‘But if it wasn’t him, why did he leg it?’ said Donaldson.
McIlhenney shrugged. ‘He thought he was done. His wife would have been worse than useless as an alibi, and there’s no-one in Peffermill would lie in the witness box for him. I reckon he must have panicked.’
The Superintendent looked up at the two Constables, at that moment the least popular men in St Leonard’s. ‘Okay. You can go.’ As the door closed on them once more, he looked up at McIlhenney.
‘Of course,’ he said, slowly, ‘we could always tell Bridger and Fisher that they were wrong, and go ahead with the ID parade.’
The Sergeant gazed back at him, trying to read his expression. ‘No, sir,’ he said quietly. ‘Not we. I couldn’t tell them that, when I know they’re not.’
With a sigh, Donaldson nodded. ‘In that case, Neil, get a photographer up here to take a shot of the bruise on my leg. If I can do nothing else, I’ll charge the bastard with police assault and stick him up in front of the Sheriff on Monday morning. With his record that should earn him six months.’
‘Small consolation,’ muttered the Sergeant.
‘It’s the best we’re going to do. But maybe we’ll get a result with Ricky McCartney. Maybe your Miss Smith will identify him.’
McIlhenney shook his head. ‘McCartney’s a gorilla, sir. No, the old lady saw someone fair-haired and well-dressed, carrying a Safeway bag, which contained, no doubt, a binliner and four other Safeway bags.
‘She didn’t see Tommy Heenan, okay. But she did see someone who looks bloody like him.’
45
The roar of the crowd in the rebuilt Tynecastle engulfed them as Maggie Rose turned off grey-tenemented Gorgie Road, and parked in the enclosure towards which she had been directed by a uniformed officer. It rose and fell, a joining of two giant voices each singing out its alarm, expectation, disappointment and exultation.
As they reached the entrance to the main grandstand the sound rose in a crescendo and became a single, sustained shriek of joy. ‘Somebody’s scored,’ said Sammy Pye, a closet Rangers supporter.
There was a lone policeman on duty at the gate, together with a security guard employed by Heart of Midlothian Football Club, or the Jam Tarts, as they are known by the entire population of Edinburgh; some friends, some foes, very few indifferent.
Rose and Pye showed their warrant cards. ‘We’re looking for Jimmy Lee,’ the Chief Inspector said to the doorman.
‘Ye’ll no’ get him till time up, hen. He’ll be up in his seat among the Willie Bauld Restaurant guests.’
Maggie fixed him with the special steely glare which she reserved for men who called her ‘hen’. ‘If I want him, I’ll get him,’ she said, then paused. ‘But we’ll wait till full-time. How long is there to go?’
‘About thirty-five minutes,’ said Pye.
‘On yis go through and watch the rest,’ said the steward. ‘There’s no seats, but if yis go through that door on the left,’ he pointed through the entrance hall, ‘it’ll take ye out on to the pitch. Yis can watch the rest frae the entrance tae the tunnel. Yis’ll find Superintendent Johnston there.’ Rose nodded. Fred Johnston was commander of the police division which took in Tynecastle.
‘S’a great game so far. The Jambos have just gone one up.’
‘How do you know who scored?’ Maggie asked. ‘You’ve never left the door.’
‘Listen,’ said the man, putting hand to ear.
Inside the stadium, the great single voice of Jambo support boomed out an anthem.
Can ye hear the Rangers sing?
Cannae hear a fuckin’ thing,
Nana Na Na Na Na!
‘Ahh,’ said the Chief Inspector. She and Pye followed the steward’s directions. A narrow passageway led them past two rooms from which emerged an overpowering liniment smell, then round to the right and up a slight incline towards the field.
As they emerged into the open air of the arena, floodlit even in the daylight hours, the atmosphere sent shivers through them. Opposite and on either side the three newly-built cantilevered grandstands towered a hundred feet above their heads, each packed tight, blue colours predominant on the left, maroon on the right. Behind them, the crowd in the old stand bayed for more Rangers’ blood, as on the field, Hearts pressed home their advantage against the league leaders, looking to spoil a million football-pool coupons and fixed-odds betting lines.
As Rose and Pye stood there, suddenly overwhelmed, a tall uniformed man, carrying a walkie-talkie and wearing an overcoat and silver-braided, peaked cap bore sternly down upon them. His expression softened as he recognised the red-headed Rose. ‘Hello, Maggie,’ he said. ‘What brings you here?’
‘We need to interview someone called Jimmy Lee. The doorman sent us through here to wait for time up.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Superintendent Johnston, leaning close to make himself heard. ‘But you can’t stay here.’ He pointed to his left, past the Rangers management team in their technical area, who were leaping, jumping and gesticulating manically as they urged on their players. ‘There are two seats down beside the ambulance men. Sit yourselves down there. Go back to the entrance at full-time and I’ll have Jimmy Lee brought to you.’
‘Thanks,’ said Rose. ‘Has it been a good game?’
‘Wouldn’t know,’ said Johnston. ‘The game’s the last thing I can watch.’ They realised for the first time that the man was as tense as a drawn bowstring. ‘I’ve got about eighteen thousand people in here, most of them hysterical, and they’ll all be funnelling out into tight exit roads at the end.
‘Rangers need at least a point out of this game, and if they don’t get it, I’ll have ten thousand very unhappy Bluenoses to control.’
‘I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you,’ shouted the Chief Inspector, over a sudden scream as the Rangers goalkeeper pulled off a seemingly impossible save.
They settled into their seats beside the first aid team, who were Hearts supporters to a man. As the game wore on the home side continued to press their advantage, looking for the game-winning second goal. The champions’ rock-solid defence seemed on the verge of collapse several times, but on each occasion, as if heeding the cries of their support, they simply refused to surrender.
Gradually, as the Hearts players began to tire, they began to command more of the ball. But the home-bred Tynecastle defenders were as heroic as their cosmopolitan counterparts, and they dug in desperately to hold on to their winning lead.
The referee’s whistle was almost in his mouth to blow full-time when the ball was swept out of midfield and down the right towards the Gorgie end and Hearts goal. Danish, Dutch and English genius combined. A perfectly weighted cross curved towards the far post, where, defying both age and gravity, Rangers’ legendary striker rose, leaping and hanging in the air like a salmon fighting its way back to its spawning ground against the river’s flow, to send a header bulleting into the back of the net for the equaliser.
Half of the crowd leapt up, waving colours in triumph, screaming their joy across the floodlit stadium. The rest sank back into their plastic seats, howling their disappointment and wringing their club colours between their hands.
The restart was a formality. As soon as the ball was in motion, three loud blasts of the referee’s whistle ended the game. Rose and Pye stood with the rest and applauded as the drained, exhausted players left the field, shaking hands as professional colleagues, the animosities of battle forgotten.
Maggie turned and looked up, for the first time, into the main grandstand. She scanned the crowd until, in the central area behind the directors’ box, she caught sight of Brian Mackie. He looked more sombre than ever.