The solicitor stared up at the ceiling.
'Don't piss us about any longer, Raymond. We didn't press you on this
this afternoon because we hoped that Mr Lesser might have persuaded you
that the smart thing to do would have been to name your accomplices. I'm
sure he suggested it to you, but you've taken the stupid option.
111 give you one chance here. Tell me who else was in on the robberies.
I can't promise this, but I might be able to persuade the Crown Office to
accept a plea of guilty to the robberies alone, if you name your accomplices in (-ourt- As things stand you and you alone are going away for life.'
'The
Anders was as white as his solicitor's shirt, but he shook his head.
prisoner declines to answer,' said McGurk to the tape.
Look son,' said Pringle. 'Be sure of what you're facing here. This is a
223
222
AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN
AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN
brutal murder committed in the furtherance of theft. There's no chance of
this being talked down to culpable homicide. This will be a life sentence.
The Crown won't leave it at that though; they will ask the judge to throw
the book at you, with a minimum sentence recommendation that will make
you an old, old man by the time you come out.
'Mind you, you might not want to come out by then. You might fancy
settling down with a nice bloke for the next twenty-five years.'
'I never killed her!' Anders screamed.
'Raymond!' his solicitor warned, but in vain.
% 'I never touched the woman, I swear it. I was waiting in one of the trucks
when she was done.'
'What about the coat and the bludgeon?' McGurk asked, harshly.
'I was given them to bum.'
'By whom?' Pringle barked.
'Superintendent,' Lesser interjected. 'I must advise my client to say no
more.'
'That's the last thing you should advise him, Geoff, and you know it.
Now answer the question. Who gave you the coat and club to burn?'
'I can't tell you. I never knew his name.'
'Bollocks. Who was it?'
'Can't tell you.'
McGurk grabbed his shoulder and turned him to face him. 'Was it Glenn
Lander?'
'Who's he?' Anders bleated.
'You know him. You met him the day after his farm was robbed. I think
you arranged to see him at Raeburn Place, to tell him that the robbery had
gone fine.' Anders looked at him in astonishment, and the sergeant knew
that he had hit the mark.
The prisoner turned, desperately, to his solicitor. 'I want to go back to
my cell, sir,' he pleaded.
'Raymond,' said Lesser, solemnly, 'at this stage, it may be in your interests
to co-operate.'
'I want to go back to my cell!'
The lawyer shook his head. 'Very well.' He looked across at Pringle.
'This interview is over, gentlemen.'
'I might as well tell you, Geoff,' the superintendent said, as he switched
off the tape, 'that the boy really did a bad job of burning that stuff. He says
he didn't kill the girl, but he did manage to leave part of the baton untouched
224
by the fire, and we've got his palm-print off it.
'He'll be in court for remand tomorrow morning, as per the usual routine.
You've got till then to persuade him to change his mind.'
The alarm buzzed once; its red signal light flashed once, but Neil Mcllhenney
was not asleep. His right hand flashed out and hit the 'cancel' button inside
a second. In the same movement he swung out of bed, snatched up his
jeans, sweater and shoes from the floor, slipping silently into the trousers,
not bothering about underwear or socks as he slipped out into the hall.
There he unlocked his desk with a key on his chain, took out a Glock
automatic pistol, and slipped it into a pocket of his heavy outdoor jacket as
he pulled it on over his sweater. He left the house within a minute of the
alarm's warning, having made barely a sound.
He ran down Colinton Road as quickly as he could safely manage in
moccasins on the slippery pavement, and turned into Craiglockhart Avenue,
skidding to a halt as a red glow behind the houses close by told him the
reason for the emergency signal. As he broke into a run once more, he
heard a car; crashing gears, screeching tyres then the roar of an engine as it
sped away into the night.
Twenty yards down the Avenue he slipped and fell, thanking his lucky
stars that the Glock was on safe as he landed on it. He ignored the sharp
pain, pushed himself to his feet, and ran on, until he reached the cul-de-sac
where Louise's rented home stood.
He had made it in less than three minutes, yet the house was an inferno.
The front door was consumed, and through it he could see that the wildfire
had spread almost instantly along the acrylic hall carpet and up the varnished
wooden staircase which led to the two attic bedrooms.
Whatever had happened, it had been so sudden, so cataclysmic, that
none of the neighbours had yet been awakened . . . nor, as far as he could
see or hear, had anyone in the house. He took out his mobile and keyed in
the direct number of the Torphichen Place office where the back-up alarm
was situated.
It was answered quickly. 'This is Mcllhenney,' he snapped. 'There's a
fire at the house; major outbreak. All available appliances, at once,
226
AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN
ambulances, the whole fucking shooting match.'
As he ended the call, he saw, to his horror, a figure appear in one of the
bedroom windows. It was Glenys Algodon; she was naked, silhouetted by
the flames behind her, as she struggled with the handle of the double-glazed
window unit. He held his breath as he watched her, knowing that there was
nothing he could do, no one else he could call who would help.
At last, the window swung open on its central hinge; as it did so, he
heard her screams for the first time and saw the blaze behind her, fuelled
by the inrush of air, reaching out as if to feed on her.
'Get out!' he bellowed. 'On to the roof, then jump!' He vaulted the steel
driveway gate, into the garden and ran for the bungalow. 'Now, Glenys, I'll
catch you.'
She did as he said, and slithered, still screaming, out of the half-opened
window, then rolled, over tongues of flame which were already licking
through the tiles, down and off the roof.
He reached her, but only in time to break her fall; her weight sent him
sprawling beside her on the lawn. She rolled around still screaming, with
her hair on fire. He beat it out with his bare hands, then dragged her as far
away from the house as he could, noticing as he did so that her back and
buttocks had been turned into one large blister by the heat.
He held her, firmly, face down, talking to her, soothing her, until her
screams turned to whimpers, and stopped, finally, as she slipped into a
daze. He took off his heavy jacket, slipping the gun into the waistband of
his jeans and his mobile into a pocket, and covered her, gently.
As he did so he heard an indignant, scared voice behind him. 'What are
you doing?' it demanded.
M
cllhenney turned, to see a middle-aged man in dressing-gown and
pyjamas, peering down at him, over the garden wall. 'I'm having a fucking
barbecue,' he roared. 'What did you think?'
The man recoiled. 'Are you a neighbour?' the policeman snapped.
Nod. 'Yes. Next door.'
'Well, get back in there, bring me a blanket or something like it, then
make a strong cup of tea.'
'For the young lady?'
'No. For you. The young lady will be going off in an ambulance in a
minute. When she does, I'm going to want to talk to you.'
As he spoke, the first fire appliance swung round the corner into the cul
de-sac, siren silent but blue lights flashing. 'Go on,' the detective shouted,
more kindly, to the neighbour. 'Get me that blanket, now.'
The firemen did not see him at first as he crouched by Glenys; instead
they cleared the locked driveway gate as he had done, hoses connected to
the nearest hydrants, playing water on the roof and shooting it at the front
door. Behind them, another appliance arrived, then, as the neighbour
appeared with a travelling rug, an ambulance.
Mcllhenney wrapped Glenys carefully in the blanket, then stood and
waved to the paramedics. As they ran across, a white-helmeted figure jumped
from the second fire engine, spotting the policeman as he did.
% 'Neil?' DO Matt Grogan called out. 'What the hell are you doing here?'
'I live round the corner. I'll speak to you later; I'll want to know how
and where this started.' As the veteran firefighter strode towards the blaze,
the detective helped the ambulance crew as they lifted the casualty and
placed her, still face downwards, on a stretcher. She was still dazed, but as
they lifted her over the low wall, she looked at him sideways, and he could
see that she was numb with horror. 'Clarence, Louise . . .' she whispered,
and then her eyes glazed over once more.
'Oh Jesus,' Mcllhenney murmured, feeling himself shivering, but not
from the cold of the night.
He took his handphone from his pocket and dialled a familiar number;
as always, the man on the other end was wide awake, although the call was
answered on only the second ring.
'Yes Neil,' Skinner said, quietly and evenly. His bedside phone had a
readout which identified incoming numbers, and sometimes, callers. 'What
is it?' He knew that at 1 a.m. the call would not be trivial.
Tm at Louise's place, boss. There's a fire; it's still burning, but the
place is gutted. My alarm went off, and I got here double quick, but it was
well alight by then. Matt Grogan's here; hopefully he'll give us an idea of
how it happened.'
'And . . .' Skinner did not have to say more.
'Glenys got out, Boss. A bit scorched, but she'll be okay. I'm afraid for
Clarence Sparrow, her boyfriend; I thought he was catching the last shuttle
home to London, but
'Louise, man, Louise. Did she get out?'
Mcllhenney took a deep breath. 'Lou was never in the house, Boss. She
was with me.'
'With you?' Skinner's exec. heard the astonishment in his voice. 'Did
you have her up for dinner again?' he asked. It was the first time in
228
AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN
Mcllhenney's life he had ever heard him ask anything remotely like a stupid
question.
'No, Boss. She was asleep when I left her.'
There was a long silence, yet during it the two men seemed to say things
to each other, things which were for life. Then you'd better go and tell her
what's happened,' the DCC said at last.
'I've got to have a word with the neighbours, Boss; and with Grogan.'
'They can wait until I get there. No, off you go and see Louise; you
don't want her to be waking up and wandering down there looking for
you.'
'So Clarence was still there,' said Lou. She was sitting on Neil's sofa, her
hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. Her eyes were red and blotchy, she
wbre no make-up, her hair was tangled, and she was dressed in a tee-shirt
and Neil's black towelling dressing-gown, but she was still beautiful.
'Yes, love,' he said, quietly. 'Since the last time we saw them, he must
have decided to stay the extra night. And clearly, from what she said to me,
Glenys assumed that you'd come back in after they'd gone to bed.'
She leaned against him, her head on his shoulder. 'As she would,' she
murmured. She slipped a hand, warm from the mug, into his and squeezed
it. 'You were right, love. There's someone watching over us.'
He pressed his face against her, kissing her hair. 'Never doubt it,' he
whispered in her ear.
It was as if for that moment there was no one else in the room; a fact that
was not lost on Bob Skinner and Andy Martin as they stood in front of the
fireplace. Eventually, Mcllhenney remembered their presence.
'Sorry Boss. This situation's become a bit ... well, unprofessional, I
suppose.'
'Who gives a damn?' said Skinner, with a quick look that put his assistant
at his ease. 'Because it did, Lou wasn't in that house, and thank God for it.'
'But poor Clarence was,' she reminded him.
He winced. 'Yes. Poor Clarence. Matt Grogan said that they found him
in the bedroom doorway. He's seen similar before; the victim's in bed,
hears these funny noises outside; he's half-asleep and opens the door to
investigate.
'Whoosh! The fireball's sucked in and he's right in the middle of it. Ms
Algodon was lucky she got out.'
'Does Matt have any theory about how it started?' asked Martin.
'Yes,' the DCC answered, 'and a pretty good one at that. The perpetrator
climbed over the driveway gate, walked up the concrete path to the front
door... knowingly or otherwise avoiding triggering the geophones we put
230
AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN
me garden . . . and put three cans of petrol up against it. Then he put
detonators in each one.'
He glanced at his two colleagues. 'Know what Matt thinks he used? Big
firework rockets, one in each can. He linked the three fuses together with a
single petrol-soaked cord, lit the blue touch-paper and withdrew, effing
sharpish.
'The explosion would have been soft, probably not enough to wake the
neighbours, unless they were sleeping with the windows open ... unlikely
in December. However, it would have blown the front door in... triggering
your alarm, Neil... and torching the place in seconds.
'You took how long to get there?' he asked Mcllhenney.
'Under three minutes.'
'Nevertheless, that would have been enough for the blaze to have been
impenetrable, even without the second explosion.'
'What second explosion, boss? I never heard anything.'
'No, it would have happened seconds after the first. There was a box of
highly inflammable aerosols in the hall; they gave the fire a sort of turbo
Autographs in the Rain Page 31
