Gallery Whispers

78

'I'll bet you wish you were next door, Raymond,' barked Clan Pringle, looking round the drab, windowless room. 'Next door with your nice girlfriend and that nice Mr Mackie.'

He glared across the table at the boy. 'Well you're no',' he snapped.

'You're in here with me, and you're not getting out until you tell me what I want to know.'

'That remains to be seen, superintendent,' said the solicitor. The man was frowning. More than a bit pissed off to be hauled away from the golf club, even on a wet day, the policeman surmised.

'Listen, Mr Lesser,' he rumbled. 'You've got a right to be here, but don't you think that you're running this interview. Don't you think that for one fucking minute. We're in charge here, Sergeant Steele and I.' He glanced to his left.

'Now, let's cut out all the crap. Ray, son. Where did you get the grass?'

The tall youth lifted his eyes from the table. 'You don't need to admit anything,' the solicitor whispered, but his client waved him away with a long slim hand.

'From a guy I was at school with. I bought it from him.'

'Are you going to tell us his name.'

'No. He's a friend.'

Pringle shrugged. 'Fair enough; you posh school lads stick together.

Where did you get the pills?'

Raymond Weston looked back at him across the table. There was something about the lad, Pringle admitted to himself. A sort of wild, rangy presence, not physically threatening to a grown man perhaps, but he could understand how he was able to dominate his roommate Beano, and to attract a tasty wee girl like that Andrina, even though she was a few years older than him.

'I took them from my dad's study.'

'Did you sell them?'

'Not exactly. I swapped them for beer.'

The superintendent nodded. 'Right. You can regard this as an official caution. Don't do it again, understood, or you'll be banged up in Aberdeen, rather than studying there. You'd hate that, son; inside a week your arsehole would feel as if it had been cored like an apple.'

The solicitor stared at him across the table, not knowing whether to be relieved, astonished, or to be flattered that his mere presence had made the formidable detective crumble. 'Well, if that's it.' He began to stand. 'Come on Raymond. I'll take you home.'

'Sit down, man,' Pringle growled. 'Don't you know when the decks are being cleared. I'm going on to the real business now. Can you guess what that might be?'

The tall youth leaned back in his chair. 'I could try,' he said. 'I'm bright enough to know that you don't send two superintendents out on a Saturday over a wee bit of smoke and a couple of junior aspirins. I'd say this has something to do with my mum and Andrina's uncle.'

'Why would you say that?'

'Because I can't think of anything else.'

'As it happens, you're right. We've got evidence that both of them were helped to kill themselves. Wrap that any way you like, it means murder. Now wipe that smug look off your face and get serious, because there's only two people in the frame for it; you andAndrina.'

'Now wait a minute' Raymond exclaimed.

'I'm telling you son. Someone gave your mother the jab that killed her, someone did the same for Uncle Anthony. Your girl's a nurse with access to drugs. Where else would we look?'

'But you're… That's crap!' The boy was rattled, at last, Stevie Steele saw.

'Convince us. Ray,' he said quietly. 'Where were you when your mum died. We know you weren't in Aberdeen.'

'I was with Andrina. I spent the night with her in Edinburgh.'

'So why didn't you tell us that right away?'

'Because my dad thinks I see too much other. I didn't want to start another row.'

'And what about the night Mr Murray died? You saw him then, didn't you?'

Ray Weston nodded. 'Andie and I went to see him in the evening.

He'd phoned her and asked us to come round.'

'So?'

'So we had a coffee with him, Andie fixed him a gin and tonic and we left. With him alive!'

'When was this?'

'We were gone by about half past eight.'

'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.