The estate owner looked at Pringle. Til tell you everything,' he said. 'It
was all Gates' idea; Ray tried to sell him a system and when Watson wouldn't
buy, he told him that his place could be knocked over easy, just like ours.
He'd tried to sell to Mercy and me before that.
'Gates thought this was a great idea. So he approached us; he told us that
if we kept clear of our farms on certain nights and asked no questions, we'd
both make a buck. We didn't know he was going to balls it up, and that
Harry would kill the girl.'
Jack McGurk hit him; a huge right-handed punch on the side of the
head, far harder than any he had ever thrown on the rugby field. 'No, you
bastard,' he snarled at the unconscious figure on the ground, fingering his
bleeding ear, 'but you'd have let Harry there make my Mary a widow.'
Pringle patted him on the shoulder, and turned to Mercy Alvarez. 'I've
got a vacancy for a Crown witness,' he said. 'Gates planned the whole
thing, Anders is going down because he was there when the girl was killed,
Harry's dead, and that other one on the ground there, he's having the fucking
book thrown at him, whether or not the ACC's married to his cousin.
'You tell us the whole story he just started, and you'll be charged with
defrauding your insurance company, you'll plead guilty, and you'll get a
couple of years, max. If you get a really good lawyer, the judge might even
suspend it. What do you say?'
She looked up at the burly policeman, a gleam in her dark eyes, as her
lover began to stir on the ground at her feet. 'Where do I sign?' she asked.
AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN
77
'What's the big surprise ending, by the way?' Neil asked as he and Louise
stoqd at the entrance to Parliament House which had been allocated to the
film crew.
'I'm not telling you that!' she said with a smile. 'You'd find out if you
' were here to see it, but as it is, only the kids get to know.'
As he spoke, Sarah's Freelander was waved by a security guard into the
area between St Giles' Cathedral and Parliament House. She drove towards
them, past the parked cars, and the equestrian statue. As soon as she stopped,
the nearside doors opened and Lauren and Mark jumped out.
Sarah leaned over in the driving seat and she looked at the couple. There
was still something behind Neil's eyes, something that would always be
there, but for the first time since his wife's death, the big policeman looked
content, as if a kind of peace had come into his life, as of course it had,
against all hope and to his complete surprise.
'You two are looking pleased with yourselves,' she said.
'Are we?' Louise replied. 'I don't know why he is. He's going to
work.'
He squeezed her shoulder. 'What are you talking about? So are you.'
She laughed. 'You know, even after all these years, I forget that
sometimes. When it's a scene I really fancy, it's like going out to play.'
'Have a good game, then,' said Sarah. 'And thanks for helping free up
my Saturday.'
Neil leaned over and closed the passenger door. As she drove off, Louise
took each of the children by the hand, and turned towards the hall. She
raised herself slightly on her toes and kissed him. 'Have a nice day,' she
whispered, as Lauren's eyes widened.
He saw them into the building, into the safe-keeping of the uniformed
police at the entrance, then walked the short distance to his car.
The Fettes headquarters were on Saturday mode, and so he found a
parking space at the front of the building, beside a red Ford Ka which
I
seemed to look slightly self-conscious beside Bob Skinner's BMW.
'The DCC said to tell you he's in the technical unit, Mr Mcllhenney,'
the door officer advised him. Neil nodded and set off along the twisty route
to Tony Davidson's kingdom. He rapped on the technical director's door,
pened it, and stepped inside. Davidson himself was absent, but at his meeting
table sat Bob Skinner and another man. Mcllhenney sized him up: early
thirties, leather jacket type, a bit flash maybe, confident, but clearly in awe
of the boss.
'Neil,' said Skinner, 'this is the Bandit. DI Dave Mackenzie. David,
Neil Mcllhenney, my exec.'
As they shook hands, Neil completed his appraisal with a look in the
eye. Yes, he liked the bloke, even if he had given Ruthie a hard time.
'Tony's off working his magic on the downloads that Dave brought with
him,' the DCC explained. 'They're videos, and we think they may show
Ruthie's uncle.' Quickly he filled Mcllhenney in on the background to
Mackenzie's Internet trawl.
He had barely finished before Tony Davidson returned, to summon them
to his neon-lit viewing room. 'I've cleaned up Mr Mackenzie's files as best
I could,' he said, 'and edited them together into a single video. For ease of
viewing, I've done a fast transfer to a Betacam tape, linked to a twenty
eight-inch monitor.' He handed Skinner a black device.
'Bob, there's the remote. I've seen what's on there, and frankly I don't
want to see it again.' He turned and left the room, switching off the lights
as he went.
Skinner felt himself tense as he pressed the 'play' button on the device.
The monitor screen flashed grey for a second, then black, then the title
appeared. 'Estrella Azul Caida,' he read. 'Blue Star Fallen.'
It vanished and a caption appeared, also in Spanish. He translated it
for the others. 'Dark star at play. The dark side of a famous lady? It is
for you . . .
'What the hell does that mean?' he murmured, as figures appeared, their
movements slightly jerky from the download, but clear enough. An old
man, silver haired; a woman, wearing a white carnival mask, much younger,
long-limbed, dark hair well cut, above shoulder-length. Both naked, her
flesh firm, his sagging, but still showing solid musculature. Left side on to
the camera as she teased him, coaxed him, stirred him, first into life, then
into prodigious size.
'Jesus!' Mcllhenney murmured, looking away in disgust as she straddled
268
him. When he looked back, he could tell by the lighting and the position of
the camera that the scene had changed. Something else too; the old man
seemed diminished, weaker, slighter in his build, if not in his genitalia, as
the woman bent over him, her right side to the camera.
'Jesus!' This time it was Skinner who blasphemed, but his was an
exclamation of horror. He froze the image on the scene. 'David,' he snapped.
'Leave us alone for a minute.'
The Strathclyde detective looked at him, puzzled, but obeyed without
question. As the door closed behind him, the DCC stared at his assistant.
'Look!' he said, his hand pointing towards the screen. 'That birthmark on
the woman's right hip; in the shape of a blue star. Louise has one, exactly
like it. A few years back, she did a movie with a nude scene. It showed that
birthmark; I remembered it straight away.'
Mcllhenney looked at the image, then back at his friend. He read shock
in his face; saw that he was shaking. 'No, Boss,' he said quietly. 'Lou use
d
to have a birthmark like that one. But not any more. She had another nude
scene in her last movie but one; a long one. She didn't fancy the idea of
showing it again, and so she had it removed, surgically, and new skin grafted
on where it had been. As it happened, the director shot the scene mostly in
darkness, so it didn't show.
The graft wasn't perfect. There's still a faint mark there. I asked her
about it, and she told me all about it.
'That isn't Lou, but it's some sick cow who wants us to think that it is;
someone who knew about the birthmark, but doesn't know that it ain't
there anymore.'
The sound of relief which burst from Bob Skinner was more of an
explosion than a sigh. 'Bandit!' he shouted towards the door. 'You can
come back in now.'
As the young inspector re-entered the room, he pressed the 'play'
button once more. They watched the home movie to the end, to the last
awful scene. The woman, still naked, still marked, injecting the poor,
sad, old man, needle into a vein in his erection, making him jump with
pain, holding him until the drugs took him to the edge of a stupor.
Then the bath, hot, steam obscuring the lens but not enough to hide his
feeble struggle, first as he felt the scalding heat, then as she held him
beneath the surface, her hands and forearms protected by long rubber
gloves.
And then it was over. The three policemen sat, breathless, staring at the
270
AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN
screen, silent until Mackenzie spoke. 'Do you think it was McConnell?' he
asked.
'I'm sure it was,' Skinner answered. 'Ruth showed me a photo once.'
'And the woman, sir? The way you reacted back there. Do you know
her?'
'We were meant to think that it was Louise Bankier, the film actress,'
said Mcllhenney quietly. 'It wasn't, though.'
'Bankier?' the younger inspector exclaimed. 'One of John McConnell's
old workmates was a bloke called Malcolm Bankier. I was tipped off by a
contact in ScotRail. He lives out in Bearsden. I went to see him last night,
but he's fucking ga-ga. There was no point even trying to question him;
poor old bugger doesn't know whether it's breakfast time or Easter.'
Mcllhenney's eyes narrowed. 'Who else was there when you saw him?'
he asked.
'There was a nurse, and his daughter. Lucy, her name was. Here, was
that Louise Bankier's old man?'
Skinner ignored the question and picked up the telephone on the table.
'Get me Detective Sergeant Steele,' he ordered the switchboard operator.
'Wherever he is. I'm in Mr Davidson's viewing room.' He replaced the
phone and sat waiting, he and Mcllhenney staring at each other, eyes locked
together, oblivious of the third man in the room.
Skinner answered the return call halfway through the first ring. 'Stevie?
DCC here. I want to ask you something. From the Balmoral video you saw,
from the description the woman in Newcastle gave you, could John Steed
be a woman?
'Think hard, man, before you answer.' He waited. 'You sure?' Another
pause. Thanks.' The phone slammed down.
'Stevie says yes. He says it could have been. And so could the person in
that car in London.' Skinner's gaze flashed back to Mackenzie. 'Bandit!
The woman the neighbour saw. Long hair, yes?'
'Sir.'
'A wig. Long, like Ruthie's hair; photos around the house, I'll bet. And
in the box, more than a camera and a stand; a wig cut like Lou's hair, and a
mask. It's Lucy, Neil. She made that movie. She killed the old man. She's
Ruth's stalker.'
Mcllhenney stared back at him, struck dumb for that moment.
'Where is she now?' Skinner asked.
'At the Great Hall, in Parliament House, where Lou's shooting her big
scene. And with Mackenzie's visit last night, she'll know we're . ..'
Before the door of the viewing room had swung closed behind him, Neil
Mcllhenney was at the end of the corridor.
272
78
The blue-suited guard looked up, startled, as the big figure burst through
the narrow swing doors. 'Yes sir?' he began, but Mcllhenney ignored him
and walked straight up to the uniformed constable guarding the entrance to
the Great Hall.
'Anything happening?' he asked.
'All quiet, sir.'
He opened the brass-bound door and stepped inside. The finest public
room in Scotland was perfectly quiet, yet it was full of people. Together
they formed a tableau, each in position beneath the mighty hammer-beam
roof, lit bluish by the great movie lights, some splashed with colour from
the enormous, illuminated, stained glass window which dominated the south
end of the hall.
There was not a sound, until Elliott Silver broke the perfect silence. 'All
right, people,' he cried out in his high, airy voice. 'We all know what's
happening here, so let's ...' He broke off. 'No, no, no!' he screamed. 'That
light's all wrong. There's too much on Louise. Makes her look as if she's
got a halo and she isn't even fucking dead yet.'
Neil heard a quiet 'Tut!' to his right and looked sideways to see his
daughter, standing beside Mark, both of them in the care of the tiny makeup
lady.
As the lighting cameraman made adjustments to the set-up, he edged
over towards them, still looking around. Then a figure moved, beside the
great statue of Lord Stair; it was Lucy. Their eyes met and from that moment
there was no more doubt, only understanding, no more questions, only
truths.
In her gaze he read success, triumph, exultation. He looked for pity, but
saw a hatred that seemed as old as time. He looked for madness, but saw
only vicious satisfaction as if she knew she had won. And he did not know
why. He did not know how.
He looked back across the hall, to centre stage. For the first time he saw
Lou, her back to him, wearing an advocate's wig and a dark trouser suit.
Facing her he saw Ralph Annand, a hard expression set on his face. His left
arm was loosely around the throat of a third actor, a young girl, and there
was something, something the policeman could not see, in his right hand,
as it hung by his side.
He felt a tug at his sleeve, and looked down. Mark McGrath, Bob
Skinner's adopted son, looked up at him with his wise young eyes. 'Is that
a real gun, Uncle Neil?' he whispered.
He looked again, until he saw what Mark could see from his viewpoint, through the ruck of bodies. Ralph Annand was holding a sawn-off shotgun.
He gasped, and then as if from nowhere Warren Judd was standing before
him.
'What happens in this scene?' Mcllhenney demanded. The producer
looked at him as if he was insane. He took a fistful of his jacket and lifted
him on to the points of his toes. 'Tell me!' he hissed.
Judd's eyes started out of his head as the policeman's grip tore out a
forest of chest hairs. 'Lou's client, that's Annand, is guilty after all. Someone
smuggles him in a shotgun. He takes a hostage, she tries to block his way,
and he shoots her.'
As Neil's mind raced, Silver's voice slashed through hi
s shots. 'Okay
everybody, take one and ... action!'
He dropped Judd and looked over the heads of the crouching production
crew, as Annand tightened his grip on his mock hostage and raised what
was indeed a very real gun. He could see that the actor was locked in
Autographs in the Rain Page 37
