Autographs In The Rain Part 49

'As far as I gather from the boys in Leeds your sister and her kids looked

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in perfect health. So, what made you up stakes, just like that, and bomb off south? Could it be that after the robbery at Country Fresh Trout went horribly wrong, after instead of being blindfolded and tied up in the dark Miss Adey wound up with her skull smashed in? Could it be that you panicked and ran

for it?'

'I don't know anything about her getting killed,' Anders protested. 'I don't know anything about the robberies.'

'Robberies?' Pringle exclaimed. 'Since when have we been talking about more than one robbery? No, son, I'm interviewing you, no' the other way around. I'll get to the others later, and then you can get to telling me how you connected them.'

'In the meantime,' Jack McGurk broke in, opening the briefcase which he had brought into the room, 'we want you to tell us about this.' He took out a clear plastic bag and laid it on the table. It contained a thick wooden baton, around fifteen inches long, with a large lead weight set in one end. It was blackened and scorched, but still clearly identifiable.

'This was found by detective officers, when they searched your house in Hawick under warrant on Friday morning. They found it in an old oil drum in your garden shed.' The sergeant fixed the suspect with an icy look. 'It had been in a fire, but forensic examination identified hair, blood, tissue and bone fragments which were sticking to it, as coming from the murder victim.'

'McGurk's an angler,' the superintendent offered. 'He reckons the thing was probably used to kill fish. We found the bones of a small trout in a plate in Miss Adey's kitchen. The la.s.sie probably helped herself every so often, for her supper.'

'Her Last Supper,' said McGurk, grimly.

'Don't be dramatic, Jack,' Pringle chided. He looked at the solicitor. 'In the drum,' he told him, quietly, 'we found the remnants of a large hooded waxed cotton jacket which had been soaked in petrol and set on fire. This club, which was the murder weapon for sure, had been wrapped in it.

'We've got a video tape which we can show you. It was taken at night and you can't identify the people in it, but we know that one was a tall man in a jacket very like the one which was burned, and that the other was Miss Adey, because it shows her murder. She tried to defend her employer's property with that thing. It was taken from her and her skull was bashed in with it.

'That's bad enough in itself for your client. Now I'll get to the otherrobberies. This was the third inside two weeks from a trout farm in the area; the total value of the stock stolen being around thirty-five thousand pounds, give or take a few.

'We know that all three thefts were committed by the same gang. There are two other linking factors; all three farms had very poor security, and all three had been visited by your client in failed attempts to sell them video surveillance systems.

'There's one other odd wee fact too. The second robbery happened after the resident manager... the very large resident manager... had been lured away by a bogus call telling him that his father, who's recognised as one of Hawick's top bevvy merchants, had been severely injured on his way home from the pub. Our man here just happens to drink in the same boozer as Mr Symonds senior; but the licensee told us that he wasn't there that night. His girlfriend was, but he wasn't.

'I don't think you're going to argue with me if I suggest that the Fiscal will support charges of murder and theft against Mr Anders, on the basis of what I've shown and told you.'

'No,' Geoff Lesser agreed, with a heavy sigh. 'I'm not. In fact, I propose that you do just that, to put Mr Anders' detention on a proper legal footing, and to enable me to consult with him properly and at length about his defence.'

Ten minutes later, the two detectives were back in Pringle's office; Anders had been charged formally, and left alone with the lawyer.

'That was easier than I'd thought,' McGurk mused, aloud. 'I didn't expect that Lesser would just roll over like that, and let us charge him.'

The neither,' said the superintendent, 'but I know why he did. Suppose he'd pulled out all the stops, and we'd bailed Anders, pro tern. The rest of the gang must be feeling pretty insecure right now. The boy's probably safer in the jail; that's what his lawyer's thinking.'

'Maybe,' McGurk agreed. He was staring at the window, absently.

'What's up?' asked Pringle. He reached into a compartment of his desk and produced a bottle of whisky and two gla.s.ses. 'Come on. Let's have a nip to celebrate.' He poured two small measures, and handed one to the sergeant.

'You still worrying about your wife?' he asked.

'Yes. But that wasn't what I was thinking about.'

'Oh aye?'

'Yeah. I didn't mention this before the interview, not just because it

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would have muddied the water, but because I wanted to be certain. Now Iam.

'That boy Anders ... I've seen him before.'1.AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN.62.'He's dead sure of that?' the Head of CID asked.

'He says he's "Under oath" sure, and big Jack's not a fanciful lad. He

says that on the afternoon after the Howdengate robbery he went to Raeburn

Place on a whim, to watch Lander and Symonds play for Jed Seconds ...'

'Yes, I know; Karen and I met him in the bar afterwards.'

'Well,' Dan Pringle continued, 'when he was walking across to the

pavilion after the game, he saw someone go up to Lander and speak to him.

Lander answered him, then he saw Jack, broke off his conversation with

the other guy straight away and came across to talk to him.

'That other bloke was Raymond Anders.'

'Hmm,' Andy Martin murmured. 'That's interesting, I'll grant you. I'm

not sure what it tells us, if anything, but it's interesting. Why should Anders

show up at Raeburn Place? Guys from Ha wick are not likely to go up to

Edinburgh to watch Jedforest seconds. That's like a parish priest having a

season ticket at Ibrox.'

'Whatever the reason is, it wants checking into.'

'What was Lander doing on the night of the robbery?'

'His girlfriend. He mentioned that he was in bed with her when big

Symonds phoned him from Gala.'

'And Symonds? We know, do we, that he actually did go to the hospital?'

'Aye. Two nurses in the A and E remembered him. They said he was

in a right state; he took some persuading that his father wasn't there after

all.'

'I wonder if Lander has more than one girlfriend, or if Mercy Alvarez

gave him an alibi, just as she and ACC Chase gave him one for the night