switched to a surprising piece of blue-grass by someone who sounded to
Steele like Dolly Parton, with a voice as clear and sharp as her chest
was rounded.
"So what is it, inspector, that you want to talk to me about?" asked
Andrea. "Sit down," she insisted, pushing him towards one of the
uncomfortable chairs. "Let me get you a drink. Would orange juice or
cola be all right? I don't have anything alcoholic'
"Anything."
She opened a door to his left; he followed her with his eyes into a
small kitchen. A fridge door swung open and he heard can-opening
sounds; she reappeared with a tin of red cola in each hand. "Will it
do like this?" she asked. "All my glasses are in the dishwasher."
He grinned as he took it from her, letting his hand brush hers for a
second longer than necessary, and noting that, like Maggie Rose the day
before, she did not flinch from his touch. "You're getting more
decadent by the day, Andrea," he chuckled.
"Good," she said, firmly, and folded herself into the other chair,
tucking her feet under her and managing somehow to make the thing look
comfortable. "Now what is it, or were you just looking for an excuse
to see me again?"
"I probably was," he admitted, 'but I wanted to speak to a chemist, and
you're the only one I know. I've had some daft thoughts running about
in my head, and some questions I need answering."
"About what?"
"Bombs. Specifically, incendiary devices that wouldn't leave a trace
after they'd done what they were meant to do."
"And you think I'm a specialist, do you?" She gave him what he hoped
was a mock frown.
"No, not at all; like I said, you're a chemist."
"With special experience," she added, dryly, with a raised eyebrow.
"Chuck it. I'll go if you like."
She smiled, like a rainbow through a shower. "No, I like you being
here; you're the first man to come through that door who hasn't been a
relation or a doctor. Okay, this bomb of yours; how would you set it
off?"
"Remotely; with either a device triggered by a radio signal or a simple
timer."
"I don't see how you could do it, then. You'd have to use combustible
materials to start your fire. Their reaction wouldn't make their
elements disappear; I'd expect there still to be a residue, an
oxidisation, that could be traced afterwards."
"What if you used a material that would be natural at the scene, like
oil in a garage, or paper in an office? Any traces that were found
wouldn't seem unusual."
"No," Andrea agreed, 'but what about your trigger device? That
wouldn't disappear into thin air either. Suppose you simply lit a blue
touch paper and retired, that would leave a trace of what it had been
before it was consumed." She laughed. "You can't do it, Stevie; you'd
be talking spontaneous combustion, and that's not a very efficient way
of starting a fire, at least not the sort you're talking about."
"What sort might it work on?" he asked, casually.
She smiled again; pure rainbow this time, no shower in sight. "Strictly
speaking this is physics, not chemistry, so I'm just guessing, you
understand. But maybe there's me, for a start. By the nature of the
phenomenon, though, you'll have to stick around till it happens ... if
you're interested that is." She stretched her hand out towards him,
and he took it.
"Oh, I'm interested, all right," he murmured, grinning back at her.
"What do I do if you show signs of bursting into flames?"
"As I told you," she replied, 'it's never happened before, but I'd
guess you throw a blanket over us and do what you have to, to keep them
from getting out of control. I have been told, though, that it might
be more interesting if you just let me burn."
She unwound herself from her chair and stood up. "It could take some
time, though; a few weeks, months even. So while we're waiting, I'll
just make us a nice salad."
Fifty-Four.
"That's the house," said Sarah. He drew the Jag to a halt and looked
across the street to where she was pointing. A single deflated balloon
still hung from a tree in the yard.
"Okay," he muttered. "Let's see if the lady's at home." He opened the
car door and swung it open.
"Do you want me to come?" she asked.
Bob paused. "Better not," he replied, after a couple of seconds of
thought. "I'm pushing my luck with Brady as it is. Let me talk to
her. If there's anything I think you need to hear or see, I'll come
back and get you."
He stepped out on to the road and started to walk the fifty yards
towards the house. As he neared it, he looked to his right. The
sheriff's department's crime scene tape was still stretched across Ron
Neidholm's front door. It spoiled the look of the place. Skinner
could see personality in houses; without the tape this one would have
looked friendly and welcoming. Sometimes he thought he could see their
history also. He looked at an upstairs window and pictured Sarah,
framed in it, with a dreamy look in her eye as she dressed. He snapped
his gaze away and turned in to the driveway of the house across the
street.
He had always been struck by the size of the plots on which even the
most modest of American houses are built. "This is a big-ass country,
my man," his poor, dead friend Joe Doherty had said to him once. "We
ain't stingy with our land like you Brits." He guessed that the
acreage on which he stood was around the same as that of his own home
in Gullane, and wondered how much less it had cost.
The front door opened before he reached it. A straw-haired woman
appeared, leaning against the frame and frowning at him as he
approached; she looked to be in her early thirties, around Sarah's
age,
and was dressed much as his wife did at home, in jeans, tee-shirt and
trainers.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
Skinner smiled at her; her expression softened a little, but suspicion
remained in her eyes. "I hope so," he replied. He took out his
warrant card and held it up for her to see; at home or abroad, he never
went anywhere without it. "I'm a police officer. I'm not from around
here, but I've been working with the Erie County sheriff in the
investigation of Ron Neidholm's death. There are a couple of things
I'd like to ask you."
The woman gasped, involuntarily. "Oh yeah," she exclaimed. "Poor Ron;
how awful! He was such a nice man, for all that he was a big sports
star; he was so ordinary, and so pleasant. I just can't imagine him
being killed like they said. Right in the middle of my little boy's
birthday party too; why I spoke to him that very afternoon. He came
across to say hello."
She paused, and gave him an appraising look; Skinner found himself
reminded of Alex, when he had taken her to Edinburgh Zoo as an
eight-year-old. She had peered at the pygmy hippos in exactly the same
way. "You're Scottish, aren't you?" she asked.
"I am indeed," he replied. "From Lanarkshire originally, but n
ow from
Edinburgh."
"How interesting. I'm Scottish too," she tittered, 'not that you'd
know it to listen to me. Actually, I'm Canadian, but my parents
emigrated from Scotland to Toronto about forty years ago. They came
from Bellshill. That's in Lanarkshire, isn't it?"
"It sure is. My mother was brought up there."
"Hey, small world. Won't you come in? My name's Elaine, by the way;
Elaine Aitchison. My husband's Scottish too; well, Scottish from
Hamilton, Ontario. His job moved us down here."
"Nice to meet you," he replied. "My name's Bob Skinner, if you
couldn't read it on my card."
She led the way into a house that would have seemed large in Scotland,
but which by American standards was modest in size. He followed her
through into a reception room that was furnished as traditionally as
anything he had ever seen; three-piece, fabric-upholstered suite, set
facing a big fireplace with a console television beside it. The room
had windows to the front and back; in the yard he could see a playpen,
in which a child was kicking a ball, on unsteady legs.
"That's Ally, my younger son," said Mrs. Aitchison. "He's just two.
Ryan, my older boy, turned seven on Monday; it was his birthday party
we were having when poor Ron was killed."
"You said you spoke to him just before he died."
"Yeah. He saw the party balloons, and once the kids had arrived he
came across to wish Ryan happy birthday. He brought him a football,
and he'd signed it, too."
"Did you know him very well?" asked Skinner.
"Well enough. Francis, my husband, thought it was great having a
football star for a neighbour, but Ron might as well have been a shoe
salesman by the way he acted."
"Did you talk to him for long on Monday?"
"Not really; I was in the middle of the party. But he stayed long
enough to organise a touch football game for the boys and we spoke
then. I asked him about his girlfriend. I'd seen him with her at the
weekend. She was new; actually I don't recall seeing him with a girl
on any of his visits before."
"What did he say about her?"
Mrs. Aitchison sighed. "He lit up like a Christmas tree, the poor
man. He said she was someone he'd met up with again after a long time,
someone he'd never stopped loving. He told me that she'd just split
with her husband, and that he hoped she'd settle down with him, since
he'd decided to quit football for good."
"Was he expecting company on Monday?"
"I think he was expecting her. He said he had to go, because he
thought he'd be having a visitor that evening, and he wanted to get
ready. He said he didn't know when, but he was pretty sure she'd come.
When I think about it again, it could only have been her he was talking
about."
"Did you see her arrive?"
"No. I saw the police take her away, then drive her car away, that was
all."
"Did you see anyone else come to the house before that?"
"No; but then I wasn't looking, I was feeding eighteen kids and getting
them all to the bathroom and such."
Skinner frowned. "Elaine," he asked, 'did anyone from the sheriff's
detective bureau speak to you on Monday?"
The woman shook her head. "No."
"Has anyone since then?"
"Not at all; you're the first." She looked at him. "How exactly are
you involved with them, Mr. Skinner?"
"You could say I'm running a quality control check on their
investigative techniques."
"How are they doing?"
"Badly," he said, grimly. "So no one's approached you at all about
Monday?"
"A television reporter did, but I didn't like her so I told her I'd
seen nothing, and to get her crew the hell out of my driveway."
Skinner grinned. "Good for you; I can't stand it either when they get
intrusive." He paused. "Can you remember," he continued, 'whether
anyone did any filming during the party?"
"Sure," she answered, at once. "I did. It wasn't what you'd call
filming though; I have a digital camera that takes still shots, and
very short video clips."
"Do you still have the pictures you took?"
"Sure. They're on a memory stick. Would you like to look at them?"
"Yes please."
"Come through to the kitchen, then. I'll connect the camera through my
laptop, and you'll see the images bigger."
"Fine." He followed her out of the living room. The kitchen was much
brighter; he could see why she kept her computer there, even though it
was a Toshiba portable. He waited while she linked the camera, a small
Sony, through a port in the back of the laptop case, then booted it up.
While the machine readied itself she poured two mugs of coffee from a
jug and handed one to him. He took it automatically, without even
thinking about it.
"Okay," she announced as the images on the screen became fixed, 'let's
go." She clicked an icon and waited for a new window to open, then
clicked again. A photographic image appeared. It showed a small boy,
with freckles and a gap-toothed smile, standing beside the playpen in
the back yard, leaning on it. He was wearing black trousers and a
Buffalo Bills replica shirt.
Elaine Aitchison stood aside. "You drive if you like," she offered.
"Just click the button below the track-pad to advance the pictures."
"Thanks." He stood in from of the Toshiba and found the button, then
began to click. Another shot of Ryan appeared, and another, then one
of him with his younger brother. A dozen photographs into the stick,
Bob stopped. There was a man in the image on the screen, hefting Ryan
up to his shoulder; the boy held a brown football with NFL markings,
and gaped wide-eyed at the camera as if he could not quite believe what
was happening.
"That's Ron," his mother murmured. "And just think, a couple of hours
later.. ." Her voice tailed off into a shiver. "Ryan's heartbroken,
you know; I think every little boy in Buffalo must be. If his
girlfriend did it, like they're saying, then God help her."
"She didn't do it," said Skinner, quietly.
"You know this?" asked Elaine. "For sure?"
"For sure."
He clicked his way on through the photos on the memory stick, quickly,
losing count, as all of them seemed to have been taken around the
barbecue in the back yard, and out of sight of Neidholm's drive. But
at last, the scene changed; he reached an image of Ryan and four other
boys, in the front of the house. Ryan had thrown his football, in Ron
Neidholm style, and his friends were jumping to catch it. The
background was wrong, though; it showed only the garden, and nothing on
the other side of the street. He clicked again, and again, and again,
and again, and ... stopped.
He was looking at a photograph of Ryan running down the yard to
retrieve the brown ball. Ron Neidholm's driveway was in the
background, and in it there were two cars parked, a red sporty job, a
Camaro or a Trans Am he guessed, and before it, blocking it in, a white
saloon.
"Wow!"
he whispered.
"You got something?" Mrs. Aitchison asked.
"I think so." He moved on to the next image. Ryan had recovered the
ball and the car was still there. In the next shot, he was throwing it
again. His body blocked out the white vehicle, but in the further
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