Autographs In The Rain Part 63

'Stevie says yes. He says it could have been. And so could the person in that car in London.' Skinner's gaze flashed back to Mackenzie. 'Bandit!

The woman the neighbour saw. Long hair, yes?'

'Sir.'

'A wig. Long, like Ruthie's hair; photos around the house, I'll bet. And in the box, more than a camera and a stand; a wig cut like Lou's hair, and a mask. It's Lucy, Neil. She made that movie. She killed the old man. She's Ruth's stalker.'

Mcllhenney stared back at him, struck dumb for that moment.

'Where is she now?' Skinner asked.

'At the Great Hall, in Parliament House, where Lou's shooting her bigscene. And with Mackenzie's visit last night, she'll know we're . ..'

Before the door of the viewing room had swung closed behind him, Neil Mcllhenney was at the end of the corridor.272.78.The blue-suited guard looked up, startled, as the big figure burst through the narrow swing doors. 'Yes sir?' he began, but Mcllhenney ignored him and walked straight up to the uniformed constable guarding the entrance to the Great Hall.

'Anything happening?' he asked.

'All quiet, sir.'

He opened the bra.s.s-bound door and stepped inside. The finest public room in Scotland was perfectly quiet, yet it was full of people. Together they formed a tableau, each in position beneath the mighty hammer-beam roof, lit bluish by the great movie lights, some splashed with colour from the enormous, illuminated, stained gla.s.s window which dominated the south end of the hall.

There was not a sound, until Elliott Silver broke the perfect silence. 'All right, people,' he cried out in his high, airy voice. 'We all know what's happening here, so let's ...' He broke off. 'No, no, no!' he screamed. 'That light's all wrong. There's too much on Louise. Makes her look as if she's got a halo and she isn't even f.u.c.king dead yet.'

Neil heard a quiet 'Tut!' to his right and looked sideways to see his daughter, standing beside Mark, both of them in the care of the tiny makeup lady.

As the lighting cameraman made adjustments to the set-up, he edged over towards them, still looking around. Then a figure moved, beside the great statue of Lord Stair; it was Lucy. Their eyes met and from that moment there was no more doubt, only understanding, no more questions, only truths.

In her gaze he read success, triumph, exultation. He looked for pity, but saw a hatred that seemed as old as time. He looked for madness, but saw only vicious satisfaction as if she knew she had won. And he did not know why. He did not know how.

He looked back across the hall, to centre stage. For the first time he sawLou, her back to him, wearing an advocate's wig and a dark trouser suit.

Facing her he saw Ralph Annand, a hard expression set on his face. His left arm was loosely around the throat of a third actor, a young girl, and there was something, something the policeman could not see, in his right hand, as it hung by his side.

He felt a tug at his sleeve, and looked down. Mark McGrath, Bob Skinner's adopted son, looked up at him with his wise young eyes. 'Is that a real gun, Uncle Neil?' he whispered.

He looked again, until he saw what Mark could see from his viewpoint, through the ruck of bodies. Ralph Annand was holding a sawn-off shotgun.

He gasped, and then as if from nowhere Warren Judd was standing before him.

'What happens in this scene?' Mcllhenney demanded. The producer looked at him as if he was insane. He took a fistful of his jacket and lifted him on to the points of his toes. 'Tell me!' he hissed.

Judd's eyes started out of his head as the policeman's grip tore out a forest of chest hairs. 'Lou's client, that's Annand, is guilty after all. Someone smuggles him in a shotgun. He takes a hostage, she tries to block his way, and he shoots her.'

As Neil's mind raced, Silver's voice slashed through his shots. 'Okay everybody, take one and ... action!'

He dropped Judd and looked over the heads of the crouching production crew, as Annand tightened his grip on his mock hostage and raised what was indeed a very real gun. He could see that the actor was locked in concentration, and in any case he was afraid to shout. Instead he ran straight forward, bulldozing his way through everything in his path over the ten yards between him and the gun, flattening Silver as the outraged director tried to block him, reaching Annand's awareness and his body at the same time, grabbing his right arm and swinging it upward as his finger tightened on the trigger . . .

Even under such a high roof, the explosion sounded huge as the actor fired both barrels of the sawn-off, upwards, harmlessly away from Lou.

Annand's face twisted as he swung at Mcllhenney with his free arm. The policeman head-b.u.t.ted him between the eyes, then dropped him like a stone, under a shower of coloured gla.s.s fragments from the stained gla.s.s window, which had just disintegrated above their heads.

He grabbed Lou, and held her to him, protecting her from the particles.

All around him, he was aware of people diving for cover.

274.AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN.

'Was it him?' she whispered. 'Ralph?'

'No, love. Not him. I'm sorry, it was Lucy. Somehow, she switched blanks for real cartridges. It's been Lucy all along.'

'No!' She twisted in his arms. 'Don't say that!'

'It's true, honey. I'm so sorry, but it's true. Do you know a man called John McConnell?' He felt her nod.

'An old friend of my dad's,' she murmured. 'Strange man. He used to visit. Lucy called him Uncle John.'

'Well, Lucy killed old Uncle John, and filmed herself doing it. She tried to make herself look like you. She tried to make people think that you had

done it.'

She began to sob; he felt tears soak his shirt. 'She was out to ruin your

career; to ruin your life if she could.'

Elliott Silver's woman-like scream from the back of the Great Hall seemed to tear them apart. Neil relaxed his hold on Louise and followed its direction. The make-up woman lay on the ground, stunned. Above her stood Lucy, holding Lauren, his daughter, just as Ralph Annand had held his screen hostage, but with a cuticle knife pressed to her throat.

'Okay Daddy,' she shouted, hoa.r.s.ely. 'Bring your car keys over here.

Your little girl and I are going for a ride.'

He looked at Lauren, signalling to her with his eyes that she should keep calm, that he would make it all right. He walked towards her, reaching down as if for the car keys, but in reality for the Glock which was tucked into the waistband of his denims, finding time to wonder how it could ever be the same between Lou and him once he had blown her sister's brains all over Parliament House. He was aware of Bob Skinner, and of Mackenzie, watching from the doorway. Bob knew what he was going to do all right and stood there motionless, as if signalling him to get it over with.

'You know why,' Lucy shouted as he walked towards her. 'There's my life, and there's hers; her with her f.u.c.king Oscars and me with only simple b.l.o.o.d.y Darren to give me relief from the pain of watching our father s.h.i.t in his nappy every b.l.o.o.d.y day in life.

'You know that, don't you?'

'Sure,' he said, evenly. 'But those days are over, kid. All over.'

He was almost on top of her, his hand on the b.u.t.t of the pistol, ready for a point-blank shot, when a small voice rang out from behind her. 'Drop it, and put your hands up.'

Lucy's eyes widened as she turned her head and her grip on the knifeslackened. It was enough; he let go of his gun, s.n.a.t.c.hed the weapon with his flashing left hand, then punched her with his right, once, on the temple, pulling the blow slightly but still knocking her senseless.

He grabbed her round the waist as she fell, and as he did, he saw Mark, frightened, but brave, still holding Ralph Annand's abandoned shotgun, which he had retrieved from the floor in the panic, creeping round behind Lucy as she focused her gaze on Neil, to ram both barrels into the middle of her back.

Lauren looked up at him with her mother's eyes. 'Sometimes, Dad,' she said, 'I'm even more proud of you than I am normally.

'"Now what,' she asked, 'is this with you and Louise?'

He gazed at her in astonishment then exploded into laughter, grabbing his daughter and embarra.s.sing her by throwing her into the air, then hugging her to him, as Lou arrived to hug them both.

When the hubbub, the confusion, the panic was over, when the unit doctor had sedated Lucy, before her transfer to hospital under police guard, when he had treated Elliott Silver for hysteria and straightened Ralph Annand's nose, when Bob Skinner, long since, had taken the children off to join Jazz and Seonaid, he took Lou away, out of the Hall, up the stairway and into the deserted Signet Library.

'I'm so sorry, Neil.' She exploded into tears once again as he sat her down beneath the great tiers of books which held much of the story of Scotland's law.