Thursday legends

62

Karen laughed. 'I don't know why I'm leaving the force,' she said. 'I might as well still be drawing the money, if you're going to bring the whole bloody office home with you every night.' She settled herself down beside Andy on the big living-room sofa, her legs tucked up under her. Before them, the coffee table was strewn with files, photographs and statements.

'Don't worry,' he promised her, with a grin. 'This is a one-off. The Big Man heard me say something pompous on radio yesterday and he's called my bluff.'

'I didn't think you were pompous!' she protested. 'I thought you sounded very sensible and completely committed. But what exactly have you been doing for the last hour or so, while I've been busying myself in the kitchen?'

'I've been reading the papers in the Alec Smith investigation, going back to the very start. Bob can't shake off the notion that there's a link between it and the Shearer murder, and the hit-and-run on him as well. He's asked me to confirm it or kill it off.'

'But I thought that Smith was a closed book, more or less.'

'As far as I'm concerned, it is. I'm just rereading it.'

'And what have you learned?'

'I've learned that Alec Smith liked his nuts…'

'Before they were burned off.' Karen murmured.

'Cashews, actually. I've learned that of all the people interviewed in North Berwick, not one had ever been inside Smith's house. I've learned that he was seen around walking his dog, but that at other times he let the animal run loose. I've learned that on the night he was killed, North Berwick was a ghost town; hardly anyone seems to have been out on the street. The pubs were full, though.'

'No suspicious sightings? No furtive bloke spotted carrying a Safeway bag with a wrench, a knife and a blowtorch in it?'

'No. One guy saw a figure in an anorak carrying a big parcel, but that was all.'

'An anorak? It was a warm night.'

Andy grinned. 'Makes no difference in North Berwick. Even on a mild night it can turn windy all of a sudden, and the haar can come in off the sea without warning.'

'So, to sum up, you've been wasting your time for the last hour?'

'Yeah,' he sighed. 'There's only one thing that struck me as slightly peculiar.' 'What was that?'

'Something from the post-mortem report, actually.' He leaned forward and picked it up from the coffee table. 'Sarah remarks that Smith was very fit and that judging by the musculature of his legs he must have taken a lot of physical exercise; walking, running or cycling, she suggests. Yet…' He paused.

'Yes?' Karen asked, eagerly.

'Yet Bob told me that Alec Smith gave up playing football with his Thursday night crowd because his right knee had packed up on him. Either he made a miracle recovery afterwards, or he was lying.

'If he was, it makes me wonder. Why did he really chuck it?'

'Maybe it occurred to him that a collection of middle-aged men kicking a ball around might look faintly silly.'

Andy laughed out loud. 'Don't you ever say that to Bob Skinner, or to Neil. It's their religion.' He tossed the report back on the table and stood up.

'You know what?' he began. 'I think I'll go to bed.'

She gave him a long, enticing look. 'Can I come too?'

He grinned down at her, on the sofa. 'That was the general idea,' he murmured.