Screen Savers

Chapter 37

They used to hang people in Perth Prison. I’ve heard that for many of them, it was the preferred option to being locked up there for life. For most of that day I was afraid that I was headed there myself, without even the opportunity to be topped.

I called Greg McPhillips, my solicitor in Glasgow, but by that time he was already on his way to Perth under instructions from Primavera.

They put me in a cell, down in the bowels of the building, and left me there for hours. They took all my possessions: my wallet, my watch, my pen, my cellphone, even my belt and shoe laces.

Greg was there within the hour. When he arrived we were allowed a brief meeting in my hotel suite, and I told him exactly what had happened. ‘What does Prim’s Dad say?’ he asked, sat alongside me on the hard bench, with its rudimentary rubber mattress.

‘Last time I heard him he was worried about his vegetable patch. I don’t know if they’ll get any sense out of him, but even if they do, I don’t think he’ll be able to help. I doubt if he could see what was happening at the bar from where he was sitting.’

‘Mmm,’ he muttered. ‘That doesn’t leave me much to work with, then.’ Greg’s bedside manner did nothing to encourage me.

‘What will help, then?’ I asked him.

‘John MacPhee, the fiscal here, did his training period with our firm. He’s still a good friend of my father, and I knew him when he was depute in Glasgow. I’ll try to get to see him before this man Bell does.’

He left, and I was back on my own in that hot stuffy cell. They didn’t even let Prim in to see me. The longer the day wore on, the more convinced I was that I would be spending the night in the slammer. I couldn’t remember whether they’d have to charge me first, but the lack of communication made me feel more and more that that was inevitable anyway.

At mid-day, a young constable brought me a sandwich, a mug of tea, and a copy of the Courier. At three o’clock, he brought me more tea and a copy of the Daily Record. When I asked if I could have the Financial Times with my evening meal, he looked at me blankly.

Then, at twenty-one minutes past five, the door opened again, and the custody sergeant appeared. He handed me my belt and laces. ‘CID want you again,’ he told me. I felt like a possession as I relaced my shoes, relooped my belt, and followed him upstairs, back to the same dull interview room in which I’d been grilled in the morning.

Bell and Slattery were there, but this time, Greg McPhillips was with them. When he slipped me a quick wink I knew it was going to be all right.

‘Hello, Mr Blackstone,’ the DI began. The courtesy of the title confirmed the meaning of Greg’s wink. ‘Have they looked after you all right downstairs?’

I nodded. ‘It was okay. Mind you, the sandwich was a bit curly round the edges. Next time, I’ll have a pizza.’

‘I’ll make a careful note of that, sir.’ He shot me a look which told me quite clearly that he was enjoying this meeting a lot less than our last.

‘It’s been decided that we should release you, Mr Blackstone,’ he said, slowly and, to my ear at least, with reluctance. ‘The fiscal doesn’t want me to charge you at this stage, so you’re free to go, pending further enquiries.’ I knew that the last part was a pure face-saver.

‘Aren’t you going to tell me not to leave town?’ I asked.

‘We know where to find you, sir.’ Bell stood up and glanced at Slattery. ‘See to Mr Blackstone’s release, Tony.’ He gave my solicitor a brief nod and strode from the room.

On the way back to Auchterarder, Greg filled me in on what had happened during the day. He had spoken to his dad’s friend the fiscal, as promised, and had given me a glowing character reference.

Mike Dylan had been a big help too. Prim had told him what had happened, and he had phoned Bell, making it clear that there was no way I could have sabotaged Susie’s car, since I hadn’t been out of the room for more than a minute during all the time they’d been with us. I found out later that evening, when I phoned the man himself to arrange to see him next morning, that he had also told Bell that by arresting me he was compromising a Special Branch operation, and that he’d better let me go before he compromised his own pension. . a lie, he admitted, but it was one that I appreciated.

However the lion’s share of credit for my release went to my nephew Jonathan. He had been interviewed, in his mother’s presence, by Bell and Slattery; they had tried hard to trip him up, but he had been adamant that I had never left his side in the Castle, that Colin had run off on his own, and that there was no way I had pushed him into the dungeon.

‘The police case was always founded on the closeness of those two incidents, and your involvement in them both,’ said Greg. ‘When that collapsed there was no way John MacPhee would have gone to court on the Auchterarder business alone, not without really strong evidence against you.’

‘Far less without any evidence against me,’ I added. I must have sounded a bit sour, for he glanced at me.

‘Don’t hold it against John,’ he protested. ‘In the real world the police will always go for the easy option, you know that.’

‘Sure I do. That’s not what’s pissing me off: today’s history as far as I’m concerned. No, the trouble is that now I’m back where I started this morning. If I’m not the mad bastard behind all these things that have been happening around me, then someone else is. But given Bell’s reaction when I put that to him, the police will never take me seriously.

‘No, I’m on my own. I tell you, pal, you don’t know the chance you’re taking just being in this car with me.’