Thursday legends

31

'What's she like, this Mrs Smith?'

'She's a really nice woman, and very attractive for her age.'

Maggie Rose looked severely at her Sergeant across her Haddington office. 'The menopause doesn't make you ugly, Stevie. I can think of any number of women who became even more attractive the older they got

… my own mother among them.

'I meant did she strike you as completely frank, or might she have been holding something back from us? Do you think she was telling the truth about Alec's apparent lack of interest in photography?'

'Why should she lie?' Steele asked.

'What if he had some photographs of her that she doesn't want found?'

'I don't believe that for a second. Everything she told me bears out everything else I've learned about Alec Smith; that he was obsessively secretive. In their case, it turned the two of them into virtual strangers to each other.'

'So what does it leave us to go on, apart from the keys? What did you get from her?'

The Sergeant grinned. 'He walked his dog at Yellowcraigs.'

'Once, that we know of… and we can hardly dig up the whole place. Anyway, if Smith did have a secret set of photographs and files, he was hardly the sort of guy to keep them in a knot-hole in a tree, was he? Whatever my daft husband or I may have said, the dog is not going to turn out to be our star witness.'

'Okay, there's the gay son.'

'Whom his father shunned. He's been dead for five years; how could he tie in?'

'Like you say, his father shunned him. Maybe John Smith had a partner who hated him for it.'

'A nice respectable lawyer, his mother told you. Maybe. Not. You can check it out if you like, but I don't see it as a runner.'

'Mrs Smith said that he let slip once, about ten years ago, that he was afraid of Mr Skinner. She said it was just a casual comment, but should we ask him if there was a reason around that time why he should have been?'

Rose chuckled, quietly. 'Nothing sinister in that, Stevie. All the villains in Edinburgh, and most of the coppers, are afraid of Bob Skinner. I'll ask him; but even if he and Smith did have a falling-out, way back, I don't see how it could connect to this investigation.'

'In that case, we're just left with that standing order as our only unanswered question. Mrs Smith didn't know anything about it.'

'Are you one hundred per cent on that? Maybe she hasn't been declaring it to the Inland Revenue and didn't like to admit it.'

'I'm certain, ma'am. If that money was for her then it was invested somewhere that she didn't know about.'

'Best tidy it up anyway. The Dundee solicitor firm was called Biggins and McCart. Give them a call and see what he was paying them for. Use my phone; ask the switchboard to get the number for you and put you through.'

Steele gave the instruction to the constable who answered the Haddington switchboard, replaced the phone and waited. Eventually it rang; he picked it up. 'Miss Malone, of Biggins and McCart, Sergeant,' the constable announced.

'Hello, Miss Malone,' said the detective.

'Hello,' a young female voice answered in an unmistakable Dundonian accent. 'Fit can ah do for you?'

'I'm Detective Sergeant Steele,' he began. 'I'm involved in an investigation here… a murder investigation,' he added to capture her interest, as well as her attention. 'We've discovered that the victim, a Mr Alexander Smith, of Shell Cottage, North Berwick, maintained a standing order in favour of your firm, paying you one thousand two hundred pounds, annually.

'We'd like to know what it was for.'

'Ah'll need tae check, like. Can ah ca' you back?'

'Sure, but as soon as possible.' He gave her the Haddington number then hung up once more.

This time, they had to wait for ten minutes before the phone rang again. 'Miss Malone,' the constable repeated.

'Yes?' asked Steele as the girl came on the line. 'What have you got for me?'

'I've found that payment,' she said, brightly. 'But Ah'm no allowed to talk tae yis about it. It's one o' Mr McCart's files; and only he's allowed tae talk about it. Ah'm no.'

'Okay. Can I speak to him then?'

'He's no here. He's away till Monday.'

'Monday. Is there no-one else?'

'Well, there was Mr Biggins… but he's died.'

'Miss Malone,' said Steele heavily. 'This is an important investigation.'

'Ma job's important to me. Mr McCart said Ah was never to give information off his files tae anybody.'

The Sergeant looked across at DCI Rose. She shook her head. 'Leave it. Alec's not going to be any deader, or any less dead, by Monday; this can wait till then. The chances are it's nothing anyway.'

'Okay,' Steele conceded, finally, to Miss Malone. 'But you tell Mr McCart to be there. I'm coming up to see him myself.'