by Val McDermid
A thin, frightened face appeared in the crack. “Who are you? What do you want with me?”
Obviously not the usual, Lindsay thought wryly. “I need to talk to you, Alex. Can we do it privately, or do you want the whole house to know your business?” she said with a smile.
Alex looked her up and down, then, deciding she represented no threat, slipped the chain off the door and let it swing open. He stepped back and Lindsay entered his home. It was a large, square room, containing a three-quarter bed, a rather dilapidated wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a table with two kitchen chairs, and two old-fashioned armchairs. In one corner was a sink and a Baby Belling cooker. A gas fire on full was blasting out dry heat. The room was surprisingly clean, and the walls had been painted magnolia in an attempt to brighten the place up. There was a poster-sized photographic reproduction of a naked body-builder opposite the bed.
Warily, they eyed each other. He was wrapped in a sheet which did nothing to hide the fact that he was slim to the point of emaciation. Probably using speed, thought Lindsay as she caught a whiff of his rancid breath. But she could see his appeal for the men who frequented the meatracks. He was waiflike, with tousled blond hair and wide, hazel eyes. He had an air of corrupted innocence which Lindsay guessed would attract a man like Harry.
“What do you want, then?” he asked in a parody of aggression.
“My name’s Lindsay Gordon,” she said. “You’ve got something a friend of mine wants very badly.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he replied so quickly it had to be an automatic reflex.
“We’re willing to pay you for it, Alex. Nobody’s trying to rip you off. Whatever deal you had lined up with Barry Ostler, I’ll make sure you don’t lose out,” Lindsay said.
“I still don’t know what you’re on about,” he said stubbornly.
“I think you do, Alex. How much did he pay you for Rosalind Campbell’s Scottish Office papers? Not much, I bet.”
He looked startled and flashed a glance at his rumpled bed. “You’ve got the wrong guy,” he stammered.
Lindsay shook her head. “No way. Look Alex, stop pussyfooting. There’s no problem. All I want is to arrange the purchase of certain items in your possession. You’re not going to get into trouble. Unless of course, we can’t come to some sort of arrangement. Then you are going to be in so much trouble your head won’t stop spinning for a week,” she added pleasantly.
Alex looked scared. He retreated to the table and picked up a packet of cigarettes. He lit up, never taking his eyes off Lindsay, who followed his example. She exhaled smoke slowly and perched on the arm of one of the chairs. “It’s very simple, Alex. You stole Harry Campbell’s papers and photographs. He wants them back. He’s sitting in my car downstairs, waiting to hear your terms. I promise you, whatever Barry Ostler said he’d give you, we’ll match. But Harry’s very upset. He doesn’t want any publicity. So if we can’t do a deal, he’s going to shop you to the police for the burglary. Not to mention the fact that you’re earning while signing on as unemployed. None of us wants to go down that road, do we? Now, can we talk properly?” Lindsay urged. She really didn’t want to give him a bad time, but she suspected it wouldn’t be necessary.
Alex nodded uncertainly. “Just suppose you’re right. How much is it worth?” he said, trying to sound defiant.
“How much did Barry pay you for the Scottish Office stuff?” Lindsay asked.
“None of your business,” he retorted.
Lindsay smiled. “Alex, I used to be in the newspaper business myself. I know exactly how much Barry got for that story. And I bet you didn’t get more than £100 of his £500.” The expression of surprise on his face told Lindsay all she needed to know. If she knew Barry, Alex would have been lucky to see £50. And now she’d sown a seed of doubt in his mind about Barry’s trustworthiness.
“He said the other stuff would be worth a lot more,” Alex said.
“How much more? Come on, Alex, the sooner we get this settled, the sooner I can get back to my girlfriend. This is not my idea of a fun Saturday morning.”
He scowled. “Barry said he’d pay me £500,” he said, obviously naming a figure off the top of his head. Lindsay almost felt sorry for him. Ostler was using him, and it was clearly a position Alex was so accustomed to it no longer surprised him.
“We’re prepared to equal that, and add a little bit more on top for your trouble,” Lindsay said. “How does £750 sound to you?”
“I suppose so,” he replied grudgingly. “But I’m not handing anything over till I get the money.”
“That seems perfectly reasonable to me. What I suggest we do is this. I’ll go down and tell Harry to go and fetch the cash. Then he can bring it back here, and the two of you can make your swap. That way, Harry can check he’s getting everything back. Is that okay with you?”
“I don’t want to see him,” Alex blurted out. “Can’t you handle it all?”
“Afraid not. You see, I don’t know the details of every single item you removed from his desk, but Harry does. It’s okay. He’s not going to give you a bad time. I’ll be back in a minute, okay?”
He nodded reluctantly. Lindsay left him and ran down the stairs. He was pathetic, she thought to herself as she walked down the path toward her car. She’d be happy to bet that he hadn’t even had the nous to make copies of the stuff he’d stolen. But then, in his favor, she’d seen no sign that he planned to blackmail Harry, merely to cash in on his secret.
Harry was cowering in the seat of the car, a newspaper hiding his face. When Lindsay pulled the door open, he nearly jumped out of his skin. “Well?” he demanded. “Have you sorted him out?”
“£750. You go and get the money and come up to Flat 9. Alex will hand over the stuff so you can check it.” And that will be the end of this whole sordid business, she thought wearily to herself.
“£750? Couldn’t you get him any cheaper than that? I’m not made of money, you know,” Harry protested.
“I told you before, if you get change out of a grand, it’s cheap at the price. Just be grateful I’m not charging you for my time on top of what you’re paying Alex,” Lindsay snapped, furious at his pettiness. She handed him the car keys. “Be very careful with the car. I’ll see you back here as soon as you can make it.”
“Aren’t you coming with me?”
“For Christ’s sake, Harry, surely you don’t need a minder to go to a cash machine? I’m going back to make sure Alex doesn’t do a runner,” Lindsay said over her shoulder as she marched exasperatedly back to the house. Suddenly Alex McNaught’s company seemed more appealing than that of Harry Campbell M.P.
By the time she returned, Alex had dressed in a tight white teeshirt and shrink-to-fit jeans that hugged his narrow hips and slim legs. He gave Lindsay a nervous grin and asked, “Did he agree?”
“He did,” she replied.
“Christ, I bet that hurt,” Alex said, pulling a face. “Getting that guy to part with money was like getting blood from a stone. Want a coffee?”
He’d obviously decided she was okay, Lindsay thought. She wondered if it was the line about getting back to Sophie that had swung it. “I’d love one,” she said. “Milk, no sugar.”
He turned off the kettle he’d already set to boil and made two mugs of instant. “How come you got into this?” he asked, settling down in the chair nearest the fire.
“It’s a long story,” Lindsay said. “His sister’s an old pal of mine. And you?”
He shrugged. “He picked me up one night. He must have liked what he got, because he came back for more. We must have been together half a dozen times or more over the next couple of months.” So Harry had been rather economical with the truth, Lindsay thought without surprise. “Then he just stopped seeing me. You know how it is,” Alex continued. “Then I saw his picture in the paper and realized he was this respectable M.P.”
“You mean you hadn’t realized before then who he was?” Lindsay demanded skeptically.
Alex scowled. He was used to people not believing him, but he’d never learned to like it. “How could I? Christ, the only time I buy a paper is for the racing. Besides, he’s not exactly a hot shot, is he? I mean, who the hell even knows where Kinradie is? It’s not as if he was a Glasgow M.P., or one of those guys that’re always on the telly shouting off about the poll tax. He’s a no mark. His picture was only in the paper because they were doing some big thing about marginal seats. Anyway, I figured there must be some money in it for me, so I asked Barry.”
“How do you know him,” Lindsay asked, curious to see if his version would tally with Ostler’s.
“He did a story a while back, looking for rent boys who’d been with a judge. I couldn’t help him, but I kept his number. You never know, do you? Anyway, he said if I could get any proof, it would be worth a few bob.”
“So you broke into Ros’s flat? Nice one, Alex,” Lindsay said cynically.
“I didn’t know it was her flat, did I? I thought it was his own place. When I saw the woman’s stuff in the bathroom, I just thought he was probably married. A lot of them are. I never met her. I only saw a photo of her once in the kitchen. I never thought I was robbing her. I just waited till I saw her going out, then I nipped in. I lifted everything I could see that looked official, like Barry told me to. I thought all the papers and stuff I took were his. How was I to know she worked for the Scottish Office?”
“So how come you didn’t hand Harry’s personal stuff over to Barry with all the official papers?” Lindsay inquired.
Alex looked slyly at Lindsay, clearly pleased with his own cleverness. “I figured that if I gave him everything at once he might not pay me what he owed me. And I didn’t know if we’d get away with it. If the police had traced the story back to Barry and lifted him, I’d have had to do a runner. This way, I held on to something that was worth a bob or two.”
“Quite a profitable wee break-in,” Lindsay said wryly.
“Technically, it wasn’t a break-in. I just made it look like one. I had keys,” he said importantly.
“Handy that Harry gave you the keys to the flat,” Lindsay remarked, trying to hide her surprise.
Alex gave her a sideways glance. “He didn’t actually give them to me,” he muttered.
Lindsay grinned. Another thing Harry had been less than frank about. There had been no mention of missing keys. “You mean you helped yourself?”
“Something like that,” he admitted. “In my line of business, you never know what might come in handy. You can sometimes sell things, if you catch my drift.”
Lindsay nodded. “Yes, I can see that having the keys to such a nice block of flats could be very profitable. So how come you never sold them?”
“After that woman was murdered there, the place was jumping with police. It wouldn’t have been too clever to mess about there, would it? And then I kind of forgot about it again till I saw Harry’s picture.”
“You knew about the murder?” Lindsay asked, delighted that he’d brought it up himself. “Did you know the woman that was killed?”
“No.” Alex looked chagrined at the admission.
“Did Harry ever mention her to you? That she was someone he knew?”
“Harry? No, he never talked about anything like that. Besides, that was the last time I saw him.”
“You mean, you were with Harry on the day of the murder? You were actually in the building?” Lindsay fought to keep her excitement under control.
“I was more than there. I saw the murderer,” he said self-importantly.
“You what?” Lindsay exploded.
Alex smiled, pleased with himself. “I saw the murderer.”
17
Lindsay could only stare at Alex. But as she evaluated what he’d said, a faint skepticism crept in. “How did you manage that, then?” she demanded.
He gave her the smile and the wide-eyed stare. “I’d been with Harry. I left the flat about six o’clock. I remember the time, because Harry’d just put the radio on for the news. Bor-ring! Anyway, I waited for ages for the lift, then I decided to go down the stairs because I was in a hurry. I had an appointment, see? I was just pushing the door open on to the sixth-floor landing when this woman came tearing out of a flat and ran down the stairs ahead of me. I don’t think she noticed me, but I saw her all right. You got any fags?”
Lindsay automatically handed over her packet. “So . . . why didn’t you go to the police when you heard about the murder?”
“Are you kidding?” Alex expostulated. “For a kickoff, I’m under age. I’m only seventeen. Soon as they started asking me what I was doing there, I’d be right in the shit. Besides, in my game, you have to be discreet. The word goes round that you blab to the police about where you’ve been and who with, you might as well be dead. Anyway, think about it. Who’s going to take the word of a rent boy?”
What he said made sense, Lindsay thought. Her head was buzzing with the possibility that this was the break she needed. But she had to check that it wasn’t Jackie he’d seen leaving the flat. She chose her words carefully. “I suppose you followed the case in the papers?”
“Of course I did.”
“So you must have realized that your evidence would have helped the police nail Jackie Mitchell. They’d have been so glad to get someone backing up their version that they wouldn’t have probed too closely into what you were doing there.”
Alex looked at her as if she were extraordinarily stupid. “Don’t you understand? The woman I saw wasn’t the one they did for it.”
Lindsay’s heart lurched. This really was what she’d been waiting for. “What did she look like, then, this other woman?”
“What’s it to you?” Alex asked, suddenly suspicious again.
“Just nosy,” Lindsay lied.
“Well, she was wearing one of them ski caps so I couldn’t see her hair. The weather was hellish that day, I remember I got soaked waiting for the bus. But I’d know her again anywhere, sure I would,” he said.
“Well, was she tall or short? Thin or fat?” Lindsay pushed.
“I don’t know. I’m not very good at describing people. She was just ordinary, I suppose. But what’s the big deal anyway? Oh, wait a minute. You weren’t thinking Harry had anything to do with it?” Laughter bubbled in his throat. “Come on! He hasn’t got the bottle for that.”
Lindsay took a deep breath. Before she could say more, the doorbell rang insistently. “That’ll be Harry,” she said.
“You go. I’ll get his stuff,” Alex muttered.
Lindsay returned moments later with an irritated Harry. They entered the room to find Alex pulling a plastic bag out from under his mattress. He turned to face them and gave Harry a grin. “Hiya, Dirty Harry,” he said cheekily.
“You little shit!” Harry spat. “You scumbag! How dare you steal my things.”
“Now, now, Harry, mind your language. There’s a lady present. Don’t give me a bad time or the deal might just be off.” Alex had clearly begun to enjoy himself.
“You . . .” Harry trailed off as Alex wagged an admonishing finger.
“All right, boys, let’s cut the posturing. Harry, money on the table. Alex, open the bag and let Harry have a look through it.”
Both men looked at her, Harry with astonished anger and Alex with amusement. “You heard the lady,” Alex said.
“I should have known you were trouble the minute I clapped eyes on you,” Harry muttered as he put the bundle of tenners on the table.
Alex’s eyes lit up at the sight of the money. It would be cocaine tonight instead of speed, Lindsay thought sadly. He moved toward it, but Lindsay swiftly interposed her body between him and the table. “Aw, c’mon!” he complained.
“All in good time,” Lindsay said, keeping half an eye on Harry who was rifling through the bag’s contents, an anxious look on his face. “All present and correct, Harry?” she asked.
He nodded doubtfully. “I think so. If you try and double-cross me, you little ba
stard . . .”
“You’ll what, Harry? Give me a good spanking?” Alex asked sweetly.
Harry flushed purple. “You . . .” he spluttered.
“I’ll see you down at the car, Harry,” Lindsay said calmly. “I just want to have a wee word with Alex here.”
Harry looked as if he was about to protest, but gave up without a fight. He edged out of the room, swearing under his breath.
“Don’t vote, it only encourages them,” Alex giggled as Lindsay moved away and let him get to the money. He rifled the bundles of notes gleefully. “Did you see his face? He was really shitting it, wasn’t he?”
“Alex. About that other business. I was telling you a wee white lie when I said I was just nosy.”
Immediately, the wary look came back into his eyes. “Oh aye?” he said.
Lindsay perched on the chair arm again. “The woman they put away for Alison Maxwell’s murder is a good friend of mine. Her girlfriend hired me to see if I could clear Jackie’s name. So far, I’ve come up with plenty of suspects but no hard evidence. Now, what you told me this morning makes a big difference to me. I want you to help me. I want to see if you can identify the woman you saw that day.”
“You must be kidding. I told you before, I can’t go to the police,” Alex objected.
“You won’t have to go to the police,” Lindsay added, not caring whether it was the truth or not. “You see, once I know who it is, I can easily find other evidence to corroborate it.”
“Oh aye. And once I’ve fingered the killer, what’s to stop her killing me?”
“It’s not you she’s got to worry about. It’s me. If anybody’s taking a risk, it’s me. I’m not talking about a one-to-one confrontation. I’m talking about a lot of witnesses. Will you help me, Alex?”
“Why should I? What’s in it for me?” he demanded shrewdly.
“You won’t lose by it. I can’t say any more than that now. Think about it. If you come forward at this late stage, the first question the defense is going to ask you is whether you’ve been paid for giving evidence. Say yes and your evidence isn’t worth a penny piece. So no talk about money now, eh? You’d have to take my word for it. But I saw you right this morning, didn’t I?”
