Autographs In The Rain Part 5

He was frowning as he began to read. By the time he was finished, he was wide-eyed and his mouth was hanging open in astonishment.,23.7.'Was that the first time you'd ever seen anything like that, Sam?' Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Martin asked his aide.

'Not the first time I've ever seen a body, sir,' the recently promoted sergeant replied. 'You know what it's like when you're in uniform. One way or another, you have to look at quite a few.'

He shuddered, looking older, suddenly, than his twenty-seven years. 'But it's the first time I've ever seen one like that; in that condition I mean.

Lying there in the bath, the poor old b.u.g.g.e.r looked like...' His face twisted as he struggled to find words. 'Like a statue, like a tailor's dummy, like something that never had been human.

'It wasn't gross, Boss, not like something I saw once, when an old lady had died in front of an electric fire and lain there for about a week. There weren't any maggots in the eye sockets, nothing like that. But in its own way, it was pretty horrible, for all that.'

'Did Ruth see him?'

'No way. When I told her, I had to hold her back from going into the bathroom, but I did. She gave me b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l at the time, but calmed down pretty quickly.'

'No nightmares?'

'I wouldn't know, sir,' said Pye, abruptly.

'I didn't mean her, you clown!' the Head of CID chuckled.

The young sergeant flushed, embarra.s.sed by his revealing slip. 'No, sir, not me.'

'You will have, Sammy, you will,' Martin murmured, his smile gone.

He had known his own nocturnal horrors; happily, marriage seemed to be holding them at bay.

Til be ready for them, then.'

'No, you won't. No one ever is.'

Pye looked across at his boss; then changed the subject. 'How's Karen doing? Still being sick?'24.AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN.'No, thank Christ,' he replied, sincerely. 'She seems to have stopped barfing up her breakfast. She's blooming, mate, blooming; she's not showing yet, but it won't be long.'

He picked up a pile of papers from his desk, and walked across to the meeting table. 'This is today's agenda, then?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Okay, then; on you go and see if the troops are here. If they are, wheel them in.'

The Head of CID's Monday briefing with his six divisional commanders was a practice established by Bob Skinner and carried on by his successors, Roy Old and Andy Martin. Its main purpose was to keep the Chief Superintendent abreast of all active investigations, but it was useful also in that it could reveal patterns of crime across the force area, and not least in the platform which it provided for fresh thinking on stalled cases.

This one was special, though.

As the six senior detectives took their places at the table, there was one among them who stood out from the rest. She was the only woman among the six, trimly built, attractive, in her thirties, with flaming red hair which shone under the neon strip lighting. But more than that, there was a presence about her, a bearing which could not help but say to the rest, 'Don't take me lightly. I've made it this far, and I may have further to go.'

Martin stood as the rest composed themselves, and as Sammy Pye took his seat on his right, notepad at the ready to take down the bullet points of the meeting.

He looked along the table, and smiled. 'I'd like to begin this morning's meeting, gentlemen, by welcoming a newcomer in our midst. Okay, I know she's been here before on occasion as Brian Mackie's deputy, but this is her first meeting as commander of Central Division CID, only the second woman to hold such a post in the history of our force.

'Congratulations, Mags. You've earned your place here by being an outstanding detective as well as a good leader. I'm looking forward to your contribution over the months to come.'

Detective Superintendent Maggie Rose looked up at the Head of CID and smiled faintly, wondering whether any of the others had read anything into his time-frame. 'Thank you, sir. I'm honoured to be here. I know I have a lot to learn, but I'm surrounded by good teachers.'

Her promotion had come about following the retirement of Superintendent John McGrigor from the command of the Borders division.Martin and Bob Skinner, feeling that a veteran would fill the vacancy best, had decided to move Dan Pringle south, and to promote Rose into his post in Central Edinburgh.

Martin laughed out loud. 'You're off to a good start. Flattery will get you everywhere with these guys.'

She looked back at him, and noted yet again the change in him. The strung-out, bitter man of a few months earlier had gone; returned was the laid-back, unflappable, pleasant colleague she had come to know and respect over the years.

'Okay,' said the Head of CID, taking his seat, 'to business.' He glanced along at Dan Pringle. 'I see from your first report from the Borders that you've been making an impact. I know that big McGrigor had trouble with the odd sheep-stealer, but what the h.e.l.l's this? Trout rustling?'

The big superintendent hunched his shoulders and tugged at the heavy moustache which seemed to give him a permanently mournful look. 'Pour scorn on me if you like, Andy,' he muttered, 'but it's been a crime waiting to happen.'

'Aye, waiting for you, by the looks of it. Have you taken some of your old customers down there with you? Is that it?'

'Maybe. From what John told me in our hand-over, they've a pretty poor and unimaginative bunch of hooligans down there. They've got a long history of practically signing their names to every crime that's committed.

Not this one, though; this was very professional, very efficient.

'It happened at a big trout farm, just off the St Boswell's to Kelso Road.

The manager lives on site, but he was away on Friday and Sat.u.r.day nights.

When he went in yesterday morning just to check that the automatic feeders and water pumps were all right, he found that all the b.l.o.o.d.y tanks had been emptied.'

'How, for G.o.d's sake?' chuckled Superintendent Brian Mackie. 'How do you nick a shoal of b.l.o.o.d.y fish?'

'Good question, son,' Pringle grunted. 'The very question I asked Gates, the manager. And the answer, it seems, is that you drive a b.l.o.o.d.y big vehicle in there, stick a wide-mouthed pipe in each of the tanks and pump out water, fish and all.'

'Jesus,' Mackie whispered.

His colleague raised an eyebrow in his general direction. 'These boys lifted far more fish than the Lord had to work with. This farm, Mellerkirk, it's called, is one of the biggest in the region. They supply two big26.AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN.

supermarket chains on a daily basis, plus they run their own smoking business.

'All joking aside, the theft's a disaster for them. They're restocking from their hatchery as fast as they can, but it'll be a week or so before they can restart production.'

'What quant.i.ty of fish are we talking about?' asked Rose.

'Mr Gates couldn't say for sure, but he guessed around three tons.'

'Three tons!' Martin exclaimed. 'What the h.e.l.l's anyone going to do with three tons of hot fish?'

'Freeze it,' Pringle replied. 'You'd have to. Anyone trying to shift that amount in one lot would draw attention to themselves pretty quick.'

'Sounds like a well-planned operation, then. Apart from having the equipment to hoover up the stock, they'd surely have to have someone ready to receive and handle it.'

'Aye, that's right, sir. They'd have to do it right away too. Gates said that the fish would start dying pretty quick in those conditions. He reckoned that they'd have been driven straight to a processor for treatment. But where?

That's anyone's guess.'

'What are you doing about finding out?' asked the Head of CID.

'We've put together a list offish processors all over Scotland, and we're circulating it to all relevant forces this morning. As soon as that's done I'll want people going round all of the places on our patch. I'll need a.s.sistance from other divisions. That means you, Brian, you, Greg, and you, Willie.'

He looked across the table at Detective Superintendent Gregory Jay and William Michaels, who commanded the Leith and West Lothian CID areas respectively.

'What are our chances, Dan?'