Autographs in the Rain Page 13

  interests as much as mine that we're dead certain on this.'

  'Don't worry,' said Dr McCallum. Tm well aware of that... although

  I am used to the Court taking my word on the basis of one analysis.

  'I've repeated the tests, and done some others, and I can promise you

  that the subject did not ingest temazepam within two days of his death.

  Any he may have swallowed before that would have been gone from the

  bloodstream by the time of death.'

  She turned, stepped over to a long trolley, and with a single movement

  of her forearm, whipped away the sheet which covered it. 'You haven't met

  Mr McConnell, have you, Inspector?'

  The sudden sight of the naked, chalk-white corpse, with its roughly

  stitched incision from neck to groin, made Mackenzie's stomach clench as

  if it had been gripped by a fist. He felt himself gagging and hoped that it

  did not show.

  'Dr Grace was quite right in her observation. The saponification of the

  body has made it virtually impossible to detect any puncture marks. I've

  checked, nonetheless, if only to confirm there are none visible. However,

  examination of what's left of the veins of both forearms does reveal the

  livelihood that the subject was injected repeatedly in the period leading up

  to his death.

  This old man wasn't given a fatal shot of temazepam, but I'd say that he

  took it or was fed it, intravenously, on several occasions.

  'Does that help?'

  The detective looked at the diminutive pathologist. 'It confirms our

  suspicions about Mr McConnell's death, short of proving conclusively that

  he was murdered.

  'But as for finding the person who stole just about everything the poor

  old man had, it takes us not one step further forward.'

  92

  26

  Louise Bankier was in her hotel suite when Skinner arrived at the Balmoral,

  at exactly six o'clock. He parked his BMW directly in front of the hotel, nodding to the familiar figure of the doorman on his way in, and announced

  himself at the reception.

  She appeared from the lift in less than two minutes, walking over to

  him, at the desk. Her key deposited, she kissed him quickly on the cheek,

  then took his arm as they headed for the door. Heads turned as they stepped

  out into Princes Street and crossed the narrow pavement to the car; Bob

  was quite certain that no one was looking at him.

  'Did you get your business done?' he asked, as he pulled out from the

  kerb and drove away, signalling a left turn on to Waverley Bridge.

  'Yes I did, thanks.' He saw her nod, out of the corner of his eye, as he

  swung past the green light. 'I've taken the part; we start shooting in

  Edinburgh next month, while the Christmas lights are still there. I liked the

  script, my co-star will be Ralph Annand, a very fine Scottish actor, and I

  know Warren Judd, the producer, of old. He's an ex-, as a matter of fact.'

  'Husband?'

  'No. Informal.' Her voice dropped. 'We didn't part friends, and we

  haven't worked together since; it took a lot of soul-searching before I even

  began to consider doing his movie. My other hesitation was that I've never

  worked with the director before.'

  'Is that a big factor?' Bob asked.

  'It is for me. I'm sufficiently stellar now to be able to turn down parts if

  even one aspect of the project doesn't feel right. The relationship between

  cast and director is very important. It's his movie ... at least in theory it is

  . .. and he can, if he chooses, try to impose his will on the actors.

  'So nowadays, before I commit myself to anything, I make sure that the

  director and I are thinking along the same lines.'

  'And this bloke's okay, is he?'

  'Personally, he's a limp-wristed little jerk. Professionally, however, he's

  one of the real up and coming young men. More than that even; he's up and

  he's come, if I can put it that way.'

  He chuckled at her earthiness. 'You may, Lou, but possibly not in front

  of the wife. Who is he anyway?'

  She twisted round in her seat to face him. 'Have you ever heard of Elliott

  Silver?'

  His eyebrows rose slightly. 'Ah yes, him.' Then he grinned. 'Wouldn't

  know him from Adam. Who he?'

  'Very trendy, very good; he's a young Londoner, in his late twenties. He

  made a couple of things for television, then when he was twenty-five, he

  wrote and directed a gangster movie set in the East End. It won two B AFTAs

  and an Oscar for best screenplay. In the four years since then he's won two

  more BAFTAs, and had an Oscar nomination. Early this year he did his

  first Hollywood movie; they say it's a cert, for Academy Awards for best

  picture and best director.'

  Bob whistled. 'Wow! And here was me thinking that a BAFTA was an

  Islamic curse.'

  Louise laughed. 'Philistine!'

  'Don't knock them,' he protested. 'I've got a soft spot for the Philistines.

  They had bad reviews, but even from them you can see that they were

  pretty good at getting the job done. They were artists in their own way too;

  look at what they did to King Saul. It wasn't dissimilar to some of the

  things that have won the Turner Prize in recent years.'

  He swung the car past the Palace of Holyroodhouse, and, on the right,

  the floodlit site of the Scottish Parliament building. 'How many of those

  things have you won?' he asked.

  'BAFTAs? Four; three film, one television.'

  'And Oscars?'

  'Three, plus two Golden Globes.'

  In the darkness of Holyrood Park, she could see his soft smile in the

  dashboard light. 'Oh, I remember them well,' he whispered.

  Her laugh was deep and raunchy. 'They're still doing all right. Moved a

  little south, but still all right.'

  'I know,' he said. 'I saw that film of yours a couple of years back; the

  one where you got your kit off. That felt very weird, I'll tell you. It's as

  well the cinema was dark.'

  'Have you seen many of my movies?'

  'Several of them. I have them on video.'

  94

  AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN

  'Good boy. You're helping to make me rich.'

  'You like that, do you? Being rich?'

  'It's okay. Why? Is that your ambition?'

  He shrugged. 'A lot of people would say I am already; you'd probably

  just say that I'm comfortably off. I've had a few legacies in my life, and

  I've invested them well. Give me five years and I could retire in considerable

  comfort on my police pension and my investments.'

  'And will you?'

  'Not a chance. The day I feel burned out as a copper, then I'll go; but I'm

  a hell of a lot more than five years away from that. Lou, even back then,

  when we were kids, I had a vocation for police work, and in particular, for

  the investigative side. My father wanted me to be a lawyer; when I told him

  I was joining the police, he felt let down, as if the money he spent sending

  me to school in Glasgow, then to university, had all been wasted.

  'But I said to him ... I remember it, clear as daylight. . . "Dad, I am

  going to be a lawyer. I'm going into the justice business; the only difference

  between your ambition for me and my own is that I want to work
at the

  sharp end."

  'And you know what he replied? He looked at me and muttered, "I bred

  a fucking idealist!" But the last thing he ever said to me, the night before he

  died, was "Son, you were right." On the two occasions in my career when,

  for a fleeting moment, I've thought, "Why, Bob, why?", that's been my

  answer.'

  He drew to a halt in the queue at the Willowbrae traffic lights, and glanced

  sideways at Lou, her profile framed in the lights of the Mercedes dealership.

  'How about you? Why do you do it? It hasn't brought you happiness; I can

  tell that. So what is it? Fame? Money?'

  She laughed, but it was a brittle sound. 'Of course it is ... especially

  money.' The traffic began to move through the lights, and he eased forward

  with it.

  'I am happy, Bob, really. Not like you are, with your wife and young

  family, but I'm happy with what I do. Even way back then, the very day I

  met you, when I joined your squash club because I wanted you, that same

  day I joined the drama society because I wanted that even more.

  'When we split, it was because you followed your Presbyterian

  conscience. But if we'd stayed together then, I'd have left you eventually

  for my other lover ... either that or I'd have destroyed your life.

  'I spent a long time wondering what it was about, why I was addicted to

  AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN

  the hot lights, the roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd, as they

  say. For a while, I thought I was the most self-indulgent being alive.

  'And then, one night, I was in Los Angeles, at an Academy Award

  ceremony. I wasn't nominated that year, so when it was over I started to

  leave, to meet some man, at some party somewhere. It had started to rain

  during the show, and it was hammering down outside like a bloody monsoon.

  It was chaotic, some very famous people were running for their limos under

  inadequate umbrellas, and twenty-thousand-dollar dresses were being ruined

  in five seconds flat.

  'In the middle of it all, I saw a man; he was a singer, a minor figure in the

  movie industry, but a legend in his own field. He was standing there, his

  buckskin jacket soaked, his long hair plastered to his head, and he was

  signing autographs, not just one or two but dozens, maybe hundreds, for all

  the people who were pressed around him, wanting a piece of him.

  'I don't know how long I watched him, standing there signing those

  soggy books, tee-shirts, programmes, anything, as best he could, as all those

  bloody movie stars ignored the crowds and ran as fast as their dignity and

  their heels would allow. But eventually someone spotted me, shouted to

  me above the noise "Louise", and waved a baseball cap at me.

  'I walked out from under the marquee, into the rain, I took the marker

  pen he gave me, and I signed, watching the ink run even as I wrote. Then

  another, and another. The signatures were barely legible, and probably didn't

  survive the night, but I knew as that singer knew that it didn't matter.

  'Those people out there in the storm were representatives of all those

  who make people like me. I hate the word "fans"; they are our patrons.

  They give us something of themselves . . . love if nothing else . .. and it's

  our solemn duty to give them something back. Even if it does cause us

  momentary discomfort.

  'So that's why I do it, Bob. So that I can sign autographs in the rain.'

  They drove on in silence for a while, leaving the city lights behind. They

  had just turned off the A1, when Louise reached out and touched his cheek.

  'Speaking in general terms of course, do you ever wonder,' she asked quietly,

  'what it would be like to be with someone again, an old lover, after a quarter

  of a century? Would it be as good as it was, would it be better, would it be

  a let-down?

  'In your deepest thoughts, do you ever wonder that?'

  'I can't speak in general terms, Lou,' he murmured. 'In terms of bygone

  lovers, Myra's dead, there was someone I never want to see again, and

  there are a couple of others I can barely remember; which leaves only you.

  I can only speak of you.

  'Of course I wonder. Do you think I could ever forget what it was like?

  We were only youngsters, you and I, but we were tremendous together.

  Today, given maturity, experience, and everything else, sure, most people

  might be tempted to play those scenes over again.

  'But not me. It's a delicious thought, but that's all it can be; for me at

  least. Because where I am now is where I want to stay for the rest of my

  life. I am happier than I have ever imagined; in ten minutes or so, you'll

  find out why.

  'Just suppose you and I did indulge ourselves, even just for one night.

  We could contrive the circumstances without difficulty, and afterwards say

  "Thanks" and walk away. Sarah would never know or even suspect.

  'But I'd know; I'd know I'd betrayed her, the kids, the whole thing. And

  because I had, even though I'd got clean away with it and things might

  appear to be as perfect as before ...' He tapped his chest. '... in here, they

  would never be quite the same again.

  'I speak from experience here; I only have what I have now because

  Sarah was tough enough to see us through our tough time. That alone means

  that I feel guilty even fantasising about you.

  'There's something else,' he added. 'I love her like crazy, and I'd die

  before I'd betray her again.

  'Don't get me wrong, Lou,' he said, glancing across at her, 'I cherish the

  memory of the time we had as youngsters. We were perfection together,

  even if it was too good to last. However, it can provide a great foundation

  for lifelong friendship if we both see it that way. Deal?'

  He took his right hand from the wheel and held it out. She smiled, and

  shook it firmly. 'Deal,' she said. 'Not even for the part of the world which

  I don't yet have, would I spoil what you have now.

  'For the truth be told, my old love, to be as happy as you, away from all

  the glitz and glam, is what I want for myself, far more than another fifty

  Oscars.'

  They drove on towards Gullane, Bob's eyes on the road, Louise looking

  out of the window at the lights across the Forth.

  As they reached the village, Bob shifted in his seat. 'Oh,' he exclaimed,

  'I almost forgot. Alex can't make it tonight, so we have another dinner

  companion, my pal, and colleague, Neil. He'll be your taxi back to

  Edinburgh, too. He's probably there ahead of us.

  96

  'One word, of explanation rather than warning, about him. His wife

  died less than a year ago, so if he seems a bit withdrawn, that's why.' He

  chuckled. 'Don't go thinking he's star-struck or anything; big Mcllhenney's

  the least impressionable guy I know.'

  98

  27

  'What exactly is it that you do in Bob's team, Neil?' asked Louise, as

  Mcllhenney's car accelerated out of Gullane, towards the amber glow which

  hung in the sky over Edinburgh. 'We talked about everything but that. I

  noticed one thing though; you never called him by his Christian name all

  night, not once.

  'Sarah yes, but not him.
All the other policemen we talked about - Dan

  Pringle, Andy Martin, Mario McGuire, Maggie Rose, all first names - but

  not him.'

  'I can't, to his face,' the big dark-haired man answered quietly. 'I respect