Thursday legends

55

Detective Sergeant Steve Steele had been to Dundee three times in his life; once to play football, twice to watch it in that strange place where two arch-rival clubs and their grounds glower at each other across the street.

'The city is looking up,' he said to himself as he drove across the silvery Tay, over the road bridge, glancing occasionally at its neighbour, successor to the notorious structure which had caused the great rail disaster of the nineteenth century. The modern, redeveloped Dundonian waterfront shone attractively in the midday sun as he drove to the toll booth and paid the anachronistic levy.

He glanced quickly at his road map, trying to plot a way to the offices of Biggins and McCart in Albert Street. Eventually he gave up, drove to the nearest off-street car park, then set out to walk.

It took him some time to find the solicitors' premises but, eventually, he spotted their brass plate; it looked badly in need of the sort of face-lift which the rest of the city had received. He walked up three flights of stairs and, it seemed to him, back a hundred years. As he opened the glass-panelled door with its legend 'Biggins and McCart' written in discoloured gold leaf, he stepped into Victoriana.

Every piece of furniture in the room, even the tall wooden filing cabinets, looked like a genuine antique. The only item which did not fit that description sat behind a high-fronted desk, chewing gum. She had dull eyes and a small mouth above an even smaller chin; her dyed blonde hair had a pinkish tinge and she wore a tight-fitting white Lycra sweater chosen, beyond doubt, to display her best features.

Hello, girls, the detective thought.

'Miss Malone,' he said. 'DS Steele, from Edinburgh. We spoke on Friday.'

'Oh aye,' said the girl, disinterested. 'Mr McCart's no' here.'

Steele glared at her. 'Now look…' he began. But just at that moment the door behind her opened.

'Sergeant,' a voice said. He turned to see a small, impish, elderly man dressed, regardless of the weather, in a three-piece brown tweed suit. A watch chain hung across his waistcoat; he seemed to fit the room perfectly. He waved a brown paper bag. 'So sorry, so sorry. Saw you going up the stair ahead of me. I just nipped out for doughnuts; must have something with the tea. Molly, put the kettle on.'

The sullen girl nodded and did as she was told, pulling back her shoulders slightly as she rose. The little man threw her the bag and offered his visitor a handshake.

'Gilbert McCart,' he introduced himself. 'Come through to my private office.'

Steele followed him into a second smaller room, furnished in the same way as the first. He glanced around at tall glass-fronted bookcases, low door-fronted cabinets and a big inlaid desk, finer, even to his inexpert eye, than the one in Alec Smith's house. 'Does that have a secret drawer?' he asked, intrigued.

Gilbert McCart's eyes twinkled. 'Can't tell you that,' he replied, 'it's a secret.

'You like my furniture? Geoffrey Biggins, my late partner, and I built up the collection over the years. When I snuff it, my practice won't be worth anything, but this lot will.'

'You're a one-partner firm?' Steele asked as he handed over his business card, a Bob Skinner innovation.

'For three years, I have been; since Geoff went to the Great Conveyancer in the sky. It's just me and the slattern Molly outside. Her real name is Gabrielle, but she suits the moniker I gave her better. I can just see her selling cockles and mussels.'

At that moment the girl came in with a tray holding a teapot, china cups and saucers, milk and sugar and a plate with four doughnuts. She laid it on McCart's desk, on top of a copy of the Courier. 'Yes,' said the solicitor. 'Cover that damn rag up.' He frowned at the policeman. 'That publication has never been the same since they put news on the front page rather than advertising.'

They waited as Molly, nee Gabrielle, poured the tea then sashayed out of the room, her third-best feature moving in her tight skirt like two cats wrestling in a bag.

'Now, Sergeant Steele,' her little employer began. 'To business. I apologise for dragging you up here, but one of the main qualities which I offer my principal client is discretion, and I never discuss his business over the telephone.'

'Your principal client?'

'Kinture Estates. Biggins and McCart — Geoffrey and I and our fathers before us — have been factors to the Marquis of Kinture for the last sixty-three years. Geoffrey's old man, Gilbert, and mine, Geoffrey, were both at Strathallan School, and St Andrews University with the father of the present Marquis. He inherited the title when he was still a student and set his two friends up in this practice pretty well as soon as they qualified.

'Hector, the present Marquis, reappointed us when he succeeded a little over ten years ago. We've always done a little general practice conveyancing work, but the bulk of our income flows from Kinture.'

'What do you do for him?'

'I manage his tenanted properties, of which there are a considerable number. My duties include the preparation and execution of tenancy agreements, the collection of rents, supervision, inspection and maintenance, legal actions against rent defaulters and so on.'

'Where are these properties?'

'There are some in Perthshire and some in Clackmannan, but the bulk of the Marquis's estate is in East Lothian. It includes Bracklands, Lord Kinture's main residence, and the land on which the Witches Hill Golf and Country Club is built. I'm not involved in the running of the club, though… God forbid.'

'You collect rents, you said.'

'That's right. Which brings me to the matter of the payment about which you asked the slattern Molly on Friday. Can you explain the background to your request?'

'Certainly, sir,' said Steele. 'About ten days ago a man named Alec Smith was murdered in North Berwick. He was a former police officer and he lived alone. It was a very brutal killing; you probably read about it.'

McCart shook his head. 'No, Sergeant. If it didn't happen in Dundee, it didn't happen.'

The detective smiled, briefly. 'In any event,' he continued, 'in looking into the victim's affairs, we found a standing order payable to your firm: twelve hundred pounds, annually. His bank manager was under the impression that it was a payment intended for Smith's estranged wife.'

'If she is the occupant, then in a way that might be the case.'

'Occupant?'

The little lawyer wrinkled his nose. 'There is a small part of the Kinture Estates holding in East Lothian which lies apart from the rest. It is near the sea and it is woodland, mainly, but within it, there is a small, fairly run-down, one-bedroom cottage. About five years ago, Lord Kinture called me to Bracklands and instructed me to prepare a tenancy agreement in respect of that property, at a rent of one hundred pounds per month, payable annually in advance. The name of the tenant on the agreement was John Green, but I noticed at once that the first rent payment was drawn on the account of an Alexander Smith. There was no clause in the lease specifying personal occupancy, so it is entirely possible that a Mrs Smith does live there.'

'No, sir,' said Steele. 'She doesn't, I assure you. Where is this cottage, exactly?'

'Near the village of Dirleton. It bounds on to a place called Yellowcraigs.'