Gallery Whispers

'Second Wednesday in October,' Mackie barked, even as they were taking their seats around the old wooden table, its varnished top scarred with graffiti. 'Where were you, in the evening?'

'I can't remember,' Beano protested.

'Of course you can. It was the night before your room-mate was told his mother was dead. Concentrate on that.'

The young man gulped, then burped. The hoppy smell of beer filled the room. 'Pardon,' he mumbled and, for the first time, the detectives realised that he was a little drunk. He screwed up his eyes to emphasise that he was thinking.

'There was a party for First Years. The Drama Club staged it, so we all went. We reckoned that there would be plenty of birds at it,' he added with a gawky grin.

'Did Ray Weston go?'

'I suppose so..'

Mackie glared at the young man, forcing him to look back. It was a skill which he had tried to learn from Bob Skinner. 'Your suppositions aren't good enough, son. Now use that sodden brain of yours.

You share a room with Raymond Weston. Did he go to the Drama Club do or did he not? I'm not here to piss about with you. Out with it.'

Beano gulped again; for a moment the detectives thought that he was going to be sick, but he steadied himself. 'No,' he said, almost fearfully. 'No, Ray didn't go.'

'So where did he go?'

'He told me that he was driving down to Edinburgh. He has this girlfriend down there.' He broke off for a quick leer. 'A cracker, he says. She's a nurse; she lives in a flat with some other nurses but she's got a room of her own, so they're all right for… you know what I mean.'

Mackie nodded. 'I think I remember,' he said, dryly. 'But try harder.

Are we just supposing again or did he actually say that he was driving home for a quickie with the girlfriend?'

As the policemen looked at him Beano began to shiver. 'You won't tell anyone about this will you?' he begged. 'Especially not Ray.'

'Why not?' asked Garland, more gently than the superintendent.

'Are you scared of Ray, Beano?'

The student nodded, briefly.

'He didn't look very tough to me,' said Mackie.

'Well he's tougher than me!' the boy exclaimed, suddenly, almost shouting at the policeman. 'He scares me. And he knows people.'

The Aberdonian looked at the boy. 'Was it Ray who gave you that grass, Beano?' he asked, his gentleness gone.

'I bought it in a pub.'

'Don't bullshit me now,' the sergeant snapped, 'or I'm going straight to your Principal. Then it'll be suspension, and your parents will know why. Was it Ray?'

Brian Litster stared at the floor. 'Yes,' he whispered. 'He can get other stuff too.'

'What kind of stuff?' asked Mackie, quietly.

'Pills; diazepam tablets, he says they are. He sells them.'

'And does he take them himself?'

'He smokes a wee bit of grass. He doesn't do anything else, though.

He just sells them; cheap, too. A pint for a pill.'

The boy looked up at Garland. 'Can I go now?'

It was Mackie who nodded. 'Yes, you can go, although I may want to speak to you again, in Edinburgh. Thanks for your co-operation; I mean that.

'Bear this in mind, though; if you were to decide that it might be safer to tell your room-mate about our chat, and warn him, then you'd be guilty of attempting to pervert the course of justice. I'm sure my boss would want to interview you himself about that. I tell you, son, if Ray Weston scares you, then no way do you want to meet DCC Skinner.'

Abruptly, Beano stood and bolted for the door, leaving the two policemen staring at each other across the table. 'Bingo,' said Garland.

'Do you want Weston lifted?' he asked.

'Christ no,' said the superintendent. 'I want him watched, though, every step of the way, as long as he's in town, and I want to know whenever he heads back to Edinburgh. This boy's a very hot property, all of a sudden.'

71

'Sarah?'

She looked up from changing Jazz's Pampers. The infant, his strong legs getting straighter by the day, kicked and struggled as she fastened the pad and slid him into his sleep suit. 'Yes?'

'Can I borrow that brain of yours?'

She picked up her son and held him out at arms' length. 'Sure, if you'll take charge of this fellow for a bit. I know it's Lads' Night, and you have to go in half an hour, but see if you can tire him out first.'

Bob accepted the burden, and without a word, hefted his chortling son on to his shoulder, fireman style. 'I'll bet you'd fancy coming along with me, wouldn't you, pal.' For many years, he had been one of a small select band who gathered in North Berwick every Thursday to practise their limited footballing skills in the Sports Centre games hall.

He stood Jazz on his feet on the nursery floor and rolled a soft rubber ball over to him. 'Let's see what you can do.' The toddler swung his left foot at the ball, missed it completely and fell on his padded bottom.

'Just like your dad,' said Sarah.

'Try the other peg,' said Bob. 'Puskas did okay, and one of his legs was only for standing on.' He retrieved the ball and passed it again, to his son's right. Jazz kicked out again, and made contact. 'There you are. Know what, kid? I think I'll buy a set of goal posts for the back garden, for you and Mark.'

'And for you, as well you know. Now, why do you need my brain?'

He smiled at his wife as he passed the ball back. 'It's to do with the Weston and Murray investigations.'

'You're really getting your teeth into those, aren't you. I wonder if Andy knows what a favour he did you by asking you to take them over from him?'

'He didn't go that far. Like I said, he asked me to "give an overview". I quote.'

'Listen, he knows you even better than you do, in some ways. What he gave you was an open invitation to take over those investigations, and just looking at you, I can tell you're doing just that. Now, what do you want from me?'

Bob rolled the ball into the corner of the nursery, sending Jazz chasing after it. 'I've been thinking about that heroin,' he began. 'The stuff that was used to see Gaynor Weston on her way. We ran out of leads from the hospital pharmacies, and officially, we're satisfied that it didn't come from any of them. Given the priority that has been attached to the investigation up to now, we didn't look at the possibility that it might have come from other than a hospital pharmacy.

'I was thinking about asking other forces for assistance, asking them to check pharmacies in their areas, until we came up with this link between Weston's daughter and Murray's niece. Then Brian Mackie called me this afternoon to say that the boy Raymond's been selling pills up in Furryboots city. That's made me wonder: is there another way that the diamorphine could have been obtained? 'Would you like to think about that while I'm out tonight, and see if you can come up with any theories?'

'Sure,' she said, bending to sweep Jazz up from the floor. 'I've been pondering on that for a while, as a matter of fact. I can give you a workable theory right now. Take someone with a steady hand who's good with a hypo; then give that person access to phials of diamorphine.

If you use the finest needle you could puncture the rubber top of the bottle and draw the heroin into a syringe; it's a clear liquid, so you could leave the needle in place, attach another syringe and simply replace it with water.

'That done, you return the phial to the drugs trolley. No one's going to notice the microdot, for that's all that would show, on the rubber seal. The only person who'll be any the wiser will be the poor patient who's injected with water.'

Bob frowned, as he stroked his son's head gently with his big hand.

'How many phials would it take to kill?'

'Haifa dozen and you'd go out like a light.'

'Yet there was only one puncture mark on Gaynor Weston's thigh, wasn't there?'

'So what?' Jazz was dropping off to sleep, so Sarah's voice was a whisper. 'If you were a doctor, or a nurse, you'd just put a line in and administer them through that, one after another.'