Autographs In The Rain Part 12

More than that, he knew that Skinner and Martin had done him a favour.

He thought back a year, to a time when he and Stevie Steele had visited an office on the attic floor of a city centre building. The breathlessness which had almost overwhelmed him at the end of the climb had been like a firstintimation of mortality, a quiet message, gasped, not whispered, that he was a prime member of an 'at risk' category.

He had tried since then to improve his physical condition; however, being in his fifties, and as p.r.o.ne to a drink as the next polisman... sometimes, he had to admit, being p.r.o.ne as a result of it... he had found it difficult.

Now, translated with little warning from a city to a country copper, he felt instantly the better for it. As he trudged up the curving track towards the distant building, looking at the rolling hills all around him, he did not regret for a second his decision to come in his own road car rather than a "force Land Rover. He realised with astonishment that this morning walk was the most pleasurable thing he had done at work... apart, maybe, from belting that Russian... for more years than he could remember. He breathed deep and drank in the physical and psychological good that it was doing him.

As he neared the two squat stone cottages, he saw two cars parked in front, both off-roaders. He recognised one, a blue Suzuki jeep, from his earlier visit, but the other, a ma.s.sive Toyota Land Cruiser, was new to him.

Its vivid green metallic finish seemed to shine through the mud which caked its sides.

As he looked at it a voice called out. 'Hey there. What dae ye want?' A deep, rough-hewn voice, that of a man given to asking only simple questions.

Pringle fixed him with a policeman's glare. The man looked to be in his late fifties, strong, with a labourer's build. He held a black sack in his left hand and in the other, a dead trout.

'I want the manager,' the detective barked, his answer as aggressive as the question.

The worker backed down. 'Over there, sir,' he said, at once as threatening as his trout. 'Thae cottages.'

Pringle was about to knock on the door of the first of the twin houses, when it opened, leaving him with his knuckles poised in mid-air, descending towards nothing. 'Good morning, Superintendent,' said Bill Gates, the young manager of the Mellerkirk Trout Farm. 'Sorry about old Harry's welcome.

He's a bit narked; he thinks he's going to be laid off because of this.'

Gates was fair-haired, slightly built inside his waxed cotton jacket... a Marks and Spencer job, Pringle noticed, rather than the more famous brand ... and wore a hara.s.sed expression. 'Come on into the office. We've been watching you coming up the track,' he added. 'That was a long walk you left yourself.'52.AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN.

'A nice morning for it, though, Mr Gates.' The police officer stepped inside and looked around. The first of the buildings, which had once housed labourers of the land, served as the office of the fish farm in the new era. The other was still a dwelling, occupied by the farm manager, a single man.

On the other side of the room, a door opened and a third man stepped through; tall, straight-backed, silver-haired, with a long, patrician nose and small sharp blue eyes. 'Detective Inspector Pringle,' Gates announced, 'this is Sir Adrian Watson, Baronet, the owner of the farm, and of the Mellerkirk Estate.'

The newcomer offered no handshake; nothing but a curt nod. 'Good day, Superintendent,' he barked. 'You're the new fellow, are you; McGrigor's successor.' He looked Pringle up and down, as if he was inspecting livestock. 'Less of a stereotype than him, I must say.'

'Wish I could say the same for you,' the detective thought as he gazed back at the landowner.

'Big John's a good man to follow, sir. He ran a tight ship down here.'

'In that case, you're not living up to it very well, are you, man?'

It seemed to Dan Pringle as if all the good of his morning walk had been undone in an instant, as he felt his blood pressure soar. 'Would you like to expand on that, Sir Adrian?' he asked coldly.

'I may expand on it to Sir James Proud, the next time I see him in the New Club.'

'You do that very thing, sir. But right here, right now, I'd like you to explain to me what you meant by that remark.'

The baronet looked at the policeman, taken aback slightly by his bristling aggression. We, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' Pringle thought. 7 haven't gone completely native, not yet, anyway.'

'Where are my d.a.m.n fish then?' the estate owner snapped, trying to bl.u.s.ter his way out of what had become suddenly an uncomfortable corner.

'You don't look as if you've come to tell me you've caught these d.a.m.n thieves.'

'No, I haven't.'

'Well, what are you doing here? Go away and get on with it, man.'

'Listen, Sir Adrian,' said the detective, 'it's time you came to terms with the facts.

'Fact one: I've got officers all over Scotland and beyond involved in the search for your stock. We're checking every possible processing centre we can find. We're checking every supermarket chain in the country to see ifthey've been offered any surprise consignments of trout. We're interviewing every resident in this area to see if anyone saw a large vehicle enter or leave your farm on the night of the theft.

'You know what? They're all wasting their f.u.c.king time.

'Fact two: we've got little or no chance of recovering your fish. By now they're probably killed and frozen down, and in a store that we've got no chance of finding. In a few months' time they'll start showing up in the sort of street corner mini-market where you have to check the sell-by date on every can of beer, the sort of place where the owner won't ask questions if he's offered some bargain stock.

'Either that or they'll be disposed of in bulk through a cash-and-carry somewhere down south, or possibly in France or Spain.

'But suppose we do catch some joker trying to flog some frozen trout?

He's going to spin us a story about having netted them. What are we going to do then? Stick the f.u.c.king things in a line-up and ask you and Mr Gates to identify them?'

He glared at Watson. 'Fact three: you are not only the victim here, sir.

You are also a contributory factor to the crime.

'You're running a business here with a multi-million-pound turnover.

You've got a ma.s.sive investment in stock, in rearing tanks, in sterile conditions for harvesting, handling, killing and distribution. Yet you grudged the relatively small investment it would have taken to protect you against the possibility of a theft like this.

'Fact four: John McGrigor visited you personally a couple of years ago, and another time before that, and he advised you to install perimeter alarms linked to the nearest fully manned police office, plus a video system with cameras on inaccessible steel poles linked to a recorder off-site.

'The cost of all that would have been a relatively small addition to your total capital investment here. You could have written it off against tax in the usual way, and reduced your insurance premiums significantly.

'Did you do that? Did you f.u.c.k! You told him that the fact that the manager lived on site was security enough. You were dead b.l.o.o.d.y wrong, of course, and that's why the three of us are standing here today.'

Pringle turned towards the door. 'That's what I came here to tell you this morning. Those fish have bolted now, of course, but it's not too late to bar the gate against a repeat performance.'

He grasped the round bra.s.s handle, then paused and took a deep breath.

'Oh aye, there's one more thing.54.AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN.'Fact five: if you ever try to threaten me again, or try to dismiss me in that way, then do not from that time on drink as much as a thimbleful of whisky and get into your car, or park on a yellow line, or give a sweetie to a kid in the street, or do anything else you could be had up for, or, believe me, you will be.

'If you want to tell all that to Sir James Proud, in the New Club, in his office, or anywhere f.u.c.king else, be my guest. But tip me off when you're going to do it, because I'd like to be there.'

The heavy door crashed shut behind the detective. As he began the long walk back to his car, down the rough track, feeling the recuperative power of the morning country air, there was a broad smile on his face.Ruth McConnell made a soft sound as Pye pulled his car into his s.p.a.ce in the park behind police headquarters, directly alongside a sleek red MGF sports car.

'What's up?' Sammy asked.

'I was just thinking about your boss's pride and joy, parked next to us.

That'll be going down the road soon. Karen won't be able to get into it in a couple of months, and once she has the baby ...'

'Don't you believe it. Andy Martin and that motor are joined at the hip.

But it's not a problem; they've got another car, a new Ford Focus. They got it after they sold Karen's flat.

'Anyhow, just for a minute there I thought you were p.i.s.sed off at me, or something.'

She reached out and touched his cheek. 'And why would I? Sammy, you were really great last night, really understanding. I was just so stressed out that if we had, it would have been awful, disastrous even. Having you there beside me ... I really needed you; but I have never been less in the mood.'

He glanced at her mournfully. 'I've never been more in the mood.'

She laughed again brightly. 'I could see that. Very impressive, even under cover.'