Autographs In The Rain Part 51

220.AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN.

it took, but that it would be all right. Until then, she was letting me go to get

on with my life.'

He frowned. 'Why did I tell you this? Yes; the loneliness. There is none, not any more; it left me that night. I find the patience part of it difficult from time to time, but when I do the kids are there to get me back on track.

'So don't you worry about hurting me, love. It's the other way round; given what you've been through, it's me who has to worry about hurtingyou.'

'As you said earlier,' she told him. 'You couldn't if you tried. It's not in

you.'

His eyebrows rose as he topped up his water gla.s.s. 'Are you so sure? I know enough about your career to remember that a while back, you won an award for Wuthering Heights. Back there on the moor, don't you think you might have been replaying the role?' He grinned. 'Imagine me as Heathcliff!'

She laughed, a suppressed giggle at first, until it escaped into a long peal of beautiful sound. 'Not for a minute,' she exclaimed, more Glaswegian than he had ever heard her, and loud enough for two other diners to turn and look towards their table. 'Heathcliff didn't even carry a hip-flask, far less fill it with ginger.'Geoff Lesser was not a happy man. He glared at Pringle as the two came ijace-to-face in the divisional HQ's reception area. 'I was halfway back to Glasgow,' he complained. 'What the h.e.l.l's this about?'

'Let's just say we've had a change of heart,' the superintendent growled.

'We've decided to offer your boy a deal, but it'll be take it or leave it, and it'll be now. I'm sorry to mess you about, but the Legal Aid'11 pay for it, as always.'

'Yes,' said Lesser, with a hint of a grin, 'but slowly as always.

'But what do you mean a deal? My client denies all charges, strenuously.'

'He can get as strenuous as he f.u.c.king likes. Strenuousness does not impress juries, and you know it; they expect Strenuousness. They're impressed by evidence, and on the basis of that, Anders is on the Peterhead bus already.'

'Ah, but he will say that someone could have burned that coat and that baton in his shed, someone who wanted to frame him for the robberies. As you rightly said, he had visited all three farms, in the course of his everyday visits, and in attempting to sell them his systems had himself pointed out to the managers their vulnerability to the type of theft which was subsequently committed.

'What appears to be evidence for the Crown, is in fact evidence for the defence.'

Pringle nodded, amiably. 'Time will tell, sir.

'Let me guess,' he continued. 'I suppose he did a runner after he received an anonymous telephone call warning him that the police would be after him for the girl's murder.'

'Very good, Superintendent. You've worked out what happened.'

'Oh, that I have, Mr Lesser, that I have. Come on and let's see what the poor victim of miscarried justice has to say about it.'

The detective led the way back to the interview room, where Jack McGurk and a uniformed constable were sitting, silently, with Raymond Anders.

The room was blue with cigarette smoke.

'Right,' Pringle barked at the prisoner. 'You can put that out right now.

It took me long enough to give up; I'll be b.u.g.g.e.red if I'll indulge your habit' He s.n.a.t.c.hed the cigarette from the man's hand and ground it out in the ashtray which lay on the table.

He switched on the tape. 'This is a resumed interview with Raymond Anders, by Detective Superintendent Pringle and Detective Sergeant McGurk, Mr Geoff Lesser, solicitor, also being present. Prisoner remains under caution.' He looked at the constable and jerked a thumb towards the door. 'You can go, son.

'Right, Anders,' he began, setting himself down on a chair. This afternoon was the ritual dancin'. This is the serious stuff now. You're cooked for this and no messing; since we saw you this afternoon, the technicians have found blood remnants on a sc.r.a.p of the coat you burned.'

'I didn't burn it!' the prisoner protested. 'Someone else must have.'

'This is after you had the anonymous call that caused you to do a runner?'

Anders' eyes narrowed slightly. 'Yes. It must have been. It would have been the same bloke, likely.'

'Ah,' said McGurk, speaking for the first time. 'A bloke with a set of keys to your house?'

'No, of course not.'

'Son,' Pringle sighed. 'The jacket and the club were burned in an oil drum inside your garden shed. That was a daft thing to do, but I suppose you didn't want the neighbours to see you. However,' he looked at Lesser and let out a great bellowing laugh, 'it wasn't nearly as f.u.c.king daft as locking the shed door after you'd done it.'

The solicitor stared up at the ceiling.

'Don't p.i.s.s us about any longer, Raymond. We didn't press you on this this afternoon because we hoped that Mr Lesser might have persuaded you that the smart thing to do would have been to name your accomplices. I'm sure he suggested it to you, but you've taken the stupid option.

111 give you one chance here. Tell me who else was in on the robberies.

I can't promise this, but I might be able to persuade the Crown Office to accept a plea of guilty to the robberies alone, if you name your accomplices in (-ourt- As things stand you and you alone are going away for life.'

'The

Anders was as white as his solicitor's shirt, but he shook his head.

prisoner declines to answer,' said McGurk to the tape.

Look son,' said Pringle. 'Be sure of what you're facing here. This is a223.

222.AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN.AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN.brutal murder committed in the furtherance of theft. There's no chance of this being talked down to culpable homicide. This will be a life sentence.

The Crown won't leave it at that though; they will ask the judge to throw the book at you, with a minimum sentence recommendation that will make you an old, old man by the time you come out.

'Mind you, you might not want to come out by then. You might fancy settling down with a nice bloke for the next twenty-five years.'

'I never killed her!' Anders screamed.

'Raymond!' his solicitor warned, but in vain.

% 'I never touched the woman, I swear it. I was waiting in one of the trucks when she was done.'

'What about the coat and the bludgeon?' McGurk asked, harshly.

'I was given them to b.u.m.'

'By whom?' Pringle barked.

'Superintendent,' Lesser interjected. 'I must advise my client to say no more.'

'That's the last thing you should advise him, Geoff, and you know it.

Now answer the question. Who gave you the coat and club to burn?'

'I can't tell you. I never knew his name.'