Fenton's Winter (23 page)

Fenton thought for a moment
then said quietly, "I agree but he must have done unless you have a
better idea?"

Jenny shook her head. "No, but
there's something not quite right about it..."

"What do you say we concentrate
on something else?"

"And just what could that
something be?" asked Jenny with a smile.

Fenton drew her to him and left
her in no doubt.

The atmosphere in the flat
might have been considerably different had Fenton known that, while
he had been making love to Jenny, Nigel Saxon had not been safely
in police custody. In fact, he was not even in the country for he
had taken an afternoon British Airways shuttle flight from Glasgow
to London Heathrow and had subsequently boarded an Olympic Airways
flight to Greece.

Fenton was furious when he
heard the news from Charles Tyson and immediately blamed Jamieson.
"All he had to do was pick him up. I suppose he gave him a lift to
the airport and carried his bags into the terminal!"

"It wasn't the Inspector's
fault," said Tyson calmly.

Fenton looked sceptical.

"James Dodds phoned Saxon
Medical after you called him yesterday. He saw no reason not to and
thought that they should be aware of the problem with their
product. He called them before he called the police so Nigel Saxon
knew the game was up even before Inspector Jamieson had been
informed."

"I'm sorry," said Fenton.

Fenton left Tyson's room and
closed the door quietly. His thoughts returned to Saxon and his
anger was reborn. He swallowed it for the moment but, for the rest
of the week, it lay in his stomach like a lead weight.

Press and television coverage
of the end of the 'Princess Mary Affair' was extensive and raised a
number of questions and issues for ambitious politicians to
exploit. Was the screening procedure for National Health Service
products adequate? they asked. Perfectly so, said the government of
the day. Clearly not, hollered Her Majesty's Opposition. Once again
the government had been found lacking. The air vibrated with the
sound of stable doors being slammed. The thalidomide tragedy was
resurrected. Why had we not learned our lesson? The American Food
and Drug Authority had banned thalidomide in the United States; the
odds were that they would have spotted the problem with Saxon
plastic as well. Nonsense, retorted the Health Department.
Cover-up! cried the Opposition. Heads must roll! bayed the press
and cast on their knitting.

"Ye Gods, it's all so
predictable," complained Jenny as she put down the evening paper.
"If one says black the other says white."

The financial press had a
different set of priorities. They paid lip service to the 'awful
human cost' but it was the financial mess that Saxon Medical had
created that really captured their imagination. Had the money
involved in the take-over actually changed hands? they wanted to
know and, if the license had been sold by Saxon, had the
responsibility been transferred with it? Would International
Plastics be liable to lose millions, not only in the loss of the
product, but in law suits brought against them for compensation by
the relatives of the victims?

Speculation along these lines
had already done damage to International's share prices but the
company remained silent, saying nothing in public, although it was
not too hard to guess what they were saying in private. Fenton
supposed that cohorts of their lawyers would be working round the
clock in an attempt to shed blame.

Saxon Medical took a different
approach. They simply shut up shop and went to ground. John Saxon,
founder of the company and Nigel's father, walled himself up in his
Georgian mansion in a Glasgow suburb and refused to see anyone. The
workforce had been paid off and Nigel, of course, had fled to
Greece.

No public mention had been made
of any police interest in Nigel Saxon and, as yet, no enterprising
journalist had sought to forge a link between Neil Munro's death
and the Saxon plastic tragedy. This gave Fenton an idea for it
occurred to him that a conviction against Nigel Saxon would be of
monumental importance to International Plastics. If the company
could establish that Saxon had known about the defect in the
plastic before the license had changed hands surely the deal would
be deemed to have been fraudulent? It was very much in
International's interest that Nigel Saxon be brought to justice.
The thing was, International knew nothing of any criminal
involvement in the Saxon Plastic affair. What would happen if he
were to tell them?

Fenton thought about it for the
rest of the afternoon and began to like the idea. Surely in the
circumstances International Plastics would mount their own
investigation, employ the best agents in the country to track down
Saxon, ferret him out, bring him back?

There was, of course, Interpol.
Fenton had been brought up on films where Interpol were brought in
but, on reflection, he could not recall a single real life incident
where Interpol had played a major successful part. Once across the
channel it seemed like it was home and dry for the villains. Even
the occasional international arrest seemed to flounder in a welter
of legal wrangles and territorial jealousies. The more he thought
about it the more convinced he became that a private operation,
based on sound mercenary principles stood the best chance of making
Saxon pay for what he had done.

To Fenton International
Plastics was a name from the newspapers. He had no idea where the
company was located and no notion of how to go about approaching
them. The trouble with large companies, he felt, was that so few
people of importance seemed to be accessible within them. Such fish
always surrounded themselves with smaller fish who, in turn,
surrounded themselves with even smaller fry. Fenton could see
himself splashing around in the water margins for some time, being
shunted from one two metre square office to the next and having to
explain to frayed collars and cuffs that what he had to say was not
for their ears.

That in itself would be a
problem, for suggesting, even obliquely, to a minion that what he
had to say was not for his ears would be tantamount to an Israelite
expressing agnostic tendencies while crossing the Red Sea. The
resulting maelstrom of obstruction and red tape could be fatal to
the spirit.

Fenton told Jenny what he had
in mind. She exploded. Fenton had never seen her so angry. He
reeled as her temper ignited like a stick of dynamite. "How dare
you?" she blazed. "Is there no end to your arrogance?

Fenton sat, wide eyed and
speechless on the couch. He could not believe what was happening.
"Arrogance?"

"Yes arrogance! You always know
better. The police are stupid. Interpol are useless. Everyone is
incompetent where you are concerned. Well, understand this! Nigel
Saxon's arrest is a matter for the police, not you. Leave it alone!
I have had enough. Do you understand? Just forget it or...or I'll
leave you." Jenny burst into tears and Fenton got up to gather her
in his arms. "All right," he promised quietly. "I didn't
realise."

Jenny banged her fist on his
shoulder. "I know damn it," she said. "I know."

Jenny's outburst had shaken
Fenton but it had been what he needed for he now recognised that
the hunt for Nigel Saxon had become for him an obsession. It irked
him so much that Saxon appeared to have gotten clean away with his
crime that he had thought about little else for many days to the
detriment of everything else in his life. He promised Jenny that
there would be no approach to International Plastics, no more talk
of Nigel Saxon. They would go back to being Tom and Jenny, the
folks who lived on the hill.

Jenny drew the curtains and
turned up the gas fire as the wind got up outside. She switched on
a small table lamp and put an album on the stereo before lying
along the couch with her head on Fenton's lap. For once, the wind
contributed to the feeling of cosiness inside the room. Fenton's
fingers played the opening bars of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on
the back of her neck.

"Tom, I'm sorry," said Jenny
softly.

"Don't be. You were right."

"I do love you."

Fenton kissed her hair in
reply.

The music, the warmth, the soft
lighting and the hiss of the fire lulled them into a comfortable
drowsiness. It was shattered when the telephone rang. Jenny got up
to answer it and padded out into the hall in her stockinged feet.
She came quickly back and stopped in the doorway looking ashen.
"It's for you," she said. "I think it's Nigel Saxon!"

Fenton rose like an automaton.
He felt cold all over as he sidled past Jenny into the hall and
picked up the receiver. Slowly he said, "Fenton."

The dialling tone filled his
ear and brought instant relief. He let out the breath he had been
holding and put the phone down. "No one there," he said, knowing
that Jenny was standing behind him.

"It was him, I know it was,"
said Jenny evenly.

"Maybe a wrong number, someone
who sounded like him."

"He asked for you by name.
Saxon has a distinctive voice and he phoned here several times to
ask how you were when you were in hospital. It was him," said Jenny
in an unwavering monotone.

"But why? Why phone me? He
knows Neil was a friend of mine. I would be the last person in the
world to help him." said Fenton.

"I don't know why. I only know
it was him."

Fenton rubbed the back of his
neck.

"What are you going to do?"
asked Jenny.

"Nothing I can do," replied
Fenton.

In spite of their efforts to
re-create the earlier peace of the evening the phone call had
ruined it. The warmth, the music, the cosiness were still there but
the mute telephone rang in their ears until bedtime. They had gone
to bed and were just on the point of falling asleep when it rang
for real.

"I'll get it," said Fenton
getting out of bed and hoping against hope that it would be anyone
in the world rather than Saxon.

It was Nigel Saxon.

"You've got a nerve," hissed
Fenton.

"Just hear me out, that's all I
ask.

"Well?" snarled Fenton,
continuing to listen against his better judgement.

"I know what you all think but
I didn't kill Neil Munro. Believe me. I didn't do it."

"Is that the best you can do
Saxon?"

"All right, all right, I know
it looks bad, that's why I made a run for it but I didn't do
it!"

"Then give yourself up."

"My feet wouldn't touch and you
know it. All the police want is a nice quick conviction to regain
some credibility and I fit the bill to a tee. No, there's only one
way I can prove my innocence."

"Go on."

"I have to give the police the
real killer."

Fenton paused before saying,
"Assuming that it isn't you, and I don't say for one moment that I
believe you, how do you propose doing that?"

"I think I know who the real
killer is."

"Who?"

"I don't want to say just yet,
but when I'm sure I may need your help. What do you say?"

Fenton was in a quandary. What
did he say? What would Jenny say? Was Saxon lying and, if so, what
was his angle? What did he have to gain? Could he be telling the
truth? "How long before you're sure?" he asked.

"A day, maybe two."

"Two days, then I tell the
police."

"Thanks."

"Where are you?"

The phone went dead.

Fenton returned to the bedroom,
half afraid to meet Jenny's eyes. She said, "It was him, wasn't
it?"

"It was him."

"Why? What in God's name did he
want?" asked Jenny in exasperation.

Fenton told her.

Jenny held her head in her
hands and said, "Oh my God, what next?" She slapped down her palms
on the bedcovers and looked up at him. "Promise me one thing," she
said. "If Saxon suggests any kind of meeting, you won't go alone.
Take Ian Ferguson or Steve Kelly, or better still tell the police
but don't go alone."

"I promise."

Fenton fell asleep but woke at
two and was unable to drop off again. He lay in the darkness
listening to the sound of the wind but felt so restless that he was
obliged to get up before he woke Jenny with his constant changing
of position. He pulled on a dressing gown and went to the kitchen
to make coffee.

When he came through tothe
living room it was icy coldso he relit the gas fire and huddled
over it while he faced up to the old questions. A stream of doubts
turned up again like unwelcome relations on the doorstep. Why could
real life not be like the films with a beginning, a middle and an
end? Goodies and baddies and never any doubt which was which.
Things had just appeared to have resolved themselves nicely when
this had to happen. The arch villain turns up pretending to be
innocent and the big question now was, was he pretending?

"Are you all right?" came
Jenny's voice from the bedroom.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" said
Fenton.

"No, it's always the same when
I get a night off. I waken up anyway."

For two days the question had
to wait like a garden gnome with a fishing rod. Fenton had almost
decided to phone the police when Saxon called at seven in the
evening and said, "I know who killed Munro and tonight we can prove
it."

The word 'we' rang out loud and
clear in Fenton's head. He asked what Saxon meant.

"I want you to be here in the
flat when he admits it," said Saxon.

"Who's he? What flat?" asked
Fenton.

"I am back in Edinburgh. I have
a flat here that nobody knows about. Will you come?"

Fenton felt distinctly uneasy.
"What's the plan?" he asked.

“
I want someone here,
quietly concealed in the flat, to witness what is said when my
visitor comes."