Thursday legends

69

Martin swung the MGF into his driveway, smiling as he saw the raised garage door and Karen's car inside. 'We'll need to do something about that,' he chuckled to himself. 'The F-reg Nova lives outdoors.'

As he eased himself out of the sports car, a voice — a soft, familiar voice — called out behind him. 'How are you, Andy?' He had hoped to avoid the moment, but he knew in his heart that it was better faced sooner than later.

'Hello, Rhian,' he answered. 'I'm fine. How are you?'

'Okay.' He was relieved when she smiled. 'I can't help but notice, though, that you're a hell of a fast worker.'

He looked down, grinning himself. 'No. You're wrong there; it took me far too long to work out how I felt about Karen. I'd been taking her for granted, behaving towards her like an absolute shit. I wasn't much of a gentleman with you either; I'm sorry for that.'

'Don't be.' Her smile widened. 'I chased you like the strumpet I am. I'm sorry too, for letting you down like I did with Paul Blacklock.'

'Ahh, don't worry about that; I was no angel either.'

She gave him a long, meaningful look. 'I don't mean about fucking him; I mean about spilling the state secrets. That was a really stupid thing to do and it compromised you. Look, don't feel guilty about me or anything; it was just a fling for both of us. You concentrate on being happy; I haven't spoken to your lady yet, but she looks terrific.'

He sighed with a sort of relief, as she turned towards her front door. 'Thanks, Rhian,' he told her. 'Just don't go calling yourself a strumpet again; not around me at any rate. Hey, Juliet's not mad with me is she?'

'Only because you didn't give her a seeing-to,' the girl laughed. 'No. Mum's full of herself just now. She's making noises about going to live with Spike and leaving this place to us. I don't know if I fancy being chaperone to my kid sister, though.' He voice dropped until it became a confidential whisper. 'Between you and me, I fear she prefers girls to boys. She has this pal, Sophie Heard: I walked into her room one day and caught them doing something very naughty to each other. Tongues and things…

'A few weeks back, Margot got very mopey. Eventually she told me that Sophie's father had found out about them too; now he's sent her away to sea, or something, and told Margot to keep away from her when she gets back.' Rhian gave a mock sigh. 'Blood will out, I suppose. She always was Daddy's little girl.'

'How is your father these days?' he asked, casually. 'Do you ever see him?'

'No,' she replied, a little wistfully. 'He's living happily ever after.' She waved goodbye and stepped inside.

Andy scratched his chin as he walked into the garage, closing the door behind him and entering the house through the internal, fire-resistant door. Karen was waiting for him at the top of the stairs, in the living-room doorway, smiling broadly. He dropped his briefcase, took her in his arms and kissed her.

'D'you still love me then?' he asked, as they came up for air.

'Too bloody right. Guess what? I've got a teaching job. It's only a short-term contract, covering maternity leave for a girl in a school up in Oxgangs, but it's a foot in the door at least. I start after the holidays.'

'Good for you. In that case we'd better get down to planning the wedding: it'll have to be mid-July if we're going to spend a month on honeymoon like we discussed. That shouldn't clash with Bob's plans. He's taking the family to Spain for the last week in June and the first half of July.'

He picked up his briefcase once more and tossed in into the living room, before going upstairs to change. 'Have you got more work in there?' Karen asked as he reappeared, in jeans and a white tee-shirt.

'The latest statements and officer reports in the Shearer case: they're my reading for tonight. I'll chuck it in an hour or two though. Maybe we can catch a movie somewhere.'

'Deal. You get started, I'll whip up something exciting for supper.'

He opened his briefcase and took out the Shearer folder, homing straight in on the summary of Dan Pringle's interviews with Janine Bryant and Andrew John, and Skinner's note of his telephone conversation with Mitchell Laidlaw in Hong Kong. 'Oh yes, Mr Heard, you're well in the frame,' he murmured.

His eyebrows rose in surprise as he read Jack McGurk's report of the fund manager's lunch-time excursion, and his meeting with Margot Lewis at the zoo. Superintendent Pringle had added a note, recording his theory that a sexual relationship had existed between Heard and his daughter's friend, and that he had been forced to buy her silence.

Martin smiled as he read. 'Close, Dan,' he muttered, 'but no cigar. If Heard was paying Margot off, he was probably protecting his daughter.'

He had almost finished his reading when Karen reappeared from the kitchen, carrying a tray with a bowl of cold melon-and-ginger soup, setting them on two occasional tables which she had placed in front of the sofa.

'Well?' she asked, as he put the folder back in his briefcase and turned his attention to their meal. 'Any sign of the big breakthrough today?'

'Not much. We got into Alec Smith's safe and found, as far as any of us could see, no more than the sad ravings of an obsessed, lonely man.'

'No link between the two murders, then?'

'Other than Bob's football connection, you mean? No, none that I could see. There are a hell of a lot of threads in this investigation, love, but none of them appear to be interconnected. It still looks as if that bastard Scotland killed Alec. As for the Diddler, on the face of it his arch-enemy Luke Heard is the main candidate but there's no evidence against him, not a scrap.'

They ate in silence for a while; when the soup was finished, they took the bowls back through to the kitchen and returned with plates of pasta, with a creamy forestiere sauce.

'You're no closer to an arrest with Shearer, then?' Karen asked, as they neared the end of their meal.

'No. The only positive thing that's happened today came from a chat Dan Pringle had with a barmaid in Harry's. She told him that she saw the Diddler on the Tuesday before he was killed. He came in on his own, then got into conversation with a girl. Eventually they left together, she thought she heard Shearer say something about the Bar Roma.

'The staff there were pretty vague, but Dan made them check their credit-card slips and receipts. They came up with an answer; one minestrone, one pasta starter, two Calzones, two cappuccinos and a litre of house red.'

She grinned. 'Any garlic bread?'

'Not that Dan mentions.'

'He must have scored, then. Fresh breath in the clinches, and all that.'

'Whether he did or not, we need to talk to that girl. But we have no description, and the barmaid is sure she hasn't been in Harry's before or since that night.'

He forked up the last of his linguine, then leaned back on the sofa. 'Okay, enough shop. You want to go out? Anything you fancy seeing?'

She slid closer and laid her head on his shoulder. 'There's a new Miles Grayson movie on at the Odeon…' She paused. 'But to be honest, in the dark I prefer you to him.'

He laughed. 'Since you put it that way…'

'Oh, I do. You go and open a nice bottle of wine and we'll just have a quiet night in, talking and looking at the paintings.'

'Okay.'

He went back to the kitchen and chose a chunky Thomas Hardy Shiraz from the wine-rack. When he returned, Karen was standing, brow furrowed, looking intently at one of the pictures. It was a vivid oil of North Berwick beach, looking back from the sea.

'How long have you had this?' she asked.

'It's one of the newer ones: done by a local artist. I bought it in the Westgate Gallery. There should be a date on it.'

She peered at the bottom corner. 'Two years old. So that will be Alec Smith's house, there, at a time when he was actually living in it.' 'I suppose so.'

'In that case,' she murmured, pointing at a small, predominantly red, image which, as his gaze followed the direction of her finger, seemed to spring out from the painting as never before. 'What the hell's that?'