Fenton's Winter (27 page)

The lights changed and Vanney
turned left. He was heading back towards Princes Street after
having gone out of his way by nearly two miles. It didn't make
sense, thought Fenton, unless of course, he was taking routine
precautions to avoid being followed on Mondays and Wednesdays. The
idea excited Fenton.

As the traffic high above
Princes Street began to flow down the Mound, a steep hill
connecting the Old Town to the New Town, Fenton's pulse began to
quicken. It looked as if Vanney was now heading for Leith Street.
He hoped Kelly and Jamieson were alert.

Traffic at the east end of
Princes Street was heavy as night time commercial vehicles headed
towards the main road south. Vanney was third in the queue at the
lights and Fenton was seventh with an articulated lorry lying in
fourth place.

The Lotus was three hundred
metres ahead before the lorry had swung its tail clear of Fenton
and he had a clear road in front. He fought the impulse to twist
the throttle. There was no point in arriving in Vanney's rear-view
mirror like a bullet. He passed the artic but held back as he saw
the Lotus slow for a roundabout. There were now four vehicles
between him and the Lotus, an ideal number.

Fenton took his turn at
infiltrating into traffic coming from the right and saw the Lotus
turn left. Same as last time, he thought and leaned into the
corner. He straightened up to find that the Lotus had completely
disappeared. There was a long straight road ahead but no Vanney.
Fenton pulled into the side and cut the engine. He was relieved to
see Jamieson come out of a shop doorway and walk towards him.

"All right, I give up," said
Fenton.

"Basement garage," said
Jamieson, "Twenty metres along on your left. The door was already
open. He just swung into it and the door closed behind him. The
whole thing took less than five seconds."

Kelly joined them from the
other corner and said, "It all looks pretty dead to me." All three
looked at the building. It was deserted and dark, no lights, no
sounds.

"What now?" Fenton asked.

"We try to find out where
Vanney entered the building. There must be an internal stair from
the garage because he hasn't appeared on the street."

Fenton volunteered to have a
look and Jamieson agreed. "Enter by the front door nearest the area
of the garage."

Fenton climbed the short flight
of steps to the main entrance of the dark building and entered the
common stairway. The cold and damp was accentuated by the
blackness. It felt like a tomb. He examined the ground floor doors
as best he could, relying largely on light from the headlights of
cars passing outside. They were filthy and the grime on the locks
and handles said that they had not been used for a very long time.
The smell of wood rot was everywhere.

He searched for stairs that
might lead down to the garage and found some though he half wished
that he had not for they were in complete darkness. He stretched
out his hands and touched both walls as he felt his way gingerly
down them with the toe of his boot. He came to the bottom and found
himself in a passage that ran through the building. There was a
scurrying sound nearby which made him lash out with his foot. The
sound stopped but Fenton's imagination made his pulse rate
soar.

Feeling his way along the wall
he came to a door and groped for the lock. He found a bolt but had
difficulty in trying to free it.He could not see the rust but felt
it with his fingers as he tried to budge it. The tongue of the bolt
began to move and Fenton worked it backwards and forwards until, at
last it gave and clattered back against its stop, only slightly
cushioned by a finger that got in the road. He put his finger to
his lips, simultaneously stemming the blood and the curse. He
pulled the door open with his other hand and stepped out into a
dark lane which ran along the back of the building.

There was a garage door to his
right. Fenton looked at it and mentally plotted its relationship to
the opening at the front where Vanney had entered. His heart sank
as he realised the truth. The garage ran straight through the
building. It had a front and a back door. Vanney was not in the
building at all!

Fenton ran along the lane and
round to the front of the building to tell Jamieson and Kelly.

"Did you check to see if the
Lotus was still there?" Jamieson asked.

"I assumed that he had driven
straight through," confessed Fenton.

"We had better check. He may
have changed cars too," said Jamieson.

Fenton and Kelly walked round
to the garage door at the back where, unlike the modern metal door
at the front, it was made of wood and was rotting badly. Kelly
knelt down to peer through at the bottom where the wood had decayed
to leave the base like a row of rotting teeth. "It's still there,"
he announced. "He changed cars."

They agreed to keep watch in
shifts until Vanney returned. One of them would stay near to the
entrance of the lane while the other two could stretch their legs,
get coffee at a cafe nearby or whatever.

Vanney did not get back till
one in the morning. Jamieson was on watch when a green Mini slowed
and turned into the lane. He got a good view of Vanney at the wheel
and noted down the number. The Lotus left shortly afterwards and
ten minutes later Fenton and Kelly returned.

The three men agreed to meet
again on Monday near the entrance to the lane and follow the green
Mini when it left. In the meantime they decided to abandon routine
surveillance on Vanney, a move that proved equally popular with
Jenny and Mary Kelly. Fenton wondered later about Jamieson. Was he
married? The subject had never come up. It was not the sort of
thing you asked him, it was the sort of thing he asked you.

Spring came suddenly to
Edinburgh. It flooded the city with a yellow sunshine that
highlighted the rash of buds that had broken out on the trees in
Princes Street Gardens. It made drops of rain water, which had
persisted from the previous night's rain, sparkle like precious
stones on railings as Fenton rode to the lab through the morning
traffic.

Faces were held high as heads
that had spent most of the winter bent forward against wind and
rain were lifted to receive the kiss of spring sunshine. Feet
slowed as the lure of office central heating lost its grip on the
imagination and people stopped to speak to each other in the
streets. They were smiling; the annual war was over and the
survivors were glad to see each other.

The sunshine had even invaded
Fenton's lab. It sought out the dust that coated reagent bottles
and illuminated the intricacies of a large cob web. Now that he had
seen it the dirt began to annoy him. He fetched a wet cloth and
started to wipe each bottle individually. He was doing this when
Charles Tyson came in. He said, "I'd like to see you in my room in
ten minutes if that's convenient?"

Fenton said that it was.

Fenton joined Tyson and Liz
Scott brought in coffee. Tyson stirred his and said, "I'm
considering recommending to the Health Board that you be made
official deputy head of department, Neil's position."

"Thanks," said Fenton.

"Don't thank me just yet. I
said I was considering it."

Fenton waited for Tyson to
elaborate.

Tyson looked hard at Fenton and
said, "A senior position like this demands something more than just
scientific ability. It requires a certain degree of diplomacy. It
requires discretion, a willingness to operate within accepted
guidelines. A willingness to drift with the prevailing current
rather than a tendency to...rock the boat. Do I make myself
clear?"

"Perfectly," said Fenton
controlling his temper. He was being warned off and offered an
incentive. The question was what was he being warned off? Was it
just his natural tendency to go to war with the hospital
authorities that Tyson was concerned about or was it something more
sinister? He couldn't tell anything from Tyson's expression.

"Well?" said Tyson.

"I don't think I'm your man,"
said Fenton. "I reserve the right to play the game as I see
it."

"I see," said Tyson tapping the
end of his pen on the blotting pad in front of him. "Don't be too
hasty. Sleep on it."

Fenton got up to go.

"There is one more thing," said
Tyson.

"Yes?"

"I'm going to recommend to the
board that Ian Ferguson be upgraded to senior biochemist. Do you
have any views?"

"That's fine by me," said
Fenton.

"Good," said Tyson. "I hoped
you'd say that. He put down his pen and rubbed his eyes. "I'll be
glad when everyone can concentrate solely on their work again."

Was that another warning?
Fenton wondered. He looked for signs of an accusation but Tyson's
was concentrating on his papers again.

Fenton was checking the day
book in the main lab when Liz Scott came in and told Ian Ferguson
that Tyson wanted to see him. Ferguson made a face at Fenton and
said, "When the trumpet calls..."

Fenton smiled but did not say
anything.

The good weather lasted over
the week-end and Fenton and Jenny took the opportunity of taking
their first real walk of the year. They went out to Colinton
Village and climbed up into the Pentland Hills to the south of the
city. As they reached the top of Bonaly Hill they stopped to catch
their breath and look at the view. Jenny was standing slightly
lower down than Fenton so, as she looked north over the houses to
the Forth Estuary, he looked at her. Her hair was like spun gold in
the sun and her fresh complexion seemed to embody the spirit of the
season. He stooped to kiss her lightly on the back of the neck and
she raised her hand to touch his cheek. She did not speak.

"I love you Jenny," whispered
Fenton.

Jenny still did not speak.

"All right, I don't love
you."

Jenny smiled and turned. She
said, "Tom, you will be careful tomorrow?"

Fenton reassured her and hugged
her tightly from behind.

They walked through a pine
forest on the way to Caerketton Hill and their feet were silent on
a thick carpet of needles. Sunlight sneaked through the branches to
create little pools of light on the floor of the woods.

On Monday morning Jamieson rang
Fenton at the lab to finalise details about following Vanney. He
and Kelly would tail the Mini in his car, an unmarked Ford. Fenton
was to follow on the Honda. If Vanney should tumble to the Granada
Jamieson would turn off leaving Fenton to pick up the tail.

Fenton was glad that Jenny had
already left for the hospital when he got home because he felt
nervous and needed to be alone. Where would Vanney go? Would they
be any closer to discovering the truth about Neil's death at the
end of the evening?

The butterflies in his stomach
did not subside until the Honda had started and he had set out for
Leith Street. Jamieson was already there when he arrived, although
he was not late. He handed him a two way radio and gave him a crash
course in how to use it while they waited for Kelly to arrive.

Kelly arrived and, with ten
minutes to go if Vanney were to be his usual punctual self, Fenton
got back on the Honda and moved some two hundred metres away from
Jamieson's car. He parked it again and waited in a doorway watching
the street.

Two minutes late, the Lotus
swung into the street and nose dived into its garage. Fenton felt
the adrenalin begin to flow as he changed to watching the far end
of the lane. The lights of the green Mini appeared at the junction;
it paused then turned left on to the main road. Fenton saw the
Granada start to move. He walked out from his doorway, as if he had
just emerged from the building, and got on the bike. He took off
from the kerb and settled at a comfortable distance behind
Jamieson, feeling pleased at how smoothly it had all gone.

The Mini was making for the
coast. Fenton hoped that it might take the main road south where
there would be plenty of traffic to provide cover but it was not to
be. Vanney made a left turn at the edge of town and joined the old,
winding coast road which meticulously followed the southern shore
of the Firth of Forth. The Granada's headlights would be in
Vanney's mirror all the time, thought Fenton. The odds were that it
would not alarm Vanney unduly but that he might feel obliged to
take routine precautions to prove to himself that he was not really
being followed.

The test came as they entered
the small coastal village of Port Seton. The Mini's left indicator
began to flash and Vanney pulled in to the side and stopped beside
some shops. The move obliged Jamieson to drive straight past.
Fenton was able to stop well behind the Mini. The street lighting
was good. Vanney would have been able to get a good look at the
Granada as it passed, maybe even taken its number. There was no way
that Jamieson could take up the tail again.

Fenton got out his radio and
called up Jamieson. He told him what he thought and suggested that
he should pick up the tail on Vanney from now on.

"All yours," replied
Jamieson.

It started to rain and the
sound of the drops hitting his leathers sounded unnaturally loud to
Fenton as he sat, motionless, waiting for the Mini to move off. It
was a full five minutes before he heard the rattling drain sound of
the Mini being started. Vanney moved off from the kerb and Fenton
prepared to follow but held back until the Mini had left the edge
of the village and disappeared round a right hand bend for he did
not want Vanney to get a look at him under the street lights.

As soon as Vanney was out of
sight Fenton gunned the bike to the edge of the village then took a
risk. He throttled back and turned off his lights. He reckoned that
if he could pick up the Mini quickly he could ride on its tail
lights. The rain on the rear screen would also help to obscure his
presence.