Kit looked up from the morning paper. “What’s wrong?” he’d said.
“I just smashed my laptop casing,” she’d said. “I can’t believe I did that. Can I borrow yours to take to Edinburgh?”
He’d been back in moments, zipping up the laptop bag, far calmer than she’d have been in the circumstances. It was a measure of the toll the previous days’ anxieties had taken that so small an accident had ruffled her so thoroughly.
But at least she had a laptop to work with. She’d already used it on the flight, to record her comparisons of the death threat letters and the flyer Redford had distributed at the press conference. There was no question in her mind that the same person had composed all the documents. And she could not rule out the possibility that the letter-writer had become sufficiently obsessed with his grievances to turn his words into action. If it came to it, she would so testify in court.
Now she walked briskly from the small plane to the terminal across tarmac greasy with damp. Inside, she shook her head to free the sparkles of raindrops from her hair and followed the exit signs. The walk from the gate to the arrivals hall seemed interminable, endless corridors turning back on themselves in the kind of maze that experimental rats were better at solving than frazzled commuters.
Eventually, she emerged into the bustle of the airport. She looked around and saw a man carrying a piece of white card with CAMERON neatly inscribed on it. He was a wiry, dark-haired whippet of a man whose sharp suit hung from his shoulders as if it was still on the hanger. With his foot tapping impatiently and his restless eyes flicking across the concourse, he looked more like a villain expecting a tug than a police officer. Fiona crossed to him, put down her overnight bag and touched his elbow. “I’m Fiona Cameron,” she said. “Are you waiting for me?”
The man ducked his head. “Aye, that’s right.” He folded the card and stuffed it in his jacket pocket, then extended a hand to her. “I’m Detective Sergeant Murray. Dougie Murray. Pleased to meet you.” He pumped her hand vigorously. “I’ve got the car outside.” He released her hand and walked off.
Fiona adjusted the strap of the laptop on her shoulder, picked up her bag and followed. Outside the door was an unmarked saloon car. Murray gave a wave to the traffic warden patrolling the kerb and made for the driver’s door. Fiona opened the back door of the car and deposited her bags, then got in beside him in the front. He was already gunning the engine. “The Super sends his apologies. Meeting came up that he couldnae give the body-swerve. I’m to take you to St. Leonard’s. That’s the Divisional HQ where the investigation’s based. The Super’ll meet you there. Is that OK?”
“I’d like to go to my hotel on the way,” Fiona said firmly. “Only to check in and drop my bags off. I don’t want to be lugging my overnight bag around all day,” she added pointedly.
“No, right, ‘course you don’t. We’ve put you in Channings, so we’ll have to make a wee detour.” He spoke in a tone of satisfaction, as if it had made his day to have to plan something more creative than a straight run back into town.
They swung off the ring road at the Art-Deco Stakis casino, cutting through a chunk of green belt to join Queensferry Road. Fiona stared at the traffic without registering anything, her thoughts occupied with Kit. He’d be sitting at his desk working, the CD player loaded with whatever was the flavour of the moment. REM and Radiohead would certainly be in the stack somewhere. Maybe The Fall, maybe the Manics. He’d be alternating between bashing the keyboard and staring out of the window, choosing work to keep his personal demons at bay. But now she had to put him out of her mind and concentrate on what she’d come here to do.
The bungalows suddenly gave way to tall sandstone terraces set back from the main road, elegant Victorian family homes now mostly divided into flats with huge windows and high ceilings to swallow heat. They made an abrupt left turn on to granite setts, the car wheels rumbling as Murray swung it round the next corner. “Here we go,” he announced, double-parking outside a blond sandstone building with a canopy and a pair of ornamental lampposts. “I’ll wait in the car,” he said. Fiona wasn’t surprised.
The elegance inside matched the sandblasted facade. She checked in and followed a youth up an elegant staircase. Her room was on the first floor, looking out over the wide gardens that divided the street. Through the smirr of rain, she could see the steely ribbon of the Firth of Forth. Over on her left, a vast looming gothic pile with twin towers dominated the streets spread below her. “What’s that building?” she asked the porter just as he was leaving.
“That’s Fettes College,” he said. “You know? Where Tony Blair went.”
It explained a lot, she thought.
Fiona unpacked her case and made her way downstairs. Ten minutes later they’d cleared the Georgian New Town, dipped down to cross the Cowgate and zipped up The Pleasance to a modern building that housed A Division of Lothian and Borders Police. She followed Murray indoors and along a corridor. He opened a door with a flourish and said, “I’ll tell the Super you’ve arrived. You’ll be working in here, so you might as well get yourself settled in.”
As he turned away, Fiona decided it was time to start asserting herself. “A cup of coffee would be nice,” she said without a smile.
“Aye, right. Milk? Sugar?”
“Milk, no sugar, please.”
He turned on his heel and marched off, jacket flapping with the speed of his stride. Fiona turned into the room. It was surprisingly pleasant, if small. There was a pale wooden table with a desk chair in front of it. Two standard armless upholstered chairs sat against one wall. There was a small side table with a phone, a jug of water and two clean glasses. Best of all, there was a window. She could see across the car park and, beyond the wall and the rooftops, a slice of Salisbury Crag just about hanging on to its green tones through the rain.
Fiona dumped the laptop on the desk and got down on her knees to find the phone point. She was just plugging in the adapter for her modem cable when the door opened. A pair of stocky legs in trousers that strained over the thighs came towards her. Fiona leaned back so she could see the man over the desk. The sight jolted her memory. A picture formed in her mind like an image on photographic paper swimming into definition in the developer bath. A stocky man with startling red hair and a freckled face ruddy with the East Coast winds. Pale-blue eyes fringed with unusually dark lashes. A button nose and a pinched cherub’s mouth. Detective Sergeant Alexander Galloway of life Police. Instantly she was transported back a dozen years to a dark and dreary pub in St. Andrews where he’d agreed to meet for a drink so she could pick his brains about Lesley’s murder. He hadn’t been involved with the case initially, but when it had come up for review six months after the event, he’d been one of the officers assigned to it. He’d been able to tell her nothing new.
Now she gaped in shock. She hadn’t made the connection when Duvall had explained that Detective Superintendent Sandy Galloway was the officer in charge of the inquiry into Drew Shand’s murder. But there could be no doubt. The red hair had faded to a dull gingerish grey, and his flushed face had developed a purplish tinge that would worry his GP, had he ever found time to visit the surgery. But the eyes were the same pale blue, outlined with those remarkable dark lashes. The snub nose was a Jackson Pollock of red veins, and the mouth looked more crimped with disapproval than she remembered. But then, that’s what a dozen years at the sharp end of policing would do to a man, she thought. He looked down at her and gave a little smile. “No, no, Doctor, you’ve got it all wrong. It’s us that are on our knees to you this time,” he said genially.