The Impossible Dead

25

Professor John Martin – JDM to friends and colleagues – lived in a chic new-build apartment block behind Edinburgh Zoo. Although the evening temperature had dropped, he was happy to allow Fox a few moments on the balcony.

‘Can you hear them?’ he asked.

Fox nodded. Animals: snuffles and bellows and squawks.

‘You can smell them sometimes, too,’ the professor said. ‘Anyone round here with a garden is prone to pester the zoo for manure. Amongst other things, it has certain rebarbative qualities.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Scares domestic cats – stops them crapping in your flower beds.’

The third-floor flat didn’t quite have a view into the zoo itself, but Fox could see the outline of the Pentland Hills to the south, and hear the traffic on Corstorphine Road. Professor Martin had moved indoors again, so Fox followed suit, sliding the door shut. Classical music was playing, but just barely audible: it sounded modern and minimalist. The open-plan room boasted a wall of packed bookshelves and a cream leather suite. An archway led to a small kitchen of shining chrome and mahogany panelling.

‘Nice place,’ Fox commented. ‘Been here long?’

‘Couple of years.’ Martin had poured them both drinks – red wine for him, sparkling water for Fox. ‘We downsized when our offspring flew the nest.’ Martin swilled the wine around his glass and tested it with his nose. ‘I admit I’m intrigued – tell me how you found me.’

Fox gave a shrug which he hoped looked modest. ‘I spent the weekend surfing online: Scottish militancy in the 1980s. Your name kept coming up. When I saw you’d written a book on the subject…’

‘Been out of print for years,’ Martin stressed. ‘It was my doctoral thesis.’

Fox reckoned that would be about right. Martin could only be in his mid-forties – tall, toned and handsome. Fox had spotted a tennis racquet in the hall, and a photo of Martin with some trophy he’d won. The book had been published in 1992…

‘Written in the late eighties?’ Fox speculated.

‘Finished in 1990,’ Martin confirmed. ‘But you’ve still not explained how you found me.’

‘Your online biography said you taught at Edinburgh University.’ Fox gave another shrug. ‘But before calling them, I thought I’d try the telephone directory.’

Martin chuckled. ‘Easy when you know how.’ He raised his glass in a toast. ‘But I need to confess, I’ve probably forgotten a lot of that book. My specialism has shifted in the years since.’

‘Scottish politics,’ Fox reeled off, ‘constitutional procedure, parliament and protocol…’

Martin offered up another toast.

‘Probably a wise move on your part,’ Fox concluded. ‘Not so many paramilitaries about these days.’

Martin smiled. ‘The lesson of Northern Ireland – bring your terrorists into the fold. They end up wearing suits and running the country.’

‘Does that hold for Scotland?’

Martin considered this. ‘I’m not absolutely sure. The SNP polished up its act, got itself a leader with charisma to fit the rhetoric. Devolution provided a rostrum. No need for grievance.’

‘Plenty of grievances in the eighties.’

‘And in the seventies,’ Martin added. ‘With roots stretching back much further.’ He paused. ‘I’m sure I can find you a spare copy of the magnum opus.’

‘I’ve already ordered one,’ Fox confessed.

‘Ah, the internet again?’

‘I think it’s a review copy.’

‘That gives it a certain rarity value – my publishers didn’t do much in the way of promotion.’ Professor Martin paused. ‘Is it to do with the bombs?’

‘Sir?’

‘Peebles and Lockerbie? Surely no one thinks the SNLA and its ilk are back?’

‘One of my colleagues asked much the same thing. But I doubt anyone’s looking in that direction. It’s certainly not the reason I’m here. I want to ask you about Francis Vernal.’

Martin took a sip of wine and was thoughtful. ‘A man I wish I’d met,’ he eventually commented. ‘His speeches read well, but to hear him was something else – a few recordings exist, you know. And some film footage, too.’

Fox gave a nod.

‘Has something come to light? Some new evidence?’

‘It’s more in the way of a personal interest.’

‘Not official, then?’

‘Semi-official, let’s say.’

Martin nodded and seemed lost in thought again. ‘I had the devil of a job, you know,’ he said at last. ‘One morning, I got the feeling someone had been in my flat and had taken a look at a few chapters. Then, when the thesis was placed in the university library, someone stole it. It was hardly there a week…’ He shook his head. ‘I was almost starting to believe the conspiracy theories.’

‘Up until then you’d dismissed them?’

‘Francis Vernal was a heavy drinker in a bad marriage. Nobody could be surprised at how things turned out.’

‘Did you interview his widow for your book?’

‘She wouldn’t see me.’

‘How did you do your research?’

‘In what sense, Inspector?’

The music had finished playing. Martin lifted a tiny white remote-control unit from the coffee table and the same sequence of tunes started again.

‘You tried talking to Mrs Vernal – that makes it sound “hands on”. So I’m wondering if you managed to talk to any of the actual groups.’

‘A few fellow travellers and sympathisers. I wrote to all of them.’

‘And?’

‘Almost none got back to me, so I tried again – same thing happened.’ He paused. ‘What has this got to do with Francis Vernal?’

‘Wasn’t he rumoured to be a banker of sorts for some of the groups?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m trying to build up a picture of him.’ It was Fox’s turn to pause. ‘Do you think he took his own life?’

‘Either that, or his wife had him killed.’

‘Why would she do that?’

‘Maybe to protect all her lovers – or because her husband was involved with someone.’

‘She says the papers made up all those stories about her being unfaithful.’

Martin’s eyebrows lifted a little. ‘You’ve spoken to her?’ He sounded intrigued and impressed. Another toast was made, this time with an empty glass. He went into the kitchen for a refill. Fox waited for him to return.

‘Did you turn up anything at all linking Vernal to these terrorist groups?’ he asked.

‘He would doubtless have called them “freedom fighters” – either that or “the resistance”.’ Martin went back to swirling his wine. ‘Anecdotal stuff only,’ he eventually admitted. ‘People would mention his name. There were minutes of meetings – usually in code, but easy enough to read. I think they often referred to him as “Rumpole”.’

‘From the TV show?’

‘A fellow lawyer, you see.’

Fox nodded his understanding. ‘So he attended meetings?’

‘Yes.’

‘Maybe even led those meetings?’

‘He was never mentioned as a leader. You’ve heard of Donald MacIver?’

Fox nodded: another name gleaned from the internet. ‘He’s in Carstairs these days.’ Carstairs: the maximum-security psychiatric facility.

‘Which is why I failed to get an interview. MacIver led the Dark Harvest Commando. He almost certainly knew Francis Vernal…’ Martin paused. ‘Are you suggesting Vernal was killed by one of the groups he supported?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Or by some shadowy establishment conspiracy?’

Fox shrugged. ‘He reckoned his home and office had been broken into – and his widow confirms it. Maybe he was being watched. And now you’ve just told me you think people spied on your work, too.’

‘It went further, actually: my first publisher went bust; a second decided all of a sudden he didn’t want the book. Had to go to a small left-wing press in the end. Pretty slapdash job they made of it too.’

‘You’re really whetting my appetite,’ Fox joked.

‘I just hope you didn’t pay over the odds for your copy.’

‘Worth every penny, I’m sure.’

‘No guarantees, Inspector.’ Martin leaned back in his chair, arms resting over either wing.

‘Any other names?’ Fox asked.

‘One or two are probably still a bit cracked – living as hermits in the Western Isles and writing anarchist blogs. Most of them probably found that as they got older, they became the sort of person they’d previously despised.’

‘The establishment, in other words?’

‘These were bright people, in the main.’

‘Even the ones scooping up handfuls of anthrax from Gruinard?’

‘Even them,’ Professor Martin said, sounding sleepy from all the wine. ‘It’s all changed now, though, hasn’t it? Nationalism has entered the mainstream. If you ask me, they’ll sweep the next election. A few years from now, we could be living in an independent European democracy. No Queen, no Westminster, no nuclear deterrent. That would have been impossible to predict a scant few years back, never mind quarter of a century.’

‘Pretty much what the SNLA and all the others were fighting for,’ Fox concurred.

‘Pretty much.’

‘Is there anyone I could try talking to about all of this, other than psychiatric patients and hermits?’

‘Do you know John Elliot?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘He’s on TV all the time. News and current affairs.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘He merits a mention in my book.’

‘What about Alice Watts?’

‘Who?’

Fox repeated the name, but it was clear Professor Martin had never heard of her. Fox showed him the two matriculation photos anyway. Martin blinked a couple of times, as if trying to focus. ‘Oh yes,’ he said, suddenly animated. ‘It’s good to have a name for her at last.’ He got to his feet quite slowly, but managed to make it to the bookshelves without too much of a detour. Fox went with him, and watched as he plucked out a copy of his own book – No Mere Parcel of Rogues: How Dissent Turned Violent in Post-War Scotland.

‘Catchy title, incidentally,’ Fox commented.

‘A misquote from Burns.’ Martin had opened the book two thirds of the way through, at a section comprising black-and-white photographs. He pointed to one of these. It filled half a page, and looked to Fox like a CND demo.

‘Coulport,’ Martin confirmed. ‘It was the handling and maintenance depot for Polaris warheads. Every week, a nuclear convoy would set out from there on its way by road to the Royal Ordnance factory near Reading.’

‘That’s a fair few hundred miles.’

‘I know – and by road! An accident… a hijacking… It boggles the mind, the risks they took.’

Ten demonstrators had been arrested that particular day: Sunday, 7 April 1985, three weeks before Vernal’s death. Martin’s finger slid to the photo covering the bottom half of the page.

‘Do you see your man?’ he asked.

‘I see him,’ Fox said quietly. This second photo was of a protest outside a police station, inside which, presumably, were the ten ‘martyrs’. One man, older than his neighbours, was at the centre of the shot – Francis Vernal. Next to him, in dungarees and a knitted hat, stood Alice Watts. ‘Who’s that she’s linking arms with?’ Fox asked. He meant not Vernal, but the man to Alice’s left. Tall, with long black hair, a bushy black beard and sunglasses.

‘I wish I knew. What did you say the young lady’s name was?’

‘Alice Watts,’ Fox repeated.

‘Watts…’ Martin broke into a huge smile. ‘Bravo, Inspector – twenty years too late, but bravo anyway.’

‘Enlighten me.’

‘Another of the code names,’ Martin explained. ‘“Steam”.’ He was still smiling.

‘Steam as in James Watt,’ Fox guessed.

‘And from James Watt to Alice Watts.’

Fox nodded his agreement that it was entirely feasible. ‘Do you still have the notes from the meetings?’ he asked.

‘I only have my notes of their notes – I was shown them; I wasn’t allowed to take them away.’

‘Shown them by a sympathiser?’

‘Quite the opposite, actually. One of the problems with all these splinter groups was that they couldn’t stop splintering. And when factions fell out, it got as messy as any divorce. I was shown records of the meetings so I could see how amateurish the group had become.’

Fox held up a finger to interrupt the professor’s flow. ‘Which particular group are we talking about?’ he asked.

‘The DHC.’

‘Dark Harvest Commando?’

Martin nodded. ‘They were extreme even by extremist standards – the paramilitary wing of the Scottish Citizen Army. You’ve already mentioned the anthrax…’

‘And Alice Watts was a member?’ Fox studied the photograph again.

‘I’d say so, yes.’ Martin paused. ‘Is that important, Inspector?’

‘What if I told you she was also Francis Vernal’s lover? And that she disappeared almost immediately after his death?’

The professor was silent for a moment. He closed the book and pressed it to his chest. ‘I’d say,’ he said softly, ‘that a new edition of my book might be in prospect.’

‘It gets better,’ Fox added. ‘Because as far as I can work out, Alice Watts was never alive in the first place…’

That night, Fox watched TV with the sound muted, and ignored one call from his sister and two from Evelyn Mills. He was wondering what it would be like to live next to a zoo, hearing and smelling the animals without ever seeing them.

And what it would be like to be a student, choosing to live in a small place like Anstruther.

Or work in television news and current affairs.

Or be incarcerated in Carstairs.

Or be suspected of murder.

When the credits rolled, he realised a film had been playing. He couldn’t remember the first thing about it.

Jude had sent him a text: Go see Dad. It’s YOUR turn!

She was right, of course. And it isn’t as if you’ve got anything better to do, Foxy, he told himself.

No Mere Parcel of Rogues… A misquote from Burns, according to Professor Martin. Fox hadn’t studied Burns since his school-days. He reached for his laptop, fount of all knowledge – some of it even dependable. He would look up the line in question. And then maybe he’d also check a couple of names – Donald MacIver; John Elliot.

Bed straight after, he promised himself.

Maybe with the window open an inch or two, allowing in the noises and scents of the night…