Fenton's Winter (26 page)

"Sounds a good idea to me,"
said Kelly.

Jamieson took his time but
finally conceded that he too thought it was worth considering. He
said, "If we could find out who the man was without his knowing it
would give us time to build up a case against him. We could go in
strong."

Kelly suggested that he and
Fenton should approach Murray and keep the police out of it in
Murray's own interest. Jamieson agreed but Fenton sensed that he
was uncomfortable. He wanted to say something else but it was
having a difficult birth. "Gentlemen," he began, tapping his finger
tips together, "With your agreement..." The words struggled over
invisible barriers. "I would like to keep this on...an unofficial
basis for the time being.

Fenton and Kelly waited for an
explanation and it was even more laboured when it came."Frankly,
once a report is written...I can't be sure who is going to see
it."

"I see," said Fenton. He said
it calmly but felt anything but. "Perhaps it would be better if we
met on neutral ground next time?" Jamieson nodded, relieved to see
that Fenton had taken the right implication from what had been said
without any further explanation being necessary.

It was still raining heavily
when they got outside so they made a dash for the car although it
was all to no avail when Kelly dropped the keys into the
overflowing gutter in his haste to unlock the door. His curse was
lost on the wind as Fenton turned his back and held up his collar
while he waited.

"Did I dream that?" asked
Fenton when they were safely out of the rain.

"If you did I had the same
one," said Kelly.

Jenny looked aghast. "But they
are the police!" she protested. "They don't say things like
that!"

"That's what I thought too,"
said Fenton. "But I'm telling you exactly what Jamieson said."

"Oh Tom," said Jenny in
exasperation. Fenton put his arm round her and tried to assure her
by saying, "It's still a police matter. It's just that Jamieson
wants to conduct it a little unconventionally."

"When are you going to see
Murray?"

"Tonight," said Fenton.

The object of the exercise,
decided Fenton, was to get the sketch from Murray with as little
explanation as possible. They should say nothing about any possible
connection with the Saxon murder and should not mention the police
at all. This was just a little afterthought from their previous
visit. But was Murray the right kind of artist?

"Actually I am a sculptor,"
said Murray. "But I think I can manage a rough outline."

It had turned out to be easier
than Fenton had thought it might be. He had the sketch in his hands
and Murray had hardly asked a thing, in fact, the man seemed
positively subdued. He wondered whether the whisky beside Murray's
chair was to blame but abandoned that notion in favour of a box of
pills that he saw lying open on the table. He sneaked a look at the
label when Murray had his back turned for a moment and saw that
they were tranquillisers. They were a relatively mild brand but the
alcohol was enhancing their effect.

Fenton looked at the sketch and
admired Murray's competence.

"Thank you for your help Mr
Murray," said Fenton, getting up to go.

"A drink before you go?" said
Murray.

Fenton looked at his watch as a
prelude to an excuse but the pathetically baleful look in Murray's
eyes made him change his mind. "Thank you," he said. "Whisky for
me."

"Do you still think my sister
was murdered?" Murray asked as he handed Fenton and Kelly their
glasses.

"I think it's possible,"
replied Fenton.

"I miss her you know," said
Murray distantly. "I never liked her much while she was alive but
now that she's gone...I miss her."

Fenton and Kelly exchanged
embarrassed glances while Murray's eyes were fixed on the middle
distance. He appeared not to notice and continued, "You see, she
was the only person in my life who ever really liked me and now
she's gone..."

Kelly shrugged his shoulders in
discomfort and Fenton moved uneasily in his chair. Murray brought
his eyes back and apologised for his rudeness. "Another drink?"
Fenton declined the offer and thanked Murray again for his
help.

As they walked down the path to
the gate Kelly turned and looked at the house. "Poor bastard," he
said.

The clock on the dash said
eight forty-five and Kelly suggested that they call Jamieson on the
number that he had given them. Fenton did so by using a phone box
on the edge of Braidbank. He looked down at the lights of the city
while he waited for Jamieson to answer. The rain had stopped but
water was still running down the gutters from the hill. Jamieson
answered and Fenton told him that they had the sketch.

"Do you know 'The Gravediggers'
pub?" Jamieson asked.

"Corner of Angle Park?" said
Fenton.

"That's the one, opposite
Ardmillan Cemetery."

"When?"

"Thirty minutes?"

"We'll be there."

"I know it," said Kelly when
Fenton told him. "Where can we park down there?"

"There's a railway footbridge
near there, park in the street on the other side. We can walk over
it."

Kelly followed Fenton's
suggestion and they found a parking place with no difficulty. A
diesel express thundered under the bridge as they crossed it,
illuminating the banking with flickering light for a few brief
moments before it was suddenly plunged back into darkness.

Jamieson was already there. He
got up as they came in and ordered a round. "Any problems?" he
asked as they sat down.

"None," replied Fenton,
reaching into his inside pocket to take out Murray's sketch and
hand it over.

Jamieson pursed his lips and
made tutting noises. "Well, well, well," he said slowly.

"You know him?" asked
Fenton.

"I do, indeed I do," replied
Jamieson, still mesmerised by the sketch. "That's Gordon Vanney,
Councillor Vanney's son."

Fenton thought that Jamieson
looked as if he was being forced to remember something that he
would rather have forgotten and did not intrude. He and Kelly
remained silent until the policeman began to speak in his own
time.

"Four years ago," said
Jamieson, "A girl named Madeline Gray took her dog for a walk on
Corstorphine Hill; she was fourteen at the time. Four youths set
about her. They stripped her, tied her up and raped her in turn.
When they had finished they stuffed stinging nettles...into every
opening in her body and left her, still staked to the ground."

Fenton and Kelly listened in
horror as Jamieson continued.

"When she could speak she named
one of the youths as Vanney. She had recognised him because he
lived in the same neighbourhood. We arrested Vanney but his old man
got him out on bail." Jamieson paused and sipped his drink as if
the words were paining him. "The very next night, while Madeline's
father was out walking her dog, the dog ran off into the trees. It
ran off with four legs and came back with three. Wire cutters, the
vet said. Two days later the leg arrived by post addressed to
Madeline. It was in a flower box so her mother let her open it by
herself. A note suggested that it might be her leg next if she
didn't keep her mouth shut. She did and Vanney went free. The girl
still isn't right, takes four baths a day."

"What a story," murmured
Fenton.

"And you never traced the
others?" asked Kelly.

"We never did," agreed
Jamieson. "A pity because, before she stopped talking altogether,
the girl told us that Vanney wasn't the ringleader, he was just the
one she recognised. That singular honour went to a six foot tall
dark haired youth, wearing some kind of college or university
scarf. He had a piece missing from his right ear lobe, she was very
sure of that; she had concentrated on it while he was raping
her."

"Four years ago Inspector? You
have some memory." said Kelly.

"So would you if you had seen
that wee lassie," replied Jamieson.

Fenton asked what Jamieson was
going to do about the sketch.

"Watch and wait. Find out who
his associates are. See who's an organ grinder and who's a
monkey."

"You don't think Vanney could
have killed Sandra Murray and Saxon?" asked Fenton.

"Vanney's a shit but he's small
fry. Someone else always pulls the strings."

"Any ideas."

Jamieson shook his head and
said, "No, I haven't. We kept tabs on the bastard for a while after
the Madeline Gray affair, you know the sort of thing, anyone farts
in a built-up area and we pull in Vanney. But his old man pulls a
lot of weight in this city. He started shouting harassment and we
had to back off."

"The same thing might happen
this time," suggested Fenton.

"No." said Jamieson, "This time
it's unofficial, and personal."

"You mean you are going to do
it by yourself?" asked Kelly.

Jamieson nodded.

"Can we help?" asked
Fenton.

Jamieson smiled faintly. "Aye,"
he said, "Aye, you can."

Fenton grew to know Vanney well
over the next couple of weeks. The fact that Jenny was still
working nights let him share night time surveillance with Jamieson
and back- leave that he was due took care of some day time work.
Steve Kelly took over on the nights that Jenny had off.

Vanney lived in his parents’
house on Corstorphine Hill, a sprawling modern bungalow with large
gardens and a gravelled frontage that accommodated three cars. The
Lotus belonged to Vanney junior. Each week day morning he drove it
to work in the city, leaving at eight thirty and arriving at a
merchant bank in the New Town at five minutes to nine. Lunch was
one till two and he ate it in a pub in Rose Street called, 'The Two
Shoemakers.' He always ate with the same people, a tall, ginger
haired man with buck teeth and a loud voice and a short, squat,
olive skinned man who looked Italian, maybe Spanish. Both worked in
the same bank and it seemed just to be a lunch time friendship for
neither featured in Vanney's evening social life.

Vanney had a girl friend and it
surprised Fenton for he had assumed that a connection with the
Cavalier Club inferred homosexuality although Kelly had said in the
past that the club had broadened its horizons. The girl seemed nice
and came from a similarly well heeled background to Vanney himself.
She was tall, nearly as tall as Vanney, and good looking in a
country girl sort of way. Fenton liked her on sight and wondered
what she saw in someone like Vanney, and vice versa if Vanney
really was homosexual.

Jamieson provided an answer to
the second question. The girl's father was a director of the bank
where Vanney worked. "Vanney to a tee," he snarled, "Brown nosing
the boss's daughter."

"What do you suppose her father
thinks about it?" asked Fenton.

"Probably encourages it," said
Jamieson wryly, "Son of a prominent councillor, heir to a concrete
shit empire, an excellent choice for their wee Denise. That's her
name by the way, Denise Hargreaves.

Vanney and Denise Hargreaves
saw each other twice during the week and again on Saturdays. One
disco, one trip to the cinema and dinner out at the week-end. He
played golf with his father on Sundays and stayed in on Thursdays.
That left Mondays and Wednesdays.

On Monday Jamieson lost Vanney in town traffic and it was
accepted as just one of those things, but when the same thing
happened to Kelly on the Wednesday, the three men met to discuss
tactics.

"Do you think he realised that
he was being followed?" asked Fenton. Jamieson replied that he did
not, adding that Vanney had shown no sign of 'awareness' on any of
the other nights. Fenton had to agree with that, saying that he
himself had had no trouble following Vanney on the previous Friday
and the wrestling match that he had had with Denise Hargreaves in
the car outside her house had not suggested the actions of a man
who thought that he was being watched.

"How did he get on?" asked
Kelly.

"She slapped his face," said
Fenton.

"Good for her," said
Jamieson.

Jamieson and Kelly compared
notes and found that they had lost Vanney at the same place in
town. He had made a left turn out of Leith Street and had
apparently disappeared into thin air. "He must have turned into a
lane or something," said Kelly and no one disagreed. Jamieson
suggested that they should all attempt to follow Vanney on Monday.
One of them should pick him up as he left his house just, in case
he should do something different, the other two would wait in Leith
Street, around the area where they had lost him on the previous
occasions. Fenton said that he would follow Vanney from home.
Jamieson and Kelly agreed where they would position themselves for
the wait.

On Monday evening Vanney left
home at seven thirty and Fenton followed on the Honda, keeping some
two hundred metres behind and with at least two vehicles between
himself and the Lotus at all times. Traffic was light enough at
first and the only problem was the persistent drizzle which caused
problems with his face visor.

Vanney appeared to be taking
his usual road to town and Fenton automatically assumed his route,
an assumption that nearly caused him to lose the Lotus when he
found himself trapped in the inside lane when Vanney decided to
turn right. By the time he had recovered the Lotus had disappeared.
He had to make a guess. Did he go down to the Grassmarket or up to
the High Street?

Fenton bet on the High Street
and gunned the Honda up Castle Terrace which wound round and up the
side of the floodlit castle rock. The needle was touching
sixty-five when he braked at the top of the Royal Mile in time to
see the tail lights of the Lotus as it sat at traffic lights. He
free wheeled the bike down the steep cobbles, allowing a taxi and a
Ford Escort to reach the Lotus first.