Gallery Whispers

'And afterwards?'

'I took her home.'

'And after that, what did you do? How do we know that you didn't go back on your own later and help the old man on his way.'

The boy shook his head. 'I can't tell you that.'

'You'd better, son.'

Ray's lips set into a tight line. 'No way.'

'Do you want to be charged with murder?'

'Now just a minute' the lawyer began.

'Shut up,' snapped Steele. 'Do you, Ray?'

'No.' The youth looked desperate. 'But I can't tell you. I was with someone else.'

'Another girl?'

He nodded.

'You must give us her name.'

'You don't understand. I can't.'

'You've got no choice.'

'I have.' He pointed to the tape recorder, its red light on. 'I will not say her name into that thing.'

Pringle shoved a notebook and pen across the table. 'Write it down then,' he said, darkly, 'or you are locked up. Name and address.'

Raymond Weston sat in silence for over a minute, fidgeting, staring at the table top and at the book. Eventually, at last, he pulled it towards him, picked up the pen and scribbled two lines on the blank page.

Pringle reached across and picked it up. As he read the words, his thick black eyebrows came together.

'Oh shit,' he said, heavily, passing the note to Steele.

'Oh shit,' said the sergeant.

79

'You took your time,' said Pringle as Mackie stepped into his office.

'I'd to stop to get the girl a lawyer.'

'Aye, I thought that might be it. What did she have to say for herself in the end?'

'She said that when Gaynor died, she and the boy were spending the night at her flat. But the flatmates were on nights, so there were no witnesses to that. She says that they went to see her uncle early on last Sunday evening and that afterwards Raymond took her home and went back to Aberdeen.

'What about you?'

The burly Pringle's moustache drooped mournfully. 'The first part of that agrees with his story. We've got that DNA trace, haven't we?'

Mackie nodded. 'Then we should take samples off the kids in that case, just to see if either of them matches up. If they're lying about that-'

'I don't think the DNA will help us much even if it does turn out to be a match for one of them. We couldn't actually prove when it was left on the glass, and the kids could argue that they had been there on another day. Anyway, Andrina seemed like a pretty straight girl to me.

I didn't think she was lying.'

'You'll better hope she was, chum. The boy's version of last Sunday varies from hers. He says that after he left her, when the old man died, he was with another girl. Young Raymond's got something, or so it seems; I just hope he turns out to be a lying wee bastard.'

'Why?'

'Because this is who he says he was with.' He handed the notebook to Mackie.

The younger man ran a hand over his domed head as he looked at the page.

'Oh shit. Who's going to break this news?'

'Toss you for it.'

'No, Clan,' he said, 'we'd better do it together; first thing Monday morning. Meanwhile, I suggest that we take saliva swabs from these two for the DNA comparison, then let them go… to await developments.'

80

'What's wrong. Pops?' asked Alex as she stood in the doorway of the Deputy Chief Constable's office. 'You've got me worried sick. Have you got bad news for me? Has something happened to Sarah? Has she miscarried? Or is it one of the boys?'

Skinner sat at his desk, gazing at his daughter, unsmiling. 'Sarah's fine, and so are the kids. Grab yourself a coffee, sit down, and calm down.'

'Calm down!' she exclaimed. 'I'm no sooner off the plane from my holiday and through the door than you phone me and tell me to meet you in the office — on a Saturday afternoon — and you won't tell me why.' She looked tanned, but tired, as she filled a mug from the filter machine on the side table.

'Early start?' he asked.

'Yes we'd to be at the airport for eight; that meant getting up at half six.' She moved across to the group of low chairs in the corner of the big room.

'No, don't sit there,' said Skinner. He pointed to a chair which faced his across the desk. She shrugged, and did as he said.

'Did you have a good holiday?' he asked. Alex looked at him.

There was an edge to the question, something behind it. She sensed a bomb waiting to explode.

'Yes,' she replied, looking him straight in the eye, 'we did. Now what the hell is this? Why are you sitting there like a smoking volcano?'

There was something about his daughter's anger which made him back off slightly. 'Sorry,' he said. 'I promised myself I'd keep my cool. It's just that I've been sitting on this for the best part of a week.

I thought about dealing with it right away. I thought about hauling you back from Marbella, in fact.'

She glared at him, astonished, but still on the front foot. 'And why would you have done that? What right would you have had?'

'In the circumstances I'd have had every right. My reasons for not doing it were personal, not professional.'

'Ah, I'm your daughter so I got to finish my holiday. This mystery gets deeper and deeper.'

'Actually,' said Skinner, 'I wasn't thinking about you at all. I was sparing someone else's feelings.' He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, and engaged her aggressive stare with one of his own. 'I don't like it when my daughter's name is given to me as an alibi witness by someone who's under suspicion in a double murder investigation. I find it really, bloody, embarrassing — as did the officers involved, especially when the man in charge of the inquiry, their direct line commander, is her fiance.

'Like I said, I've been sitting on this for a week, waiting for you to get back from Marbella, so we could have this conversation. I'm actually way out of order here, you know. By rights it's Clan Pringle and Brian Mackie who should be interviewing you, in a smelly wee room at St Leonard's, or Torphichen Place. But I'm bending the rules again, just for you. So please, love, do one thing for me before we go any further: get off your high horse.'

But her anger had vanished already, to be replaced by a look of concern. 'Okay, Pops, I'm sorry. Now tell me what this is about.'

Skinner picked up his mug from its coaster, held it up to his mouth in both hands, and sighed. He took a sip then, deliberately, put it back down. 'Last week,' he said, 'Clan and Brian were on a joint investigation into the deaths of two people, in very similar circumstances. We were treating it as murder.

'They identified two suspects, one male, one female; there was a very strong circumstantial case against them. Their defence in the first case was pretty poor; they said they were together at the time, miles away from the scene. That was all; no independent witness to corroborate their story.

'But when it came to the second death, the boy produced an alibi.

He said that around midnight, when it happened, he was in bed with someone other than his girlfriend… with you, as it happens. The lad's name's Raymond Weston. Let's see, it was the Sunday before you went to Marbella.

'So? Is that true?'

Suddenly, Alex could feel her heart hammering, her pulse racing.

She gasped, then took a deep breath, to steady herself, then another, and a third. He was gazing at her across the desk, not angrily now, for he had his answer. The detective, the man she had never looked in the eye before, was gone. Her anxious father sat in his place.

'Yes,' she sighed. 'It's true.'

'Okay,' said Bob. 'The boy's off the hook. There was a DNA sample left at the other scene anyway. It didn't match either of them.'

It was his turn to sigh. 'What is this, Alex, with this lad?' he asked, wearily. 'I know you and Andy were having a bad time, but I thought you were still committed to each other.'