Autographs In The Rain Part 44

'No, but you don't know that wasn't her we saw framed in the lights of that lorry.'

'True,' admitted the Head of CID. 'Go do it then.'

Pringle hung up and nodded to McGurk. 'Come on.' He led the way out of the room downstairs and into the waiting area. He spotted the lawyer at once from his sergeant's description; no more than twenty-five years old, smooth-cheeked, looking precociously pompous in a pin-striped suit.

'Mr Mark Taggart?' the policeman asked.

'Yes!' the young man exclaimed. 'Inspector, I insist on seeing my client at once, or must I speak to your superiors?'

'That's "Superintendent" to you,' Pringle barked. 'Dan Pringle, divisional CID commander, and don't f.u.c.king threaten me, son. Now you come on wi' us and you'll see your client.'

'But I want to see her alone,' the young man protested.

'So does DS McGurk here, but we're all going to see her together, and you're going to keep your mouth shut and let us get on with our interview.

This is a murder investigation, as I'm sure you know by this time ...' The young lawyer gulped, almost comically, leaving Pringle to guess that any briefing he had been given before he left Coldstream might have been less than complete.

'Your client hasn't actually killed anyone, son, but she still has a few questions to answer about her possible knowledge of the crime. I'm not going to caution her at this stage; if I decide to in the light of anything she says, I'll stop the interview and advise you at once.

'Until then, you're in there because of my generosity of spirit, and that's all.'

Mercy Alvarez was waiting for them in a small, windowless room at the rear of the ground floor of the divisional headquarters building. The air was thick with cigarette smoke as the two detectives entered; Pringle felt an old familiar pang. The woman glared at them through the blue haze, but said nothing.

The female constable who sat silently with her rose and made to leave, until Pringle shook his head, signalling her to stay. He placed twin tapes in the recorder on the table, then switched it on, identifying everyone in the room for the record.

'We've got a problem with you, Ms Ah '; ' the superintendent blurted193.AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN.out, as soon as he had completed the formalities.

'What you mean?' she snapped.

'Well, there were only a handful of us who knew that as of Friday, you'd have video security installed on your farm. There was you, there was Jack and me, and there was our boss, Mr Martin.' He paused. 'Oh aye, and there was Kath Adey.

'All of which makes it very iffy that last night someone should have broken into your site and emptied out your tanks. In view of the short time that's gone by since the last robbery, it makes me wonder whether someone tigped off these guys that they only had a couple of days

''What?' Mercy Alvarez interrupted, her dark eyes widening. 'Country Fresh? Is been robbed?'

'Good,' said Pringle. 'I'm impressed by that reaction; maybe I was meant to be. But I'm not convinced. Someone told that gang that they had to do your place before Friday. Now it wasn't DCS Martin, and it wasn't DS McGurk, and it wasn't me. So that just leaves you.'

'Superintendent!' Mark Taggart exclaimed.

'Shut up, you! Did you set up your own farm to be robbed, Ms Alvarez?'

The woman's face twisted in anger. 'No I did not!' she spat. 'Anyhow, you miss someone out? What about Kath?'

Jack McGurk shook his head. 'We don't think it was her, Ms Alvarez.'

'Why not?' she shouted. 'Why you accuse me, not her?'

The burly superintendent leaned across the table. 'Because no one's bashed your head in, and chucked you in a fish tank,' he said, quietly.

'Because you're not lying in the f.u.c.king mortuary up in Edinburgh, with your brain beside you in a stainless steel dish.'

Dan Pringle was long past the stage in his police career when he believed that he could be surprised by anyone or anything. But right there, right then, Mercy Alvarez surprised him; she fell off her chair, in a dead faint.

An hour went by before a doctor certified that she had recovered sufficiently for the interview to proceed. She was so shaken that Pringle was convinced there and then that she had known nothing of her manager's murder.

His tone was gentler when he resumed his questioning. 'Let's start again, Ms Alvarez,' he said. 'When was the last time you saw Miss Adey alive?'

'At four o'clock yesterday afternoon, when I left the farm, to go home.'

'Okay, now I repeat my earlier question. Did you have any knowledge that your farm was going to be robbed?'194.

'No, I did not. I swear it.'

'Did you mention to anyone that the police were insisting that you install security equipment?'

'No. Why should I?'

'Do I have to spell that out?'

'If you do, Superintendent,' said the young solicitor, a little braver now, 'I shall have to insist that the rest of this interview takes place under caution.'

'Okay,' Pringle conceded. 'If she did set the place up to be robbed she's no' going to admit it, caution or not.

'I'll rephrase it then. Did you mention to anyone, however innocently, that you were considering installing a system?'

'I told my bank manager's secretary that that was what I wanted to see him about.'

'Do you know if Miss Adey spoke with anyone, after Mr Martin's visit on Monday?'

'She might have, but only by telephone; she never leave the farm after that. I guess she spoke to the video man.'

'What video man?'

'A salesman who came see us a few months ago. He left us information then, and a card. I told Kate to phone him.'

'Was his name Anders?' asked McGurk.

'Yes, I think that was it.'

Pringle looked at the sergeant, enquiring. 'I found a leaflet and a card by the phone in the cottage,' he explained. 'There was an entry in Miss Adey's diary, too; she had an appointment with Raymond Anders, of Eildon Security, at four this afternoon on the farm.'

The superintendent drew McGurk into a corner. 'Let's find out whether he kept it,' he whispered. 'Let's find out too, but very quietly, whether he paid any unsuccessful sales visits to the other two farms.' The tall detective nodded and left the room.

'Just one other thing, Ms Alvarez,' Pringle continued, 'for now at any rate. Where were you all day today, when we were trying to contact you?'

T was with my boyfriend,' she said, hesitantly. 'His name is Glenn Lander.

He had a dinner party last night; I stayed over and all day. Four of us: his cousin from England was there, with her husband. He's a policeman; an important policeman, I think. His name is Ted ... Ted Chase.'57.'There's nowhere else to go, sir,' said Stevie Steele, his frustration written all pver his face. 'This bloke exists, all right, this man calling himself John Steed, but I'm no closer to him now than I was at the start.

T took the best still print from the Balmoral video that the techies could provide for me and showed it to the woman in Newcastle, but she said that she couldn't have identified her own son from the view it showed.

'She said that the guy's hat in the print looked similar to the one her customer wore, but let's face it... a black hat's a black hat.'

'Aye. I've got one myself.' Andy Martin sighed. 'That's the second time in quick succession that I've been let down by a video tape. Give a copy of the print to Mcllhenney; maybe Louise Bankier or her secretary will spot something in it.