Autographs In The Rain Part 20

'I've done a bit of research, sir. Bill Gates at Mellerkirk was a big help.'

'So is there money in this fish farming, then?'

'Oh yes boss, there's money in it all right. But it's high-risk too. If you're a salmon farmer, once you've put your smolts into the cages...' He caught Pringle's puzzlement. 'Smolts are young fish, raised in the hatcheries.

'Once you've put them to sea, you have to feed them, treat them, and medicate them for two years before you can harvest them. It's high-cost, long-term husbandry, and it calls for patience from everyone, not least the industry's bankers. During that two-year rearing period there's lots of things can go wrong. The stock can become infested with sea-lice, so they have to be constantly treated. They're subject to disease, so they have to be given antibiotics. They're prey to things like red algae bloom, that will kill all the fish on a farm site if it flows through it. On top of that, there are the grey seals, tens of thousands of the b.u.g.g.e.rs, that can sometimes swim up to a pen and take a bite out of a fish right through the net.

'When salmon farming started, there were lots of small operations, but the costs and the risks resulted in it consolidating to the point where now there are a few big producers and that's it.'

He paused. Trout farming's different; a much more attractive proposition as a small business. Less risky all round. You can do it on land, in sheltered sites. Other than a few otters, and man, of course, there are no natural predators. You can harvest your stock much quicker, and sell it more easily.

Some small farmers sell at the roadside more or less; the punters walk in, pick a fish and they just whip it out with a net and hit it on the head.

The bigger boys, like Mellerkirk, are more sophisticated. They go for volume production and sell to specialist fish shops, supermarkets, or processors.'

'And how many of the bigger boys have we got on our patch?'

Three,' replied the big sergeant. 'One in Berwickshire, one just outside Jedburgh, and one in Langholm.''What's their security like?'

'The Langholm one's good, but the other two are c.r.a.p. Like Sir Adrian Watson, they had advice from Mr McGrigor, but they felt that, with a manager on site, they didn't need to spend that amount of money. The truth is, sir, in trout farming it's cheaper just to insure against stock loss.

'I must have a word with the insurers' a.s.sociation,' said Pringle, 'or ask Big Bob if he'll do it. They need to change that situation.

'Meantime, you'd better talk to the managers. Don't scare them, but warn them to sleep with the light on this weekend. D'you know anything about them?'

'According to Gates, they're both young, single people like him; that seems to be the type you find in that job. One's a woman.'

'Jeez,' the superintendent muttered. 'Security! I don't suppose they ever go to the pub of an evening, or anything like that. . .

'You got the names and addresses of the owners of those two farms?

John McGrigor's rugby club network approach doesn't seem to have worked with these people. Let's see if a touch of Pringle diplomacy does any better.'90.25.Never having met Sarah Skinner, Bandit Mackenzie found Dr Helga McCallum a break from the normal run of forensic pathologists. She was tiny, no more than five feet tall, ash blonde, and with facial features that made him think of a delicate china doll. She looked as if she was in her early twenties, although the policeman knew from the job she did that she was probably at least ten years older.

For a minute or so he felt himself falling in love, until he fought it off by imagining her at work, standing on tip-toe and up to her elbows in innards.

Tm sorry to have brought you here, Inspector,' she said in a slow Glasgow drawl, looking round the mortuary. 'You've taught me a professional lesson. I thought it was b.l.o.o.d.y obvious that if there were no stomach traces of a drug, then it was introduced by other means; either up the b.u.m, or by injection.

'Obviously, I have been guilty of not spelling everything out in my report.

It hasn't been necessary with the officers I've worked with up to now.

'Henceforth,' There was a cutting edge to her voice, 'every "t" will be crossed, and every b.l.o.o.d.y "i" dotted.'

Mackenzie slipped immediately into mollifying mode. 'My fault, Doctor, not yours. The report was quite clear; I just misread it.

'I'm sorry to have to ask you to repeat your a.n.a.lysis of the stomach contents, but their absence has become a crucial factor in my chain of evidence. And since you might wind up in the witness box, it's in your 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 a.n.a.lysis.

'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 movementof 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 st.i.tched 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'sone 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.'