Maggie looked at the coffee table, at the last thick brown folder which lay there. She reached across and opened it. 'Photographs,' she murmured. 'Just dozens of bloody photographs.'
Mario picked up the collection and looked through it, print by print. They were all seven-by-five colour photographs, and their content varied. Some were beach shots, some rural, some of Edinburgh scenes, one or two indoors. They were all clear and sharp, as if they had been taken on high-quality equipment, by an expert. And each print was numbered and dated; not an automatic camera feature on the picture itself, but handwritten annotations on the reverse side.
He frowned as he looked through them again. 'Funny,' he murmured. 'No two dates are the same. They're in number and date order, but there's no other sequence to them. He seems to have taken his camera out on a whim, then he seems to have picked the best of his shots on each day for this file.'
'Or as a record,' Maggie suggested, quietly. 'What if he just picked one innocuous shot from a wider selection? What if this folder is a sort of index?'
'Then where are the rest? And the negatives, too? But hold on a minute, maybe that's all he did: pick the best and junk the rest.'
'Maybe, but… Mario, there's something else about these photographs. They've all got people in them; every one, even the landscapes and beach scenes. It's as if…'
Her husband frowned as he nodded. 'By God, Mags; you're on to something; these are surveillance photographs. Most of the faces are obscure, but if you knew who they were.. He turned the pile upside down and flicked through the dates. 'Some of these go back to when Alec was still in the job and they continue right up to the present. What was the man doing?'
'I'll bet someone knows,' she fired at him. 'It could be that someone topped him because of it. How much did they take away with them, d'you think? The rest of the photos and the negs? His address book? Don't tell me Smith didn't have one… The camcorder: were there any tapes, other than the one we were meant to find?'
'Maybe,' he said. 'Maybe the murderer cleaned the place out, but
…
'Remember, Alec Smith was a ten-year SB commander. If he was running a private surveillance operation, for whatever purpose, he'd have kept detailed files and he'd have kept them secure. But there were no secure cabinets in Shell Cottage, at least none that we found.
'That means that either we missed something in that house, or Alec Smith had a second site, where he kept those records.'
Maggie's eyes flashed with excitement. 'Tomorrow morning, Inspector, you're going back to Forth Street, and you're going to tear that place apart. While you're doing that, I'm going to have people identifying the tenants of every small office in East Lothian…' She stopped. 'Ahh, but you've got Morrison and Scotland to deal with…'
'No. You're right, we have to follow this up now; I'll have someone handle those two, very discreetly. Mags, we've got to share this, now.'
'Tell the Boss, you mean?'
'No, he's away at a conference. You have to tell your boss. Let's go and see Andy Martin, now, the pair of us.' He glanced at his watch. 'A good part of that Chianti's still in our glasses out there; we can drive. Let's get along to his place now.'
'Okay, but phone him. Make sure he's in.'
Mario nodded. He dialled the Head of CID's home number, but a machine answered. He dialled his mobile, but it was not receiving. He dialled Karen Neville who told him, curtly, that she had no idea where the DCS was. Finally he left a message on his pager, saying, 'Your place, urgent. On our way, M amp;M.'
23
Something made Andy switch off his cellphone as he rang the Lewis doorbell. He was still uncertain of how he was going to play it; home game or away game, gentle quizzing or balls-out interrogation.
He had hoped that Rhian would come to the door herself. Neither Juliet's car nor the elderly Fiesta which the girls shared were in the driveway. But it was Margot who answered the summons of the bell.
'Oh, hello,' said the girl. 'Rhian isn't in.' There was something in her tone and as he tried to fathom it, he realised that he had never had a conversation of more than two words on either side with his lover's younger sister.
'Will she be gone long?'
'She shouldn't be. I'll tell her you came for her.'
'Don't put it that way, Margot. It makes her sound like a commodity. Just ask her if she'd come next door when she gets back. There's something I want to talk to her about.'
'Will I tell her to bring a toothbrush?' There was no doubt this time about the coldness, or about the sneer in her voice. He took a look at her, properly, for the first time. She was an inch or so taller that her older sister, and even from the way she stood, he could tell that she was an athlete. She was not unattractive, and her beautifully cut dark hair shone with natural highlights, yet there was something about her, the set of her mouth perhaps, the remoteness of her eyes, maybe both, which was instantly forbidding. Where Rhian's whole demeanour asked a gentle question, Margot's shouted an answer.
'Look,' he said. 'I'm sorry we had to pull the plug on your party'
She shrugged. 'No problem; my guests all went to the pub anyway
… after I made a hysterical fool of myself and your doctor put me to bed.' Her stare was unbroken; she was barely more than a child, almost twenty years his junior, yet there was something contemptuous about it. His head told him to leave it alone; normally, he would have listened.
'Have you got a problem with me?' he demanded.
'Happily, no,' she replied.
'Do you resent Rhian and me in some way?'
She gave a short, cold laugh. 'Why should I? I certainly don't fancy you… which makes me unique in this household.'
He frowned, checking an angry retort on his lips.
'That surprises you, does it?' she asked. 'That Mum should find you attractive? She's only forty-four, you know, and she's pretty damned attractive herself. Spike thinks so, even if you don't.'
'I never said that I don't; but you just destroyed your argument. Spike Thomson: Juliet's involved with him. What makes you think she'd have the slightest interest in me?'
'She told me; and she told Rhian. Look, Spike's nice, but he's more of a good reliable friend than anything else. Stable jockey, that's all; they're not engaged or anything. My mother took a shine to you from the moment you moved in next door. But she's not sexually aggressive in the way my tarty sister is. She doesn't flaunt herself like Rhian.'
'That's enough, Margot. I don't need to hear this.'
'Yes, you do,' the girl snapped. 'Not long after Dad… left, Mum invited a man to dinner. He was a civil servant too, single, and quite dishy. Two weeks later she called at his place unexpectedly and found him and Rhian in bed. When she let slip that she liked you, I knew what would happen, even if she didn't.'
'You're making all this up.'
'Am I? She offered me a bet about you! When Mum told us… We were just talking over supper, about men in general, you know, a 'Who do you fancy?' game. Rhian said 'Sean Connery,' and Mum said, 'The man next door, actually.' I could see the look in my sister's eye as soon as she said it. When Mum went through to the kitchen, I said to her, 'You wouldn't,' and she said to me 'Bet?' Just like that.' She glanced along to the end of the road. 'Here she comes. Ask her yourself.'
He looked at her. For one of the very few times in his life, his mouth ran ahead of his brain. 'Who did you fancy in the game, kid? Madonna?' At once, he wished he had bitten his tongue, but it was too late: he knew that he had hit the mark. For the first time, Margot looked like a hurt child as she flinched and slammed the door.
'What was all that about?' Rhian asked as she climbed out of the Fiesta. 'What's that brat been saying to you?'
