Autographs In The Rain Part 30

'Plain and unvarnished.'

'You asked for it. You cover a fair bit of ground, but you never seem to put your hands on the ball. As for your big pal Symonds, your f.u.c.king trout can jump higher than him. You'd be better off at home looking after them.

'Sorry,' he added.

Lander shook his head. 'Don't be. Our coach is going to say a b.l.o.o.d.y sight worse when he gets us in that dressing room. I take your point about the fish, really; we should be back at Howdengate trying to sort out re-stocking. But if Art and I had stayed at home at such short notice, the team would have been light. The club could have landed in hot water with theRFU.'

'Unlike your two and a half ton of trout, which by now will be in very cold water . . . frozen in fact.'

McGurk shook the young landowner's hand, then climbed the stairs to the pavilion. Only the smaller of the two bars was open, and the lounge area was crowded. He stood his brolly with the rest, edged up to the bar, secured a pint of lager and turned away, to find Andy and Karen Martin smiling at him.

'The game's much better watched from up here, Jack,' said the DCS. 'I didn't know you were a member.'

'Guest,' the sergeant replied.

'Whose?'

He looked around. 'Yours, probably.'

'That's all right, then. This club needs all the income it can get. This social or professional? I saw you speaking to one of the Jed lads.'

'Social really. Mr Pringle and I saw him this morning; him and that big useless second-rower of theirs. He owns a trout farm, and the big lad's hismanager. You'll never guess what happened to them last night.'

Martin's vivid green eyes narrowed. 'You're joking.'

'I wish I was, sir. But when it comes to security, these boys just won't

take a telling.'

'Maybe not,' said Martin quietly. 'But you tell Dan Pringle from me that

I want an action plan from him at Monday morning's divisional heads

meeting. Three strikes, and someone's out.'

He sipped his orange juice, then shot the other man a curious look. 'Funny,

Jack, when I saw you there I wondered if you were considering a comeback.'

V At that moment the sergeant knew that he knew. 'I won't if you won't,

sir,' he answered.

'My days are long gone,' he chuckled. 'Do you reckon I did you a favour,

then?'

McGurk switched his pint to his left hand, put two fingers into his mouth

and withdrew a dental plate, with four upper molars. 'I didn't think so at

the time, sir,' he said, 'but I've still got a few of my own teeth left, so with

hindsight I reckon you did.'132.37.Bandit Mackenzie slid a plate of four chocolate doughnuts across his desk.

'Get outside a couple of these,' he said.

'One maybe. My diet's working.' Dell picked one up and dunked it in her coffee. 'You're splas.h.i.+ng out, aren't you?'

'I thought I should in the circs.'

'What circs?'

He looked at her awkwardly, even a little guiltily. 'Well, it's like this,'

he began. 'If we'd got a result this afternoon out of our wee bit of private enterprise, I'd have been able to square your overtime with the DCI, no problem. But I doubt if I'll be able to persuade him that an empty ca.s.sette box counts as a result... not unless it turns out to have Bible John's DNA on it.'

She laughed, ironically. 'How does your wife put up with you, Dave?

You're the slipperiest b.a.s.t.a.r.d I know. One of your saving graces is that you're also the most transparent. I never had any illusions about being on double time this afternoon.'

She grabbed a second doughnut and popped it into a brown paper bag which lay on the desk. 'So I'll have this for later.'

He grinned. 'Still beats the St Enoch Centre on a Sat.u.r.day though, doesn't it?'

'I wouldn't know,' she answered. 'I'm a reasonably affluent single woman. I prefer Princes Square.'

Mackenzie laughed. 'It's just as well I don't fancy you. You're way too pricey for me.'

She wrinkled her nose and flashed her eyes at him. 'Of course you fancy me. But your other saving grace is that you love your wife.'

'You're too f.u.c.king sharp by half, girl. You could wind up on point duty somewhere if you're not careful.'

He reached into a side pocket of his jacket for the ca.s.sette box. 'Here, stick a label on this, and get it to a technician on Monday.' But the containerhe laid on the desk held a tape, the recording of his interrogation of Ruth McConnell earlier in the week.

's.h.i.+t, wrong pocket.' He reached down to the other side, found the box which they had taken from John McConnell's kitchen, and laid it on the desk beside the other.

'Here, wait a minute . . .' He sat upright, eyes narrowing. 'They're different sizes.'

The sergeant leaned forward, peering at the desk. She took the tape from its box and tried to fit it into the other; it was too wide by a few millimetres.

Then what the h.e.l.l is it?' she asked.

'I'll tell you,' Mackenzie said, quietly. 'It's a video eight ca.s.sette box.

And old John McConnell didn't have a camcorder.

'Gwennie; that big awkward bag your witness saw the woman carry into the house. A pound to a pinch of s.h.i.+t, there was a video camera in it. The b.i.t.c.h was filming him.'

She looked at him in disbelief. 'But why in heaven's name would she want to do that?'

'Heaven's got nothing to do with this.'

He leaned back in his chair once more. 'Yes Sergeant, your overtime is safe with me. The DCI will okay it for sure, when I report this to him. Who knows, he might even okay some for me.'

He smiled. Til report it somewhere else too. I'm looking forward to hearing what Bob Skinner makes of this.'38.'I suppose I should thank you, McGurk,' Dan Pringle growled into the telephone, 'although it might have occurred to you that it was down to me to break the bad news to the Head of CID that my division's on the way to becoming a laughing stock. I tried to call him this afternoon; I was going to give it another shot tonight.'