The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Yes. I’m certain of it,” she said firmly. “He had those funny eyes. Too close together. Made him look a bit, well, glaikit.”
MacBride cradled in his arms the package in which Madame Rose had carefully placed the book. She had insisted on getting a receipt for it when McLean had asked if he could take it as evidence. The five-figure sum mentioned as its value might have been an exaggeration but the constable wasn’t taking any chances.
“We already have the cufflink though,” he said. “Do we really need the book as well? We know Bertie Farquhar did it.”
“It’s always nice to have confirmation.” And besides, there was something about that book.
He wanted a chance to study it some more, even if the really crucial page was missing.
“There’s one thing that bothers me, sir.” “Only one?”
“Aye, well.” MacBride paused a while, collecting his thoughts or unsure of himself.
“This book. Madame Rose back there. She, he, whatever, had it lying there on the desk. She’d even marked the page.”
“I had noticed.”
“But how did she know what we were looking for?”
Surprised
“That looks a bit like him, but maybe a bit darker? No, this one. Or maybe this?”
McLean had never been in Mrs McCutcheon’s inner sanctum before, even though he’d lived in the same tenement block as her for more than 15 years.
As it was, nothing in the room surprised him; it was exactly how he might have imagined.
The layout of the living room was not unlike his own three floors up, but there the similarity ended.
She had trinkets everywhere, mostly of the twee, Victorian chocolate box and tartan-tat variety, and the large room was made small by the sheer amount of stuff.
That and the cats. He’d given up counting after 10, unsure whether he had doubled up on some.
They stared down from shelves, peered up from chairs, twisted around his legs until he didn’t dare move.
Sitting down was out of the question.
“I don’t know, dear. They all look a bit grim, don’t they? Haven’t you got anyone smiling? The chap I saw had a wide grin on his face.”
Constable Kydd sat alongside the old woman on a sofa that may well have pre-dated both of them.
The back had been covered in a delicate lace antimacassar, with similar on the two matching highback armchairs currently occupied by suspicious eyes and quivering whiskers.
Despite the cats, everything about the cluttered room was neat and tidy; there was just too much of it. Surprisingly it smelled only of wood polish and age.
But then judging by the smell in the main landing, outside the apartment, Mrs McCutcheon had trained her cats to go elsewhere.
“This one. Now I think it could be him.”
The old lady was peering through half-moon spectacles at the laptop Constable Kydd had brought with her.
It was loaded with mugshots as well as photo-fit software.
So far it had been just an exercise in looking through pictures, McReadie’s strategically placed amongst them, and trying to remember not to drink the tea.
McLean had seen it being made when they arrived. A bag each and one for the pot, as Mrs McCutcheon had said.
A shame the pot was only big enough for about a pint of water.
“Yes. I’m certain of it. He had those funny eyes. Too close together. Made him look a bit, well, glaikit.”
McLean smiled at the word, stooped forward to see the screen for himself.
Kydd angled it up, her own face a pic ture of triumph.
“It’s him,” she said, but McLean didn’t need telling. Gurning up from the laptop was the image he’d been wanting to see. Fergus McReadie.
Picked up
“We need to get on to the station. I want McReadie picked up as soon as possible.
“The little b ***** d’s not getting out on bail this time.”
They were walking down towards the Pleasance, heading back to the city centre.
It had taken longer than McLean liked to get out of Mrs McCutcheon’s apartment.
All the while he’d been trying to suppress the thought of Fergus McReadie in his BMW, doing a runner to somewhere with too much sun and an unhelpful attitude towards extradition of known felons.
“You want me to call it in, sir?”
Constable Kydd fumbled with the laptop bag slung over her shoulder, trying to get it out of the way so she could reach her airwave set.
McLean stopped, turned to face her.
“Here, give me that. No, the laptop. I haven’t got a clue how to work the other one.”
He took the bag and slung it over his own shoulder. Kydd pulled her airwave set out, thumbed a few buttons and raised it to her ear.
“Yeah, Control? This is two-three-nine . . . Oh my
God. Look out!”
It happened too fast to even think.
Kydd let go of the airwave set, launched herself at McLean, catching him in the stomach with her shoulder and knocking him sideways.
Backwards
He fell backwards, feet tripping over the stone steps leading up to an open tenement doorway.
His knees buckled as he windmilled his arms in a futile attempt to stay upright.
He hit the flagstone floor with enough force to jar his spine and drive the wind out of his lungs.
The question formed on his lips. “What?”
But it was answered before he could finish thinking it.
A white Transit van mounted the pavement, sending a street bin flying into the road.
Constable Kydd was caught in its path like a rabbit in the headlights.
For an instant that was for ever, she stood there, half bent as she tried to recover her balance, eyes wide in astonishment more than fear.
And then the van hit her, lifted her off her feet, threw her into the air like a child’s discarded doll.
Only then did McLean hear the tortured roar of an engine at full throttle, the thud of a body hitting the ground, glass shattering.
Screeching brakes.
More on Monday.