 3 2
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h
“I’m just along here,” he said. “If there’s any attempt by Johnny to disturb your sleep, you just give me a shout.”
“I think that’s the last we’ll see of him tonight,” said Isabel.
She felt safer now, but there was still the thought that unless she did something, the issue of Johnny Sanderson was unresolved.
Jamie was there tonight, but he would not be there the following night, nor the night after that.
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - S I X
E
IF GRACE FELT any surprise at finding Jamie in the house the next morning, she concealed it well. He was by himself in the kitchen when she came in, and for a few moments he seemed at a loss as to what to say. Grace, who had picked up the mail from the floor of the hall, broke the silence.
“Four more articles this morning,” she said. “Applied ethics.
No shortage of applied ethics.”
Jamie looked at the pile of mail. “Did you notice the door?”
“I did.”
“There was an intruder.”
Grace stood quite still. “I thought so. That alarm. I’ve been telling her for years, years, to use it. She never does. She never listens.” She drew breath. “Well, I didn’t actually think anything.
I didn’t know what to think. I thought that maybe you two had had a party last night.”
Jamie grinned. “No. I came when she called me. I stayed over—in one of the spare rooms.”
Grace listened gravely as Jamie explained what had happened. As he came to the end of the explanation, Isabel came 2 3 4
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h into the kitchen, and the three of them sat down at the table and entered into discussion.
“This has gone far enough,” said Jamie. “You’re out of your depth now and you are going to have to hand the whole thing over.”
Isabel looked blank. “To?”
“The police.”
“But what exactly are we going to hand over to them?” asked Isabel. “We have no proof of anything. All we have is a suspicion that Johnny Sanderson is mixed up in insider trading and that this may have had something to do with Mark Fraser’s death.”
“What puzzles me, though,” said Jamie, “is the fact that McDowell’s must have had their own suspicions about him. You say that Minty explained that this is why he was asked to leave.
So if they knew, then why should he be worried about your finding anything out?”
Isabel thought about this. There would be a reason. “Perhaps they wanted the whole thing hushed up. This would suit Johnny Sanderson, of course, and he would not want anybody from the outside—that is, you and me— finding out about it and making a fuss. The Edinburgh establishment has been known to close ranks before this. We should not be unduly surprised.”
“But we have last night,” said Jamie. “At least we have something more concrete on him.”
Isabel shook her head. “Last night proves nothing,” she said.
“He has his story about why he came in. He’ll stick to that and the police would probably just accept that. They won’t want to get involved in some private spat.”
“But we could point out the link with the allegations of insider trading,” said Jamie. “We could tell them about what Neil told you and about the paintings. There’s enough here to give rise to a reasonable suspicion.”
T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B
2 3 5
Isabel was doubtful. “I don’t think there is. The police can’t demand that you explain where you get your money from. They don’t work that way.”
“And Neil?” Jamie persisted. “What about the information that Mark Fraser was frightened of something?”
“He has already declined to go to the police about that,” said Isabel. “He would probably deny that he’d ever spoken to me. If he changed his story, then the police could accuse him of misleading them. He’s not going to say anything, if you ask me.”
Jamie turned to Grace, wondering whether she would support him in his suggestion. “What do you think?” he asked. “Do you agree with me?”
“No,” she said. “No, I don’t.”
Jamie looked at Isabel, who raised an eyebrow. There was an idea forming in her mind. “Set a thief to catch a thief,” she said. “As you say, we’re out of our depth here. We can’t prove anything about these financial goings-on. We certainly can’t prove anything about a link between all that and Mark Fraser’s death. In fact, it looks as if that
